The Merchant of Menace jj-10

by Jill Churchill

  “Mrs. Jeffry, I want you to know that we're leaving as soon as we can make arrangements."

  “Oh?" She tried, quite unsuccessfully, she was sure, to feign indifference.

  “We didn't count on someone so clever being right next door. And we know you'll tell your neighbors."

  “Naturally I will. Why should I keep your secret?" Then, thinking quickly, she added, "I already have, in fact. Quite a few of them."

  “It was a bad idea from the beginning," he said. "And I don't blame you for feeling you've been tricked. You're a good person. You were kind and thoughtful to the people you thought we were. And the more outrageous we got, the kinder you became.”

  Jane softened a little. But only a little. "So you're going to go try this somewhere else, I guess. Play your nasty little academic deception on others."

  “I really am sorry.”

  Jane's manners fought with her feelings and lost. "You should be. Good-bye, Dr. Johnson.”

  He left without another word. Jane closed the door and looked up the stairs. "You heard all that?" she asked Shelley, who was already on her way down.

  “I did. Do you believe him?"

  “It didn't occur to me not to. You think that was just another act?"

  “It seemed sincere," Shelley said. "But he seemed sincere when he was good of boy Billy Joe, too."

  “I guess you're right."

  “That was brilliant of you to say you'd told the neighbors about him."

  “I thought it was pretty good, too," Jane said. "Kind of spreads the danger out, if they are dangerous. They might have done in Lance King if he was going to wreck their finances by ruining their next book deal. It's a real stretch to imagine they could bump both of us off, and they're too smart to think they could kill off the whole neighborhood.”

  Shelley grinned. "Counterproductive anyway. It would leave them no one to study.”

  The phone rang and Jane was still chuckling as she picked it up.

  “Mrs. Jeffry? This is Sam Dwyer. Do you have a minute? I wanted to thank you for inviting me to your party yesterday and wondered if I could return the favor?"

  “How nice, but there's no need. I was glad you could come. Your fudge was terrific, too."

  “Pet and I would like to invite your family to dinner tonight. She told me you'd mentioned making chili and I make a terrific pot of chili. Bring all your kids, if you like."

  “How nice of you. My older son has a date tonight, but I'll see about the others and get back to you."

  “No need. I'll make enough for everyone and Pet and I will eat the leftovers. Is five-thirty too early?"

  “Well, that sounded chummy," Shelley said when Jane had hung up.

  “It was Sam Dwyer inviting me and the kids to dinner," Jane said. "Nice break from cooking for me."

  “A date with Sam Dwyer," Shelley mused. "Date! Shelley, bite your tongue. It isn't a date!"

  “Sounds like one to me.”

  Jane shook her head. "No, nobody invites you to bring three kids on a date."

  “I think Sam's got the hots for you.”

  Jane blushed. "Don't be goofy. He must have just decided it's time to get to know some of his neighbors and he started with us because I had the cookie party."

  “No, it's more than that. I couldn't get him to talk to me at all and Suzie struck out, too. I think he likes you. A nice widow for the nice widower."

  “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

  But when Shelley had gone, she found herself thinking, Do I have a date with Sam Dwyer? I don't believe Mel's going to like that much.

  Nineteen

  Katie and Mike had other plans for dinner, or at least Katie claimed she did, but Jane insisted that Todd come along with her to the Dwyers'. If she didn't take along at least one child, she was afraid the dinner would qualify as A Date, notwithstanding Pet's presence. Shelley's joking about it had struck Jane seriously. Was Sam Dwyer interested in her? Shelley had raised a valid point. He'd been unwilling to talk to anyone else, but came to a party at her house and engaged her in pleasant conversation. Was he undergoing some change, thinking he needed a social life for Pet's sake, or had he really found Jane interesting?

  If so, she'd have to nip it in the bud. She liked her life just like it was, with Mel a big part of it. But as she watched the police searching the yard next door from her bedroom window, her thoughts wandered into dangerous territory. Sam Dwyer seemed like a nice enough guy. What if he turned out to be nicer and more interesting than she knew? What if she found herself attracted to him?

