Ivan's solid body jerked back, his eyes widening for a moment.
"Ted," the bookseller answered finally. Then he sighed his trademark sigh. "It was Ted originally. He suggested a mystery/sci-fi crossover signing. And then I invited Yvette and Shayla. Ted must have known Shayla would be invited." He hung his head. "I never even thought about it. The planning stages were so long ago."
"See!" Yvette said, stamping her foot to better make her point. "It takes a real detective for deduction. Phooey, if Vd known Ted was behind the signing—"
"Honey, you're not a real detective either," Lou reminded her gently as Winona and Neil closed ranks physically and emotionally on either side of Ivan and glared Yvette's way.
I
"Yeah, yeah," she said, looking up at her husband, affection softening her sharp features. "You just want to keep me out of trouble. But I am a detective now. I just proved it."
Lou sighed, a beaten man. But a loved one. Yvette stood on tiptoe and kissed his gorgeous chin.
"But the guy in the trench coat and the red VW van was a real detective, wasn't he?" I threw in, turning toward Vince Quadrini. Mr. Quadrini had been awfully quiet all evening. Was he revising his absolutist views on Saint S.X. Greenfree upon consideration of her treatment of Ted Brown and his dying child? Or was he just feeling guilty for siccing his private investigator on us?
Mr. Quadrini reddened under my look, then cleared his throat and drew up his shoulders as if to give a speech.
"I must beg everyone's forgiveness for any intrusion on the part of Mr. McClanaha—"
"Who the hell-heck is Mr. McClanaha?" Yvette demanded.
"Mr. McClanaha is a private detective Mr. Quadrini hired," I answered in triumph. I might not have nailed the murderer, but at least I'd spotted the real detective.
But no one noticed my brilliance in the turmoil that followed.
"The guy in the red van?" Zoe muttered, hitting her head again. "Whoa—"
"Do you mean to tell me that the man who came to me requesting an acupuncture treatment was really an investigator, invading the integrity of my office?" Phyllis demanded, pinning Mr. Quadrini with a scowl.
Mr. Quadrini just nodded. Manfully, hands held behind his back.
"I wondered why he wouldn't take off his trench coat," Phyllis murmured, subsiding into an unfocused frown. "How the man imagined I was going to insert needles while he still had his coat on—"
"Was he the sleazeball that scared me that night?" Winona put in.
Ivan put his hand on her shoulder now, murmuring consolation. Then dawn broke on his own face.
"He parked across the street from Fictional Pleasures," the bookseller said slowly. "He even came in—"
"Good Lord, he parked across from my house too," Dean said in wonderment. "I thought he was just some poor homeless soul."
"But did he figure it out?" Yvette asked loudly, silencing the buzz. She threw her hands in the air. "Shick no. These hard-boiled guys don't have any class. No brains. Ted was angry. He knew how to make jewelry. And ..." She smiled widely. "And he was the first one to reach the authors' table, in the perfect position to leave the bracelet. Deduction. Fud-din' deduction."
"Yvette told Ted he was deep in doo-doo," Felix piped up, returning to sycophancy. "Then Ted went totally gonzo, locked the front door, even locked the dogs in the kitchen."
The bulldog at my feet straightened up, laid back its ears, and growled at Felix. Yeah.
"Why didn't you do something?" I demanded of my so-called friend.
"Holy socks, I'm a reporter," he huffed, his eyes widening with apparent hurt. "I observe objectively. It was a story, man. Get it?"
The bulldog looked up at me as if asking whether to tear the reporter's leg off. Objectively, of course.
"Down, Marple," Lou ordered and the bulldog lay on his—or her—back. Too bad.
"So was he, like, a multiple personality or something?" Winona asked tentatively.
"No," Yvette replied, returning to center stage. "He was just a writer. See, you really have to be your own protagonist to write a good story. Ted just went a little overboard."
A little?
"So why don't you kill people, then?" Winona asked.
"I, I mean my protagonist doesn't kill people," she reminded us. "Lovell is a peaceful leprechaun . . ."
Her mouth was off and running again, this time extolling her protagonist's virtues in loving detail.
"What I don't understand," Ivan whispered beneath the hum of Yvette's voice, "is why he didn't just go back to making jewelry to get the money he needed."
"It was too late," Dean returned his whisper. "His boy needed the liver transplant then. A child's body is less likely to reject a liver transplant than an adult's. But he needed it immediately." Dean paused and shook his head. "The poor man. I believe that's why Scott is beginning to forgive him."
"Vigilantism versus forgiveness," Wayne put in. "Should have seen it in his books. What Ted thought was righteous execution was murder. Forgiveness was beyond him."
"Yeah!" Felix's voice broke in, ecstatic now. "Man, everyone down at the cop shop is smiling. Verduras has got him for Shayla and Marcia. And the San Ricardo P.D. has got him for Steve Sanders—"
"Sanders?" Yvette interrupted.
"Sanders was the potato-brain from the national liver transplant registry. He tried to scam Ted outa a bundle to put his kid higher up on the list for a liver. He didn't really have the power. But Ted thought he did. When Ted couldn't come up with the moolah, he blew him off, told him to go away. So ole Ted put curare-tipped pins between the keys of the potato-brain's word processor. Tap, tap, tap, clunk!" Felix mimed collapsing over a word processor.
"No way," Winona and Neil murmured together.
Felix nodded eagerly, enjoying his moment in the spotlight.
