Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 1

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  Jane knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer, so she nudged it open and peeked. The room was huge, and the bed was against the far wall. She poked her head in and peeked. Caramel was still in bed.

  Jane’s heart leapt to her throat.

  Caramel shifted in her sleep and let out a soft mutter.

  Jane shut the door and leaned against it. She took a deep breath. It wasn’t a repeat of the Crawford death. Caramel was still asleep, as she should be.

  Jane left it at that. She wasn’t going to risk waking up the sleeping widow.

  She drove straight from the Swansons’ to a very early meeting with her ministry team. She joined the other ladies at the mall food court, where Kaitlyn would be opening her Bubble-Bubble Tea shop in an hour.

  “Thanks for meeting me at the mall again.” Kaitlyn swept her blonde hair over her shoulder. The mall was opened for walkers, but none of the shops or restaurants were open yet.

  Jane brought her own coffee with her—purchased from the Stumptown in the parking lot. They sat directly under an air return, so between the early hour, and the blast of cold, dusty smelling air, her paper cup of coffee was a welcome comfort.

  “I think I figured out what we can use to connect with the kids.” Kaitlyn pulled a stack of colorful, round pieces of cardboard from her purse.

  “Pogs?’ Jane leaned in and poked the stack.

  “Pogs!” Kaitlyn beamed, her eyes and smile shining like the winner of a beauty pageant.

  “But do kids still play with Pogs?” Jane poked the stack again. The little worn circles spilled across the table.

  “What are Pogs?” Valerie swept an assortment of the cards over to herself and began to sort them by color.

  “It’s a game. I’ve got tons of these.” Kaitlyn had a gleam in her eye that made Jane nervous. “But you can’t buy them anymore, which means we have the monopoly.”

  “That’s a good thing?” Valerie shuffled a stack of Pogs like they were poker cards.

  “Yes! Because we can start a Pogs meet-up like they used to have when I was a kid. We’d be the only place in town where a kid could get their Pog fix. Totally proprietary. We could play and pray. It’s perfect.”

  Valerie drew her eyebrows together. “But do kids still want to play with these? Wouldn’t it be better to draw on something they are actually into right now?”

  Kaitlyn looked undaunted. “The kids at Spencer’s youth center love Pogs.” She gathered all of her little round cards together. “Shall we review how the game works?”

  Jane took a deep breath. She had come here to support Kaitlyn and to move forward with their idea… but… Pogs? “Kaitlyn… how do I say this? Spencer’s youth center is in the Philippines.”

  “Yup.” Kaitlyn began to pass out Pogs.

  “And he mostly tries to connect with kids from the slums, right?”

  Kaitlyn nodded. She was counting under her breath.

  “And the kids from the slums don’t have like, Nintendos or Playstations.”

  “Or Angry Birds,” Valerie added.

  “There really isn’t any entertainment competition with that group. Pogs are in because…”

  “Because that’s all they have.” Valerie’s voice was completely matter of fact.

  Kaitlyn laughed. “I had a Playstation, and a DS. We had the Internet and all that jazz, but we were wild for Pogs, too. It’s a super fun game. Kids just love it.”

  Valerie put her hands on the table, palms down. “I feel like there are just too many unknowns with this plan, Kaitlyn. Help me see how you would make this work.”

  Kaitlyn exhaled. She was shivering with nervous energy. “We will start a once-a-week Pog meet-up at the mall. Games followed by Bible. It’s a place and an activity that can help those who are being bullied build community with each other and begin a relationship with the One who will never reject them or humiliate them.”

  Jane caught Valerie’s eye and offered a smile. “It’s a good vision. Who do we talk to at the mall about getting permissions set up?”

  Kaitlyn blinked. “Um…” She looked over Valerie’s shoulder.

  “You don’t have that worked out yet?” Valerie took a drink of the coffee she had brought in with her, a tired look washing over her face.

  “If we go to the management office, we can figure that out.” Jane smiled again, nodding from Valerie to Kaitlyn, trying to get them to make eye contact with each other. “We have some logistics to work out, but we can get it done. No doors have been closed on us yet.”

