A Quiche Before Dying (10 page)

“Then she could make poison in her basement, couldn’t she?“ Shelley asked.

“I don’t think so. She didn’t seem to have a grip on how to make anything,“ Jane said. “It was probably just one of her passing enthusiasms. Remember when she tried to build her own solar panels on her roof? The city stopped her because they were afraid all that gravel was going to avalanche off and kill somebody.“

“Then there was the time she decided to have a southwest garden,“ Missy reminded them. “She had all her grass scraped off and put in rocks and cacti. Nobody could convince her that the first freeze was going to turn the cacti to mush. It must have cost her the earth to have the sodden things and all the boulders hauled off and the grass put back.“

“Money...“ Jane said. “Maybe it’s about money. Mrs. Pryce’s murder. Most crimes are, I think. Do you think maybe there’s something terribly valuable in all that junk in her house, and maybe her children wanted to inherit it? There were some really nice things in with the junk. Her family has waited a long time already. Maybe they just got tired of biding their time.“ Jane shifted her chair to get out of the sun, which was becoming uncomfortably warm. They really should go inside, but Jane hated being cooped up indoors.

“Jane, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but none of her children are in our class,“ Shelley said.

“That we know of,“ Jane said. “Her children would be in their sixties, and her grandchildren maybe in their forties. She could have a grandchild she doesn’t even know by sight. She was probably on terrible terms with her family. It wouldn’t be surprising if she were estranged from all of them. She never mentioned family. Did you notice that there were no pictures of people in her house? I think that’s what made it all so depressing. There was nothing human there. Just stuff.”

Missy started gathering up her purse and car keys and sunglasses. “I think what we’ve done today is significant. It appears that we’ve proved that nobody could have killed her, and the whole episode was just a particularly revolting illusion.”

Jane laughed. “I love it when you talk like a writer.”

As Missy was getting up, Denise Nowack came out into her backyard, wearing a big picture hat that not only concealed her hair, but muffled her voice. “Mom!“ she yelled. “There’s a man on the phone saying will Mrs. Jeffry please go in her house and answer her phone?”

10

“Jane? It’s Mel. Sorry I left so abruptly.“

“Have you slept since yesterday?“ she asked, then mentally chided herself for automatically going into her mother mode. He was a grown man, and if he didn’t get enough rest, it was his problem.

“A little. Could you have lunch with me?“ Jane smiled. “Business or pleasure?“

“Business, I’m afraid.”

The smile faded.

“Then we want to talk quietly. How about coming here?“ As she spoke, she was frantically taking a mental inventory of the fridge. She’d have to make a flying trip to the grocery store.

“Quietly? At your house? Jane, that’s like trying to have a cozy chat in the middle of a four-alarm fire.”

He probably lives in a hermetically sealed, professionally soundproofed luxury apartment—with white carpets and a doorman to keep away unwanted visitors, she thought. We’re worlds apart. “Okay, whatever you say. Noon?“

“That’s fine. I’ll pick you up.”

Shelley came to the kitchen door a minute later. “I accidentally went home with your glass. Here. It was VanDyne calling, wasn’t it?“

“Yes, asking me to lunch. As a suspect, I think.“

“Jane, the police don’t ask suspects to lunch. God! Your hair. What can we do to it by lunchtime?“

“Nothing. Shelley, I’ve made a grown-up decision. If Mel VanDyne’s interested in me at all, it’s as an example of a species: Housewifius Domesticus. I might as well look the part. It’s what I am.“

“That’s pitiful-sounding.“

“No, it’s the truth. We don’t have a thing in common.“

“He’s a man and you’re a woman. That’s enough.“

“ He’s a quintessential yuppie and I’m a happy frump with stretch marks.“

“You know what you need?“

“What?“ Jane asked suspiciously. “A night on the town? My boobs jacked up? A new perm?“

“A job.”

Jane sat down at the kitchen table and motioned Shelley to join her. “That’s the last thing I expected you to say. You interest me strangely,“ she said. “Explain.“

“Well, we’re a dying breed—mothers who are just mothers. Look at this neighborhood. Every year it gets quieter during the day. Everybody’s off doing something that makes them feel like more than just a housewife.“

“You’re right about all that, but none of it has to do with why I need a job. I need the money.“

“Jane—is there something I can help with?”

Jane smiled. “No. Thanks, Shelley, but it’s not that I’m desperate. I can pay for insurance and food and school clothes and all the necessities. I’m really lucky that way. Most single mothers haven’t got it so good. But it’s the extras that really aren’t so extra. My car’s falling to bits; my clothes are all ratty and out of fashion. Even the bath towels are getting shot.

I priced some new ones last week, and they cost the earth. Mike needs a new tuba; his was about sixth-hand and we got it cheap, meaning to get him a good one if he kept up with his playing.“

“You’ve got that money your friend left in her will.“

“Yes, and I’m keeping it for myself like you told me I had to. I wouldn’t dare defy one of your edicts. But I don’t want to just spend it on stuff like towels. I want to use it for something important—I just don’t know what that is yet.“

“Investing in a business of your own?“

“Something like that. But what would I do? Mothering’s what I do pretty well, and without a father, my kids deserve a full-time mother. I don’t want to be like my mom.“

“What’s wrong with being perfect?“ Shelley asked with a grin.

Jane sighed. “My mother was a perfect wife, not a perfect mother.“

“I thought they usually went together.“

“Yes, usually. I could only say this to a real friend.... My mother has always adored my father. They didn’t need my sister and me to make a family. They are a family all by themselves. All the time I was growing up, we did what was best for his career, even though it meant we never stayed anywhere long enough to feel at home. My sister and I never went two years in a row to the same school, or even in the same country. I resented that. And I never realized how much until I was grown.“

“But that was because of what he did for a living, Jane. Would you have rather your mother stayed behind somewhere with you?“

“God, no. I just never felt like I came first with her. If I got sick and there was an important embassy party, she’d get a nurse to stay with me, but she’d go to the party because it was important to my father’s career.“

“Hiring a nurse isn’t exactly neglectful,“ Shelley said softly.

