Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Another accident, eh?” Thorton asked. “Lot of that going around.”

  The lieutenant sighed deeply and returned his accusing eyes to mine.

  I shrank into my metal folding chair.

  At least Perez let me go after a few dozen more questions. He tried to establish the movements of the suspects, their relationships, anything. And he tried to draw out the details of Avis’s relationship with Reed. But I didn’t have a clue to any area of his investigation. And interrogation by guilt can only go so far.

  His interrogation of Wayne was even shorter. And then we were free.

  Carefully, Wayne and I walked out to his car, arms around each other’s waists, leaning on one another as if we were suddenly elderly.

  Thankfully, there was a crime scene team surrounding Reed’s body. Its members blocked our view. We were almost to the car. I felt like a long-distance runner at the finish line.

  But two yards away from Wayne’s Jaguar, there were more hurdles. The media had arrived. And, worse, Deer Count had returned.

  At least Deer Count had new picket signs. They read, “Murder a deer, then a human!”

  “Go away,” I told the first picketer.

  And then a video camera was shoved into my face.

  “Kate Jasper is speaking to us today,” a disembodied female voice told the viewers. “The woman who has become the…”

  I sang the phrase with her.

  “…Typhoid Mary of Murder.”

  And then I got mad.

  - Sixteen -

  “I am not the Typhoid Mary of Murder!” I exploded.

  I’d been trying to keep my face and voice calm. But my ears were ringing from my own explosion. Somehow, I figured I’d lost the battle in the voice arena. I just hoped the TV cameras weren’t catching my raging pulse on tape as well. I could feel the veins at my temples bulging. Boink, boink, boink. I made a conscious attempt to soften my facial expression.

  “Calling Ms. Jasper such a name is legally actionable,” Wayne warned from my side, his voice deep and wise. He could have been on the bench, ready to pronounce judgment. “I wouldn’t use that segment on the air unless you want to spend a lot of time in court.”

  The camera moved back like a dog slapped with a newspaper.

  “Maybe the guy’s right,” someone stage-whispered. “He some kinda attorney?”

  “But you kill deer!” a picketer screamed, not dissuaded by law or reason from the species at issue.

  “I do not kill deer,” I tried again. This time my voice just sounded strangled.

  The picketer waved his sign in my face.

  Another TV camera began rolling. The Typhoid Mary of Murder versus Deer Count had to make great footage. Better than mud wrestling. Then I remembered a little factoid I’d pushed to the unused section of my brain some time ago.

  “Do you guys eat honey?” I asked the picketer.

  “Honey?” another picketer responded. I recognized this one from our previous encounter, a tall, dark-haired woman. “What’s honey got to do with it?” A little music and a new Tina Turner song might have been born. But I nipped it in the blossom.

  “Eating honey oppresses the bees.” I lobbed my factoid their way, trying to remember where I’d heard it. “Bees go to all that work to produce the stuff, and then people, people like you, steal it right out from under their little antennae.”

  Deer Count picketers’ faces were coming into focus, horrified under their antlers.

  “Do you really believe that?” a reporter asked.

  I’d forgotten about the reporters. Damn. Now I’d be on the evening news spouting bee propaganda.

  “What do you think?” I shot back. Very clever. And my angry face was probably looking great on camera.

  “Well, you said—” the reporter started, shoving in closer. Way too close. Her microphone touched my nose just as her body touched the hand I’d held up to protect myself. Without even thinking, I centered myself, let her push me even further to the rear, and then moved forward, using her own momentum to shove her back.

  The shot of her and her microphone flying through the air would probably look even better on camera than the bee debate with Deer Count. I looked down at my perfectly placed feet in shame. True, she’d shoved me first, but tai chi should be used judiciously on the uninitiated. I just hoped my tai chi teacher still didn’t own a TV.

  “Cute,” Wayne whispered affectionately in my ear. “But I think we’d better leave now.”

  And we did. The media parted like my hair on a good day as we made our way to the Jaguar. And the Deer Count people were still too busy arguing over honey to get in our way.

  “But isn’t sugar worse?” someone asked as Wayne unlocked the passenger side. “Don’t they, like, filter it through horse’s bones or something?”

