“The theme,” she announced, “is cats.”
“Cats?” Wayne and I both exclaimed at once. So, he hadn’t known after all.
“Oh, yes,” Dorothy went on, warming to her idea. “I know how you two love your little kitty, C. C, so I thought perhaps you could both dress as cats. Remember how they did in that Broadway musical? And then,” she paused breathlessly, “C. C. can be part of the wedding.”
I opened my mouth to object. I knew that cat had been plotting something with my aunt! Then I heard a groan escape from Wayne’s lips.
“C. C. is such a sweet cat…” my aunt went on.
I gripped the steering wheel and whispered into Wayne’s ear, “Hardee-har-har.” I was tempted to add, “nyah, nyah,” but even I have my limits.
Wayne glowered my way. Well, he was the one who’d wanted a formal wedding—let it be cats.
“…party favors with little cat faces…” my aunt persisted.
“And the guests could bring their cats, too,” I suggested once Dorothy had burbled to an end, imagining the cat fight that would ensue.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Do you suppose they would all get along?”
“Um, almost to Mushrooms,” Wayne put in. “The two men we’re meeting are Gus Swanson and Neil Lennon.” Was Wayne diverting the subject from my aunt’s wedding plans? “They were journalists who worked with Steve.”
“I see,” Aunt Dorothy said cheerfully. And I was sure that she did. Had she been putting us on about the cats?
We hadn’t been to Mushrooms in a long time. The windowless cavern of a restaurant was still lit softly, but instead of seashells, there were now small, lit toadstools at each table, along with the lighted aquariums that were scattered around the room. At least whale music still played in the background. And the food smelled wonderful, redolent of garlic, onions, and all the other things that make life worthwhile.
Gus and Neil were barely visible in the murky light, but we finally spotted them at the bar.
“Hey, there,” Neil yelled and waved our way, alighting from his bar stool to smile at us. Gus nodded in our direction, then turned back to the bar. The men would have been hard to confuse even if it weren’t for Neil’s smile and Gus’s surly greeting. Neil was tall, with thinning red hair that matched his thin body, and Gus was burly, with thick black waves of hair that somehow matched his personality.
It took a while to get our seats. Even at five o’clock there was a crowd, and Gus wanted to finish his drink. But finally, we were seated at our own table with our own toadstool.
“So, you were friends of Steve’s?” my aunt began mildly.
“I wouldn’t exactly say ‘friends’,” Gus muttered.
“Colleagues,” Neil tried, blushing.
“You spoke at Steve’s funeral,” I reminded the men.
“Neil’s idea,” Gus rumbled. “You know, poor widow, all that cra—junk.”
“I take it you didn’t particularly like Steve?” I led Gus.
But our waiter arrived before I could lead Gus very far. I was just glad our waiter wasn’t dressed as a toadstool—shiny black pants and a white shirt were a nice change from spotted owl feathers.
“Our specials tonight are mushroom crepes, wild rice and mushrooms with fresh herbs and salmon, and vegan mushroom and almond croquets topped with a curried avocado sauce,” he recited.
We thanked him. That is, everyone but Gus thanked him. Then we surveyed our regular menus, dipping them into the dim light provided by the toadstool lamp.
“Oh, my,” my aunt cooed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had mushroom manicotti before. It sounds delicious.”
“I’ll stick with chicken and mushrooms,” Gus declared, shutting his menu decisively.
“So,” I began again. “You and Steve didn’t really get along—”
The sight of our bread arriving at the table knocked the rest of the words out of my mouth. But the bread was worth it: brown and rich, and baked in the shape of fist-sized mushrooms.
I had just taken a bite of the bread when Neil spoke.
“Steve Summers was a really great writer,” he offered.
“Just not so great with the old social skills,” Gus followed up.
I resisted the urge to ask if he considered himself an expert on social skills.
“Tell us more,” my aunt suggested.
“Steve was a quiet man, an observer,” Neil complied.
“Had to be quiet with that wife of his dominating his world,” Gus explained gracelessly. “He got sucked into her life. His role as a political spouse overtook his job as a writer. Damn shame.”
