The Merchant of Menace (9 page)

She went off again.

Billy Joe swaggered in from the living room, bumping a bowl of pretzels off an occasional table with his oversized snowman butt. "Wondered where's you got to, Jane. Oops, sorry." He tried to lean over to pick up the pretzels, but with the fat costume, he couldn't reach the floor.

Jane rushed over and pulled him back upright. "Never mind, I'll just sweep them under the table for now."

“What are you laughing about?" he said. "Nothing at all. I'm just happy you're here. That's all.”

Billy Joe looked pleased and deeply embarrassed. "Shucks," he mumbled.

An hour later, Jane was nearly back to normal. Ginger had forced the cameraman and the rest of the crew and equipment outdoors. The crew had left the electrical cords plugged into an outside socket and gone off in their van to have coffee and keep warm at a nearby convenience store.

Julie had struck out on security guards, but Jane was resolved to simply lock the doors when Lance returned. It was probably just as well that she hadn't been able to surround her house with armed guards. Imagine what Lance could have made of that. He could have yapped about it on the nightly news for weeks.

Jane could just imagine the headline: "Suburban housewife barricades house against seeker of truth — what dirty secret is she hiding?" That was Lance's style.

Most of the guests had professed the intention of leaving well before the newscast and kept glancing at their watches. But they were determined not to waste a good party and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the exchange of neighborhood gossip. A couple of the men — and Suzie, naturally — gravitated to the basement where they fooled around with Jane's computer and talked RAM, ROM, and modem speeds. Jane's dog Willard had been confined to the basement for the evening and was thrilled to have company. Her cats Max and Meow, who didn't like strangers in
their
house, had retreated indignantly to the laundry room.

A clump of women gathered in the kitchen, picking at the remaining desserts and talking about diets, their jobs, shopping, and, mostly, the atrocities of having the kids home all day for two weeks. One complained bitterly about the Johnsons' house attracting so much traffic to the block.
(The Concerned Citizen, no doubt,
Jane thought.) A handful of people who were devotees of
It's a Wonderful Life
settled in the living room to watch it for the sixty-seventh time on television. One of the men kept asking if he couldn't just see if there was a sports channel during a commercial and was hooted down. If it hadn't been for the threat of Lance King's return hanging over her, Jane would have judged it a perfect party.

Julie Newton had finally finished crying and apologizing and was talking to anybody who would listen about the progress of her new kitchen. Addie had made friends with a woman who was a regional book rep and they were having a good jaw about the horrors of getting out-of-town authors around to the bookstores. "She would never take a flight after seven in the evening or before ten in the morning, had to have a bottle of chilled champagne in the car at all times, and carried more luggage than Hannibal crossing the Alps," Jane overheard Addie telling the other woman.

Jane's neighbor nodded sagely. "When we sent her out on tour, she insisted on dragging along her hairdresser, too.”

Shelley and Jane crossed paths as Jane headed upstairs for potty break and Shelley came down the steps from the same errand. "It's turned into a decent party after all, hasn't it?" Shelley said.

“It has," Jane said. "A credit to my hostessing skills."

“You
are
a good party-giver, Jane. Better than I am," Shelley said.

Jane laughed. "That's because I let people do what they want. You tell them where to sit and what they should talk about."

“I do not! I merely make helpful suggestions. And try to put people together who have common interests."

“Uh-huh. Like that voter registration meeting you had at your house and you made that rabid pro-choice woman and the Operation Rescue guy sit together?"

“I've already admitted that was a mistake, Jane," Shelley said haughtily. "You don't need to keep harping on it. Still, I think they could have had an enlightening exchange of views if they'd only stopped screaming at each other."

“Maybe, but when they got to the drink-flinging stage, it was too late.”

Jane went on upstairs and when she came back down, Julie was in the front hall in her hat and coat. "My baby-sitter has to leave at nine-thirty. I'm afraid I've got to go.”

Jane didn't believe the baby-sitter story for a second. Julie was just trying to escape being on the scene when Lance came back and discovered he was locked out. But that was okay. Jane couldn't bear another round of hysterical apologizing.

