Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  I parked the Jag in Sharon’s driveway, then let myself in through the side door. The kitchen table and the area around it were cluttered with paper. Sharon was sifting through a heap of printed forms, her face set in a heavy scowl.

  “I’ve got to get this stuff to the attorney by afternoon,” she grumbled, clearing a spot so that I could sit. “I can’t even balance my checkbook and here I am trying to come up with a list of Mona’s assets and debts. And to make matters worse, George dumped the damn soccer registration materials into the same box. Now I’ve got birth certificates mixed in with stock certificates, and more pieces of paper than the Federal government.”

  “I was hoping you might be able to drop me off to pick up my car. I guess my timing’s not so good.”

  She leaned across the table to retrieve a manila folder. “No, that’s okay. I’m going to need a break soon anyway. Why don’t you make us some coffee while I finish up with this list of mutual funds, then I’ll give you a ride.”

  I filled the kettle with water. “Where’s Alice?”

  “She’s staying at the Park Manor for a few days.”

  “Pretty ritzy.” The Park Manor is upscale, even for Walnut Hills. A five-star hotel with five-star prices. “I guess she needs to pamper herself a little after Conroy.”

  Sharon snorted. “It’s not like he’s the first. Alice has a knack for picking losers, and then refusing to recognize the obvious.”

  “She did leave him.”

  “Yeah, but I won’t be a bit surprised if she goes back to him. When she left last night, she was already talking about what a sweetheart he is when he doesn’t drink. That’s the kind of stuff she does. Used to drive Mona nuts.”

  When the coffee had finished dripping, I handed Sharon a cup and offered to help pull things together. She nodded toward a stack of papers.

  “I think that’s all soccer stuff. You might check just to make sure.”

  There wasn’t room on the table, so I held the pile in my lap and flipped through it, checking to see that the picture, birth certificate, and check were all attached to the application.

  “Looks like Claire is going to let Jodi play after all,” I said.

  “I hope so. But you know Claire, she may change her mind again before all’s said and done.”

  “Is that why she only turned in part of the stuff?”

  “Oh heck, it must have gotten separated. Everything was all there when I went through it before. Did you know that Claire’s real name is Wilhelmina? I saw it on Jodi’s birth certificate.”

  “Good Lord, I can see why she chooses to go by Claire.”

  “Maybe her formative years were spent as Wilhelmina. It might explain why she is what she is.”

  “I don’t think she’s had an easy life, no matter how you slice it.” I moved on through the stack of registration materials. “Laurelle’s application for Ben is here, but no picture.”

  “It must have come loose, too. Look through the box and see if it’s there.” Sharon nudged a cardboard box in my direction. “I can’t wait to have a word with George. When he decides to help out, he sure helps out big.”

  I found Ben’s picture and clipped it to the application. “Do you think Laurelle suspected that Paul was seeing someone on the side?” I asked.

  “Hard to say. I can’t imagine her sitting back and letting it go on, if she did.” Sharon snapped a rubber band around a thick batch of papers, then gave me a funny look as she listened to her own words. “Why? Are you thinking Laurelle might have killed Mona?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “she had a motive. And yesterday she was talking about how she’d learned to take control of her life.”

  “The motive part’s true only if she knew about the affair. And if she did, I think she’d be inclined to kill Paul as well as Mona. Taking control isn’t exactly a skill Laurelle needed to learn.”

  I nodded. “You’re probably right. Paul’s certainly worried about what she’ll do if she finds out.” I set the reorganized soccer stuff in the comer, away from the loose papers. Sharon was still sorting. “You want me to do anything with this?” I asked, picking up a package that was in the way.

  Sharon gave me a funny look.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s Mona,” she said slowly.

  “Mona?” It took a moment for the words to register, but when they did, I just about dropped the package. “Jesus. You keep her right here in your kitchen?”

  “It’s only temporary. I talked with Alice about it last night. We decided to have her ashes scattered by air. I think she’d like that.”

  I set the package down carefully, then dusted my hands against my slacks. I hoped Sharon wasn’t counting on my help.

  She pushed back her chair. “Come on, let’s go get your car.”

  It was only a box of ashes, but all in all I was happy to get out of there. The notion of keeping Aunt Mildred on your mantelpiece has never had a great deal of appeal to me.

  We headed for Sharon’s car and I braced myself for the drive. When she actually stopped at the newly red light instead of tearing through it, I took my first full breath.

  “What’s the scoop on that man who was hanging around school?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mean Michael hasn’t talked to Brandon yet?”

  “Michael hasn’t talked to me.”

  She arched a brow. “Uh-oh. Do I detect a trace of tension in that comment?”

  “He had dinner last night with his ex-wife.” I looked out the window, then sighed. “And he wasn’t home yet when I called at eleven.”

  “Not good,” Sharon said.

  “Hey, you’re supposed to reassure me, remind me of the countless innocent explanations.”

