"Did you know Crispy well in school?"
"Not really well. But I liked her, I guess. Well, I was a little jealous of her, I admit. She and Ted were really good friends. Just friends, I mean, he wouldn't have dated her. She was too fat and sloppy-looking. She really was a mess. I tried to tell her once if she'd go on a diet and stop biting her nails, I'd help her with her hair and stuff, but she nearly bit my head off. She's certainly improved. She looks real stylish now. She probably could do better with her hair. That windblown look is real passe", but it's good with her face shape."
Jane smiled to herself. It was such an irony that Pooky, whose appearance was little short of frightening, always came back to people's looks and fashion sense. Inside herself someplace, she was still the high school knockout. And it was a good thing, probably the only thing that kept her going from one day to the next, one mirror to the next.
Jane touched Pooky's thin arm lightly and smiled. "Thanks for helping me. I've really enjoyed getting a chance to talk to you."
"Thanks. I like talking to you, too. You listen to me. Not many people do. I'm not as stupid as people think." Before Jane could even begin framing a tactful reply to this, Pooky went on, "And I'm going to help you with the rest of the rooms, Jane."
"Pooky, that's very generous of you, but there's no need. I don't mind doing it myself."
"If I don't help you, I'll have to go back to Kathy's room," Pooky said with a grin.
"Okay, I get it. Then let's do Avalon next."
Pooky pushed the vacuum cleaner along the hall as Jane led the way with the rest of the equipment. Jane tapped on Avalon's door and, getting no answer, opened it.
It looked like a tornado had gone through. Clothes were strewn everywhere, drawers gaped open. The dressing table was pulled out from the wall, pictures were hanging crooked, and the top half of the mattress was halfway off the bed.
Jane stopped so suddenly that Pooky ran the vacuum into the back of her foot. "Jane, I'm sor — oh, my God. What happened here?" Pooky whispered.
"Pooky, run down and peek in Kathy's room. See if Avalon's still in there." If Avalon was in this room, she was in trouble and Jane didn't want to be the discoverer of any more bodies. She watched Pooky, heart pounding, as she tiptoed down the hall and looked in the partly open door. Jane finally breathed when Pooky looked back and nodded.
She came back and the two of them went into the room. "What's happening here?" Pooky asked, her voice shaking.
"I don't know, but it's something nasty. This isn't a joke," Jane said, hearing a quaver in her own voice.
Just then, they heard a scream from the next room.
They could smell the problem before they saw it. The scream had come from Beth's room and Jane and Crispy nearly collided as they ran toward the room from opposite directions. A horrible, skunklike smell was already wafting into the hall.
The room was empty, but the smell was so intense it almost knocked Jane out of the room. She took a deep breath and plunged back in. Beth was shrieking and pounding on the bathroom door from the inside. Jane, heart pounding wildly, tried to open the door but it was locked.
"Unlock the door!" she shouted, trying not to retch. "Calm down! Just turn the little knob." Oh, God, if she could just get one clean breath of air!
They heard Beth frantically scrabbling at the door, then suddenly it flew open and Beth stumbled out, nearly knocking Jane over.
Jane was hard on her heels.
The others gathered in the hall attempted to approach Beth, but reeled back immediately. The smell was coming from her. "In my deodorant," Beth gasped.
She was wrapped in a big towel and had another around her wet hair. She was sort of backing in circles, trying to get away from herself.
Crispy grabbed her arm and started giving orders.
"Jane, open the windows. The one in her room first. Everybody, go open your windows! Beth, come to my room and get in the shower quickly. Wash the stuff off, for God's sake!"
Avalon and Kathy were already bolting for their own rooms, gagging. Breathing through her mouth, Jane plunged into Beth's room and flung open the window. It was a cool morning and she gulped the air as if she'd nearly drowned. Then she ran back into the hall and started opening other bedroom doors to get to the windows. Within moments, she had everything open.
"What on earth—" Edgar said from the top of the stairs. "What in hell is that stink!"
