The House of Seven Mabels jj-13

by Jill Churchill

  "She did term papers for other people," Shelley huffed. "I don't know if that's illegal, but it's immoral."

  "We've been through that already. But she's one of the brightest, most competent, and most imaginative of any of them — as far as we know."

  "But what would be her motive? You're back to what we said about Jacqueline and Henry. She's landed a job she's good at and being paid for. Besides, she and Carl are victims, too. Someone wrecked their work and they had to do it again."

  "Okay, okay. You're right again. But we have to list them. And now another of my favorites. Joe Budley."

  "That jerk," Shelley said. "Yes, put him down. But as much as I dislike him, I don't think he's responsible for the things that have happened since he took the job as contractor. There's nothing in it for him. Quite the contrary. If what we've heard is true, he has a deadline and a budget he has to adhere to."

  "But he could have been the one who planted the shrimp and niggled with the wiring before Sandra died. He might even be the one who killed Sandra. Didn't Thomasina say he really wanted that job before Bitsy got tangled up with Sandra?"

  "That's true, I guess. But you can't imagine he'd sabotage himself." Shelley got up from her kitchen table and started to unload the dishwasher.

  "We're back to having two or more suspects," Jane said, feeling discouraged.

  "I find that hard to imagine," Shelley said, stacking plates. "My money's still on Bitsy's ex-husband."

  "I guess the last on the list is Thomasina, the electrician. Suppose she herself accidentally made the wiring error that resulted in Jacqueline being knocked out?"

  "Interesting question," Shelley admitted, almost dropping a handful of spoons. "She might have. Maybe her generosity about paying Jacqueline's medical costs was more than to make sure it didn't go on her record with the insurance com-

  pany. If she'd wired something wrong, it could ruin her reputation. Jane, you don't imagine it could be anything else but a careless mistake at the worst, do you? What could Thomasina have against Jacqueline?"

  Jane said, "That's another thing we have to figure out. And you didn't ask her what she thought of Bitsy and Sandra, either, when you spoke to her, did you?"

  "No. I didn't get a chance. She was already off and running about Joe Dudley being the one who wanted the job badly enough to show up Sandra."

  "We'll have to talk to Thomasina again." Jane made a mark by Thomasina's name like the one next to Carl Stringfield's name.

  "Are we through with this chart yet?" Shelley asked impatiently. All the contents of the dishwasher had been neatly put away, and she sat back down across from Jane.

  "For now. But now we need to get the events in order. Don't you dare sprawl over the table again. I promise you this is worthwhile, or will be."

  "Wouldn't you rather be working on your book about Priscilla?" Shelley asked hopefully.

  "I would. But suppose Bitsy caves in on the contract you drew up and we have to commit to doing the decorating before the police find out who's doing these things? We don't want to put ourselves in danger of becoming two more victims."

  "Aren't we in more danger snooping into people's lives?"

  Jane scoffed. "Shelley, people love talking about themselves to strangers. At least, most people do. Everybody has gripes they want to get off their chests. It helps them show off their admirable traits."

  "Hmm," Shelley said. "Not everyone feels that way, though. Neither you nor I like sharing our personal lives with strangers. And how do we untangle those who are telling the truth from those who are lying through their teeth?"

  "Instinct?" Jane suggested. "It's worked for us before."

  "You're just trying to get me to forget this other chart you have in mind," Shelley said.

  "No, I'm not. The other chart is pure fact. No speculation yet. Just a list of what's happened in chronological order before we start getting the timeline wrong." She flipped to the next page and wrote "shrimp."

  "You already have it wrong," Shelley said with a laugh. "The shrimp episode was just the first thing we knew about. Jacqueline getting shocked happened before we even heard from Bitsy. And Thomasina's toolbox was stolen before we were involved as well. We only heard about it later."

  "You're right," Jane said, amending her list. "So what was next?"

  "Sandra's death, of course. Then the bomb scare with the toolbox, I think."

