“Stop or bie,” it said in huge felt-tip pen letters. The “p” in “stop” had been originally turned backward, then scratched out and turned forward again.
- Twenty-One -
Stop or bie. Huh?
I looked at the note again. What was that supposed to mean?
“Wayne!” I yelled and sprinted up the driveway, meeting him on the stairs. “We got another note.”
“What does it say?” he asked as I panted.
“‘Stop or bie,’” I told him.
“Stop and buy?” he demanded. “Sure it isn’t just an ad?”
I handed him the note impatiently.
“The ‘p’ in ‘stop’ was turned backward before,” he pointed out.
“Ah,” I said as the letters rearranged themselves in my mind. “So if the ‘b’ is turned backward, too, it’s supposed to be a ‘d’.”
“Stop or die.” Now that was a note.
It wasn’t until I’d finished congratulating myself on the translation that I began to think about the message.
“Think someone wants us to stop investigating?” Wayne asked to the accompaniment of my bongo-drum heartbeat.
“Someone who tried to run you over?” I added.
“Maybe,” he considered. “Kate, is this note really dyslexic?”
“We already went through this,” I reminded him. “None of the suspects is dyslexic. They can’t be, can they? And if someone wanted to disguise themselves as a dyslexic, it would’ve been Isaac—”
“Or Helen,” Wayne finished softly.
“Oh, no,” I murmured. “Do you think so?”
“Don’t know,” he answered. “Think it’s time to call in Captain Wooster.”
I nodded silently.
We took the stairs slowly, like prisoners on the way to our own hanging.
I handed Wayne the phone to call the captain once we were inside. I remembered only too well how badly I’d done when I’d tried to tell Captain Wooster about the Horquillo car incident. It was definitely Wayne’s turn.
I stood next to Wayne as he dialed, a back-seat phoner.
“Captain Wooster, please,” Wayne requested.
There was a long silence from Wayne.
“Is Sergeant Marge Abbott in?” he tried finally.
Cool, I thought. Sergeant Marge.
And then, I heard Wayne explaining about our most recent threatening note, and about the earlier one. He was just getting into his dyslexic theory when he suddenly stopped talking.
I leaned forward as his brows lowered.
“But why?” he asked.
His brows lowered further as he listened.
“Right,” he said finally. “Thank you anyway.” And then he hung up.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“I talked to Sergeant Marge,” he began. “She said it probably wasn’t a good idea to show the notes to the captain right now.”
“But why?” I demanded, vaguely remembering hearing those same words from Wayne’s lips a few moments earlier.
“She said that the captain would just think we were writing the notes to put him off track,” he answered. “That he’d think we were the murderers—”
“But that’s stupid!” I objected.
“Uh-huh.” He nodded his head slowly.
“And you think she’s right?” I asked.
He nodded again. “She called me ‘sugar,’” he added irrelevantly. “She knows him a lot better than we do, Kate.”
“But would he really think—” I started.
And the doorbell rang.
Wayne looked at the note he held in his hand, and then laid it carefully face-down on top of the answering machine. Then we approached the front door together.
Wayne cautiously opened the door.
Van Eisner stood in front of us, unshaven, sniffling, and jittery.
In less than a second, something told me not to let him into our house. But in that time, his foot had already crossed the threshold.
“Van,” Wayne said quietly. “Can this wait?”
Had Wayne felt that same something I had?
“No, man,” Van replied, thrusting his head forward belligerently. “It can’t wait. For God’s sake, I’ve got real problems. I thought you were supposed to support me. But suddenly, ol’ Van is a leper or something.”
Wayne closed his eyes for a few moments. I wondered how much control it took to speak to Van right now. But he did speak, finally.
“Come in,” he growled. “Kate and I are in the middle of something, so we’ll have to keep it short, okay?”
Van’s other foot crossed the threshold.
“No, it’s not okay!” he shouted.
“Van,” Wayne warned, his hand in the air.
