Grime and Punishment: A Jane Jeffry Mystery (11 page)

Jane bristled at this, but went on. "It had to do with uniforms. You see, one of the boys at the baseball game got hurt, and my friend Suzie thought it was her son because they all look alike in the uniforms, and that got me thinking—”

„

“—that the regular cleaning lady was the intended victim?"

“Oh." Jane was crushed. "You'd thought of that?"

“It's a natural thing to wonder when there doesn't appear to be any motive. It doesn't appear to be the case, but I'd be interested in hearing what supporting evidence you have for your assumption."

“Supporting evidence—? Oh, I see. Well, they looked alike. Not close up, but from the back, and when you vacuum, you usually have your back to the door."

“How interesting.Hmmm. I didn't know, of course, that the two women were similar, and that vacuuming thing is interesting. Only a housewife would think of it.”

Jane had been considering telling him about Shelley's pearls. After all, Shelley had, at one point, asked her to do so. But his tone changed her mind. She considered just calling him a condescending bastard and hanging up; Suzie would have recommended it, she was sure. But she rejected that course as well. VanDyne wasn't going to find out anything more from her, but she might want to learn something from him.

“Well, thanks for listening," she said with venomous sweetness. "If there's ever anything else you want to know about housework, I'm your woman. Just call — I'll be in the kitchen trying to decide which paper towel is more absorbent."

“Say, you're not mad, are you?”

Furious, insulted, pissed as hell

“No, I'm not mad, Detective VanDyne. Goodbye.”

She really should have turned Suzie loose on him.

Ten

On three out of every four Sundays they
all '
went to church. On the fourth the kids went, and Jane stayed home to get ready for dinner. She didn't usually need the time, but the occasional quiet Sunday morning alone was a blessing itself. This monthly family dinner had been another tradition Steve had started and she had continued — with a few alterations and under considerable pressure from her motherin-law Thelma.

It was by no means the only hold she still had on Jane, but she used it to the hilt, as if Jane and the kids might escape her iron circle of influence if she didn't show up monthly to tighten up the "ties that bind.”

These family dinners would have been unbearable if Thelma hadn't been diluted by the other guests. Steve's brother Ted and his wife Dixie Lee usually came along too. Ted was a quiet, pleasant man; not a thrilling conversationalist by any means, but amiable, and a neutralizing influence on his mother's antics. His wife Dixie Lee was an Oklahoma girl, hardly into her twenties, with a sweet disposition and an accentlike warm molasses. To Jane's delight, Thelma disapproved of her even more heartily than she disapproved of Jane.

“She'd expected Ted to stay home with her forever," Jane had explained to Shelley two years ago when Ted fell for Dixie Lee. She had been hired to demonstrate a new line of beauty products in the family's main drugstore, and Ted was instantly smitten. "Steve had escaped from Thelma's clutches when I — a scarlet woman if there ever was one — snared him. But
this
girl! Half Ted's age and too nice — or too dumb — to even notice Thelma's digs? It's too much for Thelma. She's about to go berserk.”

After all this time, Thelma was still fuming and casting barbed remarks at Dixie Lee, and Dixie Lee was still blissfully unaware of them. Ted shared her attitude. If he had any idea of what his mother felt, he didn't let on. Nor did he seem the slightest bit influenced by her unceasing attempts to denigrate his wife.

After Steve died, Jane had added a guest to the dinner roster: her honorary Uncle Jim, her father's life-long best friend. An ex-Army officer, he'd finished his twenty years and gone to work for the Chicago police department. Assigned to the most lawless part of the inner city, he was the happiest he'd ever been. Life among the pimps and pushers suited him right down to the ground.

“All I ever did in the Army was push papers around and go to drills for events that never happened," he explained. "In this job things are always happening, and from time to time I actually manage to do something worthwhile.”

Thelma hated his intrusion into the family circle with a fervor that sometimes approached frenzy. The first time Jim had joined them, last February, she'd attacked Jane for inviting him.

