“…talking about our feet!”
“Socks…”
“Wool is from sheep?”
“Of course it is, you numbskull!”
And after a while their voices died away completely. I peeked through the slit between the living room curtains. Deer Count and all their antlers were gone. But they were not forgotten. I wanted to know how they had found me. Felix? The police? Avis Eldora?
I could check on the last guess at Eldora Nurseries. But I had to ask C.C. first. I found her in the laundry basket and picked her up to check out the hole in her side. It already looked healthier to me than it had pre-vet. I reached down and stroked my cat’s sleek head, murmuring sweet nothings to her. I would have been embarrassed if anyone had heard me. But they couldn’t. And C.C. couldn’t talk. Though she sure knew how to communicate. Chew a hole in your side. Maybe I’d try it sometime. She purred contentedly, her paw extended in full control.
“Is it all right if I go to the nursery?” I asked.
She stopped purring.
“I’ll only be a little while,” I told her.
She slitted her eyes my way.
“Food?” I tried.
It was the magic word. C.C. went scooting and meyowling all the way into the kitchen for a special treat.
I snuck off to Eldora Nurseries while she was still slurping. I couldn’t figure out if I felt guilty about C.C, or completely bamboozled.
Eldora Nurseries was doing a brisk business in spite of any bad publicity it might have received. Or perhaps because of that publicity. Avis was busily ringing up flats of plants and bags of fertilizer at the cash register, and a young woman was carrying the purchases out to the patrons’ cars. The air was soggy with the smells of dirt and plants. It wasn’t until the young woman came back into the store that I recognized her round face and curly hair. Avis’s helper was none other than Darcie Watkins.
Avis whispered, “Jean asked if I’d pay her to help out one afternoon a week. I can use the help, and Jean…”
“Bullied you into it,” I finished her sentence. Avis smiled from beneath her hat. But were thirteen-year-olds even allowed to work?
Darcie pulled her baseball cap down further over her curly hair and smiled at me, big teeth showing. “This is really cool, and I’m getting paid too,” she assured me.
“That’s great,” I told her, deciding that child labor laws had no jurisdiction here.
Avis rang up a flat of foxgloves and Darcie cheerfully carried it out to yet another car.
“Avis,” I whispered urgently in the lull, “there’re these goofy picketers called Deer Count—”
“I know,” she cut in, her voice low with some emotion I couldn’t quite identify. Sadness, anger?
“They visited me today,” I told her. “Did you tell them who I was?”
Avis shook her head wearily. She reached out both her gloved hands to hold mine and looked into my eyes.
“They came here this morning. I don’t know how they knew about the group. But they charged the place, pushing their way into the store. And then they saw the roster…”
“And what, Avis?” I demanded. Her gaze was fading, her hands limp now. “Did they eat the roster?”
“No.” She giggled and released my hands. “They stole the roster. Luckily, I have a copy. But I never imagined they’d harass you. I need to talk to them, to tell them we mean no harm to deer. I tried to look them up in the phone book, but they’re unlisted. I want to tell them that we’re peaceful here.”
“Ask them about their policy on sheep,” I suggested.
“Sheep?” she asked, confused. Then she blinked and whispered, “Maxwell is here if you want to talk to him.”
“Really,” I whispered back. “Where?”
“Out by the ground covers,” she told me.
So I sauntered out to look at baby’s tears, mosses, and succulents.
I recognized Maxwell’s slim, well-dressed figure from the back, but moved past him, my face averted, waiting for him to discover me.
“Oh, Kate!” he exclaimed as his eyes came up from the thyme he was inspecting. “I’m so glad you’re here. I need to discuss all of this with you—”
“All what?” I asked hesitantly, suddenly wondering what I hoped to accomplish by sneaking up on him. He couldn’t hit me with a statuette out here, could he?
“You’ll know what to do,” he assured me. He pulled back his shoulders, readying himself for speech. I just hoped it wouldn’t be a long one. “I’m fairly successful in my life,” he began modestly.
