The House of Seven Mabels

Jane's mental image of Thomasina and Walt dancing made her smile. 'How nice. What kind of dancing do they do?'

'Tap and ballet both.'

'How nice,' Jane said. It was the only thing she could think to say, and she figured it was time to close the conversation before Shelley broke down and exposed her views of child beauty queens or asked if Thomasina was the ballet teacher, which would have sent Jane into hysterics.

Jane went on hurriedly, 'We shouldn't be keeping you from getting on with your other jobs, though. Your time is obviously too valuable to waste on us.'

Thomasina put away the wallet, checked her watch, and shook both their hands. 'Hope you

ladies are still around when I come back. I'll bring newer pictures of my girls to show you.' With that, she hopped into the truck and roared off.

For a long moment both Jane and Shelley were silent.

'Who would have thought?' Shelley wondered.

'I just hope the Sheetrocker doesn't surprise us as much,' Jane said.

They trapped Carl Stringfield having his lunch. It put theirs to shame. He had two warm pieces of bruschetta, a corned beef sandwich that looked as if the bread was baked from scratch, a salad with dried cranberries, and a piece of pumpkin pie.

He looked confused and slightly alarmed when Shelley sat down on one side of him and Jane on the other side.

'What a wonderful lunch you have,' Shelley said. 'Does your wife do this kind of thing every day?'

'What wife?'

'You fix all this yourself?'

'No, I have a neighbor taking a culinary class at the junior college and he makes it for me for practice. I have to write a report.'

'So you're not married?' Shelley asked. 'You must have a lot of free time for hobbies, I guess.'

'I do a little fly fishing when I get the chance,' he admitted.

A hard thing to comment on, Jane thought.

But Shelley took up the conversation. 'Do you make your own flies?'

'Nope.'

Shelley kept on. 'Any other hobbies?'

He scratched his head. 'Can't think of any.'

'How do you like working with Evaline?'

'It's okay.'

Shelley sighed, but continued the questioning. 'Have you worked with her before?'

'Nope.'

'I bet you'd like to, though. Her special paste must make the work go much faster.'

'Hadn't given it any thought.'

Jane had already finished her sandwich and munched her gummy Fritos before Shelley gave up.

'It surely has been interesting talking to you,' she said with apparent sincerity. 'I guess we should leave you to your lunch.'

'Okay.'

'Oh,' Shelley said, 'one more thing. What did you think of Sandra?'

'Not much,' he said.

'Could you elaborate?'

'Not really.'

Twenty-six

When Shelley and jane were on their way home, Shelley said, 'That's the most aggressively boring person I've ever spoken to. No wonder he's not married. There would be no way to live with him unless you were in a coma.'

'You're right. But maybe he just clams up around strangers. When someone comes to my door doing some nosy survey, I get very, very stupid and curt. Don't remember when I moved here. Don't remember my age.'

'Why don't you just shut the door?' Shelley asked.

'Because of my parents. When you're raised in the diplomatic corps, you learn to be overly polite.'

'It didn't work on your sister.'

'I know. But she was always cranky and difficult.'

'Have you called her back yet?'

'Nope,' Jane said, imitating Carl Stringfield.

'Okay,' Shelley said.

'Wasn't the conversation with Thomasina interesting?' Jane said, changing the subject.

'Interesting, yes. But I can't see that it helps us figure out what's going on. I wish you hadn't veered off on those pathetic little girls.'

'I had to before you said they were pathetic.' Jane was laughing. 'I couldn't help thinking of Fantasia when she said she and her husband taught the girls to dance. The pink elephants in tutus doing the ballet.'

Shelley didn't think it was funny at all. 'Can you imagine Sandra making a pass at her?'

'Hard to picture,' Jane said. 'But Thomasina nipped it in the bud, as you'd expect her to do. I'll bet she was more vulgar at the time than she let on to us.'

'Maybe someone didn't tell Sandra off,' Shelley said. 'And that sort of unprofessional behavior on a job site might have truly upset another member of the crew.'

'Have you anyone in mind?'

'Only Bitsy. I wonder if that's the real reason Bitsy fired her.'

'You're not going to ask Bitsy that, are you?'

'I might.'

'We've struck out on Thomasina. Her problem with Sandra was taken care of by telling her off and getting on with the job,' Jane said. 'And we got nothing from Carl. I still think our best suspects are Bitsy's ex-husband and Joe Budley.'

'Both out of range for chatting up,' Shelley said.

'Unfortunately,' Jane agreed.

Shelley thought for a while and said, 'Maybe I should talk to Paul about this.'

'What does he know about renovations, feminism, or divorce?'

'Practically nothing. But he knows tons of people who know lots of other people. In fact, his attorney is a wealth of financial gossip. Paul never considers opening another restaurant without getting the whole history of the property he's considering and everybody who has owned or leased it. The attorney has an assistant who researches the history of any lawsuits or code violations.'

'Would Paul be willing to find out about Neville Burnside and Joe Budley for us?'

'I'll ask. He doesn't like what he's heard about this renovation project anyway and may enjoy digging up some interesting dirt.'

'Have you heard anything from Bitsy about this elusive contract we were supposed to have seen by now?'

'Not a peep. I called her early this morning to ask. She just fluttered around about how busy her lawyer was and how she couldn't catch up with him and thought he might be out of town on some kind of lecture tour to a law school.'

'I don't believe that.'

'Neither do I. But given the contract Sandra had drawn up and my new version, the lawyer has a lot to weed through,' Shelley said.

'So what are you doing with the rest of your day, besides tackling your husband about Burn-side and Budley?'

'Having a strongly worded talk with a caterer who's trying to charge me half again as much for the table service for a dinner Paul's giving for his employees. The caterer we've used for the last two years went out of