And suddenly Clara was back, her arm around Harmony’s waist. She murmured and soothed the younger woman into quiet as the two paramedics shuffled out the front door.
Then we heard the second siren.
When the doorbell rang, I jumped up to answer, hoping it was the police this time. After hearing Harmony’s random accusations, I wanted first crack at the representatives of law and order. It might be crucial. If I could give them my own clear explanation of the events surrounding Vesta’s death before they questioned anyone else, mine just might carry more weight. Now all I had to do was figure out what exactly my own explanation was. I opened the door. It was the police all right. The two uniformed men on the doorstep couldn’t have been anything else but.
“La Risa Police Department, ma’am,” announced the first one. He was a well-muscled man with a well-trimmed mustache and buzz-cut hair. He attempted a smile. It gave his face the look of a friendly Nazi.
“Hear you got a dead woman upstairs,” said the second officer. He was tall with blow-dried brown hair. He didn’t bother with a smile.
“I’ll show you,” I said briefly.
They introduced themselves on the way up the stairs. The one with the buzz cut was Officer Yoder. The blow-dried one was Officer Zappetini.
“Yuck!” said Zappetini when I pointed through the doorway in Vesta’s direction. I was taking care not to look myself. I remembered Vesta’s sprawling body all too well. Unfortunately, I could still smell the room without seeing it.
“Did you know the deceased, ma’am?” asked Officer Yoder.
“Uh-huh,” I answered. “Her name’s Vesta Caruso. She’s my boyfriend’s mother.”
“Can we get outa here?” asked Officer Zappetini nasally. He was holding his nose.
Yoder gave him a cool look and went on. “Did you find the body, ma’am?” he asked.
I nodded, then changed my mind. “Actually, Harmony found her first,” I amended.
“Who is Harmony, ma’am?”
“She was Vesta’s—that is, Mrs. Caruso’s—roommate,” I told him. “Well, not exactly a roommate—I don’t think she paid any money or anything, but she stayed in the guest room. Anyway, Harmony said Vesta was really sick last night. And Vesta was talking about the tea Harmony fixed her—at least I think that’s what she must have been talking about—Harmony said she mentioned ‘organic,’ and ‘herbal’ and ‘New Age,’ so it must have been the tea.”
I paused for a breath. So much for my clear explanation of the events surrounding Vesta’s death. Yoder stared at me, unsmiling. Zappetini was fanning the air in front of his face. My stomach felt funny all of a sudden. Maybe I should have let Harmony talk to them first.
I pointed into the room.
“See, there’s the teapot,” I whispered. “That’s the one.”
“That’s the one what?” asked Yoder.
I looked into his cold eyes. Should I keep my mouth shut? Probably. But I couldn’t. If someone had killed Vesta…
“I think her tea might have been poisoned,” I said firmly. Yoder’s eyes narrowed. “Well, it’s a possibility, anyway,” I added defensively.
Yoder looked at Zappetini. Zappetini looked at Yoder.
“Get Upton and Amador,” Yoder said finally. He let out a low sigh as he turned back to me.
“Is there someplace where we can talk in private?” he asked.
“About time,” Zappetini muttered as he descended the stairs. I wondered if he was going to get Upton and Amador. And who or what were Upton and Amador?
I opened my mouth to ask, then looked into Officer Yoder’s eyes and changed my mind. “How about the guest room?” I suggested.
The guest room had changed since the last time I had seen it. It still had the same gold-and-ivory flocked wallpaper as Vesta’s room and a double bed covered in a chocolate-brown spread. But now large pieces of newsprint were taped to the walls, even to the ceiling. And on each piece of newsprint there was a sketch in black ink of one or another of two objects. I recognized the bold black outlines of the crosses at once, but it was only when I realized that the sketches must be Harmony’s work that I identified the other objects as crystals. She had rounded their edges, making them appear vaguely phallic rather than sharply prismatic.
“Whose work is this?” asked Officer Yoder.
I jumped. I had almost forgotten him as I stared at the drawings.
“Harmony’s,” I answered. “At least I think it is.”
