I looked at Officer Guerrero for permission. Guerrero shrugged her shoulders and sighed. Permission granted? I walked stiffly over to Nikki, feeling the combined weight of all of the eyes in the room upon me.
“This is my brother, Nathan Martin,” Nikki said.
“And Ms. Martin’s attorney,” Nathan added, with a hasty glance at the police table.
“Nathan will help me with the cops,” Nikki said with an affectionate glance at him. Then she fixed her large reddened eyes on mine. “But I need more than that.”
I nodded. She drew her face closer to mine.
“Find out who killed Jack,” she hissed.
Stunned, I began to nod once more. Then, the meaning of her sentence got through to me. She wanted me to investigate.
“But I—”
“I’m counting on you,” she interrupted, then pulled away her eyes. “Do you have a card?” she asked her brother.
He nodded hesitantly, but opened his briefcase.
“And a pencil,” Nikki added.
He found both and handed them to her. Nikki scrawled a number under NATHAN MARTIN, ATTORNEY AT LAW and handed the card to me.
“That’s my number,” she said. She fixed her eyes on mine once more. “Call me if you need any information. Or,” she lowered her voice, “if you find anything out.”
“I—” I began.
“I’ve got to know,” she said, her eyes holding mine fast.
I couldn’t say no to that. She did have to know. But I didn’t think I was going to be the one to find the answer for her. I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.
“Right,” I said.
She pulled me to her for a brief but intense hug.
“Thank you,” she breathed as she let me go.
Then she turned to her brother.
“Take me out of here, Nathan,” she said softly.
He put his arm around her and guided her out the door, never turning to look back. Surprisingly, the police officers offered no objections.
I watched the couple leave through the lobby, wondering if Nikki Martin had just done the acting job of her career. I would have bet almost anything that her grief was real. Anything, that is, but a life.
I shrugged my shoulders, ready to return to my seat, when I saw a large woman enter the lobby. She must have weighed at least two hundred-fifty pounds, and she was gorgeous. Black hair, sparkling blue eyes, and cream-colored satin skin. Instant proof that buxom can be beautiful. Who was she?
Before I could voice my question, Paul Beaumont shuffled into the lobby. He looked at the unmanned registration desk and shook his head in confusion. I walked back to my seat as he came through the dining hall doors.
The freckled sheriff’s deputy spoke to him the minute he came into the room. “Paul Beaumont?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Paul squeaked. His head jerked back and his eyes opened wide.
“Just take a seat, son,” the deputy said. He kept his tone relaxed, but Paul’s features seemed frozen in panic. “We just need to talk to you.”
Paul scanned the room and settled his terrified eyes on my face, clearly asking me whether I had told the police about his attack on me. I shook my head frantically, trying to send him the message that I hadn’t. But he just looked all the more frightened.
“Mom?” Paul said to his mother, his voice pleading.
But Fran’s eyes were looking through the glass doors into the lobby, where more large people were gathering.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “The Slim ‘n’ Fitters!”
She jumped from her seat and ran to the door. Officers Guerrero and Dempster exchanged startled glances, hopped out of their own seats and ran after her.
SEVENTEEN
FRAN DIDN’T RUN far. Her sprint took her into the lobby and behind the registration desk, where she smiled frantically at the group of good-sized people who had gathered there. The people in front of the desk were a mixed group of men, women and teenagers whose only similarity was size. Each member of the group weighed somewhere in the range of pleasantly plump to dangerously obese. Fran appeared oblivious to the presence of Officers Guerrero and Dempster, who had followed her behind the desk. She opened her mouth to address the crowd.
But Fran couldn’t ignore the police any longer when Officer Guerrero grabbed her arm. In a last-ditch effort, she mouthed some polite words to the group, words that I couldn’t hear clearly through the glass doors, and then allowed herself to be led back to the dining hall. Everyone at the suspects’ table watched as she returned. Terry shook his head in disgust. At the police, I assumed. Ruth’s eyes looked worried despite Eli’s presence.
