A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (18 page)

- Nineteen -

Dorothy, Wayne, and I all jumped in place in perfect synchronization. We could have been the Rockettes.

“Are you guys coming or going?!” a masculine voice bellowed out the window of an SUV. “Jeez, you’re standing there like cows!”

In watching the red Miata, we hadn’t noticed the other moving vehicle in the lot. Now, it honked again, veered around us, and sped off.

I wanted to run after it like a dog and rip off its bumpers, but I knew I wasn’t fast enough.

The three of us walked cautiously across the lot to the Toyota. I took the wheel once we got there—my car needed its true owner’s loving touch once in a while.

The engine died the first time I started it up. I swiveled my head around to look at Wayne. It hadn’t died on
him.
Could the car really prefer Wayne to its true owner? Could Wayne have alienated my auto’s affections? Jealousy isn’t a pretty thing, especially when it’s over a car. I decided not to challenge Wayne to a duel. Instead, I pumped the Toyota again and turned the key, and we were on the road. Maybe the car had just been sending me a little reminder of how much it had missed me.

“I can’t help but think that Van Eisner is the obvious choice for murderer,” my Aunt Dorothy began from the back seat of the car once we were scudding along the back roads of Mill Valley.

“But is he together enough to plan a complicated murder?” Wayne asked thoughtfully.

“No,” I answered.

“He’s certainly paranoid about his drug use,” my aunt went on. “Could Steve have threatened him with police exposure if he didn’t give up drugs?”

There was a silence in the car. Were both Wayne and I imagining Steve doing just that? It sounded like him, all right.

“Still, whoever planned Steve’s murder found another car, disguised themselves, hit quickly, and disappeared,” I mused aloud. “Can you imagine Van focusing clearly enough to pull it off?”

“No,” Dorothy agreed. “But perhaps he was very lucky. Isaac’s murder didn’t take a lot of imagination.”

“But why would Van kill Isaac?” I asked gently.

“I don’t really know,” my aunt admitted. “Isaac was an intelligent man; perhaps Isaac figured out it was Van and challenged him with the knowledge.”

I just wished Ann was still with us to help with this analysis. Because as much as I would have liked the murderer to be Van, I still just didn’t believe it. Van was an insensitive womanizer and a bumbler, not to mention a man with a drug problem, but he didn’t strike me as a murderer. Then again, none of the suspects struck me as a murderer. I sighed and guided the Toyota home.

Once we got there and saw who was waiting on our front doorstep, I let out another sigh. Felix was back.

“Howdy-hi!” he greeted us as we trudged our way up the stairs.

Wayne and I mumbled mixed curses.

Only my aunt said, “Hello, Felix.”

But it wasn’t my aunt that Felix wanted to talk to. It was me. Lucky me. He practically dragged me through the door after I opened it, ranting incoherently.

“…so whaddaya think, man?” he asked once he was sitting on the denim couch. “Janis and Jimi, man. Gotta be the Brother. Holy socks, this is the real whazoo, don’cha think? I mean, you were there and everything—”

“Slow down, Felix,” I told him. I put a restraining hand over his mouth, felt his mustache, and instinctively drew my hand back and wiped it on my Chi-Pants.

“But Kate, it’s happening, like the pope and his poodle—”

“The pope and his poodle?” I asked, now hopelessly confused. My brain was swirling in the blender of Felix’s words.

“Like Cher and Captain Kirk, man,” he expanded.

I didn’t want to know. I turned away, but that didn’t stop him.

“Listen to me, Kate,” he insisted. “You were right—Brother Ingenio is for real.”

I turned back to him. “I never said Brother Ingenio was for real,” I pronounced very clearly.

“Sheesh, Lucy!” Felix pushed his face into mine. I could smell onions and curry. “You told me he was the Honest Abe incarnation in my dream, Kate.”

“In your dream?” I asked, the slightest thread of light dawning. “You mean, you think I’m responsible for what you dream?”

