Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “It was probably trick photography,” Vivian cut in.

  I didn’t argue. I practiced tai chi for the exercise, and for the serenity and clarity of mind that followed a good session. I wasn’t in it for the martial arts aspect.

  “It’s a trick,” she repeated, narrowing her eyes. She pulled a pint of J&B whisky out of her purse. “Like this prosperity-consciousness bullshit. Imagine yourself rich and, poof, you will be. Huh! I can imagine being rich. I clean for rich people all day long.” She poured a good dollop of whisky into her tea and tasted it.

  She looked at me sadly. “You’re the only one who treats me like a friend. Other people treat me like dirt because I’m not as rich as they are. Is that fair?”

  I shook my head sympathetically and took a sip of my own, herbal tea.

  She continued, “And no one will give me a programming job. They say I’m a self-taught hacker.” She paused for a long swig from her cup.

  Vivian was not in a good mood. I wondered what she’d had to drink before she’d arrived.

  “And meditation, now there’s a joke,” she muttered angrily. “I’ve tried to meditate. What good does it do?”

  Time to derail the woman, I thought.

  “What’s the latest on Sarah?” I asked. If anyone would know what was going on in Sarah’s mind, Vivian would.

  Vivian shrugged her shoulders, but said nothing. Too bad. I had hoped she would know why Sarah wanted detective assistance.

  “Come on,” I prodded, still hoping. “There’s always something new on Sarah.”

  “Well, you know her house,” Vivian offered. She smiled a little as she got up to make herself more tea.

  I did know Sarah’s house. It was a huge redwood Gothic castle complete with turrets—plus solar panels and skylights. And it was a mess inside. Orange decor dominated the huge rooms, each of which was equipped with a computer terminal. Even the bathrooms were wired. Pictures of gurus, saints and billionaires lined the walls. And piles of computer printouts, dirty laundry, self-help books, leftover food and miscellaneous junk covered the floors. Outside, it was just as bad. A sunken hot tub was surrounded by more debris, in various states of mildew and rust. Sarah paid Vivian double to spend a full day each week carefully dusting and replacing anything not actively rotting.

  “Sarah wants to be more ‘open to the universe,’ “ Vivian mimicked, sticking her nose in the air. It was actually a fair imitation. “So she’s taken down all of her curtains. Now all the neighbors will get to see the mess, too. I’ll tell you, she’s not a good advertisement for my cleaning services.” Vivian shook her head. “And the neighbors are still screaming about her dog, Freedom. The local kids call the dog ‘Dumb’ for short. He’s still crapping all over the neighborhood. And she won’t put him on a leash.”

  “I guess you can’t put Freedom on a leash,” I joked. “It would be a contradiction in terms.”

  “That’s just what Sarah said.” Vivian looked at me suspiciously for a moment. Then she laughed. “‘Freedom on a leash,’ I get it.” She sat back down at the table. “But the biggie is—” She paused dramatically.

  “What? Tell me,” I prompted.

  “I finally saw her boyfriend!”

  “Really?” I asked in amazement. This was news. None of the group had ever seen Sarah’s boyfriend. I had often suspected he was a figment of her positive-thinking imagination. He was a sculptor and a recluse, according to Sarah. She said he never left his own house. She had to visit him there.

  “I just caught a glance of him,” said Vivian, her husky voice gaining speed. “Sarah sent me over with some groceries. I rang his doorbell but he didn’t answer. So I left them on the doorstep. I saw him, though, looking out the window as I was leaving.”

  “Wow! What does he look like? Where does he live?” I demanded.

  “He lives in San Anselmo,” she answered.

  “That far away? I always imagined he lived around the block.” I looked Vivian in the eye. “So what’d he look like? Is he a frog or a prince?”

  The teakettle began to shriek before she could answer me.

  Vivian shrugged and got up to take care of the kettle.

  “That reminds me,” she said when she sat back down. “You know that crazy beautician I clean for, the one who calls herself an ‘esthetician’? Her husband’s been running around on her. Well, I saw her out the other day, and you’ll never guess who with…”

  And so it went until we finished our tea. I never did get any more information out of Vivian about Sarah. Or about Sarah’s boyfriend. But I hoped I had cheered her up a little.

