The House of Seven Mabels jj-13

by Jill Churchill

  "That Joseph Kennedy?"

  "The very same. It's so big it has its own zip code. I think the Empire State Building does, too," Shelley said, reading on. "Dear Lord! It's twenty-seven stories high. Huge."

  "Of course it's huge," Jane said. "That's why it's so famous. Does our paperwork allow us to go anywhere we want? I thought you had to be the owner or somebody really high in a decorating firm to get in at all."

  "Apparently we are the president and CEO of a

  company from Boston," Shelley said, reading the note Bitsy had included. "I'm the president and you're the CEO."

  "I don't even know what a CEO is, you realize."

  "Chief executive officer. That's better than president. President is usually an honorary position and the board of directors can fire me." She thought for a moment and said, "Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, can you do a Boston accent?"

  "We don't have to have been born and raised in Boston to live in Boston, you know. I think it would be a bit over the top to try accents," Jane said with a laugh.

  Shelley's eyes got slitty with cynicism. "You know why Bitsy got us this today? Before giving us the contract?"

  "To whet our appetites, right?"

  "Yes. She thinks we'll be so overwhelmed by this place that we'll accept anything to come back."

  Jane sighed. "She's probably right."

  They were overwhelmed. They arrived at about ten-thirty and waited through a short line to be vetted and approved. They'd learned from the brochure that some of the building was open to the public and group tours, but to get into the part where real decorators could purchase items at discount rates, you had to have a letterhead document and a business tax number issued by

  the IRS. If you were approved, you received a clip-on identification tag you had to wear to get in. Those items were all included in the packet of paperwork Bitsy had given them.

  As they inched up, Jane whispered, "What if they say we're fakes?"

  "They'll probably just escort us to the front door. Trust me. I'll take care of it."

  "Isn't this just as dishonest as writing term papers for other people?" Jane asked.

  "Apples versus oranges, Jane. By now, if we'd had a good contract, we'd really be decorators."

  There was something in this reasoning that wasn't right, Jane decided, but this was not the time to debate it.

  When they reached the head of the line, Shelley casually surrendered the paperwork as if she'd done it a hundred times before and was bored senseless with the process. She turned to Jane and said, "I think we should hit the kitchen appliances first, and if there's time today, we can move to bathrooms. Next week we'll take on the wallpaper."

  She spoke so confidently and bossily that the guard let them through, barely glancing at their paperwork.

  For several hours they roamed around, getting lost at frequent intervals. Jane seldom bought new dishwashers and fancy plumbing for bathrooms, but Shelley seemed to have the retail prices of everything on earth in her head.

  She kept hissing at Jane, "That's forty percent off retail. Boy, did I get ripped off when I replaced our bathtub." And, "Can you believe this price? It's less than half what you'd pay in a hardware or department store for this kind of toilet even if you could find one."

  Contrary to the conversation at the approval stage, Shelley decided they'd look at bathroom things first. She closely examined bidets, rejecting most of them as not having attractive enough hardware. Then she moved on to a wide assortment of medicine cabinets, fancy clothes hampers, disposable Water Piks, gold-plated faucets, bath rugs, monogrammed towels in fifty colors, and an amazingly complete array of countertop ornaments, both practical and stupid. Soap holders shaped like swans, cars, treasure chests, cut-glass candy dishes, and tiny keyboards. Toothbrush holders galore, even silver-plated dental floss holders.

  She looked at about forty different towel rails and decided they must have the heated kind.

  "Imagine, Jane, getting out of the tub and wrapping up in a nice hot towel. You could even throw your robe over one of the heated ones before you bathe."

  The only thing that really attracted Jane's attention was a shower with a computer pad that set the temperature of the water so it automatically came on right from the start.

  Shelley pooh-poohed it. "Too many people are

  afraid of anything computerized," she said as she moved along to a couple of dozen lavatory paper holders, toilet brush concealers, and what Jane estimated were nearly a hundred showerheads.