“Bundle up, then. It's nasty outside," Jane said. "May I keep your little snack dishes for the cookie party tomorrow afternoon?"

“Oh, please do," Julie said as Jane opened the front door for her. "I have more of the snack mix, too. I'll come early and refill the dishes.”

Julie stepped out the door and started down the steps. As she reached the bottom she turned, presumably for one last repentant remark, but in doing so, her glance went over the Johnsons' front yard.

She stopped. Stared.

Her eyes opened very wide and then she screamed.

Jane lurched out onto the porch. Julie was pointing at the Johnson' house. At first Jane couldn't imagine what was so frightening. It wasn't as if Julie hadn't seen the hideous decorations before. Then Jane's attention, like Julie's, focused on the sleigh and reindeer in the front, just outside the Johnsons' living room windows.

One of the lead reindeers had collapsed. And there was something red lying across its plaster head.

A body. In a Santa suit.

Jane stepped back inside the door where others were already gathering to see what Julie was screaming about and shouted,
"MEL!”

"I can only stay a minute, but I wanted to let you know what little we know so far. King slid off the Johnsons' roof," Mel said several hours later. "The skid marks are still there, but they're melting fast. The plaster reindeer had some sort of metal spike that came out of its head to hold the antlers in place. One of them got him in the heart.”

There was a collective shudder. Most of the guests were long gone, after having stood around in Jane's front yard for a long time watching the police, ambulance, and plainclothes people work. Jane and Shelley sat on the sofa next to each other. Mike sat on the arm on Jane's side in a vaguely protective manner. Addie VanDyne had gone to bed, as had Todd and Katie. Ginger had stayed and had arranged her long, gangly self on the floor by the fire like a folding carpenter's ruler. She said, "I'm sorry if this sounds ugly, but I'm sure glad I didn't call the station manager to quit earlier this evening. I'll probably end up back in the secretarial pool, but it's better than working for Lance."

“What was he doing on the roof?" Jane asked Mel.

“I have no idea. Do you know, Ginger?" Mel replied.

“Snooping. Probably."

“Snooping on whom?" Mel asked.

Ginger shrugged. "He never confided in me. Or anybody else. His stories were as much of a surprise to the station as they were to the audience. Good thing he hit the reindeer. I mean, if he'd only gotten hurt, he'd have crucified the Johnsons in court. He knew all about insurance claims. One of his specialities."

“How'd he get up there?" Shelley asked. "It's not easy to get on a roof. Especially when you're in a Santa suit in the snow."

“Billy Joe had left a ladder out in the backyard when he finished his decorating," Mel said. "The back of the roof is a fairly shallow incline. Some owner must have had it raised to get more space upstairs.”

Jane shook her head. "He was a wicked person, but he didn't seem stupid. The roof had all that slushy, slippery snow; even if it wasn't as steep as the front, it was still dangerous. What could he have wanted to watch badly enough to climb up there? And what if he hadn't seen it — whatever it was. Did he think he could lurk in the manger up there for days?”

Ginger spoke up again. "He was putting one of his gadgets up there, I'd guess. He had a slew of long-range listening devices and recordersand remote-control cameras. He even carried around night-vision binoculars in his car." Shelley shivered. "What slime. And what a well-deserved accident.”

There was a moment of quiet, then Jane said to Mel, "I notice you're not commenting.”

Mel cocked an eyebrow at her and said, carefully, "There is some evidence that it might not have been an accident."

“Come on," Ginger said. "Nobody commits suicide by flinging themselves off a roof onto a plaster reind— Oh, you mean—?"

“The usual question now," Mel said, "is: Did he have any enemies?"

“Have you got a notebook with lots of blank pages to fill? He had nothing but enemies," Jane said. "What kind of evidence are you talking about?"

“There appear to be two sets of footprints going up the back side of the roof. One only goes up and ends in a skid down the front. The other set goes up to the peak and then back down the back side to the ladder."

“Someone else was on the roof?" Shelley exclaimed. "Can't you get footprints? Or shoe prints, I guess."

“Too soggy," Mel said. "With the rain on top of the snow, they're just outlines. Can't even tell a size because of the snow melt."