He sniffed. At first I thought it was a comment, but then I noticed the scent in the room. It was Harmony’s scent of course. I couldn’t smell any leather, but the odor of Harmony’s sweat, patchouli oil and marijuana were evident. I guessed it was the latter component that Yoder was sniffing at.
I sighed and sat down on the edge of the neatly made bed. Yoder sat on the lone wooden chair and pulled a three-by-five spiral notebook from his breast pocket.
Twenty minutes later, he’d filled up every page in his notebook, front and back, and was writing in the margins. I had told him everything I knew about Vesta Caruso, explained her relationship to each and every person in the living room and recounted all that I could remember of the events of the last fifteen hours. I took a deep breath and congratulated myself. Everything was clear. At least I hoped so. I offered Officer Yoder a tentative smile.
“So,” he said. “You harbored quite a dislike for your boyfriend’s mother, didn’t you?”
Maybe I had been a little too clear. I ditched the smile. “I didn’t exactly dislike her,” I began uncomfortably.
The doorbell rang again.
“Stay here,” Yoder commanded and left the room.
I sat where I was and stared at Harmony’s artwork for a while. I didn’t have much choice. It was hard to find a spot on the walls or the ceiling that didn’t have newsprint taped to it. Finally, I closed my eyes and began to worry in earnest. Did Officer Yoder actually think I had murdered Vesta? He couldn’t, could he? Didn’t he have to warn me if he did? Or maybe he just thought I was some kind of lunatic who imagined poison everywhere. Or—
I heard the door creak and opened my eyes in time to see Officer Yoder ushering in two newcomers. One was a tall, cadaverously thin man with a fringe of red hair around the edges of his otherwise bald head. He rotated his head on his shoulders as if his neck was bothering him. The second was an equally tall, black woman with a round, freckled face. She flashed me a toothy grin. Both were wearing navy blue suits.
“Ms. Jasper, this is Detective Sergeant Upton,” Yoder said with a nod to the thin man. “And Detective Amador—”
“We need more chairs,” the detective sergeant interrupted. He drummed his fingers on the side of his thigh. “Amador, tell him to get more chairs.”
“Officer Yoder, get the man more chairs,” Detective Amador ordered.
As Yoder left the room, Upton turned his gaze in my direction. Well, almost in my direction. Actually, he was looking somewhere over my left shoulder.
“Tell her she’s going to have to start from the beginning and tell us everything over again,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Ms. Jasper, you’re going to have to start at the beginning—” Amador began.
“Got it,” I told her.
Upton aimed a fierce glare over my left shoulder. Then he began popping his knuckles.
Was I supposed to pretend I didn’t hear his orders to Detective Amador? I turned to her and tilted my head in a question. She grinned and winked back.
I was relieved when Officer Yoder brought in three kitchen chairs. He offered a note of sanity to the scene in the guest room as he set the chairs down, two of them with their backs to the bed and the other one facing the first two. Upton told Amador to tell me to take the lone chair facing the bed. She did and I did. Then they sat down simultaneously and the questioning began.
They ran through everything I had told Officer Yoder and more, with Detective Amador relaying Detective Sergeant Upton’s questions to me
as he tapped his feet, rotated his head, popped his knuckles and drummed his fingers. After a while, I got used to the arrangement. It gave me a chance to think out my answers, for which I was grateful. But it took twice as long to get through the exercise, for which I was not grateful. By the time they began asking me about Wayne, I was tapping my fingers and rotating my own head.
“Ask her how the boyfriend felt about his mother,” Upton said.
I waited for Amador’s relay before telling them that they would have to ask Wayne himself.
“Ask her if the boyfriend knew where the tea was kept.”
Again, I said I didn’t know. They would have to ask Wayne.
After the fifteenth or twentieth time that I told them they would have to ask Wayne, I started wondering if Wayne was going to be able to answer them. Damn. Why hadn’t I just left it alone? Maybe they would have believed that Vesta had merely suffered a heart attack. Maybe she had.
