“Doesn't matter. I don't read it anyway. I used to check the school lunch menus so I could pack lunches on the days they had things the kids despised, but then one memorable day I had a blinding flash of realization that the kids were capable of opening a paper and reading it themselves, not to mention packing a lunch. It was like getting religion.'
“Good God! Jack and Chelley O'Brien had another baby. She's our age and Jack's nearly fifty!”
Jane shuddered. 'That would be like having your own grandchildren. Nursing bras and Geritol at the same time.'
“Pacifiers and walkers.'
“Diapers and Depends.”
Shelley laughed. 'You win.'
“And the prize is a nap,' Jane said, heading for the kitchen door. 'I have to do a big family dinner, attend the graduation, then stay up all night as chaperone at—'
“Oh!' Shelley exclaimed. She rattled the newspaper pages. 'Look at this!'
“What? Hold it still!'
“There. Right there. Under 'Divorces Filed.' Rhonda against Robert Stonecipher. Filed the day before yesterday. The day before she was widowed!”
A car was coming up the street and pulled into Jane's driveway. Suzie Williams got out and moved toward them like a warship under full sail, her platinum hair shining in the sunlight. Her face fell when she saw the shopping paper. 'No! You've already seen it, haven't you?' she asked, prodding with a long, scarlet fingernail at the newspaper in Shelley's hands. 'I thought for once in my life I might get ahead of Gossip Central. Damn!”
Shelley was still staring at the paper. 'Filing for divorce the day before he died! Talk about feeling guilty.'
“Guilty, hell,' Suzie scoffed. 'Think of the relief. You aren't the kind of Pollyanna who believes you divorce a bad-tempered lawyer and come out of it with anything but your second-best underwear, do you? Take it from somebody who's been there, done that, and got the T-shirt to prove it. But with him dying, there's no alimony, no nasty little settlements. She just walks with the whole wad.”
Jane almost missed her nap. There was no way she could sleep without thrashing out this news. First she called Mel, who said curtly that he already knew about the divorce and would she please mind her own business and stay out of it.
“I think I've blighted my evening,' Jane said, hanging up.
“An evening of chaperoning high school graduates is blighted by definition.'
“But what does this do to her motive — or Tony Belton's? If she was divorcing her husband anyway, why would she need to kill him?'
“I can think of a lot of good reasons,' Shelley said, perusing the inside of Jane's refrigerator. 'Starting with the obvious ones Suzie mentioned. Oh, you're doing a turkey breast for dinner. Good idea.'
“The whole meal is Mike's favorites. We're having Thanksgiving in June tonight. What are you looking for? The cream's already out.' Shelley sat down, casting a quick, longing look at the coffeemaker, which was burbling along at its own slow pace. 'Okay, Rhonda filed for divorce, told her husband, and he said the dreaded words—'No money.' They argued about it all day and the flames burst out again while they were in the deli. Suddenly it crossed her mind that she'd come out a lot better as a widow than as a divorcee.”
Jane considered it. 'Yeah, maybe. But could she possibly be naive enough to think he'd just open his checkbook and say, 'Go in peace, my child'? I don't think so. She's not stupid and she knew him well. As smart as she is, she'd probably changed all their bank accounts to her name only before she ever told him about the divorce.'
“But there might not have been much free cash to convert to her name,' Shelley said. 'If all their assets were in stocks or bonds or something, it wouldn't be possible for her to latch on to much of it. And from what we know about Stonecipher, he seems the compulsive type who'd stash his money away pretty carefully in blue-chip investments the minute it came in.'
“The thing wrong with this is that it goes back to planning. In the first place, I can't imagine Rhonda letting go of the source of her funds. She had to know that divorcing him was really going to cut into her budget. So she'd be better off financially if he were dead.
If we suppose that she's capable of murder, why didn't she make a good plan to start with and kill him off?”
Shelley got up and poured the coffee. 'I don't know. Maybe she'd decided that even the money didn't make it worth living with him, but he was even uglier about it than she anticipated.'
“How do you mean?' Jane said, blowing on her drink.
“Oh, maybe he'd seen it coming and put everything they owned into a corporation in his name.'
“Can you do that?'
“I think if you're a sharp, stingy attorney who thinks his wife is about to make off with your money, there are a lot of things you can do. Remember that doctor who used to live on the other side of Suzie's house? He divorced his wife and went right out, bought a huge house with a pool, drove his fancy cars, lived like a king with his bimbo girlfriend, and she and the kids had to go on welfare.”
Jane nodded. 'Maybe Stonecipher threatened to dump Tony, too. If he knew about their relationship — if there is a relationship.'
“Maybe,' Shelley allowed. 'But wouldn't a sharp young attorney be able to make it on his own?'
“If he is sharp. He may be a lousy attorney — with great legs and to-die-for eyes.'
“Then why would Stonecipher take him on?'
“To have someone to do the boring, routine stuff and attract a lot of women clients?' Jane suggested. 'But let's assume he was bright. Why couldn't he be the murderer?'
“In cahoots with Rhonda?'
“Let's say not,' Jane said. 'Suppose Rhonda flings herself at him, says she's divorcing her husband and wants him instead? If he has any sense, he knows he's about to acquire a very expensive woman and will probably end up out of a job besides. Assuming he's interested in acquiring her, what better way to handle it than to get Robert out of the way entirely? He'd get the woman, the business, all the money.”
Shelley got up and topped off her coffee. 'But we're back to planning versus passion again. This scenario for Tony presumes cold-blooded premeditation, and shoving a rack of hams onto someone in a crowded deli is stupid and dangerous. It seems like a real fluke that anybody got away with it.”
Jane sighed. 'That's the real problem, isn't it? Why would anybody take a chance like that? It really had to be a spur-of-the-moment thing to do. It's too dumb to be anything else. Or we're too dumb to see the truth.'
“Stick your turkey in the oven and take your nap,' Shelley said as she got up and rinsed out her coffee cup. 'Maybe your subconscious will work out the answer.'
“You've got a lot more faith in my subconscious than I do.'
“I have no faith whatsoever in your subconscious, but if you try to serve your mother-in-law an undercooked turkey breast, I'll never hear the end of it.”
The turkey was a great success. So was the dressing, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, and the corn casserole. In fact, Thelma Jeffry couldn't find anything to complain about except that cranberry sauce gave her a rash. 'Then don't eat any, Grandma,' Todd suggested sensibly.
Jane's honorary uncle Jim, a former army officer and lifelong friend of her parents, was there, too, standing in for them. And he was as proud of Mike as a real grandfather. Jane's brother-in-law Ted was there as well, doing his best to be a substitute dad. Ted's wife, Dixie Lee, presented Mike with an envelope containing a surprisingly generous check, and Jane's sister Marty, with her instinctive bad timing, called just as they started eating to wish Mike a great graduation.
“It's too bad your parents couldn't make it here for the big day,' Thelma said as they were finishing up what everyone agreed was the best cherry cobbler Jane had ever made.
Mike, recognizing this as the sly criticism it was meant to be, fluffed up like an offended rooster. 'Grumps is halfway around the world and they're hosting a diplomatic meeting that's been planned for two years.'
“Oh, I didn't mean to imply—”
