My brain searched for a match. Searle?
“Yes,” Wayne answered. “Dr. Sandstrom.”
Of course, Searle Sandstrom. The man had to have a first name. I’d just had yet to hear anyone actually use it.
“And why should I answer your questions?” Dr. Larkin asked.
“We want to find out who killed the doctor,” I said. “No one in the support group—”
“You were there?” she interrupted. “You’re members of this Deer-Abused group?”
“Uh, yeah,” I answered, squirming to find a more comfortable spot on the chair. There wasn’t one.
“Heard another man was killed,” she commented.
I had a feeling she was going to interview us, not the other way around.
“That’s exactly why we want to know as much as possible,” Wayne put in.
“How do I know you didn’t kill them?” she demanded.
“You don’t,” I told her. “But we didn’t.”
“Saw you kung-fu that reporter on the news last night,” she said, smiling at last.
“Tai chi—” I began, correcting her.
But Wayne was way ahead of me.
“Kate gets things done,” he cut in. “She’s already talked with everyone from the group, but we still don’t have a feeling for Dr. Sandstrom. What was it that caused his death?”
“A blow to the skull, I heard,” she answered.
Ow. That was cold. But at least she wasn’t sniffling and crying. Maybe she heard my thought.
“Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll tell you about Searle. He was a man who couldn’t abide bullshit. He was strong, straightforward, and occasionally obnoxious.” A gentle smile flitted across her face. “We made a good pair. I could care less if he wanted to kill deer. And he didn’t need a bunch of feminine folderol.”
Yeah, I could see them together.
“Do you know of any reason—” Wayne began.
“No. The police asked me all that,” she interrupted, slashing her hand in the air.
“Do you know who his heirs were?” I pushed on.
“His kids, I think. Both grown now.”
“Do they live around here?”
“No, back East somewhere. I’ve never met them, but neither of them needs money. Both doctors themselves, the son and the daughter.”
There wasn’t a whole lot to say after that. I didn’t even know what questions to ask.
“Listen,” Dr. Larkin said, rising from her desk, “I’ll call you if I think of anything, but I can’t imagine that I will.”
We got up and turned to go.
“Oh, and Mr. Caruso,” she added, looking at the card he’d handed her. “If you’re ever pregnant, you know where to come. Don’t be a stranger.”
We could still hear her laughing after we closed the office door behind us.
We drove home in silence and found Barbara Chu on our doorstep. I didn’t mention Dr. Larkin’s little joke to my friend.
“I’m here for lunch,” Barbara told us.
And Wayne cooked. Fresh gazpacho, herbed biscuits, and a fruit and biscotti platter. He was a lot calmer once he’d finished cooking.
And I was a lot calmer once I’d eaten.
While we were tucking away the last of the biscotti, Barbara congratulated us on our insight.
“Into the murder?” I asked eagerly.
“Sheesh, no.” She laughed. “Into the reason you don’t want a formal wedding.”
- Seventeen -
“Barbara!” I howled.
“What?” she asked, her lovely Buddha-face as innocent as…well, the Buddha’s. But her mind wasn’t. She knew why I was howling.
“The issue under discussion is why Dr. Sandstrom and Dr. Killian were murdered, not what kind of formal wedding Wayne and I are or aren’t going to have.”
“But I don’t know why the two doctors were killed,” she replied reasonably.
“You don’t?” I whimpered, my eagerness sinking into a lump of undigested biscotti.
She shook her head. “Not a clue.”
“But you’re psychic!”
“You know murder fritzes my psychic circuits,” she reminded me cheerfully.
“Then just think like a normal person,” I ordered.
“Kiddo, you also know I’m not a normal person,” she fired back.
Wayne nodded judiciously. I reminded myself I loved him. I’d strangle Barbara instead.
“Great meal,” she told Wayne, smiling his way.
Wayne blushed becomingly. Barbara rushed around the table, a hug-missile, grabbing Wayne first and me second. She kissed my cheek, and then she was gone. By the time we got up from the table, we could already hear her Volkswagen bug screeching out of the driveway onto the road.
