Finally he left, talking to me, or to himself, or maybe to one of those super-cool dead people from the other side, all the way down the stairs. All I heard that made any sense was “see ya later.” I slammed the door behind him and sunk back into the hanging chair.
Wayne came wandering in the minute I heard Felix’s car start up. I had a feeling he’d been waiting for that sound. He took his place next to me in the hanging chair.
“Everything all right at La Fête?” I asked.
“Lost a busboy,” he murmured. “Kid left without notice. Went back to Canada.”
Worse than curdled béarnaise but still no big deal, I decided, and pushed off with my feet, causing our hanging chair to swing gently back and forth. The passing air felt good on my face.
“Felix is in spiritual crisis,” I commented after a few silent swings.
“We’re in real-life crisis,” was Wayne’s only comment.
“Yeah,” I agreed helpfully.
“What happened, Kate?” Wayne asked. I turned to him for clarification of the question, but then I saw his eyes. They were wide open for once, but it looked like someone had turned out the lights behind them.
“Could someone at the group potluck really have killed Steve?” he asked, his voice dazed.
I wanted to tell him no, but I couldn’t. So I just put my arm around his shoulders instead.
“Sweetie—” I began.
My cat, C. C, yowled from behind us. It was her opera yowl, the one she’d been practicing for the occasion.
Wayne and I both jumped and bounced in the chair. It was lucky our combined weight didn’t yank the ropes from the rafters. Damn. I jump when yowled at, but Wayne usually doesn’t. He must have been well and truly shook up.
“Kate, I can’t believe it,” he murmured. “But it must be true.”
“Sweetie,” I began again. “It’ll be all right. We’ll figure it out—”
The doorbell rang and I was saved an explanation of how Steve Summers’ death could ever be “all right.”
I approached the door cautiously. What if Felix had found out about Steve Summers and returned? But it wasn’t Felix at the door. It was Van Eisner.
“Wayne here?” he inquired, looking over my shoulder. His pointy little features now looked like the cartoonist had drawn them with fear in mind.
I considered lying about Wayne’s whereabouts, but Wayne had already extracted himself from the chair and followed me to the door.
“Hey, Van,” Wayne greeted his groupmate quietly, shaking his hand.
“Oh God, Wayne,” Van replied, his voice shrill. “Did you find out anything from the cops?”
Wayne shook his head.
“Are they looking at drugs?” Van plowed on.
“Why?” Wayne asked, his voice not so quiet now. “Did drugs have anything to do with Steve’s murder?”
“How would I know?” Van shrilled. He rubbed his sharp little nose. “It’s just, just…” He looked my way pointedly.
“You can say anything in front of Kate that you can say in front of me,” Wayne assured him.
But Van didn’t look reassured. His small eyes widened.
“Hey, I thought you were into this big confidentiality trip. You’re the last one I’d think would be shooting off your mouth—”
“Steve was murdered, Van,” Wayne reminded him.
“Well, just ‘cause I do a little coke occasionally doesn’t make me a murderer, for God’s sake.”
“Are you sure?” Wayne asked.
“Of course I’m sure. You haven’t told the police anything about my, you know, personal habits, have you?”
“No,” Wayne answered honestly.
“Are you going to tell?”
“Not unless your little habits have to do with the murder,” I put in helpfully.
Wayne shot me a glance. I suppose it was a guy kinda discussion or something.
“But I didn’t have anything to do with Steve’s murder,” Van insisted. “Why does it have to be someone from the group anyway? It could have been anybody…”
Wayne shook his head. Van paled. He didn’t even ask what gave Wayne a reason to shake his head.
“Well, it wasn’t me, for God’s sake,” Van said. “I mean, look at Isaac.”
“What about Isaac?” Wayne asked.
I stared at Van. This didn’t seem to be a conversation that we should be having in the doorway, but I didn’t want to invite Van in, either. I could see why Wayne was on his case. If anyone who’d been at the potluck exuded a seeming lack of moral character, it was Van Eisner. Not to mention the smell of bad aftershave and nerves. And he had yet to utter one word of regret over Steve’s death.
