Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Cat?” I offered loudly. C.C didn’t actually have a last name. But that was embarrassing to admit.

  “No, yours,” she corrected me impatiently.

  “Oh, right,” I yelled, “Jasper!” taking the woman in for the first time. This wasn’t the usual receptionist. The former receptionist had been elderly with a memory like an elephant, an android elephant with a computer chip for a brain. This woman was young, steely eyed, and clearly unhappy. Maybe it was the howling. Maybe it was the smell of antiseptics and cat. Maybe it was her paycheck. I didn’t ask. After an afternoon of unwanted confidences, I was afraid she might tell me.

  After explaining C.C.’s need to see the doctor, I took a seat on the easy-wash, military-green vinyl couch against the back wall, cat carrier and opera cat in place in my lap.

  The outer glass door swung open again. And Gilda Fitch walked in, a more modern plastic cat carrier on her arm, a tabby peeking out, green eyes wide.

  My eyes must have been wide too when I first saw Gilda. It was true that Avis Eldora and Jean Watkins had tracked me down at home. But now, another suspect in Dr. Sandstrom’s murder had found me at the vet’s. How likely was that? Even C.C. had quieted down. Did she sense danger? Gilda saw me and her head jerked back. She frowned for a moment, then seemed to take a breath and winked my way. Was my presence as suspicious to her as hers was to me?

  “Gilda Fitch,” my suspect announced to the receptionist in a moment of relative silence. “I rang up earlier.”

  “Name?” the receptionist demanded.

  “Mordecai,” Gilda answered.

  “Last name?”

  I bent forward.

  “Poor little bugger doesn’t have a last name, now does he?” Gilda answered, with a great, shining smile. “And I’ve already given you mine, my good woman.”

  And then I was laughing. Suspect or not, the woman didn’t put up with bureaucratic nonsense.

  The receptionist ascertained that Mordecai seemed to be undergoing a disturbing attack of sniffles and then waved Gilda away from her desk.

  Gilda joined me on the easy-wash couch, and Mordecai essayed a small, mewing sound. C.C. answered with vigor and the howling chorus went into second session, with the unknown cat from the ice cooler joining in.

  “Well, m’dear,” Gilda greeted me over the noise. “We seem to meet in the most squalid places.” Then she appeared to lower her voice, though I could still hear her clearly. “Though Mordecai does have the taint of bastardy in his blood. No last name, you know.”

  We laughed together. It was too easy to like this woman whose dark skin belied the characteristic long nose, round eyes, and shining, slightly buck teeth of the British aristocracy. She could have been a browned Windsor. Maybe she was.

  “But Mordecai has to see the putty-tat quack, much as I abhor the breed.”

  “Ducks?” I asked, now thoroughly confused.

  “No, doctors, m’dear. Doctors are not so affectionately, but commonly, referred to as quacks, across the big puddle.”

  “You don’t like doctors?” I asked, the light finally dawning.

  “Got it in one,” she told me. “Visited a series at home. All misdiagnosed me. Positively terrifying. Ten years of rubbish before a piece of luck brought me to a woman who figured the whole lot out.”

  I was beginning to be able to understand her. And I understood something else too. This woman had a grudge against doctors. And of course the late Dr. Sandstrom had been, well, a doctor.

  “Most of the quacks I’ve seen have been bloody pieces of work, but I wouldn’t go postal, now would I?” she assured me. Or tried to.

  “Huh?” I said. She’d lost me again.

  “I toil for the post office,” she reminded me.

  “Oh, got it,” I whispered. Her wit had almost struck me mute. But I was curious enough to risk a stupid question.

  “Is that your real accent?” I asked. I couldn’t help it.

  Gilda threw back her head and laughed.

  “Yes and no,” she finally answered. “My mother is truly a British woman of a certain class.” I must have still looked confused. “Upper,” she explained. “Though my papa, his fatherhood unbeknownst to him, was an African exchange student. So I was raised ‘black as coal’ in the clutches of minor aristocracy. When I first came to the States, people were positively shocked by my accent. Teetered right off their chairs, some of them. So I decided to lay it on even thicker, even snootier. Put a twist in their tails, it did. Especially when I mixed in a bit of Cockney.”

