Murder Among Neighbors (The Kate Austen Mystery Series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  I was getting ready to call it quits when the girls came upstairs and stood in the doorway. “Are you cleaning Mommy’s room?” Kimberly asked.

  “No honey, not really.” Although that clearly would be something I could offer to do. I made a mental note to mention it to Claudia when I went downstairs. “The police asked me to look through a few of your mother’s things.”

  Kimberly’s eyes filled with tears. Kneeling, I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tightly.

  “I miss her,” she whimpered.

  “I know you do. She loved you so much, Kimberly. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “But I’m never going to see her again, am I?”

  “Not in the way you used to. She’s with you, just the same, though. I’ll bet if you close your eyes you can see her now—smiling at you the way she did, so proud. If you try hard enough, I’ll bet you can carry on a conversation, just the two of you.”

  “But it’s not real. It’s all pretend. And when I open my eyes there’s nothing.”

  Suddenly I had idea. I didn’t know what the police needed still from the bedroom, but I knew that Pepper kept some of her out-of-season clothes and other items she didn’t use every day in the guest room. “Would you like some things of your mother’s?” I asked. “Things just for you, to keep in your room?”

  Kimberly nodded, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

  We crossed over to the guest room at the end of the hallway, and I opened a bureau drawer filled with purses. “How about one of these?” I asked.

  While Kimberly made her selection I looked for something else she could have. The closet was full of winter wools, all zipped up tight in garment bags, and an assortment of satin and beaded evening gowns. Finally I found a box of scarves and was starting to dump it out on the bed when I noticed a shiny, white plastic case at the bottom of the box. I knew exactly what it was the minute I saw it, because my own diaphragm came in a case just like it. And there next to it was a tube of Ortho jelly, rolled up neatly from the bottom.

  Intent as I was on whisking these particular items from the girls’ questioning eyes, it took a moment to sink in. Why would a woman who wanted another child, a woman with a husband who was practically sterile, have a diaphragm? And why would she keep it hidden away instead of someplace convenient like the bathroom or her dresser drawer? Unless, of course, Pepper was sleeping with someone other than Robert.

  While Kimberly examined the scarves, I wondered if I should mention my discovery to Lieutenant Stone. It wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he’d asked me to look around, but it might be important to the investigation. And it would give me an excuse to talk with him again, something I was surprisingly eager to do.

  When I got back downstairs, I found Claudia studying her reflection in the hallway mirror. “What do you think?” she asked, turning her left ear toward me and pulling the hair back away from her face.

  “You mean the earring?”

  She nodded.

  “I like it. Is it new?”

  “It was Pepper’s. The police found it in the upstairs hallway. Just the single earring. The intruder must have dropped it when he was making off with her jewelry.”

  “I thought it looked familiar.” In fact, I could remember admiring it once before. It was an unusual looking, a triangle of pounded silver overlaid on gold and edged in bronze. The kind of thing I never manage to find in stores, only on other women.

  Claudia turned back to the mirror. “I don’t usually wear large, dangly earrings because I’m so large myself.” Here she laughed self-consciously. “But maybe I should. There’s a fine line between looking exotic and looking silly.”

  “Pepper didn’t usually wear large earrings either, and you certainly don’t look silly.”

  She removed the earring and set it on the library table under the mirror. “Well, one earring won’t do me much good anyway. Did you find that incriminating bit of evidence up there?”

  For a minute I thought she knew about the diaphragm and I glanced sharply in her direction, but then I realized she was speaking generally. “Nope, not that I really expected to.”

  She nodded. “It was good of you to try nonetheless. Say, does the name Tony Sheris mean anything to you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Pepper wrote a lot of checks to him. Two or three hundred dollars at a time. I thought maybe he was tied in with the school or something.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” But the name did sound vaguely familiar. “Wait a minute. She had a gardener named Tony, I think. I remember because she told me I should talk to him about doing our place, too.”

  Frowning, Claudia turned and walked to the table where she’d spread out her paperwork. “That must be it then, although I must say, he certainly wasn’t cheap. She’s paid him quite a bit just in the last couple of months.”

  “I guess that’s one advantage to having a small yard, I can do the whole thing myself.”

  “I’ll go you one better,” Claudia said with a chuckle. “I live in a condominium, and the African violet on my kitchen window sill satisfies all my gardening instincts.”

  <><><>

  A little after six that evening, Daria arrived at the front door loaded down with Chinese food from Mr. Woo’s.

  “Now tell me,” she began, even before she took off her jacket, “what’s been happening? Do you think the police have any suspects yet?”

  “No suspects. No fingerprints. Apparently there wasn’t any physical evidence at all.”

  While I got out bowls, chopsticks and paper napkins, I told her about my conversation with Lieutenant Stone, carefully leaving out the part about his exquisite gray eyes and magnificent smile. There are some things you don’t share, even with a good friend.

  “To show you how desperate they are,” I said, “the lieutenant asked me to look over Pepper’s bedroom for any clues they might have missed.”

  Daria was emptying the cartons of food into bowls, and she turned to look at me, almost sending the asparagus chicken onto the floor. “What did you find?”

