A Quiche Before Dying jj-3

by Jill Churchill

  Jane hugged her, her eyes brimming with tears. "You haven't called me chickie in ages. I kinda like it.”

  Jane couldn't get to sleep for an hour. In a couple sentences, her mother had wiped out years of hidden resentments. Somehow, the fact that Cecily knew she'd failed, if only in a very small way, eliminated Jane's grudge about it. It shouldn't have been that simple, but it was. Maybe all she'd been waiting for was an apology. Now she found herself wondering whatever had given her the idea that her mother had to be perfect? Yes, Jane and her sister had missed a few things, but they'd had so many wonderful benefits that other children missed. And if her mother had been a little too devoted to her husband, why, maybe that was Jane's problem of perception. If she'd loved Steve as much as her mother loved her father, Jane would still have a husband. Maybe her own less than perfect marriage had colored her views with a little jealousy.

  Her mind kept going over the talk with Katie, too, thinking of a dozen things she could have said better, and finally she came back, inevitably, to her earlier conversation with Shelley about Mrs. Pryce's death.

  She went back over that discussion, too, with no more result than the first time. The artificial deadline she'd formed in her own mind was looming before her. Tomorrow night would be the last class. She wanted desperately to figure it out by then, before everybody scattered and went on to other interests. No doubt Mel was right—patient police work would provide the solution sooner or later. It was the "later" that worried Jane. The more time passed, the more chance there was of someone else coming to harm.

  She finally fell asleep and had nightmares. A long line of trucks was driving up and delivering flowers. Masses of flowers, suffocating tons of flowers. They covered the windows like a colorful avalanche. The weight was making the windowpanes break, and flowers were cascading in. Jane kept trying to sweep them up, but couldn't. The scent of them started to choke her. She tried to hide the children in the little birdcage, certain for some reason that they'd be safe in there.

  She woke up at nine, sweating and distressed. The cats were sitting on the end of the bed, looking at her. Willard was on the floor beside her, snoring. She showered quickly, then checked on her mother and Katie. Both were still sound asleep. Pulling on culottes and one of Mike's T-shirts that had gotten mixed up with her laundry, she went downstairs with the cats wreathing their way between her feet and meowing piteously. She fed them and Willard and started the coffee maker.

  Somehow, these repellent domestic chores were comforting. She wondered if men felt the same way about mowing the lawn. Fat chance. Thinking of men made her think of Mel. And that made her think about what she looked like. What if he dropped byand she looked as if she'd been left out in the rain all night? She ran a comb through her hair, fluffed it up a little—no point in going the whole hot roller route—and put on makeup. She glanced in the mirror when she was through. Not terrific, but not downright scary, either.

  Still no sounds from upstairs. She rummaged in the junk drawer and pulled out her notes that she'd made the night before with Shelley. She went back, suspect by suspect, but had no new insights. At the bottom of the last page, she'd doodled the words "wolf bane." She'd meant to look it up, but more pressing matters had intervened.

  She put away the notes, took down the dictionary from where it sat next to the cookbooks, and hunted. It took her a while to discover it was "wolfsbane." But the dictionary wasn't much help, except to say it was a plant and give its botanical name. Well, at least it was a plant, she thought, not a disease or a hairstyle or something equally useless.

  Putting the dictionary back, she took down a fat, battered garden encyclopedia she'd found at a garage sale a couple months earlier. Under Wolfsbane she found, "A popular name for Aconitum lycoctonum. See Monkshood.”

  She put the heavy book down on the counter, bending a few pages at the corners as she turned back to the M section. A bell was tinkling at the back of her mind, and she suddenly felt rushed. There ... "Monkshood—a common name for genus Aconitum, tall perennial herbs grown for showy blue flower spikes. All parts of plant are highly poisonous. Not to be grown near vegetables or in a garden where children might play. See Plate 17.”

  Jane found Plate 17 and looked at it for a very long time. She held her breath as she turned slowly and looked at the flower arrangement on the kitchen table. She took the book over, set it down next to the arrangement, and studied them both again.

  “My God," she whispered.