“Isaac’s a drunken old fool,” Van finally answered. “And what if it got out that he didn’t write his own books?”
“I don’t think he’d care,” Wayne argued. “He told us, didn’t he?”
I found myself nodding. It had been Isaac’s game to tell secrets, anyway. He hadn’t been blindsided.
“Okay,” Van muttered thoughtfully, scratching the side of his neck. “Well, how about Ted? He’s scared to death his wife will find out he’s been fooling around.”
“Scared enough to kill?” Wayne said.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Van yelled. “Man, this has been a bad day all around.”
“Especially for Steve,” I put in. I couldn’t help it.
“Steve! Steve!” Van yelled. “He’s dead. How about the rest of us? We should be protecting each other.”
“I won’t protect a murderer,” Wayne warned.
“Well, I’m not a murderer,” Van announced, a small but surprising amount of dignity in his voice. “And if you think I am, you’re wrong.”
“Okay,” Wayne told him. “If you’re telling the truth, you have nothing to worry about from me.”
Van stretched his thin mouth as if to argue some more, but then seemed to rethink his strategy. “Thanks, man,” he said instead and slapped Wayne on the shoulder.
Then he turned and left, practically running down the stairs.
I watched him shoot out of our driveway in a bright red Miata before I turned to Wayne.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Drugs,” Wayne answered, shaking his head. Then he brought his chin back up. “Lunch. We never had lunch,” he reminded me.
There is a blessing in Wayne’s cooking, and not just because I like to eat. Wayne loses himself in cooking the same way I lose myself designing gag gifts. I could see his color return as he opened a can of lite coconut milk. Even his shoulders began to loosen as he sliced tofu, eggplant, and mushrooms. By the time he was stirring the rice noodles into the boiling water, he looked like a man who was actually present in his body again.
I just sat at the kitchen table and watched him work. And that brought me back into my own body. So did the smells. If I were ever to faint, I think the smell of sautéed onion would bring me back. Add basil, ginger, chilies, and garlic, and I’d be on my feet again for sure.
We were slurping Thai noodles and veggies when Wayne brought up the subject of transportation. Then I really knew he was all right—practicality was triumphing over shock.
“I’ll lend you my Toyota when you need it,” I offered eagerly.
“Maybe I ought to rent a car,” he said, scrunching up his face in thought. “What days—”
The phone rang. I jumped up to get it.
“Ms. Jasper,” the voice on the other end of the line greeted me. “This is Laura Summers’ personal assistant, Julie.”
I peeked back in the kitchen at Wayne and put my hand over the phone. Wayne didn’t need to talk to anyone connected with Steve Summers now.
Work, I mouthed his way. Luckily, he wasn’t close enough to see the number ID popping up on my new phone. He just nodded and went back to his noodles.
“Assemblywoman Summers wondered if she could drop in on you tomorrow,” Julie went on. “She needs to talk about her
husband’s death.”
“Oh, of course,” I put in, stricken with guilt. If Wayne was in shock, Laura must be reeling. “How’s she doing?” I whispered.
There was a pause. Was Julie trying to decide whether to tell the truth?
“Crying, I think,” she whispered back finally. And then more loudly, “And resting. But she’ll carry on.”
My heart tightened. Laura had to carry on. And the media…
“Then I’ll tell her it’s okay?” Julie said.
“Absolutely,” I assured her and hung up, willing the tears out of my own eyes.
The phone rang again the moment I put it down. This time it was Jerry Urban, worried about Garrett and, kindly enough, worried about Wayne as well.
Work, I mouthed again at Wayne, and held another whispered conversation.
And finally I was at the table again. I took a bite and savored the perfect combination of spicy flavors.
“Thanks for taking the calls,” Wayne growled.
I swallowed too fast, and took a drink of water. Chili interruptus. Of course I hadn’t fooled him. I filled him in on the calls, and then we were back to our discussion of cars.
