War and Peas

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 and 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