A Quiche Before Dying (9 page)

“With coconut?“ Jane asked. “Somebody gave me a lump of that, too. Maybe—maybe the tea
was
poisoned and there was an antidote in the coconut stuff, and that’s why someone made sure we all had some. But then, that can’t be, because I didn’t eat mine, so I should be dead.“ She glanced at Mel and realized she was making an ass of herself.

He cleared his throat. “Now that you’ve reasoned that out, could we continue? You said you left the table—“

“Yes, Mrs. Pryce got snooty about not having a drink, and that made me realize I didn’t either. So we all went back—I mean Shelley and I did—“

“And you got Mrs. Pryce’s tea?“

“No, I did not,“ Jane exclaimed. “She went ahead of us and had already gone when Shelley and I got to the kitchen. I think she went around the other way, because when we got back, she stepped on Grady’s contact lens. She was coming in the dining room from the other doorway.“

“Did she have a cup of tea then?“ Mel persisted.

Jane grabbed Willard’s collar and dragged him away from Mel, on whose trouser leg he was slobbering. “Sorry about that. I don’t know if she had her tea. She probably did. That’s what she went to the kitchen for, but I was looking down at Grady and half the others crawling around on the floor. In fact, that would have been a great time to put something on her food. Everybody was looking at Grady. Surely you’ve questioned everybody else about this.“

“Endlessly,“ Mel said with disgust. “And it sounds like a fire drill in a lunatic asylum. Half this crowd doesn’t know where they were, much less where anybody else was at any given moment. Look, I’d like for each of you to write down for me exactly what you did, in what order, and what you can recall of where other people were. In the meantime, I want to talk to you about possible motives.”

All three women smiled.

“What? What’s funny about motives?”

Shelley broke the news to him. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who had more enemies internationally. There are probably clubs all over the world that meet just to discuss what they’d like to do to her.”

Mel slumped in his chair, his gaze shifting slowly from Shelley to Jane. “Someday,“ he said with great deliberation, “someday when we have lots of time, I’m going to tell you what I think of the people you hang around with, Jane.”

9

“I’m sorry we scared him off before we could talk about motives,“ Shelley said as the red MG in the driveway roared to life.

“And I’m sorry he left without rescheduling our date,“ Jane muttered into her iced tea.

“Oh, Jane. I’m sorry,“ Shelley said. “But you are getting a one-track mind.“

“Shelley, it’s a track my
mind’s
been on for some time. I’m just hoping my body gets a chance to catch up. I’ve been a widow for some time, you know. I don’t mean to be indelicate, but I didn’t bury my hormones with Steve, you know.“

“You weren’t planning to sleep with him at the ice cream store, were you?“ Shelley asked bluntly.

“I was hoping to eventually get the opportunity to be asked,“ Jane said sourly. “The ice cream store seemed a good enough place to get on that path.”

Missy gave Jane a sympathetic look.

“Still, it is his job to sort this out. It apparently is murder,“ Shelley went on.

“What I don’t understand,“ Missy said, “is why anybody
had
to murder her. After all, she was well into her eighties, I would guess. If you really hated her all that much, why not just wait with delicious anticipation for her to die? She was bound to before long. It seems an unnecessary risk to take.“

“Obviously someone had to stop her from something she could still do or say about somebody,“ Jane said, giving up on the prospect of a juicy discussion of herself and Mel VanDyne. She didn’t really want to talk about it anyway—except maybe with him.

“It seems to me that she’d already leveled practically everybody in class.“ Shelley poured herself some more tea, then she walked over to the fence between Jane’s yard and hers and snapped a sprig of mint to pop in her glass.

“Yes, you and Jane are about the only ones she didn’t zap,“ Missy said.

“Which makes us suspects, too. Because she hadn’t gotten around to us yet,“ Shelley said cheerfully.

