The Class Menagerie jj-4 (7 page)

Shelley went up to see and came down perplexed. "She's not there. It doesn't look like her bed's been slept in."

"Or maybe she made it herself," Jane said, hoping some of the others would follow this example and save her some maid duties. -_:

"Maybe she went out running," Crispy said. "Didn't she mention — jogging?" She shuddered as she said the word.

"Well, if she did, she better be back by the time we start the meeting," Shelley said firmly. Crispy and Avalon looked at her with surprise. Just as Jane had never seen Shelley out of control, these women must not have seen her
in
control.

But Lila hadn't turned up by nine-thirty when the meeting was supposed to start. Shelley went back upstairs when it was proposed that Lila might have actually left and gone home. But her belongings were still there. They all seemed to feel they ought to be concerned about Lila, but were relieved to have her out of their hair.

Shelley marched them all to the library while Jane collected her cleaning supplies and went upstairs. The first room she tackled was Avalon's, which was surprisingly neat considering Avalon's untidy appearance. When she got to the bathroom, she realized she'd forgotten to bring along toilet paper and the roll in Avalon's bathroom needed replacing.

Jane went back downstairs to the supply closet, discovered there was only one roll left there and headed out to the carriage house where the huge carton was stored. She pulled open the small door set into the big garage door and stepped into the gloom. Edgar had turned on a light when they were here before. Where was the switch? She fumbled along the adjacent wall for a moment before she found it.

When the light came on, she noticed two things right away that shouldn't have been there. Against the far wall there was a six-pack of beer with two cans opened and cigarettes scattered next to it. But her attention to this was short-lived when she noticed the pile of curtains and draperies that were being turned into cleaning rags.

There was a woman's hand protruding from them.

Her heart pounding in her throat, Jane stood rooted for a second, unable to breathe or even think. Then, leaden-footed, she went forward and gingerly removed some of the rags.

It was, as she expected, Lila. And she was very dead.

Jane hadn't anticipated seeing Mel VanDyne until the following Tuesday, but his was the face she saw when she removed the cold compress from her eyes. She was sitting in Edgar's kitchen, where she had very nearly fainted after telling him what was in the carriage house. Edgar had pushed her into a chair, shoved her head between her knees, and gone to look for himself, reappearing seconds later to dial the police. Then, while they waited the few minutes it took the law to arrive, he'd made her an ice pack and insisted that she slouch back in the chair and apply it to her eyes. "My mother believed in this as a cure for any shock," he said, his own voice trembling a little. "Hold still!"

In quick succession, three sirens wailed to a stop in the drive, half a dozen car doors slammed. Edgar went out the kitchen door to show the police to the scene. Shelley's control over her meeting had apparently evaporated, because within moments, the kitchen was full of women asking what was happening. Jane stayed hidden behind her cold compress, thinking like mad.

Finally Shelley said to her, "Jane, what's this about?"

"Lila's out there. Dead," Jane mumbled.

A shocked silence.

The kitchen door opened and Mel said, "Jane… Mrs. Jeffry?"

Uh-oh,
Jane thought.
He's calling me Mrs. Jeffry. Not a good sign.
She removed the compress. "Yes?"

"I understand you found the body?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Is there someplace we can speak privately?"

"Use the library," Shelley said.

"Ah, Mrs. Nowack, you're here too," Mel said blandly.

"As a matter of fact, I am, Detective VanDyne."

They were always nasty-polite to each other Jane had first met Mel when Shelley's cleaning lady had met a bad end in Shelley's guest room. They had "taken exception" to each other, to put it mildly, then and didn't seem to be able to get over it. Jane led the way to the library amid a hum of speculation from the Ewe Lambs, and closed the door.

Mel closed the door and then grabbed Jane by the shoulders. He looked as if he was debating between shaking her hard and hugging her. Finally he just released her, sighed, and sat down in one of the leather sofas. "So, Jane, what the hell are you doing finding bodies?" he said with forced calm.

"It's not as if I meant to, Mel. I'd have been thrilled if somebody else had found her."

