Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  An explosion of sound and light and heat blasted me back a step. In the instant of that backward step my sleep-sodden mind took in what was in front of me.

  Fire!

  In the yard, a few feet away from the deck my neatly stacked log pile was on fire. It was now a four by ten foot log itself, alive with orange flames writhing and pirouetting into the sky like Halloween spirits. And the roar! The crackling blotted out everything else. How had I heard my name and the banging over that sound? For yet another instant I wondered if I was indeed dreaming. A fire three feet from my back deck? Three feet from burning down my redwood-shingled house? It didn’t seem possible in the waking world. But another instant of heat and sound was all it took to convince me that it was real.

  Move! my mind shouted. I slammed the door shut and ran through the house to the telephone, barely noticing as I caromed off a wall in the hall. I dialed 911, muttering “please, oh please,” under my breath to a god I didn’t really know. They put me on hold.

  I screamed “Fire!” into the silent phone.

  It must have been less than a minute before they came back to me, but it was an eternity too long. “Fire!” I screamed again and babbled out my address as the man on the other end of the line told me to calm down.

  Calm down? I carried the telephone receiver into the kitchen, causing the rest of the phone to clatter to the floor. I looked out the glass of the kitchen’s back door and saw orange flames writhing higher and closer. The man repeated my address and cross street. I hung up and moved. I ran out my front door and down the stairs. The hose I had used to fill my hot tub was now hooked up to a faucet in the front yard for watering the garden. I tripped on the bottom stair, falling onto my knees in the tan bark, then picked myself up and sprinted the last few steps to the faucet under the stairs.

  I grabbed the working end of the hose that was connected there and turned the water on. I held the end tight and tore around the corner of the house. The unwinding hose caught under the edge of the front porch, jerking me to the ground.

  I scrambled to my feet, ran back to the front and untangled the mess. Would the hose reach the back of the house? I frantically tried to remember how many feet I had. Should I unscrew the hose from the front faucet and attach it to the back one? It would take too long, I decided instantly. The hose would just have to reach. I grabbed a spray nozzle and screwed it on as I went tearing around the side of the house again.

  The logs were blazing fifteen feet into the sky now. And the fence they were stacked against was burning too. I ran toward the fire. Yards away from the flames, I could already feel the scorching waves of heat flapping back and forth in the wind. I couldn’t get much closer without burning my face. I needed that spray nozzle. It would give me at least a yard more reach. Bright cinders were raining down everywhere like kamikaze sparklers.

  I moved as close as I could to the heat and squeezed the trigger on the nozzle, spraying a jet of water onto the center of the log pile. The fire hissed where the water hit and retreated ever so slightly, then roared back as I moved the jet of water to the next section. Damn.

  Forget the logs, I told myself. If the fence went, the house wouldn’t be far behind. I turned the nozzle on the nearest section of burning fence and sprayed. The flames faltered and then died where the water hit, sizzling and popping their death rattle. Thank you, God, I thought as I sprayed the next section of fence.

  Once the fence was out I turned my hose back on the logs. The flames bent back like ballerinas, but didn’t die. I kept spraying.

  I heard a thin voice shouting nearby. Was that the fire department already? I squinted over the side fence at a shadowy figure who was almost invisible beyond the flames. It was my neighbor Grace, an unsociable old woman I had spoken to maybe ten times in six years.

  “Your deck!” she screamed.

  I turned and saw the flames digesting the corner of the deck. Oh God! Would the flames stop before they reached my new hot tub?

  “I’ll get it!” she cried. She swung her own hose over the fence and turned it onto the deck, splattering me with cold drops as she did. I blessed Grace as I turned back to my log pile. A cinder hit my cheek. I felt its brief burning sting and a surge of new fear. What if my hair caught fire? What if it was already on fire? Could I even feel it in all this heat? I raised the nozzle of my hose over the top of my head and squeezed the trigger. A shock of ice water drenched me from my hair to my pajamaed feet. I became a snowball in hell, freezing in the inferno.