“Did Steve and Laura get along?” I asked.
Neil nodded and opened his mouth, but Gus beat him to the reply.
“Of course they got along,” he said. “They were both absolutely sure that they knew what was right for everyone else but themselves.”
Gus laughed. Dorothy offered an encouraging smile. I reminded myself that Gus was the best of our two sources. Neil probably wouldn’t ever say anything critical of Steve Summers; Gus was more than willing.
Our waiter returned before Gus could say much more, though, and we all ordered: Gus got his chicken and mushrooms; Dorothy ordered the manicotti; Neil and Wayne both chose the crepes; and I asked for the croquets.
And then we turned back to the topic of Steve.
“Steve really cared about people with problems,” Neil went on. “His writing was top rate, but his underlying compassion was what made it really work.”
“Yeah, Steve loved humanity. It was people he couldn’t stand,” Gus commented. For a moment, I let myself wonder how original Gus’s own writing was. “The man was a do-gooder, and God help you if you got in the way of his do-gooding.”
It was then that I realized I hadn’t heard a word from Wayne, except for his order. I turned to look at him. How was he taking Gus’s characterization of a man he’d cared for? Not well; Wayne’s face had turned to granite, his eyebrows had lowered, and his breathing was almost still. Damn.
“Have you guys ever been to Mushrooms before?” I asked, hoping to lighten things up.
I did find out one thing during dinner: Gus’s only complaint in life wasn’t about Steve Summers. He could complain about anything. And did.
“Why isn’t there any light in here?” he demanded. “And what’s with the toadstools? Are they supposed to be cute or something?”
“Something,” I answered.
Neil smiled. I wondered what his friendship with Gus did for him. But then, I’d seen many similar pairs of friends, lovers, and spouses before: One kind, one blunt; one saying nice things, the other saying the things the first one couldn’t. Neil and Gus, as a pair, were a type.
By the time our dinners came, I was glad I didn’t have to be Gus’s friend. And then I lost myself in the food. The mushroom and almond croquets were so good, I wanted a private place to enjoy them. The avocado sauce was perfectly curried, and the side dishes of carrot salad, sesame rice, and mushroom pate were worth a few groans of delight just in themselves.
I glanced over at Wayne again. He was eating. And from the way he rolled the food around in his mouth, I knew he was savoring his crepes. High praise from a chef, even if it was non-verbal.
After eating for a while in silence, Dorothy got the conversational ball rolling again.
“Steve Summers was much admired by some in the journalism arena,” she threw out.
Gus fielded the ball.
“He wrote some good stuff early on,” he admitted. “But he barely wrote at all at the end. He was too much in his wife’s shadow.”
“Was he angry about that?” my aunt pressed.
Gus frowned. “It was hard to tell with Steve. I never saw him angry in real life. He got his jollies in his self-righteous articles—”
“Now, that’s not fair,” Neil protested.
“Sure it is,” Gus argued, turning to his friend. “For all the do-gooding, didn’t you notice h
ow he always managed to stab some poor sucker in the back with his writing? Made me look Goddamn friendly in comparison.”
“He may have been occasionally cruel,” Neil admitted. “But he didn’t do it intentionally.”
“Huh! Look at Dutton Cole,” Gus insisted, bending over the table as if to shove his words down his friend’s throat along with his food. “Steve Summers killed Dutton Cole with that Goddamned article, and you can’t tell me otherwise.” Gus sat back now, arms crossed.
“What article was that?” I asked. We had been looking for someone who was angry with Steve, and if this Dutton Cole had a loved one in the group, we might have just hit pay dirt.
Gus leaned forward again, eager to tell us.
