Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  Wayne held out a plate for his share.

  “Kate first,” Vesta fluted gaily. She handed me a fork.

  Wayne shrugged his shoulders, his face troubled. Was he suffering from foreplay-interruptus, I wondered, or something else? I returned my attention to the apple pie on my plate.

  Vesta watched as I cut myself a bite and put it in my mouth. Luckily, I didn’t swallow.

  Ugh! The apple filling tasted like salt. Poison! I thought and spit it out. I ran to the sink and washed my mouth out with water.

  Vesta leaned back in her chair and cackled.

  Wayne grabbed the plate of pie.

  “Don’t eat it!” I shouted. “It’s poisoned!”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. He stuck a finger in the apple filling, brought it up to his nose and sniffed. Then he licked his finger and grimaced.

  “Mom?” he growled.

  “Salt,” she said, gasping between cackles. “I made it with two cups of salt instead of two cups of sugar!”

  “Why?” asked Wayne, his voice as deep and angry as a volcano.

  Vesta stopped cackling. She turned to him, her eyes full of innocence now.

  “I know Kate doesn’t eat sugar,” she said. “So I made it with salt. I was just trying to please her, Waynie.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Wayne groaned. He put a hand over his eyes and shook his head.

  Don’t believe her, I pleaded silently. She’s not just crazy. She’s malicious. Don’t let her fool you.

  But Wayne just kept his eyes covered. It was up to me.

  “Why didn’t you eat any of the pie yourself?” I asked Vesta. I kept my voice calm.

  “Oh, I prefer sugar in mine,” she said smugly.

  “I suppose that’s why you told Wayne not to take any,” I said angrily, my calm floating away on a cloud of steam. “I suppose—”

  The doorbell rang before I could finish my sentence. As I walked to the door, I belatedly remembered my plan never to show Vesta how much she was getting to me.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “All right, all right,” I muttered and opened the door.

  Felix was on my doorstep. His big brown eyes were squinting angrily.

  “Where is she?” he demanded as he pushed his way inside.

  “Where is who?” I returned, closing the door behind him. Was he looking for Vesta?

  “Barbara Chu, that’s who,” he barked. “Barbara Benedict Arnold Chu.”

  “I don’t know where Barbara is, Felix.” I sighed.

  He looked into my eyes and stroked his mustache thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he looked beyond me to the living room, searching it with his eyes.

  “Felix, I am not hiding Barbara behind a potted plant,” I said evenly, pressing my fingernails into my palms to keep from screaming at him. I had lost my cool with Vesta. I wasn’t going to lose it with Felix.

  “Well, then where the Sam friggin’ Hill is she?” he pressed. “I called her apartment. I’ve left messages on her bloody friggin’ answering machine. She’s not communicating with me, Kate,” he whined to a finish.

  I looked down at the sock-covered toes sticking out of Felix’s sandals. Which one was the toe with gout? Maybe I’d just step on all of them.

  “You’re both holding out on me,” he started up again. “A big bucks story like this and neither of you will give me diddly. You better talk to me or—”

  “Or what, Felix?” came Wayne’s deep voice from behind me.

  Wayne walked to my side and crossed his arms over his mesomorphic chest. He scowled down at Felix, using the formidable scowl that had won him a job as a bodyguard, his eyes nearly invisible now under angrily furrowed eyebrows. Wayne was over six feet tall, and muscular. Felix’s slight body couldn’t have been over five feet five. For a moment I felt sorry for Felix. Then he opened his mouth again.

  “Hey, Wayne,” he said with a comradely wave. “My old lady won’t give me poop for a pig farm. And Kate, here, is holding out too. And—”

  The doorbell rang before either Wayne or I had a chance to throttle him.

  I opened the door, and Barbara bounced in with a big smile on her face. Had her psychic powers returned?

  “Hi, kiddo,” she said cheerfully. “Ready to go for a ride? I talked to Alice and we—”

  Then she noticed Felix. The smiled turned to a glare.

  “Where the friggin’, fraggin’ hell have you been?” he demanded.

  Barbara continued to glare without replying.

  C.C. wandered in and interjected a pitiful yowl.

  “Holy Moly, babe—” began Felix again.

  “Don’t start in,” warned Barbara, her voice low and vibrating.

