Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Not Avis,” she told me. “Don’t know about the rest of them.” Snip. That time, she got the end of my braid.

  “Murder’s an interesting thing,” she reflected, happy to have won over my split ends. “They say there’s something missing from a murderer, some kind of chemical or something. They oughta check everyone’s chemicals.” Snip. “But they probably can’t with all these laws and such.” Snip. “Probably be real easy if they could.” Snip.

  “How do you know all this stuff, anyway?” I demanded.

  “Whaddaya think I do for a living?” she retorted.

  I thought about the CIA for a moment. It was possible. What a cover. Mrs. Pollifax, move over.

  “So, are you going to tell me about your wedding?” Carol asked. Snip, snip, snip.

  I sat up so quickly that Carol’s scissors stopped for a moment. That was good. I might have been entirely bald otherwise. I told her about my wedding, in detail. I had my hair to consider. Of course, now everyone would know about Wayne and me. Carol’s knowledge was a two-way street. It went in, and it went out. Once I was done telling, I jumped from the barber’s chair with my braid primarily intact, paid my bill, tipped Carol double, and ran out of the Golden Rose, my mind swirling with new facts.

  “Well?” Wayne prompted when I got home.

  “Avis didn’t do it,” I told him. “Carol says so.”

  He ran his hand through what was left of the hair on the top of my head. I closed my eyes, knowing for a moment the bliss of the well-petted cat. Carol just didn’t have the hands Wayne did. Then I reached up to return the favor.

  The doorbell rang.

  I opened the door slowly. It didn’t stop Felix from rocketing past me, mouth in gear.

  “So?” he prodded. “How goes the friggin’ sleuth for the truth? Got any good poop for my scoop?”

  I looked at Wayne. He sighed, but closed his eyes, a good sign he wasn’t going to kill Felix on the spot.

  Felix caught the sigh and the look, and was comfy on our denim couch before you could say “pit bull.”

  “Man,” he grumbled as Wayne and I dropped into the swinging chair. “Those cop-shop guys are totally gonzo. All they wanna do is take information, not give it. Don’t the potato-heads know we’re trying to friggin’ help them?”

  Obviously, Lieutenant Perez hadn’t taken Felix into his confidence. I suddenly felt better about the lieutenant.

  “So who’ve you been grilling?” Felix asked before I could fully experience forgiving the lieutenant.

  “My hairdresser,” I told him.

  “Come on!” he exploded. “What does your friggin’ hairdresser know about these deer nuts?”

  “Jean Watkins was a nun,” I told him.

  That stopped him cold.

  “Holy socks, how’d she find that out?”

  I smiled serenely, as if I knew.

  “Betcha she didn’t know Dr. Sandstrom’s heirs,” Felix smirked.

  “His two kids, right?” I didn’t tell him Carol wasn’t my source on that one.

  Felix jumped off the couch, scowling.

  “How come you didn’t take me if this woman is the friggin’ KGB? Huh?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  “Reed only had one heir, his sister,” Felix announced, his hands on his hips. “No wives. No ex-wives.”

  “A will?” I asked.

  “Nope, friggin’ moron died intestate.”

  Felix was puffing up again, glad he had some information I didn’t. He smiled and played with his luxurious mustache.

  “Hey, I saw that Gilda Fitch clown,” he added. “Went to get my morning caffeine injection and there she was. Weird-ass woman. Doesn’t know how to speak English—”

  “I think that’s what they say about us,” Wayne put in.

  But I was thinking that Felix was right. Gilda was weird, the way she kept showing up. Or maybe she’d always been around, and I’d just never noticed her before.

  “Did she talk to you, Felix—” I began.

  But the doorbell cut me off.

  At least I knew it wouldn’t be Felix at the door. I jumped out of the swinging chair to answer. This time, Jean and Darcie Watkins were on my doorstep. I stared at Jean Watkins’s round, guileless face. A nun?

  Meanwhile, Jean peered past me and spotted Felix. She flinched visibly, as if she’d seen a bug. A big, hairy one.

  “Please, come in,” I said.

  But Jean seemed to have changed her mind.

  “We were just passing by and thought we’d drop in,” she told me. “But I see you have company, so—”

  “Hey, wait a friggin’ minute!” Felix ordered, racing to the door to stand by my side.

