Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  My mouth went dry. In my mind, the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears became the sound of Zach’s fist pounding on my door. And I hadn’t even told Wayne about Zach. Damn.

  “Don’t panic,” Barbara advised. “He probably doesn’t know your last name.”

  The pounding diminished. Maybe Barbara was right. If I didn’t know Zach’s last name, he probably didn’t know mine.

  “Unless he got it from Dan,” Barbara added helpfully.

  “Barbara!” I yelped. “Stop it. My head feels like a tennis ball—”

  “Never mind, kiddo,” she interrupted. “You’ll be safe. You’re going to spend the afternoon with me.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah,” she said. Her voice took on a husky tone. “First thing, we’re going over to the city to take Alice out to lunch—”

  “No way!” I objected. “You heard Sergeant Oakley. It’s dangerous to talk to these guys! One of them’s a murderer—”

  “Not Alice,” Barbara said quietly.

  I paused for a moment. Not Alice?

  “But last night you said Topaz might be Alice’s illegitimate daughter,” I reminded her, keeping my voice even with an effort. “And then there was the theory about the commune—”

  “That was last night,” she cut in again. “I don’t think it’s Alice anymore. And Kate, Alice knew Sheila. Think about it.” The phone was silent for a moment. It wasn’t enough time for me to figure out what I was supposed to be thinking about. “Alice knew Sheila longer than anyone else did,” Barbara added. “She’ll have some answers for us.”

  “Answers to what?” I demanded. “What the hell are you talking about!”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there,” she promised and hung up.

  Twenty minutes later I heard a car in my driveway. I peeked through the curtains, afraid for a moment that Zach might be driving up. But all I saw was Barbara’s Volkswagen. That wasn’t a whole lot better. I had work to do, I told myself. This whole thing was too dangerous, I added. There were boundaries even in the best of friendships, and Barbara was pushing the limits of those boundaries. I stood up straighter. I wouldn’t go with her to San Francisco. That was all there was to it.

  Ten minutes of arguing later, I was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge with Barbara next to me in the passenger’s seat. Vesta hadn’t replied when I shouted goodbye.

  “Vesta’ll be fine,” Barbara assured me. “She’s manipulating you, kiddo. You let people push you around too much.”

  “Is that a fact?” I drawled with a pointed glance in her direction.

  Barbara had the grace to quietly avert her eyes for a moment, pretending to find great interest in the license plate of the car next to us. Or maybe she wasn’t pretending. The silence didn’t last long, though.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, turning back to me. “Alice isn’t going to do anything to us in the middle of downtown San Francisco.”

  Barbara had a point. But it turned out to be a moot one. We made our way through the downtown traffic, parked in the underground parking lot, walked four blocks and took the elevator up to Alice’s office. But Alice wasn’t there. And the woman at the desk claimed to have no idea where she’d gone. In fact, the woman at the desk was mighty annoyed. Alice was supposed to be covering the phones. And Meg was gone too. The woman was still muttering angrily as we left.

  “Any other bright ideas?” I asked Barbara as we exited the lobby to the sidewalk. I’ll admit it wasn’t a friendly question. Or an original one. But I wasn’t feeling very friendly or original.

  “How about lunch?” Barbara suggested with a grin.

  I glared at her.

  “My treat,” she added. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, kiddo. I didn’t know Alice wouldn’t be here.”

  “No, I suppose you didn’t.” I sighed and gave in.

  Barbara bought me a tofu dog with mustard and onions from a cart in the plaza a few blocks from Alice’s building. Then she got two of the meat versions with chili for herself. We stood on the sidewalk and devoured the dogs, oozing chili and mustard respectively all over our hands. I closed my eyes as I licked my fingers. They were almost as good as the tofu dog itself.

  “Jeez-Louise,” Barbara commented, handing me a paper napkin. “You sure you don’t want another one?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good,” she said. “It’s time to visit Rose Snyder again.”

