A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (7 page)

- Eight -

I didn’t blame Wayne. I could have joined the sigh Olympics too about then. Why couldn’t everyone just leave us alone?

I turned to glare at C.C. She yowled one more time and jumped off the back of the couch, slinking off with her own feline sigh. Actually it was more like a grumble, or as close as she could get, considering her vocal cords. I had a few choice replies to that grumble, but didn’t have a chance to express them as the tip of her tail disappeared around the doorway.

“So, Ms. O’Reilley suggested I speak to you,” Park Ranger Yasuda was saying to Wayne when I finally rose from the couch to be a good host. Well, maybe not a good one, but minimally polite at least. I figured I could handle that.

Within a few minutes Park Ranger Yasuda, or David, as he asked us to call him, was sitting between us on our ratty old denim couch and telling us his problems. I was too tired to do anything but listen. And watch. Which wasn’t hard to do.

David Yasuda was a good-looking man, Japanese-American with square, even features and dark, intense eyes under thick, arching eyebrows. And long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He looked about thirty, but I figured Yvonne’s mental age had to be at least half that in any case, so maybe he might not be too young for her fifty-plus real-time years. Assuming she actually did have the crush I was pretty sure she had on him. It was his intensity that was so attractive, I decided as he spoke. And his sincerity.

“Point Abajo doesn’t really have any grounds for legal jurisdiction,” he was saying. “My boss doesn’t think we should get involved.” He twisted his hands together, mottling the skin around his knuckles into patches of beige and white. “But I feel involved! If Ms. O’Reilley and I hadn’t arranged the wedding, Mr. Skyler wouldn’t have died.”

“Never helps to say ‘if,’“ Wayne offered, his voice sounding as stressed as I felt. But at least he was trying. “A thousand things could have gone differently and Sam Skyler might not have died. Not your fault. The only one to blame is the one who actually killed Skyler.” He paused for a second. “If someone did,” he added belatedly.

I wondered if Yasuda knew what Felix had told us, if he knew that Skyler had been pushed over that bluff.

“I know you’re right,” Yasuda murmured, still twisting his hands. “At least intellectually. But emotionally and morally…” He shrugged his shoulders and arched his eyebrows even further. I had a feeling he knew how Sam had died.

And I found myself nodding.

There is something about having your world touched, however peripherally, by a crime as serious as taking someone’s life that breeds an ethical compulsion to find answers, to seek justice. Or maybe not even ethical, maybe just nosy.

And all three of us on that ratty old couch knew it. I finally did sigh then.

“What do you know about Sam Skyler?” Wayne asked.

“Sam?” Yasuda reflected, unclasping his hands. “Well, I admired the man. I know there were those in Marin—and in Golden Valley especially—who didn’t. But I did.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“He was a generous man, in terms of community,” Yasuda told us. “He contributed to the Golden Valley Elementary School after last year’s flooding almost destroyed it. Actually, there wouldn’t be any Golden Valley Elementary School without him. And he gave personal scholarships out of his own pocket to kids all over Marin who were bright but too poor to go anywhere with their lives. Subsidized a whole graduating class in Southham City one year. Anyone who wanted to go to college, he paid their tuition. As long as they kept up their grades. He was a good man, no matter what he did in the past.”

“Then why did people dislike him so much in the community?” I demanded. “Because of the old murder charges?”

“No,” Yasuda answered slowly. “I don’t think very many people even knew that ancient history. And if they did, most of them figured he’d been mistakenly accused and cleared. It was because of the Institute. Not what the Institute did. But the building itself. Did you ever see it?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a huge place. And there was a lot of fuss before it was built. A lot of people didn’t think it belonged in the valley at all, which is mostly residential. Lots of accusations of bribery were flying around when its construction was finally approved by the City Council.”

“Was this before or after he gave the money to rebuild the elementary school?” I asked.

“Before,” Yasuda assured me. He shook his head. “But people still think his contributions were some kind of payoff. Some people, anyway. And lots of these people hadn’t even met him. It’s really weird how the community was split on the issue of Sam Skyler’s worth, and a good half of them didn’t even know him.”