“And Jimi told me, too. Brother Ingenio channeled him, whiz-bang, whoopdee-doo.”

“Let me get this straight,” I tried. “You believe the words confirming Brother Ingenio’s validity as a…a what?”

“Like a holy guy, ya know, a visionary, man—”

“All right, so you believe that the brother’s for real because he told you with his own mouth—”

“He was only using his mouth to channel Jimi Hendrix, Kate. Jeez Louise, don’cha get it?”

“Fine,” I said. It was cowardly, but I didn’t want to get into a logic-slinging match with Felix. It would just drive me crazy—or crazier—and it wouldn’t really be logic, anyway.

“Be that way,” Felix sulked. “Ted believes me.”

“Ted who?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. I searched my mind for dead Teds. “Ted Bundy?”

“Criminy, Kate!” he protested. “Ted Bundy’s under the lilies. Ted
Kimmochi.”

It took a second for me to switch gears. I wanted to tell Felix that Jimi Hendrix was as dead as Ted Bundy, but Felix’s words led me in another direction completely.

“Have you been bugging the suspects, Felix?” I asked.

Felix raised his eyebrows.

“Of course, I have, Kate. I’m a reporter, remember? I get the poop. No one else has a clue. Betcha you know who did it, though, right?”

His large eyes reflected craftiness as he spoke.

“No, I don’t know who did it, Felix. Do you?”

“Nah,” he admitted. “My sources are as dry as Martha Stewart’s toilet bowl.”

“You must know something,” I wheedled, wondering if my own eyes looked crafty now, too—and wondering if Martha Stewart really had a waterless toilet bowl.

“Well, he did have these two amigos, ya know—”

“The two reporters at the funeral?”

Felix nodded. “The dude didn’t have that many real compadres, Kate,” he said. “So tell me about Brother Ingenio—”

“I don’t know anything about Brother Ingenio!” I blared.

Felix looked at me with hurt in his soulful eyes.

“Perhaps you’d like to meditate, Felix?” Aunt Dorothy suggested. “The outdoors are especially nice for meditation.”

I could have hugged my aunt because now Felix was babbling to
her
as she led him out to sit under our walnut tree. I watched from the window as Dorothy situated him. Felix sat cross-legged under the tree and a stray green walnut fell on his head.

“Nirvana,” I muttered.

Wayne snorted next to me.

Then my aunt was back in the living room. She was smiling, but somewhere there was an edge of impatience in her face. It was something about the way her chin was raised. Had she been taking lessons from Captain Wooster?

“Are we doing anything more today?” she asked sweetly. Maybe I’d imagined the impatience.

Then I remembered the group get-together at Garrett’s. I glanced at Wayne. He shook his head, ever so slightly. My aunt didn’t belong at an extended meeting of the Heartlink group any more than Felix did.

“Not really,” I muttered.

Dorothy’s eyes hardened. She’d seen the look and the head-shaking.

“All right, there’s a group meeting,” I confessed, “but, I—”

“I understand completely, Katie,” Aunt Dorothy assured me. “The group is for members and sigos only.” My muscles loosened. “I won’t impose. Anyway, I wanted to go over some wedding ideas this afternoon.” My muscles tightened again.

Dorothy gave me a big hug, announced, “You’ll call me,” and was out the door before I had time to speak.

Wayne and I plopped down together in the hanging chair for two as soon as she was gone.

“Let’s try to see Steve’s journalist friends after the group meeting,” Wayne suggested.

“Good idea,” I answered, but I didn’t get up. Aunt Dorothy seemed to have taken my energy with her when she left.

“Wayne?” I murmured after a few moments had passed. “What do you think of Felix and Brother Ingenio?”

Wayne grunted.

I turned to him. He was blushing. I had forgotten—Wayne was as embarrassed to speak about spiritual matters as he was to speak about sexual ones. He had no problems experiencing either state, but talking about it was another matter. In all the years we’d been together, we’d had less than a half-dozen conversations about what we felt like when we did our separate meditations.

