“Help you with this murder situation, Katie. You need to take a more cosmic approach. Maybe it’s some kinda reincarnation thing. Could be the murderer knew his victim in a past life—”
“Kevin,” I murmured, controlling my voice, “I thank you for wanting to help. Truly, I appreciate your concern. But there’s nothing you can do here.”
“Oh, Katie,” Kevin insisted, “why do you think we were born into the same family? We’ve probably had tons of past lives together. Helping each other, sharing…”
Not to mention arguing, hitting, kicking, fratricide, that kind of thing. I tried to tune him out.
“And you still haven’t decided on the pyramid—”
That I heard. “The decision is no,” I told him. Then I repeated myself, poofing out my lips like a megaphone. “No.”
“It’ll take you a while. I understand,” he answered. “Holistic financial planning is harder for some people. But we’ll be here—”
“What do you mean ‘here’?” I shouted. “Not ‘here’ as in this house—”
Xanthe began a slow, keening noise, her large, mascaraed eyes shrinking to black blobs.
“Stop it,” I told her.
It was then that I felt someone walk up from behind me on the stairs. Or maybe I heard him, not only his footsteps but his breathing. There was something about his gooey inhaling and exhaling that told me he had allergies. Or a broken nose.
I turned slowly and saw a man with a scraggly beard and squinty eyes. His eyes held an expression that I remembered from my days working at a mental hospital.
“Who are you?” I asked, keeping my voice slow and calm.
The man didn’t answer. He just smiled, revealing missing teeth. And he flexed his considerable muscles. Crazy or not, this guy worked out, I realized. And he sweated. And he didn’t bathe a lot. I was a regular Sherlock Holmes of eyes, ears, and nose. But I still didn’t know what it all added up to.
“Are you a solicitor?” I asked. “Because if you are—”
“No, Katie,” Kevin objected. “This is our friend Slammer.
He’s going to provide you with some logistical help in your murder situation.”
“Your name’s Slammer?” I asked the man, just to be sure.
He smiled again. Slammer was missing more than his teeth. Reality was not present in his face. At least, not my version of reality.
“Yeah, Slammer,” Kevin answered for him. “You know, like the governor’s hotel.”
“Prison?” I yelped. I hadn’t meant to yelp, but I was pretty sure no one heard me anyway.
“And he likes to hit people a lot,” Kevin went on happily. “Slammer’s his own name for himself. I think we all should be able to name ourselves for our unique—”
“Kevin—” I muttered menacingly, still not turning my back on Slammer. I was sure he had named himself for his unique qualities, and I didn’t want to find out about them personally.
“We thought you could use some muscle,” Xanthe added helpfully.
Muscle? Muscle head was more like it. But why would they think I needed muscle?
“Is this your idea of a bodyguard?” I asked, realization finally awakening.
“Yeah,” Kevin and Xanthe answered together. They sounded pleased with themselves. Of course I couldn’t see their faces, because I was afraid to turn back and take my eyes off Slammer. They were trying to help me. First Felix, now Kevin and Xanthe. How could I get so lucky? Or maybe they weren’t trying to help me. Maybe this was a trick.
“Xanthe?” I asked softly. “Why are you trying to help me?”
“Because I like you,” she insisted. “I told you that.”
“If you like me, then why do you curse me?” It seemed like an appropriate question.
“Oh, I get mad,” Xanthe answered lightly. “I know I shouldn’t, but hey, better than keeping it all bottled up, right?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d rather she kept it in the bottle.
“Well, I thank you all for coming,” I assured them after a few cleansing, calming breaths. At least, that’s what they were supposed to be. “But I can handle everything just fine on my own from now on.”
There was silence from behind me, silence in front of me. “No” was not going to work here. I was outnumbered. Lie, my body ordered me.
“Oh!” I cried out melodramatically, lifting my wrist to peer at my watch. “I’m late for my appointment!”
