I was back outside, leaning against my car when I heard the police sirens. I didn’t feel triumphant anymore. I just felt sick.
A car screeched to the curb and stopped behind my Toyota. A uniformed sheriff popped out and trotted toward me.
“Are you Kate Jasper?” he asked.
I nodded. It was all I could do. I heard more sirens, more cars stopping.
“Where’s the body?” he demanded.
I led the sheriff back around the van to the flower bed and pointed a shaking finger. I glanced at Jerry, then turned away, only to come face to face with Sergeant Feiffer.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed at me angrily.
“Finding… finding… “ I faltered. I pointed at Jerry’s body again. Feiffer’s features softened.
“Just a few questions,” he said gently.
“A few questions” turned out to mean a few dozen. And he repeated them over and over again. “Why were you in the neighborhood?” for example. “How come you stopped to talk to Jerry?” “Why did you walk around the van?” “Why did you break into the house?” And the big one: “Did you kill him?” He only asked me that once. But he was serious. When I answered, “No,” he told me I could go.
I drove home slowly, unable to focus on the implications of Jerry’s murder. I had no doubt that it was murder. But my mind refused to stay with it. I turned on the radio and listened to some solid-gold hits. Diana Ross sang “Someday We’ll Be Together” and I felt nostalgic tears pricking my eyelids. The Four Tops were next with “I Can’t Help Myself and I was transported back through the years, to my girlfriend Laurie’s bedroom, where we were illicitly drinking rum and Coke. When “Eve of Destruction” came pouring out, I came back to the present with a shudder and turned off my radio.
Coming up my driveway, I realized my clothing was soaked with sweat. My mother’s voice barged into my mind. “Horses sweat, people perspire,” it corrected me. I parked, and pulled my sweaty body out of the Toyota. A searing pain shot up from the base of my spine. For a moment I thought that someone had actually shot me. Then I realized that I had once again popped my lower back out of alignment. I could just hear my chiropractor asking me if I’d been under any stress lately.
I limped my way into the house and checked the answering machine, hoping Jerry’s message was still there. It wasn’t. Once the machine was reset, any new calls recorded over the old ones. Jerry’s message had been buried under a series of calls ending with a plea from the Marin Sheriff’s Department for a donation to take a needy child to the circus.
I stood there and screened suspects in my mind. Jerry was out. That only left Linda, Ellen, Myra, Peter, Vivian—Vivian! She had been there this morning when I had played the message from Jerry. But then I remembered. She had been in the back room. Could she have overheard the call from the back room? I set the messages going at full volume on the answering machine and hobbled as fast as I could to the back room to listen. I could only hear a faint blur of noise. I certainly couldn’t hear any distinct words.
I walked back down the hallway slowly, every step marked by pain. After I reset the machine, I lay down on the floor to do some back exercises. As I pulled my left knee across my body I wondered whether Jerry had confronted the killer. Or had the killer just figured out what Jerry knew? I pulled my right leg across. Maybe he hadn’t been killed for his secret knowledge at all. Maybe his death was brought about by the same unascertained motive as Sarah’s. Or maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have anything to do with Sarah’s death at all. That was an encouraging thought. I sat up quickly. My spine sent me a signal I couldn’t ignore.
I called my chiropractor and made a late afternoon appointment. As I hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. I groaned. The only person I wanted to see was Wayne. It rang again. I hobbled to the door and opened it. Wayne wasn’t at the door. Sergeant Feiffer was.
“Well?” he demanded, marching into the living room.
“I told you, already,” I muttered. He didn’t respond. Wearily, I repeated the story I had given him earlier. “I was driving by when I saw his van. I walked around it because I knew he had to be there.”
“You just happened to be driving by. On the same street where Sarah Quinn was killed. Then you stopped and found another dead body,” he summed up. He shook his head. “Tell me another one,” he said, his voice loaded with sarcasm.
“I was out talking to some… some friends,” I stammered.
