Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Cash?” I tried to imagine what that amount of money would look like. “Why would Mona want that much cash?”

  “I don’t know, but I bet it’s got something to do with her death.”

  “You think she was killed for the money?”

  “We certainly didn’t find that much cash lying around anywhere.”

  “But the killer would have had to know about it. And why would he leave the sixty-five dollars we found in her wallet?”

  Sharon gave an exasperated sigh. “If I had answers, Kate, you’d be the first to hear them.”

  Three thousand dollars, cash. What had Mona been planning? I pondered that question for the next hour or so, and found the possibilities were almost endless. But none of them made any sense.

  Chapter 13

  After a good deal of wavering, Sharon had decided to hold the memorial service at the mortuary. The other logical choice was the community church, but for reasons I didn’t understand, it wouldn’t have been available until late the following week. And then, only in the event the services of the minister were called upon, as well.

  Sharon was convinced Mona would find the mortuary’s fake waterfall and polyester-clad ushers less offensive than an hour’s sermon by Philip Chapman, with whom she’d almost come to blows over censorship in school libraries. Chapman had wanted to protect the youth of Walnut Hills from such filth as Lord of the Flies, Huckleberry Finn, and a long list of other books which he’d never read but nonetheless knew to be a corrupting influence. That he’d ultimately lost the battle hadn’t softened Mona’s feelings toward him in the least.

  The service was scheduled to begin at eleven, but Sharon had gone over early to deal with any unforeseen snafus that might arise. I arrived almost on the hour, accompanied by Libby, who’d decided at the last minute to come along after all, and then decided that she really needed to wash her hair first.

  By the time we arrived, the chapel was practically full, but there were two, nearly empty pews down front. Gary and Bambi sat at the end of one, Sharon and George at the end of the other. As I started down the aisle, Libby grabbed my arm.

  “No way,” she whispered. “Especially not with Bimbo there.”

  “We’ll sit behind them, next to Sharon.”

  But Libby had already turned and headed for one of the spare chairs at the back. With a shrug to Sharon, I followed. We’d barely gotten ourselves seated when the string quartet at the front started playing a Bach concerto I recognized as one of Mona’s favorites.

  As the music ended, Sharon stood and walked to the podium at the front. “We are here today,” she began, “to say a final goodbye to Mona Sterling. We are here to share our sadness, and our joy too, at having known such a fine person.” She went on to speak with feeling and a touch of humor about the friend she would dearly miss. There was nothing maudlin in her tone, nothing sappy about her account of their evolving friendship. When she finished, she invited others to come forward. For almost an hour, a steady stream of people made their way to the podium and told of the ways in which Mona had touched their lives.

  Gary spoke the longest, for almost ten minutes. He acknowledged the divorce but didn’t dwell on it. His manner was relaxed, infused with the easy assurance of a man used to being in command. In spite of all the negative things I’d heard about the guy, I was impressed. He might be an arrogant and vengeful bastard, but he was also a master at playing the moment.

  Throughout it all, Libby sat motionless in her chair, back straight, head up, eyes fixed on the spot at the front of the room where the roof slanted down to join the wall. Her eyes remained dry and her breathing even. But out of the comer of my eye, I saw the fingers of her left hand digging hard into the palm of her right.

  When the last person had spoken, the quartet started up again and we filed into an adjoining room for refreshments. Sharon had kept things simple; tea and coffee, muffins and fruit. The table was set with several lovely, and most un-funereal, mixed spring bouquets. The musicians, who’d moved into the reception hall once the chapel was empty, struck up a medley of old Beatles’ songs. At first, people stood silently in tight little clusters, subdued by awkwardness as much as grief. But gradually, as the groupings grew more fluid, quiet murmurs gave way to the flow of spirited conversation.

  Libby made one silent, hawk like sweep of the area, then ducked into the ladies’ room and wouldn’t come out, even when I went in after her.