Then they got onto me. Ask her how she felt about her boyfriend’s mother. Ask her if they ever argued about the mother. Ask her if she would have liked to see the mother back in a mental institution. Ask her… Ask her… Ask her…
“Tell her she can leave,” Upton said finally.
It was an act of real willpower to remain seated until Detective Amador relayed the order. But I did. And I let Officer Yoder escort me downstairs, nodding obediently as he told me to keep quiet when I joined the others.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and I saw that everyone was sitting down now. Well, everyone except Officer Zappetini. Zappetini stood with his back to the front door and his arms crossed over his chest as if daring someone to try and leave.
Wayne, Ace and Eric were on one black leather couch, all staring straight ahead. And for once, Eric was quiet. But then, so was everyone. Dru, Bill, Ingrid and Trent were crowded onto the other couch. Each of them held their elbows pointing inwards and their hands clasped together as if to avoid touching any more than was necessary. Lori and Mandy sat cross-legged on the floor a few yards away from Gail, who had stretched her legs out and was staring at the ceiling. And Harmony was sitting in Vesta’s big black easy chair with Clara perched beside her on the armrest. Harmony’s face looked oddly content as she leaned back in the big chair, maybe even triumphant. I subdued an incipient shiver and walked over to Wayne’s couch.
Ace moved over without speaking and I squeezed in between him and Wayne. I touched Wayne’s arm lightly, wishing I could talk to him, alone and at length.
“Harmony Fitch,” Officer Yoder called out. “Please come with me.”
The look of contentment on Harmony’s face was instantly transformed into panic.
“No!” she cried. “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong. I just made her the tea like always, right?”
“We just want to talk to you,” Yoder told her gently. He bent over Harmony and held his arm out for her to take. Suddenly, he looked like a human being instead of a Nazi.
“It’ll be fine,” whispered Clara.
Harmony took his arm and allowed herself to be guided up the stairs, all the while protesting in a shrill voice.
“Vesta was my friend. She told me stuff, right? I wouldn’t do nothin’ to hurt her. She didn’t even like these guys. They’ll tell you lies. They always tell lies. Vesta said—” And then her voice was gone as a door closed.
I took one last look at Wayne’s stiff profile, then leaned back against the couch and closed my eyes.
A picture of Vesta bloomed in my mind’s eye, not as she had been when I found her body but as she had been when she was alive, her intense, bony face alert and smiling. And I realized I would miss her. The thought was so astounding, it popped my eyes open. I would miss Vesta.
For all the abuse the woman had heaped on Wayne, even on me, I realized that I had learned to… not to like her exactly… but maybe to enjoy her company occasionally. Vesta hadn’t followed the rules. If the emperor wore no clothes, she was the first to point it out. And every now and again, her nasty comments were the very ones I would have liked to make myself if I hadn’t been so damned polite.
I turned to Wayne, wanting to share the realization, and then remembered Officer Zappetini. I sighed loudly. They couldn’t arrest me for that. Then I closed my eyes once more and sank back against the cushions of the couch, urging my mind to contemplate future gag gifts instead of suspicions of murder. It didn’t work.
Harmony’s shrill voice sounded on the stairs some minutes later. Officer Yoder escorted her back to her chair, then turned toward our couch.
“Wayne Caruso,” he called out. “Please come with me.”
Panic grabbed my heart and twisted. I couldn’t breathe. Was Wayne ready to be interviewed? He turned to me for a second, and I saw intelligence in his eyes. Then he rose to his feet, bending over at the last moment to give me a kiss on the forehead before he followed Yoder up the stairs.
By the time Wayne returned, I had imagined everything from his arrest to his execution. Not to mention my own. And that was in between telling myself everything would be all right and berating myself for having raised the issue of poison in the first place. But Wayne’s color looked good as he returned to sit beside me. And his steps were sure. He wasn’t shuffling anymore.
He clasped my hand gently as he sat down, and even looked into my eyes for one blissful instant. Then he turned his gaze straight ahead again. I wanted to scream.
“Clara Kushiyama,” Yoder was calling. “Please—”
“Officer Yoder,” I interrupted. “May we leave now? We’ve both been interviewed and—”
Wayne clasped my hand again, this time not so gently.
