A Knife to Remember jj-5

by Jill Churchill

  A tense silence fell over the group. Only Lynette Harwell seemed immune. She was still eating; slowly, delicately, relentlessly finishing everything on her plate. Perhaps this was why Olive Longabach insisted on serving her, Jane speculated. Knowing Lynette's appetite and her need to stay slim, Olive probably chose precisely the number of calories Lynette could afford to eat.

  Jane was still seething with anger at Cavagnari's rudeness, but she had come out of the scene with the tape and was feeling an odd hostessy urge to make conversation. After all, they were all eating in her backyard, even if she hadn't invited them. "I understand you're originally from Chicago, Miss Harwell," she said.

  “Oh, hundreds and hundreds of years ago," Lynette said with a coy laugh, which was presumably meant to cue somebody to say that it couldn't have been so long ago.

  Nobody did.

  “From this part of town?" Mike asked.

  Cavagnari fell to eating his lunch, having ignored it while telling his endless story. Jake was studying a script with notes in the margins. George was making conversation with two people at the far end of the table who Jane hadn't even noticed were there until now.

  “No, we lived much closer in," Lynette said. "I was in my last year of high school and didn't know a soul. It was very lonely for me." This with an attractive little moue of sadness. "But I kept myself very busy. I did some modeling and community theater. And I studied privately with a very great old actress who had retired to the area and took only a select few students who she knew had great potential. Isn't that right, Olive?”

  Olive, still on guard behind Lynette, merely nodded.

  Lynette smiled at Olive. "Poor darling Olive would find me up fearfully late at night, going over and over my lines. Making sure I had it perfectly right. And she'd have to absolutely force me to sleep.”

  Olive finally softened. "You always did work too hard."

  “But it was worth it, wasn't it, darling Olive.”

  To whom? Jane wondered. To Lynette surely, but to Olive? All that Olive had gotten out of it was a hard life on film sets and locations. Sleeping in strange hotels, having no life of her own, waiting hand and foot on a spoiled, aging seductress?

  “Mom," Mike said suddenly. "I wonder if maybe I ought to take a few acting lessons. Just to see if—"

  “Oh, my dear! You must! You might be terribly, terribly talented," Lynette gushed, putting her hand over his. "You certainly have the looks for screen work. In fact, you remind me of a great love of my life! I met him just before I left Chicago. He was such a handsome man and I adored him, but he was married. Such a tragedy! I always thought he should have thrown away his dreary little wife and his dreary little job and joined the great pageant of the acting profession. I was always saying to him, `Steve, you're wasted here—' "

  “Steve?" Mike repeated.

  Jane's heart was in her throat as she leaped up. "I think somebody's calling you to the set, Miss Harwell."

  “Steve who?" Mike asked, his voice husky. "The only person I look like is my dad.”

  Jane was already around the table, pulling on Mike's arm. "Honey, I need your help inside with some—"

  “Steve Jeffry was his name. My, he was a good-looking man, and so romantic," Lynette went on, oblivious to Jane's attempts to shut her up.

  Mike had stood, but he shook off Jane's hand and looked down at Lynette. "Are you saying you had an… an affair with Steve Jeffry?”

  Lynette looked up, finally realizing something was wrong. "Yes. Why do you ask?”

  Mike looked at Jane and said very quietly, "Because he was my father.”

  He turned and strode toward the house, pausing only to give a vicious kick to the barbecue grill.

  “Oh, dear… perhaps I shouldn't have said…" Lynette was saying as Jane ran after Mike.

  8

  Mike was already in his room, slamming things around when Jane caught up with him. At her knock, he came out and barged past her, red-eyed and white-faced with anger.

  “You knew!" he shouted, galloping down the stairs.

  “No, Mike. I didn't know.”

  He stopped at the bottom and looked back up at her. "Yes, you did! You were trying to stop her. You knew what was coming!"

  “I didn't know. I suspected. But not until it was too late."

  “You knew! And you let me make an ass of myself, following her around, doing her errands, thinking she was—"

  “Mike! What are you saying? I wouldn't do a thing like that to you."