  I said no, emphatically. Barbara said yes, more emphatically. I said it was too dangerous. Barbara asked me if I really thought Grandma Snyder was a killer. I said no, but what if Dan showed up? She said she’d go alone. I told her not to. She said Dan wasn’t really dangerous, anyway. I said he was, too…

  I was thinking about assertiveness training as I parked in front of the Good Thyme Cafe an hour later. How come Barbara always won our arguments? Maybe she was a hypnotist as well as a psychic. Maybe she was just good at being stubborn.

  She jumped from her side of the car energetically, striding up to the Good Thyme before I had even opened the door on my side. I got out reluctantly and walked up behind her as she pushed the B buzzer.

  “Hello?” came Rose Snyder’s low, lifeless voice through the intercom.

  “Hi!” Barbara greeted her with all the enthusiasm of a charity fund-raiser. “This is Barbara Chu again. I’m here with Kate Jasper.” I flinched when I heard my own name. The poor woman’s son was in trouble. Her daughter-in-law was dead—

  “We wanted to talk to you about Dan,” Barbara went on. I wished she hadn’t said “we.” Then she said it again. “May we come up?” she asked.

  “I guess so,” Rose answered slowly, uncertainty evident in her tone.

  It was gall, I realized as we waited for Rose to come down and open the door. Pure and simple gall. That was why Barbara won all our arguments. If she could learn to lie, she might have a career in politics, I thought. I looked at her beautiful profile and shivered. What if she had already learned to lie? And to kill? I shook off the thought as Rose Snyder arrived at the door.

  Rose looked tired, very tired. Her soft, round body sagged incongruously under her bright, gaily flowered dress. She wore no rouge today. Her skin looked pasty without it. Even her permed silver hair drooped. Her eyes were bleak as she stared at us through her gold wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Come in if you like,” she offered tonelessly.

  She led us down the hall and up the stairs to the apartment above the restaurant. Then she opened the apartment door, and we were transported back to the sixties. The Grateful Dead, Ravi Shankar and Jefferson Airplane posters decorated the bright yellow walls. The moldings were painted purple. A frayed velvet couch whose maroon had mostly faded to brown sat against one wall. Large, mismatched pillows were scattered nearby. And there were a couple of easy chairs draped in purple velour. The strings of multicolored beads that hung in the two inner doorways completed the picture. I could almost smell the patchouli oil.

  “I’m sorry the living room looks so funny,” Rose apologized softly. “Danny likes it this way.” She shrugged her shoulders gently and sighed. I had a feeling she would have rolled her eyes if she’d had the energy.

  “Don’t worry. I love it,” Barbara assured Rose. From the rapt look on Barbara’s face, I assumed she wasn’t just being polite. “It’s far out. I haven’t seen anything like this for years—”

  The curtain of beads in one of the doorways rippled as Opal Snyder came rushing through. Her brown eyes were round, her hair held in place by yellow butterfly barrettes today. Topaz stalked behind her little sister, her thin arms crossed over her chest.

  “Grandma,” Opal said breathlessly. “Topaz says I can’t have another cookie. I can, can’t I?”

  Rose closed her eyes for a moment and sighed.

  “Can’t I?” Opal repeated shrilly.

  “One cookie apiece,” Rose ruled finally. “Topaz, you get them out of the cupboard. You can both eat them in the kitchen.”

  Rose asked u
s to sit down as the little girls disappeared through the dangling beads of the other doorway. We lowered ourselves onto the old velvet couch. A musty smell of damp and decay rose into my nostrils as we sank into its flaccid cushions. Rose took a seat on one of the easy chairs.

  “I don’t know how I can apologize to you about Danny,” Rose whispered once we were seated. She folded her hands neatly in her lap and stared down at them. “I’ve been awake all night, trying to figure out where I went wrong with him.”

  Pity tightened my chest as I listened to her. “Maybe it isn’t anything you did,” I suggested.

  Her head jerked up as if startled. She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s no excuse for his behavior,” she murmured. Her cheeks flushed. “None. How could I have raised a boy who would hit his own daughter with a gun?”

  I looked over at Barbara. When was she going to ask her questions? I didn’t want to watch Dan’s mother suffer anymore. But Barbara just stared at Rose Snyder without speaking. It was an effective technique.