  “I think we should just jump in with both feet.” Kaitlyn lowered her voice and leaned forward. “I think we should start immediately—today, even. Once we’ve started and the kids love it, no one would make us stop.”

  Jane opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  Jake Crawford was standing behind Kaitlyn grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He held a tray filled with sample cups filled with pastel yogurt smoothies.

  “Good morning, ladies. Can I interest you in Portland’s finest frosty breakfast beverage?” He lowered the tray and winked at Jane. “Three hot ladies like you need something cool to drink.”

  Valerie snorted softly, but took a pink cup.

  “Excuse me?” Kaitlyn’s face flushed.

  “Thanks, Jake.” Jane took a cup. The less said right now, the better. If Jake succeeded in getting a rise from them, he’d never stop.

  “Hmmm, that is good.” Valerie helped herself to a second sample.

  “Yo-Heaven fruit and yogurt smoothies. What yogurt will be like in heaven.”

  Kaitlyn placed a hand over her stack of Pogs. “Will you excuse us? We’re having a private meeting.”

  Jake leaned down, his mouth close to Kaitlyn’s ear. “A private Pogs meeting?” Jake lingered by Kaitlyn’s ear. He inhaled, a look of pleasure crossing his face.

  Jane didn’t miss the sarcastic edge to his voice.

  Kaitlyn pulled away from Jake. “I’m engaged to be married!”

  Jake straightened up and spun his tray, like a basketball, on his fingertips.

  “Congrats. Have a drink on me.”

  Valerie pushed her chair out from the table and stood up, taking her time. “Thanks for the samples. Girls, I’ve got to get to work. Let’s meet about this again on Friday night. Can you all meet me at the new Bean Me Up Scotty’s at seven?” She eyed the Pogs hiding under Kaitlyn’s protective hands. “I suggest we each bring an idea to the table and decide on our final plan then.”

  Kaitlyn’s eyes filled with tears. “Jane and I believe in this ministry.”

  Jake’s eyes were glued to Jane’s face. Jane mouthed the words, “Go away.”

  He held his hand up to his ear like a phone and whispered, “Call me.”

  Jane nodded and then jerked her head in a way she hoped said “just go!”

  Jake tipped back his telephone fingers like he was having a drink. “You and me, yeah?” His whisper was getting louder.

  She nodded again.

  He tipped an invisible hat.

  She kept her eye on him as he sauntered back to his little restaurant. Kaitlyn frowned at Jane. “I thought you were in love with Isaac Daniels.” Her voice was half accusatory, half concerned.

  Jane took a deep breath. Kaitlyn didn’t know everything Jake had gone through, or how much he had needed her last spring. “Jake has nothing to do with Isaac.” From behind her, she thought she heard Valerie snort again.

  “I’ll see you both on Friday, at Scotty’s.” Jane left the food court like she was racing the Mommy Bootcamp ladies. She booked it to her car, arriving out of breath with a burning sensation close to her heart, that she hoped was related to the run she had just had.

  She had been dating Isaac exclusively for almost a year. Some Bible School students were married well before their first year anniversary. She caught herself. She wasn’t a sheltered Bible School student anymore. And neither were Isaac or Jake.

  Jane sat in her car without starting the engine.
Isaac had been gone for three weeks and instead of feeling like they were growing closer through his missionary activities, he was beginning to feel like a stranger.

  Jake, on the other hand… she hadn’t laid eyes on him once in the last year. But after seeing him only two times, he was proving to be as much a trial as ever.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, Jane was less than inclined to go to the Swanson house. Her 4:30 alarm went off, and she really wished she had just said no. Wasn’t that a thing these days? Knowing your limits was a virtue, wasn’t it? “If a man punches you in the jaw, ‘turn the other cheek’ so he can punch that side, too.” Jane pressed her face into her pillow, trying to muffle the memory of her old youth pastor’s favorite paraphrase.

  She lifted her head and glared at the clock. It was 4:40. She still had to get up, but now she had to rush, too.

