Silence of the Hams jj-7

by Jill Churchill

  Jane felt leaden. "Emma's bedroom? Why did she have it?" she asked finally.

  “I think she intended to talk to you about it. At your four o'clock appointment.”

  Mel looked at her for a long moment. "I think she considered you blackmailable."

  “Me? But why? Because I made a few cranky cracks about my mother-in-law? Or because that jerk thought the Jeffry family was cheating on their taxes? Fraud! The nerve of him. It was just a fight over allowable deductions, which the company won eventually. There was no question of fraud."

  “She didn't know that. And wouldn't have until she spoke to you about it. When she approached you after the graduation ceremony, she didn't mention your husband or his family, did she?"

  “No, of course not. She just summoned me.”

  “You're positive of that?”

  Jane bridled. "I told you so. Before she died, in fact.”

  He took her hand. "I'm sorry, Janey. I warned you this was official."

  “Are you saying I'm a suspect in her death, Detective VanDyne?" she snapped, pulling her hand away.

  “No, I'm saying you're not. You see, this was in a folder. Like this one," he added, taking a brand-new file folder out of the briefcase. It was a hanging-type file, with two light metal bars. "This handwritten sheet was in a blue one. The only fingerprints on it were Stonecipher's and Weyrich's. Not yours."

  “But this folder was by itself and the police think she was trying to blackmail me with the contents? If she had talked to me about the contents, I wouldn't have necessarily even seen the thing, much less touched it," she said grimly.

  He nodded and said, "Right, but look at the file folder. See where there is a row across the top of these prepunched vertical slots that you pop out to insert a label?" He demonstrated, pushing his thumb against one of the dozen or so spots. A little lozenge of the blue card-stock fell out.

  “Yes. So?"

  “So when my people combed the apartment, they found a yellow piece like this in the sofa cushions and a red one stuck up against the leg of the coffee table. Watch—" He gave the top of the folder a slight twist and another little blue lozenge fell out into his lap.

  “Oh—" Jane said, the light dawning. "Other folders."

  “Right. Other folders that weren't in the apartment when we searched it. I'm just speculating here, but I think the scenario was this: She brought certain folders home from the office — these were in a separate file drawer in Stonecipher's desk, by the way, not with the official filing system. She probably had them in her bedroom and brought them out to the living room one at a time."

  “Are you saying she had a whole list of people she'd ordered to come over?"

  “Not saying," he said firmly. "Speculating. There's a world of difference. But there apparently are at least two others who might have been in the apartment. The ones with the red folder and the yellow folder."

  “But the folders were no longer in her apartment? Or did you find them?"

  “Nope. Gone. Possibly scooped up and taken by the person who killed her."

  “So the fact that the folder about me was still there—"

  “Pretty much lets you off the hook. At least as far as I'm concerned," Mel replied.

  Jane thought for a minute. "So there was a whole file drawer of these in Stonecipher's office?”

  Mel looked grim. "Afraid so. In a locked drawer in his desk. Emma had the key in her purse."

  “Do you mean in addition to being a full-fledged bastard, the guy was a blackmailer, too?" Jane asked angrily.

  “Now, now. Calm down. Let's say he was a potential blackmailer. The drawer full of files might have just been a hedge against inflation. He never approached you after your one visit, did he?"

  “Good Lord, no! In fact, he never acted like he even remembered who I was. But then, all he had on me was something mildly embarrassing. What other kinds of things were left behind in the file drawer? I don't mean specifics—"

  “Mostly fairly innocuous stuff," Mel said. "But there were a few pretty hot items."

  “Then why were they still in the file drawer?" Jane asked. "That doesn't make sense. Why would Emma pull out something silly and trivial about me and leave something juicy in the file?"

  “Because the 'juicy' stuff, as you put it, was about people who aren't around anymore. At least the ones we've been able to check so far. They've moved away or died or — in one case — already gone to jail for the transgression mentioned in the file."