  She grinned impishly. “I was just getting ready to point out that evening hours are ideal for running errands. You know how uncrowded the groceries are at that time. Michael probably decided to get the week’s shopping out of the way, and then when the first store was out of, say, toothpaste, he had to go by a couple others to find the right brand.”

  “You’re a big help,” I grumbled.

  We pulled into the tire center. “You want me to wait?”

  “No need, the car’s been ready for days.”

  “Don’t worry about Michael,” Sharon said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  Then she peeled off into the flow of traffic, just barely squeezing into the car’s length of empty space between two fast-moving delivery trucks. I saw the driver of the second truck extend his arm through the open window to give her the finger. Since Sharon rarely used the rearview mirror for anything but applying lipstick, the guy’s efforts were no doubt wasted.

  My car was ready, I could see it parked at the back of the lot with four brand new tires. But that didn’t mean I was going to get out of the shop without a wait. First there was the line at the counter, then the processing of paperwork, which the jowly man at the desk assured me would take only a moment or two. When he pointed me in the direction of the Styrofoam cups and instant coffee, I knew his idea of a moment and mine were not the same.

  I settled into one of the plastic chairs and picked up the newspaper from the adjacent table. I’d only glanced at the headlines that morning because I’d wanted to leave in time to walk Anna to her classroom. I warned her she was to go straight to the office if she saw the blond man or Brandon anywhere near school. She’d nodded agreement, but it was the same nod she used whenever I told her to get her feet off the couch or to be sure to brush her teeth with extra care.

  The news story which caught my attention didn’t do a lot to reassure me. An elementary school janitor in San Jose was being charged with molesting several students. Parents were outraged, school officials stunned. Nobody could understand how the teddy bear of a man who’d befriended students for years could do such a horrible thing. I couldn’t understand t
he behavior either, but I understood all too well how easily something like that could slip by unnoticed.

  With an inward shudder, I flipped the page, looking for bland, unemotional news that would allow me to pass the time undisturbed by nagging “what ifs.” A fine theory, except that Gary’s face was at the top of the business page, under the headline “Sterling Development on the Upswing.” It brought to mind a different sort of “what if,” but a troubling one all the same.

  Although I read the article twice, I didn’t understand it completely. There were lots of words like restructuring, flow of funds, refinanced debt, infusion of capital. The gist of the thing was pretty clear though. Sterling Development, which had suffered a string of setbacks in the recent year, was now on solid footing and primed for a bright recovery.

  Was the timing of this turnaround coincidence? I couldn’t help feeling it was somewhat suspect, coming so soon after Mona’s death. When the jowly-faced man at last called my name and handed me the keys to my car, I headed into the valley instead of home. Andy and I had to work out the logistics of Anna’s weekend at some point, and it would be interesting to get his take on the Sterling recovery.

  Not too many years ago, the southern part of the county was open farmland and pasture, the tallest thing around an occasional oak or Monterey pine. Now the area is fast turning into a sprawl of freeway overpasses, office buildings, strip malls, and regional shopping centers. Sterling Development had done its part to further the flow of progress. The company’s newest project was a large shopping mall not ten minutes from several similar and equally large shopping malls. Since they all had pretty much the same stores, I didn’t understand the point. But then no one’s ever accused me of being a shop-til-you-drop type, so I was probably overlooking something obvious to others.

  The company’s headquarters were located in an office park a couple of freeway exits beyond the proposed mall. I parked and climbed to the second floor, where I asked the receptionist for Andy Austen’s office.

  “Around the corner,” she directed, without looking up from her magazine.

  The corner wasn’t so much a corner as a chest-high partition, and Andy’s office wasn’t anything but a wood laminate desk and computer terminal. Behind him stretched a wall of real offices, with Philippine mahogany doors and brass name plates.

  Before he had a chance to greet me, the intercom on his desk buzzed. “Andy,” the voice said, “get me a copy of the geologist’s report, the one that came in just a couple of days ago. And then call Fred Barnes and tell him Monday at ten is fine.”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, and Andy?”

  “Yes, Mr. Rainey?”

  “See if you can’t dig me up a pencil sharpener that works. This one chews halfway through every pencil.”

  “Sure thing.” Andy flipped off the speaker and jotted a note to himself.

  I furrowed my brows. “This is your great career break? The one that’s going to propel you into the big time? You’re nothing but a secretary.”

  “Administrative assistant,” he bristled. “And when did you get to be such a snob anyway?”

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “No?”

  I truly hadn’t, although I knew that’s the way it had come out. I tried for a different tone. “Andy, you’re terrific at sales, marketing, public relations.” The sort of career he’d been doing well in until last year when he’d abruptly quit, taken half our savings and gone traipsing around

  Europe looking for his lost youth. “You’ve got a real way with people. You could convince an Eskimo to buy an air conditioner and he’d walk away happy with the deal. Your talents are wasted in a job like this.”