“Oh, Shelley, I don’t mean I was neglected. I know that in most ways I was very lucky. You can’t tell me anything sensible I haven’t told myself. See, you’re sitting here talking to ‘Jane Jeffry, semi-intelligent adult.’ But the person who’s doing this whining is little Janie Grant, a selfish child who wants, just once, to have her mommy’s
full
attention. That’s why I feel so strongly that I can’t take on anything that would take my attention away from my kids. I don’t want to be like her.“

“I understand. I think you could do with a shrink, but I do understand. But what about all those hours of the year that the kids are at school and don’t need your attention or even want it?“

“You know that time is busy. You do what I do with it—cook, clean, run car pools, do civic stuff. I’ve got my blind kids I drive once a week—“

“But your own kids can learn to help cook, you could hire help to clean if you had extra income, Mike can drive now and could take up part of the car-pooling if you’d let Thelma get him a car like she keeps threatening. If you had a part-time job, or a job at home, you could still do a lot of your other things. Jane, it wouldn’t hurt them a bit to be more responsible at home.“

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?“ Jane asked.

“On my own behalf, I assure you.“

“You’re going to work?“

“I’m thinking about helping Paul with the franchises in some way.“ Shelley’s husband was a type-A second-generation Pole who owned a chain of Greek fast-food restaurants.

“But you’ve got a built-in employer who won’t care if you’ve got to stay home with somebody with measles or take off a day to work on the PTA carnival.“

“Yes, but so have you, come to that. There’s Steve’s family’s pharmacies. You’ve worked there before.”

Jane held up her forefingers in a cross shape. “Work for Thelma? Have you gone completely insane? It’s bad enough having her for a mother-in-law.“

“Maybe you’re right.“

“In any case, my job right now involves getting Katie up and moving. Thanks for listening to my selfish whimpering.“

“What are friends for?“ Shelley said.

Mel VanDyne showed up on the dot of one with a picnic lunch in paper sacks from a chic catering shop. They drove a few blocks to a city park and staked out a picnic table as far as possible from a raucous softball game. He took four bottled wine coolers from a little insulated bag.

“Where’s the rest of your family?“ he asked politely as he unwrapped pricey little crustless sandwiches and individual plastic cups of pasta salad.

“My oldest son is looking at colleges with a friend, my youngest is on a trip with his grandmother, Katie’s at work, and my mom’s visiting a friend,“ Jane reeled off, proud of resisting the urge to elaborate on these domestic arrangements. Now that she’d decided to give up trying to impress him, she felt much more comfortable around him.

“So tell me about the people at the dinner.“ So much for small talk.

Jane quickly summarized the discussion she’d had earlier in the day with Shelley and Missy. “We don’t know anything about her family, of course. Or about the maid.“

“We’ve done some checking,“ he said, unwrapping plastic forks and handing one to her. “According to the maid, there’s only one child still living, a son who was in plumbing fixtures who’s retired to Arizona. The two daughters, both deceased, each left children and grandchildren. They’re scattered all over the country. There was a safe in the house. Presumably a will in it, but we haven’t found the combination yet. We’re hoping that the obit notice in the paper will bring out a lawyer. The maid didn’t know who that might be, and she’s not well enough to question thoroughly. There was a checkbook in the desk showing a balance of close to twenty thousand dollars, so there might be money involved.“

“What about the maid?“

“She’s in pretty bad shape. Not much question of poisoning herself, although it’s possible. She could have misjudged a dosage.“ At Jane’s surprised look, he said, “We do think of these things, too.“

“What about the poison? What was it?“

“We don’t know yet. The path lab is doing tests for the usual—arsenic, strychnine, digitalis. But these tests take longer than anyone likes to admit, and they haven’t come up with anything yet. There are about a thousand weird things that are poisonous, and it takes a while to test for each one. And it’s complicated by the fact that Mrs. Pryce was so old. At her age, a lot of systems have failed or are failing on their own. Also, it could have taken a virtually indetectable amount of some poisons to push her and the maid over. Maria Espinoza says she’s seventy-nine and Pryce was eighty-seven, and they both had bad hearts. It could have been something that would only make you and me a little bit sick, but was deadly to them.“

“But the murderer must have known that. Doesn’t that narrow the field to people who knew them well enough to gauge the dosage?“

“Not necessarily. The killer could have just used something at hand and hoped like hell that it would work. Maybe it wasn’t even meant to kill her. Just to make her sick as a ‘punishment.’ “

“Could it have been in her house? In a prescription?“

“Unlikely. A lot of things that are poisonous in large amounts are used in minute portions for medication. But you’d have to eat a bowlful of pills. It was in the quiche or the tea. More accurately, in Mrs. Pryce’s quiche or tea. The maid didn’t serve herself, she just ate and drank what was left of her employer’s food. I guess it was a habit of hers. She says she had a bite or two of the quiche, but thought it tasted strange and left the rest. Unfortunately, she’d already put all the plates in the dishwasher and run them through by the time we got there.“

“Why didn’t Pryce taste it?“

“I don’t know, except the pathologist says some elderly people lose their sense of taste. Or maybe she was just a glutton who didn’t care.“

“Oh, she cared. She made nasty remarks about every dish in front of her. She said there was too much mayonnaise in the potato salad and too much oil on the green salad, and Missy’s cake was too dry. But those are texture things, not taste, I guess. And it seemed she put away a lot of food in spite of her complaints.“