  “I'm going out!"

  “Mike, I'm sorry…”

  But she was talking to herself. The front door had slammed so hard she feared for the hinges.

  She went to her bedroom and sat down on the bed. Of course Mike was furious at his father'sbetrayal. She'd felt the same way when she discovered that Steve Jeffry had been a philanderer. She'd felt anger, grief, humiliation, and a lot of other ugly emotions that didn't even have names. And she'd worked hard at hiding it from the children, knowing they would be devastated. Since Steve wasn't around to take the brunt of Mike's anger, it had come down on her. It wasn't reasonable, but it was understandable.

  Jane felt chilled through and vaguely "dirty." She was still shaking and trembling and decided maybe a hot shower might help her calm down. As she headed for the bathroom, the videotape, which she'd stuffed into the front of her sweatshirt, fell out and hit the floor. She looked down at it with distaste. She'd meant to keep it as a memento of a remarkable luncheon, but she knew she could never watch it without remembering what had followed the taping. She kicked it under the bed. She didn't even want to touch it now. When she felt better, she'd pull it back out and destroy it.

  There was a furtive tap on the door of the bedroom an hour later. Jane had stood under the hot shower until the water had started to run cold and her skin looked like a sunburned raisin. Then she'd dried her hair and put on fresh jeans and a clean white blouse. At least she was cleaner, if not exactly calmer.

  She opened the door.

  Mike slouched in. "I'm sorry, Mom. I acted like an asshole."

  “It's okay. You're entitled."

  “No, I'm not. It must have been just as awful for you as it was for me. I just wasn't thinking." Jane hugged him long and hard.

  When he finally let go of her, he said, "What did you mean about suspecting that was what she was going to say?”

  Jane sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the spot beside her. "Sit down, Mike. I didn't want any of you children to ever know this, but I think I've got to tell you now. That night when your father was killed in the car wreck — he wasn't going on a business trip like I told everybody. He was leaving me — leaving us. For another woman."

  “Jesus, Mom! You knew that? And you never told us?"

  “Why should I have? Look at how angry and hurt you are about it now. I never wanted you kids to feel as awful as I did. I didn't know until today that there had been others, although I'd figured that there probably had been."

  “Oh, God! What a jerk! And I thought he was a neat guy! I mean, he was my dad!"

  “He was a neat guy, Mike. In a great many ways. I just wanted you to remember all the good stuff and not know about the bad. What good does it do you, knowing? None. It's just a truth that you'll eventually get used to. Believe me, as horrible as you feel this minute, it will fade. You won't stay mad forever. I know you can't imagine that right now, but—"

  “I dunno. You've stayed pretty mad yourself."

  “Why do you say that?"

  “Well, I mean — the mess you made of the kitchen—"

  “Kitchen?" Jane shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about.”

  Mike stared at her for a long moment. "You, uh — you didn't kick things around the kitchen after I left?”

  Jane stood suddenly. "I didn't go back downstairs," she said very quietly. "What are you talking about?”

  She ran down the steps with Mike close behind her. The kitchen was a wreck. Cabinet doors were flung ope
n, drawers were pulled out and gaping. Silverware was strewn around the floor; several broken dishes were in shards. And somebody had upended the wastebasket, which had been in dire need of emptying, in the middle of the room and scattered the trash — gum wrappers, the contents of an ashtray, the husks of the corn on the cob from last night, discarded rice mix packages, everything was everywhere! Max or Meow had walked through some spilled flour and tracked it into the living room.

  “You didn't do this?" Mike asked.

  “Are you crazy? I'm the one who cleans the kitchen! Would I do this to it?”

  Mike reached for the phone. "Mom, go stand outside in the driveway. I'm calling the police. Somebody's been in the house and might still be here someplace.”

  Jane started to tell him he must go outside and she would remain behind to do the calling, but recognized immediately that Mike needed to be in charge right now and was obviously more capable than she at the moment. It hadn't even crossed her mind that the maniac who did this might still be close by.

