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

  Jane and Flavia weren’t the only ones who heard the secret hidden in Jantzen’s words. Edmond would have done anything for his son. Edmond saved a penny everywhere he could.

  “I think you’ve stumped me.” Jane shrugged, and the tension was broken. “Perhaps, just maybe,” She said with a smile for Jantzen, “In the hubbub of tragedy, the invaluable heirloom was lost in a folded up item of clothing and set aside some forgotten place, maybe it’s in Luddy’s attic right now, in fact.”

  “Oh no! Never my attic,” Aunt Luddy shook her head solemnly. “No, Phyllis’s children took care of her things and they were never in my home before. Not that they wouldn’t be welcome.”

  The mood in the room seemed to shift. Aunt Jantzen’s color faded to neutral, and she offered a calm smile to Jane. “I suppose, with time, you’ll be able to solve a mystery just from hearing the story, but you are young still.”

  “It’s true. And you never know…someday that little brooch may show up again. Someone may dust out an old drawer, or unfold an old handkerchief and find it when they aren’t even looking.” Jane dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. The cream in the torte was soft, and she was afraid it had given her mouth a hint of childhood.

  Aunt Jantzen gazed at Jane, a look of appreciation on her face.

  Aunt Marjory spoke next, after a brief moment of silence. “Dear Luddy, speaking of your attic, I can come visit you soon, yes?”

  “Oh yes, please do and come up into the attic, won’t you? I have so many nice things up there that no one uses. Nice things I think you young people might like. Useful things.” She glowed, her smile directed at her seventy-year-old niece-in-law she could not see, but clearly loved. “I don’t know why the kids won’t come help themselves. Such nice things we’ve always had in The Family.”

  “Say, Aunt Luddy, isn’t your grandson Willy in Japan right now, with the army?” Jeffery asked. “I haven’t seen him in ages.

  “Not Willy, no. He’s in China with the Missionaries. Episcopal. Very dangerous. You’re thinking of John who is in the Army. He’s back from Japan now though, and up in Fort Lewis.” Aunt Luddy spoke the name of the Army base in Washington State as though it were every bit as far away as Japan.

  “China, eh?” Jake said. “I bet you didn’t know my little wife Jane is Chinese.”

  Jane froze, a weak smile plastered to her face. Time and place were never Jake’s strong suit. “My grandma, on my father’s side.” Jane didn’t dare make eye contact, after the chilly reception Flavia had gotten for being Romanian. But she spoke the words like a challenge, presenting her grandmother, not for approval, but as a fact to be accepted.

  “As am I.” Uncle Irving’s formal voice, the same that had saved Flavia from embarrassment earlier in the dinner, responded. “My grandfather married a dear little woman from China. It was illegal back then though, and they had to run away to Idaho to marry. They stayed there until they had children so that when they came home no one would dare try and make them divorce.”

  Mary-Clement stared in wide-eyed wonder, “But I had never heard such a thing!”

  “No, you wouldn’t have I suspect,” Irving said calmly. “Grandmother passed before any of us were born. The flu epidemic took so many good people. She was just a tiny woman, and quite old at that point.” He paused, likely realizing how much older he was now than she had been then.

  Jake grinned at his great uncle, for once in his life at a loss for words.

  Jane felt a warm glow all over her. She had never in her life been embarrassed about her darling Grandma Adler, but here, at The Dinner, she had been scared that something might be said, something she couldn’t forgive…but it hadn’t. Again, as he had done for Flavia, Uncle Irving had smoothed the way for her, and all of her family.

  When The Dinner was done for the night, and all of the checks had been gathered by Aunt Jantzen who handled the financial aspect of the meal, they walked into the chilly, clear night.

  Uncle Irving accompanied Jane and Jake to the not-at-all modest Jaguar Jake had inherited from his parents. Uncle Irving held out his hand, in a very old-fashioned manner, palm down, to Jane. “Welcome to The Family, my dear.”

  She accepted his hand and felt something small, cool, and smooth in it.

  “Work out how I came to have it, Young Detective, if you can.” He spoke as though he had said nothing out of the ordinary, tipped his head genteelly to Jane, and walked away.

