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

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “How does Diana feel about that?” Wayne asked softly.

  Nathan’s body jerked ever so slightly in his chair. I wouldn’t have noticed except for the tabby who opened her eyes for a moment and hissed a swift reprimand before snuggling back down onto Nathan’s khaki pants.

  “Well,” Nathan murmured, his face reddening in the few spots not covered in fur. “Um, Diana is okay with that. She didn’t care that much about the Institute as the Institute anyway. She was more concerned with Dad.”

  “And with you,” I prodded.

  Nathan looked at the ground for a few moments.

  “And with me,” he whispered in agreement finally.

  “Do the police know about you and Diana?” I asked, keeping my voice properly sympathetic.

  “There isn’t a whole lot to know,” Nathan replied, his voice higher than before, but not by much. “Diana and I have certain feelings for each other, it’s true. But we’ve never acted on them. It didn’t seem right while Dad…while Dad was alive. And now, well…” He shrugged gently enough that the tabby didn’t have to reprimand him.

  Now I really was sympathetic. I certainly hoped he hadn’t expressed himself in those particular words to the police. Unless he really was the murderer. Talk about your scapegoats. I squinted my eyes at him, trying to see what was beneath that kind, furry facade. And gave up. I would let Wayne be in charge of suspecting Nathan. I just couldn’t get up the resolve to suspect a man petting a cat so gently, no matter how powerful his patricidal motives might be.

  “Did your father ever tell you what really happened when your stepmother went over the railing?” Wayne asked quietly.

  The feline encephalograph twitched, hissing as Nathan’s body jerked again.

  Nathan looked down for a moment at the cats on the floor and then lifted his head.

  “Yes,” he said, so softly the word was barely discernible.

  We waited.

  “You won’t repeat any of this unless you have to?” he added a few moments later.

  Wayne nodded. I added a quick, belated nod to Wayne’s. Even the cats at Nathan’s feet were staring up at him in suspense. All the animals in the room, including us, seemed to hold their breaths. And then Nathan spoke.

  “I guess I already told you that Dad and Sally fought a lot,” he began. “She’d throw a punch or a slap, and he’d hit her back sometimes. Too often. Oddly enough, he really liked her. Probably even loved her. That’s why he put up with the physical stuff. When she wasn’t angry, Sally was a witty and intelligent woman. Similar to my mother in some ways.” He paused. “But Sally was a rage-aholic. And Dad…well, Dad just couldn’t control his responses all the time. He talked to me a little about it, how he’d try to leave the room when she lashed out. Or to just breathe through it. But it wasn’t just the physical stuff, it was the things she said with the blows. She called him a wimp and a nobody and all kinds of things that really hit him where he lived, in his ego.”

  Nathan got up suddenly, holding the tabby in his arms, then setting her gently on the floor before turning and walking to the window that looked out from his apartment. When he turned back he straightened his shoulders, not much but a little.

  “I haven’t told anyone this before, not even the police,” he said, his voice stronger. “But Dad is dead now, so I guess it can’t hurt. Dad and Sally lived in a house on top of a cliff in Eldora. They both drank too much. He stopped drinking after…after Sally died. After he pushed her.” Nathan wrapped his arms around himself as if for the warmth. His normally calm voice sped up. “They were on the balcony. Sally was leaning up against the railing, ranting. She told Dad he was worthless, that he’d only married her for her money.

  He told her it wasn’t true. But she just kept going on. And then she hit him in the face, hard, screaming that he was a nobody and would always be a nobody. Dad shoved her then. And she went right over the railing.”

  I felt a thud in my lap and for a minute I was sailing over that railing with Sally Skyler, feeling the cold air streaming by my sweating body. But it was only Nathan’s tabby in my lap. Though the sweat was real. And the air felt cold now. I put my arms around myself the same way Nathan had.

  “Dad literally couldn’t believe he’d actually pushed her at first,” Nathan went on. “That’s what he told me. He’d killed his wife. She was lying on the rocks below. He knew she had to be dead. But he was in complete shock. Drunk and frightened. But not too drunk to call the police. He dialed 911 and told them that his wife had jumped over the railing. He said he believed his own lie then, that she’d jumped. For a while. But then his nightmares began. And over the next few weeks, he remembered everything. In full detail.