I sat back down with a sigh.
“All right, I will not find Barbara and kill her,” I assured Wayne. “I will move on. We must have other sources of information that we haven’t thought of. What? Who?”
“Use our little psychiatric gray cells?” Wayne tried.
“How about Ann Rivera?” I shot back, remembering my friend, my friend and psychiatric-hospital administrator. Now, that woman knew how to use her gray cells.
I caught Ann at the hospital. She’d planned a quiet evening alone after work, but I was determined to convince her to visit. I tempted her with dinner. She wanted to know if Wayne would be cooking, and, if so, what was on the menu.
Negotiations satisfactorily begun, I handed the telephone to Wayne and wandered off as he murmured about tempeh samosas on greens with gado gado dipping sauce, sweet potato salad, and berry sorbet. My body had barely absorbed the last feast, and I was salivating again. When Wayne hung up the phone, he told me Ann had agreed to dinner. She probably would have agreed to marriage if he’d asked, but he was already taken.
Wayne made a list and went out for groceries. I went back to my desk to scale the mountains of Jest Gifts paperwork.
Some three hours later, Ann was sitting with us at our kitchen table, oohing and aahing over an early dinner that had taken Wayne most of those hours to prepare. And a meal that had taken me most of those hours to smell and savor before eating. The shades were drawn, and three candles provided a romantic light for our gourmandizing. My best, and only, china was on the table. Then, after all those hours of cooking, the three of us just dived in and devoured the samosas, greens, and sweet-potato salad like so much granola. I was surreptitiously loosening my waistband to make room for the dessert course when the inevitable question came from Ann’s lips.
“So why didn’t you tell me about the wedding?”
“A secret,” Wayne answered brusquely. “Like a good recipe.”
Ann laughed, a toothy grin appearing in her brown face. She twiddled a curl.
“I’ll forgive you,” she announced. “I’ll even congratulate you. Congratulations.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand, gado gado sauce and all. Because she meant it. She wasn’t hurt by our negligence. She wasn’t crying foul.
“Thank you,” I murmured sincerely. “You’re a true friend.”
Her skin flushed, a rich terra-cotta shade in the soft light. A true friend who was embarrassed by compliments.
“So, tell me about your murders,” she ordered.
Telling her about the murders took us through the berry sorbet and crunchy carob topping.
“Both men were doctors,” Ann recapped, wiping her lips with the steaming lemon-scented napkins Wayne had provided. Not only did Wayne cook when he was nervous, he embellished.
Wayne and I bobbed our heads in enthusiastic unison at Ann’s recap, causing the candle flames to flicker.
“A doctor’s a classic father figure for some,” Ann told us. “For others, the bearer of bad news. And maybe even the violator, armed with the tools of surgery.”
“All possible motives for murder,” Wayne growled.
“I can’t see Reed as a father figure,” I pointed out. In my mind, Reed would always
be a child who never grew up.
“But he certainly had the tools of violation as a plastic surgeon,” Wayne shot back.
We all nodded then, united in a labyrinth of confusion.
“And either could have borne bad news,” Wayne plodded on, his tone softening as his mind took over.
“What if the motives were different for the two men?” Ann put in.
“Like Dr. Sandstrom, because of his unlikable nature—” I began.
“—and Reed because he knew something,” Wayne finished for me.
“But who?”
“Who hates enough?” Ann asked. The candlelight was suddenly eerie, no longer romantic.
I ran the suspects through my mind, each face lit by murky candlelight, each filled with hate. I shivered.
The phone rang, and all three of us started in our chairs.
I picked it up before the announcement, wanting a break from the brooding. A break from the not-knowing.
“Keep out of it,” a muffled voice warned, and then the handset on the other end of the line was slammed down.
I wasn’t brooding anymore. I was shaking now.
To tell or not to tell? I asked myself as I took a few deep breaths before returning to the kitchen.