  She opened her hand and stared at a small brooch—glass, framed in gold, holding a small something. In the iffy light of the restaurant parking lot, it was hard to tell exactly what, but Jane suspected it was a thin lock of silver hair, carefully braided.

  Jake picked it out of her hand with his fingertips. “I would have sworn on your life old Uncle Edmond had taken it.” He flipped it like a coin and tucked it in his pocket. “Sorry Young Detective. This belongs to Sasha Franz, after all. And Max owes me a round of golf.”

  Jane hated to be wrong, hated to be defeated, and knew, she just knew that Aunt Jantzen believed her husband had taken it. But Uncle Irving had fooled them all. For twenty years, he had kept them on pins and needles.

  “We don’t have to wait until the next Dinner to see these guys, do we?” Jane asked as Jake drove them to their home in the city.

  “I had hoped you’d feel this way. These old guys really like it when we come and visit.” He reached across the gear shift to rest his hand on Jane’s leg. “But don’t expect Irving to tell you how he did it. I think he took it from Edmond, personally. But clearly he expects you to figure out how, and when.”

  Jane closed her eyes and leaned back in her leather-upholstered bucket seat. This life was as far from the one she had imagined on the foreign mission field as could be, but it certainly wasn’t boring.

  The Thirty Piece Puzzle Box

  Since returning home from a whirlwind weekend in Paris that involved nothing so much as paying several past due bills, overseeing a bit of repair work, and making sure Phoebe Crawford was taking her medicine, life had been slow for Jane. She answered phones at the office of the Senior Corp of Retired Investigators, hoped for an interesting case of international intrigue to come her way, and toodled around the condo she shared with her always busy husband.

  This night was more of the same. She was acting the part of gracious hostess as Jake wined and dined donors for his charity—an international mission organization dedicated to rescuing girls and boys from human trafficking. Some might say ending worldwide human trafficking was too big a task for one organization to handle, but Jane and Jake believed in the vision this mission had and threw their energies behind it. After all, every impossible accomplishment started with one step in the right direction.

  Tonight Jake had rented out a private suite at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River, Oregon. With sweeping views of the Columbia River Gorge and food curated by the best almost-undiscovered chef on the West Coast, they had both been sure of impressing their marks.

  Donors. Impressing their donors.

  They didn’t want the donors to think the mission spent money lavishly, but they couldn’t take folks like these to just any restaurant. And, as Jake had made it clear to them, this was on his dime. Jake—a full-time professional fundraising and development officer for the mission—took no salary, since he didn’t have to, as heir to what folks in his world considered “probably enough.”

  Jane and Jake were seated at the head and the foot of the large mahogany table, doing their best to spark meaningful conversation with their guests.

  But it was uphill work. Charles Baldrick and his wife Emily had flown back to town from a month in Jamaica just that morning and were struggling mightily against jet lag.

  And, as it turned out, their other guest, Brenton Lucius showed up not with his wife at all, but with a much younger woman named Shelly who giggled. A lot.

  Charles and Emily had been good friends with Brenton and his wife for thirty years or more, and the giggling Shelly was caus
ing problems.

  The six people sat in front of their first course—a tossed salad featuring capers and ceviche.

  Shelly poked it with a giggle. “Brenty, I don’t think this fish is cooked!”

  Jane was sure, one-hundred percent positive in fact, that Shelley was at least forty, but Shelly didn’t seem so sure of it.

  Brenton laughed a deep chested Gaston-like sound. “Eat it up Shell, it’s good for you.” He stabbed a bit of the fish and hand fed her. He grinned at her like she was the cutest thing on Earth.

  Jane wasn’t sure she could agree, though on paper it all added up. Short, skinny, big blue eyes, big smile, etcetera.

  “Jacob, I am sorry, but I don’t think we will be staying late this evening.” Emily Baldrick yawned openly. “Just so tired. I would have never guessed how much a month of vacation could take out of a person.”

  “And I never knew how much could change in a month.” Charles Baldrick stared at Brenton with open hostility.

  “Shell, careful.” Brenton steadied his date who had tipped to the side, though no one was drinking alcohol at the dinner.

