The Merchant of Menace (14 page)

As soon as Mel and his mother had backed out of the driveway, Jane shuddered elaborately and said, "I hate myself.”

Shelley had her head down on the kitchen table, howling with laughter. "You should. That was the most disgustingly gooey scene I've seen since
Love Story."

“
Don't worry. Mel's the only one who didn't understand it," Jane said. She sat down and propped her feet on another chair. "Thank God, my entertaining is over for a few days. The Christmas Day dinner looms ominously, but I'm not thinking about it until tomorrow at the earliest."

“You're not quite done. Sharon Wilhite brought her cookies on her own tray and left it behind. We need to take it back to her."

“And ask a few questions?" Jane said.

“Oh… maybe just a few.”

Jane had never been in Sharon's house and was surprised at how tastefully bland it was. Sharon apparently subscribed to the "Beige Is Good" school of decorating. There were bits ofcolor here and there. A muddy blue vase. A rug with charcoal and cream colors. An abstract painting over the sofa that had hints of apricot with the beige. It was a house that wasn't really lived in very much. There was no clutter, no newspaper or
TV Guide.
In fact, no television that Jane could see.

Though Shelley claimed they'd only stopped by to deliver Sharon's platter (as if it took two of them to carry it), Sharon wasn't fooled. "I guess I owe you an explanation," she said.

“You don't owe it, but I'd sure like to hear it anyway," Jane said.

“Do you smoke?" Sharon said unexpectedly. "Sometimes. As little as possible," Jane replied.

“Feel free then."

“I didn't bring any along. It's okay," Jane said.

“I'll get you a cigarette. I used to smoke and keep one pack in the house just so I don't panic." She opened a little drawer under the coffee table and got a pack out. She was obviously hedging, thinking what to say.

“No thanks, I'm fine," Jane said, recognizing a brand that had changed its packaging a good five years earlier. She didn't mind stale, but objected to petrified. And she wanted Sharon to get on with what she had to say.

Jane and Shelley settled themselves on the sofa, while Sharon chose a straight-backed chair with a beige and brown seat cover. "I married Harvey — Lance, that is — in college. It was partly an escape from my parents, partly a general rebellion, partly sex. He was interesting. Most of the guys who were attracted to me were jocks. Harvey was an intellectual. Not really, but he gave that impression to a girl as foolish and lonesome as I was. It only lasted a year."

“Who got dumped?" Shelley asked bluntly.

“Oh, I dumped him. I wasn't entirely stupid. I found out that he was — well, 'wicked' sounds melodramatic, but he was wicked. Or sociopathic. He was always bragging about the things he'd put over on people. That made me uncomfortable, but I told myself it was just made up. Jokes, you know, to see how I'd react. I always just laughed it off. Then one day he said something about how silly it was for me to be paying college fees. Told me he could hack into the university computer and show my tuition as paid. This was in the early days of computers. He didn't have his own, but had access to one in a science lab. He proceeded to explain that he'd only paid his first-semester tuition and had gotten his education for free since then.”

Sharon fiddled with the ancient cigarette pack for a minute before continuing. "And he'd fooled around with his grades, too. Given himself straight A's and credit for courses he hadn't even taken. I was young and stupid and thought I could get through to him about why this was wrong, wrong, wrong. But he kept talking. Told me about some of the other students he'd 'fixed.' That was the word he used. He'd created his own 'enemies' list — people he imagined had crossed him in some way. He'd done the opposite with them. Lowered their grades, deleted courses. That's when I knew I had to get away from him."

“Were any of the neighbors on the 'enemy' list?" Shelley asked.

“I don't know. It was so long ago and he only mentioned first names. When their grades came out, I'm sure it was just blamed on some kind of mysterious computer error anyway," Sharon said.

“Not if he bragged to other people as well as you," Jane said.

“Still, I can't imagine anyone holding a grudge over a grade for fifteen years or more and then killing someone over it, can you?"

“No, I guess not. So you divorced him?”

