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  Grime and Punishment

  ( Jane Jeffry - 1 )

  Jill Churchill

  Ramona wasn't much of a cleaning woman-some say she wouldn't know a dust bunny from a Doberman — but that's no reason to bump the old girl off, is it? Someone must think so: poor Ramona is found strangled to death with a vacuum chord. Jane Jeffry — mother of three, chairperson of more committees than you can shake a stick at, and part-time sleuth — sets out to find the killer and tie up the loose ends in this irresistible mystery. Grime and Punishment, winner of both Agatha and Macavity Awards for best first mystery book and nominated for an Anthony Award for the same honor, is the first in a series of seven books featuring Jane Jeffry.

  Jill Churchill

  Grime and Punishment

  One

  The alarm went off at 6:10 A.M.

  There had been a time when Jane Jeffry "hit the deck running." But that was ten years ago, back in the days when the children were small and she still held the naïve belief that motherhood had an achievable standard of perfection.

  But since then, she'd learned that children don't necessarily grow up warped just because Mom can't find it in her heart to be peppy and bright before the sun has come up. They aren't exactly treasures themselves in the early hours. The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one. "Hitting the decks running" wasn't a requirement.

  She staggered to the bathroom and tried not to meet her own gaze in the mirror. Bathrooms should never be equipped with mirrors or lighting fixtures after their tenants passed the age of thirty, she felt. She peeled off her T-shirt-style nightgown that said "Somebody in Chicagoloves me" across the front. The kids had given it to her for her birthday.

  As she came out she met her daughter Kate coming in. "I'm out of toothpaste." The thirteen-year-old's grieved tone suggested that her mother had deliberately squeezed out the last bit just to inconvenience her. "Mom, aren't you ready yet? I'll be late."

  “Katie, it's only 6:15 in the morning. That's not late by anybody's standards. There's not a single thing of importance that's ever happened this early. Ever. In the whole history of the world," Jane said, slipping into a pair of jeans.

  “Oh, Mother!"

  “Hold it! Give that toothpaste back. Are Todd and Mike up and moving?"

  “I don't know. Are you really wearing that?”

  Jane looked down at the sweat shirt she'd pulled over her head. No stains, no frays, no messages, obscene or otherwise. "Why not? Who's to care?"

  “Everybody'll see you!" Katie wailed.

  “Katie, 'everybody' is a bunch of other half-asleep mothers who have also stupidly allowed themselves to be dragged into the cheerleading practice car pool. We'll all be ashamed of ourselves. There is no eye contact in the junior high parking lot at 6:30 A.M. Take my word for it."

  “Ellen Elden's mother always has on makeup and a skirt.”

  It was Jane's opinion that Ellen Elden's mother didn't have the sense God gave a macadamia nut. If she did, she'd have given her daughter a sensible name instead of something that sounded like a musical tongue twister.

  “Put that toothpaste back where you found it. With the cap on," Jane warned as she hastily dragged the bedclothes back into order. Tomorrow, when she tried out the new cleaning lady, she'd strip the bed. Maybe the woman would be able to do a neater job of putting it together than she could. Somehow the bed had never gotten into this kind of mess when she was sharing it with her husband Steve, not even when they made love. Of course, if they'd made love in such a way as to wreck the bed, he might still be in it.

  Seven months now, and she still couldn't get through a day without thinking about him.

  She was ready to go downstairs, but paused for a minute before starting down and listened suspiciously to the quiet. She could hear Mike's alarm buzzing faintly and banged on his door. "Rise and shine, kiddo! You've got marching band practice before school," she shouted, waited for the answering groan, then went to the next room. This door wasn't closed. It was Todd's room, and he hadn't reached the age where he wanted to shut his mother out. In fact, given half a chance, he'd have just camped out at the foot of Jane's bed and abandoned his own room altogether. During thunderstorms this was, in fact, her ten-year-old son's modus operandi.

