War and Peas (18 page)

“She finally saw it my way," Shelley said when she was back in the car.

After Jane arrived at home, she discovered that she did indeed have an unopened bag of hamburger buns, so she put the new ones in the freezer, knowing full well they'd be freezer-burned by the next time she noticed them. She glanced at her watch. It would be a good hour before she had to start dinner. Notes on the refrigerator door indicated that Mike and Katie would both be back by five-thirty, and the sound of her big yellow dog, Willard, tearing up and down the stairs chasing a ball told her that Todd was home.

“Todd, stop letting that dog tear up the carpet!" she bellowed. "I'm going next door."

“Uh-oh, Willard-billiard, you're in
big
trouble!" Todd's voice drifted down.

Shelley was on the phone and gestured silently at Jane to come in. Jane sat at Shelley's kitchen table and waited patiently while an elaborate car-pool schedule was negotiated. When Shelley got off the phone, she said, "Someday we'll look back on car pools and laugh. Not any day soon, but someday I'll bash you with my walker and cackle, 'Jane, weren't those car pools fun?' "

“And I'll poke you in the ribs with my cane and say, 'If only we could go do some more work for the PTA.' And then the nice young nurses will come give us our meds."

“Yes, and say what dear old things we are.”

“I'm feeling sort of old-dearish right now," Jane said. "Overwhelmed and confused."

“Let's sit on the patio, where I can pretend not to hear the phone," Shelley suggested. "Want something to drink?"

“Anything but coffee. I'm caffeined out." Jane wandered outdoors and sat down under the shade of Shelley's picnic-table umbrella. She slipped off her shoes and put her feet up on an empty chair.

When Shelley emerged, she had two clear, iced drinks with her. Jane took a gulp of hers and exclaimed, "What in the world is this!"

“Black-cherry-flavored spring water," Shelley said, taking a cautious sip. "Hmm. I think it's better in theory than for real. It came in such pretty cans, too. Pity."

“Shelley, tell me what we know about this business at the museum. What we really know, not what might be."

“Not much," Shelley admitted. "Two people are dead, the director and the acting director. Somebody is or was looking for something in Regina's office and in the basement. Somebody locked Babs in a closet. That's about it. Oh, and somebody threatened Regina. No, come to think of it, we don't know that for sure. It could have been a joke."

“I don't think so. We'll have to ask Mel about fingerprints on the note. If nobody but Regina and Lisa left prints on it, I think we can assume it was a threat. Nobody goes to the trouble of wearing gloves to write a note that's a joke."

“Okay," Jane said, "let's assume for a minute that the same person is responsible for all of this. I'm not sure that's a legitimate assumption, but it does mean one thing. That the unknown person is intimately involved with the museum."

“Because—?"

“Because he — or she — knew there would be an opportunity to shoot Regina for real in the midst of the fake shooting. Because he knows or thinks there's something valuable or threatening in Regina's office and in the basement. Unless he was familiar with the museum, he wouldn't even know there was a basement, much less be able to lure Derek down there."

“Maybe Derek wasn't lured," Shelley said, taking another sip of her drink. "Maybe he went down for some reason of his own and caught someone who shouldn't have been there."

“Possibly. But why would he have gone down there? The last time anybody saw him, he was stomping off with a box full of résumés to look for another job. Why would he detour to the basement?"

“The only reason I can think of is that he was meeting someone — maybe someone who said they needed to speak to him privately. Anything you say in the staff area seems to echo all over the place.”

Jane nodded. "On the surface, this looks like it had to do with the job of director. Regina was the director and was killed; Derek was appointed acting director and he was killed. But that's the end of that chain of reasoning. Nobody else wanted the job."

“Maybe Lisa did, despite saying otherwise," Shelley said without much conviction.

“But she had a good job that she'd done very well. She probably could have gotten a better-paying, more prestigious job in another museum if money and prestige were what she wanted," Jane said.

“That leaves all the people in the file the board is considering," Shelley said. "And presumably none of them knew enough about the museum and the people there to have pulled this off.”