“Can I use the Toyota tomorrow night?” Wayne asked. “I’ll probably need to be at the restaurant—”
“Oh Wayne, I forgot,” I cut in. In one crisis I’d neglected another. “We have to pick up Aunt Dorothy tomorrow.”
“And just who is Aunt Dorothy?” Wayne asked quietly.
- Five -
“Huh?” I replied.
When Wayne uses that special, quiet tone, my brain loses it. I act like someone caught robbing a convenience store in broad daylight. No, worse than that—I act like an environmentalist who’s been embezzling ocean water from the whales. Guilty as charged, sir. I’m still not sure why. Maybe that quiet tone resonates with a guilt neuron pathway in my cerebellum. Anyway, I took a deep breath and tried to explain Aunt Dorothy.
“Aunt Dorothy is my father’s brother’s widow,” I said. “She used to be a teacher. And then she was a nurse. Now she does good works—”
“Maybe I should rephrase my question,” Wayne interrupted, reaching across the table to hold my hand. Had he noticed I was losing it? “Not ‘who is Aunt Dorothy?’ but why are we picking her up at the airport?”
I gulped down another “huh?” unpronounced and once again attempted an explanation.
“Oh, it’s my mother,” I began.
Wayne’s eyebrows lowered a little more. He removed his hand. I talked faster.
“My mother sent Aunt Dorothy. See, Aunt Dorothy’s big in her church, does all kinds of things—”
“I thought your mother didn’t go to church,” Wayne put in, confused.
“She doesn’t. But see, Aunt Dorothy is a wedding coordinator for her church.”
Wayne smiled, understanding dawning on his beloved, homely face. Damn, that looked good. Then I realized why he was smiling. He still wanted a formal wedding almost as much as my mother did. I had a feeling that my opinion of a formal wedding as an unusual form of torture was not in the majority anymore, if it ever had been.
“So your mother is sending out Aunt Dorothy to plan our ‘real’ wedding,” Wayne guessed. I suppose it was obvious.
I slumped in my chair, only able to nod.
Wayne reached out his hand for mine again.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “No one can make you plan your wedding, Kate.”
“You don’t know Aunt Dorothy,” I replied. “But thanks, sweetie.” I squeezed his hand back. What a good man.
“Does your Aunt Dorothy carry a whip?” Wayne asked innocently.
“No, no!” I objected, shaking my head back and forth violently. “It’s just that she’s so, well, nice—”
The phone rang just as sharp claws dug into my shoulder. C.C.!
C. C. had a new game, besides singing opera. She would climb stealthily to a spot above her victim and then swoop down, claws extended. This particular flight path had taken her from the top of the refrigerator to my waiting shoulder. An amazing feat, to be sure, but I definitely preferred the opera trick.
I shot out of my chair, rocket-powered by unbearable tension and slightly more bearable pain. C. C. had disappeared. That was the smart part of her game; I had yet to catch her after one of her stealth attacks.
“Hey, kiddo,” my friend Barbara greeted me over the phone. “Don’t worry about your aunt. She’s a benign force.”
Have I mentioned that my friend Barbara is psychic? Her intuitions are amazing…except when it comes to murder.
Then her brain “fritzes,” as she likes to call it. She is, after all, an electrician as well as a psychic.
“But I really called about Felix,” she went on, before I had a chance to demand that she tell me once and for all how she always knows this stuff about me. I hadn’t told anyone about Aunt Dorothy, aside from Wayne. I certainly hadn’t told Felix, Barbara’s boyfriend.
“Felix is trying to find his spiritual path,” Barbara continued. She didn’t need a response from me; she was probably channeling it. “And you know Felix, he’s too antsy to take the slow road. He sees me meditating and reading and talking to my guides, and he goes crazy. You know my path is a pretty straightforward one.”
I nodded. From Barbara’s mind to the astral plane. Who needs an intercessor?
She took my unseen nod as an affirmative and resumed.
“Felix finally realized that my spiritual path makes me happy. Monkey see, monkey do. Only my path isn’t his, so he has to find a guru. But he’ll find the experience that he needs.” She paused and added, “Just like you, Kate.”
I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“I know you feel the power of spiritual presence,” she finished up.
