The Merchant of Menace jj-10 Read online

  Jane shook her head. "No, nobody'd believe it. And I'd just end up sticking someone else in the neighborhood with the same problem. And I wouldn't even be able to help them out because of my smallpox or cholera or whatever.”

  Shelley took a sip of her coffee. "Much as I like to be the neighborhood wise woman, always ready with a solution, I'm coming up empty on this one," she admitted. "How did you leave it with Julie?"

  “You mean after I beat the stuffing out of her?

  I've never been so tempted to smack somebody upside the head. I told her I wanted an hour to think about it.”

  The doorbell rang and Jane found Bruce Pargeter standing on the front steps, looking very upset.

  He introduced himself and Jane said, "I know you, Bruce. Remember, you put in new pantry shelves. Come in out of the cold."

  “I remember. I wasn't sure you did.”

  Bruce was a chunky, florid-faced young man, probably about thirty years old, Jane would have guessed, who lived with his widowed mother at the other end of the block. He was a wizard at fixing, repairing, or renovating almost anything. Almost everyone in the neighborhood had benefitted from his skills at one time or another. One of the advantages to having him around was that he was unfailingly cheerful and polite and had excellent taste. He could suggest to homeowners that their own ideas were dreadful without being the tiniest bit rude about it.

  But today he didn't look the least bit cheerful. In fact, he looked extremely upset.

  “Hi, Bruce," Shelley said when they entered the living room. "I've been meaning to tell you how happy I am with that flooring in the family room. I'm so glad you convinced me to get the planking rather than the squares."

  “Too bad you don't have a tape recorder running, Bruce," Jane said with a laugh. "Not very many people have ever heard Shelley admit that someone else was right and she was wrong.”

  But Bruce Pargeter only gave her a thin smile. "Jane, I want to warn you about something andask a favor. I'm doing Julie Newton's kitchen and I couldn't help but hear her on the phone this morning. Do you know she's invited Lance King to the neighborhood caroling party?"

  “I'm afraid I do know. Shelley and I were just trying to figure out what to do about it.”

  Bruce gave her a grim look. "Jane, if you value the quality of your life, you won't let that — that person in your house. Believe me, you'll regret it the rest of your life. He's the most evil person in the world.”

  Four

  It turned out that Bruce's experience with Lance King went way back to years ago in Kentucky, where they both lived at the time.

  “Ever heard of karst topography?" he asked.

  “Something to do with caves, isn't it?" Jane said.

  Shelley looked surprised. "I never cease to marvel at the weird snippets of things you know about, Jane."

  “College geology," Jane said. "I liked geology.”

  Bruce took up the explanation. "In the simplest terms, karst topography is where you have limestone bedrock below the soil. When there's a lot of groundwater, it erodes the limestone over time and that forms caves. If it erodes far enough, sometimes the top of the cave falls in and you get a sinkhole. Most of the middle part of the country is limestone bedrock, but only some areas get sinkholes. Kentucky is one of them."

  “This has something to do with Lance King?" Shelley asked.

  “Quite a lot," Bruce said. "My dad was a contractor outside Louisville. He built a little subdivision, eight or ten houses, and just as the last one was being completed, the first one fell into a sinkhole. The added weight of the house itself collapsed the ceiling of the cave and the entire house just collapsed into the hole."

  “Oh, my gosh!" Jane exclaimed. "Shouldn't somebody have known there was a big hole under the house?”

  Bruce nodded. "Oh, yes. Nobody in their right mind would build in that part of the country without having a thorough geologic survey done. My dad hired the people, who assured him that it was solid bedrock."

  “I sense Lance King coming into the story real soon," Shelley said.

  “Yep," Bruce said. "But it was much worse than just losing the building." His expression grew even more bleak. "It happened early in the morning while a woman and her two-month-old baby were in the house asleep. They were both killed. Crushed as the house collapsed.”

  Jane and Shelley tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle their gasps of horror.