  “Lucky for Dad, Sally was so bruised by the rocks, the police couldn’t really prove she’d been pushed. But they knew it. There was even a witness a couple of houses down who’d seen the flurry. So the prosecution took on the case. But Dad got on the stand with all he’d learned from his years of hypnosis classes and people skills and convinced the jury he didn’t do it. Convinced twelve people that Sally had jumped off the balcony as he tried to stop her. That explained the bruise on his face. And the witness was too far away, his attorneys said. So he was found not guilty.”

  Nathan walked back to his chair and put his head in his hands. When he brought it back up, I could see the tears streaming from beneath his wire-rimmed glasses.

  “But Dad really did feel guilty. He kept having nightmares. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He cried all the time. He really was sorry.” Nathan took off his glasses and wiped the tears from his eyes, his voice moving back toward its usual calm. “Though in his own narcissistic way, I think Dad was really more attuned to his own experience of grief than Sally’s actual death. It was more as if something had been done to him, than as if he’d done something to her. Still, the experience changed his life completely. He went to a therapist who worked with him for nearly a year, partly with puppets, and out of his all too real guilt and grief for his crime came the book, Grief Into Growth. And the seminars. Then everyone felt sorry for the poor man who’d been unable to stop his wife from jumping onto the rocks. He made a fortune on the book and a fortune on the seminars. But he never got over his grief, his own self-generated hell.”

  A black and white cat jumped into Nathan’s lap then and rubbed against him as if offering comfort. The psychotherapist’s therapist. “Umh-humh,” the cat purred.

  “All the adoration in the world couldn’t patch my Dad back together,” Nathan finished. “But he put up a good show. And he really did believe in his own techniques. And he really did help others find some peace, I think.”

  No wonder Sam Skyler’s shoulders had always been so tight, I thought. Not empathy, not even ego. Guilt. I felt a surge of pity for the man who’d murdered his wife. But that faded as I thought of Sally Skyler, dead all this time. I rubbed my arms, still too cold.

  “Did your father ever tell any one else what really happened?” Wayne asked quietly.

  I jumped in my seat, earning my own hiss from the tabby in my lap. I’d completely forgotten Wayne, forgotten the apartment we were in, forgotten everything but Nathan’s story. Sam Skyler’s story.

  “No,” Nathan answered. “At least, as far as I can tell. My mother doesn’t seem to know. Dad didn’t even tell me till a few years ago.” He put his glasses back on. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  No, we reassured him. Not unless necessary. As promised. Then we got up to leave.

  “Wow,” was all I could say ten minutes later as the Jaguar gobbled up the blacktop between Nathan’s home and ours. “Sam Skyler really did kill his wife.”

  “And Nathan Skyler had all the more reason to kill his father,” Wayne added.

  “What?” I objected. “Nathan loved his father. Can’t you see that?”

  “Maybe he just inherited his father’s good acting genes,” Wayne pointed out.

  I stared at Wayne, trying to figure out why he suspected Nathan
Skyler, of all people. Kind, sweet Nathan Skyler. Kind, sweet Wayne, my mind echoed. Was that why? A case of like repelling like?

  “Need to talk to Ona and Perry again,” Wayne put in before I could voice the concept. “They’ve been to the seminars, seen Nathan and his father interact. They’re perfect witnesses. Disinterested and observant bystanders.”

  “And mouthy,” I added, thinking of Ona.

  We were lucky again, with Ona and Perry. I phoned Ona from our house. She and Perry and their respective sets of children were all there. I could hear the lilt of kids’ voices arguing in the background. And Ona was ready to talk. Itching to talk.

  “Your car or mine?” I asked Wayne.

  “Mine,” he said. And we were on the road to Cebollas.

  “Boy, am I glad you guys are still on the case,” Ona greeted us as she opened her front door.

  There were good smells coming from inside her kitchen. Perry was cooking again, I’d bet. I sniffed chilies and beans and maybe corn, something south of the border tonight. My stomach gurgled a little plea for food soon. But we weren’t here to eat.

