War and Peas

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Authors: Jill Churchill

Tags: #det_irony

BOOK: War and Peas
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Regina Palmer, director of the Snellen Museum (dedicated to the study of rural history and founded by pea king Auguste Snellen) near Chicago, has been shot with an antique derringer during the Civil War reenactment that is a highlight of the small town's annual pea festival. Jane Jeffry, who was one of the reenactors and who has her hands full as a single mother of three teenagers, utilizes her volunteer hours at the Snellen Museum to relentlessly pry beneath the surface of small-town respectability in hopes of finding Regina's killer. Was the murderer a rejected suitor? Was the insufferably arrogant Snellen family enraged that the museum took most of their inheritance? Was the killer (who strikes again in a particularly grisly fashion) seeking an heirloom pea? A slew of suspects?smarmy, lecherous, devious and greedy, but never dull?are queried by Jane and her equally nosy friend Shelley, with relevant information passed on to Mel.
Jill Churchill
War and Peas

 

One
1863—Sort of
Jane Jeffry shifted the
heavy
gunnysack to her other shoulder and almost stumbled. The field was rutted and the stubble of last year's wheat crop dragged at the hem of her calico dress and poked at her legs through her prickly black wool stockings. Her feet hurt in her tightly laced shoes, but they were the only things keeping her ankles from collapsing. It was so hot. She and her friend Shelley could have walked to town along the dusty track at the edge of the field: it would have been shadier and easier walking, but there were dangers in the woods. Desperate men with hair-trigger tempers, empty bellies, and eyes and hands starved for the sight and feel of women. No, it wasn't safe to walk near the woods where soldiers — or worse, deserters-might be hiding. If only she'd worn a bonnet with a wider brim to keep the sun off her face.
There were other women making the long trek to town for supplies as well. Jane looked over her shoulder and could tell that the threesome a few yards behind was suffering, too. Their postures were wary but exhausted, and one rather plump young woman had a face as red as a beet.
Jane glanced past Shelley at the inviting shade and wished they'd thought to bring water along. "I'm thirsty," Jane complained.
“It's not much farther," Shelley said. She, too, was suffering from the heat. The ties of her bonnet were sweat-soaked and she was squinting against the bright August day. "It's too bad ladies can't go into the saloon in town. But there's that pump in front of the saddler's. We can get a drink there.”
They stumbled on for a few more feet and Shelley suddenly stopped, putting her hand out to signal Jane to listen. There was the faint sound of a bugle.
“What does that mean?" Jane asked.
“I don't know," Shelley said, "except that we'd better hurry.”
Glancing nervously at the woods on either side of the field, they hitched up their long skirts and layers of petticoats and tried to make better speed. But it was useless. Before they'd gone a few yards, they heard men shouting.
“Over there," Jane gasped, pointing to their right.
“No, the other way," Shelley countered, gesturing toward the grove of trees to their left.
Suddenly the field was overrun by soldiers: Confederate to one side of them, tearing acrossthe field; Union to the other, firing from the woods. The bloodcurdling sound of rebel yells laced through the sharp cracks of gunfire and the screams of the women trying to flee for safety. But there was no escape. They were surrounded, trapped between two clashing armies. A Confederate soldier with a sword dashed past them and part of Jane's brain registered how tattered and sad, yet fanatic, he looked with his patched uniform, untrimmed beard, and flashing eyes. Jane felt her throat closing from the hot, acrid scent of gunpowder. She dropped her heavy pack — it was the tomatoes she'd grown to trade for flour for the winter.
“Here! This way," Shelley shouted above the noise. Dying men were screaming with pain. A boy no more than thirteen had carried the regimental flag onto the field and was now sprawled across it facedown. They stepped over him and ran toward the town. One of the women who'd been walking behind them had somehow gotten ahead of them and had fallen, too. Her straw hat with the sun-faded cloth cabbage roses was twisted around, concealing her face.
Shelley fell in a rut and almost went down on her knees, but Jane grabbed her by the arm and dragged her forward. They had to keep their eyes on the ground to stop from falling again.
Jane looked up just in time to prevent them from running right into a crowd of people wearing shorts and tank tops, and sitting on aluminum lawn chairs.
They were applauding.
Shelley skidded to a stop, looked down at her arms, which were scratched and dirty. "It's going to take a week at Elizabeth Arden to get over this," she said.

 

