The Class Menagerie

nobody I'll want to see again.'

'Not even Scott?'

'Oh, I'll never get rid of Scott,' Mike said with a laugh. 'But we aren't friends 'cause we go to school together. We're just friends.'

'But you wouldn't really go to a reunion?'

'What's the point? Those are the people who knew you when you were a dumb kid. I want to really be somebody, without a bunch of people reminding me how I accidentally dumped a lemonade all over my first date, or having a good laugh about putting the mouse in my tuba and I threw up when I discovered I'd been blowing the thing around in there. Or how I failed my driver's test because 1 ran a red light—'

'Mike! You told me you failed the written part!'

'I lied, Mom. It was for your own good,' he added with a grin. 'But, geez, who wants to be reminded of that stuff?'

'I don't understand reunions either,' Jane admitted. 'But then, I didn't go to one school for long enough to even remember my classmates. I think, though, that some people like them for just the reason you said. They grew up and got to be 'somebody' and they come so that everybody else will know it. And the ones who didn't become somebodies probably come so they can pretend that they are.'

'Waste of time,' Mike pronounced judgment. 'I figure this is the worst time of my life. At least this week is. It's gotta get better and I don't want to relive this. Todd said he heard one of those women died. I told him he was full of it.'

'One of them did,' Jane said.

'What was it? Heart attack?'

'I don't know, exactly,' Jane said. She didn't want to tell him it was murder because he'd worry about her needlessly. Whatever the reason, it had nothing to do with her, so she was in no danger. Besides, the reunion was nearly over. A picnic tomorrow afternoon, a dinner dance at the country club, and Sunday morning

they'd all go home and, with any luck at all, Jane would never see any of them again.

Mike burrowed back into the sofa with his books and Jane continued working on the puzzle, plucking a green piece off Willard's nose as he went by. She blotted it on a napkin and put it in place.

At about nine-thirty, the doorbell rang. 'Shelley, what are you doing here?'

'Hiding?'

'Come in.' The phone rang as she was walking past it. She answered it, listened, and said, 'Mike? It's for you.' She covered the phone and mouthed, 'It's a girl.'

She waited until he'd picked up on the upstairs extension, then gently hung up. 'I wonder what would happen if I said to one of them, 'Look here, you little hussy! Leave my son alone!''

'Not much. Paul's mother's still saying that to me.'

Jane laughed. 'Would it help if I told you that you looked smashing?'

'Not much, but you can try. Jane, we need to talk—'

17

'So you let her go on a date?' Shelley asked a few minutes later when she'd taken off her shoes and knocked back half a glass of diet Coke.

'The date from Hell. Hazel and I are hoping.'

'So she's made up with Jenny? What was their fight about?' Shelley was leaning back in her chair and had her eyes closed.

'Jealousy. The new' girl. I think.'

'Isn't it amazing the things kids can get worked up about?' Shelley said.

'Oh, I don't know that they're so bad. Neither of them put anything in the other's deodorant. Unlike some adults I know.'

'Isn't it a nightmare?' Shelley said.

'Who do you think is playing the tricks? Not to mention killing Lila….'

'You think it's the same person?' Shelley asked.

'I assume so. Unless you've got two nut cases.'

'I think they're all nuts!'

'Do you really?'

Shelley sat up. 'No, I really don't. That's what's so weird about this. They're all very distinct, some with strong personalities, but none of them seems like the kind to play stupid stunts, much less murder anybody. I still think it must have been someone from outside. It had to be, Jane!'.'

'Maybe—'

'Look, as obnoxious as she was to the Ewe Lambs, Lila didn't get that way overnight. She's had long years of practice making people miserable. And being made miserable. She could have had an enemy who followed her here and bumped her off where it could be blamed on someone else.'

'That seems sort of baroque.'

'Oh, I didn't tell you — Trey Moffat, he's our class president, said at the cocktail party tonight that he knew somebody who knew Lila. Interesting gossip. Apparently she married some no-neck bodybuilder and set him up in business as a private detective. She was assumed to be the brains of the outfit. Anyhow, he learned just enough about snooping to get some kind of goods on her, then divorced her. Trey wasn't sure what the compromising stuff was, but it must have been good. He cleaned her out. The bodybuilder. Not Trey.'

'What do you mean?'

'The husband kept everything. The house, the agency, the bank accounts. That's why she was so hard up. The family money is gone, if there ever was much. I don't think there ever was a whole lot of money, just illustrious ancestors.'

'You'll have to tell Mel that.'

'I already did. He was at the cocktail party. Put a bit of a damper on things, in fact.'

'I take it that you wouldn't be here if the party had been fun.'

'Oh, it wasn't so bad. I was just sick of smiling and nodding. And I haven't had a real chance to talk to you for days.'

'Has Constanza broken into your safe yet?'

Shelley giggled wickedly. 'She made a big deal

of telling me how she'd spilled something and was looking for a tablecloth and just happened to notice that we'd gotten a safe. I tried to make her explain why she was looking for a tablecloth in an upstairs closet when there's a whole stack of them in the laundry room. That made her squirm. That safe has already paid for itself in satisfaction.'

'Did she try to get the combination?'

'Repeatedly. She called Paul in Singapore with a cock-and-bull story about having brought along a valuable bracelet and she'd feel so much better if she could put it away safely.'

'And?'

'Paul told her he doesn't know the combination. Which is true. I told her I'd lost the combination, which isn't true, but said I'd take her straight down to the bank and she could put her terribly valuable bracelet in our safe deposit box. Then she decided the bracelet wasn't so valuable after all and she'd just keep on wearing it. Anyway — the party wasn't so bad. Trey Moffat looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Has a cute little wife and roly-poly baby along.'

Jane had no interest in the class president. 'Did you pick up any other gossip?'

'Not much. The guy Pooky was bringing the pen set to is a nerdy, single plastic surgeon. They seemed to be hitting it off awfully well. Maybe there's a romance in the air.'

'I hope so. I've gotten to really like Pooky. I know she's got the IQ of a kitchen appliance, but she's a good- hearted person.'

'Is she? I didn't really get a chance to talk to her much. And when she did talk at the fund-raising meeting, I wanted to smack her. Her suggestions were so dumb. Good-hearted, as you say, but criminally

stupid. A telethon fashion show, for God's sake!'

'I never asked--does she have children?'

Shelley thought a moment. 'I think there was a child in one marriage. But it didn't belong to either of them.