  She gazed fondly at him for a minute. "Todd, honey, time to get up," she said, ruffling his blond hair. Willard, their big yellow dog, was sleeping between Todd and the wall. Belly up, paws the size of coffee mugs stuck straight into the air, he thumped his tail and made a pleasant dog groan in greeting.

  “MOTHER!" Katie shouted from downstairs. "Yes, yes.”

  As she flew through the kitchen, Jane noticed that Katie had spilled some milk on the counter (which one of the cats was obligingly licking up), left the donut box open, and hadn't put the carton of orange juice back in the refrigerator. Oh, well, the boys would just mess it up again by the time she got back, she thought as she rummaged in her purse for the car keys.

  Katie was in the station wagon, waiting impatiently. The garage door was still closed. Jane got in the car, adjusted the rearview mirror and latched her seat belt, then sat back. "Someone needs to open that door. You didn't think about that, I guess, as you walked by it."

  “Oh, Mother," Katie said, getting back out with a world-weary sigh. This was something they had gone through nearly every morning last school year. Somehow Jane had hoped this year would be different.

  On the way to school, Katie reopened a too-familiar subject. "It's our allowance day, remember?"

  “Uh-huh," Jane said, stopping behind a trash truck that was stopped in the center of the road to facilitate loading from both sides. Jane smiled. Once last year her friend Shelley had gotten stuck behind one of these smelly, inconsiderate monsters that was halted in front of her own house blocking traffic. Already running late, Shelley had laid on the horn, and when the driver leaned out and made a rude gesture, Shelley had promptly pulled around the truck, right through her yard, and left the trash men gaping with surprise. Jane had often wanted to do the same, but driving through somebody else's yard might not make her very popular with the neighbors.

  “You're giving me an extra ten dollars, remember?"

  “I am? What for?" Jane asked, tapping her fingers on the wheel and craning her neck to see what they were doing that took so long. One of the trashmen was riffling casually through a stack of Playboys that someone had tried to throw away.

  “The tanning sessions.”

  Jane honked the horn. "No way."

  “But you promised!"

  “I didn't promise. I said I'd think about it. I have. It's too much money, and dangerous besides."

  “Dangerous!" Katie scoffed.

  “You'd have skin cancer by the time you're thirty-five.”

  Katie flounced magnificently. "Thirty-five!Who cares by then?"

  “You will. And you'll blame me."

  “Oh, Mother! I'll be the color of a polar bear by November if I don't go."

  “No-go, kid. Sorry.”

  The trash truck finally pulled over, and Jane realized it was because they'd blocked a businessman who'd come from the opposite direction. He was worth moving for. "Male chauvinist pigs!" Jane muttered.

  She joined the line of station wagons disgorg‑ ing girls in front of the junior high. Jane discovered that her predictions about there being no social contact this early were wrong. School had only been in session for three rainy autumn days, and this was the first sunny morning. Today, several of the women were out of their cars, chatting with each other. Two were dressed in sporty tennis dresses and carrying rackets. Katie glanced at them and then raked her mother wit
h an I-told-you-so glare. "Out!" Jane ordered.

  “Think about the tanning sessions, Mom.”

  “I have. No. Close the door.”

  The boys were dressed and watching cartoons at the kitchen table when she got back at 6:50. Mike, a gangling fifteen-year-old, swallowed the last of his orange juice and shoved back his chair when she came in the door. Through the donut he'd stuck in his mouth to free his hands, he said, "Where you been?"

  “Stuck behind the garbage truck. Ready?" Mike mumbled something that might have been, "Just about.”

  Jane sat down for a second in the crumb-spattered place he'd left and prodded her youngest gently in the ribs. "Hey, Todd, old thing, haven't you got anything to say for yourself?”

  He tore himself away from a vision of a badly animated character flying between buildings. "Hey, Mom, old thing. I need three dollars to get some colored pencils at school. The teacher said we had to have them for maps today."

  “Three dollars? Why didn't you tell me yesterday? I could have picked them up at the store.”

  He grinned. "I guess I forgot.”

