Plain Jane

by Fern Michaels

  Jane rolled over on the sofa and opened her eyes a fraction. She brought her arm up to look at her watch. Noon! Noon on Christmas Day. The fire she’d lit when she came home was nothing more than smoldering ashes. The tree lights twinkled.

  Olive licked her face.

  “I love you, too, Olive, but I’m too tired to get up just yet. Those dreams of mine wear me out. I’m just going to catch a few more winks.” She rolled back over and closed her eyes. When she woke later, it was starting to get dark outside. Maybe she should take a shower. A shower always made her feel better. Brushing her teeth always made her feel better, too. Too bad there weren’t more things that would make her feel better.

  She looked at the ring on her finger, the beautiful ring Mike had given her. Where did it fit into things now? Nowhere. She removed it and stuck it in the toe of one of her socks in her sock drawer.

  The long night loomed ahead of her.

  Trixie poured two glasses of wine and took them to the kitchen table. “I think this was the worst Christmas ever,” she mumbled as she sat down. She knew she must look like hell. God knows she felt like hell. Neither she nor Fred had had more than a few hours’ consecutive sleep since they’d gotten the telephone call from the police department on Christmas Eve. They were getting too old for this kind of thing. But what could they do? Their Janie was in trouble and they needed to keep an eye on her.

  “You said you had an idea, Fred. Share it with me. I need something to make me feel good. If I have to make one more trip over to Janie’s house, I’m going to collapse. She slept the day away, and now she’s in bed again and it’s only seven o’clock. She didn’t eat either. Mike’s called six times. I’m about ready to pull the phone out of the wall. So, what’s the idea, sweetie?”

  Fred looked up from the piece of paper he’d been doodling on. “How would you feel about endowing LSU?” His eyes clung to hers, analyzing her reaction.

  Trixie’s eyes flashed with impatience. “Forget it, Fred. I want to use our money for the K-9s.”

  “I know, doll, but I have a plan. I’ve been thinking about it all day. Tell me what you think. Janie told us that she bit one of the boys who raped her friend. Bit him clear to the bone is what she said. I think we all agree that a bite like that would leave a pretty nasty scar, agreed?”

  “Yes,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “Okay, so now here’s the deal. Our new book is called Pigskin Bloodbath. The whole football team gets wiped out. Pigskin, Trixie, you know, a football. I see the cover art as a pair of strong, bloody hands holding that pigskin high in the air, getting ready to toss a pass.” To demonstrate, he grabbed the cantaloupe out of the fruit bowl and raised it over his head as if he was going to throw it. “We hold a contest to find a pair of hands to put on the cover of our new book. A football player’s hands, big, strong, and . . . scarred. We limit the contest to LSU football players, past and present. We would know what year they played by the form they would have to fill out. We give a hundred grand to the university and fifty thousand to the football player whose hands we choose. We’ll do it through our attorney so we can stay anonymous.” His excitement increased as the words began to flow. “Because we’ll be opening the contest to all the years, it’ll look legit. Hell, it will be legit. But it will also give us a chance to find the guy Janie sank her teeth into. I think it will work, Trixie, I really do. Who’s going to turn down fifty grand? The school won’t turn it down, that’s for sure. It will be wonderful publicity for them and us as well. We can afford to do this.” He dropped the cantaloupe back in the bowl. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea, but Janie isn’t one hundred percent positive it was a football player. She said she just had a strong sense that it was because they were all big, tall, and strong. It could just as easily be a wrestler or maybe even a track athlete. I hope you’re right about it being a football player.”

  Fred took her hand and squeezed it. “Janie always had good intuition, and if she said she had a sense of its being a football player, that’s good enough for me. We have to go back to the beginning and the beginning is that awful night. That will lead us to now and Betty Vance. Janie is convinced it’s all tied together, and I think she’s right.” He tilted his head and looked into his wife’s eyes. “I’d like to put the wheels in motion the first of the year if that’s okay with you, honey. If you’re okay with this, we can contact our attorney tomorrow so he can start putting it all together.”

