A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (2 page)
Read A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“Here, Captain,” a good-sized woman with large hands and strong features answered as she came into the room. I could hear the South in those two words. And I smelled something like lilac. It was a nice change from the scent of communal sweat. “Lord, lord,” she went on. “You gonna calm down and act like real folks now?”
Amazingly, Wooster did calm down. He filled her in on the situation, at length. “So we got this car. And him.” He pointed at Wayne. “And a wife. And a group of ‘sensitive’ guys who might have seen it—”
“And their wives, kids, and partners?” I couldn’t help adding.
Wooster whirled his head my way.
“Well, it makes sense,” I explained. “They probably all knew about the group and when it ended. I did.”
So Wayne had to write-out a whole new list of names, though most of the addresses and phone numbers were the same.
“I want them all in here!” the captain bellowed at the last officer standing, the one who’d phoned in about the car.
And he got them. Assemblywoman Laura Summers was first. Officer Quesada led Laura Summers in, announcing that she’d been alone at her house, hers and Steve Summers’ house.
I watched Captain Wooster. How would he handle the soon-to-be-grieving widow? Wasn’t there supposed to be some gentleness here, some protocol? Wouldn’t it be better to give her the news in the privacy of her home? Assemblywoman Laura Summers was a large woman with an all-American face, blue eyes, golden hair, and a pert nose. And a concerned expression that didn’t look any more feigned now than it ever did. Laura was always concerned—about the rights of children, the rights of senior citizens, the rights of—
“Tell me what’s going on
now
, Captain,” she demanded quietly. Determination was in her eyes, but there was fear there, too. My chest hurt, watching her. Was that my heart?
Captain Wooster asked her to sit, with all the consideration he was probably capable of mustering, which consisted of lowering his voice into normal range and contorting his features into something less angry.
“That won’t be necessary, Captain,” she replied, her voice slow and serious. Even slower and more serious than usual.
“Would you like to find somewhere more private?” he asked her.
“No,” she replied. She glanced at Wayne and me. “These are my friends. Whatever you have to tell me you can tell me here. And now.” There was no mistaking the command in her voice. The captain complied.
“Your husband was hit by a car,” he told her. “The car then backed up and ran over him. He’s dead.”
Laura Summers stood like a rock, the only change her skin tone, which seemed to be graying. And her eyes; her eyes sparkled with something. It might have been tears, or anger, or something else entirely.
“Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry—” I began.
The captain’s glare cut me off as efficiently as a chain saw.
I suppose it was just as well. I couldn’t think of the right words to say, anyway. And I lost sight of Laura’s face as Marge got up and put her arms around the new widow. Laura stiffened at her first touch, but then seemed to melt into the support Marge was offering. Big as Laura Summers was, Marge was bigger, at least for the time being.
My own eyes filled then. Poor Laura. Steve was gone. I literally couldn’t imagine what she must have been feeling. And she wouldn’t be able to grieve privately for long. Her whole life belonged to the public. Damn. It just wasn’t fair.
I heard voices from the other room. Garrett’s, I thought, and Jerry Urban’s. And maybe Van Eisner’s.
Did Laura hear them, too?
Suddenly, she pushed her way out of Marge’s arms and turned to face Captain Wooster, eyes still glittering.
“Who did it?” she demanded.
“We don’t know,” the captain replied, and I almost felt sorry for him.
“I will expect you to find out,” Laura told him.
“Expect away, then,” the captain challenged, whatever gentleness he’d been exercising gone now. “Eve’s apples, for all we know it might have been you, Assemblywoman.” He made fists with his hands. “It’s the wife every other time. If they can’t divorce you, they kill you.”
Laura Summers seemed to grow taller in front of us.
“I am a member of the California State Assembly,” she pronounced.
“Well, I’m a member of the royal donkey society,” the captain countered. “I’m trying to be fair here, so don’t pull rank on me. I don’t care if you’re the president. You’re a suspect.”
Laura didn’t even flinch. Maybe this rude treatment was what she needed to keep her sane. “Are you courting a lawsuit?” she asked.
“Nah,” the captain answered. “I’m courting an early retirement.”
“Ma’am, I’m Sergeant Marge Abbott,” Marge intervened. “Ya gotta forgive the captain. His mouth’s enough to make ya wanna wear earplugs sometimes, but he’s going through a rough time.”