  “Proof that neatness is an overrated virtue.”

  She looked puzzled.

  “I didn’t find anything. The killer might have been a sicko, but he was a tidy one. The room was hardly disturbed, and there was certainly nothing there to identify the killer.”

  “Pretty smart.”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant me or the killer. “Yeah.”

  She smiled and handed me a bowl of rice. “You should have called me; four eyes are better than two.”

  “Even a dozen eyes wouldn’t have made a difference. You want wine or soda?”

  “You actually have to ask that question?”

  In fact, I didn’t. Opening the fridge, I found the bottle of chardonnay left from her last visit, and poured a glass while she went to tell Anna that dinner was ready.

  “She wants to finish watching Sesame Street’ first, is that okay?”

  “Sure, she only eats rice and pot stickers anyway. Let’s go ahead and start though, I’m starving.”

  Fascinated, I watched as Daria rolled moo shu pork into a pancake and then took a dainty little bite, somehow managing to avoid having juice dribble down her chin or shredded cabbage land in her lap. Daria is one of those women who refuse to yield to the little imperfections the rest of us take for granted in life. Her hair is never dirty, her clothes never spotted, her windows never grimy. And no weed ever had a chance in her garden.

  “I did learn something interesting, however,” I announced.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think Pepper might have been having an affair.”

  Daria choked and reached for her glass, taking several large swallows. She even managed that with flair. “Whatever makes you think that?”

  I told her about finding the diaphragm and about my earlier conversation with Robert.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s enough, isn’t it? It’s not likely she’d tak
e Polaroid pictures of the two of them actually doing it. Besides, I also found the original pharmacy box, from January of this year, so I know it wasn’t something she kept as a memento.”

  “January? That was almost six months ago.”

  I nodded, not exactly wowed by her powers of arithmetic.

  Daria was still coughing, but she sat back now and breathed deeply. “Do you have any idea who it was?”

  “Not a clue. I was as shocked as you, I mean I didn’t even suspect. ”

  “Well,” she said smoothly, “knowing Pepper, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Pepper always thought she was such hot stuff. She probably seduced men for a hobby.”

  There’s always been an element of envy, I think, in Daria’s relationship with Pepper. On occasion I may fantasize about living in a fancy house and jetting off to exotic places, but it’s so far beyond the realm of possibility that I’m not disappointed with what I have. The situation with Daria was different. She and Jim were certainly well- to-do, but his dentist’s income hardly qualified them as members of the moneyed elite. I had an idea Daria resented being on the fringe of a life she secretly coveted.

  “Pepper’s certainly not the first,” I reminded her. “We never suspected Lisa either, or Joan. We think everyone else leads the same dull lives we do.”

  “Not dull, satisfying.”

  “Yours may be satisfying; mine, at the moment anyway, is dull.” And far from satisfying.

  “Well, having an affair is certainly not the way to liven it up.”

  From out of nowhere, a picture of Lieutenant Stone flashed through my mind. Hands in his pockets, lips curved in a half-smile so that the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Weren’t you ever tempted?” I asked, more eagerly than I intended.

  Because of her position as owner of an art gallery, Daria often mixed with interesting and glamorous people. I figured that somewhere along the line, over a glass of champagne, or in the barren loft of some yet undiscovered artist, there had to have been a flicker of unexpected chemistry. But apparently she was better at ignoring these things than I was, because she shook her head emphatically.

  “Never,” she said. “But then I’m spoiled.”

  This was an annoying habit of hers. Whenever the rest of us complained—usually more as a joke than out of seriousness— about lazy, insensitive husbands, Daria would lean back and listen, lips pursed in a discreetly self-satisfied manner. And then, when there was a lull in the conversation, she’d drop some nugget about Jim’s gentleness and devotion. “Not that he’s without fault,” she’d add demurely, but of course that is exactly what she did mean.

  “You know what a sweetheart Jim is,” she continued now. “I can’t imagine finding anyone else who’d come remotely close.”

  I nodded, confirming that Jim was indeed a rare and wonderful man, then tried to steer the conversation back to the question at hand. “Do you think I should mention the diaphragm to the police?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  I shrugged. “It might be important. Maybe Pepper was blackmailing her lover, so he killed her.”

  Daria scowled. “You’ve been watching too many bad movies. This Lieutenant Stone asked you to look for murder clues, not pry around in Pepper’s private life. Besides, you don’t know anything for sure, and spreading rumors is . . . well, it’s tacky and quite beneath you.”

  My ambivalence must have been obvious, because she continued, “Think about poor Robert then, don’t you imagine he has enough to worry about already?”

  She was right about that. I pushed at a red chili with the tip of my chopstick, recalling Mary Nell’s words from that morning.

  “Did Pepper seem troubled recently?” I asked Daria.

  “No, not really. She was busy with the Wine Festival, and that made her testy on occasion, but I wouldn’t say she was upset. Chris took in their mail and fed the cat when they went to Hawaii last month. He said she was practically euphoric, couldn’t stop talking about what a wonderful time they’d had.”