They sat in discouraged silence for a few minutes before Shelley said, "As much as it annoys you, let me go back to my favorite suspect for a minute. Suppose Whitney Abbot had made some horrible mistake with the plans, something even more horrible than leaving out bathrooms. And Regina found out—”

Jane rolled her eyes and said, "Go on."

“Well, if he had a reason like that to kill Regina to save his reputation, then Derek could also know about it. Didn't you say that he mentioned something to Jumper about looking through Regina's files?"

“The job-applicant files, yes. But, Shelley, do you really believe Regina would have had a file labeled 'Terrible Architectural Errors?' "

“Okay, okay. It was just a thought."

“Shelley, I don't think it has anything to do with the job."

“Why not?"

“Instinct? A wild guess? All these people are highly qualified, respected professionals who could have gone anywhere. Probably somewhere better in terms of salary and benefits ifthey'd really wanted to. Even Derek, who's a sexist jerk, is supposed to be well educated and qualified. He could have gotten a job at some place where his contempt of women might not have bothered anyone."

“Like where?" Shelley exclaimed.

Jane grinned. "The Citadel? They must have a military museum. Okay, I'm kidding. My point is, I can't imagine anyone killing someone over the directorship of the Snellen Museum."

“Then why were they killed?" Shelley asked.

“Some help you are!" Jane said. "There are bound to be better reasons. More 'passionate' reasons."

“Jane, I think we're in over our heads. Maybe this is one of those times we should just shut up and let the police figure it out."

“Are you suggesting that a woman who can change a spark plug and hang a bird feeder can't figure out a double murder?" Jane asked.

“I don't think those are really related skills," Shelley replied.

Jane went
home and started dinner.
She
fried some bacon, set it aside to drain, and poured a can of pearl onions into a sieve, then into the bottom of a baking dish. A large can of baked beans went on top of the onions, then a drizzle of molasses, and finally the crumbled bacon. She put the baking dish into the oven and cleaned up the top of the molasses jar before putting the lid back on. She'd learned to do that after permanently gluing the tops on three or four bottles. Her baked beans were a nuisance to make, but the kids loved them and she had something of a local reputation on the neighborhood picnic circuit for them.

She dialed Mel's office number, but he wasn't in. She didn't leave a message. He'd call when he got a chance anyway, and it wasn't as if she had anything worthwhile to tell him, nor did she want to openly pump him for information. He'd tell her what he could, when he could. She'd been involved with him in murder investi- gations before. In fact, that was how she'd met him. Shelley had found a dead cleaning lady in her guest bedroom and Mel had been the detective in charge of the investigation. Back then, he'd thought their interest was merely interference. But Shelley and Jane had solved the case — Mel called it "stumbling onto the solution" — and his attitude had changed slightly.

Though he'd never admit it, they'd helped him a couple of times, and he'd learned that he could share some information with them and trust that they wouldn't go blabbing it around or put themselves in danger — at least, not much danger — by snooping. Jane and Shelley didn't fool themselves into thinking they were better at solving crimes than the police were. They just had a different fix.

The police had all the technical expertise: the fingerprint people, the specialists in blood, fiber, and DNA — the people who could make a case hold up in court. And they had the manpower to check alibis, look into suspects' legal histories, and call on other, far-flung law-enforcement agencies. But they were, of necessity, slow and meticulous, not given to the bizarre flights of imagination that had sometimes led Jane and Shelley in the right direction. While Mel concentrated on evidence, they tended to chew over relationships.

Occasionally they "chewed" them into unrecognizable shreds, Jane thought. This was such a case. Too many relationships, too many people whose real feelings about others were a mystery. And at the heart of this case, Regina Palmer.

Jane still had no clear idea of what the woman had been like, and that kept nagging at her. It wasn't just that she'd seen Regina only briefly in life. Jane had the feeling that if she'd met Regina a couple dozen times, she probably wouldn't know much more about what had made her tick. Regina had apparently been a very self-controlled, logical person. A secretive person, but not necessarily in a pejorative sense, as in keeping guilty secrets. Just a person who "kept herself to herself," as Jane's grandmother would have put it.

