Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Yes, indeed,” Maxwell agreed with a smile. “Lots of winners in this circle.”

  The lieutenant whipped his head around to stare into Maxwell’s suddenly neutral, Asian features.

  I resisted the urge to giggle. Whatever Maxwell had meant was lost beneath his Mona Lisa smile.

  “Reed was certainly a beautiful man,” Avis offered dreamily.

  The urge to giggle stopped at my heart. Poor Avis. Hadn’t she asked us to identify the murderer? Reed’s murderer? What had happened to the original question?

  “Yes, he was,” Jean assured Avis. She reached for the older woman’s hand and held it. “And for the life of me, I can’t imagine any reason to kill him.”

  “As opposed to Dr. Sandstrom?” the lieutenant put in.

  “Yes,” Jean answered, without hesitation. “Dr. Sandstrom was opinionated, angry, and authoritarian. But Reed was none of those things.”

  “They were both doctors,” Felix muttered, his face still flushed from his encounter with Darcie.

  “They both loved gardening,” Avis added.

  “And they were both men,” Natalie reminded us. As if the rest of us might not have noticed.

  “What else?” Perez asked.

  “They were both…um…involved in relationships.” I offered feebly. “Though neither was married.”

  “They were both intelligent,” Wayne tried. “Both attempting in their own, different way to discourage deer.”

  “Oh yeah!” Lisa sneered. “Dr. Sandstrom wanted to blow them up. Coffee-can Claymore mines. Real intelligent.”

  “And that upset you?” Lieutenant Perez prodded.

  “Lots of things upset me,” Lisa answered carelessly.

  “Both had pots of money,” Gilda threw in. She smiled for no apparent reason.

  Now, there was something I hadn’t considered. And I wondered how Gilda knew about the pots. But then, I had a feeling Gilda knew as much as my hairdresser about the postal patrons of Marin County.

  “But no one here inherited,” Felix countered.

  The lieutenant looked at Felix with narrowed eyes. More information that shouldn’t have been public.

  “Both were attractive in their own way,” Maxwell pointed out before the lieutenant could comment on Felix’s information.

  “Dr. Sandstrom was attractive?” Darcie objected incredulously. “That wickety-wack old man?”

  “To some of us, honey,” Natalie said, backing Maxwell. “Age is relative. To me, he was a handsome man. And Lord, that vitality.” She sighed and shook her head.

  Did any of this spell motive?

  I glanced out the glass door as I tried to remember something, anything, that might solve these murders. And saw two large brown eyes staring back at me.

  “Deer!” I shouted.

  Avis was the first on her feet. “Did anyone shut the gates?” she asked.

  We all shook our heads guiltily. Had that been Reed’s job?

  Everyone stood then as a group, moving toward the glass door. The lone deer turned as we got closer, taking to its hooves. But that wasn’t enough for the Deerly Abused. Whooping and hollering, we poured out the door, running toward the deer, who was now panicked and charging through the ground cover at high speed.

  “Turn!” I screamed. The deer looked up as if he’d heard me, and came back around through the bedding herbs, galloping toward the freedom of the still-open gate. We all turned with the grace of a lynch mob and chased him until he was through the gate to the street. So much for not running after deer.

  “Hella tight!” Darcie yelled triumphantly as his tail disappeared into the evening.

  “Well done, indeed,” Gilda agreed.

  Then we were all congratulating each other, and shaking hands, and hugging. All but Lieutenant Perez.

  He glared at us, collectively and individually.

  “We went as a group,” I said, forestalling him.

  “Do you have a garden, Officer?” Natalie asked.

  “No,” Perez answered curtly.

  We all exchanged glances. Poor Lieutenant Perez would never understand the deer group. He was right about that. Wayne and I shut the iron gates, and I thought of Reed.

  “If you did have a garden, you see, you’d understand,” Avis admonished Perez gently.

  And then he seemed to soften.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “Back inside.”

  “Shoot, the doctor would have liked that,” Natalie said once we were sitting down. I guessed she meant Dr. Sandstrom, not Reed Killian.

  Lisa Orton sat next to me now. She turned to whisper in my ear. I smelled mint on her breath.