  “Mel, I'm not following this. You apparently have some theory. I hate to be stupid, but—"

  “No, it's not you. I'm being deliberately vague, wondering if you'd leap to the same conclusion I did. Which is something I shouldn't be doing — forming theories without enough facts. You see, it has to do with what's not in the file drawer. When I interviewed everybody I could find who attended the deli opening, I turned up several people who had dealings with Stonecipher at one time or another. Like the Dohertys just as an example — the people who got the nasty divorce and then got back together and didn't have any moneyleft because Stonecipher had cleaned them out."

  “And there wasn't a file for them?" Jane asked. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything except that he didn't know anything nasty about them.”

  Mel cocked an eyebrow. "After representing an angry wife in a prolonged, ugly divorce suit, he had nothing to the husband's disadvantage?"

  “Hmm. I see what you mean. LeAnne probably said some pretty nasty things about Charles. And true or not, he probably kept a record since he was given to doing that sort of thing.”

  Mel put the folder back in the briefcase. "That's what I thought, too. So I got out my list of interviews from the deli opening, pulled out those names of people who admitted to having consulted Stonecipher. I checked those names against the private files and found practically none of them. Now, as you said, that could mean he just didn't have anything on them. Or—"

  “—or it could mean those were the other files Emma pulled out," Jane finished.

  Mel shut the briefcase and leaned back, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. "And it's all a theory. With nothing to back it up. In fact, the whole theory's based on what's not there. The dog that didn't bark.”

  They sat in silence for a long time and Mel finally opened his door. "Want to walk?"

  “Think it will make my brain work?" Jane said with a smile.

  “Your mind doesn't have to work on this. Mine does. I only told you this because it involved you in a way.”

  He came around and helped her out. After locking the car, he took her hand and started strolling toward the swing set at the far end of the park.

  “How do you suppose Emma knew about the private files?" Jane asked as they walked.

  “She contributed," Mel replied. "They were two of a kind, her and her sleazy boss. She was his paralegal, did some initial interviews and such. Some of the notes are in her handwriting."

  “Because she thought someday he'd dump his wife, marry her, and the two of them would settle down to a nice little blackmailing racket in their golden years," Jane said, disgusted.

  “Maybe. We'll never know. They're both dead."

  “Good!" Jane said. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that, but it sure doesn't sound like either of them will be missed. But couldn't he have already been using the material he'd accumulated?"

  “Could be."

  “Which might explain why some people didn't fight him on his various 'causes.' He might have used what he knew to make people knuckle under instead of trying to get money from them," Jane mused.

  “That's possible," Mel said. "We'll have experts go over all his books with a fine-tooth comb to see if there's any extra money unaccounted for, but it will take a while.”

  Jane sat down on a swing and Mel went around behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders and pushing her gently.

  “You know," Jane said, "I can see him doing that — making people go along with his nutty causes b
y reminding them of their sins — and feeling very noble about it," Jane said. "He was a ends-justify-the-means kind of person. He wouldn't have cared, I imagine, how many people he made miserable so long as he got his damned bicycle lane or fat content on menus.”

  Mel just rubbed her shoulders and said, "Mmm."

  “Do you think that's why somebody pushed the rack over on him? Just because they were so damned glad to find him dead and a bunch of old anger boiled up?"

  “I've wandered too far from facts and into theory already," Mel said. "And I need to get back to work on the facts. Ready to go home?"

  “I guess so," Jane said. "I'd rather stay here and swing though."

  “So would I," he said, bending to plant a light kiss on her bare shoulder. "But duty calls.”

  When they got to Jane's house, Mel said, "Don't talk to anyone about all this.”

  “Shelley—?"

  “Oh, she could probably read your mind anyway, but don't talk to anybody else and for God's sake, don't try to help by snooping."

  “Okay. I wish I could read my own mind," Jane said as he helped her out of the car. She'd plucked one of the little blue lozenges of paper off her skirt and was staring at it.13 Shelley must have seen her come home because the phone started ringing the minute Jane opened the kitchen door. "You looked smashing!" Shelley said. "Bet Mel was knocked out."

