Silence of the Hams jj-7 Read online

  2

  The salesman didn't cry. But he didn't have much fun, either.

  Jane's honorary Uncle Jim, a tough old Chicago cop who had been friends with her parents since before Jane was born, had reported that Mike's dream vehicle was a smallish black pickup truck. Though this hadn't crossed Jane's mind as a possibility, she quickly came to like the idea. It would allow her son to haul his belongings back and forth to college without involving her or her station wagon in long highway drives.

  “Best of all, Shelley, there's no backseat," Jane told Shelley.

  “What difference does that make?"

  “Girls, Shelley. Girls and backseats can be a dangerous combination."

  “Oh, right. Hormones and lust and dark nights on country roads. I'd almost forgotten all that.”

  On Shelley's orders, they stopped at the library and quickly copied a bunch of pages from various auto magazines and Consumer Reports and piled back into Jane's car. Shelley skimmed the copied pages, crumpled and dog-eared them a bit, then laid them aside. "Aren't you going to read all that? Why did we copy it otherwise?"

  “I read the one I needed to, the one about prices. The others are just to wave around and make it look like I've really studied the market and know what I'm doing," Shelley said confidently.

  At first, the salesman was patronizing, calling them "ma'am," with a faint sneer. But after a few minutes with Shelley and her sheaf of papers, he became a little more respectful, switching to a state of vague alarm, and finally something that looked like panic. After twenty minutes, Shelley named a ridiculously low figure that she said was all they were prepared to pay. He laughed nervously. "I can't do that, ma'am."

  “Well then, I'm sorry we've taken your time. Goodbye. Jane, put away your checkbook." She took Jane's elbow firmly and they headed back to where they'd parked the disgraceful station wagon down the street.

  “But Shelley, it's exactly what he wants! Do we have to start all over again?" Jane whispered.

  Shelley smiled. "No, we've won. You'll see.”

  They were only halfway to their car before the salesman caught up with them. He named a figure a hundred dollars over what Shelley. had offered. She countered with fifty dollars less, and he caved in. Jane was dumbfounded.

  Shelley drove Jane's car home, while Jane drove the new one to the county offices to get the tags and pay the taxes, then home, where she left it in Shelley's driveway. She'd called the insurance company and gotten the hideous news on what the additional premium would be and was casually loading the dishwasher a few minutes later when Mike and his best friend, Scott, got home from their last half day of school. Jane peeked while the boys circled the truck, admiring it.

  “Hi, Mom," Mike said when they finally came in the house. "Whose truck is that?"

  “Truck? I don't know." She went to the window again and looked. "Oh, that must be Shelley's nephew. She mentioned that he was coming by today.”

  The boys raved about it for a while and Jane went on cleaning the kitchen, trying not to grin. She tried to engage them in a discussion of how it felt to have finished high school, but the topic didn't interest them. Instead, they fixed Cokes for themselves and went back out to drool over the black pickup truck again. Jane followed.

  "You really like this thing?" she asked innocently. She kicked a tire.

  “Like it? Mom, it's the coolest thing on the road today," Mike said. "Just look at it!"

  “I guess you'd like to have one," Jane said. "Like one? Who wouldn't?”

  Jane fished the keys out of her pocket. "Then why don't you take this one?”

  Mike stared at the keys. Then looked at her. Then at the keys.

  “You mean—?”

  Jane nodded. "It's yours.”

  Mike and Scott fell on each other, slapping, punching, and yelping. Mike grabbed Jane in a bear hug. "Jeez, Mom! Jeez! I can't believe it!”

  Shelley had come out to join them when she heard the boys shouting. Scott was making a hideous yodeling noise while doing a victory dance around the truck and stopped to hug her. "Too cool! Too cool!" he crooned. "Mrs. J, you really came through," he said, mauling her in turn.

  “We've gotta show the guys," Mike said, jingling the car keys.

  “Don't forget the deli opening is in an hour," Jane warned.

  Mike slapped his forehead. "Jeez!" he repeated. "Okay. Just a little drive then.”