  “Young man,” Jean reprimanded him. “Mind your tongue.”

  And Felix should have minded his tongue because his mouth fell open and the tongue in question was all too visible.

  “I just wanna do a little talking, man,” he finally shot back. “Why you put up with a space cadet like Kate, and won’t talk to a real reporter like me—”

  “Well, we’d best be going,” Jean murmured and turned.

  “Hey, you can’t—”

  “Young man, we can, and we will,” Jean countered.

  “Yeah,” Darcie added. “You big jerk-head.”

  “Darcie,” Jean warned, but I could hear the laugh in her voice.

  Jean and Darcie could, and they did, leave.

  Felix sat back down on the couch.

  “What have I got, friggin’ leprosy?” he asked, waving his hands. “I wasn’t even there when the nasty-ass doc got bashed the first time. Holy socks, they can’t think it was me that—”

  I didn’t hear the rest of Felix’s sentence, because my front steps were clattering. Or someone or something was clattering on the steps.

  I jumped out of the swinging chair once more and ran to the door. But there weren’t any guests on my doorstep.

  My guests were at the far end of the deck nibbling the roses in my terra-cotta pots. Three deer.

  “No!” I screamed and ran at them.

  - Eighteen -

  The deer looked at me as I charged them, their eyes round and surprised in the dim light. Then they ran…in my direction. The deck didn’t allow them any other exit. I’d forgotten that when I’d charged. I stopped too late, closed my eyes, and waited for the impact. Deer dented cars…by mistake. And then I imagined being gored. An instant later, I heard the deer veer to clatter past me and back down the stairs. My heart was beating as loud as their hooves. I wondered who was more frightened.

  I opened my eyes slowly. A few roses were left in the rearmost terra-cotta pots. The rest were chewed to the stem. I clenched my fists. I probably would have charged the deer again if they’d stayed on the deck.

  “Whoa, are you friggin’ looney tunes?” a voice demanded from behind me.

  Felix. Somehow, I’d imagined that he’d left with the deer, that all pests would stick together.

  “I scared them away,” I pointed out, my voice rising defensively.

  Wayne was up to bat next.

  “Kate,” he growled. “You know a deer in rut can gore you. Even if they’re not in rut, they’re dangerous.” His voice softened. “Please, don’t do that again. My heart can’t stand it.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” I murmured guiltily, looking up at his strained, pale face. I didn’t think he was kidding. He certainly looked like a man in shock. “I’m sorry.”

  “How do you know if a deer is in rut?” Felix asked as I reached out to hug Wayne.

  He didn’t get an answer. This hug was a serious undertaking. My arms were around Wayne’s waist. I heard his heart beating, too fast, and felt the cool cotton of his shirt against my face. And Wayne was holding me tight enough to break the ribs that the deer hadn’t.

  “The buggers look horny or something?” Felix pressed on.

  Wayne loosened his grip. I let go too and reached my hands up behind Wayne’s head to ma
ke finger horns, transforming Wayne into a five point buck. I grinned at Felix. The effort was childish, but strangely effective.

  “Jeez-Louise,” Felix objected. “I know when I’m not friggin’ wanted. Gonzo, friggin’ gonzo!”

  And then he banged down the stairs, as noisily as the deer, gunning his engine before his Chevy flew out of our driveway, spraying gravel in its wake.

  Wayne and I watched him go, our arms circling each other’s waists; then Wayne turned to me.

  “What did you do?” he demanded.

  I showed him my finger horns, using my own head as a model. He smiled, his brows lifting, all anger gone.

  “Think it’ll work again?” he asked hopefully.

  I couldn’t promise him anything, but at least he let up on me for chasing the deer. In fact, an hour later in bed, he called me a “brave warrior,” not to mention “fearless leader.” I had a feeling he was relying on old cartoons for his lines, but that didn’t make cuddling in his arms any less a pleasure.

