“Now, that I had guessed,” I replied dryly and was rewarded with a hint of a smile on Wayne’s stony face.
“Like to sit down?” he asked.
When I nodded, he pulled up a couple of sagging porch chairs for us and faced them out toward the garden.
So we sat and talked about the Skeritts. I told him all I could remember of the hot-tub conversations. We threw around some character analysis for a while and concluded nothing. But at least we were sitting together and holding hands as we concluded nothing. Then we just sat in silence for a while, looking out at the garden. The summer impatiens were still blooming around the apple tree, and the electric-blue lobelia. Pretty soon I’d be putting in winter primroses—
“Been thinking about the funeral,” Wayne said.
I turned to him, gardening plans abandoned. His face was grave, his brows low enough to cover all but the bottoms of his eyes.
“Uncle Ace is right. Mom wasn’t religious,” he murmured, his voice almost inaudible. “Ceremony shouldn’t be religious either.”
I nodded my understanding.
“Gotta call her friends,” he went on. “Not sure who they are, though.”
Did Vesta even have friends? The question was too sad to ask out loud. Harmony was the only friend that I knew of. And Clara had been her nurse. But beyond them—
“Paul Paulson,” Wayne said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Mom’s nosy next-door neighbor,” he clarified. “The one who tried to sell us real estate—”
“Oh yeah,” I said, remembering the obnoxious man with the chubby tan face and booming voice. “I have his business card somewhere. He’ll know who Vesta knew at the condo.” I stood up, glad of a task to do. “I’ll call him.”
I went back indoors to do just that, with Wayne following behind me. But when I got to the phone, I noticed that the light was blinking on the answering machine. Someone had called while we were out on the deck talking.
I rewound the tape and pushed the playback button.
There was a pause and then a whispered message.
“Stop asking questions,” it said. “Don’t make me kill you too.”
- Seventeen -
I stared down at the answering machine, stunned for a moment. Then my heart began to pound. Don’t make me kill you too.
“This is good,” growled Wayne from behind me. “I’ve spooked Mom’s murderer. Now I know for sure.”
“Just what do you know for sure?” I demanded, whirling around to face him. My mouth felt too dry to speak properly. I swallowed hard before going on. “That the killer wants to kill me now? Or you? Or both of us?”
Wayne’s face paled as I spoke. “Not you!” he cried, his eyebrows rising to reveal brown irises encircled by the white of panic. “I never thought the murderer was talking to you. Thought it was me.” He reached out for my hand and grasped it hard. “Kate, you have to be careful. Don’t go anywhere alone. Stay here—no, no, not here.” He shook his head frantically. “I know, go on a trip while I settle this thing—”
“Are you kidding!” I snapped. “You want me to leave you alone to face him? How do you think I would feel if you were killed? Better than you would if I was killed?”
“But—”
“We’re together on this, Wayne,” I told him, keeping my voice as deep and steady as I could. He tried to pull his hand back, but now I was the one grasping tightly. “I won’t go anywhere without you. And you won’t go anywhere without me. Not till—”
“But it was my mother—”
“I don’t care whose mother it was!” I shouted. And then abruptly, as if I had just awakened from a dream, I thought, Is that me shouting?
Wayne’s face seemed to sober too. His brows settled back down and he pressed his lips into a tight line.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “What’s next?”
I set the answering machine to play back the message. “Stop asking questions,” we heard again. And, “Don’t make me kill you too.” Damn. The caller’s whispers was not only low, but muffled, as if something had been placed over the mouthpiece. And there were long gaps between each uninflected word. Whoever it was, he or she had been very careful.
“Do you recognize the voice?” I asked Wayne, not really hoping for a positive identification. The voice could belong to one of the Skeritts. But it could also belong to Donald Duck. Or Barbara Walters. Or Bullwinkle the Moose, for that matter. Personally, I couldn’t have recognized any of their voices, this well-disguised.
Nor could Wayne. He just shook his head and muttered, “Call the police?”