  "Are we sure it wasn't Thomasina's toolbox coming back?"

  "Yes, I forgot to mention that Mel told me so. Thomasina's was a big yellow plastic one. This one was steel."

  "That didn't necessarily involve breaking in, then," Shelley said. "Someone could have easily taken it in to work and put it in the basement. There's nothing much going on on the ground floor or in the kitchen yet."

  "And then there was the wrecked Sheetrock soon after," Jane said.

  "The return of the purse and the wrecked concrete on the sunporch were apparently the same night a few days later. Or was it the next day?" Shelley pondered. "I've already lost track of how long we've been on this job."

  "Those two things had to be done by the same person, don't you imagine?" Jane asked. "Sneaking into the house with the purse. Probably through the coal chute. Then salting the concrete on the way out, or the other way around. I can't quite imagine two people discovering the coal chute and also being there the same night without running into each other."

  "But the person who salted the concrete didn't necessarily know about the secret opening behind the bushes. All he or she had to do was go around the back at the other end of the house and dump the salt," Shelley commented. "And bringing back the purse makes no sense at all."

  "Maybe it did," Jane replied. "It was the main thing the police were concentrating on when San-

  dra died. The mystery of what became of the purse she always wore strapped across her shoulder so firmly. Everybody noticed that."

  "But why bring it back at all? What was the point of that?"

  "I don't know. It's the weirdest part of the whole scenario. Maybe whoever took it was nervous about disposing of it, and thought it would take the heat off if the police got it back intact, with everything that was in it. For all the person knew, the police have some kind of arrangement with the city to hold and examine the trash that suspects put out."

  "Pretty thin theory," Shelley complained.

  "Got a better one?" Jane asked.

  "Not right now," Shelley admitted.

  Jane thought a moment, then wrote down the fire in the Dumpster. "So what do all these have in common?"

  "Nothing that I can see," Shelley said.

  "Not one single thing, but maybe two tilings. The toolbox didn't really have a bomb in it. Nobody was in danger. It was a scare tactic. The destruction of the Sheetrock is the same. It made more work for Carl and Evaline. It didn't harm anyone. The shrimp was the same. More work for Wesley, more cost for Bitsy. Except, of course, for Bitsy's lady friends who got sick from the smell."

  "But the fire in the Dumpster was a real threat," Shelley said.

  "Only to property, not people," Jane pointed

  out. "Nobody had any way of knowing you, Mel, and I would be in the house that night. Or anyone else, for that matter."

  "So what does this chart tell us?" Shelley asked.

  "That we need more coffee to get our minds working," Jane replied. "Let's look at this chart in different ways."

  "What different ways?"

  "Like how much physical strength the events we're considering took. How much expert knowledge? What sort of reach did they require? I'm wondering how high on the walls the Sheetrock damage was. I also wonder what the size of the coal chute is. Could the biggest person on the job climb through it?"

  "Jane, it's time for you to go home and work on your book. You're trying to come to some conclusion with too little information. I think this might be the one time the police are much better equipped to figure this out. I'm sure Mel's experienced enough to question the same things a
nd get the answers."

  "Of course. But Mel's not the one considering signing a contract with Bitsy."

  Jane took Shelley's advice and tried to work on her book, but she kept mentally fidgeting with her lists and charts. She created a file for them on her computer and started organizing the information, adding bits and pieces as she thought of them.

  She was convinced she knew something she didn't know she knew. If she could dredge up more of what she'd seen, heard, and thought from the deepest part of her brain, she'd have an insight.

  When she got into her disreputable station wagon to make yet another run to the grocery store, something she'd heard or observed on a previous trip kept tickling at the back of her mind.

  She'd probably been concentrating on finding a parking space and dismissed whatever it was as irrelevant. She tried to think back to the week and remember where she'd been going when the thought struck her, but the harder she tried, the more elusive the memory became.

