Jill Churchill: War and Peas

“We were glad to," Jane said. "I'm sure you had more important things on your mind.”

Babs nodded. There was a touch of the regal in the movement. "Less cheerful things, certainly. And I understand you're helping us next week with our cataloging."

“If you still want us to," Shelley said.

“Of course we do. In fact, we're going to need more help than ever. The loss of Regina isn't going to deter our aims, only make them more of a challenge.”

Jane, a State Department brat who had grown up all over the world, suddenly found herself remembering a boarding school she'd attended in Scotland in her early teens when her father was posted to Edinburgh for six months. It had been the hardest school to leave because of a teacher she adored — a teacher Babs McDonald reminded her of. Like that teacher, Babs had a straight-spined elegance and a precision of speech that was a pleasure to hear. The laugh lines around her eyes kept them from being daunting. Babs was one of those older women who looked and acted as if this were the prime of her life.

“Then you're still having the groundbreaking ceremony early this evening?" Shelley asked.

“Certainly!" Babs said. "It was to be the high point of the festival — at least for the employees and supporters of the Snellen- Museum. Lisa, as Regina's oldest and dearest friend, will deliver the speech Regina was to give. And Jumper and I, as president and vice president of the board, will wield the shovel for the ceremony."

“Line up now," Lisa alerted them.

Jane and Shelley tried their best to duplicate what they'd done and thought and said during the previous reenactment, but like everyone else, their eyes were darting about, watching the others, and their hearts and minds weren't on their characters. The gunshots sounded louder and deadlier today. Everyone's actions were stiff and wary, but every bit as chaotic as on the day before. As Jane and Shelley, playing farmwives trying to flee the battlefield, approached the spot where Regina had been lying, there was nothing but a small yellow flag-type marker. And when they reached the festival end of the field and turned and looked back, Officer Ridley was still standing, alone and ignored, her cabbage-rose hat still firmly atop her head.

Jane felt relief — something superstitious deep in her soul had been half afraid something terrible would happen again. And yet she felt an odd sense of disappointment as well. Not that she'd wanted another tragedy, but she'd hoped that something revealing would occur. In some part of her mind she'd hoped against reason for a Perry Mason-type scene, where someone became so rattled and distraught that he or she confessed dramatically.

Mel was standing a few feet away, shaking his head in irritation. Shelley and Jane approached him, and Jane asked, "You don't think it helped?"

“This was not my idea. And no, I don't think it helped at all. We'll study all the tapes, of course, but—"

“If you show them to the others, might somebody see something that's not right?" Jane said, trying to assuage his frustration.

“Jane, I imagine everybody did exactly what they did yesterday. The only difference is, nobody took aim with a stolen antique gun and shot somebody.”

Five

The groundbreaking ceremony was scheduled Y for five o'clock. At four-thirty, Shelley started packing up the sale items at their booth and Jane carted them to the mobile home. She found much of the museum staff assembled. Sharlene was tidying and packing up the costumes, and Jumper Cable was attempting, with stunning incompetence, to help her. Babs McDonald was at the miniature dining table, going over some paperwork with Lisa Quigley.

As Jane entered with her boxes, a tremendously good-looking man stood up from the sofa, first to study her, then to offer to help her. His quick up-and-down gaze and approving smile might have been flattering, had they not been so blatantly lecherous.

“Hi, there. I don't think we've met," he said, taking the boxes from her and managing to "accidentally" brush his hand against her breast in the process. "I'm Derek Delano." This was said with a flash of handsomely capped teeth.

“I'm glad to meet you," Jane lied. "I'm Jane Jeffry."

“Another of our wonderful volunteers, no doubt." His tone was clearly patronizing.

Jane wished she could do that haughty-eyebrow thing that Shelley was so good at. "Another volunteer," she said. "But I don't know about wonderful. This box is marked 'Pins, jump ropes, and peashooters,' but we sold out on the peashooters."

“Don't worry. Sharlene will sort it all out," he said.

Jane had taken such an instant dislike to him that she found this insulting to Sharlene, though for all she knew, it was part of Sharlene's job. "And are you a volunteer, too, Derek?" she asked cattily.

His frown lasted only an instant before he laughed condescendingly. "No, I'm the assistant director of the Snellen. For now.”

He said the last words in a low voice, but across the way, Babs McDonald's head snapped up and she glared at him. Not awfully diplomatic of him, Jane thought, offering to step into Regina Palmer's shoes so soon.

“For now?" Jane repeated innocently. "What do you mean?”

He replied, a little too loudly, "Only that I'll be happy to do anything the Snellen Museum needs at this time of trouble.”

Jane went back to the booth and said, "Shelley, I think you should take the next carton over and meet Derek."

“Who's that?" Shelley said, slapping transparent tape along the lid of a box.

“Oh, just the Snellen Museum's very own sleaze. And a perfect murder suspect."

“What on earth are you blathering about?" Shelley snapped. The tape hadn't gone on perfectly straight, the way she felt tape was supposed to do. She considered such incidents with inanimate objects as personal insults.

“Take that box over and you'll see.”

Shelley returned ten minutes later — walking hard on her heels. "What a creep!" she said with an elaborate shudder. "He called me 'babe.' Babe!"

“No!"

“ He won't do it again," Shelley said, smiling a little.

Jane repeated his remark about being the assistant director — so far. "Babs heard him, but I wanted to make certain he knew she'd heard it. Do you think we should tell Mel?"

“You can, but I don't think there's any need," Shelley said. "The rest of them in the trailer were treating him like he was Typhoid Mary. I don't think there's any love lost on him at the Snellen."

“But there might be elsewhere," Jane said quietly. "Get a load of that.”

She gestured with her shoulder. Derek Delano was approaching the booth with a woman on his arm. She was the essence of the country-club type: stylish clothes that were once called "preppie," a golf tan, costly sunglasses, a surgically enhanced figure and face, and expensively streaked blond hair. And in spite of it all, she looked just old enough to be his mother, though her clinging posture and eyelash batting weren't the least maternal.

“Georgia Snellen," Shelley muttered under her breath.

“Same family, I assume?" Jane hissed back. Shelley nodded.

“Closing up shop, I see," Georgia Snellen said as she released Derek and leaned casually against the corner post of the booth.

Shelley didn't bother to make the obvious reply. "I'm Shelley Nowack. We served on the Philharmonic Committee together a number of years ago."

“Not too many years, I hope," Georgia trilled girlishly. "Are you one of the Evanston Nowacks? Lovely family.”

Shelley didn't bother to deny it. She introduced Jane.

There followed an interrogation of Jane's social antecedents, during which Jane let Georgia make some unfounded leaps of belief, and Jane ended up related to both a highly respected family of Harvard philosophy professors and an early, though entirely mythical, Arctic explorer (Shelley's contribution).