"Yeah, Ted is out there, man. Cops found the space cadet's diary. Tells the whole gonzo story. Ted Brown thinks
he's Demetrius Douvert, right from outer space. That's where he is now anyway. He said 'astral travel,' and they haven't heard another peep from the perp since."
"Shi-shift, dogs or no dogs." Yvette took up her story again. Her story. "I could have handled Ted with my shillelagh. Right between the eyes, you know. Though Kate here did do a pretty impressive kick."
Warmth filled my body. And my mind. She had noticed. I opened my mouth to thank her, graciously. But I wasn't fast enough.
"Not that it was necessary," she amended. "You see—"
The doorbell rang. I looked around, wondering who was left that wasn't already at the party.
Lou opened the door and my question was answered. Captain Cal Xavier, that was who. I flinched in spite of myself. In spite of knowing that Wayne and I weren't under suspicion anymore. Something about the captain's shining teeth still gave me the third degree. Was he here on his brother's behalf?
"Hello there, Mr. Cassell," he said, extending his ever ready hand to shake Lou's. "I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your help in clearing up the unpleasantness—"
"Shick, murder is more than unpleasant," Yvette interrupted him mid-speech.
His smile dimmed for a nanosecond. Then he turned on the high beams. "Especially you, Ms. Cassell," he said. "Quite the hero, or should I say heroine?"
Yvette smiled back, caught off guard. I tried not to gag. Meanwhile, Lou glared.
"Well, I did do pretty damn-darn well," Yvette caroled. "Even if I do say so myself."
After a nauseating tribute to Yvette, the captain made his way around the group to congratulate me on my minor role in Ted's capture.
He winked as he shook my hand. "I hear you practice some pretty mean tai chi, Ms. Jasper," he said, his voice hushed as Yvette continued her analysis of her own astute detective work. "Ms. Cassell ought to be thankful."
Now / smiled. Maybe this man would win his election bid after all.
"How's Bob?" I asked and then wished I hadn't. Because the famous Xavier smile had dimmed again at the mention o
f his brother's name.
"Well, Bob's given up on your friend Ingrid," the captain answered. "Ingrid came and spoke to me just yesterday. She told me she's living with a tango teacher now. I checked him out. The man calls himself Raoul Raymond, but his real name's Ralph Robinson. Turns out he's a very wealthy citizen. He teaches tango for his own entertainment, along with his sister, Ruth."
Ramona, I translated in my mind. That's right, Ramona was Ruth. And I hoped the captain of the Verduras Police Department wasn't going to blame me for the phony Raymonds.
"An interesting man," Captain Xavier went on. "Especially to your friend Ingrid." He winked again. I tried to wink back, not quite sure what we were supposed to be communicating, but hoping it was friendly. "By the way, Ingrid did ask me to tell you she wants her backpack returned if I were to see you."
"Really?" I yipped. Happy endorphins flooded my brain. "That's great. I mean—"
I flinched again.
"Sorry about your brother—" I started over.
"Hey, what sorry?" the captain whispered in my ear. "Don't tell the voters, but I never could stand my little brother. Except battered and fried maybe." This time at least, I knew what he was winking about.
Then he smiled his Xavier smile, and proceeded to shake
my hand in his smooth one, before making the rounds, shaking everyone's hands and saying his goodbyes.
A warm, rough hand grabbed mine not long after Captain Xavier had abandoned it. But it wasn't the captain back for seconds. It was Wayne.
"You heard the man," my sweetie muttered.
"What?" I said, still too dazed from my encounter with the man who I was sure would soon be mayor to understand my sweetie's meaning.
"Ingrid is tangoing with Raoul," Wayne whispered. "She's really gone. Forever."
"And?"
Wayne was trying to tell me something. I could feel it in his urgent grip. I could even taste it on his pastry-sweetened lips pressing my own suddenly.
"We can go home now, Kate," he added after a moment of sugar-coated bliss. "Home."
"Well, shick, a deduction," I said in awe. "What a wonderful fuddin' deduction."
We beat Captain Cal out the door by a step, and ran through the rain to our car.
LEPRECHAUN SAUCE
Ingredients:
il, sage, rosemary and thyme sby sausage or minced, marinated
1
1 ti 4 ouno
tofu 1 15-oz can vegetable broth 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon hot prepared mustard
Leftover vegetables (optional)
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons
cold water
282
£>
Jaqueline Girdner
Directions:
1. Cook onion, garlic, parsley, herbs, soy sausage or tofu in sesame oil and 1/2 cup of vegetable broth until wilted. (5-10 minutes)
2. Stir in Worcestershire, maple syrup, hot mustard, remaining vegetable broth, and leftover vegetables if desired.
3. Thicken with cornstarch.
4. Serve over rice, pasta, or 1 boiled leprechaun.
Yield: 4 servings
(Note: No leprechauns were harmed in the preparation of this recipe.)
flCfWtHMUIS
JAQUELINE GIRDNER is the author of ten Kate Jasper mystery novels: Adjusted to Death, The Last Resort Murder Most Mellow, Fat-Free and Fatal, Tea-Totally Dead, A Stiff Critique, Most Likely to Die, A Cry for Self-Help, Death Hits the Fan, and Murder on the Astral Plane. Jaqueline has been a psychiatric aide, a family law attorney, and an incorrigible entrepreneur during her forty-seven years in California. Her enterprises have included both a pinball refurbishing business and Jest Cards, a greeting card company. Jaqueline lives, works, practices tai chi, and eats her vegetables in Marin County, California, along with her favorite computer peripheral, husband Gregory Booi.
Death hits the fan Page 25