His face told me that my faltering did not go unnoticed. Suddenly I took a mental leap into Feiffer’s shoes. I was looking through his eyes and listening to my voice. And what I was hearing sounded very suspicious. In fact, what I was hearing sounded like someone guilty of murder.
“All right, all right,” I gave in. “I was talking to Sarah’s neighbors. I thought maybe I could come up with something. I didn’t expect…” A picture of Jerry’s body flashed in front of my eyes with sickening clarity. “I didn’t kill anyone, honestly,” I finished.
“You are in the interesting position of having known both of the victims,” Feiffer said, his voice tense with anger. He fixed accusing eyes on me. “I could say that you are the link between the murders.”
From the midst of my distress I realized Jerry had called me because I was a link, a link between him and Sarah. He had called me because I was the only person he knew who had been a friend of Sarah’s.
“You know something you’re not saying,” Feiffer enunciated slowly and carefully. “You are hiding something. What you are hiding may get you killed.” He was deadly serious.
“Jerry called me this morning,” I confessed. Suddenly I wanted to tell Feiffer everything I knew. “He left a message on my machine.”
“What did it say?” Feiffer asked eagerly. “Can we listen to it?”
“No, it was recorded over.” Feiffer’s face hardened. Damn. Now that I was telling the truth, he looked like he didn’t believe me. I rattled on anyway. “He just said he wanted to talk to me about Sarah. But I couldn’t get him on the phone. So when I saw his van—”
“What were Jerry’s exact words on the machine?” Feiffer interrupted. “Do you remember?”
I stood there and tried to remember. “I think he just said ‘this is Jerry’ and ‘I want to talk to you about Sarah’ or ‘it’s about Sarah’ or something.” I threw my hands up. “It wasn’t a long message.”
“And you didn’t talk to him?” Feiffer prodded.
“No, I was too late.” I looked down into my lap. Poor Jerry. “Was he married?” I asked. “Did he have kids?”
“Yes, he had a wife. No, he didn’t have kids,” Feiffer rapped out. “Now let me ask you some. How well did you know him?”
“Hardly at all,” I squeaked defensively. I took a breath and deepened my tone. “Sarah recommended Jerry to me. I barely spoke to him. He showed up twice a month to mow the lawn and keep things trimmed. Then he billed me through the mail.”
“He knew you well enough to call you,” Feiffer insisted.
“I wish he hadn’t!” I burst out. “If he really knew something, why didn’t he call you guys?”
“Right,” said Feiffer. “I want you to keep that question in mind while you listen to me.” He spoke in a tone of controlled fury. “If you know anything else about this business I want you to tell me. And I want you to stop your meddling in this as of now. Do you understand?”
I nodded yes.
“Is there anything else you have to tell me?” he asked.
I shook my head no. As far as I knew, I didn’t know anything.
“I’m not even going to try to convince you to be more careful,” Feiffer continued. “It would probably be useless. But I want you to think about Jerry Gold before you do anything foolish. And call us if you have any information at all. Or if there are any new phone threats. Or if you feel you’re in danger in any way.”
With those words he turned and marched out my door. It was a very effective exit. At that moment, I felt sur
e that my sleuthing days were over. I wanted no more part in murder.
I dutifully locked all my doors and windows. Then I sat down at my desk to do paperwork. I was negotiating with one of my suppliers on the telephone when the doorbell rang. I told the supplier that I’d get back to her. Then I crept to my office window. Felix was on my doorstep. I kept quiet, hoping he’d go away.
He pressed the doorbell again.
I gave up and opened the door.
“We need to talk,” he said. His voice wasn’t as demanding as usual. Trying to catch more flies with honey?
“About Jerry?” I guessed.
He nodded, then tried to step past me into the house. I held my ground, straining my back as I tensed. But Felix didn’t get in.
“Who told you I was the one who found him?” I demanded.
The moment the words left my mouth I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Felix’s eyes widened, then narrowed angrily. No one had told him. No one until me.