“I’ve got to take care of business,” Fran was pleading tearfully as she came through the doors. Guerrero looked at Dempster. Dempster looked back. “Those people have to be checked in and I have to explain the program. Bradley, tell them!”
Bradley cocked his head and smiled, but said nothing.
“You shouldn’t run like that,” said Dempster, but his heart wasn’t in the reprimand. He avoided Fran’s teary eyes. Bradley giggled shrilly.
“I’m sorry,” said Fran softly. Bradley’s giggle seemed to have taken the fight out of her. She hung her head. “I won’t do it again,” she promised.
Guerrero threw her hands into the air and sighed theatrically. “I’ll go with her,” she said to Dempster.
Together, Fran and Officer Guerrero went back to the registration desk. I could hear bits and pieces of Fran’s spiel though the doors. “Reduce body fat…healthful eating…increase energy…lasting results.” Guerrero stood wooden-faced next to Fran. Fran was glowing with enthusiasm.
The group responded to her enthusiasm, nodding and asking questions, seemingly accepting Guerrero’s presence as the norm. They were filling out the forms that Fran had handed them when Paul shuffled up to the dining hall doors. Dempster and the freckled deputy looked up.
“Gotta help my mom,” Paul mumbled.
“Wait a minute—” began the deputy, rising.
But Paul was into the lobby before the deputy could finish. He walked toward the registration desk purposefully, then veered away at the last moment. He darted out the front door just as the deputy began his own walk into the lobby. The deputy broke into a run and was out the front door after him in seconds. All of us at the long suspects’ table strained our necks observing the deputy’s pursuit, but for all our straining, could see no further than the front door.
A beat behind, Officer Dempster jumped up and hurtled toward the dining hall doors, then stopped in his tracks halfway through. He looked back at us suspects, went through a head-oscillating flurry of indecision that was painful to watch, then dragged himself back to his table. The sole officer left in the dining hall, he was doomed to baby-sitting.
I took a deep breath as Dempster sat down. Why was Paul running away? I turned to Wayne, with unvoiced questions. Was Paul running because he was afraid the police knew about his attack on me? Or because he was guilty of murder? Or for some other reason entirely? Wayne shrugged his shoulders as if he had heard me. Paul wasn’t going to get very far. The spa was infested with sheriffs. Where did he think he could go? And what about his mother? Did Fran have his escape in mind when she made her own move into the lobby? I turned to look out the glass doors at Fran. And saw Sheriff’s Sergeant Kelly walking to our table.
“Ms. Jasper?” he asked.
“Here,” I answered, raising my hand. A tremor traveled from my stomach into my chest. Would they ask me about Paul? How did I answer?
“Follow me,” Kelly said.
I followed him into the lobby just as the freckled deputy sheriff opened the front door and dragged Paul through by his handcuffed wrists. Damn. Paul’s eyes were streaming tears.
“I didn’t do anything,” he whimpered. “I didn’t do anything.”
The group of Slim ‘n’ Fitters in the lobby turned to look. Fran looked, too. A look of incredulity spread over her face.
“Paul?” she
whispered.
But Paul’s eyes were fixed on me. “She’s lying,” he shouted. He tried to point, but the deputy yanked his hands back down before he could raise them to accuse me.
Chief Orlandi came out the door of Fran’s office as Sergeant Kelly led me in. Orlandi was no longer subdued. His eyes were lit with determination as he strode in Paul Beaumont’s direction. Kelly shut the office door, cutting off the panorama with a decisive thunk.
“Please sit down, Ms. Jasper,” ordered Sergeant Alvarez from behind Fran’s desk. His voice was soft and polite, if not friendly.
I sat as ordered. Kelly sat by the side of Fran’s desk, his notebook open. Neither of them smiled as they introduced themselves. Alvarez began the interrogation.
His questions were concise and courteous. And very thorough. There were no Orlandi histrionics, no accusations. Instead, Alvarez adopted the tone of questioning that a disinterested doctor might use to elicit the details of an embarrassing illness. He took me through the last few days’ events detail by detail. I had grown more bored than afraid by the time the office door flew open.