“Know about contemplation,” he muttered finally. “Read a little. Still, can only go with my own feelings. Just don’t know…” He faltered.

“But Brother Ingenio doesn’t ring your chimes,” I finished for him. It was too painful to watch him try to explain. “Me, neither,” I let him know. “You know how I meditate,” I went on softly. “Sometimes, I even feel a certain spiritual presence and a sense of peace, but I don’t like to rely on someone else to interpret that presence. No dead rock stars are talking to me.”

Wayne chuckled.

I pressed up against him.

“Thanks,” I said.

“For what?” he asked, his eyebrows lifting.

“For…” I paused. I wasn’t even sure myself. “For everything,” I finished huskily.

And then he blushed again.

“All right, time to call Steve’s friends,” I declared.

Wayne almost leapt from the hanging chair to do the deed.

I heard the rumble of his voice from across the entryway, and then he was back.

“We’ll see them for an early dinner,” he announced. “Time to go to Garrett’s.”

I looked down at my watch. It was time. Too bad. I’d have liked to have sat with Wayne and watched him blush a little longer.

We passed Felix on the way out. He was still under the walnut tree. From the tilt of his body, I guessed he was asleep. Or maybe that’s just how he meditated.

Going to Garrett’s and Jerry’s house in the San Ricardo hills was usually a pleasure, if only because their home was so arty. The white living room with its black furnishings and black-and-white photos could have been clipped from a magazine. But that afternoon, I remembered that this was where it had all started—this was where someone had stolen Wayne’s Jaguar key from my key chain.

As we walked into their living room, I looked at those who’d already arrived and wondered if one of them had been the thief. And the murderer.

The doorbell rang again, and Van Eisner was ushered in.

Van didn’t look good. His slight body looked even thinner than usual, and his sharp features just seemed to accent his reddened, round eyes. He rubbed his hands together as he looked around the room.

“Hey, any of you guys tell the cops about my personal habits?” he demanded.

“You’re probably a drug addict, but that doesn’t excuse your behavior,” Ted’s wife, Janet, jumped in. “Back off.”

Van laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh; it was way too shrill and way too loud.

“You’re protecting your sweet hubby, and he’s having an—”

“Janet’s right,” Jerry interjected, his high voice menacing. He’d entered the room carrying a tray of fresh-baked cookies. A warm, sugary smell floated through the air. But suddenly, Jerry looked scary. “Back off, Van,” he repeated Janet’s admonition.

“Yeah, back off,” Mike Russo parroted from behind Jerry. He stuck out a hand, cocking it like a gun.

Jerry grinned and turned to the boy, and the menacing man I had seen a moment ago was gone. The roly-poly bear was back.

“Make fun of me, will ya? See if
you
get any cookies,” Jerry said to Mike.

Mike pretended to re-holster his gun and then grabbed two cookies off the tray.

“You little—” Jerry began affectionately, but Van wasn’t finished.

“All you guys think you’re so high and mighty,” he complained. “Well, I know secrets, too. So just don’t be telling mine—”

“Van, no one here wants to tell the police anything but who killed Steve and Isaac,” Laura Summers said. Her deep, quiet voice held a certainty that was soothing. “We all understand your wish for privacy and will respect it.”

Finally, Van seemed to deflate. He flopped down into a black leather armchair and put his head into his hands, mumbling, “Thank you.”

The whole room seemed to expand in relief—almost the whole room.

“So, Ted probably
didn’t
call the police,” Janet snapped at Van, her hands on her hips. “But I wouldn’t blame him if he did. People like you—”

Van was out of his seat in less than a second and headed toward Janet. In that second, Ted stepped in front of his wife.

“I’ll kill her!” Van shouted, and I wondered if my Aunt Dorothy was right after all.

“Whoa, Van,” Ted said, his arms raised, palms out. “Don’t be so harsh. It’s okay.”

“But Ted, she—”

“I know,” Ted commiserated. And I’m sure he
did
know.