  No, don't consider it, she told herself. She was just being neurotic. "Borrowing trouble" as her mother would have put it.

  The sky had grown overcast again and it was starting to get dark already by four. The police were stopping work for the day, returning lawn rakes, shaking their heads in irritation.

  “You didn't find the disk?" Jane asked, when Mel came to the door.

  “No, and I don't think it's there. Any coffee left?”

  Jane poured him a big cup and sat down with him at the kitchen table. "I've got to talk fast, Mel. The kids and I are invited out to an early dinner at a neighbor's, but there were a couple things I wanted to run by you." Well, the kids were all invited, and Sam Dwyer was a neighbor, so it wasn't a lie.

  “Been snooping?"

  “Just keeping our eyes and ears open," she said huffily. "I presume you know that Sharon Wilhite is Lance King's ex-wife?"

  “She told us that.”

  Jane quickly ran through the high points of what Sharon had told her and Shelley. "Does that match what she told you?"

  “As if scripted," he said wryly.

  “Does that mean you don't believe her?"

  “Not necessarily. But I'm having a little trouble figuring out why she'd come to your house when there was the least chance he'd be here. If I were she, I'd have avoided it like the plague."

  “Did you ask her that?" Jane said.

  Mel nodded. "She said she'd heard he was coming, then heard he wasn't, so she figuredthere was no danger of running into him. Maybe she trusts in gossip more than I do."

  “She doesn't strike me as a Pollyanna type," Jane said. She glanced at her watch. She needed to move this conversation along so that she didn't have to discuss just which neighbor had invited her to dinner. "The other thing Shelley and I learned was about the Johnsons.”

  He said, "I can't tell you anything about them."

  “Yes, but I can. They're sociologists or 'cultural historians' or something. They faked the hillbilly act to spy on the neighborhood for a new book they're writing.”

  Mel nodded.

  “You knew? And you weren't going to tell me?"

  “Not until King's murder is sorted out. I should have known you'd pry it out of them yourself."

  “I didn't pry it out of them. It fell in my lap. Or rather, my front hall. A box of copies of their newest book was delivered here and the kids opened it by mistake. I saw the picture of them on the back.”

  Mel's eyes widened. "Why doesn't information find its way to me so easily?"

  “Do you suspect them?"

  “Because they were faking an identity? Nope. They told us right away who they really were and what they were up to. It was, marginally, a legitimate deception. Nothing illegal about it, at least.”

  Jane glanced at her watch. Quarter of five. And she still had to change her clothes and put on fresh makeup. "How's your mother getting along?"

  “Mom! Dinner! Hell!" he said, suddenly getting up. "I've got to go, Jane. I'll give you a call later. Or drop by if I can.”

  As he was struggling into his coat, Jane asked, "Are you making progress with this investigation?”

  He hesitated for a minute. "Nope," he said with discouraged honesty. "Don't take that to mean, however, that you and Shelley need to interfere."

  “There's that word again," Jane said with a smile. "We don't 'interfere.' We just sometimes provide you with a more domestic view of things."

/>   “Yeah, right," Mel said, giving her a perfunctory kiss and plunging out into the cold.

  Sam Dwyer had done a good job of being both father and mother, at least as far as the appearance of the house went. It wasn't high style, but it was cozy and homey, with a lot of the niceties that men don't often notice. There were lots of afghans tossed around on the furniture, throw pillows, pictures on the walls. The Christmas tree was huge and decorated almost entirely with things Pet had made or taken a fancy to. There were lots of little dolls, ornaments with globs of glitter, and unidentifiable stuff that had been made with love, if not artistic ability.

  Pet immediately took Todd off to see yet another new computer game she'd gotten. Jane followed the smell of chili to the kitchen. Samturned and said, "Sorry I didn't meet you at the door. I was cutting up some extra onions. Sit down. Make yourself at home, Jane.”

  Jane glanced around the kitchen. It was larger than that of most of the unrenovated houses in the neighborhood. Maybe that's why Sam had chosen it. Judging from the smell of the chili and the expert way he was dicing onions, he was a serious cook. There was a rack of expensive cooking pans of every size hanging above the sink and on the windowsill there was a row of tiny pots full of growing herbs in miniature wooden crates.