  “Huh? Oh, the dress. Yes."

  “So, what did he say? Not about the dress. About Emma."

  “Tons. Bizarre stuff. And I even have permission to tell you. But I have to get to the grocery store before the kids and animals start gnawing on the furniture."

  “Hang up the dress first."

  “Yes, Mother!" Jane said, laughing.

  Jane was back in an hour, the station wagon practically dragging from the weight of the groceries. Shelley met her in the driveway and carried in a bag of ice. Jane grabbed a bag and bellowed for the kids to carry in the rest. Only Todd showed up. "He must be the hungriest," Jane muttered.

  Shelley helped put things away as they came in. "My God! I hope you had lots of coupons along. What did you do, buy one of everything in the store?"

  “Nearly. I'm determined not to go back for at least two weeks, except for bread or milk. Leave all the meats on the corner of the counter until I figure out which I want to cook first and I'll put the rest in the basement freezer."

  “Eight packages of Jell-O? Have you lost your mind?"

  “Todd could live on it," Jane said, taking a couple nearly empty cereal boxes out of an upper cabinet in order to put new ones in. She dumped all the old cereal into one box, put it back in the cabinet and went to the bottom of the stairs to bellow up, "Mike, come get Willard's food out of the car. The bag's too heavy for Todd to carry."

  “So what did Mel have to say?" Shelley asked as she folded empty grocery bags.

  “A lot, but it's sort of baroque and I have to concentrate to even tell it right. Wait a minute until the kids are out from underfoot.”

  Mike slumped through the kitchen and was back in a minute with a fifty-pound bag of dog food on his shoulder. He made some Tarzan noises as he passed them on his way to the basement.

  When he returned, Shelley said to him, "I want a ride in the truck pretty soon.”

  He snagged a carton of milk Jane was putting away, grabbed a glass, and hitched his chair up to the table. "Tell you what, Mrs. Nowack, why don't you and Mom go somewhere in it this evening? Scott and I are double-dating and have to use his car."

  “That sounds great. You'd really trust us with it?"

  “Well, I've a rope tied to it to pull you back if you go more than a mile, but yeah," Mike said, grinning.

  Jane finished putting away the food, leaving out bread, jelly, sliced ham, lettuce, mayo, and peanut butter for the kids to fix sandwiches. "No chips?" Katie wailed as she came into the kitchen.

  “Cabinet next to the oven," Jane said. "Have you never noticed where they live?”

  A little later, sitting on the patio with Shelley, she was still grousing. "Of course she doesn't know where I keep anything because she never troubles to put anything away. But I had a shock yesterday. She cleaned up her room. Without being told to."

  “That's scary!" Shelley said. "Maybe you're about to enter a new era. Tell me what Mel said.”

  Jane took a deep breath, reviewed it in her head for a second, and launched into a long monologue full of "he saids" and "I saids." Shelley listened quietly, occasionally saying, "Wait. Wait. Let me think." Then, "Okay, go ahead.”

  When Jane was done, Shelley said, "What a pair they were! Using and either abusing or planning to abuse the client privilege. Do you think they'd already been using the material they had to blackmail people?”

  Jane thought for a minute. "You know, if I had to guess, I'd say not. I think if Stonecipher had been using it, he'd have gotten more cooperation in ramming through his silly rules. He's lost on practically all his causes, hasn't he?"

  “I think so. But that's assuming he'd blackmail people for moral support rather than plain old cash. And he appeared to have lots and lots of money. Those house renovations alone must have run well over $100,000 apart from the decorating. And you saw those Oriental rugs in the living room. I don't think they came from Sears. The real things cost the earth."

  “Even the fake ones are out of my range. Can't you just picture Weyrich and Stonecipher staying late at the office, poring over their nasty little private file cabinet?" Jane shuddered. "That's really creepy."

  “So Mel gave the Dohertys as an example of people who were at the deli opening, had dealt with Stonecipher, and didn't have a file. Did he mention anyone else?"