Orlandi barreled through the doorway like a small tornado. “So what did the kid do to you?” he demanded, not bothering to sit down.
“He…he jumped at me,” I mumbled.
“And?” Orlandi glared down at me, not satisfied with my answer.
“His hands landed on my…my chest,” I said. “But that might have been a mistake.”
“And?” Orlandi prodded once more.
“And what?” I answered. “That was it.”
“Okay,” he said, now pulling up the only remaining chair in Fran’s cramped office. “Let’s go through it from the top.”
So we went through it. And as I gave the full account of the incident, I realized there really wasn’t much to it. Even Orlandi finally seemed satisfied. He rose from his chair abruptly, took a step toward the door, then turned back to me.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he asked softly.
“The kid’s got enough problems,” I answered.
“Do you want to press charges?” he wanted to know.
I shook my head vigorously.
Orlandi moved his head closer to mine and glared. “Is that why you asked if Miss Sorenson had been sexually assaulted?”
I nodded. He drew back his lips and flashed me his old crocodile smile. “Thought so,” he said and left.
Sergeant Alvarez’s questions seemed especially mild after Orlandi left. Deceptively mild? I was almost dozing by the time he finished with me and told me I could go.
I walked out of Fran’s office into the lobby. Fran’s group of Slim ‘n’ Fitters were still there, listening as she explained how they were to monitor their food intake while at Spa Santé. “No calorie-counting here,” she told the group enthusiastically and went on to explain a food-tracking system that I imagined only a mathematics professor could understand. But most of the Slim ‘n’ Fitters nodded their comprehension. Some even asked questions and took notes. Officer Guerrero merely glowered.
I wondered where Paul was. I looked through the glass door to the dining hall. There was no sign of Paul, but the rest of the gang was there. I waved at Craig and Wayne. They both waved back. So did Bradley. Bradley was grinning. What was wrong with the man? Hadn’t he seen his son run? Seen his son caught? Terry, Ruth, Eli, Don Logan and Avery Haskell remained motionless. What were they all thinking?
As I stared through the glass, I considered waiting in the hall with the rest of the suspects until Wayne was interviewed and released. Would that help me to detect? My stomach churned its answer, begging me to leave. Then a sudden pain in my temple chimed in, ordering me to get out and get out now!
I turned and left, passing Fran and the Slim ‘n’ Fitters on my way out the door. Standing on the porch in the sun, I breathed deeply. My stomach and head felt better out here, away from the dining hall. And away from the people in it. Or was my body reacting to just one of those people? To the murderer? If only my friend Barbara was here to do some psychic translation. Were the nausea and headache merely the result of tension and fatigue, or bad vibes? Or were they important messages from my unconscious? I shook my head in frustration, wishing to see Barbara’s face.
Instead I saw Felix’s. He walked up the stairs to the porch, an ingratiating smile under his mustache.
“What’s new?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I answered cautiously, wondering if he had seen Paul run. I plopped down in the redwood bench, tired despite all the sitting I had done.
He sat down next to me. “Kate,” he said, his voice serious. “I think we can figure this thing out.”
“How?” I asked hopelessly.
“Talk it out,” he prodded. “Why Suzanne? Why Jack?”
I was hooked by his questions. I sat up a little straighter. Maybe we could figure it out. “Why both of them?” I asked softly. “What did they have in common that got them killed?”
“Now you’re talking,” he said, his mustache twitching. “What did they have in common?”
“Nothing I can think of,” I answered, slumping again.
“No,” he insisted. “They had to have something in common.”
“Different sex,” I said. “Different ages. She must have been ten or fifteen years younger.”
“Both Californians,” Felix pointed out.
“One from Marin and one from Los Angeles,” I countered. “Not much of a connection.”
“Both here with lovers,” he added, undeterred.
“True.” I considered that fact for a moment. “And neither of their lovers was happy with them.”
“Yeah?” prodded Felix eagerly. Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have talked to him.
“All right,” I snapped, rising from my seat. “That’s enough.”