  Picking up the flower arrangement as if it could go off like a bomb any second, she carried it to the guest bathroom off the kitchen, set it on the floor, and closed and locked the door. She sat back down at the kitchen table, her mind racing erratically.

  Aconite.

  She remembered the name vaguely from her days of working in Steve's family pharmacy. Locked up. Warning labels. Could be handled only by the chief pharmacist. Old-fashioned skull-and-crossbones label.

  Jane reached for the phone book, looked up the number of the florist shop. She thought nobody was going to answer, then on the seventh ring, a whiny teenaged boy answered. She could practically hear the pimples. Jane gave her name and address. "I need to know about the flowers you delivered here yesterday."

  “Why? Was there something wrong with them, lady?"

  “No. Just look up the delivery record. Please. It's very important."

  “Okay," the boy said in surly voice. "What's the address again?”

  She told him, then waited a terribly long time. He finally came back. "Naw, lady, we didn't bring nothing to you yesterday."

  “What about the addresses on either side of me? Maybe it came to the wrong house?"

  “Naw, nothing there either," he said after another interminable wait.

  “Are you positive about this?"

  “Sure, lady. Whatsamatter?"

  “Nothing. Thank you.”

  It was the answer she expected—and feared.

  She could hear a shower running upstairs. Think, Jane. You've almost got it. She paced back and forth, pieces falling into place in her mind with sickening thuds. She searched frantically for a copy of Mrs. Pryce's autobiography. One day the house is littered with the damned books, and when you need it, there's not one anyplace, she fumed to herself. She finally found her mother's copy and thumbed through. She found the page she was looking for and read it over twice, then dog-eared the corner and closed the book.

  Yes, it all fit. The flowers, the birdcage, the book. She'd been right. Her instinct had told her they were important, and now she knew why. And it seemed so obvious now that she couldn't imagine why she hadn't seen it immediately.

  But why? Why? She went down to her office in the basement, where she could phone without being disturbed or overheard. She dialed the police station. "Is Mel VanDyne in, please? It's important."

  “He was here a while ago. Think he left. I'll see. Hold on.”

  She could hear the clack of typewriters and the murmur of voices. There was a high-pitched laugh closer to the phone. "Come on, Mel. Be there," she said to herself. Her heart was beating at twice the rate it should be, and she felt breathless from running down the stairs.

  “Yes?"

  “Mel. It's Jane. Thank goodness I caught you." "Jane, what's wrong? Are you hurt? I'll be right—"

  “No. No, just listen. I know who killed her. It all fits, but there's no proof whatsoever. But I think you can get the proof."

  “Who, Jane? Who are you talking about?"

  “I'm afraid to say, for fear I'm wrong. But I know I'm not. No, what I'm most afraid of is that I'm right. Still—I'm sorry, I'm babbling. Give me a second." She covered the mouthpiece and took a long breath. "All right. Just listen. There are some things you have to do. Some information you have to get. If I'm right, that information will tell you all you need to know. First, call Evergreen Memories, that's a florist shop, and find out which of the suspects has been sent flowers recently. The paper was saved and wrapped around the flowers that were left on m
y porch.

  “Next, tell the pathologist to test for aconite. If I'm right, that's what killed her.

  “Third, you need to get some birth and death certificates from the State Department."

  “Hold it, Jane. Birth and death certificates are registered with individual states' vital statistics departments, not the State Department."

  “Not if you're an American who's born or dies outside the country. I know, because that's where I have to get copies of mine."

  “What name?"

  “You'll have to ask Maria Espinoza that. Do you have a copy of Mrs. Pryce's autobiography?" "Someplace. The teacher gave us one."

  “Good. Find it. Look on page one twenty-eight. Question the maid about that page. Get names. Getthe birth and death certificates from the State Department. Mel, my daughter's yelling for me. It think there's somebody at the door. I have to go—"

  “But, Jane—”

  She hung up.

  “Mom, are you down there? Mrs. Nowack's here," Katie yelled down the steps.

  “Be right up.”

  When she came back up the steps, Shelley and her mother were sitting at the kitchen table. "Jane, dear! What's wrong?" Cecily asked, getting up and putting her hand on Jane's forehead. "You're as white as a sheet."

