“Didn’t we do this with herbal teas, already, Kevin?” I asked. I still had them somewhere. The tea bags had leaked, and the “herbs” had turned out to be flavored sawdust. I’d kept them as a reminder never to do business with my brother again.
“Yeah,” he said. “But this is even cooler. Pyramids, Katie, real pyramids.”
“Are you trying to sell me Egyptian pyramids?” I asked. “Because if you are, I’ll trade you the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Wayne swiveled around and stared at me, as if wondering who this rude woman was he’d married. I flinched. It was true that I hadn’t fully disclosed the details of my family to Wayne. Kevin-disclosure takes an effort.
“So, we just thought we’d visit—” Kevin went on blithely.
“For how long?” I asked Wayne didn’t even have a chance to look at me this time. He was too busy staring at Xanthe. Because Xanthe’s reaction to my words had been to hiss at me—a real hiss, like a snake. Her repertoire of animal sounds was expanding. She probably went to the zoo for lessons.
“Well, we need a copacetic business base, you know,” Kevin began. “And you have a business license and all—”
The phone rang again. I felt like a boxer. End of round two.
This time it was Avis who wanted to talk to me. She sounded as if she were calling from another planet, a very slow, confused planet. I wondered if she’d been drinking.
“…all so unreal, Kate,” she was saying. “I keep wanting to ask if it was real. It was, wasn’t it?”
“It was, Avis,” I told her, worried now. If she doubted that what she saw was real, she was at least in good company. Captain Thorton’s company.
“It was supposed to be nice, you see,” she rambled on. “Nice. People talking, sharing ideas. Harmonious, positive…but…” Her voice faltered. Not drink, I decided, shock.
“Are the police still there, Avis?” I asked.
“Oh, they are,” she answered, “but I’m not. I’m at home. It was too weird there. At least now I’m with my things…” I heard a sob.
“Avis, it’ll probably turn out all right,” I soothed desperately. Okay, lied. Unlike Barbara, I didn’t “know” it was going to be all right. I just hoped so.
“Maybe,” she sniffled. “Maybe. Reed thinks they’ll figure out something forensically. There were all these technicians there when we left.”
“You and Reed left?” I asked.
A short silence followed my words. I could hear Kevin’s voice in the living room.
“Reed’s been a big help,” Avis said finally, but her voice was flat. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to talk about Reed. That left talking about the murder. Or deer. I didn’t want to talk about deer.
“Did the police give you any idea who they thought did it?” I asked as quietly as I could.
“No, no.” I could almost see her shaking her head. I wondered if she was still wearing her hat. “That’s why…”
“What?” I asked. “That’s why what?”
“Well, I thought you might know, Kate.”
The words tumbled into my brain separately and then arranged themselves into a sentence.
“Me?” I said.
“You find these things out, don’t you?” she tried again, a trace of hope in her voice.
“Not really, I…” Now, I was faltering.
“I didn’t mean to trouble you,” she told me, her voice flat again.
“Oh, no,” I squeaked. “No trouble.”
“Maybe, you could try…”
“Um, maybe,” I answered, hoping Avis would forget my words once her shock had worn off.
“Oh, thank you, Kate,” she breathed. “Thank you.”
As she hung up, I wondered what my “maybe” had encompassed in her mind. Too much, I was sure.
Back in the living room, Kevin and Xanthe were still on the couch, but now they were wearing pyramid caps. To get a pyramid cap you could take a baseball cap and remove the bill, then add a pyramid on the top. A gold, shining pyramid. Not that you’d want to, mind you. Though seeing Kevin in his pyramid cap brought back an instant of affection, remembering him in a birthday hat as a toddler. But then he started talking again.
“Cosmic,” Kevin declared. “That’s what I meant by holistic financial planning, you know. This is the leading edge—”
“Kevin Koffenburger,” I ordered. “Take that cap off. You look silly.” I couldn’t help it. Kevin was my younger brother.
“But Katie,” he whined, his voice suddenly nasal.
“You have no right to talk to your brother that way,” Xanthe declared. Then she hissed again.