“Hey, I’m talking,” Van declared, but his voice was back to normal. “And I’m asking questions too. The cops are real interested in my drug use. So I wanna know just who told them about my supposed drug use?”
“Van,” Wayne answered, his voice low and controlled. “I don’t know the answer to your question. If you’re asking if I did, I didn’t.”
That should have ended it. I held my breath, hoping it would.
But Van turned toward me next.
“Okay, but what about wifey, here?” he snarled. “I’ve heard how nosey Kate is. Sniffing into everyone’s business, making it hers. I’ll bet she just loves talking to the cops.”
“That’s enough,” Wayne informed Van coldly.
But I didn’t want Wayne fighting my battles.
“Listen, Van,” I put in. “I have been asking questions, questions about murder. I don’t care about your drug use. I don’t care unless it has to do with murder. And the way you’re ranting, it looks like drugs aren’t real good for your judgment—”
Van stepped toward me, but I stepped backward automatically. Fifteen years of tai chi can do that to a person. Still, I shut my mouth. Van was enraged, the skin tone of his pointy face not red, but paper white. I could even smell the rage on him, hot and acrid.
“You!” he yelled again, pointing a finger at me now. “You’re the one that sicced them on me!”
“Listen, Van,” I started.
But Van lunged for me before I could finish. His hands were up and moving toward me, maybe to grab my shoulders, maybe my neck. In raising his arms, he’d left his entire torso unprotected, but he didn’t realize that. I thought of a knee to the groin and instantly vetoed it. Instead, I waited until he’d reached me and used my arms and body to receive his force and return it lightly. He backpedaled wildly, flailing against the door frame. My push hadn’t caused his reaction directly; it was the reversal of his own momentum. But he didn’t know that, either.
“Damn you!” he screamed, running toward me to swing a fist my way. I turned my body to the side and he sailed past me, propelled by the force of his own attempted blow.
“Van,” I whispered. “Calm down. No one here is your enemy.”
But Van whipped around, his eyes intent on me. I knew he wouldn’t leave voluntarily until he’d landed a blow. Tai chi can be very frustrating to the uninitiated.
This time, though, Wayne grabbed Van and swung his arm behind him before he even got near me. Wayne probably didn’t care about me fighting my own battles anymore. He wanted Van out of our house, and so did I.
As soon as Wayne had Van out on the deck, I tried one last call to reason.
“Van, why don’t you just throw your drugs away if you’re so worried about the police finding them?”
“Are you crazy?” he bellowed.
Maybe I was. Once Wayne had frog-marched Van back to his car, waited until Van drove away, and returned to the house, we locked all of our doors and windows before taking our places in the hanging chair.
Our world didn’t seem safe anymore.
“Kate,” Wayne announced. “I think we should stop.”
“Stop investigating?”
He nodded.
“But—”
“This is my mess in the first place. I was the one who wanted to find out who killed Steve Summers—”
“And Isaac Herrick—”
“And Isaac Herrick,” he continued. “But it’s too dangerous, for both of us.”
I thought about the car that had tried to run Wayne down. He was right. Still, if we found out who was responsible…
“What if we stick together from now on?” I countered. “Go everywhere together? We can back each other up—”
“Kate,” Wayne pleaded. “I have to work. I need to go in tomorrow. Are you going to stay with me for eight hours?”
I shook my head. “But—”
“Ground rules,” he insisted. “We need ground rules. We can still try to figure out who did it, but we can’t let anyone know.”
I tilted my head. I didn’t want any more cars racing toward Wayne, or any more fists aiming at me, for that matter. I was willing to listen.
“Okay.” Wayne took a big breath. “First of all, no more visiting suspects.” Wayne put up his hand before I could object. “No more letting suspects in the house. And we tell everyone we’ve stopped investigating.”
“But we don’t stop?”
“We don’t stop trying to figure it out,” he clarified. “We probably know all we’re going to know from outside sources now anyway, so we can work it through logically, in our own space.”
