“Yes, of course. How’s she doing?”
“Not great. An officer was here this morning and asked her all kinds of questions.” Donna’s voice was almost a whisper.
“But she’d already been questioned out at the house.”
“I know,” Donna said in a tone that put ominous significance on the double questioning.
“She can’t go back to the house yet?”
“The officer said they weren’t finished there.”
Cate scrunched the phone closer to her ear. “I’m sorry, but I can barely hear you.”
“I don’t know if Jo-Jo would want me to call you. I waited until after she went to bed, but she may not be asleep yet.” A pause, as if Donna were listening for something from the bedroom, then another whisper. “I know you said you weren’t investigating Eddie’s death, but I think you should be.”
“Why is that?”
“I stayed home from work today because I was concerned about Jo-Jo being here alone. She still seems so dazed. I probably shouldn’t have listened in when the deputy questioned her, but I kind of … did.”
“What kind of questions were they?”
“Oh, mostly about where she was, and who she’d talked to. It certainly sounds to me as if they suspect Jo-Jo killed him, though I don’t think she realizes that yet. She’s just too upset to think clearly about anything.”
“Why would they be suspicious of Jo-Jo?”
“Oh, you know. There are … peculiarities.”
Cate had to agree with that, although she wasn’t about to offer her own list of peculiarities. One thing she hadn’t thought about before occurred to her now. It had seemed accidental when Jo-Jo picked up the gun beside Eddie’s body, then dropped it in apparent horror, but could the police be thinking that might not have been accidental? That she was cleverly making a legitimate reason for her prints to be on the gun to conceal the fact that they were already there?
“Are you suspicious of her?” Cate asked bluntly.
“No! Of course not. Jo-Jo’s my friend. I’ve known her for years. She’s a wonderful woman.”
Cate thought that statement came with more hasty indignation than actual conviction, and she had the feeling that Donna did have suspicions about her old friend. Still, Belmont Investigations did not do murder.
“It sounds as if the sheriff’s office is simply doing a thorough investigation,” Cate said. “Actually, law enforcement officers usually treat any death that isn’t natural as a possible crime.” That information had come from Cate’s middle-of-the-night reading. “It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re suspicious of Jo-Jo.”
“They sounded suspicious of Jo-Jo to me.” Donna sounded accusing, as if she thought Cate was shirking her duty.
“A private investigator can’t just barge in and start investigating the way law enforcement officers do,” Cate pointed out. “It’s their job to investigate any unnatural death, but a PI doesn’t have that right. It would probably be a good idea for Jo-Jo to talk to a lawyer.”
“Okay. I’ll tell her.”
Cate started to hang up, but curiosity got the better of her. “By the way, I understand Eddie’s new wife has a store or shop of some kind. Do you know anything about it?”
“The Mystic Mirage,” Donna said promptly. “Lots of incense and crystals and candles. Tarot cards. Astrology stuff. Jewelry and some clothing, with a big emphasis on natural fabrics and dyes.” Donna spoke in a disparaging tone, but then, as if she made the admission reluctantly, she added, “Although some of it is rather attractive, especially the antique jewelry and the leather sandals. In a, um …”
Cate filled in with Robyn’s word. “Funky-fashionable way?”
“Yes, funky. But I found her selection of books really disturbing. Everything from New Agey spiritual stuff to books about Atlantis and out-of-body experiences. UFO books, even some on witchcraft and the occult. Creepy.”
“You’ve been there?”
Moment of silence, as if Donna realized she’d again revealed too much. “These friends from Portland—”
Cate let her off the hook, although she suspected nosiness rather than insistent friends may have motivated Donna’s visit to the shop. “I understand.”
“And I’ll tell you something else. Jo-Jo says the reason Eddie left her was that Kim put a spell on him.”
“A spell? Like voodoo or witchcraft?”
