A Quiche Before Dying

Shelley said. “Desiree is outrageous but good-hearted, and Ruth and Naomi—well, I’m always surprised that they do all that gardening; I can’t picture either of them having the heart to kill the insect pests.“
    “As for Desiree, Pryce really hated her, but she seemed to take it as a great joke,“ Jane said. “She told me once that she took a certain pride in who disliked her. She seemed to get a kick out of goading Mrs. Pryce.“
    “I don’t know,“ Shelley said. “That remark about her drinking seemed to set her back a bit. Only for a moment, but it might have hit a sensitive nerve.“
    “Does she really drink, or is she just eccentric?“ Missy asked.
    “Oh, I think she drinks,“ Jane said. “She distills stuff in her basement. Or ferments it or something. At least she’s given it a shot. I was collecting for a charity one day and she invited me in to see. Naomi Smith had told her how to make a foul concoction of nasturtium buds or something, and she wanted me to try it out. It was supposed to be wine, but it was like drinking Lysol with suspicious bits of sludge in it.“
    “Then she could make poison in her basement, couldn’t she?“ Shelley asked.
    “I don’t think so. She didn’t seem to have a grip on how to make anything,“ Jane said. “It was probably just one of her passing enthusiasms. Remember when she tried to build her own solar panels on her roof? The city stopped her because they were afraid all that gravel was going to avalanche off and kill somebody.“
    “Then there was the time she decided to have a southwest garden,“ Missy reminded them. “She had all her grass scraped off and put in rocks and cacti. Nobody could convince her that the first freeze was going to turn the cacti to mush. It must have cost her the earth to have the sodden things and all the boulders hauled off and the grass put back.“
    “Money...“ Jane said. “Maybe it’s about money. Mrs. Pryce’s murder. Most crimes are, I think. Do you think maybe there’s something terribly valuable in all that junk in her house, and maybe her children wanted to inherit it? There were some really nice things in with the junk. Her family has waited a long time already. Maybe they just got tired of biding their time.“ Jane shifted her chair to get out of the sun, which was becoming uncomfortably warm. They really should go inside, but Jane hated being cooped up indoors.
    “Jane, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but none of her children are in our class,“ Shelley said.
    “That we know of,“ Jane said. “Her children would be in their sixties, and her grandchildren maybe in their forties. She could have a grandchild she doesn’t even know by sight. She was probably on terrible terms with her family. It wouldn’t be surprising if she were estranged from all of them. She never mentioned family. Did you notice that there were no pictures of people in her house? I think that’s what made it all so depressing. There was nothing human there. Just stuff.”
    Missy started gathering up her purse and car keys and sunglasses. “I think what we’ve done today is significant. It appears that we’ve proved that nobody could have killed her, and the whole episode was just a particularly revolting illusion.”
    Jane laughed. “I love it when you talk like a writer.”
    As Missy was getting up, Denise Nowack came out into her backyard, wearing a big picture hat that not only concealed her hair, but muffled her voice. “Mom!“ she yelled. “There’s a man on the phone saying will Mrs. Jeffry please go in her house and answer her phone?”
     

10
     
    “Jane? It’s Mel. Sorry I left so abruptly.“
    “Have you slept since yesterday?“ she asked, then mentally chided herself for automatically going into her mother mode. He was a grown man, and if he didn’t get enough rest, it was his problem.
    “A little. Could you have lunch with me?“ Jane smiled. “Business or pleasure?“
    “Business, I’m afraid.”
    The smile faded.
    “Then we want to talk quietly. How about coming here?“ As she spoke, she was frantically taking a mental inventory of the fridge. She’d have to make a flying trip to the grocery store.
    “Quietly? At your house? Jane, that’s like trying to have a cozy chat in the middle of a four-alarm fire.”
    He probably lives in a hermetically sealed, professionally soundproofed luxury apartment—with white carpets and a doorman to keep away unwanted visitors, she