The Merchant of Menace jj-10 Read online

  The Merchant of Menace

  ( Jane Jeffry - 10 )

  Jill Churchill

  Quintessential mom in tennis shoes Jane Jeffrey is once again thrust into a murder investigation, but this time the murderer is very close to home indeed. She finds herself in the midst of the Christmas rush and hosting two celebrations back-to-back: neighborhood caroling party one evening and a cookie exchange the following day. The two gatherings are meant to bring the community together, but when a TV reporter is found dead during the singing, it becomes obvious that at least one of the neighbors is harboring something besides goodwill towards men. As Jane and her coconspirator Shelly explore just who might have reason to shove someone off a roof, their sleepy suburb (Chicago is the ostensible nearby city, but the setting could be anywhere there is snow in December) suddenly steams with secrets.

  Jill Churchill

  The Merchant of Menace

  One

  “I can't do it all. I'll be dead or in the loony bin before Christmas," Jane Jeffry whined. She and her best friend and next-door neighbor, Shelley Nowack, were sitting at Jane's kitchen table. The house smelled of freshly baked cookies and coffee and just a hint of wet dog. It was only five in the afternoon, but the clouds were low and heavy and it was as dark as midnight outside.

  “Nonsense," Shelley said in the brisk tone that intimidated traffic cops, school principals, and bankers, but to which Jane had grown immune.

  Jane put her head down on the table, face forward with her nose to a place mat. "No, no. My children will be given into custody of my mother-in-law," she mumbled into the quilted fabric. "And she'll tell them awful things about me and great things about their dead father and—"

  “Jane," Shelley snapped, "get a grip. They're not babies anymore.”

  Jane made a noise like a hippo pulling its foot out of the mud and continued her litany of woes. "Mel's mother's coming to town for Christmas and she's going to hate me—"

  “She's not going to hate you and all that matters is what Mel himself thinks of you," Shelley persisted. Mel was Jane's "significant other," as her daughter Katie insisted on referring to him.

  “—and I have new neighbors on the other side of my house I've never met but already don't like—”

  Shelley reached out to pet Jane's head sympathetically, but drew back her hand when she realized Jane had streaks of cookie icing in her blond hair. "You need to get your roots touched up — and the green gunk washed out," Shelley said. "Maybe they'd clean Willard up, too. A nice family trip to the groomers.”

  Willard, the big yellow dog who was lurking under the table waiting for possible cookie crumbs and contributing the only unpleasant odor in the mix, growled as if in disapproval of Shelley's suggestion.

  Jane's muffled voice was just short of a wail. "Who cares if I have green hair or a smelly dog who likes to roll in the snow? Nobody's going to even look at me. I'm just a cookie-making, fruit-compoting, house-cleaning, madly-shopping drudge with red food coloring under my fingernails and a vacuum cleaner bag full of dog hair. Willard's doing that weird midwinter shedding thing again.”

  Shelley got up and poured them both new cups of coffee. "How did you get yourself into all this?" she asked. "You're doing the cookieexchange party and the neighborhood caroling party as well, aren't you? Back-to-back. Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Not good planning, Jane.”

  Jane sat up, running her sticky hands through her sticky hair and grimacing. "What a good friend you are to remind me of those," she said. "I take full blame for the cookie exchange party. It was my own idea, long before I got stuck with the rest of it. But as I recall, you encouraged me when I was reminiscing about how nice it used to be when that dear old lady who lived on the corner had a cookie exchange and all the neighborhood women got together once a year.

  “I did. And it's going to be fun, Jane. I told you I'd provide the wine and tea and coffee and the boxes for everybody to take their traded cookies home in. I've already got the boxes all stacked up and decorated.”

  Jane gave her friend A Look that would have curled the hair of a lesser person. "Right. All I have to do is clean and decorate my house and make tons of extra cookies to be eaten at the party.”

  Shelley gestured expansively with her coffee cup. "You'd have to do that anyway," she said breezily. "But how did the caroling thing happen to you?"

  “It was that damned Julie Newton."

  “I thought you liked Julie."

