War and Peas (17 page)

“How do you mean?”

Sharlene was drying her hands, looking with irritation at the black dust that had stayed under her short, unpolished fingernails. "Just that forall his brains and degrees and everything, he was a couple sandwiches short of a picnic where people were concerned. Lots of book learning, but no tact, no thought for others. Nothing like Mr. Abbot or Tom, for example. They're both educated and smart, but they don't run over people. And when they make mistakes, they admit it, instead of trying to blame others."

“Mistakes like what?"

“I was thinking about Mr. Abbot and the bathrooms. I guess no one mentioned that to you."

“I don't think so," Jane said, imagining Whitney Abbot walking into a ladies' room.

“He had all the plans for the new museum done — the architectural drawings, I mean. And I had a set I was supposed to set up as a display in the main lobby. So I sort of studied them and realized there were no bathrooms on the first floor. I mentioned it to Ms. Palmer, and the next day Mr. Abbot asked me to take down the display and thanked me. He was really nice about it and explained that he'd done it on a computer and had taken out the bathrooms to change some hallway patterns and had forgotten to put them back in. He laughed about all those drains and pipes and things under the hallway.”

Blaming it on the computer instead of on someone else, Jane thought to herself, but didn't say anything. A computer couldn't argue or get its feelings hurt or knock you on the head with a blunt object. At least not yet. Though she suspected that Bill Gates had some if not all of those options in the works.

“He made it sound like I'd really done him a big favor," Sharlene was saying. "He even mentioned it again yesterday."

“Yesterday?"

“He came by to get copies of some forms he needed and to remeasure the height of a couple of the taller exhibits. It's his job to make sure they can fit through doorways and halls."

“When was this?"

“Oh, in the afternoon sometime. Two? Three?”

Jane wondered if anybody had mentioned to Sharlene that Derek might have been killed the day before.

“But when Derek did something wrong," Sharlene continued, "or made someone mad, he didn't seem to notice, and if someone else said something, he started looking for someone to blame. Still, that's no reason to kill him. Lots of people are annoying and that's just life. I guess I should feel sorrier than I do. He must have had family that cared about him."

“And Georgia," Jane said.

Sharlene nodded. "In her own way. I guess she was lonely and liked having a young man take an interest in her."

“That's a kind, generous interpretation," Jane said.

“No, not really. I feel sorry for her and I think it's just as bad to feel sorry for people as it is to dislike them. But it's sad, really, when somebody tries so hard to pretend they're young when they're not. I mean, look at Georgia, then look at Babs."

“That's very perceptive. It's impossible to imagine Babs acting like Georgia at the same age.”

For some reason, this gave Sharlene the giggles. "I'm sorry. It's just — well, I suddenly thought of Babs being forty or fifty and wearing poodle skirts and saddle oxfords. Oh, dear. I better not get silly or the police will think I'm nuts.”

With that, she forced herself to assume a serious, businesslike expression and left.

Jane trailed along slowly, thinking about Whitney Abbot. How could an architect forget about bathrooms? Still, she considered herself an intelligent person and she'd done a few head slappingly stupid things in her life. Anybody could make a moronic mistake now and then. And at least he'd been nice to Sharlene about it, even if he had tried to partially blame the computer program.

Jane knew if she went back to the boardroom she wouldn't be able to do any work amid a roomful of people, so she decided to take advantage of the fact that the museum was closed and roam around on her own. She was feeling overloaded by people and opinions and facts. Especially since so many of the facts and opinions were so hard to sort out and place in one camp or the other.

She went upstairs to the second floor. She'd been up here once as a room mother on a field trip, but never on her own. To the right of the wide, well-worn oak stairs was a series of "period" rooms that a visitor could walk through. A late-Victorian bedroom, parlor, and kitchen. She liked the way the velvet-roped path led through the center of the rooms, rather than having to view them from the doorway, and the Snellen had banned identifying tags on everything. At each doorway was a guide to the room, a little drawing that numbered and described each item on display. That was nice. Much more realistic and less "museum-y." Since there were no other visitors, she had the imaginary house to herself. Perhaps it was the recent experience of trying to imagine herself in an earlier time, perhaps not, but she found herself pretending this was a real home.