  While Vivian vacuumed the living room, I played back the messages on my answering machine. My ad copy for Christmas ornaments had been mangled and would need redoing. The manufacturers had run out of red cloth for the attorneys’ shark ties and wanted me to consider green. An enthusiastic voice wanted to sell me a new retirement plan. A less enthusiastic voice wanted to sell me a course in shamanism and cosmic power. It was definitely Monday morning. There was no time to trim C.C’s nails. I had to get to work.

  I was dead tired by the time I came home from the Jest Gifts warehouse on Thursday. I had spent the whole day there straightening out messes. True, I owned the messes, but that fact didn’t comfort me.

  It was a little past six o’clock, early for me to knock off work. But I had promised to visit Sarah. What I really wanted was a nice bowl of leftover potato-leek soup and a soak in the hot tub. But I put the fantasies of relaxation on hold, ignored my blinking answering machine, and got back in my Toyota to drive to Sarah’s. I dutifully put on my new glasses before starting up the car. I needed glasses to drive now, according to my eye doctor. Damn. I had thought we were supposed to get more farsighted as we got older.

  Sarah and I both lived in that unincorporated area of Mill Valley under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, which the locals called “Tam Valley.” Here, modest, older wood-frame and stucco homes sat side by side with the newer, skylighted, sun-paneled, upwardly mobile residences. Architectural styles ran rampant. I passed, among others, a Swiss chalet, some ranch houses, a few redwood cottages like my own, and what looked like a Moroccan castle as I drove toward Sarah’s. Buildings sat on anything from standard quarter-acre lots to three-acre parcels. And the landscaping was as mixed as the architecture.

  Sarah’s redwood Gothic habitat sat in the back corner of a hilly, full-acre lot overlooking a stream. Her yard was surrounded by tall hedges, some trimmed into whimsical fish shapes.

  As I turned onto Sarah’s street and sighted the fish hedges, a Marin County Sheriff’s Department car came gliding toward me. It turned before passing me, however—into Sarah’s yard. My shoulders tightened. I pulled my own car in on the sheriff’s tail. Once inside the hedges I could see a half-dozen vehicles jammed into Sarah’s circular driveway. The scene might have been festive except that most of the vehicles belonged to the county. My pulse began pounding noisily in my head. What kind of surprise did Sarah have for me this time?

  - Three -

  I parked my Toyota behind one of the sheriff’s cruisers and reached for the door latch. But before I had a chance to get my door open, a man in uniform marched up to my Toyota and held up his hand in a warning to stop.

  I rolled down my window. The sheriff was tall, with a mustache, mirrored sunglasses and no discernible expression. I couldn’t see his eyes at all. My stomach tightened.

  “May I see some I.D., ma’am?” he asked without preamble. His voice was as soulless as his face.

  “What’s going on—” I began.

  “The I.D., ma’am,” he repeated.

  Obediently, I fished in my purse for my driver’s license, but my mind continued its questions. What was the sheriff doing here? Had Sarah done something criminal?

  I handed him the license. “Are you going to give me a ticket?” I joked nervously.

  “No, ma’am,” he answered seriously. I clenched and unclenched my hands. I didn’t like this at all. What ha
d Sarah done?

  The sheriff jotted something down in his notebook and handed my license back. Then he asked me what business I had there.

  “I’m a friend of Sarah Quinn’s,” I answered.

  “No visitors today, ma’am,” he said, his voice thawing for a moment. “But the Sheriff’s Department will contact you later if you’ll give me your phone number.” He held his pencil over his notebook expectantly.

  “Why?” I asked. I could hear the shrillness in my own voice. I lowered my pitch. “What’s happened here?”

  “Couldn’t say,” he responded. Whatever warmth had been in his voice was gone again. “Your phone number?” he requested once more.

  “But I have an appointment with Sarah,” I insisted. Suddenly I felt very cold. Had something happened to Sarah? The sheriff angled his mirrored eyeglasses down at me. I rattled off my phone number. He wrote it down and closed his notebook.

