Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 1

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “Yeah, one or the other.” Kaitlyn stretched her arms, hands in front of herself. The sparkle from the ring was impossible to miss.

  Jane wanted to defend her boyfriend, but she had too many questions herself. Soccer games on the beach, mountain hikes, and teaching his seminary classes were all-consuming, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, right? That’s why he hadn’t called in ages.

  “Next week is our nine-month anniversary.” Jane squinted into the bright summer morning sun.

  “Awe. Dating anniversaries are so cute. What are you going to do?”

  Jane shrugged again. “Nothing, unless he decides to come home from Costa Rica more than a month early.”

  “Maybe he’ll have a ring for you when he comes home. Wouldn’t that be rad?”

  “Yeah. Fantastic.”

  “You do want to marry him, don’t you?” Kaitlyn frowned.

  “Only if he decides he’d like to be a missionary after this trip. Otherwise, I guess that’s it.” A small hurt developed in Jane’s heart. He just had to want to be a missionary when he got back. That was all there was to it.

  “Oh, Jane…”

  The motherly tone in Kaitlyn’s voice made the heart pain worse, so Jane dropped into her car seat. She called out, “I’ll see you later,” and started her car. From her side window she could see Kaitlyn admiring her engagement ring.

  Chapter 17

  Back at her apartment, Gemma and her guest Stephanie were lounging in their pajamas. The remains of a big breakfast were on the table.

  Jane helped herself to a slice of bacon and a big mug of coffee. She stretched out on the floor next to her cousin. “I swear, the next time one of my clients dies, I am quitting the house cleaning business.” She yawned and closed her eyes.

  Stephanie chuckled. “Happen often?”

  “Twice now, which is two times too often.”

  “Really?” Stephanie’s voice pitched up a notch.

  Jane opened her eyes. “Yeah, it seems odd to me, too, but I guess Portland is a big enough city to have two people I know die in a year.”

  Gemma yawned. “Don’t quit yet. I am going to have to take you up on your offer to clean. Funds are precarious.”

  “Okay.” Jane didn’t want to think about finding new clients right now, but she had made the offer.

  “But not yet,” Stephanie added. “Because I want as much time with you as I can get before I have to go home. In fact, I can pitch in a little rent if it will help.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Jane said automatically. Though on reflection, a little rent would be nice as Stephanie had taken over her bedroom.

  “It’s no problem, if you don’t mind my staying a little longer.”

  What could she say to that? She’d quite like her own bed back sooner rather than later, but this was one of those no-way-out situations. In other words, she was pretty sure Jesus would say yes. “Of course.” Jane couldn’t pull off a bright smile, but she did her best. “While you are out here, I’m going to pop into my room for a minute.”

  Stephanie flinched, just a little.

  “I won’t be long.” Jane sighed. If Steph pitched in some rent it would be worth it, but in either case, she needed to see this as the whole giving a coat to someone who stole her shirt; hard, but right. But hard.

  Jane fell back on her bed and closed her eyes. Her brain was tired. If she didn’t have the murder thing hanging over her, then maybe she could process her issues with Isaac. Or if future mission funding wasn’t dangling before her, maybe she could focus on helping Caramel better. She rolled over and wrapped her arms around her pillow. Something inside the pillowcase crumpled.

  Jane leaned on her elbow and pulled a piece of computer paper out of her pillowcase. A note was scribbled on it in black pen. It started “Dear Lover.” Jane skimmed to the bottom. It was signed “D.”

  Jane shoved it back in her pillowcase. Stephanie’s love life was none of her business. Of course, she would have a man whose name started with “D” while Jane was dealing with Dead Douglas, and her delinquent Isaac Daniels, but whatever. Jane pressed her face into her pillow. She really wanted this very nice-ish guest out of her bedroom.

  Jane gave herself ten minutes to mope, but then she got up again. She had more houses to clean.

  As Jane parked the car at her next client’s house her phone rang.

  Caramel.

  Caramel pitched into her request without any formalities. “Jane—I have company coming late this evening. Family in town for the funeral. I’ll be out all day, but the guest rooms aren’t ready. I need you here by four, at the latest.”

  “I’ll be there.” A funny sort of excitement lit Jane. For the first time, she wasn’t scared of Caramel, the cops, or the missing evidence. She wanted in the house so she could find that one clue everyone else had overlooked—whatever that might be.

  When she ended her call with Caramel, she called Detective Bryce.

  “Detective, this is Jane Adler, the Swansons’ maid.”

  “Hey, Jane. How can I help you?”

  “I was wondering… if the maid lets you into a house, can you search it without a warrant?”

  “Nope.” It sounded like the Detective was chewing. “But you have my ear. What are you concerned about?”

  “The towels. The laundry basket. All of that. I’m going in to clean the house this afternoon, and Caramel will be gone. I was just thinking it might be a good opportunity for you to look for them.”

  There was silence on the end of the phone for a moment. “Sorry to disappoint you. You don’t have authority to consent to a search of their house.”

  A thrill raced up Jane’s spine. She’d be doing this alone.

  “But… if you find anything interesting, you have every right to call and let me know about it. Then I can request a search warrant.”

