The Class Menagerie jj-4 (20 page)

"I wish we knew about Crispy. Uh-oh. Here comes Katie. If Hazel comes to the door, tell her I'm in the shower. I couldn't stand to talk to her right now."

Fortunately Jenny's mother stayed in the car and Katie ran through the house and upstairs without saying anything but hello in passing. A moment later, she

was on her way out carrying enough clothing to live at Jenny's for a month. "Jenny's going to cut my hair for me, Mom," she said as she flew by.

"It'll grow out," Shelley told Jane when the door slammed. "And if not, wigs have really come down in price lately."

"Isn't that my car coming down the street?"

"With Mel's car following."

They were in the driveway by the time Jane's station wagon wallowed over the curbing and came to rest. The officer got out and handed Jane the keys, but her attention was on Mel.

"Tell us," she said.

"She's alive. But she's on life-support."

"But she
is
alive!" Jane said.

"Jane, don't get your hopes up. It looks like she's sustained massive brain trauma.' Her chances of surviving, much less ever waking up, are very remote."

"May I see her?"

"Of course.not," he snapped. Then, "I'm sorry. But you can't. I have to go." The other officer had crammed his considerable bulk into the passenger seat of Mel's red MG and looked enormously uncomfortable.

"I know,"-Jane said. "Go."

She almost added that she'd see him at Edgar's later, but decided it would be better not to mention that in advance.

23

Shelley met Jane at the kitchen door of the bed and breakfast as Jane came in. Hector had already met her in the driveway and shot into the house between her feet. "Decided against the silk dress, I see," Shelley said sarcastically.

"It seemed a bit festive for the occasion." Jane was wearing a denim skirt and a camel-colored sweater Mike had outgrown.

"You look like a bag lady."

"No, I look like Avalon." She shoved her purse"-

into the cabinet next to the back door. Hector tried to

squirm in and investigate the cabinet, but she pulled

him out, protesting loudly. "So, how bad is it?" she

asked Shelley.

"About as bad as you'd expect. Mel's in the dining room, interviewing people. Everybody else is milling around in the living room. There are about fifteen of us, excluding the police. But only the five remaining Ewe Lambs are suspects."

"Not really," Jane said. "I was thinking about it on the way over. You and I are officially on the list even though Mel certainly knows we didn't do it. And there are two others who have been present for the duration of the reunion. Let's sit down for a minute. I can't face it yet."

Jane absentmindedly wandered the kitchen, looking at the food that was almost ready to be served. In spite of the morbid circumstances, Edgar had put on a feast. There were stuffed lamb chops, scalloped potatoes with a faint rosemary smell, a braised celery dish, a cold beet salad with sour cream and dill, and a cauliflower concoction that looked as if it had been parboiled and marinated in a spicy dressing. For those with a lesser appetite, there was a melon boat, cold meats and cheeses, and rye rolls. The food smelled wonderful, but Jane couldn't have eaten a bite.

Shelley poured two cups of Edgar's remarkable coffee and they sat down at the kitchen table. Jane lighted a cigarette. Hector, curled in the chair opposite her, gave a disdainful look of disapproval.

"Who are the other two?" Shelley asked. "What did you mean by that?"

Jane lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "Edgar and Gordon."

"You don't think—"

"No, I don't. But we've been pretty dumb to discount them entirely and you know Mel must be considering them."

"But they had no previous connection with the Ewe Lambs."

"— that you know of."

"Oh, Jane. I wish you'd never said this. I think I'm going mad! Oh, you'll love this: there are two couples here who actually believe this is a party. They came voluntarily!"

"No."

"Yes. An accountant and some twit who works for a consumer advocacy group. They put their pointy little heads together and decided that they'd paid for a reunion banquet and By God, they were going to attend one, come hell or high water. The accountant

has a wife along who looks like she's hunting for a rock to crawl under. Oh, and Pooky's plastic surgeon friend came. He didn't have to, but came for Pooky's sake. Which I think is sweet."

"It looks like one person has come out ahead. I'm glad. Did Mel say anything else about Crispy's condition?"

