The House of Seven Mabels jj-13

by Jill Churchill

  "It's okay, Mel," the man carrying the bag said, lifting his mask. "It did look like a bomb, but it's just a bunch of junk stuck together with a clock attached that doesn't even work. No explosives. You can give the box to the fingerprint people," he added, handing Mel the bag.

  "How did it get in there? Do you have any idea?"

  "That paneling on the back wall conceals the door to-an old coal chute. It was ajar when we went down there. I don't think you could have seen it if it had been closed. You better fingerprint

  it as well," the man replied as he struggled out of his modern armor. His clothing under it was drenched with sweat.

  That eased Mel's mind. He'd looked over every inch of the basement and hadn't noticed anything odd about the paneling except that it was cheap and ugly. If he himself hadn't noticed, he could hardly go back to the station and tear holes in the other investigators of the basement.

  He went back and reassured the crowd that they could go home now and that it hadn't been a bomb, only a fake one. But he made a point of snagging Joe Budley. "Mr. Budley, you can let your workers back in, but not anywhere near the basement or the backyard."

  "But we need to get the footings in for the sun-porch today or we'll be a whole day late."

  "That's at the other end of the house, right?"

  "It is."

  "Then we'll let them work. But there will be a police tape at the north end that you're responsible for making sure they don't cross. By the way, I'm wondering why you didn't tell me about the damage to the Sheetrock."

  "What damage?"

  "Evaline told me someone had taken a hammer to it."

  "Why didn't anyone tell me this?" Budley exclaimed.

  "You didn't know?" Mel said, not believing him.

  "I hadn't yet been upstairs today. I was working with the guys who are replacing the sun-porch. Why didn't Evaline or Carl tell me?"

  "Maybe they hoped you wouldn't find out."

  "I'd have known when they billed me for fixing it. I'm going to have a talk with them."

  "You're going to have to shut down the work upstairs until I get my staff back. And Evaline and Carl have probably already destroyed the evidence by fixing it."

  This, unfortunately, made Dudley smile.

  Mel walked around the back of the house, keeping a safe distance so he wouldn't disturb any footprints. He guessed that the coal chute must have once come out where there were now some very old shrubs. He made some phone calls and was told that the photographer from the police department who'd taken the photos at the scene of Sandra's death revealed something interesting.

  "Mel, Phil here," the photographer said. "I thought you should know. When I developed the pictures, I saw something strange that wasn't visible in the gloom down there but showed up in the flash."

  "I bet I know what it was. A piece of that dreadful paneling that looked slightly different?"

  "How'd you guess?"

  "It's covering an old coal chute. The bomb squad boys said it was ajar. I've sealed off where it must exit and I'm having the toolbox brought in for prints."

  "What do you bet there aren't any? Is everything in it new?"

  "I haven't looked in the bag yet. I don't want anything to contaminate it, but I'd bet the same. I'll bring it in as soon as the fingerprint group gets here. And you might mention that the scene-of-the-crime group should bring along some big lop-pers to cut down some ugly old shrubs and take them away to test for fibers."

  He called back to the station and told his assistants about the Sheetrock and that they would have to come back. That news wasn't received well.

  Mel was sweating nearly as much as the bomb squad person had and wanted nothing more than to go home and shower, but he stuck it out, without ever letting go of the bag containing the toolbox until everyone he'd called up had arrived and had their instructions. His arm was sore from the weight of the contents.

  When he had it stowed in the trunk of his car, he called Jane and assured her he hadn't been in any danger because the bomb was a fake. "Now go back to your sofa and put your foot back up," he said, still in police mode.

  "Yes, sir," she replied.

  "Please put your foot back up," he added, realizing how sharply he'd spoken.

  Jane didn't mention that she hadn't been on the sofa anyway. She was propped up in bed changing channels on the television to distract herself.

  Or had been until Shelley snatched the control from her hand and turned it off a moment before Mel called.

  "What?" Shelley said the minute Jane hung up.

  "The bomb was a fake. That's all he said."