  “I thought I did, too. Despite her dreadful perkiness and optimism. When she got her cookie party invitation, she came by — gushing like mad about what a terrific idea it was and how it would promote neighborhood unity and how clever I was. She turned my head, Shelley. She made me feel like Lady Bountiful."

  “She's good at that," Shelley said. "She once got me to run the Trash and Treasure booth at the church bazaar and I thought for a while it was my own idea."

  “And I'm a sucker for flattery," Jane admitted. "So, Julie went on about how great it would be to have this neighborhood caroling thing and then have everybody get together at somebody's house afterwards for a buffet dinner. Sounded good to me and I nodded and agreed, and added suggestions, because I thought she was volunteering to do the whole thing. Then, when she had me thoroughly hooked on the scheme, she mentioned that she, of course, was having her kitchen renovated from the studs out and although the contractor — that nice young Bruce Pargeter guy who put in my pantry shelves — had said he might be done by Christmas, she wasn't sure she could count on him making the deadline and—"

  “—you volunteered to be hostess?”

  Jane leaned back in her chair and sighed heavily. "God help me, I did! Or she volunteered me. I don't remember the gory details. It was sort of like a train wreck. One minute I was chattering along, every bit as perky as Julie, and the next minute I'd agreed to have the whole neighborhood in for a buffet dinner.”

  Shelley looked over the cookies cooling on clean pillowcases on Jane's kitchen counter. "Jane, what are these green things supposed to be?"

  “Elves," Jane said drearily. "Little nastyChristmas elves. The cutter looked like an elf, but they blobbed out when they cooked.”

  “They look more like holly leaves — or a fungus growth," Shelley said.

  Jane smiled weakly. "But they taste okay. Throw some on a plate and let's make ourselves sick on them. I couldn't possibly let anyone else see them."

  “I can't move," Shelley said. "My feet are stuck to your floor.”

  Jane nodded hopeless acceptance of this criticism. "Corn syrup. I dropped the bottle and the lid came off. I've already washed the floor twice and Willard's licked up as much as he could. Just leave your shoes there."

  “Thanks, but I'd rather have my shoes stick than my feet." Shelley tossed some cookies on a plate, her shoes making a sound like Velcro being pulled apart, and sat down across from Jane. She nibbled a cookie cautiously and smiled. "They do taste okay. So, tell me about Mel's mother and why she'll hate you."

  “Because he's her only son. He's a successful detective, up and coming, all that. And I'm a widow with three children, one already in college, which is a dead giveaway that I'm older than he is."

  “So?" Shelley said.

  “So she's going to see me as a predatory old hag, trying to trap her dear boy."

  “Jane, you don't know that. She's going to adore you. Well, if you get this disgusting kitchen cleaned up, that is. And do some major repairs to your hair.”

  Jane shook her head. "Nope, she's not. Mel's already said so."

  “He told you this?" Shelley said with amazement.

  “Not in so many words. But he keeps mentioning how he's sure she's going to like me and my famil
y. And how he's told her how terrific I am and how he's really, really sure we're going to get along great. I can tell he's desperately trying to convince himself of this.”

  Shelley frowned. "Oh, that doesn't sound good."

  “It doesn't. The more a man reassures me that everything's going to be fine, the more suspicious I become. And he's almost to a fever pitch about how well his mother and I are going to hit it off."

  “At least you don't have to have her around all the time, do you?"

  “No, she's staying with Mel, of course. He'll bring her to the cookie party because I invited her. And Christmas Eve and Day because I've invited both of them. Other than that, I don't imagine I'll see much of her," Jane said. "Of course, I won't see much of him, either, but since I've gotten myself stuck with all this entertaining, I guess that would have been inevitable anyway."

  “Jane, I think you're making too much of all this. All you have to do is make the extra cookies and clean up your house—"

  “Both of which are significant hurdles, in case you hadn't noticed.”

  Shelley glanced around. "The house does have a hint of nuclear holocaust about it. Butyou can manage. And I'll help with the buffet. Paul might even help us get a good deal with caterers.”

