Grime and Punishment

people who are fanatically clean swear by her, and others who are slobs didn’t think she did a good job.“
    “I don’t quite—“
    “See, if you’re a terrific housekeeper and you’re being blackmailed by her, it would be dangerous to bad-mouth her, so you’d claim she was good even if you knew she was awful.“
    “And you’d have to keep her on because, if you fired her, she’d tell people. No. That’s backwards. If she’s getting money from you for blackmail, she doesn’t need to work for you anymore, but if you fire her, how can you go around saying how good she is? My brain is turning to mush.“
    “Hmmm,“ Shelley mused. “You’ve got a point. There are two ways of looking at this. Who’s being blackmailed? The ones who keep her or the ones who fire her? Either way, if you keep her or not, you’d be under orders from her not to criticize, because the only way she has of getting a supply of new victims is to keep having new homes opened to her. Good God, Jane! What’s happening to us? Here we are, inventing this whole ugly little scenario with details and finishing touches just on the strength of your thinking maybe someone got into your desk.“
    “But you believe it, don’t you?“
    “Yes, I’m afraid I do. At least it’s one way of accounting for what happened, and so far nothing else has made the least bit of sense.”
    They were quiet as Shelley negotiated an entrance ramp onto the highway. Finally, as they neared their street, Shelley said, “You know what this all means, if we accept it?“
    “What?“
    “That poor old Ramona Thurgood was killed by a woman, and by a woman we know.”
    “Shelley! What a thing to say!“
    “Think about it. We know everybody Edith works for. Monday she does Joyce Greenway. Tuesday is Mary Ellen Revere, and Wednesday is Robbie Jones—or maybe it’s the other way around. Then Thursday is me, and Friday is you.“
    “Not anymore. Besides, she’s worked for lots of other people. You said yourself it could be that she doesn’t go on working for the people she’s blackmailing.“
    “Still, she’s a sort of fixture in the neighborhood. Look how many people we know who have had her clean for them at one time or another. Besides, if it had been somebody we don’t know who killed here, then how would they have found out she would be at my house on Thursday? I don’t think the Happy Helper people give out that kind of information. In fact, I know they don’t. I had a woman from there once when our usual lady was on vacation a year or so ago, and she left her watch by the sink. When she didn’t call me to say she’d left it by the next day, I phoned the company to find out if I could just drop it off to her if she was in the neighborhood. The company sent a guy out in a truck to pick it up instead of telling me where to find her.“
    “I still think there must have been some other way. Suppose she mentioned working for you to some other customer? Some stranger.“
    “And just incidentally told them which day she worked for me, what my address is—remember, we’re not listed in the phone book—and which week she was supposed to be in my house alone? If you can buy that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to tell you about.“
    “Oh,“ Jane said and subsided into silence until they pulled into Shelley’s driveway. “You’re saying, then, that if we accept this theory, one of our friends is not only being blackmailed, but is a murderer besides—“
    “Friends, or acquaintances. I think the distinction may be important to us someday.“
    “And it’s only somebody who knew she’d be there alone because you were going out to the airport for most of the day.“
    “Right.“
    “So who did you tell?“
    “Everybody who was supposed to come to the meeting that night.“
    “Oh, Shelley, those people are all really friends of ours!“
    “Afraid so. Jane, next time I go for birdseed, you’ll understand why I don’t invite you along for conversation,“ Shelley said grimly.

Thirteen

    Shelley dropped off the birdseed and Jane and · went off to do the rest of her errands. Jane, shaken badly by the result of her own chain of reasoning, sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
    She really ought to be doing something worthwhile. Ironing, laundry, or something, but she felt oddly drained. Thinking she could take her mind off murder, she flipped on the little black-and-white TV on the kitchen counter.
    A