“After all, my dear, he associates with such unacceptable people. One would hardly think he was a good influence on the children."

“He's associated with my parents for forty years!" Jane shot back. "I don't have them near me, but I must have him."

“But Jane, dear, we're your family now."

“Thelma, you make it sound like I'm a Middle-Eastern camel trader's daughter who's left her tribe for her husband's."

“Rather a vulgar analogy, don't you think?”

“What's vulgar? The Middle East? Camels? Tribes?"

“Dear, you're just upset. We all understand. Steve's demise has been a devastating blow to all of us. I fear my own health has been permanently damaged by the distress. Now, let's don't talk about this anymore.”

That was as close as she ever came to admitting she'd lost a round. She hadn't given up her campaign to have sole ownership of Jane and the kids, but she didn't bring it up directly after that. Every month she sat across the table from Uncle Jim and glared her disapproval. He, bless his heart, found it amusing, and would occasionally wink at her just to see her blush with fury. Jane hoped he'd leave off this month, however. The day was just too nice for conflict.

When the kids got back from church, Jane was sitting on the patio, hypnotically scratching Willard's ears and quietly enjoying the smell of newly cut grass from the several lawns nearby. It would probably be the last Sunday for it. By next month, people would have stopped mowing for the winter, and there would begin to be the smell of burning leaves in the air. She'd observed that no amount of modern suburban restrictions seemed able to stop people from indulging in the primitive need to stand around a big outdoor fire on the first cool days.

Then, next spring, there would be the odors of fertilizer, and weed killer, and good brown earth returning from the winter sleep. Jane had always liked that best, but had missed it last spring. She'd still been grieving too deeply to take much notice of anything outside herself and the immediate concerns of getting from day to day without letting the kids know how upset she was. Next spring, however, she'd make up for it. Maybe a nice garden — Steve had never approved of gardens. He was a lawn man, taking inordinate pride in an unbroken spread of lush green.

The one thing Steve had hated about the house was the field behind it. The developers had apparently intended one more street between Jane's and the main drag, but had run out of money — or enthusiasm — before the last street was completed. The field had remained a field, much to the delight of Max and Meow, who spent all their free time out hunting. Steve, however, had despised the weeds that grew there and were perpetually trying to invade his precious lawn.

Jane got up and strolled around the yard, considering.

Gardens had always appealed to her need for permanence. A garden meant you were going to stay someplace. You planted leathery little brown bulbs in the fall and didn't see the results till spring. Then you put tiny seeds in the ground that wouldn't bear fruit until fall. You had to stick around in the meantime. A garden said to fate, "You can't get rid of me!”

Yes, she'd have a garden! Daffodils and tulips and pussy willows — were there such things anymore? She hadn't seen one since she was child. And forsythia. Great, cascading forsythia bushes along the whole west fence. And, in the fall, bronze and red chrysanthemums.

Thelma arrived in her Lincoln, which looked like a metallic gray galleon under full sail. Jane didn't hear her coming, and was surprised when Thelma caught her in the yard and said, "Aren't you worried about chiggers?”

Jane laughed. "I worry about a lot of things, but not chiggers. I was planning a garden.”

“Oh, dear…"

“What?"

“Well, I know Steve wouldn't have liked it. He was so proud of his lawn." She scuffed a well-shod toe against a clump of crabgrass. The message was clear. Jane was desecrating his memory by her disregard for the lawn.

Steve's not around to know or care!
Jane wanted to shout. But there was no point in getting this afternoon off to a worse start than absolutely necessary. So she ignored Thelma's comment and went on. "I'm going to dig up that section and have some vegetables. Corn and tomatoes and some beans to can."

“Jane, you wouldn't! Home-canned beans are the most common source of food poisoning there is."

“Oh, did you think I meant to eat them? No, no, no. I just meant to bottle them up for the county fair display."

“Jane, I don't find sarcasm very becoming in a woman. I'm sure Steve would have agreed with me."

“You'd be surprised—" She stopped, midsentence. "Never mind, Thelma. Let's go in. I need to stir the spaghetti sauce."

