The Class Menagerie jj-4 (13 page)

"What do you mean?"

"The nasty underwear had to be purchased someplace and brought along. So did the alarm clocks and the smelly stuff for the deodorant. All small and easily brought along. But while they took advance planning, they could have been used on anybody. Nothing was specific to any individual."

"Yes?" It was interesting to see how his mind worked, examining the "evidence" from different viewpoints. Interesting, but not fruitful, as far as she could tell.

"The purse switch was purely on-site," he went on. "And again, could have been any two people, as it didn't reveal anything pertinent to either of them. The ransacking of Avalon's room, too, could have been anybody. It accomplished nothing, except to make work for you, and probably frighten the victim a bit."

"Uh-huh."

"But the theft of the antique stands apart. That couldn't have been just anybody."

"But it could. Everyone must have had something valuable along. Jewelry or credit cards or something."

Mel nodded. "True, I suppose. Had she mentioned this pen set or whatever it was? Before it was taken, I mean."

"Not to me. But maybe to somebody else."

"And I suppose it's already been mauled around by practically everybody?"

"Fingerprints, you mean? Yes, we passed it around admiring it after it was found. Sorry."

He waved this away. "Did these women know who else was coming to stay here?"

"I don't think so, unless some of them were in touch with each other. Shelley didn't even know until last week who was coming and she didn't send out a list or anything."

"Do they seem to know each other? Presently?"

"I don't think so. Beth said something about having a friend in common with Kathy who kept her up on Kathy's life a bit. Avalon and Pooky might correspond. They seem to be slightly better acquainted, or maybe they just hit it off better since they got here. Of course, most of them knew about Beth's prestige. No, on the whole, I don't think they're in touch with each other. That first day, as they were arriving, they were all catching up like mad — where did you end up going to college? Are you married? Have you got children? Those kinds of questions. Now, Lila was a different matter—"

"How's that?"

"She must have researched some of them before she came. At least she did Kathy."

"Remind me who Kathy is. The farm wife in the overalls?"

"Sort of. Wait till you see her today. She's abandoned her act."

"Act?"

Jane explained about Kathy's pretense of being poor and idealistic and Jane's own subsequent discovery of the truth of the matter.

"And she said Lila knew and was trying to blackmail her?"

'Trying, but not getting anywhere. Kathy's whole problem is that she's come to care more for her money

than her image. She'd have faced 'unveiling' rather

than give Lila a penny."

"Maybe___" Mel mused. "What about the others?

Did she try it with anyone else?"

"I think she had something on Pooky, but that's just pure guess. I asked Pooky outright and she denied it, but got very upset. Oh, I'd forgotten — there was something said the first night about Pooky having been held back a grade. Apparently that's very embarrassing to her."

"And the rest of them didn't know this?"

"I don't know. But it doesn't seem exactly black-' mail material. Lila also dropped some not very subtle' hints the first evening about Avalon and drugs. I think she was leading up to claiming Avalon had tried drugs in high school. Not exactly a revelation to ruin a life, I'd think. And she made some crack about Beth's life being placed under scrutiny if she was appointed to the Supreme Court. It sounded like a shot in the dark and didn't seem to bother Beth at all. Oh, and she tried to suggest that Mimi's husband was somehow politically questionable."

"How'd Mimi react?"

"Bored to death."

"What about Crispy? Did she go after her?"

"Not that I know of. Oh, yes. Lila made some rather cruel little digs about how enamored of Dead Ted Crispy had once been."

"Dead Ted?" Mel asked.

"Ted lived in this house when they were in high school. He committed suicide in the carriage house. It seems like they all had crushes on him back then. Mel, you haven't said how Lila was killed."

"Knocked out with a paint can, then smothered," he said calmly.

"Fingerprints?"

He shook his head. "The wire handle on the can had been wiped clean. A hell of a weapon, actually. You could hold the thing by the handle and get a good swing going in a dark place before the victim even saw it coming. And rags don't take fingerprints at all well."

"Come on, Mel. Tell me more of what
you
know."