  “Would you come to tea, Kate?” she asked. “All my friends are from therapy. I could use an outside friend.”

  I looked at Wayne on my other side, congratulating Howie on the publication of his manuscript once more. And I nodded quickly. I knew Wayne wasn’t invited. He was, after all, a man.

  “Motive,” Lieutenant Perez commanded.

  Groans greeted his commandment, but we all tried.

  Misdiagnosis, spurned love, jealousy, money, pure hatred, even deer channeling were discussed.

  But no one came to any conclusion. The routing of the deer seemed to be the main event of the evening.

  Perez told us he’d stand guard as we all went back to our cars. Avis and Darcie opened the iron gates.

  Wayne and I began our careful walk back to my car. I didn’t want to step on a body. I didn’t want to even see one. We were almost to the Toyota, with Felix gabbling in my ear at each step, when I thought I heard something beyond the sound of cars starting up, something running somewhere in the nursery.

  “Darcie must have a reason for accusing me,” Felix insisted. “What if she’s the murderer?”

  “I don’t think so, Felix.” The sound seemed closer. Was I imagining it?

  “Well, how about Granny, Ma Barker, nun-serial murderer?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “And Maxwell Yang, he’s too friggin’ smooth for my taste. He’s so big he thinks he’s in a different time zone, but that still doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

  I didn’t have an answer for him. And I could hear the running sound again. Wayne stiffened by my side.

  “Kate,” Felix whined. “Why is it that these gonzo potato-brains don’t like me?

  That question was from the heart. But could I possibly explain civilized behavior to Felix in a few minutes…or even a few days?

  “Felix—” I began.

  And then, in the darkness, the running sound became hoofbeats. A mass of beige came hurtling toward us, resolving itself into a deer as it closed in. A big deer.

  Felix never heard it, never saw it. But he must have felt it when the deer’s massive body knocked into his side, throwing him to the ground with a thud.

  And then all was silent but for the hoofbeats, still running.

  “Felix?” I implored as the beige mass continued out the gates. “Speak to me!”

  - Nineteen -

  As I bent over Felix’s small, slender body, I couldn’t believe I was begging him to speak, the man I’d wanted to shut up from the moment I’d met him. But there was Barbara to consider. Barbara, my best friend, who loved Felix.

  I squatted closer to his sprawled form, cursing under my breath in the cool night air.

  “Felix, get up. There’s a friggin’ story in it for you,” I whispered finally, remembering the magic words.

  One of his eyes opened.

  “Story?” he mumbled Wearily.

  “Okay, folks!” a voice boomed out from above me. I went from a squatting position to a sitting one the hard way, onto my tailbone. Lieutenant Perez looked down at Felix and then at me as Wayne reached out to take my hand. “Just what happened here?” the lieutenant demanded.

  “Felix got run over by a deer,” I explained, as Wayne pulled me up off the hard ground, my tailbone still protesting.

  “A deer!” Felix objected, and his other eye opened.<
br />
  “Wow, way cool,” Darcie commented, and then I saw the rest of the audience surrounding us.

  Had they been afraid Felix had been murdered? Jean Watkins’s face was very serious in the moonlight. I couldn’t even see Avis’s expression as she moved in back of Jean. The nursery owner was a wraith, or maybe a garden fairy. Gilda was smiling, though. And Lisa’s freckled face looked confused. At least that was appropriate.

  I didn’t see Maxwell, Howie, or Natalie, though. They must have been in the cars I’d heard starting up. At least, I hoped so. Now my mind buzzed more loudly than my tailbone. I swallowed. Could someone have been killed while Felix was dominating everyone else’s attention?

  “Lieutenant Perez?” I asked urgently. “Did the other three leave?”

  I saw instant panic in the lieutenant’s eyes. He jerked his head around, searching the shadows.

  “Who’s missing?” he barked.

  “A friggin’ deer,” Felix answered fuzzily. “It was a big mother, brown, a nut case—”

  “Not the deer!” Perez bawled. We all turned to him. It isn’t good when the investigating officer gets hysterical.

  Perez lowered his voice, grimacing. “Can anyone tell me who has already left?” he asked.

