Tea-Totally Dead

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  I turned to look. But the trail behind me curved around the mountain into invisibility about thirty feet away. And abruptly, the scuffling sound was gone too. All I could hear was the thrumming of invisible insects overlaid with the pounding of my own pulse.

  My body tensed all over again. Relax, I told myself. But then the memory of all the things that I was walking around the mountain to avoid dumped down on me like a landslide. Vesta was dead. Wayne withdrawn. And the Skeritts, one of them possibly a murderer. My mouth went dry. I was perched on the edge of a mountain. And there were no guardrails. I wasn’t happy to be alone with the land anymore.

  I took a deep breath and thought about tai chi. Not about the meditation or exercise benefits, but about the martial arts applications. I heard another footstep. It was unmistakable, now that I was listening for it. I centered myself and let my weight sink down until I was rooted on the path, then took an instant to wish that the guy with the dirty contact lens was back.

  Another footstep sounded, and the edge of a figure became visible around the curve of the mountain. It was Gail Norton.

  “Hi there,” I called to her, my voice embarrassingly high. I lowered it. “Enjoying the trail?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer as she strode toward me, frowning. She just stared, her brown eyes cool under her aviator glasses. I hadn’t actually realized before how cool brown eyes could be.

  “Nice view—” I tried again.

  “I have to talk to you about Vesta’s murder,” she cut in brusquely.

  I forced my face into a smile and hoped she wasn’t confessing.

  “I need to talk to an outsider,” Gail pressed on. Her frown cut even deeper into her face as she spoke. “Everyone else seems to be in complete denial. And they’re not just denying the possibility of the murder, but their own feelings toward Vesta as well. And her feelings toward them.”

  She stared at me expectantly.

  “You mean feelings of anger?” I hazarded.

  “Yes, anger,” she agreed. Her face lit up in a pleased smile. It made her plain face seem lovely for a moment, but only for a moment. She resumed her frown as she went on. “Anger and hatred. Obviously, that’s why Vesta staged this reunion. She was a very disturbed woman, but she was certainly in touch with her feelings. That explains her behavior. But how about the rest of the family? I keep asking myself why they agreed to come.”

  “Well, why did you come?” I asked her, hoping that her answer wouldn’t involve a quick shove over the mountainside.

  A blush flooded her face as she clenched and unclenched her fists. Uh-oh. I let my arms float up a few inches, ready to defend myself if necessary.

  “My significant other left me,” she muttered finally.

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I let my arms float back down and wondered who or what her significant other had been. A cat? A professor maybe, as dry as herself? Or how about someone of the opposite temperament, a punk rock musician or a street artist—

  “But back to this reunion,” she said before my imagination could take full flight. “A dysfunctional family like my mother’s can produce an alcoholic if the conditions are right. In fact, it has.” As she paused, I tried to remember. Wasn’t there another aunt out there who was an alcoholic? Or did she mean someone else? “Or it can produce a caretaker personality, an obsessive-compulsive, a full-blown psychotic. Just to name a few types. And it can produce them for generations to come.” She bent closer to me, peering into my eyes. “But right now, I’m wondering if it produced a murderer.”

  I peered back into her eyes, wondering if I was looking at that murderer. I took a deep breath.

  “Do you suspect anyone in particular—?” I began.

  “You know what?” came a voice from behind her.

  I looked up, startled by the new voice. But Gail was more than startled. Her eyes flared wide open with fear for an instant. Then she whirled around to face the speaker. It was, of course, Eric.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she yelped. So much for the dispassionate therapist.

  “I didn’t sneak up on you!” he argued. “That’s totally bogus. I just wanted to tell you guys something—”

  “Well, what is it?” she demanded.

  Eric glared at her. “I don’t want to tell you anymore,” he said with as much dignity as a boy of thirteen squirming on his tiptoes can muster. “Never mind.”

  “Eric, please be reasonable,” she said, regaining her therapist’s cool. “If you have something to say…”

  I turned to look out at the green hills again, to stare at the blue of the lake. But the magic was gone. I couldn’t imagine myself alone here anymore. I began walking again.

