Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  I avoided an embarrassing goodbye hug by staying in the car when I dropped him back at his office. I rolled down my window and waved.

  “I’m not going to let you go like this,” Craig announced abruptly. He bent down to make eye contact. “I want to move back in. I care about you.”

  “Just consider me another funny date,” I advised him. I kept my tone light, but my stomach contracted with pity. I reminded myself that it had been Craig who had left me and divorced me, not the other way around.

  Craig let out a bark of laughter that sounded more bitter than amused.

  I rolled up my window and drove away. A block later I glanced in my rearview mirror. Wayne was still on my tail.

  - Twenty -

  Wayne’s car followed me all the way home. I lingered at the front stairs, hoping to send a provocative message that would pull him from his Jaguar. I listened expectantly for the sound of the car door opening and eager footsteps… and heard nothing but a stray dog barking and the sound of distant traffic. I turned and looked out into the dark. Wayne was still in his car.

  I’m not going to beg him, I thought angrily. He knows he’s welcome. Men! I trudged up the stairs and opened the front door, feeling heavy with the emotional exhaustion that follows unfulfilled hopes. C.C. greeted me sleepily. Her eyes opened and closed as she meowed. I picked her up and leaned my face against her silky fur. At least my cat loved me, I told myself. C.C. squirmed and jumped out of my arms. So much for my cat’s love. Cats! I wouldn’t invite her to share my bed either.

  I went to sleep aching with weariness. And loneliness. And fear.

  I woke up the next morning with a racing heart. I had been dreaming about Jerry. Actually, about Jerry’s corpse, which had risen to its feet, covered with writhing layers of ants, opened its arms wide to embrace me and stepped slowly forward. I had screamed myself awake. I didn’t need Jungian analysis for that one. Death had almost given me a great big hug.

  I lay in bed taking deep breaths to calm myself. As soon as my heart settled down, my mind began to race. Murder, arson, threats. And Dave Yakamura. His friendly face flickered in my mind. He had been linked to Sarah by modem. He had the means to program her robot remotely. Craig had said it wasn’t likely. But it wasn’t impossible.

  A yowling sound from the other side of the bedroom door told me that C.C. knew I was awake. And, according to her own testimony, she was starving. I took one last deep breath, pulled myself out of bed and opened the door, all the time thinking about Dave Yakamura and Linda Zatara. What was their connection? C.C. danced around my feet, then jumped up to bat my leg impatiently with her outstretched paw.

  “All right, all right,” I mumbled and followed her down the hallway to the kitchen, tripping over her catnip mouse halfway there. I needed a refresher course in assertiveness training just to deal with my cat.

  A scoop of KalKan, a shower and a few hours of Jest Gifts paperwork later, it was nine o’clock, time to tackle Dave Yakamura. I found his business card beneath a pile of invoices. I had forgotten the name of his company. There it was: 2020 Robotics.

  I dialed the number on the card. Dave Yakamura’s voice was so friendly when he came on the line that I almost faltered. But not quite. I introduced myself and began lying.

  “I’m doing a short biography of Sarah Quinn,” I rattled off, getting through the lies as quickly as possible. “I thought I might interview you.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” he replied seriously. “Sarah Quinn was an exceptional human being. Her life deserves a book.”

  He bought it! After a short conversation, he agreed to be interviewed, and I agreed to call him Dave. I put on my glasses and rushed out the door to my Toyota.

  Dave Yakamura’s business was housed in a barn of a building in San Rafael’s industrial district. I parked my car and walked to the front door. I heard another car pull into the parking lot as I put my hand on the doorknob. I looked behind me. It was Wayne. I blew him a kiss and was rewarded by the flicker of a smile on his otherwise dour face.

  I opened the door to 2020 Robotics. The interior of the building was spacious, intersected by cubicles whose walls reached only halfway to the ceiling. A well-groomed receptionist sat at the front desk. And next to her stood a robot. It looked just like one of Sarah’s, a cousin to the one that had killed her.