“Steve originally met Dutton through Laura,” he began his story in a whisper that could probably be heard on the other side of the crowded restaurant. “Dutton was the CEO muckety-muck of one of the biggest Silicon Valley outfits, Mr. Charity, a do-gooder from the word ‘go.’ Everyone liked him. Everyone wanted their kids to grow up and be him. Then he made his big mistake: He and Steve were talking one day, all buddy-buddy, when Dutton admitted that he was secretly gay. Steve went into this big song and dance about how Dutton oughta tell the world he was gay, to support all the other closeted gays out there. Dutton said no way. But that didn’t stop Steve. Steve wrote the story anyway. Some sort of rah-rah thing about how a gay man could make it to the top, even in Silicon Valley. Of course, very few people had known Dutton Cole was gay at all before the story.”
“It was supposed to be inspirational,” Neil tried.
“Oh, sure,” Gus sneered. “Only if it was inspired by the fact that Steve really hated Dutton Cole.”
“No,” Neil insisted. “You’ve got it all wrong. Steve was trying to make a point. It was supposed to be a success story.”
“Some success story!” Gus snorted. “Dutton killed himself.”
“What?” I asked.
Neil just shook his head sadly. Gus finished the story.
“Dutton just couldn’t take the publicity,” he explained. “He wasn’t ready. His parents didn’t even know. When the article came out, he put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”
Suddenly my croquets didn’t taste so good anymore. Why hadn’t Steve talked about the Dutton Cole story when the Heartlink members were all talking about their worst secrets? I wondered. And then I realized that Steve probably didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. He probably just thought Dutton Cole hadn’t appreciated a great story. I was beginning to adopt something close to Gus’s view of the late Steve Summers. To Steve, I imagined, global good had probably been everything. If individuals were hurt for a greater cause, so be it. I’d known people with that attitude before. I didn’t want to know any more of them.
“Did Dutton have any friends or family connected with the Heartlink group?” my Aunt Dorothy probed, bringing me back to earth from my high moral ground.
“Heartlink?” Neil asked.
“Steve’s men’s group,” Wayne explained.
“I doubt it,” Neil said. “This was years ago—five, six, seven, maybe. Dutton’s parents are dead now. Most of his friends have probably drifted away.”
“It’s one thing to be the friend of a famous CEO, but it’s another to be the friend of a dead gay guy,” Gus summed up.
Aunt Dorothy enunciated the names of the suspects, one by one, asking if any of them had been connected with Dutton Cole.
Both Gus and Neil shook their heads at the mention of each name, except for Laura Summers. But that was just because she’d introduced Dutton to Steve. She hadn’t really known him very well, outside of that initial encounter.
The rest of dinner seemed to take forever. No one was asking any more questions about Steve Summers, and no one was making small talk, either. When the bill came, Wayne grabbed it and slapped down his credit card in one motion.
Gus and Neil were still arguing as we left Mushrooms.
“He was a sanctimonious old maid,” Gus insisted.
“He was a good writer,” Neil insisted back.
“He—” Gus began, and we let the door slam on Mushrooms.
Back in the car, Aunt Dorothy asked, “Were those men really Steve Summers’ friends?”
“I don’t know,” Wayne managed in reply.
I turned the key in the Toyota’s ignition and asked my own question.
“Wayne, was he really that self-righteous?”
“Well, maybe,” Wayne murmured. This, coming from Wayne, was a stinging condemnation. I was glad my eyes were on the car in front of me. I wouldn’t want to see Wayne’s face now.
“What about this story he was going to write?” I asked. “The one he never got to tell you about? Do you think it would have been cruel—”
“Steve had writer’s block,” Wayne broke in, his voice high-pitched.
“So?” I asked.
“Steve told me he would have done anything for a story,” Wayne finished.
“Ruin someone’s life?” Aunt Dorothy questioned softly.
Wayne shook his head so hard I could feel the movement rocking the car.
“Don’t know,” he mumbled. “Just don’t know. Thought I knew Steve. Guess I didn’t.”
I reached over to pat his thigh. If there was only a way I could pat his aching conscience.
When I pulled up to Aunt Dorothy’s hotel, the mood in the Toyota was somber.
“Katie?” Aunt Dorothy whispered.
“What?” I asked, turning quickly to look into the back seat. My aunt sounded guilty. She looked guilty, too, her eyes downcast, her shoulders slumped.