  “Where's Katie?" Jane asked quietly.

  “Upstairs. Heading for the shower. What's wrong?"

  “I'm going to tell you what I've done. I'm sure I'm right, but I hope desperately that I'm wrong. I know who killed Mrs. Pryce.”

  Shelley had paled slightly, but her voice was strong. "Do I guess from your expression that it's not Bob Neufield?"

  “Oh, I feel like shit about this! Sorry, Mom." "I've heard the word before, chickie. Sit down and tell us about it.”

  Jane opened Mrs. Pryce's book. "Read page one twenty-eight and think about the little birdcage. Oh, and don't anybody try to get in the guest bathroom. I've locked the flowers in there."

  “I'm sure this is going to make some kind of sense," Shelley said, looking at Jane as if she'd snapped her last twig.

  “The blue flowers are monkshood. Very poisonous."

  “Poisonous!" Shelley yelped.

  Cecily was reading the page Jane had directed her to. She looked up slowly and passed the book to Shelley. "Yes, yes. I think maybe I see what you mean. But who ...?”

  20

  Jane didn't expect to hear back from Mel during the morning. She knew he'd be too busy to call her. By noon, however, she was getting fretful. Her concerns about the murder, however, had to be put aside when, right on schedule at one o'clock, Thelma Jeffry's battleship gray Lincoln cruised into the drive. Jane hurried out to greet her youngest son—and of unfortunate necessity, her mother-in-law.

  She took one look at Todd as he tumbled out of the car and gasped. "Todd! You must have gained ten pounds!”

  He hugged her hard. "Yeah, Gramma let me eat anything I want. It was great, Mom-old-thing."

  “Sure she did," Jane said through a forced smile. Thelma Jeffry, an angular, hard-edged woman, believed the way to any man's heart was to turn him into Porky Pig. "Thelma, you look like you've survived the ordeal," Jane said, coming around the car and helping her out.

  “Oh, naturally. Children are quite pleasant to travel with if you've got your own wits together," Thelma purred. The implication was clear: Jane had no wits to speak of and certainly never had them together. But Jane was glad to see that there were lines of fatigue around Thelma's eves, and she looked awfully pale for a woman who'd just spent a week in Florida. "Cecily, how nice to see you," Thelma said.

  Jane's mother had come out onto the porch. Todd ran and practically tackled her. Thelma watched this reunion with a cold eye.

  Todd treated them to a solid hour of excited chatter about his trip, while Thelma sat stolidly listening. It was clear she was loathe to abandon him to his mother, much less his other grandmother, but was exhausted and longing to go home. She finally gave up the fight and left.

  “Mom's leaving Monday. Do come to a big Sunday dinner, will you?" Jane asked Thelma as she tottered out to her car.

  “That would be nice, dear. I do always enjoy hearing your mother talk about her . . . 'globe-trotting' life." She made it sound as if Cecily moved from campground to campground in a rusted-out pickup truck with a canvas tent in the back.

  Todd met Jane as she went back in. "Mom, do you think Nana would mind if I went over to Elliot's? I got a lot of stuff to show him."

  “I'm sure Nana would understand. Ask her yourself, though.”

  A few minutes later, Jane and her mother were watching the driveway again. "Mike's due in about fifteen minutes. I'll be glad to have him back. Mom, I'm going to miss him horribly when he goes away to college. I depend on him so much."

  “He's come through losing his father with flying colors, hasn't he?" Cecily said.

  Jane nodded. "But it's not just the things he does. Mowing the lawn, carrying heavy things, fixing the dishwasher, all that male stuff. More important, he likes me. He and Todd both do. They think I'm a neatperson who's worth talking to occasionally. But Katie—"

  “It's just her age and hormones. One day she'll be a lovely young woman and she'll be your best friend. Like you're mine . .”

  Jane felt tears coming to her eyes. "Life would be awful without a mother," she said, just as a bright red Jeep turned in to the driveway. "There's Mike!”

  This time she waited inside. Mike wouldn't appreciate his mother flying out the door and folding him in an embrace in front of his friend Scott.

