Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  I took a backstep without thinking. “Killing me won’t protect the children,” I said quietly. “They need help, a therapist. Someone who understands.”

  There was no change in Stiletto’s angry face. But in a moment, she lunged at me. I stepped to the side, avoiding her. Stiletto made a noise deep in her throat as she almost fell, then righted herself. I stepped quickly around the couch, nearer to Vesta. Stiletto followed.

  “Ain’t gonna help you, man,” she snarled. “You’re dead.”

  “But I’m a child too, sometimes,” I squeaked. My voice was high and frightened enough to pass for a child’s, I thought, then hoped.

  Stiletto stopped short, her face contorted. Her eyes closed, then opened again. The face staring at me was wrinkled, the body stooped.

  “There has been enough killing, dear,” the voice trembled. “But you must hurry. Run while you can. I can’t—”

  Her face contorted again. She kept her eyelids open, but her eyeballs rolled upwards.

  “Vesta, come on!” I shouted, not waiting to see what happened next.

  “No, Stiletto,” Granny groaned.

  But Vesta didn’t come. I turned and saw the hesitation in her face. Why was she hesitating? Was her hatred for me stronger than her fear of death?

  “Come on, dammit!” I bellowed as I ran toward her. I grabbed her hand and pulled her onto her feet. Finally, I felt her body give.

  “Run!” I shouted.

  And we ran.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “SEE YA LATER, kiddo,” Barbara was saying to me the next afternoon. It was the fifth time she had said goodbye. She took one step out the door, then turned back to hug me again. When she let me go, her model-beautiful face stretched into a big grin no model would ever exhibit in public.

  “We did it, Kate!” she whooped. She shook her fist in the air triumphantly. “Forget the rest of it. Just remember…” She took me by the arms and stared into my eyes, as if she could mesmerize me into jubilation. “We flushed out a murderer. You’re a hero.”

  “Yes, Master,” I replied in a B-movie zombie’s voice. “I am a hero.”

  She shook her head and laughed, then gave me yet another hug. “You’ll be okay, kiddo,” she whispered. “You’ll see.”

  I pasted a smile on my face for her.

  Barbara turned back to Felix, who was waving his arms as he yakked at Wayne. She caught his wrist on the downswing. “Come on, sweetie pie,” she said, tugging. “Let’s go.”

  “But you just wouldn’t friggin’ believe it,” Felix rattled on, unheeding. Wayne grunted noncommittally. “Holy Moly! Down at the cop shop, she just switched in and out of personalities like something out of Sybil,” He paused. “Or maybe The Exorcist,” he said thoughtfully, then resumed his spiel. “They’re all totally freaked out down there. Gonzola! Word is it took three beat-pounders just to stuff her in the friggin’ paddy wagon—”

  “Come on, Felix,” Barbara insisted, pulling him down the stairs by his hand.

  “Really friggin’ bonkers,” he mumbled as he went. “Boingy boingy, looney tunes…”

  Wayne and I stood and watched Barbara’s Volkswagen shoot out of the driveway and onto the street, spitting gravel. I heard the screech of brakes and a honk. A genuine smile tugged at my lips for an instant as I shut the door.

  But when I sat down on the couch next to Wayne, the last of my energy drained away. My muscles felt like overstretched elastic. I couldn’t imagine them ever holding me up again. Even my vision was blurry as I squinted at the litter of glasses and food on the coffee table. Too much excitement, too little sleep, I diagnosed.

  Everyone had been waiting for me when I returned home from the police station. Wayne, Barbara, Felix, the twins, Ann Rivera, C.C. Even Iris Neville. And they had all celebrated, raising glass after glass of sparkling apple juice as C.C. yowled for her share. Now everyone but Wayne had gone. Even C.C. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

  The images of the night before came pouring into the void. Running across the street with Vesta to my neighbor’s. Locking the doors, hoping Stiletto wouldn’t break a window. Hearing the sirens. Watching from my neighbor’s front window as the police escorted a dazed-looking Meg from my house. Then watching her change into Stiletto again, dropping into a crouch and leaping.

  I popped my eyes back open. The litter on the coffee table had its aesthetic merits, I decided.

  Wayne put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed gently. “What’ll happen to Opal and Topaz Snyder now?” he asked.

  “They have their Grandma Rose,” I assured him, putting my cold hand on top of his warm one. “Iris says Rose has almost recovered from the initial shock of Dan’s death. She’s devoting herself to her grandchildren now.”

  “Good,” Wayne said quietly. I waited for him to say something else. Was he angry with me? I had never had the time to tell him the more recent details of my snooping into Sheila Snyder’s death. Unfortunately, he had learned most of those details today, from my friends. The silence lengthened.

  “I saw Paula Pierce down at the police station,” I told him. Anything to fill the silence.

  “Paula Pierce?”

  “Meg’s friend, the attorney,” I said. “They called her when Meg started going through her thirty-seven faces of Eve act.”

  “Think it is an act?” Wayne inquired, eyebrows raised.

  “No way,” I told him. Gooseflesh formed on my arms as if to prove my point. “Those personalities were real.” I didn’t want to think about that too long. “Anyway,” I hurried on, “Paula told me she’s already got a top criminal attorney for Meg and a psychiatric evaluation ordered.”

  “Meg’ll probably need both,” Wayne commented.

