Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 1

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  When she had signed on for a nine-month program designed to prepare her for overseas ministry it hadn’t seemed like a waste of time. Two years into it…she still wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a waste. God doesn’t waste time, but it had gone on longer and been a different experience than she had imagined.

  She settled into a chair in the middle of the room. She set her aging laptop on the desk. The classroom had felt cavernous on the day of her first class. Eighty odd students had poured into the classroom that day. She was the only one who didn’t live in the dorms, didn’t eat in the dining hall, and didn’t already know everyone. It had been a lonely first day.

  Now the room was familiar, from the dark patches of night sky that peeked in through the casement windows to the musty basement smell of damp concrete. The students were familiar as well. She watched them trickle in. She knew them, but only a little. She had invested in last year’s class, not realizing how much she would miss the friends she had made in her first year of school—how hard it would be to care about the next set of students.

  Jane stared ahead at the black metal music stand that stood on the small stage and served as a podium. A white screen was pulled down against the back wall and an overhead projector on a rolling cart was pushed next to the music stand.

  A small mob of teenage girls clattered into the room. They giggled as one of their number pantomimed. Jane watched. It looked like an impression of their last guest speaker, a retired missionary from Nepal. Jane turned back to her computer.

  Eventually the room filled up. Sarah, the one girl Jane felt a real connection with, took a seat next to her.

  “Who do you think our new lecturer will be?” Sarah asked.

  “I guess it depends on what the topic is.” Jane created a new folder for notes on this lecture series.

  “Yeah. If it’s another straight exposition class it will probably be Dr. Maxwell again.”

  “It’s just a filler class, isn’t it?” Jane rested her chin on her hand.

  “Exposition isn’t just filler.” Sarah set a notebook on the table and opened to a fresh page. “Is something wrong?”

  Jane let out a slow breath and nodded. “You know Bob and Pamela Crawford?”

  Sarah frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  “I clean for them, but…” Her voice trailed off. She tried again, “But this morning, when I was at their house I found them…they were dead.”

  “What?” Sarah’s voice rose over the din in the room. Everything went silent.

  “What happened?” The girl who had been miming sat down on the edge of the table.

  “This morning when I was working, I found my clients. They were…dead.” Jane pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to have a discussion about this with Mina. If Mina would mock a retired missionary with Parkinson’s she would make a field day out of a dead hamburger baron.

  “Oooh!” Mina said.

  Jane assumed Mina was going to follow that noise with a wisecrack, but Mina had turned her head to the front door. The new instructor had entered.

  Jane immediately noticed his dimples. How could he possibly smile like that today? Of course, he didn’t know about the deaths. He wasn’t the one who had spent the morning with the paramedics and the cops.

  The new instructor looked young, but not baby-faced. He had a serious case of five o’clock shadow but he wore Buddy Holly glasses like everyone Jane’s age did.

  Mina got up from the table and sauntered over. “Hey, there.” She put a little southern honey into her voice, though she was from Oregon, just like Jane.

  The instructor nodded at her but walked to the front of the class. He dumped his briefcase on the desk closest to the projector and cleared his throat. He was still smiling, and still dimpling.

  “Good evening. Welcome to Ministry to Hurting Families. I’m Isaac Daniels and I’ll be your course instructor.” He looked at his papers while he spoke. When he looked up he shoved his glasses up on his nose and cleared his throat. “I’m all but phud over at Western. I work mostly with theology and the postmodern mind, but I have quite a bit of practical ministry training as well. So, that’s me. To start off class I’d like to learn a little bit about you. Let’s go around the room and say our names. Since this is a class about family ministry, tell me two things about your family as well.”

  Jane slumped in her chair. Say your name? Tell me two things about your family? This was her last term in Bible school. She was supposed to be learning how to handle return-culture shock in preparation for her future as a long-term missionary. This was not youth group.

  Eighty-five eighteen and nineteen-year-olds hemmed and hawed and coughed into their fists. Isaac Daniels pulled up a stool and sat on it. He rested his feet on the rung. “We’ll start with you.” He nodded at the person directly in front of him.

  He nodded his way around the classroom, eventually reaching Jane. He nodded at her, and she thought, smiled a little more.

  “I’m Jane. I’m an only child. My parents live in Phoenix.”

  “Great to meet you, Jane.” Next, Isaac nodded at Sarah, who followed suit.

  Great to meet you, Jane. She watched Isaac watching the next student, only, if she wasn’t imagining things, he kept stealing looks at her. Did she have something in her teeth? She felt her cheeks flush with heat. He did not say "great to meet you" to anyone else, before or after her, so, if he was looking, it wasn’t at something stuck in her teeth. She stared at her computer screen and avoided making eye contact.

  Isaac reached the end of the classroom. “Great to meet you all,” he said. Jane did not take her eyes off her computer screen. “Now for announcements.”

  Jane couldn’t suppress the yawn. The new lecturer waded through a list of school and dorm life-related news. She had a hard time caring about the Spring Showcase, since her own parents weren’t likely to fly to town for it, or the youth group speaking tour, since she had to work and couldn’t go on it.

