“I’m not sure it would hurt your business, Avis,” I told her. “People are weird. They might like visiting a place with a suspected—”
Her widening eyes stopped me from finishing.
“It’s not just business, Kate,” she persisted. For a woman I’d always thought shy and unassuming, she was getting awfully assertive. Or was it aggressive? “I have to know. My nursery has been a refuge. Only the truth will bring peace there again.”
I wanted to tell her she was being melodramatic. But then, that probably came naturally to her, after all her years of acting. So instead I asked her how she thought we could discover the murderer’s identity.
“I don’t know,” she pronounced carefully, an undertone of impatience in her voice now. “That’s why I’ve come to you.”
“Well,” I suggested brightly, “we could talk about the suspects. What do you know about the members of the Deerly Abused?”
“The Deerly Abused?” she asked, squinting my way.
“The Deer-Abused Support Group,” I corrected myself. “You must know its members better than anyone.”
“Well,” she answered slyly, “I thought I knew you and Wayne. But I didn’t know you were married.”
I clenched my jaw.
“A little joke, Kate,” she told me. “Who was that obnoxious man who came for the last half of the meeting?”
“Felix?” I said, as if there had been other obnoxious interlopers roaming the nursery.
She nodded.
“He’s a reporter.”
It was Avis’s turn to clench her jaw.
“But I doubt that he’s doing much reporting on this incident,” I reassured her. “He thinks the police have him tagged for the murder.”
Avis smiled, a genuine and beautiful smile.
“I know I shouldn’t be happy,” she apologized in advance. “But I’m glad to hear they suspect someone besides myself.”
“Tell me about Reed Killian,” I ordered.
Now Avis blushed. No wonder she wore that hat all the time. She needed the camouflage.
“He’s, um, a doctor,” she answered, her hands fluttering in her lap. “A plastic surgeon. But he has a garden too and was very interested in the deer problem. He was the one who came up with the idea for our little group.”
“Did he know Dr. Sandstrom?” I asked, slowing my swinging chair to lean her way. The two doctors might have been connected. Reed could have concocted the idea of the common-interest group to get his victim there. Or Avis could have, I reminded myself.
“I…I don’t know,” she whispered. “I haven’t asked him yet. I didn’t want to seem to pry.”
“Avis,” I told her. “Pry.”
She laughed a little, blushing again.
“How about—”
But before I could ask my next question, C.C. jumped up on my lap without warning. She stared up at me, her little black and white face seeming to strain to tell me something. Was it about Avis? Then C.C. put her nose in the sleeve of my sweatshirt, a game she’d rarely indulged in since her early days as an orphan cat.
“She’s a sweetie,” Avis cooed. “My daughter had a cat like yours growing up.”
“You have a daughter?” I asked.
Avis grimaced.
“Olive,” she said. She didn’t sound happy.
“Olive?”
“Olive, my daughter.” She sighed. “She’s going through a rough time right now. She’s staying with me. She’s…I don’t know—”
“Not harmonious?” I guessed.
“Right.” Avis laughed again. It was good to hear.
“Listen, Avis, if you’re serious about this, do you think you can arrange another meeting of the Deer Group?”
“How about Sunday?” she offered eagerly.
“Done,” I accepted. Somewhere along the line, I’d stopped being afraid of Avis. “All right, back to suspects. Which of them do you know the best?”
“Well, Maxwell comes in fairly often,” Avis answered. “I think he likes talking to an old relic like me.”
I opened my mouth to object to “old relic.” Avis was a vital woman, nowhere old enough to be a relic. But she put up a hand, forestalling my objection.
“Maxwell is very funny,” she told me. “Maybe ‘witty’ is a better word. And kind, I think. Howie Damon comes in a lot too. A nice young man. And Lisa too, she’s doing so well with her therapy. Now, Jean Watkins, she’s great, taking care of her grandchild like that…”
Avis liked everyone, it seemed. The only information she was providing was enough to make her and Felix the best suspects, given the general saintliness of the rest of her customers. She was, however, a little concerned about Dr. Sandstrom’s behavior on the last night of his life.