  Jane was soon a victim of overload and sore feet. She shouldn't have brought such a big heavy purse. She kept bumping into things and other people with it. The big purse seemed to be mysteriously gaining weight as they trudged around. But Shelley was in her element and was energized.

  "I have to go home. I'm hungry. My feet hurt. I'm tired," Jane whined at 2:15.

  "What a wimp you are. This is the greatest place I've ever seen. I'd camp out in one of those enormous sleigh beds we saw on our way up here for a week if they'd let me," Shelley said with a grin.

  "Not me. I can find my way home and get a taxi from the train stop if you want to stay longer."

  "Okay. We'll leave. But we'll come back if Bitsy comes up with a good contract. This surely has been an education. Paul told me about a place nearby that does a fabulous lunch. Come to think of it, I'm hungry, too," she said with surprise.

  "Apparently neither your digestive tract nor your feet have told you what you're doing to them," Jane said, turning the wrong way to leave.

  Shelley grabbed Jane's elbow. "Not that direction. Follow me."

  Jane took her word for it. While Jane had been all over the world and seldom lost her bearings, the Merchandise Mart had completely destroyed her sense of direction. She obediently trailed along behind Shelley like an exhausted, whimpering puppy.

  Jane recovered slightly over a Crab Louis salad, which was the best she'd ever had. "We aren't really going to do this again next week, are we?"

  "We overestimated how well we had to dress," Shelley said. "Didn't you see all those people with comfy sneakers and waist packs instead of monster purses like the one you brought along? Now that we know our way around — at least one of us does — it'll be easier to find what we're looking for. I wish I'd ordered that salad instead of this sandwich. Let me have a bite, would you?"

  "Would you be embarrassed if I took a nap on the train home?" Jane asked, gently shoving her salad plate toward Shelley.

  "Only if you promise not to snore."

  "I don't snore."

  "How do you know?" Shelley asked.

  "Well, maybe sometimes," Jane admitted. She picked at the handmade oyster crackers that had come with her salad for a moment and finally said, "Shelley, promise me you won't drag this out any further if the contract isn't really good.

  I'm not the same caliber of shopper that you are. You couldn't get me back into that place today if you held a gun to my temple."

  "You'll get over it," Shelley said with complete confidence. "But only if we get a decent contract. I do promise you that."

  Nineteen

  Jane felt even worse the next morning when she woke up. The foot she had broken a bone in several months earlier, and hadn't given her so much as a twinge after she got the cast off, was slightly swollen and hurt like the devil. She was afraid she'd done it some damage and didn't even want to put shoes on today. Her left shoulder ached a bit from hauling around the heavy purse the day before.

  The trip to the Merchandise Mart hadn't been good for her. She never wanted to see the place again. Of course, Shelley would go back at the drop of a hat, but Shelley really didn't need her along, regardless of the partnership. Shelley had a flair for decorating and an obsession with shopping. Jane had neither quality. But she was good at putting colors together well, with the front hall being her single notable exception.

  If the contract was good enough to accept, she'd work something out with Shelley to take less of

&n
bsp; the profits, if she herself was allowed to avoid the Merchandise Mart forevermore.

  After hobbling around getting Todd and Katie off to school, she brooded over this while she soaked in a hot, sudsy bath with a paperback mystery set in an unnamed suburb of Chicago. The phone rang in her bedroom a couple of times, but she made no effort to hop out of hot soapy water to answer it.

  As the water started cooling, she washed her hair, showered the soap off, put on her favorite fuzzy yellow robe and staggered out of the bathroom. The foot felt better. The shoulder no longer ached. Maybe she'd be okay.

  The first message on the answering machine was Mel. He had a window of freedom at lunchtime. Did she want to eat with him? She renamed his call immediately and took him up on the offer. "But let's eat here. My foot is hurting and I don't want to put on shoes."

  "What did you do to it?"

  "Walked seventeen miles behind Shelley yesterday at the Merchandise Mart in shoes I hadn't worn for a long time."

