A Quiche Before Dying

“You take a nap first, and you keep your greedy hands off my food.”
    Mel grinned.
    Jane stood in the driveway and watched as he drove off, thinking that he’d said something profound. Murder pissed her off, too. On the surface of her life, she’d taken Mrs. Pryce’s death rather lightly. Partly because Pryce was such a dreadful person; partly because Jane herself was so preoccupied with her mother’s visit and the story she was working on about Priscilla. But underneath, she was extremely distressed.
    Murder was wrong; there was no provocation sufficient to justify it. And Jane was of the belief that killing someone was one of those horrible hurdles that, once taken, became easier. For the first time, she consciously realized that someone in the class was dangerous to all of them for that reason. But when the class was over in a few days, they’d all go their separate ways, meeting only casually at the dry cleaner’s and the grocery store. And if that person had gotten away with murder, it would be harder to unravel the truth.
    This crime would be much easier to figure out now rather than later. Mel and the police weren’t making any progress, for all their technical inventory. This wasn’t one of those cases where there were blood samples and fingerprints to analyze. This was very personal; a neighborhood crime that would have to be solved in the neighborhood, not in a crime lab.
     

11
     
    When Jane came in the door, the phone was ringing. It was Ruth Rogers. “Jane, your mother seems such a lovely, interesting person, and there’s never much time to visit with each other in class. Might the two of you be free this afternoon for tea?“
    “Ruth, how nice. I’d love it, but I’ll have to check that Mom doesn’t have any plans.”
    Cecily had just come into the kitchen with a towel on her head. “Sounds great,“ she said when Jane explained.
    “Why don’t you come by around three?“ Ruth said.
    This arranged, Jane hung up. “I didn’t know you were here,“ she said to Cecily. “How was lunch with your friend?“
    “Fine, except that I’m getting to the age that my contemporaries all want to talk about who’s died lately. It’s depressing. I resisted telling her about Mrs. Pryce’s death. Harriet didn’t know her and wouldn’t have appreciated the justice in it. I put your car in the garage and the keys on the dining room table.“ Cecily gave her hair a final rub, took the towel to the guest bath just off the kitchen, and came back, running her fingers through her damp curls. Jane felt a surge of feminine resentment that this was all her mother had to do to look smashing. She mentioned this.
    Cecily sat down at the kitchen table, smiling. “I’ve always been sorry that you girls got your father’s hair. But then, you got my strong teeth and my feet. We have adorable little feet, don’t we? You could have inherited his feet and had to wear gunboats for shoes. That was the detective you were out with, wasn’t it? Do the police know any more yet?“
    “Not much.“ She told her mother what he’d said about the difficulty of determining what the poison was. “Mainly he asked me about the people in the class.“
    “It’s such a shame that it happened like it did. I don’t suppose there’s a shred of a chance that it was someone outside that small group.“
    “I don’t see how. The maid got sick from eating what was left on Mrs. Pryce’s plate, so her food had to contain the poison. And since it was the same food we all had, someone had to have put it on her plate while we were all milling around, trying to get served and seated—or while the search for Grady’s contact lens was going on.“
    “But who? Everybody there seems like perfectly ordinary, nice people. How well do you know all of them?“
    “Most of them between slightly and fairly well. I only know Bob Neufield by sight. I don’t know a thing about him except that he’s an occasional Friend of the Library volunteer. He lets himself get pressed into service when there are cartons of books to haul to the mall for the annual Friends Book Sale. As for Grady, I’ve met him several times at neighborhood picnics and city council things. He has a company that makes playing cards, and he’s always making commemorative ones for people and giving them away. Anniversaries, birthdays, the town’s founding. He’s very generous and well liked. He’s single. Rumor has it that he was married once, but his wife died