“He was usually so gentlemanly, but that night…” She clicked her tongue. “I think maybe it had something to do with his wife’s—”
The phone rang, cutting her off.
I was about to let it ring, when I recognized the enthusiastic voice coming from the answering machine’s tinny speaker.
“Hey, Kate, if I may call you that,” he began. “This is Reed Killian. Any chance that Avis might be around? I just wanted to—”
I dislodged C.C. and picked up the phone, exchanged a few stilted words, and handed the receiver over to a blushing Avis. Then I went back to sit in my swinging chair.
I couldn’t help overhearing, honestly. The living room is just too close to the office for a really private conversation. Especially if you hold your breath and keep very, very still.
“Fine,” Avis kept saying. Then, “No, I am not in danger. Don’t be silly.”
A silence.
“Kate is helping me, Reed.”
Another silence.
“I know you are.”
C.C. popped back in my lap and I lost a little then. But I was beginning to get the gist of the conversation. Reed was worried that I was going to hurt Avis, that I was the murderer. Or at least he was pretending to. What better way to look innocent himself? Then an even nastier thought crept into my skull. What if Avis had arranged the phone call to make them both appear innocent? What if—
Avis set the phone back down before my mind could succumb completely to paranoia.
I stroked C.C. absently. And as I stroked her I came to a hole in her fur. An icky, bleeding hole in her fur on her left flank.
“C.C.!” I gasped. So this is what my little cat had been trying to tell me. She was hurt. Hurt.
“Kate?” Avis inquired gently.
“Look,” I said, holding C.C. as tenderly as possible to expose the unfurred patch on her side.
“Oh, dear,” Avis murmured, crouching cautiously next to the swinging chair. “Do you think it’s a cat bite from one of her friends?”
“I don’t know.” I could hear the whine in my voice. It was time for the vet. Help for C.C, and maybe some sedatives for me.
My sweet little orphan cat, hurt, and I hadn’t even noticed!
“Do you need my help, Kate?” Avis asked.
I calmed down, looking more closely. My cat wasn’t dying. She just had a little piece missing. I hoped.
“No,” I assured Avis. “But thanks.”
“I’ll let you go, then,” Avis said briskly, tying her wide-brimmed hat back in place. “I’ve taken too much of your time as it is.”
“Oh, no,” I protested, politeness kicking in even in crisis. I would probably go to a firing squad apologizing. And joking.
“Avis,” I called out as she reached the front door. “Tell Reed I promise not to hurt you.”
Avis blushed once more, grabbed me for a quick hug and left the house giggling, closing the door softly behind her. The woman had class. Maybe she was a relic, a relic of a more courteous age.
But now I wasn’t feeling funny anymore. Except funny as in dizzy. I locked the cat-door first. Then I went in search of the cat carrier.
I’d finally found the wood and wire carrier under a pile of blankets in the b
ack room when the phone rang again. I told myself I wouldn’t answer it under any circumstances. Nothing could be more important—
“Kate,” the answering machine said. “This is your mother.”
I froze. Mothers are psychic. She’d know I was really there if I didn’t pick up. But C.C. sighed as if to say, Get on with it, talk to her.
“Mom?” I answered tentatively.
Silence.
“Mom?” I tried again.
“Is it true what Kevin tells me? Are you married?”
“Well, I…uh…”
“A simple yes or no will do,” she prompted. At least she didn’t add “young lady,” though I’m sure it was implied.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“And you didn’t see fit to invite your mother to the wedding?”
“Well, yes,” I answered again.
“Do you know what this means to me, Katie?” she said.
And then she explained, at length. My ear was sizzling all the way to my toenails when I hung up. I deserved to be boiled in oil. To be dredged in flour and fried. To be popped into the microwave—
The phone rang again. This time it was Felix. I changed my mind. Felix tempura. Felix tacos. Felix steamed with broccoli.