  "Come on, Janey. Seventeen miles?"

  "It seemed like it. But I have plenty of food in the house for a change. So drop by whenever you're free."

  The next two calls were both from Shelley. "Where have you gone? Are you feeling better today?"

  Then a little later: "I went by the House of Seven Mabels and they're tearing the sunporch down. They'll be starting a replacement tomorrow. Bitsy's trying to save a bit of money by making it smaller, but I think she's wrong. I need you to back me up before they pour the new foundations. If she's going to have a sun-porch, it needs to be generous. Or she shouldn't replace it at all. Oh, and Bitsy still doesn't have the new contract. I can see that your car's in the garage. Why are you hiding out?"

  Shelley was the only person she knew who could conduct an entire conversation with an answering machine.

  Jane returned the call. "My foot hurts again and so did my shoulder, so I was taking a long, hot bath," Jane told her.

  "What did you do to your foot?"

  "Walked around behind you. I'm not even putting shoes on today."

  "Oh, Jane. I'm so sorry. I wouldn't have hauled you along if I'd known that would happen."

  "Mel's coming over later. I'm making deviled ham sandwiches. Give me ten or fifteen minutes so I can dress, and keep me entertained while I work on them."

  "You want me to do it for you? You should have your foot up, not walking around the kitchen."

  "It's my secret recipe. I have to do it myself. And the foot is feeling better."

  Jane threw on jeans and a T-shirt and ran a comb through her hair. That last haircut was worth paying a fortune for at the day spa. She didn't even have to blow-dry it. It just fell into place. The investment had paid off.

  She was doing a rough chop of the ham in the Cuisinart when Shelley showed up with a handful of paperwork. "Your hair looks great. I may have to try out that day spa myself. Want me to start your coffee?"

  "Oh, please do."

  "Bitsy says the contract's almost okay," Shelley said as she worked. "Bitsy will supply the digital camera. She'll give us an advance on the furnishings she approves from the pictures. She's willing to give us a ten percent commission on the receipts we file. It's not enough. I'm going to see if I can bump that up to seventeen and a half percent. It's a fair amount and she'll still be getting a bargain on everything. I've checked around and I think it's a reasonable commission."

  Jane sighed as she started putting exactly the right amount of finely chopped red pepper into the mix. "Shelley, I'm sick at heart to leave you high and dry, but I simply can't face that place again."

  "The Merchandise Mart, you mean? I already knew that. I've never seen you look so drained and pathetic. I'll do it myself and consult with you over the pictures I take before I show our choices to Bitsy. I don't mind a bit if you'll take

  care of the color combinations. You're far better at that than I am."

  "In spite of my turning the front hall into a dungeon?"

  "Your only mistake," Shelley said generously. "Could have happened to anyone. I thought it was going to look good, too. What's that you're putting in that ham now?"

  "A tiny breath of curry powder. Then I mix it with mayo. Spread it generously on toasted slices of baguettes just before serving."

  "Sounds divine. What are you having with it?"

  "I thought about an egg salad, but it's too much like the texture of the ham. Maybe a really big hearty spinach salad with onions and bacon and just a few chopped eggs."

  "Excellent choice. I'll get the eggs boiling for you and wash the spinach. Are you going to gird your loins — I've always wondered what that really means — and ask Mel about the investigation into Sandra's death? Has he found out anything about her?"

  "He hasn't said. I'll test the waters," Jane said, putting the ham mixture in a bowl and adding the mayo. "If he's still cranky, I'll let it go for now and catch him when he's not so busy."

  "Go sit down in the living room and get that foot up on a chair. I'll put everything away in the fridge for now and you can finish it up later."

  Jane took her advice and settled in on the sofa with her right foot up on the back of it. Shelley

  had been right. She shouldn't have walked around on it. She asked Shelley to go upstairs and find the mystery she'd been reading. "I think I left it in the bathroom."

  Shelley brought it down. "It's a little damp, I'm afraid. I'll leave you alone until after Mel's gone. Is it okay if I tell Bitsy you agree with me about the size of the sunporch?"

