A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Sam and his space-cadet girlfriend came to one of my Angie and the Angst shows, like, maybe a couple years ago. But I don’t think he probably remembered me. I just remembered him ‘cause of that weird body of his. He was way cool, you know, but kinda top-heavy.”

  What a eulogy.

  “Emma is a really multitalented person,” Campbell put in fondly. And irrelevantly. They still hadn’t told me the reason for their impromptu visit.

  He put his arm around Emma and she snuggled up in his embrace, once more reminding me of C.C. I wondered if she’d jump free the moment he wriggled.

  “Emma can do anything. You should see her Connie the Condom series—”

  “Yeah, too bad nobody appreciates it,” the creator muttered.

  “By Godfrey, lots of great artists weren’t appreciated in their own times,” Campbell assured her gently. I imagined he knew a lot about the past. Maybe he even lived there. But then there was Emma. She certainly wasn’t from the past.

  “In fact,” he went on, “the more far-reaching the art, the less appreciation in the present—”

  “Campbell’s a really cool musician himself,” Emma cut in. “He’s with this Irish band. They’re way cool, you know. He plays all these weird instruments—”

  “Uilleann pipes, tin whistle, flute, fiddle, and bones,” he interrupted helpfully, the hint of a blush on his undistinguished face. And then he was back to his favorite subject, his sweetie. “Emma does performance art. Once she tied up her legs and rolled herself around in a wheelchair like a paraplegic, trying to bounce a basketball painted like the world. Then she was screaming, ‘Save the world! Save the world!’ while I videotaped the people who helped.”

  “And the jerks who turned away,” Emma added.

  “Listen, you guys,” I said, taking advantage of the microsecond of silence before the mutual admiration started up again. “Why did you—”

  But Campbell was not so easily distracted from listing the contributions to world art by the object of his affections.

  “And then once she went down to Golden Gate Park with the Angie and the Angst crew and held up implements of self-destruction and asked the crowd if the crew should kill themselves.”

  “What did the crowd say?” I prompted, curious in spite of myself.

  “The reviews were mixed,” Emma put in. “Some guys got real, like, excited and yelled, ‘Go, go!’ But most of them told us not to. Especially the women. It was a really cool gig. People left us a whole pile of money, even though we didn’t ask.”

  “And then there was this son of a goat who came into the market and kept giving me a bad time—” Campbell said.

  “An ex-boyfriend—” Emma explained, wriggling in the enclosure of Campbell’s arm.

  “So she jury-rigged his revolving tie rack with all these insulting messages on little slips of paper tied to pink ribbons—”

  “That was just a practical joke,” Emma said impatiently, twisting completely away from Campbell’s arm now.

  A practical joke. An alarm was going off in my head. Faint, but getting louder as it blew.

  “Emma even has some ideas for your gag gifts. Tell her, Emma.”

  “Well.” Emma was blushing herself by now. “I thought of this really cool doll, Hygiene Hyena, for dentists, you know, with these really big teeth—”

  “Performance art!” I yelped, my brain inventorying the papier-mâché catsup, red bows, and notes and putting them all together in the same category. “Like trocars?”

  Emma slammed back against the unforgiving denim of the couch, her cat eyes widening.

  “Like cockroaches and noses?” I hissed, getting up from my swinging chair.

  Emma didn’t say a word. Campbell didn’t either. He just looked at Emma and then at me, confusion scrunching up his bearded face.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” I accused.

  And for once, I got an answer to an accusation.

  “Yeah, so what?” Emma replied, crossing her arms defiantly.

  “‘So what?’“ I parroted back, astounded as much by the fact of her admission as its wording.

  “I was just trying to help Campbell,” she muttered, not looking so cool now. Campbell didn’t look too well either as he stared at his beloved.

  “Listen,” she insisted, uncrossing her arms as she leaned forward. “I just wanted to get you and Wayne off his back.”

  “But you’re just making things worse for him,” I told her, barely resisting the urge to take her by the scruff of the neck and shake some sense into her.

  She blinked, looking all of ten years old for a moment.

