Free War and Peas by Jill Churchill Page A

nothing about it so she could ally herself with whoever won. That evening, after the judge had thrown Caspar out of court and given him a verbal drubbing, Georgia turned up with flowers and candy to congratulate Daisy—as if Daisy really were too dotty to notice what Georgia was about. Her behavior really made Daisy even more angry.”
    Babs got up and poured the coffee into the little sink in a corner of the room, rinsed out the cup, and tossed it in the trash. “After that,“ she said as she came back to the table, “Daisy changed her will. Originally she’d left a third to the museum and a third each to Caspar and Georgia. She altered it to give each of them a million dollars, which she felt was generous enough to satisfy her obligation to the Snellen name, and the rest to the museum. She said, and I believe she was quite right, that they were going to come to bad ends anyway, and the more money they had, the sooner it would happen. So Caspar—who’s never been able to admit that he was at fault for anything—decided that Regina had ‘conned’ Daisy into rewriting the will. He’s spent the last two years getting one ambulance chaser after another to contest the will. I imagine he’s already gone through all the money he did receive and—”
    The door opened rather suddenly and a biker strode into the room.
    Shelley and Jane drew back in alarm. The man had on a tie-dyed T-shirt under a black leather jacket festooned with chains. He wore a bandanna with a flame design low on his forehead. Reflecting sunglasses, black leather pants, and thigh-high boots almost completed his look.
    He also carried a briefcase.
    “Jumper!“ Babs exclaimed. “I thought you’d forgotten the meeting!”

Nine

    Since Babs found nothing strange about Jumper Cable’s appearance, Jane and Shelley didn’t comment, either. Jumper took off the shades and jacket, sat down at the table after greeting them affably, and started removing papers from the beat-up brown briefcase.
    “Are you having a meeting here?“ Jane asked. “Do you want us to leave?“
    “Board meetings are open to the public,“ Babs said, but she sounded hesitant.
    “No, no. We’ll go fill some of the forms instead,“ Jane said. “We have plenty to do elsewhere.”
    Jumper and Babs looked relieved.
    Shelley gave Jane a bunch of blank forms and a pencil and they left the boardroom. “Where shall we start?“ Jane asked.
    “I’ve been working in a room on the second floor, but—“
    “Isn’t there somewhere more private where we could make ourselves useful?“ Jane asked.
    “Exactly my thought,“ Shelley said. “Let’s look over the Dreaded Basement.”
    It was the basement nightmares are made of—huge, with stone walls, a dank, musty smell, and a labyrinth of boxes, furniture, mysterious equipment, snaky old wiring, and a concrete floor. It was, however, as clean as such a place could be. A push broom with bristles worn down like an old man’s teeth stood at the ready by the door. Though it was a single room with support pillars, the stored furniture and boxes created head-high rooms and hallways.
    “Do you suppose anyone’s down here besides us?“ Jane asked.
    “There was a light on when we came in. Let’s look,“ Shelley replied.
    They prowled the basement, finding an amazing variety of things, but no people—if you didn’t consider a family grouping of very badly constructed mannequins that appeared to be posed for eating a meal over a table that had long since disappeared. Jane had rounded a corner and come upon them unexpectedly and nearly had a heart attack at the sight of the black-suited father frozen in the act of carving a missing roast with a wicked-looking knife. She yelped with surprise and Shelley came running.
    “My God!“ Shelley exclaimed. “He looks just like my dentist.“
    “Are we going to have to categorize all this stuff?“ Jane asked.
    “I hope not. I’m certain they won’t want to take along something like the