But Jane did notice that a number of women took the time to look him over pretty carefully. Too bad he wasn't smiling — that dimple when he smiled would have made them topple off their ladders. At least it always made Jane feel as if she were toppling off something.
“I've heard of nine-day wonders, but this is hardly a nine-hour wonder," he said to Jane, who was taking a short break from her job. "Nobody seems to care that this guy died in their midst."
“It's not that they don't care — well, that's part of it — but they're busy, Mel," Jane explained. "There's so much to be done here and a very short time to do it. Most of these people have been planning this for a year, and now it's show time at last. They're like a great big Olympic team that's been training forever and now they're down to the wire. The woman in charge of this hallway stuff I'm doing had actually practiced and timed putting the stuff up."
“So how come you get to come sit outside? Aren't you wrecking the schedule?" he said grumpily.
Jane ignored his bad temper. He was often this way at the beginning of an investigation. As he started accumulating information, he'd cheer up. "Oh, she built in a break, efficient woman that she is," Jane said with a laugh. "Besides, there was a glitch and I'm missing a box of glittery stars."
“What a weird world you live in," he said.
“Not really. You just haven't done a lot of volunteer work, Mel. It has to be treated like a real job to be effective."
“Well, I'm not being very effective at my real job," he said.
“As far as nobody caring — he not only wasn't very well-liked, but they don't have kids in the school district," Jane said.
“What have kids got to do with it?"
“A lot. Most of the people I know well, for example, are either fairly close neighbors," she said, ticking the categories off on her fingers, "or people I do business with, or people I know through the kids and their activities. Not just school stuff specifically, but car pools, sports teams, lessons, recitals, stuff like that. The Stoneciphers were neighbors and some people had business dealings with him, but without kids, they're out of a big part of the loop. Actually, I think they have a daughter, but she's older and must not live at home with them. At least, I've never met her. Of course, his wife was involved in some civic stuff. In fact, she's a born organizer. And he involved himself in lots of things, but his chosen role was always antagonistic to somebody. Or a lot of somebodies. So if people seem to be callous about his death, those are a couple of the reasons."
“It's not just that they're callous," Mel said. "That's okay. A lot of people who get themselves killed aren't terribly well-liked. And I've investigated cases where nobody even knew the victim, they just happened to be witnesses. No, it's that there were such a mob of people at the deli and nobody seems to be able to pinpoint where anybody was at any given time. I can't even begin to get a fix on where anybody was when the rack was pushed over. Like you, a lot of them know where they were at the time they heard the crash, but unless they were actually speaking to someone at the time, they can't say where anybody else was."
“It was a social thing, Mel. Nobody knew they needed to pay any attention."
“I know. I know. But it's making me crazy anyhow. So far all I've got is a milling crowd and nobody who admits to being first on the scene or can tell me who else was. And I'm not even sure it matters."
“What do you mean?"
“Just that there's a second door to that storeroom. Somebody could have pushed over the rack, dodged out the door, come back in another door and acted surprised with the rest of the mob."
“But I thought I heard voices outside. Did anyone see someone come out the door?”
Mel shook his head. "Nope. But the door leads to a covered passage where they store trash containers."
“Oh, right. The trellis thing with the honeysuckle growing on it. I remember seeing that. And there are two doors opening onto it?"
“Right. One from the storeroom and one opening onto the kitchen. You could go out one and in the other without being noticed unless you crashed into the trash and drew attention to yourself."
“Mrs. Jeffry?" a voice called shrilly.
“Oops, I have to get back to work," Janesaid, getting up hurriedly. "Mel, you're not going to poop out on chaperoning with me tonight, are you?"
“Nope, I'll probably fall asleep standing up, but I'll be here.”
"Shelley, the police aren't getting anywhere," Jane told her an hour later. Jane was folding a pile of table napkins as Shelley finished ironing each one.
“Come on, Jane. He was just grousing to you about his job. And he's not the entire police force. You have no idea what else they know that Mel's got no reason to tell you about."
“Like what?"
“Like fingerprints on the rack for example. Maybe they, already know who did it and Mel is just trying to get additional information to enhance their case, not prove anything. Hey, you're supposed to fold them, not wad them up."
“Hmm, I didn't think to ask him about fingerprints. But I can't believe he'd be acting so discouraged if that were the case." She meticulously refolded the napkin and held it up for Shelley's inspection.
“Better. Look, Jane. Suppose for some reason you had to interview everybody at the grade school graduation and find out where everyone was for every minute. Can you think of anything more tedious and boring?"
“Okay, I'd be cranky, too. But according to him, it's a lost cause because of the doors and that little trash barrel area behind there."
“All right. He's got the lousy assignment. So what?"
“So I think it wouldn't hurt if we could give him some useful information. You know perfectly well people will be a lot gabbier with us than with him."
“You know how he feels about you butting in," Shelley said, laying out the last napkin on the ironing board and spritzing it with water.
“What I have in mind isn't butting in. It's just being neighborly. We really should make a sympathy call on Rhonda Stonecipher. We'd do that anyway, even if Mike didn't work at the deli and I wasn't frantic to see this thing solved."
“True," Shelley admitted.
“And we ought to send flowers to Sarah Baker at the hospital, and it would be much nicer if we delivered them in person.”
Shelley finished pressing and unplugged the iron. She set it on the kitchen counter and folded up the board. "That's a little iffy. But you're the one who's going to have to explain it to Mel, not me."
“Unless we learn something interesting, there won't be anything to explain," Jane said.
* * * They arrived at the Stonecipher house at the same time as a florist's delivery truck. Tony Belton came to the door, accepted the flowers, and looked at Jane and Shelley as if he'd never seen them before. He was in a suit today and had adopted an appropriately mournful look. With his stunning pale blue eyes, he did it well.
Jane introduced herself and Shelley, reminding him that they had sons on the soccer team he was coaching, and said, "We just wanted to tell Rhonda how sorry we are."
“Come in," he said. "She's just meeting with the funeral people. I think they're almost finished. Would you like some coffee or a soft drink? Or something to eat? There's a whole houseful of food."
“You go back to Rhonda," Shelley said, looking around. There were flower arrangements shoved everywhere and boxes of food where there weren't flowers. "We could put some of this away for you.”
He looked around at the chaos piling up and smiled with gratitude. "That would be great. You sure you don't mind?"
“Not a bit," Jane said. "We'd be glad to be of some use.”
Tony disappeared, and Jane and Shelley got busy straightening out the neighbors' offerings. They carried all the food items to the kitchen, and while Shelley rearranged the re‑ frigerator to make room for some casseroles, Jane set the flowers around the living room as artfully as she could. When Jane rejoined her friend in the kitchen, Shelley was shaking her head in wonder. "I'm going to wrap these two hams and put them in the freezer. Why on earth would anybody send hams to the family of a man who died under a pile of them?"
“It wasn't really a pile. And maybe they didn't know. There's probably another freezer in the basement or garage," Jane said quietly. "They've got everything else. This kitchen could give the deli a run for its money. What's that gadget?"
“I think it's a juice extractor."
“One of those things that can turn cabbage into a drink?" Jane asked. "I can't imagine wanting to drink the juice of something that doesn't have juice. Like carrots. Give me one of those hams. I'll see if there's a freezer downstairs.”
When she returned a few minutes later, she looked stunned. "What a basement!" she exclaimed. "There's a pool table the size of Oregon down there. And the tiles on the floor have silver dollars embedded in them!”