  “Emma, don’t you see? Wayne and I didn’t even suspect Campbell. It’s the police who—” I cut myself off as another thought occurred to me. “You didn’t do any ‘performance art’ for the police, did you?”

  “Well,” Emma muttered, “just a dolphin and harpoon thingie. That guy Woolsey is nuts about dolphins. So I—”

  “What in the holy blazes have you been doing?” Campbell demanded now, not looking anywhere near as affectionate as he had before. In fact, his face looked as distorted by anger as it had the day he’d shaken his fist in Sam Skyler’s face.

  “I was just trying to scare people,” Emma came back, her voice rising in both timbre and volume. Her hands flew into the air, fingers splayed and shaking. “So they’d lay off this whole murder idea. So they’d just let it go as an accident or a suicide, a cry for self-help, you know—?”

  “Why did you need to scare us off?” I asked, deepening my voice and lowering my brows in an unabashed imitation of Wayne’s glare. I was one for one in forced admissions of guilt. Could I make it two for two?

  “Did you kill Sam Skyler?”

  - Nineteen -

  Now Campbell turned his angry face in my direction, leaping up from the denim couch a second later to hurtle toward me. And his face was breath-stopping scary, so contorted, it was almost unrecognizable from his ginger beard up. Not to mention scarlet.

  That was when I remembered it was two against one. And that I hadn’t ever opened my windows. I got ready to scream, anyway. But Campbell beat me to it.

  “What!” he bellowed, stopping inches away from me as he clenched his fists convulsively.

  “No, sweet-buns, no,” Emma admonished, up and running from the couch a moment after Campbell to squeeze her body between his and mine. She waved a hand in front of his distorted face, then tugged on his short red hair like you’d tug on the fur of an out-of-control dog.

  Campbell’s shoulders slumped; he turned and shuffled back to the couch, dropping back down on the denim with his head in his hands. When he looked up again, there was shame on his face where the anger had been. I let out my breath, lungs aching.

  Emma turned to me now, her slender shoulders as straight as she could hold them.

  “The answer is no,” she declared, her voice trembling. “I did not kill Sam Skyler.” She paused. “And neither did Campbell.”

  I believed the first part. But I wasn’t so certain about the second.

  After a glimpse of Campbell’s rage, however brief, I was about to join the Quiero Police Department in their assessment of Campbell Barnhill as prime murderer material.

  “We were together, holding hands, the whole time the scuba wedding was happening,” Emma told me. “And I wouldn’t lie for a murderer, not even for Campbell.”

  Damn, if I didn’t believe her, at least for that moment.

  I looked again at Campbell, who muttered miserably, “It’s true,” as he stared at his feet.

  One thing I was sure of, this odd couple was really in love.

  “Well, do you have any idea who—” I began.

  The doorbell cut off my question. It was just as well. If Emma did have any idea who’d killed Sam Skyler, I’m sure she would have spilled it by now. And, more important, no matter who was at the door, it wouldn’t be two against one anymore. I answered the second ring, smiling inanely, glad to be alive and breathing. />
  The young woman on my doorstep was a tall, well-dressed brunette. She looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure why until she pulled out her tape recorder and shoved it in my face. I dropped the smile.

  “Hi, I’m Jeannette from the San Ricardo Post,” she chirped brightly. “I’m a friend of Felix Byrne’s.”

  Did Felix have friends among his fellow reporters? Somehow I doubted it. Friends shared. And I couldn’t imagine Felix sharing a story. And if this woman knew Felix at all, how could she believe that being his friend would endear herself to me?

  So I just said, “Felix who?” tilting my head as if in confusion.

  I could hear Emma and Campbell stirring from behind me as Jeannette’s bright smile struggled to remain attached to her face. Inspiration struck, telling me it was time for my own version of performance art.

  “Oh, you must be here to speak to Emma Jett,” I sang out enthusiastically. “Creator of the wonderful Connie the Condom series.”

  Bingo. Jennette’s smile faltered, then crashed onto the redwood deck.

  I turned to Emma, willing her to take her cue. She took it. And Campbell shared it.

