A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Oh, I am sorry,” Isaac murmured, and I saw the truth of his words on his face—a one-time hint of his humanity.

  He gave my aunt a one-armed squeeze. “Damn, they don’t make them like Claude anymore,” he eulogized.

  “Or you,” Dorothy pointed out. “I remember you and Claude playing at that old nightclub like it was yesterday.”

  Isaac Herrick and my Uncle Claude? Playing at a nightclub? My mother hadn’t ever told me about this.

  “Too bad we had to grow up, huh?” Isaac put in.

  “Oh, I’m sure you never did, pumpkin-pie,” my aunt chirped and tweaked his cheek. Isaac leaned back and brayed. Yuck. This was as bad as Barbara and Felix. I just hoped my aunt didn’t plan on becoming the next Mrs. Herrick after Helen divorced Isaac. If she did, I certainly wasn’t going to help plan her wedding.

  Wayne cleared his throat. “Came to ask a few questions about Steve,” he told Isaac firmly. Maybe he was as tired of the cooing as I was. “Dorothy is Kate’s aunt, by the way.”

  “Whoa,” Isaac said, pulling his eyes away from my aunt to look at me for a moment, and then looking back. “Sorry about the mess. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have called my cleaning lady.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking. Maybe he wasn’t. He cleared off a couple of straight-backed chairs and a naugahyde sofa before disappearing into the next room with a promise to be back in a “cat’s whisker.”

  My aunt was still chuckling as she lowered herself into one of the straight-backed chairs, delicately pushing an empty bottle aside with her foot.

  “Aunt Dorothy…” I began and then didn’t know how to finish.

  “We’re very old friends, Katie,” she explained. “Helen and Isaac and Claude and I. We had a lot of fun back then. He and your uncle were musicians, did you know that?” Her eyes moistened as I shook my head. “They were beautiful musicians. It was a magic time.”

  Wayne lowered himself onto the naugahyde sofa.

  “But—” I began.

  My sweetie tugged at my hand before I said anything stupid.

  I sat down next to him.

  “Helen and I exchanged cards for years,” Dorothy went on. “But then, somehow, we lost the connection. I think they must have moved. It’s been so long. I was certainly surprised to hear Isaac’s name come up last night.”

  “And you’re as beautiful as ever, Dot,” Isaac purred, suddenly back in the living room. He was at least dressed now—in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants—though not shaved. And he smelled better. I suspected he had taken a quick sponge-bath.

  “Steve,” Wayne stated, setting the agenda quickly.

  Isaac flopped his long frame onto the remaining chair.

  “Steve,” Isaac repeated. Then he grinned. “A prig, and hen-pecked to boot,” he summarized.

  “What do you mean by ‘hen-pecked’?” Wayne demanded. I noticed that he didn’t challenge Isaac’s designation of Steve as a prig.

  “He was never in the spotlight around his wife. How could he shine? Hey, I’m a horse’s ass, but at least I’m my own horse’s ass. Steve was nothing but—”

  “A prize-winning journalist,” I cut in. I couldn’t help it.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Isaac admitted. He straightened up in his chair, looking serious for a change. “But that was because Steve knew how to tap the self-righteousness of a self-righteous public. He did a great job at it, but still, where was the man? I never saw him. I saw a shadow.”

  “So, it must have been his wife’s fault?” I pressed.

  He bared his teeth at me in a simian smile. “Remind me not to engage in a debate with you, Ms. Jasper. You’re too, too right.” He bowed my way. “Laura didn’t have to hen-peck the man; he was a self-made wimp.”

  Wayne’s face reddened. I reached out and laid my hand gently on his vibrating arm.

  “So, I understand you’ve written extensively about dyslexia,” my aunt cut in sweetly—too sweetly. I whipped my head around to look at her. She knew Helen Herrick had helped write those books. I could tell. Had Helen told her in the cards they had exchanged over the years?

  And then I wondered if Dorothy knew about our threatening note. But she couldn’t have.

  Isaac leaned back and chortled. “Ah, yes, dyslexia. My raison d’être. Why couldn’t I have picked the study of wit? But no, I chose to study the sluggards of language communication. Ack. But then, it interested Helen.” He paused and smiled wickedly. “And she is, after all, the writer in the family.”