"Very little yet. We better get inside. You're shivering and I've got to take Edgar's official statement."

"Mel, what about the practical jokes? What have they got to do with the murder? Are they just meant as a distraction? Or spite? Or what?"

"Hell if I know," he said. "Yet."

15

Jane let Mel go ahead and stood in the driveway a moment, still puzzling over what they'd talked about. It took a crazy to kill somebody. That was obvious. It also took something of a crazy to keep pulling these stupid jokes. It had to be the same person, unless one assumed that two of them were completely around the bend. That seemed impossible odds. Two out of seven. Two out of six, really. Lila couldn't have been either the murderer or the Joker.

Lila!

Jane remembered the notebook again. She'd meant to tell Mel a moment ago, but hadn't wanted to get sidetracked.

She hurried inside, but he was in the library with Edgar. Astonishingly, Mimi and Pooky were hunched in front of the television set, each with a Nintendo controller in her hand. They were competing loudly with each other in a shoot-'em-up game. "I got you! I got you!" Pooky crowed.

"I've got two lives left and three bottles of magic potion. I'll get you yet!" Mimi said, sitting farther forward and executing a complex maneuver that involved both hands and a lot of body English.

"Could you pause the game?" Jane asked. When they had, she said, "I'm going back to work. When Detective VanDyne's through, would you keep him here and let me know?" She started to say that there was something important she'd forgotten to tell him, then thought better of it. "I need to talk to him about some plans we made for next week."

"Next week? You're dating him?" Pooky asked. "Wow! He's really good-looking! Oh, so that's why you've been talking to him so much! It's nothing to do with us; it's that he's your boyfriend."

Jane realized she was blushing and stammering. "I've got to finish up the rooms," she said.

"I'll help," Pooky said.

"No, you're having fun. I'm almost done anyway."

Jane made a break for it before Pooky could argue.

Beth was in her room, sitting in the grandmother chair by the window, reading through a stack of paperwork. There was a hint of the earlier horrible smell, but whether it came from Beth herself or just lingered in the room was impossible to say.

"No rest for the wicked?" Jane asked, gesturing toward the pile of work Beth was sorting through.

"More like no rest for the perpetually understaffed and underfunded."

"Are you all right now?"

Beth smiled and Jane could see for a moment what a very pretty girl she must have been. "I'm fine, thanks. I made a real fool of myself this morning. I'm so embarrassed. I normally don't overreact that way."

"Anybody would have. That was a horrible thing to do to you. Do you have any idea who—?"

"Absolutely none in the world," Beth said.

Jane had suspected that Beth would be too discreet to make guesses or get involved in gossip of any sort, but was disappointed to find that she'd been right.

"Do you know what it was? The smell?" Beth asked. Her voice was actually a bit trembly.

"Some kind of fish bait smell, I think. Harmless."

"Harmless…" Beth mused. "I didn't know…"

"Didn't know what?"

"That anybody disliked me that much." A'definite crack in the last word.

"You shouldn't get your feelings hurt," Jane assured her. "I'm sure it wasn't personal any more than any of the other tricks. Maybe you're the only one who had that roll-on kind of deodorant along that the liquid could be added to. I'm sure that's it."

Beth smiled. "You're a nice person to say that. I hope you're right." Then she sniffed slightly, sat up straighter, and started sorting her papers. Obviously she wasn't accustomed to talking about her feelings to anyone and it made her very uncomfortable.

"Will I disturb you if I tidy up a little?" Jane asked. The room obviously couldn't be tidier, but she was supposed to change the sheets and towels.

"Not in the least. I still can't get over how generous it is of you to help Shelley. She's fortunate to have such a good friend." Unlike Pooky, it didn't occur to Beth to help out.

"I'm fortunate, too. I've had some bad times I wouldn't have gotten through without Shelley."

"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that."

There was invitation in her tone, but Jane didn't accept it. Jane knew how to encourage people to talk and recognized when the ploy was being used on her. "It's such a pity about Lila, isn't it?" She started stripping the bed.

"Nobody should come to a violent end," Beth said tactfully.

