Death hits the fan

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  But if any of this noninformation bothered Captain Cal Xavier any, it didn't dim his radiance. He was still smiling broadly a couple of hours later when he politely asked each of us to give our full names and addresses to Officer Gilstrap, then left the bookstore after a warm handshake for every one of us. As he shook my hand, I couldn't help but notice his resemblance to Ingrid's troublesome ex, Bob, again. And to see the curiosity in those dark Xavier eyes.

  Officer Gilstrap took our names, addresses, and phone numbers one by one, with Officer Dupree by her side checking our drivers' licenses, shaking his stubby finger and warning each of us not to leave town.

  Only Ivan, Marcia, Neil, and Winona Eads remained as fellow survivors of the signing when Wayne and I were finally given permission to leave.

  "Help me figure this out," Ivan whispered as we were almost to the door. "Help me find out what happened, who killed her."

  "But maybe it was just a heart attack," I protested weakly, praying as earnestly as an agnostic can that it was just a

  heart attack. Or anything natural. "Everything will be all right—"

  But then I really looked into Ivan's eyes. There was desperation there. "All right" wasn't going to be enough. Wayne stood behind me, wisely silent.

  "I know I shouldn't ask," Ivan sighed finally. "I understand."

  Wayne gave his friend a hug and then pulled the door of the Fictional Pleasures Bookstore open to the elements.

  "I understand," PMP repeated and gave us a wolf-whistle as we ran out into the nonfictional pleasures of the rainy night.

  And it was a pleasure to feel the cold rain again. I stood for a moment by the Toyota, leaning my head back, feeling the wet splatter of freedom on my face. And then we climbed into my old car for the ride home.

  Wayne didn't say anything as I drove.

  "But I didn 't know her!" I burst out when we were almost home.

  "Of course," Wayne answered quietly, but a quick glance was enough for me to see the worry in his homely face. "I know that, Kate."

  "But will they?" I asked.

  Neither of us had answered my question by the time I pulled into our driveway, splashing and popping wet gravel. I was suddenly grateful to be home. I lowered my head into my hands for a moment just to feel that gratefulness. Home to safety. To warmth. To peace.

  Wayne put his arm around my shoulders as I pulled my keys from the ignition. And a woman with a perfect, compact body came hurtling down the front stairs in our direction, blond hair streaming out behind her.

  "Skunks!" she screamed.

  cf °U&

  It was Ingrid, of course. Home: safety, warmth, peace. And Ingrid. How could I have forgotten Ingrid? Not to mention the skunks.

  She'd reached the Toyota by now, her long, frosted blond hair and bangs flattening in the rain, her lace bodysuit and leggings plastered to her perfectly formed body. I snatched a glance at Wayne, wondering how the sight of the baby-faced diva of aerobics wet to the near-nude had affected his hormones.

  But Wayne's brows had lowered in a glare that made his eyes invisible. I didn't have to see his eyes, though, to guess that the sight of Ingrid, no matter how well-formed, stirred more feelings of frustration than lust in his heart. Luckily for me. Especially since Ingrid had confided that her primary goal in life was to snag a "really super-rich guy," one who wouldn't insist on a prenuptial agreement like her former boyfriend, attorney Bob Xavier, had tried to do. And Wayne was super rich, all appearances to the contrary. He didn't

  flaunt the inheritance that he had come into when his former employer had been murdered. The only sign of his affluence was the aging Jaguar he still drove. And I'd come to fealize that he drove that car as a kind of penance for his self-perceived failure to protect his former boss. The same way he drove himself to keep his former employer's restaurant-cum-art gallery empire alive and well.

  "Ooh, Kate, this icky smell came up through the heater vent!" Ingrid announced loudly enough to hear through the rain and windshield. She curled her upper rosebud lip in revulsion. "It was really gross."

  Apollo, her terrier, yipped in agreement from her side. The rain had plastered his fur to his little body too. But Apollo looked more like a drowned rat than a god in the rain. No wonder my cat, C.C., had intimidated Ingrid's dog so quickly. Apollo was probably smaller than C.C. under all that wiry fur.

