Grime and Punishment: A Jane Jeffry Mystery (7 page)

“Paul called from the airport," she said as she poured Jane a cup of coffee.

“I didn't hear the phone." Apparently she'd slept more soundly than she realized.

“I got it on the first ring. He got some sort of middle-of-the-night milk flight and is on his way now, after about sixteen stopovers."

“You don't have to go to the airport, do you?”

“No, he left a company car there.”

Jane took a cautious sip. Shelley's coffee had a reputation for burning the bottom out of cups. Steve used to say you had to use a blowtorch to cool it. But this time it wasn't bad. Jane dragged out a package of grocery-store donuts and offered Shelley one. They sat together in companionable silence for a few minutes, and finally Shelley sighed and brushed the donut crumbs into a neat pile in the center of her paper napkin. "So, what are you doing today?"

“Whatever you need me to do."

“I don't think I need anything, but that's sweet of you. It's all over now, or at least I hope to God it is. Don't you drive your blind children this morning?”

One of Jane's volunteer activities was to take a group of blind children from the high school to a weekly session in special techniques in daily living. "Not until Friday."

“This
is
Friday."

“No! It is! I was supposed to have Edith to clean for the first time today. Oh, Lord! I haven't even straightened up enough for her to work on the actual dirt. Do you think they'll send her, after what happened?"

“I can't imagine why not.”

Jane was already scurrying around the kitchen, throwing things in the dishwasher and wastebasket with random abandon. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a car coming down the street. Shelley was instantly on the move.

“There's Paul," she said, slipping on her immaculate tennis shoes.

“Get along, then. I'll check with you later and see if there's anything you need.”

Jane went through the house like a demented whirlwind. Steve used to have a fit about Jane's feeling that she had to tidy up for the cleaning lady's arrival. "That's what you're paying her to do," he'd say as she snatched the newspaper away from him to dispose of it the moment he was through.

“Men just don't understand. I'm paying her to do the
real
cleaning, the stuff I hate," she'd explained repeatedly. "The icky corners of the bathroom, the windowsill dusting, the serious clear-to-the-corner vacuuming, scrubbing the stains out of the sink. But a cleaning lady can't get to that unless everything is picked up.”

As she passed the door to her bedroom, she heard her alarm buzzing and realized she'd forgotten the time in her frantic haste to prepare for Edith. She roused the boys without much sympathy for their sleepy pleas for another five minutes. Katie was already up, doing her hair. "Put away all those bottles and tubes and cans, Katie. I'm having a new cleaning lady today and I don't want—"

“Mother! You're having a cleaning lady? What if she gets killed too?"

“Katie, don't be ridiculous!”

Jane said it with a conviction she didn't feel. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, she'd been telling herself, but that didn't necessarily apply to murder. At least, she supposed it didn't. Still, she went back and gave Katie a hug that both pleased and embarrassed her. "Don't worry, kiddo.”

As she headed out later with her first car pool, she noticed the red MG back in front of the Nowacks'. Now that Paul was back, VanDyne was probably questioning him.
Did Paul Nowack have enemies who might have had something to do with the murder?
Jane wondered. Who could guess? For, as much as she and Shelley saw of each other, Jane never felt she knew Paul at all. He traveled a great deal, and Jane had few opportunities to make her own assessment of him. As a neighbor, he was nice in a quiet way. But it wasn't any sort of shyness — more a sense of a powerful personality that was at rest. It had to be. How else would a Polish steelworker's boy turn into the man who owned a nationwide chain of Greek fast-food restaurants? That sort of thing didn't happen to wimpy men.

Questions started popping into her mind. Some pertinent, some idiotic. Why not Polishfast food, at least? Even if he were involved in something unsavory — which was highly unlikely — a disgruntled business enemy would hardly think killing his wife's cleaning lady would intimidate him.

