A Farewell to Yarns (11 page)

“Yes. Thanks. I mean—" What an ass she was being! She wasn't a kid anymore, and he didn't mean he was going to call her for a date or something, for God's sake! He was just going to call in connection with his duties as a detective. Jane felt herself blushing. He'd stopped, presumably to introduce himself to Fiona, and as he walked back to Phyllis's house, Fiona opened the car door. "Jane, please come inside. I hope you don't mind my presumption, but I called Shelley when I saw you sitting out here alone. Are you all right?"

“Fine. I'm glad you called Shelley."

“What happened to the boy?"

“It wasn't Bobby. It was Phyllis. She's dead.”

Fiona put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, no. Your friend! Oh, Jane, I'm so sorry. How awful for you. Come right inside.”

Fiona got Jane comfortably settled in her kitchen with a plaid wool blanket over her knees and a hot water bottle under her feet. She seemed to be operating on the premise that ifshe could get Jane warm, everything else would be solved. In other circumstances, Jane would have been amused by these terribly civilized antics. As it was, she was feeling stupefied by recent events. The heat was making her sleepy, too. If only she could go back to bed and get a new start on this day with no bad news.

Fiona had j ust ha nded he r a cup of hot, strong, sweet tea when Shelley rushed into the kitchen. "Fiona, your maid let me in. Dear God, what's happened. Jane, are you hurt?"

“No, it's Phyllis. She's dead."

“Oh, no!"

“Was it a heart attack?" Fiona asked, pouring another cup of tea for Shelley. "She looked quite healthy, and she wasn't old. Only our age, wasn't she?"

“It wasn't a heart attack. It was murder.”

“Murder!" Shelly and Fiona said in chorus. "She was stabbed, I think. There was a terrible amount of blood."

“You saw her?" Shelley asked. "Jane, how awful—Fiona!”

Fiona had staggered against the kitchen counter and was slowly crumpling. Jane and Shelley leaped forward together, caught her, and managed to get her into a chair. Forcing her head down between her knees, Shelley whis pered, "I should have warned you. She's funny about blood. I saw her nick her finger once cutting a radish, and she keeled right over into the salad."

“I'm so sorry," Fiona said, sitting up straight. "How utterly stupid of me." The color was returning to her face, and she gave herself a little shake before standing up. "Jane, sit back down, and cover yourself with that blanket. You still look chilled.”

Jane willingly did as she was told, not that she would mind falling into a restful little faint for a few minutes.

Shelley sat down across from her. "Jane, what do you know about this? Who would kill Phyllis, and why?"

“They don't know. I think it was a mistake. I mean, I think whoever did it meant to kill Bobby, not her." She explained about the rooms and about Bobby having the master suite.

“I don't know. That assumes the killer knew the layout of the house," Shelley said.

“Not necessarily," Fiona commented, now recovered. "You can tell from the outside that the bigger room must be the one that adjoins the deck. In fact, the way the staircase is set up, you'd assume the smaller room was just a closet or something unless you opened the door. I used to take food and magazines over occasionally to the old lady who lived there, and I was q u i t e s u r p r i s e d t o d i s c o v e r t h a t i t wa s a bedroom.”

Shelley nodded. "All right. So somebody tried to kill him and got Phyllis by mistake. Who would that be? Aside from anybody unlucky enough to have met him. God! The police must have a world of suspects."

“There's another possibility," Jane said. "What if Bobby himself did it?"

“Is he really that awful?" Fiona asked with amazement. "She was his mother!"

“I've read that most murders are committedby family members," Jane said. "I think he could have done it. What I don't see is why he would. She was his meal ticket."

“But he didn't have the sense to treat her well," Shelley said. "If he'd had any brains at all, he'd have been buttering her up. He'd have been buttering us up, for that matter, to impress her."

“Meal ticket? What do you mean?" Fiona asked.

“That's right. You don't know the story of how she came by him, do you, Fiona?" Jane explained what she'd learned the day before about Bobby's origin.

“I had no idea," Fiona said, when Jane had completed the explanation. "Albert told me how she'd gone on and on about having found a long lost son when he took her over to see the house, but I assumed she was a widow. You mean there's a discontented husband somewhere? I should think he'd be the first one to consider."

“I imagine the police are considering him pretty strongly," Jane said. "But he's somewhere in the Caribbean, I assume."