“Come on, Kate,” Felix said, tugging at my arm. “We’re getting some place.”
“What place?” I asked, plopping back down on the bench. “Felix, these guys were totally different! Jack was a sweet man with an alcohol problem. In the music world. Suzanne was a lawyer. An ambitious, insensitive…”
“Bitch?” offered Felix.
“I didn’t say that.” I had been seeking a euphemism.
“Did they know each other?” Felix asked, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
“I don’t think so,” I answered slowly. “But I don’t know. I don’t know much about Jack at all.”
“How about his girlfriend? I’d like to interview—”
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted, glaring at Felix. “She doesn’t need you bugging her after all she’s been through.”
“Jesus, Kate,” Felix objected. “I’m not a vampire! Give me credit for some sensitivity.”
I ignored him, thinking. “How about Jack’s brother?” I said finally. “Talk to him.”
“I might just do that,” Felix said. He winked at me as he rose from his seat. “Catch you later.”
“Felix!” I shouted as he walked down the stairs. “Tell me what you find out.”
“Sure,” he said, turning to me. “Just as soon as you tell me what you’ve found out.” His mustache twitched in a quick smile. Then he walked away.
I sat in the afternoon sun, thinking. Did Suzanne and Jack have something in common? Something worth murdering over? They were both white. They were both under fifty and over twenty. They were both single with significant others. If that was enough for the murderer, a good portion of the population was in trouble. I was still searching for further commonalities some fifteen minutes later when Craig came wandering out into the sunshine. He looked tired. I braced myself for conversation, but he clumped down the stairs without even noticing me.
Twenty minutes later still, I had come up with another earthshaking commonality. Jack and Suzanne both had light-colored hair. Great. I heard the door behind me swing open, and turned to look. Wayne stood silently, peering at me wistfully from beneath his low brows. I felt suddenly shy. We had not been al
one together since he had spoken of marriage.
“Hi,” I greeted him softly.
“Hi,” Wayne replied, just as softly. Then he looked down at his feet, his face closing on the way.
I lurched out of my chair and across the porch, suddenly needing to touch him. I took his hand. “Wayne, I’m not sure about marriage,” I rattled off, speaking fast to get it out. “I’ve been married. It didn’t work.” Then I took a breath.
His face softened. He put his arms around me and held me tight, then released me and looked into my eyes.
“You need time to think,” he whispered.
I nodded, mesmerized.
“Right,” he said, his voice back to normal volume. “Meanwhile, I’m getting you out of here. Have a friend with a restaurant in Delores. Arnie’s. Let’s go.”
“But we just ate,” I objected. As much as I wanted to leave Spa Santé, something was holding me there, besides the fact that we’d been told not to leave.
“Food isn’t the point,” he said. “You need out.”
“But what about Paul? What about the police? What about Craig?”
Wayne winced when I said “Craig,” but he answered the rest of my questions. “I cleared the trip into town with Sergeant Alvarez. Orlandi’s still talking with Paul.” He paused and looked into my eyes again. “They’re not your responsibility,” he finished.
That was what was holding me. Responsibility. To Craig, to Nikki, to Paul, to my own need to know the truth. Who had elected me responsible?
“Let’s go,” I said.
During the short ride into Delores I watched Wayne’s serious face as he concentrated on driving, and I wondered. Did I really need time to think about marriage or had I already decided? Decided against marriage? Guiltily, I pushed away the thought.
Wayne was right about one thing. It was good to be out of Spa Santé. I could feel the miasma lift gradually. By the time we got to Delores it was almost gone, leaving me suddenly clear-headed. Downtown Delores wasn’t very big, but it looked good to me. A few blocks containing a 7-Eleven, a bar, a gas station, a hardware store, three antique shops and Arnie’s.
“Where do you know this guy from?” I whispered as we walked into Arnie’s. The restaurant was dark and smoky, illuminated by a TV at the bar, some backlit beer ads and flickering candles at the tables. The afternoon sunlight disappeared as the door slammed behind us.
The Last Resort (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 18
