hour for my time.' His patience was obviously wearing thin, but he still looked cheerful. Grady always looked cheerful.
“That may be your salary, but I have good reason to think you make a good deal more.”
All the amusement had faded from Grady's face. 'What are you talking about?'
“Let's not mince words. Embezzlement. That's what I'm talking about.'
“Embezzlement?' Grady's always pink face had grown alarmingly red.
“Yes. We all pay a hefty amount in taxes, but there never seems to be any money for necessary pro? grams. I believe that large sums of money are missing.'
“Mrs. Pryce, I invite you to look over the city's financial statement any time you want. In fact, I insist on it. I'll have our treasurer explain it all to you. But I warn you—if there's any more of this loose talk, I'll have to discuss you with the city's attorney. This is slander and could damage a number of reputations. I won't have it.”
Missy cleared her throat loudly. 'I believe we had better begin our class.”
Jane scuttled back to her place between her mother and Shelley and sat down, shaking her head in disgust.
“Do you think she's gone gaga?' Shelley whispered.
“God! Can you imagine saying a thing like that to Grady?”
Missy glanced at them, silently ordering them to be quiet. 'Now, we're all here to learn to write an autobiography—'
“Some of us already know how,' Mrs. Pryce said.
Missy ignored her. 'I'll be giving you a lot of instructions—rules, if you wish—but I want to make a disclaimer right now. Rules are, as trite as it may be, made to be broken. But the secret to any good writing is in breaking the rules selectively. I believe—'
“Why are you teaching this class?' Mrs. Pryce interrupted.
“Because I want to,' Missy snapped back.
“I hardly think you're a suitable teacher. A woman who writes those dirty books.”
Missy drew herself up and looked dangerouslycomposed. 'Have you ever read one of my books, Mrs. Pryce?'
“I wouldn't demean myself.'
“Then you have no right to comment on their content, quality, or morality. I'm sorry to say this, Mrs. Pryce, but if you can't keep quiet until you're called on, I'll have to ask you to drop out of this class.'
“I've paid my money and I'll stay as long as I wish. That is my right as a citizen.' She turned and looked around smugly, as if daring any of them to dispute this.
“Now see here—' Missy began, then caught herself. She looked down at her notes, took a long breath, and went on with her lecture. 'The first thing you must determine is the purpose your autobiography is to serve. There are many reasons for writing one, some therapeutic, some instructional....”
Jane was making notes.
5
“So how did it go?' Jim Spelling asked Jane, Cecily, and Shelley as they trooped in the door. He was at the kitchen sink washing grease off his hands.
“Not bad—' Jane said, preoccupied.
“Not bad?' her mother and Shelley said in unison. 'Jane! Have you gone mad?' Shelley finished. 'What?'
“Earth to Jane. Do I need to get the jumper cables?”
Jane laughed. 'I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else. The class was ghastly, at least Mrs. Pryce was. Is Katie home, Uncle Jim?'
“She came and went.'
“She's not supposed to go anywhere.'
“Just next door to look at somebody's hair. Why anybody'd walk five feet to look at hair is a mystery to me.”
Shelley was getting out coffee cups. 'It's my daughter's, and it is worth gawking at. She looks like somebody went at her head with a lawn mower.'
“I've been thinking about it, and I believe Agnes Pryce is insane,' Cecily said, sitting down at the kitchen table. 'I remembered her as being overbearing and insensitive, but nothing like that performance tonight. Maybe it's a particularly nasty form of senility.”
Shelley joined her at the table, setting cups around. 'You might be right. I did some volunteer work at a nursing home for a while. There was a man there, not all that old, but he'd had a stroke. He was belligerent and had the foulest mouth I've ever heard. His family was always visiting and always left in tears. Apparently he'd been a gentle, kind person before. The doctor and nurses kept explaining to them that the stroke had triggered activity in some part of his mind that we all have, but normally repress. I guess his inhibitions had been cut off somehow. Maybe that's what age has done to Mrs. Pryce.'
“That woman never did have inhibitions,' Jim said, turning off the faucet and looking at the drip with irritation. 'This needs work, too.'
“Jim, this was far worse than I remembered her,' Cecily Grant said. 'This poor woman who has some illness sat down next to her, and Pryce behaved like she'd been thrust into the middle of a leper colony. She called another woman a drunk and accused the mayor of embezzling the town treasury. All that before the class even started. That's when she went to work on the teacher for writing pornography.”
Katie burst in just then, and there were five minutes of hugging and kissing and shopping plans between granddaughter and grandmother.
“Jane, I ran into whatsisname today,' Jim said when the greetings had died down.
“Which whatsisname?'
“VanDyne.'
“Oh?' Jane was elaborately casual.
“Yeah, said he was going to give you a call. Hadn't seen you in a while.'
“I've been right here.”
Jim glanced up from the offending plumbing, sur? prised at her arch tone. 'Yeah—but he hasn't, you know. He's been teaching some law enforcement seminars out in California.'
“Who are you talking about?' Cecily Grant asked. 'Mel VanDyne, Mother. I wrote to you about him.
The detective I invited to Christmas dinner with us.' 'Oh, yes. The fabled Christmas dinner when Todd got sick.'
“Todd couldn't help it. I never heard from VanDyne again. I guess he thought somebody always threw up on Christmas around here. Long family tradition. After all, if the president can upchuck at a state dinner, why should Todd be any different?'
“Jane, I'm sorry,' her mother said.
“No, don't be. It's nothing,' Jane said.
But it was. Mel VanDyne had been her first timid venture back into the world of romance after being widowed, and she'd been humiliated when he never called back after the ill-fated dinner. She'd beat herself up about it for weeks. What had she expected? He was younger than she, extraordinarily good-looking, and sophisticated in the real world. She, on the other hand, was domestic to the eyebrows, wallowing in children, pets, recipes, cleaning products, and PTA committees. What possible interest could a handsome bachelor have in her? And yet, she'd been instrumental in helping him solve a couple of crimes, and the reason she was able to help was that she understood the suburban life that she was so thoroughly a part of and he didn't. Still, he had probably regarded that as a helpful- trait, not a sexy one.
“You aren't going back, are you?' Jim was asking.