“So someone pushed him off the roof," Jane said.

“That's jumping to conclusions," Mel said. "The two sets of prints were made at approximately the same time. Someone else could have been up there first and King was following him or her. Or somebody could have gone up after King fell."

“Why would anyone do that?" Mike asked. Mel shrugged. "I'm just talking about physical possibilities. Not motives."

“But you still think somebody pushed him off the peak of the roof?" Jane asked.

“Without proof, I couldn't say, but if I were to guess, I'd suspect it was murder. And we have to treat it as such until we know. I've got to go. Ginger, do you know where he kept his files?"

“No files. He didn't want anyone to know what he was doing until he did it. I think he kept everything on his laptop."

“Which is where?" Mel asked.

Ginger pointed at the squashy armchair Jane was sitting in. "That looks like the case, next to the chair. Unless it's yours, Jane.”

Jane peered over the arm of the chair. "No, mine's in a blue case. He did have this with him. He bashed into the coffee table with it and knocked a candle over.”

Mel picked up the laptop. "Let me see you to your door, Shelley, and I'll have one of my people take Ginger to her car. Lock up carefully, Jane.”

Mike helped Jane unload the dishwasher and put away the last of the leftover food and then he went to let the pets out of the basement. Max and Meow crept up the steps, wary that there might still be visitors in the house. When they were satisfied that there were no strangers present to try to pet them, they wound themselves sinuously around Jane's legs, demanding food.

“I'll run the vacuum in the morning," Jane said as she opened a can of cat food. "I don't want to wake Addie with it this late at night. Will you keep Willard in your room tonight so he doesn't run loose and bark the house down?”

Mike nodded, petting Willard's big, square head. Glancing into the living room, he said, "Looks pretty good, considering. Mom, who do you think killed that guy?"

“I haven't any idea. It could have been anyone. He had a lot of enemies."

“But it has to be someone from around here, doesn't it?"

“I don't see why. With all the traffic on the street gawking at the Johnsons' house, anyone could have come into the neighborhood without being noticed."

“But how would they have known where to come?" Mike asked. "On that short television bit he just talked about 'a suburb.' He didn't say exactly where he was."

“Oh, maybe you're right," Jane said. "But someone could have seen the television van and guessed. Or followed him from the station.”

That was just mother talk, she realized as she was getting ready for bed. The natural impulse to reassure her child — albeit an intelligent adult child — that his neighborhood was safe and he would come to no harm.

In truth, the neighborhood was less likely to come to harm with Lance King dead. It was an awful and cynical way to view the demise of a human being, but he had been a very dangerous man. A Life Wrecker. How did anyone get to be that way? What kind of background created someone who loved to be hated?

Jane had always felt it was an essential, bone-deep human trait to want to be liked. Or at least respected. Some people desperately wanted everybody to love them. That was one end of the scale. Most just needed the love of a few people spouse, children, best friend — and respect from a larger number. But if you felt from early on in life that you couldn't acquire anyone's love, maybe power was the natural substitute.

Lance had accumulated more power than anyone needed or was good for them. Probably it was a case of getting a thrill out of seeing fear in people's faces. Fear could look like respect, Jane supposed.

She undressed and crawled into bed, shoving the cats aside. They'd left two lovely warm spots. She could hear muffled voices in the John-sons' yard. The police, and Mel, were going to have a long night of it.

Mike was right, she thought sleepily. If the obvious conclusion — murder — was right, somebody they knew had probably committed it.

Jane was up early, having her coffee in front of the little kitchen counter television. She tuned to the station Lance King had worked for. When the local news came on, she was astonished to see Ginger doing a live feed. She'd tidied up her hair and was standing on the street in front of the Johnsons' house. "Lance King, a familiar and popular reporter for this station, died here last night," she said, not sounding the least nervous at her elevation from assistant/gofer to reporter."In a freak accident, King fell from the roof of this home and suffered fatal injuries. The police are not saying if they've determined whether it was an accident or foul play. Further reports will be made on the noon news and this evening we'll have a report on Lance King's life and career. Back to you, Ann.”