The Class Menagerie jj-4

by Jill Churchill

  "Mom, can I go to Elliot's house and sleep over? He's got a new game and his mom said she'd take us for pizza," Todd said as she came back to the house.

  "I guess so. Where have you been?"

  "Hiding in the basement," Todd admitted. "All that girl stuff, ickkkk!"

  Mike was asleep on the sofa. Jane turned off the television and he came awake as if he'd been nudged with a cattle prod. "What are you doing tonight?" Jane asked.

  He rubbed his eyes furiously. "Nothing. Gotta study. Geez, Moni, I'm sick of school and I'm having to bust my buns this year just so I can go to school for another four years."

  She sat down on the sofa and leaned against him. Willard, afraid somebody other than him was going to get petted, crawled up with them and tried to spread himself over both their laps. "It's the pits, isn't it?" she said sympathetically. "Want carryout Chinese for dinner?"

  "Sounds good. You order while I take a shower and I'll pick it up. Get off me, Willard-Billard!"

  The dog followed him upstairs.

  Jane waited until the shower stopped running before ordering. As Mike backed out of the driveway, she stood watching and thinking. That was something else she was going to have to deal with soon. A car for Mike. Her wealthy mother-in-law Thelma kept offering — threatening — to buy him one. But it would be of her choosing and Mike was terrified of what she might get. "Mom, it'll be some awful old-lady car! Worse yet, she'd get herself something new and give me that big gray battleship she drives. I'd never live it down," he'd wailed when he heard of the offer. Jane didn't like the idea of being beholden to Thelma because Thelma was' the sort who made sure you never forgot you were beholden.

  Jane had to have more money. Her late husband's life insurance had all gone into trust funds for the kids — they had more assets than she did and she didn't have to worry about money for college. But she did have to get by day to day on part of Steve's share of the family pharmacy chain's profits. His share was equal to his mother's and brother's even though he wasn't alive and working there anymore, but Jane doggedly put half of it back into the trust funds. It really was the kids' money more than hers. The worst thing about that pharmacy money was that she had to accept it by hand from Thelma every month, who bestowed it grudgingly, like a gift that was far too good for the recipient.

  That was part of the reason she was working— fitfully — on her book. Not that she really dreamed of ever making any money on it. Well, she did dream of it, but didn't take the dreams seriously. She'd also

  been checking books out of the library lately about real estate. Everybody told her the market was not booming at the moment, but if it got better, being a realtor might not be a bad choice. She could get out and meet people, which didn't happen when she was in her basement working on the novel. And it offered some independence. She'd love to say to Thelma, "Check? Oh, that check! I'd forgotten." She'd laugh merrily and stuff it in her purse without looking at the amount.

  She was still engaged in this happy fantasy when Mike came back with the food. They ate off the coffee table in the living room, Mike channel-surfing the whole time with the remote control. After Jane cleaned up dinner, she got a jigsaw puzzle out and dumped it on the coffee table. "Got time to help me sort out the edges?" she asked.

  "Sure. Calculus can wait." Mike said.

  Within minutes Meow was daintily picking her way through the puzzle, sniffing pieces. "I forgot," Jane said. "This is the one the cats like."

  "I think Todd put a tuna fish sandwich down on it once. Right on the barn. They always go for the red pieces."

  They sorted edges, rescued red pieces from the cats, and watched television for a while. "How come you aren't over at what's-it tonight?" Mike asked, fitting two long sections together.

  "The reunion? Shelley let me off duty."

  "I don't get it. Reunions," Mike said. "Once I'm through with high school, I'm gonna be through. There's nobody I'll want to see again."

  "Not even Scott?"

  "Oh, I'll never get rid of Scott," Mike said with a laugh. "But we aren't friends 'cause we go to school together. We're just friends."

  "But you wouldn't really go to a reunion?"

  "What's the point? Those are the people who knew you when you were a dumb kid. I want to really be somebody, without a bunch of people reminding me how I accidentally dumped a lemonade all over my first date, or having a good laugh about putting the mouse in my tuba and I threw up when I discovered I'd been blowing the thing around in there. Or how I failed my driver's test because 1 ran a red light—"

  "Mike! You told me you failed the written part!"