And Laura Summers wasn’t going through a rough time?
Marge must have caught my thought.
“Ma’am,” she said, her voice tender now. “You aren’t going to get over this easy, I know. And you’re angry now. That’s good. Real good. But the captain isn’t the one to take it out on. We’ll find your husband’s killer. Make it easy for us.”
Laura shrunk back down to normal size.
“Is there someone who can take care of you?” Marge asked.
“I called my personal assistant,” Laura mumbled, her head down. “She should be here by now. Our son is away at college.”
The captain nodded at Officer Quesada. The officer went to the other room and brought in a well-dressed young woman with a frightened look on her face.
“Ms. Summers?” she asked.
“Julie, take me home,” Laura Summers ordered.
Julie took her arm to lead her out of the room. Laura Summers didn’t look like an assemblywoman anymore. She looked like a widow.
“One last thing, Assemblywoman Summers,” the captain interjected. “Where have you been for the last hour?”
“Shopping,” she mumbled, her voice sounding drugged. “And then I went home to wait for Steve.”
Now my chest really hurt. I glared at the captain as Laura’s assistant led her from the room.
Wayne stood up then. “May we leave, sir?” he asked.
“Siddown!” the captain thundered. “Women!” he snorted.
Wayne sat back down as Captain Wooster gave his orders. “Bring in the others, one by one, or in couples.”
Van Eisner was next. I knew from the potluck gossip that Eisner had a reputation as a lady’s man, but it was hard to believe, looking at him. Van was slight, short and balding, with sharp little features that could have been drawn by a cartoonist—sharp, pointy little chin, sharp nose, and nasty little eyes.
“Look,” he whined as he was escorted in. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t me, okay?”
It was not okay. Van Eisner shifted and turned in his seat as Wooster prodded and probed. The best Eisner had was an alibi of sorts. He had met with a client some time after the group broke up, but he still would have had time to hit Steve with Wayne’s car and make it to the appointment.
After even more questions than my mother had asked me about Wayne that morning, Captain Wooster finally got to a good one for Eisner.
“How come you haven’t asked what happened?”
Van looked up, his little eyes squinting.
“I don’t wanna know,” he cried, and that was that. The captain let him go.
Why Captain Wooster kept Wayne and me there was a mystery. Maybe he did it because he realized we really were blameless witnesses? Nah, not likely, I decided. So we were still there as Garrett Peterson and Jerry Urban were led into the room. Garrett was a handsome man with cinnamon-colored skin and a bullet-shaped skull, offset by wide, friendly features and wide-set, gentle eyes. This was in contrast to his lover, Jerry Urban, who was older and molded more along the lines of a benign bear, with a round face, full cheeks, and a constant smile. Well, almost constant. It wasn’t on his face now.
“Are you two all right?” Garrett asked Wayne and me as he entered the room. This was typical of Garrett. He was a psychiatrist, after all.
“Never mind about those two,” the captain advised, getting right to the point. “Where were you two for the past hour?” Jerry had been at work at his robotic golf caddie start-up company, and Garrett had driven to visit him after the group meeting. But still, the gap in time was not enough for a perfect alibi.
“Is Steve all right?” Garrett asked after his round of interrogation.
“No,” the captain answered.
“But—”
“Why did you ask?” the captain prodded, leaning forward.
“I saw Laura Summers on her way out,” Garrett answered solemnly.
They were dismissed.
Before the next interrogatees came in, Wayne had a question of his own.
“Sir, when can I have my car back?”
Well, at least that brightened the captain’s day. He sat back in his chair and roared with laughter.
“Your car is evidence, now, boy,” he finally answered. “Wanna clue? Think Armageddon.”
Then Ted Kimmochi and his wife came in. Ted’s perfect oval face was blessed with a round nose and expressive eyes under dark brows. Unfortunately, his expression was usually tragic. Today, at least, it was appropriate. Janet McKinnon-Kimmochi looked a lot like Ted, except that she wasn’t Asian, and her round nose was scattered with freckles, her oval face topped with red hair. Her expression was not tragic, however—it was irritated.