  Wise to his sweet talk and hand-squeezing, Trixie drew her hand away so she could think. “What you’re saying is if we find a pair of hands with a scar, the guy is one of the bunch that did that awful thing. That’s a bit of a stretch, even for us, Fred. But I’ll go along with it. I’ll do anything if it can get our old Janie back.”

  “Shazam!” Fred said, hitting his hand flat against the table.

  “Not so fast, Freddie. So we get lucky and the guy that Janie bit enters the contest and we identify him by the scar. Then what?”

  “Then Janie has to take the ball. Are you with me all the way on this, Trix?”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for our Janie.” Trixie turned to the sound of growling. “Would you look at those two!” she said, motioning to Flash and Golda tussling near the back door. “I can’t wait for the first of the year and our first batch of dogs. The trainer is coming January 4. The inside of the barn will be finished tomorrow. Fred, do you think we’ll live long enough to see the results?” Trixie asked anxiously. “This is such a good thing we’re doing. Are you sure you don’t want to retire, Fred?”

  “No, I’m not ready. I thought I was, but I’m not. I think I have a few more stories in me. You might get another wild idea that will cost money. Reserves are real nice and handy. And, of course, we’re going to live to see the results. You know the D word is not in our vocabulary. Don’t ever bring that up again.”

  “I think about it, Fred. It’s a fact of life. We’re old. When you get old, you die. Our senior moments are going platinum in case you haven’t noticed. Honey, we have more than enough money. Don’t you want to go fishing and crabbing? Don’t you want to take days off and do nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay,” she sighed. “Why is it I can never say no to you?”

  “Because you love me.” He gave her an irresistible grin.

  She could only laugh. “Yes, I love you. Forever and ever and even then, remember? That’s what we promised each other all those years ago.” She raised up out of her chair, stretched across the table, and kissed him. “We should have gone to church today. This is the first Christmas we’ve missed in forty-five years.”

  “We’ll go twice next week, Saturday night and Sunday morning. How’s that?”

  “That’s good, Fred. Now what are we going to do? The night is still young. And it’s Christmas!”

  “Well, we could . . .” His eyes said it all.

  “Hmm, yes, we could.”

  Jane opened her eyes.

  Olive stirred and watched her mistress as she tried to decide if she was going to get up or lie back down. The moment the light went on, Olive hopped off the bed and waited patiently for Jane to lead the way downstairs.

  “I’m turning into a vampire, Olive. I sleep by day and prowl by night.” Jane washed her face, brushed her teeth, and ran a brush through her hair. “I have to get busy. I have a funeral to plan, and I need to do some heavy-duty thinking. I also have to wash some clothes because I don’t have any more clean underwear. That’s as bad as running out of toothpaste or toilet paper. We could both probably do with a little breakfast, too. You go outside and do your thing and meet me in the kitchen in ten minutes.”

  Twenty minutes later the eggs on Jane’s plate stared up at her like two angry eyes. She pushed the plate away and concentrated on the coffee in her cup and the notepad in front of her. She was going to write something, make notes, fill up the page. She pushed it away, too. She stared at Olive who stared b
ack. “We’ll do a simple funeral. We can’t ask Father John to do it since Betty can’t be buried in the Catholic cemetery, so I have to make arrangements at Acadia Resthaven Cemetery. Did I ever tell you, Olive, that St. John’s cemetery is all wrong? The person who designed it was supposed to lay it out so it was east to west. You know, sunup, sundown. But it’s north and south. I wonder if that makes a difference to dead people. St. John’s is consecrated ground, and since Betty took her own life, she can’t be buried there.” If she remembered correctly, she had told someone to send the body to Duhon’s Funeral Home. She would wait until eight o’clock before trying to call them. She hadn’t read Betty’s letter, and she didn’t know why. Part of her wanted to know what was in the letter and part of her didn’t.

  Jane took a deep breath, got up, and walked into the foyer, where she’d tossed her purse and coat. It wasn’t a letter per se but more like a Christmas card envelope, completely square. She carried it back to the kitchen and dropped it on the table. She stared at it for a long time before picking it up and slitting the envelope. Her eyes filled with tears as she read Betty Vance’s last words.

