The House of Seven Mabels

sundress with a pretty lacy collar and a touch of very feminine makeup. She was truly a Jacqueline when she wasn't working. Henry was wearing a gender-neutral suit in dark blue with trousers, with a very elegant blue-and-white- striped blouse. There was a pretty enamel pin on her lapel.

They were both so nicely dressed that they put Jane and Shelley in the shade. Both of them were in nice- enough slacks, blouses, and lightweight sweaters because restaurants tended to turn the air conditioning way up until the late fall. Of one silent accord, they called their two guests by their full real names.

Shelley pulled out some sample paint chips,

and while the waitress cooled her heels waiting for them to get to the menus, Shelley asked Jacqueline's and Henrietta's advice on colors for the main area of the room they were currently working on. All very professional and proper for strangers who were expected to work together.

Jane was particularly taken with Jacqueline's alternative suggestions for colors.

'Something a little warmer, I think,' Jacqueline said. 'The blues might be lighter and more subdued. And if it were up to me, the cream might be just a, bit more golden.'

Shelley pulled out yet more paint chips from her notebook. 'Like these?' she asked. 'I think you're right.'

Jane nudged Shelley. 'The waitress is waiting. We ought to order before she becomes more annoyed. It's crowded, and she wants to get us moving along.'

'I think we've sorted it out satisfactorily,' Shelley said graciously, putting little marks on the back of the paint samples and stowing them away. 'We're really grateful for your ideas.'

They all studied their menus and ordered salads, except for Henrietta, who ordered a burger, cooked medium rare, with fries.

Then the real purpose of the meeting arose.

'How did both of you choose to do such unusual jobs?' Jane asked.

Jacqueline and Henrietta smiled at each other. Jacqueline said, 'You can't imagine how often

we're asked this. We both grew up with fathers who were carpenters and naturally developed an interest. I decided to go to trade school instead of college, and Henrietta did so as well. We met at the trade school.'

'I was a year ahead of Jacqueline,' Henrietta put in, 'and already doing several small jobs the trade school set up for me. Furniture, mainly. Little Mission-style tables and chairs. Since we were the only women there except one of the teachers, we naturally got to know each other. I asked Jacqueline to help me with the finishing work. I have a talent for design, but Jackie has the eye for color.'

'We've worked together ever since,' Jacqueline said with a smile. 'But this is the biggest job we've gotten so far. It's really challenging, and Bitsy's giving us free rein to use our skills.'

'It's just such a shame that poor Bitsy hooked herself up with Sandra,' Henrietta said glumly. 'She really wasn't qualified for the job. She had an entirely different agenda.'

'What was that?'

'Oh, I thought you'd have noticed,' Henrietta said. 'The big-deal feminist thing. We both fell in with that when we got out into the real world together, but recovered from it quite soon. It's pointless. Once you've done a couple of jobs well, you get recommended to other people by the quality of your work, not your gender.'

'Don't you have trouble mostly with male contractors?' Shelley said.

'We normally work for individual customers. And we still do custom furniture,' Jacqueline said. 'When the few contractors we've worked with see our portfolios of work we've done, we usually get the job.'

'Except for that one really macho guy who was terrified to bits about lesbians,' Henrietta said. 'He seemed to think it was a disease of some sort.'

'That's odd,' Shelley said. 'It seems as if most macho types are more scared of male gays. More of a threat to them, they seem to think.'

'That's usually true in our experience as well,' Henrietta said. 'But Sandra took her militant feminism far too seriously. I'm sorry she died and all that, but it was divisive. Calling us all by men's names was so stupid and insulting. Nobody's ever done that to us before. I refused to address her as Sandy. I think Bitsy's the only one who does so.'

'You really didn't like working with her?'

'The name thing was silly,' Jacqueline said. 'I don't mind being called Jackie. It's a common nickname and easier than Jacqueline to say. But what I really disliked was that she wasn't a knowledgeable contractor. The contracts that Bitsy let her draw up were ridiculous and showed her ignorance of the business.'

'We found that to be true as well,' Shelley said. 'We still aren't really hired, you know, until the conn-act we were offered is extensively amended.'

'Don't worry about it/' Henrietta said. 'Bitsy

speaks well of your tastes. She'll go along with what you want, I'd guess. She's known you both for a long time, hasn't she?'

'Yes,' Shelley said. 'We go back years to PTA work.'

That made everyone laugh.

When their food arrived, they fell to eating, and conversation was solely about the food. As they were considering dessert, Jane asked, 'Did anyone truly hate Sandra?'

'Hate? I wouldn't go that far,' Jacqueline said. 'She was seriously annoying and not very good at what she was trying to do. I think the only person who genuinely disliked her was Thomasina.'

'We haven't met Thomasina yet,' Jane said. 'She's the electrician, isn't she?'

'And she's very good,' Henrietta said. 'But she had her toolbox stolen and went haywire because Sandra was responsible for making sure any tools that couldn't be hauled home every night were securely locked up. And there was that time Jackie got a serious shock when she turned the planer on.'

Jacqueline objected. 'It was nothing. Just a jolt that knocked me off my feet.'

'It knocked you out, Jackie! Don't be shy about it,' Henrietta said. 'You were lucky it didn't kill you.'

'I'm fine. And I'm sure it wasn't anything Thomasina did wrong. The planer worked fine the day before and she was off sick the day before

that. It was just another of those nasty tricks someone was playing. And I wasn't knocked out by the shock. It was because I jumped back, tripped, and hit my head on one of the saw-horses.'

Jane and Shelley looked at each other with alarm.

'We hadn't heard about this,' Jane said, any thoughts she'd had about dessert completely forgotten.

Fourteen

Thomasina is the one we need to meet next,' Shelley said as they were on their way home.

'She sounds like a good suspect, doesn't she?'

'She may not have been the angriest one. We still don't know several of the others,' Shelley reminded Jane.

'Who are we missing?'

Shelley consulted her sheet of workers. 'There's Carl Stringfield, the guy who works with Evaline. The big tall man we watched casually twirl a big piece of Sheetrock, slap it up against the wall and place it perfectly. And, of course, the elusive plumber.'

'I wonder how much of what we already know Mel knows.'

After Shelley had sorted out this obscure sentence structure, she said, 'We probably know more about their personalities and backgrounds. At least that's true of Bitsy, Evaline, Jacqueline, and Henrietta. But he's much more likely to be up to speed on the actual evidence of whether or

not Sandra's death was a murder or a clumsy accident.'

'I'll try to snag Mel tonight for dinner,' Jane offered. 'After all, he's only working one case now instead of three. He's going to feel strongly motivated to have a bit of a real life off the job.'

'What are you going to make for dinner?' Shelley asked, getting to the heart of the plan. 'What's his favorite dinner?'

'Steaks cooked medium rare on the grill. Twice-baked potatoes. Greasy, overcooked green beans. And he'll even pick at a salad if he's forced to.'

'Then I'd leave out the salad,' Shelley said with a grin. 'I wonder what his terribly high-maintenance mother who's probably eaten at the most expensive restaurants in the country thinks of his tastes.'

Jane shuddered at the thought of Mel's mother. She'd once spent a Christmas with Mel and ended up at