  He came in the door—tall, young, healthy, Jane's true pride and joy. Jane got teary again. She'd be holding up better, she knew, if it weren't for waiting for Mel to call and confirm her suspicions. She wasn't normally a weeper.

  Mike had a packet of information from each college they'd visited. As he pulled out each one, Jane had to stop herself from crying, "Don't go so far away, please." She couldn't ever say that to him, least of all today when he was on the brink of going away and growing up entirely. He was so excited about leaving home.

  When Todd came home, he took his grandmother upstairs to show her his hamsters (as if she hasn't been smelling the damned things for days, Jane thought). Jane got up to fix herself and Mike a soft drink while Mike stretched his long legs under the table. "Mom, I had a great time seeing those places."

  “I'm glad, honey. How are you going to decide on which one to go to?"

  “Well, I think maybe I've decided already." "Oh? You've got a whole year to think about it." "I think I'll just start out right here at the junior college."

  “Mike! Why? You aren't worried about the money, are you? I told you I can come up with—"

  “No, Mom. It's not the money. It's you. I think you need me here.”

  Don't cry! Jane told herself. She set his drink down and took his big hands in hers. "Mikey, I do need you. But I don't want you to stay here because of me. I'll muddle along. Maybe when I'm eighty and getting around with a walker, I'll ask you to take care of me, but not until then."

  “You sure?"

  “Absolutely certain," she said with a lot more sincerity in her tone than she felt.

  Uncle Jim Spelling called at four, barking as she picked up the phone, "Jane! I've just caught up on the papers. I didn't know about Mrs. Pryce. You stay out of this, you hear me!”

  She considered explaining, but didn't have the heart or the energy. "I will, Uncle Jim. You're coming to dinner Sunday, aren't you?"

  “Will the Dragon Lady be there?"

  “ 'Fraid so."

  “Good. I haven't had a chance to rile her up for a long time. I'll be there. Jane, you do like I tell you. You and Cecily stay clear of that class business until the police sort this out. Are you listening to me? I mean it!”

  By five-thirty, when she was starting dinner, Jane was a wreck. When the phone rang, she leaped for it, even though the last six calls had been Mike's friends welcoming him home.

  “Jane?" Mel's voice.
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  “Yes?"

  “I think you're right. I'm sorry.”

  Jane slid down the cabinet and sat on the floor. "Oh, so am I. When will you ...?"

  “As soon as I'm sure."

  “Mel, please don't tell anyone that I figured it out."

  “I won't. I've got to go. I just wanted to tell you.”

  Mel hung up, but Jane couldn't move. Cecily found her still sitting on the floor. "Was that Mel? Were you right?"

  “Yes. And I've never been sorrier about anything.”

  Missy, of course, knew nothing of what was going on behind the scenes and began the class with brisk enthusiasm. "I regret that I didn't schedule this as a two-week course. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I race along and try to cover as much material as I can as quickly as possible. We're going to save the last hour of class tonight for critiquing the manuscripts I handed out to you before the class sessions started. Now, I want to talk briefly about the value and use of photos, documents, and letters in an autobiography—”

  For once, Jane didn't find herself automatically applying the information to her book—yes, it was becoming a book—about Priscilla. But she took notes assiduously, so that she wouldn't be tempted to look around at the class members. She was afraid of meeting the murderer's eyes. She knew if that happened, her own shame would flash like a neon light.

  The first interminable hour passed and they took a short break, then reassembled. The tension was so thick that Jane wondered how anyone could breathe. But the others didn't seem to notice it. Or did they? Bob Neufield was staring at her, which made her skin crawl. When she met his gaze, his didn't falter. She looked away first. Grady was nervously tapping his pencil on the arms on his chair. Desiree was sitting at the back of the room, away from everyone else, and frowning at the blackboard as if there were something written there so faintly, she could hardly make it out. Naomi was struggling with the zipper on her purse as if closing it were of enormous importance, and Ruth was trying to help her, making little nervous, darting motions with her hands. Jane noticed that Cecily was humming under her breath, something she only did when she was very nervous, and even Shelley looked frightened.