The Class Menagerie

somebody else, in theory, could have gone out to meet her, found her already dead, and come back in.'

'— or gone out for some other reason entirely,' Jane put in. 'Maybe didn't even go to the carriage house.'

Mel nodded. ' — and couldn't afford to admit it the next morning. Although I can't see why anybody would need to sneak out for any other reason. We're not talking about kids with a curfew.'

Jane set the tray of crackers and cheese down and sat next to Mel. 'Are you telling us you think that's what happened? That somebody went out for another reason and found her?'

'No, I think it's extremely unlikely. But it is possible. I'm just pointing out that the physical evidence doesn't conclusively have to do with the murder.'

Putting us in our imaginative places, Jane thought.

'What about our first premise, that Lila was killed because of her blackmail attempts?' Shelley asked.

'Well, that's a matter of endless interviews and intuition, not physical facts,' Mel said.

'Of course it is, but what do you think?' Shelley insisted. She was coming close to asking what she really wanted to know, which was what additional information Mel had about the suspects.

'I think — personal opinion only — that it's extremely likely, in view of the fact that she attempted extortion on at least one of the women and hinted at secret information about others. But there are a lot of reasons for murder, some of them pretty loony.'

'Loony—' Jane said. 'Have any of them ever been hospitalized for any mental aberrations? I mean, what if it was just a crazy act with no motive?'

Mel treated this question with the minimum respect due it. 'If that's the case, we'll eventually dig far enough to discover it.'

'Eventually,' Shelley said. 'It's a shame they all live elsewhere. It will make it harder to pursue, won't it? What other motives have you looked at?'

'Inheritance is one of the first we consider,' Mel said. 'But it doesn't appear that she had very much to leave anyone; so far it's just a lot of bills, and if there's anything left, it's to go to a second cousin who's been in France for the whole month and hardly seemed to remember who Lila was.'

'What about revenge?' Jane asked, nibbling one of the crackers. It really did have a slightly charred taste. 'What if she'd done something really nasty to one of the Ewe Lambs years ago and this was just the first time the murderer had gotten close enough to her to do her in?'

She could see from Mel's expression that he hadn't considered this, but was rejecting it as fast as he thought about it. 'But if you wanted to kill her and get away with it, you'd make sure you weren't known to be anywhere near,' he said.

Shelley said, 'Listen, this is really dumb and I know it, so don't jump all over me, but — I was reading a book last week about a man who killed himself, but set it up to look like his wife had done it to revenge

himself on her for something. That's not remotely possible, is it? Lila was certainly nasty enough to want to see somebody else suffer along with her. And she was apparently at a low point in her life if she was reduced to committing extortion. And remember, the extortion attempts weren't going well for her. If this reunion was her very last attempt to hang onto her life and it blew up in her face—? After all, she did die where Ted killed himself so long ago. In the carriage house.'

Jane looked uneasily at Mel, afraid he was going to dismiss Shelley's theory in terms that would put them back to Mrs. Nowack and Detective VanDyne with her smoothing feathers in the middle.

But he came through like a champ.

'It's possible and the psychology might account for a lot,' he said, 'but the physical evidence refutes it. She might have struck herself in the temple with the paint can hard enough to inflict a severe wound, but then she'd have had to remain conscious to wipe the fingerprints off the can, as somebody did. And then smother herself. That one's pretty hard to do. Not impossible, of course. She could have forced her own face into the rags, but then she'd have been facedown, not faceup as she was found.'

Shelley smiled at him. It was the first time Jane could remember Shelley's actually smiling sincerely at Mel. 'Thanks,' she said. 'Just to be positive— I don't suppose the boys who discovered her could have turned her over?'

'They were so traumatized by merely seeing her, I don't think you could have gotten them to touch her if you'd put guns to their heads.'

They sat quietly for a moment; Shelley was gazing into her cocoa, now cold and getting a nasty skin. Jane munched another disgusting cracker.

'Aren't you going to ask me?' Mel finally said, breaking the silence.

'Ask you what?' Jane said.

'What I've learned about the Ewe Lambs — God, what a name! I can hardly stand to say it. It's like being forced to order something by a cute name in a restaurant.'

'We didn't think you'd tell us,' Shelley said.

Mel took a cracker, bit into it, and looked unpleasantly surprised.

'Oh, just spit it out in this napkin,' Jane said.

He swallowed melodramatically and patted her thigh in a very friendly manner. 'Ladies, you know I'm not supposed to share information with you, but in light of the fact that you were both at the bed and breakfast that night, and because you have occasionally provided me with some interesting information that helped in solving a case—'

'Helped!' Jane exclaimed. 'We solved—'

He held up his hand again.

'You could be a crossing guard if you get tired of detecting,' Jane said. 'Okay, I'll shut up. Just tell us what you know.'

'Understood that this is absolutely confidential?' he asked.

They both nodded.

'For now and forever?'

Jane laughed. 'Cross our hearts and hope to die. Maybe there's a Ewe Lamb Oath we could take, too. Shelley? Like, I promise I'll never go ba-a-a-ack on my word—'

'I thought you'd gotten over that,' Shelley said coldly.

'I thought I had, too. Must have just been a momentary relapse. So, we promise, Mel.'

He said, 'As I've told Jane before, my staff can only easily find out about people if they've had a bout with the law, either an arrest or a lawsuit—'

'And one of the Ewe Lambs has a record?'

'One has a record. And one has a lawsuit. Your Pooky.'

'Oh, we know about that,' Shelley said. 'She sued the man who ruined her face and got a big settlement.'

'That's not the suit I mean. It was a very nasty divorce proceeding that involved criminal charges. Deborah —'

'You mean Pooky?' Jane asked.

'Yes,' Mel replied. 'I just can't call a grown human being 'Pooky.' Deborah was married to a man who had adopted his previous wife's son. When Deborah married him, she also adopted the child. Reading between the lines, it appears that when she lost her looks, her husband lost interest in her, but became very interested in her money from the settlement. They divorced and it went well enough until it came to custody of the child. Since the boy wasn't genetically related to either of them, it seemed likely that Deborah would get custody. But at the last moment, her soon-to-be-ex-husband filed charges against her, claiming she'd sexually abused the boy.'

'No!' Jane said, horrified. 'That's impossible!'

'The judge agreed. It seems to have been a pretty blatant last-ditch effort to get at her money through the boy. The husband was trying to claim alimony, child support, and psychological damages on behalf of the child.'

'What a jerk!' Shelley said. 'Poor old Pooky! As if life hadn't treated her badly enough.'

'As I say, the judge agreed. But he decided that the