  “Natalie Miner drove away,” Avis provided quietly. “And so did Maxwell Yang.” Avis turned for a moment. “Darcie, did you see Mr. Damon leave?”

  “Yeah, the school dude who drives that crummy old Honda, right?”

  Avis nodded.

  Perez closed his eyes. I figured he was thinking. I hoped he wasn’t fainting.

  I searched my brain, and ticked off names on my fingers frantically. Natalie, Maxwell, and Howie had left. Gilda, Wayne, Felix, Lisa, Avis, Darcie, and Jean were still here. We were all accounted for. I felt my mind ease back into my body.

  “I think that’s everyone,” I whispered to the lieutenant.

  He opened his eyes, big brown eyes finally grateful for my help.

  “Hey, are you guys logged off or what?” Felix demanded, sitting up suddenly. His shirt was torn, the side of his arm was scraped, and he was rubbing his head. But he was talking.

  “I’m the one who got run over by Super-Deer. Man, that beast must eat iron ingots for breakfast—”

  “No, roses,” I corrected him.

  Felix rubbed his side. “Ha-friggin’-ha,” he snarled. “Just you wait till it’s your turn for some gonzo deer to take you out, and—”

  “Do you need a doctor?” Jean Watkins asked Felix.

  Felix looked up at her suspiciously.

  “Do you really friggin’ care?” he shot back.

  “Of course, I do, young man,” she replied. “You might have internal injuries.”

  Felix paled visibly.

  “D’ya really think so?” he asked, sounding pitifully un-Felix for a moment.

  “Don’t worry, you’re probably fine,” she assured him, bending over for a better look. “But you’d best have a doctor check you out.”

  “Hey, thanks,” Felix murmured, turning his head away shyly. “You really do care.”

  Jean paused for a moment, and then spoke slowly. “Of course we care,” she told Felix. “Isn’t that right, Darcie?”

  “Aw, Gramma,” Darcie replied, squirming in place. I was just glad Jean hadn’t asked me how I felt about Felix.

  “You just need to trust people more,” Jean instructed Felix. “If you treat people with respect, they’ll return the favor.”

  Felix looked up at Jean Watkins like a cat who’s just discovered the person with the can opener.

  “I’ll call the paramedics,” Avis offered. She began walking to the main building. Then she turned back to Felix. “Now that you’ve tangled with a deer, you’re one of us,” she said.

  Felix smiled, a real smile. Could Felix be domesticated?

  “I’d have joined a lot sooner if I knew deer were such potato-brains,” he tried.

  “Maybe the deer was in rut,” I offered.

  “Piece of luck you’re not a female, old bean,” Gilda threw in. “Never know about the poor blighters’ night vision.”

  Darcie and Lisa joined in a guffaw that could have risen from one mouth.

  Felix frowned. The question was emblazoned on his wrinkled forehead. Was he being made fun of?

  “Just lie back and enjoy it, Felix,” I advised him. “These people are being nice. They like you.”

  Felix lay back on the ground, his eyes closing. “Thanks, Kate,” he whispered.

  I couldn’t believe I’d heard those words from his mouth.

  The paramedics arrived a little while later and declared Felix scraped, banged, and bruised, but probably unbroken and unconcussed. They snickered for a little while about deer muggings and then took Felix off to the hospital to make sure he was really okay.

  I told Wayne I’d call Barbara, and then I drove out of the Eldora Nurseries parking lot, glancing at Felix’s isolated Chevy in my rearview mirror. It looked lonely.

  *

  Wednesday morning, Barbara called me back to tell me that Felix had returned home and was feeling fine. And then she whispered, “Thanks, Kate,” herself.

  Everything should have been great. Felix wasn’t permanently harmed, and he might even be learning social skills. I had a feeling that’s what Barbara’s thank you was about. But everything wasn’t great. Two men were dead, and we still didn’t have a clue why.

