She shoved the sweater sleeve back into the plastic bag, wondering what to do with it, whenthere was a knock on the door. Willard, naturally, went quite mad. As he went flying by, barking like there was a mob of cossacks about to break down the doors, Jane reached out and grabbed his collar and nearly jerked both of them right off their feet. Shoving him down the basement steps, she went to the front door and discovered Mel VanDyne. Of course! He would visit when there was a dead vacuum cleaner with its guts spilling out in the middle of the living room.
“Come in. Let's sit in the kitchen," she said. "Have you learned anything yet?"
“Nothing worthwhile. I've been interviewing neighbors. I hope you'll tell me what they wouldn't themselves."
“You think a neighbor killed her?"
“No, I don't. According to you and Mrs. Howard, Mrs. Wagner just flitted in and bought the house yesterday. Nobody'd ever heard of her or met her before. It seems unlikely that anybody could develop a murderous hatred of her in such a short time. Still, I need to check it out.”
Jane had poured them coffee and sat down across the table from him. At least she'd cleaned up the milk lake and cleared the crumbs. He wouldn't go away with greasy elbows from sitting at her table. If he wasn't impressed by her neatness, at least he wouldn't be having a little chat with the Board of Health about her. "I get it. This is a perfectly pointless line of inquiry, so it's okay to talk to me about it.”
He grinned over the top of his coffee cup. Oh, those teeth! "Tell me about the Howards and Mr. Finch anyway."
“Tell me what you think of them first."
“All right. Mrs. Howard is a nice Englishwoman, and Mr. Finch is a not very nice American. There's also a house behind on the next street, but the people are out of town."
“The neighbors think Mr. Finch poisons dogs and cats that come in his yard."
“I know. The local police have a fat file of complaints but no proof. Mrs. Wagner didn't know him, did she?"
“Of course not. How would she? She only lived in the house for a few hours. When did Phyllis die?"
“Don't know yet. The coroner's first guess was between midnight and four. Her son says she spoke to him when he came in, but he has no idea when that was. Thinks it was around one. That's when Mrs. Howard says she heard a voice or voices. Do you know this Finch character?"
“No. We've got a nodding acquaintance, as my mother would say. I see him working on his lawn, which is sacrosanct. And I pass him in the aisles of the grocery store. My kids are afraid of him, but that's probably because he's the neighborhood ogre. He's yelled at them a time or two for cutting across the corner of the yard. In fact, he called me once when Mike was little to tell me what a bad mannered child he was. I never knew quite what it was about."
“You think he's a killer type?"
“Of dogs and cats, yes. But unless Phyllis ran across his precious lawn with a Rototiller, I can't imagine why he'd have the least interest in her, let alone a desire to kill her."
“Fair enough. When I went over to talk to him, he tried to make me take off my shoes before I could come into the house. My impression is that murder is altogether too messy an activity for him. What about Mrs. Howard?"
“Fiona? You know who she is, don't you? She's Richie Divine's widow.”
VanDyne set his coffee cup down with a clatter. "You're kidding! The Richie Divine? Of course—Fiona Divine. I should have recognized the name Fiona."
“I think she'd be pleased that you didn't.”
“I had a lot of interest in his death. My sister was visiting friends in Seattle and went to his last concert. She was at some sort of slumber party when she heard the radio bulletin that his plane had crashed in the Pacific on the way to his next concert. Called home in the middle of the night and woke the whole family up to tell us. I always thought there was something suspicious about it, even then."
“Why? Tragic, yes. But suspicious?"
“Don't you remember? He'd gotten into some kind of flap with organized crime—they were skimming profits from his tours. He actually testified against his own business manager, who then ratted on everybody he knew."
“I had forgotten that. You mean that the mob had something to do with his plane going down?"
“There wasn't any proof that I know of. But the plane didn't just run out of gas and fall into the ocean. It blew up in midair first. They never found enough bits of the plane or the passengers—to reconstruct what happened."
“Oh, ugh. I was happier not knowing that.”
“Sorry."
“Did you ever stop to think how many entertainers have died in plane crashes? Will Rogers, Glenn Miller—"
“Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens in the same one," Mel added.
“Rick Nelson, Patsy Cline—"
“Interesting, but beside the point, if you don't mind my mentioning it. Did Mrs. Wagner know Fiona?"
“No, not before I took her over with me to move some boxes of stuff for the bazaar. Phyllis did mention knowing somebody who knew Fiona, but she couldn't remember who it was. To be honest. I think Phyllis was fudging the truth there. I think she'd just read about Fiona in fan magazines."
“So they'd never met?"
“No, I'm sure they hadn't. Women who have met before always at least pretend to remember each other. Neither of them did that."
“Okay. Who else did Mrs. Wagner know in Chicago?"
“Nobody that I know of. I believe the aunt she lived with in the old days died some years ago. She might know Bobby's adopted family. She told me some story about the stepmother not getting along with him, but that could just be Bobby's version. I don't know that she ever met them. Chet was apparently the one who traced him down, as a surprise to her."
“God, what a surprise. More of a shock, I'd think."
“She adored him."VanDyne stared at her.
“Incredible, but true," Jane insisted.
“Did she say anything at all that might lead you to think his adopted family had anything against her?"
“No, in fact, reading between the lines, I got the impression that they were thrilled to have him out of their hair. Of course, that could just be my interpretation of how I'd feel. Have you talked to them yet?"
“No, the father and stepmother are out of town. A vacation to Florida. Of course, with air travel being so fast and easy—" Suddenly he seemed to catch himself in the midst of gossiping with a civilian. "Thanks for your help," he said, starting to get up.
“Wait a minute!" Jane ordered. "You've asked me for a lot of information you didn't much want anyway, and you haven't told me anything. I've got some questions of my own. For a start, who called you in?"
“Bobby himself. Says he got up to go to the bathroom, glanced in her room, and saw she was dead. By the time the officers got there, he'd passed out."
“Do you think he'd do that if he was the one who killed her?"
“Who can tell? He might have been so drunk he wasn't making sense. Or he could have been so stewed that he'd forgotten that he'd killed her. Or he might have figured out that nobody else was likely to discover her for a good long time, and he'd better brazen it out."