“I don’t believe in far-out stuff like that, of course,” Donna declared. “I think poor Jo-Jo is just desperate to explain to herself how Eddie could up and dump her like he did. But if thinking the woman put a spell on him makes it easier for Jo-Jo, well, okay with me.” Donna might have concerns about Jo-Jo’s involvement in Eddie the Ex’s death, but her loyalty to her friend stood firm as a concrete wall.
“Did you meet Kim when you were in the store?”
“Yes, although I didn’t let on that I was a friend of Jo-Jo’s. The mother was there too, and if you ask me, she’s the really strange one.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Oh yes. She was pushing her book about her taking people into their ‘past lives’ through hypnotic regression. She has a ‘Doctor’ in front of her name and calls herself a metaphysical psychologist, whatever that means. She managed to get herself on a bunch of big TV talk shows, as she made certain I knew.”
“Have you read the book?”
“No way! And I don’t intend to,” Donna declared, and Cate suspected Donna was relieved that it wasn’t another indiscretion she had to admit to. “But if anybody put a spell on ol’ scumbag Eddie to snag him for Kim, I’d bet it was her, the Queen of Weird.”
“But Eddie was already married.”
“He probably looked like a great catch, with his fancy restaurant and wedding business and all. Being married is no obstacle to some people,” Donna said meaningfully.
“Well, tell Jo-Jo I’m thinking about her and praying for her, okay?”
“But you won’t actually help her?”
Cate mentally protested that statement. Prayer was help. The most powerful kind of help. But Cate knew what Donna meant. “Maybe I’ll drop by and see her.”
Cate followed through on her comment about praying for Jo-Jo before she went to bed. The next morning, with her curiosity slithering out of that corner where she’d stuffed it, she spent time on the internet. The internet opened up for Mitch like a jet soaring through blue sky. Cate more often encountered murky clouds and engine trouble, although she had no trouble finding a website for Lodge Hill.
Photos showed a massive log and stone structure with rows of grapevines stretching off in the distance. Weddings could be held outdoors in the “garden chapel,” or indoors in what had once been a ballroom. The room could accommodate the largest gatherings or be closed off with screens for “more intimate ceremonies,” as the site put it. Plans were to turn the currently unused portion of the building into rooms and suites, although at present a list of “fine accommodations” elsewhere was available for out-of-town guests.
In a history section, the text said the log building had once been a private home belonging to a wealthy mining baron. His widow had started the vineyard after his death, apparently trying to upgrade his image from that of a man who cheated and stole his way to wealth into a genteel grower of fine grapes. The website treated the details in a lighthearted way that made the man who was basically an old shyster into a lovable semi-hero. It said there were even rumors his ghost still roamed the grounds.
The website included a photo of owners Ed Kieferson and wife Kim. In this photo a bearded Eddie the Ex did look quite distinguished. Cate doubted Kim had needed the help of a spell to snag him. Definitely trophy-wife material. Younger than Cate, lush blonde hair, high-wattage smile, beauty-queen figure. The spiel about the couple called them true romantics, dedicated to making weddings “memories to fulfill all your dreams,” with the syrupy hope that the ensuing marriages would be as happy as their own. No mention of Eddie dumping Jo-Jo for
this current wife, of course.
A Google search turned up a few other sites with information about Ed and Mr. K’s restaurant, but Cate suspected computer-expert Mitch could have found much more. She did come up with an address for the Kiefersons’ home in the elite Riverwalk Loop area, but the home phone was apparently an unlisted number.
Cate shut the computer down at lunchtime. She remembered to stick the newspaper photo of Ed Kieferson in the file with the notes she had written. Which was when she discovered an odd fact. She had not, as she always did, written “case closed” at the end of the report.
After a moment’s thought, she didn’t add it now.
6
After a quick lunch with Mitch, Cate spent almost three hours at the courthouse checking on properties for a client whose soon-to-be-ex-husband was trying to hide his assets in a tangle of corporate ownerships. Afterward she drove around by Riverwalk Loop to look at the Kieferson house. She couldn’t claim she did it only because she was conveniently in the area, because she wasn’t. It was a considerable distance from the courthouse.