  “Isaac, can you show me a sample of your writing?” I asked. I had to know if he’d written our threatening letter.

  Isaac’s smile faded. “You mean one of my books?” he responded, confusion in his bleary eyes.

  “No, I mean your handwriting,” I specified. A weird idea was going through my head: What if Isaac had chosen to study dyslexia because he himself was dyslexic? What if Helen had covered for him all these years? It was possible.

  Isaac stood and picked up a lined notepad and pen from a littered coffee table. In elegant cursive, he wrote, ISAAC HERRICK IS A JERK, then handed the note to me.

  All right, he wasn’t dyslexic. But he still could have faked that letter.

  “Why?” he asked when I looked back up.

  I blushed.

  “I…I…”

  “Kate does as she pleases,” Wayne growled.

  It was a good save. Isaac wasn’t going to press me, although both he and my aunt were staring at me with the curiosity of cats locked out of the bedroom.

  “Got any idea who killed Steve?” Wayne went on.

  Isaac sighed. “I have a lot of ideas, but that’s all they are—ideas.”

  Wayne nodded approvingly. At least Isaac wasn’t spreading rumors.

  “I’ve got one idea in particular,” Isaac added, his voice softening, his eyes losing focus. “But I have to check a few things to see if it pans out.”

  “If you’ve really got an idea, you ought to go to the police,” Dorothy admonished him. “Don’t do anything dangerous.”

  Isaac leaned back and roared with laughter.

  “Since when were you ever careful, Dot?” he asked finally.

  Aunt Dorothy laughed with him. “Since I got old,” she told him.

  “It never happened,” Isaac insisted gallantly.

  Dorothy put her hand over her face. “Oh, Isaac,” she cooed.

  Yuck. Were we going there again?

  Apparently, we weren’t. Wayne stood up, and I followed his example. Aunt Dorothy didn’t balk. She got up and gave Isaac a farewell hug. And then we were out the door of his condo and in the fresh air again. I took a big breath. A little car exhaust scented the sidewalk, but at least the air didn’t smell of dust and distillery out here.

  “Dot, don’t be a stranger!” Isaac yelled from his doorway.

  “I won’t lose you and Helen again!” she sang back. “You can’t keep me away now that I’ve found you.”

  I was glad to hear her include Helen. Maybe my aunt didn’t want to be the next Mrs. Herrick.

  Once we were back in the Toyota, Dorothy still insisting on the back seat, we took a moment to plan our next visit.

  “I want to talk to Carl Russo—” Wayne began.

  “But perhaps Helen Herrick first,” Dorothy suggested in such a sweet voice that neither of us even considered arguing. I headed back toward Mill Valley, toward Helen Herrick’s house.

  “Was Steve really hen-pecked?” Aunt Dorothy asked once we were rolling.

  “No couple is perfect,” Wayne answered slowly. “But I never heard Steve complain about Laura’s public life making him feel small. That wasn’t an issue for him. At least, not as far as I could tell.”

  “And look where Isaac’s coming from,” I added. “His wife’s divorcing him. How do you think he feels about the institution of marriage?”

  “Not like you two,” Aunt Dorothy answered. “You two do my heart good. Your wedding will be enchanting.”

  Wayne smile
d next to me. I kept my groan internal.

  “Your Uncle Claude and I loved each other very much,” she went on. “He was playful, but not hurtful. Maybe that’s the secret.”

  I thought about this. Wayne was playful and not hurtful. And Garrett and Jerry seemed to be the same way. But Steve and Laura Summers hadn’t been playful, as far as I could tell. Still, I doubted that either would be purposefully hurtful. And Isaac was plenty playful, but he was hurtful as well. And the Kimmochis? I giggled for a moment, trying to decide if bondage was playful or hurtful. It probably depends on the rules.

  I was busy imagining scenarios when we arrived at Helen Herrick’s. Helen still lived in the house that she and Isaac had shared. Her garden was a well-tended explosion of colors and shapes.

  We walked up a pebbled walkway flanked by zinnias, pansies, and towering snapdragons and foxgloves. Heaven. I wondered where the deer were. This time, Aunt Dorothy knocked on the front door.