  Bruce sighed. "I think my dad would rather it had been him. He nearly had a breakdown when he heard. It was only the old Puritan ethic of facing things down that kept him going. And, of course, that's where Lance King comes in. He was on his first job out of college, heard about the tragedy, and took out after my dad like a rabid wolverine. He did pieces on him almost every night for a week. Went around to other people Dad had built houses for, scaring them to death, working them all up to say Dad was a murderer — God, it was awful."

  “Your poor family," Jane said softly.

  “Lance knew from the beginning that the responsible party was the geological surveyors. But they were remote, no one local person to blame. Not one upstanding local citizen who was already nearly broken with grief and guilt. He sneaked around, getting unflattering pictures of Dad, showing them on the news, carrying on about the poor innocent baby… Well, you've seen him in action here."

  “To my disgust," Shelley said.

  “It made King's career. And utterly destroyed my father. His reputation went into the hole with the house and people. Somebody…" He paused and cleared his throat to get the next words out. "Somebody spat at him on the street.”

  Bruce's voice shook and his eyes shone with tears.

  They were all silent for a moment, trying to absorb the awful humiliation. Finally Shelley asked, "That's why your family moved here?”

  Bruce pulled out a big, ragged handkerchief and dabbed at his nose and eyes. "Dad had a sister and brother in Chicago. He and Mom moved up here — I finished college in Kentucky and joined them. He intended to start over, but his heart and spirit were broken. He was such a good, good man. When he got here, he had a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized for a while, and his health started failing. He died three years later."

  “I think my heart is broken, Bruce," Jane said.

  He was obviously embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I don't go around talking about this, but I thought you should know and I'd be glad if you didn't mention this to anyone else. It's downright dangerous for Lance King to even know who you are. He's always on the lookout for someone to destroy. And he's an expert at it. Makes himself look like a crusader for all that's right and good while perfectly innocent people have their lives torn to shreds. He killed my father. It was a long, tortured death."

  “That does it, Shelley. Lance King is pure scum and it would pollute my home to let him in," Jane said, knowing she was sounding melodramatic and not caring.

  Shelley said mildly, "It's going to make him come down on you and Julie, you know."

  “Shelley, are you saying I'm wrong to take this stand?"

  “Absolutely not. I'd do the same, but you do need to consider the possible consequences."

  “I don't care what kind of trouble Julie gets into. It's her fault to begin with. And there's nothing he can do to me. I have no dark secrets." She smiled. "Sometimes I wish I did. I'd be so much more interesting."

  “Jane, Bruce's father didn't have dark secrets either," Shelley reminded her. "There's nothing to stop Lance King from simply making up something.”

  Jane sat down, deflated. "I know that. But it's a matter of principle. Bruce is right: Lance King is evil. Deliberately, coldly evil. I couldn't betray someone as nice as Bruce by letting the man in the house and appearing to approve of him. I'm going to call Julie before I waver.”

  Julie was crushed by Jane's ultimatum. Her voice wavered and she was near tears, but she agreed to call and cancel the Lance King visit. It was only ten minutes later that Julie called Jane back, bubbling and cheerful. "It's all right. He took it really well
, Jane. Said he understood that a television crew was a big imposition at the last minute.”

  Jane was stunned. "You actually spoke to him and he said that?"

  “Yes, he was very considerate and understanding. I'm so relieved. I'm really sorry I acted without thinking and got us into this mess, but it's all worked out now.”

  Jane hung up the phone, more alarmed than ever. This didn't sound like Lance King at all. And Jane simply couldn't buy the concept that he was secretly a considerate gentleman. But what could she do? He'd backed off, taken himself out of the picture, ceased to be a problem.

  Yeah, right, she told herself. In a pig's eye.

  Jane spent the rest of the morning and half the afternoon getting out the Christmas decorations. The bottle-brush plastic tree was the first item. She hated having a plastic tree, but the real ones gave her hives. She dragged its assorted parts out of the big cardboard box in the basement, set it up, and then tackled the lights.

  Strings of Christmas lights were mysterious and frustrating things. Every January when she put them away, she wound each strand separately, put a rubber band around it, andwrapped it in tissue paper. And every year, when she got them back out, they were in a hopeless snarl. During the summer they must have been doing wicked and vaguely obscene things with each other. Either that or Max and Meow, her two cats, entertained themselves playing in the box — which was much more likely but less fun to contemplate.

