Grime and Punishment

mending a pair of his socks. She’d have to hide them and buy a new pair before he could see her handiwork. Having never darned socks in her life, she wasn’t doing a very good job. The children hung around all evening, so the subject of Thursday’s plans didn’t come up.
    Wednesday passed in the same way. Afraid she’d somehow give the game away if she talked to anybody, Jane kept to the house. Only one strange incident marked the day. Around lunchtime the phone rang, but when she answered, the caller hung up. A half an hour later it rang again, and after a long silence there was something like a sob and then a click and a dial tone. Jane tried to convince herself it was Joyce Greenway trying to make an approach and unable to pull herself together. But she was still troubled.
    She dialed Joyce’s number, just to see who would answer, but no one did.
    About nine o’clock that evening, Willard’s head suddenly came up from between his feet, and he howled horribly before running for cover. “What was that?“ Uncle Jim asked.
    “It sounded like a knock at the patio door!“ Jane said, hearing nothing now but the pounding of her own heart in her ears.
    Uncle Jim went to investigate and came back looking disgusted. “Damned fools came to the wrong house. There’s no hope in hell for this.”
    She assumed he meant the officers who were supposed to be sneaked into Shelley’s house. “Why the back door?“
    “Because they came across that field out back.”
    Mike, who’d been sprawled in front of the fire reading Great Expectations, was now watching them with open curiosity. It was time to explain to him. Leaving out the specifics of the blackmail and the whole episode of the paring knife in the mattress, Jane gave him a summary of the plan for tomorrow. “You can see that it’s very important that none of you change plans and come home until we know it’s safe. You must wait for me to pick you up from school.”
    He took it very well. She could never be sure when his maturity was going to come through and when it was going to crumble. “Sure, Mom. And Todd’ll do what he’s told without having to know why. But what about Katie? You never know where she’ll turn up. I know! I’ll tell her Johnny Hervey is coming home with us in the car; she’d wait forever so she wouldn’t miss the chance to sit next to him in the backseat.“
    “Who in the world is Johnny Hervey?“
    “You don’t know him, but she does,“ he said with a leer.
    Jane went to bed early, but slept fitfully. She kept hearing the middle-of-the-night creaks the house made and imagining sinister happenings. What would happen tomorrow? Had she and Shelley really made the horrible mistake Uncle Jim and Mel VanDyne claimed? What if it didn’t work? Would they ever know which of their friends was a killer, or would they just go from day to day and year to year wondering... always wondering?

Twenty-three

    She was awake long before the alarm went off. Going downstairs, she peeked out the windows at the Nowacks’ house and the street. Everything looked absolutely normal. As soon as it was fully light, Paul came out, backed the car to the end of the driveway, then got out and returned to the house for his briefcase. Jane wondered it that was for real or planned to make sure any possible watcher was thoroughly aware of his leaving.
    Jane drove Katie to cheerleading practice, came back and took the boys to band practice, and was home before Todd was picked up. “Hey, Mom, old thing. You look kinda sick or something,“ he said as Dorothy Wallenberg’s Mazda pulled up.
    “Just tired, Todd, old thing. I’ll take a nap today and be gorgeous by this afternoon.”
    Dorothy just waved to her and drove off when Todd got in the car. Apparently this wasn’t going to be an exact replica of the last time or she’d have had her cake along.
    Back inside, Uncle Jim was opening a can of cat food, having taken seriously his role as member of the family. “What’ll you do?“ she asked him.
    “As soon as you two leave, I’ll slip across to the Nowacks’ behind that hedge.“
    “So you think it’s a near neighbor—Laura or Suzie or somebody on the block who can see the house, instead of Robbie?“
    “It’s possible.”
    She had a feeling he knew more than he was telling her, but this wasn’t the time to try to pry anything out of him—not that she’d have any success anyway.
    A few minutes later a blue Happy Helper van stopped in front of