  She waited for Mike in the driveway for what seemed like hours, but was only a minute or two, then the two of them went and sat together on the curb until two patrol cars arrived. Jane was first furious, then frightened, then furious again. It was going to take her forever to clean up the mess — and longer still to get over the sheer "violation" of it.

  “There's a prowler in your house, ma'am?" the first officer to emerge from his car asked.

  “We don't know," Mike answered.

  Both officers went inside, hands on their holsters.

  While Jane and Mike waited, a red MG came tearing down the street and lurched to a stop. Mel Van Dyne leaped out. "Jane! Mike! Are you all right? I heard the call at the station. What's going on?" His usual cool sophistication, while not missing, was distinctly frayed around the edges.

  “Somebody wrecked my kitchen. Probably a good cook, furious at the outrages I perpetrate there." She laughed nervously. There was the beginning of a sob somewhere in the laugh. "Two officers are inside now."

  “What about the rest of the house?" Mel asked, putting a hand on her arm as if to physically keep her from flying off.

  “We didn't stick around to look," Mike replied.A KNIFE TO REMEMBER 63

  “Good thinking, Mike. Not many people have the sense to think of that in a crisis.”

  One of the officers came out. "Charlie's double-checking, but it seems to be empty."

  “So when did this happen?" Mel asked.

  Jane took a deep breath. "Mike and I came in by the back door about an hour ago. I didn't lock the back door—"

  “Jane, I've warned you—" Mel began. His hand tightened on her arm.

  “I was upset! I forgot!" she was nearly shouting. She took a deep breath. "Sorry. Anyway, Mike went back out the front door and I went upstairs and took a long shower, then dried my hair. I couldn't have heard anything going on downstairs. Mike came back about five or ten minutes ago and discovered the kitchen had been ransacked.”

  The other officer came outside. "It's clean, Mel."

  “Clean? Hardly clean," Jane said, then wished she hadn't spoken. She was sounding a tad hysterical.

  “I'll carry on from here. Thanks," Mel told them.

  When they'd left, Mel escorted Jane and Mike back into the house through the kitchen door. "Jeez, what a mess!"

  “It's mainly the wastebasket trash, I think," Jane said, getting the broom and dustpan from the closet.

  “No, hold up on that," Mel said. "Is there anything missing?"

  “Mel, how would I know? And what would anybody want to steal from a kitchen, for heaven's sake?"

  “You don't keep valuables in here, do you?"

  “Not unless you count the antique meat loaf in the fridge. I'm thinking about donating it to the Smithsonian."

  “Very funny, Jane," Mel said sourly. "Who have you offended lately who'd want to vandalize your house?"

  “Only my mother-in-law. And don't dare ask!" "Mike, you didn't see anybody leaving the house when you came in, did you?"

  “No, but I came in the front. If they went out the back, I wouldn't have seen them anyway."

  “I guess I'm going to have to ask that mob in your backyard then," Mel said, sighing.

  “Backyard! Willard! I forgot to bring him in!" Jane said.

  “I'll go get him," Mike volunteered.

  When the back door closed behind him, Mel put his hands on her shoulders. "What's really going on here, Janey?”

  He'd taken to calling her Janey in private since she accepted his invitation for a weekend together in New York and from him, she liked it. She let herself lean into an embrace. "Oh, Mel. It's a mess and I can't start explaining right now because Mike will be back in a minute. But I've got a problem and I don't know if I ought to leave home this weekend. Actually, it's Mike's problem now and I have to see if he's worked it out before I can decide."

  “Are you saying Mike may have made this mess?"

  “Oh, no! Not at all. This has nothing to do with the kitchen."

  “Okay, Janey. We'll talk about it whenever you want. In the meantime, please keep your doors locked all the time. With all those people roaming around back there, you've seen how easy it is for somebody to slip in here. I'll go out and talk to their security people in a minute and tell them to keep a special eye on your house.”

  There was a commotion at the back door and Willard came shooting in and headed for the basement door. Jane opened it and he hurtled down the steps to safety. Mike came in, followed by Maisie, who was holding onto Butch Kowalski's arm. She was keeping his hand in the air and had a towel wrapped around it.

