A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  And I found myself nodding.

  There is something about having your world touched, however peripherally, by a crime as serious as taking someone’s life that breeds an ethical compulsion to find answers, to seek justice. Or maybe not even ethical, maybe just nosy.

  And all three of us on that ratty old couch knew it. I finally did sigh then.

  “What do you know about Sam Skyler?” Wayne asked.

  “Sam?” Yasuda reflected, unclasping his hands. “Well, I admired the man. I know there were those in Marin—and in Golden Valley especially—who didn’t. But I did.”

  “Why?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “He was a generous man, in terms of community,” Yasuda told us. “He contributed to the Golden Valley Elementary School after last year’s flooding almost destroyed it. Actually, there wouldn’t be any Golden Valley Elementary School without him. And he gave personal scholarships out of his own pocket to kids all over Marin who were bright but too poor to go anywhere with their lives. Subsidized a whole graduating class in Southham City one year. Anyone who wanted to go to college, he paid their tuition. As long as they kept up their grades. He was a good man, no matter what he did in the past.”

  “Then why did people dislike him so much in the community?” I demanded. “Because of the old murder charges?”

  “No,” Yasuda answered slowly. “I don’t think very many people even knew that ancient history. And if they did, most of them figured he’d been mistakenly accused and cleared. It was because of the Institute. Not what the Institute did. But the building itself. Did you ever see it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s a huge place. And there was a lot of fuss before it was built. A lot of people didn’t think it belonged in the valley at all, which is mostly residential. Lots of accusations of bribery were flying around when its construction was finally approved by the City Council.”

  “Was this before or after he gave the money to rebuild the elementary school?” I asked.

  “Before,” Yasuda assured me. He shook his head. “But people still think his contributions were some kind of payoff. Some people, anyway. And lots of these people hadn’t even met him. It’s really weird how the community was split on the issue of Sam Skyler’s worth, and a good half of them didn’t even know him.”

  “But you did,” Wayne put in.

  “Yeah,” Yasuda admitted. “I live in Golden Valley. I met him a couple of times at community meetings. He was a really impressive guy. But people either liked him or they didn’t.”

  That about summed it up. It was a while before Yasuda went on.

  “And then there’s Yvonne’s business to consider,” he muttered finally, dropping his gaze, a flush pinkening his tan cheeks. I wondered if he even realized he’d stopped calling our class leader Ms. O’Reilley.

  By the time he’d finished telling us how worried he was about the effect of Sam Skyler’s death on Yvonne’s business, and on her delicate psyche, I’d decided that if Yvonne had a crush on the park ranger, the crush was mutual. And then I started wondering what ritual they’d come up with if they got married.

  My extended fantasies of samurai, goddess, and geisha, including a good portion of role reversal and even some cross-dressing, were interrupted when Park Ranger Yasuda got up from our couch.

  “Thank you for listening,” he said simply.

  “Oh…um…thank you,” I responded automatically, embarrassed that I had lost the last half of the conversation while engaged in unscheduled wedding ritual fantasies.

  I was in the mood for some cuddling by the time our park ranger had left. Serious cuddling. But Wayne was up, pacing by the front door, jingling his car keys.

  “Going out to dinner with the Athertons,” he finally mumbled.

  “The Athertons?” I repeated.

  “Gary, Liz…”

  “And Diana,” I finished for him. “Am I invited?”

  This time I couldn’t even hear the content of his mutterings. Though I was pretty sure there was something in there about my not being invited.

  I kept my own mutterings to myself and got up to join him. Dinner with the Athertons it was. I was inviting myself. How gracious of me.

  Wayne was meeting the Athertons at Quels Légumes!—the newest, most chichi vegetarian restaurant in Marin County, one Wayne had been promising to take me to ever since it opened three months before. No wonder he was so embarrassed about not inviting me.

  “Diana suggested it,” he mumbled as he handed over his keys to a valet parking person outfitted in green overalls with an orange carrot embroidered on the breast pocket. “Diana’s a vegetarian too, you know.”

  “Does she use honey?” I asked sweetly.