  Twenty-five

  The next morning Shelley called Jane early. "Okay, I've thought about your list and what we need to know. We need to get over there and I'll tackle Thomasina, since I got along well with her earlier. You go after Carl, the Sheetrock guy."

  "How am I supposed to strike up a personal conversation with him?" Jane asked. "The skills required of him are taking good measurements and having the strength to slap the Sheetrock on the walls. How much chitchat can I get out of that?"

  "I don't know. But you can think of something. I've noticed a few times that he eats his lunch from home out on the verandah and is usually alone. You could take your own packed lunch and sit down next to him."

  Jane didn't much like this idea, but since Shelley had endured her list making with fairly good grace, she felt obligated to give it a try. She got the kids off to school and packed herself a lunch. A ham sandwich, a couple of boiled eggs left over from the batch Shelley had made for her meal

  with Mel. A rather stale pack of Fritos, and a cold soda.

  She put the soda and eggs in a plastic container filled with ice and stuffed it into a paper bag. When Shelley pulled out of her garage and honked, Jane felt quite silly carrying a packed lunch. When she got into the minivan, she saw that Shelley had her own lunch in a big blue and white designer thermal bag.

  "You packed that just to shame me."

  "I packed it so you wouldn't be alone with Carl. Two people to question him are better than one. Besides, I left plenty of space for your lunch as well."

  To their surprise, there was no law enforcement presence that morning. Everybody was hard at work, except Thomasina. She was loading her equipment into the back of a pristine white enclosed trailer attached to her truck. The back door was open, and Jane was fascinated as she peered in. It had a place for everything. Hooks for vast loops of different-size wires, bins for sockets of various configurations, drawers for screws and hooks for tools.

  "Boy, would I like one of these," Jane exclaimed as they watched Thomasina putting everything away. "Just think how organized I could be."

  Shelley looked at Jane and asked, "What do you have to haul around?"

  "The very things you complain about. Dry cleaning, birdseed, loose receipts, the kids' book reports."

  "Jane, that doesn't make sense," Shelley grouched. "Those aren't things you need to cart around. You buy them or pick them up, but you don't bring them into the house or garage and put them where they belong. It's not as if you're using them to do jobs away from home."

  Jane ignored her and addressed Thomasina. "Why are you packing up? You haven't quit the job, have you?"

  "No, but I've completed my work on the first side and nobody's ready for anything else yet. The other side of the upstairs isn't even cleared out, and Bitsy's not sure what appliances she needs in the kitchen and where they'll be placed." She paused and double-checked a notebook she pulled out of her back pocket against the content of the bins in the truck.

  Nodding to herself, she went on. "I've got another couple of small jobs to do in the meantime. Wiring a screened porch for some people who want to enclose it for a garden room. Replacing a fuse box for another client who has been nagging me for a week." She slammed the back door of the trailer closed and locked it.

  "Do you have to go this minute?" Shelley asked. "I have a couple of questions I want to ask you about Sandra."

  "What kind of questions?" Thomasina asked suspiciously.

  "What you thought of her," Shelley replied.

  "That she didn't know what she was doing,"

  Thomasina said bluntly. "She hired experts and wanted to meddle in things. Then there was all that feminist crap."

  "You don't go along with that?" Jane asked.

  "No, I don't. I'm a married woman with twin daughters. I don't want a contractor, male or female, wanting to keep touching me."

  Jane and Shelley exchanged surprised glances, and Shelley asked, "Touching you?"

  "Nothing really vulgar at first, just too chummy," Thomasina said, leaning against the trailer, which rocked slightly under her significant weight. "Wanting to lock arms when we walked around looking at where sockets would be placed. Pats on the shoulder for finishing a section of wall. Then one pat on the butt, which was when I told her off and to keep her hands to herself."

  Jane was interested in Thomasina's verbal lashing of Sandra and wished she'd been present to hear it, but she was more taken by the concept of this supremely unattractive woman having a husband and children. "How old are your girls?" she asked.

  Shelley gave Jane The Look.