  “Have you called the fire department?” came a new voice shouting over my back fence. Another neighbor, Steve.

  “Yes!” I screamed back.

  “I’ll get your roof!” he promised.

  Neighbors! My neighbors. I turned my hose back on my log pile, alternately shivering from cold and reeling from the blasts of heat when the wind shifted the flames in my direction. I concentrated the water on the edge of the log pile where the fence had gone up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Steve climbing up a ladder with a streaming hose. He directed the stream onto my roof.

  Then I heard the fire sirens.

  “Thank you, God. Thank you, neighbors. Thank you, fire department,” I whispered.

  By the time the fire truck arrived, I had vanquished the flames in one corner of the woodpile, Grace had taken care of the deck, and Steve had made a good start wetting down the roof. My hands were glued to the hose as I moved to the next flaming section of wood.

  “Ma’am!” came a call from behind me.

  I turned my head for a moment and saw the yellow-slickered figures pulling their giant hose toward me. I nodded acknowledgment and returned my attention to the burning log pile.

  “Ma’am!” came the call again.

  I jerked my head impatiently toward the firefighters. Couldn’t they see I was busy?

  “Get out of the way!” someone shouted.

  My mind couldn’t take in the words. I had to keep spraying the fire. I had to save my house.

  “We’ve got more water power than you!” yelled another voice, a firewoman this time.

  Slowly, her words sank in. I stepped back from the log pile in a daze. The firefighters pushed past me with their great-granddaddy of hoses and let loose.

  Within minutes there were no more flames anywhere, only a pile of steaming charred firewood.

  I sat down hard on the deck, feeling the cold wet wood on my bare skin. Bare skin? The dropseat pajamas! I had been standing outside in front of my neighbors, the fire department and God, with my fanny hanging out of my purple-striped dropseat pajamas. I had to be dreaming.

  But I wasn’t.

  “Are you okay?” a fireman asked me. I could just make out his concerned face in the shadows.

  “Fine,” I said. At least he couldn’t see the worst if I remained sitting.

  “Do you know how this started?” he inquired gently.

  Damn. How did it start? I began to shiver violently.

  “Bring her a blanket,” the fireman ordered. I heard footsteps as some kind soul obeyed.

  “I think someone set it on f-fire,” I stuttered through chattering teeth.

  I felt a blanket being draped around my shoulders. But before I could turn to thank the person responsible, the fireman in front of me had another question. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

  “Do you know who did it?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Who? This was no worn-out macrame. This was arson. I might have… I could hardly complete the thought. I might have burned alive. My shivering escalated into uncontrolled shaking. And with the shaking came the bile of fear in my throat.

  “You’d better get inside, ma’am, where it’s warm,” counseled the fireman.

  Warm, I thought. Warm would be good. But not hot. As I stood up I wondered if I’d ever make a fire in my woodstove again. I was leading the way back around the house when I remembered my neighbors.

  “Thank you, Grace!” I shouted. “Thank you, Steve!”

  “Anyt
ime,” came Grace’s thin voice. I thought I heard a quiver in it.

  Steve’s voice wasn’t quivering, but it was an octave higher than usual. “Right on!” he squealed enthusiastically.

  I smiled. At least someone had enjoyed the fire. I would think of wonderful gifts for both of them. I let my mind drift. What would please them? I knew Grace knitted. A gift certificate from that incredibly expensive yarn shop downtown might please her. And for Steve—

  “May I come in, ma’am?” asked the fireman at my side, startling me back to the present. Back to the fear.

  “Sure,” I answered wearily. I had to face what had happened. I might as well talk to the fire department. We walked up the stairs into my house and the questioning began.

  It was four in the morning by the time all the firefighters had left. The fireman who interviewed me had been polite, but insistent. I told him about Sarah, about the threat, about everything. He told me he would inform the police and left me alone in my house. My house. I looked at the walls lovingly. My house was intact!