  Chris was Daria’s sixteen-year-old son, the one the other boys respected, the teachers praised, and the girls adored. At least that was how Daria saw it.

  “She told me she was glad to get back home,” I said, standing to reach for the carton of rice from the counter. “Want anything more?”

  Daria shook her head. “I never understood why you two were such good friends. You’re usually not impressed by all that phony stuff.”

  “I wasn’t impressed—I just liked her. And it wasn’t all phony.”

  Daria gave me one of those don’t-be-such-a-simp glares and changed the subject. “You sure you didn’t hear anything that night?”

  “Of course I’m sure. You think maybe I heard screams, ran to the window, got a good look at the killer and have been keeping it a secret?”

  “You might be scared, being alone and all, your life in turmoil.”

  “It’s okay, Daria. Really, I’m fine. And if I saw anything that night I would certainly have said something.” Hoping to forestall the it’s-okay-to-be-sad pep talk I sensed was imminent, I stood up and started clearing the table.

  “Any word from Andy?” she asked.

  “He sends postcards to Anna, sometimes I rate a P.S.”

  “I just don’t understand how he could do this to you.”

  I shrugged. The funny thing was that on some level, I could.

  “And I was so fond of him, too,” Daria lamented.

  “The worst part is having to figure out all over again, what to do with my life. I thought that was all behind me.”

  Before I met Andy, my life had no direction. I drifted from job to job, man to man, day to day, all in a kind of murky bleakness. But marriage changed that. For the first time I knew who I was and where I fit in. Or thought I did. But now things had come full circle and I found myself once again at an impasse. Only this time I had a child to worry about, possibly two, and the thought of being a secretary had lost whatever appeal it once had.

  Daria poured herself a second glass of wine and looked around the kitchen, as if she might find there in the blue and white patterned wallpaper or chipped Formica some sign that my prospects weren’t as hopeless as I thought.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she said, growing suddenly animated. “Why don’t you come work for me? The pay won’t be anything to write home about, but it would be a great way to ease back into the routine of working and you’d be involved in the art world.”

  “It’s nice of you to offer, but—”

  “Nice nothing. We’re terribly shorthanded at the moment, and it’s going to be even worse this summer when Paul takes off for Alaska. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”

  “But what about Anna?” I was ready, maybe, to start thinking about the direction of my life, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to leap into a full-blown change just yet.

  “You can work while she’s at school, maybe find a sitter for a couple of afternoons a week. I don’t need anyone full-time, but I do need someone I can trust. You’d be a such a help, and you’d enjoy it too, I know you would.”

  “I don’t know,” I told her hesitantly, “my hours would have to be quite limited.”

  “Fine. You want to start Monday?”

  What the heck, it was a good idea. A great idea in fact. “Sure, Monday it is.”

  She stood up and hugged me warmly. “This is going to be such fun,” she said, her voice rich with affection. “Paul and Mandy are lovely people, but we’re hardly chummy. I’m going to really enjoy having you around.”

  “Business and pleasure don’t always mix,” I reminded her.

  “Not to worry. A friendship like ours can weather almost anything.”

  Daria rinsed the dishes while I cut up Anna’s pot stickers and two tiny pieces of chicken which I tried my best to disguise. And when Daria left, I stood in front of the mirror and smiled at my
reflection. Maybe this was going to be one of those turning points life is supposedly full of. In the years to come I would look back on this moment and laugh at how easily it had all fallen into place.

  Chapter 6

  Walnut Hills Community Church is a massive, modernistic structure of concrete and glass. From the outside it looks more like a power station than a house of God, but it won an award for architectural innovation the year it was built. The list of parishioners reads something like a local version of the social registry, and the church is a hub of community activity, so even those who worship elsewhere frequently find themselves attending recitals, scout functions and political meetings there. Pepper, of course, had not only been a member of the congregation, but of the steering committee as well, and her memorial service probably came close to topping the list of the year’s best attended events.

  The church was already nearly full by the time I arrived, the air filled with the soft buzz of discreetly subdued conversations. Robert sat in the front pew next to Claudia. He looked remarkably serene, as though he were only peripherally involved in the day’s events. Like someone attending the wedding of a distant relative.

  There wasn’t even a hint of the raw emotion I’d detected, although fleetingly, a few evenings earlier. I spotted Daria and Jim several rows farther back and had started up the aisle in their direction when Candice Blackford signaled to me.

  “There’s room here, Kate,” she said, scooting over and patting the smooth, polished wood of the pew. Candice is the high school principal and ex-wife of the town mayor. She’s short, dumpy, gray-haired, and exceedingly outspoken. But everyone loves her, even the students she places on probation.

  “Quite a turnout, isn’t it?” she said, as I slipped in next to her. “I’m sure Pepper would have been proud.”

  Because I wasn’t sure whether she was being sarcastic or serious, I merely nodded.

  “Do you think they’ll find the killer?” She sneezed and then, without waiting for an answer, continued. “I’ve heard, unofficially of course, that the police have practically nothing to go on. The city council is furious, what with the bad publicity and all. They want the case wrapped up right away. They’re putting on pressure to bring in outside help, but Ness won’t hear of it.”