  He and Scott got in the truck and sat for a few minutes, petting and caressing various parts of the interior and talking incomprehensible gibberish about the mechanics. Mike turned the key and they both made orgasmic noises as the engine revved to life. Mike hopped back out, gave his mother another hug and smack of a kiss, and asked if she wanted to ride along.

  “No way, thanks. Don't forget your job." The boys roared off and Jane watched until they were out of sight.

  “Want a cup of coffee?" Shelley asked. Jane sighed. "No, thanks. I believe I'll just go inside and have a good cry.”

  The old house Sarah Baker and her sister had inherited was spruced up and looking lovely. The clapboards had been repaired and painted a pristine white with shiny black shutters for accent. The old cement walk had been replaced with a wide brick one in an old-fashioned herringbone pattern and had a border of sweet-scented thyme along the edges. A martin house had pink morning glories twining their way up the post. The original wraparound porch at the front and sides had been enclosed with floor-to-ceiling crank-out windows, which were opened today.

  Small white cafe tables for two and chairs with plump floral-patterned cushions were set up on the porch. At the center front of the house itself, one walked into what had once been a front hall, with a parlor and dining room to each side. The area had been opened up, and sparkling glass display cases enclosed an unbelievable array of deli foods. Jane assumed the back rooms of the first floor were kitchens and storage areas. There was no staircase visible, but Jane had heard that the second floor had been kept as living quarters. Conrad and Sarah Baker would be "living above the shop," as many small shopkeepers used to.

  The decorating plan was in keeping with the Victorian house — lots of ferns and lush greenery — but everything was white and bright and clean instead of characterized by the dark sobriety that had been fashionable when the house was new. Jane and Shelley had arrived early, but so had many other curious neighbors. Nearly all the little tables on the porch were occupied by people sampling Conrad's cooking when Jane and Shelley arrived. Conrad, in a chef's white jacket and hat, greeted them with a tray. "Ladies, how good of you to come!" he said heartily. "Have a seat or roam around as you like.”

  Conrad was a large, florid-faced man who obviously enjoyed eating as much as cooking. He wasn't fat, just big and fairly solid-looking, as ex-football players often get in middle age.

  His wife, Sarah, was behind him, passing out plates and silverware. She was a small, thin woman with tiny, delicate features and a mop of curly dark blond hair held back with clear plastic combs. She had a shy, quiet manner, and though she was smiling, she looked as if this sort of mingling was painful.

  Shelley introduced herself and Jane to Sarah Baker, who said softly, "Oh, I remember you from school days, Shelley. And I've talked to Jane on the phone a couple times. Thanks for coming. If you'd like to sit down while there's still a place to, I could bring you some of our special tea, and Conrad will be back around with sandwiches.”

  Jane, whose motto was "Never pass up a chance to sit down," took her up on the offer. The tea, when it arrived, was a very nice Earl Grey with the merest hint of a floral scent they couldn't identify. "I may never cook again," Jane said, sampling a cucumber dip Conrad had brought around with tiny sandwiches, some of his homemade potato chips, and a generous serving of cherry crisp.

  “Delicious," Shelley said around a mouthful of salmon mousse.

  A tall woman who looked like an elongated version of Sarah Baker stopped at the table. "Shelley, nice to see you," she said.

  “Grace Axton, this is
my friend Jane Jeffry. Jane is Mike's mother."

  “I'm glad to meet anyone who could raise such a great kid," Grace said. "We can already tell it's going to be nearly impossible to replace him when he goes to college in the fall. In his new truck! He's so proud of it."

  “Mike's here?" Jane asked. In the dark, most motherly recesses of her mind, she'd been half afraid he'd forgotten everything in his thraldom with the vehicle.

  “In the back, helping with cleanup before he starts deliveries. Have you seen the kitchens?"

  “No, we didn't know we could," Shelley replied.

  “Sure. We're anxious to show off everything.”

  Shelley said, "Grace, I hardly recognized Sarah. I mean, she looks the same, but I remembered her being really bubbly and outgoing."

  “People change," Grace Axton said shortly, and added with a laugh, "I didn't used to have a neck like a chicken, either, but we're not in high school anymore."