  The door opened slowly. I peeked over Dorothy’s shoulder and watched Helen Herrick’s expression evolve from a no-solicitors-please scowl to a radiant smile when she recognized my aunt.

  “Dot!” she squealed and hugged Dorothy like a long-lost child, which is exactly how Dorothy looked in the larger woman’s arms.

  “Helen,” my aunt whispered from the embrace. “Oh, it’s good to see you.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as the two women held each other and tossed questions back and forth. Aunt Dorothy’s love affair was with both of the Herricks, not just Isaac. Helen’s no-nonsense face was more animated than I’d ever seen it before. She rolled her eyes in surprise when she heard that I was Dorothy’s niece and shed tears when she heard of Claude’s death. And then she laughed at some long story that she and my aunt were simultaneously telling about an evening when the nightclub where their husbands played had been raided.

  “Claude was so solemn when he swore you and I were not prostitutes,” Aunt Dorothy reminisced.

  “Unfortunately, Isaac wasn’t so forthcoming,” Helen chuckled. “That man can be so bad.”

  Suspected prostitutes? Did my mother have any idea?

  I calmed myself down by thinking of counter-wedding blackmail possibilities and breathing deeply.

  “Oh, I haven’t even invited you in!” Helen apologized in surprise, some minutes later. For a usually self-contained woman, Helen was acting very silly. But I liked it on her.

  She ushered us into her living room, a room with bluish lights, neatly arranged bookshelves, and comfortable corduroy couches. The cinnamon smell of what might have been morning tea lingered in the air.

  “Dot,” she said, once we were all seated. “How in the world did you ever find me?”

  “We’re investigating Steve Summers’ death,” my aunt answered succinctly.

  Helen’s strong features lost their animation, but her eyebrow still crooked ironically.

  “Only you could come to Marin and get mixed up in murder, Dot,” she said.

  Dorothy laughed. “It’s my niece’s influence,” she defended herself, head tilted to the side, hand over her heart, innocence personified. And then I wondered if anyone had mentioned to my Aunt Dorothy that I was known as the Typhoid Mary of Murder. My brother, Kevin, flashed into my mind. He might have told her if he could have held the thought long enough. Damn.

  “Any ideas about Steve’s murder?” Wayne inquired.

  Helen turned his way unsteadily. I didn’t think it was guilt that caused the lack of steadiness. I thought it was my aunt. I was feeling a bit like Jello myself.

  “I don’t have a clue,” Helen said. “But Isaac acts as if he knows something. I’ve told him to share his idea with the police, or at least with me, but the old goat will not listen.”

  “He never did, did he?” Dorothy put in.

  “No,” Helen sighed, then smiled a smile of great sweetness. “I still love him, of course, but living with him is like living with a whirlwind.”

  My aunt just nodded. History with Isaac notwithstanding, she was still my wise aunt.

  “I read the books on dyslexia,” Aunt Dorothy said, surprising me. “I recognized your voice.”

  Helen blushed.

  “Not much of a feminist, am I?” she admitted, shaking her head. “I wrote the principle parts of most of the books. But the ideas really were Isaac’s. He just lacks the patience to sit down and write. And I cared for the old sot, so I went along with it. I don’t think it’s much of a secret anymore. Isaac delights in bragging that he persuaded me to do the donkey work.”

  “And he’s cute,” Dorothy added mischievously.

  Helen laughed.

  “Cute, lovable…and a drunk,” Helen agreed.

  Wayne and I were quiet as Helen and my aunt talked. Were we both thinking that Isaac’s motive for murdering Steve was not very strong if his non-authorship of his own books was no longer a real secret? Or did Isaac have a worse secret he wasn’t sharing? And I wouldn’t have put it past him to pretend he knew something about the murderer to remove suspicion from himself. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost missed it when Aunt Dorothy said goodbye to Helen Herrick.

  Dorothy hugged her and kissed her cheek. Helen’s eyes misted—Helen, a woman I’d perceived as being repressed. I realized that I didn’t really know Helen. In fact, I wasn’t certain I really knew my own aunt anymore. Wayne grabbed my hand, and I was glad to be reminded that there was one person in the room who I knew for sure.

  We left Helen Herrick’s house and got back on the road to visit Carl Russo’s place of business.

  “Aunt Dorothy, does my mother know about your past?” I asked, truly curious.

