The House of Seven Mabels (15 page)

"I suspect you're right, but again, there's no proof of it."

"What about her ex-husband?"

"He's sleaze," Mel said, getting up and roaming fretfully around the kitchen as if looking for a solution — perhaps under the morning paper on the counter or under a pot. "And he makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for her. And it's rumored that some of his clients are big-money mafia. But it's only rumor and we don't have any evidence that would allow us to get at his records. Even if we did, he's bright enough not to leave evidence of personal conversations in his files."

"Have you interviewed any of Sandra's friends from her feminist group?"

"Dozens. The most hostile group of women I've come across. They regard her as a saint."

"To be a real saint, you have to be dead," Jane said. "I wonder if they thought so when she was alive. Oh, I never thought to ask. Did you check the dust marks on the steps to the basement?"

Mel just stared at her for a long moment. "First pictures taken. And somebody with far too much free time had recently swept them. The only thing on the steps was a bit of mud from the shoe of the doctor who pronounced her dead."

Jane stared back. "Don't you think that's odd?"

"Of course it's odd. There was a broom down there. And before you ask the obvious question, yes, it was fingerprinted and was absolutely clear of prints."

"You don't really think this was an accident, do you?" Jane asked.

"I don't think it for a moment, but I can't disprove it, either." His pager beeped and he said, "It's forensics. May I use your phone? My cell phone's gone all staticky and someone in the office is trying to replace it and get the same number."

When he returned the call, he kept nodding and looking glummer by the minute. Hanging up, he said, "The scene-of-the-crime guys were right. The only new stuff on the damned bushes was a paper-based substance with a few threads. From a coverall that's sold in, oh, maybe a thousand paint and hardware stores just in the Chicago area alone."

"No fingerprints?" Jane asked.

"Do you have any idea how common latex or plastic gloves are? You can get them in most drugstores, even if you have to purchase a box of hair color. Even more easily in paint and hardware stores. I liked the good old days when gloves were leather or fabric. At least they'd sometimes leave some kind of print or evidence. I guess I'm just going to have to start another whole round of interviews tomorrow and see if there's any triviality we've missed. Do you mind if I skip out on you and spend what's left of the evening going over what I already have so far?"

"I don't. But I wish I could help. Shelley and I know the workers on a more friendly basis than

you do. We haven't a clue in spite of that, except the missing purse. I can't remember if I told you that when we first met Sandra it was at a restaurant and she had it slung across her shoulder and never turned loose of it. She even got her fork tangled in the strap, but didn't let it go. I thought even then it was sort of odd.

"When most women eat out, they set it next to them. And when they're working at an office or job site, they lock it up somewhere. Under the seat of their car sometimes. Or in a drawer to which they have the only key. But Sandra never let hers leave her body."

"Maybe she was one of those people who always carried a whole lot of cash around," Mel speculated.

Jane shook her head. "In my experience traveling with my parents all over the world, my folks always had paper money concealed in a thin pack tied underneath their clothing. I don't think it was cash she was protecting."

"Then what would a woman keep in a purse that she couldn't keep in such a pack?" Mel asked.

Jane shrugged. "Drugs? A notebook of important data? A datebook? A weapon such as a sharp knife or gun?"

After Mel had gone, Jane called Shelley. "Come on over if you're free. We need to toss around some ideas about the missing purse."

When Shelley arrived, she said, "You know, I just realized it wasn't always the same purse."

"No?"

"She had two in the same style. One was a dark blue or black. The other was the exact same style, but in a sort of dark taupe. She must have been concerned about being color savvy," Shelley said.

"I think you're right. She had the dark one at the restaurant and the brownish one that she normally had strapped across her chest at work. I hadn't realized that until you mentioned it. But, Shelley, neither of them was huge. Large, but not the enormous sort of thing you'd take on a plane with all your medications, a change of underwear, makeup, mouthwash, and your jewelry bag, in case the checked luggage didn't show up."