  If Katie, or even Mike had given her that line, she probably would have been irritated, but with Todd — well, it was different. He was still her baby. At ten, he hadn't started to develop the apparent contempt Katie had for her. Jane had no doubt he'd get to that stage in good time. Even Mike, the most sensible and even-tempered of children, occasionally showed signs of it.

  She remembered vividly how she'd felt about her parents during her early teens. She'd been sure they were the frumpiest, most embarrassing individuals in the world. She was nearly twenty before she began to realize that they were actually quite interesting, sophisticated people. Most of the time she felt certain her children would come back to liking her when they grew up. But Todd still thought she was okay, and she wanted to hang onto that as long as possible. She needed unreserved love right now more than ever.

  Mike shuffled back through the kitchen balancing a backpack of books and a battered tuba case. Somehow he freed a hand long enough to stuff another donut in his mouth. "Mmrphh?" he asked, looking at her and then at the door.

  “Sure," Jane said, opening it and getting out of the way while he maneuvered through. Willard tried to make an escape, which Jane thwarted with her knee. He backed off with a "well, it was a good try" look and collapsed pitifully in front of his empty food bowl.

  Thinking she might fool Mike, Jane started toward the driver's side of the car, but Mike spit the donut out in the driveway and said, "I'm driving."

  “Mike, don't throw that food there!"

  “The birds'll eat it.”

  Jane got in on the passenger side, wishing she had a crash helmet. "Have you got your learner's permit with you?”

  Mike just rolled his eyes in exasperation and threw the car into reverse. They shot backward, Mike grinning, Jane with her hands splayed on the dashboard. Someday, she told herself, she'd remember this time fondly, but not anytime soon. Mike's driving made her crazy. This was the sort of thing Steve ought to be here for; teaching a boy to drive was "Dad work." It wasn't that Mike drove all that fast — well, only in reverse — but he was a curb-clipper. After sixteen years of perceiving the road from the passenger seat, he liked the same view, even though he was now sitting four feet farther left. "Watch the jogger!" Jane shrieked.

  “I see him," Mike assured her placidly, swinging out a generous four or five inches to the left.

  They stopped and picked up Ernest, a tubby, pimpled boy who tossed a trombone case in the back of the wagon, and Scott, a tall, California-blond, and altogether shockingly handsome boy who carried no books, only a pair of drumsticks. He bounced into the seat behind Jane and beat an affectionate tattoo on her shoulder. "Hi, Mrs. J. Lovely as always," he said, lifting a portion of her uncombed hair with a drumstick.

  Jane half-turned. "I'm more concerned withinternal beauty, Scott. Of which I have loads, I might add. Mike! That truck is stopped!”

  The high school was in the opposite direction from the junior high, and the time lapse had given the same trash crew time to get in her way twice in one morning. They'd probably get some kind of award for that, she thought.

  “Plenty of room," Mike said, going around it with a fraction of an inch to spare.

  “Excellent!" Scott said and beat out a happy rhythm on the window.

  Someday I'll have hysterics or wet my pants or something equally embarrassing while riding with him, Jane thought. He'd have a regular license someday instead of a learner's permit, and she wouldn't have to ride with him anymore. He'd still do awful things with the car, but she wouldn't have to ride along and be a terrified witness.

  Once the boys were out of the car, Jane was stranded in a snarl caused by a mob of girls surrounding a red Fiat. The high school parking lot made her strangely sad. These boys and girls on the verge of adulthood were all so young and healthy and beautiful. Even the plain ones had a wonderful vitality. But it wasn't their youth that saddened her. She was handling the march of time fairly well. It was their air of "belonging" that she envied. They waved and called to each other and moved in graceful shoals, like happy fish. The boys punched each other's arms in a friendly way; the girls put their heads together, sharing secrets.

  Jane had missed all that. A State Department brat, she'd never attended the same school more than a single year, and several times had been only a semester in one place before her father's assignments moved them on. There had been benefits, of course. She'd lived all over Europe and much of the Far East, not to mention both east and west coasts of the United States. But those were the kinds of advantages that only the adults who chose such a life could appreciate. To a naturally shy child, it had been agony.

