The House of Seven Mabels (18 page)

Shelley gave Jane The Look.

Thomasina pulled a wallet from another pocket and showed them a family picture. "This was taken a year ago when they were seven."

Her husband was a good four inches shorter than she and weighed at least fifty pounds less. He was fairly handsome. But it was the girls who were astonishing. Very pretty, but heavily made up.

"We had that picture taken to celebrate the day

they won in their division," Thomasina said proudly. "Twins between five and ten years old. It's not a big category, but people think all twins are cute, just because they're twins. Of course they don't have to be identical, but the fraternal ones never even place. Don't know why their parents bother."

"Beauty pageants?" Shelley asked, concealing her distaste with amazing restraint.

"They love it. Little girls all like dressing up. And there's good money in it if they're attractive, spirited, and talented."

"What are their talents?" Jane asked.

"They dance," Thomasina said proudly. "My husband Walt and I taught them."

Jane's mental image of Thomasina and Walt dancing made her smile. "How nice. What kind of dancing do they do?"

"Tap and ballet both."

"How nice," Jane said. It was the only thing she could think to say, and she figured it was time to close the conversation before Shelley broke down and exposed her views of child beauty queens or asked if Thomasina was the ballet teacher, which would have sent Jane into hysterics.

Jane went on hurriedly, "We shouldn't be keeping you from getting on with your other jobs, though. Your time is obviously too valuable to waste on us."

Thomasina put away the wallet, checked her watch, and shook both their hands. "Hope you

ladies are still around when I come back. I'll bring newer pictures of my girls to show you." With that, she hopped into the truck and roared off.

For a long moment both Jane and Shelley were silent.

"Who would have thought?" Shelley wondered.

"I just hope the Sheetrocker doesn't surprise us as much," Jane said.

They trapped Carl Stringfield having his lunch. It put theirs to shame. He had two warm pieces of bruschetta, a corned beef sandwich that looked as if the bread was baked from scratch, a salad with dried cranberries, and a piece of pumpkin pie.

He looked confused and slightly alarmed when Shelley sat down on one side of him and Jane on the other side.

"What a wonderful lunch you have," Shelley said. "Does your wife do this kind of thing every day?"

"What wife?"

"You fix all this yourself?"

"No, I have a neighbor taking a culinary class at the junior college and he makes it for me for practice. I have to write a report."

"So you're not married?" Shelley asked. "You must have a lot of free time for hobbies, I guess."

"I do a little fly fishing when I get the chance," he admitted.

A hard thing to comment on,
Jane thought.

But Shelley took up the conversation. "Do you make your own flies?"

"Nope."

Shelley kept on. "Any other hobbies?"

He scratched his head. "Can't think of any."

"How do you like working with Evaline?"

"It's okay."

Shelley sighed, but continued the questioning. "Have you worked with her before?"

"Nope."

"I bet you'd like to, though. Her special paste must make the work go much faster."

"Hadn't given it any thought."

Jane had already finished her sandwich and munched her gummy Fritos before Shelley gave up.

"It surely has been interesting talking to you," she said with apparent sincerity. "I guess we should leave you to your lunch."

"Okay."

"Oh," Shelley said, "one more thing. What did you think of Sandra?"

"Not much," he said.

"Could you elaborate?"

"Not really."

When Shelley
and jane were on
their way home, Shelley said, "That's the most aggressively boring person I've ever spoken to. No wonder he's not married. There would be no way to live with him unless you were in a coma."

"You're right. But maybe he just clams up around strangers. When someone comes to my door doing some nosy survey, I get very, very stupid and curt. Don't remember when I moved here. Don't remember my age."

"Why don't you just shut the door?" Shelley asked.

"Because of my parents. When you're raised in the diplomatic corps, you learn to be overly polite."

"It didn't work on your sister."

"I know. But she was always cranky and difficult."

"Have you called her back yet?"

"Nope," Jane said, imitating Carl Stringfield.

"Okay," Shelley said.

"Wasn't the conversation with Thomasina interesting?" Jane said, changing the subject.

"Interesting, yes. But I can't see that it helps us figure out what's going on. I wish you hadn't veered off on those pathetic little girls."

"I had to before you
said
they were pathetic." Jane was laughing. "I couldn't help thinking of
Fantasia
when she said she and her husband taught the girls to dance. The pink elephants in tutus doing the ballet."

Shelley didn't think it was funny at all. "Can you imagine Sandra making a pass at her?"

"Hard to picture," Jane said. "But Thomasina nipped it in the bud, as you'd expect her to do. I'll bet she was more vulgar at the time than she let on to us."

"Maybe someone didn't tell Sandra off," Shelley said. "And that sort of unprofessional behavior on a job site might have truly upset another member of the crew."

"Have you anyone in mind?"

"Only Bitsy. I wonder if that's the real reason Bitsy fired her."

"You're not going to ask Bitsy that, are you?"

"I might."

"We've struck out on Thomasina. Her problem with Sandra was taken care of by telling her off and getting on with the job," Jane said. "And we got nothing from Carl. I still think our best suspects are Bitsy's ex-husband and Joe Budley."

"Both out of range for chatting up," Shelley said.

"Unfortunately," Jane agreed.

Shelley thought for a while and said, "Maybe I should talk to Paul about this."

"What does he know about renovations, feminism, or divorce?"

"Practically nothing. But he knows tons of people who know lots of other people. In fact, his attorney is a wealth of financial gossip. Paul never considers opening another restaurant without getting the whole history of the property he's considering and everybody who has owned or leased it. The attorney has an assistant who researches the history of any lawsuits or code violations."

"Would Paul be willing to find out about Neville Burnside and Joe Budley for us?"