  *

  Tuesday, I spent the day hard at work on Jest Gifts. Invoices, ledgers, and accounts payable spilled from my hands as Kris Kristofferson blasted from my tape deck. The “Deer Doctor Murders,” as the papers had dubbed them, had taken too much time out of my business schedule. I wondered, and worried, about how Lieutenant Perez was doing, but kept on working until Wayne came home early from La Fête à L’Oie. The murders had taken a chunk out of his time too. On the other hand, because of our meeting set for this evening Wayne had come home early enough to feed me a leftover dinner of vegetable pâté, fresh baked bread, and sherried black mushrooms with shallots before we rushed off in my Toyota to Eldora Nurseries.

  The taste of shallots was still on my tongue at seven o’clock when I pulled into the familiar parking lot. I climbed out of the car, looking both ways. I wasn’t looking for traffic. I was looking for blunt instruments. Then I saw Lieutenant Perez against the beginning of a Maxfield Parrish twilight sky. The effect should have been magical. Instead, it was menacing.

  “Ms. Jasper,” he greeted me, nodding his head formally, his dark eyes conveying emotional injury.

  “Lieutenant Perez,” I answered, just as formally.

  “Ms. Eldora told me about your meeting tonight,” he continued. The implication was clear. I hadn’t told him about the meeting. Uh-oh.

  “How’s your captain?” I asked, unable to meet his injured eyes.

  “Singing. It’s The Music Man this week,” Perez told me. “We signed him out on health leave. Terrible flu.”

  “Ah,” I murmured, nodding.

  “Gives us a little more time,” he bulldozed on.

  I opened my mouth to wriggle out of my responsibilities, but Wayne was much quicker than I was.

  “Us?” Wayne repeated. A breeze rustled the leaves and blossoms of thousands of neatly organized plants. And the breeze brought me Wayne’s familiar scent. Only there was a uncharacteristic acidity to it now. “In view of the second death, shouldn’t Kate be left out of any role in your investigation?”

  Perez looked at Wayne with all the enthusiasm of a man observing the three-hundredth alien to land on his planet. And a particularly loathsome species of alien at that.

  “No, sir,” he finally answered Wayne. “The second death makes Ms. Jasper’s participation all the more important.”

  “Important, but not safe,” Wayne tried.

  “Safer once the murderer is found,” Perez argued.

  “My only concern is Kate’s—” Wayne began.

  I don’t know how long the two men would have argued if Lisa Orton hadn’t shown up just then. I wasn’t about to get between them, no matter who the subject of their discussion was. No running at deer, and no standing between snarling dogs. No doubt about it, I was a new woman after the previous night’s excitement.

  “We need a grief group here,” Lisa announced, standing alongside the lieutenant. The freckles stood out on her cheekbones. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. “Not Gestapo interrogation.”

  Perez turned toward her slowly.

  “Do you feel particularly grieved, Ms. Orton?” he asked quietly.

  Lisa sucked in her lower lip, and her round eyes widened.

  “What kind of question is that?” she demanded, then added, “I want to talk to a woman officer.”

  Perez didn’t physically roll his eyes, but somehow I could feel him doing it mentally.

  “Ms. Orton, you began this conversation,” Perez reminded her.

  “Huh,” she shot back. “Estrogen-deprived life forms are all the same. I make an intelligent suggestion and—”

  “Officer Perez,” a new voice interrupted. Natalie Miner’s voice. Perez winced. He’d probably worked hard to go from Officer to Lieutenant. “I just don’t know if I can bear it. The good Lord knows it’s hard enough to see one man die, but two? Surely, there is something that can be done, isn’t there, Officer?” She put her hand on the lieutenant’s arm and looked up at him, her baby face quivering like a puppy’s.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied neutrally.

  “The shock is just too much—” she started up again.

  “See, I told you we needed a grief group,” Lisa declared, crossing her arms. “Look at this poor woman.”

  “A grief group?” Maxwell Yang echoed, striding our way. “I’m not sure grief is really what most people are feeling right now. Personally, I’ll admit I’m frightened. And I am truly glad to see you, Lieutenant Perez.”

  Perez straightened his shoulders. Maxwell sure knew how to make people feel good. I wished I could learn that little trick myself.

  “That’s why I’m here,” the lieutenant assured Maxwell. “No more incidents.”

  “Incidents?” Lisa parroted. “Now you’re talking like your goofy captain.”

