War and Peas Read Free

depths of the mobile home, and Mel said to Jane and Shelley, “Then I’ll start with you two.“
    “Are you in charge of the case?“ Jane asked.
    “No, just helping with interviews. There was a mob of people out there, you know, and it’s important to interview as many as possible as quickly as possible.“
    “I don’t know how much help we can be, Mel,“ Jane said. “We weren’t in ‘witness’ mode.“
    “People seldom are,“ he replied.
    “But we were really out in left field, if you’ll forgive the expression,“ Shelley put in. “We were busy pretending like mad. The woman who rehearsed us really emphasized that we weren’t to try to act the parts, but really get into it and be the people. She said that was the whole point of a reenactment. And we took her at her word. It was spooky, in fact. I was really scared of the battle, even though I knew it was all fake.“
    “But unfortunately, it wasn’t,“ Jane added grimly. “Shelley’s right. We weren’t quite ourselves. Maybe it was just the heat, but I felt—well, almost hypnotized into my part.”
    Mel wasn’t very sympathetic. “Then you’re going to have to snap out of it, because I need information. Do the best you can, okay?”
    But it wasn’t a successful interview. The experience had been pure chaos and neither of them could satisfactorily choreograph exactly what they’d done in what order, let alone account for anyone else’s movements.
    “There was a group of women—three of them, I think—just behind us to begin with,“ Jane summed up. “One of them was Sharlene Lloyd. I remembered her because her red hair and red face made her look so much hotter than the rest of us. And one of the women with her had a hat with cloth flowers like big cabbage roses. I saw her later, when we were trying to escape. She was ahead of us then, though. And she was already lying on the ground. Was that Ms. Palmer?”
    Mel nodded. “Did she look injured when you saw her?“
    “She looked dead,“ Shelley said bluntly. “But then, she was supposed to pretend to be dead, I guess.“
    “You couldn’t see her expression,“ Jane said. “She was facedown and her hat had skewed around and concealed her features.”
    Sharlene rejoined them. Her nose and eyes were pink and she had a crumpled tissue in her hand, but she was calm. “I’ve been listening to your questions,“ she said softly. “I’m afraid I don’t know much, either. I was walking with Ms. Palmer and Babs McDonald. And I know it sounds crazy, but I, too, sort of felt like it was really happening. When the shooting started, I just froze. I was worried about Babs—Mrs. McDonald. She’s the older lady, you know. Miss Daisy’s friend. And I was worried about her being out in the heat or falling and breaking her hip or something. So I just stood there, and when the soldiers got close, Babs gave me a shove and said to rim for safety. I turned around and ran back the way we’d come.“
    “Where was Ms. Palmer then?“ Mel asked very gently.
    Sharlene sniffed and touched the tissue to her nose. “I don’t know. I didn’t look. I was only thinking about myself.”
    Mel nodded and said, “Of course you were. That’s understandable. What happened next?“
    “Well, I ran a few feet and a soldier almost ran into me. He yelled something about getting out of the way and threw me to the ground. No, not really threw me, but he made it look like that. So I just stayed there, playing possum.“
    “Could you see the others?“ Mel asked.
    “No, I was in a low spot.“
    “Had someone told you to run back that way? Was it planned?“
    “No, not really.“ Sharlene spoke more firmly now. “I believe the actual reenactors have what they do pretty well planned. But those of us from the museum were just extras. We were there for a little extra ‘color’ and were only told about how we were supposed to imagine we were walking to town and no matter what happened, to act like the person we were