  “You have a perfectly fine neck," Shelley objected, "but if you saw the back of my upper arms—" After a few chummy, if depressing, comments about aging and the exchange of the names of a couple plastic surgeons, Grace moved off to greet other newcomers.

  Mike stopped by to thank Jane again for the truck, then, carrying a cardboard box full of paper bags and cartons, went on his first delivery. As he went down the sidewalk, Shelley murmured, "I can't believe it. Look who's coming."

  “What a hell of a nerve," Jane agreed as Robert Stonecipher stepped in the door and glanced around critically. With his showy white hair and handsome features, he looked as if he had been designed as part of the decor. Or he would have, had he not been scowling.

  “And he's got his pet dog with him," Shelley added, glaring at the sour-looking old man who was right behind Stonecipher.

  “Who's that?"

  “I can't think of his name. I always want to call him Foster Brooks," Shelley said. "Foster Hanlon, that's it. He's been hopping up and down and talking ugly about the deli opening, too."

  “But they've lost the battle. Why would they show up for the opening? You'd think they'd be embarrassed to visit the site of their defeat. Who's the woman with them?" Jane asked, eyeing the newcomer. She was not especially young, but was one of those terribly "fresh" people who always look as if they'd just stepped out of a tepid shower and a brisk rubdown with something organic that was awfully expensive and environmentally sound.

  “Oh, you know her, Jane. That Emma per‑ son who taught the aerobics class we took. Emma Weyworth — no, Weyrich.”

  Jane shuddered at the memory. In a rare fit of healthiness, Shelley had insisted that the two of them shape up and had enrolled them in the class at the community center. They lasted fifteen minutes. When the instructor called for a short break, they gathered their belongings and crept away. But Emma had seen their break for freedom and followed them to the parking lot to try to drag them back with a lot of what Jane considered highly personal and insulting remarks about how much they both needed to improve their bodies.

  “It figures she'd be hanging out with Stonecipher," Jane said. "Health nuts, both of them."

  “I think she's his secretary as well," Shelley said. "Or a paralegal or something.”

  The threesome entered the house and Jane and Shelley went back to sampling and reviewing the food they'd been served.

  They visited with a few other neighbors, some of whom had vaguely (and silently) opposed the deli, but had been won over by the quality of the food and the decorating. "It really doesn't look like a business," one said grudgingly. "I was afraid it was going to be a real blight. But except for the sign out front, you'd think it was just a well-kept old house.

  It must have cost a fortune to renovate it. I hear it was Grace Axton's money. I don't imagine the Bakers came back here with a pot to pee in.”

  Conrad was circulating with another tray of goodies, to which Jane and Shelley shamelessly helped themselves. The deli was becoming more crowded by the minute, and they finally, reluctantly, gave up their places at the small table, leaving a humiliating pile of crumbs.

  “It looks like we rubbed our food in instead of eating it," Jane whispered.

  “Let's peek at the kitchen before we leave," Shelley said, nearly tripping over a toddler in her haste to distance herself from the scene of culinary devastation.

  It was a kitchen to die for. Vast white countertops, steel sinks, two brushed-chrome fronted dishwashers, and every imaginable appliance. Around the soffit hung an array of copper utensils that made Jane's mouth water, even though she knew she'd hate having to clean them. Today the food was being served on plastic plates because of the crush, but in the future the serving dishes would be the oval green plates that were stacked in the open cabinets. The serving dishes alone represented a mind-boggling financial investment.

  After admiring everything, Jane said, "I'll meet you outside. I have to find a bathroom.”

  “Just down that hallway," Grace Axton said, entering the kitchen and catching Jane's words.

  Jane followed Grace's directions. While she was washing her hands, she heard a crash. By the time she'd dried her hands and disposed of the paper towel, she could hear someone screaming. She stepped out of the bathroom.

  A crowd of people was descending on an open doorway along the hallway between the bathroom and the kitchen. As she neared the door, someone shoved a sobbing Sarah Baker out of the doorway and into her arms.

  “Sarah! What's wrong!”