  Wayne flashed me a look from beneath his brows. Did he suspect sarcasm?

  I smiled back innocently, linked my arm with his and we marched up to the entrance of Quels Légumes! And that entrance was impressive. Giant green plaster of Paris columns shaped like asparagus spears flanked the wide glass doors. And over the doors was a fresco of brightly colored fruits and vegetables: broccoli, bell peppers, red onions, corn, lemons, and strawberries, just to name a few.

  “Wow,” I whispered as we entered. Even Wayne’s restaurant in the city wasn’t this impressive. I noticed him gazing at the decor with a professional eye. Or was it a critical one? Did he think the entrance was a bit overstated?

  Inside, the air was cool and the tables and chairs strange, great rounds of orange, red, purple, and green. It wasn’t until we were escorted to our table by a maitre d’ wearing a green tuxedo with the requisite embroidered carrot that I recognized the shapes of the tables and chairs as oversized replicas of big round vegetable slices.

  I ran my eyes over the zucchini, eggplant, tomato, turnip, and beet seats, and chose the eggplant. Wayne placed his bottom on the turnip beside me and we both stared in silence at the carrot-slice table. A vegetarian Disneyland.

  “Our soups tonight are gazpacho, eggplant-paprika, and a spicy cilantro-tomato bisque,” the headwaiter told us. I shuddered. My taste buds have always thought of cilantro as a poison, not a food.

  “Our specials are mesquite grilled vegetable kebabs over couscous with just a touch of Thai-inspired—”

  “Wayne, Kate,” a slow, soft voice murmured behind me, cutting off the poetry of the specials announcements. Diana’s voice, I knew instantly. Who else could send that message of sweet sensuality with just two words? “How good to see you.”

  Liz took the zucchini chair, Gary the beet, and Diana, most appropriately, the remaining tomato.

  We exchanged greetings and I eyed the Athertons for any untoward reactions to my presence. There were none. Liz just looked strained, her no-nonsense hair rumpled and her brown eyes seeming slightly askew. She put a hand to her temple as Gary buried his face in a menu. Diana’s face was as serene as usual, her round blue eyes staring into the unknown somewhere behind us.

  After the specials were all announced, I took a look at my menu. The prices matched the decor perfectly. They were all oversized.

  “We’ve been very concerned,” Diana announced as my eyes meandered by the basil-tofu sushi and clove-scented paella. “Sam’s passing has many implications—”

  “Not all of them spiritual,” Gary interrupted, his voice a muted shout of frustration. Or maybe I was projecting.

  Diana nodded and Gary took over, speaking softly but quickly.

  “There’s this group of guys called Growth Imperatives, Unlimited,” he told us, leaning across the table, his handsome features tight with tension. “And they’ve been bugging Diana wherever she goes. Especially this one guy. They want to buy the Institute.”

  “I inherit a third of Sam’s estate,” Diana explained. Then she shook her head gently. “Though the inheritance makes me feel closer to Sam’s spirit in a way, I don’t really want any money from it. It makes me feel unclean.”

  “And it makes the police feel suspicious,” Gary added with quiet impatience. />
  Liz’s head swiveled in her son’s direction, her brown eyes widening, accentuating her resemblance to Diana, for all her cropped hair and Diana’s waist-length braid. “The police?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Mom,” Gary answered, his voice still low, but the impatience in it growing. “The police see an inheritance of that size as a good motive for murder.”

  “But I thought the police weren’t sure of murder,” she objected. “He could have fallen. Didn’t someone say he did fall?”

  Gary sighed. It was a day for sighs. And he had cause. His mother was acting as spacey as his sister. Wasn’t Liz supposed to be a court reporter? I’d hate to depend on someone that disoriented to take down my words accurately.

  “Mom,” Diana explained in her most soothing voice, “I think the police are sure he was pushed. They haven’t said so, but intuitively, I can feel their belief. It’s best if we assume that’s going to be their approach.”

  “And as if it weren’t bad enough with them sniffing around,” Gary added, “these Growth Imperatives guys are like something out of the Mafia. They’ve even been to the restaurant,” he added, turning to Wayne.