  “Start in? Waddaya mean, start in? All I want to do is talk to you—”

  “Interrogate me, you mean! Jeez-Louise, have you ever asked if I’m okay? I found a dead body!”

  Felix opened his mouth to reply, then seemed to think better of it.

  Vesta stepped up to our little group, smiling.

  “Felix,” she purred. “How about some apple pie?”

  TEN

  I GRINNED AT Vesta with a spark of genuine affection. My mother-in-common-law wasn’t so bad, I decided. How does the saying go? “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”? Vesta’s heart might not have been in the right place, but her spleen certainly was.

  “The pie’s homemade, Felix,” I said seductively, telling myself I wouldn’t really let him take a bite.

  I heard Wayne try to suppress a snort of laughter. Felix heard it too. He peered at me suspiciously. Then his eyes traveled back to Vesta.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Caruso,” he said politely. “I’m on a restricted diet. I’m not allowed diddly.” He let out a long, deep sigh, his face a study in martyrdom.

  Barbara stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes heavenward.

  “Listen, kiddo,” she said to me impatiently. “We gotta get a move on.”

  “Where’re we going?” asked Felix.

  “I don’t know where you’re going,” Barbara said, her tone cool enough to freeze summer. “Kate and I have a date.”

  I didn’t remember any date, but I figured Barbara had probably made one for us with one of the murder suspects. It seemed to me she had mentioned Alice on the way in.

  I turned to Wayne. “All right, sweetie?” I asked him softly.

  His head nodded, but his eyes were worried.

  “Barbara will be with me,” I assured him. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know,” he growled, then turned away.

  I fed the cat, kissed Wayne and left with Barbara as Felix and Vesta watched.

  “So, what was in the pie?” Barbara asked once we were in the car.

  “Two cups of salt,” I muttered, feeling suddenly ashamed of myself.

  I had to wait a full minute for Barbara to stop laughing and give me directions.

  At least we weren’t going far. Alice lived a freeway exit away in Sausalito. We were parked in front of Alice’s apartment building and on our way up the rickety stairs before Barbara thought to ask me how come I had a pie made with two cups of salt in the house.

  “Vesta,” I whispered and rang Alice’s doorbell.

  “Hi, you guys,” Alice caroled as she opened the door.

  For all her concern about her weight, her plump body managed to look far better in a fuchsia sweatshirt and sweatpants than mine would have in a designer business suit.

  I said “Hi” back and gazed at her, wondering what it was exactly that gave her that elegant look. Was it her posture? Or maybe her personable, heart-shaped face? Or was it her well-cut black hair?

  Barbara gave me a little shove and I remembered myself. I stumbled into Alice’s apartment with a smile on my face.

  Barbara followed me in, gushing. “I love your place,” she told Alice. “The colors are just gorgeous!”

  Alice’s living room was as elegant as she was. It had probably started off with a beige rug and white walls, the same way
my living room had. But the resemblance ended there. Alice had added white wicker furnishings with pillows in blue-greens, pinks and lavenders. The curtains and paintings reflected the same clear colors. There was nothing jarring here, nothing that clashed. Even Alice’s fuchsia sweatshirt looked right for the room.

  “Gee, thanks,” Alice was saying to Barbara. She smiled broadly, evidently pleased by Barbara’s praise. “I love these bright colors. I couldn’t stand a room filled with yucky browns or something.” She waved her hand at a wicker couch for two. “So, siddown, you guys.”

  We did. The wicker was easier on the eyes than it was on the body. The pillow under me didn’t extend to the knobby edge of the seat. I could feel the contours of bent twigs poking into the backs of my knees as I squirmed around trying to get comfortable.

  Alice sat across from us, apparently at ease in her wicker chair. “So,” she said, bending forward eagerly. “Are you guys still investigating?”

  I didn’t really want to answer that question. “Bumbling” was a closer description of our activities so far than investigating. Dangerous bumbling at that, I thought, rubbing my neck. Luckily, Barbara spoke first.

  “We’re still trying to figure things out,” she said, her voice low and sincere. “And we need your help. You knew Sheila Snyder. You know Dan Snyder. What can you tell us about them?”

  “Well…” Alice faltered. She ran her hand through her black hair and thought for a moment.