  "I lied, Mom. It was for your own good," he added with a grin. "But, geez, who wants to be reminded of that stuff?"

  "I don't understand reunions either," Jane admitted. "But then, I didn't go to one school for long enough to even remember my classmates. I think, though, that some people like them for just the reason you said. They grew up and got to be 'somebody' and they come so that everybody else will know it. And the ones who didn't become somebodies probably come so they can pretend that they are."

  "Waste of time," Mike pronounced judgment. "I figure this is the worst time of my life. At least this week is. It's gotta get better and I don't want to relive this. Todd said he heard one of those women died. I told him he was full of it."

  "One of them did," Jane said.

  "What was it? Heart attack?"

  "I don't know, exactly," Jane said. She didn't want to tell him it was murder because he'd worry about her needlessly. Whatever the reason, it had nothing to do with her, so she was in no danger. Besides, the reunion was nearly over. A picnic tomorrow afternoon, a dinner dance at the country club, and Sunday morning

  they'd all go home and, with any luck at all, Jane would never see any of them again.

  Mike burrowed back into the sofa with his books and Jane continued working on the puzzle, plucking a green piece off Willard's nose as he went by. She blotted it on a napkin and put it in place.

  At about nine-thirty, the doorbell rang. "Shelley, what are you doing here?"

  "Hiding?"

  "Come in." The phone rang as she was walking past it. She answered it, listened, and said, "Mike? It's for you." She covered the phone and mouthed, "It's a girl."

  She waited until he'd picked up on the upstairs extension, then gently hung up. "I wonder what would happen if I said to one of them, 'Look here, you little hussy! Leave my son alone!'"

  "Not much. Paul's mother's still saying that to me."

  Jane laughed. "Would it help if I told you that you looked smashing?"

  "Not much, but you can try. Jane, we need to talk—"

  17

  "So you let her go on a date?" Shelley asked a few minutes later when she'd taken off her shoes and knocked back half a glass of diet Coke.

  "The date from Hell. Hazel and I are hoping."

  "So she's made up with Jenny? What was their fight about?" Shelley was leaning back in her chair and had her eyes closed.

  "Jealousy. The new' girl. I think."

  "Isn't it amazing the things kids can get worked up about?" Shelley said.

  "Oh, I don't know that they're so bad. Neither of them put anything in the other's deodorant. Unlike some adults I know."

  "Isn't it a nightmare?" Shelley said.

  "Who do you think is playing the tricks? Not to mention killing Lila…."

  "You think it's the same person?" Shelley asked.

  "I assume so. Unless you've got two nut cases."

  "I think they're all nuts!"

  "Do you really?"

  Shelley sat up. "No, I really don't. That's what's so weird about this. They're all very distinct, some with strong personalities, but none of them seems like the kind to play stupid stunts, much less murder anybody. I still think it must have been someone from outside. It had to be, Jane!'.'

  "Maybe—"

  "Look, as obnoxious as she was to the Ewe Lambs, Lila didn't get that way overnight. She's had long
years of practice making people miserable. And being made miserable. She could have had an enemy who followed her here and bumped her off where it could be blamed on someone else."

  "That seems sort of baroque."

  "Oh, I didn't tell you — Trey Moffat, he's our class president, said at the cocktail party tonight that he knew somebody who knew Lila. Interesting gossip. Apparently she married some no-neck bodybuilder and set him up in business as a private detective. She was assumed to be the brains of the outfit. Anyhow, he learned just enough about snooping to get some kind of goods on her, then divorced her. Trey wasn't sure what the compromising stuff was, but it must have been good. He cleaned her out. The bodybuilder. Not Trey."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The husband kept everything. The house, the agency, the bank accounts. That's why she was so hard up. The family money is gone, if there ever was much. I don't think there ever was a whole lot of money, just illustrious ancestors."

  "You'll have to tell Mel that."

  "I already did. He was at the cocktail party. Put a bit of a damper on things, in fact."

  "I take it that you wouldn't be here if the party had been fun."