Ann and Wayne stared at me as I sat back down. Somehow, I felt the words I’d just heard must have been written on my forehead.
“Who was on the phone?” Wayne asked.
I flinched.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Male, female? Young, old? No imprint had been left but the words themselves. “Some breather,” I lied.
“Spooky,” Ann commented. This from a woman who spent her days in a psychiatric hospital. But she was right. It was spooky.
I took another breath and tried to forget the call. Tried to forget that it had probably been the murderer. No, I wouldn’t tell Wayne. I wouldn’t even tell Lieutenant Perez. I knew from experience that the police wouldn’t be able to trace what had to be a local call. Then I wished I had one of those new doohickeys on my phone that might have come up with the caller’s number.
“Any more ideas?” I asked Ann.
“Be careful,” she suggested, and rose from the table. “And thanks for dinner,” she finished up.
And then she left for her quiet evening at home. Lucky Ann.
I was glad when Wayne turned on the lights and snuffed the candles to do the dishes. Good, clean, artificial light made the phone call seem unreal.
I was drying cutlery when it came to me.
“Wayne!” I whooped. “I do have a source.”
“Who?”
“My hairdresser.”
Wayne smiled. He’d met Carol, my hairdresser, once. The woman who knew everything. Snip. Talk. Snip. Talk. That was Carol. And what local gossip she didn’t know, didn’t exist. And she worked Monday evenings.
I called the Golden Rose, and let Wayne finish drying. Could Carol fit me in that night? Yes, if I came in right away. I told them I would, and gave Wayne a quick kiss goodbye.
Backing my car out of the driveway, I remembered just why I loved the Golden Rose, a beauty parlor of the old school: inexpensive, pink, and patronized by a few people who still preferred iceberg lettuce to radicchio. The Golden Rose was a time warp in Marin County. And the time warp included prices. I could get my hair cut there at half the price of any other place in Mill Valley.
I ran my hand through the few curls on the top of my head as I drove to the Golden Rose. I didn’t really need a haircut. And I knew Carol was apt to snip at the same rate that she talked. My new attempt to grow out a little braid from the rear of my head might suffer a setback if I really got her going.
“Hiya, honey,” Carol greeted me, her voice rasping a welcome at the Golden Rose’s pink portals. She eyed my mini-braid hungrily and snapped the ever-present scissors in her hand. “Early for this month, huh?”
I nodded apprehensively. Maybe this would be too much of a sacrifice. My hair for the murderer’s identity?
“Probably wanna look good for TV,” she opined, without waiting for confirmation. She shook her cascade of blond hair as if to give me a few pointers. “Saw you on the news last night.”
I groaned and closed the door behind me. And inhaled the scent of hair spray and peroxide. My dinner felt heavy on my stomach.
“Hey, at least they didn’t call you the Typhoid Mary of Murder this time,” she said consolingly, and led me to her station at the rear of the shop.
I climbed up into the pink vinyl barber chair, and Carol wrapped a rubbery golden sheet around my neck.
Snip. A short brown curl dropped to my lap.
“I suppose you wanna know about the folks who were at that goofy deer group,” she whispered intimately.
The few late-night hairdressers and their clients all turned our way. Carol’s whisper could go on stage. By itself. It was hard to believe that volume came out of her skinny body. But years of Coca-Cola and cigarettes had probably helped.
“Yeah,” was all I had to say.
“Well of course, you know I do Avis’s hair,” she began. Snip. “Very classy haircut for a very classy dame. You know all about her movie days,” she breathed. Her tone made it clear which movies she was talking about.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered.
“And then, that old movie producer died and left her all that money. She is one helluva rich woman. Doesn’t have to work for a living, that’s for sure.”
“She inherited her money?”
“Yep.” Snip.
“I didn’t know that,” I murmured. A man dies and Avis inherits. Was that a motive? I wrinkled my forehead, trying to think. It was the wrong murder, even if it was a motive.
“Lots you don’t know,” she commented, then added, “Too bad about Reed. Avis was stuck on that boy for sure.”