  “That fatophobe, Woolsey, thinks I killed Skyler,” Ona went on, leading us through the living room and into the kitchen as she spoke. “Because Skyler criticized my determination to be proud of my size. What a load of crap. If I murdered everyone who criticized my weight, there’d be a lot more dead folks out there.”

  “Including us,” Pammy murmured under her breath, rolling her dark brown eyes.

  “Don’t you talk that way about my mother,” Ogden warned, puffing up his burly blond teenaged body.

  Ona ignored them as they went on arguing in muted mutters and squawks.

  “Have a seat,” she ordered us.

  So Wayne and I sat down at the teak kitchen table. Perry picked up a pot from the stove and set it on the glazed blue tile of the counter. God, it smelled good. Maybe they’d invite us to dinner. He threw us a friendly wave over his shoulder.

  “If they really think Skyler was murdered, they ought to be looking at Yvonne O’Reilley not Ona,” Perry commented as he stirred the contents of another pot. “I’ve been on the Golden Valley City Council for years. That O’Reilley woman is compassionate about most things, but she has a real wild streak when it comes to preserving Golden Valley—”

  “And that’s just where Skyler stuck his rocket ship Institute,” Ona finished for him. “Though it’s kinda hard to take Yvonne seriously about preserving the character of Golden Valley with that zoo she has up there.” She put her hands on her ample hips. “I can’t believe they’d elect a woman to the City Planning Commission who has metallic madras wallpaper in her living room.”

  “Not to mention the chickens and llamas and cows,” Perry added.

  “Do you really think Yvonne murdered Sam Skyler?” Wayne asked.

  “No, no,” Perry backtracked as Ona shrugged her shoulders. “Yvonne really does seem like a kind, caring woman. She ranted a lot about the Institute when it was built, and then got herself elected to the planning commission, though too late to stop Skyler’s Institute. But still, I can’t imagine her actually killing someone. I just meant she had a greater motive in comparison to Ona. I’m afraid the man probably jumped. Sad but believable.”

  “Probably looked out over that bluff and felt guilty about killing his wife,” Ona added, crossing her arms. And this time Martina Monteil wasn’t there to contradict her.

  I shivered in the warmly scented kitchen, remembering what Nathan had just told us. Had Sam Skyler jumped after all? Unable to bear his grief and guilt? But what about the bruises from Yvonne’s vases?

  “Wanted to ask you about Sam Skyler’s relationship to his son Nathan,” Wayne put in, and I remembered why we were here. “You both must have observed the two of them before the Wedding Ritual class, before Sam’s death. Do you think Nathan really cared for his father or—”

  But the rest of Wayne’s words were lost in a high-pitched scream that bounced off the redwood rafters.

  - Twenty-One -

  I whipped my head around in time to see Ona’s burly son Ogden pinned to the floor by Pammy of the beautiful dark eyes, her slender brown hands around his thick pink throat.

  “You can’t talk about my mom like that!” Ogden yelled. Pammy’s hands obviously weren’t squeezing hard enough.

  “You big fat moron!” Pammy screamed back. “You big blond piece of…you big…you…” Her voice faltered to a stop.

  Within one hot breath, Ogden’s face reddened. Then suddenly Pammy jumped off the boy as if someone had stuck a burning wedge between the two of them. Ogden jumped up too, backing away in a pre-Neanderthal crouch.

  “I, um, I…” he babbled, his eyes still fixed on the young woman standing in front of him.

  Pammy looked back at him and suddenly her beautiful dark eyes seemed to see something in Ogden’s burly blond body that escaped the rest of us.

  And then she was mumbling too. And her flawless skin was a pinkening mauve.

  “Oh, God,” Ona whispered from behind me.

  But the two teenagers just stared at each other without moving. Had they just noticed they were of the opposite sex?

  “I’m sorry,” they both mumbled in unison.

  “Oh, shit,” Ona said. “We wondered when they’d go from bickering to lusting.”

  Yup. They had just noticed.

  “Hey, Ogden,” Orestes objected, his shrill little voice indignant. “You’re not gonna let her get away with that, are you?”

  But Ogden didn’t even glance at his younger brother. His eyes were still riveted on Pammy, the Pammy he was seeing now.

  Perry and Ona looked past their children at each other, their eyes wide with worry. Or was it panic?

