Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Kate,” she said a second time. “You said you’d give me a ride?”

  Gary had positioned himself so that Libby was sandwiched between his own bulk and the wall. She had to crane her neck and peer over his shoulder to see me.

  “Are you ready to leave?” I asked.

  Gary turned and glowered. “There’s no need. I’ll take Libby home.”

  “I’d walk first,” Libby said with a sneer. “In fact, I’d crawl if need be.”

  “Libby, please. I’m only trying to help.”

  “Cut the Mr. Nice Guy act. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You’ll do anything to get your own way.”

  “Please,” Gary said again, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. “This is a terrible time for both of us, we should be together.”

  “Then what’s she doing here?” Libby spat the “she” at Bambi as though it were a poison-tipped arrow.

  Bambi, looking far from offended, tossed her head and smirked at Libby. “Why shouldn’t I be here? I’m part of your father’s life and it’s time you got used to it.”

  “You’re not part of my life,” Libby screeched. “And you never will be.”

  Bambi looked at Gary with a helpless little shrug.

  “Especially after what you did to my mother.”

  Libby’s voice had been rising steadily. Most of the people nearby were trying hard to ignore the scene being played out virtually under their noses, but a few stopped talking and turned to watch.

  “What I did to your mother?” Bambi sniffed.

  “I don’t know why you called her Friday afternoon, but it got to her.”

  “Me? I didn’t call your mother. Why would I do a thing like that?”

  Tears filled Libby’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. She wiped at them with the back of her hand. “It’s all your fault,” she screamed. “Wasn’t it enough that you ruined her marriage? Did you have to butt in again and destroy her life?”

  “Libby, honey—” Gary placed a hand on Libby’s shoulder.

  She twisted away angrily. “Don’t you see?” she sobbed. “The phone call is what did it. Mom was so upset. It must have pushed her over the edge.” She turned toward Bambi, her face twisted with rage and grief. “It’s like you killed her. You’re a murderer as well as a whore!”

  In a rush, she pushed past Gary and Bambi and stumbled through the door.

  “I didn’t call Mona,” Bambi said haughtily, to no one in particular. “I can’t imagine where Libby got the idea I did.”

  Chapter 14

  By the time I made it outside, Libby was nowhere in sight. I looked around the side of the building, then checked the car, thinking she might have gone there to wait for me. No such luck. I was heading back to the entrance of the mortuary when a motorcycle roared past on my left, Libby’s bright red top knot whipping about wildly in the breeze. Brandon, it appeared, had finally surfaced.

  “Jesus,” Sharon said, joining me on the front steps.

  “Yeah, well, I tried to tell you.”

  “I swear, Kate, I didn’t have any idea how bad it was. You’ve got to believe me.”

  I believed her. Not that it made matters any easier.

  “I mean, I knew she didn’t particularly want to live with her dad, but I thought it was just, you know...” Her voice trailed off. “But I guess it isn’t.”

  “Right, it isn’t.”

  “She acts like she really hates the guy.”

  “Right,” I said again. Heavy, dark clouds were blowing in from the west. I tucked my hands into my folded arms to keep them warm. “How did she and Gary get along before the divorce?”

  “They were never close, but I don’t think it was anything like this. Gary always wanted a son. He never let Libby forget she didn’t quite measure up.”

  “Geez.”

  “Yeah. It got worse, the older she got. Probably some sort of misplaced male insecurity, but he was always coming down on her about something.”

  “He’s the one pushing for togetherness though.”

  Sharon shrugged. “Control maybe. He’s the kind of man who likes to win. The kind who thinks primarily in those terms. That’s part of the reason the divorce was so difficult. Why he’s still so resentful. Gary wanted to feel he’d come out on top.”

  And he hadn’t. Not only had Mona ended up with above-guideline support, she’d walked away with part of his business. But if he was so unhappy with the settlement, why hadn’t he pushed to fight it out in court?

