"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."