The Last Resort (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  During the first segment of the video—how-to graphics for putting together the insulated solar-box cooker—I tried to make some sense of Suzanne’s death. I considered means, motives and opportunities all the way through construction to solar recipes. By the time we got to the ecological benefits to be derived if all good citizens cooked with sunshine only, my thoughts had drifted to Wayne. I let them drift.

  Craig was silent as he walked me back from the theatre. I was glad for his company, voiceless as it was. The night air was cool and the spa was quiet. Too quiet. The white nylon ropes surrounding the old deserted buildings gleamed in the moonlight. Ghosts guarding ghosts. I could barely see the path. I sensed my way by the feel of the packed earth under my feet as we walked to Rose Court.

  Craig broke his silence at my door.

  “Kate, I’ve thought about us a long time now,” he said slowly, his brown eyes serious. “We could make it work if we gave it another try.”

  I was too stunned to respond, blind-sided by his proposal. He tried on a grin before continuing. “I could stop being such a bozo. How would that be?”

  “Don’t do this to me,” I said. I could hear my own voice rise in pitch as I panicked. I lowered it. “Or to yourself. I’m with Wayne now. You and I are friends. That’s what works.”

  “We’re still husband and wife,” he said wistfully.

  “Not anymore,” I answered. “The divorce was final two days ago.”

  His eyes widened for a moment and then he slumped down into himself. “I didn’t know,” he mumbled.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, turning away from him. I didn’t want to see his face filled with hurt. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I wanted to hide in my room.

  “Kate,” he said. I turned back to him. An effort at a smile was stretched painfully over his face. “Don’t worry. I was just kidding around. You know me, always joking.”

  He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “I’ll settle for friendship,” he said. Then he was gone, in a clatter of footsteps down the stairs.

  I took a big breath and opened the door to my room.

  EIGHT

  A BLAST OF psychedelic paisley greeted my eyes when I opened the door. But all else was quiet. At least until I went to bed. Then my mind assaulted me.

  I stared at the white stucco ceiling, seeing things projected there that I wished would go away. Paul Beaumont’s hatred as he leapt at me. The cross on Avery Haskell’s hairy chest. Don Logan’s crippled legs. My imagination’s view of Suzanne’s crumpled body. Fran’s knife, efficiently slicing vegetables. Bradley’s crazy eyes. And Craig’s mobile face in attitudes of hurt, shock and anger.

  I pulled my tense body out of bed, grabbed an orange leatherette chair and shoved it against the door.

  Hours later, I woke up in the heart of a nightmare, sweating, my pulse pounding. A bodiless fanged face, distorted beyond recognition by hatred, had forced me to the edge of a cliff. Its shouts were hoarse and garbled with rage. And I couldn’t breathe. My long blond hair was strangling me.

  I threw off the tangled covers that were bunched up around my neck and convulsively reached to run my hands through my own short dark curls. Their damp, springy touch reassured me. I jumped from the bed into the shock of cold air.

  The orange-trimmed chair was still there against the door. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Apparently no one had entered my room during the night. But the chair had failed to protect me from my own fears. I shivered in the cold, then began to move.

  I have a rule. When assailed by overwhelming anxiety, make a list. As an abstemious obsessive-compulsive, list-making is my equivalent of a double scotch. I pulled the chair away from guard duty at the door and pushed it up to the small desk against the wall. Spa Santé writing paper sat on the desk, compliments of the Beaumonts. I pulled out a buff sheet and quickly began making rows and columns.

  I labeled the columns SUSPECT, MOTIVE, MEANS and OPPORTUNITY. Then I began filling in the names of the suspects: Bradley Beaumont, Fran Beaumont, Paul—

  The shriek of the telephone in the silent room startled my hand into spasms of illegibility. I sprang out of my chair and ran to the bedside stand to grab the receiver on the second shrill ring. Please be Wayne, I implored it.

  No such luck. The voice on the phone was Fran’s. “Excuse me for disturbing you, Ms. Jasper,” she twittered anxiously. “But Chief Orlandi would like to speak to you.”

  “No problem,” I assured her nonchalantly. “Put him on.”