  “I gotta be honest,” she said finally. “Sheila could be a bitch. Back at the commune she was on everybody’s case all the time about better organization. She made all these crazy lists. And schedules and stuff. Tried to get us to follow orders. Then she’d get drunk and forget her own rules. What chutzpah!”

  “Was she an alcoholic?” Barbara asked quietly.

  “Maybe,” said Alice, staring over our heads with eyes that were out of focus, lost in memory. “The rest of us were more into weed than alcohol in those days. But whiskey was definitely Sheila’s drug of choice. Though I think she stopped drinking recently. At least that’s what she said when I visited her to set up the class. She was in A.A. or something. But…”

  “But…” Barbara repeated encouragingly.

  “Well, the way she hit those kids,” Alice said, shaking her head and frowning. “It was obvious she still had some kind of problem.”

  “How about Dan?” Barbara slipped in quietly.

  “Dan was different,” Alice replied. She smiled and her eyes went out of focus again. “He was always easygoing. Mellow…”

  Mellow! He hadn’t been mellow when he rammed my car, I thought angrily. My neck and shoulders stiffened as I remembered. I realized then that I hadn’t ever told Barbara about the incident. I’d better warn her soon, I thought, and tuned back in to Alice.

  “…made flutes out of bamboo and sold them. He’s a real good musician, you know. Dan can play anything. He might have had a good music career if Sheila hadn’t dragged him down so bad.” Alice shook her head again. “Maybe now he’ll get back to his music again.”

  I resisted looking at Barbara. Did Alice realize she had just handed us a possible motive for Dan? Or for herself?

  “What’s Dan got to say about Sheila’s death?” I asked.

  Alice’s eyes came back into focus. She frowned as she shrugged her shoulders. I tried again.

  “Has he accused you or threatened you—?”

  Alice sat up straight in her chair. “Of course not!” she interrupted indignantly. “Dan’s not like that.” She paused and ran her hand through her hair again. “He’s just a little upset right now, you know?”

  I nodded. I knew. I knew.

  Barbara tried for a while after that. Was Dan violent? Was Dan a drug abuser? Had Dan hated his wife? Alice answered no, no and no, her voice growing tighter on each negative. It wasn’t any use. In Alice’s eyes Dan was just a nice guy caught up in terrible circumstances. If she saw another side to him, she wasn’t talking about it. And now she was angry at Barbara, angry at what Barbara’s question implied.

  “How about your friend Meg?” Barbara asked, switching gears abruptly.

  “What about her?” Alice demanded. So much for a friendly, willing informant.

  “Oh, we were just curious,” I interjected quickly. “She’s such a talented artist.”

  Alice looked from me to Barbara and back again. I held my breath. Alice’s features softened. I let my breath out.

  “She’s unbelievable, isn’t she?” Alice said, her friendly smile back in place. She pointed to the wall in back of us. “Look, that’s one of hers,” she said.

  I turned and saw a bold abstract in sea-green, lavender and hot pink. It was Meg’s style, all right. My neck twinged. I turned back to Alice.

  “Meg is so smart, you wouldn’t believe it,” Alice rattled on enthusiastically. “She does all kinds of art, types a hundred words a minute and invents these dynamite vegetarian recipes. I keep telling her she ought to do a cookbook.” She shook her head slowly. “The things that woman can do with tofu—”

  At the word tofu, my stomach emitted a long, loud growl. I blushed as I glared down at it.

  “Whoa,” Barbara said, laughing. “That beast ought to be in a cage.”

  Alice giggled along with her, then suddenly cried, “You must be hungry!” and jumped out of her chair.

  “What a doof I am,” she said. “I didn’t even think to offer you guys food.” She waved her hands. “Up, up!” she ordered and led us protesting into the kitchen.

  Her kitchen was as elegant as her living room. Clean and white, it was furnished with a wicker-and-glass table surrounded by more wicker chairs with turquoise pillows. A four-by-six painting of pale green and dark purple grapes, which had to have been done by Meg Quilter, hung on the far wall.

  “Let’s see,” Alice said, peering into the refrigerator. “I’ve got carrot sticks, apples, yogurt, low-fat cottage cheese—”

  “Please, you don’t have to feed us,” I objected. Now I was really embarrassed.