“How delightful.Spaghetti… again.”

Fortunately, Thelma had pretty well lost interest in the murder next door. Except for expressing horror at being so close to the scene, she found that the subject deprived her of being the center of attention.

Ted's worry, naturally, was how it might adversely affect property values. "I want you to be able to get every penny you can out of this house, Jane," he said with genuine concern.

“I'm not planning to leave this house for centuries, Ted, and everyone will have forgotten about it long before then. But I appreciate your con cern."

“Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that you should leave—"

“I know you didn't." She gave him a warm smile. Dear Ted, always so afraid he might upset her.

Dixie Lee simply didn't want to hear about "icky" things like dead bodies.

Uncle Jim, tucking into the spaghetti like he might never get another chance, kept a tactful silence. Jane was relieved that he made no reference to his familiarity with crime and criminals.

The subject only came up peripherally once more, as Thelma was leaving. She made a point of brushing furiously at some imaginary dust on the sleeve of the smart green linen jacket she'd worn. She glanced into the hall closet where it had hung, as if to determine just how filthy it really was.

“You really will have to have someone in, Jane, dear."

“I did. Day before yesterday."

“It's a pity one can't get good help these days. Why, when I was a girl, we had a houseful of servants, and they wouldn't have let a speck of dust collect.”

No, you'd have probably given those poor, downtrodden souls twenty lashes,
Jane thought.

“And they were just like part of the family. They knew all our little idiosyncrasies; how much starch to put in Papa's shirts, and how Mother liked her bath things laid out. And they knew things about we children that even our parents didn't know about. Oh, Jane dear, I almost forgot She took a large white envelope from her purse and handed it to Jane.

Through gritted teeth, Jane said, "Thank you, Thelma.”

Ted and Dixie Lee followed her out, and Jane's kids made their break for freedom; Katie and Mike to visit friends, Todd to ride bikes with Elliot Wallenberg on the playground lot. Uncle Jim made as if to join the exodus, but she put her hand on his arm and said, "Please stay a while."

“Something wrong?"

“No, I'd just like to visit with you, and there's never time with the gang around.”

Jane poured two beers and went out to sit on the patio with him. A little breeze had sprung up, frightening Willard into trying to sit in Jane's lap. They chatted for a bit and eventually came around to the murder. Jane told him everything she knew, which was precious little, and finished up with a recounting of her conversation with Suzie Williams and the subsequent irritating brush with VanDyne.

“I don't imagine he meant to be insulting, Janey. He was probably sincere about you having a special insight. Most men would never have reason to know specialized things about how a house is run."

“But it was his manner that made me so mad."

“Speaking of manner, what was that frozen smile you gave old Thelma when she handed you that envelope? You didn't even open it. And it seems to happen every time we have dinner."

“It was my allowance," Jane said.

Uncle Jim sat forward, his look worried. "Honey, are you having money problems?"

“No, I have plenty. Well, not plenty, but enough, if I'm reasonably careful." Jim had alluded to her finances before, not out of nosiness, but concern. It was time she explained. "You know Thelma and her late husband had a pharmacy. Steve and Ted got degrees in pharmacology and business both and they opened the other two big drugstores with Thelma. That was about the time Steve and I got married, and I not only put in all my money — a small inheritance from my grandmother — but I worked at one of the stores for nearly a year without pay, just to help get it off the ground. Well, as Steve's widow, and because of what I put in, I own a third interest, and that envelope she gave me is my part of the profits."

“Then why call it your 'allowance'?"

“That's what it seems like. I know perfectly well it's my money and I'm entitled to it, but she hands it out like charity and, dammit, I accept it as such. She can't just mail the damned thing or give it to me privately. It's always a production, like a gift."

“I didn't understand why you've got a third and Thelma has a third and she lives like it's a million a month?"

“Because I don't get all of mine. I had a trust set up for the kids; half of my share goes straight into it. And Thelma has a lot of other investments as well."