I closed my mouth. Had she been peeking into my meditation practices, or had she just taken the short route and asked her guides? I was still speculating when she changed the subject.
“Don’t get too excited about the murder,” she told me.
“How’d you know—” was as far as I got. At least I got in three words.
“I figured it out, kiddo. Your finding the bodies is really a marvelous form of karma—”
“Marvelous?” I broke in. “Marvelous? How’d you like to—”
“See, I finally got it, Kate. You were a resurrectionist in a past life—”
“You mean a body snatcher?” I demanded indignantly.
“No, Kate.” Barbara’s laughter tinkled across the phone lines like the sound of shining silver. “I mean someone who resurrected dead people.”
Barbara paused, but I had nothing to say in the interval. I was still trying to process her words, and my brain was really tired.
“Isn’t that cool, kiddo?” she asked. “You brought people back from the dead.”
I was beginning to understand. And the hair on the back of my neck was standing up.
“So, let me get his straight,” I began slowly. “I used to bring people back from the dead, so now I’m karmically impaired and get to stumble over dead bodies?”
“Yeah,” she agreed enthusiastically.
“And this is marvelous?”
“Yeah!”
“Did one of your spirit guides tell you this?” I asked my friend.
“Nah.”
“What, did you just channel it?” I probed.
“Nah.”
“Barbara!” I bawled.
“I just thought it sounded neat,” she finally admitted.
“You made it up?”
“I thought it would make you feel better,” she insisted.
Some psychic. I didn’t feel better. I felt totally and absolutely aggravated. But somehow my guilt over Steve Summers’ death seemed to be gone—guilt I hadn’t even known I was feeling.
“Told ya,” Barbara said. “Bye, kiddo.”
And then she hung up.
I said goodbye to the dial tone. I was sure Barbara wo
uld hear me, anyway. Then I went back to sit with Wayne at the kitchen table.
“Barbara?” he said.
“Are you psychic, too?” I snapped.
“You yelled ‘Barbara,’” he explained.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I whispered. “But Barbara thinks I’m a resurrectionist, and—”
The doorbell rang then. It was probably just as well. Trying to interpret Barbara was a task that made me crazy—almost as crazy as listening to her.
Wayne and I rose together as the bell rang again. We would face whoever was at the door in tandem.
Wayne did the honors, turning the knob and yanking the door back. Then we both stared out onto the deck.
Two pairs of eyes stared back—Sergeant Marge Abbott’s and Captain Yale Wooster’s.
Sergeant Abbott’s eyes were crinkled with good humor. Captain Wooster’s were not.
“How are you two doing, then?” Marge greeted us.
I tried to frame a reply, but Captain Wooster was faster with his mouth than I was.
“Typhoid Mary of Murder!” he yapped. His jaw jutted into the entryway.
Whoa. I stepped back from the doorway. The captain wasn’t having a good day—not that any of us were. And I certainly hadn’t wanted to hear that phrase from a policeman’s lips. His mean eyes glinted.
“Now, Captain,” Marge admonished. “They can probably hear you all the way back in Cortadura.”
“Burning bushes!” the captain erupted. “You could have told us you find bodies as a hobby!”
“My wife does not find bodies as a hobby,” Wayne stated, his voice as expressionless as his face. But I could feel the anger vibrating from him.
“Yeah?” Captain Wooster swiveled his jaw in Wayne’s direction. “Well, how come every time there’s a death in Marin County, she’s there?”
“It’s not my fault,” I threw in, drawing his attention away from Wayne. If the men came to blows, I was pretty sure I knew who would end up in jail—Wayne—and who would end up in a body cast—Captain Wooster. “It’s a karmic thing. I was a resurrectionist in a past life.”
“You were a body snatcher?” Marge asked, her voice high with amazement.
“No, I raised people from the dead, so now I find them dead.” I knew I was babbling, but at least the captain had stopped yelling. Now he was staring at me, his mouth hanging open. Not a pretty sight. “You’ll have to ask my friend Barbara for more details,” I finished up.
A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 5