  “I'm told my chili is only one chemical reaction away from lava," he said, "but I've tried to keep the spice to a minimum this time."

  “It smells wonderful. You must be a good cook."

  “My wife didn't like to cook and she was awful at it, so I had to learn. Took some classes and discovered I was a fair hand at it. Would you like a drink? I have iced tea, sangria, coffee…?"

  “Sangria would go well with chili, thanks."

  “I think so, too." He poured two glasses after washing his hands thoroughly to get rid of the onion odor, and sat down across from her. "Do you cook?" he asked.

  Jane almost laughed at the bluntness of the question. "I do. We'd starve otherwise. Actually, I cook a few things very, very well. But it's the day-in-and-day-out, just-for-nourishment cooking that drives me crazy."

  “We ought to consider trading off dinners," he said. "Save each of us half the trouble."

  “Maybe so," Jane said uneasily.

  “Are you from this area?" he asked.

  “No, I'm not from anywhere really," Jane said. She explained briefly that her father was in the State Department and owing to his downright spooky gift for picking up almost any language in a matter of days, she and her sister Marty had spent most of their childhood either traveling with their parents, or stuck in the nearest boarding school. "He'd be what they used to call an 'idiot savant' except that he isn't an idiot," Jane said.

  “But you've lived here quite a while, haven't you?"

  “Oh, yes. My childhood was interesting, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone. When I married, I was determined to raise my kids in the same house for all their growing-up years. Fortunately, I married a man who had rock-deep family ties here, so there was never any danger of having to move."

  “I thought you were a widow. Someone told me that."

  “I am. But I've stuck in place anyway." She was a bit wary about being questioned and certainly had no intention of getting all chummy and telling him about her finances and how she managed to keep the house, unlike many divorced or widowed women did.

  Sam topped up her sangria and looked like he was about to ask her something else.

  “And what about you?" she said quickly.

  “Oh, much the same, I think. My dad was closer to the.idiot side and could never keep a job. But the result was the same. Lots of moving,no sense of home. Not much sense of family either. Lots of times he'd have to work quite a while in a new job before he could send for us and in the meantime my mom had to work to make ends meet. I feel like you do about raising children in the same place."

  “How long have you been here?"

  “Only a few years. Since Pet's mother died. But it's where we're staying. And I'm lucky enough to have a job that lets me stay home and be available to her whenever she needs me."

  “You speak of your wife's death very calmly," Jane said.

  “And so do you of your husband's," he pointed out.

  “That's true. But at the end, it wasn't a happy marriage," she said. One of the great understatements. Steve had been leaving her for another woman on an icy February night when his car hit a guardrail.

  “Neither was mine," he admitted. "I've got to check the cornbread."

  “Can I do anything to help?" Jane asked.

  “You could. I'm afraid I left the newspaper all over the dining room table. If you could just stuff it in the recycling bin in that closet.”

  Jane liked it when people accepted an offer to help as sincere. Besides, in this case it was a good way to put an end to what might be polite inquiry on his part, but was seeming more like a job interview.

  She gathered up the newspaper and opened the closet door. It was more of a pantry, really, with long shelves along one wall and recycling bins tucked under them. Sam Dwyer was, it ap‑ peared, seriously into recycling. In the paper bin there were not only newspapers, but cardboard egg cartons, leftover wrapping paper, magazines, a couple of flattened boxes. The metal bin was the same way. Not only soda and food cans, but even wads of used aluminum foil. This was a seriously overorganized person. Well, what could you expect from a man who actually wore an apron to cook? A masculine apron, but still… an apron.

  Smiling to herself, she realized she was in absolutely no danger of falling for him.

  This allowed her to enjoy her evening. The chili was spicy, but good, with lovely bits of real tomatoes in the sauce and a hint of some mysterious flavor she couldn't quite pin down, but suspected was just a breath of nutmeg. Sam had also made cornbread with a green chili sauce and a lot of paprika in the mix that was fabulous. There were deviled eggs, crisp celery stalks with a cream cheese stuffing, and tiny crackers that looked a bit like spaetzle that had been boiled then baked. Sam preened about them. They were his own culinary invention, but he didn't reveal the secret of making them. Just as well, Jane thought, she'd probably make a botch of it.

