John looked at the small, flat purse for a second, then set the cases down and took it from Shelley. He opened it and peered in. Jane was quite close and could see as well as he that there was no "blue folder thing" in it.
Still shaky and frantic to get away, they hauled everything downstairs and left it by the front door where John Wagner could easily take it to his car later. Chet, deflated, was still sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands. He pulled himself together with a visible effort and insisted once again that Jane take Phyllis's things. And again, she demurred. "You'll let me know about the funeral, won't you?" she asked him as she edged toward the doorway.
“We'll be making the arrangements in the morning. Give me your address, and I'll come
“I won't be home most of tomorrow. I'll be at the house next door to here—" She gestured toward the Howards' house. "There's a church bazaar I'm helping set up.”
After a few more awkward parting remarks, Jane and Shelley made their escape. They practically ran to the car and didn't even talk on the way home. There was too much to say but no way to say it.
Though the evening had seemed to last forever, it was only eight when Jane got home. She called Uncle Jim back.
“I didn't find out much, but Janey, if you're this Chet's friend, you're not gonna like this. Just a minute—" She could hear him rattling papers and could picture him fitting his bifocals on the end of his nose.
“Apparently his wife had left him and had come to Chicago to stay with a friend—you. Incidentally, that's the only mention of you I found. VanDyne was pulling your leg about you being a suspect. The husband flew in yesterday afternoon, called his office without mentioning where he was calling from, registered under the name Chester Weber at a hotel downtown. He rented a car, which he took out around midnight. It has enough miles on it to have gone to the house where his wife was staying and back, plus half a dozen miles. The lot is unattended after midnight, so nobody knows when he got back.”
Jane gulped, thinking about the two Chets she'd seen that night; one a broken husband and the other a ruthless businessman. "Still, none of that is proof, is it?"
“No, that's why he's not in jail. He claims he was distraught over his wife's departure. That he didn't think she'd really leave, but when she did, he followed her here with the intention of patching things up. Once he got to Chicago, he says he had second thoughts, decided to wait a few days and see if she'd come looking for him. That's why he says he used the false name and didn't tell his people where he was—to make her wonder and stew a bit if she did try to get in touch with him."
“Where did he go when he went out so late?"
“That depends on your viewpoint. The investigators think he went to bump off his wife. He says he couldn't sleep and just went for an aimless drive."
“That could be true, Uncle Jim."
“Sure it could."
“What about the murder weapon?"
“A kitchen knife from a set the victim had delivered with a bunch of other kitchen stuff that afternoon. No prints."
“Could a killer have counted on a weapon being handy?"
“No, not unless he lived in the house or was visiting when the stuff came. If not, he probably had something of his own along in case there wasn't something sharp handy."
“What about footprints," Jane asked. "There's a little snow on the ground.”
Jane could hear Uncle Jim shuffling some papers. "Let's see. Prints. A muddle of them going back and forth through the side yard from the house next door—"
“Yes, that was Albert Howard showing her the house."
“—a set coming to the front door, which were discovered to have gone clear down the block, door to door. Salesman or mail carrier or somebody. Another set of two children cutting across the backyard and peeping in a window. Window undamaged. And one set from the house on the other side that wandered around and got close but not clear up to the house."
“That's Mr. Finch, snooping."
“It looks like that's all he did, unless he could spring over a bush ten feet from the house. Your VanDyne had a few critical remarks about him in the report but no suggestions that he was responsible. A regular herd of prints run from the driveway to the front door. Presumably the people who moved all the furniture and whatnot in, plus the woman herself and her son. There's no sorting them out."
“Did Chet know where Phyllis was staying?"
“I didn't think to ask that. I would think he did or could have known. He called in to his office late in the afternoon, after she'd given orders to buy it."
“It still wouldn't be proof of his guilt. UncleJim, what's going to happen with all this conjecture?"
“They're either going to solve it, or they won't. It's that simple."
“You mean they might never figure out who did it?"
“Not quite. See, Janey, knowing who did it and accumulating enough verifiable evidence to bring to trial is a different matter. That would take a confession if nothing else turns up in the way of proof of guilt."
“But Phyllis can't go unavenged. She didn't deserve to be murdered."
“Lots of people don't deserve it, but it happens. Listen, Janey, you leave the avenging part to the police. You stay out of this. I'll keep you informed of everything I can find out, but in return, you keep your distance. Somebody didn't much mind killing her and probably wouldn't mind getting you out of the way if you butt in."
“Okay—" she said, hoping that didn't count as a promise. "Thanks, Uncle Jim.”
The kids started coming home a few minutes later. Jane listened to Mike's story about the band director nearly having a breakdown at band practice and felt a deep sympathy with the man. She listened to Katie's half hour account of the fashion show and then helped Todd with his math homework. When they'd all gone to bed, she treated herself to a cigarette and a Coke, then checked for the third time that all the doors were locked before she settled down to watch It's a Wonderful Life on the late movie and crochet like crazy until midnight.
Seventeen
"Hey, Mom, that's pretty," Katie deigned to comment as she destroyed the living room looking for her missing social studies book the next morning. "Is it done?”
