Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Mr. Thompson nodded, solemn and sincere. “My deepest condolences on your recent loss. We’ll do everything we can to make this as easy as possible for you.” He pressed his round face close to mine. I caught a whiff of Juicy Fruit gum. “Step this way, ladies, through that door to the right.”

  We followed him into a smaller room furnished with a round table and several comfortable chairs. Daylight filtered into the room through a panel of sheer drapes; the temperature, however, was still cool. I huddled in my jacket and folded my fingers into my palms.

  Mr. Thompson pulled out a leather binder and flipped it open, turning immediately to the page he wanted.

  “Now then, did you wish the cremains to be buried or interred?”

  “I’m not...” Sharon looked at me in something like panic.

  “Mona wasn’t clear about that part?”

  “No, just that she wanted to be cremated.”

  “Perhaps you’d like her ashes spread at sea,” Mr. Thompson offered. “We have several lovely plans available. I’m sure there would be one that would work well in whatever price range you were considering.”

  Sharon shook her head. “No. No boats. Mona always got terribly seasick.”

  Mr. Thompson opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again and cleared his throat before continuing. “If you would like a burial we could arrange for the purchase of a plot, although most of the prime locations are already spoken for.”

  “No, I think she meant cremated as opposed to buried.”

  “I suggest you go with an urn then.” He smiled pleasantly, a nice, helpful car salesman kind of smile. “There are a number of styles to choose from, and again a variety of prices. We have a wonderful columbarium here with roomy niches, and for a flat up front fee we will provide complete and perpetual care.”

  How much care could a bucket of ashes take?

  “I don’t know...” Sharon mumbled, nervously fingering the hem of her sweater.

  Thompson flipped the page of his binder and turned it in our direction. “Most of the models are pictured here if you’d like to take a look.”

  Sharon’s usual steely control had deserted her. She stared blankly at the page for a moment, then turned to look at me. Her face was drained of color. “Shit I never thought about what she’d want me to with the ashes.”

  “Could we arrange to have them in a paper bag or something?” I asked. “And then decide later.”

  Mr. Thompson’s face drew up tight, like a shriveled peach. “A box,” he said, “but you’ll have to get a permit from the county if you intend to scatter them on private land.” He pulled out a sheet of paper that looked like the order form from our local hardware store and began checking off items.

  While he was writing down the information Sharon gave him, I leafed through the leather portfolio. The cover sheet listed the benefits of choosing Thompson Mortuary, foremost of which was ample off-street parking. In addition, they boasted of worldwide shipping (just like the Christmas catalogues) and an extensive selection of caskets for sale or rent.

  Rental caskets? I closed the book and shoved it back toward Sharon.

  As soon as we were back outside, Sharon started shaking. An uneasy whimper emanated from the back of her throat.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s over. You handled everything beautifully.”

  “But what about her ashes?”

  “Take it one step at a time.”

  “I don’t know what she wanted. Not to be stuck in an urn on someone’s mantel though, I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “What about her sister? Alice might know.”

  “I tried calling her, both last night and this morning. No answer, no machine.” Sharon opened the car door and got in. She stared morosely at her lap, then sighed. “I suppose we’ve got a couple of days to figure it out.”

  We again. Maybe she was using the term in the royal sense. I certainly hoped so. I waited, but she seemed to have dropped the subject of bodies and ashes. I sat back and began to relax.

  “About that other thing,” Sharon said.

  “What other thing?”

  “Two favors, remember?”

  I did, although I figured she’d got more than two favors out of me already. “What was it?”

  Sharon kept her eyes on the road. “How would you feel about taking in Libby for awhile?”

  “Taking her in?”

  “You know, letting her stay with you.”

  “But I hardly know her.”

  “Please, Kate, just until I get everything sorted out. I don’t think she spends a whole lot of time at home anyway.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I trust you.”

  Wonderful. Why did I suddenly feel like the chicken in the tale of Wily Fox?

  “She refuses to have anything to do with her father. I could force her I suppose, but with everything else she has to deal with, I thought it would be better if I didn’t Although it will probably come to that at some point.”

  “What about your place?”

  “I’d do it in a minute, willingly,” Sharon explained. “But George feels kind of awkward about it. He and Gary were fraternity brothers, remember.”

  “Doesn’t Libby have friends she could stay with?”

  A feeble laugh. “None Mona would have approved of.”

  I felt my stomach drop. How could I take on a responsibility like that? How could I so totally disrupt my life, and Anna’s? On the other hand, how could I turn away a motherless child? “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “Just remember,” Sharon said, “I’m counting on you.”

  My stomach dropped another few floors. This was far worse than the non-royal we.

  Sharon pulled up in front of Mona’s house and turned off the ignition. For a moment, neither of us moved.

  “Maybe we should save this for another day,” I suggested.

  She shook her head. “We’re here. We might as well get on with it.”

  For a woman who’s not at all puritanical, Sharon has a strong streak of old-fashioned Puritan ethic about her. “There’s nothing to be gained by putting things off,” she explained.

  Maybe, but I was usually willing to take the chance that there might be.