  “Did Felix tell you about the notebook?” I asked.

  Wayne shook his head.

  “Felix talked to someone at the San Ricardo Police Department this morning,” I explained. “He wouldn’t say who. You know how closemouthed he is about his sources. But whoever it was leaked the information that the police found a notebook in Meg’s desk drawer when they searched her apartment.”

  I took a big breath before going on. “The notebook had a list of over twenty names, with dates beside each of them that spanned twelve years. They ran the information through their computer. They were all names of victims of unsolved murders, each with the corresponding date of the murder. Most of the victims had been raising children at the time of their deaths. And Meg had lived conveniently near each and every murder site. From Portland, Oregon, to San Francisco.”

  “How about the victims without children?” asked Wayne.

  “The first name on the list,” I began. I took another breath. “Helen Quilter, Meg’s mother.”

  Wayne reached over and patted my cold hand. After a few moments, he asked, “Think Paula knew Meg was a murderer?”

  “Maybe,” I answered slowly. “I remember the look on Paula’s face when she was talking about the string of Oregon murders—as if something had just dawned on her. I think she may have realized then that it was Meg. Or at least wondered.” A sudden tremor shook my body.

  “You okay?” Wayne murmured.

  I shrugged my shoulders. Was it okay to feel so cold and nauseated?

  “I remember telling Barbara,” I went on, unable to stop talking about it, “that if someone was killing everyone they saw hitting a child, there would be an awful lot of dead bodies around. Well, there were.” I shivered again, then tried to lighten up. “It was lucky I read that book on ‘the child within’ last year,” I joked.

  Wayne didn’t laugh.

  I went back to serious. “If I hadn’t confused Meg by telling her I was a child myself sometimes, she might have killed me. She might have killed Vesta.” I shook my head and corrected myself. “Not Meg. Stiletto. Stiletto might have killed us.”

  Wayne put his hands over his face, but not before I saw the look of pain there. I waited for angry words. But none came.

  “Just glad you’re alive,” w
as all he said when he took his hands away.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. I leaned over and placed a kiss on his scarred cheek, then saw the moisture in his eyes. I hurried on with my story. “I can’t believe I missed it,” I told him. “I saw two distinct personalities, space cadet and lecturer. The space cadet never knew what time it was. More often than not, she didn’t even seem to remember what she’d been doing. And I saw the different styles of artwork in her house. And those pen-and-ink drawings! God, Wayne. You should have seen them. All those writhing figures stuffed into a woman’s head…Meg’s head. Why didn’t I understand them for what they were? And all the electronic gear. Another personality must have collected that. And the totally different handwriting—”

  “Kate, everyone missed it,” Wayne interrupted gently. “Even Barbara.”

  “Only because her psychic powers were shorted out by Meg,” I reminded him. “Or so Barbara claims now. I don’t know why she didn’t figure it out sooner. She should’ve noticed that she got the weird readings whenever Meg was around. She thinks it was interference from all the personalities disagreeing.” I shrugged my shoulders. “At least Barbara’s happy now that she has her powers back.”

  But I wasn’t happy. As I sat back and closed my eyes again, the images from the previous night flashed like strobe lights on my inner eyelids. And the words “a two-year-old child” reverberated. I pulled my eyes open.

  “Kate?” Wayne probed softly. I turned toward him. His face looked stern, but I knew him well enough to read the concern there. “I know you didn’t sleep last night,” he told me. “What will it take for you to feel better?”

  “It’ll take believing there aren’t people out there like Meg’s mother,” I answered instantly, then stopped to realize what I had just said.

  “How about knowing there are at least as many compassionate people out there as sadistic ones?” Wayne offered.

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure. Was compassion enough to compensate?

  He knelt down in front of me, putting his hands on my knees. Then he looked up into my eyes.

  “When I was a kid, I had Mom,” he said gruffly. I nodded my understanding of the pain that statement encompassed. “But I had my uncle too, Uncle Ace.” Wayne smiled suddenly, his homely face beatified.

  “And Meg has Granny,” I said aloud, surprising myself once more.

  Wayne nodded slowly.

  “Go on about Uncle Ace,” I ordered as I absorbed the thought.

  “He was great,” Wayne obliged. “Big old guy, as ugly as me. Always joking. Always clowning. Could even make Mom laugh.” Wayne laughed for a moment himself. I smiled down at him. Damn, I loved him. If only Vesta—

  “Where is Vesta?” I demanded, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t heard her voice since I’d come back from the police station.

  “In a condo on Vine Street with the nurse she fired,” Wayne mumbled. His eyebrows descended, obscuring his eyes. “I’m renting it for her now. I’ll buy it as soon as I can.”

  My mouth dropped open. My dazed mind couldn’t take it in.

  “She’s got a new home, Kate,” he said.

  I felt the warm relief bubbling up from my center all the way to my head. We were free. Compassion was enough. I jumped up from the couch, feeling new snap in my elastic muscles. I had only one more question.

  “How the hell did you get her to do it?”

  Wayne looked down at the floor. Red color flooded his neck, then rose into his cheeks. “The twins took care of it,” he growled.

  I leaned my head back and laughed. Wayne looked up, his eyebrows high. Then he laughed too.

  “Come on!” I ordered, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet. “Let’s celebrate.”

  Table of Contents

  Kate Jasper Mysteries

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five