“Maybe, we can all—” Wayne began.
“Yeah, Katie,” Kevin piped up. “And you haven’t seen all the really cool stuff: earrings, Tshirts—”
“Kevin, neither Wayne nor I will be buying your pyramid kit, so give it up,” I suggested, down to the bottom line now.
Xanthe made a low, growling noise in her throat.
My cat, C.C., scooted into the room to confront the giant animal on the couch, growling back.
Xanthe sketched the shape of a cat in the air and clapped her hands.
C.C. was not impressed by her magic. She arched her back and hissed.
“Cool cat,” Xanthe commented, surprising me. She smiled at her soulmate. C.C. sauntered off, having made her point.
“Xanthe does the actual handcrafting,” Kevin told me. “So the pyramids are sacred.”
I looked at my brother. Did he actually believe that? Probably. It was hard to tell under the dark glasses.
“Kevin?” I asked. “Did you hear me say no?”
The phone rang again before he could answer
End of round three.
It was Felix. Of course, it was Felix.
“Hey, Kate,” he began. “I’m still tripping on tonight, man. Too weird.”
“I’ll agree to that,” I said cautiously.
“So, my honeybun told me you’d help me—”
“I didn’t say that,” I cut him off. For all it was worth.
“Yeah, man, but Barbara did. And you know her presto-pronto act—if she said it, whiz-bang-boogaloo—it’s true.”
“Not necessarily,” I tried. I might as well have been talking to the air. Actually a phone wasn’t much more than air, especially with Felix attached.
“And I’m deep in doo-doo without a friggin’ pooper-scooper, if you catch my meaning.”
“Why do you think you’re in so much trouble, Felix?” I objected. “All three of us found the body—”
“And I played the-emperor’s-got-no-clothes with their nutso, potato-brain police chief,” he reminded me.
“But still, Felix,” I insisted, “they have plenty of suspects. They’ll probably find out Dr. Sandstrom was connected with someone in the group—”
“Yeah, like your good buddy here,” he interrupted.
“You knew Dr. Sandstrom?” I demanded. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Hard to say I didn’t know the stiff, he was my friggin’ sawbones, man.”
“Your doctor?” I translated hesitantly.
“Yeah, the doc poked and prodded me like I was a friggin’ turkey. You wouldn’t believe the mystical, medical hoo-haw that man put me through. All for a little case of gout, man. You remember my gout, don’cha? It wasn’t my friggin’ fault that we had the argument—”
“Argument?” I repeated.
“Well, the friggin’ quack was driving me bananas over my diet. Like diet would cure my gout—”
“Diet does cure gout, Felix,” I said, then remembered that his medical prognosis wasn’t important now. “Did Perez ask you if you knew the doctor?” I demanded instead.
I didn’t like Felix’s sudden silence. A silent Felix is as unnatural as the Pacific Ocean without waves.
“Felix?” I prodded.
“Holy socks, it was none of his friggin’ business. So I told him no. It’s not some kinda Titanic crime—”
“Felix, it
is a crime—”
“So, how’s the potato-brain gonna find out, anyway?”
“Public record?” All right, I have to admit it. It felt good, using the words Felix had used earlier describing his discovery of my marriage to Wayne. Not some kind of Titanic crime, using his own words, right? My guilt button buzzed anyway.
“Can’t be,” Felix came back uncertainly. “All this geeky confidentiality stuff, man. Patient files gotta be confidential.”
“But not patient names, I’ll bet.”
“Man, you gotta help me, Kate!” Felix moaned. “They got me all stitched up for this thing. I’m gonna take the fall. It’s the big house for me. Maybe the chair—”
“Felix, stop. You sound like an old movie. You’ll be all right.” I was full of lies tonight. “Did anyone hear you argue with the doctor?”
“Just, um, the whoozit-receptionist and a couple of other poor saps in the waiting room, man. But I didn’t kill him, Kate—”
“You just found the stiff,” I finished for him, shaking my head.
“What—”
“Just found the stiff,” I repeated, my voice rising. “Fun, isn’t it, Felix?”