  “Yes, dear,” my aunt answered. “And I know about hers.”

  “My mother?” I squealed.

  “But you know very well that I keep secrets, dear.”

  Wayne laughed at my side. I barely noticed; I was too caught up in Aunt Dorothy’s words.

  “But my mother can’t have secrets…she—”

  “Everyone’s mother should have a few secrets,” Dorothy pronounced, and I drove in stunned silence the rest of the way to Walters Ng and Thompson (Tax, Accounting, and Financial Services), Carl Russo’s employer.

  Carl’s accounting firm was housed in a redwood two-story building with heavily carpeted, soundproofed rooms, expensive furnishings, and quiet calculators.

  The receptionist was a young man with an earring in his left ear. He buzzed Carl, who met us in the lobby and then led us back to his office. Even as he walked, Carl’s agitation showed in his tense back, which rippled though the expensive suit that didn’t seem wide enough in the shoulders for him.

  His office contained the same heavy carpet and gray-blue furnishings as the lobby. Only a computer, calculator, and a few papers showed the work he did for Walters Ng and Thompson.

  Once the door was closed, Carl leaned forward and asked, “What happened? Is Mike all right?”

  “Nothing happened to Mike, Carl,” Wayne assured him.

  All the energy seemed to drain out of Carl’s body. He collapsed into his suit and his fleshy features went blank.

  “So what’s the deal, then?”

  “We just wanted to talk to you about Steve’s death,” Wayne explained, keeping his voice gentle like you would with a dog whose intentions you weren’t sure of. “This is Kate’s aunt, Dorothy Koffenburger.”

  “Oh yeah, glad ta meetcha,” he said, reaching out a large hand to grasp Dorothy’s smaller one. “Jeez, I’m being stupid. Siddown, you guys.”

  So we all sat around Carl’s desk in office chairs with more controls than my Toyota. I pressed one button and the back of my chair flew back. I was suddenly looking at the ceiling.

  “Heh-heh,” I heard and realized that Carl was laughing.

  It was a good sound, and it broke the ice.

  “Listen,” Carl told us once I was upright again. “Steve could be a pain in the rear, but he was still a cool guy. He was honest, good-citizen material. I’ve t
hought about it, and it just doesn’t make sense. Who’d wanna kill the poor guy?”

  “Someone with something to lose?” I tried.

  “Yeah, but what?” Carl insisted. “Oh, there was that big deal about our secrets, but nobody would kill over our stupid secrets. None of them was big enough. And Mike didn’t know anything about the secrets, in case you’re interested. I know the kid looks bad, actin’ out all the time, but his counselor says it’s just a stage, ya know? So what’s left? Van and his dumb drug habit. Why’d he talk about it if he was so afraid somebody would tell? And then there’s Ted’s roll in the hay…Betcha his wife wouldn’t care that much; she’s a strange one. There just ain’t nuthin’ to justify a murder. I don’t get it.”

  Unfortunately, Carl was talking sense. I didn’t get, it either.

  “Well, that’s it, then,” Wayne declared and rose from his chair gracefully. He hadn’t played with the buttons on his chair. Nor had my aunt. I got out of my chair slowly and carefully.

  Carl said, “Glad ta meetcha,” again to my aunt, and we were out of there.

  Ten minutes later, we were parked in the driveway in front of our house. Dorothy came in with Wayne and me for a brainstorming session. As we walked through the doorway, I saw a shadow above us. C. C.

  “C. C—” I began.

  “Now, you wouldn’t want to jump on any of us, would you?” my aunt finished for me. C. C. tilted her head, considering my aunt’s words. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

  C. C. jumped to the floor like that’s all she’d been planning, anyway. Someday soon, I’d have to introduce my aunt to my psychic friend, Barbara. I’m sure they’d have lots to talk about.

  “Now, don’t you two get frustrated,” Aunt Dorothy ordered once she was settled into her hanging chair, C. C in her lap. “This isn’t a dead end.” I winced at her wording. “We still have more suspects to interview. But what we really need are people who knew the suspects, and people who knew Steve.” She cocked her head, waiting for us to come up with something.

  Wayne cleared his throat.

  “Well, there’s always Ray,” he growled.

  “Who’s Ray?” I prodded.