The House of Seven Mabels jj-13

by Jill Churchill

  "And no sign of it in the house somewhere?"

  "Nope. But the primary reason to treat it as a crime is that she was so heartily disliked by

  everyone on the project. Nobody has anything good to say about her. They're all very frank about it. She seems to have gone out of her way to offend people working on the house. Maybe one of them had a stronger motive than the criticism of her that they've voiced."

  "Do you know yet when she died?"

  "When she hit the basement floor," Mel said.

  "I know that. I mean what time?"

  "The pathologist says some time between three-thirty and five-thirty. Too bad she wasn't wearing a watch that stopped conveniently."

  "That's quite a window of time," Jane said. "I suppose you've asked everyone working there if anyone disappeared for a while."

  "Of course I did," Mel said, surprisingly mildly. "Everybody was doing his or her own job and didn't pay much attention to what the others were doing. Some said they went outside on their breaks for a cigarette, a couple took bathroom breaks. You can't break alibis like that."

  There was a long companionable silence as they watched Max and Meow, Jane's cats, returning from the field behind her house after a long day of hunting mice and chipmunks. Mel rose to let them in the house, but Jane said, "No, please don't open that door. I want them to throw up the remains outside instead of on my floors."

  It was another full five minutes before Jane admitted that she and Shelley had taken Jacqueline and Henrietta to lunch earlier.

  Mel started to object, but Jane cut him off. "We had a legitimate reason to meet with them. We're supposed to be doing the decorating and they're the carpenters who are using all the special wood. We wanted to make sure the color scheme we had in mind for the first part of the house to be finished met their approval."

  Mel yelped with laughter. "I'll bet you cleared up that part of your talk pretty quickly and plunged into pure gossip."

  Jane smiled. "Of course we did. Were you told about Jacqueline's getting shocked and passing out?"

  "The electrician told us all about it. The wiring had been tampered with. Not badly enough to kill her because when she plugged in whatever it was, the fuse blew. Or so the electrician says. And so does my assistant, who understands electricity. She passed out because she jumped backward, tripped, and struck her head on a sawhorse when she fell."

  "The electrician is Thomasina, right? We haven't run across her yet."

  "You're not going to enjoy it when you do. She's a really tough, foulmouthed woman who won't listen to what anyone else is asking or saying."

  "Your prime suspect?"

  "Not necessarily. But if any of them are truly mean enough to kill someone and I had to choose at random, I'd like to pick her." He downed a little more of his glass of beer before continuing. He seemed to need it.

  "She went on and on about the house never being locked up," he said, glowering at the memory of his interview with her. "Or even sufficiently boarding up the downstairs windows. I got the full rundown on what valuable tools were in her toolbox that had been stolen. By the time she got to the fact that her precious wiring had been tampered with, I feared she was going to have a stroke right on the spot. Like most self-employed people, she's underinsured, and if Jacqueline had wanted to sue her for the accident, it could have gotten really ugly."

  "I think we'll keep our distance from her in that case," Jane said with a smile.

  A cat threw up outside.

  "Excuse me for a moment," she said as she went into the garage to get a shovel to heave the remains over the back fence.

  Mel was laughing out loud when she returned from this common errand. "I've never known a woman so calm about pieces of dead animals."

  Jane looked surprised. "I do this a couple times a week. Most of the time inside the house. Aren't you glad you don't live here? All my kids have learned how to imitate the nasty sounds that precede a cat upchucking and sometimes do it in the middle of the night to make me think I don't dare get out of bed without turning on a light. Didn't I tell you about the time I nearly took a header in the bathroom on a mouse's head? Just like stepping on a marble, albeit a fuzzy one."

  Mel laughed but then turned serious. "You're a remarkable woman."

  "No, I'm an ordinary woman with two cats," she said, leaning forward to kiss him. "You must have just grown up without cats."

  "Without dogs, too," he said, being a bit pathetic.

  "Don't start with me about dogs! Training Willard took longer than potty-training a male child."

  He chuckled and said, "Want to go for a little drive?"