  They were both on their feet and crowding past me onto the deck with the reporter before I had to make any further introductions. Or fend off any.

  “Emma Jett is an incredibly multitalented artist,” Campbell began. “You can put that in your story. She’s a musician—”

  “A ‘performance artist’—” I couldn’t help inserting.

  “And writes and illustrates the Connie the Condom books,” Campbell finished up. His undistinguished features were gleaming proudly now, all anger forgotten.

  “Hey, you two were there when Skyler—” Jeannette began. But she was out-mouthed.

  “Connie the Condom is the heroine in my children’s book series,” Emma interrupted loudly. “A pink condom, you know, way cool, with blond curls. She, like, helps little kids get out of trouble.”

  “The books are very educational,” Campbell added. “And beautifully illustrated, by Godfrey! The text and illustrations have been featured at the Newmind Gallery…”

  Jeannette dropped her tape recorder in her bag and backed down the stairs. If she was a friend of Felix’s, she sure hadn’t picked up his pit bull instincts.

  “If you want to, you can make an appointment for an interview,” Emma yelled as Jeanette rushed down the driveway, got in her Honda, and drove away.

  “Heh-heh-heh,” Campbell leaked from behind his hand. And then we were all laughing. Hysterically. Bonding is a strange thing. A few minutes ago, I’d been waiting to feel the pressure of Campbell’s hands around my neck. Or at the very least, the impact of a punch. And now I wanted to hug him and Emma.

  Until the police showed up, anyway.

  I was still in the doorway, and Emma and Campbell were still on the deck yukking it up, when we heard the clomping of nearby feet.

  “Having a lot of fun, are we?” asked Chief Woolsey, crossing his arms, his lean features set in that perpetual expression of jaded disgruntlement.

  “Yeah,” Officer Fox put in, crossing his own arms.

  Emma Jett shriveled before my eyes. She turned to me, her face clearly begging me to delete any references to performance art. Especially performance art of the “dolphin and harpoon thingie” school. Then Campbell turned to me with a pleading expression.

  “We were just talking about Emma’s Connie the Condom series,” I said to Woolsey. No, I wouldn’t mention the performance art. Woolsey would harpoon Emma himself if he ever found out.

  Woolsey looked confused until Emma began to explain her book series and Campbell chimed in with good reviews.

  Woolsey nodded sagely while they spoke.

  “Sounds interesting,” he said fifteen minutes later. “A good metaphor for safe sex. A condom who is capable of saving lives.”

  Emma’s cat eyes widened slightly; then she went on more enthusiastically, chronicling the adventures of her heroine. I guess she hadn’t expected the chief of the Quiero Police Department to be such a good audience. Nor had Officer Fox apparently, as he’d fidgeted and glared.

  But now Fox himself nodded. And pretty soon the four of them were discussing Connie’s brave acts as they walked back down the stairs.

  Had Woolsey forgotten his reason for visiting me? Or had he been following Emma and Campbell all along? Or was he just enthralled?

  I closed the door softly behind them and peeked out the living room window as my uninvited visitors continued their conversation for another good fifteen minutes, then got in their respective vehicles and left. Woolsey was enthralled, I decided. And if that was so, it would be a good thing for Campbell. It couldn’t hurt his image any if the chief approved of his fiancée. I just hoped I was right in believing Emma when she said Campbell wasn’t a murderer.

  I went back to my Jest Gifts paperwork. It was looking more appealing to me suddenly. My mind was actually engaged by the intricacies of payroll-tax charts when the doorbell rang again, another fifteen minutes later. Damn. What if the Quiero police hadn’t forgotten me after all?

  But when I opened the door, only Emma was there, looking incredibly vulnerable for all the brass studs in her ears and nostrils.

  “I just wanted to thank you,” she whispered and threw her arms around me in a tight hug. Then she turned to run back down the stairs.

  “Emma,” I shouted after her.

  She turned.

  “Be good,” I told her sternly.

  “At my art?” she threw back, winking.

  Then a another possible piece fell into place.