The bedroom had masses of little things to dust — pictures, paper flowers, vases, lamps with hideous ruffled and fringed shades. The parlor was much the same and crammed with furniture that would have been waxed at least weekly by a house-proud Victorian wife. Or her maid, Jane thought. And the lady of a house like this one would probably seldom have entered the kitchen. Some poor cook had to cope with the huge, sullen oven with all the ornamental bits to collect grease, the cold granite sinks, the pump for water, the huge, heavy bowls and cooking pans.

How did they survive such a life? Jane wondered. She'd have to make a point of remembering this display the next time she became cranky about car pools, computer glitches, and vacuum-cleaner ailments.

Did people who made their living in the museum business ever just roam around and let their imaginations run riot? Or did they come to regard the place in a strictly business sense, losing sight of the forest with concern for the trees? Had Regina Palmer ever stood here pretending this was her kitchen and she was the woman who had to haul the dirty dishwater out the back door and dump it next to the kitchen garden? Had she imagined sleeping in that high bed and having to find the little steps in order to climb down to use the chamber pot at night? Or had Regina, out of necessity and perhaps inclination, been more concerned with tour schedules, salary increments, accounting procedures, professional publications, and the quest to snag touring exhibits? Without having met Regina, Jane couldn't guess. But she certainly couldn't imagine Derek Delano entering into a sort of fugue state and truly appreciating the sense of another time that a well-planned museum could produce. The man had struck her as having imagination only when it came to his sexual fantasies.

She had left the room displays and was wandering aimlessly down the hall to the next room when she heard a strange noise. A faint voice. Tapping. She glanced around, unable to determine where it was coming from. She continued down the hall, but the sound grew fainter. Turning, she headed for the stairs. Yes, it was coming from above. She climbed the stairs cautiously, listening.

Finally, she located the source of the sporadic sounds. A heavy door just beyond the third- floor landing. And the voice was Babs's. She tried the door, but it was locked.

“Who is that?" Babs called out.

“It's me, Jane. The door's locked."

“Then get the key," Babs said sharply.

Jane dashed down the stairs and examined the board on which the keys hung, but there were dozens of them. There was no one in the hallway to the staff offices, not even the police officer, so she went into the boardroom. It was mobbed. Caspar Snellen was trying awkwardly to comfort Georgia, who was sobbing. Whitney Abbot was tinkering with the computer. Mel was there, too, speaking to Lisa. Jumper, Sharlene, and Shelley were standing around the coffee machine, shaking their heads in despair.

Everybody turned at Jane's entrance.

“Babs McDonald is locked in a room on the third floor," she said. "And I don't know which key I need to get her out."

“Oh, my God!" Lisa exclaimed, heading for the door and colliding with Sharlene, who was headed in the same direction.

“Just give me the key," Mel said. "I'll go. Jane, you come with me.”

When they finally found the right key and rushed back upstairs, they discovered that the room Babs was locked in was a dark closet. She all but fell out. "I hate dark places," she said, maintaining a shaky dignity.

“What happened? Are you all right?" Mel demanded.

“Of course I'm all right. I came up here to look in the file cabinet that's kept in that horrible closet. I heard footsteps, but didn't think much about it until the door slammed shut. And even then I wasn't especially disconcerted until the light burned out."

“Do you have any idea who it was?" Mel asked.

“None. I had my back turned to the door.”

“How long have you been in there?" Jane asked.

Babs looked at her watch, then held it up to her ear before looking at it again. "My goodness. Only about fifteen minutes. But it seemed much longer."

“Why would somebody lock you in the closet?" Jane wondered.

“As a warning, apparently. Thank goodness you were around to hear me."

“A warning of what?" Mel said.

Babs stared at him for a long moment, then replied, "I haven't the faintest idea.”

"Jane,
what in the
world were you doing up there?" Shelley asked as they drove home. "Just trying to get my thoughts in order.”

“It's a good thing you didn't get yourself and your thoughts locked in a closet."