  "Oh, it wasn't so bad. I was just sick of smiling and nodding. And I haven't had a real chance to talk to you for days."

  "Has Constanza broken into your safe yet?"

  Shelley giggled wickedly. "She made a big deal

  of telling me how she'd spilled something and was looking for a tablecloth and just happened to notice that we'd gotten a safe. I tried to make her explain why she was looking for a tablecloth in an upstairs closet when there's a whole stack of them in the laundry room. That made her squirm. That safe has already paid for itself in satisfaction."

  "Did she try to get the combination?"

  "Repeatedly. She called Paul in Singapore with a cock-and-bull story about having brought along a valuable bracelet and she'd feel so much better if she could put it away safely."

  "And?"

  "Paul told her he doesn't know the combination. Which is true. I told her I'd lost the combination, which isn't true, but said I'd take her straight down to the bank and she could put her terribly valuable bracelet in our safe deposit box. Then she decided the bracelet wasn't so valuable after all and she'd just keep on wearing it. Anyway — the party wasn't so bad. Trey Moffat looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Has a cute little wife and roly-poly baby along."

  Jane had no interest in the class president. "Did you pick up any other gossip?"

  "Not much. The guy Pooky was bringing the pen set to is a nerdy, single plastic surgeon. They seemed to be hitting it off awfully well. Maybe there's a romance in the air."

  "I hope so. I've gotten to really like Pooky. I know she's got the IQ of a kitchen appliance, but she's a good-hearted person."

  "Is she? I didn't really get a chance to talk to her much. And when she did talk at the fund-raising meeting, I wanted to smack her. Her suggestions were so dumb. Good-hearted, as you say, but criminally

  stupid. A telethon fashion show, for God's sake!"

  "I never asked--does she have children?"

  Shelley thought a moment. "I think there was a child in one marriage. But it didn't belong to either of them. Avalon was talking about it in the car. The husband had married before, this was his stepchild and the wife died, then he married Pooky. They later divorced and the child went with him. Apparently it's a source of great grief to Pooky."

  "Poor Pooky. Was everybody impressed with Crispy

  at the party?"

  "Stunned senseless."

  There was the sound of a key in the kitchen door,

  then Katie calling good-night before stomping into the

  living room. "Mom! — Oh, hi, Mrs. Nowack."

  "Katie, did you have fun?" Shelley asked.

  "Fun? Fun! What a couple of dweebs!"

  Neither Jane nor Shelley, to their credit, cracked

  a smile.

  "It was a horrible, dumb movie. All these stupid car crashes. And Johnny didn't even offer to share his popcorn with me. What mega-losers! And we went out for ice cream after and all they talked about was cars, cars, cars. Even Jenny's dad! Bo-o-o-ring! I've got to go call Jenny."

  "You've just been with Jenny for three hours."

  "But we couldn't really talk. 'Night, Mom."

  Of unspoken accord, Jane and Shelley hadn't got-

  ten into really serious discussion, knowing they were

  going to be interrupted shortly. When Katie had gone

  upstairs, Shelley leaned forward and said quietly, "So

  what has Mel told you?"

  "Practically nothing. He's furious with me. About

  the notebook."

  "What notebook?"

  "What notebook! We have fallen behind if you don't know about the dreaded notebook." Jane explained to Shelley about Crispy's getting her hands on Lila's notebook, then subsequently having it stolen. "But you know how hectic things have been. I kept meaning to tell him, but other things happened. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd told him earlier anyway, because it disappeared within an hour of Crispy's finding it anyway."

  "Do you think she's telling the truth? About it not having anything interesting in it? And about it being stolen?"

  — "About what was in it, yes, I think so. But about it being stolen, no. But I haven't any reason whatsoever for doubting her. It's just my instinct. I think she'd have held onto it and tried to read something into the notations."

  "That would be my guess, too. That, or—"

  "Or what?"

  Shelley stood up and paced for a minute, curling her toes into the carpet as she walked. Willard heaved himself to his feet and walked ^alongside her, looking up expectantly. Shelley.petted his head absently. "Look, Lila was trying to put the squeeze on people. Blackmail them out of money. Right?"