Besides everything else, very few people had any idea where he lived. Shelley had said many times that he felt business was business and home was home. They even had an unlisted phone number, because he didn't want his franchisees being able to call him at home. In fact, his office staff didn't know how to find him; only his private secretary knew their home number. "The franchisees will call him in the middle of the night to ask how the dishwasher worksotherwise," Shelley had said once when Jane asked about it.

That in itself was odd, now that she was thinking about it, in the light of a recent murder in the Nowack home. Was that really the reason for the unlisted number? Or was there a more sinister reason for keeping their number and address secret from the outside world?
That is ridiculous!
Jane told herself. Suspecting Paul of dark secrets was as insane as suspecting Shelley.

… suspecting Shelley?..

“No!" she said out loud.

“No what?" Mike asked.

She'd forgotten Mike and Katie were in the car. "Nothing. Just a crazy thought I had."

“You know what they say about people who talk to themselves," Katie said meaningfully.

“No, and I don't want to know," she said.

Jane dropped Katie off at the junior high and Mike and his group at the high school. Mike had the wisdom to refrain from asking to drive this morning, which she thought showed a nice sense of maturity. When she got back home, Todd was sitting on the front porch, playing with a neighborhood cat.

“Todd, I told you to stay inside with the house locked until Mrs. Wallenberg got here," Jane said. She must not have worded it strongly enough in her efforts to keep from frightening him with the implications.

“I know, but she called and said her car won't start and could you drive us today?"

“Oh, dear.All right. Hop in," Jane said, glancing at her watch. She'd wanted to be sure to be here when the cleaning lady arrived, but that was hardly reason to make the whole bunch of kids late for school.

Dorothy Wallenberg was in her driveway, pacing around on sturdy legs and slashing at grass blades with a tennis racket when Jane arrived. Obviously, this car problem was going to interfere with more than her car pool plans. "I'm so sorry, Jane."

“No problem, I was up and out anyway. Do you need help getting your car to the shop or anything?"

“No, they're supposed to be sending someone with a tow truck pretty soon, and I haven't got anything going today that can't be canceled. Stop back by and tell me what Shelley's found out."

“I can't, Dorothy. I've got Edith coming myself today. Maybe later on."

“You're having Edith? Why?"

“Well, I'm told she's terrific and I need somebody."

“I keep hearing how wonderful she is, Jane, but I had her for a month once and it was a waste of money. The woman just slouched around, pretending to work. 'A-lick-and-a-dab' cleaning, as my mother used to say. I complained to the Happy Helper people and they sent me somebody else."

“How odd. Robbie Jones says she's terrific, and so does Mary Ellen Revere. Even Joyce Greenway swears by her, and you know what a cleaning fanatic she is.”

Dorothy laughed. "I went over once, and Joyce came to the door apologizing for taking so long. She'd been in the storeroom dusting the luggage, she told me. I thought she meant she was getting ready to go somewhere, so I said, 'Oh, why is that?' Do you know what she said? She said because it was Tuesday, of course.”

Jane was still chuckling when she dropped Todd and his car pool off at the grade school. She detoured by way of the grocery store to make a quick foray for cleaning materials. She'd meant to take a careful inventory the day before, but had naturally forgotten about it in all the upset. Not knowing what she might be nearly out of, she dashed down the aisle, grabbing one of anything that might clean floors, tubs, sink stains, carpet spots, ovens, windows, even silver polish. The stuff cost a fortune. She consoled herself with the thought that it would all come in handy sooner or later.

She passed the Staplers' house. The red MG was parked in front. VanDyne must be questioning everyone. Her attention was soon diverted as she passed the Happy Helper van going the other way at the end of the street, and had a horrible shock as she pulled in her driveway. It was like yesterday, but a mirror image — her house instead of Shelley's. Standing at her kitchen door was Mrs. Thurgood!

Jane slammed on the brakes and the woman turned. No, of course it wasn't the dead cleaning lady, but she was of a similar build with frizzy, blond hair. That and the blue uniform gave a scary impression.

“You must be Edith," Jane said, hoping the fact that she was carrying a huge, heavy sack would account for her breathlessness.