  There was a silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Fran?” I probed.

  “Oh. Sorry, Kate. He wants to really talk to you. In person, I mean. To…to interview you.” I had a sinking feeling she had been seeking a euphemism for “interrogate.” Damn. What did he want from me?

  “Where is he?” I asked gloomily. “Down at the police station?”

  “No, no.” Fran giggled. Did she think I was joking? “He’s in my office. There’s a door off the lobby on your left, before you get to the dining hall. He’ll interview you there. I mean, if that’s okay?” she added hastily.

  “Fine,” I said. I kept my voice friendly. Poor Fran. Not only was she doing most of the work at Spa Santé, now she was making phone calls for the police. “Is fifteen minutes all right?” I asked.

  “Perfect,” she said, obviously relieved. “Thank you.”

  It took me four minutes to shower and dress, two minutes to call in at Jest Gifts, two more minutes to write out a list of questions for the Chief, and six minutes to jog to the main building. I climbed the stairs and came to a stop in the lobby a full minute early. Not bad, I congratulated myself.

  A uniformed policeman emerged into the lobby from a door near the registration desk. He was tall and stringy, with an oddly protuberant belly that could have been a recklessly swallowed cantaloupe.

  “Mrs. Jasper?” he inquired. I jerked my eyes up from his belly guiltily and nodded.

  “The Chief’s in here,” he said, opening the door and pointing inside with a hitchhiker’s thumb. I forced my features into the smile of a conscientious citizen and entered the room.

  The room was no bigger than a large hot tub. There were some tall ferns in two corners, but most of the floor space was taken up by a battered grey office desk, behind which Chief Orlandi sat. A photo blowup of Fran, Bradley and a younger and happier Paul Beaumont peered over Orlandi’s head. An open box of doughnuts, some styrofoam cups and a thermos of coffee sat in a clearing on the desk, surrounded by stacks of paperwork. It reminded me of my own desk at home. Except for the doughnuts and coffee.

  “Pull up a chair,” Chief Orlandi said with a grin. “Thought we could have a little talk.” The grin transformed his face from Santa Claus’s into a crocodile’s. I wondered if he thought his grin was reassuring. Or was it a conscious effort at intimidation?

  I sat down as ordered, my own smile wavering. The man in the uniform sat down next to me and pulled out a notebook and pen.

  “Officer Dempster, here, is going to take a few notes,” Orlandi said genially. “If you don’t mind.” I shook my head vigorously. Not me. I wouldn’t mind. I’m a good citizen.

  “Like a doughnut?” he asked, his eyes clamping onto mine.

  “No,” I squeaked. Damn. Needed to get my voice back down to a normal register.

  “Coffee?” His eyes remained on mine.

  “No thanks,” I replied in the deepest voice I could muster. I toyed with the idea of asking him how Fran felt about coffee and doughnuts defiling her health spa, but came back to sanity before actually articulating the question.

  “So, Mrs. Jasper,” he said, settling his bulk back into his chair, but never releasing my eyes. “What do you think of all the excitement here?”

  The best defense is an offense. I looked at my notes and went to my first question.

  “Was Suzanne sexually assaulted?” I asked.

  His grin disappeared as he sat up in his chair.

  “Not that we know of,�
� he answered, his voice not quite so genial. “Why the question?”

  “I…” I what? I didn’t want to tell him about Paul Beaumont. Especially if Suzanne hadn’t been assaulted sexually. “I just wondered,” I finished lamely.

  “Well, I ‘just wonder’ about a few things too,” he drawled. He jutted his head forward. “Like why you’re down here, Mrs. Jasper.”

  “To give Craig some support,” I said. It was a conscious effort to keep my voice steady. “Craig is no longer my husband. He’s my friend.”

  Orlandi stared at me, saying nothing. I went on.

  “Our marriage was an on-again, off-again affair for a long time. We lived apart more often than we lived together in the last five years. And once we both had other…other loves in our lives, we became friends again.”

  He still look unconvinced.