  The next step was the tree ornaments. This always made her maudlin. Every ornament meant something dear to her. Among her favorites, there were the balls covered with glitter that Mike had decorated when he was a first-grader; the paper chain of rapidly disintegrating snowmen holding hands that Todd had cut out; the tiny china bride and groom her mother had sent the first year Jane was married; the miniature, fragile Swiss clock Shelley had given her; and the bird nest.

  That one really made her weepy. The year Jane's husband had died, her honorary uncle Jim had declared that the children needed a real tree, Jane's hives notwithstanding. He promised her he'd put it up and take it down and she'd never have to touch the thing. They bundled up the kids and Jim drove them to a tree farm where they found a tree with an abandoned bird nest. It was carefully woven and held together with mud. Uncle Jim had made an uncharacteristically sappy remark about Jane and her baby birds that reduced her to tears then — and every time she got the bird nest out since then.

  She so dearly loved the older man who had been a lifelong friend of her parents and had served as their substitute when she was wid‑ owed. Her father was with the State Department and had been helping to negotiate a treaty in a small African community that was unreachable by phone the week Steve died. But Uncle Jim, retired career army, second career Chicago cop, stiff as a poker and tough as nails, had been there for her.

  She wiped away her tears and finished putting up the ornaments, then moved on to setting up the little manger scene. The kids had loved to play with the scene when they were little. The lambs had lost their little ceramic ears, baby Jesus had a crayon mark on His arm, and one of the wise men's camels had lost a leg years ago, which Jane had glued back a bit crookedly. The camel now stood in what looked like a drunken slouch with the wise man poised to fall off. The thatch on the roof of the manger had gradually disappeared in packing, unpacking, and being played with. But she'd never replace it with a respectable-looking new version.

  The nutcracker figures were lined up on the mantel — it was supposed to be bad luck to put them away, but Jane always did so anyway. She got out the punch bowl and Christmas cups, the felt tree skirt her mother-in-law Thelma had made when Jane had Mike. Jane had always taken this gesture to mean that Thelma had acknowledged (grudgingly) that, having given birth to the first Jeffry grandchild, Jane was finally part of the family.

  She filled the Santa bowl with candy canes, stuck the artificial wreath made of tiny foil packages on the refrigerator door, and set out the red and green candles all over the house. Mikecould set up the train and miniature village when he got home from college. It had always been his special job and he guarded it jealously. She hung the red tapestry stockings she'd gotten at the church craft sale the year before, put out the Christmas afghan, and stood back to admire her handwork. As if it were a signal, music started blasting from next door.

  “O Little Town of Bethlehem" at 100 decibels.

  She sighed heavily. Her activities had put both the dreaded Lance King and her very odd new neighbors out of her mind for several hours. Now reality and the present intruded and she went back to fretting about what the next couple days might hold in store.

  Five

  Jan e ran out and did some more of her shop- · ping and dashed home before Todd could get back from school and snoop into packages. As she turned onto her block, she saw a familiar little figure plodding along the street on her way home from the school bus stop. Jane pulled the station wagon to the curb, opened the window, and said, "Hop in, Pet. You look cold. I'll drop you at your house."

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Jeffry, but I'll walk. My father says I can't get in other people's cars," Pet Dwyer said precisely.

  “I'm sure he meant strangers' cars, dear, and I'm not a stranger. But it's good advice. See you later.”

  She was still shaking her head and chuckling when she pulled into the driveway. Shelley was just coming out to get her newspaper and followed Jane into Jane's house. "What are you grinning about?" she asked. "Did you win the lottery? Inherit fabulous jewelry from a long-lost aunt? Is your mother-in-law going on an around-the-world cruise for a year?"

  “No, nothing that good. I just offered that little Pet Dwyer a ride and she turned me down because she can't accept rides. She's such a weird little girl. I've got to hide Todd's presents before he gets here.”