  “Why should I?” she asked, from behind the closed door of the stall. “You think I want to hang around and listen to a bunch of old busybodies talk about how wonderful my mother was?”

  “She had a lot of friends. They’re going to miss her.”

  “La-di-da. They’ll survive.”

  “And so will you, Libby.” It tore at my heart to think of how alone and miserable she must feel. “This is a terrible time for you right now, but you’re strong and bright and capable. You’ll get past it.”

  “There’s nothing to get past. I just don’t want a bunch of people staring at me and feeling sorry for me, is all. It was a stupid idea to come to this thing in the first place.”

  At some level, I could sympathize with what she was feeling. “You don’t have to go out there and mix with people. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Couldn’t be better,” she answered sarcastically.

  “I’ll take you home whenever you want to go. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  She opened the door a crack and peered through. “Brandon should be here soon. I’m going to go with him.”

  “Why didn’t he come to the service?”

  She laughed harshly. “Are you kidding? The way my mom treated him, I’m surprised he agreed to show his face here at all.”

  “She didn’t like him?”

  Another laugh, which passed for an answer. “Last week she even threw a frying pan at him. Screeched like a banshee too. It was one of their worst fights ever.”

  I opened my mouth to ask more, but Libby shut the door in my face, with a solid bang. “Let me know when Brandon gets here, okay?”

  Back in the reception hall I ran into Stan Lundy, divorce attorney for the rich and famous. And me, but only because Mona had steered me in his direction. He greeted me with an affable hug.

  Stan is short and round, with a moon face, a thin, scratchy voice and almost no hair. He’s as aggressive and tenacious an advocate as anyone could hope for, but he definitely doesn’t fit the image.

  “It was nice of you to come,” I told him.

  He shook his head sadly. “After all Mona and I went through, I can’t believe it comes down to this. And that one there,” Stan threw a glance in Gary’s direction, “he walks off like a bandit, just the way he was trying to all along.”

  “Not quite, thanks to your efforts.”

  Stan acknowledged the compliment with a quick smile. “But the ex, he still comes out ahead. Especially now that Mona’s share of the business reverts to him. That was one of the issues we really banged heads over.” Stan rubbed his jaw. “That sounds crass, doesn’t it? Here poor Mona’s dead, and I’m fretting about seeing my hard-fought efforts go down the tubes. It’s no wonder lawyers have the reputation they do.”

  I patted him on the arm. “You don’t have that kind of reputation, Stan. Everybody knows you’re a teddy bear at heart.”

  He grinned. “Not everybody, Kate. And I wouldn’t want that rumor to get around. But I’m glad you think so.

  “Mona did too.”

  “She was a hell of a woman. I can’t believe ...”

  His words were cut short by the approach of his son-in-law and partner, Paul Simms. The two men couldn’t have been more different. Paul was tall, fine boned and debonair, every inch of him so well-manicured that the merely well dressed looked rumpled by comparison. He wore the air of success as easily as he did his gold Rolex.

  Stan greeted Paul, then introduced me. Paul shook my hand, smiled politely and mumbled some vague form of pleased-t
o-meet-you. I’d actually met him once before, at the fall back-to-school night for parents, but he obviously didn’t remember, and I didn’t bother to explain. Men of his ilk rarely remember meeting women of mine.

  “I know your wife,” I told him instead. “In fact, we’re on the school auction committee together.”

  Laurelle was on so many committees I wasn’t sure Paul even tried to keep them straight, but the connection got me past the awkwardness that often follows an introduction. And since Laurelle was Stan’s darling daughter and only child, I thought the comment showed a bit of the social savoir-faire I usually lack.

  Paul nodded absently, running his long fingers through a head of silky blond hair. Then he did a sort of mental double take and I thought maybe he’d remembered meeting me after all.

  “Austen,” he said, focusing his attention in a way he hadn’t earlier. “You’re the woman who found her, right? The decorator who found Mona Sterling.”

  “Art consultant,” I corrected. It was a mistake people made pretty frequently.

