War and Peas (15 page)

She smiled radiantly at her companions and signaled the waiter. "I believe we each need a new cup of coffee, if you wouldn't mind," she told him.

“I wonder if you're aware that Sharlene read an old newspaper article about your accident and has a very different interpretation of it," Shelley said in voice that trembled slightly.

“Dear Sharlene. I'm sure her story is very pretty and romantic," Babs said with a fond smile. "She's a pretty person all the way through. I've seldom known anyone with so much intelligence and such pure goodness. It's a rare combination. As for Derek—”

The waiter came back with clean cups and a steaming carafe. When he'd cleared away the used cups, Shelley asked, "How would Derek have known anything about this?"

“I suppose Whitney Abbot might have mentioned it and Derek did a little digging. Derek might have been taking a shot in the dark, or he might have heard the alternative version."

“Alternative version?" Jane repeated.

“Yes. You see, there was a bit of scandal that followed the 'accident.' Apparently someone started a rumor — or it might have had an element of truth, I didn't care which — that Bobby had fallen in love with one of the Army nurses who treated him in England. According to the gossip mill, he'd told me that he was going to divorce me and marry her. This was supposedly the reason I'd been sick all evening, you see? And because I couldn't live without him, I'd tried to kill us both. There were no skid marks on the road and that added fuel to the rumor. Daisy told me about it and we had a good, if rather cynical, laugh out of it."

“How would Whitney have known?" Jane asked.

“Oh, he's part of the same crowd. His grandmother gave one of my wedding showers. And fifty-year-old gossip is as good as a recent scandal among the old families. Now, I'm starting to feel my age. I'd better get on home. I'll see you both tomorrow. Stay and finish your desserts.”

And with that, she put a twenty-dollar bill on the table, gave them a quick glance defying them to object, and left.

Jane and Shelley stared at each other for a minute. Finally Jane said, "Shelley, I don't think you
can
be her when you grow up.”

Shelley shook her head. "No, I don't think so, either.”

Jane and Shelley entered the
boardroom · Wednesday morning just as Lisa was coming in for a cup of coffee. Lisa was looking distinctly haggard, a bit wrinkled, and angry. Sharlene was already in the room, filling a cup herself.

“Sharlene, I just got a call from that Harriman woman about her mother's wheelchair that she's determined to donate to the museum," Lisa said. "I thought Derek was going to take care of it."

“He was supposed to. I put her on the list of calls to return yesterday," Sharlene replied, rummaging in a cabinet for more sugar packets. Today she was wearing a shimmery dark purple blouse and a black skirt. Whether by intuition or by study, she made the very best of her stunning coloring.

“Did he return any of the calls?" Lisa asked irritably.

“I don't know," Sharlene said. "I didn't see him all afternoon. I put the list on his desk. I'll go see if it's still there." She was back in a moment. "No, sorry. The list's right where I left it and nothing's checked off."

“And he's not here yet this morning?" Lisa asked. -

“Apparently not," Sharlene said, emerging triumphantly from the cabinet with a rather elderly box containing individual sugar packets. "At least his car's not here. I checked. Of course, he lives close by and usually walks to work unless he has a lunch appointment. Do you want me to call him?"

“No, don't bother. But I hope you'll make sure Babs and Jumper know that their acting director isn't doing his job." She glanced at Sharlene. "I'm sorry. I'm not cranky with you. It's just that everything's so difficult. You'd think the least Derek would do is show up for work. I was hoping to get away for a while myself this afternoon and rest a little, but if I have to take up the slack for him—"

“Lisa, go back home now, why don't you?" Sharlene suggested. "You look so tired, and if you wear yourself to a nub and get sick, it'll be harder on everyone. I'll return his calls and explain that due to what's happened, we're a little behind this week.”

Lisa smiled weakly. "Not now, but maybe later I'll take you up on that." She patted Sharlene on the shoulder, picked up her coffee cup, and left.

Sharlene approached the table, and as Jane backed up to get out of her path, she bumpedinto the counter where the computer was. The stuffed cat tumbled off and she barely managed to catch it before it hit the floor. "Poor old Heidi," Jane said, standing it upright and back in place. "Your stuffing must be clumping up to make you rattle that way." She gave it a pat on the head and adjusted it so that the base was a little more firmly set and wouldn't take another header.