“Shelley! Are you nuts! I’m the one who made the damned quiche, which is bad enough!“ Jane exclaimed. “I think, if anything, somebody was afraid she was going to elaborate on something she’d already started on.“ She got another ice cube out of her glass and tossed it out into the grass for Willard, hoping he and his gnats would stay out there. He thought it was a game of fetch and brought the ice cube back.

“Like what?“

“Well... like her calling Desiree a drunk. Suppose she had some idea that Desiree had done something awful when she was drinking. Running over a kid or something. Not that she did. But Mrs. Pryce didn’t seem to care much for the truth of her accusations.”

Shelley took up this line of reasoning. “Or her accusations against Grady.“

“Grady?“ Missy said. “Why Grady? He’d never do anything wrong. He’s about the most honest person I’ve ever met.“

“I’m being theoretical,“ Shelley said patiently. “She’d already started flinging mud at Grady in class about the city’s funds. Suppose he was afraid she’d start proclaiming it from the housetops?“

“But Grady
wouldn’t
embezzle from anybody.“

“That’s not the point. I’m sure he wouldn’t, but that wouldn’t stop her from telling people so. I just mean these things as examples. You know that a false accusation can do as much harm to a person’s reputation as a true one. People say where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and before you know it, the accepted wisdom is that the victim was guilty but just didn’t get caught.“

“How depressing,“ Missy said. “Still, I can’t imagine Grady Wells as a murderer, and you’ll never convince me.“

“I wasn’t trying to,“ Shelley said. “I really only meant him as a ‘for instance.’ Jane, you’re being awfully quiet. Are you listening to your hormones again?“

“Huh? Oh, no. I was thinking about the maid. The assumption is that she accidentally or purposely got poisoned by the same person who killed Mrs. Pryce. But what if that person was herself? She could have taken just enough of the poison to get sick, but not die, in order to make everybody think exactly what they are thinking.“

“She couldn’t have counted on us turning up in time to save her, though.“

“So what if we hadn’t? There was nothing to keep her from going to the phone and calling for help the minute she thought she was getting in real trouble.

For all we knew, she was picking the phone up when we got there.“

“But, Jane, unless she was secretly a registered pharmacist, how would she get a deadly poison or know how much was a lethal dose?“ Shelley asked.

“I don’t know. But we don’t know what the poison was. Maybe it’s something common for some other use or is common wherever she comes from.“

“I don’t buy it, but anything’s possible,“ Shelley said. “What’s her motive?“

“Motive?“ Jane exclaimed. “She was a slave to the dreadful woman. What better motive? Working for Pryce must have been like working for the emotional equivalent of Charles Manson. Think about it: It would be unimaginably horrible actually living with the woman. If you got to the point that you couldn’t stand it anymore, you would always know that there’d be a world of other suspects. At any given point in Pryce’s life, she could be counted on to have mortally offended at least two or three people within the last week.“ Jane was really warming to this theory. “If I wanted to kill her, I’d have picked a time and place just like last night—a bunch of her victims all together in her own house. Everybody bringing food that could be poisoned—“

“So you really think the maid did it?“ Missy asked.

Jane thought for a minute. “No,“ she answered, deflated. “I don’t, actually. The other side of the coin is that the maid is nearly as old and dotty as Pryce. And now she’s out of a job. I’m sure the old harridan didn’t make any provisions for her—probably hasn’t even been paying her Social Security—and the maid must have known it. Killing Mrs. Pryce would be like killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. The goose might be evil and the eggs tin, but it was better than being old and destitute in a foreign country.“

“Scratch the maid,“ Shelley said.

“What about my theory about Bob Neufield?“ Missy asked. She explained to Shelley about her certainty that Neufield was military and might have been discharged for homosexuality.

“Do they do that anymore?“ Shelley asked.

“I don’t know about now, but he’s been living here for ten years or so, I think, and they certainly did then.”

Shelley twirled her mint sprig around and mused, “How would she know about it? Pryce, I mean.“

“Army, my dear. I imagine the upper echelons are like any other profession—clubby and gossipy. At least writing is that way. I know incredibly personal things about writers I’ve never met. If Neufield had been high enough ranking, she would have known. For all we know, she was responsible for him being thrown out—if he was.“

“Oh—“ Jane said.

