Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) Read Free Page B

Rebecca Simpson’s office were pushing empty wheelbarrows, and the men coming away from her office each had a large brown cardboard box, identical, approximately two cubic feet in dimensions.
    “Carol! Come in! Sit down!”
    It was the first time she’d been in Rebecca Simpson’s office.
    It was, at least today, not so much an office at all, but a meeting place of corridors, a kind of wheelbarrow traffic circle around which boxes circled endlessly, coming from somewhere Carol could not discern, and clattering noisily down a staircase she did not know existed.
    “OVER THERE! “
    “NO! GET THAT ONE! LEAVE THOSE TWO!”
    Somehow in the midst of this chaos, was a desk, gray topped, with what seemed innumerable tiny half moon curves imprinted in it, as though the same hand had studiously pressed a thumbnail a thousand times, at random locations, into its ugly, ever-so-slightly malleable surface.
    “NO! LEAVE THAT ONE!”
    “YES! LEAVE IT…IT DOESN’T GO WITH THE OTHERS!”
    The men, she could see, were unable to negotiate the steep stairway with the ponderously loaded wheelbarrows, and were forced to carry the barrows by hand, one man grunting with each end.
    “Please, sit down, Carol.”
    “Here?”
    “Yes. Right there––it’s all right.”
    “What––what are they doing?”
    “Who?”
    “These men.”
    “With the wheelbarrows?”
    “Yes. What are they doing?”
    “I don’t know.”
    That was the last that was said during the interview about the wheelbarrows, although the circulation of barrow-boxes continued with what seemed to be innumerable men involved in the parade
    “Carol, don’t you check your email?”
    “No, I––it’s been––a busy weekend.”
    “Have you gotten any of the messages I’ve sent to the docents?”
    “I just found them. A few minutes ago.”
    “Well––Carol, I hardly know where to begin––so much has happened. You really do need to check your email”
    “I know. I will in the future.”
    Rebecca Simpson was dressed in brown and looked, Carol realized, like one of the boxes. She had a square face—a bit more flushed than the boxes but otherwise identical—a square torso, square nose, square eyes, and an enigmatic interior.
    “Well, I must tell you then, that Educational Services has received an anonymous grant.”
    “I see.”
    “It’s quite large.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Yes, we’re very excited. You did not receive any of the emails concerning this?”
    “No.”
    “I sent the first ones out on Friday morning, around nine o’clock. Did you not receive that email?”
    “Probably. I’m sure I got it, but––I really haven’t been checking emails this weekend the way I should.”
    “Then I sent another group of emails around three o’clock that afternoon. Did you receive that email?”
    “I’m sure I did.”
    “There was a request for a reply.”
    “I just really didn’t check any of my emails this weekend.”
    “Then…”
    Each of the words was identical: a two foot cubic pasteboard word, crossing the gray desk in a wheelbarrow, and heading toward stairs leading downward, downward…
    “Then I sent another email on Saturday evening. Did you not receive that email?”
    “No, ma’am. I mean––I’m sure I did, but I really haven’t been checking.”
    “And finally, I sent another set of rather lengthy emails yesterday evening. There were two emails, plus several attachments. Did you receive those emails, and those attachments?”
    “I’m sure that, when I check, I’ll find them.”
    “PUT DOWN THAT WHEELBARROW! NO! NOT THAT ONE! THE OTHER ONE!”
    “So you received none of them?”
    “No. That is, I probably got them. I’m sure they came through. I just haven’t gotten to read them.”
    “I see.”
    “BE CAREFUL WITH THAT ONE! THERE ARE SPRINGS IN IT!”
    “Well. I guess I must assume that you don’t know what was in any of the emails.”
    “That’s true.”
    Rebecca Simpson sighed heavily, the clear scotch tape