It was an area of big trees, and lush landscaping surrounded each house. The Kieferson house stood back from the street, behind a wrought-iron fence and a tall hedge of evergreens. Maples glowed with fall foliage of russet and gold. A modernistic steel sculpture stood in the yard, the gleaming metal swooping in graceful loops and swirls on a marble base. Cate assumed it was supposed to represent something, but she had no idea what. Probably something she was too un-artistic to identify, she decided with a certain guilt. She was the girl who in sixth grade art class did a watercolor of a sunset that someone rudely titled “Barf Soup.”
At first, looking through the trees, she thought the house simply had an overabundance of windows. But when she drove on to the spiked iron gate, where the hedge ended, the slanting rays of the afternoon sun turned the glass to blazing sheets of gold. She slowed the Honda to a complete stop, startled. Except for a supporting metal framework, the house was all glass. Glass from ground to roof, corner to corner. Stacked cubes of it, fantastic and surreal, like something drifted to earth out of the future. A red convertible stood in the circular driveway.
A man in a passing Mercedes eyed Cate suspiciously, and she reluctantly moved on. She started to head for home, then changed her mind. Curiosity had brought her this far. Why stop now? A quick search with her cell phone brought up an address.
A sign hanging from a metal crescent moon identified the Mystic Mirage. It was located on the main floor of an old brick building. The second and third floors looked unused. The window held a creative display of candles, hanging over them copper and bronze plaques and bells with embossed figures of the sun, moon, and stars. A bell tinkled when Cate opened the door. The tiny interior had a pleasantly exotic scent of some incense she couldn’t identify, and soft flute music added an otherworldly ambiance. A beaded curtain covered an entrance to a back room. Painted astrological signs dotted the concrete floor. A collection of huge swords, and an enormous brass shield, all vaguely Oriental looking, hung on the back wall.
A woman stood behind the counter. Not Kim Kieferson, Cate saw in disappointment. Although Kim’s absence wasn’t surprising. Her husband had been dead only a few days, so it was understandable that she wasn’t working in the store so soon. Probably she was at home in the glass house with the red convertible outside. Mourning.
Unless she was the killer.
But this woman bore a definite resemblance to the Kim of the website photo. The mother, the Queen of Weird, the one who claimed she could take you on a tour through past lives? Although she didn’t look weird. Neither did her silvery laugh sound as if she were in mourning for her son-in-law. She looked slim and polished and sophisticated, blonde hair pulled back into a sleek chignon that would be too severe on many women, but on her the style emphasized aristocratic cheekbones and dark eyes smoky with expertly applied makeup. She wore slim black pants and a cream tunic, and at least a half dozen colorful bracelets circled each arm. An oversized crystal hung on a silver chain around her neck.
She gave Cate a smile and nod to acknowledge her presence, then went on showing the other customer dangly earrings by holding them against her own ears. Cate hoped the stout customer didn’t think the earrings would look the same on her as they did showcased against Kim’s mother’s slender and graceful neck.
Cate strolled the few feet of floor space. There was a display of tarot cards and Ouija boards. A headless mannequin wore a sheepskin vest over a gauzy dress, a rope belt, and cork-wedge sandals, an unlikely combination that managed to look both funky and fashionable. Shelves of books lined a rear wall. Stacked out front was a pile of hardcovers, with a handwritten sign that said Autographed Copies. The book Kim’s mother had written? Cate edged closer to get a better look at title and author, but something else grabbed the corner of her eye, and she stopped short.
It was a doll, the size of a seven-or eight-year-old girl. Big blue eyes in a pixie face, with an expression that was both sweetly girlish and a bit mischievous. A ribbon in her ponytail of golden hair matched her ruffled pink dress. A strand of crystals hung around her neck, and she sat in a child-sized rocking chair with one hand resting on a bronze dragon.
Cate stared at the doll in astonishment. It had to be one of Jo-Jo’s creations. But here, in the new wife’s shop? No, surely not. There must be other doll makers whose work was similar to Jo-Jo’s. Maybe someone was even doing rip-offs of her work. Cate remembered Jo-Jo saying she always marked the soft bodies of her dolls with an embroidered JJ.