  I was glad to see the rear end of the snack bar when it came into view, signifying the end of the loop trail. As I headed back to the parking lot, I could hear Eric and Gail arguing behind me. Actually, I only heard pieces of their words on the wind, which had returned in nearly full force now.

  Ingrid was still sitting on the redwood bench, her back to the view. Her eyes were half closed, drowsy now. She didn’t look as miserable as before. Dru and Bill were sitting alongside her, faced in the opposite direction. Dru was uncharacteristically quiet. But not for long.

  “Oh, Kate. There you are,” she trilled, swiveling her head around when I picked up my purse. “This is such a peaceful place to just sit and look out. It must be twenty years since I’ve been here.” She stood up and turned her whole body toward me. “Oh, look. Here comes Lori. Yoo-hoo!” she called out.

  Lori and Mandy came trotting up all bright-eyed, with leaves in their hair, looking like multi-generational wood nymphs. As the wind blew their way, Lori opened her arms as if to embrace it. Her bracelets jingled ecstatically.

  “Yes, oh wind!” she sang out. “Yes.”

  Mandy giggled. But then, abruptly, her face grew grave.

  I followed her gaze. Wayne and Ace shambled across the parking lot, the somber expressions on their low-browed faces almost identical. Death was back. Lori let her arms drop slowly.

  It was a long and quiet wait for Trent to show up. When he did, we all loaded up in our respective vehicles for the winding drive back to the hotel. Eric rode with us again, treating us to an extended reading of his Marin guidebook.

  All I wanted was to go home when we dropped Eric off with the others at the Redwood Grove Inn. But Dru insisted on a guided tour of their lodgings. Besides the Old Burl Cafe, the inn boasted a bar (dark wood grain decor with lots of ferns), a lobby (oyster-beige walls with a giant redwood carving of a frolicking dolphin), a pool (complete with pool chairs and granite statuary), and identical rooms (sand-beige with evergreen-green drapes and bedspreads).

  “Nice, very attractive,” I was saying for the third or fourth time. “But it’s getting late. We really have to go.”

  “Why don’t you have dinner with us?” Dru suggested, her blue eyes sparkling. With mischief or pleasure, I couldn’t really tell. “The others are probably going to eat in that dreary old restaurant downstairs, but Bill and Gail and I thought we’d be adventurous. Get some Thai food maybe.”

  I looked up at Wayne and saw to my amazement that he was nodding. “Sounds good,” he growled without smiling.

  My whole body clenched. I wanted to scream. I wanted away from these people! This wasn’t investigating. This was torture.

  I was feeling a little better an hour later when our Por-Pia Tod spring rolls finally came. At least they were vegetarian. Dru had thought ordering vegetarian would be “really fun,” and neither Bill, Gail nor Wayne raised any objection.

  “… so I worked myself up from a lowly bookkeeper to the comptroller of a corporation,” Dru was saying, thus completing the story of her adult life.

  “Very appropriate, Mother,” Gail commented. “For a controlling person like yourself.”

  It was only when Dru laughed that I realized Gail had made a joke.

  Bill saluted his stepdaughter with his fourth glass of wine. Th
ey didn’t serve hard liquor here.

  I dipped my spring roll into the sweet and sour sauce and bit in. It was hot and crispy, bursting with shredded veggies, tofu and bean sprouts. I stole a look at Wayne, hoping he would eat too and was relieved to see him pop a whole spring roll into his mouth and chew. It was the first food he’d had since the buffet the night before. Maybe Dru’s stream of social babble was what he needed to hear now.

  “I just wanted to tell you how really, really terrible I feel about poor, poor Vesta,” Dru cooed, her cheery, freckled face taking on as solemn an expression as it would allow.

  Wayne paled, but continued to chew.

  “Jesus, Mother,” Gail said, shaking her head. “Your sense of timing—”

  “Now, honey,” Dru admonished. “You have better manners than that. Doesn’t she, Bill?” Bill blinked in answer. “You certainly didn’t learn to swear like that from me.”