  While Sharon went off to gather Mona’s will, safe deposit key and various bank books, I worked at cleaning up the kitchen. I ran the dishwasher, emptied the garbage, and then started on the refrigerator. We’d decided to pitch everything, even if it was fresh. The idea of eating a dead friend’s leftovers seemed vaguely cannibalistic, though we conceded that our squeamishness defied logic.

  I dumped a grilled hamburger patty, carefully wrapped in plastic wrap, a carton of coleslaw, cheese, lunch meat, milk, eggs. Even the thick, top grade piece of filet mignon in the meat drawer, although I thought twice before adding it to the rapidly growing pile of trash. But I did set aside the almost full bottle of gin. I’d have to ask Sharon if she really wanted to toss a fifth of Tanqueray.

  This whole time, I kept looking over my shoulder, turning expectantly, although I couldn’t say why. Certainly I wasn’t expecting Mona. Not in any real sense. But there’s something unsettling about being in a house where a person has died. It is more than simply empty or still, the lack of life is almost palpable. As I went about my tasks, I found myself wondering, What was Mona feeling when she last used this glass or pot? What was she thinking when she last sat here? And ultimately, of course, What had been going through her mind the night she killed herself?

  I was just finishing with the refrigerator, when Sharon walked in, echoing my own unease.

  “This is spooky,” she remarked. “Even though Mona showed me where her papers were and went over everything with me, it feels. . . I don’t know, it feels wrong.”

  Sharon plopped down at the table and drew in a deep breath. “What it really feels, I guess, is sad. It makes her death so real.”

  I sat, too. “I think suicide makes it even harder to accept. There’s guilt to deal
with as well as loss.”

  Sharon picked up a rubber band from the floor and began twisting it around her fingers. “I’ve been thinking about that, Kate. I don’t think it was suicide.”

  I didn’t want to believe that Mona had meant to kill herself any more than Sharon did, but it seemed a more likely scenario than accidental overdose. “She’d have to have been really out of it,” I said, with the weight of logic, “to accidentally swallow a whole bottle of pills.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I shook my head, puzzled. “What did you mean then?”

  Sharon’s eyes fixed on mine. They were a darker green than usual, the golden flecks almost nonexistent. “What I mean,” she said, “is that I think Mona was murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  Sharon nodded.

  I peered at her for a moment, trying to determine if this was some off-beat attempt at humor.

  “I think someone killed her,” Sharon said, “and tried to make it look like suicide.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  But she was. “Think about it, Kate. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  I thought about it, and it made no sense at all.

  “Look,” Sharon said, “I know you think I’m in denial or something, but I knew Mona. I’d known her for years. And I know she wouldn’t commit suicide, not like this anyway. Not unless she was ill or desperately unhappy. She wasn’t either of those things. And if she was going to take her own life, she’d leave a note—probably a whole series of notes. Have you ever known Mona to pass up an opportunity to have the last word?”

  “But murder? Jesus, Sharon, that’s going some.”

  Sharon twined the rubber band tightly around her little finger. “You said she was wearing her old gray sweats, right? The ones with a hole in the knee.”

  I nodded.

  “And no make-up.”

  “That’s what it seemed like anyway. I didn’t take a close look at her face.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “If you were going to kill yourself, take your soul off to wherever it goes and leave your body behind for someone to find, wouldn’t you want to look nice?”

  “Maybe she wanted to be comfortable. I mean, who’d want her last breath constricted by tight pantyhose?”

  “There’s comfort and there’s comfort. Mona, of all people, would care what she looked like.”

  That was probably true. Assuming she’d actually meant to kill herself.

  “And she had a root canal a week ago. Why would she go through all that trouble and pain if she wasn’t going to be around to reap the benefits?”

  Before I could answer, Sharon continued. “Another thing. Mona and I made a trip to Costco last week. She stocked up on all the basics. You think she’d buy forty-eight rolls of toilet paper if she was planning on killing herself a few days later?”

  “I don’t know that you plan something like suicide quite as carefully as you do a two-week jaunt to the Mediterranean.”

  “It just doesn’t fit,” Sharon insisted.

  “It doesn’t fit that she’d lie there and let someone stuff a couple dozen pills down her throat either.”

  Sharon slumped back in her chair and sighed. “That’s the sticky part. But maybe there’s more to it”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” Sharon’s brow creased in thought. “Did you see anything unusual when you got to the house Monday morning?”

  I tried mentally retracing my steps, but it was all a blur. Finding Mona’s body, that was the only thing I could remember. “I don’t think so. Nothing comes to mind anyway.” Besides, anyone who’d gone to the trouble of disguising a murder wasn’t likely to leave a calling card.

  “No signs of a struggle? Nothing overturned or disheveled?”

  “No. I would have noticed, I’m sure. So would the police.”

  “Rats.” She got up and started pacing the length of the kitchen. “Let’s think about this logically, starting at the beginning. How did her killer get into the house? He certainly couldn’t walk through the door like Casper the ghost.”

