“What about my theory about Bob Neufield?' Missy asked. She explained to Shelley about her certainty that Neufield was military and might have been discharged for homosexuality.
“Do they do that anymore?' Shelley asked.
“I don't know about now, but he's been living here for ten years or so, I think, and they certainly did then.”
Shelley twirled her mint sprig around and mused, 'How would she know about it? Pryce, I mean.'
“Army, my dear. I imagine the upper echelons are like any other profession—clubby and gossipy. At least writing is that way. I know incredibly personal things about writers I've never met. If Neufield had been high enough ranking, she would have known. For all we know, she was responsible for him being thrown out—if he was.'
“Oh—' Jane said.
“Was that the sound of a light going on?' Shelley asked.
“I'm not sure. I sort of flipped through that nasty book of hers, and it seems there was something about leading a drive to have somebody discharged. I didn't really read it, the whole book was so nasty—”
Missy looked horrified. 'You know what this could mean, don't you?”
Shelley nodded. 'It means we really should read the foul book. I'd rather be a Cub Scout den mother for a year.'
“Somebody better give VanDyne a copy,' Jane said. 'And don't look at me. I won't do it. If I haven't already wrecked my chances with him, that would do it. And we really have to read it, too. Do you have an extra copy, Missy?'
“Extra copy? I must have twenty. She unloaded a whole box of them on me. I guess she thought I'd like to set up a little bookstore and sell them out of the trunk of my car. But I can't read the whole damned thing. I've got a book due in a month, and it would infect my style. I'd be afraid my heroine would turn into a hateful prig. You and Shelley be in charge of searching it for clues.'
“I don't know if it'll help anyway,' Shelley said. 'Except for Bob Neufield, who could she have run into before she lived here?'
“Almost anybody,' Jane answered. 'My mother knew her. And there are probably others in the class who have lived someplace other than here. I know Desiree lived all over the world as a girl. Anybody could have known her before.' She picked a gnat out of her iced tea.
“But she'd have known them, too. She seemed to remember your mom.'
“Not until Mother reminded her,' Jane pointed out. 'Pryce was a very self-absorbed person. And the military's like the State Department. You meet a huge number of people in your life, and you have to have a real gift to remember very many of them.'
“You mother seems to,' Missy said.
“She's one of the gifted ones. That's why she's such an asset to my father's work. I suspect their postings nowadays have as much to do with her skills as his.'
“Oh? What else is she good at?' Missy asked. 'Everything,' Jane said sourly.
“Aha. Do I detect a case of PMS?'
“What's PMS have to do with it?' Jane asked.
“Perfect Mother Syndrome,' Missy answered. 'I suffered from it for years. When I was growing up, my school friends would come to my house to see my mother—not me. She was so damned perfect. Understanding, funny, beautiful—”
Jane nodded. 'And knowing it was stupid because you knew you ought to be grateful because everyone else your age hated their mothers?'
“Absolutely—”
Shelley cleared her throat and, in her best president-of-the-PTA voice, said, 'Ladies, I believe we're wandering from the point—somebody in our neighborhood, in the class Missy intends to continue, is a murderer. Or have you both forgotten?'
“Yes, yes. You're right,' Missy admitted. 'But we've eliminated Grady and Bob Neufield and the maid. I assume we're eliminating ourselves and Jane's mother.'
“We certainly are!' Jane said emphatically.
“So who does that leave? Desiree Loftus and the biblical sisters, or whatever Desiree calls them.' -
“Pretty slim pickings,' Shelley said. 'Desiree is outrageous but good-hearted, and Ruth and Naomi—well, I'm always surprised that they do all that gardening; I can't picture either of them having the heart to kill the insect pests.'
“As for Desiree, Pryce really hated her, but she seemed to take it as a great joke,' Jane said. 'She told me once that she took a certain pride in who disliked her. She seemed to get a kick out of goading Mrs. Pryce.'
“I don't know,' Shelley said. 'That remark about her drinking seemed to set her back a bit. Only for a moment, but it might have hit a sensitive nerve.'
“Does she really drink, or is she just eccentric?' Missy asked.
“Oh, I think she drinks,' Jane said. 'She distills stuff in her basement. Or ferments it or something. At least she's given it a shot. I was collecting for a charity one day and she invited me in to see. Naomi Smith had told her how to make a foul concoction of nasturtium buds or something, and she wanted me to try it out. It was supposed to be wine, but it was like drinking Lysol with suspicious bits of sludge in it.'
“Then she could make poison in her basement, couldn't she?' Shelley asked.
“I don't think so. She didn't seem to have a grip on how to make anything,' Jane said. 'It was probably just one of her passing enthusiasms. Remember when she tried to build her own solar panels on her roof? The city stopped her because they were afraid all that gravel was going to avalanche off and kill somebody.'
“Then there was the time she decided to have a southwest garden,' Missy reminded them. 'She had all her grass scraped off and put in rocks and cacti. Nobody could convince her that the first freeze was going to turn the cacti to mush. It must have cost her the earth to have the sodden things and all the boulders hauled off and the grass put back.'
“Money ...' Jane said. 'Maybe it's about money. Mrs. Pryce's murder. Most crimes are, I think. Do you think maybe there's something terribly valuable in all that junk in her house, and maybe her children wanted to inherit it? There were some really nice things in with the junk. Her family has waited a long time already. Maybe they just got tired of biding their time.' Jane shifted her chair to get out of the sun, which was becoming uncomfortably warm. Theyreally should go inside, but Jane hated being cooped up indoors.
“Jane, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but none of her children are in our class,' Shelley said.
“That we know of,' Jane said. 'Her children would be in their sixties, and her grandchildren maybe in their forties. She could have a grandchild she doesn't even know by sight. She was probably on terrible terms with her family. It wouldn't be surprising if she were estranged from all of them. She never mentioned family. Did you notice that there were no pictures of people in her house? I think that's what made it all so depressing. There was nothing human there. Just stuff.”
Missy started gathering up her purse and car keys and sunglasses. 'I think what we've done today is significant. It appears that we've proved that nobody could have killed her, and the whole episode was just a particularly revolting illusion.”
Jane laughed. 'I love it when you talk like a writer.”
As Missy was getting up, Denise Nowack came out into her backyard, wearing a big picture hat that not only concealed her hair, but muffled her voice. 'Mom!' she yelled. 'There's a man on the phone saying will Mrs. Jeffry please go in her house and answer her phone?”
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“Jane? It's Mel. Sorry I left so abruptly.'
“Have you slept since yesterday?' she asked, then mentally chided herself for automatically going into her mother mode. He was a grown man, and if he didn't get enough rest, it was his problem.
“A little. Could you have lunch with me?' Jane smiled. 'Business or pleasure?'
“Business, I'm afraid.”
The smile faded.