  “But—”

  “Vesta was a very, very good big sister to me,” Dru continued. She smiled, a faraway look worthy of Katherine Hepburn lifting her gaze. Was this an act? “There was a girl in my fourth-grade class, Ruthie Thompson, who used to make my life miserable with her teasing and taunting. Well, I told Vesta about it and Vesta collared the girl, collared her good.” Dru’s laughter tinkled merrily. “Ruthie never made fun of me or my parents again.”

  “Why would Ruthie—” I began, wanting to ask about the Skeritt family elders. What was it that made them something to make fun of? Or made them dysfunctional parents from Gail’s point of view? But Dru was on a roll.

  “For my fifth birthday,” she rattled on, “Vesta dressed up just like a clown in the circus, and put on a show for me and my little friends. She was thirteen, I think. She made her costume out of a bunch of rags that Ma was going to throw away. And Ace did gymnastics.” Dru clapped her hands together like the five-year-old she must have been then. “Handstands, somersaults, flips. Even Trent helped. He held the hoop for Ace to jump through.”

  When Dru’s eyes refocused, they landed on Wayne. “I just wanted to make sure to give you some good memories of your mother,” she said softly.

  Wayne nodded. I reached under the table for his hand. His face didn’t change as he gave my hand a quick squeeze and then reached out for another spring roll. My stomach relaxed a little.

  “Vesta was always such a good sport,” Dru told him, her voice upbeat again. “She wouldn’t want you to brood over her death.”

  “Mother,” Gail objected, coolly this time. “Just because you’re ready to deny your own feelings doesn’t mean you can project your attitudes onto Wayne….”

  Gail and Dru argued through the servings of Tofu Tod (deep-fried bean cakes with chili sauce), Pad Pak (sautéed vegetables), Praram Pak (vegetables in peanut sauce), and Pad Ped (vegetables in curry sauce). Neither of them appeared to be particularly angry, though. In fact, their fighting words seemed almost affectionate. Bill drank and watched, nodding occasionally at Dru’s appeals for agreement. Wayne ate, slowly and without apparent pleasure, but taking sustenance all the same. And finally, the long meal came to an end.

  I let out a long breath, imagining freedom soon, and reached into my purse for a credit card. A piece of paper was shoved in on top of my wallet. I pulled it out. It was a sheet of hotel stationery. Across the top it read “Redwood Grove Inn” in script. And across the bottom in block letters, “LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE. WAYNE WILL BE HAPPIER THIS WAY.”

  I stopped breathing as I shoved the stationery back into my purse. My heart marched into my ears, boots pounding, as my mind ran in circles. Was this a threat? And then, through the pounding, I heard my name being called.

  “Kate?”

  I looked up and saw Wayne frowning at me.

  “Are you all right?” Dru asked. Then I noticed that it wasn’t just Wayne. Everyone was looking at me.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. It was hard to get the words out. My throat felt too tight. I remembered to breathe again. “Just had a thought for a new gag,” I added.

  “Oh, I would just love to work for your gag gift company,” Dru trilled. “You know, I actually sold a few ideas to Hallmark in my time.”

  “Oh, did you?” I said politely, on automatic now. Had Dru put the message in my purse when she picked up her own handbag back at the mountain? Or maybe Ingrid as she “watched” them? Or Eric? Or just about anyone else, for that matter. I had no idea who had gone near my purse while I walked around the loop trail.

  “I had a teeny little idea for a line to go on one of your bookkeeping cups,” Dru told me, bending forward eagerly.

  “Oh, what was that?” I asked obediently. I prepared a smile in advance.

  “Bookkeepers are a credit to their ledgers,” she whispered. “You can have it for free.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I whispered back.

  C.C. greeted me with a friendly yowl when we got home. Or maybe it was just a hungry one. I picked her up and peered into her face. C.C. is a small black cat with white markings. A white spot that looks like a mini beret is balanced over her right ear, and another spot that could pass for a goatee covers the bottommost point of her chin. She squinted her eyes at me, looking far wiser than she probably is.

  Should I tell Wayne about the note? I wondered at her. Should I take it to the police?