"Just that she's still hanging on. He did mention that they found the weapon. A heavy stick from those woods behind the building. It must have been a perfect club, heavy, close at hand, and easy to.dispose of."

"Fingerprints?"

"No. The bark was too rough."

"Anything about the notebook?"

"Mel said the prints were wiped off,!' Shelley reported.

"Shelley, I keep trying to imagine what happened before we got there. Crispy must have had the notebook with her and confronted somebody with what she'd learned."

"Presumably."

"But who tore the pages out?"

"Her attacker. Who else would? She probably ran into that little rest room at the visitor center and flushed them."

"Not likely. Think about the timing. If her attacker had lots of leisure time, she'd have made sure she'd finished Crispy off."

"That's right. Why didn't she?"

"Maybe because we were running up the hill yelling. And even if she didn't hear HS coming, she had to have known that anybody could have walked in any second just to have a look around. She didn't have a lot of time. Just enough to club Crispy, grab the notebook, wipe off her fingerprints, shove it in the

trash, and get the hell away from the place. Tearing out pages and flushing them — would have taken even more time. And I don't think a toilet was running when I got in there, although I admit I wasn't noticing much of anything but Crispy, and I might not have been able to hear it anyway with all those display walls in the building."

"Yes, but what conclusion does that lead you to, Jane? That the attacker ripped the pages out and took them along?"

"That's one possibility. She could have.easily slipped them into one of the barbecue fires. But I was really thinking of Crispy herself. Look, Shelley, Crispy kept the notebook for some stupid reason. To wave around in somebody's face, maybe? But wouldn't she take the pages out and put them somewhere safe first?"

Shelley leaned back in her chair and tented her fingers. "Hmmm. Are you suggesting that Crispy wanted to use Lila's notebook for blackmail, too?"

"Not blackmail exactly. Not to get anything from anybody. But Crispy liked embarrassing people. Remember, I told you when I first met her at the airport, she said she intended to torment the other Ewe Lambs. Remind them of foolish things they'd done. Make them feel silly. I guess as some kind of revenge for not liking her and including her in high school."

"Okay, so assuming she kept the notebook — you're probably right, she might well have torn the pages out. But where would she have put them? The police went over her room with a fine-tooth comb. They were still here when I came back."

"No, she knew the rooms wouldn't lock and two of them had already been searched."

"Then where would she put them?"

"I have no idea."

"Jane! You're here. Thank heaven," Edgar said, bustling into the kitchen with a tray of dirty glasses.

Jane leaped to her feet. "I'm sorry. I should be helping."

"Make an ashtray run, would you?" Edgar said. He was rinsing out glasses and stacking them in the dishwasher.

Jane picked up the decorative metal canister Edgar used to empty ashtrays into and went to the living room.

It was about the gloomiest gathering she'd ever walked into. The air was blue with smoke, in spite of the fact that someone had opened one of the French doors. People were sitting around in dispirited clumps, barely speaking. There were only two islands of brightness. One was Pooky and her friend sitting close together on a sofa, chattering happily. The other was a group around Trey Moffat and his pretty wife and smiling baby. She was holding the infant and Trey was making baby talk and prodding it, making it laugh. The baby's laugh was so infectious that the group around them was smiling.

Jane strolled around, picking up ashtrays and eavesdropping. Mimi was chatting with another woman about the schedule of a traveling art exhibit. Beth was having a discussion on managing clerks' billing hours with a man who was presumably also an attorney. Kathy was talking about capital gains with the accountant. Avalon was sitting by herself, knitting as if her life depended on finishing the garment.

Jane took the canister back through the kitchen and set it outside the back door. Edgar was getting out the food in preparation for serving. He'd put the long library table at the north end of the living room earlier and covered it with a white lace cloth. "Did
I
remember the napkins out there?" he said as he wrestled an enormous container of deviled eggs out of the refrigerator.

"I'll check," Jane said. She peeked around the door. "Yes, they're on the table."

"Okay, I'll take the melon out. Hold the door for me, then bring the meat and cheese tray."

