“We saw the funeral announcement in today’s paper.” Jane’s mom’s voice had warm, sympathetic undertones.
“Are you back from vacation already?” Jane rubbed the polish off the round belly of the pot. The spring sunshine from the opposite window glinted off the shiny surface.
“Didn’t we tell you, sweetie? We didn’t go on the cruise after all. Your dad came down with shingles. It’s been awful for the last three weeks.”
Jane scrunched up her mouth, glad that her mom couldn’t see her. It would have been nice, back on that night she had come to the Crawfords’ home in desperation, to know that her parents could have helped her after all. “That’s awful, mom. How’s he feeling now?”
“So-so. Not perfect. But he’s good enough to come up to the funeral.”
“Oh!” Jane stopped mid-rub. They were really coming, so she’d have to find a way to explain her new living situation that didn’t sound as horrible as the truth without lying. “When are you coming?”
“We’d like to spend a little time with you, sweetie. It feels like we haven’t even heard from you since Christmas, so we’ll be flying in on Wednesday.”
Jane rubbed the pot hard. Wednesday. What was she going to do with her parents?
“We’re going to get a suite by the airport. Don’t worry about trying to fit us into your little place. In fact, if you need a mini-vacation, come stay with us. We’ll make sure we have room for you.”
Jane put her rag down and pressed her hand over her eyes. It was meant to be a comforting move, but the polish on her hands made contact with her eye. The burning pain went straight to the top of her head and sent shivers up and down her arms. Her eye responded with a flood of tears. She opened her mouth to speak to her mom and a groan came out.
“What’s that, Janey?”
Jane gulped a breath. She wiped the tears away with her hand, but it was still polishy and only aggravated the situation. She hopped away from the silver and wiped her hand up and down her apron. She wiped her eye again, with the back of her hand. It must have been psychosomatic this time, because it hurt as bad as the first two hits and she was sure she hadn’t been polishing silver with the back of her hand.
“Did I lose you, Jane?” her mom asked.
Jane grabbed a towel from the hooks above the sink. She soaked it under the faucet and pressed it to her eye. She was trying to respond to her mom, but it wasn’t happening.
“Okay Janey, I think I lost you. I’ll email you with our flight info. If you can’t make it to the airport, just call us and I’ll give you our hotel info. Love you, baby. Wish you had called to tell us about Bob and Pam.”
Jane’s mom ended the call.
Jane sat down with the rag pressed to her eye. The thought of escaping to her parents’ suite at a posh hotel by the airport was like a fresh spring breeze, despite the burning eyes. By hook or crook, she was going to do it.
The compress did nothing for Jane’s burning eye. She needed to flush it out. She headed back upstairs to her bedroom to search for saline drops.
Marjory stopped her at the second floor landing. “Oh, Jane. Good. I have another list for you. Come down to the office with me.”
“Just one moment.” Jane managed a hoarse whisper. She blinked hard trying to keep her eye watering.
“What’s wrong with your eye? You haven’t been using drugs, have you?”
“No!” Jane’s hackles went up. As though she would use drugs at all, much less at an employer’s house. “Polish in my eye.” Jane choked the words out. The burning in her eye made her want to sob instead of talk.
“How did you manage that? Really, Jane. I expect better. You need to be in top form. We have the funeral to get through this week. Be in my office, ASAP.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jane ran up the rest of the steps.
In her room, she dug through her bathroom caddy. She found the soothing drops and breathed a prayer of thanks. She risked taking too long and sat on the edge of her bed, letting the drops of saline trickle into her eye to wash it clean and soothe it.
When her parents arrived in town, she could lay her whole dilemma at their feet and they could help her solve it. The whole works: school, housing, boy troubles. Maybe they’d even have an idea about who had killed Bob and Pamela.
No. Jane thought better of asking them that. She didn’t want them to think she had gone completely off her rocker.
She sat on her bed until a sense of guilt washed over her. Marjory was waiting.