“Was that the sound of a light going on?“ Shelley asked.

“I’m not sure. I sort of flipped through that nasty book of hers, and it seems there was something about leading a drive to have somebody discharged. I didn’t really read it, the whole book was so nasty—”

Missy looked horrified. “You know what this could mean, don’t you?”

Shelley nodded. “It means we really should read the foul book. I’d rather be a Cub Scout den mother for a year.“

“Somebody better give VanDyne a copy,“ Jane said. “And don’t look at me. I won’t do it. If I haven’t already wrecked my chances with him, that would do it. And we really have to read it, too. Do you have an extra copy, Missy?“

“Extra copy? I must have twenty. She unloaded a whole box of them on me. I guess she thought I’d like to set up a little bookstore and sell them out of the trunk of my car. But I can’t read the whole damned thing. I’ve got a book due in a month, and it would infect my style. I’d be afraid my heroine would turn into a hateful prig. You and Shelley be in charge of searching it for clues.“

“I don’t know if it’ll help anyway,“ Shelley said. “Except for Bob Neufield, who could she have run into before she lived here?“

“Almost anybody,“ Jane answered. “My mother knew her. And there are probably others in the class who have lived someplace other than here. I know Desiree lived all over the world as a girl. Anybody could have known her before.“ She picked a gnat out of her iced tea.

“But she’d have known them, too. She seemed to remember your mom.“

“Not until Mother reminded her,“ Jane pointed out. “Pryce was a very self-absorbed person. And the military’s like the State Department. You meet a huge number of people in your life, and you have to have a real gift to remember very many of them.“

“You mother seems to,“ Missy said.

“She’s one of the gifted ones. That’s why she’s such an asset to my father’s work. I suspect their postings nowadays have as much to do with her skills as his.“

“Oh? What else is she good at?“ Missy asked. “Everything,“ Jane said sourly.

“Aha. Do I detect a case of PMS?“

“What’s PMS have to do with it?“ Jane asked.

“Perfect Mother Syndrome,“ Missy answered. “I suffered from it for years. When I was growing up, my school friends would come to my house to see my mother—not me. She was so damned perfect. Understanding, funny, beautiful—”

Jane nodded. “And knowing it was stupid because you knew you ought to be grateful because everyone else your age hated their mothers?“

“Absolutely—”

Shelley cleared her throat and, in her best president-of-the-PTA voice, said, “Ladies, I believe we’re wandering from the point—somebody in our neighborhood, in the class Missy intends to continue, is a murderer. Or have you both forgotten?“

“Yes, yes. You’re right,“ Missy admitted. “But we’ve eliminated Grady and Bob Neufield and the maid. I assume we’re eliminating ourselves and Jane’s mother.“

“We certainly are!“ Jane said emphatically.

“So who does that leave? Desiree Loftus and the biblical sisters, or whatever Desiree calls them.“   -

“Pretty slim pickings,“ Shelley said. “Desiree is outrageous but good-hearted, and Ruth and Naomi—well, I’m always surprised that they do all that gardening; I can’t picture either of them having the heart to kill the insect pests.“

“As for Desiree, Pryce really hated her, but she seemed to take it as a great joke,“ Jane said. “She told me once that she took a certain pride in who disliked her. She seemed to get a kick out of goading Mrs. Pryce.“

“I don’t know,“ Shelley said. “That remark about her drinking seemed to set her back a bit. Only for a moment, but it might have hit a sensitive nerve.“

“Does she really drink, or is she just eccentric?“ Missy asked.

“Oh, I think she drinks,“ Jane said. “She distills stuff in her basement. Or ferments it or something. At least she’s given it a shot. I was collecting for a charity one day and she invited me in to see. Naomi Smith had told her how to make a foul concoction of nasturtium buds or something, and she wanted me to try it out. It was supposed to be wine, but it was like drinking Lysol with suspicious bits of sludge in it.“