  Sharon hugged herself against the icy wind. “We should be finished here soon. You want to go out for lunch afterwards?”

  “I can’t, sorry. I’ve got an appointment Dr. Martha Caulder.” I paused for emphasis. “Psychiatrist.”

  Sharon turned, eyes wide. “A shrink? You?”

  I grinned. “A client. She liked what I did with Dr. Riley’s office.”

  “Riley? He’s a veterinarian.”

  “She doesn’t want the same pieces, for heaven’s sake. It was the concept she liked. Understated and unobtrusive.”

  In truth, I was having a hard time figuring out what about the concept actually appealed to her, since Dr. Caulder was one of those people who speak largely in negatives. She didn’t want paintings that dominated the room, but she didn’t want her office cluttered with a series of small pieces either. She didn’t like romanticized landscapes or seascapes; she didn’t like bold colors, geometric abstracts or pictures of people; and she absolutely could not have anything which evoked strong emotion and might therefore be upsetting to her patients.

  I thought maybe a nice off-white wall would be her best bet, but in the interest of building my clientele, I was willing to give unobtrusive art my best shot. I’d pulled together a couple of prints, a grainy, sepia-toned photograph and a watercolor in subdued grays and greens. Once I got her reaction to those, I’d have a better idea what to look for.

  “I’m trying to develop the commercial side of the business,” I explained. “There’s a lot more opportunity there than in residential.”

  “Well, that’s good then.” Sharon’s face didn’t mask her disappointment. “It’s just that I was thinking after lunch, we could pay Mona’s neighbors a visit. Ask them if they saw anything unusual Saturday night.”

  “The police already did that.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t see what—”

  She cut me off. “Michael’s a sweetheart and all, but I don’t have the same faith in law enforcement you do. Besides, we knew Mona. We might pick up on something they wouldn’t.” She looked at me, pausing for a deep, dramatic sigh. “Guess I’ll just have to manage without you.”

  It was my turn to sigh. “My appointment’s in Concord,” I told Sharon. “I could stop by the college on my way back and take a look through Mona’s office. Maybe there’s something there that would help us. Who knows, I might even find the three thousand dollars stashed in a pencil box.”

  Her peevishness gave way to a grin. “Terrific idea,” she said, suddenly full of enthusiasm. “Ask around too. Maybe you can find someone who’s got answers we don’t.”

  Wouldn’t that be nice? Especially since I was having trouble even formulating the questions.

  <><><>

  My appointment with Dr. Caulder took all of five minutes. It was a resounding no on all fronts.

  “I cannot have things like this on my walls,” she proclaimed. Things came out like dteengs and it took me a minute to figure out the word wasn’t some esoteric psychological term for crap. Because that’s what the tone implied. Disheartened but not defeated, I set up another appointment for the following week. “Plee-se,” she said as I left, “bring me some dteengs I like this time.”

  If only I had some clue as to what that might be.

  On my way to the college I wracked my brain for ideas, and came back once again to the simple white wall. Maybe I could suggest some kind of textured paper or stippled paint in place of actual art. Unless her patients were crazy enoug
h to find Rorschach meaning in texture, in which case she’d have to stick to a flat latex.

  Fifteen minutes later I was at the college. I’d never been to Mona’s office before. In fact, I’d never been on the campus, though I frequented the parking lot during summer months when the local farmers used a portion of it for an open-air market. There was usually a lively crowd then, but now, on a gray mid-winter Friday afternoon, the place was practically deserted. I had no trouble finding a parking place right by the main gate.

  Finding Mona’s office wasn’t difficult either, and I had the key Sharon had given me, but finding anything of interest in the office proved to be more of a problem. It was a small space, outfitted with metal desk, bookshelf, and one extra chair. The bookshelf held a single row of books and a box of tissues. The drawers were empty except for the basic tools of the profession and the inevitable collection of pennies, odd buttons, and dusty Lifesavers. It was clear Mona used the room for mandatory office hours and little else.