  Door. The word jogged my memory. There was something after all. I told her about the door locks. “The bottom one sets automatically when the door closes, but the top one is a deadbolt that locks from the inside and requires a key. Mona made a big deal about the fact that she always secured the house with both. But only the bottom was locked when I got here.”

  “Which would mean,” Sharon said, slowing her stride for a moment, “that someone left the house after Mona was killed. See, she was murdered.”

  “It could mean that,” I agreed, “but it could not mean that just as easily. If you’re planning to kill yourself, you’re hardly going to worry about keeping out prowlers.”

  Sharon wasn’t listening; she was choreographing a murder, post facto. “Now, back to the original question, how did this creep get in? It almost has to have been someone she let in herself. A friend, an acquaintance—”

  “Or someone she had no reason to distrust, like a delivery man or something.” The words came out in a rush, before I had time to think about them. Was I just playing along with Sharon, or had she succeeded in planting a seed of doubt in my mind? I couldn’t honestly say.

  “You mentioned something earlier about Mona’s having company.”

  I nodded. “There were two cocktail glasses next to the sink, and an ashtray.” We both knew Mona didn’t smoke. “And the toilet seat was up,” I added, remembering suddenly my queasy episode in the bathroom.

  “Don’t you see, Kate? There are too many coincidences. Too many things that simply don’t fit.”

  “Maybe she wanted someone with her during her final moments.”

  “I can’t imagine who, certainly if we’re talking about a male who. Nor can I see her entertaining, even on the brink of suicide, without make-up and halfway decent clothes. Nothing about this makes sense.”

  “It’s still a big leap to murder.”

  Sharon stopped her pacing altogether and turned to face me. “Will you talk to your cop about this, see what he has to say?”

  “His name is Michael.”

  She made a face, squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose in exaggerated fashion. Sharon knows Michael’s name as well as her own, but she can’t resist razzing me about getting involved with a cop. She finds it amusing that someone in the habit of thumbing her nose at law-and-order types and, I’m ashamed to confess, certain laws, would wind up with the law, literally, breathing down her neck. I understand the irony, but in this particular case, the breathing feels awfully nice.

  “So, will you ask him?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t convinced the way Sharon was, but I couldn’t deny that she’d raised some interesting questions.

  She let out a deep breath and went back to rubber band gymnastics. “Does the name Laurie McNevitt ring a bell with you?” she asked after a moment.

  “No. Why?”

  “I checked the messages on Mona’s answering machine. There was the usual array of stuff—a reminder about her dental appointment, a friend calling to cancel a lunch date, someone for Libby about a history assignment—and this message from Laurie McNevitt. She sounded so ... I don’t know, agitated I guess. But she didn’t leave a number. Come listen to it and see what you think.”

  Listening to the tape meant going into the den. I knew there wasn’t going to be a ghost hovering about. Or blood. Or a draped sheet, or traces of disgusting medical procedures. Yet I really didn’t want to go back there again.

  Sharon must have read my hesitation. “I wasn’t thrilled about it either,” she said softly. “But I’d like you to hear this message.”

  The den was at the back of the house, with a view of the garden. I tried to keep my eyes on the flowering camellia bushes so that I wouldn’t have to look at the couch where I’d discovered Mona’s body. It didn’t work though. I focused on the couch first thing. I coul
d see the indentation in the seat cushion where her body had rested, and in the pillow at the back where her head lolled over. For a second or two I forgot to breathe.

  Finally, the machine’s whirring and clicking shook me from my daze. Sharon punched a couple of buttons and a female voice came on. “Yes, uh, this is Laurie McNevitt again.” There was an audible pause before she continued. “I just wanted to be sure you got my message the other day. And I wanted to, uh, I mean I hope I didn’t come on too strong.” Another pause. “It’s just that you can’t begin to imagine how hard it’s been.” Her voice broke on the last few words. “Like I said, you can call me any time. Please.”

  “See what I mean?” Sharon asked.

  I nodded. It was the tone more than anything, hesitant yet almost pleading. I thought of the poor woman sitting by her phone, waiting for a call that would never come. “Maybe we should check Mona’s address book,” I suggested.

  “I already did that. And the telephone book. No Laurie, and no L. McNevitt, either. Of course there aren’t all that many listings, I guess I could give each one of them a try.”

  “You’ve got enough to worry about, I’ll handle this.”

  “Thanks.” Sharon came to stand next to me and nodded at the sofa where my eyes had once again strayed. “I’m sorry you had to be the one to find her.”

  I nodded wordlessly. The police had taken the empty bottle of pills but they’d only moved the scotch to the bookshelf, presumably so it wouldn’t get knocked over when they transferred the body.

  “At least she didn’t cut corners at the end,” I said, pointing to the Glenfiddich label. “That’s supposed to be some great scotch.”

  “That’s the bottle?”

  I nodded.

  Sharon sucked in a deep breath and turned to look at me. “Mona didn’t drink scotch, Kate. Only gin and wine.”

  Chapter 6

  Our silence during the ride home was as thick and gray as the sky overhead. Maybe we’d simply talked ourselves out, or maybe we’d talked ourselves into something that left us too shaken for words.