Criminal Company: A Plain Jane Mystery (The Plain Jane Mysteries Book 8) Read online

  Flavia groaned. “I don’t know if I will ever get used to this.”

  Diego Jr shrugged. “The old ladies,” he whispered that like it was a bad word, “were talking about someone named Sasha who has been in Hawaii at grad school for three years. The one with really, really, thick glasses who looked like she couldn’t see, didn’t understand why anyone wanted to go to grad school. I agree with that one. The skinny old lady didn’t understand why anyone would want to go to Hawaii, but I think she was just looking for a fight. Hawaii is legit. And the other woman, the one with the red sweater,”

  Jane assumed he meant burgundy.

  “She was trying to get someone to listen to her talk about the value of antiques to the historical society. No one cared.”

  “Is that all?” Flavia scrunched her nose up.

  “How did the men rank their current steaks?” Jane asked.

  “Medium. One liked the flavor but thought it was overcooked. The other thought it was bland but bleeding the right amount.”

  Jane sat on the information for a moment before she responded. “Will you go back in once more just for a sec and listen. Especially listen to the woman in the red sweater, just a minute or two will do.” Jane laced her fingers together and waited.

  Diego Jr returned looking serious. “The old lady in the red sweater finally got the one who’s that guy’s mom to listen to her. I focused on that. She was giving a lecture about pioneers, the museum, and the reasons people never lend their stuff anymore. Something about damage and loss.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “But then one of the old guys interrupted her to say they wanted dessert and they didn’t want to be here all night. The other one of the old guys, he was kind of bald, asked where those pretty girls went.” He grinned. “I guess he meant you guys.”

  Jane stood. “Thanks.” She slipped him an extra five and went to the dining room, without letting Flavia in on any of her suspicions.

  Jane took her seat quietly and put her napkin on her lap. Her steak had gone cold, but her suspicions were hot. She was almost certain about what had happened to the brooch, and it no longer involved the funeral directors. The only trouble she faced was how to go about proving it. In a regular case she would take her suspicion and hold it up to the evidence, both physical and stuff she got in interviews, but she didn’t have the time to interview all thirty-two original dinner guests, and she wasn’t at the scene of the twenty-year-old crime…She nibbled her cold steak and rated it right between Saylor’s and Ringside.

  “Uncle Lombard…” She looked up from under her lashes, a tried and true method of capturing the heart of old uncles. “This brooch case I’ve been hired to solve….”

  “Ha!” his single syllable laugh was explosive.

  “Who’s paying my fee?” She tilted her head slightly and smiled.

  “Not me. That hair thing was nothing to do with me. Weird, in my opinion. And not hygienic.” He scooped a forkful of potatoes but didn’t eat them. “God rest Edmond’s sole, but he’ll haunt you if you get paid for this. I just know it.”

  “Don’t be greedy Jane.” Jake pinched her elbow. He was usually good for playing along, but it looked like he was worried.

  “Oh, you know. I just have to report to my mentor so I can get credit towards my license. I’d hate to solve a twenty-year-old crime and not get credit for it.”

  Aunt Jantzen chuckled softly. “After all these years, I suspect you won’t be able to learn what has been hiding from the rest of us for so long.”

  “Oh, you know,” Jane pushed her food around with the tip of her fork. “You all are experts at so much. History, charity. Your various businesses. Family history. I just solve little puzzles and things. I’m sure if you had the same perspective I have, you could have seen what I saw.”

  “Dear Luddy wouldn’t have.” Uncle Irving patted his cousin gently on the arm. “Poor old thing has been blind as a bat for nearly thirty years.”

  “Well, Young Detective,” Aunt Jantzen folded her hands and laid them on the table in front of her empty plate.

  Jane cringed. Young Detective. That was probably the name that would stick. That said, t was better than Flavia’s future being known as “Not Susan.”

  Aunt Jantzen cleared her throat, silencing the table. “You claim you have seen what none of us could have. Where is our priceless family heirloom?”