  "So what was the 'yes, sir' about?"

  "He told me in his police voice to put my foot up," Jane said with a smile.

  "Jane, I don't get this. It turns our theories inside out. I really thought all this stuff like the rotten shrimp and the other vandalism was to persecute Sandra."

  Jane nodded. "So did I, I suppose. So why this fake bomb scare? Why not a real bomb? And to what purpose?"

  "That gets us back to Bitsy's ex-husband, persecuting her, I'd guess."

  "I don't know if that's true. If he had the kind of connections to hire someone sleazy, he'd have them plant a real bomb, wouldn't he?"

  "Who could tell?" Shelley said. "Except for Sandra's death, which could — barely could, I should say — be an accident, nobody's been hurt seriously by any of this. Even Jacqueline wouldn't have been knocked out except that she jumped back from the plug, fell, and hit her head."

  Before leaving the scene, Mel went upstairs to survey the damage to the Sheetrock. Sure enough, most of it was already contaminated by

  Carl and Evaline's having patched up most of the damage. Dudley was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed and glaring around the room. "You'd have thought they'd of had the sense to tell me about this. I wish I'd never taken on this job."

  "I wish I hadn't been assigned to it," Mel admitted.

  As he was approaching his car, the scene-of-the-crime crew showed up again. Mel left instructions as to where a coal chute must have come out. "It's concealed with a nasty bank of prickly shrubs you're going to have to cut down. But look carefully for anything fresh that's snagged in them."

  By the time Mel got back to the station, he had a call from the head of the group. "We found mostly animal fur. But there were a few bits of plain white cottony paper. The sort of stuff you'd find in those outfits that painters sometimes wear. Available at almost any hardware store. The lab will have to confirm this, of course. No fingerprints inside or out."

  "I guess I should be thanking you for this information, but I can't bring myself to do so. Sounds to me like we're striking out again."

  Twenty-one

  A day staying off her foot made jane a new woman. She'd gone out to the garage and found one of the old crutches so she could move around a little without touching her right foot to the floor. By evening, she could honestly report to Shelley and Mel that she didn't need to go back to the hospital to have it X-rayed again.

  Mel dropped by to check on her after dinner and asked if there was any kind of dessert around.

  "Just grocery-store cookies. But even Shelley says they're edible. Finish them off before I have to."

  He sat down with a glass of milk, polished off the last three cookies, and sighed. "I'm sick to death of that house of Bitsy's. It's been three weeks."

  "It hasn't," Jane said with a laugh.

  "Okay. Maybe a week, but it seems like a lot longer. And there's still no irrefutable evidence of a serious crime."

  "Not even Sandra's death?"

  "Except for her missing purse, there's nothing solid to make anyone think it was murder. It could have just been an accident."

  "It's more than the purse, Mel. She was disliked by nearly everyone working for her. And who knows how many other people she's crossed paths with who had even better reason to hate her."

  "But Jane, the world's full of obnoxious people who irritate the hell out of e
veryone and nobody murders them. They just get older and more obnoxious. I have an eighty-four-year-old great-uncle who's a living example."

  "Didn't the bomb scare count as a crime?" Jane asked.

  "Only marginally. It wasn't a real bomb. If we knew who did it and were in England, we could get him or her for 'wasting police time.' The rest of it could count merely as damaging pranks. Even that would be cause only for a lawsuit, not a criminal conviction."

  "It wasn't Thomasina's missing toolbox, I assume?"

  "No. Hers was a big yellow plastic one," Mel said. "The one in the basement was steel."

  Jane brushed the cookie crumbs onto a napkin she wadded up to throw away later. "The thing I don't understand is why the pranks have continued beyond Sandra's death — whatever the cause of it. I assumed they were all aimed at discrediting her, but now it looks as if Bitsy's the target."

  "I suspect you're right, but again, there's no proof of it."

  "What about her ex-husband?"