  One announcement did catch her attention, though. The Next Steps Mini-Missions Fair was coming up on Saturday. Last year’s fair had been a real eye-opener. She had attended as a learner—listening, praying, taking notes. This year she would get to attend as an applicant actively seeking an organization to partner with. It was a relief to think that the organizations that would send representatives to the Harvest School of the Bible Mini-Missions Fair would also be organizations that wanted to partner with Harvest graduates.

  While her mind had wandered back to the people she hoped to meet on Saturday, Isaac Daniels had begun his lecture on families. It buzzed like television static in her ears.

  The Crawfords were a hurting family. They could use someone to minister to them now. She tried to tune in to what Mr. Daniel’s was saying, but her mind kept ticking away at things the Crawfords could use.

  Isaac Daniels caught her eye twice while she tried to avoid his. Once, he was frowning. She looked at her screen. Could he see her to-do list?

  The class dragged on until the old clock in the hall rang nine. Jane stifled a yawn. The instructor was still talking as Jane shut down her laptop. She opened her bag and stuffed it inside with her notebook. Sarah jabbed her in the side with her elbow. “Earth to Jane.”

  Jane looked up. Sarah was pointing at Mr. Daniels. He was watching her, one eyebrow cocked.

  “I’m sorry, yes?”

  “I asked if you had to head out early.”

  “No, not early.” Jane looked around. Several of her classmates were smirking. One was laughing.

  Jane sighed. “I’m sorry, I’ve missed the joke.”

  Isaac looked at his watch. “We’ve got another hour of class.”

  Jane closed her eyes. Hadn’t the clock just struck nine? Did she really have to sit here for another hour?

  “I think this is a good time for a break. All right everyone, make it back to your seat somehow in ten minutes.”

  Jane laid her head on her desk.

  Isaac Daniels walked down the ais
le and sat on the desk next to her. “You look tired. Are you all right?”

  “It’s been a very long day.” Jane didn’t have to fake the yawn after that sentence.

  Mr. Daniels wore khakis and a golf shirt with a sports jacket over it, but he had the look of someone wearing his dad’s clothes, like they made him uncomfortable. She let her eyes linger on his hands—they were tan and rough. He wore a silver ring on his right hand and it was scuffed and worn looking.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Jane recognized his question from the ‘get permission to get involved’ section of the lecture. She looked up from his hand. Did she want to give him permission to get involved? His hazel eyes looked kind. His head was tilted to the side just a bit and it looked like he was really concerned.

  Jane realized she must look terrible to elicit that kind of concern from a teacher. She ran her fingers through her hair, an instinctive reaction to the idea that she was a wreck. Could she tell him what happened without crying? She took a deep breath.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I can tell you about it, but it might take more than ten minutes.” She managed a weak smile.

  The corners of his mouth turned down with concern.

  “This morning at work—I clean houses—I…” She glanced over the instructor’s shoulder and saw the gaggle of girls staring at her. One of them winked. Jane sighed. “I found the bodies of my clients. It may have been murder.”

  “No way.” Mr. Daniels rocked back a little. He shook his head and tried to compose himself. “Murder…that’s not what I expected to hear. Tired, yes. Hardworking, yes. Something serious, maybe, since you actually have a life off this campus, but murder? Wow.” Isaac leaned forward again. “What did you do?”

  “I called 911. I mean, I found my boss dead, but it looked like a heart attack. Then I called 911. The ambulance came and the paramedics found his wife. They said it looked suspicious because they were both dead.” She looked over his shoulder again and frowned. Hannah Martin, another pastor’s kid, made a kissy face at her.

  “Do they have any children?”

  She pulled her eyes back to her teacher. “Yeah, but they are my age, in their twenties.”

  “That’s too early to lose your parents.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “Have you experienced that too?”

  Jane thought his voice cracked.

  “No, not like that. They just moved to Phoenix, but you know, when you are on your own you grow up fast.”

  Isaac nodded. “True that.” He took a deep breath and looked at his watch. “I think you have a real opportunity to be Jesus to these guys. Do you have the time to invest in the family a little bit?”

  “Maybe.” Jane clicked through her schedule. Three houses on Monday plus class. Three houses on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, plus class, one on Thursday, and two on Friday. She had a little room in her schedule, if she put off studying until night.

  “If you can, make yourself available to the kids. This is a real crisis for them and knowing they have someone they can call on to help will be invaluable.”

  “I can certainly keep their house clean while they sort things out for themselves.”

  “You can do more than that. They may need to talk to someone that they feel isn’t connected to family. Be available to listen. I’m sure you are up to taking care of the practical stuff, but make sure your heart is ready for the other stuff too.” Mr. Daniels looked over her shoulder for a second, then continued, his voice low. “There may be a lot of dumping going on, since they are your peers. That’s what this class is about, though, how to be Jesus in the lives of families in crisis.” He caught her eye again while he spoke. “You were supposed to have a class on reverse culture shock, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But that won’t be useful until you come back from your first overseas trip, and by then you would be in reverse culture shock so you wouldn’t be of much use counseling yourself.”

  “And since this school program is worthless…”

  “What?”

