The Class Menagerie

Avalon was talking about it in the car. The husband had married before, this was his stepchild and the wife died, then he married Pooky. They later divorced and the child went with him. Apparently it's a source of great grief to Pooky.'

'Poor Pooky. Was everybody impressed with Crispy

at the party?'

'Stunned senseless.'

There was the sound of a key in the kitchen door,

then Katie calling good-night before stomping into the

living room. 'Mom! — Oh, hi, Mrs. Nowack.'

'Katie, did you have fun?' Shelley asked.

'Fun? Fun! What a couple of dweebs!'

Neither Jane nor Shelley, to their credit, cracked

a smile.

'It was a horrible, dumb movie. All these stupid car crashes. And Johnny didn't even offer to share his popcorn with me. What mega-losers! And we went out for ice cream after and all they talked about was cars, cars, cars. Even Jenny's dad! Bo-o-o-ring! I've got to go call Jenny.'

'You've just been with Jenny for three hours.'

'But we couldn't really talk. 'Night, Mom.'

Of unspoken accord, Jane and Shelley hadn't got-

ten into really serious discussion, knowing they were

going to be interrupted shortly. When Katie had gone

upstairs, Shelley leaned forward and said quietly, 'So

what has Mel told you?'

'Practically nothing. He's furious with me. About

the notebook.'

'What notebook?'

'What notebook! We have fallen behind if you don't know about the dreaded notebook.' Jane explained to Shelley about Crispy's getting her hands on Lila's notebook, then subsequently having it stolen. 'But you know how hectic things have been. I kept meaning to tell him, but other things happened. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd told him earlier anyway, because it disappeared within an hour of Crispy's finding it anyway.'

'Do you think she's telling the truth? About it not having anything interesting in it? And about it being stolen?'

— 'About what was in it, yes, I think so. But about it being stolen, no. But I haven't any reason whatsoever for doubting her. It's just my instinct. I think she'd have held onto it and tried to read something into the notations.'

'That would be my guess, too. That, or—'

'Or what?'

Shelley stood up and paced for a minute, curling her toes into the carpet as she walked. Willard heaved himself to his feet and walked ^alongside her, looking up expectantly. Shelley.petted his head absently. 'Look, Lila was trying to put the squeeze on people. Blackmail them out of money. Right?'

'It looks like it from what Kathy said.'

'So whatever she knew about them might have been written in the notebook.'

'She couldn't have remembered?'

'Not if she had specifics to toss at them. Like, maybe she had the exact amount of Kathy's holdings in some South African company or other, just to convince her that she knew what she was talking about. Blackmail isn't among my skills, but I'd think you'd have to have some concrete information to do it well.'

'Okay, I'll buy that—'

'She might have made it look like innocent information, just in case she lost the book, as she did. Or in case someone else saw it. You'd hardly expect her to title the pages, What I'm Using for Extortion on Kathy. So Crispy might have genuinely thought it was boring stuff.'

Jane thought for a minute. 'Or, she thought it was boring stuff until she saw the part that pertained to her.'

'Was Lila trying to blackmail her, too?'

'She's never said. She didn't try anything with you, did she?'

'I'm too boring to blackmail,' Shelley said. 'But she did give it a shot — I think. She made some crack about Paul and how she imagined with all those franchises, he had a lot of trouble with the income tax people. I said no, he had no trouble at all, which was an outright lie. Paul is constantly fighting them. Anyway, I didn't get it at the time, but later I realized she probably meant it as the groundwork for a threat. As in, Paul will have trouble with the IRS if you don't— whatever. Somehow, I can't imagine her having anything on Crispy that Crispy wouldn't be thrilled to talk about. She loves scandalizing people.'-r '

'No, her cracks at Crispy all seemed to have to do with Crispy's having such a hopeless crush on Ted.'

'Ted! I'm sick of hearing of Ted. This has turned

into the Ted Francisco Memorial Reunion.'

'What about Ted? Do you think he committed sui-

cide?'

'What a weird question. Of course he did. Unless you think you've seen him lately.'

'No, I mean Crispy thinks it was an accident. That

he started up the car and went back for something, fell over drunk, and died later.'

'That's probably wishful thinking on her part,' Shelley said, 'but I suppose it could be true. Interesting —'

'What do you think? Was Ted the type to kill himself?'

Shelley laughed. 'Oh, Jane. Ted wouldn't have known me if he'd fallen over me. I was not part of his crowd. I didn't know him at all, except to adore from afar. But since you ask, on the surface of it, it didn't seem logical. Of course suicide never does. You don't think Ted has something to do with this, do you?'

'Good Lord! I hope not! No, I was just curious. Everybody keeps talking about him,'

'Let's get back to the matter at hand,' Shelley said in her best Madame Chairwoman voice.

'Okay. Lila and blackmail. Most of the nasty things she was saying seemed to have more to do with high school than the present.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, she was hinting about Avalon doing drugs in high school. Did she, by the way?'

'I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised. What about Pooky? Did she have anything on her?'

'I'm pretty sure she did, but Pooky's not admitting it.' Jane recounted her conversation with Pooky about Lila's and Pooky's distress.

'What deep, dark secrets could high school girls really have?' Shelley said. 'Today they might, but not back then.'

'Well, drugs. Abortion, maybe. I don't know — a drunk driving conviction?'

'That would have been juicy stuff then, but not now. Most women our age would just say, 'Yes, isn't

it awful. I made a terrible mistake. Thank God it's in the past.' And that would be the end of it. We all did dumb things we'd cringe at being reminded of, but nothing we'd kill somebody for mentioning.'

'What would somebody kill to protect?' Jane said.

They both thought long and hard for a moment, then Shelley said, 'A child? Could somebody have a child Lila had some means of taking away? Let's see. Beth hasn't any children. Kathy's got a mob of them, but that's not what Lila was using on her. Avalon's got one of her own and the foster children. Crispy has none of her own, but half a dozen,stepchildren from all those marriages.'

'I think Mimi has two,' Jane added. 'She showed me a picture of two little girls. Pooky hasn't got any, you say. Speaking of children—' Jane turned her head toward the stairway, where they could hear sounds of an escalating battle upstairs. 'I think my darlings, who both believe themselves to be independent adults, are