  Jane smiled and took a bite of steak. How best to make her reveal? Badger the culprit into making a confession? Lead them all to the solution themselves in the form of a story? Blurt it out all at once and get it over with? She swallowed. “It’s not as easy as that, with so many people gone forever and not able to answer for their actions. Especially the wait staff. I don’t mean the wait staff from the restaurant is dead, but they aren’t here to answer for themselves, that much is true.”

  Aunt Luddy blanched, her delicate white skin almost translucent. “Oh no, it couldn’t be my fault? I did call the waitresses to get water and to elevate her head, but surely one of them didn’t steal the brooch.”

  Jane lifted one shoulder slightly. “Dear Luddy, are you a Couch?”

  “Oh, no. My mother was a Lovejoy, married to a Honeyman. I was Ludella Honeyman before I married my Mr. Rossi. But Irving, wasn’t your father’s sister married to a Honeyman? I seem to think Clara Couch was married to Astor Honeyman. They moved to Alaska for the salmon so long ago, no one much remembers them.”

  “Yes, yes. Auntie Clara was a Honeyman. But that doesn’t mean just any Honeyman is a Couch.” Uncle Irving Couch declared firmly.

  “That’s what I meant. I’m not a Couch, but we are all cousins, one way or the other, aren’t we?”

  “Being related to each other and having the honor of being related in some way to Asa Lovejoy or William Overton is the entire point of this event. They created our lovely home, and we support it, in perpetuity.” Aunt Jantzen couldn’t have had her chin higher, or her shoulders more square if she had tried. She was a model posing for some future Proud Mother of Portland Statue. “Poor Phyllis was the last female directly descended from Clementine Couch Lewis.”

  “And wouldn’t that make her a Lewis rather than a Couch?” Jane asked, in a last-ditch effort not to get tangled up by the names.

  “If I get to be a Terwilliger, Poor Phyllis can be a Couch.” Jake watched Jane closely. He seemed to be sizing her up now. Maybe being part of The Family meant more to him than he had let on previously.

  “Poor Phyllis was a Couch, and Uncle Irving is a Couch, was anyone else at the dinner twenty years ago a proper Couch?”

  “As you well know, Jantzen is.” Mary-Clement supplied. “And I am if you want to consider it. My mother was an Overton through and through, but her grandfather was a cousin of Captain Couch, so I am a proper Couch.” She gave Irving a look of challenge.

  “Not that old chestnut again.” His lips formed a thin line. “The direct descendants of Captain Couch are the ones we speak of. Not his cousins or other sundry.”

  “Jantzen’s great grandmother was a direct descendant of Captain Couch at any rate, whether you want to include me or not.” Mary-Clement tossed that off with a look of challenge in her eye.

  “I don’t want to offend you in any way, Jantzen,” Dear Luddy said softly, “But the great-grandmother in question…”

  “Mary-Clement does not speak for me,” Jantzen said, firmly. “My beloved great-grandmother married a Lovejoy. Her mother was a servant in the Couch-Wilson household, but we have no reason to believe that her father was Mr. Couch-Wilson.”

  Mary-Clement shook her head slowly from side to side. “If she wasn’t, how would you explain her ever marrying a Lovejoy? It just won’t do.”

  “I refuse to acknowledge this turn of conversation. It is not important to the mystery that needs to be solved.” Jantzen closed the door on the question of her Couch legitimacy.

  Jane wondered, wasn’t it important, though? It seemed that lineage was the most important value at The Dinner.

&nb
sp; Lombard leaned back in his chair. “Are we really holding dessert until we find out what happened to that piece of bric-a-brac? It might be another twenty years before we find out and I want my dessert now. Besides, Jantzen, if we don’t include the bastards, then Irving is no Couch either. Captain didn’t have any sons officially, and you know it.”

  Irving turned a steely eye to his cousin. “David Lewis’s son took the name Couch when it was realized the name had died out. There is no mystery involved.”

  “So long as I get cake you can be the son of Do-Good Dotty.”

  “Too many names!” Flavia waved her hand as if to shoo them all away. “The point is you are all related and so when Jefferey here married Susan Glisan, he was marrying his cousin.”

  Irving nodded. “Yes.”

  “Gross.” Jake spluttered. “Jeff, what’s wrong with you?”

  “You’ve met her. You would have done it, too.” He winked.