“I doubt if they’ll know who it is either,” I answered unhappily. “But I suppose we’d better call them, just in case.”
The officer at the La Risa Police Department didn’t seem very interested in our threatening call at first. But then I explained that the call might be related to the murders of Vesta Caruso and Harmony Fitch. After a flurry of telephone transfers, Detective Amador came on the line. I told my story again and she promised me that someone would be out for the tape within the next half hour. Then she paused. I had a feeling Detective Sergeant Upton was telling her to tell us something.
“Stay put,” she ordered a moment later. “We’ll want to talk to you both.”
I was already regretting the decision to call the police by the time she hung up. And fifteen minutes of silent brooding over the death threat didn’t make me feel any better.
“I might as well call Paul Paulson while we wait,” I told Wayne. He nodded glumly.
I found Paulson’s business card in my purse and punched in his number.
“Action Investments,” a male voice answered.
As soon as I gave my name and asked to speak to Mr. Paulson, I was put on hold. Moments later, Paul Paulson came on the line, sounding suspiciously like the first voice I had heard. Was he pretending to be his own receptionist? I shook off the thought. I’d already worried enough about disguised voices for one day.
“… Ms. Jasper, I’m so glad to hear that you’ve been thinking about this unique investment opportunity,” Paulson was saying. “You know, predeveloped land is—”
“I’m not interested in investing,” I cut in hastily.
“You’re not?” he said, a dash of sincere hurt flavoring his usual pitchman’s cheer. But I didn’t have time to sympathize.
“No,” I told him firmly. “I’m calling about Vesta Caruso’s funeral.”
The phone was quiet for a few beats, and then I realized he probably didn’t have a clue as to who I was.
“You know Vesta Caruso, your next-door neighbor,” I said. “Well, her son and I met you the day she was kill—the day she died.”
“Of course,” he boomed. “Poor Mrs. Caruso, an extraordinary woman—”
“I wonder if you happen to know if she had any special friends at the condo?” I interrupted. I had a feeling he could go on at length about Vesta’s shining qualities, and I wasn’t in the mood to listen. “Friends that might want to attend her funeral.”
“Well, I for one would be happy to attend,” he assured me. I just hoped he wouldn’t try to sell any real estate at the funeral. “And old Mr. Quaneri, of course—”
“Mr. Quaneri?” I asked, curious at a name I’d never heard Vesta mention.
“Oh, Mr. Quaneri was quite an admirer of Mrs. Caruso’s,” Paulson told me. “He’s very upset by her death. In fact he…”
The doorbell rang and I lost the end of his sentence. I put my hand over the receiver.
“Wayne,” I hissed. “Can you give Paulson the funeral details?”
He nodded and took the receiver. I ran to the door.
There were two uniformed officers waiting there for me. One was a tall man with blow-dried hair. I remembered him. He had come to the condo on the day of Vesta’s murder. The other was an Asian woman with a long ponytail.
“Officers Lee and Zappetini,” the Asian woman said. “Where’s the tape?”
I led t
hem to the answering machine, still connected to the phone that Wayne was now using. I realized from the glares on the officers’ faces that they didn’t count talking on that phone as staying put.
“Can I get you some tea?” I asked. “Or something—”
“Just the tape, ma’am,” the Asian woman said, consciously or unconsciously doing a credible Jack Webb imitation.
I wondered if she was old enough to have watched Dragnet, but resisted the urge to ask. Her grim expression was enough to forestall any more questions on my part anyway, especially foolish ones. I felt a little better when Wayne hung up the phone and gave them the tape. But not for long.
Officer Lee requested that Wayne and I accompany her and Officer Zappetini to the police station without further delay. At least they didn’t make us ride in the police car. We followed in the Jaguar. Wayne didn’t say a word on the way. And once we arrived, we were immediately ushered into Upton and Amador’s office to listen to the tape a third time.
“… kill you too,” it finished up on full volume. Amador clicked off the tape player.
“Ask them if they recognize the voice,” Upton ordered angrily.
It went downhill from there.
