A Midsummer Night's Scream

and parking places were at a premium.

Parking turned out not to be quite as horrible as she'd expected, and she came home loaded down with bread, sliced ham, premade tuna

salad, several boxes of frozen mac and cheese, salad, and a really good, gummy iced chocolate fudge cake. That would last them for at least a couple of days.

She was on a countdown to school's starting. Katie would be in her first year of college, albeit close to home at the junior college for the first year. She had chosen it because it had several culinary classes. She'd still be living at home, but she could practice making dinners. Mike would go back for his third year of college, out of town, and Todd would become a sophomore in high school.

She loved her kids. She'd done a good job of raising them herself after her husband was killed on an icy overpass while leaving her to marry someone else. She seldom even thought about him anymore. After the first horrible months of grief and fury, she realized he'd freed her to live her own life, however inadvertently.

His life insurance included a rider that had paid off the mortgage on the house she loved. And due to her having given his family's pharmacy her small inheritance from a spinster great-aunt early in their marriage, he'd written in his will that she would forever earn his one-third share of the pharmacy profits. His widowed mother and his younger brother Ted received the other shares.

She realized much later that he'd been smartand canny about financial matters. It was morals that took him away.

The pharmacy had thrived and now had branches all over Chicago and far into the suburbs. Her share had allowed her to be a stay-at-home mom. This could have changed if he'd lived to marry the other woman. With years of parsimony and good investment advice, she'd put away enough to be able to get all three kids through college and finally, a year or two ago, had become financially secure enough to pamper herself a bit.

She was, she had to admit, proud of herself. And now that she believed that she'd eventually be published, she was prouder still.

Struggling inside with the groceries, then disposing of a few things that were past their prime in order to make room in the freezer, fridge, and pantry, she managed to clear the decks and go back to her needlepoint as a nice break. She realized, as she was getting out her threads to do the next section of her sampler, that she hadn't really thought about her deceased husband for years, and wondered why he'd come to mind today. She probably wouldn't think of him again for a good long time.

With luck, perhaps never.

Fourteen

As Mel was looking around Sven's room, which he wasn't surprised to find extremely clean, Officer Jones was conversing with Sven's sister. Mel couldn't hear what they were saying, except that Hilda was doing most of the talking.

The bedroom, besides being tidy, was revealing in other ways, too. It must have been his room when he was a boy. The wallpaper still had faded cowboys and horses. Even the single bed looked vaguely bunkhouse. It was probably the house both Sven and Hilda grew up in. Long ago paid off.

Sven was a serious jigsaw puzzle fan. There was a card table set up near the window with a half-done thousand-piece picture of a cathedral. The entire bottom of his closet was triple stacked with puzzle boxes, leaving only enough room for his shirts and trousers to hang above. His shoes were on a rack on the back of the closet door. They all looked as clean as if they were brand new.

So much for Jane's theory of blackmail, which he had briefly considered himself. This was a shy, retiring, compulsively neat man with a shoe and jigsaw puzzle obsession. And he didn't like working with people watching him. Mel simply couldn't imagine such a timid man repeatedly approaching strangers and firmly demanding that they pay him for what he knew they'd done that was worth keeping secret. From what little Mel knew of him, Sven would be hard-pressed to work out the details of how to repeatedly receive the cash from someone.

Out of idle curiosity, Mel pulled out a loafer, its sole facing out. The shoe didn't look as if it had ever been worn. Something fell out of it that astonished him. He put the shoe and the object back. Next, he went to the upright chest that presumably held sweaters, socks, and underwear. He found more of what he'd seen in the loafers.

He was aware that although he'd been given permission to look at the room by the janitor's next of kin, he'd need a warrant to do more searching. He closed the dresser drawers and the closet door and went back to the living room. 'I see that your brother really likes hard jigsaw puzzles, Miss Turner.'

'He always has. He's always trying to get me interested in them, but they're all too hard for me to enjoy.'

Mel said, 'You gave me permission to look in

your brother's room. Would you jot down a note saying so and sign it? Just as a formality?' He went on chummily, 'So much paperwork is required these days, even by the police department.'

He handed her his notebook, opened to the back page, and gave her his pen. He dictated, 'To whom it may concern, I, Hilda Turner, gave Detective Mel VanDyne permission to search my brother's room.'

The doorbell rang and Officer Jones went to open it. It was a neighbor woman with a brisket that smelled fabulous.

'Hilda, I heard about Sven. You poor dear. Nice to see you, Officer Jones. Hilda, I'll slice this up for you and bring back a salad and bread. Do you need anything from the grocery store?'

'Nothing yet, thanks, Susan. These nice men are going to see that I get Meals on Wheels. Oh, this is Detective VanDyne. He's going to keep me posted on Sven's condition.' She handed the notebook back to Mel.

Mel noticed that Officer Don Jones was easing his way toward the front door, waggling his eyebrows in a peculiar manner and nodding subtly toward the door.

Mel knew what this meant. 'Miss Turner, Officer Jones and I need to go start arranging help for you and checking again with the doctors. We'll both be back.'

As they left, Mel heard the neighbor Susan say, 'That detective is a good-looking man and a snappy dresser. I could go for him.'

Once outside, Jones said, 'Come sit in my car and we'll drive around the corner. I have things to tell you.'

'So do I,' Mel said.

'Miss Turner started telling me about their finances,' Officer Jones said. 'She had a good job for years, and when she became ill, she was given an excellent severance package. She's also getting money from her social security for disability. But get this — she says Sven is a professional gambler. Almost every weekend, he leaves her prepared meals and goes to Indian reservation casinos in Minnesota or the casino boats in Iowa or St. Louis.'

He went on, 'She says he's good at blackjack and bingo. And he always stays under the limit of winnings that have to be reported to the IRS.'

Mel was nodding.

'You're not surprised?' Officer Jones asked.

'Let me tell you what I found in his room,' Mel said. 'He had a huge number of shoes in one of those hanging things on the back of his closet door. I picked out a loafer that looked as if it'd never been worn, and out fell a tidy roll of hundred-dollar bills. Same thing under his socks and T-shirts. That's why I had Miss Turner sign that statement that she'd given me permission to look over his bedroom.'

'You couldn't have surprised me more if you'd kicked me in the head,' Jones exclaimed. 'They seem to live so frugally and modestly in that old house. It's the original wallpaper and carpeting, it looks like to me. Do you think