  "To your apartment?" Jane asked with a gleam in her eye.

  "We could drop in there. After all, I need to thank you again for dinner."

  When she got home later, she saw that Shelley's kitchen light was still on. The phone was already ringing when Jane came in the door.

  "What did Mel tell you?" Shelley asked.

  "I don't remember," Jane said dreamily.

  "You were at his apartment tonight, weren't you? But get a grip on yourself and come back to real life. Tell me what he said."

  Jane took a deep breath, cast the latter part of the evening out of her mind, and recounted what he'd said before the cat episode.

  Fifteen

  Early the next morning Jane took the cats and Willard out in the yard and sat contentedly watching them while she had her first cup of coffee and one of the three cigarettes she allowed herself per day. She wished she could quit entirely, and often forgot to smoke one of them. In bad winters, she seldom braved the weather outside to smoke more than one, but three a day was better than twenty.

  When she went back inside, the answering machine had a message from her sister, Marty. She sighed. Marty called her only when she couldn't remember where in the world their parents were, and it was always for financial help. So she'd call Jane, and after listening to silly pleas that fell on Jane's deaf ears, Jane would give her the current telephone number for their parents. One time Marty asked if she could use Jane's calling card account, to which Jane replied that she most certainly could not.

  Why didn't Marty break down and buy a com-

  puter? She'd married or lived off a string of wealthy men. That way she could always reach anyone she wanted by E-mail. Jane and her parents were in touch at least weekly often daily, and it was free, unlike phone calls to foreign countries.

  As usual, Jane didn't return the call right away. Sometimes she got lucky if she dawdled and whatever problem Marty imagined had already solved itself. And on occasion, Marty herself couldn't even remember. This evening would be soon enough.

  The phone rang while she was writing down the number on the caller ID. She wondered vaguely where Marty was now. She didn't recognize the area code.

  She saw that it was Shelley and picked up.

  "Are you back to real life yet? I saw you sitting outside grinning. Nice evening with Mel?"

  "Unfortunately, I am back to the nitty-gritty. Come on over and I'll feed you some kind of breakfast."

  Shelley was there in about half a minute. "Isn't it great when all the kids want for breakfast is an egg sandwich and a bottle of orange juice to eat and drink on their way to school?" she said. "I shudder at the recollection of having to cook pancakes or bacon at the crack of dawn."

  "All I have is some sort of healthy granola bars," Jane said apologetically. "But they're not bad. Here you go," she said, tossing a couple on

  the kitchen table and pouring their coffee. "Got a call from my sister while I was outside."

  "What does she need now?"

  "I haven't called back to see. Remember the time she wanted me to rush to Seattle because she had to have an ingrown toenail removed and expected the whole family to gather around to comfort her?"

  "I'd forgotten that one. The one I liked best was the time you were supposed to go to Nashville— or was it Savannah? — to help her pick out a dress for a banquet."

  "Savan
nah, I think. I suspect she thought I'd pay for the dress, and naturally pay for my plane fare as well. The worst ones are when she's getting divorced, and her money's tied up in court, and she wants huge loans. I can always say the kids have some sort of program at school and I can't go anywhere when she wants me to fly halfway across the country, but it's harder to turn her down on money."

  "I think that would be easier. Just tell her you don't have any."

  "She knows better than to believe that. Even my parents won't do it. I don't know why she continues to ask them."

  "Never?"

  "Not unless she has a really good story. Then they wire her a couple hundred dollars and do the same for me."

  Shelley reached for a second fruit-and-granola bar. "These aren't as bad as I expected. I want to

  talk to you about Thomasina. But do you want to call your sister back first?"

  "Neither of those options would be my first choice. I think I'd rather have a week in Bermuda. Sprawled on a beach with a good book, thinking about my sins."

  "Then let's talk about Thomasina first. I know what Mel said about her, how tough and nasty she is. But he's a cop and lots of people don't like talking to cops."

  "You have a point there," Jane admitted. "Especially when they fear they're being investigated as a possible suspect."