  Wayne removed his arm from my shoulders with a low groan. I felt like doing more than groaning, but Ingrid seemed as much a force of nature as the rain by now, so I stifled my inner screams and got out of the car. Slowly, taking a big wet breath, willing myself to ask her to leave.

  "It smells really, really bad, Kate," she went on before I could speak, batting her wet eyelashes at me. At me! "So, can you fix it?"

  I shrugged my tense shoulders. Ingrid claimed to be looking for an apartment. But she hadn't found one. Could I throw this orphan out into the cold rain? Easily. With my own two hands. But would I? Should I?

  "First Bob, and then the skunks," she moaned. "I mean, why me? I'm almost thirty, you know. All I want. .."

  I didn't have to hear the rest. I knew, I knew. Super rich. Happy trophy wife. Really cool house. Etc. I still hadn't decided if Ingrid's latter-day Jayne Mansfield, blond bimbo persona was an act. She had a degree in mathematics. I'd

  seen the framed proof with my own eyes when she'd unpacked upon arrival at our house. Maybe the degree would help her with finances if she snagged that super-rich guy after all. And she did work for a living, teaching aerobics. At least she was honest about her primary goal in life. I hadn't needed any more convincing after the day I'd overheard her on the phone with a friend saying, "... oh yeah, feminism, my mom was into that..."

  The skunk smell got stronger as we walked up the front steps. And Ingrid's stream of words grew too, beating on my head as incessantly as the rain, but not nearly so pleasantly.

  ". . . the living room isn't all that comfortable, you know ..."

  "Maybe some of your other friends might have more, um, comfortable accommodations," Wayne put in hopefully. Quietly. Turning his head aside as he spoke.

  But turned head notwithstanding, he couldn't miss the wide-eyed, little-girl-lost look with which she answered his suggestion. Nor could I. By the time we got to the open front door, I knew I wouldn't ask her to leave. Not tonight anyway.

  Our guest futon was spread out in the center of the living room floor, made up with our best sheets, the handmade wood-and-denim couch pushed to the back wall beside the pinball machines, pushed against the overflowing bookshelves and houseplants that were there first. Before Ingrid. B.I. And yes, it smelled like skunk.

  Wayne and I flopped down in one of the swinging chairs suspended from the wood-beamed ceiling to listen to Ingrid in the skunk-scented room. At least we could bask in the warmth of our own house as our houseguest described the incredible shock of skunk on her uniquely sensitive nostrils. After a few more minutes of description, though, we agreed to do a flashlight search to see how the skunks had gotten back under the house. Not that either of us knew what to do

  if we found their new entryway. Block it up in hopes they were now outside? But if they weren't, we'd just be blocking them in. Still, the search got us out of the living room and Ingrid's presence. And back into the cold and wet night air.

  So each of us held a flashlight and made our way around the house, shivering, then startled each other when our respective beams met near the back porch. Neither of us had spotted the skunks' secret staircase, though.

  "So?" I said, looking up at Wayne in the rain.

  "You okay?" he said back.

  And then we were holding each other, neither of us okay, but better in each other's water-logged arms. I wondered if this was how Cathy had really died in Wuthering Heights. Catching pneumonia while mooning around in the rain.

  "Oh, sweetie," I began and then we heard banging sounds from the front of the house. Skunks?

  "... damn well do what I say!" came crashing around the house.<
br />
  No, not skunks.

  ". . . told you what I wanted," a higher voice replied. Ingrid's.

  Well, maybe big skunks. Great big human skunks.

  ". . . got friends this time, and . . ."

  The voice had to belong to Bob Xavier.

  Wayne and I rushed around the house, back to our own front yard. The voice did indeed belong to Bob Xavier. He stood at the bottom of the stairs. And this time he had backup. In one hand he held the leash of a German shepherd. A German shepherd who was looking oddly bored by all the excitement, while Apollo yipped from behind Ingrid's well-muscled calves. But Bob had more than a yipping terrier behind him. Actually, he had two hulking men. Bob was a nice-looking man when he wasn't in a rage, with well-trimmed hair, beard and mustache, and those dark Xavier

  eyes. A civilized-looking man. The same couldn't be said for his companions, though. One of the hulks had long, greasy strawberry-blond hair and an eye that looked either extremely swollen or sewn together. The other guy had both of his eyes, but was missing a few teeth. And a few points of IQ, judging by the goofy grin on his face.