Sharon nodded. "But I got several notarized printouts of my college transcript first," she said with a smile. I was getting smarter by the minute. I used those to apply to other schools so that it wouldn't show on my record where I'd asked for copies to go, then I filed the divorce papers and left him."

“Is that when you came here?" Jane asked.

“No, I finished my undergraduate courses in Vermont and got my law degree in Massachusetts. Then I got a job here. I wasn't deliberately moving around, it just worked out that way. But what I didn't realize is that he was sort of stalking me. I don't think the word was in common use then, but that's what he was doing. One day about three years ago, he turned up on my doorstep. I'd worked with a firm that had a branch in Kentucky and somehow he spotted my name in the property records."

“Did he threaten you?" Shelley asked.

“Oh, no. Not directly. Just said he'd changed, turned his 'curiosity,' as he called it, to good ends — exposing graft and corruption and dishonesty. And that he thought I'd like him better now and we might as well get back together. He'd followed me to Chicago and gotten a job with a local television station so we could be together.”

She shuddered at the memory.

“What did you do?" Jane asked.

“Nothing for a while. I'd put on a bit of weight, gotten rather stuffy and dull and I thought he'd give up and go away. But he didn't. He called every day. I got frightened."

“Of course you did. Did you call the police?"

“Yes, but it didn't do much good." The cellophane wrapper on the cigarette pack was in shreds now. "He'd made no overt threats, didn't break into my house or anything like that. He wasn't a clear danger to me from their viewpoint, only a nuisance. And I suppose, in a way, they were right. I don't honestly think he'd have committed any physical violence. Just psychological and financial. Every time I booted up my computer at work, I could imagine him hunched over his, tapping into my life and the life of my clients. At least some good came of it," she said with a smile. "I insisted that the law firm get the most 'hacker-proof' computer system we could find."

“Why did you come to the caroling party then?" Shelley asked. "Surely you'd heard that there was a possibility that he'd turn up there."

“Because Julie told me that he wasn't coming after all. And besides, I thought I'd gotten rid of him," Sharon said. "After about six months of trying to fend him off, I told him I'd recordedhis remarks about cheating the university and changing his grades and other people's and if he didn't leave me alone, I'd turn over a copy to the television station and insurance carrier."

“He believed it?" Shelley asked.

“Not quite, but I was a lot smarter by then and a much better liar. I did have a tape recorder at the time that I used a lot. I told him I'd been planning to divorce him for a long time and had recorded many of our conversations just in case he decided to contest the divorce action. Went on to explain that I'd made copies of the tapes, put them in my safe deposit box along with a notarized, dated transcript done by another attorney. I really spread myself thin on the story. I blabbed about how I had a client who said a competing television station was considering getting their own 'action reporter' and mentioned what a coup those tapes would be for them as their first story."

“You're good!" Jane exclaimed.

“It seemed to work," Sharon said modestly. "I don't think he entirely believed me, but he couldn't take the chance of losing his nasty little career. I didn't hear from him again. But there was something else that I couldn't undo…"

“Which was?" Shelley asked.

“During the time he was bugging me, he decided he could exert pressure on me by investigating my friends and neighbors. Nothing he could be prosecuted for, just hints. 'So-and-so's been divorced three times; wonder if his wife knows that?' he'd say. Or 'Such-and-such has a couple shoplifting arrests in her past. Isn't that interesting?' “

Jane had been leaning forward, listening intently. Now she flopped back on the sofa and exchanged a look with Shelley. "That answers one question, doesn't it? Shelley and I were wondering how he could get invited to the party one day and pretend to have an exposé on the neighborhood ready by the next day. He already had material!"

“Have you told the police all this?" Shelley asked sharply.

“Of course I have," Sharon said. "I have nothing to conceal and no sympathy for Harvey or the person who killed him — whoever that was."

“I presume you're not going to tell us who he said these things about," Jane said. "And frankly, I don't think you should. But you did tell the police, right?”

Sharon nodded. "I told them what little I could remember. But I was so disgusted with most of the junk he told me that I made a real effort to put it out of my mind and a few of the things I do recall were about people who have moved away."

