not contributed items be responsible for what got thrownout and what got saved for future sales. The year before last, she confided, the Parslow sisters took on the job, and ninety percent of what was left had been created lovingly—if tackilyby them. There had been tears and hysteria.
Each call required a certain amount of pleasant chat. Unlike dealing with paid employees, Jane couldn't just briskly tell people what they were supposed to do and hang up. She had to listen politely to elaborate excuses that had to do with children, husbands, chicken pox, school programs, hysterectomies, and out of town family visits. Some were willing enough to volunteer but wanted to extract some promise or another from Jane in return. By the time she was done, she'd agreed to run for secretary of the local M.A.D.D. group, drive a load of kindergartners to a greenhouse in February as part of their Growing Things unit, operate the cotton candy machine at the P.T.A. carnival in April, and chaperone the midterm high school band booster pizza party in January.
And while she talked, Jane crocheted madly, silently mouthing 'triple, triple, triple, single—' all the while. Just before she had to pause in her scheduling efforts and start her car pool runs, Jane laid out the afghan on the living room floor. It was really getting to be very pretty, and if she didn't eat or sleep between now and Sunday, there was a chance she could finish it.
She'd half formed the thought that maybe Phyllis could help her with it before she remembered that Phyllis was dead. Her busy afternoon had almost made her forget. She suddenly felt a great sense of loss for a woman she'd never really known very well. Phyllis Wagner would never help with an afghan, or finish a sweater for her son, or do anything. Jane had tears in her eyes as she shoved Willard off the afghan and gathered it up to work on while she waited for the kids.
Jane had worried about telling the children, especially Todd, about Phyllis's death. But because she fudged on the truth (leading them to believe the death was natural) and because they'd never heard Jane talk about her friend Phyllis, much less met her, they took the news well, if not to say downright callously. 'That's too bad, Mom. When are we having dinner? I've got to go to brass section practice at seven,' Mike said when he got home.
“I bet you feel sad,' Todd said, then turned his attention back to teasing Willard with a potato chip.
Katie, surprisingly, showed the most sympathy, even if it was badly expressed. 'That's awful, Mom. I guess someday I'll get old and my friends will start dying, too.'
“I'm not old!'
“You know what I mean.'
“I'm not sure I do.'
“Mom, you know that yellow Esprit sweater at the mall? The one I made you come see? Jenny says she was there last night, and it was on sale.”
A full price version and the coordinated slacks were already wrapped in Christmas paper in Jane's bedroom closet. 'I'm sorry, Katie, I toldyou no more yellow sweaters. You already have two.'
“Yeah , but you borrowed one and got mustard on it, remember?'
“Mom, somebody at the door for you. A man,' Mike said as he passed through on the way to the refrigerator.
Wondering how long it might have taken Mike to deliver this news if he hadn't been hungry, Jane tucked in her blouse and said, 'Katie, put that dog in the basement before he notices a stranger in the house.”
She half expected (hoped?) the caller was Mel VanDyne. She was surprised to see a man she didn't recognize for a second, then she realized this was the Scourge of the
“Please come in.' Leading the way, she took him to the living room. Todd had the television on, looking for something to watch. 'Scoot, kiddo,' she said. He tossed her the controller, an object she'd never understood. Rather than show her ignorance, she set the gadget on an end table without trying to turn off the set. 'We have met,' she told her guest. 'At volleyball a year or so ago.”
His look of surprise turned to embarrassment. 'Oh, yes. I do remember. I had to quit playing. My wife threatened to leave me. I turn into a sort of Hitler when I play games.”
Jane's previous opinion of him crumbled. Could this self-effacing man be the same monster who'd called her a pinhead three times in one game? 'It's a good thing she stopped you.
You know what happened to Hitler. Mr. Wagner, I'm sorry about your stepmother.'
“I came to offer my sympathy to you as well. It must be a terrible blow, as close as you were to her. I remember her mentioning you. She was always quoting from your letters.”
Jane felt as if she'd been stabbed—right to the heart. 'I enjoyed her letters, too,' she mumbled, agonizingly aware that she couldn't recall so much as a single phrase from those boring epistles.
They were both silent for a moment, then both started to speak at once. 'Company first,' Jane said with a smile.
“I came to ask a favor of you. The police have asked me to come over and look at her things. To see if there's anything among them that isn't hers—in case the killer dropped something. Of course, my father would know best, if anybody could locate him, but I'd sort of like to spare him the job, if I could. Besides, it just seems a job a woman ought to do for another woman. I wonder if you'd be willing to help me.'
“I'd be happy to, but I won't have any more idea than you do what belongs to her and what doesn't.'
“Oh, but you knew her so well. I'm sure you can tell just by looking if it's something she'd have or not.”
Worse and worse! There wasn't a Jewish mother who ever lived who could match this man for laying on guilt.
“I'll do what I can, of course. Do you mean no one has told your father yet?'
“Nobody can find him. He's just not used toaccounting for his movements to anybody but Phy—Oh, my God —!”
He was staring past Jane as if he'd seen a ghost. Turning her head, Jane saw it, too—a portrait photo of Phyllis Wagner was on the television screen. She quickly picked up the mysterious controller, fidgeted frantically for a few seconds before finding the volume control.
. . wife of entrepreneur Chester Wagner. The former Chicagoan reportedly died of stab wounds. Police located her husband this afternoon at a downtown hotel under an assumed name....”
On the screen a fit, tanned, silver-haired man was being escorted to a police car. At least he wasn't handcuffed, and without the narration, he would have looked like a diplomat with his own security men. 'Oh, shit—' John Wagner whispered, leaning forward.
The next shot was of Mel VanDyne shaking his head and holding a palm out toward the camera.
“No, we are merely questioning Mr. Wagner in regard to his wife's death. There has been no arrest. You will be informed when there is.”
The station cut to a commercial, and Jane and Wagner were left staring at each other wordlessly.
Fifteen
“I'mnot going to let this happen. Those bas- tards aren't going to pin this on my father,' John Wagner exclaimed, standing suddenly and striding toward the door. 'Excuse me, Mrs. Jeffry.' With that, he was gone.
Jane sat quietly for a minute after the door slammed, then picked up the controller and started cruising through channels. It was time for the local news, and each of the major stations had something to say about Phyllis's death. All the reports focused on Chet, as if Phyllis herself were nothing more than an important object belonging to him. Of course, what was there to say about her except that she was Chet's wife? That she once made lonely old people happy with tatted ornaments? That she was a superb knitter? That she loved a long lost son who didn't deserve her? Hardly.
One station showed a picture of the house with the yellow plastic police barricades. Another had dredged up a file photo of Phyllis in a crowd of second string international celebrities. A third went on at quite some length about Chet's financial empire and showed a shot ofthe island house—or was it the hotel? Jane couldn't tell.
She learned nothing more than she'd heard earlier about the case, but she did see a familiar face on one report. It was the same scene she'd seen on the other channel, Chet being led to a car by two plainclothes officers, but it was shot from a slightly different angle, and in the background two men were conversing over an open notebook. One of them was a big, late-middleaged man in a somewhat wrinkled gray suit and a fedora hat right out of the forties.
He was Jane's Uncle Jim—not a real uncle but an honorary one, her father's lifelong best friend. Formerly of
