War and Peas

Jane said. “But if it doesn’t work, we’ve just made fools of ourselves. It won’t be the first time.“ Her voice shook with nerves.
    They got up and took their plastic plates to the big wastebasket that had been set up by the front door, then moved slowly closer to the door to the staff area, where they stood silently for agonizing minutes.
    Suddenly there were muffled sounds from behind the closed door. Shouts, scuffling, a door slamming. Jane clutched Shelley’s hand and they stared at each other. There was a cry from behind the door, and it swung open.
    Mel and a uniformed officer came through, each of them holding one of Lisa Quigley’s arms. She was struggling weakly and sobbing incoherently. Mel looked at Jane and nodded.
    As they threaded their way through the crowd, everyone fell deadly silent. Jane felt a hand on her arm and turned to see Babs, her face as white as the collar of her dress. “Where are they taking Lisa?“ she asked.
    “To jail,“ Jane answered sadly.”

    “…so Whitney agreed to stage that conversation with Jumper when he knew Lisa was listening?“ Babs asked.
    Babs, Sharlene, Shelley, and Jane were the only ones left at the museum. All the tables but one had been put away and they were sitting around it, finishing off the dregs of the coffee from the big urn.
    “He and Jumper rehearsed it,“ Jane said. “Then there really wasn’t a letter from Regina?“ Sharlene asked.
    “Pure invention,“ Shelley replied. “But Lisa didn’t know that. And she couldn’t take the chance of Regina ‘telling’ the police who’d killed her. And Regina might have really written such a letter after Lisa wrote her that threatening note. The one you found in the Dumpster, Sharlene.“
    “How did you ever figure this out?“ Babs asked Jane.
    “You and Shelley each figured half of it out,“ Jane said. “I just put the two halves together. You were talking to Jumper about passions and sex, and earlier, Shelley had suspected Whitney and said something about ‘if I can’t have her, nobody can.’ She thought maybe Regina had finally decided not to marry him and he might have felt that way. In fact, it was the opposite. Regina had decided to commit herself to marriage, and it was Lisa who was the jealous lover. The Woman Scorned.“
    “Lover?“ Sharlene said, a blush creeping up her throat. “Regina and Lisa were lesbians?”
    Jane nodded. “But Regina must have been bisexual, forced to choose between two people she loved—one a man, one another woman. Once I thought of that, everything else fit and made sense in a horrible way. It was Lisa who set up the reenactment, you remember. We all saw it as a wonderful promotional gimmick, but Lisa meant it as a way to stage a murder in plain sight and cast suspicion on everyone else. Regina had waffled about marrying Whitney and if she’d decided to stay with Lisa, nothing would have happened at the reenactment. But when Regina said she and Whitney were going to announce their engagement at the groundbreaking, her fate was sealed.“
    “But what about Derek?“ Sharlene asked. “What could he have possibly had to do with it?“
    “Absolutely nothing,“ Jane said. “Poor jerk. He was mad at Jumper and made what he considered nasty remarks about a bunch of people. He said Jumper’s friend the anchorwoman was frigid and that Regina was a lesbian. He was just throwing out excuses for why neither of them had fallen into his arms. But Lisa must have heard just the lesbian part and was afraid he knew something. What’s more, even if he didn’t, if he’d repeated it to enough people, eventually someone might take it seriously and realize the nature of their relationship and that there was a lot of about-to-be-thwarted passion* to account for.”
    Babs stood up and took their empty coffee cups to the trash while Sharlene folded the tablecloth and Shelley and Jane folded up the table. “I still don’t see what Heidi had to do with it, though,“ Sharlene said.
    “Nothing,“ Jane said. “Remember that man who told you about the pea his family grew during the Depression? Caspar overheard the conversation and decided there might be seeds of it in the pea bin. That’s why his fingerprints were all over it. But old Auguste had hidden the peas inside the cat. They might be valuable if they can be made to grow. I had Mel take the stuffed cat and the ledger away just to keep them from Caspar.“
    “But why was Derek killed the way he was,