Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “You think he might have been drunk?”

  “Maybe. Though it beats me why he’d stumble around for twenty or thirty minutes, then happen to pass out right when he hit the railroad tracks.”

  The news of Brandon’s death had been reverberating in my head, like the clamor of voices too intermingled to decipher. But as the words settled into place, their meaning grew clearer. “What are you saying? That this wasn’t an accident?”

  “It certainly looks suspicious.”

  A prickly sensation spread across my shoulders. For a moment my mind was blank, then two thoughts leapt forward at the same time. Neither, I’m ashamed to say, related directly to poor Brandon. My first concern was for Libby. Despite their recent squabbles, Brandon had been a friend, and he was the second person she’d known to die a suspicious death in less than a month. The other thing that struck me was more selfish. We’d lost our only viable lead for tracking down the blond stranger.

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “Wish I knew.” Michael sounded tired and disgruntled. “I’m going to need to talk to Libby,” he said, after a moment’s pause.

  “Tonight?”

  “It might be a good idea, if she’s there. I can be over in less than an hour.”

  “She’s not going to be in any shape to talk to—”

  “I’m not in such great shape myself,” he snapped, “but I’ve got a job to do.”

  Not in great shape. Late night. His ex-wife keeps him awake until the wee hours of the morning and he expects my sympathy?

  Then a more benevolent explanation worked its way to the surface. Ever the optimist, I grabbed it. “You were up all night working the case?”

  “No. I didn’t find out about it until this morning.”

  “Oh.” Not the answer I wanted to hear.

  “Got called in at five. After a pretty active night, too.”

  “Yeah, well life’s not always fair.” He wasn’t getting an ounce of sympathy from me.

  “You can say that again. I didn’t get to bed until after midnight because the state fire inspector wanted to go over the reports on that arson matter. I had to cut out of dinner early on account of his schedule, then he got tied up on another matter and we got started late. Didn’t even get my cup of after dinner coffee to see me through.”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure I had the sequence right. “You left the restaurant early? Without Barbara?”

  He grunted. “That was her reaction, too. Said it reminded her of all the reasons we were divorced.”

  I indulged in a moment of selfish satisfaction. I felt bad that Michael had been up late, working so hard, but better that than the alternative.

  It was closer to an hour and a half before Michael arrived, which was just as well since it gave Libby a chance to pull herself together. Not that she’d been overcome with grief exactly, although with Libby it was sometimes hard to tell what she was feeling. But she was clearly upset. Shaken as much, I think, by the renewed appearance of death as anything else.

  When Michael arrived, I stayed around long enough to make sure Libby was comfortable, then left the two of them alone to talk. I supervised Anna’s bath, during which I got the full story about the fight between Ben and Kyle at morning recess, and the stupid substitute yard teacher who punished the whole class because she didn’t know who was at fault. By the time I’d read another two chapters in Ralph S. Mouse and returned to the kitchen, Libby had gone off to her room. Michael and Max were finishing up the last of the date bars I’d set out.

  “He doesn’t need dessert,” I said, eying the dog. “No,” Michael agreed, “but he likes it.”

  The fact that Max had polished off a cookie that might otherwise have been mine seemed lost on the both of them. I nudged Max to the side, and sat. “How’s Libby doing?”

  “About the way you’d expect. Trying hard to hold it all together.”

  “Was she able to help?”

  “Gave me the names of some of Brandon’s friends, but that’s about it. She had no idea what he might have been doing in Benicia.” Michael rubbed his temples. “I gather she and Brandon had an argument recently.”

  “More like a major falling out. He wasn’t particularly sympathetic when her mother died, and then she found out he was a liar and cheat as well.”

  “I figured it was something like that,” Michael said. “You got any aspirin?”

  I handed him a bottle of Motrin. “Personally, I can’t imagine what she saw in the guy to begin with. He’s...” I stopped and looked at Michael. “Wait a minute, you’re not suggesting that Libby might be implicated in Brandon’s death, are you? I know she comes across a little strong sometimes, but she’d never—”

  “Calm down.” Michael swallowed the pills without water. “No, I don’t think Libby’s involved. But I was hoping she might know something that would point us in the right direction.”

  “Did she?”

  Michael shook his head. “Not really. He apparently told her he was onto something big, but she doesn’t have any idea what it was. Could have been just talk, getting even with her for dumping him.”

  “The Missouri lottery.”

  “The what?”

  “That’s what he told her the other evening—that he held the winning ticket. Of course he was also higher than a kite. According to Libby, he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.”

  “Nothing about this makes a whole lot of sense.” Michael closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his forehead. A grimace deepened the furrows in his brow.

  “Let’s go into the other room,” I told him. “I’ll rub your head.”

  We moved into the living room where I settled on the couch, with Michael on the floor at my feet I began massaging his scalp and neck.

  He moaned softly. “That feels good.”

  I worked my fingers into the muscles of his shoulders, then up the side of his head. “Brandon wasn’t exactly a choir boy,” I offered helpfully. “There’s probably no shortage of people he’d managed to offend.”

  Michael made a purring sound which I took for agreement.

  “Of course, his tie-in with this guy who was hanging around school is what troubles me most.”