“Hey, man, this is your old amigo…”
Ten minutes later my old amigo finally hung up. I’d tried to make it clear that I wasn’t committing myself to helping him, but I had a feeling my lack of commitment was about as clear as a politician’s promise. Still, I was off the telephone, a return to relative sanity. No, a return to Kevin and Xanthe.
Kevin and Xanthe had spread the contents of a pyramid kit on the floor and were demonstrating a wind-up, walking pyramid for Wayne. Wayne’s face had shut down completely, his eyes invisible, his chin stiff. But his shoulders were trembling.
“Hey,” Kevin greeted me. “Who was on the phone?”
“Just a friend,” I answered coolly.
“In trouble with the police?” Xanthe asked. That’s another thing I hated about Xanthe. Sometimes, she seemed to be as psychic as Barbara. But I assured myself that if she were really psychic, she’d know how I felt about her and just leave the house now. Fast.
“Hey,” Kevin interjected. “A little jail time never hurts.”
I locked eyes with Wayne, as if to say, See?
Then we looked at the ceiling together.
“Listen, you two,” I announced, tired now, way too tired for my brother and his girlfriend. “We have to go to bed. You can have the futon if you want it.”
In half an hour, they had the futon, the bedding, magazines, and the leftovers from the dinner Wayne had prepared earlier. But they didn’t have our money for a pyramid kit. I took my purse with me down the hall and into the bedroom, where Wayne and I lay on the mattress on the floor that served as our bed, side by side, fully clothed, staring out the twin skylights.
“Sorry,” Wayne growled finally.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“The deer class, my idea,” he explained.
“Oh, sweetie,” I murmured and rolled over to hold him. “I love you. I’d love you even if Kevin was your brother.”
He smiled, a little smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“Say, aren’t we on our honeymoon?” I asked a few minutes later.
Wayne’s smile deepened. He was my sweetie again, my husband.
I kissed his smiling mouth, and held him until the warmth and strength and pulse of his body were my own. Kevin, Xanthe, Felix, even Dr. Sandstrom, disappeared.
Much later, we were almost asleep when a keening sound jolted us both back to alertness.
- Six -
“Wha…what?” mumbled Wayne, sitting up and swinging his legs off the mattress in a matter of seconds.
“No,” I told him, placing my hand on his chest before he pushed himself out of bed. I could feel his rapid heartbeat beneath my fingertips.
“But—”
“It’s only Xanthe,” I assured him, keeping my voice low. Or maybe I should say, tried to assure him. “Only Xanthe” was something like “only a tidal wave,” after all.
The keening escalated, a howl of grief and menace now. The hair went up on my arms even as I tried to downplay the phenomenon to Wayne.
“She’s just putting a curse on me,” I told him. “Xanthe always puts a curse on me. And she always makes sure I know.”
“An actual curse?” Drowsiness and concern struggled in his tone.
“Only if I believe it,” I replied, smiling to show I didn’t. My smile was almost real. Just like not being afraid of a giant dog on a strong leash. Logically, there was nothing to be afraid of. Illogically…I lay back down and pulled a pillow over my head just as the keening stopped.
“Oh,” Wayne said and lay back down beside me, instantly asleep, the musical portion of our evening’s entertainment having ended. Wayne was practical that way. I wasn’t. I wondered if Xanthe had just given voice to the curse that had already happened. The curse of finding Dr. Sandstrom’s body. I wondered all night long.
*
The following Friday morning, Kevin and Xanthe were still snoring on the futon while Wayne and I had breakfast. It was actually comforting to hear Xanthe snore. It’s harder to believe in a curse cast by a nasally challenged human being.