At the end of another twenty minutes of inquisition by relay, I asked Detective Amador if it was possible to either trace the phone call or use some of their technical whiz-bang to identify the speaker.
“Tell her we’ll work on it,” Upton snapped. He glared over my shoulder. “But if it’s a local call—” He threw his hands up in the air.
“One chance in a thousand,” Amador translated. “If we’re lucky.”
Wayne didn’t say much on the way home, except to comment that Upton probably thought we had engineered the tape to divert suspicion from ourselves. Somehow, I wished he could have just talked about the weather.
I was heating up a can of mushroom-barley soup for an early dinner, and Wayne was sitting, staring, on the living room couch when the doorbell rang again.
I turned the soup down and walked to the door cautiously. But Wayne got there first. He took one big hand and shoved me behind him before opening up. I bristled. I didn’t need his protection. And anyway, he shouldn’t have bothered. It was only Felix at the door. Felix smiled widely as he stroked his mustache, a journalistic pit bull ready for action. On the other hand, I decided, just this once it was kind of nice here behind Wayne.
“Howdy-hi,” Felix said, his tone dripping with camaraderie. “Heard you guys found another stiff. Care to share the gory tidbits with your good old reporter amigo—”
“No,” Wayne growled and shut the door.
“Hey!” Felix shouted. Then we heard the sound of his fists pounding on wood. I wondered how long he would keep it up.
But Wayne jerked the door back open before I could find out. Felix fell more than walked through the doorway, his face mashing into Wayne’s chest for an instant. He straightened quickly however and began to speak again.
“Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, big guy,” he offered. “Just wanted a little chat, you know, a little heart-to-heart—”
The sound of another car popping gravel in the driveway distracted him from his solicitation. I looked out and saw a Volkswagen bug screech to a halt behind Felix’s old Chevy. It was my friend, and Felix’s sweetie, Barbara Chu. Then I remembered that they’d been fighting since he’d moved in with her. Maybe she wasn’t his sweetie anymore.
She got out of her Volkswagen and glared at the Chevy. Then she drew herself up to her full five feet and smiled serenely, looking like a slender, extremely beautiful, female Buddha. She walked by the Chevy and up the stairs without ever acknowledging Felix’s presence.
“Hi, kiddo,” she called to me when she reached the deck.
“I thought you might need a little emotional support.” Then she held her arms open. “And a hug,” she added softly.
I walked around Wayne and Felix to redeem my hug. Once I was wrapped in Barbara’s embrace, I realized just how much I had been needing the comfort and affection she was offering. First, Vesta’s body and then Harmony’s, not to mention Wayne’s silence and staring and— Tears of self-pity formed in my eyes.
“So, big guy,” Felix said from behind me. “The porkers aren’t figuring suicide on your old lady any longer. Not after that friggin’ looney-tunes bought it. It’s murder now. And they want to wrap it up quick and tight, if you know what I mean.”
I was pretty sure I knew what Felix meant. And it wasn’t good. Quick and tight. Barbara and I dropped our arms simultaneously.
I turned to look at Wayne, who loomed over Felix like a stone vulture. Who could be quicker and tighter than the victim’s son? My limbs went cold. Could Wayne defend himself from suspicion in his current state? He could barely talk. And the way he was acting, I might have thought he was a homicidal maniac myself if I didn’t know him better. Fear shut down my lungs.
“Keep breathing,” Barbara ordered instantly. “And ignore Felix. He’s just walking all over people as usual, trying to get a story.”
I started breathing again, but I couldn’t ignore what Felix had just said. For all of his insensitivity, he was usually honest with the information he shared. And for all of Barbara’s claim to psychic power, I didn’t think she was privy to the thoughts of the police department.
“I see more than you think,” she said as if she’d heard my thought. And maybe she had. I took an even deeper breath, feeling a little warmer. “And one of the things I see is Felix leaving now,” she added.
“Hey!” Felix protested as he turned to her.
“You’re bugging these people,” she snapped. “It’s time to leave.”