"I'll ask. He doesn't like what he's heard about this renovation project anyway and may enjoy digging up some interesting dirt."

"Have you heard anything from Bitsy about this elusive contract we were supposed to have seen by now?"

"Not a peep. I called her early this morning to ask. She just fluttered around about how busy her lawyer was and how she couldn't catch up with him and thought he might be out of town on some kind of lecture tour to a law school."

"I don't believe that."

"Neither do I. But given the contract Sandra had drawn up and my new version, the lawyer has a lot to weed through," Shelley said.

"So what are you doing with the rest of your day, besides tackling your husband about Burn-side and Budley?"

"Having a strongly worded talk with a caterer who's trying to charge me half again as much for the table service for a dinner Paul's giving for his employees. The caterer we've used for the last two years went out of business when an employee passed along hepatitis. Contagious diseases can kill a successful catering business. This new one is giving me an outrageous bid and the event is in two weeks. I don't have time to interview others. I'll just have to beat this one into submission."

"Shelley, sometimes you amaze me with the specialized information you have at your fingertips. I know absolutely nothing about catering and you seem to know everything about it. This is fascinating."

"Not really. It's simply that Paul insists on these dinners three or four times a year and I agree it's good for his business. A nice perk. And we couldn't possibly serve them the Greek fast food that they're up to their elbows in every day. He used to have an employee plan the dinners until I butted in and comparison-shopped and realized she was taking us to the cleaners and getting big kickbacks. That's how I got stuck with the job."

"But there's nothing you enjoy more than butting heads with people trying to rip you off, and you know it," Jane said.

Shelley grinned. "It's one of my best skills. So are you working on your book today, since we're not getting anywhere with Bitsy and her elusive attorney?"

"Yes. I've thought of a new twist for the plot I'm really excited about. Want to hear about it?"

"No. I'll wait until the book is in the stores. You don't want to drain away a good idea recounting it to someone else."

Jane had awakened in a rage the previous night when the cats decided to sharpen their claws on her bedspread. Before drifting off to sleep, she'd realized why she'd dawdled on getting the novel finished. Priscilla had gone soft and comfy. She'd gotten boring. Her life was going too well.

The essence of fiction, Jane thought, was conflict, the more the better.

So how about if a previously unknown older, illegitimate half-brother showed up with documentation claiming to prove Priscilla's beloved home was really his?

She loved the idea. Priscilla would have something dear to her to fight for. Priscilla loved her house on the cliff overlooking a surly sea more than she'd ever loved anything else.

Supposing the documents were true but the person presenting them wasn't who he said he was? A real illegitimate brother had once existed and this man had seized his papers.

Maybe it was a bit trite, but Jane was fired up.

What would Priscilla do? Would she find out the man was a fraud? If so, would she feel compelled to find her real half-brother? Not if she had any sense. Maybe she could find out about him without his knowing.

Priscilla could hire someone to hunt him down. An honorable and necessarily devilishly good-looking man she imagines for a while she might have fallen in love with but later finds out that he's in on the fraud. Or maybe not. Maybe he's already married. Maybe he's not married, but has a terminal disease and… Or maybe Priscilla's doctor has mistakenly told her she's the one with the terminal condition?

So many intriguing avenues of busy plot to whip into shape.

And a lot more fun than trying to pry the truth out of the workers at the renovation. In her novel, she herself was in control. She'd know the truth, even if Priscilla didn't.

But who could guess which, in real life, if any of the workers or their ex-relatives was responsible for the vandalism and very probably Sandra's death?

It was four days before Shelley came over to Jane's house at lunchtime to tell her what Paul had found out. Jane had practically forgotten what Shelley was talking about. She'd been completely immersed in her novel all weekend and Monday, and hadn't even taken the time to shower or comb her hair on Tuesday morning.

"Here's the deal," Shelley said. "There may be more, but I wanted to share what Paul's attorney's assistant has already dragged up. Budley is first. He's had lots of lawsuits and small-claims-court records. But most of them, the assistant says, are just nutcases trying to get out of paying him."

"Oh?" Jane said, once she'd recognized what Shelley was all het up about.

"I don't smell coffee," Shelley said. "You're going to need it to pay attention."

Jane started a big pot of coffee, and Shelley graciously waited until Jane had knocked back half a cup.

"As an example" — Shelley took up her story— "Budley was doing a big job putting in a basement media room and had it almost done. There was a horrific storm that sent water gushing through where the basement windows had been sealed. He had to redo the base woodwork and carpets and didn't meet his deadline. Are you listening, Jane?"

"I am."

"Budley invoked the Acts of God clause and got his money. Apparently he'd had the sealed windows inspected by the city code guy who approved Dudley's work."

"Did the city code guy get in trouble in turn?"

"Nope, the clients tried to go after him but failed to get a judgment. The code guy had made extensive notes of his visit. He'd told the people they had to fill in around the foundation where water collected to get approval. They didn't do it.

"Another lawsuit the assistant cited was when some artsy-fartsy client had six old French doors he'd picked up at a garage sale that he wanted installed so his guests and family could look out over the patio and garden. As soon as it turned cold, the doors shrank and the glass in them shattered. Budley had apparently learned a lesson on keeping paperwork from the media room fiasco and was able to produce copies of letters that he'd by sent registered mail, telling the man the doors weren't the right size and wouldn't survive a cold Chicago winter. The man hadn't agreed to shave

them down to size because he said they'd be out of proportion. Budley kept that letter from the client as well."

"Clearly not his fault."

"Right. I remember the time Paul had two inches of mirror put in around the ceiling of our study to reflect the lights. When it got cold, the molding and walls shrank and the mirrors all cracked."

"You never told me about that. I guess you replaced them? I've always admired the way the light bounces around in the study."