  At least she'd spared her children that unhappiness, she thought as she squeezed through a group of boys noisily tossing a basketball back and forth over passing cars in the parking lot. Her kids had all been born here and had lived in the same house all their lives. When they left their familiar neighborhood, it would be because they wanted to, not because they had to.

  There wasn't a lot she was willing to give Steve credit for, but thank God he'd left her with barely enough money to keep them in this secure life and neighborhood with a full-time mother. They'd never be able to keep up with the Christmas-in-the-Caribbean crowd, but at least they weren't going to have to move into a crackerbox rental house and sell off the china to make ends meet.

  Todd was sitting on the front steps when she pulled into the drive. Just behind her a blue Mazda stopped and honked. The driver hopped out. Dorothy Wallenberg had on a tennis skirt and neon-pink blouse. She was a plump, solid woman who had thighs like tree trunks — well tanned, well-muscled tree trunks. Dorothy always seemed to be in a hurry, and this morning was no exception. "Hi, Jane, do me a quickie favor, will you?" she said, bounding around to the trunk of her car and gingerly lifting out an enormous sheet cake. "Take this in to Shelley, please.”

  Jane slapped her forehead. "For the meeting tonight! I'd forgotten. I promised her I'd make a carrot salad. She'll skin me for not having it ready.”

  Jane's friend and neighbor Shelley had a wonderful house for entertaining and did a lot of it. Almost any group she belonged to could count on her house for meetings and parties, but she despised potluck dinners, and when she was forced to have one she managed it like a parole officer. Nobody got to just wander in at their leisure, bringing their food. The food came first, early in the day; the guests could then arrive as late as they wanted without interfering with serving the meal. That was Shelley's standing rule, and it was a measure of the strength of her personality that her friends had learned to honor it.

  “Thanks!" Dorothy said, easing the pan onto Jane's waiting arms.

  “You're coming tonight, then?" Jane asked. Dorothy had previously claimed a schedule conflict. A former nurse, she volunteered in a free birth control clinic several nights a week.

  “Sure," Dorothy answered with a grin. "Life isn't all vag
inas."

  “Mostly, though," Jane answered.

  Dorothy laughed and got back into the car. "All settled, kids? Jane, there's a donut on your driveway."

  “I know. Flocks of ravenous birds are due any minute.”

  Her hands occupied with the big cake pan, Jane stuck out her leg and waved good-bye to Todd with her foot. He rolled his eyes and looked away.

  A bad sign, that. A symptom that the beginning of the end was in sight.

  TWO

  Keeping a firm grip on the sheet cake, Jane went to the side entrance of Shelley's house next door and leaned her elbow on the doorbell. Just then a van pulled up in front. Across the side of it in blue letters was the message: Happy Helper Cleaning Service. A thin woman in her thirties with frizzy blond hair got out and waved good-bye to the driver and other passengers. She was wearing something polyester that looked like a nurse's pantsuit dyed light blue. Across the breast pocket it said Happy Helper.

  “You must be Edith," Jane said as the woman joined her on the porch.

  “No, I'm Ramona. Are you Mrs. Nowack?"

  “No, but this is her house. I'm Mrs. Jeffry from next door. Ring the bell again, would you?”

  Shelley, immaculately turned out as always, opened the door a moment later. Her sleek, dark hair looked like she'd just stepped out of a very expensive beauty shop, and her navy-blue sweats — which Jane had seen her purchase at K mart — looked like something a designer had whipped up especially for her. Shelley had a way of doing that to clothes.

  “Mrs. Nowack?" the Happy Helper asked.

  “Yes? I was expecting Edith. Hi, Jane."

  “I know, ma'am, but Edith took sick and they sent me instead. They tried to call you from about six this morning, and the line was busy. If it's not okay, I can call and the van'll come back for me.”

  Shelley obviously wasn't pleased, but said, "No, I need the help today and I'm sure you'll do a fine job. Come in. I wonder what's the matter with the phone. The dog must have pulled the basement extension off the table again.”