  Lieutenant Perez closed his eyes. I didn’t blame him. If I could close my eyes and make it all go away, I would too.

  “Hey, wassup?” someone yelled from the main building. Darcie popped out, her hands on her hips. “Yo, folks, the meeting’s supposed to be in here, not in the parking lot.”

  Perez opened his eyes and sighed.

  “The young lady is right,” he conceded. “Time to go on in.”

  Inside, everything looked much as it had the night Dr. Sandstrom had died. A semicircle of metal folding chairs were set up near the cash register. Avis, Jean, Howie, Gilda, and even Felix were already seated. Actually, everything looked a lot like the night Reed Killian had died, too. The soil and plant smells made my nose tingle. The tingle extended to the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. Who would die tonight? I told myself to cut it out and marched into the circle to take my own seat. Wayne hunkered down beside me.

  When everyone was finally seated, Lieutenant Perez spoke loudly and firmly.

  “Here are the ground rules,” he began. “During this meeting, we will all stay together. If anyone leaves for any reason, they take a buddy. Is that clear?”

  Everyone nodded, even Lisa. Though she sucked on her lower lip as she did.

  The lieutenant turned toward Avis. “Ms. Eldora?” he inquired gently. “What would you like us to do now?”

  I turned toward Avis, too. Under her hat and scarves she looked, if possible, even more delicate then usual, her cat eyes unfocused. I wondered if she was on some kind of medication.

  “Well…” she answered hesitantly. Then her eyes came into clearer focus. “I would like to ask if anyone can tell me who killed Reed.”

  That was a simple request. A heartbreakingly simple request. But no one seemed able to give Avis what she wanted.

  “Please,” she whispered after a few moments of silence went by. “I have to know.”

  “Him,” Darcie accused, pointing at Felix.

  “Me!” Felix objected. His soulful eyes seemed to be pushing out of their sockets for an instant. “I wasn’t even here when Doc Sandstrom got bashed the first time. Holy socks, everyone else in this friggin’ circle is a better bet
than me. Look at you, little Ms. Pronto, whiz-bang, accuse-the-reporter. All hopped up on adolescent angst, bustin’ to trash anything in pants that walks in the door. And Granny, there, a friggin’ nun. What do ex-nuns do for fun, knock off doctors?”

  “You jerk-hole!” Darcie shouted, standing suddenly, her round face red under her “Girls Rule” baseball cap.

  “Darcie, Darcie,” her grandmother murmured.

  “He is a jerk-hole,” Lisa agreed. “Accusing a poor little girl like Darcie.”

  Darcie glared Lisa’s way now.

  “I’m no little girl, you, you—”

  “Darcie.” Jean Watkins’s voice was firmer now. “Sit down.”

  Darcie sat.

  “Man, there’re are a lot better suspects than me around,” Felix began again. “Look at Natalie, jilted like a homeless hamster before she even friggin’ started. And Avis, how do we know what hooey-wooey was really going on between her and Reed. And Lisa and Darcie would kill anything with the wrong equipment below the waist. And Maxwell—”

  “Anyway,” Lisa went on, as if Felix hadn’t spoken. “Everyone knows men are more prone to violence. So that makes figuring this out a lot easier.” She stared at each man in the group in turn.

  “Lisa,” Howie put in gently, “generalizations are just that: generalizations. They can be very hurtful to a specific victim of the generalization.” His eyes strayed to Gilda. “For example, um…”

  “For example,” Gilda finished for him, “all wogs are stupid and lazy. There’s one for you.”

  “Wogs?” Darcie asked.

  “A racist term,” Maxwell Yang explained, raising an eyebrow. “Originally meant ‘wily Oriental gentleman,’ I think.”

  “Right you are,” Gilda confirmed cheerfully, “Though these days, anyone of color can manage a wog designation, don’cha know?”

  “Wow,” Darcie murmured. “Cool.” I just hoped she wasn’t incorporating the exotic slur into her vocabulary.

  “Lisa, honey,” Natalie broke in. “Not all men are cruel. Lord knows some are, but there’s many a good man around if you just look in the right place.” And Natalie was currently looking at Lieutenant Perez. The lieutenant had obviously noticed. He wriggled his shoulders and turned his head from her gaze.