  Then Page reached out and slapped Orestes. Hard. For no obvious reason. And no one seemed to notice but Orestes who squealed with outrage. Pammy and Ogden certainly didn’t care.

  “Time out for a Talk,” Ona announced.

  Orestes and Page and Perry all turned her way, a mixture of resignation and fear reflected on each of their faces, but Ogden and Pammy’s eyes didn’t waver.

  “TIME OUT FOR A TALK!” Ona shouted.

  And then Perry sprang into action, inserting his body between the two teenagers, waving his hands as if to stop an oncoming train. I’d have placed my bet on the train.

  “Guess we’ll be going now,” Wayne said to no one in particular.

  We both rose unnoticed from our places at the teak table and scurried away from the family tableau. As we crossed the living room, I sent a sympathetic backwards glance at the worried parents.

  “Good luck,” I mumbled, knowing they were beyond hearing, and then Wayne and I were out through the living room into the cool evening air.

  “Whew!” I said, waving my hot face as we walked toward the Jaguar. “Pheromone fever.”

  “Do you think it’s catching?” Wayne asked, a smile tugging at his soft mouth.

  “Yeah,” I answered huskily, launching myself against his solid body like a torpedo, lips landing on lips.

  Luckily, Wayne’s good at catching. Torpedoes and lips included.

  I wasn’t sure if I was glad or not when my stomach started growling mid-clinch before our even baser instincts could take over in Ona’s driveway.

  “Dinner?” Wayne inquired reasonably.

  My stomach gurgled a loud “Yes” while other parts of my anatomy shouted silently in disagreement. My stomach won.

  We ended up at the Grazie, a little Italian restaurant in San Ricardo where the owners really spoke Italian. And really cooked. It was one of Wayne’s favorite restaurants, next to his own. He stuffed himself with a sausage-and mushroom-loaded calzone, while I twirled my fettucini with veggies, basil, garlic, and chilies. And we exchanged more theories than the Grazie’s menu had selections.

  I was sopping up the sauce left on my plate with the restaurant’s own chewy sourdough bread when I thought of Sally Skyler again.

  “Someone
must have cared whether Sally Skyler lived or died,” I said finally.

  “Yumph,” Wayne agreed through his last mouthful of calzone.

  “And we still haven’t figured out whether any of our Wedding Ritual class members was a friend of hers.”

  “Or family,” Wayne added, bending forward eagerly over the table.

  But then he shook his head and leaned back in his chair.

  “Doesn’t make sense, Kate,” he growled. “Not ten years later.”

  But the idea wouldn’t leave my mind in peace. I dreamt of Sally Skyler that night, tangled in seaweed and soundlessly mouthing her request to be avenged as the tides rolled her body to and fro, never quite reaching the slippery rock I stood on.

  Sunday morning, “It’s gotta be about Sally Skyler,” were the first words out of my mouth. Well, not quite the first words, to be honest, but that was only because of Wayne’s warm body beside me. There’s something about unexplained death that brings out the carnal side of my nature. Embarrassing, but true. Happily, Wayne’s temperament matches my own in that regard, just as well as his body fits mine.

  But by breakfast, we really were both talking about Sally again.

  “Who would know?” I asked Wayne over the peanut butter-oatmeal muffins and hot apple tea he’d made for me.

  “Yvonne probably knows all the members of the class better than anyone else,” he suggested warily. “She might have an idea who Sally knew in the class. If there was anyone besides Nathan.”

  “Yeah,” I breathed, setting my tea down with a splash. “Yvonne O’Reilley, rabid preservationist of Golden Valley.”

  “Only according to Perry Kane,” Wayne added moderately.

  But I wanted to talk to Yvonne, immoderately. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to schedule our visit to the defender of Golden Valley until later that afternoon between her Creative Office Spacing class from two to four and her Guardian Angels of the Menopause class beginning at five.

  So we both worked until it was time to make her four o’clock afternoon slot. And we thought. And worked and thought some more. Our respective levels of paperwork went down, but as we drove in my Toyota to Yvonne’s we found that we’d both been just as busy piling up new murder theories upon new murder theories in our minds. And the theoretical towers were ready to topple.