A Quiche Before Dying

see you.'

“I stopped by your house and realized you must be here. How'd it go tonight?' His gaze swept the three of them.

“A very interesting class,' Cecily answered. 'Nobody died,' Shelley added.

Jane could see that Mel was surprised, maybe even offended, by Shelley's bluntness. He really didn't know anything about women, Jane realized. If they weren't fluffy, he didn't know what to make of them. He probably thought all mothers were really Donna Reed at heart.

“Glad to hear it,' he said, turning to walk them to Jane's elderly station wagon. 'Jane, are you free to go for a little ride? I could follow you home—'

“Go on, Jane. I'll drive your car,' Shelley said.

“No, Mom can drive. I'm not insured for demolition derby drivers.'

“Jane, I've never had an accident,' Shelley reiterated.

“Why you haven't is one of the great mysteries of the universe,' Jane said. 'It ranks just behind 'Is there a God?' '

“Girls!' Cecily said. 'Stop squabbling. I'll drive.”

Mel grinned, and when he'd shown Jane to the car and got in himself, he said, 'A mother is a mother forever.'

“Dear God, I hope not!' Jane said, laughing. 'It's a condition I hope to be eventually cured of.'

“You don't mean that,' Mel said, turning around and backing out. He put his arm across the back of the seats to do so. Jane liked the brief warmth of his arm against her shoulders.

“No, I don't. Mel, would you drive by Desiree Loftus's house? She wasn't at class.'

“You think something's happened to her?' He was suddenly all business.

“No, I just want to be sure.”

Mel found the house without being told the address. Jane realized that he must have a very retentive mind for details of an investigation. As they pulled up in front, however, Desiree could be seen in the front window, carrying a plant through the living room. 'Want to go in?' Mel asked.

Jane was relieved. 'No need. I was being an alarmist. Where are we off to?'

“I thought a Coke at McDonald's?'

“My kind of date,' Jane said, then wondered if that had been the wrong thing to say. This wasn't exactly a date. It was more a casual pickup. She smiled at the thought of being picked up on the cusp of forty.

They got their drinks, then Mel drove to the mall, closed and deserted now, and stopped and turned off the car in the middle of the huge parking expanse. 'Just thought I'd fill you in a bit,' he said.

Jane very nearly said, 'Gee, I hoped we were going to make out,' but thought better of it for several reasons, the primary being that it was too close to the truth. The other thing that stopped her was the realization that they probably didn't call it that anymore, and he'd feel as if he were out with his mother. Instead, she asked, 'Any more word on the poison?'

“Not yet,' he said. 'I guess once you get past the usual things to test for, you've got a lot of weird stuff to work through. But I did find out a few things I thought might interest you.'

“Yes?'

“Ah ... Jane, you do realize this is highly irregular, don't you?'

“What is?' Sitting in a dark parking lot with a possible suspect? Taking an older woman out for a Coke?

“Talking to you about this case. I hope you'll keep anything that I tell you in strict confidence.”

Jane considered seriously. 'Except for Shelley. She's my Watson. Or maybe I'm hers. I haven't figured that out yet.”

He didn't answer for a long moment.

“You don't like Shelley, do you?' she asked. 'It's not that—'

“She's very blunt. She not only says what she thinks, lots of times she says what I think and didn'tknow,' Jane said. 'I know you feel we're being terribly callous about all this, and we probably are, but women are tough, Mel.”

He turned and smiled at her, condescendingly, she thought.

Maybe it was because she was still smarting under Bob Neufield's earlier insult, maybe she'd reached some turning point in her life, but she suddenly threw caution to the winds.

“Look here, Detective VanDyne, I know you're a big, macho cop. You think you've seen the real nitty-gritty of life, and housewives are just dust-bunnybrains worrying about trivialities, but you've got it wrong. Any woman who's had to turn a baby upside down and smack it nearly senseless to dislodge a penny stuck in its throat knows as much of life and death as you do—and in a much more personal way. We learn a lot about life, because mothers live it over again in each of their children. You've only gone through teenage angst once. I've been through it three times and still have one to go.”

She was on a roll and couldn't seem to stop. 'You think cleaning and cooking and vacuuming are stupid, but they're important. They make a safe haven. Those dumb, boring activities create a place where kids know they're loved, and no matter how badly life kicks them around, there's a place where somebody's doing her best to take care of them. You wouldn't be the person you are if it weren't for a caring mother. Men think they're so damned strong, but for God's sake, haven't you ever stopped to think who raised those strong men? Who taught them to be what they are? Women, that's who! 'Ordinary' women who clean up the cat shit and peel potatoes and make damned Halloween costumes and still man? age to do the most important job in the world—raising the next generation!”

Jane stopped raving, shocked at herself.

She cleared her throat, took a reckless swig of her drink that nearly made her choke, and said, 'Sorry. I must have suddenly been under the impression I was running for office.”

Mel reached over, took the waxed cup from her hand, and dropped it out on the pavement. Then he put his hand on her cheek, leaned forward, and kissed her.

1 4

“So tell me everything that happened,' Shelley said. 'I want every intimate detail.' It was nine o'clock Thursday morning, and they were having a cup of coffee in Jane's kitchen.

“Everything?' Jane said with a mock leer. 'Not with my mother in the house.'

“I heard that,' Cecily said from the stairs. 'Save the girlish confidences and tell me what he knows about Mrs. Pryce's murder,' she added, coming into the kitchen and pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“Nothing on the poisoning,' Jane said, setting out some sweet rolls she'd gotten at the bakery two hours earlier. 'By the way, I'm supposed to swear both of you to secrecy. Actually, I'm not supposed to tell you at all, so you have to really, truly swear.”

Her friend and her mother nodded solemnly.

“He was just telling me some of the stuff they'd found out about people in the class. Bob Neufield was kicked out of the army. He was given a ...' She paused. 'I've forgotten the word. It wasn't a dishonorable discharge, but it wasn't an honorable discharge either. Damn! How could I forget the term?'

“Never mind the word,' Shelley said. 'What was he thrown out for?'

“Couldn't tell. This whatever-it-is discharge means the army didn't bring any charges and it isn't a black mark against you. It just means the army no longer has any use for you. Mel says it's usually if the soldier has some habit or characteristic the army considers a liability—homosexuality, drinking, gambling, inability to get along with others. So there's no record of any charges because there weren't any. But they checked all his postings against General Pryce's, and there's no overlap whatsoever. Mrs. Pryce couldn't have met him before coming here.'

“So why did she make that crack about him?' Cecily wondered aloud.

“The police are going on the theory that she was just raving. After all, it was nearly the last thing she said, and she was dying. They figure she was hallucinating and mixed him up with someone else. I can see that. He has a very anonymous military look even in civilian clothes. Imagine him in a uniform. He'd look like a hundred other fair, fit, short-haired, middle-aged military men.'

“You think they're right?' Cecily asked.

“I hope they are. We've pissed him off, and if he's a killer, that was real stupid,' Shelley answered. 'What