A Knife to Remember

He’d say he was so sorry to have it brought out. It wasn’t reasonable or nice to do, but still, we all do stupid, ugly things sometime in our lives and it doesn’t make us murderers.“
    “Oh, Mel!“ Jane felt like stamping her foot like a thwarted child. “Why are you countering everything I say?“
    “Because I have to. If you can’t even convince me a hundred-percent that this is the only possible explanation, how could I possibly convince a prosecutor to go to court with it? And if I don’t know I can convince a prosecutor, I can’t make an arrest. I don’t dare!“
    “Okay, okay. I see that. But Mel, just tell me unofficially, do you think I’m right?“
    “I’m sure of it.“
    “So what are you going to do about it?“
    “Everything I’m legally able to. Complete detailed questioning of all the suspects and witnesses, file a million reports, crawl over the evidence, look for new evidence to corroborate this theory—and hope for some damned good luck.”
     
    Thelma was delighted at the prospect of having Katie and Todd spend the night with her. “I was going to call you anyway,“ she said. “I just saw on the noon news that that actress died practically in your yard. It’s not a healthy environment for children.”
    Jane couldn’t imagine how Thelma could have heard about Lynette’s death, still officially assumed to be a suicide, without also hearing about Jake’s very definite murder the day before, but she cast her eyes heavenward and whispered, “Thanks.“
    “What was that?“
    “Nothing. I’ll bring them straight from school then. And pick them up in the morning?“
    “Oh, Jane. Leave them all day. I want to take them shopping. I noticed that Todd’s jeans are looking a tiny bit worn.“ That was Thelma’s euphemism for “shabby.“ Jane didn’t bother to tell her mother-in-law that Todd worked very hard at getting them that way.
    “Then I’ll pick them up around four.”
    She got all their things together and headed out.
    “Scott’s got some little cousins visiting,“ Mike said when she got to the high school. “He promised to take them to the Museum of Science and Industry tomorrow, so it’ll be an all-day thing. Give me my stuff and I’ll just go home with him. Be back tomorrow for dinner unless I call first.”
    That was when a couple of very disparate, but interlocked plans started to take shape in Jane’s mind.
    “Mom, don’t you think you ought to go stay someplace else? A hotel or something?”
    She smiled. “I’ll be fine. Really fine. Don’t worry about me. But if you call home and I’m not there, it’s just because I decided to do that. In fact—oh, there’s Scott’s car. Here’s your stuff.”
    She checked that she had a credit card with her. made a couple of stops and smiled all the way home. She even smiled through a whole telephone conversation with Thelma. Then she went looking for Shelley to lay out her plan.
     

25
     
    By seven o’clock much of the heavier equipment was gone. The props truck had been removed, as had the wardrobe trailer, the condor, the scenery trucks, and one of the electrical trucks. There were no cameras in sight, no microphones, and the heavy cables that once snaked all over the field had disappeared.
    The wardrobe tent remained, however, and the center partition had been removed to make a large eating area. A dozen round tables and their chairs now filled the area and spilled out into the yard beyond. With the scenery flats gone and most of the big reflectors and the lighting equipment missing, the field behind the house was beginning to look like it did before the movie production company arrived.
    Jane let the cats out to explore and put Willard in his dog run, where he could now bark his brains out if he wanted without disturbing the filming. Jane rescued her lawn chairs before they could be accidentally packed up and hauled away. According to her contract with the production company, by Monday evening everything would be gone and she and the neighbors would have new fences installed.
    When she brought Willard back in, the catering truck was just arriving, as were some of the party attendees. The street in front of her house was starting to fill up with the cars of the extras and local crew members who were entitled to attend the wrap party and wanted to be there early to enjoy every minute of it.
    But her plan, if it were to work at all, couldn’t be executed until everyone had arrived. She took a