The mirror showed that her eye was still bloodshot, but the pain was gone, so Jane made her way back downstairs to the office.
Marjory handed her a yellow folder marked ‘memorial.’ “We’ll be using the ballroom upstairs for the memorial. You’ve got it looking all right, but the floors need to be deep cleaned and polished. You’ll also need to rent chairs and tables.” Marjory handed her a stack of papers held together with an alligator clip. “I’ve got the flowers ordered, just call them and confirm delivery. Do the same thing with the food. The numbers are all in there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A fleeting vision of herself on a plane to Phoenix, that afternoon, tempted Jane.
“Make a note: I want the floors done by Wednesday. They need to be cleaned, polished, dry, and ready to set up.”
Jane nodded. She could agree all she wanted but she really had no idea if she could make it happen.
“They need to be cleaned, polished and ready to go because you need to get the chairs ordered so that they can be set up by Wednesday.”
Jane licked her lips. That sounded suspiciously like work that would interfere with her class, and her parents’ arrival. “Isn’t the funeral on Saturday?”
“Yes, it is. That’s why you need the bones in place by Wednesday. Flowers will come late Friday and the caterers will be there on Saturday. Call Jake if you have any questions.”
Jane rolled her head to stretch her neck. Tension had built up in her spine while Marjory gave directions and that last bit was about to make her snap. “Will Jake have any idea what is going on?”
“Jake will have the credit card. Jake is the next of kin. Make him have an idea what is going on.”
Jane rolled her head the opposite direction to work out the knots that Marjory was putting into her person. However, since Marjory had brought Jake into the conversation, it seemed as though this would be good a time to discuss her concerns for him. “I think grief has hit Jake pretty hard. I’m kind of worried about him. Do you think this is a good idea?”
“Yes. He can’t keep moping around. He needs something to do to keep him out of trouble. You saw what went on at his restaurant the other day. He’s impossible right now.”
“I don’t know that I can make him do any of this.” Jane fluttered her stack of papers, like a bird who tries to make himself look bigger by puffing up his feathers.
Marjory looked up from her computer screen, a severe frown creasing her face. “You are to do all of this, Jane, not him, but if you have any questions you can call him. It will give him a little control over things. He’s just a boy.” Marjory shook her head sadly. “He’s just a boy. I wouldn’t ask him to do all of this.”
Jane looked at the papers in her hands. That was the real trouble with Jake. He was just a boy and couldn’t do all of this. It didn’t matter that they were the same age, had gone to the same school, and had both come from families with means. Jake had not yet grown up.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Marjory nodded towards the door, dismissing Jane.
Jane went straight back to the mudroom. She had to finish the carafe or pot or whatever that thing was and then put it all away again. She’d set herself up at the kitchen desk to do her calling.
Jane’s legs burned from her many trips up and down the stairs to stash the silver collection in the ballroom where Marjory instructed her to store it until the reception. Now she had her papers spread across the kitchen desk, the small television turned on to drown out the quiet of the
empty house, and a sandwich made to tide her over. If she could make heads or tails of the paperwork before lunch was over she could get to her next client with a clear conscience.
The first floor company she called laughed at her when she asked them if they could get it all done by Wednesday, but the second company on the list booked her in. She was getting voice mail for the chairs and tables so she stopped, just for a moment, to eat.
The local news had moved from the weather report to the HLP protestors. Jane turned the sound up.
“Activity surrounding local hamburger giant ‘Roly Burger’ has increased overnight,” the reporter said. “Help has organized non-violent sit-ins at three locations, but a fourth location has been vandalized. Dirk van Nuyens is on the scene. Dirk?”
The TV moved to a location of Roly Burger that Jane couldn’t place. The camera panned from painted-over windows to Dirk. “The local head of HLP has decried the vandalism as unconscionable, but local restaurateur, Jake Crawford, doesn’t buy it. Jake?”
Dirk put the microphone under Jake’s mouth.
