Sharlene sniffed and touched the tissue to her nose. "I don't know. I didn't look. I was only thinking about myself.”
Mel nodded and said, "Of course you were. That's understandable. What happened next?"
“Well, I ran a few feet and a soldier almost ran into me. He yelled something about getting out of the way and threw me to the ground. No, not really threw me, but he made it look like that. So I just stayed there, playing possum."
“Could you see the others?" Mel asked.
“No, I was in a low spot."
“Had someone told you to run back that way? Was it planned?"
“No, not really." Sharlene spoke more firmly now. "I believe the actual reenactors have what they do pretty well planned. But those of us from the museum were just extras. We were there for a little extra 'color' and were only told about how we were supposed to imagine we were walking to town and no matter what happened, to act like the person we were pretending to be would probably have acted.”
Shelley and Jane nodded their agreement, and Shelley added, "As part of the museum's function, the woman in charge told us a lot about the clothes we were wearing and how we would have lived, and suggested 'roles.' I was the town minister's wife—" She looked warningly at Jane, as if her friend might make another joke about that, but Jane kept a straight face and Shelley continued. "And Jane was my cousin whose family had come out to homestead next to our farm. We were taking our tomatoes to market to trade for flour. They made us carry gunnysacks of real tomatoes so we'd know how heavy they were.”
Mel nodded. "Excuse me for wandering off track for a minute," he said to Sharlene, "but Idon't recall any Civil War battles around here. I'm not much of a history buff, but—"
“It wasn't meant to be a real battle," Sharlene said. Again she was speaking of something about which she was knowledgeable, and her voice and manner were more confident. "Only to give the flavor of what it was like. Lisa Quigley — she does all our publicity and promotion at the Snellen — set it up, so I don't know a whole lot about it, but I think the reenactors the real ones — based it on some actual battle that took place in Tennessee. They have a club here in Chicago and they like to do this whenever they can. I think some of them spend a fortune on their uniforms and equipment and all, and travel long distances to go to actual sites. But they all have real jobs and can't do that very often, I imagine. They're very picky about accuracy otherwise. Even their underwear and the toothbrushes in their packs are either antique items or exact reproductions. That's why the museum is so strict with the extras. We can't use bobby pins in our hair or wear makeup. And we have to wear wool stockings like the people did then. I'm sorry. I guess you don't care about all that right now."
“I don't know what I care about," Mel said with an encouraging smile. "I'm just collecting information. You seem to have a lot of it."
“Well, I've worked at the museum since I finished secretarial school," Sharlene said modestly. "I've picked things up."
“Tell me about the museum, then," Mel said. Sharlene briefly repeated what was in the brochure Jane had read earlier. "Miss Daisy Snellen inherited all her grandfather's money that he made from peas. When she died a couple years ago, she left most of it to the museum board of directors. It had grown to around ten million dollars.”
Mel whistled softly.
Sharlene nodded agreement. "Most of it was invested, and part of it was used to hire an architect to—" She stopped suddenly. "Oh, Mr. Abbot! Poor Mr. Abbot!"
“Who's that?" Jane asked.
“Ms. Palmer's fiancé. He was the architect who was hired to make the plans for a new museum building. And he and Ms. Palmer fell in love and were supposed to be married this winter. Oh, no! How terrible for him! Somebody has to tell him!"
“I'm sure someone's told him about it already," Mel said.
“Or asked him," Shelley muttered under her breath to Jane.
“I have to talk to the others," Sharlene said. "Lisa and poor Mr. Abbot. May I go now? Everybody's going to be so upset, and we're supposed to have the groundbreaking ceremony tomorrow. Oh, dear!”
Mel nodded, thanked her for her information, and warned her that he'd probably have more questions for her later on.
When she'd gone, Jane said, "We'd better get out of here. Everybody's going to be wanting to change. Mel, what happened out there? Was the woman really shot?"