  “You have no further business here,” he told me in a voice that could freeze fire. “You’ll have to back out the driveway.”

  I wanted to argue, but it’s hard to argue with a man who has no eyes. I put my Toyota in reverse under his unreadable gaze and began to roll back.

  Then Sarah’s door burst open. Men and women came buzzing out and around the entrance like bees around a hive. The back of one man emerged into the center of the activity. His gloved hands were holding the end of a stretcher. As the whole stretcher came into view I saw what was on top of it. A long, zippered plastic bag.

  I jammed on the brake and leapt from my car. The sheriff with the mirrored glasses rushed back toward me.

  “No!” I shouted. My body went rigid with fear. “That’s not Sarah, is it?” It couldn’t be, I told myself. Not Sarah! Sarah was immortal.

  The sheriff blocked my way and said nothing. I looked over his shoulder and watched the stretcher being loaded into a county van.

  “Tell me—” I began.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” boomed a voice from behind me.

  I turned and saw a familiar face, Sergeant Tom Feiffer’s of the Marin County Sheriff’s Department. He didn’t look much different than he had two years ago, still tall and muscular with curly blond hair and blue eyes. Only now he had maybe ten more pounds on his frame and a very angry expression on his face. When he jerked his head in dismissal, the sheriff with no eyes left us.

  The rigidity flowed out of my body into the ground, leaving my muscles weak and rubbery.

  “Sarah…” I began, then faltered under Feiffer’s angry glare. “I had an appointment… that’s not her, is it?”

  He didn’t answer me. Damn.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded shrilly.

  “This area is outside city limits, under county jurisdiction,” he answered briefly.

  I heard the doors of the county van slam shut.

  “Is that Sarah’s body?” I asked again, struggling to keep my voice level. I looked into Sergeant Feiffer’s eyes. I saw the anger go out of them.

  He nodded and turned his face away. Sarah dead? I couldn’t take it in. The air shimmered around me. Was I going to keel over?

  Feiffer turned his face back to me. “How come every time there’s a mysterious death in Marin you show up?” he asked. His suspicious tone knocked the dizziness out of me.

  “Mysterious!” I repeated sharply. “What do you mean ‘mysterious’? Was Sarah murdered?”

  “I don’t know,” Feiffer answered, his blue eyes glued to mine. “Was she?”

  “How should I know?” I shot back. I backed up a step. I didn’t like the sound of his question.

  Feiffer sighed. He looked back at the buzz of activity behind him. Then he returned his eyes to mine. “Come with me,” he said evenly.

  I followed him through the gaggle of men and women at Sarah’s door into her house and down the dimly lit hall to her living room. Feiffer cautioned me not to touch anything, then motioned me to an orange velvet love seat, the only clear surface in the room. Every thing else was covered in the refuse of Sarah’s life. Feiffer removed a stack of computer printouts from an easy chair, then sat down himself. I looked around the room at the litter of books, dishes, magazines, laundry and computer paper. Everything was in its normal place. Whatever had happened to Sarah, it must have happened in another room.

  Sergeant Feiffer asked me why I had come to Sarah Quinn’s house. I explained that we were in a discussion group together and told him how she had called wanting to talk about a “problem” four nights earlier.

  “That’s it?” he pressed. “She didn’t tell you what the problem was?”

  “No,” I answered numbly. “She was… she was enigmatic.” I still couldn’t comprehend her death. I expected her to pop out the door any moment, yelling “Surprise!”

  I looked into Feiffer’s serious eyes and let the expectation die. I straightened my shoulders.

  “Now, you tell me” I ordered. “How did she die?”

  “Whoa!” he answered, putting up a hand to ward off my questions. “We don’t know yet. We’re in the process of investigating.”

  “Was she murdered?” I pressed.

  “We don’t know,” Fieffer repeated, through clenched teeth this time. “We’re in the process of investigating.”

  “But—” I objected.

  “But nothing,” he interrupted. Then he stood up.

  “Just tell me—” I tried again.

  “I’ll talk to you again, later,” he told me firmly. He took my elbow and steered me out the front door. “Be available,” he ordered and turned me over to the sheriff with the mirrored sunglasses.

