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 nothing left to form a personality."

“So she was really good at being a museum director? What does that entail?"

“I've no idea," Shelley said. "Administrative stuff, I guess. But everybody at the museum deferred to her with what seemed like real respect. I know she managed to bag a couple of traveling exhibits that were a big deal in museum circles.