“But you did,” Wayne put in.

“Yeah,” Yasuda admitted. “I live in Golden Valley. I met him a couple of times at community meetings. He was a really impressive guy. But people either liked him or they didn’t.”

That about summed it up. It was a while before Yasuda went on.

“And then there’s Yvonne’s business to consider,” he muttered finally, dropping his gaze, a flush pinkening his tan cheeks. I wondered if he even realized he’d stopped calling our class leader Ms. O’Reilley.

By the time he’d finished telling us how worried he was about the effect of Sam Skyler’s death on Yvonne’s business, and on her delicate psyche, I’d decided that if Yvonne had a crush on the park ranger, the crush was mutual. And then I started wondering what ritual they’d come up with if they got married.

My extended fantasies of samurai, goddess, and geisha, including a good portion of role reversal and even some cross-dressing, were interrupted when Park Ranger Yasuda got up from our couch.

“Thank you for listening,” he said simply.

“Oh…um…thank you,” I responded automatically, embarrassed that I had lost the last half of the conversation while engaged in unscheduled wedding ritual fantasies.

I was in the mood for some cuddling by the time our park ranger had left. Serious cuddling. But Wayne was up, pacing by the front door, jingling his car keys.

“Going out to dinner with the Athertons,” he finally mumbled.

“The Athertons?” I repeated.

“Gary, Liz…”

“And Diana,” I finished for him. “Am I invited?”

This time I couldn’t even hear the content of his mutterings. Though I was pretty sure there was something in there about my
not
being invited.

I kept my own mutterings to myself and got up to join him. Dinner with the Athertons it was. I was inviting myself. How gracious of me.

Wayne was meeting the Athertons at Quels Légumes!—the newest, most chichi vegetarian restaurant in Marin County, one Wayne had been promising to take me to ever since it opened three months before. No wonder he was so embarrassed about not inviting me.

“Diana suggested it,” he mumbled as he handed over his keys to a valet parking person outfitted in green overalls with an orange carrot embroidered on the breast pocket. “Diana’s a vegetarian too, you know.”

“Does she use honey?” I asked sweetly.

Wayne flashed me a look from beneath his brows. Did he suspect sarcasm?

I smiled back innocently, linked my arm with his and we marched up to the entrance of Quels Légumes! And that entrance was impressive. Giant green plaster of Paris columns shaped like asparagus spears flanked the wide glass doors. And over the doors was a fresco of brightly colored fruits and vegetables: broccoli, bell peppers, red onions, corn, lemons, and strawberries, just to name a few.

“Wow,” I whispered as we entered. Even Wayne’s restaurant in the city wasn’t this impressive. I noticed him gazing at the decor with a professional eye. Or was it a critical one? Did he think the entrance was a bit overstated?

Inside, the air was cool and the tables and chairs strange, great rounds of orange, red, purple, and green. It wasn’t until we were escorted to our table by a maitre d’ wearing a green tuxedo with the requisite embroidered carrot that I recognized the shapes of the tables and chairs as oversized replicas of big round vegetable slices.

I ran my eyes over the zucchini, eggplant, tomato, turnip, and beet seats, and chose the eggplant. Wayne placed his bottom on the turnip beside me and we both stared in silence at the carrot-slice table. A vegetarian Disneyland.

“Our soups tonight are gazpacho, eggplant-paprika, and a spicy cilantro-tomato bisque,” the headwaiter told us. I shuddered. My taste buds have always thought of cilantro as a poison, not a food.

“Our specials are mesquite grilled vegetable kebabs over couscous with just a touch of Thai-inspired—”

“Wayne, Kate,” a slow, soft voice murmured behind me, cutting off the poetry of the specials announcements. Diana’s voice, I knew instantly. Who else could send that message of sweet sensuality with just two words? “How good to see you.”

Liz took the zucchini chair, Gary the beet, and Diana, most appropriately, the remaining tomato.

