Jean Watkins and her granddaughter, Darcie, lived in a house off Highway One about halfway to the beach. It was a big house set on at least a half acre of prime Marin property, surrounded by a high redwood fence. I almost drove past, but turned just in time when I glimpsed the tasteful numbers on the mailbox at the side of the road leading to the front gate. I skidded off the winding highway, drove up the dirt road, and parked next to a Volvo that seemed to shriek newness next to my ancient Toyota. Somehow, Jean Watkins hadn’t struck me as the moneyed type, but I was obviously wrong.
Maybe there was no such thing as “the moneyed type,” I decided as I pushed open the gate to the front yard. I stood, shocked for a moment once I was through the gate. I closed it firmly behind me. Money or not, Jean’s fences weren’t high enough to deter deer. Decimated rosebushes stood side by side with all the proper “deer-proof” plants: yarrow, salvia, and lavender. But the healthy plants just seemed to emphasize the sad state of the roses.
I shook my head and made my way to the front door on a pathway of slate paving stones. The house was a marvel of design, even from the outside. The front windows were expansive and in some spots I could see all the way through the house to the back windows. Something about people living in glass houses came to mind, but Darcie popped out the front door before I could complete my thought.
“Hey, wassup?” she greeted me.
She wore her usual baseball cap, jeans, and a black T-shirt. Her curly hair sprang out from under the cap, and she smiled, her prominent teeth dominating her face.
“Hi, Darcie—” I began.
“Gramma!” she hollered before I finished.
And then Jean Watkins appeared next to her granddaughter, her own square face red with what might have been exertion. Or maybe embarrassment. She smiled, exhibiting the same big teeth as Darcie’s. The look was engaging in her homey face.
“Yo,” Darcie said, pointing at my knees. “You’re all muddy.”
I looked down. I’d never changed clothes after saving my daffodils. My knees looked like a garden before planting. Little patches of unblemished soil. I was afraid to look at my behind.
“I was gardening,” I murmured.
“Of course you were,” Jean replied assuringly. “If you weren’t a gardener, you wouldn’t be part of the deer group.”
I could have hugged her. But I was too muddy.
“A whiskbroom?” I asked. “So I don’t mess up your chairs?”
But Darcie became a human whiskbroom, enthusiastically using her hands to brush off my knees and my rear end for good measure. I felt like a prisoner who’s been frisked by the time I crossed the Watkins’s threshold.
And it was some threshold. Slate-tiled floors were covered with Moroccan rugs. The roof slanted up at an impossible angle from walls rough with bits of stone and glittering hints of metal. The whole place was filled with light—and cooking aromas, and a floral scent that must have been room freshener.
“My late husband was an architect,” Jean explained as I stopped in my tracks, taking it all in. “I was a social worker. I still volunteer. And it was a good marriage. Please, come on in, Kate.” She held out her hand. I took it and let her lead me into the amazing room.
Jean seated me on a couch covered with nubby taupe linen next to a carved stone coffee table; then she and Darcie took seats across from me in matching chairs covered in the same nubby cloth. Darcie crossed her legs yoga-style and snuggled up in her chair. Jean sat with her back straight and her legs bent at a ladylike angle, knees together.
“Nice house,” I managed weakly.
Jean laughed.
“It is incredible, isn’t it?” she agreed. “But then so was my late husband.”
“Gramma really loved the old dude,” Darcie muttered wistfully. I wondered if the “old dude” was Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, Watkins? I decided against it.
“And I really love you, young dudette,” Jean told Darcie. Then her softened face turned businesslike. “Now, tell Kate what’s going on.”
“Well, I’m…um…like…scared, maybe,” Darcie told me, looking at her feet.
“Of what?” I asked gently. It was an effort to be gentle. I wondered if there was a fast forward button anywhere on the young woman.
“I don’t trust those dumb cops,” she answered angrily. She brought her head up. “They’re nasty-asses, all of them, messed up, you know?”
“And?” I prompted.
“And just ‘cause I thought that old doctor dude was a wickety-wack old man, they think I killed him.”