  I smiled, imagining.

  “Ever think of acting?” I asked her.

  “And what would a nice young woman like me be doing that for?” she asked, suddenly Irish. “Actually, I’m keen on little theater. Done quite a bit of that. But it hasn’t led to fame and fortune. The post office may be my true route in life.”

  “Did you know Avis was an actress?” I asked.

  “Really?” Gilda stretched the word out in a way no American could have. “Should have guessed. She’s got the fatal signs—”

  “Ms. Jasper?” the receptionist shouted across the room.

  And suddenly I remembered where I was and why.

  There were usually two vets on call here. Dr. Murray was a graceful woman of grand proportions who always smiled, patted my shoulder, and made me feel better while stitching up kitty boo-boos with love and compassion. And then there was Dr. Peckinpaw, a stick of a man who tended felines tenderly, but generally treated humans with frowns and brusque recriminations.

  I got Dr. Peckinpaw. The receptionist probably planned it that way, I decided as I stepped into the sterile examining room.

  Once inside, I opened the cat carrier door and C.C. rocketed out onto the metal examination table, sliding to a stop exactly where Dr. Peckinpaw lay his arm across her path. He didn’t say a word as he gently inspected her. She crinkled her eyes up at him adoringly and barely flinched as he sterilized her wound, and applied ointment.

  “And a little something to keep her from worrying the bite,” he finally said, adding yet another ointment. C.C. didn’t look so adoring anymore.

  Then Dr. Peckinpaw turned to me. His sour face was pinched into a glare.

  “It appears that C.C. has been under some unusual stress lately,” he told me. “Cats will often self-mutilate if they feel stress or neglect—”

  “Self-mutilate?” I yelped.

  “Of course. Can’t you see she did that herself?”

  I looked down at C.C. She stared back up at me smugly.

  “But why?”

  “Probably because of something you have done to cause her stress,” he answered quite seriously.

  “Murder?” I asked just as seriously.

  “This is no joking matter, Ms. Jasper. Have you neglected your cat, left her alone, left her out—”

  “Well, my sweetie and I did get married,” I told him, then added hastily, “It’s really a secret, though.”

  “Did you tell C.C?” he asked.

  I could feel my mouth drop open.

  “Did you tell your cat, Ms. Jasper?” he persisted. He would have made a great prosecuting attorney.

  “Well, no,” I answered. Suddenly the room seemed unbearably small. “But she’s just a cat. I mean—”

  “You should have told C.C,” he declared, shaking his head. He drew in his cheeks until he looked like a standing skeleton. All he was missing was the string from the top of his head to hold him up. He glared at me for an infinite amount of time, then turned and solicitously stuffed C.C. back into her carrier, yelling, “Next!”

  I scurried out of his office, carrier in hand, passing Gilda just coming in. She rolled her eyes and whispered “Peckinpaw, the putty-tat quack,” before entering the den of the beast. Her attempt at humor helped smooth out the guilt a little. But I still felt as if I should do hard time. Especially after the receptionist gave me my bill and ointments and instructions.

  I talked to C.C. on the way home.

  F
irst, I asked her if she’d like a formal adoption.

  She mewled like a kitten. Had she really heard me?

  I told her I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.

  She lifted her head and blinked. If she was crying, all that was missing were the tears.

  I apologized. And apologized again.

  By the time I’d reached home and turned off the engine, I began to hope she’d forgiven me. A little of her favorite cat food didn’t seem to hurt.

  I sat down at my desk, C.C. now safely snoozing in the kitchen, and looked at my Jest Gifts paperwork. I wanted to know more about Dr. Sandstrom. I was beginning to know more about some of the suspects, but the doctor was the center of this case. And besides, I assured myself, visiting his office wouldn’t be as dangerous as visiting suspects. But this time I asked C.C. if the trip would be all right with her. She seemed to shrug her shoulders. I took that as a yes and told her I’d be home soon.