I found myself nodding, and then wondering just whose pitiful head was bouncing up and down on my thin stalk of a neck. When had I become such a coward? When I saw the car bearing down on Wayne, that was when.
“Was it Van that tried to run you over?” I asked in the spirit of working it through logically.
“He drives a red Miata,” Wayne argued.
“But he could have borrowed someone else’s car,” I argued back.
“Maybe, but I still don’t think he’d do it.”
“Even after tonight?”
“Even after tonight,” Wayne muttered. “Kate, he’s out of control. You saw him. Even if he didn’t know you could defend yourself—”
“I can, you know,” I threw in indignantly.
“Kate, I of all people know just how well you can defend yourself.” He smiled. “I have the bruises to prove it.”
I blushed. I’d forgotten about shoving Wayne, even if it had been for his own good. Now, I felt like Bluto.
“Point I was making,” Wayne pressed on, “was that Van should have known I’d eventually stop him, even if he didn’t know what you’re capable of. He isn’t thinking ahead; he isn’t planning violence. His brain’s so fried now, I’m surprised he can drive at all, much less aim a car at me.”
“Okay, who then?” I asked.
Discussion of that question took us into the early morning hours. We made charts. We lined up black beans to represent the positions of all the suspects. We even tried hypnotizing each other. But nothing was working. By the time we rolled into bed that night, we hadn’t reached any conclusions except that the world was a very scary place.
*
Monday morning, I woke out of a nightmare to the sound of my phone ringing. I looked for Wayne, didn’t see him, and stumbled down the hallway into my office.
Ted Kimmochi was on the line. I picked up the phone anyway. Maybe I could tell him we weren’t investigating anymore.
“Kate, is Wayne there?”
I looked around the room.
“No,” I answered, hearing Wayne’s computer beeping from his office at the other end of the hallway. He may have been in the house, but he wasn’t in my office.
“Kate,” Ted sighed. “I’m wondering what this all means. Death, despair—”
“We’re not investigating anymore,” I interrupted him.
The silence that followed was so infinitesimal, I almost missed it. Then Ted started up again.
“I can’t help but feel that Steve’s and Isaac’s deaths have a greater meaning.”
“Greater than what?” I asked.
“All life is a charnel house,” he replied.
Well, I guess that answered my question.
“Why am I caught in this terrible set of circumstances? Is it karma? Is it a punishment?”
“Do you feel you need to be punished, Ted?” I asked.
“Sometimes, Kate. Don’t we all?”
Not me, I thought, but decided to ask something more practical.
“Ted, I heard that you and Janet were in some financial trouble a few years back. What was that all about, anyway?” As I asked, I hoped Wayne wouldn’t consider my question investigatory. And I especially hoped Wayne wasn’t close enough to be listening.
“Where’d you hear that?” Ted demanded, his voice hardening into crystalline clarity.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Could Ted be a threat? He always seemed so vague, so tragic. I didn’t like the new clarity in his voice.
“Oh, around,” I lied. “So, what happened?”
“Nothing much,” he mumbled. And then he mumbled some more. And finally, he hung up.
At least he was off the phone. But the phone wasn’t through with me yet. It rang again before I’d made two steps away from it.
This time, Garrett was on the phone. But Garrett was experiencing guilt, not self-absorption.
“I keep asking myself,” he confessed over the line, “Could I have prevented these deaths? I’m a psychiatrist. I should be able to tell what’s going on. I should be more sensitive to the points of view of everyone in the group. If someone is troubled enough to murder, I should be able to spot their distress.”
“What if they’re a psychopath?” I asked.
“Even then, Kate. I’m trained. I’m the only member of the group who is. Anyway, there’s no psychopath in our group, and none of the significant others is a psychopath either. I’m sure of it. I’d see it. I’d feel it.”
Maybe he was right. You didn’t have to be a psychopath to murder—I’d learned that the hard way. You just had to be pushed to your personal limit.