“I really wish Lisa would go home," Sharlene remarked, stirring two packets of the slightly lumpy sugar into her coffee. "She looks exhausted and miserable. And it's not like her to be snappish, even about Derek.”

Jane thought back to Lisa's suggestion that Derek might be responsible for Regina's death and then trying to deny it. "Has she never gotten along with him?" she asked.

“Oh, not to say didn't get along. But they've never been friendly."

“Did he make passes at her, too?" Shelley asked.

“Maybe. I don't know. She never mentioned it. I think she just found him distasteful. And being friends with Ms. Palmer, I'm sure she knew what trouble he'd been to her."

“Trouble. I hear the word and think of Derek," Babs McDonald said from the doorway. "Jumper isn't here yet, is he?"

“No," Sharlene said. "Is he supposed to be?"

“I'm meeting with him this morning, but I'm terribly early. Jane. Shelley." She smiled greetings at them. "Did you get the rest of the paperwork I asked you for, Sharlene?"

“Yes, but I don't want you to trouble yourself with it right now," Sharlene said. "Everybody has much more important things to worry about than what classes I'm going to take in the fall. I'm awfully grateful for your taking an interest, now that Ms. Palmer's gone, but—"

“No buts, my dear. Just bring me the folder. Were you discussing Derek when I came in?" She turned to Shelley to ask this question. Sharlene hastened away.

“I wasn't discussing anything," Shelley said with a grin. "For once. But Sharlene and Lisa were talking about him. He apparently failed to return a bunch of phone calls yesterday and hasn't shown up yet today."

“Doesn't surprise me a bit," Babs said. "If he has any sense at all, he's home phoning for job interviews. Still — it's irritating that he can't even return calls. I guess I'll do them instead. For all I know, he's quit and simply hasn't bothered to tell us."

“You don't seem especially distressed about that," Shelley observed.

“I'm not," Babs said frankly.

“Won't it be hard on everyone until you can find another director?" Jane asked.

“I don't think so. I believe we have a line on an excellent candidate already. And I've reached the other board members and they're FedExing proxies to Jumper. If Derek's quit on his own, it will be easier to replace him. Meanwhile, I'll go do his job."

“What's this, Jane?" Shelley asked when Babs had left. She was holding up an old, flat book.

Jane looked at it for a minute. "I don't know. Oh, yes, I do. I picked that up in the basement the other day when we were thinking about starting to inventory. I didn't have a clipboard. I thought it would make a good substitute. What is it?”

Shelley set the book on the table and opened it. She flipped a few pages. It was a handwritten ledger of some kind, done in an old-fashioned, somewhat florid style of writing. Some pages were filled out. Others had only a line or two on them.

“Hard to read," Jane said. "I wonder what
it
is. Oh, I see why it's hard to read." She laughed. "It's in German. At least parts of it are." She looked more closely. "Shelley, I'll bet. .”

Shelley nodded. "Yes. Auguste Snellen's genetic experiments. Look, some of the pages have the same kind of numbers that are on the little labels on the pea cabinet. And some have a name, too. Here — Snellen's Early Spring, and here's one called Daisy's Favorite. How sweet. He named a pea for his granddaughter."

“This is a treasure," Jane said. "And I was using it just as a flat surface. I'll put it up safely. Remind me to give it to Sharlene when things settle down.”

They put their purses away, poured themselves coffee, and as Shelley gathered her paperwork, Jane booted up the computer and sat down, after sliding the ledger book in under the board the stuffed cat was mounted on. Shelley started to leave the room, but hesitated and came back. "Jane," she said quietly, "you don't think — no, that's too stupid."

“You can say stupid things if you want," Jane said, grinning. "I don't have a secret tape recording going."

“Smart aleck. I was thinking. . could that book be what somebody was looking for in the basement?”

Jane looked at her for a minute. "I wish I did have a tape recorder now. Why would anyone care enough to be sneaky about it?"

“You're right. Its only value is probably sentimental and historical. Forget I asked.”