  Finding Dr. Sandstrom’s office was easy. He was listed in the Yellow Pages, located in downtown Mill Valley, not far from where I’d visited Dr. Peckinpaw.

  The office was in a well-kept, redwood-shingled building on one of the little streets off East Blithedale. The sign on the door read Dr. Sandstrom, Dr. Yamoda, General and Family Practice.

  I was beginning to lose my nerve as I stepped through the doorway into the comfortably furnished waiting room. It was a room meant to be gentle on the eyes, salmon-blush walls with white accents. Salmon and teal furnishings. And a blond young woman behind the reception desk, her eyes and nose a painful red in her pale face. She sniffled and asked if she could help me. I could smell antiseptic, but no cat. And it was quiet. A vast improvement on the last office I’d visited.

  “I came to ask some questions about Dr. Sandstrom,” I told the young woman behind the desk. Somehow, I couldn’t resort to subterfuge while she was crying.

  Maybe I should have.

  “He’s not here!” she wailed. And wailed. She couldn’t seem to stop. Maybe this office wasn’t such an improvement, I decided, looking back longingly at the door I’d come in.

  An older, Asian woman, her glossy black hair tied back in a severe knot came out wearing a white coat…and a frown.

  “Melanie, what is it?” she asked.

  “The lady wants to know about Dr. Sandstrom,” she whimpered, pointing my way. “And he’s dead!”

  “You must have really liked him,” I said to Melanie, not knowing what else to say.

  “He was my friend,” she whispered. “He never treated me bad. He was a nice man.”

  That was enough for me. Avis hadn’t just been kind when she’d described Dr. Sandstrom as a gentleman. Here was another human who had found something in him I hadn’t seen. And then I remembered the few moments when he’d seemed concerned about my vegetarian diet. Maybe I’d seen another man, too.

  “I should go,” I murmured. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  But the older woman wasn’t having any of my inept apologies.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want to know about the doctor?”

  “I…I was in the group the night he was killed,” I admitted. “I just wanted to know who he was…I—”

  “I’m Dr. Yamoda, Dr. Sandstrom’s partner,” the woman announced, putting out her hand. I shook it, and noticed her eyes were red-rimmed too. “Come with me,” she ordered.

  I went with her to a tastefully appointed office in the same color scheme as the reception area. There was a lone rose in a vase on her white desk. She must have noticed my glance.

  “For the doctor,” she said softly, then turned back to me.

  “Are you from the police?” she asked.

  “No,” I answered. “I was in the group—”

  “I know that’s what you said,” she cut me off. Her voice was harsh. “You’re not a reporter?”

  “No, I just have problems with deer,” I shot back.

  “So did the doctor,” she breathed. She even smiled a little.

  “Coffee-can Claymore mine,” I pronounced to ensure my credentials.

  This time she really did smile. And she sat down.

  “Dr. Sandstrom was my partner. He made me a partner in his practice, despite my race, despite my gender. He was a good man and a good doctor.”

  I sat down too, introduced myself, and we talked a little while longer, but she had already summed up all there seemed to be said about Dr. Sandstrom. And I believed her. In this office, the doctor had been everything he hadn’t been the night of the Deerly Abused. I doubted that whatever had brought his death had come from here.

  Twenty minutes later, I got up to leave.

  “Ms. Jasper,” Dr. Yamoda called to me as I opened the door. “If you find out anything, let us know.”

  I nodded.

  “And if you need more help in your investigation, please come back,” she added.

  I wanted to tell her I wasn’t investigating, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just nodded back. And said a quiet goodbye to Melanie in the reception area.

  I was still thinking about the doctor when I pulled into my driveway. The good doctor, the bad doctor. Who was he really? It took me a moment to even notice the ring of protestors on my deck. And even when I saw them, I wasn’t sure I’d really seen them. I got out of my car and approached warily.

  Two men and three women, all wearing camouflage beige and deer antlers were holding picket signs. When they saw me they held their picket signs higher and walked in a circle.

  Then they began to chant.