  "But you and I aren't cops. We'll just chat with her about some innocuous subject such as how many electrical outlets she plans for those rooms they're working on now. Pretend we're thinking about furniture and lamp placement. And then ease with enormous sympathy into what went wrong with the wiring."

  "And also pretend to understand?"

  "Of course."

  "Since you think this sounds sensible, I think I'll play the role of the nodding sidekick, if you don't mind. I don't even want to understand wiring."

  "That's okay by me. Let's go over to the House of Seven Mabels and see if she's around."

  Jane didn't understand why this pun tickled Shelley so much. Shelley usually didn't even understand puns.

  "And that Mel isn't there," Jane said. "That's understood, isn't it?"

  "Did Mel happen to mention whether the house is open to us yet when you were with him last night?"

  "Are you insane?" Jane said, hoping she wasn't blushing. "We didn't talk about that at all."

  "Guess we're going to have to go over there, then," Shelley said with an expression that on a less refined woman would have been called a smirk.

  They took a few minutes to put on their jeans and boots so they'd fit in with the workers. Shelley was getting used to being seen in public in jeans, as long as they were freshly pressed. They were greeted at the locked front door by Bitsy, who looked as if she hadn't slept for a couple of days. "I want you two to meet Joe Budley. He's now our contractor."

  She led them to the old dining room, where new, sturdy plywood was being installed by a group of men they'd never seen. Strong young men, most of whom sported goatees, which Jane thought was one of the most unattractive facial attributes a man could choose deliberately.

  Bitsy introduced them to Joe Budley, who was an enormous, burly-looking man with violently red hair and matching eyebrows that nearly met in the middle of his face. He, too, wore jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt, but had on a sport coat as well that strained at the armholes and across his burly shoulders.

  He shook their hands with a paralyzing grip and said, in an accent straight from Oklahoma, "Glad tuh meetcha, ladies."

  "Jane and Shelley are our decorators. Or they will be when I can get around to preparing their contract for their agreement."

  "Women are good at that," he said. This was apparently a dismissal of women being good at other things, or so it seemed to Jane. Then she realized, to her horror, that she was thinking like Sandra. That any man who spoke about women was automatically deriding them. Immediately upon the thought, Joe blew her theory.

  "Well, you girls get along with what you were doing while Bitsy here and I talk over things."

  Shelley looked around with apparent surprise. "What girls are you talking to? I don't see girls here. I didn't bring my daughter along, and neither did Mrs. Jeffry. Do you, by some freak chance, consider all the talented workers on the job to be girls?"

  Joe said, "You're one of them, aren't you?"

  "One of what?" Shelley asked innocently.

  "One of them feminists."

  "Not until today," Shelley said. "Only my own father is entitled to think of me as a girl."

  "I'm right sorry to hear that," he groused, turning his back to her and engaging Bitsy in a discussion of replacement workers.

  Bitsy, perhaps inspired by Shelley, maybe just coming into her own, or simply having been

  driven mad by lack of rest, asked, "Why should we do that, Joey boy? Do you find their work unsatisfactory without even looking at it? I've hired professionals in their fields. Some of them are women. But if you don't want to be the contractor for this, so be it."

  Jane and Shelley exchanged a quick glance. Bitsy was really going out on a limb. Contractors who were ready to step in at the drop of a hat weren't thick on the ground, not even in Chicago. The good ones were all busy with other jobs.

  Astonishingly, Joe made an effort to apologize without actually saying the word "sorry." "Well, if you — women — feel this way, we ought to get on with looking over what you've done so far. And make up a work schedule to get it completed."

  "Very well," Bitsy said glacially.

  Bitsy and Joe ascended the stairs, Joe letting her go first. Whether out of courtesy or just to see her from behind no one ever knew. Shelley was still so angry she was red in the face. Jane had never seen her this way. "Calm down. He's just an old fart."

  "Girls! GIRLS!" Shelley exclaimed.

  "Good thing nobody has a blood pressure cuff handy to slap on you," Jane said. "Shelley, let's just walk out of here and never come back."

