Grace smiled, said, “Sure!”
I didn’t think she’d quite figured it out yet.
As everyone else moved toward the kitchen, I took Jane gently by the arm and led her out the front door.
“What?” she said.
I stared at her. “The phone thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just tell me.”
“Tell you what?” She’d been studying my expression seconds earlier, but now didn’t want to look me in the eye.
“When Grace phoned you that night, when she asked for help, before she called me, she got that echo on the phone. Like what just happened now.”
“Cell phones are always doing stupid stuff,” my onetime student said. It was the way she said it, the way she turned her head away, that convinced me I was on to something.
“You were already there.” It wasn’t a question. “If Grace had known, she wouldn’t even have needed her phone to talk to you.”
Jane squeezed the top of her purse with her left hand, her fingers kneading the leather. Her right hand tightened, opened, tightened again.
“I don’t know what—”
“Cut the shit, Jane.”
She looked out toward the street. After several seconds, she sighed, then said, “I thought, at one point, that she’d actually seen me. When she phoned. I thought she’d spotted me and that was why she called. But she hadn’t. Grace was calling for help, calling to ask me what she should do.”
I said nothing. I waited for more.
“Vince had screwed me over,” Jane whispered. “And he wasn’t there for my mother. I was furious with him.” She paused. “At the time.”
“So you decided to rip him off.”
“My mother’s house was supposed to go to me, but he kept it. I didn’t know he was going to try to make it right. But he told me, when you guys saved me from those creeps.”
I was feeling light-headed. “You were always good at listening in on people, snooping around. Let me guess. You knew all about Vince’s business. You knew where the keys were. You found a listing of the security codes. You got into the house the easy way. Not like Stuart, who had to break in.”
Jane nodded. “But I didn’t realize how big a score was in that house. I had no idea. I thought it’d just be a few thousand. That Vince might not even miss it for months and months.”
“How much?”
“There was two hundred thousand,” she said. “That, and a vase.”
I was amazed and horrified at the same time. “What were you going to do? When Vince figured out it was gone? When someone came back to claim that money? It could have turned out that way.”
Jane kept her voice low, her head down. “I didn’t think that far ahead. I didn’t know what to do. And then things started happening so fast.”
We still hadn’t talked about the bigger issue.
“Stuart,” I said. Jane started to turn away, but I reached for her shoulder and made her face me. “Stuart. You killed Stuart.”
“I didn’t mean to. That was a total accident.”
“And taking a gun with you? That was an accident, too?”
“I just... There were always guns around. Seemed dumb to go into a house without... you know, anything. I heard him and Grace in the house, but I had no idea who it was at first. I was in the kitchen, and this person came in, and I just kind of... I got scared. I panicked.”
“Jesus,” I said quietly.
“I realized real quick who it was, who I’d shot. I had to get out of there. Grace was freaking out, had her hands over her eyes, screaming, and I ran right past her. I hid outside for a while — a cop car was coming down the street — and then I heard Grace coming out of the house and my phone buzzed. I saw it was her and, like I said, I thought she’d seen me. But she hadn’t.”
“Then you called Vince. So he could clean up the mess everyone had made.”
“I told him,” she said. “The truth.”
“But not then,” I guessed.
“Like I said, right after you two saved me from those creeps. You were in the other room. I told him. I thought maybe he was going to need the money. I had it in a bag, under my desk at work. I thought he’d snap, you know? But I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. I figured I’d take whatever he dished out. But he went all funny. Instead of being angry, he was really sad. Said he’d been awful to me. Said he’d work it out.”
Then I realized something else.
“You kept it all,” I said.
“What?”
“Everything he got out of the houses, all the money. You kept it.”
She nodded. “Not drugs or guns or anything. Just the money. Vince told me to.”
We were quiet for a moment. There was still something that wasn’t clear to me.
“The vase,” I said.
“What about it?”
“It ended up in Braithwaite’s apartment. How?”
Jane looked like she was holding back a smile. “I put it there.”
“Why?”
Jane hesitated, then said, “When I left Vince that night, I heard him talking on the phone about Braithwaite, that he was the most logical suspect because he had a key, knew the code. Vince mentioned an address. The next morning, when Braithwaite went off to walk dogs, I got into his place and planted it. I figured Vince and his guys would search the place eventually and pin it on him, even though that never happened. I’d be off the hook.”
“How’d you get into his place?” I asked.
She frowned. “Please. Look who I’ve spent the last few years living with. Think I couldn’t get into an apartment? There’s no security system in that old house.”
I was seeing Jane in a way I never had before. “Being mad at Vince, stealing the money, I can sort of see that. And shooting Stuart, that was pretty bad, but you never meant for it to happen. But setting up Braithwaite? An innocent man? Knowing Vince and his crew would probably kill him when they found that vase? That wasn’t an accident, Jane.”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Teach? I’m a survivor. You do what you have to do.” She searched my face. “What’s goin’ on in there? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But you killed someone, Jane. You murdered Stuart.”
She tilted her head back, a newfound confidence in the set of her jaw. “Then maybe you should turn me in.”
I said nothing.
“You’ve got blood on your hands, too, Teach. You killed a man. And don’t think I’m not grateful. And you’ve let Vince take the blame for that. Sounds like he even took the blame for Stuart. It’s been a month. I wonder how the cops would look at that now, if they found out you’d really killed Joseph.”
I felt a pounding in my temples.
“I’m the only one who knows what you did and you’re the only one who knows what I did,” Jane said coldly. “Maybe Grace is figuring it out, but I bet a couple of words from you could change that. You could say your phone’s been acting up, too. Tell her it’s time to get her a new, fancier one. They’re always upgrading them. She’d love that. I’d even pay for it, if you want.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Jane blotted a tear with her sleeve, and with that, seemed to adopt a new face. She said, “One thing I figured out back when I was in school, around the time you were my teacher, is the only one who’s going to look out for you is you. And then when my mom hooked up with Vince, well, watching him, that point of view really got driven home. You can’t wait around for others to make your life better. You see what you want and you take it.”
She patted my shoulder. I didn’t like the feel of it. “That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done. You’ve been awesome. Right now, you need to think about what’s best for you. You think calling the cops and telling them about what I did is going to work to your advantage? You’re a teacher. You can figure that one out.”