  “Understood.” Jane smiled. If she heard him right, she had unspoken permission to dig around the house. She was in control of her fate, a feeling she loved even though she knew it wasn’t based on sound theology. “If I find anything, I’ll call you.”

  “Jane…” Detective Bryce paused. “Be careful.”

  “Always. And thanks.” Before he could caution her against her plan, she hung up. She’d be a real spy this afternoon, and not a victim of her circumstances.

  The afternoon dragged on, but 4:00 came eventually.

  Jane let herself into the Swanson house. First, she had to get two of the three guest bedrooms ready. That way, if Caramel showed up, she would have lots of evidence of having done her job, but have a reason to still be in the house. Fortunately, this job gave her every reason to dig around in the linen closet, laundry room, and the pantry. After all, welcoming guests the right way meant fresh everything, even bars of soap and bottles of shampoo in the Jack and Jill bathroom that two of the guest rooms shared.

  Jane decided to save the bathrooms for last, so her snooping around the house could last as long as possible.

  She ran the vacuum through the first two guest bedrooms, trying to keep her excitement from making her do a bad job. Then she stripped the first bed.

  She tipped the double bed mattress on its side so she could take the bed skirt off and run it through the wash with the sheets. While shifting it off the bed and checking the care instructions (cotton-poly blend, wash with like colors, gentle dry), she also took a peek under the bed.

  Completely clear. But that didn’t mean all three of the bedrooms were completely clear.

  Jane ran the sheets and bed skirt to the laundry room and put them in the machine. Of course, if Caramel had hidden the evidence that Douglas had not been alone in the tub in the guest bedrooms, then she wouldn’t have asked Jane to make the rooms up. So if she found the laundry basket, then Caramel was off the hook.

  Jane repeated her process in the second bedroom and added the bed skirt to the laundry. Nothing was hiding under the second guest bed, either. Jane checked her watch. She was flying through this, but if she w
anted to look like she knew what she was doing she had better get the bed skirt from the third bed in the wash, too.

  She stripped the bed, and tipped the mattress. The mattress hit the floor with a bang, followed by a soft thud. Jane scrambled to the floor to find whatever it was that had fallen. She patted the thick carpet blindly, until she hit on the smooth plastic rectangle that was most likely a phone.

  Jane sat cross legged and licked her lips. She turned the phone over in her hands. It looked like a new model—small and shiny with a touch screen. It hadn’t been used long before it was lost.

  She turned it on and waited for the screen to come to life. Before the phone was lost, it had been both charged up and turned off, as though whomever it belonged to didn’t expect phone calls while they were at the Swanson house, but planned on using it again right away.

  She went straight to the pictures. There were only two. The newest was a close up of Douglas. He was on a bed, leaning on his elbow. He was wearing a white T-shirt and a big grin. Jane looked from the picture to the bed. The bedspread was the same. The next picture was Douglas shirtless, lying against a big, white bed pillow. He was grinning from ear to ear and flushed red. A bit of the headboard was in the picture, and it didn’t match anything in the Swanson house.

  Jane switched over to the address book. One phone number, saved as “Darcy.”

  Darcy? Not Danae? Jane pressed dial just to see who answered, but an automated voice chimed that the phone was out of minutes. Pay as you go—like Jane’s new phone. Jane switched to messages received. There were only two, the first one was from the month before. It was just a date and time. It was from “Darcy.”

  Jane switched to messages sent. There were dozens. All sent to “Darcy.” Jane read the most recent, which was sent two days before Douglas had died. “Pemberly, Baby?”

  Darcy and Pemberly. Clearly pseudonyms.

  Jane read the reply… which was the most recent text received. “No, the other place.”

  It seemed clear: Douglas the playboy had a lover who called him Darcy. If Pemberly was Darcy’s house in Pride and Prejudice, then at least sometimes Douglas met his lover at his own house… That would explain why the phone had ended up behind the bed, which made Jane gag, just a little. But apparently, they only ever met one other place, which must be where the white pillow and unknown headboard belonged.

  But according to the last text, the lovers were supposed to see each other next at the “other place” and not here, where the phone was lost.

  Maybe they had changed plans via a voice call?

  Or maybe they had met again, without making plans via the cell phone.

  Or maybe the lover had surprised him.

  And maybe the lover had killed him, too.

  Jane set the phone down. She shivered. If only she hadn’t smeared the screen with her own fingerprints.

  Then again, she was very glad she had all the new information.

  She left the phone on the floor and pulled the bed skirt off the box springs. She ran the linens to the laundry room and set the machine to a quick wash.

  What if the lover had met Douglas at the “other place” as planned, and then waited and waited for him to make new plans? Then, perhaps she had surprised him at the house, where she had met him in the guest room and lost her phone.

  Would she have come back a second uninvited time to see him, only to be rejected and kill him in a rage?

  Jane returned to the bedroom to finish cleaning and looking for clues. Most likely, she had lost her phone and gotten a new one. Since it was pay-as-you-go, and had only one contact on it, it had to be her sneaking-away-with-Douglas phone.

  While dusting the furniture, Jane opened all the drawers, but as with the first two bedrooms, all of the furniture was empty.

