The Class Menagerie

squabbling over the phone.'

She got up to go sort it out.

'We're going about this all wrong,' Shelley said to her back.

'That much seems obvious,' Jane tossed back. 'Michael! Katherine!'

18

'I'm starving. Have you got anything to eat here?' Shelley asked when Jane came back from yelling at the kids. 'Preferably something salty arid crunchy with the highest fat content possible?'

'Crackers and cheese?'

'Doesn't sound greasy enough, but it would do.'

Shelley slumped on a kitchen chair while Jane got out snacks. 'How about some hot chocolate, just to run the calorie count up?' Jane asked.

'Sounds wonderful.'

While Jane worked, Shelley said, 'I don't believe in cholesterol. I think within ten years they'll change their trendy little medical minds and say they were wrong all along and human beings really need as many saturated fats as they can knock back. They're already changing their minds about eggs.'

'Interesting theory.'

'Jane, consider this: human beings are carnivores. The species developed in the jungle eating other creatures, finding eggs to steal, maybe eating the occasional plant, just for variety or out of desperation. I think red meat and eggs are the stuff of which humans are made.'

Jane set down a tray and two cups of steaming cocoa. She'd even put little marshmallows in the cups. 'In that case, I'll be ready with my cabinets full of previously forbidden foods. Shelley, to get back to the subject at hand — this morning Mel was asking me about the practical jokes and he did something interesting that we ought to try.'

'What's that?'

'He made a list of the jokes and then went through it over and over, looking at them each time in a different way. Like, were they harmful? Who was the.victim? Could they have a meaning? Did they require advance preparation?'

'Uh-huh. And did it lead him to any. conclusion?'

'Not that I know of. Not then. But it's an interesting way of looking at things.'

'Okay…?'

'So, let's do the same thing with the murder. We

need to think about this in an organized, logical way.'

'All right. Where do we start?' Shelley took an extremely unladylike bite of a cracker she'd slathered with a great deal of cheese.

'Well, how about this — if we agree that Lila was killed because she was blackmailing someone—'

'Do we know that?'

Jane thought for a minute. 'No, actually we don't know it. It just seems extremely likely.'

'Likely isn't certain.'

'No, but why else would somebody kill her?'

'Oh, any number of reasons, starting with the fact that she was an all-round obnoxious bitch.'

'Yes, but there are a lot of those in the world, and most of them are still alive and kicking.'

'Unfortunately,' Shelley said with a grin.

'Okay, we can come back later to reexamine our basic premise. But for now, let's pretend that we know Lila was killed because she was blackmailing someone.'

'Okay by me. Lead on, Sherlock.' Shelley took a careful sip of her cocoa and closed her eyes appreciatively for a moment. 'You have a great skill with premixed foodstuffs, Jane.'

'All right. Let's look at our list of suspects,' Jane went on.

'Who's on the list?'

'The Ewe Lambs,' Jane said uneasily.

'And who else?'

'I don't know. Shelley, you know perfectly well it has to be one of them.'

'No, I don't and neither do you.'

Jane knew when she was on thin ice. 'You might be right. But since we don't know who the other suspects may be, let's just talk about the ones we do know.'

Shelley nodded grudgingly.

'So, let's consider first who had the opportunity.'

'Anybody, I'd say. It depends on when she was killed, doesn't it? I mean, she was out in the carriage house and found after everybody was locked in. But maybe she was killed before that. Before ten-thirty.'

'Then it would have to have been between nine-thirty and ten-thirty. Right?'

'She and whoever it was couldn't have gone out the kitchen door between those times, could they?' Shelley asked.

'I don't think so. Somebody or other was in the kitchen all the time. But there are doors all over the house.'

'I don't think this is getting us anywhere, Jane. It needn't have taken more than a few minutes to smack her with a paint can — isn't that what somebody said happened? — and smother her. And it's not messy like stabbing or something. The murderer wouldn't have had to sneak inside and wash blood off her clothes or

anything like that. Just slip quietly back in the door she'd left by and pick up where she left off as if she'd just been to the bathroom or something.'

'Hmmm—'

'By the way, Mel was back this afternoon questioning everybody again. Exact movements and times. I actually felt sort of sorry for him.'

'Did he seem depressed when he got done?'

'Very. Understandably. Most of us, in our normal lives, could give a pretty good account of what we did and when. We're tied to household schedules or office schedules or whatever. But this was meant as a vacation. Everybody I know turns their mental clocks off when they're on a trip. I certainly do.'

'Not only that, he's got a couple of hours of night to consider,' Jane said. 'When the only reasonable answer to 'where were you?' is 'in bed.' Even though it might not have been true of one of them.'

'Jane, this method of yours doesn't seem to be doing us any more good than it did Mel.'

'Then let's try looking at it another way. Who has the most to lose? From Lila's blackmail.'

'Since we don't know what she was blackmailing each of them about—'

'No, assume for a moment that she had something truly horrendous on each of them. Who had the most to lose?'

'Everybody, I'd say. If she.knew.something really awful, awful enough to send them to prison, for example, it could be anyone.'

'But I doubt that it was anything like that. The one we know about, Kathy and her secret wealth, was merely embarrassing. The rest were probably variations on that sort of thing. Unless you assume that somebody did have something really terrible in her

background. Gave away national military secrets or robbed a bank or the like.'

'Well, I'd say probably Beth, then. She's the one whose reputation is most important to her life. But I simply cannot imagine Beth ever doing anything that would even slightly endanger her reputation.'

'But it's pretty widely assumed that old Ted killed himself because she broke up with him. That could be considered a blot,' Jane said.

'As you say, 'widely assumed.' It's no secret. And as you yourself reported, some of them tend to believe— or want to believe — that it was just a drunken accident that had nothing to do with her.'

'Yeah… well, maybe some legal decision that she ruled on, but had some involvement with the participants that she didn't admit?'

'Can you really imagine that? She's the most self-controlled person I've ever known. I think she stands outside herself constantly saying, 'Is there any way this could be misinterpreted and if so, I won't do it.' Especially