“I shouldn't have said that to him, about Dar- lene being gone," Jane lamented on the way home. "I think I hurt his feelings and all I meant to do was calm him down. He looked so terrible."
“I don't see why. For one thing, what you said was true. And the poor old guy could have had a heart attack or stroke thinking about what his wife would have felt if the police came into her yard. He doesn't even know if that's accurate. She might have gotten a kick out of it," Shelley said. "Keep in mind that we didn't know her.”
Jane said, "While I was upstairs at Arnie's, I peeked in the two bedrooms."
“Of course you did," Shelley said. "Anybody would."
“But only from the open doorways," Jane amended, as if this counted toward a reputation for good manners. She described the bedroom, the ice water and carafe on Darlene's side of the bed, the pillowcase that had never been washed. The rouge tin on the vanity. The half-done afghan and sweater on Darlene's chair in the living room.
“I guess I'm not as softhearted as you. I think that's ridiculous," Shelley said.
“But very, very sad, too. I simply can't imagine wanting to live with a dead person, no matter how much I might have loved them when they were alive. My grandmother once had a friend who did that with her son's room. He died as a child and the room stayed exactly as it was the last time he left it for about forty years. It upset the mother every time she looked in, but she kept it that way anyhow. And the ou r children resented it enormously. They were all younger and had never even known the dead older brother. Even when they were adults and came to visit, nobody was allowed to set foot in that room, let alone sleep there. My mother's friend was unhappy all her life."
“I've heard stories like this before. I can't grasp why people would do that. Have you ever seen that commercial where the parents are bidding a tearful farewell to their college-graduate son, and the moment he's out of sight, Mom is measuring his room for where the new hot tub can go?"
“I laugh every time I see it," Jane replied. "And keep thinking about Mike's room. I want to turn it into my office the minute he graduates so I don't ever have to go back in the basement. I'll make the extra bathroom upstairs the laundry room when all three kids are gone. Speaking of Mike being gone, he hasn't mowed the lawn yet."
“Don't look at me," Shelley said. "I've made my life's work not knowing a thing about the way a lawn mower works. And I'm also too stupid to understand the fuse box."
“Nobody believes that."
“True. But it's my story and I'm sticking to it.”
When they got home, Shelley's lawn service was tearing around her yard, using a wide variety of noisy machines. "Want me to loan them to you? Just this one time?"
“I can't afford it if we're going to buy me a television."
“I forgot about the television. How could I? Let's do that now, shall we? We'll drop the girls off at their cooking lesson first. When Mike gets home, he and a couple friends can haul it upstairs for you. And I warn you I won't let you be stingy about it. You need a nice big one with all the bells and whistles. Don't look at me that way, Jane. I know what I'm talking about. The first television we got for the bedroom was tiny and we had to sprawl in bed on our stomachs with our heads at the wrong end to see the picture.”
Shelley was true to her word. Jane came home with a box that nearly filled half the back of Shelley's van. The van also contained a new VCR and a cabinet to put everything on.
“I wish we could haul it out now," Jane said.
“We couldn't do that if we had six women friends to help. It's one of those manly things to move televisions and furniture.”
They went first to look over Shelley's yard. Freshly mowed, it looked and smelled wonderful. "What's that vine with the trellis in the big pot?" Jane asked.
Shelley walked over and pulled out a tag stuck in the soil. "Brugmansia, it says. Look at the picture."
“Good Lord! Those yellow flowers are gorgeous. The size of a child's head."
“And it's wonderfully fragrant. I saw them once in a Southern California hotel courtyard. They grew clear up to the second-story balcony and smelled divine."
“Southern California? That must mean you have to take it inside in the winter."
“I'll make Paul do that," Shelley said smugly.
“I wonder how Stefan's doing," Jane said, gesturing for Shelley to come along inside Jane's house. "I need a snack."
“Stefan probably isn't a happy camper, I'd guess. And he's going to be angry that somebody tipped off the police that he was the one who sent the flower arrangement to Julie. He's sure to make the connection to one of us."
“But he won't know which one of us, will he?" Jane hadn't thought of this before and it made her feel like a busy-mouthed tattletale even though Shelley actually made the call.
“Not unless Mel tells him."
“He wouldn't, I'm sure. He tells us things he probably shouldn't because he knows we'll honor his confidence. I'm positive he'll do the samething for us. Stefan will probably blame the cops themselves for finding out. Or the florist. Or Miss Winstead."
“Stefan didn't look as upset as I expected when they took him away," Shelley said, rummaging in the bottom drawer of Jane's refrigerator looking for cold soft drinks.
“Nor did he seem to feel guilty when he told us. If he were guilty of something, he wouldn't have blurted out that he sent the flowers."
“Unless he'd come up with an innocent explanation in the meantime. Why don't you ever keep real Coke in here? I don't like the diet version."
“I do keep it and I drink it all. I'm sure there's at least one can left," Jane said.
Just then the telephone rang. It was Mel, and Jane listened carefully for a long time before saying, "Thanks for letting us know. You didn't tell him it was Shelley and me that ratted, did you?"
“What! What?" Shelley asked when Jane hung up
“They've let Stefan go. He claimed effectively that he'd just written the note saying 'you're next' because she was the most highly qualified teacher scheduled for the next week's classes. He paid cash for the flowers because it wasn't something he could claim on his job expenses. Mel said he seemed so sincere that no one could doubt him. But there was another connection he also blabbed about without even being asked. Apparently he had been one of Julie's 'escorts' for her charity do's last year. He thought at first she was inviting him to them because she liked him, but he claimed he soon realized it wasn't romance she wanted, just a presentable man."
“Isn't that a suspicious story? Maybe he was heartbroken when he realized."
“Mel said he admitted it freely and with no sign of emotional involvement."
“Mel must be pretty naive to buy that, or maybe Stefan's a better actor than we could have guessed," Shelley said.
“Now who's being cynical and grumpy? You know Mel wouldn't turn him loose and forget all about him if he wasn't absolutely sure the guy was telling the truth. Mel's job is to not believe anything he's told until it's confirmed. He said they took him down to the florist shop for the owner to identify him. And Stefan didn't bat an eye.”
Shelley shrugged. "Okay, okay. Stefan is very good-looking and I can see him dropping Julie when he realized he was just her boy toy. Other women have probably treated him the same way and he might have even been flattered, but got bored with the hoity-toity charity gang. I've been to my share of them with Paul and they're pretty deadly.”
Mike came in the house as she was saying this. "What's deadly?" he asked.
“Me," Jane said.
Before she could launch into a few remarks about mowing the grass, Mike said, "What are all those big boxes in your car, Mrs. Nowack?"
“Your mother's new gigantic television, a VCR, and a table to put it on."
“Morn! You sprung for all this in one day? Have you gotten an inheritance you didn't tell us about? Some mysterious rich great-uncle you never told us about?" Mike asked.
“I just took it out of your inheritance," Jane said with a grin. "I deserve this stuff. I want to be a lady of leisure before it's too late. Call Scott and get him to help you carry it upstairs, would you? And I really need the lawn mowed."
“That's why I came home early. You knew I wouldn't forget. I'll even get Willard inside so he doesn't bark me to death. By the way, I brought home a couple bags of nice little river rocks so we can put them in Willard's path and make it look like it was a gardening choice."
“Mike, you are a wonder!" his mother said. "So are you going to buy me my own television?"