I slithered around Slammer as quickly as any tai chi student could. (Running away can be the best of all moves.) Then I flew down the stairs, ran to my car, started it in record time, and backed out of the driveway, popping gravel. Backing out, I momentarily faced the three figures who were left in front of my house. None of them moved. The Wax Museum of nightmares. I jerked the wheel and turned onto the road, still in reverse, then jammed the shift into Drive and sped away, my seat belt buzzer still screaming for my safety.
I was sweating when I finally landed in the parking lot of the health food store. Health was what I needed. Continued physical well-being. It was worth a trip. I locked up and entered the store through gliding glass doors, heading for the tofu section to see what was new. Tofu pepperoni was what was new, and it looked good. I was just grabbing for a log when a voice startled me out of my gourmand fantasy world.
“Just not cricket,” the voice announced.
I jumped and turned. Yep, it was Gilda Fitch standing behind me.
“Tofu pepperoni,” Gilda went on, a smile lighting up her maple-brown face. “A bit much, don’t you think? I mean, is it ground from little tofu piglets or what, eh?”
“What are you doing here?” I blurted.
“A bit of shopping,” Gilda replied. “And you?”
I regrouped. There was no reason Gilda couldn’t be shopping at the same store as I was. And taking her cat to the same vet. Right?
“So how’s…um”—I searched my memory for her cat’s name—”Mordecai?”
“Oh, positively terrific,” she assured me. “And how’s your little puss?”
“My? Oh, you mean C.C. Well, we adopted her,” I finished lamely.
Gilda laughed. “Jolly good,” she congratulated me. “Adopted your puss, eh? Rather a piece of luck for her, hah-hah.”
“The vet told me to,” I answered defensively. I didn’t know if Gilda thought I was kidding. Actually, I didn’t know if Gilda was the one kidding. I didn’t even know if Gilda was a murderer. In fact, I didn’t know if Gilda was stalking me.
“The puss had her tail in a twist?” Gilda asked.
“No, she bit a piece out of her side,” I explained.
“Ow,” Gilda commented, stepping back from me. “Ornery little blighter, eh?”
I opened my mouth to defend my cat, then closed it again. C.C. was an ornery little blighter, adopted or not.
“So, any progress with the grand deduction?” Gilda asked, her face coming a little closer to mine than it had been before.
I shook my head. I was getting cold. I figured it was the refrigeration in the soy section. I lay the tofu pepperoni back down alongside the other logs.
“Positively terrifying thing, this murder,” Gilda declared, twiddling a curl in her topknot. “And your chum Avis called to set up another confab for Sunday. Think it’s safe to go, what?”
“Oh, sure,” I answered Gilda, remembering that the meeting had been my idea. But what if it wasn’t safe? What if it would just give the murderer another chance to do harm? Damn. I hadn’t even thought of that possibility. “As safe as driving,” I amended.
Gilda laughed merrily.
“Got me there, old bean!” she whooped. “Driving, indeed. Got your statistics handy? Deadly machines, those horseless carriages. Hah-hah. Well, must run. Cheerio.”
And Gilda strode away with the posture of a dancer and the leg muscles too. Maybe that’s what carrying letters did for you.
What Gilda did for me was to give me the willies. I was sweatier now than I had been wh
en I’d entered the store, and cold on top of it. What if she’d brained me with a tofu pepperoni?
I had a feeling Gilda and I would be instant friends if it weren’t for a little murder and her constant vaudevillian appearances. But there was that murder. I shook my head. I’d figure out who she really was later. There was tofu to peruse.
Maybe you can’t buy over forty versions of tofu anywhere else. But you can in Marin County. I left with teriyaki tofu balls, Mexican tofu patties, and yes, the tofu pepperoni. Soy paradise.
And even better, when I arrived home, no one was on my front deck. This time I checked before I got out of my car.
I walked in the front door, calling out for C.C., who serenaded me as she came sliding around the hall corner like an ice skater.
I told her I loved her. She smirked. I asked her if she’d like some tofu. The smirk disappeared, and she left in a huff. And there are those who don’t believe cats are psychic.
The phone rang before I’d made room in the refrigerator for my soy groceries, or chased down C.C. to apologize.
