War and Peas (8 page)

“You knew Auguste Snellen? I thought he was born way back in the 1850s."

“Yes, he was. But he lived to be eighty years old. He died in 1935, I think. I was only fifteen then, but I thought he was a dear old man. Sharlene feels the same about him, and all she's ever known is his picture. Daisy always said that as a grandfather, employer, and friend, he was lovely, but as a businessman, he was tough, independent, and rather secretive. He did all his own bookkeeping because he didn't want an accountant to know his business." She paused, then asked, "What did you mean about seeing Caspar this morning?”

Shelley slipped quietly into the room and smiled at Babs as she laid a fresh set of forms on the stack Jane was working from.

“I was taking a little tour of the museum before Shelley arrived. I saw him standing in the doorway of that big room just to the left of the entry."

“What was he doing?"

“Looking around for someone or something. He ignored me," Jane said.

“Best way to handle him. I never liked the way he's always hanging around here like it's a boarding house. And I like it less now."

“Why now?”

Babs cocked an expressive white eyebrow. "Why do you suppose, dear? Because in all likelihood, he killed Regina.”

There was none of Lisa's lost-in-grief-and don't-know-what-I'm-saying tone to this re- mark. Babs was simply saying what she thought, as she was apparently used to doing.

“Oh, my dears! Don't look so horrified," Babs said. "I don't mean he necessarily murdered her — not on purpose. Caspar is a bully and a threatener. I can well imagine him stealing that gun and thinking what power it might give him, however temporary, to wave it around at Regina, or maybe even shoot it at her, meaning to frighten the daylights out of her, but miss. And then, when he stupidly hit her by mistake—"

“Have you told the police this?" Jane asked.

“Of course I have. Can't let the fool get away with it. He's done enough damage in his life without being allowed free rein to do more. When I think of how he broke poor Daisy's heart—"

“What did he do to her?" Shelley asked.

“Oh, a hundred vicious, petty things, but two years before her death, he did the worst. He and Georgia got themselves into some kind of crooked investment scheme that blew up in their faces. They had to pay up or face going to jail. And, of course, they couldn't pay off without going to Daisy for the money. She was thoroughly disgusted with both of them by then. Naturally she wouldn't let Snellens go to jail and besmirch the family name, but she really put them through hoops before she wrote out the checks. Shortly after that, in retaliation, Caspar managed to insinuate one of his disreputable friends into her house — a young woman who acted as secretary and nurse, but was really spying on Daisy. After a few months of accumulating information and making up stories, Caspar tried to have Daisy declared incompetent."

“But he didn't succeed." Jane had never even met Daisy Snellen, but was appalled nevertheless.

“Of course not. Jumper, who was already working for Daisy, really did a number on him. Let him get clear into a court hearing and showed Caspar up as a greedy fool. Not that it was hard. Caspar's so stupid, really. I'm trying to remember some of the things. .”

She frowned into the now scummy, cold coffee cup and suddenly grinned. "Oh, yes. My favorite! Caspar's stooge took a photo of Daisy with her hair tied up in rags. Now, I'll admit a woman who curls her hair that old-fashioned way looks pretty crazy — like those medieval monarchs who went mad and stuck straws in their hair. Wild bits sticking out every which way, you know. But when Caspar's sleazy attorney produced this picture with a flourish, Jumper calmly supplied a copy of a ladies' magazine from the 1920s that Regina had found that illustrated how to tie up your hair in rags. And, by sheer good luck, the judge said he remembered his own grandmother looking like that every Saturday night so she'd have curly hair for church on Sunday.”

Babs laughed like a schoolgirl for a second, then turned serious again. "Daisy treasured the memory of that moment, but was humiliated by the whole experience. Humiliated and deeply hurt."

“She must have been," Jane said. "How awful for her. Where was Georgia during all this incompetency thing?"

“Hiding. Trying to pretend she knew nothing about it so she could ally herself with whoever won. That evening, after the judge had thrown Caspar out of court and given him a verbal drubbing, Georgia turned up with flowers and candy to congratulate Daisy — as if Daisy really
were
too dotty to notice what Georgia was about. Her behavior really made Daisy even more angry.”