“Wait a minute,” I ordered, holding up my hand. “What makes you think—”
“If I was going to kill anyone, it’d be my dad,” she went on, ignoring my order. “He’s nastier than that old dude was. But they think a teenager is full of it, you know? Like we’d do evil crap like kill people.”
“Darcie is actually quite responsible, especially for her age,” Jean put in mildly. “And her fears aren’t entirely unreasonable.”
“But why tell me?” I asked.
“Well,” Jean said, her face reddening with something that looked like embarrassment again. “We understand that you’re investigating Dr. Sandstrom’s case unofficially.”
“Me?”
“That’s what the reporter said.”
Reporter?
It took a few breaths of cooking smells and air freshener before I remembered Felix.
“You mean Felix Byrne told you I was investigating?” I demanded, leaning forward on the sofa. And never told me he talked to them, that little weasel.
Darcie and Jean nodded, looking very much alike, despite the difference in their ages, both of their square faces holding wide-eyed expressions of anxiety.
“It’s all right,” I told them. Reassurance seemed important here. “Felix does stuff like that.”
“Is he really a reporter?” Darcie whispered.
“Oh, yeah,” I answered. “He’s really a reporter, but I wouldn’t believe much else that he told you.” I looked across at Darcie and her grandmother. “Was he here?”
“Oh, yes,” Jean responded. “Sitting right where you are now. He wanted to know how we felt about doctors for some sort of report he was doing.”
I opened my mouth to expose Felix’s fraudulence, but then realized that I’d like to have the answer to his question myself. My mouth took a left turn.
“What did you tell him?” I asked innocently.
“Yuck,” Darcie put in succinctly.
Jean laughed, though not very comfortably. She shifted in her chair.
“I don’t particularly care for doctors after my last eye surgery,” Jean told me. “It was, well, botched.”
“And there was that messed-up dude you took me to after dad threw me out,” Darcie added.
“Dr. Peterson,” Jean agreed, nodding. “Dr. Peterson is a therapist of the new school. He sees incest everywhere. He can’t seem to understand that not all wounds are sexual.”
“And the wackhead tried to hypnotize me, tried to make me believe my dad did all that yucky kinda stuff with me.”
“Now, that man was irresponsible, as irresponsible as my eye doctor,” Jean Watkins declared, her voice rising. “What if he had made Darcie believe such a thing? I’ve read that hypnotists can implant false memories.”
“And he wanted me to take this stupid doll that was supposed to be my dad and hack it up,” Darcie went on. “Yuck.”
“And,” Jean added to their catalog of complaints, “there was the doctor who missed a whole set of symptoms because he thought I was having some kind of ‘female problems.’ He thought I was hysterical. I almost was, four years later when it turned out my symptoms were real.”
“Poor Gramma,” Darcie muttered, reaching out to her grandmother from her chair. “What a wack-off.”
“I don’t know about the language, but I’ll agree with Darcie’s diagnosis,” Jean commented dryly, linking hands with her granddaughter. “I guess if we were to be accused of
disliking doctors, we’d be found guilty.”
“How about Aunt Louise?” Darcie put in. Somehow, I had the feeling that they’d covered this ground before, and often.
“Oh, poor Louise,” Jean answered. “Fine-looking woman. But that wasn’t enough for her. She thought she was getting old. Wanted a face-lift. Ended up with one side of her face higher than the other. Not to mention the neurological damage.”
“Yuck.”
Yuck, indeed. But how did all of this relate to Dr. Sandstrom? I didn’t need to ask. Darcie was way ahead of me.
“That ole doctor at the deer thingy, he was a mean-ass,” she pointed out. “Wanted to blow up deer. All for his roses. Gramma had roses too before the deer ate them, but she doesn’t want to blow them up.”
“Some actions are irresponsible,” Jean agreed.
“Right,” Darcie said, and the two of them leaned back in their chairs with their arms crossed, identical twins separated by some forty or fifty years. No wonder they got along.
“So, Darcie,” I began, bringing the conversation back on track. “You’re afraid the police suspect you.”