“Did you know Reed?” I asked, and was glad to see her raise her scissors away from my head to think for a minute.
“Didn’t know him, but I knew quite a few of his ladies. He never stayed too long, but he was real good to his ladies, real romantic, I guess you’d say. Like Willie Nelson maybe, you know?”
I nodded to keep her going. But I wasn’t quite sure about the Willie Nelson part. Much as I liked his singing, I couldn’t see a resemblance to Reed.
“Did he get his…ladies from his plastic surgery practice?”
Carol shook her head emphatically, blond cascades shimmering under the fluorescent lights.
“No, he was real serious about his business stuff, they said. Especially after that suit.” Carol shook her head. “Poor lady wasn’t real good lookin’ before the surgery, but at least her nose matched her face. Guess she didn’t like her new nose, so she sued. Anyway, that man could meet a woman anywhere,” she confided. “From the way the ladies talked, I wouldn’t have minded a fling with him myself. He was a real gentleman. I’d bet on it.”
Carol bent over my head again. I covered the end of my two-inch braid with my hand.
“Any split ends?” she probed.
“Nope,” I told her, hoping she’d take my word for it. It had taken months for me to grow a braid of any length at all, split ends being the excuse for inches of trimming.
“Jean Watkins was in that group too,” she informed me. Snip.
“You know Jean?” I asked. Silly question.
“Oh yeah, her and her no-good son. She used to get her hair cut here. Michelle did her. That son put her through hell, and with that sweet granddaughter too.”
Sweet? I wondered if she’d ever met Darcie Watkins in person. Snip.
“Used to be a nun.”
“Darcie?” I asked.
“No, Jean.”
“A nun, like in an order and everything?”
“Sheesh, Kate,” she protested. “What other kinds of nuns are there?”
“Right,” I conceded meekly. “But what happened?”
“Jean lost her vocation. Left the order. Became a social worker. Married this architect.”
> “Oh,” was all I could muster. Jean? I tried to picture her sturdy body in a habit.
“And Lisa Orton,” Carol went on. “Camille did her until her father died and she got all that money. A real nut case. One group after another. Wanted us all to join a group to share our experiences about customer abuse. As if her guff wasn’t enough. Hah! And then that group for deer.” Snip. Snip. “No offense.”
“No, that’s fine,” I told her, my mind working overtime. “Do you think Dr. Sandstrom could have been Lisa’s father’s doctor?” Now we were talking possible motive.
Carol tilted her head. “Nah,” she finally concluded. “His doctor was an old codger named Drucker.”
“You sure?” I asked, motive slipping away.
“Of course I am,” she told me. Snip. Snip. Snip. “Now Natalie Miner, she was a sad one.”
“She get her hair cut here too?”
“No, but my brother-in-law knew her late husband. She makes all this money in real estate, but she just messes up with men. Too eager. Men don’t like that in a woman.”
Her scissors hovered near my braid menacingly. I held it by its tail again.
“Thought I saw some split ends,” she challenged.
“Nope, no split ends,” I reiterated, putting up a warning hand. “You know Gilda Fitch?”
“Oh, the gal that delivers the mail, sure. She’s a kick in the pants. And her mother’s some kind of Lady or Dame or something. For real.”
“Who else?” I asked.
“Didn’t really know Howie Damon or Maxwell Yang, but I heard that the Damon guy had some kind of book he was trying to sell. It’s got all kinds of juicy bits about old California families. Oughta raise a stir.”
Now there was a motive…to kill Howie.
“And Maxwell Yang?”
“Everyone says he’s real nice for a celebrity. But he wants a real job. Wants to be a serious reporter. No more second-rate Oprah.” Snip.
“How about Dr. Sandstrom?”
“Depends who you ask. Had a lady who told me he was a mean s.o.b., but Dr. Yamoda swore by him.”
“She get her hair cut here?”
“Nah, I know a friend of her sister’s.”
“You know who murdered Dr. Sandstrom?” I asked. It was worth a try.
Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 18