  “Listen, we do each other favors all the time! He took care of my cat when Wayne and I went on vacation. I helped find his mother in-home care so she wouldn’t have to go to a nursing home. He found a computer job for my niece. And took me to the doctor when I was too sick to drive. He even gave me a fax machine for my birthday….”

  Abruptly, I realized I was babbling. Whatever technique Orlandi had been using, it was working.

  “But enough about me,” I said, going back to my notes. “Who had the opportunity to kill Suzanne?”

  He settled back into his chair, smiling again. Was that a good sign? “Looks like just about everyone had the opportunity to do in Miss Sorenson,” he said. His voice was full of geniality once more. “Maybe you’ve got some information we don’t. Anything you’d like to share?”

  I shook my head.

  “Had you met Suzanne Sorenson?” Orlandi asked.

  I nodded. Unfortunately I had. Just a few times. But that had been enough.

  “What did you think of her?” he asked. His tone was conversational but his eyes were clamped onto mine again.

  I hesitated but decided on the truth. “I didn’t like her.”

  “Why?” he pressed. How to explain? The way she put her arm proprietarily around Craig every time I was near. The sneering way she drawled “a gag-gift business” when I told her what I did. The way she flirted with Wayne, and then made fun of his homely scarred face once he had turned his back. The way Craig fell for her, in spite of all that.

  “She was selfish, arrogant, insensitive and two-faced,” I said bitterly. Damn. I hadn’t meant to use that tone. “And those are her good points,” I added lightly.

  “And…” prodded Orlandi.

  “Seriously, those were my impressions. I can’t really tell you any more. I didn’t know her that well.” My excuses sounded inadequate in my own ears, but I had already said too much.

  “Your husband knew her that well, though, didn’t he?”

  “My ex-husband,” I corrected.

  “Okay. Your ‘ex-husband.’ How did he feel about Miss Sorenson?” Orlandi’s eyes were still on mine.

  “We didn’t talk that much about her,” I said. “I think he was embarrassed.” It was true, up to a point. The point being yesterday afternoon, when Craig had exploded into his anti-Suzanne tirade.

  “He must have told you about the fight they had, the night she was killed?” said Orlandi in a quiet voice. Could he see into my head? I shook off the idea.

  I told myself that he couldn’t force me to respond, and looked down at my notes one more time.

  “How was Suzanne Sorenson killed?” I asked.

  “How do you think she was killed?” Orlandi returned the question, crocodile grin back in place.

  “I—”

  A knock on the door saved me from having to answer. Officer Dempster opened the door and stuck his head out. I could hear the low rumble of Avery Haskell’s voice but not his words.

  “What is it, Dempster?” asked Orlandi impatiently.

  “The coroner’s office is on the phone, sir,” Dempster replied, his voice stiff. Had Orlandi hurt his feelings with the impatient tone?

  Orlandi rose, came around the desk and gave Dempster a pat on the shoulder.

  “Baby-sit her,” Orlandi said, with a nod in my direction. “I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t much like the order, but I kept my mouth shut. Orlandi left the room and Officer Dempster sat back down next to me.

  “So,” I said conversationally. “Get many murders here in Delores?”

  Dempster’s eyebrows went up, and he grunted what sounded like a negative. That was all the answer I got.

  I sighed and gave up. So much for the small-talk strategy. I pulled out a pen and starting marking up my questions list. A loud yowl distracted me somewhere between “cause of death” and “police records.” I looked down. Roseanne was leaning her substantial weight against my leg.

  “No food here,” I told her, shaking my head. She widened her eyes in disbelief.

  Then she tensed her muscles and sprang. The jolt when she landed in my lap stunned me. Twenty-seven pounds of cat does not feel like a cat at all. It feels like a compressed Saint Bernard or maybe a bag of cannon balls. I was wondering if I’d have any bruises, when Roseanne began to claw my thighs. My cat, C.C., must have sent her a telegram. I plucked Roseanne’s meaty paw from my pants leg. She dug in again and began to purr. Maybe she was C.C.’s cousin.

  “How the hell did she do that?” asked Officer Dempster from my side. His eyes were wide with wonder. “She must weigh thirty pounds.”