  The kids ignored the subtlety of the food and just wolfed it down as if they were starving. Todd had a soft drink with his dinner; Pet had her special milk poured from a lovely old-fashioned pitcher. Jane was astonished that Pet, who appeared rather fragile, managed to outeat Todd. How nice for Sam that he hadn't gotten a picky eater for a child.

  As soon as they finished eating, the kids went back to their computer game, which Jane regretted. This was supposed to be a family gathering and it would have been nice if the family members had all stuck it out.

  Sam wasn't in any hurry to clear the table and get on with dessert. After Jane had finished her effusive and heartfelt compliments on the meal, he went into questioning mode again. But this time, it was about Lance King, not Jane. This amused her. He, more than anyone else in the neighborhood, had seemed disinterested in it. He hadn't, to her knowledge, walked up the block to ask the neighbors what was going on, which was what nearly everyone else had done.

  “What were the police doing this afternoon with rakes in the middle of winter?" he asked.

  Jane figured enough people knew the answer that she wouldn't be giving away anything she shouldn't. "Apparently Lance King kept notes about people he might go after on a computer disk, rather than on the computer itself. At least, that's what his assistant, Ginger, says. They haven't found the disk and seem to think it may have fallen out of his pocket either while he was climbing onto the roof or when he went off the edge."

  “What a strange thing to do. Disks are fragile. Do they suspect someone of taking it?"

  “I have absolutely no idea what the police think of anything," Jane said firmly. "And to be truthful, I'm tired of the whole thing. What with the usual stress of Christmas and the neighbors who put up decorations that have drawn half of Chicago to stare at their house, Lance King's murder is just too much to cope wi
th.”

  He got the hint and didn't ask anything more. Instead, he turned on the radio to a classical station and started cleaning up the table. "I guess I'd feel the same way if I were closer to it all," he said. "But it'll soon be over. The holidays and the investigation."

  “Or maybe not," Jane said. "There are murders that are never solved. I'm not entirely sure this might not be one of them.”

  Twenty

  Sam made a couple trips with dishes, this time turning down Jane's offer to assist. While he was on the first trip, she took a sip of the milk substitute Pet had left in her glass. Good stuff. Tasted just like the real thing, but probably cost the earth. Thank heavens none of her own kids had allergies that demanded substitute foods. What a nuisance.

  Sam called Todd and Pet back to the table and brought out dessert, which was cut-up flour tortillas, deep-fried and dusted with sugar. They helped settle the chili, he claimed. But the chili was giving Jane a bit of stomach trouble, which she hated because she'd always prided herself on having a cast-iron digestive tract.

  When they finished dessert, Jane said, "That was a superb dinner, Sam," in a tone she hoped suggested finality.

  “You're not leaving, are you?"

  “I hate to be rude, but I do have to get back home. I still have tons to do today. I'm not even through wrapping Christmas presents."

  “Oh," Pet said. "I wanted to show you my scrapbook with pictures of my mom."

  “Pet, I'm sure Mrs. Jeffry can come back and see them some other time," Sam said.

  But Pet looked so disappointed that Jane had to relent. "Presents can wait a little while, I guess. I'd love to see your pictures.”

  While Sam cleaned up dinner, Pet got out her scrapbook which was in a protective cover. She sat down next to Jane on the sofa and presented it proudly. It was well-worn. Apparently Pet had a deep sense of loss for the mother she couldn't remember. Jane wondered if Sam had given any thought to a little therapy for the child. It couldn't be easy for him, either, being as he'd said the marriage wasn't a real good one.

  The first picture was a wedding shot. Stiff, formal. Or at least the much younger Sam was standing rigid with a frozen smile. The bride, however, looked like she was having the time of her life. The photographer had caught her in what looked like the middle of a laugh. She wasn't really beautiful, except in the way all brides are automatically beautiful, but she looked high-spirited and happy. Medium-brown hair like Pet's, but lots of it, all fluffed out and curling all over the place. The gown was cut a bit low and there was an expanse of bulging bosom that wasn't quite virginal.