  Dear Dr. Lewis,

  I’m sorry I disappointed you. I tried doing things your way. I tried doing things Dr. Thomas’s way, and I tried doing things Corinda’s way. I thought I was making progress. Corinda said I was. I even managed to get through a visit with Brian. We had a long talk, and I fixed lunch for us. I was okay with all of it. Trixie and Fred helped a lot. Dr. Thomas said I was a weak person.

  I went to the drugstore for shampoo and razors and a refill on my Thorazine prescription this morning, and I heard this man talking to his friend in the shaving cream aisle. I recognized his voice as being one of them. I couldn’t believe it. They saw me staring at them, and they recognized me, too. I couldn’t move, Dr. Lewis. They walked over to me, and one of them touched me. I think I screamed. I don’t remember. Then one of them said, “We know where to find you so keep your mouth shut.” I was so hysterical, the salesclerk called the manager, and they drove me home. I locked the door and hid in the bathroom with Golda for hours and hours. I wanted to call you and Corinda, but I called Dr. Thomas instead. I called her four times, but she never called me back. I did deep-breathing exercises and jumping jacks till I thought I would faint. I couldn’t stop shaking. It was hard to breathe. I can’t go through that again. I just can’t. Please don’t think too harshly of me. Thank you for being my friend, Dr. Lewis. Please take care of my dog.

  Betty Vance

  Jane sobbed her misery, her clenched fists beating at the table. The springer spaniel leapt onto her lap. Jane clung to the quivering animal as she continued to sob, her entire body shaking and twitching. A long time later, when there were no more tears to shed, Jane eased Olive to the floor. “We’re going for a ride, Olive.”

  Jane drove up and down the streets of Rayne, past Sadie’s Flower Shop, past Depot Square, and then on to the boulevard, postponing the moment when she would turn onto the street where she once lived. She sensed rather than saw the police station. It was all so long ago. A lifetime ago. An eternity ago. What the hell was she doing here anyway? She was here because of a cockamamie dream. Always return to the scene of the crime, Trixie said. She also always said follow the money, whatever the hell that meant. Trixie said a lot of things. Most times they made sense. This was the crime scene of her childhood. She had a right to be here. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She doused the lights of the car and opened the door. “Shh, Olive, no barking. Not a sound now. We’re going to go around the back and go in through the root cellar. You wait here for me, and I’ll open the back door for you. I know how to get into this house.”

  Jane was as good as her word. Ten minutes later she opened the dead bolt on the back door and let Olive into the kitchen. With the help of a full moon shining in through the curtainless windows, she easily made her way from room to room, remembering how miserable she’d been when she lived there. She walked upstairs, Olive behind her, whining deep in her throat. “I used to live here, Olive.” She opened the door at the end of the hall. “This was my room. It’s not much bigger than a cubbyhole. I should have had a bigger room. There’s carpet in here now. Oh look, there’s a balloon light switch. That must mean another child had this room.”

  Jane closed the door behind her and walked to the opposite end of the hall, to her parents’ room. It was carpeted, too. She walked to the center of the room and shouted, “I’m here, Mommy Dearest! Come out, come out, wherever you are!” When nothing happened, Jane shrugged. She sat down Indian fashion, her back against the wall, Olive’s head in her lap. “We’ll wait a little while. Maybe she needs to plug in or something. I don’t know how this spook business works, so we’ll go with the flow. She was a beauty queen, Olive. Excuse me, beauty pageant queen. Miss Louisiana.” Jane yawned. “She wasn’t good enough to be Miss America, though. She wore tons of makeup. I finally figured it out when I was around fourteen. It was to cover up how ugly she really was. I burned it all. Every single pot of eye shadow and every tube of lipstick . . .” She twiddled her thumbs as she sat staring out the window at the tree beyond. If she was smart, she would go home. There was nothing to be gained sitting there staring at a tree on the front lawn. She yawned again and closed her eyes, thinking she would rest while she waited.

  “I knew this was going to be a big bust. You’d think I’d know better. Let’s try this. Here she comes, Misssss Americaaaa. . . . ”

  “Stop that this instant! You always were a wicked child.”