“Felix, you creep,” I said to him.
“Whoa, Kate,” he objected. “Are you friggin’ gonzo or what?”
“Friggin’ gonzo, that’s it, Felix,” I told him. “And you are going to be fried and battered. Actually maybe I’ll batter you before the frying. Actually—”
“You not so whiz-bang, today?” he asked.
“No, and it’s all because of you,” I said, taking one breath before I slammed the phone down. It felt good. But then I remembered C.C. I put the wood-and-wire cat carrier on the dining room table, then gathered C.C. into my arms, waiting for the great battle that was bound to ensue when I tried to fit her into the carrier. But she just closed her eyes and walked with a dignified limp into her cell. Now I really was worried.
The phone rang again.
Not this time, I told myself.
“It’s Barbara,” the machine said. “C.C. can wait a second longer. Pick up.”
So I did.
“Help Felix,” she ordered.
“After what he did to me, that creep—”
“Helping Felix will help yourself,” she assured me.
I hated it when she made these pronouncements. Because she was usually right.
“Felix can be your backup,” she went on. “He can take notes. He can keep you out of Wayne’s way—”
“But—”
“I’ve already talked to him about what he did to you, Kate,” Barbara insisted. “He’s very sorry. He just doesn’t know how to tell you. He really does consider you his friend.”
I was weakening.
“Well…”
“It’ll be okay, kiddo, really. And so will C.C. Her wound isn’t serious.”
“But, how did you—”
I stopped myself.
“Have you called the vet yet?” Barbara asked.
I called the vet. They told me to come down anytime. I looked at C.C. She blinked her eyes. And we were off.
I rushed out the door, cat carrier in hand, and collided with an all too solid body that began to fall backwards. I grabbed her hand to yank her back to an upright position before I even saw her face. It was Jean Watkins, grandmother extraordinaire.
“I have to explain to you about Darcie,” she told me.
- Nine -
My friend Barbara may have been a mind reader. My mother may have been a mind reader. Even Xanthe might have been a mind reader. But I was sure hoping that Jean Watkins wasn’t one.
Because if she was, she might have been ready to slap me by now for my inner rage at people who got in the way of other people trying to take their sweet little wounded cat to the vet’s. Not to mention my inner language. Mom would’ve killed me for that.
I looked at Jean Watkins and decided she was more the type to rap my knuckles with a ruler. It was something about the squareness of her jaw in that serious, round face. And the no-nonsense, short, curly gray hair. I wondered if she’d ever been a teacher. Or a nun. Or both.
“Kate, are you feeling well?” she asked, peering my way. Ah, good, not a mind reader.
“I’m fine,” I answered, lifting my cat carrier to chest level. C.C. peeked out, looking as wan as possible for a cat. “But look at my cat, she’s hurt.”
Jean bent forward to take a look inside the cat carrier. And I got a closer view of her sturdily dressed ample body, and a whiff of apple shampoo. She and Avis might have been close in age, but physically, Jean Watkins was about as different from Avis Eldora as I could imagine. And yet there was something alike in the two women. Was it determination? I wouldn’t have thought of Avis as determined, but she had just talked me into…what?
“Oh, dear, I see the wound,” Jean announced before I could compare her to Avis anymore. “I won’t take much of your time.”
I looked at C.C. through the wire of the cage. None of our time would have been preferable, C.C. and I agreed silently. But Jean Watkins clearly wasn’t a party to our agreement.
She started speaking thoughtfully, slowly, her eyes on mine. She didn’t even ask to come in. And I didn’t offer. Instead, I stood outside on the deck and listened, still holding onto C.C. in the cat carrier as Jean spoke.
“My granddaughter, Darcie, has problems,” she began. “But she isn’t totally irresponsible. Actually, under the circumstances, she’s behaving quite reasonably.”
