“Maybe we could even join one of those health clubs and both get back in shape," Jane burbled.
Shelley stiffened up and threw the car in gear. "That's going all too far! Exercising… ugh," she said with a shudder, and then said, "Look what Paul gave me last night." She dug in the center console and handed Jane a tiny phone.
“What's this for?"
“Calling while I'm driving.”
Jane put her head in her hands and pretended she was sobbing. "Even safe drivers are a menace when they drive and talk on the phone. Promise me you'll never use it when I'm with you."
“Who would I be calling except you?" Shelley said. "And if I'm with you, I don't need to call you and you wouldn't be home, you'd be with me.”
As Jane was deciphering this reasoning, they passed a fast-food restaurant and Shelley turned in to get a cup of coffee to go. Jane chose a huge glass of iced tea because the day was rapidly turning hot. They reached the community center and she had to shift her attention to exiting the van and walking up the stairs, balancing her heavy paper cup in her free hand. She only slopped a little of it down her leg.
They were early and only Stefan was already in the room. Jane looked over her notes from the previous day while the others wandered in. Within ten minutes, the adult students were ready for the day's topic. But the teacher hadn't appeared. They chatted among themselves for fifteen minutes. Jane took the opportunity to thank Arnold again for the beans. "I didn't even waitfor today. I tried them out last night and they're delicious.”
Arnie just looked pleased and nodded his head. Ursula, stepping on a comb she'd dropped that looked like it was meant for currying a horse, leaped in. "A bean dish? Oh, do tell me the recipe. I love beans.”
Jane whispered to Shelley, "Have you got that phone on you?"
“In my purse."
“Then pretend you're helping me to the bathroom and we'll call Mel and report that Eastman's still missing."
“Excuse us for a moment," Shelley said to the group. "Jane needs a helper."
“You call him," Shelley said, handing the phone to Jane when they reached the bathroom. "You just push the power button, wait a moment, then dial and push the button marked 'talk.' “
Jane fumbled with the tiny buttons and reached Mel on the third ring. "I thought you should know Dr. Eastman didn't turn up in class this morning.”
Shelley tried to put her own ear to the tiny speaker. Jane waved her away and listened intently to Mel.
When the conversation was over and Shelley showed her how to hang up the phone, Jane said, "I'll tell what he said when we're in your van. Meanwhile, just follow my lead.”
They went back to the classroom and Jane said to the group, "Since Dr. Eastman has apparently been delayed, I suggest we go on with our tour planned for today. He had the list of addresses and can catch up with us later.”
Ursula enthusiastically seconded this, and so did Miss Winstead, and the ladies left the room, leaving the men no choice but to follow.
As soon as Jane and Shelley were in the van and heading for Stefan's home, Jane reported that Mel had said the young boy at Eastman's house had called him early this morning. "The boy had gone to the garage to get a part to repair a garden-hose connection and discovered that Eastman's car was still there."
“So much for his driving upstate to his other property," Shelley said, as she uncharacteristically stopped at a yellow light.
“Mel thinks it's too coincidental that the first teacher of the class was attacked and the second teacher has disappeared."
“So, against all logic, it might involve someone in the class?"
“He didn't go as far as saying that. It's just something he's considering more significant than it seemed before."
“What are the police doing to try to find Eastman?"
“I didn't ask and he didn't mention it," Jane replied. "We have to pretend to ourselves we don't know any of this on the tour.”
Stefan's yard was as boring as Jane's had been before she hired plants. But it wasn't nearly asmessy. He apparently didn't have pets. There was a fairly small maple tree in the center of the grassy yard, and little scattered innocuous shrubs around the edges. This was a recently developed neighborhood and this appeared to be the way all the homes had been parsimoniously landscaped.
Almost everyone had suggestions. Miss Win-stead's were the most sweeping. She suggested terraces, hidden garden rooms, and the pool having the water supply come out a hill. Just like her garden, of course.
Charles Jones argued for the opposite approach. Specimen plants on islands of mulch, so that each could be admired for its own special quality of growth and bloom. Geometric paths. Just like his garden.
Ursula said, "Just fill it up with plants you like and see what thrives and what dies and replace the dead ones with something else you'd like to try.”
Poor Stefan tried to be polite about the suggestions, but still insisted that all he really wanted at first was a nice little pool with a fountain with some kind of sculpture spouting water in the middle and easy-to-grow, pretty flowers around the pool.
Miss Winstead launched into a treatise on caring for a pool, which was largely discouraging, even though she claimed to love hers. Shelley suggested that instead of making planting beds, Stefan could get mobs of nice planters to surround the pool and change the plants with the seasons.
Jane managed to drag Stefan away for a moment and say, "Wait till you see what I have on my patio. It might be a modest start for you.”
He looked so grateful that she was afraid he'd be disappointed when he saw her little birdbath fountain. Or maybe after Miss Winstead's lecture, he'd be happy to know he could have the lovely sound of running water surrounded by plants with very little trouble and work.
Only Arnold Waring was content to just roam around and examine the shrubs and not offer any advice at all or join in the competition for Stefan s approval of their own garden tastes.
Stefan finally got tired of advice and urged them along to Arnold's. When Shelley and Jane arrived, Shelley said, "I didn't realize Arnold lived so close to Julie Jackson's. Just across the street and three houses down."
“Hmm," Jane said. "I wonder if anyone questioned the neighbors after they found Julie. Old people on their own often keep an eagle eye on the houses around them. Arnold might have seen someone hanging about her house."
“I'm sure the police thought of that," Shelley said. "My goodness, Arnold keeps his house tidy. You can almost smell the fresh paint on the shutters."
“This iced tea has gone straight through me," Jane complained. "Would you run me home to pee?"
“Pee here. Well, not right here. I'm sure Arnold has a bathroom.”
“I don't like asking."
“Jane, don't be frumpy. Don't you know everybody pees now and then? With your background, you've probably peed in fifteen or twenty different countries in strangers' houses."
“And I never liked to," Jane said with a laugh.
As they drove up to Arnie's house, Shelley noticed Geneva Jackson and her husband come out of Julie's house with a suitcase. "Only one suitcase?" she said. "I thought they were staying until Julie was out of the hospital.”
Shelley waved and Geneva spoke to her husband, and he put the case in their car while Geneva came up the street briskly. "We're on our way to the hospital to bring Julie home!" she said with a huge smile. "The doctor thought it would be a couple days more, but she's making such improvement, and with a brother-in-law who's a neurologist staying with her, her physician is releasing her early.”
Jane thought that was good news, but if she didn't find a bathroom soon, she'd create a scene.
Twenty-two