  I climbed in the car quickly, snuggling up in the leather seat and hoping no one would notice it was leather.

  “Well, I’m not using aspartame—” was the last thing I heard before I slammed my door shut.

  Wayne had taken the driver’s seat before I had a chance to breathe, and then we were rolling out the gates.

  We were at a stoplight when I heard a smothered snort from Wayne. Startled, I looked his way. His face was red and he was squinting. Was he choking?

  A sudden guffaw changed my concern to anger. He was laughing!

  “Are you laughing at me?” I demanded.

  “No,” he muttered breathlessly, waving a hand. “At them, Kate. At them. Just glad you’re on my side.”

  And pretty soon the confrontations with the media and Deer Count seemed funny to me too. We were both chuckling by the time we sat down for lunch at the Green Forest, Reed’s death necessarily forgotten for a while.

  The Green Forest sported an Amazon motif. Except that the waitresses weren’t bare-breasted; they wore sarongs. Did Amazon women wear sarongs? And the men wore loose white linen shirts, opened to the navel. Yummy. The food was very green. Chili-spiced green bean salad, cilantro pesto and spinach noodles, broccoli habanero, green chili enchiladas, spicy lentil patties.

  At least the tofu on my artichoke tostada wasn’t green, although almost everything else was. The green salsa was perfect, though. That’s why we went to the Green Forest. Though the white linen shirts didn’t hurt. I took a lingering bite of tostada.

  “Dr. Killian and Dr. Sandstrom,” Wayne muttered through his pesto, laughter forgotten. “Both doctors. What else?”

  I swallowed and thought.

  “Men,” I offered. That cut out half the population. “Um…gardeners.”

  I took another bite of artichoke, savored its spicy flavor, and thought some more. Reed and Dr. Sandstrom? Humans, lived in Marin County, dead.

  Luckily, Wayne didn’t ask for those thoughts. He was probably having them himself. Reed was Dr. Fun Guy and Dr. Sandstrom had been a grouch. There was no home team for the two men. They might have been different species. But someone had thought they had something in common, something worth killing over.

  “Kate?” Wayne asked softly, once I’d finished my tostada. “Investigate with me from now on? Don’t do it alone?”

  I nodded, not wanting to verbally commit.

  “Please,” he added, obviously hearing the hesitation in my silence.

  “I’ll try,” I promised, meaning it.

  “Love you,” he explained, looking down at his empty plate.

  That look was enough. I’d really try.

  We talked on the way home. But neither of us had any idea why the two men had been killed. Dr. Sandstrom had at least made people angry. But Reed?

  We were still talking as we climbed our front stairs and saw Kevin and Xanthe waiting for us.

  “Hey, there,” Kevin greeted us, smiling beneath his dark glasses. Xanthe just stared our way, and then turned her gaze to the far end of the deck.

  I followed her gaze, and saw Slammer. Slammer was checking out my roses, safely planted in giant terra-cotta tubs, guarded by the deck railin
g. So far, the deer hadn’t climbed the stairs to visit them. But Slammer had. He sniffed a rose, then petted it, jabbing himself on a thorn, midstroke.

  “Wow,” he muttered, looking at the red dot of blood on his palm. Then he laughed. Maybe he hadn’t seen a rose in a while.

  I looked at Wayne, but Wayne just raised a brow.

  “Who?” he whispered.

  Right, I remembered. Wayne hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Slammer yet.

  “So, Wayne,” Kevin said, bringing our attention back to the front door. “Kate said you had a few questions about the pyramid investment. You know, so did I at first, but that’s always true when you’re on the leading edge. You don’t see things quite like everyone else…”

  Kevin was right. He didn’t see things like everyone else. There didn’t seem to be much advantage to his viewpoint, though.

  Wayne’s eyes were drifting toward Slammer again.

  “…zoned in on the cosmic potential,” Kevin went on.

  “He’s their friend,” I whispered into Wayne’s ear. “Some guy from the loony bin—”

  “Not the loony bin,” Xanthe interjected helpfully. “Prison. Slammer’s from prison.”