  "He's sleaze," Mel said, getting up and roaming fretfully around the kitchen as if looking for a solution — perhaps under the morning paper on the counter or under a pot. "And he makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for her. And it's rumored that some of his clients are big-money mafia. But it's only rumor and we don't have any evidence that would allow us to get at his records. Even if we did, he's bright enough not to leave evidence of personal conversations in his files."

  "Have you interviewed any of Sandra's friends from her feminist group?"

  "Dozens. The most hostile group of women I've come across. They regard her as a saint."

  "To be a real saint, you have to be dead," Jane said. "I wonder if they thought so when she was alive. Oh, I never thought to ask. Did you check the dust marks on the steps to the basement?"

  Mel just stared at her for a long moment. "First pictures taken. And somebody with far too much free time had recently swept them. The only thing on the steps was a bit of mud from the shoe of the doctor who pronounced her dead."

  Jane stared back. "Don't you think that's odd?"

  "Of course it's odd. There was a broom down there. And before you ask the obvious question, yes, it was fingerprinted and was absolutely clear of prints."

  "You don't really think this was an accident, do you?" Jane asked.

  "I don't think it for a moment, but I can't disprove it, either." His pager beeped and he said, "It's forensics. May I use your phone? My cell phone's gone all staticky and someone in the office is trying to replace it and get the same number."

  When he returned the call, he kept nodding and looking glummer by the minute. Hanging up, he said, "The scene-of-the-crime guys were right. The only new stuff on the damned bushes was a paper-based substance with a few threads. From a coverall that's sold in, oh, maybe a thousand paint and hardware stores just in the Chicago area alone."

  "No fingerprints?" Jane asked.

  "Do you have any idea how common latex or plastic gloves are? You can get them in most drugstores, even if you have to purchase a box of hair color. Even more easily in paint and hardware stores. I liked the good old days when gloves were leather or fabric. At least they'd sometimes leave some kind of print or evidence. I guess I'm just going to have to start another whole round of interviews tomorrow and see if there's any triviality we've missed. Do you mind if I skip out on you and spend what's left of the evening going over what I already have so far?"

  "I don't. But I wish I could help. Shelley and I know the workers on a more friendly basis than

  you do. We haven't a clue in spite of that, except the missing purse. I can't remember if I told you that when we first met Sandra it was at a restaurant and she had it slung across her shoulder and never turned loose of it. She even got her fork tangled in the strap, but didn't let it go. I thought even then it was sort of odd.

  "When most women eat out, they set it next to them. And when they're working at an office or job site, they lock it up somewhere. Under the seat of their car sometimes. Or in a drawer to which they have the only key. But Sandra never let hers leave her body."

  "Maybe she was one of those people who always carried a whole lot of cash around," Mel speculated.

  Jane shook her head. "In my experience traveling with my parents all over the world, my folks always had paper money concealed in a thin pack tied underneath their clothing. I don't think it was cash she was protecting."

  "Then what would a woman keep in a purse that she couldn't keep in such a pack?" Mel asked.

  Jane shrugged. "Drugs? A notebook of important data? A datebook? A weapon such as a sharp knife or gun?"

  After Mel had gone, Jane called Shelley. "Come on over if you're free. We need to toss around some ideas about the missing purse."

  When Shelley arrived, she said, "You know, I just realized it wasn't always the same purse."

  "No?"

  "She had two in the same style. One was a dark blue or black. The other was the exact same style, but in a sort of dark taupe. She must have been concerned about being color savvy," Shelley said.

  "I think you're right. She had the dark one at the restaurant and the brownish one that she normally had strapped across her chest at work. I hadn't realized that until you mentioned it. But, Shelley, neither of them was huge. Large, but not the enormous sort of thing you'd take on a plane with all your medications, a change of underwear, makeup, mouthwash, and your jewelry bag, in case the checked luggage didn't show up."

  Shelley grinned at the image. "I traveled with Paul and his assistant once on a flight. I had my laptop, a camera bag, and the huge kind of purse you're talking about. The assistant had a laptop, a camera bag, and a backpack smaller than my purse, and they forced him to check through the backpack. Sort of reverse sexual harassment, I thought. I kept my purse in my lap, but they wouldn't let him keep the backpack in his lap."