  She giggled. “I am so silly tonight!” The only excuse she offered for her silliness was open-eyed adoration of her date.

  Jake had already attempted to start the topic of what the mission was currently funding—more housing in a top-secret location in Thailand, but Shelly had declared herself “too excited to pay attention.” It seemed the view had completely overcome her.

  “Doesn’t it look like Norway, Brenty?” She blurted out. “Just like the little place we go to in Norway!”

  Charles grimaced. Jane couldn’t blame him. She had read the brief carefully before dinner. Brenton had been going to Norway on and off for five years—for work.

  Jane sighed. They weren’t getting money out of these people tonight. In fact, if she had to bet, she’d say Charles and Emily were so offended by Brenton’s display that they would want to have nothing to do with a night that reminded them of Shelly and Brenton.

  Jane wasn’t glib, not fast on her feet with words like Jake was, and felt like she was desperately failing him as a hostess.

  “You know, we were at a dinner party not long ago,” Jake said, “where, for a little fun, my darling detective wife solved a family mystery for us.”

  “Ooh! Just like on TV!” Shelly lifted her voice to a falsetto that nearly shattered Jane’s nerves.

  “Will you do it for us, too?” Shelly batted her very fake eyelashes at Jane, though surely she should have realized that Jane wasn’t won over the same way Brenton was.

  “Most definitely,” Jake assured the side piece. “Give her a mystery, and she’ll solve it.”

  “Ooh, ooh, please Brenty, give me a mystery!”

  Brenton squeezed Shelly’s knee, “But I don’t have a mystery.” He turned to Jane, “My apologies.”

  “I have a mystery she could solve.” Emily Baldrick’s voice was tinged with disgust. It was clear to Charles, Jake, and Jane what she referred to.

  Charles patted her back. “Darling…”

  Emily rubbed her lips together, “But I do, Charles. I have a very good mystery for our hostess if she really wants to try.”

  “It only works if you already know the answer.” Jake tossed out. “Otherwise, we can’t know if jane gets it right.”

  Jane hoped his caveat was to keep Emily from asking what had become of the original Mrs. Brenton Lucias.

  “Then this is the perfect mystery.” Emily pushed her plate away, mostly untouched. “But it’s a hard one. Jane, are you up for the challenge?”

  There was no way she could answer honestly, so she just said, “I’d be happy to.”

  A waiter entered to exchange empty soft drink glasses for full ones. When he was gone, Emily began. “This was just a short while ago.”

  “Perfect,” Jake interrupted. “Last time it was a twenty-year-old mystery.”

  “A few months ago I was out with my dear friend Judy,” The name seemed lost on Shelly, but everyone else flinched. “We had a lovely day. It was late winter, February in fact, and she was buying a Valentine’s Day present for her husband of nineteen years.”

  Brenton was shooting daggers at Emily.

  Emily responded with a smile as calm as her eyes were exhausted. The jet lag was real and seemed to have done away with any natural reticence. “Judy wanted to buy her husband something special, as this Valentine’s day was important. Sure, they hadn’t reached their twentieth wedding anniversary yet, but they had dated for many, many years before they married, and this was their thirtieth Valentine’s day.”

  “Awe.” Shelly leaned into Brenton, completely oblivious. She stroked his cheek with her tan hand. “Can you even imagine being with someone that long?”

  Brenton cleared his throat and avoided looking at Emily.

  “Judy took me to The Real Mother Goose, the one downtown, because when she and her husband were young and poor lovers they had wanted to fill their house with handcrafted artisan produced furniture and art. They used to go downtown together, buy crepes from Snow White’s Crepe Cart, and wander into the store admiring the things they could only afford someday.” Emily paused to sip her ginger ale.

  Charles made a move as though to stop his wife. But Shelly dropped her fork on Brenton’s lap and giggled as she retrieved it. She took a long time retrieving it.

  Charles closed his mouth and crossed his arms.

  “At the Real Mother Goose, that wet, cold day in February not that long ago, my friend Judy saw a myrtle wood puzzle box that really struck her. It was far from the most expensive item in the store, and frankly, at this time in their lives a little box like that would just disappear in their big house, but it was perfect in construction, and according to the card attached, it took a full thirty moves to open it.”