  Sarah was blubbering, "He's dead! Oh, my God—"

  “Dead? Who's dead?" Jane asked, fearing the answer was Conrad.

  Grace Axton pushed through the crowd and grabbed at Sarah. "Honey, come away from here. Come on.”

  Somebody behind her gave a push and Jane found herself, against her will, in the room where somebody was dead. It was a storage room, as bright and clean as the rest of the deli. Cardboard cartons were neatly stacked on shelving that ran clear around the room except for the doorway where she stood and another doorway on the outside wall. A large chrome rack was lying on the floor. It had held hams, which had rolled all over the floor. Lying in the midst of the hams was a facedown figure. But nobody needed to see the face to know who it was. The showy, snowy white hair could only belong to Robert Stonecipher.

  3

  Everybody in the hallway seemed to want in the room.

  Jane wanted out.

  Pushing her way gently but firmly, she struggled into the hall and through the kitchen and sales area. She found Shelley waiting outside.

  “What on earth's happening?" Shelley said. They could hear the wail of sirens, and the people still in the deli were standing around in worried knots.

  Shaken, Jane explained. "There was a big metal rack in the middle of the storage room that apparently fell over on Robert Stonecipher. It's a madhouse in there."

  “Was he hurt?"

  “I think he's dead, but I didn't get close enough to find out. Sarah Baker was crying and saying he was dead. I don't know—"

  “Storeroom?"

  “Between the kitchen and the bathroom. I heard the crash."

  “Poor Conrad and Sarah," Shelley said. "Stonecipher was an obnoxious bastard, but I wouldn't wish that on him. Still, if he had to get himself killed or injured, why did it have to be here? And today, to wreck their grand opening? As if he hadn't already given them enough trouble on purpose.”

  An ambulance pulled up in front of the deli. Shelley and Jane stepped onto the lawn so they wouldn't be in the way of the emergency staff who leaped out and ran into the building carrying complicated equipment.

  “Let's get out of here," Jane said. "We can't be any help and I hate to stand around being a gawker.”

  They walked home, and Jane spent a depressing hour paying bills and tidying her small basement office. And trying very hard not to think about that sprawled figure lying half under the rack. What could have made it fall over? It looked as if it had been freestanding in the middle of the room, but surely something tha
t large and heavy-looking doesn't spontaneously topple over simply because somebody walks by it. Suppose it had been Mike in the room when it went over! Her heart went cold. No, she couldn't bear to think about it.

  Instead, she looked longingly at the pile ofpaper sitting next to her computer. For nearly a year now she'd been working on what she called her "story." She was afraid to call it a book for fear that such a weighty word would get in the way of her ever finishing it. And, too, if it was a book, she'd have to think about what to do with it if and when she ever finished. Instead, she puttered with the story, enjoying the adventure of spending a few hours every week with a character she'd made up and enjoyed having adventures with. It had begun when she'd taken a "Writing Your Life Story" class with her mother the previous summer. Jane hadn't wanted to write her own story — she only took the class to do something with her mother during her visit — so she invented Priscilla and started telling her story instead.

  Now Priscilla, a woman of the eighteenth century who'd lived a long and exciting life, had become a friend, and Jane found herself wishing she could turn on the computer and spend the rest of the day with her. Instead, real life called.

  Jane ran a comb through her hair, spent a few frantic moments searching for her car keys, then drove to the grade school to face the horror of the last day of school. The kids would explode from the doors in a few minutes in that state of high-pitched hysteria that made her nerves fray. In two days they'd be moping around asking what there was to do, but today they'd be wound as tight as tops at the prospect of the whole glorious summer vacation stretching before them.

  Jane had forgotten to bring a book to read, so while she waited, she thought about the accident at the deli. As callous as Shelley's comments might have sounded to an outsider, Jane agreed with them. Robert Stonecipher had meant nothing to her. He was a bully — and a pious bully at that, the worst sort. But if he had really died when the rack of hams fell on him, it would forever blot what should have been a fine, glorious day for the Bakers and Sarah's sister, Grace. They seemed to be nice, hardworking people, and it was a pity that their grand opening should be marred by something so terrible.