  I let the sheriff lead me to my car. I looked back briefly at the men and women in front of Sarah’s house, then backed out of her driveway.

  On the way home I kept thinking of Sarah. Sarah the enigmatic. Sarah the immortal. I saw her smug smile in my mind and my eyes teared up. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  I shuffled into my house, trying not to cry. C.C. twined around my legs and yowled. I picked her up and squeezed her to my chest. For once she was willing to console me. She purred and even reached her paw up to tap my nose gently, as if to say, “there, there.” Together we sat down in my comfy Naugahyde chair. I saw my answering machine light flashing through a filter of tears.

  I pushed the playback button and listened absently. First there was a hang-up. Then a sales pitch. Then a message from Peter asking to speak to me. Another hang-up and a call from a ceramics firm followed. On the final message I heard a voice I barely recognized as Vivian’s.

  Vivian’s speech was usually raucous. This voice was a shrunken version, small and lifeless.

  It said softly, “Sarah’s dead. Call me. Please, call me.”

  I began to shiver as I dialed the phone. By the time Vivian came on the line, I was shaking so violently that C.C. abandoned ship, leaping from my lap to the floor.

  “I found her. I found her body,” Vivian said in a zombie’s voice.

  The finality of Sarah’s death bore down on me with Vivian’s words. I swallowed, then asked her, “What exactly happened?”

  “I went there to clean today.” She took a rasping breath. “I finished the house and then I went out back. She was in the hot tub. So was one of her robots.”

  My mind created a comfortingly cozy picture of Sarah and a robot chatting over tea. I shook it off impatiently.

  “Was she already dead?” I asked softly.

  “Of course she was!” Vivian bawled. At least her voice was getting back some life, even if it was hysterical.

  “All right, it’s all right,” I soothed her. “What was the robot doing in the tub?”

  “I don’t know. How should I know?” She was wailing now.

  “But what—?” I began.

  “She… Sarah… the body looked terrible,” Vivian stammered. “And the police, they questioned me for over an hour before they let me go. And I called you, but you weren’t there.” She paused and her voice became very small. “Don�
�t ask me any more questions, please.” Her last plea shook me into sensitivity.

  “I’m sorry, Vivian,” I said gently. Should I tell her I had seen Sarah’s remains in a body bag, myself? No. She didn’t need to hear that. “What can I do for you?” I asked instead. She didn’t answer me.

  Suddenly I wanted to help her. To help anyone. It was too late to help Sarah. “Do you want me to come over?” I asked.

  “No, don’t worry about it,” she answered, her voice apathetic again. She made an effort to speak. “My son Billy came over. He’s going to spend the night with me. I’ll be okay.”

  I said goodbye and hung up. I wanted to call somebody, to talk to somebody. To talk to Wayne. But my body seemed wooden and my mind sluggish. From a great distance I realized I must be in shock. I slowly walked into the bathroom, where I swallowed four NatuRest capsules. Then I put on my pajamas and went to bed.

  Sleep pulled me down and my thoughts went again and again to Sarah. Pictures of Sarah pontificating, laughing and telling stories flickered through my mind. I could even hear the tone of her strident voice. And feel the array of emotions she had generated in me—anger, affection, amusement, frustration and admiration. As I finally dropped off, I saw in my mind’s eye her bumper sticker proclaiming, “Too Hip, Gotta Go.”

  Early the next morning I awoke from a nightmare with tears on my face. I couldn’t remember what it was about, only that I had been saying “I’m sorry” over and over again. My sheets were soaked with sweat. Looking around the familiar room with growing recognition, I felt the relief of consciousness spill over me. But that relief was quickly displaced by the memory of Sarah’s death. And the questions. How had she died? Why had she died?

  I struggled out of bed and down the hallway in my pajamas. I wanted answers, but I didn’t know who to call. Wayne? I dismissed that sentimental thought, and its accompanying twinge of self-pity, with irritation. Then I thought of Tony. As I dialed his phone number I realized that he probably didn’t know that Sarah was dead at all. Was I going to have to break the news to him?