“We have clients waiting,” she announced as she sailed into the room with Ted in tow. “What’s this all about?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” Captain Wooster assured her. And he did, at length. Ted’s alibi was driving to the office (and Janet’s, being at the office), but still that wasn’t a real alibi because he arrived there after Steve Summers had already been hit by Wayne’s car.
“This is awful,” Ted murmured. “Just awful. Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it?”
“Yep,” the captain agreed and let them go.
I had a feeling that even Captain Wooster’s energy had its limits, and those limits were sorely tried by the arrival of a drunken Isaac Herrick, accompanied by his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Helen. He had visited her after the group, but, of course, not soon enough to let him off the hook for Steve Summers’ death.
The captain’s interrogation was interrupted by Isaac’s jokes, guffaws, and scatological references. Helen might have been mute. But Isaac, even in his drunken state, was worried. I could tell by the unease with which he delivered his jokes, and by the worry in his weathered red face, its redness accented by his white, wavy hair. He took off his black-rimmed glasses and polished them, and I saw even more worry in his bleary eyes, a look that was reflected on Helen’s plump, no-nonsense face.
“Bad?” he asked finally.
Helen looked at the captain, her intelligent eyes searching…and finding.
But the captain didn’t answer. Marge did.
“Bad,” she confirmed.
Carl Russo was the last one to be escorted in. His son Mike wasn’t with him. If you wanted to go by looks alone, Carl would be your man for murder. He was a broad man with fleshy features and a habitual, guarded look of disinterest. He squirmed through all of the captain’s questions. Carl had no particular alibi. He had driven down to the beach to think after the group. He wouldn’t say what he was thinking about, but I would have bet it was his absent son, Mike.
After Wooster had finished with Carl, he turned to Wayne and me with one word: “Go!”
We went. As fast as we could stumble out of the room.
None of the group members were left in the main room of the library. I was initially surprised, but then I saw the policeman who had probably chased them away.
On the way home in my Toyota, I prodded Wayne about Laura. Was Captain Wooster right? Was it usually the wife? I thought of her slumped shoulders and graying skin; but still…
“Did Steve want a divorce?” I asked Wayne, not really expecting an answer.
“No, he adored her,” he told me, his voice gruff with tears.
“This was her day off,” I reminded him. I remembered her talking about it at the potluck, how she had to have one day out of the public eye, one day alone with her husband when the legislature wasn’t in session. “Wasn’t that awfully convenient for her?”
“She took the day off to be with Steve,” Wayne murmured. “You know Laura and Steve, they were Frick and Frack. They agreed on politics, on ethics, on everything.” His voice faltered.
“All right,” I conceded. “Not Laura Summers. But who else would want to kill Steve Summers?”
“Journalist,” Wayne muttered.
“He made someone angry with his articles?”
Wayne made a sound that was somewhere between a cry and a whimper.
“We talked about our worst secrets,” he whispered.
- Three -
“What?” I yelped, my Toyota swerving to the left. I righted it, the hairs raising on my arms, just thinking of the damage a car could do.
“Well…it’s all confidential—”
“Wayne, there isn’t any more confidentiality. Steve is dead. And your worst secrets—”
“You’re right,” he mumbled.
Whoa. Did he really say that? Did he mean it? If he did, I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to ask questions. We were almost to the highway entrance, and I wanted to know as much as possible before I had to concentrate on helping my car onto the ramp.
“What happened?” I asked softly, adding, “Tell me everything,” a little less softly.
Wayne was silent for a moment, and I thought he’d changed his mind already, but then he began to speak. When he did, his words came faster than usual, as if they’d been waiting at the door to tumble out.
“It was Isaac’s idea,” he explained. “He thought we should all tell our very worst secrets to test the bonds of the group. So he pressured everyone until they did.”
“That sounds like Isaac,” I muttered, picturing the elder man’s drunken smile. “The man always has been an accident looking for a place to happen.” I regretted my choice of words the moment they were out, but luckily Wayne didn’t seem to notice.
“Exactly. Isaac just wanted to stir the pot. You know how he always watched everyone. Or maybe you didn’t,” Wayne amended, remembering suddenly that I wasn’t a member of the group. He was silent again.
I quickly glanced his way. His eyebrows were at half-mast, covering a good portion of his eyes. Did he already think he’d said too much?