  Michael murmured something about “higher.” I moved my fingers to his forehead. After a moment, he murmured again, something about burglary.

  “You’re working on a burglary too?”

  “Not really. It’s just interesting that Brandon’s print matches one taken from Mona’s place after the break- in.”

  “Well, I imagine he was in and out of that house quite a bit. It could have been there for ages.”

  Michael made some indecipherable noise deep in his throat.

  “What?”

  “It could have been,” he mumbled, “but from the way it was positioned on the shattered panel of glass, it’s unlikely.”

  I took a moment to consider this. “Are you telling me that it was Brandon who broke into Mona’s place?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  What could Brandon have wanted from Mona’s? Given the history, he might have been simply shopping for loose cash, pills, that sort of thing. On the other hand, he might have had his eye on something altogether different. But what?

  And then another thought hit me. I stopped my kneading. “You think the two homicides — Mona’s and Brandon’s — are connected?”

  “The guys in Benicia aren’t convinced Brandon’s death is a homicide.”

  “But it’s certainly suspicious.”

  Michael sighed. “That it is.” He nudged his shoulder against my knee, the way Max does when he’s feeling shortchanged.

  I took the hint and again began working on his head. All the while I’d been listening to Anna’s bath tub chatter and reading about the exploits of her favorite mouse, I’d been aware of loose thoughts skittering around in the back of my mind. Slowly, as I worked my fingers through Michael’s hair, those same thoughts formed a pattern.

  �
�Suppose Brandon and this elusive blond man were working together in some scheme,” I said. “Kidnapping, child pornography, maybe some kind of pedophile ring—”

  “We can suppose all you’d like, but you’ve got to remember that handing out candy to school children, though unwise, is not against the law. You seem ready to indict this guy without evidence of a crime.”

  “Just hear me out. Mona had something on her mind before she was killed. Something she wanted to talk to me about, remember? And then there was what Alice said about Mona thinking God didn’t have it so easy. What if Mona had begun to suspect what was going on with Brandon and his friend? They could have killed her to keep her quiet. Either one of them could easily have links to the drug world, so the morphine is no problem.”

  “Except that morphine isn’t a street drug.”

  “Don’t get picky. At this stage, we’re just supposing.”

  “Supposing doesn’t do any good if you ignore obvious problems of logic.”

  I dug my thumb into the soft flesh of his shoulder.

  “Ouch, not so hard.”

  “Now this is the way I see it,” I continued. “The scotch is sitting there in plain view where Alice left it, the gin is in the freezer. Brandon wouldn’t be likely to know Mona’s preference in liquor, so he grabs the Glenfiddich and sets it up to look like an alcohol-and-drug-induced suicide. After the fact, he worries that he left some evidence which would point to him, so he goes back to retrieve it.”

  “How does that explain Brandon’s death?”

  I reshuffled my thoughts. “Maybe the evidence actually pointed to the blond stranger. He’s worried that Brandon would finger him, so he snuffs out Brandon.”

  Michael sighed. “You’ve watched too many bad movies, Kate.”

  Probably true, but I didn’t think it was relevant here.

  “And Brandon’s boast of impending fortune?” Michael asked.

  “Maybe he was trying to blackmail the stranger, and that’s what got him killed. There are lots of different twists you could put on this.”

  Michael sighed again. “So all we have to do in order to wrap up two murders is find this mysterious blond man.”

  “Right.”

  “Thanks, Kate. You’ve been a terrific help.”

  “Any time.”

  Michael pushed himself off the floor and onto the couch next to me. “I don’t suppose,” he said wryly, “that you have any idea how we go about doing that.”

  “Not yet. But stick around. I’ll probably come up with one or two before the night’s over.”

  “If I could stick around,” Michael said, leaning over to nibble on my ear, “the last thing in the world I’d want you to be thinking about is finding some other guy.”

  “What do you mean if? You aren’t planning to stay?”

  “I can’t,” he murmured, still nibbling. “We’ve got a new lead on this arson thing. A witness who got a partial plate.” Michael moved from my ear, to my eyes, then down to my mouth.

  After we came up for air, I whispered, “I called you last night. When you didn’t answer by eleven, I thought you’d decided to spend the night with Barbara.”

  “That would bother you?”

  I pulled away, offended that he’d even have to ask. “Of course it would. What do you think?”

  He grinned. “What I think, is that maybe this relationship of ours has a future after all.”

  Chapter 27

  “It’s pouring out there,” Sharon said, shaking off her umbrella and stamping the water from her boots.

  She was dropping Kyle off at my place before school because she had to be in San Francisco for a nine o’clock meeting with George and their accountant. Tax season is one of the few times I recognize the upside of having no money.

  “You have time for a quick cup of coffee?” I asked her.

  “Just half. If I keep George waiting I’ll never hear the end of it.” She folded her umbrella and left it on the porch. “Never mind that nine times out of ten it’s him who keeps me waiting.”

  I poured her half a cup of coffee, then added warm milk I’d frothed in the blender, and sprinkled on a dash of cinnamon. A poor man’s cappuccino.