“Do you have any guesses yet?” I prompted.
“No!” he cried. Then he paused. “Excuse me, Kate. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. But the answer is no. I don’t have any guesses. Not one. I keep going over everyone in my mind and coming up blank.”
“How about Van?” I asked.
“No, entirely the wrong type,” he assured me. Maybe to him and Wayne, I thought. Van seemed exactly the right type to me.
“Garrett, it’s not up to you. Or us,” I added dutifully. “Wayne and I aren’t investigating anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Kate,” he whispered, his voice as mournful as if someone had died. Then again, two people had died. “Of course, you have your reasons.” His voice went into high gear. “It’s really the murderer I’m worried about. Whoever it is, that individual is very sick. They need help. No matter what they’ve done, they are sick and crying for help. And I haven’t provided it.”
“Oh, Garrett,” I sighed. How do you reason with a saint? “Have you talked to Jerry? He loves you. He’ll tell you none of this is your fault. It isn’t, you know.”
“I’m a professional, Kate,” he reminded me. “I have more responsibility than the other group members—”
“You’re a professional psychiatrist, not a policeman. And when you’re in the group, you’re a peer. You don’t have any more responsibility than anyone else—”
“But I feel I do, Kate,” he cut in. “I can’t help it.”
I hate it when people use the word “feel.” How can you argue with feelings?
I stopped trying, and within minutes I’d hung up the phone. Again. I was almost into the kitchen when it rang for the third time.
“Kate,” Jerry Urban blurted when I picked it up. “Did you just talk to Garrett?”
“Um…” I faltered. Was my conversation with Garrett confidential? Garrett was a psychiatrist, after all.
“Never mind,” Jerry muttered. “I just called because he’s walking around like a
sheepdog who’s lost his flock or something. Garrett is not himself, Kate. It’s like he’s having a permanent bad hair day—”
“Have you ever thought of finding a psychiatrist for the psychiatrist?” I asked.
“He already has one,” Jerry whispered loudly into the phone.
“He does?”
“Hard to believe, huh?”
“Maybe he needs an extra appointment,” I suggested.
“Good idea,” Jerry agreed, and I heard the scritch-scratch of him writing something down. “Do you and Wayne know who did it yet?” he asked a moment later.
“No, we don’t know, and we’ve stopped investigating.” Maybe I ought to just have little cards made up, announcing our resignation from further investigation. It would be easier than telling everyone.
“Oh,” Jerry mumbled, and I could hear a volume of disappointment in his tone.
“Jerry, go cheer up Garrett,” I ordered.
“Do you think a tutu would help?” he asked and giggled. Then he got serious again. “Believe me, Kate, I’ve tried. I even made this little robot that goes around bemoaning his existence like Ted. Garrett thought it was funny till I told him who it was supposed to be. Then he thought it was cruel.”
“Bring it over here sometime,” I suggested, laughing. Then I remembered the ground rules—no suspects in the house. Did that apply to their robots? I’d have to ask Wayne.
“Kate, he needs something from me,” Jerry confided. “I just wish I knew what it was. I’d do anything for him.”
“I know you would,” I sympathized. “Maybe you could ask him what he needs. He’s a psychiatrist. Ask him to figure it out.”
There was a silence, and then Jerry thanked me. He was taking my suggestion seriously. He was going to ask Garrett to figure out what he needed.
I wished Jerry luck and hung up.
Jerry would do anything for Garrett, I thought. Would he kill for him?
The phone rang again before I even took one step away from it.
It was almost a relief to hear my warehousewoman, Jade, announcing that there’d been an “itty-bitty” fire at the Jest Gifts warehouse. Almost.
- Twenty-Two -
An “itty-bitty” fire. It took a while for the meaning to sink in. Once it did, I clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming. Added to a couple of itty-bitty murders, not to mention an itty-bitty car and an itty-bitty Van Eisner, it was suddenly too much. And I hadn’t even had breakfast yet.
A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 24