The House of Seven Mabels jj-13

by Jill Churchill

  "Be sure to clear them with me," Jane warned as she went back downstairs to load the dishwasher.

  Shelley was dead on time. "So what did Bitsy say to you?"

  "That she thinks 'my detective' thinks she did it."

  "Your detective? How did she know about you and Mel?"

  "He must have mentioned speaking to us. Apparently she got the idea he already knew us. I admitted it. She wanted me to influence him."

  "Fat chance!" Shelley exclaimed.

  "She didn't understand when I explained that he always got the right perp," Jane said, pouring them each a cup of hot decaf coffee and setting a plate of grocery-store cookies on the kitchen table.

  "She thought I meant I thought she'd done it," Jane finished up. "I told her I thought no such thing."

  "Good for you. We don't want to make an enemy of her if she turns out to be guilty."

  "She said there was a horrible blowup when she fired Sandra. Lots of yelling. She felt that all the workers heard and saw the part where Bitsy ran away in her car with Sandra screaming at her in the front yard. I suppose if that's true, she isn't the guilty party."

  Shelley considered this. "Maybe not. Frankly, I can see how they both felt as if they were the injured party. Maybe Bitsy came back for one more round. Maybe she even came back to apologize. Either scenario could have led to a shoving match. It might have been an accident."

  "At the top of the basement stairs with the door open?" Jane asked. "And her purse missing?"

  "How do we know it's missing? Maybe it skit-

  tered away when she fell, or went under the stairs."

  "I'm sure the police thought of that, Shelley."

  "Hmm. I guess that is unlikely. What about Bitsy's ex-husband?"

  "What about him?"

  "He obviously had a high level of contempt for her. When he stopped by the house to harass her, it was obvious he knew a lot about what was going on. Maybe he intended to get her into even more trouble by causing a death."

  "He seemed the nasty sort who might do so, but would he take such a risk? She was already in enough trouble she'd brought on herself," Jane said, adding, "Have another cookie, please. I'll eat all of them if you don't."

  Shelley took an experimental nibble. "They're not bad. So, who else might be responsible? What about Evaline? She didn't like Sandra. She complained about being called 'Ev' as if it were for Everett."

  "That's a trivial thing. Not worth killing for. What about the furnace guy? He was really very angry about having to get the rotten shrimp out of the ductwork. And I don't blame him. Such a horrible smell."

  "I'd guess furnace guys are used to finding nasty things in ducts," Shelley replied. "Dead possums, squirrels, and such. And it's not as if Sandra weren't going to be hit up for a bigger bill, because it was her fault."

  "Sandra wasn't paying the bills. Bitsy was, remember."

  "We just keep coming back to Bitsy, don't we?" Shelley asked.

  "Yes, we do. I wonder what they actually said to each other. What if Sandra was threatening to sue Bitsy if she were fired? That, on top of all the other expenses, might have put Bitsy over the edge. But there's a lot we don't know."

  "Like what?"

  "Who else disliked Sandra?" Jane asked. "She, too, has an ex-husband. At least I think so. Wasn't that supposed to be the reason she took her mother's maiden name back?"

  "I thought that was so utterly silly, I put it out of my mind. I don't know if she did have a husband. But what about the other workers? Was someone else, besides Wesley the furnace guy, furious about her not keeping the site secure? Maybe valuable tools had been stolen?"

  "That, again, would eventually become Bitsy's responsibility," Jane pointed out. "It was really up to her to make sure the doors were locked. She's the owner of the property. It's her insurance company that would have to pay for the tools if they were stolen or damaged."

  "Back to Bitsy again. Do you really think she didn't do it herself?"

  "I've never liked Bitsy much, but I just can't imagine her killing someone. Can you?"

  "I really don't know her well enough to guess,"

  Shelley admitted. "I guess we're going to have to let Mel figure it out. After all, it is his job."

  "But we could help him out a little," Jane said. "The workers think of us as just other people who had to put up with both Bitsy and Sandra. They'd be more gossipy with us than with Mel."