  “I mean the certificate is meaningless.” Jane leaned her chin on her fist again. The thought of being a dumping ground for Jake and Phoebe’s issues made her tired.

  “But what is meaningless, really? A certificate from Harvest means you were serious about studying the Bible and cross-cultural engagement. It might not be necessary, but it’s not meaningless.”

  Jane closed her eyes. Not necessary. Weren’t those the exact words her parents used when they told her not to waste her time here?

  “If you do go into fulltime ministry this won’t be your last family in crisis.” Isaac looked like he had more to say but the class began to filter back in. “You can head home, if you need to. You can get the rest of the notes from another student.”

  Jane shook her head. “I’ve got a family in crisis on my hands. I guess I’d better stay here.”

  Mr. Daniel’s offered a sad smile. His eyes were still thoughtful, but he walked to his podium with a lighter step, and when his lecture started up again he was much more animated.

  Chapter 3

  Jane had to wait until Wednesday to hear how the Crawfords were doing. By the time she reached their house she was itching to serve them—and to get paid. She tried to keep her financial needs in the back of her mind. God had taken care of her issue with the schoolbooks. He was sure to have a plan for her student fees and rent as well. As for lunch…her stomach grumbled. She could figure something out for lunch. Dinner might be an issue though.

  Jane pushed the vacuum around the front hall of the Crawford house. The morning light showed gray through the windows, but Jane didn’t want to turn on all of the lights. It felt disrespectful in a house of mourning.

  She shivered in her hoodie. She had turned on the furnace when she arrived, but it had yet to warm the house. It had clanked into life eventually and the dusty warm smell of the furnace waking up after a break had already filled the room, so she had hope she would be warm soon.

  Like last week, all was quiet. There was no sign of police and no indication that she shouldn’t be there. She clicked her machine off. What if her guess was wrong? This could still be a crime scene.

  Jane drummed her fingers on the handle of the Crawfords’ Dyson. How should she go about this? Did she need to call the police to find out if being here was okay? Or could she call someone in the family?

  Phoebe came to mind. She lived nearby and had answered the phone last time. Of course, she hadn’t been up yet, and there was a good chance that was the case this time too.

  Footsteps on the stairs shook Jane out of her reverie. Jake was home. His sandy brown hair stood up on end and he had a two-day growth of blond bristles on his thin face. His short bathrobe was open, revealing his skinny chest and boxer shorts.

  Jane’s face heated up and she turned away.

  Jake shuffled into the front hall. “Oh. Hey, Jane.” He yawned and stretched his arms over head.

  Jane tried not to stare at his fuzzy chest.

  “Is there coffee on?”

  “No, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was in.”

  Jake shrugged. “I’ll make it then.” He shuffled off into the kitchen.

  Jane turned her vacuum back on. By the time she had finished the rugs in the hall the scent of coffee filled the room.

  Jane wrapped the cord of the vacuum and pushed it into the kitchen. “How are you holding up?”

  Jake pushed a cup of coffee across the kitchen island. “I thought you’d never get in here. Who does the cooking now?”

  Jane’s eyebrows flew up. “Pardon?”

  “When I was here over Christmas that lady…Dorothy? She did the cooking. Does she always do that?”

  “No…I think your mom does the cooking.” Jane dropped her eyes. “Did the cooking.”

  “Not likely. Maybe they just ate out all the time. Is there any food in the house?”

  Jake stood in front of the refrigerator.

  J
ane frowned. “I really don’t know. When did you get here?”

  “Last night, well, this morning, I think. Around three. I’m starving. Let’s go get some breakfast.”

  “I, uh…” Jane was at a loss for words.

  “I will put clothes on first.” Jake stretched his shoulders back and patted himself on his firm stomach.

  “I can’t leave. I have a ton of work to do.”

  “Do it when we get back. Aren’t you starving? You’re skin and bones.”

  Jane preferred petite, or slender, but he had a point. Scant wages and high rent kept her on the skin and bones side. And, like always, she was hungry.

  “Come eat, then come back and work. How hard is it to clean an empty house? It’s not like anyone used the place in the last few days.”

  But…Jane thought…they had. At least the police had used it. It didn’t look like Jake had any better idea about whether they should be there or not than she did, but a free meal was a free meal, even if she had already eaten her half-bowl of crisped rice cereal. “Let me just put this away.”

  “Good girl.” Jake and his coffee cup ambled out of the kitchen.

  Breakfast would be a good chance to learn how she could best serve the Crawford kids. And to find out if she would get paid.

  Jane closeted her vacuum. She stuffed her cleaning smock into her caddy. It was too late to find something cute to wear, but she could at least put a little lip-gloss on and run a brush through her hair. She stepped into the powder room. She noted the dark shadows under her eyes and her pale skin but decided it was caused by the fluorescent bulbs. She pulled the kerchief off of her head and tried to make something nice out of the ponytail. At least this was her first house on Wednesdays so she wasn’t a sweaty mess already.

  When she stepped out of the powder room Jake was waiting by the door. He was dressed, but looked worse than she did.

  He looked her up and down. “You definitely need to eat. Don’t they feed you anymore?”

  She didn’t have an answer so she followed him out in silence. He went straight to her Rabbit.