  “And Topaz,” Rose continued, her voice a little stronger. “She’s getting as bad as Danny. She hits her little sister. And the foul language she uses.” Rose clicked her tongue. “I don’t know what to do with her.” She sighed again.

  “Mrs. Snyder,” Barbara began. It was about time. “Have you been told the names of the people in the vegetarian cooking class?”

  Rose nodded, her eyes widening a little.

  “Did you recognize any of the names?”

  Rose shook her head gently. “No, though I suppose I should have. I’ve certainly met Iris Neville before,” she told us. “And Danny tells me I was introduced to Alice Frazier some years ago.” She sighed once more. “My memory’s not as good as it used to be. The police asked me the same questions.”

  “How about last night?” Barbara persisted. “You saw all the people in the dining room. Did you recognize anyone else besides Alice and Iris?”

  “Well, there was Danny, of course. And his friend Zach,” Rose answered hesitantly. “And I think I recognized the rest of you from the night Sheila was…was killed. And, let’s see, I saw you two at the memorial service.” She closed her eyes for a moment. Maybe she was trying to summon up another memory. Apparently it didn’t work. “I’m sorry I’m not more help,” she said finally, opening her eyes again.

  “You’re doing great,” Barbara assured her. “Now about Zach—”

  The phone rang, interrupting whatever question Barbara had been going to ask.

  “Oh dear,” Rose murmured as she stood up. “Excuse me, please.” She shuffled her way over to the phone that sat on a small table below the Jefferson Airplane poster. Her back was to us as she picked up the receiver. I averted my eyes anyway, not wanting to intrude on her conversation.

  “Hello?” Rose answered. I could still hear her, averted eyes or not. “This is she.”

  Then there was a long silence. I glanced at Barbara. She was sitting upright on the edge of the couch, her face stricken. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “Oh, my God!” Rose cried out.

  Barbara was on her feet in an instant. She ran across the room, but stopped two feet away from Rose as if she were waiting for something. Rose hung up the phone slowly, then turned, not seeming to notice Barbara standing nearby. Her face was paper-white and drawn, her eyes focused ahead of her on something that wasn’t in the room. A chill raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Topaz came marching through the strings of beads in the kitchen doorway, her face sullen.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded, staring at her grandmother.

  Rose Snyder looked down at Topaz slowly. It took her a moment to focus on the girl.

  “Grandma?” Topaz prodded, her voice softer now. Her face seemed to open, looking like a little girl’s to me for the first time. Was she afraid? I was. “Grandma, are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” Rose replied in a zombie’s voice.

  “But—” Topaz began.

  “Can you take your sister downstairs for a moment?” Rose asked, her voice still lifeless.

  “What’s—” Topaz tried again.

  “Please,” Rose said quietly.

  Topaz nodded, her face sullen once more. She stomped back into the kitchen and emerged seconds later, dragging Opal by the hand through the living room and out the apartment door. Every time Opal tried to ask a question, Topaz told her to shut up. And Rose didn’t correct her once.

  Once the children were gone, Rose’s body seemed to lose its stuffing. Barbara put an arm around the older woman’s waist and half led, half carried her to an easy chair.

  “Danny is dead,” Rose said. There was no emotion in her voice.

  “What?” I asked, thinking I must have misheard her.

  “Danny is dead,” she repeated and slumped forward in her chair.

  I jumped from the couch and ran to her. Barbara’s fingers were already on Rose’s pulse.

  “Did she have a heart attack?” I asked, my voice shrill and shaking.

  “I don’t think so,” Barbara said, her voice no better. “I think she just fainted.”

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” I told her and turned to the phone.

  “What’d you do to Grandma?” came a voice from behind me. I turned and saw Topaz scowling at me. Instantly, I wondered if it was true that Dan Snyder was dead, that Topaz no longer had a father.

  “Honey—” I began.

  “Danny!” yelped Rose. She was sitting up again, her white face tight with misery. At least she was conscious, I thought gratefully. I wouldn’t call an ambulance. Not yet, anyway.

  “What did Daddy do to you?” demanded Topaz, running toward Rose.