"What was she like as a girl? With the rest of you, I think I can guess what you must have been

like, but not with her." Jane was determined to prod information or genuine opinion out of Beth, just for the challenge of the thing. Her brief confession of having her feelings hurt proved it could be done.

"Lila as a girl…." Beth said, "Smart, certainly. A bit snobbish, but she did come from a very old, respected family. I believe she was ambitious, but without any specific focus of ambition, if you know what I mean."

"I think so. But most of us are like that. You're an exception."

"Me?"

"The others say you knew you wanted to be a lawyer even in high school." Jane shook out a fresh sheet and started making the bed.

"1 suppose that's true. It's all so long ago — another life, almost. Another person."

"You feel you've changed so much?" Jane asked, surprised. From what the others had said, Beth seemed to have changed the least.

"Of course! Everybody does. Why, look at yourself. Try to remember how you felt about yourself, your parents, and your friends when you were eighteen. You probably don't feel the same way about any of them anymore."

"That's true. But I'm inclined to think people stay the same more than they change."

"Basic character traits, you mean? Maybe. And some, like Kathy, try desperately to stay the same."

Jane felt dizzy from the circular conversation. Beth wasn't going to let down her guard again. It probably only happened every ten years or so. Maybe shock tactics—

"It must be very difficult for you, staying here where Ted died."

There was a shocked, offended silence. Then surprisingly, Beth answered. "Not as much as I thought it would be. Teenage suicide can be devastating to everybody involved. It was horrible at the time, but as I got older, I realized it really had nothing to do with me. Suicide is always the sole responsibility of the person who commits it. It's characteristic of human nature that we wish to blame others for our problems, but in the end, our problems, or at least the way we deal with them, are our own. Even when they're very severe. Why in this case I'm studying — well, never mind. I didn't mean to get philosophical," she added with a laugh. "I'd better get out of your way."

And before Jane could say anything else, Beth had picked up her papers and left the room.
Don't be disappointed,
Jane told herself.
She didn't get where she is by gossiping with the hired help.

"A notebook? Belonging to the victim?" Mel asked. "Why in the world didn't you tell me about this sooner!" He was really angry.

"I kept meaning to and forgetting."

"You say she left it in your car?"

"Yes, Crispy had one just like it, and wanted to see what was in Lila's book, so she traded them somehow and got Lila's out of my car later."

"What was in it?"

"I have no idea. You'll have to ask Crispy."

Crispy was duly summoned. She looked smashing in a pink workout suit and understated pearl earrings.
That's a sweat suit that'll never get sweated on,
Jane thought.

"The notebook? Dull as dishwater," she said, not the least abashed at not having turned it over to the police. "Some numbers in a sort of chart that looked

like sheM been pricing car insurance. A recipe for hummus. Some grocery coupons. The address for a jeweler in New York. Let's see — some airline times. Her flight, I believe. Nothing useful."

"Maybe you'd like to let me judge that for myself," Mel said stiffly.

"I'd be delighted to, but I can't. It disappeared."

"What!"'

"I put it in with the lingerie I brought back. I left the bag on my bed to put things away later. And when I came back to my room, it was gone. Not the clothing. Just the notebook."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Jane asked, angry now too.

"I just forgot. Believe me, the notes in it were useless. Just the sort of stuff you'd jot down on the back of grocery lists and stick in your purse."

"If it turns up, you
will
turn it over to us," Mel said.

Crispy bounced to her feet. "Naturally."

Mel was drumming his fingers on the library table. "Jane, if you'd even told me this yesterday, I could have searched the house for it and probably found it. Nobody had gotten away. But today, they're scattered to the four winds."

That was true. It was a gorgeous day and even the most sedentary had gone for walks. Avalon and Pooky had breakfast dates with friends in town. The notebook could be miles away by now.

But at the same time, investigating this murder was Mel's job. His only job, while Jane's jobs had included taking care of her three children, cleaning up and helping with cooking at the bed and breakfast, trying to sneak time to write a few pages of her novel, and attending Back-to-School night. Plus, although it was