  "It looks like it from what Kathy said."

  "So whatever she knew about them might have been written in the notebook."

  "She couldn't have remembered?"

  "Not if she had specifics to toss at them. Like, maybe she had the exact amount of Kathy's holdings in some South African company or other, just to convince her that she knew what she was talking about. Blackmail isn't among my skills, but I'd think you'd have to have some concrete information to do it well."

  "Okay, I'll buy that—"

  "She might have made it look like innocent information, just in case she lost the book, as she did. Or in case someone else saw it. You'd hardly expect her to title the pages, What I'm Using for Extortion on Kathy. So Crispy might have genuinely thought it was boring stuff."

  Jane thought for a minute. "Or, she thought it was boring stuff until she saw the part that pertained to her."

  "Was Lila trying to blackmail her, too?"

  "She's never said. She didn't try anything with you, did she?"

  "I'm too boring to blackmail," Shelley said. "But she did give it a shot — I think. She made some crack about Paul and how she imagined with all those franchises, he had a lot of trouble with the income tax people. I said no, he had no trouble at all, which was an outright lie. Paul is constantly fighting them. Anyway, I didn't get it at the time, but later I realized she probably meant it as the groundwork for a threat. As in, Paul will have trouble with the IRS if you don't— whatever. Somehow, I can't imagine her having anything on Crispy that Crispy wouldn't be thrilled to talk about. She loves scandalizing people."-r '

  "No, her cracks at Crispy all seemed to have to do with Crispy's having such a hopeless crush on Ted."

  "Ted! I'm sick of hearing of Ted. This has turned

  into the Ted Francisco Memorial Reunion."

  "What about Ted? Do you think he committed sui-

  cide?"

  "What a weird question. Of course he did. Unless you think you've seen him lately."

  "No, I mean Crispy thinks it was an accident. That

  he started up the car and went back for something, fell over drunk, and died later."


  "That's probably wishful thinking on her part," Shelley said, "but I suppose it could be true. Interesting—"

  "What do you think? Was Ted the type to kill himself?"

  Shelley laughed. "Oh, Jane. Ted wouldn't have known me if he'd fallen over me. I was not part of his crowd. I didn't know him at all, except to adore from afar. But since you ask, on the surface of it, it didn't seem logical. Of course suicide never does. You don't think Ted has something to do with this, do you?"

  "Good Lord! I hope not! No, I was just curious. Everybody keeps talking about him,"

  "Let's get back to the matter at hand," Shelley said in her best Madame Chairwoman voice.

  "Okay. Lila and blackmail. Most of the nasty things she was saying seemed to have more to do with high school than the present."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, she was hinting about Avalon doing drugs in high school. Did she, by the way?"

  "I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised. What about Pooky? Did she have anything on her?"

  "I'm pretty sure she did, but Pooky's not admitting it." Jane recounted her conversation with Pooky about Lila's and Pooky's distress.

  "What deep, dark secrets could high school girls really have?" Shelley said. 'Today they might, but not back then."

  "Well, drugs. Abortion, maybe. I don't know — a drunk driving conviction?"

  "That would have been juicy stuff then, but not now. Most women our age would just say, 'Yes, isn't

  it awful. I made a terrible mistake. Thank God it's in the past.' And that would be the end of it. We all did dumb things we'd cringe at being reminded of, but nothing we'd kill somebody for mentioning."

  "What would somebody kill to protect?" Jane said.

  They both thought long and hard for a moment, then Shelley said, "A child? Could somebody have a child Lila had some means of taking away? Let's see. Beth hasn't any children. Kathy's got a mob of them, but that's not what Lila was using on her. Avalon's got one of her own and the foster children. Crispy has none of her own, but half a dozen,stepchildren from all those marriages."

  "I think Mimi has two," Jane added. "She showed me a picture of two little girls. Pooky hasn't got any, you say. Speaking of children—" Jane turned her head toward the stairway, where they could hear sounds of an escalating battle upstairs. "I think my darlings, who both believe themselves to be independent adults, are squabbling over the phone."