  “Right,” Kevin cut back in, changing tracks as easily as a locomotive. And about as subtly. “Hey, Slammer’s just the guy to help you now, for the right amount of money—”

  “Kevin, no,” I said firmly.

  Xanthe glared. “I’m glad I tore up your bulbs,” she told me.

  “You!” I cried out. I hadn’t even considered Xanthe.

  “I try to help you, but do you give me credit?” she demanded before I even had a chance for my tirade. “Huh, huh? I like you, Kate. But do you give an inch?” She squinted her raccoon eyes. “I call upon the gods and goddesses—”

  “Xanthe,” Kevin put in gently.

  “But—”

  “Remember, you decided the cursing might not be holistically sound—”

  “Fine,” Xanthe spat out. “We’re outa here. Come on, Kevin. Come on, Slammer.”

  And they were outa there.

  I opened the door and pulled Wayne in after me as fast as I could. You never know when a Koffenburger will return.

  “Who—” Wayne began again.

  But the ring of the phone cut him off.

  “Slammer is some kind of nut Kevin and Xanthe picked up. Just out of prison, I think—”

  The phone rang again.

  “He wants to be a bod—”

  I stopped myself as the phone rang for the third time, and my own voice began its recorded answering spiel. I was going to say “bodyguard,” but that’s what Wayne had been when I’d met him. And he hadn’t been a successful bodyguard. It was still a sensitive point.

  “He wants to be paid to protect me—”

  “Kate, are you there?” someone asked through the speaker.

  I stopped again, trying to place the voice.

  “This is Olive,” it said. “Avis is all upset—”

  I picked up the phone. Olive told me that her mother was really “knocked for a loop.” Olive sounded genuinely worried. And that was enough to worry me. I promised her we’d be right over, and hung up.

  “Avis is having a hard time,” I told Wayne. “Um…I said we’d—”

  “Let’s go,” he agreed, then added more softly, “both of us.”

  On the way to San Ricardo in my Toyota, I explained Slammer to Wayne as much as Slammer could be explained.

  By the time I’d parked in front of Avis’s, Wayne had summed up Slammer, Kevin, and Xanthe.

  “Family,” he said, and we walked through Avis’s perfect deer-proof garden to the front door of her Victorian cottage.

  Olive greeted us before I even knocked.

  “Mom’s acting really weird,” she announced at full volume, her overtanned face pinched with what might have been concern. Or maybe just aggravation.

  If Avis was within fifty yards, I’m sure she’d heard her daughter.

  “I’m not actually acting weird, Olive,” came Avis’s voice from across the living room. Her gentle tone held a weariness, though, rather than anger. “Come on in, you two.”

  We tiptoed into the living room, followed by the clomping of Olive’s footsteps, unsure what we would see. Avis was ensconced in one of her comfortable chairs with a crocheted throw tucked around her legs. And she wore neither a hat nor gloves. No wonder Olive was worried. Minus the hat, I could see her beauty clearly. Her skin was wrinkled, but otherwise flawless. Her hands were the same. Maybe there was a logic to the hat and gloves beyond the fear of skin cancer. Avis’s green eyes were tinged with red, though, and her elegant cheekbones seemed to droop.

  “Reed was a wonderful man,” she murmured dreamily.

  Wayne and I looked at each other, unsure what to say.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she assured us. “I know he’s dead. I’m mourning his passing by remembering the good times. That’s what he would have wanted. Sit down and we can talk.”

  So we sat. I could smell the mixed scents of lemon and cinnamon from my seat. Air freshener or cooking? I wondered. Or incense. Incense for Reed? My eyes returned to Avis.

  “Reed showed me his synthesizer,” I threw in.

  “That’s what I mean, Kate,” Avis said eagerly. “Did you ever see anyone who enjoyed life as much as Reed did? Reed lived life to the fullest—”

  “Playboy,” Olive muttered.

  “He loved to play, if that’s what you mean,” Avis conceded, her eyes moistening.

  “Mom, don’t cry!” Olive ordered, panic in her voice.

  “Olive, I’m all right,” Avis told her daughter. “I know I never cried much when you were growing up, but there’s nothing wrong with crying. Nothing wrong with remembering.”

