Grime and Punishment

greed. It was just a suggestion. Reasons for murder. Greed, fear—“
    “Fear of what? That woman? Would you be afraid of her?“
    “Not physically. But what if she knew something the killer was afraid she’d tell?“
    “Jane, you met that woman. She didn’t strike me as knowing how to tell time, much less dangerous secrets. Besides, the question I asked earlier applies—why kill her at my house? Why not at her own, or on the street?“
    “I don’t know about the where-to-kill-her part, but think some more about the why. Just suppose that she’d been cleaning some office, though. You said she was a substitute and went all sorts of places. Suppose she learned something about a company take-over, or—“
    “Happy Helpers doesn’t do businesses. Only domestic jobs. I tried to get them for Paul’s office.“
    “Some people do their business at home. Mary Ellen Revere, for instance.“
    “With a broken arm she can’t even use? She strangles her?“
    “Of course not. I didn’t mean her. I was just making an example of somebody around here who has a business at home.“ Jane sighed. “Now who’s shooting down ideas? All right. Cross off fear. What else is a motive for murder? Well, there’s mercy killing, but this obviously wasn’t a method of putting a loved one out of her misery. What about revenge?”
    The phone rang and Jane answered somewhat impatiently. It was Laura Stapler, inviting Shelley and her and the kids to spend the night at their house. Jane had a momentary vision of being cooped up in the Staplers’ house like survivors of a nuclear attack. “‘That’s sweet of you, Laura, but Shelley’s staying here and I think we’ll be fine.“
    “You do have the house locked up tightly, don’t you? And be sure to draw the blinds. My husband could put a rush order through and have an alarm system installed for you tomorrow if you’d like. Normally it takes a week or so, but under the circumstances—“
    “That’s very thoughtful, but I really can’t afford it.“
    “We could arrange for financing, thirty six months at fifteen percent.“
    “Laura, no, thank you!“ Jane said firmly.
    Sensing she’d gone too far or in the wrong direction, Laura tried to reemphasize her concern for Jane’s safety without selling anything. Jane hung up after listening long enough to convince Laura that she wasn’t offended. “What ghouls! Where were we? Oh, yes, revenge.“
    “For what?“
    “Who knows? Maybe Mrs. Thurgood did some awful thing to somebody and they got back at her by strangling her.”
    Shelley tapped her immaculately manicured fingernails on the table, considering. “It’s certainly possible. Without knowing anything about her, there’s no reason to mark it off the motive list, but my instincts tell me otherwise.“
    “I know what you mean. Somehow she seemed too—too bland to have ever done something awful.”
    The phone rang and Jane answered, afraid that Laura had thought of another safety device to peddle. A can of Mace or something. But it was Detective VanDyne. She handed the phone to Shelley and cleaned up the dinner table while Shelley talked—or rather, listened. Except for the occasional “uh-huh“ or “I see,“ it would have seemed she was on hold.
    Finally, she hung up and came back to the table. Jane poured them each coffee from a fresh pot. It was after eight, so she’d switched over to decaf.
    “He wants to leave a man in the house overnight.”
    “Well, he didn’t say so in so many words, but the gist of it was that he has absolutely no motives or suspects yet.“
    “Greed, fear, mercy, revenge? Nothing?“ She wondered why, with so many motives available, he hadn’t found one he liked.
    “No, he told me he’d spent the evening interviewing her coworkers. It seems she’s a childless widow who’s only lived in the area for two months and has been on welfare most of that time. Some private agency for indigent widows. Before she came here, she drove a paper route in a little farm community in Montana and taught Sunday school.“
    “Nobody would want or need to kill somebody like that,“ Jane said.
    “But somebody did,“ Shelley reminded her.

Six

    Jane hardly slept all night. Dreams of vacuum cleaners run amok and red MGs coming out of dishwashers haunted her. At one point, a vacuum cleaner cord turned into a boa constrictor and wound itself around her. An army of identical women in blue uniforms marched in the house and changed everything and