“What were the secrets?” I prodded, keeping my voice calmer than my tingling body felt.
“Kate, I’m not sure I should say,” Wayne objected, his face reddening. Was that heat or shame? Or something else entirely? “What if these secrets have nothing to do with the murder? What if the murderer was somebody who had nothing to do with the group?”
“What do you think the chances of that are?” I shot back, as the entrance sign for the highway loomed.
Wayne sighed in answer.
I urged my car onto the highway gently, realizing I had to handle Wayne the same way.
“Did everyone tell their secrets?”
“Yes,” Wayne answered, as if enduring Gestapo interrogation.
And then the Toyota was skimming along in the slow lane, just like Wayne. Warm air whooshed in through the half-open windows.
“Van Eisner’s secret was about drugs, I’ll bet,” I hazarded.
I could feel Wayne stiffen in his seat.
“You noticed?” he asked.
“I guessed.”
He sighed again. “Well, you were right,” he finally admitted. “Van keeps talking about being a sex addict. All those women. But when Isaac asked him his
worst
secret, he said he did cocaine with a lot of those women and then went on a long spiel about how great it was. I think it took him a while to realize that no one else was as entranced as he was. Then he begged us all not to tell.”
“Cocaine use is illegal,” I murmured over the groan of the Toyota’s engine. “Blackmail material.”
“I know,” was all that Wayne said in reply. He didn’t have to say that Steve wasn’t the blackmailing type.
Poor Wayne, my Dudley-Do-Right with confidentiality issues. He’d probably been trying to get Eisner into rehab.
“Have you suggested that Van get some help for his drug problem?” I enquired.
“I even got him the names and numbers of clinics, but it’s no use,” Wayne replied. My suspicions were confirmed.
I may not have understood the other group members, but I understood my sweetie. In fact, I understood him well enough to know that I should change the subject before he imploded from guilt.
“How about Isaac?” I asked.
“His wife wrote parts of his book,” Wayne answered, not even bothering to resist anymore, probably because he considered the whole thing Isaac’s fault anyway.
“Helen?” I asked stupidly, my brain slack with shock. Isaac’s claim to fame was his raft of books about dyslexia and other developmental disabilities.
Wayne nodded. “From what Isaac said, Helen did the bulk of the research and writing of his books—”
“And he took credit?” I demanded, outraged.
“Isaac claims it was a mutual agreement. Claims that men were more likely to be taken seriously than women when he first began writing, that Helen would have lacked credibility on her own.”
I could feel Wayne turning to me. I glanced and saw that his eyes were pleading for forgiveness for a man who he didn’t even like very much. I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to whiten my knuckles, but I kept my mouth shut about Isaac. If Wayne was in a pleading mood, he just might answer all of my questions.
“What about Ted?” I probed.
Wayne took a deep breath and dived into further betrayal.
“Ted meditates. Feels he’s very spiritual. But he admitted that he thinks of food a lot when he meditates.”
I chuckled. “Is his mantra ‘chocolate’?”
Wayne didn’t share my amusement.
“We laughed, too,” he announced solemnly. “Until he told us that his
real
worst secret was his affair with some woman he met at Spirit Rock.”
“Uh-oh,” I said slowly.
I could feel Wayne’s nod. “If Janet ever found out, Ted would have to meditate on broken bones,” he predicted.
I thought about Ted’s wife, Janet McKinnon-Kimmochi. She was a strong woman, a woman with children (including Ted, I thought sometimes), a woman who ruled the financial advice firm they owned jointly with an iron hand. Nope, I wouldn’t want to risk exposure to that iron hand, and I was sure Ted didn’t want to, either.
“So what’s he gonna do?” I asked.
“He cut off the affair with the woman from Spirit Rock. Told her his spirit guides advised him to.”
I bristled, but kept it internal. No wonder Wayne hadn’t told me this stuff. Now I wanted to punch out Isaac
and
Ted. I felt the blood run to my face. Spirit guide consultation, the Marin excuse for anything. And who was this poor woman who’d been attracted to the king of self-tragedy, anyway? A needy woman, I answered myself. It was time to move on. We were almost to our exit.
“Russo’s worried about his kid, right?” I guessed.
“How’d you know?” Wayne replied.