  He glared at me. “You don’t know diddly, Kate. This is a great learning experience. A tremendous opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the big guns in business. Contacts, that’s the name of the game.” He locked his fingers together and tapped his thumbs impatiently. “Is that why you’re here, to keep an eye on me and manage my life?”

  This was an old battle, and one I didn’t want to get into again. It was one of the reasons we were now going our separate ways. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I just want you to be happy.”

  Andy’s expression softened. “Kate, you’re the one who gets upset about these things, not me. And in any case, it’s my life now.”

  “You’re right,” I said, signaling a truce. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to ask you about the article in today’s paper. Sterling Development was apparently having problems at one point, and now, suddenly, everything’s rosy. What gives?”

  “Whoa.” He held up a hand. “You develop a sudden interest in business finance, or what?”

  “It strikes me as an interesting coincidence.” I lowered my voice in case anyone happened by on the other side of the partition. “Mona dies, and then before you know it, the problems that have plagued the company for the last year or so disappear.”

  “Yeah, well, businesses have their ups and downs.”

  They also had their ins and outs. “Did you ever find out any more about what Mona might have used to put the squeeze on Gary during the divorce?”

  Andy shook his head. “I told you before, I work for the guy. I’m not about to go digging up dirt on him.”

  “You don’t care that he may have killed his wife?”

  Andy held up his hands as if fending off an attack. “That’s a pretty big leap.”

  “But it fits.”

  He shook his head. “Not to my mind it doesn’t. If Mona had knowledge she could use as leverage against Gary in the divorce, and if he was willing to kill her to keep it quiet, you’d think he’d have done it before signing off on the divorce settlement. Anyway, it’s not my job to worry about things like that. It’s not yours either, I might add.”

  One of the polished doors at the far end opened and a voice summoned Andy.

  “I’m serious, Kate. I think you should drop it. Gary’s a respected businessman and there’s no evidence linking him to his wife’s death. You start spreading rumors about a guy based on some theory you pull out of thin air, and you’re likely to find it comes back to haunt you.”

  Better that than letting someone get away with murder, I thought. But at the same time, I had to admit that Andy had a point. My misgivings about Gary weren’t based on anything but simple knee-jerk reaction. You couldn’t hang a man for being a creep.

  I turned, retraced my steps around the partition and past the receptionist, who was still engrossed in her magazine. As I reached the double glass doors at the entry, Bambi pushed past me on her way to the ladies’ room. She gave me a hard-eyed, hateful look.

  “I hope you’re happy. All your meddling has finally paid off.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t go all innocent on me. You know. You’ve known all along, haven’t you? Now he knows, too.” Her face was mottled with anger. “You snooty society women are all the same.”

  With that she slammed the door of the rest room and locked it. Society women ? Me? And what did I know? Whatever it was, it clearly kept me from being on Bambi’s list of favorite people.

  On the drive home, I mentally ran through the encounter again. It made no more sense in replay than it had live. And though I was able to come up with a long list of things I knew, some of which I’d known almost “all along,” none of them were particularly interesting or noteworthy.

  Still baffled, I picked up Anna, who was none too pleased to discover that her silver Jag had turned back into a pumpkin. When we got home, I checked the answering machine first thing, even before I set down my purse. Not one single message. I cursed Michael under my breath. He knew I was worried about the man Anna had seen at school. Even if he hadn’t been able to find out what was going on, he could have called to let me know he’d tried. Or simply to show that he cared.

  Unless, of course, he’d had such a terrific “dinner” with Barbara that I’d completely
slipped his mind.

  I did a load of laundry, took out the trash, vacuumed the carpet, all of it accompanied by a lot of stomping and slamming. I was mad at Michael, and mad at myself for feeling that way. After all, I was the one who wanted to keep things free and easy.

  When he still hadn’t called by five o’clock, I called him. I left a message, but I also called back at five-thirty and at six. When I finally did reach him, an hour later, he didn’t sound overjoyed to hear from me.

  “I got your message,” he said. His voice had none of its usual easy roll.

  My heart sank. I swallowed. “Were you able to find Brandon?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what did he say?”

  “He didn’t. He was dead.”

  Chapter 26

  “Dead?” I was pretty sure I’d heard him right, but my mind latched onto the word and wouldn’t let go.

  Michael mumbled something about a train accident. “You might have heard about it on the news,” he said.

  “Brandon was on the train?”

  “Not on it,” Michael said, “under it” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, late nights make me punchy.”

  Particularly if you spend them with an ex-wife, I thought. But I tucked that away for later and focused on Brandon. “What happened?”

  “That’s what everyone’s trying to figure out. The accident occurred in Benicia so it’s out of our jurisdiction, but since Brandon lived here, and especially since we wanted to question him on a police matter, there’s some overlap.” He paused for a moment. “Whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense. They found his motorcycle about half a mile away.”

  “Did he run out of gas or something?”

  “No, the tank’s full, and the thing runs just fine. Anyway, the spot where he was hit is out in the middle of nowhere. If he was headed any place on foot it would have been a long hike.”