  “Are you the one who called the Skyler Institute and told one of the puppet women that we knew who killed their leader?” I asked.

  Emma’s face fell. “Uh-huh,” she admitted, hanging her head. Then she muttered, “I’m sorry, Kate,” before running the rest of the way down the stairs.

  I went back to my desk, but my mind was distracted now as I plodded through the tax charts. Would a woman tell the truth about all the rotten things she’d done and then lie about murder? It was possible. I wanted to ask Wayne. I needed to ask Wayne.

  And I couldn’t resist asking Wayne when he walked in the door, even though it meant I had to admit to talking to suspects. Alone. Two against one, etc., etc.

  But Wayne just sighed when I told him Emma and Campbell had come and gone, that long, deep sigh he was so good at. And he advised keeping any future visitors on the deck, nosy neighbors or no nosy neighbors.

  I recounted the whole visit then, toning down Campbell’s anger as much as I could while Wayne cooked something that smelled of fresh lemon grass and galanga and basil. Thai tonight. I alternately salivated and babbled until I was finished with my tale and had set the table, carefully omitting any mention of my earlier visit to the Olcott Johnson Funeral Home. Admitting to that trip would probably elicit more than a sigh.

  One good sniff of the Thai vegetable curry over cellophane noodles, and Emma and Campbell slipped out of my mind as smoothly as the food went into my mouth. I savored a touch of red chili and coconut on my tongue, and then just let the flavors overwhelm me. I was still panting with pleasure when Wayne finally offered an opinion.

  “I believe her,” he said.

  “Who?” I asked, slurping bits of vegetables, noodles, and seitan, murder completely forgotten.

  “Emma,” he replied with a fond smile in my direction. The man still loved to watch me eat, earlier sighs notwithstanding.

  He was a good man with a good heart. I took a quick break to circle the table and kiss him on his delicious mouth, before returning to stuff mine again.

  Because I believed Emma too. At least I wanted to.

  By Friday morning, my doubts and I were back at my desk while Wayne toiled away in the back room at his own administrivia. I signed a paycheck. Performance art. Acting. Could Emma have known that confessing to the minor sins would make me believe her when she said she wouldn’t cover up for a murderer? I stabbed at the key
s of my adding machine. Could she be just as calculating?

  I even began to wonder about Tessa as I practiced my tai chi form that night surrounded by classmates. Had she hit herself on the head with that candlestick? As my body turned during the rollback sequence, my arm swinging back and over in the general direction of my own head, I realized I could bonk myself on the noggin. Easily. And the candlestick incident had certainly worked to put Tessa out of the running as a murder suspect. At least in my mind. Had the police come to the same conclusion?

  And then there was Nathan, I thought, my body moving forward in the press movement. And Diana. And Martina. And…The circle of suspects dancing through my head became as complex and repetitive as the tai chi form itself. And just as difficult to master.

  Saturday was a Wedding Ritual class day for Wayne and me again. It had been exactly one week since Sam Skyler died. I was ready for action, whether Wayne was or not. I would center myself and concentrate, the way I should have in my tai chi class the night before. But this time I’d concentrate on murder.

  I didn’t even let Yvonne O’Reilley’s potbellied pig, chickens, and llama distract me as I closed the gate of the chainlink fence behind Wayne’s Jaguar. At least not too much. Even averting my eyes, it was hard to ignore the competing sounds of wind chimes, grunts, clucks, moos, and other animal noises, a couple of which Old McDonald had probably never heard in his whole long life.

  I patted the rough surface of the stone Buddha for luck before we went through Yvonne’s open doorway. And shielded my eyes against the rainbow kitsch I knew would assault them.

  “Hey, Kate,” two voices said as one when Wayne and I stepped in. Emma Jett and Ray Zappa.

  They both swiveled their heads at each other as if astounded to be sharing the same phrase. Tessa and Campbell were a little slower with their own sideways glances.

  Then Ray shuffled my way, his hand outstretched, his handsome face a screen of conflicting emotions. But I couldn’t have told you exactly what those emotions were. Or what their source was for that matter.