  I stopped breathing. If anyone could have murdered Sarah Quinn with a robot, Dave Yakamura could have.

  “Cute, isn’t he?” the receptionist was saying.

  “He?” I preferred “it” for a robot. I resumed breathing and nodded. I forced my face into a smile.

  “Ms. Jasper,” a friendly voice boomed behind me. I swung around and watched Dave Yakamura limping toward me. I wondered once again what had happened to his leg.

  “Kate,” I corrected him.

  “Kate, then,” he agreed. “I see you’ve met Oscar,” he said genially.

  I nodded again and tried to look receptive. That was all it took to launch Dave into a demonstration. “Oscar, offer Kate some refreshment,” he said, slowly and clearly. The robot came to life.

  “What may I get you?” Oscar asked in the same choppy syllables I had heard from Sarah’s robot.

  I shrugged my shoulders. The robot was silent.

  “Continue,” Dave ordered.

  “Coffee perhaps?” Oscar offered.

  “No, thank you,” I said gently. I realized I was trying not to hurt its feelings. I almost laughed out loud.

  “A soft drink perhaps?” it tried again.

  “No,” I answered brusquely.

  “Herb tea perhaps?” it soldiered on, undaunted.

  “Well, all right,” I gave in. “Herb tea would be just fine.”

  The robot was silent again. “Yes,” Dave translated.

  Oscar turned and whirred away, evidently in search of tea. The stairs didn’t stop its progress. It climbed them easily.

  “Hydraulic lifters,” Dave explained proudly. “With the lifters and the three monster tires, Oscar can go almost anywhere you can.”

  Like into a hot tub, I thought. I reminded myself to keep breathing.

  “Most people still think of robots as novelties,” Dave continued, “but they can be very useful, very practical. Oscar can be programmed to vacuum, mow the lawn, even bark like a dog to scare prowlers.” Oscar, I felt sure, would scare me more than any dog. I kept the feeling to myself.

  “And they’re great for the disabled. They can carry groceries, serve meals, you name it!” His enthusiasm couldn’t be ignored. I smiled, genuinely this time. “It’s all in the attachments,” he added.

  “But can it bake a cherry pie?” I wisecracked.

  “Sure,” said Dave, chuckling. “It can even boil water.”

  “How does it know if the water is boiling?” I asked. In spite of my fear, I was curious about the critters.

  “It sticks its finger in the water,” he answered.

  I laughed. Dave laughed with me, insisting, “It really does, you know.” He was an attractive man. There was no doubt about that, handsome, bright, friendly. He even had a sense of humor. I reminded myself that Ted Bundy had been charming too.

  “Who buys your robots?” I asked, keeping the conversation going.

  Dave’s face grew serious. “Mostly the very wealthy,” he admit-ted. “These robots aren’t cheap. It takes a lot of effort to build and program each one.” His brows relaxed slightly. “But we’re working on the funding to modify them for the disabled. I had polio when I was a kid. I know how important mechanical assistance can be.”

  I winced guiltily. I had suspected him because of that limp.

  “And then there’s the future,” Dave went on. His eyes went out of focus, somewhere into the next century, I guessed. “It won’t be too many more years when people will be buying domestic robots Like they do microwave ovens. The best labor saving device around.”

  Oscar came whirring back with a cup of tea, a bowl of sugar cubes and a pitcher of cream,
all on a tray clamped between its metal pincers. Dave grinned proudly. I was going to ask Dave if Oscar had made the tea itself, but then remembered I was here to talk about Sarah. The minute I said her name, the grin left Dave’s face. His shoulders slumped.

  “One of our robots was used to kill her,” he said, his voice deepening. He gazed downward as he spoke. I looked down too. One of his hands was twitching, the fingers dancing as if he were playing a honky-tonk piano. “It could have been a radio or a toaster just as easily. But still, I feel so responsible.” He massaged the twitching hand, then brought his eyes back to mine. “Let’s talk in my office,” he suggested.