  "Whaddaya gonna do?" Ingrid challenged from the open doorway. "Kidnap me? That's a federal offense, you know."

  The goofy grin faded from the face of the guy with the missing teeth. Maybe Ingrid had a degree in law too.

  "Hey, I'm talking here!" Bob replied. "All right? All I'm saying is that you can stop messing with me this way. You're driving me nuts!"

  He wasn't the only one. Actually, kidnapping Ingrid didn't seem like such a bad idea—

  "Excuse me," Wayne growled from my side. "It's time for you to leave now."

  Bob Xavier whirled around, rage evident in his dark eyes. "You!" he shouted, pointing. "What right have you got—"

  "Kate," Wayne cut in quietly. "Call the police."

  I almost protested. Was I supposed to call the police because I was female, while Wayne stood off the three men because he was male? But this was no time for a divided front. I started up the stairs cautiously, ready to turn and help if Wayne needed me. He didn't.

  "Listen, man," Bob put in, quieter now. "I'm just trying to talk to Ingrid, okay? That's all—"

  "Please leave now," was all that Wayne said. Softly and firmly.

  I'd just reached the top stair when Bob sighed, "Okay, man, we're outa here. For now, anyway."

  I turned and watched as the three men and the bored German shepherd piled into Bob's vintage Mercedes and roared back down the street. Of course, I realized. That's why Wayne had told me to call the police. Bob Xavier might risk

  his right to practice law if he were arrested. Not to mention prosecuted. I told my body it could stop producing adrenaline. Not that it listened.

  Because the drama was not quite over yet. Now Ingrid was crying.

  "I don't know," she sobbed. "I just don't know. Maybe I should leave. All the trouble I'm causing you guys . .."

  Wayne and I held our respective breaths, hopefully.

  ". . . but that would just be giving in," Ingrid finished up.

  Our breaths whooshed back out, along with our hopes. We walked into our skunky house, saying goodnight quickly to Ingrid. It was late. Very, very late.

  After a long hot shower had warmed our chilled bones, we lay side by side in bed, flat on our backs, staring out the twin skylights into the storm.

  "Was it murder?" I whispered to Wayne finally.

  "Well," he whispered back. "Since you were there—"

  "Wayne!" I yelped. I couldn't believe he'd said it.

  "Sorry," he offered a few minutes later, in a voice so sincerely miserable that I rolled over to hold him again. And stealthily, under cover of the pounding rain on the skylights above our bed, and the scent of skunk from the heater vent, we loved away each other's misery.

  H*he rain had let up by the next morning when we finally got up late, neither of us having thought to set the alarm the night before. The sun was shining on our soggy, skunky house. Unfortunately, Ingrid was still there. I would have preferred the rain. Especially since Wayne and I had concluded in frantic, pre-breakfast whispers that Bob Xavier had to be related to Captain Cal Xavier.

  The three of us sat at the kitchen table, eating Whol-ios and soy milk at ten o'clock. No sugar. No honey. No fruit. Wayne had offered to make his melt-in-your-mouth, dairy-free crepes for breakfast, but I'd resisted. If nothing else, I

  was hoping a steady diet of soy products might drive Ingrid away. But soy just seemed to fuel Ingrid's energy.

  "I don't understand this vegetarian thing, Kate," she was saying. "And anyway, just 'cause you're a vegetarian shouldn't mean poor Wayne has to suffer ..."

  She offered him a sympathetic glance. He declined it and took another bite of Whol-ios, swallowing with solidarity. And difficulty.

  "... Teaching aerobics is really hard work—"

  The phone rang. Wayne and I both jumped up from the table, but I was faster. I'd picked up the receiver before he'd even made it from the kitchen through the doorway to my dining room/office.

  "Kate, this is Ivan Nakagawa," the soft-spoken voice on the other end said. I took a deep breath. I was betting he didn't have good news. "The police have visited us again. I'm fairly certain they believe Shayla's death was, well..."