  Seated at the desk, I drummed my fingers on my knees, surveying the room for a second time. Since I was sleuthing, I figured I might as well go at it like the pros. I rolled back the chair, pulled out the wastebasket and was nose deep in orange peels and pencil shavings when the office door flew open with a crash. The man who stood in the entrance, practically snarling, was shorter than me, and wiry rather than muscled. But all the same, he had the look of someone you didn’t want to mess with—kind of like a scruffy and ill-tempered alley cat. His nostrils flared and his black eyes narrowed. He stepped forward, baring a front tooth of bright gold.

  I held onto the wastebasket as though it were a shield, and prepared to scream.

  “It’s some dame,” the man yelled to an unseen companion. “Rooting around in the garbage.”

  A moment later, a gray head poked through the door frame. A friendly, female gray head. We recognized each other at the same instant.

  “You’re Mona’s friend,” she said, her face relaxing into a smile. “We met this morning, at the memorial service.”

  I nodded. It had been one of those meetings in passing and I couldn’t remember her name, but I did remember that she was one of Mona’s colleagues in the English department.

  Flustered, I stuffed the wastebasket back under the desk. “I came for Mona’s things,” I stammered. “Her personal effects, that is. The friend who’s handling the estate asked me to stop by.”

  The woman, who’d apparently missed the part about my rooting around in the garbage, looked as embarrassed by the situation as I was. “It’s okay, Luis,” she said. “Thank you for being so attentive, but this is a friend of Mrs. Sterling’s.”

  Luis scrunched up his face, cast a suspicious eye at the wastebasket, and then at me. Finally he shook his head, befuddled, and left

  “I’m so sorry,” said the woman, “but we didn’t know who was in here. Luis heard sounds, and then we saw that the light was on ... and well, after what happened a couple of weeks ago I’ve decided you can’t be too careful. I hope he didn’t frighten you.”

  I mumbled something that I hoped glossed over the fact that Luis hadn’t been too far off the mark.

  “He’s the maintenance man,” she explained, “but he’s sort of taken on the role of watchman too. Unofficially of course.”

  She apologized again. I apologized. We re-introduced ourselves. Jean and Kate. And then we apologized to each other for having forgotten the earlier introduction. We talked a bit about Mona and the service and how much we would miss her.

  Jean peered into one of the open drawers. “Did you find everything you came for?” she asked.

  “I was just checking to make sure nothing important got left. There doesn’t appear to be much here.”

  “No, most of us don’t keep anything in our offices except what we absolutely need. The security around here is simply awful. And the students... well, things aren’t what they used to be.”

  I nodded sympathetically, wondering if I’d chatted long enough to make a graceful exit. I started to rise.

  “Take that episode a couple of weeks ago,” Jean said. “It’s a sure sign how bad things have become. The secretary down the hall actually called the police. Though by the time they got here, he was gone.”

  “Who was gone?”

  “That man, the one who was badgering Mona.”

  I dropped back into my seat “Badgering her?”

  “It was awful. He was yelling and pounding his fist. Kept talking about how it was all her fault and how he was going to get even.”

  “Get even for what?”

  “He looked like such a mild-mannered guy too, not one of these glassy-eyed crazies. But I’ll tell you, he was angry. He had us shaking in our boots.”

  I tried again. “Why was he so upset?” For a woman trained in communication, Jean was taking a rather long time getting to the crux of the matter.

  “I didn’t get the whole story until afterwards. But apparently the man’s wife was one of Mona’s students. Children grown and gone, the old empty nest syndrome. Anyway, she decided to take some classes. That was last fall. Well, one thing led to another and she decided to go for her degree. This spring she enrolled as a full-time student.”

  “I take it the husband wasn’t pleased.”