  “I thought that would get you!” She held up Olive’s chin. “This is Mommy Dearest, Olive. So you do hang out here, Mother. Imagine that! You look haggard. I’m sorry to say this, but death doesn’t become you.” She eyed the vision of her mother with disgust. “All this time, I thought you were somewhere in the great beyond. Couldn’t cut that either, huh? You’re just another hoochie mama. Just tell me one thing. Is it true that I’m the only one who can, you know, boot your ass to the other side?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Jane laughed until she gasped for breath. Olive growled as she pawed at Jane’s chest. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” She rocketed into peals of laughter again. “Not in this lifetime,” she finally managed to gasp. “Of course I’m speaking of my lifetime. I think I’m going to buy this house just to make sure you stay put. I’ll come by from time to time to check up on you. Always go back to the scene of the crime, Trixie said. This is the scene of the crime—the crime you committed against me! I’m going to figure it all out. I don’t know when or how, but I’m going to do it. What do you have to say for yourself, Mother?”

  Olive licked at Jane’s face until she opened her eyes.

  “We can go home now, Olive. Jeez, I fell asleep and had this dream that I was going to buy this house. You know what, it’s not such a bad idea. I’m going to think about it. That dream was a doozie. If anyone finds out we broke in here, we’ll not only be guilty of breaking and entering, but they’ll send the guys in the white coats with the nets. Shh, we have to be quiet when we leave. Not a sound now.”

  Jane stopped at Frog City and bought a pack of cigarettes, a loaf of bread, cream for her coffee, and a beef jerky for Olive. She was back home just as the sun crept over the horizon.

  At eight o’clock, Jane was on the phone to Duhon’s Funeral Home. She scheduled a service for three o’clock and the interment for four o’clock. She called Trixie, Fred, Betty’s friend Chuck, and Brian Ramsey. All promised to attend the service. She debated a long minute before calling Sharon Thomas, knowing she’d get her service, which she did. She left a short message and hung up.

  “I don’t know what to do, Olive,” Jane cried, wringing her hands.

  Olive was all over her a second later. “What would I do without you, girl?” Jane sobbed.

  It was Flash who alerted Fred to the fact that a car had stopped in front of the house. “Trixie, there’s a strange man walking up to o
ur front porch. You better get out here before Flash goes through the window.”

  Trixie came on the run, her jewelry clanking, her hair standing on end. “Easy, boy, easy,” she said, grabbing hold of Flash’s collar. “It’s okay for people to come to the door. Sit like a gentleman.” She opened the door a crack, Flash’s snout pressed against her leg.

  “Mrs. McGuire, I’m Bob Henry. I came back for the holidays and wanted to stop to see Flash. Is it okay for me to come in?”

  Trixie wanted to scream, no, it isn’t all right. Flash is my dog now. Go away. Instead, she said, “Yes, of course, come in.” She leaned into Fred, her heart pounding in her chest. “You can’t have him back. He’s mine!” she blurted.

  “I know that, Mrs. McGuire. I just wanted to see him. We were partners for a long time. The guys at the station told me what you did for him and your plans for the future. I wanted to see you and tell you how wonderful that is.”

  Bob Henry bent down to the dog. “Hey, buddy, it’s me, Bob! Shake hands.”

  Trixie let her breath out in a loud whoosh when the big dog remained at her side, his big paws firmly planted on the floor. His body quivered.

  “It’s okay, Flash,” she said, patting his head. “Go shake hands with Mr. Henry. Be nice now. Give Mr. Henry a kiss.”

  Henry reared back, almost falling over. “A kiss! He gives kisses! You took a killer dog and taught him to kiss people! I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” Trixie snapped. “Flash is retired, so that means it’s okay for him to do whatever I teach him. He’s just being social. This dog almost died on me, Mr. Henry. I did what I had to do to save him. We have a good thing going here, so don’t go screwing it up on me.”

  “Please, don’t get me wrong,” he said, holding up his hand. “I just meant I didn’t think it could be done. For one thing he hated women. You’re a woman. It’s wonderful what you’ve been able to do. I did some heavy-duty worrying about him, but Jake kept assuring me you were taking good care of him.”