Babs got up and poured the coffee into the little sink in a corner of the room, rinsed out the cup, and tossed it in the trash. "After that," she said as she came back to the table, "Daisy changed her will. Originally she'd left a third to the museum and a third each to Caspar and Georgia. She altered it to give each of them a million dollars, which she felt was generous enough to satisfy her obligation to the Snellen name, and the rest to the museum. She said, and I believe she was quite right, that they were going to come to bad ends anyway, and the more money they had, the sooner it would happen. So Caspar — who's never been able to admit that he was at fault for anything — decided that Regina had 'conned' Daisy into rewriting the will. He's spent the last two years getting one ambulance chaser after another to contest the will. I imagine he's already gone through all the money he did receive and—”

The door opened rather suddenly and a biker strode into the room.

Shelley and Jane drew back in alarm. The man had on a tie-dyed T-shirt under a black leather jacket festooned with chains. He wore a bandanna with a flame design low on his forehead. Reflecting sunglasses, black leather pants, and thigh-high boots almost completed his look.

He also carried a briefcase.

“Jumper!" Babs exclaimed. "I thought you'd forgotten the meeting!”

Since Babs found nothing strange about Jumper Cable's appearance, Jane and Shelley didn't comment, either. Jumper took off the shades and jacket, sat down at the table after greeting them affably, and started removing papers from the beat-up brown briefcase.

“Are you having a meeting here?" Jane asked. "Do you want us to leave?"

“Board meetings are open to the public," Babs said, but she sounded hesitant.

“No, no. We'll go fill some of the forms instead," Jane said. "We have plenty to do elsewhere.”

Jumper and Babs looked relieved.

Shelley gave Jane a bunch of blank forms and a pencil and they left the boardroom. "Where shall we start?" Jane asked.

“I've been working in a room on the second floor, but—"

“Isn't there somewhere more private where we could make ourselves useful?" Jane asked.

“Exactly my thought," Shelley said. "Let's look over the Dreaded Basement.”

It was the basement nightmares are made of — huge, with stone walls, a dank, musty smell, and a labyrinth of boxes, furniture, mysterious equipment, snaky old wiring, and a concrete floor. It was, however, as clean as such a place could be. A push broom with bristles worn down like an old man's teeth stood at the ready by the door. Though it was a single room with support pillars, the stored furniture and boxes created head-high rooms and hallways.

“Do you suppose anyone's down here besides us?" Jane asked.

“There was a light on when we came in. Let's look," Shelley replied.

They prowled the basement, finding an amazing variety of things, but no people — if you didn't consider a family grouping of very badly constructed mannequins that appeared to be posed for eating a meal over a table that had long since disappeared. Jane had rounded a corner and come upon them unexpectedly and nearly had a heart attack at the sight of the black-suited father frozen in the act of carving a missing roast with a wicked-looking knife. She yelped with surprise and Shelley came running.

“My God!" Shelley exclaimed. "He looks just like my dentist."

“Are we going to have to categorize all this stuff?" Jane asked.

“I hope not. I'm certain they won't want to take along something like the Happy Family here. Although" — she grinned wickedly—"I do wonder how you go about disposing of something like them."

“Mike might like to take the daughter to college with him. She's kinda cute," Jane said.

“And you could stand Mother at your kitchen sink so that anybody glancing in the window might imagine somebody domestic lived at your house."

“What's this?" Jane went over to look at a large piece of furniture against the wall. It was eight feet tall and nearly as wide and was composed entirely of wooden drawers about nine inches square. At the front of each drawer was a small brass "picture frame" with a card slipped into it. The cards had numbers and letters on them, like "A34 x N47." Jane cautiously opened a drawer. It was full of shriveled-up peas.

“This must have been Auguste Snellen's storage for his pea experiments, don't you think?" Shelley said.

“I wonder if any of them would grow if you planted them."

“Probably not. Well, maybe so, come to think of it. Didn't they find a bunch of wheat in a pyramid that they got to sprout after five thousand years or something? I saw a program about it on television once."