  Jane groped her way to her bathroom. Her roommate wasn’t criminal, like last time, but she wasn’t tidy either. And she was family. Jane couldn’t easily unload her cousin Gemma for being a pig, or for being late on the rent. Plus, the apartment was Gemma’s, so she’d have to accept her living conditions.

  Jane kicked a pile of clothes out of her way. She stared at her face in the mirror. Tired, tired, tired. She had a feeling other girls her age looked bad in the morning because they had been out late having fun, not because they were up early to scrub toilets.

  Cleaning clean toilets at that. She didn’t need to understand her job to do it, but Caramel could have gotten the same job done by putting her lights on a timer.

  Jane spit her toothpaste in the sink. What she needed was an interesting job to do while she opened the Swanson house every morning. For example… Jane rinsed her toothbrush and tried to dismiss the idea that was beginning to form. For example (the thought wouldn’t be ignored), she could find out what exactly had happened to Douglas.

  Jane threw on some clothes and went outside. She could have breakfast after she opened up the house for Caramel. And anyway—she knew what had happened to Douglas. He had drowned.

  But how?

  Maybe—she bartered with herself—maybe she could find out who the woman in the pictures with Douglas had been. If it really was the ex Mrs. Mayor Douglas Swanson, a quick Internet search would show as much.

  And it might help her find out how or why Douglas had died.

  Why had he died? As Jane drove to the house, she tried to remember as much as she could about Douglas. Former Mayor of Gresham, Oregon. Republican. Married twice. Acquainted with Isaac’s parents. But how? The Daniels weren’t very social people. Church and work was about all she ever heard from Isaac. And Mrs. Daniels (that’s what she liked to be called) was one of the church secretaries, so she probably hadn’t met Douglas at work.

  Jane pulled around to the back of the Swanson house. She had only ever met Douglas once. She guessed he was about sixty. He had silver hair and a tan. He kept horses on his property and he had a couple of vintage cars.

  None of this seemed related to drowning in a hot tub in the middle of the morning.

  Jane let herself into the house and began opening it up. She started by making coffee. Then she pulled open the curtains. The rooms flooded with bright, cheerful, summer morning sunlight, just like last time. The perfect Oregon summers she loved so much were not the perfect background for murder mystery solving. Spring rains with their heavy black clouds and soaking, nonstop showers would have set the right mood.

  She might not have the right mood-setting weather, but she did have a body. A man of about sixty, who looked to be in good shape, not overweight, not under.

  His wife didn’t trust him. And he was willing to hop in the hot tub first thing in the morning. Schmoozy old men in hot tubs… cocaine sprung to mind. An overdose, maybe? Jane ran the vacuum over the rugs. Pity the Swansons didn’t have a kid they could send to get the autopsy report for her.

  Jane stopped mid-pass with the vacuum and closed her eyes. She pictured the scene of the death. Were there any signs of drug use in the room—beyond the weird black light and fully stocked party bar? She had barely done anything in the room. She was just going in and was headed to test the water… She gagged a little as the image of Douglas’s dead body filled her mind.

  What about that fully stocked bar? Had alcohol played a part in his death? She couldn’t remember seeing any cups on the marble steps that surrounded the tub. No tumblers or wine glasses. Not even coffee mugs. Surely no one else had cleaned up the drinks but left Douglas in the water… Or had they? If he had been alive when they left the tub, they might have cleared up for him.

  Jane finished the floors and moved on to her bathroom cleaning. Today, she’d start in the basement and take a peek in the hot tub room while she was in the vicinity. Maybe seeing it again would trigger a memory.

  It would be her second trip back to the room since she found the body, but that didn’t seem to make the trip easier. Jane finished cleaning the unused and hardly even dusty bathroom, and stood outside the door to the room where Douglas had died.

  She had to push the door open if she wanted to see the room again. But did she really want to? A herd of question marks thundered across her brain. She had to see that room again.

  She popped the door open fast so she couldn’t change her mind.