  “No. I don't think he was suggesting they were high on his list of suspects, though. Just giving an example that I'd recognize because we were the ones who blabbed to him about them."

  “I'd sure like to see his short list," Shelley said.

  “So would I, but if you think I'm going to ask—"

  “God, no! He'd be down on us like a ton of bricks," Shelley agreed.

  “Stay here a minute," Jane said and went inside.

  She came back out with the little blue lozenge of cardstock from the file folder. "Does that look familiar to you?”

  Shelley stuck out her hand and Jane put the paper on her palm. "I don't think so," Shelley replied. "Why?"

  “Because it rings a terribly faint bell in the back of my mind."

  “Maybe you've had file folders like it.”

  “Maybe. It could be that I've vacuumed up bits like this. But I don't think so."

  “Close your eyes and try to picture where you've seen it," Shelley advised.

  “I've tried that. I can't bring it any farther forward in my mind."

  “Maybe that time you were in Stonecipher's office—?" Shelley handed the bit of paper back and Jane put it in her jeans pocket.

  “No, if I really have seen such a thing before, it's been much more recent. But I don't think it was blue. If I could get a fix on the color, I might be able — oh, well. Never mind. I'm probably mixing it up in my head with something else entirely."

  “Poor Mel. He's really up a creek, isn't he?" Shelley said. "The dog that didn't bark. I like that phrase. It's from a Sherlock Holmes story, isn't it?"

  “I wonder how many people she had lined up," Jane said. "If she wanted to see me at four, that probably means she had at least the two people who belonged to the red and yellow file before me. And who knows how many others?"

  “What a cold-blooded bitch," Shelley said.

  “Yes, but in a way I feel sorry for her. Not just because she's dead, but because of what Patsy Mallett said about the argument she overheard. Emma wasn't a kid anymore. She must have been — what? — thirty-five or so? She might have been hanging in there being the other woman for a large part of her adult life. And then, when Rhonda said she was divorcing Stonecipher, Emma thought she was going to get the big payoff. Instead, he apparently told her he had no intention of marry
ing her. Think of the blow to her ego that must have been."

  “Not only her ego, but her finances," Shelley added.

  “Yes. I hadn't thought about it that way, but she'd been counting on being his wife some day and having financial security and she had it yanked out from under her. I can almost see why she'd act so quickly and probably angrily to cash in on that file drawer full of dirty little secrets."

  “I don't suppose there was any kind of index in the file drawer?"

  “I doubt it," Jane said. "And I imagine if there had been, Mel would have mentioned it. How's he going to tell what's missing when he has no way of knowing what was there?"

  “Well, he has his list of people who admitted having consulted Stonecipher. That's a start."

  “But doesn't prove anything. Most people don't go to see a lawyer and immediately pour out all their most heartfelt secrets and/or criminal activities," Jane said.

  “Still, you don't go to a lawyer unless you have a problem of some kind. And most problems are, to some degree or another, your own fault. Even if it's just failing to have done something you should have."

  “Mom?" a distant voice bellowed.

  “Out in back," Jane bellowed back.

  Mike came out the garage door. "You forgot orange juice."

  “No, I didn't. I got it. Look in the fridge."

  “I did. And on the counters and even in the car. It's on the receipt, but it didn't get home," Mike said.

  “Phooey! The sacker must have left it out. And I guess you can't live without it?"

  “I'll drive you to the store, Jane," Shelley offered. "I need to pick something up anyway."

  “So much for not going shopping for another two weeks," Jane complained. "I didn't even make it for two hours.”

  She went in and got her purse and they took off. Jane's gallon of orange juice was still sitting at the checkout she'd gone through, waiting for her to come back. The clerk didn't even want to see her receipt. Shelley went off to find the cream cheese she needed for a recipe she was trying out and Jane waited in front of the store.

  And waited.

  She finally got impatient and went back into the store to find Shelley. Reaching the dairy case, she discovered Shelley in conversation with LeAnne Doherty. Shelley gave Jane an I wondered-when-you'd-get-here look.