War and Peas

idea came hunting for her. She stopped typing and got up. She’d put the pea-experiment ledger under Heidi. She now removed it and carefully flipped through the pages. It was confusing and frustrating, the way the text went from formulae to German text to English text, but she finally found what she was looking for. Page 87 was labeled “Snellen’s Little Beauty“ and what’s more, an envelope fluttered out from between the pages. She picked it up carefully.
    It was postmarked 1934 and came from Arkansas.

Eighteen

    “I think you might have been right. This ledger is what someone was looking for in the basement,“ Jane said. “That’s where the old pea storage thing is, and logically the ledger was there, too.”
    “But what would it have to do with Regina’s death?“ Shelley asked. Jane had located her in a History of Pitchforks display at the north end of the second floor.
    “Probably nothing, but it would explain a little mystery. If, in fact, we discovered that the search in the basement didn’t have anything to do with Regina’s death, it would clear out some debris—so to speak.“
    “I guess that’s true. Okay. Let’s assume for the moment that somebody was looking for this ledger—you did take it before the basement was searched, right? Assuming that, who could it be? Only you or Sharlene. You’re out because you already found it,“ Shelley said with a smile, “and Sharlene would have no reason to be secretive about it. She’d search in a tidy manner and even if she’d been sloppy, there’d have been no reason not to admit it.“
    “But why just the two of us? I was sort of lurking behind a display when I heard that man telling the story about the pea. Why couldn’t someone else have been lurking, or at least accidentally overhearing it, too?“
    “Like who?“
    “Like anybody in the building. I saw Caspar shortly before the old man told Sharlene the story. Anyone else might have been just outside the doorway. Shelley, I want to see if this ledger showing Snellen’s Little Beauty actually leads us to some peas.“
    “And you don’t want to go in the basement by yourself? All right. But let me finish with the pitchforks first. Only two more tags to go.”
    Jane paced impatiently while Shelley completed her work; then they headed for the stairs. As they went down the last flight, it occurred to Jane that they should have brought a key in case the storage room was locked. But fortunately, it wasn’t. She turned the knob and the door swung open. Jane stepped forward into the darkness, flailing for the string that would turn on the overhead light. Just as she grasped it and pulled, her foot touched something in the middle of the floor. There hadn’t been anything there the last time they were down here.
    She looked straight ahead, afraid to look down.
    But Shelley’s surprised gasp changed her mind. Automatically stepping backward, she clutched the ledger book to her chest and gazed down in horror at a body.

    Jane and Shelley gave their reports to the first police officer on the scene and were asked to wait in the boardroom. They waited. And waited. Too stunned to speak in anything but monosyllables, they sat at the table, drinking far too much coffee and listening as more sirens approached and then one departed.
    After a while, Babs came in, looking ashen. She merely nodded acknowledgment of their presence and said tersely, “I’m rather glad that Daisy didn’t live to know all this.”
    Neither Jane nor Shelley could think of any response to her comment.
    Babs took a book from a shelf and sat down, pretending to read and making it clear that she wasn’t in a mood to say anything more. A quarter of an hour later, Jumper joined them. He was wearing a green hospital scrub suit and his complexion very nearly matched his clothes.
    “The officer outside said he could send someone for lunch,“ he told them dully.
    They all shook their heads in the negative.
    “I guess they’re asking us the same things,“ he said. “When we last saw him. And they don’t much like the idea that the last time I saw him was here, when I told him what a jerk he was. Or maybe they do like it,“ he mumbled, more to himself than to them. “Nothing like bagging an attorney for murder. Probably adds a full paragraph to a résumé.“
    “Résumé...“ Jane murmured. “Was that what all those papers on the floor were? Derek’s box of résumés?“
    “Was that what was in the box he stomped