Jane groaned.
“The graffiti,” Jake said, “is clearly biological in nature, hearts, livers, all of that. It is a shame and a blemish on an organization that claims to care about people. Our family is in the midst of great grief right now. We fully intend on honoring my father’s wishes, but when tragedy strikes, as it has stricken our family, putting his plans into action takes time. To hit us right now, when we are the weakest, is beneath them.”
“Thank you, Jake. What are the family plans now?”
“We haven’t even had the funeral yet, Dirk. We will take care that the city knows everything it needs to know, as it happens.”
“Thank you, Jake. Back to you, Anna.”
The television switched back to Anna at the news desk. “Rose of Sharon, the head of the local chapter of Help has issued a statement to the effect that so long as the plans for the Roly Burger conversion are delayed her organization will continue to ‘help’ consumers make wise decisions regarding their bodies. Whether this includes more vandalism, or just peaceful protest, we will have to see.”
Jane looked at her tuna sandwich. Rose of Sharon would hate her for it, but the news report made her want a cheeseburger.
HLP seemed to thrive on publicity, and the deaths of Bob and Pamela had given their current campaign much more television time than it would usually have garnered. It seemed to Jane that this was at least a small motive to do away with the Crawfords, but what evidence could she gather to make a case for her hunch?
She took a bite of her sandwich. Like all of her other hunches, this one suffered from a sad lack of physical evidence.
Perhaps she should have a burger for lunch after all.
The nearest Roly Burger was just around the corner from the Crawfords’ home. Jane was glad to see that its location on a busy intersection had drawn a few protestors. She parked her Rabbit far from the front door so she would have to walk past as many protestors as possible on her way to lunch.
As she hoped, she was stopped mid-parking lot by a short, young woman with thick dreadlocks and a peasant blouse. “You wouldn’t do this to your body, would you?” The protester held up a flier with a picture of diseased arteries on it. They looked an awful lot like the spray paint she had seen in the news video.
“I might order a salad.” Jane smiled at the protestor.
“You can’t get a salad here.” The protestor waved the flier again.
“Sure I can. They have several options including smoked salmon, apple and bacon, and vegan legume salad. Tons of healthy options inside.”
The protestor rattled her paper at Jane. “You kill the world when you kill yourself with this food.”
Jane walked past her. She was hoping to engage someone a little more coherent.
A thin man with a thick beard stopped her next. “Hey there.” He smiled down at her. “You don’t really want to do this, do you?”
“It’s a free country,” Jane said.
“It is, that’s true, but come on, you know. When you eat this stuff you aren’t free. You’re just a slave to the calories.” The protestor handed her a leaflet.
“You must really care about people to come out here like this.” Jane spoke in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
“I do, man. When you look around and see how badly this world is hurting, you’re like, willing to do anything to help.” The protester gestured towards the road packed with cars.
“That’s totally how I feel too, but I can’t help thinking that hamburgers aren’t the worst of society’s ills. Isn’t there something more urgent to help with?”
The protestor leaned forward and opened her flier for her. “See that boy?” he said, pointing to a picture of a very obese kid about ten years old. “We had his mom’s permission to use his image and story. Dead at eleven years old. Heart attack. How much more serious does it get?”
Jane frowned. “Did this kid ever eat at a Roly Burger?” she looked up at the protester. He had tears in his eyes. “And wasn’t it his mom’s job to make sure he ate well?”
“She was ignorant. She didn’t know. That’s what we’re here for, you know? People need to know before they enter the restaurant. How can they be expected to make great choices if they don’t know?”
“Have you ever met Rose of Sharon? I see her on TV all the time. She’s super passionate, isn’t she?”
The protestor’s face lit up. “She’s a-maaa-zing. Really amazing. She has given her whole life for this cause. Do you know how many times she’s been arrested? Amazing.”