  He blinked, looked puzzled.

  “I’m an art consultant, not a decorator.”

  “Right,” he said, though I wasn’t sure he understood the difference. “But you’re the one who was at her house that morning?”

  I nodded. Laurelle must have mentioned the canceled committee meeting.

  Stan looked in my direction with an expression of concern. “Good grief, Kate. I didn’t realize that was you. How awful.” He started to say something more, but a heavyset man who was apparently an old friend clasped his shoulder just then, and Stan excused himself.

  Paul fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment, no doubt looking for some graceful way to follow suit. He must have decided, however, that good breeding dictated another round of conversation, because he turned his full attention my way, his brow creased with evident feeling. “It must have been quite a shock, finding a, uh, a body like that.”

  I nodded. “It was. It still is.” A mental picture of Mona, slack-jawed and stone-still, had etched itself somewhere not far from the surface of conscious thought. At moments when I least expected, it would break into full- frame focus and leave me weak in the knees.

  “Could you tell right away what had happened?”

  “More or less. I could tell she was dead. And with the empty bottle of sleeping pills on the table next to her, well I guess I sort of knew before I really even thought about it.”

  Paul’s lower cheek twitched. “I understand there wasn’t a note or anything. Nothing that explained why she might have done it.”

  “Not that anyone’s discovered.”

  He rubbed the cheek. “Do you suppose there’s any chance it might have been accidental?” I couldn’t tell if Paul was actually interested, or if he’d merely reached for the most convenient topic of conversation.

  “It might have been,” I told him, swallowing the urge to mention a third possibility—murder. “But it’s unlikely. You know how meticulous Mona was.”

  “I didn’t,” he paused slightly, “know Mona, that is. At least not well. She was Stan’s client.” He paused again. “I do mostly tax work and a little commercial litigation.” He straightened his tie, checked his watch, then held out a hand. “I’m going to have to run, I’m sorry. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  Paul moved on and I grabbed a cup of coffee and muffin. Libby had emerged from the rest room and was now slouching against the wall on the far side of the hall. Her face was set in a scowl, her eyes fixed on the floor. Every so often, she’d raise her head and let her eyes drift around the room, searching, no doubt, for Brandon. I started in her direction, then thought better of it. The last thing Libby wanted right then was to be smothered with well-meaning kindness.

  Instead, I began scanning the room too, looking not for Brandon but for Mona’s nameless paramour. Certainly, I thought, he would have come to her memorial service. There wasn’t a face anywhere in the crowd which seemed remotely plausible, though at one point, I thought I might have been onto something.

  The guy was movie-idol good looking, with broad, muscled shoulders and the kind of soulful eyes you see in aftershave commercials. He was closer to Libby’s age than Mona’s, but I thought that might explain the fact that she’d kept the affair quiet. He didn’t look like the type to wear cufflinks either, unless he’d chosen the polo shirt and khaki pants as some kind of private statement, but I was willing to overlook what I saw as a fairly minor detail. He stood off by himself, to the side of the door, looking lost and vulnerable.

  In the few minutes it took to squeeze through the crowd, I’d concocted a full-blown, wonderfully touching tale of their romance. He’d been her student, a young man who’d had to make his own way in the world from an early age. But he had maturity beyond his years, sensitivity unheard of in the male species, and the soul of a poet. Though the attraction was instantaneous and intense, they’d managed to fight it until, finally, the passion had simply swept them off their feet and clear to Mendocino. In my mind, I could picture the warm glow of firelight against their skin as they stretched out, sated with love, in front of the old stone hearth in the cottage at Timbercreek.

  Just as I made it to the other side of the room and sidled up next to the young man, primed to tell him I understood everything, Stan’s gentleman friend approached.

  “We ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the young man said. “The car’s out front. I got it washed and polished, just as you asked.”

  “Did you manage to get by the cleaners, as well?”

  He nodded. “The suit will be ready by four.”