  Shelley's husband Paul owned a chain of Greek fast-food restaurants. They were enormously successful and neither Jane nor Shelley had ever been able to figure out why. They were in agreement that the food served in the restaurants was inedible. Paul even admitted it but said his policy was "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

  “Not Greek," Shelley assured Jane. "But he's subcontracted for a lot of caterers."

  “Would you trust a caterer who subcontracted for his food?" Jane asked.

  Shelley thought for a minute. "You've got a point. All right, then. We'll do a couple presliced hams, a bunch of scalloped potatoes from a boxed mix with some decent cheese and some green and red peppers added, and we'll tell everyone to bring either a salad or a dessert.”

  Jane sighed again. "Shelley, you're a good woman. Now tell me what gifts to get my kids."

  “You haven't done your shopping yet?" Shelley almost yelled.

  “I know. I know. You had yours finished in August.”

  Shelley didn't deny it. "It's too late to even count on catalogs. Sorry, Jane, but you're on your own there. Gift certificates are nice," she added wryly.

  “Life was so much easier when they could be thrilled with a Big Wheel or a huge new box of crayons and half a dozen coloring books. Easier and cheaper. Mike sent me a list of computer programs and games he wanted. I went and priced them and reeled back out of the store looking like a woman who'd been hit in the head with a shovel.”

  Shelley abandoned the topic. "So what were your other complaints? Something about the neighbors?"

  “Oh, that's right. You and Paul were out of town when they moved in."

  “I've been meaning to get over there and meet them," Shelley said. "What's wrong with them?"

  “Nothing, I guess, if you'd grown up in Possum Hollow and were married to your half-brother."

  “Hicks?"

  “Oh, way beyond hickdom, Shelley. Way beyond. You should have seen the furniture going in. Stuff I'd be embarrassed to put out for the trash. A hideous rainbow plaid sofa that made my eyes water. Dining room chairs with fake gold legs and plastic covers on the seats. I hate being a snob—"

  “I can see why," Shelley commented, glancing at Jane's hair.

  “But the wife wears housedresses — the kind our grandmothers wore in the Depression — and I saw her once at the grocery store with her hair in pin curls. I haven't seen anyone do that for at least twenty years."

  “Have you met them, or just gawked at them?"

  “We've met, briefly. I took a tuna casserole and a salad over to them for dinner the first night they were here. The husband — Billy Something, Jones or Johnson, I can't remember which — wears cowboy boots, a deer-hunting hat. He made us come in the house and meet his wife."

  “Us?"

  “Suzie Williams was with me. She brought a dessert. He very nearly drooled on her.”

  Jane and Shelley's friend Suzie, who lived a couple houses down the block, was a big, voluptuous platinum blond. A Mae West — looking woman, but much prettier and just as vulgar.

  “Why wouldn't he drool over Suzie? It's a perfectly natural impulse for a man."

  “Well, the poor wife was standing right there, for one thing."

  “Was he nasty?"

  “No, not nasty. Just sort of showed off like a kid trying to impress a teacher he's got a crush on. Had to tell us all about his alligator boots and how he 'knew the of boy what raised the 'gators hisself.' And he wanted us to admire their pictures they were hanging. Landscapes they'd bought in a vacant gas-station parking lot. Oh, well. Maybe they'll grow on me. It'll be a cultural experience, at the very least."

  “What does he do, did he say?"

  “He's retired.”

  Shelley looked surprised. "Oh? Older people?”

  “No. He looks about forty."

  “What's he retired from?”

  Jane shrugged. "No idea. Making moonshine?”

  As if she'd made a cosmic announcement, her last word was followed by a trumpet blast of Biblical proportions that shook the windows.

  TWo

  Billy Joe Johnson ran out the front door and down the sidewalk to where his wife Tiffany was standing. Once again, she had her hair in pin curls, but with a woolen scarf on her head, peasant-style. She was wearing jeans, a lumberjack shirt, and a light jacket she was trying to keep overlapped in the front and cover her ears at the same time. She didn't have enough hands for both.

  “Ain't it great, Tiff?" Billy Johnson shouted over the music. The raucous noise had resolved itself into a brass band recording of "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”

  Tiffany cupped her ear. "What? I can't hear you!”