  "Murder," I supplied much less gently than I could have.

  "Murder?" Ingrid echoed from the kitchen table.

  Damn. I should have kept my voice down. I plopped into my old Naugahyde comfy chair. And my cat, C.C., hopped into my lap, clawing my thighs ecstatically. Her favorite position. Luckily, my Chi-Pants were tough.

  "Captain Xavier came by this morning, just as I was opening the store," Ivan went on.

  My body tensed as Ivan emitted a long sigh, PMP screeching something about apocalypse in the background. C.C. yowled, turning her little black-and-white face up to mine resentfully. I willed myself to relax, to be a more comfortable scratching post.

  "The captain asked a lot of questions," Ivan went on.

  "About us?" I whispered.

  "About you, about Wayne, about everyone ..."

  "Is that Ivan?" Wayne asked from behind me.

  I jumped in my chair. C.C. gave my thighs one last swipe and leapt off in disgust.

  "Let me talk to him," Wayne demanded, his voice a hoarse growl.

  "Captain Xavier was friendly," Ivan went on. "But I. .."

  "In a second," I hissed, hand over the receiver, motioning Wayne away.

  And then the doorbell rang. Ingrid got up from the kitchen table. I wasn't about to let her answer the bell. I shoved the telephone receiver into Wayne's hand and sprinted toward the door. Wayne was right. He ought to be the one to talk to Ivan. The bookseller was his friend, after all.

  I was puffing a little, but I did beat Ingrid to the front door. So much for aerobics, I thought triumphantly, and yanked the door open, expecting a FedEx delivery.

  The package on my doorstep was small, but it wasn't FedEx. It was Yvette Cassell.

  The deerstalker cap she wore today obscured most of her narrow little face. But her height, or lack of height, gave her away. And if stature wasn't enough of a clue to her identity, there was always Lou Cassell standing behind her, an embarrassed smile on his sexy brown face.

  "Just call me Watson," he muttered and looked skyward.

  "Okay, Watson," Yvette agreed, loud and clear, taking a step inside.

  "May Holmes and I come in?" Lou asked belatedly. "Yvette has some theories she wants to share about the—"

  But Lou didn't finish his sentence, as he looked behind me. I turned. Ingrid, of course. Ingrid with an open-mouthed look of curiosity on her baby face. My own mouth went dry. My mind did equations. If Ingrid equaled Bob Xavier, and Bob Xavier equaled Captain Cal Xavier, would anything we said get back to the Verduras Police Department? Everything? Suddenly, Ingrid was looking less like the houseguest I was planning to evict than a potential blackmailer.

  "Incident," I finished for Lou.

  "Pee-
yew," Yvette put in, stepping past us as if I'd asked her to. "It smells like shi—"

  "Skunk," I finished for her.

  "Oh, skunk," she said, removing the deerstalker to reveal mashed curly hair, and her all-too-inquisitive eyes behind her tinted glasses. "Have you tried ammonia?"

  "Huh?" I answered.

  "Then, there's always bright lights. The little mothers hate bright lights . . ." Yvette went on, stepping into the living room. She was in one of the swinging chairs, still giving me skunk advice before I could open my mouth again.

  Lou threw his arms into the air, but I saw amusement and fondness in his face. Was it possible that he liked his intolerable wife? Even loved her? I sighed and motioned him in.

  Lou sat next to Yvette in the swinging chair, then reached over to squeeze her tiny hand. He did like her! She turned to smile at him even as the words continued to pour out of her mouth. And she liked him back. I shook my head involuntarily. Amazing.

  Ingrid sat in the other swinging chair, across from the happy couple, leaving me to sit on the floor since our only couch was still pushed up against the other wall.

  ". . . but probably you're best off calling the fuddin' skunk broker," Yvette finally finished.

  "We already called the fu . . . the skunk man," I muttered. And needed to call him again, once we finished with our human pest problems. Like Yvette. And Ingrid.

  C.C. jumped up into Lou's lap.

  "Cute kitty," Lou purred, bending his own feline face over her.

  C.C. was cute, if annoying, with those white splotches against her black fur, one shaped like a goatee on her chin and one like a beret rakishly balanced over her left ear. She