"It looks like one person has come out ahead. I'm glad. Did Mel say anything else about Crispy's condition?"
"Just that she's still hanging on. He did mention that they found the weapon. A heavy stick from those woods behind the building. It must have been a perfect club, heavy, close at hand, and easy to.dispose of."
"Fingerprints?"
"No. The bark was too rough."
"Anything about the notebook?"
"Mel said the prints were wiped off,!' Shelley reported.
"Shelley, I keep trying to imagine what happened before we got there. Crispy must have had the notebook with her and confronted somebody with what she'd learned."
"Presumably."
"But who tore the pages out?"
"Her attacker. Who else would? She probably ran into that little rest room at the visitor center and flushed them."
"Not likely. Think about the timing. If her attacker had lots of leisure time, she'd have made sure she'd finished Crispy off."
"That's right. Why didn't she?"
"Maybe because we were running up the hill yelling. And even if she didn't hear HS coming, she had to have known that anybody could have walked in any second just to have a look around. She didn't have a lot of time. Just enough to club Crispy, grab the notebook, wipe off her fingerprints, shove it in the
trash, and get the hell away from the place. Tearing out pages and flushing them — would have taken even more time. And I don't think a toilet was running when I got in there, although I admit I wasn't noticing much of anything but Crispy, and I might not have been able to hear it anyway with all those display walls in the building."
"Yes, but what conclusion does that lead you to, Jane? That the attacker ripped the pages out and took them along?"
"That's one possibility. She could have.easily slipped them into one of the barbecue fires. But I was really thinking of Crispy herself. Look, Shelley, Crispy kept the notebook for some stupid reason. To wave around in somebody's face, maybe? But wouldn't she take the pages out and put them somewhere safe first?"
Shelley leaned back in her chair and tented her fingers. "Hmmm. Are you suggesting that Crispy wanted to use Lila's notebook for blackmail, too?"
"Not blackmail exactly. Not to get anything from anybody. But Crispy liked embarrassing people. Remember, I told you when I first met her at the airport, she said she intended to torment the other Ewe Lambs. Remind them of foolish things they'd done. Make them feel silly. I guess as some kind of revenge for not liking her and including her in high school."
"Okay, so assuming she kept the notebook — you're probably right, she might well have torn the pages out. But where would she have put them? The police went over her room with a fine-tooth comb. They were still here when I came back."
"No, she knew the rooms wouldn't lock and two of them had already been searched."
"Then where would she put them?"
"I have no idea."
"Jane! You're here. Thank heaven," Edgar said, bustling into the kitchen with a tray of dirty glasses.
Jane leaped to her feet. "I'm sorry. I should be helping."
"Make an ashtray run, would you?" Edgar said. He was rinsing out glasses and stacking them in the dishwasher.
Jane picked up the decorative metal canister Edgar used to empty ashtrays into and went to the living room.
It was about the gloomiest gathering she'd ever walked into. The air was blue with smoke, in spite of the fact that someone had opened one of the French doors. People were sitting around in dispirited clumps, barely speaking. There were only two islands of brightness. One was Pooky and her friend sitting close together on a sofa, chattering happily. The other was a group around Trey Moffat and his pretty wife and smiling baby. She was holding the infant and Trey was making baby talk and prodding it, making it laugh. The baby's laugh was so infectious that the group around them was smiling.
Jane strolled around, picking up ashtrays and eavesdropping. Mimi was chatting with another woman about the schedule of a traveling art exhibit. Beth was having a discussion on managing clerks' billing hours with a man who was presumably also an attorney. Kathy was talking about capital gains with the accountant. Avalon was sitting by herself, knitting as if her life depended on finishing the garment.
Jane took the canister back through the kitchen and set it outside the back door. Edgar was getting out the food in preparation for serving. He'd put the long library table at the north end of the living room earlier and covered it with a white lace cloth. "Did I remember the napkins out there?" he said as he wrestled an enormous container of deviled eggs out of the refrigerator.
"I'll check," Jane said. She peeked around the door. "Yes, they're on the table."
"Okay, I'll take the melon out. Hold the door for me, then bring the meat and cheese tray."
Jane held the door for him, then picked up the tray she was to bring. She edged through the door carefully. The thing wasn't heavy, but it was large and awkward. She followed Edgar through the room and said, "Where do you want the meat tray?"
"At the other end."
"Meat tray--" Jane repeated. "Meat tray!"
She nearly dropped it.
Could Crispy have been saying "meat tray" not "meet Trey"?
And if so, what the hell could it mean?
Jane went back to the kitchen and got more dishes to carry in, all the while mumbling to herself. Were there other variations? Meat? Did meat have any significance? Or tray? She made a third trip and a fourth and went back to the kitchen. The counter was now clear. Nothing else to take in! She leaned back against the refrigerator for a moment, thinking furiously.
Her eyes opened very wide and she turned around to stare at the fridge. She pulled on the door, wondering if Edgar's super-duper appliance had the same features as hers. Yes, indeed it did! A shallow drawer under the middle shelf meant for keeping meats. A meat tray.
But Edgar kept flat boxes of Godiva chocolates in it. Jane pulled the drawer out as far as it would go and started lifting out the gold boxes of candy. At the
back, under the last box, was a little stack of yellow sheets of paper.
Jane grabbed the papers, glanced through, and shoved them into the pocket of her skirt. Then she hastily put the candy back and closed the door. She went back to the living room, where people were milling around the library table, serving themselves dinner. Shelley and Trey had been cornered by the accountant and the consumer rights advocate, who were giving them hell about the nature of the "banquet" and the money they'd paid for it.
"Excuse me," Jane said. "Shelley, I need to talk to you."
"Now, just a minute, little lady," the accountant said. "We got us some business to talk over with Shelley. You're gonna have to hold your horses."
Jane stepped back, fished the papers out of her pocket and held them up for Shelley to see. Shelley's eyes went saucerlike. "I'm afraid it's your horses that are going to have to wait; Lloyd," she said, pushing past him. "Put those away before somebody sees them," Shelley hissed as she took Jane's arm and hurried her to the library. She slammed the door behind them and said, "Let me see!"
Jane laid the papers out on an end table next to the sofa and turned on the lamp. At first glance they didn't seem to mean much of anything. Same names, numbers, many items crossed out. Some starred.
"I have to give them to Mel right away."
"Right!" Shelley said. She went to the corner where the copier and fax stood and turned on the copier. "Lay them out," she said.
They made two copies and Shelley stayed behind while Jane went to the dining room. She tapped on the door and opened it. "Detective VanDyne—"
Mel was sitting across the table from Trey Moffat's
wife, who looked like a rabbit caught in someone's