“Wonder what the numbers mean," Jane said. "Maybe a cross between two other kinds. See, up there at the top are a bunch of drawers without the 'x something' part."

“He probably had all the details recorded in books somewhere," Shelley said. "Some of the cards in the little frames look much older and more faded than others. There were probably lots of duds that got disposed of—"

“Oh! The Depression pea story. I almost forgot to tell you," Jane said. She related the conversation she'd overheard when she first arrived at the museum.

“That is nice," Shelley said when Jane was done. "It really sums up an era, doesn't it? All the kids out crawling around the field to pick the peas so they'd have ground cover to hold the soil down the next year. We couldn't get
our
kids to do that."

“I bet we could if it was a matter of eating or starving."

“How nice that it was Sharlene he picked to tell the story to," Shelley said.

“Just what I thought. Shelley. ." She paused for a moment. "It really isn't any of our business who killed Regina, is it?"

“No, it isn't. But. .”

Jane sat down on a wooden crate and spoke quietly. "I was determined not to get involved. Not to care about someone I never knew. But now that I've come to know some of these people, I find that I'm caring in spite of myself."

“Me, too," Shelley admitted. She perched on the corner of a sturdy buffet table. "Mel would wash our mouths out with soap if he heard us. We've gotten to know and like people who
did
care for Regina. I guess that's what makes the difference. I feel so sorry for Sharlene and Lisa, losing someone they thought so much of in their different ways."

"But not Babs? You don't feel sorry for her?"

“I don't think anybody'd ever dare feel sorry for her. Besides, she really didn't say anything much about her relationship with Regina. I wonder if she even liked her."

“Good question," Jane said. "She must have respected her, though. She's the president of the board of directors. If she hadn't thought Regina was good at her job, she could probably have had her fired."

“Yes, if she were incompetent," Shelley agreed. "But I have the feeling that Babs is the kind of person who could despise someone personally and still recognize their good traits."

“You know what I'm wondering?" Jane said. "Whether whoever shot her meant to."

“You means Babs's theory that Caspar Snellen did it by accident?"

“No, what I really meant was this: it was a well-staged riot. The reenactors knew what they were doing, but nobody else did. Couldn't someone have been trying to shoot someone else and Regina ran in front of the target?”

Shelley considered for a moment. "I guess that's possible. Meaning that Derek and Caspar, who are by far the best suspects, might have been the intended victims instead?"

“Or anybody else, for that matter. Neither of them was in the reenactment, though, were they? I saw Jumper in his farm-boy clothes, but I don't remember the other two."

“I don't believe they were participants," Shelley said. "But anybody could have been lurking in those woods. It's pretty overgrown very near where we were walking.'

“But if they were in the woods, that puts them back at being suspects, not victims, doesn't it?”

“Right. It does."

“I couldn't sleep last night," Jane said, "for thinking about it. I've tried and tried to picture where everyone was, but I just can't bring it into focus. I was only thinking about myself. I really was about ninety percent convinced it was really happening. Somehow I don't think the shooting was an accident, though. Just my gut reaction.'

“You're probably right," Shelley agreed. "But think about it. . from what we've heard, Regina seemed to be a sort of ordinary person. A bit dull, perhaps. Ambitious enough, but not a hint of trampling ambition. A good friend to Lisa, a good employer to Sharlene, and a good enough employee, apparently, as far as Babs is concerned. Not the sort of person to inspire passionate emotions. Not passionate enough to lead to murder."

“Yes, but there's a lot of money involved," Jane said. "Millions. That could certainly inspire passion in some people. Like Caspar Snellen. And possibly that awful Georgia, his sister. Just because she was canny enough not to be overt about her resentment doesn't mean she wasn't just as greedy as Caspar."

“Right. But killing Regina wouldn't have made any difference," Shelley said. "She wasn't the one who inherited the money. The museum was. And I don't imagine her death will change that. Certainly not now. Probably not even if she’d died sooner. Miss Snellen left her fortune to the museum. Granted, she had every reason to believe a woman as young as Regina would continue as director, but still. .”