“People can be hired for that sort of thing," Shelley put in.

“I know, but I'm sure that's not it. If Chet were driven to killing her, it would have to be a crime of passion. A sudden fit of rage. He loved her too much to get rid of her so coldly. Besides, there was no need. If he wanted her out of his life, all he had to do was divorce her."

“And pay a huge alimony," Shelley said.

“I don't think it would matter to him. He's got so much more money than he can ever spend, and I'm certain Phyllis wouldn't have asked him for much. He would have known that about her. No, the one Chet might have wanted to get rid of was Bobby, not Phyllis. Bobby was really the one wrecking his happy life.”

The three women sat silently for a moment, contemplating. Finally Shelley said, "Go back to this theory of yours about Bobby being the killer. Was he there?"

“Oh, yes. In all his radiant glory. Hung over and being thoroughly nasty."

“He came in about one o'clock," Fiona added. "At least somebody did. There was door slamming and swearing that woke me up. I assumed it was several people, but it could have been just one noisy one talking to himself.”

Shelley considered. "I don't know, Jane. He's brash, but I don't think he's got that much nerve. To kill his mother, then stay in the house waiting to be found. Who called the police, by the way?"

“I didn't think to ask. I guess he did."

“No, I don't think he'd have the balls for that. He's arrogant, but I suspect he's a coward at heart. Most arrogant people are. Besides, how
would
he benefit from her death? He'd have to know that Chet would cut off the funds to him the minute Phyllis was gone."

“But who knows?" Jane insisted. "Suppose Chet had turned a lot of assets over to Phyllis and she'd willed them to Bobby? Chet's a lot older than Phyllis and might have thought it would be easier for her to get along someday without him if half their assets were in her name.”

Fiona said, "That could be. A lot of couples prefer dividing assets to having them in joint custody. It doesn't make sense legally, but some people still do it. If that were true, the boy could have it all at once rather than at the pleasure of his mother."

“I can't imagine Phyllis having the sense to make a will," Jane said. "But maybe, under the circumstances, she did. But would Bobby know what was in it?”

Shelley gave her a pitying look. "Phyllis? She told him everything. You saw them together. She was desperate to find anything to arouse his interest in her. And I'm sure talk about a will would do it."

“I think you may be right. Now, while we're considering domestic suspects, what about John Wagner?"

“John Wagner!" Fiona exclaimed. "You don't mean the John Wagner who lives over on Oak Lane, do you?”

Jane nodded.

“He's a perfectly odious man. I wouldn't put anything past him." Noticing her companions'

startled expressions, she explained, "Shortly after we moved here, he approached Albert about a community fund-raising project to buy a couple of lots and turn them into a park. Albert was disposed to be helpful until your Mr. Wagner laid out the plans. The way he saw it, I would contribute virtually all the money, Albert would do all the work, and Wagner would get all the credit, including having the park named for him. Of course, Albert refused, and Wagner became extremely offensive about our finances and status.”

Jane could well imagine. He probably made some crack about it really being Richie Divine's money, not theirs. At least, that was the sort of thing he'd say.

Fiona's face was flushed. The memory really rankled. "I'm sorry. That's entirely beside the point. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

“No, I'm glad you did," Jane assured her. "Let me tell you the things he said about me when we were on the volleyball team—"

“Jane, that's hardly relevant," Shelley said. "We're agreed that he's a son of a bitch. But does that mean he'd murder his stepmother? And if so, why wait all these years?"

“Well, for one thing, she was in Chicago, right under his nose. I don't think she'd been back here since he became and adult. It would have been a lot harder to fly into the island and get o ut agai n wi t hout bei ng notic ed. B ut t hat doesn't matter. I don't think he would have killed her. I think he would have killed Bobby, or tried to. See, it's the same with Chet or John Wagner. The thing that changed in their lives was the addition of Bobby. It was when he came along that everything started to go wrong."

“Ho w wo uld he have kno wn where they were?" Fiona asked. "She only saw the house yesterday afternoon and moved right in."

“But she called him from my house and invited him over."

“To your house?" Shelley exclaimed. "Would he dare?"

“Sure. He had no idea he offended me. Buthe didn't come anyway. He did go see her, but at the house next door later last night. So he knew the house—”

Shelley caught her train of thought. "She probably showed him around, and he would have known which room she was in."