“I was just kidding about the cats,” she finally told me.
“You were?” Wayne responded, an energy in his voice I hadn’t heard since we’d entered Mushrooms.
“I’d just hoped to inspire you to a brilliant alternative,” she admitted. “It wasn’t very nice of me.”
I parked the car and pulled my aunt out of the back seat to give her a good, long hug.
“You’re a kick in the pants, Aunt Dorothy,” I told her.
“Really?” She brightened.
“Really,” I said and escorted her into the lobby.
When Wayne and I got home, it was still early evening. We plopped into the hanging chair. I had a feeling we were going to have a long talk.
“Kate,” he began.
The doorbell rang.
I leapt from the chair and went to answer it. We all make mistakes, and this was one of mine. My ex-husband, Craig, was there on the doorstep, his big brown eyes pleading like a puppy’s.
Then he began to speak.
“I don’t wanna bother you,” he uttered.
“That’s all right,” my mouth answered. Another mistake.
“I heard you and Wayne are going to get married formally.”
“Where’d you hear that?” I demanded.
He stepped back on the deck like I’d punched him.
“From Felix. He’s going on and on about how your Aunt Dorothy’s some kind of big wedding consultant, and she’s here to help you make it legitimate.”
“My marriage is already legitimate, Craig.” I didn’t yell. How do you yell at a puppy?
“Felix said you’re balking, though.” Craig peeked out at me through his long eyelashes.
I shrugged my shoulders. Explaining why I was balking would have involved telling Craig that it was my formal marriage to him that had soured me on the institution. And as much as I was thankfully and gloriously happy to have shed Craig as a husband, I still liked him as a friend. I couldn’t help it.
“It’s me, isn’t it, Kate?” he asked.
I could feel my eyes widen. Had Craig been granted psychic powers?
“You’re still in love with me,” he finished up.
“Still in…what?!” I screeched, blowing Craig back another step.
Then I remembered that I didn’t want to hurt this man. I explained to him that I loved Wayne. His brown
eyes blinked with hurt. I explained that we could always be friends. He looked down at the ground. I explained that he wasn’t an appropriate wedding counselor for me.
“Sorry, Kate,” Craig said, and turned and walked back down the front stairs without even telling me a single joke.
My heart was still hurting for him when I closed the door. And then I remembered Helen Herrick.
“Helen,” I said to Wayne after I heard Craig’s car drive off. “We were supposed to visit her this evening.”
“Right,” Wayne growled.
We got back in the Toyota with renewed energy. The steam might have gone out of our hunt for Steve Summers’ murderer, but helping Helen Herrick find out who killed Isaac was another matter.
Helen met us at her door. Her house didn’t smell like cinnamon anymore, and her bookshelves weren’t as neatly arranged as they had been when we’d visited her before. Still, she led us into the living room, and we sat on her comfortable corduroy chairs.
I asked her if there was anything she needed to tell us.
“I was so afraid Isaac would drink himself to death. That’s why I was leaving. If I’d stayed—”
No,” I told her firmly. “Nothing would have been different if you’d stayed. You couldn’t have been with him night and day.”
I saw understanding cross her gaunt face for a moment, and then it was gone just as quickly as it had come.
“I loved the old fool,” she whispered.
“Then love yourself for his sake, Helen,” I heard myself say. Maybe I was channeling my aunt.
Still, Helen’s shoulders straightened. I allowed myself to hope that she’d really heard me.
We didn’t stay long—just long enough to listen. On the way out, I noticed what she’d been reading, left face-down on the coffee table. It was a glossy auto magazine. I shivered.
Could Helen have run Steve Summers down?
I told Wayne about the auto magazine on the way out.
“Do you think it means anything?” I asked.
“Probably means she’s looking for a new car,” he answered gruffly.
When we got home, I went to the mail box. I knew it was Sunday, but I couldn’t remember if I’d picked up the mail the day before. There was only one envelope in the box, and it contained no address. I opened it as I walked back to the house.
A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 23