  Wayne had been silent all the way home, lost in his own thoughts. If he had said anything at all to me, I probably would have shown him the note. But he didn’t.

  C.C. meowed into my face, reminding me that she was a cat, not an advisor. I set her on the floor and looked for Wayne. He had settled down on the couch again to stare at the box that held his mother’s birthday coat. Oh, well.

  I snuck across the entryway into the far corner of my office. Wayne couldn’t see me there from the living room couch. Then I pulled the hotel stationery back out of my purse. “LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE. WAYNE WILL BE HAPPIER THIS WAY.” On the second reading it sounded more like friendly advice and less like a death threat. But what did it mean? Who were the sleeping—

  “Kate?” came Wayne’s voice from across the way.

  I shoved the note back in my purse guiltily. Tomorrow I’d deal with it, I told myself. Show it to Wayne or not. Show it to the police or not. But deal with it somehow, no matter what.

  “What is it, sweetie?” I asked, trotting back to the entryway.

  “Got some calls,” he told me, pointing to my answering machine. At least he was talking. I played my messages.

  The first one was from my warehousewoman, Judy. I groaned and went on to the next one.

  “They’re gonna get me too!” someone’s voice wailed.

  - Nine -

  The voice on the answering machine dropped to a whisper. “Where are you guys?” it asked. It said something more, but I couldn’t quite understand the words. I stopped the tape.

  Wayne walked up behind me. “Who is it?” he growled.

  “Wait a second,” I told him. I rewound the tape partway. Then I turned up the sound and played it again. Now I could hear the whispered words clearly.

  “… are you guys?” it asked. And then, “I’m scared, I’m so scared. It’s not fair!” Abruptly, the voice had turned loud and shrill, vibrating the tinny speaker into distortion. Hastily, I turned the sound back down. “It was the visitors, right? They got Vesta, right? And now they’re gonna get me….”

  It was Harmony. It had to be.

  “Come on over, okay?” the message finished up after a few more minutes of babble. Then we heard a dial tone.

  I turned to Wayne.

  “Call or go over?” I asked brusquely.

  He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t need any more stress, I realized. Or distress, for that matter.

  “I’ll call,” I told him softly and tapped out Vesta’s number.

  “Harmony Fitch residence,” the voice on the other end of the wire answered cheerfully.

  “Harmony, this is Kate,” I said. Then as an afterthought, “T
hat is you, Harmony. Isn’t it?”

  A long, high-pitched giggle answered my question. I guessed that Harmony wasn’t scared anymore. I also guessed that her upbeat mood was at least partly due to chemicals. Well, at least Wayne and I didn’t need to visit and cheer her up.

  “Are you all right now?” I asked her, just to be sure.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she asked back, her words in singsong like a child’s.

  At first, I thought she was just being cute. But then I wondered if there was a hidden meaning to her question. With Harmony, there often was.

  “Do you need to tell me something?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to be drawn into one of the Alice-in-Wonderland conversations that Harmony and I had gotten into in the past.

  “Vesta willed me everything, right?” she said and giggled again. “Her condo is mine now.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that will or no will, the condo was still Wayne’s, just like it had been when Vesta was still alive. He made the payments. He owned it. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “She willed me her secrets too,” Harmony added. This time she didn’t just giggle. She laughed, a low, spooky laugh that Vincent Price would have been proud of. I could almost see her hugging herself, her pale blue eyes glowing phosphorescently in the dark along with her crystals and crosses.

  Stop that, I told myself, rubbing the goose bumps that had risen on my arms.

  “What secrets are you talking—” I began.

  “I’m having a party,” she interrupted. “Tomorrow morning at ten. All the Skeritts will be here, right? I want you guys to come too.”

  “Have you actually asked the Skeritts?” I prodded, not sure if this party had any more claim to reality than her alleged ownership of the condo.

  “Oh, they’ll come,” she assured me. “Ace and Ingrid promised me, right?”

  Ace and Ingrid probably felt sorry for the poor woman, I thought. So did I, for that matter.

  “We’d love to come,” I told her.