Jill Churchill - Silence of the Hams

“Katie, please. I know. And I don't want to hear about it. I can't afford veal anyway so it will never be a political issue around here."

“But not buying it because you can't afford it isn't the same as not buying it because it's immoral," Katie said.

“Comes to the same thing," Jane said, putting plastic wrap over the plate of hamburgers and checking on the macaroni.

“Mom, don't you care about stuff like that?”

This sort of question was normally rhetorical and belligerent, but this time Katie seemed to be asking it sincerely. "Katie, there's so much in the world that a person could be upset about that you could be miserable every minute of the day. Come sit down. The salad looks good.”

They sat at the kitchen table. "It's so hard to be your age," Jane said.

“Yeah, you're telling me!" Katie said.

“You're just starting to really notice the world around you — in an adult way," Jane went on. "And there's a lot wrong with it. But there's a lot right with it, too. A lot of good things.”

Katie nodded. "Like those little kids at the Vacation Bible School. Mom, they're so cute.”

“You're liking this job, then?"

“Sure. It's fun. Too bad they're not paying me better," she said, descending from her high moral plateau to the purely practical.

Jane bit back the response that she and Katie were both lucky Katie had any kind of summer job, otherwise they'd be in each other's hair all the time. As it was, they still had all of August to drive each other crazy since the bible school only ran through June and July.

“So, why don't you care about the cute little calves?" Katie asked, unwilling to let the subject go.

“I do care, but there are things I care about a lot more. You and Mike and Todd being at the top of the list and taking up a lot of space. And then I pick and choose pretty carefully what else goes on my particular list. I drive my group of blind kids to their school once a week during the year because the school can't afford bus service and that's a little way I can help. I helped at the graduation night party, which I think is worthwhile. I work on fundraising things for good causes like—"

“But Mom, those are nice things, but they're so — so small. I'm talking about big problems. Like the environment and peace and stuff like that."

“I know. But since I haven't got the slightest idea how to ensure world peace and nobody would have any reason to listen to me even if I thought I knew, I do what I can."

“Well, I want to do something important!" Katie said.

“I hope you do. I think you will someday. And if you want my advice, pick one thing that you think is most important. Do you know about the man who had a heart attack at the deli the day it opened?"

“Uh-huh. Gross! Dying there in the middle of all that food!"

“The point is, he was one of those people who couldn't pick a cause and stick to it. He had a new cause every couple weeks. And he didn't get very far with any of them because he'd made so many people mad with the ones that went before. Someday," she added with a grin, "when you're old enough to appreciate it, I'll introduce you to Patsy Mallett. You could probably take over the world with her philosophy. But I don't think you're cynical enough to appreciate it yet.”

Jane got up to check on the progress of dinner, and Katie started setting the table. Be still my heart, Jane said silently. For thefirst time in years she and her daughter had gotten through a serious discussion, albeit a short theoretical one, without Katie stomping off and slamming doors. There was hope for them.

After dinner, Jane went into the living room and moved an easy chair where she could sit and just look at the rain soaking the back yard. Her floundering vegetable garden would be happy even if the petunias already had their faces down in the mud. Max and Meow came in and got into tidy watchful positions in front of the window, glaring at the rain as if it were a personal affront.

Jane found herself thinking back to what she'd said to Katie about Stonecipher and his causes. In retrospect, she decided she'd been wrong. It wasn't merely that he went from one cause to another, it was that all of them were essentially adversarial to someone else with a lot at stake. Unlike Jane's own driving of the blind children or working at the graduation night party or helping raise funds to replace dangerously out-of-date playground equipment at the park — in which there were no "enemies" — Stonecipher's causes always pitted him against someone else: property owners, individual businesses, and people's personal freedoms.

His causes also made him highly visible. Which, the more Jane thought about it, could have been the basic motivation. Maybe his real desire was simply to show off and garner lots of attention. Of course, Jane's view of him now was highly colored by knowing about his nasty secret file cabinet. She simply couldn't believe that somebody who was basically immoral could sincerely espouse moral causes.

Trying to be fair, if only in her own mind, Jane reminded herself that there was no proof that Stonecipher had ever made use of the files. But even if he hadn't used them yet, why would a person keep such things if he didn't intend to gain from them eventually?

Emma certainly hadn't hesitated once Stonecipher was dead. Maybe Stonecipher kept the files just because he liked "having things" on people. Like the miser counting his coins. But Emma had almost instantly seen a way to invest those coins and turn them into more capital. But just how successful could that have been? If Jane's own file was an example, Em-ma's ploy would have failed. Stonecipher had speculated that the Jeffry pharmacies might be involved in some sort of fraud, but he'd been wrong, so there was no blackmail potential in it.

If Emma hadn't died and Jane had met with her, Jane would have been offended, but definitely wouldn't have parted with a penny. But she certainly hated having a file of any sort being batted around as part of a murderinvestigation. Maybe Emma had better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint) things about the other people she'd intended to get her hooks into. That might have accounted for why she was content to see Jane late in the day.

The phone rang. "What are you doing?" Shelley asked.

“Looking at the rain. Thinking about things I should be doing and don't want to."

“Paul's taken the kids to the movies and I'm rattling around by myself. Want some company?”

She arrived a few minutes later with a plate full of iced sugar cookies. "I'm here in self-defense," she said. "I'd have eaten them all by myself if I'd stayed home.”

Mike came in as they were settling down with coffee and cookies and helped get rid of quite a few of them. He went upstairs, taking a couple more to Katie and Todd. "See how easy it was to solve that problem?" Jane asked, looking at the decimated plate.

“Not really," Shelley said. "There are another two dozen at home. I got carried away and tripled the recipe. Speaking of problems, I've been thinking about Emma. And money."

“Oh?"

“We've been obsessing on the blackmail thing. Assuming that if she was blackmailing someone, that was why she was killed."

“Sounds like a good assumption to me," Jane said.

“It is. But it's not necessarily the only possible reason. Look at how many people had an interest in the money the law firm generated. Stonecipher, his wife, his partner, his assistant. Even Patsy is involved in a peripheral way since she handled the billing. Now two of those people are dead. One from natural causes but under very odd circumstances, and one was murdered."

“Yes," Jane said, "but what does this lead to?"

“I'm not sure. I'm just thinking out loud. The talk is that the Stoneciphers paid too much for their house. You can tell to look at it that they invested a fortune into it. And now it looks like Rhonda is trying to get her hooks into Tony Belton — the remaining lawyer in the firm — and he's resisting. So, couldn't there be a big money problem? Suppose, for example, that the firm was bringing in huge amounts, but Tony Belton was really generating all the business instead of Robert. If Rhonda was already sick and tired of her husband, it might account for her filing for divorce, then trying to grab on to Tony."