“It looks like it. And damned near everybody out there had guns. One poor guy is trying to collect them all now and the reenactors aren't happy about turning over their weapons. We can't require them to, only ask them to do so voluntarily, of course, and since most of the weapons are valuable antiques or expensive replicas, many reenactors aren't feeling especially cooperative. It's a mess."
“Can you tell if she was shot up close or at a distance?" Jane asked.
“That'll be for the coroner's office to determine, but there weren't any visible powder burns."
“At least you're not in charge," Jane said with an attempt to cheer him up.
“Jane, I'm out in the middle of nowhere on what is probably the hottest day of the year, if not the hottest day in recorded history, and I'm trying to be authoritative and official while wearing shorts and a silly green T-shirt that says, 'The Best Pea-Pickin' Festival in the World.' Not being 'in charge' isn't much comfort."
“But you've got great legs," Jane said, unimpressed by his complaints.
He glared at her for a minute, then laughed. "I do, don't I?”
Three
Jane arid Shelley went to the Snellen booth, where a couple of museum volunteers wearing pea-green T-shirts were anxious to be relieved. They were also desperately eager to know what all the sirens and police were about, but Shelley and Jane pleaded ignorance.
The booth not only was shaded, it had aluminum lawn chairs and, more important, a big floor fan humming along under the counter that made everything almost pleasant. Shelley set to work sorting out and stacking up the brochures, which were randomly spread all over the counter. Jane tidied up the sale items — little enamel pea-pod lapel pins and matching earrings, peashooters, jump ropes that were a string of green plastic peas with pod handles, and ceramic dishes with ceramic peas and carrots. There were necklaces made of dried, shellacked peas that were actually rather pretty, and a Chinese checkers game with brightly painted peas for players that wasn't pretty at all. And there were a great many of the green Pea Pickin' T-shirts like the ones Jane had unwisely persuaded Mel to wear.
“Did you know this Palmer woman?" Jane asked Shelley as they finished their work and sat down to wait for customers.
“Not well. We'd met when I started working as a volunteer at the museum, and I'd seen her around. Probably hadn't exchanged more than a hundred words with her."
“Did she strike you as the type of person somebody would want to kill?"
“You think it was deliberate?" Shelley asked. "Surely it was just an accident."
“I don't see quite how it could be. Like Mel said, everybody had guns out there, but none of them were supposed to have real bullets. I don't know anything about guns, but I wouldn't think anybody who knew about them could mistake a blank for a bullet."
“I think you can get killed with blanks, too," Shelley said. "Maybe that's what happened. And to answer your question, no. She seemed like a very nice, bland person. In fact, my impression was that she was one of those earnest, boring individuals who use all their energy to do their job very well and have nothing left to form a personality."
“So she was really good at being a museum director? What does that entail?"
“I've no idea," Shelley said. "Administrative stuff, I guess. But everybody at the museum deferred to her with what seemed like real respect. I know she managed to bag a couple of traveling exhibits that were a big deal in museum circles.
Well, in little pea-museum circles, at any rate. And she was in charge of getting the new building and organizing the move. Which is why I dragged you in, Jane."
“We're moving things next week? But, Shelley, there's nowhere to move to. The ground-breaking for the new building is tomorrow. Or it was supposed to be."
“Jane, the museum's been in the same building since 1907. The basement alone is stacked with ninety years' worth of — stuff. People give their old junk to museums and it piles up. It all has to be cataloged and evaluated and packed up for the move when the building is ready. It's months and months of work. I imagine half of the stuff, at least, will just be pitched. Or given to some even more downtrodden museum."
“But, Shelley, I'm antiques-impaired. I don't know valuable from dreck. And you're not much brighter than I am about it."
“We don't have to make decisions. Just write down what we can recognize, store it in boxes with labels, and leave everything else for the experts."
“You're saying we're the bottom of the food chain, aren't you? The poor slobs who dust things off and sweep up the mouse droppings?"
“Just about. But it's the necessary first step."
“And we start that on Monday? How long is our sentence?"
“I only volunteered you for next week," Shelley said. "I knew you'd be busy the week after that, getting Mike off to college.”