  The black light was the only one on in the room and the white stripes of the zebra rug, the white veins of the black marble steps, and the bleached streaks in Caramel’s hair glowed.

  Caramel sat slumped in the hot tub, her head lolled to the side and her mouth gaping. Her arms stretched across the back of the hot tub seat, holding her body up.

  Jane ran to her. She grabbed her wrist and pressed it, searching for a pulse. “Caramel? Caramel?” She was loud, but not screaming, surprised at her own lack of panic.

  There it was, faint but real: a live pulse.

  Jane dipped her hand in the water and splashed Caramel’s face lightly.

  Caramel flinched.

  “Caramel?” Jane said again.

  Caramel blinked her eyes open. “Mmm.” She made a sound half way between a hum and clearing her throat.

  “Caramel? Are you all right?”

  Caramel wiped the water off her face. “I must have fallen asleep.” She stretched her arms and looked around her. She locked eyes on Jane. “The maid?”

  “I saw you in here, and I admit, it scared me.” Jane rocked back on her heels.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Jane lowered her eyes and noticed for the first time that Caramel wasn’t wearing a bathing suit. “I’m so sorry. Let me get you a towel.”

  “Don’t bother.” Caramel stood up.

  Jane averted her eyes almost in time. But not quite.

  Caramel apparently used the hot tub and the tanning bed without her swimsuit on.

  Jane kept her eyes glued to her feet, expecting to be reamed out for straying from her instructions.

  Instead, Caramel padded down the marble steps, leaving behind a trail of wet foot prints.

  “We liked to sit in the tub together after… in the morning. Douglas and I.” Caramel paused at the door. “I miss him so much.”

  Jane managed to nod her head without looking up.

  “Is there any coffee yet?” Caramel asked.

  “Yes.” Jane couldn’t manage anything else.

  Caramel left without another word. Her feet made soft but echoey noises as she went up the staircase. When the noise ended, Jane wished she had remembered to tell Caramel that she had already opened all of the curtains.

  Jane wrapped her arms around her stomach and squeezed tight in a vain effort to suppress the nervous laughter that welled up inside. Was it hysteria or relief? Jane wasn’t sure, but she had to pull herself together. Her very naked boss was upstairs having coffee, and Jane still had four bathrooms to clean.

  Jane took the stairs two at a time. No use trying to hide from her work (or her boss). It was better to just get the rest of it over wit
h as fast as she could.

  She ducked around the kitchen—sneaky avoidance being an instinct after all—and hit the hall half-bath. She did the other two guest bathrooms in record time, too, but no matter how fast she finished those, she still had to contend with the master bath. But she would face it like a professional adult—with her eyes closed if she had to.

  She rapped the master bedroom door with her knuckles. There was no reply so she pushed it open. “Caramel?” She attempted to sound relaxed and normal, but her nerves made her voice crack. Still no reply, so she made her way to the en suite. The door stood open. The room was empty.

  A giddy wave of relief washed over Jane. Finding both the bedroom and bathroom empty was a bit of luck she hadn’t counted on having. Just from her own sense of gratitude, she gave the bathroom an extra close clean.

  Jane straightened the hundreds of make-up bottles and compacts and the mountain of hair stuff piled on Caramel’s side of the vanity. Even the mirror was filthy on one side. The other side—Douglas’s—was spotless.

  In fact, there wasn’t an old razor or bottle of aftershave to be seen. Nothing on the counter proved there had ever been a man in the bathroom. And it wasn’t that Douglas had kept his stuff in some other bathroom. Jane had just cleaned them all. There were no razors, tweezers, or Old Spicy man stuff of any kind, anywhere.

  Jane eased open the drawers on the “man” side of the double sink vanity. Empty except for a spare roll of toilet paper.

  Caramel missed her husband so much that she had already cleaned out his bathroom, and his office, and had already resumed hot morning soaks in the tub where he had died.

  Jane shuddered.

  Jane had wanted her morning’s work to be more interesting, but she hadn’t bargained on it being that interesting. And she hadn’t answered any of the questions she had about Douglas’s death.