A Farewell to Yarns

see the red MG. Imagine Mel VanDyne catching her at her best, instead of her worst. It might be a sign.

When she opened the front door to him, she was gratified to see the look on his face. 'Mrs. Jeffry—Jane, I hope I'm not disturbing you,' he said.

“Not at all. Come in.' She led him to the living room, deliciously aware that he was staring at her. 'Please, sit down. Could I get you anything? Coffee?'

“If you have a Coke around, I could use a caffeine fix.'

“I can do better than that. The kids have something that's got tons of caffeine. It's advertised that way. She came back with a glass of ice and a can of something with a lightning bolt on the label.

He took a sip and grimaced happily. 'If you don't mind my saying so, 'you look mauwvellous! '

“Thanks,' Jane said with a laugh. 'Nice of you to notice. I know it's considered very old-fashioned to wear dark colors for funerals, but I just can't throw on a pink dress for one. My mother taught me too well.'

“Does your mother live here?”

She wondered why he was being so chatty but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. 'No, my mother lives all over the place. Right now she and my father are in a little country in Africa. They're State Department. My dad has a positively spooky gift for language. He can start speaking almost anything the day he first hears it, so they've spent their life all over the world, wherever our government wants to hear what's being said.'

“Did you grow up that way?'

“Oh, yes. In fact, when my husband and I moved here, it was two years before I could bear to unpack the last suitcase and put it in the basement storage. Force of habit—I was so sure I would have to move again. What are you doing here this morning?”

She'd taken him off guard. 'Why, I—I wondered if you wanted a ride to the funeral. No, that's not the truth. I wanted to ask you some questions, too.'

“About what? I've already told you everything I know about Phyllis.'

“It isn't about her.' He paused a moment, then went on in a brisk, professional tone. 'This morning, about five, when a trash-hauling company picked up their dumpster behind the shopping mall, there was a body beside it. Bobby's.”

Jane felt her bright perkiness fade as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over her. 'Oh, no. How did he die?'

“Stabbed. From behind. Somebody must have taken him completely by surprise.'

“Behind a dumpster at the mall? What on earth was he doing there? Besides getting killed?'

“That's probably all. I imagine he was supposed to meet someone.”

Mel was silent as Jane rummaged in the end table drawer until she found a stale cigarette. He leaned forward and lit it for her. She sat back and took a long drag. 'It's odd,' she finally said, sensing that he was waiting for her to say something. 'I'm not surprised or sad, because he was probably the most hateful, obnoxious person I've ever known. But in another way, I am sorry. It's just not right to stab people in the back because they're awful.'

“I've always sort of felt that way,' he said wryly.

“It certainly blows my theory of Bobby being Phyllis's killer. Unless Chet—' She caught herself thinking out loud.

Mel VanDyne laughed at her discomfiture. 'Do you honestly think that wouldn't occur to me? Don't be so careful what you don't say. It won't stop me from thinking, but what you do say could help.'

“All right. Unless Chet killed him as revenge.'

“I take it you've talked to Chet Wagner.'

“Oh, yes—' Jane told him about the evening she and Shelley went over to pack Phyllis's things and found themselves in the midst of a dispute between Bobby and the Wagner father and son.

VanDyne was dumbfounded and displeased. 'Why in the world didn't you ask an officer to go with you? You could have put yourselves in a dangerous situation.'

“I don't know. It sounds a lot stupider now than it did at the time. I guess we just weren't thinking. Still, it was an interesting experience, to say the least.

“Did you get the feeling that Chet Wagner honestly believed Bobby was responsible for his mother's death?”

Jane thought for a long moment. 'That's hard to say. I'm certain he held Bobby to blame for the circumstances which brought about her death, but to be honest, I think he'd have mauled him on the spot regardless of witnesses if he'd thought Bobby actually killed her. He was furious, but it was Chet himself who kept John from attacking Bobby.'

“Did John Wagner think Bobby was responsible for her death? Is that why he tried to attack Bobby?'

“No, it was because Bobby said Chet was going to be blamed. I think he was outraged on his father's behalf, and of course Bobby had hit on his worst fear. Bobby was being absolutely revolting.'

“Hmmm. Tell me again about this will business. When I inquired, Mr. Wagner said his will and his wife's were with a lawyer on the island, and he authorized us to request a photocopy. It should be here today. He seemed quite cool about it. Of course, that was before Bobby dropped his bombshell.'

“But if there was another more recent will, the earlier one wouldn't be valid anyway. Actually, I'm not at all sure it wasn't all bluff, just to further insult Chet. The only convincing part of it was that he said she came out of the lawyer's office with a 'blue folder thing' she was putting in her purse. That sounded true, or at least possible. I don't think he had the wit or imagination to make up convincing little details like 'blue' and 'folder.' He'd have just said 'papers' if he was making it up, I think. I knew a girl in school who was a really good liar, and she got away with it because there were always all kinds of tiny, vivid, believable details in her stories. You bought the details, and before you realized it, you'd bought the whole story.'

“I think that's characteristic,' Mel said shortly.

Jane realized she'd been wandering off the main point again, a habit that annoyed him. 'However, there wasn't a will or anything that looked like one in her things,' she continued. 'We went through everything—not snooping—well, yes, snooping—and the only paperwork was in a needlepointed case. One envelope in there contained memorabilia. Family pictures, high school yearbook, birth certificates, that sortof thing. The other envelope was all craft stuff. Patterns, order forms from yarn shops.'

“Yes, I saw that.'

“I thought you probably had. Her purse, too?'

“Yes. There wasn't anything incriminating in it. If there actually had been a will and she'd had it in her purse in New York, where could it have gone? Was it a direct flight, or did they go someplace else on the way here?'

“I believe it was direct. She could have put it in a safe deposit box there or mailed it to someone.'

“She could, but why would she?”

There was another long silence before Jane said, 'Hadn't we better get going? Did you mean it about driving me to the funeral, or was that just a ploy to catch me off guard so I'd burst into hysterical tears and admit to killing Bobby?'

“I've got better ploys than that. Yes, I meant it.”

Jane went up and told a very sleepy Mike that she was leaving. Once in Mel's car, she was glad—for a change—that she wasn't tall and leggy. She'd have had her knees up around her ears if she were. 'What do you know about Bobby's death? Weapon, that sort of thing?' she asked him when they were under way.

“Next to nothing. He must have gotten a call or made some arrangement to meet someone there. We didn't have the phone tapped—an oversight, damn it all. He was stabbed. The weapon removed from the scene. It probably happened between one and four in the morning.'

“No better clues than that?'

“Afraid not. Jane, this was too late for the morning papers, and I'm assuming nobody but the murderer knows about it yet, so I don't want you to say anything about it at the funeral.”

Jane felt deflated. 'I get it. I'm an excuse for you to be there observing how everybody's behaving.”

He put his gloved hand over hers for a second. 'Only partly, Jane.”

She gazed out the window. Mother always said, 'Half a loaf is better than none.' But this was the soggy bottom half; she wanted the crusty, buttery top half.

Twenty