  Dave walked me toward his office with Oscar trailing behind, still clutching its tray. Dave pointed out an assembly area as we passed. Two women sat at a workbench putting together heads, torsos and limbs for this century’s Frankenstein’s monsters. Did Dave really think a radio could have killed Sarah as easily as a robot? You can’t program a radio to hop into the hot tub. Was he painfully naive or just protecting the good name of his product? As we entered the cubicle that housed his office, I had another thought.

  Maybe he was concerned about 2020’s legal liability for the actions of Sarah’s robot.

  Oscar handed me my cup of herbal tea after I sat down in the visitor’s chair in front of Dave’s desk. The robot hadn’t spilled a drop. I refused its offers of sugar and cream and turned back to Dave.

  “Return to reception,” Dave said to Oscar. The robot left us.

  “I understand Sarah used a modem to send you her software,” I prompted.

  “Yes, she did,” he said. He shook his head sadly. But my eyes were on his hands. Both of them were twitching now, playing piano in the air above his desk. “Sarah was an innovative woman,” he told me. “Her latest idea was programming the robots to do promotions. Put one of our robots in a busy mall, and have it explain the advantages of your new product. You can bet people will remember.” He looked into my eyes. “We’ll miss her,” he finished.

  “Do you manufacture the robots here?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” he answered, a smile on his face now that we had returned to a less troubling subject. He leaned back in his chair and his hands disappeared behind the desk. “The parts are manufactured in Japan. We assemble and program them here. It’s one of the advantages of having Japanese relatives,” he told me. “The Japanese know their robots.”

  I sipped my tea and thought about getting the conversation back to Sarah.

  “In Japan,” Dave was saying, “the people are so well-educated that there’s a shortage of skilled workers for the factories. So they use robots to replace the humans.” He leaned forward. His eyes were wide with excitement. “But they’ve neglected the domestic automation market. That’s where 2020 comes in.”

  I nodded intelligently. He stood up. Damn. Was the interview over?

  “Look out there,” he directed, pointing out his open office door. I relaxed. It was just another demonstration.

  I swiveled my head around in time to see five robots rolling by in military precision, followed by a bearded young man with a clipboard.

  “Stop,” he ordered.

  They stopped obediently.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Dave said enthusiastically. “A good percentage of our time is spent in testing. We always test them thoroughly before they leave 2020.”

  I looked away from the robots and back at Dave. Was he trying to convince me that his robot wasn’t responsible for Sarah’s death? He avoided my eyes as he sat back down, hands locked together on his desk.

  “Beautiful,” he repeated, looking at the space above my head. “We’re completing two robots a day now. And selling them! Starting to pay back our investors. Most of the robots are selling through elite mail-order catalogues. Foreign sales—”

  “Did you ever see Sarah’s robots at her house?” I interrupted. I had a feeling Dave Yakamura could talk about his business all day if I let him. He was beginning to remind me of my ex-husband, Craig.

  “I never went to Sarah’s house,” Dave told me, making eye contact again. Was he lying? There was no clue in his eyes. I looked at his hands. He was still holding them locked together, but a pinkie finger had wiggled free and was conducting a silent orchestra. So what? I said to myself. He’s nervous. That doesn’t mean he’s lying. It doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.

  “How do you know Linda Zatara?” I asked. I tried to keep my tone conversational, but I don’t think I was fooling him.

  Dave shoved his hands behind the desk before answering. “We were in a Recovery from Divorce support group together,” he said. His voice wasn’t quite hostile, but it certainly lacked the geniality of his earlier tone. “Linda’s an awfully good listener,” he added.

  No kidding, I thought. I heard movement behind me. I turned my head to look. Five robots rolled by, each balancing a tray on one pincer and holding a vacuum attachment in the other. I couldn’t tell if they were the same robots as before.

  I turned back to Dave. “Beautiful,” I said.

  His face softened into its former friendly expression. Too bad I couldn’t think of any more good questions for him. I thought of asking where he had been the morning before, but I didn’t have the nerve to try to pass the question off as light conversation. So we talked a few moments longer and then I said goodbye. I would have pumped the receptionist on the way out, but she wasn’t at her desk. Oscar was, though. He waved a pincer as I left. I waved back, then realized I was waving at a robot and jerked my hand down.