“It’s okay, Officer,” he growled. “We’ll stay.”
I stared at him with my mouth open. He kissed my upper lip. I shut my mouth. And kept it shut for three more, endless hours.
The police interviewed Clara and each of the Skeritts and their spouses, one by one. Trent, Ingrid, Dru, Ace and Bill went first. Then the second generation, Lori and Gail. Then Mandy went up with Lori at her side. And finally they called Eric. Eric leapt up off the couch. Ace got up more slowly to accompany him.
“You know what?” Eric said to Officer Yoder.
“No, what?” Yoder replied. He smiled at Eric. I smiled too. Yoder had made a big mistake.
“You gotta read me my rights,” Eric told him. “Or else the whole thing is totally bogus—”
“Only if we suspect you of a crime—” Yoder corrected him.
“No, no,” Eric insisted. He was on his tiptoes now, squirming with righteousness. “You gotta read me my rights. It’s called the Miranda ruling. It’s totally cool. See, there was this guy named Miranda and—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Yoder advised, no longer smiling.
“You know what else?” Eric said.
Yoder shook his head impatiently.
“You’re supposed to have this little card. And then you pull it out of your pocket, you know, or else it’s totally bogus—”
“Only if we suspect you—” Yoder tried again.
“No,” insisted Eric. “You gotta tell me all this cool stuff. Like I have a right to an attorney—”
“Okay!” Yoder shouted. “You have the right to remain silent…”
- Six -
Officer Yoder’s reading of the Miranda rights was definitely the highlight of the morning. It would have been nice to clap warmly for his performance and then rise from our seats to leave, but Wayne wasn’t up for it. He wasn’t up for leaving fifteen minutes later either, after the final interview had been conducted and the visiting Skeritts had departed. Or even after Clara had finally quit the scene. Maybe this refusal to decamp was some kind of necessary penance for him, part of his unique grieving process. But for me, it was just aimless torment.
We sat, glued to the black leather couch and watched, along with Harmony, who leaned back in Vesta’s easy chair to stare at something only she could see in the space above her, as a continuing cast of character
s from the police department buzzed in and out of Vesta’s condo. Even the coroner’s office had sent an investigator, one Jenny Quintara, a plump brown-skinned woman who seemed almost suspiciously serene in the face of death.
It wasn’t until after Vesta’s body had been zipped up tightly in a plastic bag and carried out the front door on a stretcher that Wayne finally stood. And when he stood, his movements were like an invalid’s, slow and tentative. I jumped up beside him and together we climbed the stairs to the bedroom area one last time. Officer Yoder and Detective Amador were in the hallway outside the guest room, whispering intently.
“Tell me what you find out,” Wayne barked, his voice rough with disuse.
Yoder’s head jerked up, startled.
“Please,” Wayne added in a softer tone.
Amador was unruffled by the request. “We’ll keep you informed,” she said with a flash of a smile. Then she turned back to Yoder.
Wayne grunted.
My eyes traveled to the door of Vesta’s bedroom. It was shut now, with a red coroner’s seal glued across the doorjamb. I felt a surge of nausea.
“Well, goodbye then,” I said quickly and took Wayne by the elbow. It seemed to take forever to get back down the stairs and across the expanse of the living room carpet.
As I pulled the front door open, I heard Harmony’s shrill voice call out from behind us.
“Thank you ever so much for comin’,” she said, her voice lilting in a mild Southern accent I had never heard on her lips before.
I looked over my shoulder. Harmony was smiling widely, her teeth gleaming. Who did that grin remind me of? Vesta, that’s who, I realized with a shiver. Harmony had Vesta’s shark smile down pat. Damn, that was spooky. I grabbed Wayne’s hand and pulled him through the doorway, out into the sunlight.
“God, Wayne,” I whispered as he shut the door behind us. “Do you think she’s really crazy?”
He shrugged without saying anything and walked toward the car. I suppressed a groan, struggling between sympathy and impatience. After spending the entire morning in silence, I was ready to talk, trauma or no trauma.
Tea-Totally Dead Page 6