“That's right," Edith said, without offering to help. She merely stood back like company as Jane struggled to fit her key in the lock while balancing the cleaning materials. This didn't bode well, but then the woman's job didn't really start until she got inside. Jane knew her opinions of the moment were being influenced by Dorothy Wallenberg's claims. Still, it was odd that people had such widely different impressions of Edith.

While Jane showed her around and mentioned a few of the things she was particularly concerned about having done, Edith just sauntered along behind her, making the occasional affirmative noise. Jane couldn't figure out whether the woman took it all as a matter of course, or whether she simply wasn't interested in what Jane was saying. Neither of them referred to the events of the day before, even though it was obvious Edith must have known what had befallen her substitute. Jane kept feeling she ought to say something sympathetic, but didn't know what.

The tour was mercifully interrupted by the phone. Jane left Edith to strip the beds and ran downstairs to answer it. It was Uncle Jim.

“Honey, I just read the papers. That was right on your block, wasn't it? Are you all right?"

“You mean the murder? Yes, it was next door, at Shelley's, but I'm fine. Just kinda shaky."

“You want me to come stay with you until this is sorted out? I don't like to think about you and the kids there by yourselves."

“That's nice of you to offer, but you'd have an hour and a half drive each way to work.”

“I wouldn't mind."

“Well, I would. No, I'm okay. Really. See you Sunday.”

She had only a half hour before driving her blind kids, but she took the time for a quick shower and sprayed on a tiny, precious bit of the Giorgio perfume to which she'd treated herself for her birthday. These kids, having lost one sense, had developed the others to a high degree. It was a running joke with them to guess what sort of soap and shampoo she'd used, and they could often tell if she'd been to the store recently because of the scent of onions or cleaning materials or whatever she'd carted around in the station wagon.

As she flew through the kitchen, she found Edith leaning on the counter, gazing out the window and languidly sipping at a cup of coffee. There was no sign of her having done any cleaning at all.

Jane had a delightful morning with her kids. They identified the perfume right away, and knew about the cleaning materials. One of them also pointed out that there was a weak spot in the upholstery in the back seat, and the muffler didn't sound at all good.

The previous spring Jane had told the teacher that, come the new school year, she wanted to start learning how to help these kids in a more concrete way than simply acting as taxi driver. So, during class, she was blindfolded. "You can't pretend you're blind, Mrs. Jeffry," the teacher said. "You won't be really motivated unless you experience not seeing.”

Jane acquired a few bruises trying to get through a maze of chairs using a cane, and discovered she had insensitive, if not downright numb, fingertips when she was introduced to braille. Still, as she drove home, she felt she'd gained valuable insight into what these children faced.

The experience gave her a lot to think about. Back in February, when Steve died, her great-aunt May had phoned to say, "My dear, I'm going to tell you the best advice I got when I was widowed and I want you to follow it. Do nothing for a year. Make no changes, no decisions that aren't necessary. Too many new widows dash into things they shouldn't before they've come to terms with their loss.”

It was, she'd discovered, good advice, and she was glad she'd taken it, but now, little more than halfway through the first year, she was feeling impatient. She must
do
something. The children were growing up fast; in a few years they wouldn't need her so much. But she would still have whole days to fill. She needed to start planning how she was going to fill them.

It was probably too late now, but by the spring semester she was going to start some courses at the local junior college. She wanted to find out what else she might like and be good at besides mothering. Working with the blind children might be exactly that avenue.

When she got home, the kitchen was actually clean. Not spotless, by any means, but better than when she left. She had come in very quietly, not exactly admitting to herself that she wanted to sneak up on Edith, but doing so just the same. Dorothy's remarks about the cleaninglady just slouching around kept echoing in her mind. She wanted to know at what pace the woman worked when she was unsupervised. The vacuum cleaner was sitting in the living room and the magazines were straightened up. She ran her finger over the coffee table and sighed. No dusting had been done. There was no sign of Edith.