  Thirteen

  ««

  The police department had closed the renova- tion house the next day to complete their physical search of the premises, which left Jane and Shelley free to catch up with real life. They each made heavy hits at the grocery store, paid and mailed bills, and did cleaning, and in the early afternoon, they joined back up to go to the library and check out a lot of expensive decorating books. Jane didn't hear from Mel and didn't try to call him when he was in such a bad mood.

  They spent the afternoon poring over the books, gleaning many good ideas, especially for bathrooms and kitchens. Shelley had her copy of the measurements and took copious notes of what might fit where. Jane's notes were about styles and terms she was learning.

  "This is the fun part," Jane said. "I'm feeling a little better about the possibility of actually doing this."

  "It depends on a lot of things," Shelley reminded her. "What sort of contract Bitsy comes

  up with. And I'm sure she's not even thinking about it now. Not to mention what the police might be discovering. You don't want to just give Mel a call, do you?"

  "I'm keeping a low profile until he's over his snit," Jane said. "It's not in my best interest to irritate him further when he's been so overworked."

  "I'd sure like to know what he's learned about the other people involved," Shelley said. "And I wonder who this new contractor is. Apparently it's a man. I wonder what he's going to think about all the women workers."

  "You don't suppose he'll replace them, do you?"

  "I wouldn't think he could. Most of them are probably under contract to Bitsy."

  "But if the contracts were really with Sandra…?"

  "Oh, dear. I hadn't thought of that. Our contract, though obviously devised by Sandra, was supposed to be with Bitsy. I'd assume the others were as well."

  "Then he's stuck with the workers unless they bail out voluntarily."

  "Some of them may," Shelley said. "But most of them seemed to be quite good at what they were doing."

  "It's a shame we don't know more about most of them," Jane said. "After getting to know a bit about Evaline, it makes me wonder how and why

  the others, like Jack and Henry, happened to get into what are traditionally men's jobs. And seem to be quite good at them. I bet they won't bail out. The work they're doing on the house will be a fine credit for them to get other jobs."

  "You're probably right. Maybe we need to get to know them better when the work can go on," Shelley agreed.

  "But not in front of Mel," Jane warned. "We'll have to see them away from work if the house is still crawling with police."

  "Didn't we get a list of them?"

  "I didn't," Jane said.

  "I'm running home for my file. I'm sure in the wad of paperwork Bitsy gave me there's a list of the workers."

  "Why would she give either of us that information?"

  "For consultation purposes, I suppose. To see what they think about the feasibility of what we're shopping for. Like the wiring for the kitchen, say, or the necessary plumbing and dimensions of the bathrooms. I'm going to run home and see if I'm right about that list. I'm sure I didn't imagine it. I just wasn't especially interested when I spotted it."

  "We haven't met or heard about the plumber yet, have we?"

  Shelley was back in a few minutes. "I was right. Here are the names and telephone numbers. But no plumber mentioned. What would you say to get-

  ting together somewhere tomorrow, if the house is still closed, with Jacqueline and Henrietta?"

  "On what excuse?"

 
; "We can say we need to know what the plans are for the finished woodwork so we don't clash with it on the furniture," Shelley said.

  "And then just chat with them about generalities? I like it."

  Shelley made the call and set up a time and place for lunch the next day.

  "You two are experts at your work and we don't want to do anything that compromises it," Shelley said when they met with the two women.

  It was interesting to see the pair in their street clothes rather than their work clothes. Jack was in a pink sundress with a pretty lacy collar and a touch of very feminine makeup. She was truly a Jacqueline when she wasn't working. Henry was wearing a gender-neutral suit in dark blue with trousers, with a very elegant blue-and-white-striped blouse. There was a pretty enamel pin on her lapel.

  They were both so nicely dressed that they put Jane and Shelley in the shade. Both of them were in nice-enough slacks, blouses, and lightweight sweaters because restaurants tended to turn the air conditioning way up until the late fall. Of one silent accord, they called their two guests by their full real names.