  I knew I should go back to sleep, but it seemed out of the question. I walked to the kitchen to make a pot of herbal tea. C.C. was curled up on her favorite kitchen chair, snoring softly. I looked down at her fondly. I wondered if she had slept through the whole thing.

  I set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. The flame!

  I gulped down fear as the flame came alive. I quickly turned the burner off. Forget the tea for now. Think. Whoever had set the fire had banged on my door. They had called my name. Why? To make sure I caught the fire before it did any real damage?

  The arsonist hadn’t intended to kill me. Suddenly I was sure of it. Whoever it was had only meant to warn me, to frighten me. But if the arsonist was the same person who killed Sarah, that person had no compunction about murder. So why had the arsonist saved me by banging on my door? Because it was someone who knew me. Someone who liked me. A friend?

  I began shivering again.

  I had to find out who did this! I couldn’t wait for the next attack.

  I strode toward my desk. It was time to begin a suspect list. But as I walked past my answering machine, I saw its light blinking.

  Probably a concerned neighbor, I thought. I rewound the tape, then hit play.

  “That’s our last warning,” a gangster’s voice rasped. “Next time it’ll be you.”

  - Twelve -

  I toppled into my comfy chair like a felled tree. Another death threat. Damn. I had already figured out that the fire was a warning. At least intellectually. But the rasp of the gangster’s voice brought the reality home to my body. I pulled my trembling knees up to my chest and hid my face on top of them. I didn’t need to replay the tape. The message, especially the “next time it’ll be you” part, was repeating itself in my mind all too clearly.

  Oh God, I was scared. If arsonists could set my log pile on fire, they could set my house on fire. Set me on fire! What a horrible way to die. Suddenly I stopped breathing, the leftover smell of smoke smothering me.

  I dropped my knees, pulled my head up and inhaled. If I hadn’t asphyxiated while I was fighting the fire, I wasn’t going to now. I concentrated on breathing for a couple of minutes, then yanked the threatening message tape out of the machine and replaced it with a blank one. That was my last blank tape. There had better not be any more phone threats.

  I called Sergeant Feiffer, but he wasn’t in. Then I remembered, it was four thirty in the morning, time for all reasonable human beings to be asleep.

  I shuffled down the hall and into the bathroom where I gulped down two NatuRest tablets. Then I climbed into my cold bed, hoping for some rest. But the moment I closed my eyes I saw orange flames writhing against the darkness. My eyes flew open again. I focused on the soft glow of the stars through the skylight above my bed until my lids gradually descended with me into sleep.

  When I woke again it was nearly eleven on Saturday morning.

  I jumped out of bed and yanked open the door leading to my charred deck. No, I hadn’t dreamt the fire. The heavy scent of smoke was still in the air. And I could see the black heap of charcoal on the ground where my woodpile had been. Grey ash covered my charred porch. Then I noticed the fireman. He was kneeling in front of the charcoal, picking out small pieces and depositing them into a plastic bag. He turned and waved.

  “Ms. Jasper—” he began.

  I lowered my eyes. I didn’t want to talk to another fireman. Not while I was in my pajamas. As I lowered my eyes I saw two softball-sized chunks of concrete on my door step. Concrete? Was that what had banged on my door the night before? I shivered.

  “About last night’s fire,” the fireman was saying. “Could you—”

  “Give me a couple minutes,” I shouted and closed the door.

  I showered and dressed in less than five minutes. Then I opened my back door again. But the fireman was gone. It was just as well, I thought as I walked down the hall to my answering machine. The light was blinking. I rewound the tape and pushed the playback button gingerly. I sighed thankfully as I listened to one voice asking me if I was interested in an investment in strategic metals and another selling a class which explored the connection between metaphysics and eroticism. No death threats so far.

  The last message announced that the funeral service for Sarah Quinn would be held Sunday at the Jasmine Mortuary Chapel in San Rafael. My stomach knotted. I was alive, but Sarah was still dead.

  C.C. tore into the room yowling. Breakfast was late!