  Jane was fairly sure any “cousin” ship between the two was at least a hundred years back, but then, if these marriages wove themselves in and out, again and again, …she chose not to consider it. Susan and Jeffery’s kids seemed fine.

  “Poor Phyllis wanted the newest bride to have the brooch, I assume, to welcome her to The Family. To help her feel a part of things, no matter who she was, or where she had come from.” Jane offered her opinion as an opening to frame her case against the thief. “To make her position in the family clear to one and all.”

  Mary-Clement looked over her reading glasses at Jane. “But this was twenty years ago, my dear. We weren’t marrying just anybody back then.” The shade was so clearly meant for both Flavia and Jane that Jane chose not to take it personally. “Though I’m sure it was meant to go to the bride who would be coming to The Dinners, not one of those far-flung relations nobody knows anymore, and that’s what I mean.”

  “Ahh. I see. So when Phyllis made her decision about this particular item, the next bride was expected to be somebody already coming to The Dinner.”

  “Perhaps not, but surely it would be someone with relatives at the table.” Mary-Clement didn’t look ashamed. “We are not inbred, as you young folk might be implying. Just very interwoven.”

  “No, I’m sure you’re not.” Jane thought about standing, walking around the room as she made her pronouncement like Poirot would have, but just as she had worked up the nerve to make a real show of it, the wait staff came in to remove the steaks and deliver a lovely Dobos torte.

  Jane allowed herself a bite of creamy, chocolatey goodness before getting back on task. “So, which steak won, Ringside or Saylor’s?” She posed the question to voluble Uncle Lombard.

  “Ringside.” He didn’t waste cake-eating-time on words.

  “What about you, Uncle Irving?” Jane knew she seemed to be stalling, but no matter. The mystery had been explained through a long ramble about who was married to whom a hundred years ago. They could wait through her process now.

  “Ringside has always been superior.” Irving sipped his coffee between bites of cake.

  “What about Uncle Rossi?” Jane asked Aunt Luddy. “Which steak was his favorite?”

  Aunt Luddy’s smile was sweet, as she thought about her husband who had been gone so long. “The Rossi’s are an East Portland family, so whatever the steak tasted like, his vote would be for Saylor’s.”

  “Mary-Clement…” Jane realized she had no idea who Mary-Clement’s husband had been, or if she had ever been married.

  “We Failings always had a chef, you know. We had people to our home, rather than going out.” She glanced around the room. “When I was a girl, The Dinner was always held at our home, Aunts Henrietta and Mary’s home, I should say. The Geisy-Failing house. Others were a mite envious, I suppose,” she laughed a little, “and began to suggest their own homes for The Dinner, and that led to this…” She waved her hand around the little restaurant. “But I suppose this is fine. I don’t keep a chef any longer.”

  There was no way at this point, that Jane could keep track of the names, the families, the aunts and uncles, who was Young, Dear, Darling, or Poor. It was all too much. But one thing she was almost sure of at this point, and one question, it seemed, could clear it all up for her. “That sounds lovely. I know the house. We had a bus tour of pioneer homes during our class on Oregon History. Perhaps someday we can have The Dinner there again.”

  Mary-Clement looked away, sadly. Whether it was at the thought of a nobody like Jane being in on The Dinner going forward, or the loss of the house, Jane didn’t want to guess. “Aunt Jantzen, what about you and your husband Edmond? Did you have a favorite place for steak?”

  “Edmond? Eat at a restaurant?” The elderly Young Lombard laughed. “I will say, he could grill a fine steak when the mood took him. But a restaurant or a chef neither were on his list of expenses.”

  Aunt Jantzen blushed, but her face held a sincere smile. Something about her husband’s cheap ways tickled her in memory, whether they had while he was living or not. “True. His favorite steaks came from Western Meat, on N. Lombard St. Wouldn’t have them from anywhere else. Though, you must give him his due. He always had them delivered.”

  “But did he tip?” Uncle Lombard seemed to think this was hilarious, but Jane noticed a glint in his eye, possibly of tears. The teasing, she suspected, was that of a very old, and dear friend.

  “Waste not, want not, yes?” Jane asked.