“Maybe not."

“Look, Jane, half the time you're arguing that Bobby was the intended victim and half the time that he was the murderer. You can't have it both ways."

“But I want it to be one or the other," Jane admitted. "We don't know enough to guess what happened, but I'm positive Bobby had something to do with it. He's far too horrible to simply be an innocent bystander.”

Fiona's maid came into the kitchen looking rattled. "Excuse me, Mrs. Howard, but there's a man to see you. A policeman."

“Thank you, Celia. Don't be alarmed. He's just making inquiries about what happened next door last night. He may want to talk to you, too."

“I'm going home," Jane said. "He'll have a fit if he finds me here. Thanks for the tea, Fiona.”

She and Shelley slipped out the back door. "Is that your Detective VanDyne calling on Fiona?" Shelley asked as they walked away.

“My VanDyne?" Jane scoffed. But she did like the sound of that phrase.
Thirteen

For once, Jane
was
happy to come back
home
to a messy house; it gave her something to do. She fed the pets, then cleaned up the rubble the kids always left in their mad dash to school. The milk lake was the worst part. Willard had run through it and left sticky tracks all over the kitchen. She mopped it up and ran down to the basement to wash the towel she'd thrown in to soak up the worst. It was one of her best towels, and she noted with irritation that it was beginning to fray along one edge.

Funny how linens and light bulbs all seemed to give up at the same time, no matter when they were purchased. She'd have to buy more towels—a thought which led her to consider her financial status. These plush beauties had been purchased when Steve was alive and bringing home money weekly. Now she got a check once a month from her mother-in-law which represented Steve's share of the Jeffry family pharmacies' profits. There was also the interest on the CDs that she had put Steve's life insurance money into. But she had always put that back into the kids' college accounts. Sometime soonshe would have to give some serious thought to getting a job. An old aunt of hers had given her advice the day after Steve's death which she had followed just because Aunt May was so forceful and certain of herself. Aunt May had said the one thing a new widow must do is absolutely nothing. Make no changes, no unnecessary decisions for a full year. It had been good advice, keeping Jane from acting on all the crazy notions that had occurred to her in those first weeks, but soon the year of grace would be over. Would Chet Wagner make impulsive changes and decisions? she wondered as she closed the lid of the washing machine. Was "do nothing" the sort of advice a successful businessman could or should follow? Of course, most men don't have the things that keep their feet on the ground like most women do when death leaves holes in the middle of their lives. A woman still had wash to do, meals to cook, pets and chil dren to look after. Grief simply couldn't go full throttle when you're cleaning burnt oatmeal off the bottom of a pan. Most women had friends to rally around, too. She'd seen a television play once in which an old lady said of a girl in trouble,

"She probably went home to her mother. Women turn to women in time of trouble.”

Poor Chet. Men didn't seem to turn to other men very often in time of trouble. Did he have a friend to turn to? He certainly couldn't count on his son John for sympathy and support. John Wagner wasn't the nurturing sort. Jane ha d never met the other son; perhaps he was a nicer person. Of course, Chet had tons of people who worked for him. Those who were bright and ambitious would at least pretend sympathy and look for opportunities to help him. Maybe that would be enough.

Jane came back upstairs and went to work on tidying up the living room, getting ready for more Christmas decorations. She picked up things the kids had left and took them up to dump in their rooms. She plumped cushions, halfheartedly ran a dust cloth over the maj or flat surfaces, and hauled the recalcitrant vacuum cleaner out of the front hall closet. But on her first swoop with it, she sucked up a penny that crashed around hideously for a second before the machine moaned to a smelly stop. "Damn!" she exclaimed, unplugging the monster and flipping it over onto its back to operate.

As she knelt, she caught a glimpse of white under the nearest chair. It was one of Phyllis's knitting bags. Jane crawled over, pulled it out, and peered in the top. It was Bobby's crimson sweater. Never go be completed. Jane pulled out a sleeve and looked at the elaborate cable pattern, done apparently on size two or three needles. She could feel the sharp-cornered edge of a knitting book in the bag. Maybe she could finish the sweater for Phyllis. It seemed a fitting tribute, especially given how difficult it would be for an amateur like Jane. But what would she do with it, if and when she ever finished? Give it to Bobby, as Phyllis had intended? God, no!