  “What's happened?" Jane asked. Butch looked as white as death.

  “Jane, I'm sorry to barge in on you this — what on earth?" She looked around the kitchen. "Long story," Jane said.

  Maisie nodded. "Okay. Butch cut his hand and I need to wash off the blood and see if it's serious or not.”

  Jane grabbed the broom again and made a quick, brutal swipe through the center of the room to the sink. As Maisie eased away the towel and started carefully running warm water over Butch's hand, Jane got the clean rag bag off the back of the basement door and handed Maisie a wad of cloth.

  Butch was wavering, looking as though he might faint any moment, and Mel went around to stand by to catch him if he did. Finally, Maisie said, "All right, Butch my boy. It's not half as bad as I was afraid. No real damage. Just a lot of blood.

  I'm going to wrap this for a few minutes until the bleeding stops, then I think I can fix you up fine with a few butterfly bandages. I don't think you even need stitches."

  “Thanks," Butch said weakly.

  “Come sit down here," Mel said, leading him to the kitchen table.

  “Thanks. Who are you?" Butch asked. He sounded woozy.

  “Mel Van Dyne. Friend of Mrs. Jeffry. Now sit down.”

  Maisie left to get her first aid kit and Mike helped Jane get the rest of the trash back into the wastebasket and close up the drawers and cabinets. Mel sat at the table, keeping a close eye on Butch.

  Maisie came back with her kit. "You don't have a cold pack of some kind, do you, Jane?"

  “Yes, in the basement freezer. Mike, would you—”

  Butch suddenly came alive. "God! I'm supposed to be helping Jake with something! Could somebody find him and tell him where I am?"

  “Who's Jake?" Mel asked.

  “He's the property master. I work for him and he's gonna be mad as hell that I'm missing without telling him why!" Butch sounded ready to cry.

  “Jane, open that kit, would you?" Maisie asked. "I'll find him for you," Mel said. "What's his name again?"

  “Jake Elder. He'll be in the props truck, two houses up the street," Butch said.

  With Jane's help, Maisie got Butch's bleeding stopped. He had a nasty gash on his palm, but Maisie disinfected and dried the area thoroughly and "sutured" it with a tidy line of butterfly bandages. "How did you do this?" she asked him.

>   “I'm not sure. Jake sent me ahead to get the firewood stuff together and I was hurrying. I started to run up the metal steps to the truck and my foot slipped. I reached out and grabbed something to catch myself and came away with this. There musta been something ragged on the handrail of the steps."

  “I'm going to splint your wrist, just so you don't accidentally move your hand around and pull those bandages loose," Maisie said.

  Maisie was just finishing this when Mel came back inside. "This Jake. . he's got long hair? Dark red? Wearing a blue shirt?" he said briskly to Butch.

  “Uh-huh. That's him.”

  Mel reached for Jane's phone, dialed, and, while waiting for an answer, said, "I'm sorry to tell you, he's dead.”

  There was a collective gasp from Maisie, Butch, and Jane.

  “Murdered," Mel added.

  9

  “I go away to do my library volunteer stint for three hours and when I come back all hell has broken loose!" Shelley exclaimed.

  “And you don't yet know the half of it," Jane said.

  They were sitting at Jane's back window again, but this time the activity outside was different. The property truck, just barely visible from their perspective two doors up the street, had been roped off with yellow plastic ribbon and police cars mingled with the movie vehicles. But, remarkably, the movie set was still busy. A scene was being filmed at the farthest end of the area from the police business.

  A uniformed police officer and a police secretary had taken over Jane's hastily tidied kitchen and were questioning people one by one on their movements for the afternoon. Shelley and Jane had eavesdropped for a while, but the questions and answers were exceedingly dull routine ones and Jane assumed Mel was questioning the "important" players, because the officer in the kitchen was working his way through the listof extras and the most minor of the technical workers, getting names, addresses, accounts of movements. As almost nobody had paid attention to the time, he must have been getting frustrated. But he kept patiently plodding through his list.

  “I assume you told Mel about overhearing the blackmailing conversation," Shelley said. "What did he say about that?"