slapped on makeup, and yelled at Todd that she was leaving for a meeting.
She had trouble finding her car keys, but located them under a chair in the kitchen and set out. She wasn't going to drive fast. She wished, in fact, that she'd just begged off, making up a stomach upset or head-banging migraine.
As she came around the last turn looking for a parking space, the street was full of emergency equipment. An ambulance, a fire truck, several police cars. She managed an illegal U-turn and parked around the corner.
Shelley must have seen her do it. She met Jane at the corner. 'I'm sorry I made you come. I'm more sorry that I came.'
'What's happened here? It looks as if everybody is going in and out of the meeting place for the class.'
'A woman at the community meeting place is dead. Another woman in the class came in early and discovered that the door to the meeting was slightly open. She found her in the meeting room.'
A few other members of the class were standing around or sitting on the front steps. Two police officers, one in uniform and Mel VanDyne, were questioning the woman. She was sitting with her feet in the gutter across the street, sobbing.
'Is that the woman called Doris?' Jane asked.
'I think that was her name, but I didn't take notes.' Jane realized that Mel had noticed them. He turned
away from the sobbing woman and made a slight shooing gesture.
Neither of them wanted to look like bloodthirsty snoops, as did most of the other people looking from windows and doors along the street, so Jane and Shelley were quick to go back to their cars.
'You parked illegally,' Shelley said.
'I did?'
'See that yellow ticket on your windshield? You didn't put money in the parking meter.'
'Rats,'Jane said. 'Don't tell Mel. Or our sons.'
They went home. Jane wrote a check for the parking ticket and put it out with the mail. She took several of her books she'd recently bought outside with a bunch of sticky notes to mark pages she thought might have interesting material. There wasn't anything going on with the room addition today. The concrete was setting up and it would be next week before anything else could be done.
'Until we have a firm base, we can't proceed. By Monday we'll be back,' the contractor said.
Jane had taken her cell phone outside again. It was a mild day under the umbrella and she liked sitting in the shade. If Mel had anything he could tell her about what had happened that morning at the Women's Safety meeting place, he could reach her. Apparently something awful had been done to someone. There was no way to even guess who it was. She hoped it wasn't Miss Welbourne. She wasn't really fond of the woman, but Miss Welbourne
was doing a good, knowledgeable service for a lot of women. It had already been enlightening for Jane and Shelley. The stuff about protecting your belongings in a purse was good advice. Looking brave and alert if you found yourself in a scary neighborhood was also advice that she'd remember.
As she expected, Mel didn't contact her. She and Shelley decided to watch the local news at five and see if something was mentioned.
But Shelley caught a newscast at noon and came over to tell Jane what she'd heard.
'They just said that a freelance teacher had been murdered overnight on that block. The police weren't yet giving out the name or circumstances nor anything about the murder weapon or suspects.'
'It does sound as if it might have been Miss Welbourne, doesn't it?' Jane asked.
'Unless there is another teacher in an adjoining classroom who was the victim,' Shelley suggested.
'I suppose that's possible. But I didn't see any bulletin board notes about other classes being held there today. Did you?'
'I didn't really pay attention,' Shelley admitted. 'And there is no way the police are going to let us in the building to look.'
'And it's really not any of our business,' Jane added, but she was as curious as Shelley was.
'What are all those sticky notes bristling from that pile of books for?' Shelley asked, sitting down on a patio chair.
'Just things that might be useful to plot my next book.'
'Can't you take a little time off?'
'I could. But I don't want to. I sent in the second one the other day.'
'You didn't mention that to me.' Shelley sounded a bit irritated.
'You knew I was almost done. I didn't think you needed to know where and when I mailed it in.' Shelley grinned. 'You're right. I'm not your mother.'
Mel called Jane late in the afternoon. 'I was glad to see that you and Shelley took my gesture to go back home so well.'
'What happened and to whom?' Jane asked.
'Miss Welbourne was murdered.'
'When?'
'We don't know yet. In fact we know very little so far. I just wanted you to know. I have to go now. If I learn anything else I'll let you know.'
It was late the next day when Mel got back to Jane. 'Sorry for the delay. Your uncle Jim was in charge of the case against the man who killed his wife, who was a member of that class. It was easy to get him. Then Miss Welbourne was murdered as well and Jim handed it off to me.'
'That's understandable, isn't it?'
'Of course it was. I'm not complaining. Jim's perp was
in jail and is about the only person who couldn't be the perpetrator. It's impossible for him to have killed Miss Welbourne.'
'So what do you know so far?'
'Not much. The pathologist said at first that she'd been hit on the front of her head. He's not even sure whether she was alive or dead when it happened. If she'd had a stroke or a heart attack within a moment of the attack it would be hard to know. What is clear is that she didn't get the injury by herself. She wasn't found near anything that she could have struck her head against in a fall. No sign of blood on any piece of furniture. No weapon found nearby, or near the site.'
'Thanks for letting me know. You'll solve it, of course.' 'Or the pathologist will find more evidence of the cause of death.'
Jane called Shelley and reported what Mel had said.
'It's a shame that someone who taught women to protect themselves had to die. Was it a natural death?'
'Mel said they didn't know yet. The pathologist hasn't determined yet if she had a stroke or heart attack before or after someone hit her in the head.'