“Yeah! Those wackheads—”
“Darcie,” I interrupted. “I’ve talked to at least three people now who think the police suspect them. I’ll bet that’s how Lieutenant Perez wants it. Everyone afraid. Everyone off guard.”
“Really?” Darcie breathed, obvious relief in her face. What had Perez said to her that frightened her so much? No more romantic thoughts about that lieutenant, I decided. He really was a manipulative…wackhead.
“But a man was killed,” Jean pointed out. “That’s not right.”
“No,” I agreed. “And maybe between the group members, we can find out who did it.”
“Yes,” she pronounced seriously. “Kate, we must find out.”
I left the Watkins home not long after that. I liked the grandmother and the granddaughter. But I’d liked murderers before, I reminded myself. They weren’t off my suspect list, yet. Not quite, anyway.
The first thing I did when I got home was rip up my note to Wayne. No need for him to know I’d visited the Watkins. Then I walked outside to check my daffodils. For the most part they stood up vertically if limply. I thanked the goddess of bulbs. And finally, I went back inside and looked at my answering machine, remembering that I still had four calls to make to apologize for my wedding. I punched in numbers and got four answering machines back. Yes! So what if their owners would just return my calls later. For the time being, I was off the hook, so to speak.
And then the phone rang.
It was my aunt Shirley from South Carolina.
“Honey,” she said, affront flavoring her tone. Affront and nobility. “I jest can’t believe you married without inviting the family…”
I speechified. I lied. I left Shirley feeling better, though she gave me the impression that she would never be entirely whole again. I sighed. Who knew one little marriage could crater the lives of so many.
The phone rang again. Probably one of those callbacks. I acted quickly, shutting off the machine so that the phone would just ring and ring. And ring. No human would answer.
No android would answer. I told myself this was the way Alexander Graham Bell intended it.
I only hoped the caller wasn’t Wayne or someone who wanted to give me a new contract for Jest Gifts. I counted as the phone rang fourteen times.
I wanted to leave the house. Immediately. But I didn’t have any more excuses. I’d already bought tofu. Still, I could do more investigating. But if I did, I’d make sure it was safe investigating. I had promised Wayne…What was it I’d promised Wayne? Whatever it was, I’d be careful.
I’d call Avis. Avis was my friend. I refused to think she was a murderer. And Avis knew everyone. She was the key.
I punched out the number for Eldora Nurseries…and got an answering machine. It was only then that I looked at my watch. It was after six o’clock. No wonder I was so hungry. But that didn’t stop me. I called Avis’s home number.
A voice I’d never heard before answered, and that voice was not happy. In fact, it was downright peevish.
“Kate who?” it asked, then yelled, “Mother!”
Avis came to the phone next. “My daughter, Olive,” she explained. I thought I could hear strain in her voice.
“Would this be a good time to come over?”
“Oh, yes! It would be lovely if you visited,” she answered. There was a note of pleading in her voice. Was Olive that bad?
I had a bite of tofu pepperoni and was ready to drive to Avis’s. But first I checked the landscape through my window. No one was ripping up my bulbs. Kevin and Xanthe were not on my deck. And there was no sign of Deer Count or Felix. Or Lieutenant Perez. Safe. I was exhaling relief when C.C. snuck up behind me and whacked my ankle with her paw. I jumped and came down on that ankle in a way that would not have made my tai chi teacher proud.
But I fixed C.C. a supper of Fancy Feast anyway, and told her once again that I loved her before I took off for Avis’s. On the way out, I took an instant to wish that Wayne was with me, but Saturday was his big night at the restaurant. I was on my own for investigation, and worse, I was on my own for dinner.
Luckily, I’d visited Avis in her San Ricardo country cottage before. I was prepared for the perfect garden, filled with un-nibbled plants: succulents, jasmine, wisteria, forget-me-nots, and lamb’s ears, to name a few. Her old two-story Victorian, white with blue shutters, greeted me like a friend.
However, the woman at the door didn’t.