“So you have no idea who might have killed him?" Jane asked.

“None. And I don't care.”

The pack of cigarettes was open now and she was rolling one of them between her fingers.

"Do
we
believe her?"
Shelley
asked as they V walked back to her house.

“I'd like to," Jane replied, "but she admitted she was a good liar. Maybe she's lying to us and the police about her marriage and background."

“It makes sense," Shelley said. "If it's a lie, it's an elaborate, well-thought-out one. It might be that most of it is true, but parts aren't."

“Which parts?”

Shelley said, "I have no idea. But did you notice how calm her voice was — and all the while she was ripping into that pack of historical cigarettes? Let's assume she's telling mostly the truth. The weak points are, first, that she did get rid of him like she said, but then he started harassing her again and she killed him."

“I don't think she was dressed for it," Jane said.

“Dressed for murder? You mean she wasn't wearing a Ninja outfit?"

“No, she had on heels and a fairly tight skirt the night he was killed. It would be damned hard to hoist yourself up an icy ladder in that getup."

“But not impossible," Shelley said. "Her boots were probably in the front hall of your house. Put them on, dash outside, hitch up the tight skirt. Yeah, yeah. Unlikely."

“What's the next weak point she could be lying about?"

“Not knowing who her ex-husband had the dirt on. Or not remembering. That doesn't ring true. If you told me Mrs. Whatsis down the street was the head witch of a coven, I'd sure remember it for a long time."

“But Shelley, we're snoops—"

“No, we're curious women who are concerned with the welfare of our friends," Shelley said.

Jane didn't quibble. "Okay, we're curious, but what's more important, we actually know most of the neighbors. She doesn't seem to be really chummy with much of anyone because she's gone so much of the time. It wouldn't be too surprising if she didn't recall the dirty details years later about someone she never even met or heard of before.”

They'd reached Jane's house. "Paul is taking the kids to a fast-food dinner and a movie tonight," Shelley said. "I don't have to fix dinner. Can you fling some edibles at your kids and we could go eat together?"

“My kids are stuffed to the gills with leftover cookies. They probably won't even consider food for hours. It's not quite five yet. Let's gonow. I'll make sure of where they are and what they're doing and be over in a minute.”

Jane went in the kitchen door and was heading upstairs to refresh her makeup when Katie called down the steps, "Hey, Mom, did you see the boxes?"

“What boxes?" Jane turned and looked toward the front door. Three or four battered cardboard cartons were piled up. "Oh, that must be the stuff from your grandparents. They've been fretting about them not arriving in time."

“Can we open them?”

Jane continued up the steps. "Sure. They always wrap the individual gifts inside the big boxes. Put the gifts under the tree. And no peeking or shaking."

“You're not going to lecture me again about that little china tea set I broke when I was a little kid, are you?"

“Any second now. You guys aren't hungry yet, are you?”

Katie blew up her cheeks and shook her head. "Food — yuck!"

“Then I'm going to go out with Mrs. Nowack. How about I bring back barbequed ribs?”

Jane took their dinner orders and hurried to Shelley's house. The kids had stuffed themselves with cookies, but she hadn't had any and lunch was a long time ago. She was starving. Shelley already had her car warming up in the driveway.

“Since we still look fairly decent, let's go someplace kind of nice," Shelley suggested.

There was a new French restaurant a couple miles away they'd been wanting to try, but hadn't pulled themselves together and put on panty hose and heels to give it a shot yet. Once again, they were almost the only customers because they were so early. A very handsome young waiter in a tuxedo seated them, actually holding their chairs and flipping open generously sized blue napkins that he laid reverently on the women's laps.

“Wow!" Jane whispered when he left to get their menus. "I could get used to this. Especially if all the waiters look like him.”

He was back in a moment with the menus, which were leather-bound and enormous. He had another server with him, this one in a short white jacket. He carried a silver tray with two exquisite goblets of water. The waiter explained the specials of the day with loving purple prose and a lot of French terms Jane should have understood and didn't.