We exchanged greetings and I eyed the Athertons for any untoward reactions to my presence. There were none. Liz just looked strained, her no-nonsense hair rumpled and her brown eyes seeming slightly askew. She put a hand to her temple as Gary buried his face in a menu. Diana’s face was as serene as usual, her round blue eyes staring into the unknown somewhere behind us.

After the specials were all announced, I took a look at my menu. The prices matched the decor perfectly. They were all oversized.

“We’ve been very concerned,” Diana announced as my eyes meandered by the basil-tofu sushi and clove-scented paella. “Sam’s passing has many implications—”

“Not all of them spiritual,” Gary interrupted, his voice a muted shout of frustration. Or maybe I was projecting.

Diana nodded and Gary took over, speaking softly but quickly.

“There’s this group of guys called Growth Imperatives, Unlimited,” he told us, leaning across the table, his handsome features tight with tension. “And they’ve been bugging Diana wherever she goes. Especially this one guy. They want to buy the Institute.”

“I inherit a third of Sam’s estate,” Diana explained. Then she shook her head gently. “Though the inheritance makes me feel closer to Sam’s spirit in a way, I don’t really want any money from it. It makes me feel unclean.”

“And it makes the police feel suspicious,” Gary added with quiet impatience.

Liz’s head swiveled in her son’s direction, her brown eyes widening, accentuating her resemblance to Diana, for all her cropped hair and Diana’s waist-length braid. “The police?” she whispered.

“Yes, Mom,” Gary answered, his voice still low, but the impatience in it growing. “The police see an inheritance of that size as a good motive for murder.”

“But I thought the police weren’t sure of murder,” she objected. “He could have fallen. Didn’t someone say he did fall?”

Gary sighed. It was a day for sighs. And he had cause. His mother was acting as spacey as his sister. Wasn’t Liz supposed to be a court reporter? I’d hate to depend on someone that disoriented to take down my words accurately.

“Mom,” Diana explained in her most soothing voice, “I think the police are sure he was pushed. They haven’t said so, but intuitively, I can feel their belief. It’s best if we assume that’s going to be their approach.”

“And as if it weren’t bad enough with them sniffing around,” Gary added, “these Growth Imperatives guys are like something out of the Mafia. They’ve even been to the restaurant,” he added, turning to Wayne.

“Our restaurant?” Wayne asked.

Gary nodded violently, clearly outraged. As much as a usually quiet man like Gary can be outraged.

Wayne’s brows dropped contemplatively. I noticed he hadn’t divulged to the Athertons what the police actually knew about the circumstances of Sam’s death. I was glad to hear it. Or not hear it, actually. Maybe he didn’t completely trust Diana after all.

I looked back at my menu, my appetite sharpening suddenly. The artichoke-mushroom focaccia sounded good. And the spinach-pine-nut salad.

Which is what I ordered when our waiter came. Gary and Diana ordered carefully, as if choosing a jewel from Tiffany’s. So did Wayne. But Liz just asked for a big salad, “any salad.” And Gary sighed again before choosing for her. His mother’s indifferent attitude toward her meal appeared to rain down hard on him, a man seriously into the restaurant business. I wondered if he’d picked up his sensitivities, not to mention the sigh, from Wayne.

Then Gary started talking about the Growth Imperatives people again.

“Have you told the police about these men?” Wayne asked finally.

Diana shrugged, slowly, gracefully. “It’s up to Nathan, really,” she said. “I don’t know anything about the Institute.”

Then she guided the conversation into less stormy waters. By the time my spinach-pine-nut salad was served, Diana was explaining her holistic approach to tantric yoga instruction.

“So few women really rejoice in their sexuality,” she murmured sadly. But then she brightened. “Still, their transformations are beautiful to see. Merging sexuality with spirituality. Passion and compassion in sex—”

“Diana’s grandfather was a healer too,” Liz interrupted, through a bite of her minted quinoa salad. She was probably about as comfortable as I was discussing tantric sexuality over dinner with near strangers. “He came from Mexico. He was a doctor down there, but not allowed to practice here. But he was still a healer.”