Mulch Ado About Nothing

“Jane, you know better,' Mel said, grinning. 'This kind of old neighborhood has people who keep an eye out for anything odd happening. You and Shelley are good examples.”

Jane started to object to this characterization, but Mel put out his hands to stop her. 'It's not a criticism. It's how neighbors are supposed to be. Looking out for each other.'

“So you really think Arnie made up the suspicious car?'

“I do. But I'll get uniforms to go to every house again. There's about a one percent chance that someone else might have noticed this mystery car and will remember it when asked a second time.'

“Or let their imaginations run away on them,' Jane said.

“Exactly.'

“Mel, you're looking so tired. Can't you get a little time off this case? Maybe we could go to a movie tonight.'

“And let you thrash more innocent people with that crutch?”

Twenty-seven

Shelley hauled jane around while taking the girls to their cooking class and they tried a little shopping while the storm passed, but Jane was so dangerous in a mall that they soon gave up the effort. But not before a sales clerk had patted Jane's arm and asked, 'How did you do that to yourself?'

“I fell off the roof while I was cleaning gutters,' Jane said.

“Why would you be cleaning gutters this time of year?' the clerk sensibly asked.

“Oh, I do it four times a year, rain or shine.' 'Well, darling, don't do it again. There are people you can hire for that.'

“What's the next one you're going to try?' Shelley asked as they got back to the van.

“I don't know yet. I haven't tried skiing in the Alps yet, have I? Shelley, people like my fake answers better than the real one. When I say I fell off a curb, they immediately lose interest and think I was just clumsy.'

“Which you were,' Shelley said.

“What now?'

“I don't know,' Shelley said, stopping a bare half inch from the car in front of them. She leaned on the horn. 'She had plenty of room to get out if she'd just moved along with traffic. You know, I have a sense of anticlimax. The class is over. Neither the attack nor the murder is solved. Or near being solved. We've struck out, Jane.'

“Not yet. Anybody but us surviving the class might have done the deeds.'

“And a lot of other complete strangers, too,' Shelley said, passing the car that had held her up and glaring fiercely at the hapless driver.

“I don't think so. The class was full of peculiar people.'

“Everybody's peculiar in their own way. Look at Kipsy.'

“You would bring her up.'

“And you're peculiar yourself,' Shelley went on. 'Making up those loony stories about how you hurt your foot.'

“But I'm just entertaining myself and others,' Jane claimed. 'It's a perfectly innocent thing to do. Makes everybody happy.'

“Want to drop in on the cooking class?'

“Absolutely not. We'll learn soon enough what we're going to be subjected to tonight. I liked the omelettes, though. If Katie would just cook them once a week, I'd be happy to let her. I should probably be getting home. Mike's always stretching out the buttonholes on his knit summer shirts,and I promised I'd get to tightening them up for him this week. That's something I can do with no effort.'

“I'm supposed to be calling everyone to set up the fall car pools this week, too,' Shelley said. 'Why do I always get stuck with that job?'

“Because you do it superbly well. And it helps that everybody's afraid to argue with you.”

They parted in Shelley's driveway and Jane got upstairs to her sewing room quite efficiently and brought down Mike's shirt collection, and threads to match all the buttonholes. She settled in the living room and watched an old, and not top-rate, Katharine Hepburn movie while she sewed. But her mind was still on the events of the week. Why would anyone attack Julie Jackson and then murder her substitute teacher for the gardening class? Was it simply a hideous coincidence? She couldn't accept that it was. And Shelley was right that everyone in the class was rather off the norm.

Stiff, ultratidy Charles Jones certainly wasn't normal. And he was cranky besides. Who knew what grudges he might have held for one or both of the teachers?

Neither was Martha Winstead normal. She was one of the toughest old ladies Jane had ever met. Normally, tough old ladies appealed enormously to Jane because she intended to be one someday, but for some reason Miss Winstead made her uneasy and she couldn't quite figure out why.

Ursula Appledorn was the weirdest of all. Kind but bossy. Smart but nutsy with conspiracy theories.

Arnold Waring was a nice old gentleman with a terrible obsession for keeping his dead wife's memory alive.

And she had no idea what made Stefan Eckert's mind work. He seemed so charming and pleasant on the surface, but came nearest guilt by having sent the flower arrangement to Julie with a message he claimed was innocent, but sounded guilty.

And who could guess what Geneva Jackson and her husband might be up to? They seemed the most likely to be the connection between Julie Jackson and Stewart Eastman. At least Julie, Geneva, and Stewart were in businesses that appeared to overlap. Could that be it? A business deal gone badly wrong? With Geneva the only one still standing and healthy? But strangely, Geneva seemed the most normal of the entire group of gardeners. Though she never spoke, that Jane could remember, of her own gardening tastes and was the only one not to attempt to force Stefan and Arnie to adopt her own tastes.

The kitchen door opened and Mel called out, as he had so often, 'Why don't you ever lock your doors? I know you're here somewhere because Shelley's van's in her driveway.' As he came into the living room, he exclaimed, 'Dear God, that's such a domestic scene!'

“I'm only sewing buttonholes.'

“Why did you never tell me? I could use somehelp with buttons,' he said, sitting down next to her so her thimble disappeared between the sofa cushions.

“Are you through for the day? Want to reconsider going to a movie?' Jane asking, nipping off a loose thread and picking up the next shirt.

“No, just wanting to share some information with your overly fertile imagination. I checked out the class members as well as I could. Stefan Eckert was once arrested for striking a woman student.'

“No!”

Mel shrugged. 'Never came to court. The girl finally admitted that her boyfriend was the one who blacked her eye and she blamed Stefan because he was her faculty adviser and was disappointed at her choice of classes. And Miss Winstead wasn't quite telling you the truth about her hatred of Dr. Eastman. She took him to court when her cousin died. Apparently the cousin had inherited a lot of money from an aunt and didn't have a will, so the money went to Eastman. Miss Winstead dragged out a lawsuit for so long that he finally just gave her the money to get her out of his hair. He must have been making a lot of his own money by then.'

“So much for an inheritance from an aunt,' Jane said.

“Was that what she told you? Cagey old gal.' 'What about Ursula?'

“A few unproven drug charges and two arrests after she was sent back from Vietnam for not quite following the rules as closely as the army thought she should. The report is very vague. She had an excellent reputation there as a nurse. So I don't know why she was sent home in spite of her objections.'

“What about Charles Jones?'

“No blots on his record whatsoever except one late income tax payment.'

“I thought he'd be the sort to send in his return early,' Jane said, trying to fit a button into a buttonhole she'd made too small.

“And the old boy Arnie had lots of commendations from his job with the fire department. Credited for saving lots of lives. Said to work up a real adrenaline rush at fires and take chances others wouldn't.'

“Somehow that doesn't surprise me,' Jane said. 'Say, Ursula wasn't taking care of Arnie's wife while she was