  Jean nodded. “What really got him going apparently, was that his wife was too busy with school work to fix home-cooked meals and do his laundry. The poor woman had probably been waiting on him hand and foot for years. He, of course, blamed Mona. Said she’d filled his wife’s head with feminist lies and teachings of the devil. He talked like that—devil, wrath of God, woman’s place. I could hear him all the way down at the other end of the hall.”

  “What did Mona do?”

  “At first, she tried reasoning with him. When that didn’t get her anywhere, she asked him to leave. She stayed really cool. Cooler than I would have been. He didn’t actually hurt her, but we were afraid he might. That’s why we called the police.”

  I leaned forward a bit, the rush of discovery pounding in my chest. A man who’d been angry at Mona. A man who’d threatened her. Maybe I’d stumbled onto something after all. “Do you know the man’s name?”

  Jean shook her head. “No. His wife’s name is Eve though, I remember that. I thought there was a certain irony in the whole thing. Eve and the Tree of Knowledge all over again.”

  “Do you think anyone in the administration might know?”

  “Maybe, but they’ve all left for the day.” She rubbed her temples, lost for a moment in thought. “We ought to be able to figure it out easily enough though.”

  I looked up. “How?”

  Jean pulled open the bottom left desk drawer. “Class lists,” she said, hauling out a half-dozen manila folders. “There can’t be very many Eves.”

  In fact, there was only one. “Eve Fisher,” she said, closing the last folder. “She’s enrolled in Mona’s re-entry tutorial too, which means she’s an older student. That’s got to be it.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it “Does it list an address or phone number?”

  “Just the phone number.”

  I pulled an old Safeway receipt from my purse and wrote the number on the back.

  “Why are you interested in all this anyway?” Jean asked. And then, while I was deciding how to respond, her eyes grew wide and she came up with an answer herself. “You think this has something to do with why Mona killed herself?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said truthfully.

  <><><>

  I sat in the car debating my next move. I could tell the story to Michael, who’d listen attentively, knit his brows, and then point out that Mona would hardly have welcomed a hot-head like Eve’s husband into her home, much less sat still while he force-fed her sleeping pills. I could tell Sharon, who might go after the guy herself in a fit of rage. Or I could look into it further before I said a word to anyone. The choice seemed pretty clear.

  I got
out of the car again and found a pay phone. Only what I really wanted was a phone book, and it was missing. I’ve never been able to understand why anybody would want to steal a phone book, though given the frequency with which I encounter cut cables in phone booths, there is clearly an attraction there I’m missing.

  Across the quad I found another phone booth, book attached, and checked the listings. There were lots of Fishers, but I got lucky and found one which matched the number Jean had given me. What’s more, it was one of the increasingly rare listings which included an address.

  Anna wouldn’t be out of school for another hour. I had plenty of time to drive over to the Fishers, and hopefully to speak with Eve. About what, I wasn’t exactly sure. But I’ve never been one to let the lack of a clear-cut plan stand in my way.

  Ike and Eve Fisher lived on the outskirts of Concord in an older subdivision of small, look-alike stucco homes. It was one of those neighborhoods that had faded along with the fresh paint and newly planted lawns which had once been its main attraction. The kind of place where once women had run next door to borrow an egg or lend an ear, where men had called out to one another over the whine of the lawn mower and children’s playful babble. The streets were quiet now, the residents off on some solitary endeavor or holed up alone behind closed drapes.

  The Fisher’s house was among the better maintained. Freshly painted trim, a green lawn, and a border of daffodils set it apart from its neighbors. I tried the doorbell, which played a cute little tune but generated nothing by way of response. Ike was undoubtedly at work. I figured Eve might be in the library, frantically working to finish a research paper. Or, if Ike had been forceful enough, she might be upstairs frantically ironing his shirts and ignoring the doorbell. In either case, it appeared I was out of luck.

  I climbed back into the car and headed off to retrieve Anna, newly appreciative of the fact that I had a young child and seemingly countless years before I faced my own empty nest.