  I resorted to chart-making, my drug of choice for stress. I shoved my stacks of Jest Gifts paperwork off my desk onto a chair. They immediately fell onto the floor. C.C. arrived just in time to roll in them. Groaning, I moved the stacks onto my bookshelves and then returned to the important stuff. I got out my biggest pad of paper and a ruler. Columns and rows, I told myself. Anything can be solved with columns and rows. At the end of each of my neatly aligned rows, I wrote a suspect’s name. I even put myself in, but I left Wayne out. There had to be some limits. The column headings were sparse, though. Name, of course. Motive for Dr. Sandstrom’s death. Motive for Dr. Killian’s death. Then two more columns, for everyone’s whereabouts at the time of each death. And then? “Other,” I finally wrote.

  I was staring at my chart, waiting for inspiration to fill in the rest of the columns, when Wayne walked up behind me. I didn’t hear him until he put his big paw on my shoulder. Damn. After I landed in my chair again, I wondered if it had been a mistake to leave him off the suspect list. But then, I was still nervous after the telephone warning.

  “Good,” he growled.

  “Good, what?” I sputtered. “It doesn’t tell me anything. I can’t fill it in!”

  “You will,” he assured me.

  My mind translated his assurances. He was hoping I’d stick to charts and stay away from live, breathing people. Or dead ones, for that matter. I didn’t really blame him.

  I was staring at the chart again when he kissed me goodbye, and set off for La Fête à L’Oie. After the kiss, I decided it had been a good decision to exclude him from the suspect list. No one who could kiss like that could kill.

  I had just written “spurned woman” in Natalie Miner’s row under motive for Dr. Sandstrom’s murder, when the phone rang.

  I dove for it thankfully. Even if it was someone upset about my wedding, even if it was my mother, it meant I could stop staring at my chart.

  “Kate?” The voice on the other end of the line was high and anxious. It wasn’t my mother. I tried to match it to a face. “This is Lisa, Lisa Orton. I thought maybe you could come to tea this afternoon. I get Wednesday afternoons off.”

  “Well…” I temporized. I looked around me. Wayne wasn’t here to escort me, but was that necessary for Lisa Orton? I tried, but I couldn’t begin to feel threatened by Lisa. What could she do to me, share her feelings? “Sure,” I said finally.

  We set a time and I hung up the phone. I thought about Lisa, aggressive one minute and shy the next. A member of more support groups than most states of the union could probably host. Why
the sudden need for tea and sympathy? Did she know something? My fingers tingled. Maybe, just maybe.

  I put my chart away and went back to the task of Jest Gifts paperwork until my appointment with Lisa. Who needed charts when you had live, breathing suspects to interrogate?

  A few hours and a leftover pâté sandwich later, I was ready for tea.

  I gave the guard at the gate of Lisa’s “community” my name and was allowed in. I just hoped his graciousness would continue if I ever really needed to get in. Or out. I parked my old Toyota in Lisa’s two-car driveway, and made my way up her walk. At least her front garden had improved since my last visit. The rosebushes had disappeared from the landscape, and blooming fuchsias had magically appeared in their place. There were new ferns too, and blooming irises and daffodils, bordered by sweet alyssum. Either Lisa had a lot of time on her hands for gardening, or she had hired someone to do a lot of work. I suspected the latter. The transformation from flower Bosnia to paradise was too complete to have been accomplished by an amateur. A hummingbird shyly landed on a fuchsia. It was clearly a first date.

  Lisa opened one of her double doors and peeked out.

  “Kate!” she chirped as if I were an old friend who had surprised her with an unexpected visit.

  And then I was in her living room. I’d forgotten how large that room was. And I’d forgotten the marble floors. Great for something, I was sure—maybe roller skating. Cozied up in the corner of the room was a round cherry wood table I hadn’t remembered, surrounded by four wing chairs upholstered in maroon velvet. And a flowered china tea service on the table. I sighed, trying to imagine that cozy arrangement in my messy house.

  “I made herbal tea,” Lisa announced breathlessly. “I figured you’d like it. You do, don’t you, Kate?”

  I turned to Lisa, thinking it really depended on whether the herbal tea was intrinsically tasty or merely medicinal. There are herbal teas and herbal teas. The medicinal often featured a resemblance to brewed horse sweat. But Lisa’s large round eyes were hopeful. I knew she was in her thirties, but her childlike face made it hard to answer honestly.

  “I love it,” I told her without equivocation.