“Very successful,” I corrected him. I may not have owned a TV, but even I had heard of Everyone’s Talking.
He grinned, that well-groomed impish Asian grin. No wonder he was a success.
“If you insist.” He bowed and kissed my hand. I could smell his cologne. It was good enough to eat. “Okay, I am very successful. By your decree.” Then his face turned serious again.
“But I’m at a complete loss about this murder.” He paused. “And I don’t like being at a loss. Especially when I knew the victim.”
I started. “You knew the victim?”
“I was Dr. Sandstrom’s patient,” he answered. “And I think we might have been friends.”
My mind reviewed the night the doctor had been killed. Hadn’t Dr. Sandstrom made some crack about Maxwell’s sexual proclivities? That didn’t sound friendly to me.
“I went to Dr. Sandstrom as a patient last year. I was feeling run-down. My ‘friend’ was afraid I might be HIV positive, though we’ve been tested again and again. My friend is frightened. Sometimes, I am too. So I went to the doctor.”
Maxwell paused, looking out over the flats without seeing them. I could hear the buzz of insects in the brief silence.
“I tested negative…again. Sandstrom was great. Told me to stop worrying. He said I just worked too hard. In fact, he was the one who suggested I take up gardening. I started and haven’t stopped since. And my garden is really—”
“Perfect?” I guessed. I had a feeling everything Maxwell did was perfect.
He laughed. “As perfect as it can be, except for the deer. I called Dr. Sandstrom and he suggested the deer group. I know he didn’t act as if he knew me at the meeting. That was the way he was. Absolutely discreet. Even our relationship was confidential to him.”
“Even his staff didn’t know,” I murmured. Dr. Yamoda hadn’t mentioned him, or Felix for that matter, when I’d gone down my suspect list.
“Yeah,” Maxwell agreed. “They’re professionals. In my business, I require a certain level of professionality. And I liked the doctor—”
“But didn’t he make homophobic remarks that night?” I asked, trying to remember exactly what the doctor had said.
Maxwell smiled. “No, not homophobic. Never from Dr. Sandstrom. Believe me, I have heard truly homophobic remarks. In fact, I hear them daily. No, the doctor was just to the point, professional as always. I can’t say he was a career charmer, like myself. But he was honest. I enjoyed his company, his character.”
I believed Maxwell. In fact “honest” seemed a good assessment of the doctor. And “professional.” At least now I had a hint of why some people might have liked the man.
But I also began to wonder just how many members of the Deerly Abused had been Dr. Sandstrom’s patients.
Maxwell’s soothing voice cut into my thoughts. “My dilemma is whether I should go to the police and tell them about my relationship with the doctor or not,” he said. “I don’t want to throw myself in their way as a target, but I still want to do everything possible to help them solve this crime—”
“Kate, Maxwell!” came a raspy voice behind us. A voice filled with the joy of meeting friends unexpectedly.
We turned and saw Natalie Miner beaming at us, her heart-shaped face sparkling like an aging cherub’s in the sunlight, haloed by her curly blond hair.
Natalie reached out with both arms and hugged me tight to her stale-cigarette-smelling bosom.
But Natalie wasn’t really a friend. My one and only shared experience with her had been at the Deerly Abused the night before, hardly an experience on which to build a friendship. But apparently Natalie thought differently.
“I am so glad to see y’all,” she told us once she’d let go of me. “Lord knows I’ve been wanting to talk to someone about last night. But Avis seems so busy.”
Avis was busy, but I wondered if she was making herself appear even busier to avoid Natalie.
“Shoot, I just don’t know what to think,” she went on, patting her pockets. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then put it back. “Dear God, what a thing to happen to the doctor—”
“Did you know Dr. Sandstrom?” Maxwell Yang cut in quickly.
Natalie blushed under the tan foundation that coated her face.
“Not as well as I would have liked to,” she admitted. She reached for her cigarettes again but only got halfway this time before pulling her hand back. “Dr. Sandstrom was a very attractive man, you can appreciate that.” I wondered if by “you” she meant Maxwell or me, but I didn’t interrupt. “We met right here at the nursery. Talked up a storm. He was a very intelligent man. And a brave one. He served in Vietnam, proud as could be.”