  Shelley pulled out some sample paint chips,

  and while the waitress cooled her heels waiting for them to get to the menus, Shelley asked Jacqueline's and Henrietta's advice on colors for the main area of the room they were currently working on. All very professional and proper for strangers who were expected to work together.

  Jane was particularly taken with Jacqueline's alternative suggestions for colors.

  "Something a little warmer, I think," Jacqueline said. "The blues might be lighter and more subdued. And if it were up to me, the cream might be just a, bit more golden."

  Shelley pulled out yet more paint chips from her notebook. "Like these?" she asked. "I think you're right."

  Jane nudged Shelley. "The waitress is waiting. We ought to order before she becomes more annoyed. It's crowded, and she wants to get us moving along."

  "I think we've sorted it out satisfactorily," Shelley said graciously, putting little marks on the back of the paint samples and stowing them away. "We're really grateful for your ideas."

  They all studied their menus and ordered salads, except for Henrietta, who ordered a burger, cooked medium rare, with fries.

  Then the real purpose of the meeting arose.

  "How did both of you choose to do such unusual jobs?" Jane asked.

  Jacqueline and Henrietta smiled at each other. Jacqueline said, "You can't imagine how often

  we're asked this. We both grew up with fathers who were carpenters and naturally developed an interest. I decided to go to trade school instead of college, and Henrietta did so as well. We met at the trade school."

  "I was a year ahead of Jacqueline," Henrietta put in, "and already doing several small jobs the trade school set up for me. Furniture, mainly. Little Mission-style tables and chairs. Since we were the only women there except one of the teachers, we naturally got to know each other. I asked Jacqueline to help me with the finishing work. I have a talent for design, but Jackie has the eye for color."

  "We've worked together ever since," Jacqueline said with a smile. "But this is the biggest job we've gotten so far. It's really challenging, and Bitsy's giving us free rein to use our skills."

  "It's just such a shame that poor Bitsy hooked herself up with Sandra," Henrietta said glumly. "She really wasn't qualified for the job. She had an entirely different agenda."

  "What was that?"

  "Oh, I thought you'd have noticed," Henrietta said. "The big-deal feminist thing. We both fell in with that when we got out into the real world together, but recovered from it quite soon. It's pointless. Once you've done a couple of jobs well, you get recommended to other people by the quality of your work, not your gender."

  "Don't you have trouble mostly with male contractors?" Shelley said.

  "We normally work for individual customers. And we still do custom furniture," Jacqueline said. "When the few contractors we've worked with see our portfolios of work we've done, we usually get the job."

  "Except for that one really macho guy who was terrified to bits about lesbians," Henrietta said. "He seemed to think it was a disease of some sort."

  "That's odd," Shelley said. "It seems as if most macho types are more scared of male gays. More of a threat to them, they seem to think."

  "That's usually true in our experience as well," Henrietta said. "But Sandra took her militant feminism far too seriously. I'm sorry she died and all that, but it was divisive. Calling us all by men's names was so stupid and insulting. Nobody's ever done that to us before. I refused to address her as Sandy. I think Bitsy's the only one who does so."

  "You really didn't like working with her?"

  "The name thing was silly," Jacqueline said. "I don't mind being called Jackie. It's a common nickname and easier than Jacqueline to say. But what I really disliked was that she wasn't a knowledgeable contractor. The contracts that Bitsy let her draw up were ridiculous and showed her ignorance of the business."

  "We found that to be true as well," Shelley said. "We still aren't really hired, you know, until the conn-act we were offered is extensively amended."

  "Don't worry about it/' Henrietta said. "Bitsy

  speaks well of your tastes. She'll go along with what you want, I'd guess. She's known you both for a long time, hasn't she?"

  "Yes," Shelley said. "We go back years to PTA work."

  That made everyone laugh.

  When their food arrived, they fell to eating, and conversation was solely about the food. As they were considering dessert, Jane asked, "Did anyone truly hate Sandra?"

  "Hate? I wouldn't go that far," Jacqueline said. "She was seriously annoying and not very good at what she was trying to do. I think the only person who genuinely disliked her was Thomasina."