"Another joke, Edgar," Jane said. "If you have an attic fan, you might want to turn it on until we get the smell out. And bring me a plastic bag, would you?"
Jane picked up a handful of cleaning rags and went first to Crispy's room. The shower was running, foul-smelling steam was pouring out the half-open bathroom door, and Crispy, standing outside it with her hand over her nose, was saying, "Use all the soap you can find. Pour the whole bottle of shampoo over yourself if you have to. It's getting better. It really is."
Jane went back to Beth's room and, taking another deep breath, went into the bathroom. The offending deodorant, the kind with liquid and a rolling ball for application, was on the bathroom floor where Beth had thrown it down. Hector had found it and was sniffing at it as if it were merely a mildly interesting odor. "Hector! Get away from that thing!" she said, shoving him out the door. Then she flung herself at the plastic bottle, capped it, and wrapped it in several layers of cleaning rags. Jane returned again to Crispy's room, Hector trying to trip her the whole way. The smell
v-» IUI ,t Illl
had diminished somewhat. "Is she okay?" Jane asked Crispy.
Crispy looked pale and stricken. "I think so."
Edgar knocked at the bedroom door before poking his arm into the room. He was holding the plastic bag Jane had asked for. Jane tossed the whole wad of deodorant bottle and rags into the bag. "Triple bag it, Edgar, or it'll stink up the whole neighborhood."
"What is it?"
"A trick with deodorant."
"Somebody used it? Smelling like this?"
"I imagine she just unscrewed it and took a quick swipe before the smell hit her. I think you better report this to the police. It could be harmful. Poison or something."
"No, don't!" Beth shouted from behind the bathroom door. The shower had stopped running. "It's just a foul odor. I'm perfectly all right."
"You're sure?" Edgar called to her.
"Absolutely sure."
"Edgar, before you decide, come look at Avalon's room," Jane said.
"All right, start from the beginning," Mel said.
Mel had said he would take an official report from Edgar in a moment, but first wanted to speak to Jane privately. They were in the driveway, sitting in.his car where they couldn't be overheard. Jane was still gasping the fresh air as if she'd never smelled it before and wondering if she'd ever get the lingering odor out of her hair and clothing. Mel wasn't getting too close. She'd made some rough notes while waiting for him to arrive and consulted them. "First, Pooky's and Avalon's purse contents were exchanged. I told you about that earlier."
"Anything missing or tampered with?"
"Apparently not."
"When did this happen?"
"The day they got here. Wednesday afternoon sometime. The next thing was the alarm clocks overnight. Cheap wind-up ones had been hidden in people's rooms and set to go off every couple of hours. I think I told you about that, too."
"Who got them?" Mel asked wearily.
"Beth, Mimi, and Kathy."
"Okay, nobody hurt. No property damage," Mel said as he made a note. "Next?"
"I guess the next thing was the doorknobs. Apparently there's a screw in the outside half that holds it together. Somebody took the screws out of a couple, so that when the people in the rooms tried to open the doors, the doorknobs and the shafts came away in their hands."
"Could have been dangerous if there had been a fire," Mel said. "But not inherently dangerous."
"The doorknobs turned up in a flour canister in the kitchen. Along with all the Screws," Jane added
. "So there was no real damage done. I guess the next thing was that Crispy's underwear disappeared. Sometime while the police were here yesterday morning."
"Did she find it?"
"Oh, yes," Jane told him about the display of it in the living room, with the additional items added.
"So, nothing really stolen that wasn't returned. No property damage. Next?"
"Pooky's room was searched and messed up and an antique pen set that she was bringing along to another classmate was stolen. We found it in a wastebasket, unharmed. No property damage," she said before he could.
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"Next?"
"Avalon's room was wrecked this morning."
"Wrecked?"
"No, sorry. Messed up horribly. Drawers open, bedclothes yanked off. But she says nothing is missing. And nothing was torn or broken, for all the mess it was. And then the deodorant trick on Beth."
"My lab man says he's pretty sure it's something you can get in fishing and hunting stores. Something you either attract animals with or scare them off, I don't remember which he said," Mel murmured.