  “Very good, let’s be on our way then.”

  With that, young Adonis donned the blue cap I’d missed seeing earlier. Stan’s friend and his driver left, and I returned, privately red-faced, to scanning the room.

  The only other possible prospect I encountered was a lanky, ashen-haired man who’d been drifting around the perimeter of the room since I’d first spotted him. He was more unusual looking than attractive, although his pale coloring, high forehead and bright, electric blue eyes held a certain allure. He wasn’t really Mona’s type, but this guy was about as different from Gary as one could be and still qualify as male. I thought that would have been a big plus in her book right there.

  And, he smoked. I’d seen him step outside for a cigarette while I was talking to Stan. The other thing that struck me was that he seemed not to know anyone else at the service. He’d slide past a cluster of Mona’s friends, now engaged in loose banter which had little to do with death, stand awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, and then move on, edging past another group.

  Before I could make my way across the room to him, Mary Nell materialized at my side, followed immediately by Claire.

  “I heard about yesterday’s burglary,” Claire said, her face pinched with anxiety. “You were lucky you didn’t walk in while the guy was still there.”

  “Burglary?” Mary Nell’s voice had that damsel-in-dis- tress tone she uses when confronted with the unpleasantries of living in California.

  As I explained about the break-in at Mona’s, she punctuated my recitation with breathless little gasps.

  “Oh my, poor Kate,” she said when I’d finished. “You’ve had a horrible week, haven’t you?”

  Not nearly so horrible as Mona’s, I thought. But it’s difficult to find fault with Mary Nell because it’s so obvious she means well.

  “Did they clean the place out?” Claire asked. “That happened to my aunt after her husband died. They did it while she was at the funeral. Came in and took everything.”

  “I don’t know what they took. Nothing obvious. It’s more like someone was searching for something, if you want to know the truth.”

  Claire did her own version of the distress gasp. “What would they be searching for?”

  That was the question I’d been asking myself. And I didn’t have a clue. I shook my head and shrugged.

  “Oh my,” Mary Nell
said. And then said it again.

  Claire hugged herself and chewed on her lower lip. First Mona’s death, then the break-in. Both events right there in her backyard. I could imagine the icy trepidation which was no doubt rolling through her.

  “Why would they be looking for something?” she asked again, with an expression more dour than usual. She looked at me and then at Mary Nell, as though we were deliberately withholding information. Then she glanced at her watch. “I’d better get going,” she mumbled, “I’m already late for work.”

  “That woman is the sourest creature I know,” Mary Nell said when Claire was beyond hearing.

  “I gather she’s had a pretty hard life. Her parents died when she was young, and then she was widowed even before Jodi was born.”

  “Widowed,” Mary Nell sniffed. “It’s a good story, but if you ask me, there never was any husband. She doesn’t have a single picture of him, you know.”

  I’d heard Mary Nell’s opinion of unwed motherhood before. I didn’t believe it applied to Claire, but I didn’t actually care if it did. Dan Quayle and Mary Nell could snub their noses all they wanted, I wasn’t going to be a party to it.

  I looked around again for the lank, blond-haired man, spotted him heading in Libby’s direction, took my leave of Mary Nell and followed. Libby was still slumped against the wall, but her eyes now worked the room nonstop. I could tell by the expression on her face that Brandon had not appeared as promised.

  The man chose a spot about three feet to Libby’s left, leaned against the wall and gave her a fleeting, sideways smile. Libby either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Her scowl stayed locked in place, not softening, even for a moment. And when she glanced to her right, it grew positively fierce. I let my gaze follow hers, lighting as she had, on the fast approaching figure of her father. And Bimbo.

  Bambi, I corrected myself, afraid that if I let it slide mentally, I’d make the same mistake when I addressed the woman in person. Not that I had any intention of seeking her out. In fact, if possible, I wanted to avoid the Gary-Bambi-Libby storm altogether. I turned to head in the other direction, but Libby called my name.