  Jane and Shelley came out onto Jane's front porch and Billy Joe waved cheerfully at them. Jane raised a limp hand in response as she and Shelley minced down the front steps to get a better look at the Johnsons' house. It was almost buried in Christmas decorations.

  Four-foot-high lighted candy canes lined thedriveway. A life-sized Santa in a sleigh with two extremely lifelike reindeer were to the left of the sidewalk, and a coven of evil-looking plastic elves even more revolting than Jane's cookie elves disported themselves to the right of the yard. Every window in the house had a lighted snowman, angel, or star shining from it and was outlined with twinkling lights on the outside. In fact, the entire structure of the house was strung with lights. The bushes were a psychedelic nightmare, flashing and pulsating in red and green lights.

  Jane and Shelley exchanged horrified looks. Tiffany cupped both hands and bellowed into Billy Joe's ear, "TURN OFF THE MUSIC!”

  He bounced off to the house to do her bidding and a moment later the sound was abruptly cut off, mid-trumpet. It was suddenly so relatively silent that Jane could hear her pulse in her ears. Or maybe she'd gone suddenly deaf, she thought, and that's all she'd ever hear again. Her own heartbeat.

  She tested her voice. "Shelley? Why didn't you tell me about this?”

  Shelley was shaking her head, as if to clear it. "I've been inside all day and came from my kitchen door across the driveway to your kitchen door. I had no idea! He must have been working on this all day long."

  “It's—" Jane fumbled for a single word that would describe the Johnsons' house. " — amazing! Horrible and amazing.”

  Jane's front door flew open and two of her children came barreling out. Katie, Jane's sixteenyear-old daughter, came to a sudden stop and said, "Holy sh— oops. Sorry, Mom." Her eyes were as big as saucers as she stared at the sight next door. "'I was on the phone with Jenny and there was this awful noise. ." Her voice trailed off.

  Todd, in seventh grade and just inching past his sister in height, came out behind her, looked at the house, and grinned. "Awesome!" he said.

  Jane
glanced down the street. Here and there porch lights had come on, and people were standing on their front steps, huddled in sweaters and coats, staring at the Johnsons' house. Somebody pointed to the roof, and Jane looked up, then clutched Shelley's arm. "Shelley, the roof—”

  Atop the house, set up between the two front dormers, was an entire life-sized crèche. Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, wise men, shepherds, two sheep, and a smallish camel who looked like he came from a different set. The figures were brilliantly hued plastic, lighted from inside. It was, beyond any doubt, the most ghastly thing Jane had ever seen.

  Several cars had stopped in front of the house and their passengers were gawking at the display.

  Billy Joe was gesturing at Jane and Shelley. "Y'all come take a look from the front," he bellowed.

  It would have been surly to refuse. But they didn't hurry. As they reached the couple, Billy Joe reached out to shake Shelley's hand. He pumped it like a slot machine handle. "I'm Billy Joe Johnson and this here is my wife Tiffany Ann. Tiff to her friends."

  “How do you do?" Shelley said, trying to gently extricate herself from his grip. "I'm—" She paused as if attempting to gather her wits and remember her own name. "I'm Shelley Nowack. I live on the other side of Jane."

  “Leggo her hand, Billy Joe," Tiffany said. "Pleased to meetcha, Shelley. What do you think?"

  “About what?" Shelley asked.

  Tiffany laughed merrily. "Why, of the house, of course. Isn't it just the best thing?”

  Shelley's mouth moved but no words came out. Jane stepped into the breach. "It's certainly — impressive. So many — things. And music, too. Oh, my.

  It was a feeble attempt at courtesy, but Billy Joe and Tiffany accepted it as a compliment and beamed at each other.

  A police car pulled into the Johnsons' driveway and the officer, a young woman with sleek blond hair in a tidy chignon at the back of her neck, got out and stared, bewildered, at the house for a long moment before approaching Billy Joe. "Hello there, folks," she said, her smile huge and astonished. "We got a call about a noise at this address.”