“If Babs is right, I wouldn't have been anyway," Jane said, cringing as Shelley's van whispered by a parked car. She could almost hear the paint on both vehicles gasping at the near miss. As much as she loved and admired Shelley, the way Shelley drove always left her gibbering with terror.

She drew a deep breath and continued. "Babs said she'd been locked in there as a warning.”

“A warning about what?"

“Not to talk about something, presumably. But that's as far as she'd go. Either she really doesn't know what she was being warned off or she's making a convincing show of not knowing."

“Which wouldn't surprise me," Shelley said.

“I think Babs McDonald could have persuaded Newt to head up the Democratic National Committee if she'd set her mind to it. But just the same, if she has some idea, I'll bet she's told the police."

“Who aren't going to tell us," Jane said glumly.

“She really was indignant about the way Lisa and Sharlene kept fussing over her," Shelley said.

“It's probably the only time they've treated her like a fragile little old lady.”

Shelley executed an almost perfect right-angle turn into the parking lot of the neighborhood post office. "I have to mail some underwear," she said. "Paul's sister, Constanza, stayed with us for a couple days and left a bra, which she wants mailed. Don't you think if you left a trail of lingerie, you'd keep quiet and hope nobody noticed? And it's a tatty, ragged old thing nobody in their right mind would claim.”

It was an awfully big box and, knowing Shelley, Jane suspected the item had been washed, ironed, and stuffed into bosom shape with elegant tissue. Shelley knew how to be nasty in the classiest ways. She came back to the car looking smug, which confirmed Jane's thoughts.

“Putting Babs's incarceration aside for a minute, I have some gossip you'll like," Jane said. She told Shelley about her conversation with Sharlene.

“He forgot the bathrooms? A hoity-toity architect left out the potties?" Shelley exclaimed delightedly. "He's probably so inhuman he doesn't use them himself."

“I admit he's kind of a cold fish," Jane said, "but I think you hated him on sight. Why?”

Shelley shrugged and honked at an inoffensive man trying to cut in on her traffic lane. "I don't know. Maybe he reminds me of somebody, or maybe it's just instinct."

“You think he's the murderer?"

“I think it's possible. Or at least not impossible."

“Then here's the rest of what Sharlene said. She mentioned that he'd referred to the incident again yesterday afternoon when he came to the museum to pick up something."

“He was at the Snellen yesterday? When Derek was killed?"

“Good God, Shelley! Keep your eyes on the road! We don't know when Derek was killed, but if it was yesterday, your favorite suspect is still a suspect."

“And he was there today when Babs was locked in the closet," Shelley said.

“So, it appears, was everyone else," Jane reminded her. "What were Georgia and Caspar doing there?"

“I'm not sure. I got the impression someone had called and told Georgia about Derek and she had brought Caspar along with her to find out what was going on."

“Was she genuinely upset, do you think?”

Shelley nodded. "I think she was. But still careful not to cry off her mascara and eyeliner. Probably five on a scale of ten."

“So it all could have been for show?" Jane asked. "What about Lisa? I thought she'd gone home for the day."

“Sharlene called her at my urging," Shelley said. "The director and acting director were dead, Babs was missing, and Jumper hadn't arrived yet. I figured Lisa was the logical person to represent the museum. And it didn't seem the kind of thing she should learn about on the evening news."

“And were they all there in time to have locked Babs up?"

“Probably. I just thought Babs was in the bathroom or using the phone or something, so I didn't have any reason to pay attention to when people arrived," Shelley said. "There was a police officer outside the front door letting people in, but once they were inside, I don't imagine there was anyone watching just where they went. Mind if I stop at the grocery store?"

“Nope. I need to make a hit-and-run stop, too.”

Jane had a longing for chili and crackers, but that was merely a reflection of her longing for it to be fall. She dashed through the store and grabbed hamburger patties, baked beans, a head of lettuce, some chips, and — after some mental agonizing — hamburger buns. She probably had the remains of three packages of buns in various stages from fresh to mildewed beyond recognition, but if she didn't buy some, there wouldn't be any at home. She left Shelley having a conversation with a clerk about coupons that looked like it might become acrimonious.