Cate leaned closer to the doll. She glanced back to make sure the woman behind the counter was still busy with the customer. She lifted the ruffled skirt and was just peering under it as the customer said something in parting and the bell over the door tinkled. Cate heard no other sound, but she felt an ominous presence loom behind her. Her hand froze.
“The doll is not anatomically correct, if that’s what you’re looking for,” a frigid voice said.
Cate looked up to find the woman glaring at her from only a couple of feet away. A red tide of embarrassment flooded Cate’s face. The woman thought she was checking anatomy. Cate yanked her hand out from under the doll’s skirt.
“But I wasn’t—” she sputtered, mortified at what the woman was thinking. “I mean—”
Okay, if she wasn’t checking anatomy, what was she doing? Did she want to tell this woman she was snooping into Eddie’s death, looking now to see if the doll had been made by the ex-wife of her daughter’s dead husband? Tell her, as far as Cate was concerned, both she and her daughter were high-priority suspects in his murder?
Because, even if Belmont Investigations didn’t do murders, snooping into Eddie’s death was really what Cate was doing here. Same as she’d been doing when she checked out the house on Riverwalk Loop. She smoothed the disarranged ruffles and gave the dress a nervous pat.
“She’s, uh, really exquisite.”
The woman pointedly straightened the do-not-touch sign that Cate hadn’t even noticed until then.
“Oh, uh, sorry. Is she for, uh, sale?” Although all Cate could really think was, what kind of person snooped under a doll’s clothing to check out anatomy? Pervert? Lech? Whatever, that was obviously what this woman thought Cate was.
“No, she is not for sale,” the woman snapped, although Cate got the impression the doll was perhaps not for sale only to her. Because she wasn’t qualified to own something so exquisite.
Cate didn’t wait to continue the embarrassing conversation. She just turned and thundered for the door. Head down, she thunked head-on into the chest of a man just entering.
He grabbed her by the arms. “What’s going on?”
In her distracted state, all that registered was that he was dark-haired, big, and muscular, with a grip that felt like iron bands on her arms.
“N-nothing.” She broke away from his hands, almost had another collision with the high handlebars of a motorcycle parked at the curb, and
dashed across the street to her car without looking back. Tires screeched as a driver braked to avoid hitting her, then blasted his horn at her.
Finally, in her car, she put her head against the wheel and groaned. She’d just earned what every budding PI needed in her resume. An official pervert designation.
And she still didn’t know if the doll had Jo-Jo’s identifying initials sewn on the body.
Uncle Joe was again reading the newspaper when Cate got back to the house. Her face still felt warm, embarrassment like a hot cloud enveloping her. Why hadn’t she simply made polite conversation and asked where the doll had come from rather than peering under the skirt? Even if she felt a definite antagonism toward husband-stealing Kim, she still didn’t like having the woman’s mother think she was some groping-hands pervert.
“Heads may roll,” Uncle Joe remarked. For a moment Cate felt as if “Pervert” must be branded on her forehead, and it was her head soon to roll. But then he handed her the newspaper he’d been reading. “Take a look.”
Ed Kieferson had made the front page again. It was not a release of official information but was instead information the reporter had acquired from “an anonymous source close to the investigation.”
The article said that Ed Kieferson’s death was now being investigated as a homicide. Shots fired within the house had come from the gun beside his body, but the fatal shot into his forehead had been fired from a different gun. The handgun beside Kieferson’s body was registered to him, and he had recently acquired a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The gun from which the fatal shot had been fired had not yet been located. Authorities were still trying to determine why he was at the ex-wife’s house and how he had gotten there. His Jaguar had been found in the parking lot at Mr. K’s restaurant. The police had not yet made an arrest, but they were investigating “persons of interest” in the case. A photo of Jo-Jo’s house accompanied the article.
Cate figured that heads would indeed roll if the department figured out who had supplied this unauthorized information.
Dolled Up to Die Page 5