  “Edmond Franz came from good, hardworking immigrant stock.” Aunt Jantzen beamed when she said it.

  Jane hoped she would still feel that way about Jake when they were in their 90s. She reached for his hand and squeezed it.

  Aunt Jantzen continued, “The Franz family—now, don’t confuse us with the bakery, please—we made our way in finance.”

  It was a surprise that almost made Jane change her mind. Finance? Not the famous local bakery? But never mind. The fact was, Edmond saved a penny whenever he could. She was still sure she was right. “I know the brooch was a sentimental piece, whose value was more to this family than it could have been to anyone else, ever. But did you know that an insurance value was placed on a similar sounding Portland piece—one that is at the Historical Society Museum right now—of $4000? It’s an irreplaceable Lovejoy piece. This is a Couch piece so it would be, for insurance sake, close to the same value, yes?” Jane laid her phone on the table, in case anyone wanted to see her evidence.

  “If the Historical Society museum had to insure it, I suspect so, but we never heard that Poor Phyllis had a policy on it.” Aunt Jantzen had a wary look in her dark brown eyes.

  “No, but I’m sure it would have been appraised with her estate, for the sake of inheritance tax.”

  Aunt Luddy leaned forward, “You know, Young Detective, I never did think of the inheritance tax. The brooch was all any of us older ladies spoke of, thinking about the poor bride not getting it. The rest of Poor Phyllis’s estate was left here and there, and no one thought another thing about it. We only ever thought about that brooch.”

  “Edmond sure would have hated to see his boy Doctor Max have to pay a tax for a little thing like that.” Uncle Lombard guffawed. “Wouldn’t he have Irving?”

  Even Irving had to smile at the thought. “Yes, I suspect he would have tried anything to save his son paying an inheritance tax, but what could be done? Max and Sasha were so recently married. I suppose he had hopes that Jeffery here and the Glisan girl would get married before Phyllis passed.”

  Jantzen’s color rose, again. Her slight blush looking more like a lively, embarrassed red now. “Edmond was always good about paying his taxes.”

  “I’d say he was great about it, and never paid any he could get out of.” Uncle Lombard finished his cake and looked over his shoulder. “Since we’re here, do you think they’ll give me another piece of this?”

  “You don’t need another piece of that cake, Young Lombard.” Aunt Luddy’s voice sounded as much like a mother as possible, though again, she was Young Lombar
d’s junior.

  “Were Max and his father close?” Jane asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Jantzen was quick to answer. “Max was our baby. A real surprise, coming as he did, just before Edmond’s fiftieth birthday. But what a wonderful surprise he was. Edmond retired from the family firm right away—left it in the hands of our nephew on the Franz side—so he could enjoy his son. Two best friends. He would, and did, do anything for his boy.” She hadn’t realized what she had said, but Flavia, across the table from Jane, did.

  She caught Jane’s eye. They watched each other for a moment, waiting, deciding if it should be said. Did Jane want to earn the respect of the family for her deductive reasoning badly enough to impeach the name of a man everyone clearly enjoyed? To tell them all that it was obvious to her that Max had signaled somehow to his father that Phyllis wouldn’t make it…innocently enough. Just a communication between two men who were close. And that then, in response Edmond stole a trinket just to save his son some inheritance tax. They might hate her for seeing it more than they loved her for being able to see it.

  She looked from face to face around the table. She was sure they wouldn’t like to hear her answer at all. In addition to leaving a smirch on a beloved man’s name, she’d be doing irreparable damage to the family stock in trade. From the cousin who went to Wheeler County and disappeared forever, to who exactly was Jantzen’s great great grandfather…The Family seemed to relish their mysteries. The missing brooch would most likely turn up on Soliel Franz someday, at some dinner, when Max and Sasha passed it on to her, long after Aunts Jantzen, Luddy, and Mary-Clement were gone. Maybe even after Aunt Marjory had passed.

  Jane looked at her husband’s Aunt Marjory fondly. An imposing woman of great stature, who stood in place of both Jake’s mother and father, she had to be made of stern stuff to come into The Family from Vancouver, without a single shred of Portland Old Money to her name.