Grime and Punishment

the third step as her friend took Van Dyne upstairs to see the knife and note. Absurdly, she was wishing the underwear she’d strewn around the bed was lacy stuff, not practical, white cotton.
    She heard them come downstairs and go from door to door, checking the locks. Apparently the knife had changed Detective VanDyne’s mind about her, because when he and Shelley came back into the living room a few minutes later, he was pleasant and polite. “I’d like to have a man from the lab over. May I use your phone?“
    “Ask him to come in a plain car, not a police car,“ Shelley said. “Jane doesn’t want her children frightened.“
    “Of course.”
    He was back in a moment. Jane managed to pull herself upright. “When did this happen?“ he asked.
    “I found it about three-thirty. I had been gone from about two or two-thirty.“
    “It wasn’t there before that?”
    Jane struggled to think back. “I don’t remember if I was in that room anytime today after I got dressed. I don’t think so.“
    “No hurry. Just think it out step by step. Talk it through if that helps.“
    “All right. I got the kids off to school and left to ride with Shelley to get birdseed around quarter of nine.“
    “Did you lock the house? I don’t see any obvious evidence of forced entry.“
    “Yes, that time I locked up. I’m sure of it.”
    “When did you get back?”
    Jane looked at Shelley and shrugged. “Around nine-thirty or ten?“ Shelley nodded. Jane went on. “I came inside, and a few minutes later Shelley came over. We went over to her house, and you called.”
    VanDyne flipped a page of the small notebook he was writing in. “That was at 10:08. Did you lock up the house then?“
    “I don’t know. I think so. You came over when?“
    “Twenty minutes later.“
    “I didn’t go back home after that for a while. When you left, we cleaned up the kitchen and put all the borrowed dishes in Shelley’s minivan to take back. We went to Suzie Williams’s house first—“
    “You drove next door?“
    “We didn’t mean to, exactly. But yes. She was just getting home as we were leaving. We stayed a few minutes, and then we went to see Robbie Jones.”
    VanDyne looked up from his note-taking, an eyebrow lifted. “You weren’t, by any chance, trying to do my job for me, were you?“
    “Whatever do you mean?“ Jane asked, sounding even to herself like Miss America being asked if she were a virgin.
    “I mean, it’s odd that you happened to be visiting with the very people I’m questioning.”
    Jane slipped off her sneaker and started massaging her foot as if she had a sudden cramp.
    Shelley said, “Jane, I think we better tell him.“
    “What kind of friend are you?“ Jane asked. She was joking, but embarrassed. “All right. We were trying to find out if and why they were being blackmailed by that awful Edith.“
    “And were they?“
    “Oh, yes. At least two of them were. Suzie says not and I believe her. But Robbie and Joyce—“ Jane stopped. She could feel the hateful tears filling her eyes again. She wasn’t going to break down and make a bleary-eyed, blubbering fool of herself in front of him. Bad enough that he now knew she wore boring white underwear.
    “I don’t mean to upset you. We know about Mrs. Jones. Robbie. But not about Mrs. Greenway.”
    Shelley sat forward, as if to speak, but Jane put up a hand to stop her. “My husband, my late husband—“ She paused, taking a deep breath. “My late husband was leaving me for Joyce Greenway the night he—became my late husband.”
    There, she’d said it.
    He had the good grace to look surprised. “I am sorry I had to know that, Mrs. Jeffry. Jane. Off the record, I’ve also got to tell you I find it hard to believe.“
    “Oh, it’s true enough. She admitted—“
    “No, what I meant was, I’ve interviewed you and I’ve interviewed her and I can’t imagine—”
    Jane felt herself blushing. Actually blushing. Oh, well, he’ll probably think it’s a hot flash. “Will you be able to tell anything about the person who did this from the paper the note was on? I’ve read that the police can trace paper—“
    “It was the back of your electric bill.“
    “She could have at least used a brand of paper only made in Singapore between March and July of the year she was there with her brother—“
    “She? Singapore? What?“
    “I was just thinking about mystery books. It always turns on something like that.“ Now she was back on familiar