Nearly everyone spoke of Regina with respect and admiration. There was no question that she had been extremely efficient at her job. But Jane hadn't heard much warmth of feeling expressed. Lisa, as her best friend, spoke of her fondly, and Derek had had some heated negative feelings about her. Yet, taken together, their views didn't seem to make her quite real. Whitney Abbot, a cold fish himself and offended by Shelley's prying, wasn't about to paint a vivid word picture of his fiancée.

Sharlene worshipped Regina, but through an idealistic haze of gratitude. And in spite of her adoration of her boss and the fact that she had kept Regina's appointment diary, Sharlene hadn't seemed to really know her, either. There had been, apparently, an unspoken barrier between them that both women had respected. Sharlene wouldn't have dreamed of prying into Regina's personal life. Even if she'd been curious, doing so would have offended her sense of professional propriety.

As for the others involved with the museum, Caspar made no bones about disliking Regina, but he seemed to dislike anyone who stood in his way. It was an oddly impersonal antipathy based entirely on his thwarted financial expectations. Or was it? Had there perhaps been a genuine spark of antagonism, of clashing personalities, between them? Caspar seemed to rub everyone the wrong way, but nobody had said anything about Regina's feelings toward him. She'd helped Jumper defeat Caspar in the incompetency hearing, but no one had mentioned that she'd ever spoken against him.

Nobody had said, "Boy, was Regina mad!" or, "Regina had really strong feelings about such and such.”

Jane couldn't recall that either Jumper or Babs had expressed anything other than a rather impersonal respect for Regina, either. Did any of them ever socialize? Babs, Miss Daisy, and Regina had attended Sharlene's junior-college graduation, but that was a business-type social event. Sharlene was a good, valued employee. But had Regina been the sort of person who would help someone move? Or invite him or her to dinner? Or offer to help pick up a car from the repair shop? If she had been, nobody had indicated that kind of association with her.

Who was Regina Palmer?
Jane found herself wondering. What kind of movies had she liked? If she'd rented a video, would it have been the history of the Silk Road or Cheech and Chong or
Wuthering Heights?
If she'd had a pet, would it have been a tank full of exotic, expensive fish, a cage swarming with twittery little birds, or a slightly lame puppy from the pound? Had she liked junk food? Or chocolate? Or had she been a health nut? Had she kept her checkbook balanced? Good chance she had, but maybe she'd been one of those people who was responsible in every area of her life but one. Had she preferred Elvis to Beethoven? It wasn't that Jane believed that knowing the answers to these questions would solve the mystery of Regina's death. But Regina's character, it seemed, was crucial to the reason for her death, and the questions proved that Jane had no due to what the woman was about.

She shook her head in frustration as she checked on the progress of the beans. Not hot enough to start the burgers, and besides, Mike and Katie weren't home yet. She lowered the temperature.

Who the hell was Regina? Jane wondered again, frustrated and almost angry at the woman's elusive personality. Was it simply that she'd had no personality? Had she been an automaton? Or a deliberately secretive person? Had she been hiding something so clandestine that she'd tamped down her entire character? A Dreadful Past of some kind? A police record? Surely Mel would have said something if that were the case. Perhaps Regina had been one of those people who pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and didn't want anyone to know about their humble origins.

Or maybe my imagination's run amok,
Jane thought wryly.

Since Mike and Katie still hadn't turned up, she began fixing some dip to go with the chips for dinner. Another of her best things — dip. Fortunately, she had a cucumber in the fridge that hadn't started on the road to slime, and there was a fresh block of cream cheese. She seeded the cucumber, cut it and the cream cheese into cubes, tossed them into the food processor with some lemon juice and garlic salt, and let the machine turn them into Food for the Gods.

Mel called after dinner. "I thought you'd want to know that Caspar Snellen has been taken in for questioning," he said, sounding irritated.

“Arrested?"