  It was even louder than the vet’s office. And stranger.

  “Deer are human too!” they cried out together. “Deer are human too!”

  - Ten -

  Theirs were not voices I wanted to hear without musical accompaniment. Or with musical accompaniment, for that matter. In fact, the only two of the voices on key just seemed to accentuate the three that weren’t. The shrill notes were from the tallest of the group, a man dressed in beige jeans, T-shirt, obligatory antlers, and a necklace from which hung a round planet Earth, which bobbed on his chest as he marched and chanted. The angriest tones came from a small woman dressed similarly but without the planet Earth. Maybe she’d lost hers.

  The closer I got, the louder they got, only now the words had changed.

  “Deer count!” they chorused, marching even faster in the tight little circle the radius of my deck would allow. Their picket signs showed deer faces with melting brown eyes…and not a rosebush in sight. I checked out their shoes, hoping for the moral high ground of their leathered feet, but saw cloth sandals with wool socks instead.

  When I finally reached the bottom of the stairs to my own house, I was working up the nerve to ask the picketers why they were on my deck. I opened my mouth.

  “Deer killer!” the small angry woman accused.

  The others immediately took up the chant.

  “Deer killer! Deer killer!”

  Whoa. That was scary. Perspiration drenched my shirt suddenly. I took a second to think.

  “Sheep oppressors!” I yelled back. It felt good to yell. And justified.

  After all, I’d seen their wool socks. And I was pretty sure they hadn’t asked the sheep for shearing rights. All those vegetarian magazines I’d read over the years were finally coming in handy. I’d never been very good at the recipes. But I had a good store of ammunition for those cumbersome arguments about animal ethics.

  A tall dark-haired woman looked down, her face reddening, recognizing the jab. The rest of them seemed struck dumb. They had that sheep-in-the-headlights look. That was all right by me.

  I bolted up my stairs, hoping to get by them before their brains returned. Or at least before their mouths did. C.C. came out of her cat door to eye the contestants.

  “You’re Kate Jasper,” the small woman declared as I was almost to the door. I could smell the anger on her. At least a week’s worth of anger. It wasn’t pleasant.

  “And you are?” I shot back. T
hat ought to keep them on their woolly toes.

  “We’re Deer Count, an organization to protect the rights of deer in Marin County,” she declared and hefted her sign even higher.

  I longed to ask, Do deer count with their little hooves? But I resisted. “Who gave you my address?” I asked instead.

  “We have our sources,” the shrill man answered smugly.

  “Well, I haven’t killed any deer,” I informed him. “So your sources must be confused.”

  “You are in the Eldora Nurseries Deer-Abused Support Group, aren’t you?”

  “The nursery group is not a hunting group,” I objected, trying to keep my voice even. Still, the realization that they knew that much about me slowed my pace just as I was ready to lunge at my front door.

  “But you were there to find ways to get rid of deer, weren’t you?” my inquisitor persisted.

  I shouldn’t have stopped to consider the question.

  “Deer killer!” the small woman shouted again.

  “Look, I don’t know who you guys are, but I haven’t done anything to hurt a deer—”

  “Deer persecution clearly is happening at the change of the millennium for a reason,” the other man in the group told me, his eyes intent under his antlers.

  I took a breath, lunged, and stuck my key in my door.

  “Those who think not of the sheep whose souls have been sheared for their own pleasure shouldn’t cast the first stone at nonviolent gardeners,” I announced in biblical tones. I turned the key. “And I’ll bet none of you have gardens either,” I added, shoving my front door open.

  It worked. I swiveled my head to see their blank faces as I stepped inside and slammed the door behind me, locking it in place.

  I put my hand on my heart to steady its thudding and then flopped into a swinging chair, my clothes as wet and sticky as if I’d spent the afternoon in the tropics. Only in Marin, I told myself, pushing off with my feet. Only in Marin would a group of picketers attack a gardener trying to protect her own roses. Actually, maybe they’d do it in Berkeley too.

  Little bits of conversation drifted through my closed window.

  “Souls?”

  “No, soles.”