A Farewell to Yarns

“Detective VanDyne        couldn't you please call me Jane? It makes me feel very old and frumpy to be called Mrs. Jeffry.'

“Sure. I'd like to—Jane. It suits you. I'm Mel.”

“Short for Melvin?'

“Even worse. Melton My mother's maiden name. I've always felt she had a cruel sense of humor.'

“Oh, here comes Fiona. She's the neighbor to the south who called me and said you were here. She didn't know it was you, of course, but—'

“I get it.' He shifted around and hunted for the door handle. 'I'll call you later, Jane.'

“Yes. Thanks. I mean—' What an ass she was being! She wasn't a kid anymore, and he didn't mean he was going to call her for a date or something, for God's sake! He was just going to call in connection with his duties as a detective. Jane felt herself blushing.

He'd stopped, presumably to introduce himself to Fiona, and as he walked back to Phyllis's house, Fiona opened the car door. 'Jane, please come inside. I hope you don't mind my presumption, but I called Shelley when I saw you sitting out here alone. Are you all right?'

“Fine. I'm glad you called Shelley.'

“What happened to the boy?'

“It wasn't Bobby. It was Phyllis. She's dead.”

Fiona put her hand to her mouth. 'Oh, no. Your friend! Oh, Jane, I'm so sorry. How awful for you. Come right inside.”

Fiona got Jane comfortably settled in her kitchen with a plaid wool blanket over her knees and a hot water bottle under her feet. She seemed to be operating on the premise that ifshe could get Jane warm, everything else would be solved. In other circumstances, Jane would have been amused by these terribly civilized antics. As it was, she was feeling stupefied by recent events. The heat was making her sleepy, too. If only she could go back to bed and get a new start on this day with no bad news.

Fiona had just handed her a cup of hot, strong, sweet tea when Shelley rushed into the kitchen. 'Fiona, your maid let me in. Dear God, what's happened. Jane, are you hurt?'

“No, it's Phyllis. She's dead.'

“Oh, no!'

“Was it a heart attack?' Fiona asked, pouring another cup of tea for Shelley. 'She looked quite healthy, and she wasn't old. Only our age, wasn't she?'

“It wasn't a heart attack. It was murder.”

“Murder!' Shelly and Fiona said in chorus. 'She was stabbed, I think. There was a terrible amount of blood.'

“You saw her?' Shelley asked. 'Jane, how awful—Fiona!”

Fiona had staggered against the kitchen counter and was slowly crumpling. Jane and Shelley leaped forward together, caught her, and managed to get her into a chair. Forcing her head down between her knees, Shelley whispered, 'I should have warned you. She's funny about blood. I saw her nick her finger once cutting a radish, and she keeled right over into the salad.'

“I'm so sorry,' Fiona said, sitting up straight. 'How utterly stupid of me.' The color was returning to her face, and she gave herself a little shake before standing up. 'Jane, sit back down, and cover yourself with that blanket. You still look chilled.”

Jane willingly did as she was told, not that she would mind falling into a restful little faint for a few minutes.

Shelley sat down across from her. 'Jane, what do you know about this? Who would kill Phyllis, and why?'

“They don't know. I think it was a mistake. I mean, I think whoever did it meant to kill Bobby, not her.' She explained about the rooms and about Bobby having the master suite.

“I don't know. That assumes the killer knew the layout of the house,' Shelley said.

“Not necessarily,' Fiona commented, now recovered. 'You can tell from the outside that the bigger room must be the one that adjoins the deck. In fact, the way the staircase is set up, you'd assume the smaller room was just a closet or something unless you opened the door. I used to take food and magazines over occasionally to the old lady who lived there, and I was quite surprised to discover that it was a bedroom.”

Shelley nodded. 'All right. So somebody tried to kill him and got Phyllis by mistake. Who would that be? Aside from anybody unlucky enough to have met him. God! The police must have a world of suspects.'

“There's another possibility,' Jane said. 'What if Bobby himself did it?'

“Is he really that awful?' Fiona asked with amazement. 'She was his mother!'

“I've read that most murders are committedby family members,' Jane said. 'I think he could have done it. What I don't see is why he would. She was his meal ticket.'

“But he didn't have the sense to treat her well,' Shelley said. 'If he'd had any brains at all, he'd have been buttering her up. He'd have been buttering us up, for that matter, to impress her.'

“Meal ticket? What do you mean?' Fiona asked.

“That's right. You don't know the story of how she came by him, do you, Fiona?' Jane explained what she'd learned the day before about Bobby's origin.

“I had no idea,' Fiona said, when Jane had completed the explanation. 'Albert told me how she'd gone on and on about having found a long lost son when he took her over to see the house, but I assumed she was a widow. You mean there's a discontented husband somewhere? I should think he'd be the first one to consider.'

“I imagine the police are considering him pretty strongly,' Jane said. 'But he's somewhere in the Caribbean, I assume.'

“People can be hired for that sort of thing,' Shelley put in.

“I know, but I'm sure that's not it. If Chet were driven to killing her, it would have to be a crime of passion. A sudden fit of rage. He loved her too much to get rid of her so coldly. Besides, there was no need. If he wanted her out of his life, all he had to do was divorce her.'

“And pay a huge alimony,' Shelley said.

“I don't think it would matter to him. He's got so much more money than he can ever spend, and I'm certain Phyllis wouldn't have asked him for much. He would have known that about her. No, the one Chet might have wanted to get rid of was Bobby, not Phyllis. Bobby was really the one wrecking his happy life.”

The three women sat silently for a moment, contemplating. Finally Shelley said, 'Go back to this theory of yours about Bobby being the killer. Was he there?'

“Oh, yes. In all his radiant glory. Hung over and being thoroughly nasty.'

“He came in about one o'clock,' Fiona added. 'At least somebody did. There was door slamming and swearing that woke me up. I assumed it was several people, but it could have been just one noisy one talking to himself.”

Shelley considered. 'I don't know, Jane. He's brash, but I don't think he's got that much nerve. To kill his mother, then stay in the house waiting to be found. Who called the police, by the way?'

“I didn't think to ask. I guess he did.'

“No, I don't think he'd have the balls for that. He's arrogant, but I suspect he's a coward at heart. Most arrogant people are. Besides, how would he benefit from her death? He'd have to know that Chet would cut off the funds to him the minute Phyllis was gone.'

“But who knows?' Jane insisted. 'Suppose Chet had turned a lot of assets over to Phyllis and she'd willed them to Bobby? Chet's a lot older than Phyllis and might have thought it would be easier for her to get along someday without him if half their assets were in her name.”

Fiona said, 'That could be. A lot of couples prefer dividing assets to having them in joint custody. It doesn't make sense legally, but some people still do it. If that were true, the boy could have it all at once rather than at the pleasure of his mother.'

“I can't imagine Phyllis having the sense to make a will,' Jane said. 'But maybe, under the circumstances, she did. But would Bobby know what was in it?”

Shelley gave her a pitying look. 'Phyllis? She told him everything. You saw them together. She was desperate to find anything to arouse his interest in her. And I'm sure talk about a will would do it.'