  As I climbed into my Toyota, I scanned the parking lot for Wayne’s Jaguar. It was nowhere in sight. I let out a long, sighing breath and turned the key in the ignition.

  I pulled the slip of paper with Linda’s address from my purse. Should I warn her I was coming? No, I decided. I might have a better chance of cracking her stone facade if I didn’t.

  Linda’s house turned out to be a condominium. I got lucky. Linda was not only home, she buzzed me in.

  She met me at the door with her usual deadpan expression. “Kate,” she acknowledged curtly.

  It was one word. Maybe I could get more out of her.

  “I was in the neighborhood, so I thought—” I began babbling. There was something about Linda that made me go on like that. A good listener, indeed. I decided to get to the point, even if I hadn’t been invited in.

  “How do you know Sarah?” I demanded without further preamble.

  Linda’s grey eyes widened ever so slightly. But I couldn’t tell what emotion the widening signified.

  She silently motioned me into her living room. The room was as devoid of life as she was. There were no pictures on the white walls, no knickknacks anywhere. The only furnishings were two slate-grey couches and a teak coffee table. There were two thick stacks of paper on that table, though. I looked closer. The top sheet of one stack was typed and had scribbling between the lines and in the margin. Was this a manuscript?

  “A W.I.B. support group,” Linda said in a monotone. I jumped, startled. I had almost forgotten she was there.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Women In Business,” she droned on. “That’s where I met Sarah.”

  I didn’t know what to do with the information. I was stunned. Linda had volunteered a full sentence. I kept on going.

  “Did you visit Sarah’s house very often?” I asked.

  Again her eyes widened. “A few times,” she answered.

  A phone rang in the next room. Linda got up slowly and glided out of the living room to answer it.

  I pounced on the manuscript. I scanned the top sheet. “—self-indulgence in hot tubs,” was the first line, continued from the page before. Then, “ ‘You create your own reality,’ was Sally’s favorite phrase.” And scribbled between the double-spaced lines, “Little did she know what reality she was creating… (see insert 42).” Was “Sally” Sarah? Plenty of people in Marin parrot “You create your own reality” at the first sight of anyone’s problems except
their own. But what about the hot tub?

  I read on. Peter and Tony’s words leapt up at me. And my own. The names were all changed, but the words were ours. Was Linda updating the chapter to include Sarah’s death? I leafed through the pages quickly, searching for “insert 42.” No luck. I turned over the other stack and saw the title page. “SUPPORT GROUPS, THE NEW ADDICTION, by Z.L. Harvard.” Damn. Another best seller.

  I heard a harsh chuckling sound behind me. I whirled around to face Linda. She was smiling widely now, the first smile I had ever seen on her face. But it wasn’t a friendly smile. Her teeth were bared in triumph, her eyes narrow with something close to hatred. A sudden shudder jerked my shoulders.

  “Satisfied?” Linda asked flatly.

  I wasn’t satisfied. “Did Sarah know you were writing this?” I demanded.

  Linda took her time walking to one of the grey couches and sitting down. I had a feeling I was in for the silent treatment again. I sat down myself, determined to wait her out.

  “No,” she finally answered, surprising me. “I don’t think so.” She bared her teeth again. “That woman was so caught up in self-adoration, she didn’t even think to ask me why I wanted to join your group.”

  Linda laughed. It took me a moment to place the sound as laughter, it was so slow and deep. My shoulders jerked involuntarily again. “Sarah,” Linda hissed. “What an incredible bitch! She’d been to almost as many groups as I had, but I was doing research. Sarah had to have an audience every other minute for her incessant preening.”

  Linda settled back into the couch, her eyes alive with malice. “Support groups!” She sneered. The mask was gone from her face. “Alcoholics, Overeaters, Sex Addicts, Asexuals, Menopausals, Compulsive Shoppers. You wouldn’t believe some of these groups.”