  Shelley stomped outside ahead of Jane, but instead of going to the car, she sat down on the front steps. "If I'd lived a hundred years ago, I'd need to have a nice lie-down with a cold cloth over my eyes."

  "It's not a bad idea today," Jane said, trying to urge Shelley back onto her feet.

  Shelley was back to her normal coloring, and her expression turned serene. "No, we can't run away. It would look like a flounce. Exactly what the jerk expects of women. I hate to admit this, but Bitsy did a better job on him than I did."

  Jane's mouth dropped open. She'd never heard Shelley admit this about anyone before.

  Sixteen

  The police still had most of the ground floor roped off but had allowed the workers to go upstairs to continue their work. Fortunately, the investigators were just tech people, packing up their gear to leave. No sign of Mel.

  When Jane and Shelley got upstairs, Henrietta and Jacqueline greeted them and Evaline said in a muffled voice through her face mask, "Hi there, you two." She was busy using her sander on some of the Sheetrock joints. It had a small vacuum bag and created almost no dust, but she must have simply been in the habit of wearing the mask to sand, whether she needed it or not.

  Wesley, the furnace guy, came up, welded one last piece of ductwork, and said, "As far as I'm concerned, I'm done in here. All I have to do now is turn the furnace on to make sure it's up and running again. Go ahead and Sheetrock the ceiling if Thomasina's ready."

  "Not quite. Another hour for the ceiling fixtures," a voice boomed behind Jane.

  Jane turned and saw a gigantic woman with big hands and big blond hair that looked as if she'd suffered a real electrical shock, though the hair was probably just overbleached and over-permed.

  "You must be Thomasina," Shelley said. "Or do you prefer Tom?"

  "Thomasina, if you don't mind. Nobody but that idiot contractor ever called me Tom. And you are…?"

  They introduced themselves, and she enveloped both their hands in turn in her huge paw. "Welcome aboard. I saw Joe Budley on my way up. Is he Bitsy's new contractor?"

 
"I think so," Jane said. "Do you know him?"

  "Worked for him once l?out five years ago. Not crazy about the guy, but he does move things along pretty briskly," Thomasina said. "Sometimes too briskly."

  "We'll need to consult with you later, if you have a bit of free time," Shelley said.

  "Why?"

  "About placement of the wall sockets and ceiling lighting."

  "As for the walls, I always put at least two sockets on each. Three, sometimes even four, if it's a long wall. It's overkill, but in these days of computers and all sorts of gadgets that need juice, it can't hurt to have extras. I'll have some time to jaw with you over the ceiling lighting over lunch if you want."

  "That would be fine," Shelley said.

  So much for Thomasina being the horror that Mel described. Though rather stunningly unattractive, she was very pleasant — so far, Jane thought. But still, she hoped they didn't have to clash over ceiling lighting. That might bring out the belligerent woman Mel knew.

  Bitsy and Joe were huddled over a piece of plywood on sawhorses, looking over the plans, which were being kept from rolling up with various blocks of scrap wood and hammers. Joe kept looking around to see how far the work had progressed. If he found fault with any of it, he had the common sense to keep it to himself in front of the workers.

  "Are those Sandra's plans?" Shelley asked, strolling over to look. "Bitsy and I have discussed the fact that the measurements aren't entirely correct."

  Jane suddenly had an insight that had nothing to do with this job. She'd been creeping through what she hoped would turn into a historical novel for a couple of years. She realized as Shelley spoke that the spooky house where the main character lived was almost a character itself> and that one of the problems she'd always faced with the writing was that she could picture the sprawling old house sitting on a hostile crag. But she had no idea what it was like inside. Her character had looked out over the dark, cold sea from her bedroom window. That was all she knew.

  Jane desperately wanted to run and get a com-

  puter program that would allow her to make the house plans so that when her heroine walked from the bedroom suite to the stairs, Jane could actually picture how many steps it would take and what other doorways were in the upper hall. And she had a new computer it would work on. The plans Shelley, Joe, and Bitsy were looking at had to have been computer-generated.