According to the brochure that was being handed out after the reenactment, Auguste Caspar Snellen had come from Alsace-Lorraine to the Chicago area as an ambitious boy of twenty in 1875. Just north of the city, he'd claimed a large parcel of land that turned out to be one of those microclimates that were sensational for growing peas. He'd tried potatoes first, but they rotted. Rutabagas grew well, but nobody wanted them. Corn withered on the stalk. But when he tried his hands at peas, they flourished as if by magic. Being of an amateur scientific bent, Auguste started importing other varieties of peas. They turned to gold. Rather than selling the peas as food, he sold them as seed all over the country. He built a little laboratory and greenhouse and developed new strains. By the time he was fifty, Auguste Snellen was the "Pea King" and a very wealthy man.
In 1907, he used some of his wealth to endow a museum, which was named for him. He'd originally wanted the museum to be filled solely with exhibits having to do with the history and significance of peas, which he found endlessly fascinating, but he was finally persuaded that other agricultural (and eventually domestic) pursuits were also fit subjects for museum exhibits.
Auguste Snellen was responsible for the county's Pea Festival, which had taken place every August (no coincidence, that) since 1927—except in 1945, when everybody was too busy celebrating the end of the war; and in 1964, when a tornado ripped through the fairgrounds the afternoon before the opening of the festival and scattered jellies, afghans, flower exhibits, farm implements, and a few startled piglets far and wide.
The Snellen Museum always had a "presence" at the Pea Festival, but for years it was usually a single booth with a few dusty artifacts and boring hand-labeled signs inviting people to visit the museum to see more of the same. But ten years earlier, there had been a change. The booth was enlarged, and the exhibits grew more interesting and more professionally presented. This was because of Regina Price Palmer, the then very young woman who had been appointed director of the Snellen Museum, and Lisa Quigley, the publicity director Regina had urged the board to hire.
The women were a perfect pair, united in their vision of the Snellen's future. And this year the Snellen Museum, under their guidance, had promoted itself in a big way at the Pea Festival. They'd rented a huge tent, put together a truly impressive exhibit, including a real sod house, and done an enormous amount of advance advertising for the Civil War reenactments they were sponsoring ("BE A PART OF YOUR OWN HISTORY-EVERY DAY AT 10 A.M. AND 2 P.M.").
Jane fanned herself with the brochure and looked longingly at an empty lawn chair in a shady spot under a maple tree near the edge of the field. Surely its owner wouldn't mind letting a hot, sweaty, itchy reenactor sit down for a minute or two. If she snagged the empty chair, however, she wouldn't be able to go find a cold drink, but if she went for a drink first, the lawn chair might become occupied. Funny how her brain didn't quite work in the heat. How on earth had women survived summer in this kind of garb?
“Jane, that was great," Mel VanDyne said from behind her.
“Oh, Mel! Thank God! I can sit down. Would you please, please get me something cold to drink? And maybe a bucket of ice water to slosh over me while you're at it?”
She flung herself into the chair and watched as he walked away. Mel was her "significant other" (a term she'd reluctantly adopted because her teenage daughter, Katie, thought it was inappropriate for a mother to have a "boyfriend"). He was also a detective, but at the moment, he was merely the object of all her gratitude. While she waited, trying not to pant, she glanced around for Shelley, who had disappeared and was probably hiding from her. And well she should. Shelley had volunteered the two of them, not only for the reenactment, but for a couple weeks' worth of time at the museum.
Mel returned with a huge plastic cup full of lemonade and another of ice water. Jane knocked back a few big swallows of the lemonade in a most unladylike way, then fished an ice cube out of the water to rub on her neck.
“I don't think you'd have been suited to the pioneer life," Mel said mildly, watching her make a dripping mess of herself.
“It was nice of you to come out and watch. What are those people doing, staying out in the field?" she added. A group of soldiers and the women who had been behind her and Shelley during the early part of the reenactment were huddled in a knot. Some were kneeling.
Mel looked in that direction for a minute; then Jane noticed him stand a little straighter.
“I think there's something wrong," he said quietly.
Jane stood up and could see that there was someone or something lying on the ground. "Uh-oh. Do you think someone really did have a heat stroke?”
As she spoke, one of the women in the group suddenly broke away and started running toward them. She was tearing along at full tilt and as she got near where Jane and Mel were standing, she tripped over her skirts. Mel grabbed her to break her fall.
“I have to call an ambulance!" she cried.
“Sit down here before you collapse," Mel said, leading her to the chair Jane had abandoned. "I'll call for you." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a mobile phone Jane hadn't known he was carrying.
“What happened?" Jane asked.
The woman, clad in the same kind of heavy, hot garments Jane was wearing, was red-faced and gulping for breath. "It's Ms. Palmer. I think she's dead!"
“Oh, no!" Jane exclaimed. "Surely she just fainted from the heat!"
“No!" The younger woman was sobbing now. "No, she's been shot!”

 

TWO
Mel
gestured at
Jane to keep
the young woman y where she was. Jane nodded and Mel turned away so he could speak without being heard. Jane handed over the remains of her glass of lemonade to the woman. "Take a long drink. You look ready to fall down yourself. That's Detective VanDyne calling. He'll take care of everything. Just relax for a minute so you can calm down and cool off.”
The young woman, still sobbing, tried to drink, hiccuped and choked a bit, then tried again. Her brilliant orange-red hair had been pulled into a tiny bun at the back of her head, but had come loose and was frizzed around her face, which was now drenched with sweat and as pale as an eggshell. Jane was afraid she might be going into shock. She grabbed a brochure someone had dropped on the ground and started fanning her charge with both hands.
The young woman took several gulps, a couple of deep breaths, and her color improved.
“I'm sorry I acted so hysterical," she finally said. "Thank you for the drink."
“I'm Jane Jeffry. I don't think we met before the reenactment."
“I'm Sharlene Lloyd. I'm — I
was
Ms. Palmer's secretary."
“Now, now. We don't know for sure yet.”
Jane glanced around. Mel had finished his phone call and was striding out across the field. Several people were staring at Sharlene and many more were wandering about. "Sharlene, are your regular clothes in that house trailer where my friend and I got dressed?" Sharlene nodded. "Then let's go cool off and get our own clothes on."
“I can't. I should be helping."
“There's nothing we can do right now, and you'll need your wits about you later. Come on," Jane insisted.
She took Sharlene's arm and led her through the fairgrounds. Along the way, she spotted Shelley, who joined them and whispered, "What happened?”
Jane put a finger to her lips and muttered, "Later.”
The mobile home the museum had rented for the staff's use was parked in a shady spot behind the Pea Pod Ride, an ancient, creaking mechanism with baskets fashioned to look like pea pods. The mobile home was large, luxurious, and must have been specially selected for the power of its air-conditioning system; for as the three women entered, they were engulfed in what seemed to them, after being outside, likefrigid air. Sharlene picked through the grocery bags neatly lined up on the sofa for the one with her name on it in red.

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