A Quiche Before Dying

apology. Now she found herself wondering whatever had given her the idea that her mother had to be perfect? Yes, Jane and her sister had missed a few things, but they’d had so many wonderful benefits that other children missed. And if her mother had been a little too devoted to her husband, why, maybe that was Jane’s problem of perception. If she’d loved Steve as much as her mother loved her father, Jane would still have a husband. Maybe her own less than perfect marriage had colored her views with a little jealousy.
    Her mind kept going over the talk with Katie, too, thinking of a dozen things she could have said better, and finally she came back, inevitably, to her earlier conversation with Shelley about Mrs. Pryce’s death.
    She went back over that discussion, too, with no more result than the first time. The artificial deadline she’d formed in her own mind was looming before her. Tomorrow night would be the last class. She wanted desperately to figure it out by then, before everybody scattered and went on to other interests. No doubt Mel was right—patient police work would provide the solution sooner or later. It was the “later“ that worried Jane. The more time passed, the more chance there was of someone else coming to harm.
    She finally fell asleep and had nightmares. A long line of trucks was driving up and delivering flowers. Masses of flowers, suffocating tons of flowers. They covered the windows like a colorful avalanche. The weight was making the windowpanes break, and flowers were cascading in. Jane kept trying to sweep them up, but couldn’t. The scent of them started to choke her. She tried to hide the children in the little birdcage, certain for some reason that they’d be safe in there.
    She woke up at nine, sweating and distressed. The cats were sitting on the end of the bed, looking at her. Willard was on the floor beside her, snoring. She showered quickly, then checked on her mother and Katie. Both were still sound asleep. Pulling on culottes and one of Mike’s T-shirts that had gotten mixed up with her laundry, she went downstairs with the cats wreathing their way between her feet and meowing piteously. She fed them and Willard and started the coffee maker.
    Somehow, these repellent domestic chores were comforting. She wondered if men felt the same way about mowing the lawn. Fat chance. Thinking of men made her think of Mel. And that made her think about what she looked like. What if he dropped by and she looked as if she’d been left out in the rain all night? She ran a comb through her hair, fluffed it up a little—no point in going the whole hot roller route—and put on makeup. She glanced in the mirror when she was through. Not terrific, but not downright scary, either.
    Still no sounds from upstairs. She rummaged in the junk drawer and pulled out her notes that she’d made the night before with Shelley. She went back, suspect by suspect, but had no new insights. At the bottom of the last page, she’d doodled the words “wolf bane.“ She’d meant to look it up, but more pressing matters had intervened.
    She put away the notes, took down the dictionary from where it sat next to the cookbooks, and hunted. It took her a while to discover it was “wolfsbane.“ But the dictionary wasn’t much help, except to say it was a plant and give its botanical name. Well, at least it was a plant, she thought, not a disease or a hairstyle or something equally useless.
    Putting the dictionary back, she took down a fat, battered garden encyclopedia she’d found at a garage sale a couple months earlier. Under Wolfsbane she found, “A popular name for Aconitum lycoctonum. See Monkshood.”
    She put the heavy book down on the counter, bending a few pages at the corners as she turned back to the M section. A bell was tinkling at the back of her mind, and she suddenly felt rushed. There... “Monkshood—a common name for genus Aconitum, tall perennial herbs grown for showy blue flower spikes. All parts of plant are highly poisonous. Not to be grown near vegetables or in a garden where children might play. See Plate 17.”
    Jane found Plate 17 and looked at it for a very long time. She held her breath as she turned slowly and looked at the flower arrangement on the kitchen table. She took the book over, set it down next to the arrangement, and studied them both again.
    “My God,“ she whispered.
    Picking up the flower arrangement as if it could go off like a bomb any second, she