"What do you think?" Jane asked.
He smiled at her. Dazzlingly, she thought. "About what? Practical jokes in general? They're dumb and these aren't even particularly elaborate or funny. Not like slipping a horsehair into someone's cigarette."
"You think that's funny? The male mind never ceases to amaze me. No, I mean what do you think about these jokes?"
"I don't know. I'm just taking the report. What do you think, Jane? You've gotten to know these women. Who do you think's doing it?"
"I have no idea. It obviously wasn't Lila, though. Some of the jokes didn't happen until after she was dead."
Mel went down the list, ticking off names. "Victims of the tricks were Pooky, Avalon, Beth, Mimi, Kathy, Avalon, Pooky, Beth, Crispy, Pooky, Avalon, Beth. Seems fairly evenly distributed. Do you really call these women by these silly names? I mean, to their faces?"
Jane ignored the question. "Mimi and Kathy had the least done. Just the alarm clocks."
"Could either one of them be doing the tricks and just included herself to avoid suspicion?"
' I PtC
"In theory. I can't imagine Mimi doing tacky, vulgar things, though. Certainly not the underwear trick. And she was really angry when the antique disappeared. She's the one who bullied everybody into forming search parties to look for it. Besides, she's just too nice to do stupid, nasty things."
Mel cast her a questioning, if not downright doubtful, glance. Jane started to object to his suspicion of her judgment, but caught herself. Actually, what did she know about Mimi? That she seemed very pleasant, open, and honest. But then, she'd also been told by at least two of the others what a wonderful actress Mimi was. Maybe it was all an act, carefully planned and rehearsed.
"What about Kathy? Is it her kind of thing?"
"I don't think so. She's vulgar, but has no sense of humor at all, not even a bad one that would think up practical jokes. And if she were to play jokes, they'd have a point. Some kind of ecological or antinuclear reference. She's terribly intense and certainly smart enough to plan better, more politically pointed tricks if she wanted to."
"Okay, let's examine this another way. What the point was. Trading the purse contents—"
"Sheer nuisance value," Jane said. "Maybe also to embarrass one or both of them by pointing out to someone else just what was in her purse. But neither of them seemed to have anything they shouldn't."
"The alarm clocks," Mel went on.
"Nuisance again. Or maybe, at a big stretch, to make sure somebody was awake all night? I don't know."
"That was the night of the murder."
"Yes, but you said she was already dead by midnight, and the clocks didn't start going off until around two in the morning."
, "The underwear trick?" Mel said,
"Nuisance first. Crispy didn't know it was going to be returned and had to go buy more — remind me to tell you something else about that trip to the store. The return of her lingerie was clearly meant to embarrass her and it did. She was angry and humiliated."
"The antique?" Mel asked, then answered himself. "That might have been a genuine theft and the person had to hide it someplace until she could retrieve it and get it out of the house."
"I don't think so. It was 'hidden' in an empty wastebasket in the utility room. Just sitting there in the bottom, all by itself. If someone really meant to conceal it, it would have been easy to cover it up." A little breeze had sprung up and Jane pulled her sweater closer, shivering. She pulled the collar up and sniffed it. "Either the smell is going away or I'm getting used to it."
"I think it's blowing away. I can't smell it either anymore.- I'll let you go inside in just a minute, Jane. You're sure nothing's missing from Avalon's room?"
"She says not. It's not like it was her home. It might take you forever at home to discern that something's missing. But when you're traveling, you only have a limited number of your belongings with you. It's fairly simple to take inventory."
"Then the deodorant stunt. What on earth was the point of that?" Mel asked.
"I suppose to cause Beth embarrassment. Again, it worked very well. She's a very reserved, dignified person and there she was, running around in the hallway, screaming and gagging, dressed only in a towel. As practical jokes go, that one was magnificent. Maybe it was the grand finale. I hope so."
Mel tapped his pen on the steering wheel absently. Jane wondered once again who'd given him such a nice writing implement. "Let's turn it one more direction," he said. "Let's look at the geography. Three of the tricks required off-site preparation.".