Shelley grinned at the image. "I traveled with Paul and his assistant once on a flight. I had my laptop, a camera bag, and the huge kind of purse you're talking about. The assistant had a laptop, a camera bag, and a backpack smaller than my purse, and they forced him to check through the backpack. Sort of reverse sexual harassment, I thought. I kept my purse in my lap, but they wouldn't let him keep the backpack in his lap."

"You're kidding," Jane said with a laugh.

"So what do you want to talk about regarding Sandra's purse?"

Jane went over the conversation she and Mel had had. "It was strange to see a woman who never, ever turned loose of her purse, even when she was eating. It was obvious that she had some-

thing in it that was so valuable to her that she was never without it literally wrapped around her. I'm always losing track of mine. I dump it in the kitchen when I come home, or sometimes I carry it upstairs with me or toss it on a sofa."

"What do you suppose she did with it at night?" Shelley asked.

"Probably chained it to the bedpost or kept it in a safe," Jane suggested. "So what was in it that was so important?"

"A weapon?"

"Mel and I considered that. We also considered that she was one of those people who always felt compelled to have a lot of ready cash on hand, but when I traveled with my parents we always had our paper cash strapped under our clothes."

"Did you consider drugs?"

"First on the list. That's the only thing I think someone would steal the purse for. We also thought about a datebook and one of those big address books, but I don't think the purses were big enough for those things."

"Where's your own purse right now?" Shelley asked.

"I have no idea," Jane said.

Shelley found it in the squashy chair in the living room. Jane started taking things out. "Billfold. Sunglasses case. A paperback book in the side pocket in case I get trapped with nothing to read. Checkbook. A packet of tissues. A box of winter-green Altoids. Breath spray. Some loose change in

the bottom, two ballpoint pens, a pencil. A few crumpled receipts. Some dustballs. Hmm. A dead leaf? How did that get in here?"

"What about the little inside zippered pocket?"

"A pair of manicure scissors. A nail file. Lipstick. Yet another pen. A six-inch piece of yellow ribbon."

"What's that for?"

"A craft project Katie wanted to do. I was supposed to find a match for this ribbon."

"I'll bet mine has the same kind of things, plus the cell phone and maybe a little box of aspirin."

"This purse is about the same size as hers. So what made it worth stealing and presumably disposing of?"

Mel called Jane the next morning. "Thought you'd like to know that the mystery purse has reappeared," he said in a weary voice. "And before you ask, there are no fingerprints, inside or out."

"You mean it was empty?" Jane asked.

"No, everything you'd normally expect was there. Lipstick, comb, billfold with several credit cards and around seventy dollars in cash and change. A pack of tissues, her cell phone. That sort of thing."

"Nothing unusual?"

"What would you consider unusual?"

"I don't know. A length of yellow ribbon?" Jane said, thinking back to the examination of her own purse contents.

"No. Would that mean something of significance I'm not aware of?"

"Uh-huh. It's just that Shelley and I went through my purse and I had a piece of yellow ribbon in it."

"Why?"

Jane sighed. "It doesn't matter. I was just trying to match it for Katie. The point is that I had to explain to Shelley why I was carrying it around."

Mel didn't reply. She could almost hear him making a silly face.

"Where was it found?" she asked.

"That's the interesting thing. It was in a paper bag, also with no prints. I absolutely hate the ease of getting disposable latex gloves."

"But where?"

"Sitting on the newly poured concrete on the sunporch. The concrete had been heavily salted."

"Salted?"

"Yes, apparently that wrecks the surface. Bud-ley is furious. It's going to have to be all torn out, taken to the dump, and done again, destroying his schedule and raising the cost at his expense."

"Why at his expense?"

"Because your friend Bitsy got a bid from him and locked him into the amount and the timing. With a hefty penalty for every day late to finish the project."

"Wow! She finally got a good lawyer to draw it up."