"And so would I! I hate that you were here at all where somebody's been killed. Try to be very precise and tell me what's going on here," he said, taking out a notebook and clicking a nice gold pen. Jane found herself thinking it looked like the kind of pen people only had as gifts and wondered who gave it to him.

"Okay, Shelley went to a high school here that had a big fire and since the high school reunion is taking place this weekend, she invited some of the women in a do-gooder club they had in school to come early and plan fund-raising."

He wrote for a moment and glanced up at her, smiling. "That
was
concise! Now, what have you got to do with it?"

Jane explained how she'd been roped into helping Edgar and being Shelley's "date." This wasn't quite as concise, but she managed it fairly well.

"Who's the one in the carriage house? What do you know about her?" Mel asked.

"She's just one of them. A nasty one, actually. She was being very unpleasant yesterday."

"Is that when they all came?"

"Yes, at various times during the day."

"When did you last see her? The victim?"

"You say 'victim' as in murder? She didn't die of natural causes, then?"

He didn't even respond to this except to cock his eyebrow.

"I see," Jane said. "Let me think… I don't know exactly when I last saw her. She was at dinner. She was making nasty cracks to people off and on all evening. But everybody was milling around. Going upstairs for things, talking in the library and the living room. Coming in and out of the kitchen. I was mostly in the kitchen and only saw the people who came through there."

'Try to pin down the last time you're sure you saw her," Mel insisted, not sympathetic to Jane's excuses.

"Okay. Dinner for sure. That was at seven. I came in the kitchen just after Lila had been trying to goad Mimi Soong about something. That's the last time I actually saw her."

"When was that?"

"I have no idea. I wasn't paying any attention to the time. Oh, wait. Pooky came in a little bit after that and Lila had been harassing her and Pooky said

she wanted to go outside for some air and Edgar said he wasn't going to lock up for an hour yet, so it must have been about nine-thirty because he locked up at ten-thirty, just after I got back."

Mel had been staring at her intently. "Pooky?" he said, pronouncing it very carefully.. "That's somebody's name?"

"A nickname, I think. A couple of them go by nicknames. Lila was actually Delilah, I think."

"All right, give me a rundown on who's attending this thing, who was in the house last night."

"Me, for one."

"What about Mrs. Nowack?"

"She had to go home to wait for a phone call from her husband. And of course, Edgar and Gordon were here. It's their house."

"The guests…?" he prodded.

"All right, there was Lila. I can't remember her last name, though. And Beth… uh, Vaughn, I think. She's the one who's a judge. Very square, sensible, low-heeled shoes, graying hair."

VanDyne closed his eyes for a second, then nodded, as if he'd seen her in the kitchen and identified her.

"And Crispy. I'm sorry I'm rattled. I can't remember her real name either. Her maiden name was Crisp. She's the little stylish one with the spike heels, frosted hair, and incredible fingernails. Avalon Smith is the one with the sloppy dark red hair and potato sack clothing. She's from Arkansas."

"Who else?"

"Pooky is that poor woman with the horrible facelift that went wrong and the stiff blond hair that looks like a bad wig. She seems to be stunningly stupid, so keep that in mind when you talk to her."

"I'll do that," he said wryly. "Who's the fat, sloppy one in the carpenter overalls?"

"Kathy Herrmannson. She sees herself as the social conscience of the group. Peace, love, and recycling."

"Is that all?"

"I think s-no, I left out Mimi Soong. She's Chinese and very elegant."

Mel sat back for a moment, digesting this information. Finally he said, "Got any idea who did it?"

"Killed her? No. I think everybody would have liked to. There were jokes about drawing straws."

"Who made the jokes?"

"I won't answer that!" Jane said. "They were just jokes, because she was so unpleasant. I don't even remember who said what. Somebody was also playing practical jokes."

"Oh? What kind? Who'd they play them on?"

"Somebody exchanged the contents of Avalon's and Pooky's purses."

"So?"

"So, nothing. It was' dumb and pointless. Then alarm clocks went off all night. Cheap wind-up ones somebody had hidden in a couple of rooms. And this morning, some of the doorknobs had been taken off the outsides of bedroom doors so people couldn't get out until Edgar rescued them. None of the tricks were particularly clever or even funny, just stupid nuisances."