Her smile faded. Was she remembering his death?
“Were you ever his patient?” I tried.
“Oh, no, honey,” she trilled, her smile appearing again. “Never let a man who might be courting you see you in your underwear. That’s what my grandmother always said. She married a doctor. South Carolina—”
“But you were friends?” Maxwell shepherded Natalie back to the subject with a skill he must have learned as an interviewer.
“Yes, I should hope so,” Natalie replied. “We talked just endlessly about roses. All the different kinds and such. He was going to come to my house to help me out with my garden design. I’d hoped…” Her mascaraed eyes teared, the droplets looking like diamonds on her dark lashes. “And now the poor man is dead. Dear God, it just isn’t right.”
“Well, it was good seeing you again,” Maxwell murmured politely, and then he was gone. Vanished. Probably another skill he’d learned as an interviewer. One I obviously needed to work on. I was still there with Natalie.
“When my late husband died, it was different of course. He’d been sick a long, long time. Prostate cancer. Not that I could eat a bite for months afterwards, mind you. I was devastated.”
“I’m…um…sorry,” I put in inadequately.
“Never you mind,” she told me, lifting a finger to wag in my face. “Life is for the living—”
“I’ll bet your grandmother told you that too,” I commented, smiling at her. I couldn’t help it. She was such a friendly puppy.
“You’re so right,” she cooed. “When my Buddy died, I could almost hear Granny telling me to get on with it. I’ve been selling real estate, you know. And looking for the right man. Thought maybe Dr. Sandstrom might be the one. Surely was a shock, the way he was killed. I just can’t seem to comprehend it, somehow.”
I nodded. “You have any whodunit theories?” I whispered, woman to woman, gossip to gossip.
“A million and one,” she whispered back, moving her face closer to mine. ‘That Reed Killian didn’t like anyone stealing his show, the good Lord knows. And Lisa and Darcie were downright rude, if you want to know the truth. And something is truly strange about that Gilda woman.” She swiveled her head back and forth in a quick, sweeping motion. “Not to mention Avis,” she added.
I kept nodding, though I hated to hear Avis included in the list.
“But still,” Natalie went on, hand reaching down toward her pocket again and returning empty. “I may not have an ounce of sense, but I can’t make a murder motive out of any of it. Can you?”
“Nope,” I answered honestly.
“I thought, now, what if one of our group had seen the doctor as a patient,” she went on. I hoped my face didn’t show that I knew of at least two who had. “Maybe they had some terrible disease they were ashamed of. But then I said to myself, Natalie, you aren’t making sense. Why would they come all the way to a deer-abused support group to kill him?”
“To cover their motive?”
“The police are bound to find out they’re patients,” she pointed out.
I was beginning to guess that Natalie had way more than an ounce of sense. She probably inherited it from her grandmother.
“Then,” she continued, “I looked back on the evening and thought of everyone the doctor had insulted. Lord, he was in a mood, wasn’t he? That Howie Damon with his manuscript, for instance. But, shoot, it still doesn’t make sense to me.”
I shook my head. So far, nothing she’d said added up to murder for me either.
“First, I thought it might be that strange little man who came in late—”
“Felix?” I asked.
“Felix, uh-huh,” she confirmed. “My, my, he wasn’t up to any good, now was he? But the doctor was hit twice with the same statue and Felix wasn’t even here for the first time. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t,” I agreed glumly.
“But you can’t just let a few little old obstacles get in your way,” she added. “It’s a challenge—”
“Your grandmother again?”
“It surely was my grandmother who said that, hon,” she admitted. “You’re one smart girl. I know you’ll figure out who did it, Lord willing.”
“Me!” I squawked.
But someone tapped me on the shoulder before I was even squawked out. I jumped under the weight of the hand and whirled around to see Darcie smiling my way, oblivious to my moment of panic.