Mel wasn't interested in this aspect. "When the first workers arrived, they didn't even notice the pitting of the surface until they tried to throw the paper bag away and the bottom stuck to the surface and there sat the purse. Thank God nobody touched it."

Jane dragged herself back to thinking about the purse.

"Mel, were there any receipts in the purse or billfold?"

"Not a one. Why do you ask?"

"Nor a notebook or note cards for writing things down? Like a shopping list?"

Mel was slow to reply. "No," he finally said. "Janey, thanks for thinking of that."

"Do you think it means something?"

"It might," he admitted. "A purse is a bit like a man's jacket pockets or billfold, I imagine. I'm always finding notes to myself and beat-up receipts when I take a jacket to the cleaners or my billfold starts bulging. I have to go. I'm glad I filled you in on what's going on. Your take on things is interesting."

"You've never admitted that before."

"Why would I?"

"Just to be nice," Jane said with a laugh. "Like you are today."

"Only today?" he asked. "It's probably just because she was overorganized about keeping her purse free of debris." Before she could reply to his attempt to back out of the compliment he'd given her, he said, "I have someone here who wants to talk to me. See you later."

Jane picked up her own purse from the kitchen chair where she'd put it and discovered a side pocket she and Shelley had overlooked. It contained a paper clip, yet another ballpoint

pen, and two very old grocery lists written on scraps of paper, one sheet apparently torn from a blank page in the back of an old paperback book.

She threw these away and called Shelley.

"We got a compliment from Mel a few minutes ago. On a purely domestic thing I mentioned we'd done."

"Do tell!" Shelley exclaimed.

"His call was about finding the purse that's been missing."

She recounted what he'd said about the contents and what questions she'd asked.

"Jane, he's never really appreciated our views before, you know. It's terrific that he finally realizes that we know ordinary everyday domestic things that might be important."

"To be honest, Shelley, he tried to weasel out of having admitted that, then cut me off to talk to someone else."

"Of course he did. He's a man, after all," Shelley advised. "I assume they found it outdoors."

"Why would you assume that?" Jane asked. Shelley had spoiled her next bit of information.

"Because Bitsy had all the locks changed. And Budley, you, and I have the only duplicates. One of the four of us must show up early every morning from now on to let the workers in."

"It's not going to be me, and it shouldn't be you. We're not being paid, or even contracted to be paid yet."

"Good point."

"Besides, she didn't give me a key," Jane continued.

"She gave me yours. This was the first chance I've had to pass it along. So where was the purse found?"

Jane told her.

"More vandalism," Shelley said with a sigh. "I'm starting to wonder all over again if Sandra really was murdered. Nothing else that's happened actually hurt anyone."

"The planer hurt Jacqueline," Jane argued.

"But only because she jumped back and hit her head against something. It wasn't meant to harm her, according to Thomasina."

Shelley went on. "All the other catastrophes are just nasty. The damage to the Sheetrock, the shrimp in the furnace pipes — excluding, of course, the two women who were nauseated. The salting of the fresh concrete and the fake bomb in the toolbox are other good examples. They all merely caused trouble and delays."

"Even if nobody was seriously hurt, the next such incident might go awry," Jane objected. "And anyone working there or even sneaking onto the site will probably go on doing things until they get their way."

"Say that again."

Jane repeated her statement.

"That could be what it's all really about," Shelley said. "Who stands to profit by this? Bitsy's ex-

husband? Just to destroy her project that he thinks he's actually paying for out of the divorce settlement? Or Joe Dudley, who ended up with a job he seemed to have needed?"

"Shelley, that doesn't make sense anymore, unfortunately. I can see that he might have tried to sabotage the job to get Sandra fired, so he got a second shot at making money on Bitsy. But why would he continue?"

"Just to cover his own ass, Jane."

"I
don't think so. Mel told me something else I almost forgot to tell you. He says Budley's furious because Bitsy made him sign a contract that specifies penalties if he doesn't finish it at the bid he gave and on the date he set for completion."