  "We haven't met Thomasina yet," Jane said. "She's the electrician, isn't she?"

  "And she's very good," Henrietta said. "But she had her toolbox stolen and went haywire because Sandra was responsible for making sure any tools that couldn't be hauled home every night were securely locked up. And there was that time Jackie got a serious shock when she turned the planer on."

  Jacqueline objected. "It was nothing. Just a jolt that knocked me off my feet."

  "It knocked you out, Jackie! Don't be shy about it," Henrietta said. "You were lucky it didn't kill you."

  "I'm fine. And I'm sure it wasn't anything Thomasina did wrong. The planer worked fine the day before and she was off sick the day before

  that. It was just another of those nasty tricks someone was playing. And I wasn't knocked out by the shock. It was because I jumped back, tripped, and hit my head on one of the saw-horses."

  Jane and Shelley looked at each other with alarm.

  "We hadn't heard about this," Jane said, any thoughts she'd had about dessert completely forgotten.

  Fourteen

  Thomasina is the one we need to meet next," Shelley said as they were on their way home.

  "She sounds like a good suspect, doesn't she?"

  "She may not have been the angriest one. We still don't know several of the others," Shelley reminded Jane.

  "Who are we missing?"

  Shelley consulted her sheet of workers. "There's Carl Stringfield, the guy who works with Evaline. The big tall man we watched casually twirl a big piece of Sheetrock, slap it up against the wall and place it perfectly. And, of course, the elusive plumber."

  "I wonder how much of what we already know Mel knows."

  After Shelley had sorted out this obscure sentence structure, she said, "We probably know more about their personalities and backgrounds. At least that's true of Bitsy, Evaline, Jacqueline, and Henrietta. But he's much more likely to be up to speed on the actual evidence of whether or

  not Sandra's death was a murder or a clumsy accident."

  "I'll try to snag Mel tonight for dinner," Jane offered. "After all, he's only working one case now instead of three. He's going to feel strongly motivated to have a bit of a r
eal life off the job."

  "What are you going to make for dinner?" Shelley asked, getting to the heart of the plan. "What's his favorite dinner?"

  "Steaks cooked medium rare on the grill. Twice-baked potatoes. Greasy, overcooked green beans. And he'll even pick at a salad if he's forced to."

  "Then I'd leave out the salad," Shelley said with a grin. "I wonder what his terribly high-maintenance mother who's probably eaten at the most expensive restaurants in the country thinks of his tastes."

  Jane shuddered at the thought of Mel's mother. She'd once spent a Christmas with Mel and ended up at Jane's, who found her formidable and clearly hostile to the idea of her son forming a romantic attachment to a woman she hadn't handpicked for him. Especially a widow with three children.

  Jane had prevailed earlier and driven the two of them to lunch in her disreputable station wagon, so she just had to drop Shelley off and hit the grocery store after leaving a voice mail message on Mel's cell phone that he was invited to his favorite dinner. If that didn't get his full attention, nothing would.

  When she returned, loaded down with groceries, there was a light flashing on the answering machine. "I wouldn't miss it for the world," Mel said. "Six-thirty?"

  "We still don't know what happened to her," he said when they'd finished what he said was a fabulous meal. They'd eaten in the kitchen with Katie and Todd, but had gone outside to sit under the patio table umbrella for a glass of wine for dessert for Jane, a beer for Mel, who'd mellowed considerably since she'd last spoken with him.

  "There's no clear sign of her being pushed down the stairs, but it wouldn't take an enormous force that would leave bruises," he said taking a sip of his beer. "This is good."

  "Are you going to continue investigating?"

  "We have to. The missing purse is one reason. Apparently nobody working at the site ever once saw Sandra without it. A bag with a long strap hung over her opposite shoulder so it couldn't be dropped or stolen."

  "Even I noticed that. The first time we met her, Shelley and I stashed our purses between us. When I asked if Sandra wanted to put hers there as well, she acted like I'd spit in her glass."

  "I sort of wish you had. That would have kept you out of this," Mel said with a laugh.