Jane studied the afghan spread across the back of the sofa. The twelve oversized granny squares were all done and put together. It actually looked as if someone who knew how to crochet had made them, she thought proudly. "No, it gets about four rows of solid stuff around the entire outside edge, but I don't know how to do the corners."
“Good-O, Mom. I think we ought to keep it," Mike said, joining Jane as she and Katie admired the work.
“I think so, too, but I promised it for the bazaar."
“Then buy it yourself.”
She looked at him. "You mean, pay for the yarn, do all that work, and pay to buy it besides?"
“You did that last year with that wreath thing."
“Last year—" She stopped herself from saying: Last year your father was alive, and I wasn't worried about money. "I guess I did, didn't I? You ready to go? Is Todd on his way down?”
This was one of the horrible mornings when Jane drove all three kids' car pools to school. Just as there were occasional days when she got off scot-free, there were many more when she felt she was driving every child in the country and ought to just buy a school bus and be done with it. She tried to arrange it so these days fell, like this one did, on Fridays. While it was true that the kids were hyper on Fridays, thereby increasing the risk of permanent injury to the driver's nervous system, they were at least happy-hyper, which was far nicer than Monday mornings when they all acted like she was driving them up to the front door of the guillotine.
She got Mike and his crowd of friends delivered to the high school, Katie and her car pool (not friends—a purely geographical arrangement made by Jane and the other mothers, which Katie mentioned critically nearly every morning) to the junior high, and Todd and his bunch to the grade school. Then she came home
and collapsed at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the last few minutes of the Today show.
After watching about ninety seconds of a feature on a woman who was the mother of six adopted children (three with severe disabilities), who worked as a madly successful criminal lawyer and had invented (in her spare time, they said—what spare time?) some sort of toy that was supposed to rival the Hula Hoop, Jane flipped the television off in disgust. That sort of programming ought to be censored before impressionable young girls saw it and thought such a life was actually possible and/or required of them.
“I wonder what happens on the days when four of the kids are sick and a trial is supposed to start. . . ." she said aloud to Willard, who thumped his tail happily in response. "Probably uses some of that toy money to call in a squadron of babysitters.”
As she opened pet food cans, she dialed Shelley's number. "What time are we supposed to go to Fiona's to start setting up?"
“Ten."
“Will you have time before then to show me how to finish the afghan?”
Shelley turned up a few minutes later, gave Jane her instructions, and sat down to watch her work. "Have you been thinking about last night?"
“I've been trying not to. Oh, Shelley, I finally understand that phrase about being of two minds. Every time somebody starts going on about how much Phyllis thought of me, I feel like I ought to dash out and start interrogating people myself because of this tremendous emotional debt I didn't even know I had. Did you notice that even Chet knew my kids' names? That's how much she talked about me. But then I pull myself together and realize there could be a hundred explanations for all this that I know nothing about. I mean, what do I really know about Phyllis's life? Nothing. Chet could have some deadly enemy who killed Phyllis to get at him. For that matter, Bobby probably has perfectly awful chums in the city who were just waiting for him to get back, and one of them might have killed Phyllis by mistake. The worst is, I don't really believe the police will ever unravel it. I talked to Uncle Jim last night—”
She proceeded to tell Shelley about the conversation.
“So the evidence all points to Chet?" Shelley said when she was done.
“No, just the circumstances. There isn't any evidence to speak of. And I wouldn't think much more is likely to turn up, unless someone has a violent attack of conscience and confesses," Jane said.
“So you still don't think it's Chet?"
“I don't want to think so. Didn't you see how devastated he was by it all?"
“I did. And I also saw how he pulled himself out of it in seconds to confront Bobby. It was almost like watching a multiple personality kick in."
“Kinda spooky, wasn't it?"
“That's putting it mildly. I think the one person most capable of violence, from what we saw last night, is John Wagner. If his father hadn't stopped him, I think he'd have reduced Bobby to a grease spot without a second thought," Shelley said.
“Could you blame him?"
“Not a bit."
“But I still can't imagine anybody working up that kind of animosity toward Phyllis. Poor Phyllis. What do you think?"
“I think we better get over to Fiona's and concentrate on getting the bazaar set up.”
Jane bundled up the afghan so Willard wouldn't sleep on it and sighed. "Did I actually volunteer for this, or is it all just a nightmare?"
“Both.”
Jane went to her kitchen radio and tuned in an FM station that played Christmas music. "Why turn that on? We're leaving," Shelley said.
“Partly so it's playing when I get home, and partly—I know this sounds dumb—so that the sound will soak into the house."
“Do you think if you create enough atmosphere, a tree, complete with decorations, will appear in your living room?”
Jane laughed. "Anything's possible." -
The nightmare qualities of the Christmas craft bazaar became more apparent when they got to Fiona's. The rental company that was supposed to deliver the folding display tables at eight hadn't arrived yet. "I've called three times already," Fiona said, her usual English calm, if not shattered, at least crumbling around the edges. "They swear they're on the way and we're the first delivery."
“Then there's nothing we can do?" Jane asked. She had hopes that she could escape and go home to get in a few more frantic minutes of crocheting.