“What circumstances?” my mouth asked, and C.C. glared at me, slitting her eyes. Asking questions wasn’t going to get us to the vet’s any quicker. I squirmed in place and then reminded myself of Barbara’s prediction that C.C. would be okay.
“Darcie’s mother died when Darcie was a child,” Jean explained. She sighed and her eyes went out of focus for a second. But only a second. “She was a good woman. My son couldn’t have asked for a better wife. She died when Darcie was eight years old.”
My heart clutched. Eight years old? Suddenly, I appreciated my own mother, even her recent lecture. Well, maybe not the lecture—
“My son took his wife’s death very hard. He seemed to forget that he had a child too. And when Darcie went to him for comfort he was cold, even verbally abusive. There are times I’m not proud to be his mother. But I know what’s right and what’s wrong. When my son told me to take Darcie if I was so”—Jean took a deep breath before finishing her sentence—”’goddamned’ worried about her, I did just that. I took her home. And I love her. No matter what’s she’s done.”
This time I kept my mouth shut. No questions to slow us down. But I hoped Jean Watkins’s “what” didn’t include murder.
“Darcie got into a lot of trouble last year. Vandalism. Drinking. Joy-riding. It doesn’t sound like much, but last year she was only twelve.” Jean shook her head. “She’s thirteen now. And since she’s come to live with me, she hasn’t been in any trouble. She’s developing her own set of standards. She’s a good girl. You can even ask Howie—”
“Howie?” I interjected. I needed to bite my tongue. I was pretty sure C.C. would have liked to bite it herself at this point.
“Howie Damon is the administrator of the school Darcie attends now. And he would be the first to tell you that Darcie’s turned around. She would never do anything violent.”
The grandmother doth protest too much, I thought, wondering why she’d brought this information to me. But I didn’t ask. I kept my lips firmly locked and waited for Jean to finish.
“I read the papers,” Jean announced.
Did that mean Felix was writing up Dr. Sandstrom’s murder? I was beginning to feel as wan as C.C. looked.
“I know you’ve been instrumental in solving murders before, Ms. Jasper—”
“Kate,” my mouth corrected her without permission.
“Kate,” she went on, a slight smile recognizing my offer of fami
liarity. “I know you’ll consider what I’ve told you and weigh it fairly.”
Then she stuck out her hand. I shook it awkwardly with my left hand, my right hand still holding the cat carrier and beginning to cramp around its handle. Actually, my right hand was going numb. I switched the carrier to my other hand as soon as Jean let go.
“Well, I know you need to go, so I’ll get out of your way,” she finished and turned to stride down the stairs.
So, maybe she was a mind reader. But what had compelled her to confide in me? C.C. snarled me back to reality and I realized I hadn’t even said goodbye. Of course, Jean Watkins hadn’t actually given me a chance to say goodbye.
I stuck C.C. on the passenger’s seat in my old Toyota, buckling up the carrier. Then I got in on my side, the comforting smell of old car, mold, and dust greeting me.
“So, why did Jean Watkins really come to see me?” I asked C.C, starting up the engine.
C.C. mewled. Maybe she felt like I did when my friend Barbara was at the wheel.
“Does she really think I’m going to investigate?” I asked as I pulled out of the driveway.
C.C. didn’t even answer. She turned her furry rear to me and sulked.
“Do I really think I’m going to investigate?” I persisted, once I was on the main road.
I thought I heard a sigh from the cat carrier.
That was the end of our conversation until we got to the veterinarian’s and pushed the glass door open.
There were two patients ahead of us in the big waiting room. A Maltese in the convenient cat jail that the vet had installed for those who brought their cats in without cat carriers, and another cat that I couldn’t see but could definitely hear in what looked like an ice cooler. The cat in the cooler was howling, much to the embarrassment of its well-dressed daddy.
C.C. howled back as I approached the receptionist and the ululation wars were on.
“Name?” the receptionist shouted.
“C.C,” I shouted back.
“Last name?” she demanded over the escalating howls.
Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 9