“I’m Olive,” she told me, hands on hips, as if daring me to argue. Olive was probably fifty-five or sixty, but she looked older than her mother, her skin leathery from the sun, her hair colored badly, and her face pinched into an angry shape that almost obscured the delicacy of the features she’d inherited from Avis.
“Kate!” Avis cried out and came running to hug me.
“Grrrumph,” Olive snorted.
“You’ve met my daughter?” Avis asked, hopefully, diffidently.
“Oh, yes,” I answered cheerfully. “A real pleasure.” It’s always such a joy to confuse an unpleasant person. Olive squinted uncertainly.
“Olive has moved back in with me…temporarily,” Avis said softly.
“After that s.o.b. left me and my lease ran out, I didn’t know what else to do,” Olive added helpfully.
“She’s had a few jobs, she even worked for me at the nursery for a while, but she…”
“Scared off the customers,” Olive finished for her mother. “So screw ‘em. How am I supposed to be cheerful after a divorce? I was married for over thirty years, thirty goddamn years…”
“She’s been divorced for almost nine months,” Avis murmured as her daughter’s complaints went on.
“What am I supposed to do now? Live on the pittance he’s giving me for alimony?”
“It’s more than a pittance,” Avis whispered.
Olive heard that. She put her hands back on her hips.
“It’s easy for you, Mom,” she accused. “You were an actress.”
“Neat, huh?” I put in positively.
“Oh real neat,” Olive snarled. “My mom, the star of soft-porn.”
I could see Avis’s color change from ivory to shell pink under her hat. Suddenly I wondered if she wore the head-to-foot clothing so that no one would recognize her from her earlier, less savory movies.
“Well, how about something to eat?” Avis suggested with forced cheer.
“Right,” I agreed, still trying to imagine the fastidious Avis as a porn star, soft or otherwise.
Olive and I sat and glared at each other from worn, comfortable chairs with crocheted throws as Avis made herself busy in the kitchen.
“Your mother’s done a great job at the nursery,” I tried.
“Grrrumph,” she replied.
Luckily, it wasn’t long before Avis returned with a loaf of orange-date bread, rye bread, sliced raw vegetables, dill and
tahini dips, and a plate of cold marinated leeks. Maybe dinner without Wayne wouldn’t be so bad. If I could stand the company. The dill dip was garnished with a jaunty sprig of rosemary.
I was stuffing myself when Avis suddenly went still. The marinated leeks were perfection.
“There shouldn’t have been any rosemary in the area where the doctor was killed,” Avis said softly. “He was in the bedding section.”
“Rosemary for remembrance?” I mumbled, mouth full.
Avis shrugged, her eyes lost in thought. “I wonder. But who? What could they remember of him?”
“Who was this doctor?” Olive asked.
“He was a very supportive individual—”
“Oh, supportive, huh?” Olive leered.
“Olive, please stop that. If we must live together, let’s do it in harmony.”
I gave Avis an inner cheer.
“You’d love to throw me out, wouldn’t you?” Olive challenged. “But it wouldn’t do for the all-so-kind-and-giving Avis Eldora, now would it?”
“Olive, please,” Avis begged.
Olive sighed and bit down into a slice of orange-date bread.
“Anyway, Dr. Sandstrom was a very kind man usually—”
“Mom likes everyone,” Olive interrupted.
And I realized that Olive was right. Avis rarely had a bad word to say about anyone. Even about her loathsome daughter. A wonderful trait, really. But not in a murder investigation.
“Well, there’ll be another meeting tomorrow,” I said, trying to cheer Avis. “And another chance to guess who—”
The doorbell rang. This time Avis answered it. The caller was Reed Killian. And when he put his arm around Avis, I no longer had any doubt that they were a pair.
Nor did Olive apparently.
“Mom’s pushing eighty, and she’s got a man nearly half her age,” she whispered, loud enough for anyone in the room to hear. “She gets all the luck.”
Reed sat down next to Avis, ignoring Olive. He reached out for Avis’s gloved hand.
“Oh, Reed,” Avis murmured, then turned her hat-brim-shadowed face to him. “Why did that man have to die?”
Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 14