“Holy Moly, sweetcakes—” he began.
“Now,” she ordered, the word emanating from somewhere deep in her throat.
Felix looked up at Wayne. Wayne glared back down. Felix opened his mouth and closed it again, then finally shrugged and started back down the stairs.
“Call me if you need to talk,” Barbara sang out over her shoulder. “And don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine.” And then Felix and Barbara both got in their cars and drove away.
I stared after her fondly. “Barbara’s incredible, isn’t she?” I said to Wayne.
But he didn’t answer me. He just shuffled back to the couch to resume staring. I sighed and went back to my burnt soup.
It didn’t take me long to eat. Afterwards, I simultaneously did Jest Gifts paperwork and worried for a couple of hours. I had just checked off one batch of invoices and was working myself up to a full-scale anxiety attack when the phone rang. Wayne leapt from the couch and picked up the receiver before I even had a chance to push back my chair.
“Yes,” I heard him say a few times, then “no,” then “yes” again, and then finally, “probably fifteen minutes.”
“Who was that?” I demanded when he hung up.
“Lori,” he answered briefly, his eyes still on the phone.
“And what did Lori want?” I pressed, feeling like the mother of a sullen teenager.
“Talk,” he answered. “Timber Lounge at the Redwood Grove Inn.” He paused for a moment, then added, “They know about Harmony.”
I insisted on going with him to meet Lori. He didn’t bother to argue. That worried me even more.
The Timber Lounge was a small bar adjoining the Old Burl Cafe. It was decorated in hanging ferns like the cafe, but it was much darker. Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw Lori at the bar, sitting next to her mother. Ingrid didn’t look well. Even in the dim light, I could see that she was crying again, her face buried in a handkerchief. There were a few other, scattered drinkers in the bar, mostly strangers, except for Bill Norton who sat drinking quietly a few stools down from Lori and her mother. Lori wasn’t quiet, though.
“Hi, you two!” she called out happily. Heads turned at the bar as she swung her long legs from her stool and trotted over to us, her arms outstretched.
Lori’s hug didn’t feel anywhere
near as good to me as Barbara’s had. But then, I didn’t suspect Barbara of murder. And Barbara didn’t wear a ton of perfume either.
“The police came and talked to each of us about Harmony,” Lori told us eagerly. I wished she’d lower her voice. “You knew all about it, didn’t you?” she went on, grinning.
“Not all,” I answered softly, hoping she’d follow my less audible example. “We found Harmony’s body…” I faltered, replaying the scene once more in my mind.
“Have you figured out who killed her yet?” Lori demanded.
I looked up into her face. She was grinning and bouncing on her heels in excitement. She was having… fun.
“No,” I answered shortly, wondering if hers was the cheerful face of a psychopath.
Something in my attitude must have registered. Her grin disappeared and she furrowed her Skeritt brow. “I know Harmony is dead,” she assured me. “But she’s probably passing on to a more joyous incarnation right now.” She tilted her head as if asking me to agree.
“Maybe,” I muttered, and for a moment I really considered the proposition. Maybe Harmony was happier now. She hadn’t had much joy in this life—
“But what we have to do is to figure out who did it,” Lori told me, her voice gaining speed and excitement again. “All three of us are intuitive people. All we have to do is approach this holistically—”
“Who do you think killed her?” asked Wayne from behind me, his voice low and grave. I started. I had almost forgotten he was there.
“Well…” Lori said. She sighed and ran her hand down her long blond braid, her eyes unfocused. “I don’t know.” But then she straightened up and grinned again. “Not yet anyway. I’m sure we can figure it out—”
“You can go ahead and take a seat,” a waitress said from behind Lori, reminding me that we were all still standing in the doorway of the bar. “I’ll be with you in a second.”
We sat down at the closest table, a small round one under a hanging fern. Then Lori launched into her plan. It had something to do with personality analysis and hypnosis. At least I think it did. I lost track about five minutes into her monologue.
Tea-Totally Dead Page 17
