Grime and Punishment

“Oh, no, that didn't occur to me until I was driving back here. What made me realize it had to be her was dropping a bowl. Two bowls, actually. When Shelley and I cleaned out the refrigerator, I lost my grip on that big ceramic bowl of hers and dumped potato salad all over the kitchen. We should have both realized that if it was that hard to keep hold of the thing with two good hands, it would be absolutely impossible to keep a grip on it with one. It was heavy and slippery.'

“And then there was the way it was in the refrigerator,' Shelley said. 'She put it in at the bottom of the stack of dishes because it was the biggest and heaviest — and probably to make it seem like it had gotten there first, even though she said she'd come right after you, Suzie. That meant she had to take the other things that had come first out, slide hers clear in, and put theothers back. She couldn't have done it with her arm the way she claimed it was.'

“I still don't really get it,' Suzie said. 'I had a broken arm once and I got used to doing all sorts of things with it. I used the cast almost like a tool. Pushing things around with it. Balancing things on it—”

Jane took the last crumpled cigarette out of the pack in her purse, and was irritated to notice that she was still shaking so badly she could hardly light it. 'But that's when you got used to it. She was claiming to have only broken it the day before. And when I was over there that morning, she was doing a convincing job of acting like it was so excruciatingly painful that she couldn't so much as lift a recipe card with that hand. Besides, she went too far in making the story convincing, and told me how a man at the grocery store had been so nice and drove her to the OakviewCommunityHospital to have her arm set. There isn't a hospital in Oakview.'

“Also, the bowl had a plate for a lid,' Shelley said. 'It didn't even fit tightly, and the bowl had to be kept perfectly level or it slid off.'

“What was that you were trying to tell the divine detective about my bowl?' Suzie asked.

“Again, she got carried away with her alibi. She said you had just left when she came over, but your bowl was on top of hers. She probably didn't know which thing you brought. But if she'd moved yours with one hand, she'd have had to stick her thumb through the plastic wrap.”

Suzie made a few experimental motions with her hands, trying to get the feel of what Jane was saying, then nodded her comprehension.

“And then there was the dishwasher,' Jane said.

“What dishwasher?' Suzie asked.

“The killer had apparently turned on the dishwasher to make it appear the cleaning lady had been killed only moments before Shelley got home. An alibi of sorts, to make it look like the people who brought their food early were in the clear. Of course, with her dish at the bottom of the stack, Mary Ellen looked like she'd come very early, and she said she did.'

“But that could have been anyone.'

“No, only someone who knew how to work the timer gadget. You don't have one of those, I don't, and Shelley doesn't even know how to work hers. But when I went to Mary Ellen's that morning, I noticed that she had the same kind. Well, I don't mean I noticed then, but I remembered later noticing what a complicated-looking control panel it had.'

“She took an awful chance—' Suzie said.

“There must have been an awful need. Imagine planning something like that. She must have started thinking about it when Shelley told all of us she was going to be gone, but Edith would be here.'

“But if anyone had seen her carrying the potato salad in both hands, it would have wrecked an alibi she'd gone to a lot of trouble to set up,' Suzie said.

“And the chances were good that somebody would. She took a big risk. You know howsnoopy everybody in this neighborhood is,' Jane said.

“Do I ever!' Suzie said. 'There are women around here who come right into your house and ask if you're being blackmailed.”

Shelley got up and went to the kitchen. 'The coffee's ready. Who wants some? Jane, I could give it to you in a big cup and maybe you could drown yourself.'

“I'd like some, thanks, ma'am,' the man in the Happy Helper uniform said. He'd managed to straighten out his bosom.

“I still don't see how she knew about your snooping,' Shelley said.

“My snooping? You were in on it, as I recall,' Jane said. She explained to Suzie, who was unaccountably blushing. 'She stabbed a note, warning me to mind my own business, in my bed. Why are you that color, Suzie?'

“I guess I better confess. I told her. She called just after you left my house and I was still laughing my ass off about your clumsy attempts at detection. I guess we're even. You went looking for gossip and I kept busy spreading it. So, how did you and Shelley eliminate each other as suspects?'

“We never suspected each other for a minute,' Jane declared.

“Come off it!'

“Never!' Jane insisted.

Shelley was smiling. 'How did you know it wasn't me, Jane? I could have been lying about the airport and sneaked back across the field, like we did a while ago. You must have at least wondered, didn't you?”

Jane was afraid she might be blushing too. Shelley was expressing a thought that had crossed her mind. 'Well, only occasionally. But in the end, I knew you wouldn't risk messing your house up. If you were going to kill somebody, you'd do it where you wouldn't have to clean up afterwards.”

Shelley laughed. 'And I knew it wasn't you because you couldn't sneak up on somebody without talking.'

“So how did you find out what she was being blackmailed about?' Suzie asked.

“I didn't,' Jane answered. She was smiling now too, relieved in a funny way that Shelley had briefly suspected her. It made her feel less guilty about thinking she or Suzie might have been a killer. 'I didn't even think of trying to find out if Mary Ellen was being blackmailed. The broken-arm business had me so fooled I didn't even consider her. Besides, I'd already found out more than I wanted to about — about some other things. Isn't it strange? I thought we had to know what the blackmail was about, when all we needed to know was right in Shelley's refrigerator. Still, I wonder…'

“Edith was telling the truth about a jailbreak,' a voice behind Jane said. VanDyne had come into the room on that silent tread. He came around and sat down next to Jane. She'd have been flattered except that it was the only seat available. 'We've run her through the computer. She'd been a bank teller in California, and spent two years in jail for embezzling. She was sentenced to three, but let herself out early. Yourcleaning lady was the only thing between her and going back to jail.'

“So what was the catalyst?' Jane asked.

“I thought you were the one with all the answers,' he said. His tone was light, with only the tiniest glimmer of sarcasm coming through.

Jane gave him a level look for a long moment, then said, 'I don't know for sure. Maybe it was simply the first opportunity she had that would leave her in the clear. She couldn't very well kill the woman in her own house and not have her past looked into. But killing her here, on a day when half the neighborhood was due to pass through, was perfect. I just wish I'd caught on sooner about the scrapbook.'

“A stupid thing to do, but human just the same,' VanDyne mused. 'It was her fifteen minutes of fame.'

“Still, I wish I'd realized it then. I wouldn't have been forced to crawl through that field and risk my life —!'

“If I recall correctly, I told you that you were not to come back here under any circumstances,' VanDyne said.

“Yes, but if I hadn't, you'd have arrested the wrong person and wouldn't have caught Mary Ellen at all.'

“If it weren't for your butting in, we wouldn't have been conducting this comedy of errors at all. And sure, we'd have gotten her. It was just a matter of time before the computer would have spit out the information about her in the normal course of the investigation—'

“But you wouldn't have caught her in the act of trying it again! That was all our idea—'

“I'll say! And if you ask me—'

“I've got to get back to work,' Suzie said, cutting the squabble short. 'You'll confirm to my boss why I took