  “Sit, sit,” she said, waving one hand at the wicker chairs, her eyes still on the contents of the refrigerator. “And whole-wheat bread.” She closed the door. “I’ve even got peanut butter hidden,” she finished in a whisper.

  She stared at us inquiringly as we sat down. Was she waiting for permission to break out the peanut butter?

  “Sounds great,” said Barbara.

  I sneaked a quick glance at my friend’s weakly smiling face. Barbara’s idea of “great” was barbecued pork ribs, onion rings and beer, not whole-wheat and peanut butter. Carrots with nothing on them were her idea of cruel and unusual punishment. She must have had more questions she wanted to ask.

  “Okay,” said Alice, opening the refrigerator again. “Let’s party!”

  She set carrot and celery sticks, fruit, bottled Calistoga water and bread on the table, all the while telling us about the diets she’d been on.

  “…Weight Watchers, Kemper Rice Diet, Nutri/System, Beverly Hills, Jenny Craig, Oprah’s diet.” She crunched a celery stick. “For all the good it did Oprah,” she said and pulled a tiny jar of peanut butter from a lavender bin beneath the sink.

  “Only for you guys,” she said wistfully as she added the jar to the pile of food on the table.

  “I’ve been going to Overeaters Anonymous for six years,” she added, taking a seat. “Right now I’m about forty or fifty pounds over my ideal weight—”

  “But you’re gorgeous!” I burst out. Already, I couldn’t stand all this dieting. And I was only hearing about it.

  “Huh,” she snorted. “I’m a card-carrying chubbo. At least I am now. But I won’t be for long! I’m gonna do Pritikin. Meg’s gonna help me. Low fat, high fiber, whatever. She knows how to cook it.” Alice smiled at us. “Dig in,” she said.

  We dug in. And talked. But no amount of talking could convince Alice that she was beautiful the way she was. As I spread peanut butter on whole-wheat, I thought about sending Wayne ov
er. He loved fat bottoms. At least he loved mine. I took a bite. On second thought, I decided to keep him just where he was.

  Barbara nibbled on a piece of bread without enthusiasm as she led the conversation back from weight-loss to Dan and Sheila Snyder. Alice was good-natured enough to answer Barbara’s questions, but she didn’t say anything we hadn’t heard before. Barbara fidgeted in her wicker chair for a while, then stood up just as I had taken my last bite of apple.

  “Oh, Jeez!” she cried, looking at her watch. “I’m late for an appointment.”

  I played along, although I was pretty sure that her appointment was with her idea of dinner, something far more tasty and fattening than Alice had to offer.

  “We owe you a meal,” Barbara told Alice on the way out.

  “I’ll hold you to it,” Alice answered cheerfully. She waved a quick goodbye and closed the door behind us.

  “So, why’d Vesta make a salt pie?” Barbara asked as we climbed down the rickety stairs. Damn. I had forgotten all about the pie.

  But I did my best to explain it on the way home. Then I told her how Dan Snyder had rammed my car.

  “Jeez-Louise,” she murmured. “Maybe he is nuts.”

  “Alice thinks he’s a nice guy,” I said sarcastically.

  “Yeah, but Alice is nuts herself,” Barbara argued, apparently missing my sarcasm. “Anybody who spends that much time thinking about food has gotta be.”

  I scanned Barbara’s petite body with a sideways glance. “People who can wear anything less than a size ten aren’t allowed opinions on diets,” I informed her. “They’re lucky they’re allowed to live.”

  She leaned back in her seat and laughed. Then she complained about Felix until I dropped her off at her car.

  It wasn’t until I opened the door to my own dark house that I thought seriously about Alice’s obsession. If there was a way murder could have lost Alice forty pounds without dieting, I would have been the first to suspect her. But killing Sheila couldn’t have done that. Still, it had freed Dan from his marriage, I reflected. Freed him to get to know Alice again.

  As I reached for the light switch in the entryway, I heard a noise from the living room. A faint, whistling sound. I left the lights off and tiptoed in. Wayne was curled up in a fetal position on the couch, snoring softly. A surge of affection warmed my body as I looked down at his sleeping face. Sometimes I felt that I would do anything to protect him, anything to protect our relationship. The rapture of love was a powerful motivator. The warmth dissipated as my mind turned back to Alice. What would she do for the relationship she wanted?