  “You have a box like that!” Shelly’s voice registered full glee. “I almost got it open, but…” her face fell. “Brenty, I am seriously so sorry that I broke it.” She shook her head slowly, then appealed to Emily. “Forgive the interruption, please. I’m dying to hear the mystery part.”

  Emily nodded calmly at the side piece. “Obviously, Judy purchased the box, brought it home, and gave it to her husband. However, Judy told me that she had left a meaningful surprise in the box for said husband and couldn’t wait for him to discover it.” She smiled directly at Brenton. “She said her husband wasn’t terribly clever, so it might take him a while to solve the puzzle box, but when he did, he would have the surprise of a lifetime.”

  “So you want us to guess the surprise?” Shelly leaned forward, rubbing her hands together. “Brenty said his didn’t have anything important in it. What did you call it, babe? Meaningless fluff? But I’m guessing your friend Judy did better than his Judy did, right Brenty?”

  Brenton was red around the collar.

  Jake’s eyes were laughing, the absurdity of the dinner not stressing him out at all. He seemed to have complete confidence in Jane’s ability to roll with this. He had to be controlling himself with effort, though. Emily had set a scene that was rife with possibilities for someone with a sense of humor like Jake’s.

  “How funny that someone named Judy bought this box too…” Shelly stared out the window at the view of the river at dusk. Slowly, her eyes narrowed. She turned her face to Brenton with the light of pride in her eyes—“But of course! How silly of me. I told you I was way too silly tonight. This is your box we’re talking about. Well, there you go! You know what was in it, so you get to be the judge! How delightful!” Shelly was remarkably, unbelievably, unselfconscious.

  The box was this year’s Valentine’s gift, but Shelly and Brenton’s romantic memories of Norway went back five years and Shelly seemed to not care in the slightest. “So, go on Jane! Detect what the meaningless fluff in the box was for us! I’m sure if you get it right, Brenty will make a huge donation.”

  Brenton coughed into his fist.

  Jane worked her jaw for a moment, unsure w
hat the right action for the hostess of a fundraising dinner would be. She appealed to Jake with her eyes.

  “Seems to me,” Jake said, “that Emily hasn’t proposed the mystery yet. She’s just barely laid the scene. Am I right?”

  “No. Shelly is correct. Let’s see if your wife can deduce correctly what was in the box. I admit, that it is only now I think I have a guess.”

  “You know what, Brenty?” Shelly squeezed his bicep, “I think I gave Jane a huge clue! I don’t know if I should be proud of myself or not.”

  Brenton kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it.” He looked as uncomfortable as a man ever had been before. His shoulders were too high, his face flushed. He leaned farther and farther away from his date as she seemed to melt closer and closer to him. He didn’t seem to think she was the cutest thing ever anymore.

  “When Jane is ready to reveal her deductions, you’ll be able to verify if she is correct, yes?” Emily said. “You’d be willing to do that much at least?”

  Brenton nodded wordlessly.

  “I’m not ready yet,” Jane said. “Perhaps, as we get to know one another better through dinner, the answer will become clear to me.”

  “That sounds fair,” Emily said.

  The wait staff returned to clear the salad plates and deliver the venison steaks and roasted fiddleheads with cloudberry compote.

  Jane dipped the tips of her fork in the cloudberry compote. “How long did it take you to solve the box, Brenton?” She smiled sweetly at him.

  He laughed. “Well played, girl detective. It took too long, that’s for sure.”

  “Was it a good surprise?” She sipped her lemonade this time.

  “I am going to call that out of bounds.” Brenton put his hand up. “We’re not playing twenty questions. You can’t just ask what was in the box.”

  “Touché.” Jane smiled. “I’ll have to practice subtlety.”

  “In the meantime,” Jake smiled, “Does anyone mind if I share a little bit more about the homes we’re building in Thailand?”

  “Gosh, that’s boring. I think Jane should keep at the mystery instead.” Shelly tipped back her soda. “Do you think the waiter is coming back? I’d love to get something a little stronger…”