  She checked the closet as well, but found nothing.

  The laundry machine dinged, so she tossed the bed skirts in the dryer. She still had the Jack and Jill bathroom between the two bedrooms and the hall bath to take care of while she pondered the significance of the phone.

  In the hall bath, she did a top-down clean, checking all of the drawers on the way down. But besides spare toilet paper, soap, and toothbrushes still in their packages, the drawers were empty. She gave the toilet a quick scrub, and then swept.

  The hall bath did have a black rattan laundry hamper in the corner, but it was always there, as far as Jane knew. And apart from the white linen liner, it was empty.

  The Jack and Jill bath was the same, right down to the hamper. But… Jane stared at the hamper. Could she be sure, really sure, that that hamper had always been there? She tipped it up and checked the tile floor. There were no signs of scuffing, to indicate the hamper had always sat there, but then, that could be because it had rubber feet.

  She ran back to the hall bath and double checked, but the tile under that hamper had no signs of wear, either.

  She just hadn’t been cleaning the Swanson house long enough to be certain that things were exactly as they always had been.

  But if she was Caramel, had taken a dip with her hubby, drowned him, and then hidden the towels, etc., she would have washed them and put them back in the closet by now, anyway.

  Jane thought back to the incident.

  Caramel had come up the front driveway. She had been fully dressed, without the slightest hint of having been wet recently. Jane shook her head. She couldn’t have been the person who had jumped out of the hot tub, hidden in the closet, then removed the signs of having been there before the cops arrived. As threatening as Caramel seemed, she hadn’t had enough time to hide the evidence, dry off, do her hair and makeup, and get dressed… and so couldn’t be the killer.

  Jane went to the linen closet and loaded up on bath towels and washcloths. She checked for the missing hamper, but the closet was strictly towels and sheets.

  Jane stocked the shelves and debated her next move. Without any reason to truly suspect the lover, she decided not to report the phone to Detective Bryce. Instead, she cleaned it very carefully with Windex and a rag. Then holding it very carefully so that her fingers only went where they might go if they had picked up a phone they found under the bed, she set it on the dresser. That would let Caramel know she had found it.

  Darcy and Pemberly. Did the lover call herself Elizabeth?

  It had been a long time since Jane had read Pride and Prejudice. Wasn’t there another potential lover for Darcy in the story? That didn’t matter. She needed to think like a detective. In loco situ.

  It was time to go back to the scene of the crime.

  She ran to the basement taking the stairs two at a time.

  She flipped on all the lights and took in the room. If she had drowned Douglas Swanson in the hot tub, what would she have done next?

  Jane moved to the hot tub. Say she had been in the tub and heard someone coming down the hall. Jane scoped the room. Jane opened the closet door and stepped in.

  The killer may have stayed in there until she heard Jane leave again. Maybe even until she heard the alarm go off. Then, she would have known she had to leave.

  The killer would have looked to the door to see if anyone was coming, and seen the towels.

  Jane went to the door and pantomimed dumping the towels in the hamper, and picking up the hamper. Then she ran to the sliding door, her arms still up like she had the hamper in them. She pushed the door open and stood on the patio.

  There was a fenced-off square about four yards from the patio, where the garbage and recycling bins were stored. Jane went there… but no. It had a gate in addition to the lids on the bins. If the alarm was going off and the killer was in panic mode, she wouldn’t have wanted to go through all of that. Where else could she have gone?

  Jane scanned the property. The outbuildings were across the open field. The nearest house was on the other side of the white horse fence. No place to hide.

  But there were landscaped plantings with bushes and trees scattered here and there between the Swanson house
and the forested area on the other side. Was there enough cover to duck and run in that direction? Jane acted it out.

  She made it in about three minutes.

  She stopped at the fence. Once in the woods the killer would have been hidden, but if she had stayed there, the police would have found her.

  Jane went back to the basement. When she was done putting the guest rooms together, she’d drive around to the street behind the Swanson property and see where the killer could have run to.

  By the time the dryer buzzer went off, she had finished putting the bedrooms and bathrooms back together.

  Jane stood by the back door, considering what she had gotten out of the day.

  More information about Douglas’s less-than-faithful love life.

  A good idea on where the killer could have gone.

  A strong sense of satisfaction for taking the situation in hand.

  She could work with those things.

  Jane texted a quick message to Caramel telling her the job was done, and then left to scope out the neighborhood for hidey holes where the killer could have stashed the hamper, or sally ports the killer could have escaped through.

  The Swansons’ neighborhood was pocked with small ponds and woods, but it was made up primarily of two to five-acre, suburban horse property parcels. An airy sense of open space was the primary feeling Jane had as she drove through.

  Though on a regular day a person could wander the fields without being noticed, a wet person, likely in a bathing suit, running with a clothes hamper, and looked for—if the police had been looking, which Jane wasn’t entirely sure—would have been easily spotted.

  After driving around the community two times, Jane was sure that the killer had had to stay in the woods until dark.

  Which meant the cops had not been in pursuit, despite the questionable nature of the death.

  Which meant they thought that either she or Caramel had done it.

  At least, that’s the best idea she could come up with.