I slammed the refrigerator door shut and ran to pick up when I heard the voice on my answering machine. “This is your mother,” it informed me.
“Mom?” I whispered into the receiver.
“Do you have another mother?” she asked, sadness marking each word.
“No,” I answered dutifully.
And then I heard a sniffle. Uh-oh.
“Mom?” I asked again, my pulse gyrating in my ears.
“Oh, honey,” she breathed. “It’s all my fault.”
“Um, what’s all your fault?”
“You’re afraid of weddings!” she sobbed.
C.C. heard my mother and sobbed along with her. I would have sobbed too, but I had to be calm. Someone did.
“Mom, I’m not afraid—”
“It’s all because of me. Remember Aunt Rita’s wedding? Oh, of course you don’t. I was still pregnant with you. But they say that babies in the womb are ultrasensitive. And you know how that wedding was.”
“Actually, I wasn’t there,” I reminded her.
“Oh, but you were!” she cried. “There in my belly. The whole thing was a fiasco. The cake fell. The mother and stepmother were arguing. Everyone hated each other.” She lowered her voice. “Rita divorced him within a year.”
“But that wasn’t your fault,” I assured her.
“But I should have never gone while I was pregnant. You picked it all up. All the negativity. All the arguing. No wonder you and Craig didn’t last. Womb trauma. And now you’re afraid—”
“Oh, Mom. It’s not your fault. Really.”
“Then what is it, baby?”
She had me there. But I attempted an explanation. A reasonable, nonhurtful explanation.
“Mom, I had one fancy wedding with Craig,” I tried. “I wanted it to be different with Wayne.”
“Because of me!” she wailed.
It was a long time before I got off the phone. I think my mother felt better for the conversation. I hoped so. Because I certainly didn’t.
And then I ran the messages off my answering machine. My mother wasn’t the only one upset about my wedding. I counted nine friends and six relatives, three I hadn’t spoken to since I was a child. They all wanted to know why they hadn’t been invited. But how had they all found out?
Whatever the reason, it was time to start making phone calls. I prepared a script.
“Hi,” I greeted every indignant/hurt/inconsolable nonattendee. “I just called to tell you that Wayne and I were married last week. I wanted you to be the first to know.” Lying was becoming more and more easy for me. A career in law was clearly next. Or maybe acting.
I was just staring to call number eleven when the doorbell rang.
I told myself that as long as Kevin and Xanthe weren’t at my door, I could use a break from phone calls and groveling. A break? I must have been completely rattled to have even thought it.
Because when I opened my front door, I looked into the dark, brooding eyes of Lieutenant Perez of the Abierto Police Department.
“Ms. Jasper,” he murmured, his tone deep, and…was it suggestive? Only to me, I decided. This guy was too good-looking to be a policeman.
“Lieutenant,” I returned his greeting briskly.
Then we stood for a few moments.
“I guess you’d like to come in?” I finally said.
He nodded.
I sighed and pointed the way to the living room, where he took a seat on the wood-and-denim couch and I flopped into one of the hanging chairs.
“Well?” I said finally.
“Have you learned anything?” he replied.
I took a long breath. Conversing with this guy was like swimming in a small hot tub. Nearly impossible and uncomfortable to boot.
“Look, Lieutenant,” I began, determined to crash the verbal logjam. “I just got a call from my mother telling me I had womb trauma at a wedding before I was born. I also had fifteen other calls from people who are having hissy fits because they weren’t informed that I’d married Wayne. My cat bit a hole in herself. We had to adopt her. And my brother and his crazy girlfriend are visiting and want me to buy into their pyramid pyramid scheme. If I have learned anything, I don’t know what it is, except that I need a vacation.”
“I meant, have you learned anything about the murder, Ms. Jasper,” the lieutenant corrected me mildly.
I wondered if he ever really smiled. Then I got real.
“I’ve talked to all the people who were there the night Dr. Sandstrom was killed,” I told Perez. “And nobody said anything about themselves or anyone else that made me think that anyone was a murderer.”
“Have you really thought it through?” Perez asked.