“Wow. She’s been arrested for her protests, huh? I bet she’s really angry at the people who own places like this.” Jane attempted to keep a nonchalant tone of voice, but the word ‘arrest’ had sent shivers up her arms. She was on alert now. She had to get this guy to give up what he knew about Rose of Sharon’s arrests.
The protester leaned in closer. “Very angry, and don’t mess with Rose of Sharon when she’s angry.”
“Does Rose of Sharon ever get violent?” Jane whispered.
“There’s no telling what she is capable of.” The protestor was at her elbow now. He turned, and out of social instinct, Jane turned with him. Two other protesters joined them and walked her back to her car. “Go home, sweetie. Eat organic.”
It wasn’t until Jane was in her seat, revving her engine, that she noticed the news cameras. Was there any chance at all that what the protestor had said had been recorded?
23
Back at Harvest, after having made at least initial contact with several potential vendors, Jane just stared at Isaac. His voice rose and fell as he told the story of a family he had known at a homeless shelter where he had volunteered. His passion for his work was palpable. He leaned forward, listening intently as students asked him questions. As much as Jane secretly wished it, he didn’t stare forlornly at her, fumbling with his pages, searching for words.
As Isaac described a late night meeting with the homeless father, how they had talked about the man’s dashed plans and hopeless dreams for his children, Jane tried to picture Isaac as a professor. Why was he so intent on getting a PhD when what he really loved was helping people? Jane twirled her pen through her fingers. Isaac would be happy on the mission field—it was as obvious as the raw emotion on his face.
He moved on to cold statistics—measurable effects of prayer and faith on a family’s security. Jane pictured him in a cold dark Ural mountain tent, helping an oppressed family find faith. She would be stitching intricate embroidery at the feet of a grandmother, telling generations of women about Jesus. A wave of peace washed over her. She stopped twirling her pen.
The only fly in the ointment was his seminary education. Could she get access to a closed country with a husband who had a M div? But that wasn’t her problem to sort out, was it? God could handle the details.
Isaac closed class early. He walked straight to Jane and sat on the edge of her desk. “Holding up?�
� he asked.
“Yeah.” She tilted her head and smiled up at him.
“You looked like you were barely staying awake tonight.” His smile had a hint of concern.
“I was distracted. There was a terribly handsome man standing at the front of class.” Jane looked down at her fingers and then up again, quickly.
Mina snorted.
Isaac cleared his throat.
“Mr. Daniels, how are we supposed to do your practical application assignment? We live on campus.” Mina’s voice had a whiny, nasal tone.
“I’ve worked that out with Pastor Barnes. He’ll charter a bus and take you all into Portland to work at some of the shelters. It will be much later in the term.”
“Ew.” Mina rolled her eyes.
“Jane….” Isaac cleared his voice again.
“Yeah. Sorry about that. It just came out.” Jane looked at her fingers again. Mina was her best guess as to who had turned them in for inappropriate behavior. There was a good chance Isaac would be called back to the office for another talking to.
“No, not that.” He blushed a little. “I saw the funeral notice in the paper. I just wanted to let you know that my parents are going. I’m going too, so you might meet my family.”
Jane bit her lip. “Oh?”
Isaac lowered his voice. “I wanted you to know in advance. I haven’t said anything, I mean I may have mentioned that I met someone great, but I didn’t tell them who. If you don’t want me to introduce you, I won’t.”
Did she? Didn’t she? She spun the thought around. She swallowed. “I’d love to meet them.” She counted back the days trying to remember how long ago she had met Isaac. Not long enough to be meeting his parents.
“It’s just, they’re neighbors, you know? And friends. They wanted to go. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. You hardly know me.”
Mina’s snickering carried over the low murmur of voices that filled the room.
Jane turned toward the sound. Pastor Barnes stood in the doorway, his black brows pulled together, a deep crease cut between his eyes. He eyes bored into Jane. He caught her eye and nodded toward the door.
Good Clean Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery (The Plain Jane Mysteries Book 1) Page 17