  “But—”

  “Listen,” Avis insisted. “I’m strong, I’ll survive. Reed went out like Peter Pan, young and healthy. I think that would have been his wish.” Her eyes went out of focus. “Certainly it’s better than a lingering death.”

  “Mom, you can’t know that, not yet.”

  Avis’s eyes came back to focus. She shook her head.

  “‘Not yet’?” she repeated, laughing. “Olive, you are good for me.”

  Olive’s eyes narrowed.

  “Avis,” Wayne threw in. “Kate and I are trying to imagine why anyone would want to kill Reed.”

  All the humor left Avis’s face.

  “So am I,” she murmured, shaking her head. “So am I. And I just can’t think of a reason.”

  So instead we talked about Reed hiking, and Reed skateboarding, and Reed singing. And about all the other things he’d done. Avis seemed sad but steady by the time we got up to leave. And Olive was angry again, angry that Reed had managed to have such a good time while he was alive. Mother and daughter were fine. Situation normal.

  When Wayne and I got home, no one was standing on our front deck. The phone wasn’t ringing. It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon. We sat down together in the swinging chair and pushed off with our legs. The movement of the chair was hypnotic. I had almost dozed off when Wayne spoke.

  “Kate,” he whispered. “Think I understand now.”

  “What?” I asked, snuggling closer to him, to his warmth.

  “A public wedding means a family wedding,” he went on. “It’s your family, isn’t it?”

  I sat bolt upright as the tumblers fell into place. Click, click, click. He was right!

  Hours later, we were still talking. Not only did Wayne understand why I didn’t want a formal wedding, he forgave me. I watched him cook me dinner and wondered how I’d gotten so lucky. And then I thought of Avis, and how easily it could all be lost.

  Love was sweet that night. And I really believed that I would never investigate without Wayne again.

  *

  Monday morning, I worked to solve Jest Gifts’ problems like a good little entrepreneur, calling mouse manufacturers and actually lining one up to replace our jailbird supplier. Then su
rreptitiously, I got out my suspect list and stared at it. What could I really do to get information? There had to be something. I was failing Lieutenant Perez. I was failing Avis. I was failing Jean Watkins. And I was failing the two dead men. Did the motive for both deaths lie with Dr. Sandstrom? His girlfriend, I thought. Maybe she knew what had motivated the killings. It was time to check out the woman. What was her name? Natalie Miner’s words did an instant replay in my mind. Dr. Larkin, a woman named Dr. Larkin with a practice on Tepper Street.

  I turned in my swivel chair, away from my desk, ready to hop in my car. And faced Wayne’s belt buckle. I jumped in my chair, bouncing as I came back down. Wayne—I’d forgotten Wayne. Already.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Dr. Larkin,” I replied.

  His brows lowered, trying to place the name. Then he had it. “The other woman.”

  Bingo. Wayne insisted on calling before we drove over to see Dr. Larkin. She told us she had a cancellation right before lunch. We were on for eleven o’clock.

  Dr. Larkin was a gynecologist. It was right on the glass door to her office: Obstetrics and Gynecology. Wayne looked around nervously as we entered the reception area. A glimpse into a room equipped with a stirruped examination table didn’t do him much good. Nor did the smell of antiseptic clogging our sinuses.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered in his ear. “You’re a boy.”

  He flinched, neither amused nor comforted.

  I was just apologizing when the receptionist showed up. She was a small woman, small and wizened. She couldn’t have been a day under eighty. She eyed Wayne suspiciously.

  “Husband,” I told her.

  “Huh!” she snorted.

  Could this be Dr. Larkin’s mother?

  “Eleanor?” a voice called from the rear. “Are there people out there for me?”

  “Guess so,” Eleanor conceded.

  “Then send them back.”

  Dr. Larkin was a large woman with maybe ten years on me. Her curves were voluptuous, her hair gray and clipped short, her actions neat and controlled. And her voice was brusque, but maybe only for us.

  “You wanted to ask some questions about Searle?” she began once we were seated in the thinly padded chairs in front of her desk.