Grime and Punishment

After this, in self-defense, she gave her full attention to the meeting in progress. It broke up moments before the final bell, and she and Shelley fled. No self-respecting adult would set themselves up for being in the building at the final bell on a Friday afternoon. 'Jane, I want you to talk to the police for me,' Shelley said, once they were breathing fresh, free air again.

“Shelley, I can't do that. For one thing, Van-Dyne already thinks I'm half-crazy and wouldn't believe me. He'd run straight to Paul to confirm the story and get a description of the pearls — or bread pellets or whatever they are.'

“Then they just aren't going to know.'

“The police have to know. It's important to their investigation.'

“I'm not so sure. Jane, hasn't it struck you as odd? The whole thing? I mean, nobody knew I even had the damned things except Paul's family, and none of them live anywhere near. So why would some random thief come in my house, ignore the silver, the home computer, the stereo, the other jewelry — all that stuff they usually steal — and go straight to my underwear drawer to steal a string of highly questionable pearls?'

“Of course it's odd. But what do you think it means?'

“I have no idea.”

Further discussion was cut short by the clanging of the final bell. Within seconds they were buffeted by kids escaping the building. 'There's Paul, parked up the street. I've got to go.'

“But we haven't settled anything.' Jane raised her voice over the sounds of chaos around her.

“No, but I'll figure out what to do. Don't worry,' Shelley said. 'See you later.”

Jane went back to the relative safety of her car to wait for Katie to emerge from school. She lit a cigarette and sat staring sightlessly at the crowd of kids swarming past. The whole situation was very strange. Why would someone ignore all the other obviously valuable things in Shelley's home and go straight to the possibly fake string of pearls? She had said Paul's family all lived somewhere else, but suppose one of them had slipped into town and taken the necklace? Still, even if that were true, how would anybody know where she kept them? Shelley certainly hadn't sat around after the funeral and said to Paul's family that she thought she'd just take the pearls home and put them in with her slips and bras.

The house hadn't shown any overt signs of ransacking. Even a subtle search would have been apparent to Shelley, considering the kind of meticulous housekeeper she was. No, it would seem that somebody knew exactly where to look. And nobody but Shelley herself knew where they were. Even Paul thought they were safely in the bank.

A nasty little thought was flitting around the back of her mind. If Shelley was the only one who knew where they were, could she be faking a theft? Jane shook her head as if to physically dispel the notion. Why in the world would Shelley do that, and what kind of friend would suspect her?

“What were you doing in the school?' Katie asked, flinging the door open and startling Jane.

“Wasting time. Inadvertently volunteering to work at the carnival,' Jane replied sourly.

“Oh, Mother! Do you have to come?”

No, Jane thought, with any luck I'll die before then. Of course, that woman in charge would probably just prop her up behind the cotton candy booth and expect her to do her job anyway.

Eight

Shelley phoned as Jane was running in the door. She explained that Paul didn't want her to be frightened by staying in the house until the killer was found. They were going to a hotel ten miles away.

“I don't like hotels, and I don't mind in the least staying in the house as long as he's home, so I'll talk him out of this tomorrow, but.. dinner out and a night alone will be nice,' she added in a husky whisper. 'I've got a beautiful nightgown that Suzie talked me into buying months ago—'

“Have you told him?'

“No.'

“Or the police?'

“Detective VanDyne called, but they don't seem to know anything. Either they're blundering around in the dark or they're just not telling us about their leads. Gotta go! Paul's rattling the car keys. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon. Talk to you then.”

As Jane was speaking, Edith was putting on her sweater and changing from the carpet slippers she wore to work in to more attractive shoes. The light blue van was already parked at the curb. Jane hadn't had a chance to really look over the house, but planned to do so before the kids could start messing it up again. She handed Edith a five-dollar bill. The Happy Helper people would bill her for Edith's services by mail, but it was customary to give an extra tip.

Before she could escape to a quiet place to think over all Shelley had said, Katie reminded her that they hadn't gotten their allowances the day before, due to the upheaval next door.

“But I have to have my money today. Jenny and I are going shopping tonight.'

“With whom?'

“Oh, Mother!'

“Don't 'oh, Mother' me. You know I don't approve of teenagers aimlessly cruising the mall.'

“Mother, that's so old-fashioned. Nobody else's mother—'

“You know what I'm going to say to that, no matter where the sentence is going, don't you?'

“I know. That you don't care what anybody else's mother does,' she said in a singsong imitation of Jane's refrain. 'Anyway, Jenny's mom is going with us. She's getting some fabric, and Jenny is going to buy some false fingernails.”

In other words, the whole dispute was theoretical, Jane thought. Sort of like testing a locked door at intervals just in case it might be unlocked. She remembered doing the same thing herself. She also remembered fake fingernails. She had put some on just before going to bed once when she was about that age and woke up with them all stuck in her hair. No point in telling Katie that. She'd find out for herself. Every generation has to reinvent the wheel.

Jane went back down to the basement office. The kids weren't the only ones who needed money. The five she had given Edith had been the last money in her billfold. Normally, she got their allowances and cash for groceries every Thursday morning, but this hadn't exactly been a normal week. She had a carry-around checkbook for emergency expenses, but regular bills and this weekly cash withdrawal were always written from the money market checkbook she kept locked in the desk. Steve had started the system, and she'd stuck with it out of habit.

She pulled open the middle drawer and reached under it for the little magnetic box stuck on the underside. Again, a policy of Steve's she'd stayed with for no other reason than the fact that they'd always done it that way. From the box, she removed the key to the deep bottom right drawer. But the key wouldn't go in. That was odd.

She leaned over to see what the problem was. The little vertical slot was horizontal. The drawer was already unlocked. She must have failed to lock it last Friday. No, that wasn't right. She remembered how annoyed she'd been because she'd broken her best fingernail when she had flipped the key back up last week. Had she opened it since then? She thought not; except for that hour earlier in the afternoon, she hadn't even been in the office.

Her suspicions growing, Jane studied the drawer contents before lifting out the checkbook. All her really valuable papers were in the safe-deposit box at the bank — the abstract on the house, copies of income tax forms, birth certificates, wills. This drawer was a second-stringvaluables storage area — the kids' report cards, some family pictures, receipts for major purchases, warranties on the appliances, some foreign money she'd collected in her childhood, an envelope with the kids' baby teeth, and, of course, the money market checkbook.

It was a hodgepodge drawer without any particular system, but she only tidied it up about once a year, so she had a sort of petrified vision of what it should all look like. And it didn't look right. She couldn't have said what was out of order, as there was no order, but she had a strong sense that it had been rearranged.

Bending down, she studied the lock. There was a fresh-looking scratch at the side of the keyhole. The key itself had a rounded end, so she couldn't have made it herself. She took out the checkbook. Nothing was missing.