a blue shirt?' he said briskly to Butch.
“Uh-huh. That's him.”
Mel reached for Jane's phone, dialed, and, while waiting for an answer, said, 'I'm sorry to tell you, he's dead.”
There was a collective gasp from Maisie, Butch, and Jane.
“Murdered,' Mel added.
9
“I go away to do my library volunteer stint for three hours and when I come back all hell has broken loose!' Shelley exclaimed.
“And you don't yet know the half of it,' Jane said.
They were sitting at Jane's back window again, but this time the activity outside was different. The property truck, just barely visible from their perspective two doors up the street, had been roped off with yellow plastic ribbon and police cars mingled with the movie vehicles. But, remarkably, the movie set was still busy. A scene was being filmed at the farthest end of the area from the police business.
A uniformed police officer and a police secretary had taken over Jane's hastily tidied kitchen and were questioning people one by one on their movements for the afternoon. Shelley and Jane had eavesdropped for a while, but the questions and answers were exceedingly dull routine ones and Jane assumed Mel was questioning the 'important' players, because the officer in the kitchen was working his way through the listof extras and the most minor of the technical workers, getting names, addresses, accounts of movements. As almost nobody had paid attention to the time, he must have been getting frustrated. But he kept patiently plodding through his list.
“I assume you told Mel about overhearing the blackmailing conversation,' Shelley said. 'What did he say about that?'
“ 'Just the facts, ma'am.' You know how stuffy and efficient he gets when he's on duty. He wanted to know where I was standing, when it happened, how loud the voices were, whether I recognized who was speaking, that kind of thing. I think he was already mad at me before this happened.'
“Why?'
“Because I threatened to back out on our weekend away.'
“After buying all that new underwear? Why? Did Thelma scare you?'
“No, it's got nothing to do with Thelma.”
Jane explained about the lunch in her yard and Lynette Harwell's devastating bit of information about her affair with Jane's late husband. 'Poor Mike just unraveled. He stormed out of the house, hurling accusations at me. When he got back, he'd calmed down some, but you could tell he was crushed. Then, before we could even thrash it out, he mentioned what happened to the kitchen.”
Shelley held up her hands. 'Kitchen? Hold it! What are you talking about? Has this unhinged you completely?'
“I just hadn't gotten to that part yet. Somebody came in while I was showering and trashed my kitchen.'
“Probably trying to find your recipe for cheese bread to destroy it before you destroyed the world with it,' Shelley said with a smile, which faded quickly. 'You aren't serious, are you?'
“ 'Fraid so. Drawers jerked out and rummaged through, cabinets partly emptied. A few broken dishes. There were trash and pots and pans all over the floor and counters and flour everyplace. I managed to just sweep everything into the guest bathroom and close the door on it before the police took over the kitchen. That's why Mel was here. Mike called the police and so we were sitting here with Mel when Butch came in with his hand gashed —”
Shelley's mouth dropped open. 'Butch? Who in the world is Butch?'
“Jake's assistant. A really nice kid. About twenty, New Jersey accent, no neck. He'd cut his hand pretty badly and Maisie brought him in here to wash it off and fix him up. He got all panicked that Jake would be mad at him for leaving his job, so Mel volunteered to pass the message along to Jake for him. Mel was going to go out back anyway and ask people if anyone had seen somebody coming in my house. Anyhow, Mel found Jake's body in the props truck.”
Shelley shivered. 'God, that's awful! How was he killed?'
“I don't know. Mel didn't say.'
“So, while I was frittering away my time at the library, you unearthed a nasty family secret,' shesaid, ticking off her fingers, 'had your house vandalized, invited in a guest with a bloody hand, and sent another visitor out to discover a dead body? Jane, sometimes you amaze me.'
“But I had nothing to do with any of it, except that I live here. It's not as if I pried the information out of Harwell — God knows I didn't want to hear about her and Steve — or went out searching for somebody to wreck my kitchen!'
“Mel's not going to see it that way,' Shelley warned. 'Especially if you're backing out on the romantic weekend.'
“I don't know that I am yet. I still haven't had a chance to talk to Mike. I just don't want him to feel that I'm abandoning him at a bad time in his life. For him, this must be like losing his father all over again. First Steve died, and now even Mike's memory of him has to be drastically revised. That's tough, especially when you're still so young. Shelley, I told him about Steve leaving us the night he died. I didn't want him to ever know, but I heard myself telling him and I was appalled.'
“Jane, he's a tough kid. He'll survive it and I've always thought you should have told him. He was bound to find out sooner or later. Better that it came from you. Where are your kids anyway?'
“As soon as Katie and Todd got home from school, Mike took my side about them not going out in the yard. Of course, he's just afraid they'll somehow find out what he learned. He took Todd to a movie, after getting into a screaming match with Katie. She's in the back bedroom watching out the window — and no doubt plotting revenge on Mike and me both. I could have used her help cleaning up the kitchen. It was an unholy mess, but I didn't want to have one more thing to fight about. With anybody.”
Both women fell silent for a while, watching the activities outside and thinking.
In the kitchen, the police officer questioned a hippy-dippy individual who was expounding on why she never wore a watch and couldn't possibly tell him what time anybody did anything because time was an artificial concept that had caused most of the misery in the world and ought to be outlawed so that the fascist pigs couldn't try to trip people up by asking about it. To his credit, the officer just went on to the next question without any comment.
“Oh, Jane — what a lot you have to sort out,' Shelley said quietly.
Jane sighed. 'Oh, I don't know. The police have to sort out Jake's murder, and Mike has to sort himself out. All I have to do is stand by and be available if needed. In both cases.”
Shelley nodded. 'But aren't you curious? About Jake?'
“Madly!' Jane said, relieved to be talking about the one aspect of the hectic afternoon that least involved her. 'I'm still trying to figure out whether the blackmailer I overheard was Jake. I'm inclined to think so, but I know that's partly because Maisie suggested it was the kind of nasty thing he'd do, and partly because he's dead and it would be a good motive. But I really had no
“Like Lynette Harwell?' Shelley suggested.
“That crossed my mind,' Jane admitted. 'But I know that's because I want to think badly of her. I mean, I already do, but I'd like to pile on the sins, so to speak. I don't honestly believe it could have been her voice, however.'
“Just who was at this lunch?'
“Jake, Lynette Harwell, that weirdo director, George Abington, Mike, and me. Angela and somebody else I didn't recognize were at the far end of the table, but they didn't have much of anything to say.'
“How did everybody act toward each other?' Shelley asked.
“Absolutely bland for the most part. As if they'd never met or had a cross word. Well, except for George
