The Merchant of Menace

feet. She checked E-mail again, found none, and decided she really needed a good nap. Not a few minutes of sleep on the sofa, but a real turnoff-the-phone, get-in-bed nap. She set sandwich makings on the kitchen counter and told the kids she wasn’t to be disturbed for any reason for at least two hours.
    This unusual request must have alarmed the kids, she realized three hours later. While she slept, they had cleaned the house, even their own rooms. Katie had consulted some cookbooks and was preparing chicken soup. Mike had shoveled the entire driveway and put out the trash and recycle bins for tomorrow morning’s pickup. Todd had washed, dried, and brushed Willard, who was now so staticky that he looked like a big yellow tumbleweed.
    “Good heavens!“ she exclaimed. “All this because I took a nap?“
    “We thought you were sick and wanted everything nice for you,“ Katie said.
    “That’s very sweet of you all,“ Jane said. “But I was just tired. Now I feel great.”
    And she did. Amazing what a little sleep could do.
    “You don’t want chicken soup?“ Katie asked.
    “Why don’t we all have it with dinner?”
    This settled and the kids reassured that she wasn’t ill, Jane checked her E-mail again. This time there was a note from her father saying the Jeffry family’s Christmas packages had arrived in good order and that her peculiar note wasn’t a foreign language. Change each consonant to the one that comes before it, his note said. Same with the vowels. Who is Julianne Newton and why does anybody care if she was a stripper in college and might have been a prostitute? You aren’t involved in another murder, are you? Your mother worries. Love, Dad.

Twenty-three
    Even the knowledge of the code didn’t help much. Jane phoned Mel with her father’s information, then went over to Shelley’s.
    “My dad broke the code. Where are the printouts?“ she said.
    Shelley shoved a pair of cake pans, half full of a pink batter, into the oven and ran to get her paperwork. They ended up having to write the alphabet down to keep the letters straight, but quickly had the files deciphered.
    Jane looked over the results. “For all the trouble this has been, there’s not much of a payoff, is there?“
    “I certainly expected something juicier,“ Shelley agreed.
    Most of the notes were extremely sketchy. About a stockbroker down the street, Lance only gave the name of the man’s firm and a remark about possible inside trading. Jane’s said, Jeffry pharmacies? Work there? Ask customers about mistakes. Shelley’s said, Paul Nowack. Polish, but Greek food. Check with random health inspectors.
    “ This looks like nothing at all,“ Jane said.
    “I’m going to call Julie and ask if she was a stripper,“ Shelley said. “Hers is one of the more specific and I’m curious to know if there’s any truth whatsoever to it.“
    “You’re sure you want to do that? If she was, she’s ashamed of it. Her husband works for a bank. They’re pretty stuffy, you know.“
    “Maybe twenty years ago something like that would have mattered. But nobody takes stuff like that seriously, unless it’s a politician or public figure.”
    Julie didn’t seem to be offended. “I wasn’t a stripper, I was a go-go dancer. Not many clothes, but some. Why on earth are you asking?”
    Shelley didn’t have an answer ready and just said, “I’ll tell you later.“ She repeated what Julie had said to Jane. “If she was upset about being asked, she sure didn’t show it,“ Shelley added.
    They went back to the list. Bruce Pargeter same as Pargeter in KY. Asked around for home repair recommendations. No complaints.
    “ Poor old Lance, striking out everywhere,“ Jane said.
    Sam Dwyer’s file only said, Florida. Child.
    There wasn’t a file for Sharon Wilhite. Presumably anything he knew about her was in his head and didn’t require notes.
    The rest were all people who didn’t appear to have any involvement with his murder. Some had left the neighborhood long ago. Several were people who had been absolutely proven to be out of town at the time of the murder.
    “I’m really disappointed,“ Jane said. “He didn’t really know much of anything about anybody. It was all bluff and speculation.”
    Shelley shook her head. “Maybe. But then he could have just kept some of these notes as reminders of what he did know. And there might be other disks someplace with more detail.”
    Jane stood up. “I’m going home. I’m sick of