  “You’re close,” I said, delighted at the potential for conversation. A little cat-talk and then I might find out what the police department knew about Suzanne’s death. “She’s twenty-seven pounds, according to Fran.”

  “Jeez, I never saw a cat that big before,” he said.

  “There was one in the National Enquirer—” I began.

  Before I could finish, the door to the office banged open and Chief Orlandi stomped in. His face was contorted in anger. I felt myself shrinking in my seat. Roseanne sprang from my lap. Her push-off was almost as painful as her landing.

  “You want to know how Suzanne Sorenson died?” he asked in a voice full of menace.

  I nodded. Waves of anger were radiating from his Santa Claus form. Was he putting it on? Was the Delores Police Department so small that he had to play good cop/bad cop all by himself?

  “She was choked,” he hissed. “And dragged. And bludgeoned. And smothered in mud.” A flood of nausea was enveloping me. I couldn’t tell if its source was Chief Orlandi’s rage or his all too vivid description of Suzanne’s death. “Someone sure hated that woman,” Orlandi continued. He walked around the desk and slammed into his chair. He clamped his eyes on mine once more. “Was that someone you, Mrs. Jasper?”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “Me?” I whispered. He couldn’t be serious.

  “Where were you on Tuesday night?” he snarled.

  “Tuesday night?” I repeated stupidly.

  “Yes, Tuesday night. And Wednesday morning.”

  Suddenly my head cleared. “In Marin,” I answered angrily. “I wasn’t here. I am not a suspect. I was at home, working.”

  “Prove it,” he snapped.

  “Ask Southwest Air,” I answered shrilly. This was ridiculous. “I left San Francisco a little before noon on Wednesday.”

  “You could have flown down the night before and flown back early Wednesday morning,” he replied.

  “What!” I yelped. Then I remembered. “Craig called me early Wednesday morning, at my house in Marin.”

  “So he claims. He could have been calling your answering machine.”

  “No! I was in Marin, damn it.”

  “We’ll check, you know.” His tone vibrated with menace.

  “Then check,” I replied testily. I just hoped they could check. But who were they going to ask? My cat? She was the only witness. If only Wayne had spent that night with me. Maybe he could lie? No. I shook off the thought. That would only get me in worse trouble. Had any of my neighbors noticed me
? I was so lost in thought that I failed to notice Chief Orlandi’s re-transformation.

  “Mrs. Jasper,” he said, his voice friendly again. I looked up. The crocodile grin had returned. “You really want your husband back, don’t you?” he coaxed.

  “You must be kidding,” I said. “I have a lover. His name is Wayne Caruso. Craig is my friend—”

  “Mighty convenient, the way you showed up here,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken.

  And so it went. If Chief Orlandi had been playing good cop/bad cop with me, he had done a damn good job. A half hour and a couple of personality switches back and forth later, he had asked me some new questions and many of the same old ones. Over and over again. Then Officer Dempster had taken my fingerprints and I was dismissed. At least for the time being. I was told to keep myself available for questioning.

  By the time I had left the little interrogation room I had begun to wonder if I had been in Marin the night of the murder. I stood in the lobby forcing myself to remember Tuesday evening. I had read an Anne Tyler novel, Breathing Lessons, late into that night. And the next morning I had received the divorce decree. No, I told myself, there is no way you could have misremembered that.

  I shivered with the realization that Chief Orlandi’s interrogation had made me unsure of my own memory, my own sanity. Now I knew how brainwashing worked. And now I knew why Chief Orlandi’s very presence could turn Craig to stone.

  I drew a deep breath and walked slowly out into the sunshine on the porch.

  “Hey, wanna beer, pretty lady?”

  The sunlight had blinded me for a moment. As my eyes adapted, Jack Ireland’s grinning mouth appeared followed by the rest of his face, Cheshire-cat style. He was wearing the same grungy cut-offs as the day before, but nothing else. Except for a turquoise stud in his left ear lobe, that is. It went well with his red hair and freckles. He smiled up at me from the bottom of the stairs, dangling five cans of a six-pack from the empty plastic circle where the first can had been.

  “No thanks,” I said. But his friendly smile was infectious. My shoulder muscles relaxed, and I smiled back.