  “Men are impossible,” Sharon grumbled, licking at the foam. “The only people they have to keep track of are themselves, and sometimes they can’t do that without help. Last night I chewed George out for messing with my papers and mixing the soccer stuff with Mona’s. He swears he didn’t touch them. Reminds me of the time I looked high and low for my kitchen scissors, which he professed to never have used. I found them a week later in his tool box in the garage.”

  “With Andy it was the other way around. He’d misplace things, then accuse me of taking them. I sometimes think the reason he hasn’t signed the final divorce papers is because he can’t find them.”

  “Maybe he still has genuine feelings for you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think Andy would know a genuine feeling if it jumped out and bit him on the nose.”

  Sharon caught herself mid-laugh, set down her cup and leaned forward. “That reminds me, I found out something interesting. I talked to Alice again last night. Turns out, Laurelle did know about Paul and Mona. Not only that, she was the one who tipped Mona off on the fact he was married!”

  “What?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it? Goes against everything we said about her yesterday. Apparently Laurelle suspected Paul was up to something, had him followed, then called Mona that Friday afternoon and confronted her.”

  The mysterious caller Libby had assumed was Bambi. “No wonder Mona was upset,” I said.

  Sharon nodded. “Alice said Mona was completely blown away, first to learn there’d been no talk of divorce, and second, to learn that Laurelle was pregnant. She was furious at the way Paul had manipulated her and assumed he could get away with it.”

  “So that’s what Laurelle meant by ‘taking control of her life.’ ”

  “Pretty effective, too. I guess she decided if she made a big scene with Paul, it might be the end of her marriage. I must say I admire her restraint, but I think Paul’s getting off far too lightly.”

  “I don’t think she’s about to let him off lightly,” I said, remembering Laurelle’s spending spree at the auction. Knowing Laurelle, I was sure that wasn’t the end of it either.

  “Oops, I gotta run,” Sharon said with a glance at her watch. “Can’t keep George waiting.” She stood to go. “Anyway, I think we can forget about Laurelle being our killer.”

  “I think you’re right.” Then I told her about Brandon.

  “Good Lord,” Sharon said, sitting down again.

  I poured her a second cup of coffee. By the time we’d walked through all the possibilities linking Brandon’s and Mona’s deaths, and carefully weighed each of them, Sharon’s own demise, at the hands of her husband, was a distinct possibility.

  <><><>

  I’d promised to do a special art project with the kindergartners that morning, so after dropping Anna and Kyle off at nine, I returned to school again at ten.

  “I really appreciate your doing this,” Mrs. Craig said, relieving me of an armload of supplies. “Especially when you just worked in the classroom last week.”

  “I don’t mind. This is the sort of project I love doing.” Then, thinking maybe she’d feel I was whining about the other, I added, “Not that I don’t always enjoy working with the children.”

  I’d brought several different kinds of paper as well as brushes and paints, and I set them out around the room. I had one large piece of watercolor paper which I set at the front. I thought I’d use this to demonstrate, calling on individual children to come forward and try their hand as we went along. Since it was a small class, every child would be able to participate in our group effort as well as doing an individual project.

  When the bell rang, the class tromped in from recess. Mrs. Craig made a few cautionary remarks, and then, amidst the usual atmosphere of controlled chaos,
we passed the hour exploring possibilities of color and abstract design. I urged them away from representational pictures and instead asked them to think about mood and feeling. For the group effort we chose the theme “spring.” This was more my choice than theirs, I’ll admit, but I needed to treat myself to images of sunshine and fragrant blossoms more than they needed experience in group decision-making.

  The kids didn’t seem to care what the theme was as long as they got their turn with the big picture in front. When we were finished, what we had was something that looked as if it had been run through the wash with a pair of non-colorfast green overalls (the class was heavily partial to green) and then rolled on repeatedly by the dog (you mix too many colors you end up with brown). Ben had dropped the paintbrush in the center when it was his turn to add sunshine, so we also had drips of yellow, kind of like mustard down the front of your brand-new blouse. Nonetheless the children were thrilled with their vision of spring.

  While Mrs. Craig herded them to the cafeteria for a snack, I walked around the room and looked at the individual efforts. The girls tended to paint in clear, sweeping strokes of pink and lavender (and, of course, green) while the boys almost universally filled the entire surface with gray and black. What this said about psychological differences between the sexes was beyond me, but I thought it was pretty clear why men and women had trouble communicating.

  “The children had a wonderful time,” Mrs. Craig said when she returned. “Maybe we could do something like it again, later in the year. If you’d be willing, that is.”

  “Sure, if you can handle the mess.”

  She laughed. “This is nothing. You should see what happens when we do a cooking project.” She wet a sponge at the sink and began wiping up splatters and drips. “I understand Libby Sterling is staying with you. How’s she doing?”

  “In light of all that’s happened, surprisingly well. She’s basically a sweet kid, though she works hard at disguising the fact.”

  Mrs. Craig nodded. “Turns out it wasn’t Libby that Mona wanted to see me about last week, after all. One of the fourth grade teachers talked to her that day. She wanted to see me about one of my kindergartners.” Mrs. Craig laughed again and made a “fancy that” kind of face.