“Wrong!" Shelley exclaimed. "We can start pricing. It's the worst job of all."
“There are degrees of worseness in this?" Jane asked.
Fiona laughed. She had a delightful, bubblylaugh that broke the tension. "Let's get it over with."
“Fiona, you really don't have to help," Jane assured her. "When you offered your house, we swore you wouldn't have to do anything else."
“Jane, have you gone mad?" Shelley asked. "If you start turning down offers to help, I'll just have to slap some sense back into you. Let's start with ..." She looked around the room full of boxes, and her shoulders sagged. "... with the pillows. They were purchased; we just have to figure out the markup. No personalities involved.”
Jane soon discovered what the remark about personalities meant. Many of the volunteers who had provided sale items had affixed a suggested price. These prices were almost universally inflated beyond reason. Someone had sent over a box of flower paintings done on wooden shingles. While not great art by any means, they weren't bad, and Jane felt she could probably find some out of the way wall in her house where one might fit nicely—until she noticed the note saying they should be priced at forty dollars each.
“Forty dollars!" she exclaimed, clutching at her heart. "I was thinking seven or eight.”
Shelley, her head buried in a box, emerged. "Oh, those. That's easy. The woman who does those always comes first thing in the morning to see if we've marked them right. As soon as she goes, we mark them down to something reasonable. She's never caught on yet. She makes them every year, and they go like hotcakes at five dollars."
“What about these?" Jane had opened a dress box full of little wreaths. They were green yarn crocheted in a sort of ruffle on a curtain rod ring. With the addition of bright red sequins and a tiny satin bow, they made nice little ornaments. But a note in the box said: "I saw these for sale in New York last year for fifteen dollars. I think ten would be reasonable, don't you?”
Shelley came over to look at the wreaths and then at the signature on the note. "That's a bit tricky. She's a big contributor to the church, and we don't want to piss her off.”
Fiona looked over her shoulder. "Oh, she's out of town. When she brought the box over she mentioned that she was going to see her son in Hawaii for the holidays and was leaving today."
“Terrific. They'll really move at two dollars."
“Isn't that a truck I hear?" Fiona exclaimed.
It took until noon to get the tables in and arranged. The women, including Suzie Williams, who had arrived just behind the rental company truck, then set about making a rough arrangement. Suzie favored logic and order. "Put all the pillows and quilts in one room, all the food stuff in another—"
“I'm not sure," Shelley said. "If a person on a diet sees a room full of food, she might just give it all a miss. Same with people who don't like 'loving hands from home' art. You want to take them by surprise."
“That makes sense. Trick them into buying shit they don't want," Suzie gave in cheerfully. "Let's take a break," Fiona suggested. Jane had the feeling that Suzie's raw language of‑ fended their hostess, though Fiona was always gracious to her. "I fixed some chicken salad and fresh banana bread this morning.”
They settled in around the big kitchen table. "Where's your husband today? Hiding from us?" Suzie asked. She'd long been fascinated by the idea of a husband who did his work—whatever work, if any, he did—at home.
“Upstairs. He's got a miserable headache," Fiona replied. She set out everyday plates that Jane would have kept in a safe deposit box if they'd been hers. "When he was a boy, he had a bad fall from a tree and got a skull
fracture. It all healed perfectly well, but he still gets these occasional headaches that devastate him. The doctors seem to think there's a connection, but there's nothing to do about it.”
Suzie nodded knowingly. "I broke my ankle when I was ten, and it still hurts sometimes. Oh, music—how nice.”
They all fell silent. There was music playing somewhere, and as they listened, it became recognizable.
Richie Divine's "Red Christmas.”
Jane glanced at Fiona, who had become quite pale and was looking toward the glass patio doors leading to the backyard.
“Where's it coming from?" Suzie asked, as yet blissfully unaware of the tension in the room.
Shelley rose and went to the doors. As she opened one, a blast of cold air and a blast of music came in together. "It's coming from outside," she said softly.
Fiona rose slowly and joined her at the door. Jane and Suzie followed her. As she listened, Jane knew exactly where it was coming from—the deck of the house next door. Phyllis's house. Now Bobby's. That elaborate sound system was rigged so the speakers could sit on the deck outside the master bedroom.
But why annoy the Howards?
Suddenly Albert Howard appeared in the kitchen doorway behind the four women. "What the hell is that noise?" he asked.
Eighteen
Albert disappeared and Fiona, white faced, ran after him. Try as they might, Shelley, Jane, and Suzie could hear nothing of what they were saying to each other.
“Is that the little fart next door playing the music? The one whose mother was a friend of yours?" Suzie asked Jane, when Albert and Fiona had moved out of earshot.
“I'm afraid so, but I don't get it. Why is he trying to irritate the whole neighborhood, and why—of all things—a Richie Divine record?"
“Why not?" Suzie asked, then said, "Oh, yeah. I forgot Fiona was married to him, wasn't she? Or is that just a typical neighborhood rumor?"
“No, it's true," Jane said. "That room through there is full of his stuff. Pictures, gold records."
A Farewell to Yarns jj-2 Page 12
