The Merchant of Menace

As she spoke, she caught a glimpse of Billy Joe cutting across between their house and Jane's. 'I think he's coming here, Shelley. Oops, you missed him.'

“You're not going to let him in your house, are you?”

Jane thought for a second. 'He's not simpleminded. I can't imagine he'd think he could walk through a whole flock of police, come in here and kill both of us, and walk back through the flock without raising suspicion.'

“Okay, but I'll watch from up here,' Shelley said. 'If it looks like trouble, I'll open a window and scream the place down.”

Jane let Billy Joe wait in the cold for a while and opened the door after he'd rung twice. 'Yes?' she asked coolly.

He'd abandoned the Billy Joe persona and looked very 'Ivy League on a Sunday Off.' He was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, jeans, expensive-looking hiking boots, and a parka like the one Jane had considered getting Mike for Christmas that had cost nearly as much as her first car. He really did look like a different person.

“May I come in for one minute? Just one minute.'

“I suppose so.”

Jane opened the door a little wider and stood aside, but didn't move from the hallway.

“Mrs. Jeffry, I want you to know that we're leaving as soon as we can make arrangements.'

“Oh?' She tried, quite unsuccessfully, she was sure, to feign indifference.

“We didn't count on someone so clever being right next door. And we know you'll tell your neighbors.'

“Naturally I will. Why should I keep your secret?' Then, thinking quickly, she added, 'I already have, in fact. Quite a few of them.'

“It was a bad idea from the beginning,' he said. 'And I don't blame you for feeling you've been tricked. You're a good person. You were kind and thoughtful to the people you thought we were. And the more outrageous we got, the kinder you became.”

Jane softened a little. But only a little. 'So you're going to go try this somewhere else, I guess. Play your nasty little academic deception on others.'

“I really am sorry.”

Jane's manners fought with her feelings and lost. 'You should be. Good-bye, Dr. Johnson.”

He left without another word. Jane closed the door and looked up the stairs. 'You heard all that?' she asked Shelley, who was already on her way down.

“I did. Do you believe him?'

“It didn't occur to me not to. You think that was just another act?'

“It seemed sincere,' Shelley said. 'But he seemed sincere when he was good of boy Billy Joe, too.'

“I guess you're right.'

“That was brilliant of you to say you'd told the neighbors about him.'

“I thought it was pretty good, too,' Jane said. 'Kind of spreads the danger out, if they are dangerous. They might have done in Lance King if he was going to wreck their finances by ruining their next book deal. It's a real stretch to imagine they could bump both of us off, and they're too smart to think they could kill off the whole neighborhood.”

Shelley grinned. 'Counterproductive anyway. It would leave them no one to study.”

The phone rang and Jane was still chuckling as she picked it up.

“Mrs. Jeffry? This is Sam Dwyer. Do you have a minute? I wanted to thank you for inviting me to your party yesterday and wondered if I could return the favor?'

“How nice, but there's no need. I was glad you could come. Your fudge was terrific, too.'

“Pet and I would like to invite your family to dinner tonight. She told me you'd mentioned making chili and I make a terrific pot of chili. Bring all your kids, if you like.'

“How nice of you. My older son has a date tonight, but I'll see about the others and get back to you.'

“No need. I'll make enough for everyone and Pet and I will eat the leftovers. Is five-thirty too early?'

“Well, that sounded chummy,' Shelley said when Jane had hung up.

“It was Sam Dwyer inviting me and the kids to dinner,' Jane said. 'Nice break from cooking for me.'

“A date with Sam Dwyer,' Shelley mused. 'Date! Shelley, bite your tongue. It isn't a date!'

“Sounds like one to me.”

Jane shook her head. 'No, nobody invites you to bring three kids on a date.'

“I think Sam's got the hots for you.”

Jane blushed. 'Don't be goofy. He must have just decided it's time to get to know some of his neighbors and he started with us because I had the cookie party.'

“No, it's more than that. I couldn't get him to talk to me at all and Suzie struck out, too. I think he likes you. A nice widow for the nice widower.'

“Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

But when Shelley had gone, she found herself thinking, Do I have a date with Sam Dwyer? I don't believe Mel's going to like that much.

Nineteen

Katie and Mike had other plans for dinner, or at least Katie claimed she did, but Jane insisted that Todd come along with her to the Dwyers'. If she didn't take along at least one child, she was afraid the dinner would qualify as A Date, notwithstanding Pet's presence. Shelley's joking about it had struck Jane seriously. Was Sam Dwyer interested in her? Shelley had raised a valid point. He'd been unwilling to talk to anyone else, but came to a party at her house and engaged her in pleasant conversation. Was he undergoing some change, thinking he needed a social life for Pet's sake, or had he really found Jane interesting?

If so, she'd have to nip it in the bud. She liked her life just like it was, with Mel a big part of it. But as she watched the police searching the yard next door from her bedroom window, her thoughts wandered into dangerous territory. Sam Dwyer seemed like a nice enough guy. What if he turned out to be nicer and more interesting than she knew? What if she found herself attracted to him?

No, don't consider it, she told herself. She was just being neurotic. 'Borrowing trouble' as her mother would have put it.

The sky had grown overcast again and it was starting to get dark already by four. The police were stopping work for the day, returning lawn rakes, shaking their heads in irritation.

“You didn't find the disk?' Jane asked, when Mel came to the door.

“No, and I don't think it's there. Any coffee left?”

Jane poured him a big cup and sat down with him at the kitchen table. 'I've got to talk fast, Mel. The kids and I are invited out to an early dinner at a neighbor's, but there were a couple things I wanted to run by you.' Well, the kids were all invited, and Sam Dwyer was a neighbor, so it wasn't a lie.

“Been snooping?'

“Just keeping our eyes and ears open,' she said huffily. 'I presume you know that Sharon Wilhite is Lance King's ex-wife?'

“She told us that.”

Jane quickly ran through the high points of what Sharon had told her and Shelley. 'Does that match what she told you?'

“As if scripted,' he said wryly.

“Does that mean you don't believe her?'

“Not necessarily. But I'm having a little trouble figuring out why she'd come to your house when there was the least chance he'd be here. If I were she, I'd have avoided it like the plague.'

“Did you ask her that?' Jane said.

Mel nodded. 'She said she'd heard he was coming, then heard he wasn't, so she figuredthere was no danger of running into him. Maybe she trusts in gossip more than I do.'

“She doesn't strike me as a Pollyanna type,' Jane said. She glanced at her watch. She needed to move this conversation along so that she didn't have to discuss just which neighbor had invited her to dinner. 'The other thing Shelley and I learned was about the Johnsons.”

He said, 'I can't tell you anything about them.'