  “Our restaurant?” Wayne asked.

  Gary nodded violently, clearly outraged. As much as a usually quiet man like Gary can be outraged.

  Wayne’s brows dropped contemplatively. I noticed he hadn’t divulged to the Athertons what the police actually knew about the circumstances of Sam’s death. I was glad to hear it. Or not hear it, actually. Maybe he didn’t completely trust Diana after all.

  I looked back at my menu, my appetite sharpening suddenly. The artichoke-mushroom focaccia sounded good. And the spinach-pine-nut salad.

  Which is what I ordered when our waiter came. Gary and Diana ordered carefully, as if choosing a jewel from Tiffany’s. So did Wayne. But Liz just asked for a big salad, “any salad.” And Gary sighed again before choosing for her. His mother’s indifferent attitude toward her meal appeared to rain down hard on him, a man seriously into the restaurant business. I wondered if he’d picked up his sensitivities, not to mention the sigh, from Wayne.

  Then Gary started talking about the Growth Imperatives people again.

  “Have you told the police about these men?” Wayne asked finally.

  Diana shrugged, slowly, gracefully. “It’s up to Nathan, really,” she said. “I don’t know anything about the Institute.”

  Then she guided the conversation into less stormy waters. By the time my spinach-pine-nut salad was served, Diana was explaining her holistic approach to tantric yoga instruction.

  “So few women really rejoice in their sexuality,” she murmured sadly. But then she brightened. “Still, their transformations are beautiful to see. Merging sexuality with spirituality. Passion and compassion in sex—”

  “Diana’s grandfather was a healer too,” Liz interrupted, through a bite of her minted quinoa salad. She was probably about as comfortable as I was discussing tantric sexuality over dinner with near strangers. “He came from Mexico. He was a doctor down there, but not allowed to practice here. But he was still a healer.”

  “He owned a five-and-dime in San Ricardo,” Gary put in. “But people came to him anyway whenever they had a splinter or a rash, or whatever.”

  “All this prejudice about Hispanic immigrants,” Liz said, shaking her head sadly.

  “Latinos, Mom,” Gary corrected. But Liz just kept going.

  “And ‘Americans’ so concerned about keeping the Hispanics out of California. Who do they think built California?” she said, her voice gaining speed and anger. Her eyes narrowed. “It was the Hispanics who built the roads, the missions, the ranches. The Hispanics civilized this state—”

  “And killed most of the Native Americans in the process,” Gary muttered. But that didn’t stop Liz for a moment either.

  “Then once the Hispanics had civilized California, these so-called Americans came in like swaggering hyenas and cheated the Hispanic-Californians out of their land grants. And now they have the nerve to call Mexicans wetbacks. The stereotypes these people perpetrate!” She slapped our carrot table resoundingly. “My father was a Mexican immigrant, my mother English. My father was the epitome of integrity and hard work. He was an absolute gentleman. Never hit my mother in his entire life—”

  “Dad could have taken a few lessons—” Gary mumbled.

  “Or us kids either,” Liz pressed on. No wonder Diana and Gary were relatively quiet, I decided. Growing up, they probably never got a chance to get a word in edgewise. “A completely gentle man. If anyone had a temper, it was my mother. And she came from Great Britain. Not that she hit anyone, either. But she knew how to yell. She was no more the British stereotype than my father was the Hispanic.” Liz paused for a moment, her eyes going back to their normal width. “Sorry to climb on the soapbox. But these false stereotypes are truly evil.”

  I nodded in agreement. She was certainly right on that one.

  We crunched our salads and slurped our soups without speaking for a while. The spinach-pine-nut salad was surprisingly good, very sweet and sprinkled with herbs I couldn’t identify.

  Liz looked at her watch once she had finished her own salad. “Gotta go, kids,” she announced abruptly, and rose from her zucchini. She fished through her wallet for some bills to hand to Gary.

  “But Mom,” he objected, either to her leaving or to the money. I couldn’t tell which.

  She turned to us with a sheepish smile.