  Jane disappeared into the basement for a moment and when she returned, Shelley asked, "Pet Dwyer?"

  “Patricia, really. You know her, Shelley. Lives across the street and two or three houses down? The blue house with the white trim. She comes over at least three times a week to visit Todd."

  “Oh, yes. Todd likes her? Are they a 'thing'?"

  “I don't think Todd knows what to make of her. She's so bright and prim and grownup-talking. Like a very smart but repressed Victorian child. She doesn't drool over him, so he's not scared of her like he would be of any other girl. And she seems to genuinely like the same things he does. One day she brought over a microscope and a bunch of rather revolting slides of things like ant feet and fly wings. Nothing could have charmed him more. He's really not interested in girls yet, even though it's macho to pretend he is, and is sort of embarrassed at having one follow him around.”

  Shelley nodded. "I heard my son and his friends using an extraordinarily rude word the other day for a part of the female anatomy. I eavesdropped for a bit and discovered they thought it meant a girl's hairdo. I explained, as tactfully as possible, that it didn't mean that and I would wash out the mouth of any child who said it in my house again."

  “Did you tell them the real meaning?"

  “Good Lord, no! Imagine if they went home and told their parents that Mrs. Nowack was educating them in gutter language.”

  At that moment Todd came slamming into the house. "Mom, help me! That Pet is on her way here. I saw her coming down the street."

  “I can't save you. Into each life some Pets must fall."

  “Mom, I'm serious! She saw me come in the house. What'll I do?"

  “You'll be nice to her," Jane said mildly. "Let her play with your hamsters."

  “Every time she touches them she has to wash her hands afterwards like she was getting ready for surgery! Oh, okay. Okay.”

  Pet was at the front door a few minutes later. "That house next door to yours is rather garish, isn't it, Mrs. Jeffry," she said. She made it sound as if it just might be Jane's fault.

  “Garish," Jane said. "Yes, excellent word for it. Come in, Pet. Todd's just gone up to change his clothes. Come in the kitchen an
d have some milk and cookies with Mrs. Nowack and me."

  “I can't eat sweets because I didn't bring along my toothbrush," Pet said. "But thank you anyway. I'm sure they're very good. And I can't drink milk from the grocery store. My father has special milk delivered."

  “Soy or something, I guess," Jane said. "You know what? I have lemonade and also extra toothbrushes that haven't even been unwrapped. You can have a cookie and a toothbrush," Jane said, wondering how a real live child could be this proper and noble. She needed to be tickled or something."Thank you so much, Mrs. Jeffry.”

  Her eating was as prissy as her speech. She munched the cookie in little rabbity nibbles, holding a napkin at chest level to catch any crumbs. Jane knew Pet was in seventh grade with Todd, but she was one of the late bloomers. Gangly, flat-chested, and looking like she had a larger person's teeth filling her mouth, she was still a knobby-kneed little girl. Jane could remember some of Katie's friends at the same age looking like twenty-five-year-old models. Or at least giving it a good try. But Pet, with her bottle-bottom glasses and tightly braided hair, had a long way to go and didn't appear to be in any hurry.

  “It must take your mother ages to braid your hair every morning," Jane said as she poured Pet a glass of lemonade.

  “I don't have a mother. She died in a car wreck."

  “Oh, Pet. I'm so sorry," Jane exclaimed. "I had no idea."

  “It's okay. I was little. I don't remember her, not exactly. But I have lots of pictures of her. My father braids my hair.”

  Jane was saved from asking any more inadvertently awkward questions by Todd. "Oh, hi, Pet," he said as if he were surprised to find her there. "What's up?"

  “My dad gave me a computer program about pyramids," Pet said. "I thought you might like to see it. You can build a sarcophagus with it and move treasures around inside to foil grave robbers and wrap up mummies."

  “Do you want me to load it on my computer in the basement?" Jane asked. She had a small office in the basement where she worked on what she'd come to think of as the Endless Novel. She estimated that it was three-quarters done and was going to really, really work on it after the holidays. She remembered thinking the same thing last Christmas. But at least she was two hundred pages farther along now than then.