  Thomasina pulled a wallet from another pocket and showed them a family picture. "This was taken a year ago when they were seven."

  Her husband was a good four inches shorter than she and weighed at least fifty pounds less. He was fairly handsome. But it was the girls who were astonishing. Very pretty, but heavily made up.

  "We had that picture taken to celebrate the day

  they won in their division," Thomasina said proudly. "Twins between five and ten years old. It's not a big category, but people think all twins are cute, just because they're twins. Of course they don't have to be identical, but the fraternal ones never even place. Don't know why their parents bother."

  "Beauty pageants?" Shelley asked, concealing her distaste with amazing restraint.

  "They love it. Little girls all like dressing up. And there's good money in it if they're attractive, spirited, and talented."

  "What are their talents?" Jane asked.

  "They dance," Thomasina said proudly. "My husband Walt and I taught them."

  Jane's mental image of Thomasina and Walt dancing made her smile. "How nice. What kind of dancing do they do?"

  "Tap and ballet both."

  "How nice," Jane said. It was the only thing she could think to say, and she figured it was time to close the conversation before Shelley broke down and exposed her views of child beauty queens or asked if Thomasina was the ballet teacher, which would have sent Jane into hysterics.

  Jane went on hurriedly, "We shouldn't be keeping you from getting on with your other jobs, though. Your time is obviously too valuable to waste on us."

  Thomasina put away the wallet, checked her watch, and shook both their hands. "Hope you

  ladies are still around when I come back. I'll bring newer pictures of my girls to show you." With that, she hopped into the truck and roared off.

  For a long moment both Jane and Shelley were silent.

  "Who would have thought?" Shelley wondered.

  "I just hope the Sheetrocker doesn't surprise us as much," Jane said.

  They trapped Carl Stringfield having his lunch. It put theirs to shame. He had two warm pieces of bruschetta, a corned beef sandwich that looked as if the bread was baked from scratch, a salad with dried cranberries, and a piece of pumpkin pie.

  He looked confused and slightly alarmed when Shelley sat down on one side of him and Jane on the other side.

  "What a wonderful lunch you have," Shelley
said. "Does your wife do this kind of thing every day?"

  "What wife?"

  "You fix all this yourself?"

  "No, I have a neighbor taking a culinary class at the junior college and he makes it for me for practice. I have to write a report."

  "So you're not married?" Shelley asked. "You must have a lot of free time for hobbies, I guess."

  "I do a little fly fishing when I get the chance," he admitted.

  A hard thing to comment on, Jane thought.

  But Shelley took up the conversation. "Do you make your own flies?"

  "Nope."

  Shelley kept on. "Any other hobbies?"

  He scratched his head. "Can't think of any."

  "How do you like working with Evaline?"

  "It's okay."

  Shelley sighed, but continued the questioning. "Have you worked with her before?"

  "Nope."

  "I bet you'd like to, though. Her special paste must make the work go much faster."

  "Hadn't given it any thought."

  Jane had already finished her sandwich and munched her gummy Fritos before Shelley gave up.

  "It surely has been interesting talking to you," she said with apparent sincerity. "I guess we should leave you to your lunch."

  "Okay."

  "Oh," Shelley said, "one more thing. What did you think of Sandra?"

  "Not much," he said.

  "Could you elaborate?"

  "Not really."

  Twenty-six

  When Shelley and jane were on their way home, Shelley said, "That's the most aggressively boring person I've ever spoken to. No wonder he's not married. There would be no way to live with him unless you were in a coma."

  "You're right. But maybe he just clams up around strangers. When someone comes to my door doing some nosy survey, I get very, very stupid and curt. Don't remember when I moved here. Don't remember my age."

  "Why don't you just shut the door?" Shelley asked.

  "Because of my parents. When you're raised in the diplomatic corps, you learn to be overly polite."

  "It didn't work on your sister."

  "I know. But she was always cranky and difficult."

  "Have you called her back yet?"