  "You're kidding," Jane said with a laugh.

  "So what do you want to talk about regarding Sandra's purse?"

  Jane went over the conversation she and Mel had had. "It was strange to see a woman who never, ever turned loose of her purse, even when she was eating. It was obvious that she had some-

  thing in it that was so valuable to her that she was never without it literally wrapped around her. I'm always losing track of mine. I dump it in the kitchen when I come home, or sometimes I carry it upstairs with me or toss it on a sofa."

  "What do you suppose she did with it at night?" Shelley asked.

  "Probably chained it to the bedpost or kept it in a safe," Jane suggested. "So what was in it that was so important?"

  "A weapon?"

  "Mel and I considered that. We also considered that she was one of those people who always felt compelled to have a lot of ready cash on hand, but when I traveled with my parents we always had our paper cash strapped under our clothes."

  "Did you consider drugs?"

  "First on the list. That's the only thing I think someone would steal the purse for. We also thought about a datebook and one of those big address books, but I don't think the purses were big enough for those things."

  "Where's your own purse right now?" Shelley asked.

  "I have no idea," Jane said.

  Shelley found it in the squashy chair in the living room. Jane started taking things out. "Billfold. Sunglasses case. A paperback book in the side pocket in case I get trapped with nothing to read. Checkbook. A packet of tissues. A box of winter-green Altoids. Breath spray. Some loose change in

  the bottom, two ballpoint pens, a pencil. A few crumpled receipts. Some dustballs. Hmm. A dead leaf? How did that get in here?"

  "What about the little inside zippered pocket?"

  "A pair of manicure scissors. A nail file. Lipstick. Yet another pen. A six-inch piece of yellow ribbon."

  "What's that for?"

  "A craft project Katie wanted to do. I was supposed to find a match for this ribbon."

  "I'll bet mine has the same kind of things, plus the cell phone and maybe a little b
ox of aspirin."

  "This purse is about the same size as hers. So what made it worth stealing and presumably disposing of?"

  Twenty-two

  Mel called Jane the next morning. "Thought you'd like to know that the mystery purse has reappeared," he said in a weary voice. "And before you ask, there are no fingerprints, inside or out."

  "You mean it was empty?" Jane asked.

  "No, everything you'd normally expect was there. Lipstick, comb, billfold with several credit cards and around seventy dollars in cash and change. A pack of tissues, her cell phone. That sort of thing."

  "Nothing unusual?"

  "What would you consider unusual?"

  "I don't know. A length of yellow ribbon?" Jane said, thinking back to the examination of her own purse contents.

  "No. Would that mean something of significance I'm not aware of?"

  "Uh-huh. It's just that Shelley and I went through my purse and I had a piece of yellow ribbon in it."

  "Why?"

  Jane sighed. "It doesn't matter. I was just trying to match it for Katie. The point is that I had to explain to Shelley why I was carrying it around."

  Mel didn't reply. She could almost hear him making a silly face.

  "Where was it found?" she asked.

  "That's the interesting thing. It was in a paper bag, also with no prints. I absolutely hate the ease of getting disposable latex gloves."

  "But where?"

  "Sitting on the newly poured concrete on the sunporch. The concrete had been heavily salted."

  "Salted?"

  "Yes, apparently that wrecks the surface. Bud-ley is furious. It's going to have to be all torn out, taken to the dump, and done again, destroying his schedule and raising the cost at his expense."

  "Why at his expense?"

  "Because your friend Bitsy got a bid from him and locked him into the amount and the timing. With a hefty penalty for every day late to finish the project."

  "Wow! She finally got a good lawyer to draw it up."

  Mel wasn't interested in this aspect. "When the first workers arrived, they didn't even notice the pitting of the surface until they tried to throw the paper bag away and the bottom stuck to the surface and there sat the purse. Thank God nobody touched it."