And they were still asleep after we’d showered and I’d begun my morning’s paperwork on Jest Gifts, the business I owned and operated from my house and an old warehouse across the bay in Oakland. It might sound easy to own a gag-gift business, but it’s no mean feat to sell the same gags to professionals year after year. Not to mention thinking up the new ideas. All right, I admitted to myself, it was fun thinking up the new ideas. I was working on a gardening and hardware line now in addition to my shark/attorney line, shrunken head/ therapist line, twisted spine/chiropractor line, and all the rest of the old standbys. Terra-cotta planter mugs, shovel, scythe, and pitchfork silverware took shape in my mind. I glanced across the entryway to my sleeping visitors and wondered if I would ever be able to explain the concept of enjoyable hard work as opposed to scheming as a business model. Nah, it would never fly. Kevin and Xanthe were free spirits. It would be too cruel to expose them to the realities of invoices and ledgers and order forms. The phone rang. I added employees to my list of harsh business realities.
“It’s Jade,” said my warehousewoman, announcing herself. I dragged the phone to the middle of my desk and dropped back into my office chair. “We’ve got that order for acupuncture earrings, but the box that says ‘acupuncture earrings’ has tai chi slipper earrings in it. Jeez, where do you think the acupuncture ones are?”
Another thing I’d never impose on my little brother: the long trail of crises in a continuing business. But I still wished he’d get a regular job. And cut his hair. Boy, was I getting old or what? But then, I’d always be older than Kevin.
“Have you tried the box labeled ‘tai chi earrings’?” I suggested.
“Wait a minute,” Jade ordered and slammed the phone down on a table. I pulled the receiver back from my ear too late. Someday, I’d learn to beat her to the slam. Until then, I could just rub my ear and—
“Morning, Katie,” I heard from behind me. “Time to target our energies—”
“Time for you to take a shower,” I interrupted.
My brother wasn’t wearing his dark glasses, and his close-set eyes were bloodshot. And then there was his eau-de-snooze. I tried not to breathe too deeply. But Kevin had no idea what he looked or smelled like. He was ready to sell pyramid kits. I didn’t have to be psychic to recognize that gleam in his eyes, the one he’d had in fifth grade when he talked me out of a hard-earned dollar to buy lemons for a lemonade stand that never materialized.
“Where’s Wayne?” Kevin tried.
“At work,” I answered succinctly.
“What does he do, Katie?” Kevin asked. “Something cool, I’ll bet.”
“He owns a restaurant combined with an art gallery,” I replied cautiously. I would have liked to brag, to have mentioned how chic that restaurant/
art gallery was, to have told Kevin that in fact Wayne owned more than one, but then Kevin might have figured out Wayne’s financial status, which was triple A, also known as: ripe for sucking. No, that wouldn’t do.
“La Fête à L’Oie is its name,” I said instead in a gloomy whisper. I shook my head sadly. “It’s deep, deep in debt.”
The last part was a lie, but if you can’t lie to your relatives, who can you lie to?
Kevin’s face fell. I could hear his fleet of inner salesmen regrouping. Forget the boyfriend, go for your sister, they were advising.
“Kate!” Jade screeched into my ear. “They’re in the tai chi earring box. Jeez, you’re smart sometimes.”
I blushed. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad detective after all. “Thanks,” I told her. “So if there’s nothing—”
“The guy who was supposed to make the new computer mouses called,” she went on before I could delude myself that there would be no more bad news. “He’s got a problem…”
Twenty minutes of crises later, I was off the phone and Kevin was still in the shower. So was Xanthe. Good, they’d save water.
I put aside the stack of bills I was paying and reached under the desk blotter for the notepad on which I’d begun a suspect-list. Maybe I should start manufacturing suspect-notepads. I wasn’t sure who I was hiding the pad from anyway. Wayne? Kevin? Myself?
So far, I had a series of columns. It was easy to fill in the column for names, but the rest? motive? All question marks. means? Anyone could have wielded the deer statuette. Opportunity? I couldn’t even remember who had walked in and out of the main building. Did one of them have a better opportunity than another? I wondered if anyone else could remember. I added another column: knew dr. sandstrom before, and checked Felix’s name.
Then I made a note to ask Avis how well she knew the victim. And another note to ask Avis what she thought about opportunity. Maybe she’d kept a closer eye on the Deerly Abused than I had. I was so engrossed in my notes that I never heard Xanthe walk up behind me.
“What’re you working on?” she asked.
I quickly slid the notepad under the blotter again.
Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 6