  “Nothing, honey,” Rose sobbed. She held her arms wide for her granddaughter.

  Topaz hesitated an instant, then crawled into Rose’s lap. Rose wrapped her arms around her granddaughter, resting her chin on the girl’s head as she cried. God, I was glad that Rose and Topaz had each other to hold.

  I looked over at Barbara. She was motioning for me to join her on the couch.

  “You’d think the police would be a little more sensitive,” I whispered to her once we were seated.

  “Maybe it wasn’t the police who called,” she whispered back.

  I looked at her, puzzled. “But who else would have told her that Dan was dead?”

  “Sheila’s murderer, maybe,” Barbara mused. “Who knows?”

  “You mean as a joke?” I breathed. “Do you think Dan’s still alive?”

  Barbara shrugged. “No, probably not,” she answered finally. She frowned as she looked back over at Rose Snyder. My eyes followed her gaze. Rose was crying quietly now, her arms still around Topaz. It would be too cruel a joke to tell Rose that Dan was dead if he wasn’t.

  “How can we find out?” I asked.

  Barbara frowned for a moment more, then answered, “Felix.”

  But when she got up from the couch, she walked to Rose Snyder’s side.

  “Mrs. Snyder,” she prompted gently.

  Rose looked up at her, eyes bleary with tears.

  “Who called you, Mrs. Snyder?”

  Rose pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blotted her eyes. “Topaz, honey,” she said gently. “Go play with your sister downstairs.”

  “I wanna stay with you, Grandma,” Topaz protested.

  “And I want to stay with you, too,” Rose said with a catch in her voice. “But you have to go downstairs right now.”

  Topaz jumped out of her grandmother’s lap and scowled at her, then at Barbara. Then at me.

  “Please, Topaz,” Rose said. “Do as I say.”

  Topaz walked heavily across the room and slammed the door on the way out.

  “Who called you?” Barbara asked Rose again, wasting no more time.

  “Alice,” Rose replied, her eyes drifting around the living room, unseeing. Was she going to faint again?

  “And what did she say?” Barbara p
ressed, her voice gentle but clear.

  “That someone murdered my son,” whispered Rose. Her eyes came back into focus; “Danny’s dead,” she said as if she just now understood. She began to cry again, sobbing more loudly than she had before.

  Tears moistened my own eyes. I blinked them back and went to Rose, putting my arm around her shoulders as I crouched by the side of her chair. I didn’t know if I could do her any good that way, but I didn’t know what else to do. Her son’s life wasn’t mine to offer. And that was probably all that mattered to her right now.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered, knowing it wasn’t.

  I patted Rose’s hand and murmured words of consolation as Barbara phoned Felix. Barbara kept her voice low, but I got the gist. Felix was going to check on the story with the police department and then get back to us. Barbara was back by my side a moment after she hung up the phone.

  “I have an idea,” she whispered in my ear.

  “What?” I asked, standing to hear it, keeping one hand on Rose’s shoulder. I hoped I wouldn’t hate Barbara’s idea. I hoped I wouldn’t get talked into it anyway.

  But Barbara’s idea turned out to be a surprisingly good one. She suggested calling Edna and Arletta and asking them to come take care of Rose Snyder and her grandchildren. Actually, it was a great idea. The twins would know what to do. I was sure of it. I gave Barbara the name of their hotel and she went back to the phone. I squatted down next to Rose and put my arm around her again. Her sobs were quieter now.

  It wasn’t until Barbara came back and told me that Edna and Arletta were on their way that my mind turned to the inevitable question Who killed Dan Snyder? Assuming he was dead, that was.

  I looked up at Barbara. I knew she was asking herself the same thing. The faces of the members of the vegetarian cooking class flashed through my mind. Alice’s face stayed the longest. If she had told Rose about Dan’s death, was she the murderer? But she was in love with Dan. Why would she kill him?

  Then I thought of Zach. Maybe Dan had lied when he told the police he was with Zach the night Sheila died. Had Zach convinced Dan he needed an alibi, then offered to provide one? Had Dan finally realized that Zach needed that alibi for himself? Had he challenged Zach?