Mel sat back and tented his fingers. "Odd," he murmured.

"Mel — was it my imagination, or were there beer cans and cigarettes on the floor out there in the carriage house?"

"There were."

"They weren't supposed to be there."

"No, probably not."

"Then you don't suspect any of the Ewe Lambs."

"The
what?"

"Ewe Lambs. That's what the club was called."

"Grown women—"

"They weren't grown women when they joined, Mel.- It's an old club, named before political correctness was the in thing. Back to the beer and cigarettes—"

"The cans are being fingerprinted."

"So you do think it was an outsider."

"Probably so. This place had quite a reputation in the "drug trade until recently."

There was a knock on the door and before Mel could speak, Edgar rushed in. "Detective VanDyne? You're in charge here?" He introduced himself quickly, then said, "Look here, you've got to get to the bottom of this and get the killer out of my house!"

"Edgar!" Jane exclaimed. "It wasn't one of the Ewe Lambs, it was somebody from outside."

Edgar glared at her and VanDyne held his hands up for silence. "Hold it! We don't have any idea yet how it happened and we
will
thoroughly investigate all possibilities."

"Mel! You just said—" Jane began.

But he cut her off. "My personal opinion and my professional duties are not the same thing, Jane. Now, if you'll get your things, I'll have an officer drive you home."

"Home? Why?"

He looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Because there's been a murder here, that's why."

"So you're making everybody leave?" Jane asked, wanting to make quite certain she understood before she took a policy position.

"No, not everybody. And I'm not 'making' you

leave. Just offering you the opportunity — which any

sensible person would take, I might add."

"Sensible," Jane said very softly, her eyes narrowing. "I may not be sensible, Detective VanDyne, but I am loyal to my friends and keep up my part of bargains. I told Edgar I'd skivvy and skivvy I will!"

Edgar's expression softened as Mel's took on a cold, professional look. "Fine. Do as you like. But as your friend, your
good
friend, I'd advise you to go home."

That made her feel a tad guilty. "Sorry, Mel. I do have to stay with Shelley and Edgar."

Mel wasn't placated. "Mr. North, may I use this room to question people? Starting with you?"

As Jane left, Mel opened the door for her and

touched her shoulder lightly as she passed through. It

was a tiny thing, but amazingly intimate, considering^

the situation.

She found most of the rest of the women, plus Gordon, who was fixing a lamp cord in the comer, in the living room. Kathy jumped up. "Jane, for God's sakes, you shouldn't let the pigs question you without your attorney!"

"Pigs?" Jane said. "That 'pig' is a fine, honorable man!" Thank God he didn't hear her coming to his defense. "Anyway, he wasn't questioning me. Not exactly. Not like a suspect or anything. Nobody's a suspect. It's just his job to find out what happened to Lila and I assume everybody's interested in knowing that."

"Jane's quite right," Beth said calmly without looking up from the file folder in her lap. "They're following a well-established and absolutely necessary routine. I saw them taking beer cans out in plastic bags for fingerprinting and DNA analysis of any

residual saliva. They're doing a cautious, thorough investigation and none of us need worry. We were all locked in here overnight." She pulled out a paper, frowned, and put it back into the folder.

"Yeah, well you'd have to say that, Ms. Law and Order," Kathy said.

"Kathy, I'm a judge," Beth said with a remarkably tolerant smile. "I'm supposed to be in favor of law and order. Are you admitting you'd prefer anarchy, with somebody railroaded into jail? Or just taken out and hanged?"

"Of course not!"

"Then pay attention. I've been on the bench for several murder cases and believe me, the police must collect every scrap of evidence and information that they can before they can even begin to speculate on the reasons and method. They're doing their job and I suggest we all cooperate with them. It's the only sensible thing. There's obviously a dangerous criminal out there who must be apprehended."

"Out there — or in here," Crispy said from the corner of the room.

An electrified silence fell. Crispy looked around at them all, then pushed the television control button. A shampoo commercial blared at them.

Mimi was standing next to Jane. 'That's the one thing I don't think anybody really needed to say," she whispered.