  "1 do agree. If she's going to replace it, she should do it right or not do it."

  Mel was impressed with lunch in spite of his saying it was a girly choice. But awfully good and filling. "Sorry I've been such a crank for the last week, Janey. Having to cover the rock concert and then this damned house the next day put me over the edge."

  "I understand. How'd you get away today?"

  "I delegated."

  "You delegated?" Jane said with a laugh. "I thought you didn't believe in ever doing that."

  "I don't, but I'm giving it a try. Comes from getting older and more tired, I guess. Go out to the living room and put your bad foot back up. Shouldn't you have it X-rayed again?"

  "I'll see what a day off it does before I put myself through that again. I don't ever want to be in a cast for the rest of my life."

  Mel graciously loaded the dishwasher for her. Of course she'd have to redo it when he was gone. There was something genetic about men

  that didn't let them understand why glassware really should go on the top rack. Her late husband had once gone through a brief spell when she was pregnant with Todd when he was trying to be helpfully domestic and cracked several pieces of her favorite glassware from the drying process. She'd never let Mike load it, and Todd could do so only with Katie's supervision.

  When Mel was through, he came and sat at the far end of the sofa and massaged her good foot. The massage made even the bad one feel better.

  Since he was mellowed out by lunch and delegating, she asked, "Have you found out anything about Sandra's background?"

  "A little bit. It was hard to trace her. The name change wasn't official. She'd just decided to take back her mother's maiden name."

  "Shelley and I had the impression that she had been married. When we met her the first time, Bitsy said something about her once being Mrs. Somebody. They seemed to make a joke of it. So she was once married?"

  "Yes. To a man who severely abused her, to the point that she was hospitalized several times. Makes you understand why she became such a rabid feminist, I have to admit."

  "Do you know where he is? Could he have found her and killed her?"

  "No. He's serving a life sentence for murdering his third wife and their two-year-old child. He beat them to death two years ago."

  Jane suddenly hurt all over.

  The phone rang, and Mel looked at Jane's shocked face and said, "I'll get it for you."

  "Yes," he said when he answered. "This is Van-Dyne."<
br />
  A moment of silence and then he said, "Hell. I'm just a short distance away. I'll be there in a few minutes."

  "What is it, Mel?" Jane called to him.

  "I left your number at the office. It seems that they've found an unknown toolbox at that damned house and somebody thinks there's a bomb in it."

  Twenty

  Mel was standing with the others who'd been evacuated from the house and neighboring homes to the parking lot of a church down the street. It had turned into an unusually hot day, and the neighbors wanted to go home. The mothers with babies had commandeered the only shade available under an old maple tree at the far end of the parking area.

  "Mr. Budley," Mel said, "it seems to me that the last time we spoke, you were explaining how well you'd sealed up the house. Now there's a toolbox in the basement that no one recognizes. How do you explain this? Who has the keys?"

  "I can't explain it except that it could have been there for days and your people missed it."

  "My 'people' don't miss things," Mel said firmly.

  "As for the keys, all the doors that can be locked are keyed the same. Only the owner and I have copies," Budley said. He was insisting on taking the high ground on this matter.

  Budley walked away, and Mel realized that the

  young woman who worked on the Sheetrock had been waiting to speak to him.

  "Detective VanDyne," Evaline said. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but there's something else you should know that I didn't hear Joe Budley mention. Whoever got in the house also took a hammer to the Sheetrock upstairs. Bashed it pretty badly. We can probably patch a few of the dents, but several sheets will have to be replaced."

  "How do you know it was the same person?" Mel asked.

  "I guess I don't," Evaline said with a shrug. "I just assumed that since the house has been locked up, but somebody found a way in."

  As they were speaking, the bomb squad started drifting out of the house. One had a plastic bag that was obviously heavy. The two others were taking off their protective clothing and hoods.

  Mel abandoned Evaline and hurried to meet them.