Shelley had been gone only a few minutes when Sharlene came back into the boardroom. "Babs, I just — oops. Where'd she go? Tom called and said he was tied up in court for a while."

“She said she was going to make some of Derek's calls," Jane said over her shoulder. "Maybe she's in his office."

“Thanks. I'll look for her there. Isn't that sweet of her?" Sharlene said, bustling out of the room.

Jane smiled at the cat. "Heidi, would you have the nerve to call Babs McDonald 'sweet'? I wouldn't.”

Babs was back in an hour. "Any sign of Jumper yet?" she asked Jane.

“Not that I know of," Jane said. She joined Babs at the board table and said, "Since you've been so frank with Shelley and me, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

“Fire away," Babs said cheerfully. "If I don't know the answer, I'll make one up."

“Well, I have the impression that the board of directors thought that Georgia Snellen was helping herself to some of the funds she collected for the museum.”

It would be too much to say Babs looked surprised, but she was mildly startled. "I believe 'think' is the operative word. There was never any evidence of cheating. Merely suspicions. For example, the cash collected at any given activity always slightly exceeded the number of receipts—"

“I don't understand."

“Then think back to your work at the booth at the Pea Festival. We're a nonprofit organization — a 501 (c) (3) in IRS talk — and if somebody buys an item from the booth, the person working there is supposed to offer them a receipt for the difference between our actual cost and the amount we sell it for, and the purchaser can take it as a tax deduction."

“Oh, dear. We didn't do that," Jane said.

“You were working under emergency conditions. I don't imagine anyone thought to tell you. Anyway, most times people don't want to wait for a receipt, or it's such a small amount they don't think it's worth figuring into their taxes. And lots of times, because it's a charitable institution, people often deliberately overpay or refuse to take their change back. So you end up with more cash than receipts to account for it. And Georgia always
did
end up with excess cash. But not as much as we'd expect. The gift shop, for example, averages about twelve percent extra cash. Georgia always turned in about three percent extra. And that's not proof of anything. You could postulate that Georgia has such an abrasive manner that people are less likely to be generous with her."

“Yes, but I understood that she's quite good at raising money," Jane said.

Babs looked at Jane with an arched eyebrow. "That is true," she said. "But proof is proof and speculation's quite another thing." She made clear that this was all she was willing to say about the matter and Jane let it go.

“May I ask you something else, then?" Babs nodded.

“Sharlene told me that Regina and Whitney were supposed to be announcing their engagement at the groundbreaking ceremony. But she also hinted that Regina hadn't exactly rushed into committing to marriage."

“Right again," Babs said.

“Do you know why that is?" Jane asked. "What an odd question," Babs said. "Why do you ask?"

“I'm not sure," Jane answered honestly. "I'm just curious about Regina, I guess. I never met her, you know. But from what I hear about her, it's hard to imagine that she'd inspire murderous rage in anyone.”

Babs laughed softly. "That's perilously close to damning with faint praise."

“I didn't mean it that way," Jane said.

“No, dear, I know you didn't. I can't really answer that. If Regina had confided in me whyshe was hesitant about marrying, I wouldn't feel I could break that confidence. As it happens, she didn't. She wasn't a confiding sort of woman. Frankly, I have a theory about it, but it's merely theory and it would be irresponsible to put it out as anything else—"

“Babs. There you are," Lisa said from the doorway. "Did you get the message from Jumper? He said he's on the way and please wait if you can."

“Thank you, Lisa. Sharlene told me. Lisa, I don't mean to be insulting, but you look exhausted. Why don't you go home and rest?"

“I was just planning to." She jingled her car keys in her hand to illustrate the truth of this. As Lisa started to move away, Babs said, "I'll walk you out. I need to talk to you about one of the phone calls I made — excuse me, will you, Jane?”

Lisa and Babs went off together and Jane went back to work. But something was nagging at her. Something she couldn't quite get hold of. She sat back and closed her eyes for a minute, trying to tease the idea out of hiding, but couldn't lure it into the light. It was something that Shelley had said recently. She opened her eyes and looked at the stuffed cat. "Heidi, if only you could talk. Or even listen," she said. "Wonder if Auguste Snellen named a pea for you.”