A Farewell to Yarns

volleyball a year or so ago.”
    His look of surprise turned to embarrassment. “Oh, yes. I do remember. I had to quit playing. My wife threatened to leave me. I turn into a sort of Hitler when I play games.”
    Jane’s previous opinion of him crumbled. Could this self-effacing man be the same monster who’d called her a pinhead three times in one game? “It’s a good thing she stopped you. You know what happened to Hitler. Mr. Wagner, I’m sorry about your stepmother.“
    “I came to offer my sympathy to you as well. It must be a terrible blow, as close as you were to her. I remember her mentioning you. She was always quoting from your letters.”
    Jane felt as if she’d been stabbed—right to the heart. “I enjoyed her letters, too,“ she mumbled, agonizingly aware that she couldn’t recall so much as a single phrase from those boring epistles.
    They were both silent for a moment, then both started to speak at once. “Company first,“ Jane said with a smile.
    “I came to ask a favor of you. The police have asked me to come over and look at her things. To see if there’s anything among them that isn’t hers—in case the killer dropped something. Of course, my father would know best, if anybody could locate him, but I’d sort of like to spare him the job, if I could. Besides, it just seems a job a woman ought to do for another woman. I wonder if you’d be willing to help me.“
    “I’d be happy to, but I won’t have any more idea than you do what belongs to her and what doesn’t.“
    “Oh, but you knew her so well. I’m sure you can tell just by looking if it’s something she’d have or not.”
    Worse and worse! There wasn’t a Jewish mother who ever lived who could match this man for laying on guilt.
    “I’ll do what I can, of course. Do you mean no one has told your father yet?“
    “Nobody can find him. He’s just not used to accounting for his movements to anybody but Phy—Oh, my God—!”
    He was staring past Jane as if he’d seen a ghost. Turning her head, Jane saw it, too—a portrait photo of Phyllis Wagner was on the television screen. She quickly picked up the mysterious controller, fidgeted frantically for a few seconds before finding the volume control.
    “…wife of entrepreneur Chester Wagner. The former Chicagoan reportedly died of stab wounds. Police located her husband this afternoon at a downtown hotel under an assumed name...”
    On the screen a fit, tanned, silver-haired man was being escorted to a police car. At least he wasn’t handcuffed, and without the narration, he would have looked like a diplomat with his own security men. “Oh, shit—“ John Wagner whispered, leaning forward.
    The next shot was of Mel VanDyne shaking his head and holding a palm out toward the camera.
    “No, we are merely questioning Mr. Wagner in regard to his wife’s death. There has been no arrest. You will be informed when there is.”
    The station cut to a commercial, and Jane and Wagner were left staring at each other wordlessly.
     

Fifteen
     
    “ I’m not going to let this happen. Those bastards aren’t going to pin this on my father,“ John Wagner exclaimed, standing suddenly and striding toward the door. “Excuse me, Mrs. Jeffry.“ With that, he was gone.
    Jane sat quietly for a minute after the door slammed, then picked up the controller and started cruising through channels. It was time for the local news, and each of the major stations had something to say about Phyllis’s death. All the reports focused on Chet, as if Phyllis herself were nothing more than an important object belonging to him. Of course, what was there to say about her except that she was Chet’s wife? That she once made lonely old people happy with tatted ornaments? That she was a superb knitter? That she loved a long lost son who didn’t deserve her? Hardly.
    One station showed a picture of the house with the yellow plastic police barricades. Another had dredged up a file photo of Phyllis in a crowd of second string international celebrities. A third went on at quite some length about Chet’s financial empire and showed a shot of the island house—or was it the hotel? Jane couldn’t tell.
    She learned nothing more than she’d heard earlier about the case, but she did see a familiar face on one report. It was the same scene she’d seen on the other channel, Chet being led to a car by two plainclothes officers, but it was shot from a slightly different angle, and in the background two