“You found his friggin’ body!” Felix shouted in my face. “And you didn’t call me!” So much for the soft-pedaling.
“Listen, Felix!” I shouted back. “I found a dead body. It was horrible. I need support now, not yelling. So be nice or leave!” I looked him in the eye.
He returned my angry gaze for a few heartbeats, then lowered his eyes.
“Okay,” he capitulated. He patted my shoulder awkwardly.
I let him into my house. The shoulder-patting ended the moment he was in. He hounded me for details I didn’t have. I threatened to throw him out. After fifteen minutes he decided to believe me. Then he started telling me about the book he wanted to write about the murders.
“It’d be a friggin’ best seller,” he told me. “People scarf up these kind of stories.” His eyes glowed. “Man, I’d be in fat city for years. Just the movie rights alone…” He shook his head slowly and drifted off into a daydream. What was he dreaming about? The money? The fame?
As I watched him, a little chill went up my already agonized spine. Felix had a motive. Were a best seller and movie rights worth killing for? Are acupuncturists into needles? But if Felix had set up the murder for the story, how was he going to write it without implicating himself?
“Felix,” I asked nonchalantly. “Can you write your book without a confessed murderer?” As soon as I had asked the question, I realized just how paranoid I had become. Felix as a murderer was too farfetched, I thought ruefully. But what about Linda Zatara?
“Maybe I could, though it wouldn’t be as easy without a confession,” Felix was answering me. He looked at me curiously.
“Anyway, back to Jerry Gold,” I said briskly. “What did you find out through your friends at the Sheriff’s office?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he answered snidely.
“Yes,” I said evenly. “And if you don’t tell me, I’ll never speak to you again.”
Felix opened his mouth as if to argue, then seemed to reconsider. “There isn’t much,” he assured me. “I know how Jerry bought it, though. The poor doof was whacked with a shovel. No fingerprints,” he finished.
A shovel. I thought of Jerry’s misshapen head and felt nausea rising again.
Felix went on. “There’re a few angles besides the connection with Sarah Quinn. Jerry married that woman I told you about, the ex-client’s wife—”
“The one he was playing ‘hide-the-salami’ with?” I asked.
His face pinkened as he nodded. He must have recognized the quotation. “But the client remarried anyway. He didn’t seem uptight about Jerry,” Felix said. “There’s another angle too. It seems that old Jerry still kept some sweet stuff on the side after he was married. So they’re checking the ladies out, and checking his wife out.”
Felix was sharing. I decided to share too. I told him about Jerry’s message on my machine.
Felix stood up from his chair. “Jeez-Louise, Kate!” he exploded. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
We were off and running again. I gave Felix the details. He wanted more. I escorted him outside to his car.
The rest of my afternoon was punctuated by incoming telephone calls, each timed to occur at crucial junctures in my paperwork. Tony called to confirm the seance date as I was about to total out my payroll deposits. Barbara called at the moment I glimpsed a possible reason why the bank was charging me for someone else’s automatic teller withdrawals. She chuckled over my account of Felix’s visit. Then, just as I found the IRS code section that might justify my tai chi fees as a business expense, Peter called.
“Sarah came to me in a dream,” he told me.
“Oh,” I said.
Peter spoke in a low, awed voice. “In my dream Sarah and I were sitting on this mountaintop and talking, and she said to me, ‘You really do create your own reality.’ And suddenly I understood, I mean really understood!”
“What did you understand, exactly?” I asked cautiously.
“That I am the one getting in my own way.” His voice was gaining momentum. “That it’s all good if I let it be. That everything is good and God and love at the core. It is only our own minds which limit us. That I can create exactly what I want!”
“Are you all right?” I asked. Perhaps it wasn’t the most sensitive way to greet his revelations.
“Yes, of course I’m all right,” he snapped. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand. You must understand.”
“I think I understand what you’re saying,” I answered slowly. “I feel that way periodically myself. But it just doesn’t sound like you, Peter.”