“Ms. Eldora told me to tell you wassup,” she explained. Or tried to.
“‘Wassup’?” I asked.
“You’ve got a visitor,” she translated and pointed over her shoulder.
I followed the direction of her finger.
Lieutenant Perez of the Abierto Police Department stood at the entrance of Eldora Nurseries with his arms crossed over his chest. His dark eyes were brooding. One of his heels was tapping. And he was looking straight at me.
- Eleven -
Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff came to mind as Lieutenant Perez’s eyes burned into mine. But Heathcliff hadn’t been a policeman. Though he had been a trifle miffed with Cathy as I remembered. Was the lieutenant miffed with me?
I stepped forward hesitantly on weak legs, then told myself to cut it out, and strode forth to meet Lieutenant Perez, centered, balanced, my spine straight. No one suspected me of this murder. Right? Then I started thinking of all the possible and impossible reasons that might lead the lieutenant to suspect me. By the time I’d reached him, I was wilting again and ready for the Typhoid Mary of Murder speech.
“Ms. Jasper,” Perez muttered in greeting when I reached him.
“Lieutenant,” I murmured back, hoping my voice was low enough that he couldn’t hear the tremor.
“We have a little problem, Ms. Jasper,” he went on.
“Problem?” I asked. Could he mean the murder? “Problem” sounded more like an illegally parked car or—
“I know you’ve been involved in these things before, ma’am,” he told me.
My body stiffened, ready for the lecture.
“Thought maybe you could help us out on this one,” he finished up.
It took a very long time for his words to make sense to me.
Maybe it was a minute, maybe a century. Long enough that the lieutenant peered into my face for a response.
“You want help?” I asked. “From me?”
“The Abierto Police Department doesn’t get involved with many murders,” he explained. “And the chief, well…” A look of pain crinkled the lieutenant’s eyes, real pain. Did he really care that much about his chief? I reached out a comforting hand and then pulled it back before I touched him. This was a policeman after all, a very handsome and appealing policeman.
My cheeks flushed. Married l
ess than a week, and already I was noticing other men.
“I don’t really know the players here,” the handsome lieutenant told me, his voice low. It was a sexy voice.
Damn. I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about the quality of his voice.
“Ma’am,” he asked, anxiety tingeing his sexy voice. “You okay?’
It was the “ma’am” that did it. The realization that Lieutenant Perez probably saw me as an older woman, and that I probably was, in fact, at least ten years older than he, was like a splash of cold water on any sexual fantasies I might have been ready to kindle.
“Fine,” I answered him curtly.
“Anyway,” he said, getting back to his point, whatever his point was. “I’ve talked to Sergeant Feiffer from the County Sheriff’s Department. He says you’re good, that you’ll be nosing around anyway. All I ask is that you tell me what you learn.”
I nodded, still trying his words on for size. He wasn’t telling me to keep away from his case. He was inviting me in.
“Well, um—” he said.
“Lieutenant,” I burst in, suddenly beginning to actually think. If he wanted to tell me things, maybe I could ask him things too. “Did Felix Byrne do an article about the murder for the Marin Mind?”
Perez shook his head, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I had a little talk with the people at the Marin Mind about the appropriateness of a suspect covering the story. They did a brief crime report. Unfortunately, the names of all the members of your group were mentioned.”
“Unfortunately,” I repeated. Then I asked. “Do you guys have any idea—”
He cut me off with a curt shake of his head.
“Well, I’ll be glad to help, Lieutenant,” I told him belatedly. “I want this solved too.”
“Thanks, ma’am,” Perez said. I waited for him to tip an invisible Stetson my way. “We need to know who did it.”
“Right,” I agreed, shifting my gaze to his shoulder.
“Even if it’s you or your husband,” he added.
And then he walked away.
Me or my husband? The words wouldn’t go away. Was he threatening to arrest me or my sweet Wayne if I didn’t solve this? No, I told myself. He was a policeman, the good guy. The guy who’d probably illegally pressured the Marin Mind into putting a lid on the story to protect his chief. What else would he do?
Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 11