"What do you mean?"
"The nasty underwear had to be purchased someplace and brought along. So did the alarm clocks and the smelly stuff for the deodorant. All small and easily brought along. But while they took advance planning, they could have been used on anybody. Nothing was specific to any individual."
"Yes?" It was interesting to see how his mind worked, examining the "evidence" from different viewpoints. Interesting, but not fruitful, as far as she could tell.
"The purse switch was purely on-site," he went on. "And again, could have been any two people, as it didn't reveal anything pertinent to either of them. The ransacking of Avalon's room, too, could have been anybody. It accomplished nothing, except to make work for you, and probably frighten the victim a bit."
"Uh-huh."
"But the theft of the antique stands apart. That couldn't have been just anybody."
"But it could. Everyone must have had something valuable along. Jewelry or credit cards or something."
Mel nodded. "True, I suppose. Had she mentioned this pen set or whatever it was? Before it was taken, I mean."
"Not to me. But maybe to somebody else."
"And I suppose it's already been mauled around by practically everybody?"
"Fingerprints, you mean? Yes, we passed it around admiring it after it was found. Sorry."
He waved this away. "Did these women know who else was coming to stay here?"
"I don't think so, unless some of them were in touch with each other. Shelley didn't even know until last week who was coming and she didn't send out a list or anything."
"Do they seem to know each other? Presently?"
"I don't think so. Beth said something about having a friend in common with Kathy who kept her up on Kathy's life a bit. Avalon and Pooky might correspond. They seem to be slightly better acquainted, or maybe they just hit it off better since they got here. Of course, most of them knew about Beth's prestige. No, on the whole, I don't think they're in touch with each other. That first day, as they were arriving, they were all catching up like mad — where did you end up going to college? Are you married? Have you got children? Those kinds of questions. Now, Lila was a different matter—"
"How's that?"
"She must have researched some of them before she came. At least she did Kathy."
"Remind
me who Kathy is. The farm wife in the overalls?"
"Sort of. Wait till you see her today. She's abandoned her act."
"Act?"
Jane explained about Kathy's pretense of being poor and idealistic and Jane's own subsequent discovery of the truth of the matter.
"And she said Lila knew and was trying to blackmail her?"
'Trying, but not getting anywhere. Kathy's whole problem is that she's come to care more for her money
than her image. She'd have faced 'unveiling' rather
than give Lila a penny."
"Maybe___" Mel mused. "What about the others?
Did she try it with anyone else?"
"I think she had something on Pooky, but that's just pure guess. I asked Pooky outright and she denied it, but got very upset. Oh, I'd forgotten — there was something said the first night about Pooky having been held back a grade. Apparently that's very embarrassing to her."
"And the rest of them didn't know this?"
"I don't know. But it doesn't seem exactly black-' mail material. Lila also dropped some not very subtle' hints the first evening about Avalon and drugs. I think she was leading up to claiming Avalon had tried drugs in high school. Not exactly a revelation to ruin a life, I'd think. And she made some crack about Beth's life being placed under scrutiny if she was appointed to the Supreme Court. It sounded like a shot in the dark and didn't seem to bother Beth at all. Oh, and she tried to suggest that Mimi's husband was somehow politically questionable."
"How'd Mimi react?"
"Bored to death."
"What about Crispy? Did she go after her?"
"Not that I know of. Oh, yes. Lila made some rather cruel little digs about how enamored of Dead Ted Crispy had once been."
"Dead Ted?" Mel asked.
"Ted lived in this house when they were in high school. He committed suicide in the carriage house. It seems like they all had crushes on him back then. Mel, you haven't said how Lila was killed."
"Knocked out with a paint can, then smothered," he said calmly.
"Fingerprints?"
He shook his head. "The wire handle on the can had been wiped clean. A hell of a weapon, actually. You could hold the thing by the handle and get a good swing going in a dark place before the victim even saw it coming. And rags don't take fingerprints at all well."
The Class Menagerie jj-4 Page 10