“Damn it, listen to me!” he exploded. “I’m telling you that I understand now.” So much for “good and God and love,” I thought.
“All right,” I soothed. “It sounds like a wonderfully positive dream. Then what happened?”
“Then Sarah floated up into the sky. Kate, I think it was really her,” he said, his voice low and reverent again. “I think she contacted me in my dream.”
“Did Sarah happen to tell you who murdered her?” I asked.
- Eighteen -
“Sarah contacts me in a dream and you want me to talk about her murder?” Peter demanded indignantly. “She came to me, Kate. She came to me to tell me about my life!”
“All right, calm down,” I said.
“I am calm,” he snapped. “I understood what Sarah meant. Can’t you see how important that is?”
I told him how happy I was for him in about four different ways. Then I hung up.
Late that afternoon at the chiropractor’s, I had plenty of time to ponder Peter’s new behavior while I waited for my turn on the treatment table. Anything was better than thinking about Jerry’s dead body.
Why had Peter suddenly come to understand Sarah’s message? Sarah had told him that he created his own reality at least five times a month while she was alive, and only succeeded in irritating him. Now that she was dead, Peter believed her. Was this new belief akin to the posthumous increase in the value of an artist’s work?
My chiropractor hauled me into the treatment room, laid me on a table, and popped my spine back into place. “What’s new?” she asked when she was done.
I opened my mouth and shut it again. I climbed down from the table and said, “Nothing.”
I was still thinking about Peter on the way home. If Tony or Barbara had told me about the same dream, I would have been comfortable with it. But I wasn’t comfortable with the new Peter Stromberg.
I started fretting over the seance the minute I walked in my front door. It was almost six. A seance! I couldn’t believe I had suggested such a thing. I moved the couch back against the wall and arranged five ladder-back kitchen chairs in a circle next to the pin-ball machines. The arrangement didn’t look very occult. I reminded myself that whether or not Sarah emerged as a spirit this evening, it would be instructive to watch the group members react to the possibility. I closed the curtains and surveyed the effect. The room still didn’t look otherworldly. It looked like a dark-
beige and white living room with a bunch of chairs in a circle. I sighed and opened the curtains again.
C.C. sauntered in and lay in the exact center of the circle of chairs. She rolled over on her back and lectured me loudly and enthusiastically.
“Sarah, is that you?” I asked her, giggling.
The doorbell rang. I jumped half an inch into the air. C.C. bolted. That would teach me to joke with my cat. Damn, I was nervous about this seance. If the murderer was one of the invited participants, I just hoped that she or he was suffering worse anxiety than I was.
“Hey,” Barbara greeted me as she came through the door. “Got any spare ectoplasm?” Her choice of clothing for a seance was a simple red-silk jumpsuit. She hugged me tight, then gazed into my face as she released me.
“Felix is really worried about you,” she said. Felix worried? I kept forgetting he was a human being. “He told me how freaked you are over the murders and all.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Should I come stay with you?” she asked softly.
It was tempting. I considered the offer for a moment. Would Barbara’s presence protect me? Or would it just put her in danger, too?
“I appreciate it, but no thanks,” I said finally. “I’ll be all right.”
“Are you sure?” she probed.
“I’m sure,” I told her. I took a big breath. “Now about this seance,” I said briskly. “What do I need to do? Should I go get a crystal ball or some colored lights or something?”
“Nope,” she chuckled. “All I’m going to do is contact some of the spirits I work with and have them try to communicate with Sarah’s spirit. I could do it in the hot tub.” She paused for a moment and grinned. “In fact, I like that idea a lot. Hot tub seance, what about it?”
“Oh God, no,” I groaned.
“Okay, no hot tub,” she agreed. “But don’t worry about any esoteric props. They aren’t necessary.”
“What’s going to happen exactly?” I asked.
“Damned if I know,” she answered cheerfully.
Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 19