Jane held the door for him, then picked up the tray she was to bring. She edged through the door carefully. The thing wasn't heavy, but it was large and awkward. She followed Edgar through the room and said, "Where do you want the meat tray?"

"At the other end."

"Meat tray--" Jane repeated. "Meat tray!"

She nearly dropped it.

Could Crispy have been saying "meat tray" not "meet Trey"?

And if so, what the hell could it mean?

Jane went back to the kitchen and got more dishes to carry in, all the while mumbling to herself. Were there other variations? Meat? Did meat have any significance? Or tray? She made a third trip and a fourth and went back to the kitchen. The counter was now clear. Nothing else to take in! She leaned back against the refrigerator for a moment, thinking furiously.

Her eyes opened very wide and she turned around to stare at the fridge. She pulled on the door, wondering if Edgar's super-duper appliance had the same features as hers. Yes, indeed it did! A shallow drawer under the middle shelf meant for keeping meats.
A meat tray.

But Edgar kept flat boxes of Godiva chocolates in it. Jane pulled the drawer out as far as it would go and started lifting out the gold boxes of candy. At the

back, under the last box, was a little stack of yellow sheets of paper.

Jane grabbed the papers, glanced through, and shoved them into the pocket of her skirt. Then she hastily put the candy back and closed the door. She went back to the living room, where people were milling around the library table, serving themselves dinner. Shelley and Trey had been cornered by the accountant and the consumer rights advocate, who were giving them hell about the nature of the "banquet" and the money they'd paid for it.

"Excuse me," Jane said. "Shelley, I need to talk to you."

"Now, just a minute, little lady," the accountant said. "We got us some business to talk over with Shelley. You're gonna have to hold your horses."

Jane stepped back, fished the papers out of her pocket and held them up for Shelley to see. Shelley's eyes went saucerlike. "I'm afraid it's
your
horses that are going to have to wait; Lloyd," she said, pushing past him. "Put those away before somebody sees them," Shelley hissed as she took Jane's arm and hurried her to the library. She slammed the door behind them and said, "Let me see!"

Jane laid the papers out on an end table next to the sofa and turned on the lamp. At first glance they didn't seem to mean much of anything. Same names, numbers, many items crossed out. Some starred.

"I have to give them to Mel right away."

"Right!" Shelley said. She went to the corner where the copier and fax stood and turned on the copier. "Lay them out," she said.

They made two copies and Shelley stayed behind while Jane went to the dining room. She tapped on the door and opened it. "Detective VanDyne—"

Mel was sitting across the table from Trey Moffat's

wife, who looked like a rabbit caught in someone's

headlights. "Mrs. Jeffry, I'm busy at the moment,"

Mel said sharply. "If you could wait outside

, for—"

"I'm sorry, but it really can't wait." Jane came into the room and handed him the yellow sheets.

He looked down at them, then at her. "Where did you find these?"

"In the refrigerator. In the M-E-A-T T-R-A-Y."

He smiled at her. "Good. Good! Thank you, Mrs. Jeffry."

She all but danced back to the library. Shelley was sitting on the sofa, staring at one of the two copies they'd made. By overlapping the pages, they'd gotten the information from all six small sheets of yellow paper on one page.

Shelley handed Jane the second copy. "She did a nice job of being obscure. If you didn't know what these meant, you'd never guess, and some still don't make sense."

Jane studied her sheet. "There isn't one for Crispy."

"She must have destroyed her own page."

Under Avalon's name was a long number and ARK with a date following it. A couple of telephone numbers had been crossed out. "That must be a case number or something for the charge about the drugs," Jane said. "Possibly the date the case was filed, or the date the charges were made."

"And the telephone numbers are probably the foster care agencies she contacted. I'll bet the starred number is the one where she actually got the information she was looking for. None of the pages have more than one number starred."

"Pooky's looks pretty much the same."

"Kathy's is the easiest," Shelley said. "It's a list of stock abbreviations and I imagine the figures that follow are the number of shares Kathy has. What are the telephone numbers? Brokers, probably. If nothing else, the police are going to ask the people at these numbers some pretty awkward questions about how Lila got confidential information."