Jill Churchill: War and Peas

She disappeared into the depths of the mobile home, and Mel said to Jane and Shelley, "Then I'll start with you two."

“Are you in charge of the case?" Jane asked.

“No, just helping with interviews. There was a mob of people out there, you know, and it's important to interview as many as possible as quickly as possible."

“I don't know how much help we can be, Mel," Jane said. "We weren't in 'witness' mode."

“People seldom are," he replied.

“But we were really out in left field, if you'll forgive the expression," Shelley put in. "We were busy pretending like mad. The woman who rehearsed us really emphasized that we weren't to try to act the parts, but really get into it and be the people. She said that was the whole point of a reenactment. And we took her at her word. It was spooky, in fact. I was really scared of the battle, even though I knew it was all fake."

“But unfortunately, it wasn't," Jane added grimly. "Shelley's right. We weren't quite ourselves. Maybe it was just the heat, but I felt — well, almost hypnotized into my part.”

Mel wasn't very sympathetic. "Then you're going to have to snap out of it, because I need information. Do the best you can, okay?”

But it wasn't a successful interview. The experience had been pure chaos and neither of them could satisfactorily choreograph exactly what they'd done in what order, let alone account for anyone else's movements.

“There was a group of women — three of them, I think — just behind us to begin with," Jane summed up. "One of them was Sharlene Lloyd. I remembered her because her red hair and red face made her look so much hotter than the rest of us. And one of the women with her had a hat with cloth flowers like big cabbage roses. I saw her later, when we were trying to escape. She was ahead of us then, though. And she was already lying on the ground. Was that Ms. Palmer?”

Mel nodded. "Did she look injured when you saw her?"

“She looked dead," Shelley said bluntly. "But then, she was supposed to pretend to be dead, I guess."

“You couldn't see her expression," Jane said. "She was facedown and her hat had skewed around and concealed her features.”

Sharlene rejoined them. Her nose and eyes were pink and she had a crumpled tissue in her hand, but she was calm. "I've been listening to your questions," she said softly. "I'm afraid I don't know much, either. I was walking with Ms. Palmer and Babs McDonald. And I know it sounds crazy, but I, too, sort of felt like it was really happening. When the shooting started, I just froze. I was worried about Babs — Mrs. McDonald. She's the older lady, you know. Miss Daisy's friend. And I was worried about her being out in the heat or falling and breaking her hip or something. So I just stood there, and when the soldiers got close, Babs gave me a shove and said to rim for safety. I turned around and ran back the way we'd come."

“Where was Ms. Palmer then?" Mel asked very gently.

Sharlene sniffed and touched the tissue to her nose. "I don't know. I didn't look. I was only thinking about myself.”

Mel nodded and said, "Of course you were. That's understandable. What happened next?"

“Well, I ran a few feet and a soldier almost ran into me. He yelled something about getting out of the way and threw me to the ground. No, not really threw me, but he made it look like that. So I just stayed there, playing possum."

“Could you see the others?" Mel asked.

“No, I was in a low spot."

“Had someone told you to run back that way? Was it planned?"

“No, not really." Sharlene spoke more firmly now. "I believe the actual reenactors have what they do pretty well planned. But those of us from the museum were just extras. We were there for a little extra 'color' and were only told about how we were supposed to imagine we were walking to town and no matter what happened, to act like the person we were pretending to be would probably have acted.”

Shelley and Jane nodded their agreement, and Shelley added, "As part of the museum's function, the woman in charge told us a lot about the clothes we were wearing and how we would have lived, and suggested 'roles.' I was the town minister's wife—" She looked warningly at Jane, as if her friend might make another joke about that, but Jane kept a straight face and Shelley continued. "And Jane was my cousin whose family had come out to homestead next to our farm. We were taking our tomatoes to market to trade for flour. They made us carry gunnysacks of real tomatoes so we'd know how heavy they were.”

Mel nodded. "Excuse me for wandering off track for a minute," he said to Sharlene, "but Idon't recall any Civil War battles around here. I'm not much of a history buff, but—"

“It wasn't meant to be a real battle," Sharlene said. Again she was speaking of something about which she was knowledgeable, and her voice and manner were more confident. "Only to give the flavor of what it was like. Lisa Quigley — she does all our publicity and promotion at the Snellen — set it up, so I don't know a whole lot about it, but I think the reenactors the real ones — based it on some actual battle that took place in Tennessee. They have a club here in Chicago and they like to do this whenever they can. I think some of them spend a fortune on their uniforms and equipment and all, and travel long distances to go to actual sites. But they all have real jobs and can't do that very often, I imagine. They're very picky about accuracy otherwise. Even their underwear and the toothbrushes in their packs are either antique items or exact reproductions. That's why the museum is so strict with the extras. We can't use bobby pins in our hair or wear makeup. And we have to wear wool stockings like the people did then. I'm sorry. I guess you don't care about all that right now."

“I don't know what I care about," Mel said with an encouraging smile. "I'm just collecting information. You seem to have a lot of it."

“Well, I've worked at the museum since I finished secretarial school," Sharlene said modestly. "I've picked things up."

“Tell me about the museum, then," Mel said. Sharlene briefly repeated what was in the brochure Jane had read earlier. "Miss Daisy Snellen inherited all her grandfather's money that he made from peas. When she died a couple years ago, she left most of it to the museum board of directors. It had grown to around ten million dollars.”

Mel whistled softly.

Sharlene nodded agreement. "Most of it was invested, and part of it was used to hire an architect to—" She stopped suddenly. "Oh, Mr. Abbot! Poor Mr. Abbot!"

“Who's that?" Jane asked.

“Ms. Palmer's fiancé. He was the architect who was hired to make the plans for a new museum building. And he and Ms. Palmer fell in love and were supposed to be married this winter. Oh, no! How terrible for him! Somebody has to tell him!"

“I'm sure someone's told him about it already," Mel said.

“Or asked him," Shelley muttered under her breath to Jane.

“I have to talk to the others," Sharlene said. "Lisa and poor Mr. Abbot. May I go now? Everybody's going to be so upset, and we're supposed to have the groundbreaking ceremony tomorrow. Oh, dear!”

Mel nodded, thanked her for her information, and warned her that he'd probably have more questions for her later on.

When she'd gone, Jane said, "We'd better get out of here. Everybody's going to be wanting to change. Mel, what happened out there? Was the woman really shot?"

“It looks like it. And damned near everybody out there had guns. One poor guy is trying to collect them all now and the reenactors aren't happy about turning over their weapons. We can't require them to, only ask them to do so voluntarily, of course, and since most of the weapons are valuable antiques or expensive replicas, many reenactors aren't feeling especially cooperative. It's a mess."