“Of course—” I began. But then I answered truthfully. “No, I guess I haven’t really thought it through.”
“Ms. Jasper, you may have noticed that Captain Thorton is slightly disturbed…” Perez said.
I nodded and tried to stop my mind from going through the list of euphemisms: light’s on, nobody’s home; elevator doesn’t go to the top floor; one sandwich short a picnic…But they just kept spinning out while I remained silent.
“The captain’s been through a lot,” Perez finally went on. “He needs a break. And he doesn’t need a lot of outside attention.”
I nodded again.
“I have to solve this thing, and I don’t know how,” Perez admitted. “Please help me.”
Help him? I’d marry him. Wait, I was already married. Okay, I’d help him.
“Will you try, Ms. Jasper?” he asked.
“Of course,” I murmured.
“Thank you,” he said simply and rose from the couch, leaving my house without a backward glance.
I sat in my hanging chair. Had I been manipulated? If I had, I was still pretty sure that Lieutenant Perez was telling the truth. And I’d promised to try to find a killer. How was I going to do that?
The phone rang before I had a chance to torture myself with any more unanswerable questions.
This time I didn’t even wait for the message. I just picked it up.
Jean Watkins was on the other end of the line. She wanted me to come to her house to talk to Darcie. She said Darcie was afraid.
I never quite understood what it was that Darcie was afraid of, but I did hear a real urgency in Jean’s voice. Would visiting grandmother and grandchild help me help Lieutenant Perez? Or would it get me killed? I left a long note for Wayne, detailing my time of departure and my destination. Hopefully, I’d be back before he got home and could rip it up then. Otherwise, it was my insurance policy. I thought of calling Felix and inviting him along. But there are, after all, some things worse than possible death.
I was walking down my front stairs, heading for Jean Watkins’s house, when I noticed that my “deer-proof daffodils were not where they were supposed to be. They were supposed to be rooted in the ground, their bright yellow blossoms facing the sun. In
stead, they’d been ripped out, bulbs and all, and lay limply expiring on top of the earth.
I ran to them, remembering how long it had taken me to plant those bulbs, my face heating up with the memory of the exertion. And with new rage. Deer!
But then I bent to look closer. A deer would have at least nibbled at the daffodils, not just uprooted them and flung them aside. Was this destruction caused by a human hand? A deer or Deer Count?
And then, suddenly, the heat left my face. Left it cold. What if the murderer had torn up the bulbs to scare me off?
- Thirteen -
Deer, human, murderer. I told myself it didn’t really matter. What mattered was breathing life into my expiring daffodils. I felt like a paramedic as I got down on my knees to inspect them. Their roots were torn, but their lives still might be saved. I ran to the tool shed for a spade. Then I knelt down once more to dig even deeper holes for the ailing bulbs as the sun warmed my shoulders and the hard ground bit into my knees. It wasn’t easy. It’d been hard enough to dig the six-inch holes in the first place. But in less than half an hour I had all the daffodils lined up again. I sprinkled them with water, took a moment to inhale the twin scents of dirt and vegetation, and to listen to the buzzing of the neighborhood, and then mouthed a request to the goddess of bulbs that my daffodils live and prosper. Finally, I looked at my watch and remembered that I’d been on my way to Jean Watkins’s house.
I walked to my car with one look back at the daffodils, wondering if telling them they were adopted might help. Or promising vengeance when I found their despoiler. A little too attached to the garden, my inner Zen master chided. I laughed. Which was crazier, listening to an inner Zen master or talking to bulbs? Of course, neither would be cause for alarm in Marin County. C.C. came outdoors just as I reached my car. I told her goodbye and asked her to guard the daffodils. Why not?
Still, I refrained from communicating with my Toyota when I put the key in its ignition. Usually I gave the two-decades-old car a pep talk, but as far as nonhumans were concerned, I was all talked out. So I just drove, first to Highway One and then north in the direction of Stinson Beach, feeling the imprint of the spade in my palm each time I turned the wheel to negotiate the curves in the road.
Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 13