  I dialed my friend Barbara’s number and carried the phone into the kitchen while I searched for KalKan. C.C. urged me along, batting at my leg impatiently. I was a criminally slow slave.

  “Hi, Kate,” said Barbara when she answered on the fourth ring. C.C. did figure-eights around my legs.

  “How did you know it was me?” I asked as I scooped out cat food.

  Barbara just chuckled. Psychics!

  “Never mind,” I told her, throwing out the can. “Will you go to Sarah’s funeral with me tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for a rerun of Dallas” she assured me cheerfully.

  “What do you mean by—” I stopped myself. Obviously she meant yes. “Listen, Barbara,” I continued. “Probably a lot of the, uh, people who knew Sarah will be there.”

  “You mean the suspects, don’t you?” Barbara corrected me blithely.

  I nodded. One good thing about psychics. They know when you’re nodding over the phone.

  “That’s cool,” she assured me. “I’ll check them out for eee-vil vibrations.”

  “Do you think you can spot the murderer?” I asked her.

  Her voice turned serious. “I don’t really know,” she said softly. “But I’ll do my best.”

  “Thanks, Barbara,” I said. “Talk to you later.”

  But she stopped me before I could hang up. “Kate,” she said slowly. “I’m getting something weird on you. I don’t know what it means but I see—”

  “Fire,” I finished for her.

  “Yes,” she said. “What happened?”

  “Someone set my log pile on fire.”

  “Oh, I see,” she remarked.

  I was glad someone saw. I opened my mouth to tell her about my night, when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll let you get the door,” she said and hung up.

  I wished she hadn’t when I saw who was at the door. It was Sergeant Feiffer. And he wasn’t smiling as he walked in.

  “Jesus, what did you do!” he shouted. Then he slammed the door behind him.

  C.C. came loping in to check out the action.

  Sic ‘im, I ordered her silently.

  Feiffer took another step forward and brought his head down so that he was glaring directly into my eyes. “What do you know?” he snarled.

  C.C. skidded to a stop, turned and walked nonchalantly back to the kitchen. Her mama didn’t raise any foolish kittens.

  “I…” I faltered.

  “You what?” he as
ked, his eyes glued to mine.

  “I don’t know what I know,” I answered weakly.

  “Well, someone thinks you do,” he told me. He straightened his shoulders and spoke in a nearly normal tone. “The fire marshal says it’s arson.”

  Then he just stared at me. What did he want from me?

  “Do you want to hear the message?” I asked finally.

  His eyebrows went up.

  “What message?” he asked. Then I saw his eyes narrow. “Did you get a new one?” he demanded.

  I led him to the answering machine and stuck in the tape. Then I hit the play button.

  “That’s our last warning,” the tape rasped. “Next time it’ll be you.”

  Feiffer dropped into my comfy chair and shook his head back and forth. I resisted putting a consoling arm around him. I didn’t want to be misunderstood. But he sure looked like he could use some consolation. He wasn’t the only one.

  “What did you find out about the first message?” I asked softly.

  “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head harder. “It must have been a local call. There’s no record of it.” He looked up at me. “We’ve sent it to another lab. They’ll try to filter out the TV show and get some background noise, but…” He threw his hands up despairingly.

  “Could you assign someone to guard my house?” I asked in a small trembling voice I didn’t even recognize.

  Feiffer rose from the chair and shrugged his shoulders. “I can put in a request, but I can’t promise much.”

  He must have sensed my heart sinking. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We just don’t have the people to go around. Maybe we can get someone to drive by every once in a while but—”

  “That’s all right,” I told him. No use in his feeling bad.

  Suddenly he glared at me. I could see the lecture forming in his eyes. “Ms. Jasper, take my advice. Get out of town for a while—”

  The doorbell rang again. Sergeant Feiffer and I both jumped.

  It was Felix. He came stomping into the hallway, his eyes full of hurt, his mouth moving furiously under his mustache. “What’s the deal here?” he demanded. “How come you didn’t call—”