  “Sorry about the diatribe,” she apologized. “I know I talk too much. Ought to have better social skills at this point in my life. But…” She shrugged. “Anyway, I hope to see you again. I’ll try to keep my lip buttoned the next time.”

  “No, no,” I assured her honestly. “The stuff about California was really interesting.”

  She tilted her head as if to test my sincerity, then smiled crookedly and grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

  “Well, thank you,” she said and then exited Quels Legumes! through its asparagus columns.

  “Sorry about Mom,” Diana murmured once Liz was gone. “She’s been really moody lately.”

  “Menopause, I’ll bet,” Gary threw in before I could say I didn’t think “Mom” had said anything worth apologizing for. “Not that she’d ever mention it.”

  It seemed to me that Liz might actually be a little old for menopause, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “She’s hardly done any chain-saw sculpture in the last few months,” Diana went on, her round eyes narrowed ever so slightly with concern.

  “Yeah,” Gary agreed. He looked up at the roof. “The last one I remember was the dolphin. And that had to be four months ago at least.”

  Wayne and I looked at each other while Gary and Diana continued to discuss their mother’s sculptures. How were we going to bring the subject back to murder?

  As it was, Diana took care of the conversational direction, just as the waiter brought our main dishes.

  “I’ve been trying to think who Sam knew in the wedding class,” she told us as my focaccia was set before me on a giant white china plate. Her voice was perfectly calm, perfectly serene.

  I took a bite of the soft white bread smothered in sautéed mushrooms and artichokes. Delicious, but not any better than the take-out at Grace Baking, even considering the giant white plate, the accompanying artistically trimmed raw veggies, and the giant price.

  “Sam was the kind of person who’d met everyone,” Diana went on, ignoring her own linguine with fresh vegetables and herbs. “Every place we went people seemed to know him. He used to say he was embarrassed because he couldn’t remember all the people who remembered him.”

  “He wasn’t a man you’d forget easily,” I offered.

  “That’s true,” she agreed eagerly. She bent forward. “He really was bigger than life in many ways. And people felt a sense of intimacy with him, just meeting him.” She smiled, then closed her eyes for a moment as if savoring the memory.

  I thought o
f what Yasuda had said—you either liked Sam or you didn’t.

  Diana’s eyes popped open again. I shifted on my eggplant seat guiltily, hoping she hadn’t heard my thought.

  “Anyway,” she said, her voice a little firmer, “I know Sam knew Ona and Perry. And Yvonne. And Nathan of course.”

  The minute she said Nathan’s name her skin pinkened and she seemed to lose track of what she was saying.

  Uh-oh. It looked like Emma was right. Diana was more interested in Skyler Junior than Skyler Senior. Talk about motives. Add that little bit of information to the inheritance that she’d probably lose if she dumped Daddy for his son—

  “And Martina,” she went on, her voice barely a whisper. She was looking down at her plate now. “And maybe Emma.” She looked back up again. “Did you know Emma Jett was really born Emma Jones. She changed her name.”

  “How’d you happen to know that?” Wayne asked. I started at the sound of his deep voice, he’d been quiet so long.

  “Oh, I knew her sister in high school.”

  And that was about it for useful information. It seemed that Diana didn’t know much more about Sam than we did. Maybe even less, I thought, seeing Yvonne’s brass vases in my mind as we stood up half an hour later.

  Now it was time for Wayne and me to offer our apologies, since we had to leave. That is, if we wanted to make the firewalk wedding that Yvonne had arranged for that evening. And I, for one, did.

  I knew people who’d firewalked, but I’d never actually seen it done. I was ready. To watch, that is. Not to walk.

  By the time we got there, the sun had set, and twenty feet of brightly burning coals lit up the backyard of yet another friend of Yvonne O’Reilley’s. She seemed to know as many people as Sam Skyler.

  “Oh, I’m so energized,” she was telling the members of the Wedding Ritual class, who stood in the back of the crowd waiting for the ceremony to begin. It looked as if everyone from the original class was there, everyone but Diana. And Sam of course.