“My spirit guides told me.”
“Kate!”
“I’m sorry,” I said and reached over to pat his thigh. “I can just tell, sweetie. Carl Russo’s worried sick over Mike. He’s always watching him like he’ll explode or something. And Mike seems like a perfectly nice kid, for a sixteen-year-old.”
“It’s sad, Kate,” Wayne began slowly. I could tell he was weighing how much he should divulge. And then he just let it spill. “Carl’s wife had a big drug and alcohol problem, but Carl left Mike with her anyway when he went to work. One day, when Mike was a toddler, he came home to find that his wife was passed out, and Mike had a big lump on his head. Carl was afraid to take Mike to the doctor, was trying to protect his wife. And then it happened again. Carl finally left her, but not until he was really afraid for Mike. He’s sure that Mike’s a problem now because of the head injuries and general abuse. Isaac agrees with him.”
“But Mike doesn’t seem like a problem to me,” I protested.
“He’s not, really. You’ve seen the kid. He can be a clown, make people laugh. Still…” Wayne paused and took a deep breath. “Mike and his friends stole a car and went joy-riding recently. Luckily, they didn’t get caught. And he’s vandalized things. Done all the stuff a troubled teenager does. Carl’s worried it’ll get worse.”
I shook my head. What constituted a “normal” teenager? I couldn’t help but think that Mike would make it through his teenage years without major mishap, but then I wasn’t his parent.
“How about Garrett?” I asked as I aimed the Toyota toward the highway exit. “What could he have possibly done that he thinks was wrong?”
Wayne’s voice slowed as the Toyota pulled onto the road that would lead us home.
“You know Garrett, how much he cares for his patients?”
“Yeah.”
“There was this kid, six years ago. Garrett was his psychiatrist. The kid told Garrett he was going to commit suicide, but Garrett thought he was bluffing. He wasn’t. He killed himself that night.”
Damn. Poor Garrett. I was sure the group had assured him that it wasn’t his fault. Patient suicide had to be a professional risk for any psychiatrist. But Garrett would feel guilty. He was like Wayne that way.
I didn’t have to ask Wayne’s secret—I already knew it. He’d failed to protect the man who’d hired him as a bodyguard. Or at least that’s the way he perceived his boss’s death, a boss who had become his friend. And Wayne had never gotten over that perceived failure.
We were almost home when I realized I hadn’t asked what Steve Summers’ worst secret was.
“Wayne,” I started. “What about—”
“Kate, stop,” Wayne ordered.
“Huh?” I spit out, startled. “I thought you were willing to talk to me.”
“I am. I meant stop the car,” he explained sheepishly. “We have to get groceries.”
And then I realized we’d never had lunch. That was why my insides were gurgling and growling for attention. Though neither of us had an appetite, Wayne would see it as his duty to feed me.
By the time I’d stopped the Toyota, we’d already passed the local health food supermarket, so I drove around the block and eased my tired car into a parking space, dropping my keys back into my purse, lost in thought.
Wayne and I shopped mostly in silence. Under his instruction, I stalked the aisles for basil, eggplant, and three kinds of marinated tofu as we each thought about Steve. Steve might have been dead, but the market was alive. A man in a business suit and a ponytail raced his cart past me while a mother cooed to her screaming child, “Serena, please be quiet.” Bad choice of a name, I thought and found the jasmine rice. Wayne didn’t seem to see or hear anyone. He shopped mechanically, dropping healthy groceries into the basket and occasionally asking me to find something for him.
The woman at the checkout counter wished us a “harmonious day” once she’d been paid.
Too late,
I thought, and we headed back out to the car.
Unlike Wayne’s Jaguar, my Toyota hadn’t moved without us. That was a relief. But there was another car in the parking lot that I hadn’t expected to see: Carl Russo’s Lincoln Mercury. I caught a glimpse of Mike Russo’s face behind the wheel and then the car was gone, backing up and racing out of the lot like it was on fire.
I turned to Wayne.
“Is Mike old enough to drive?” I asked, trying to figure out the logistics. Had Carl driven home and handed his car off to Mike, or had Mike driven Carl to the library? If he had, he hadn’t come in with his father for the police interrogation.
“Apparently, he’s old enough,” Wayne muttered.
We climbed back in the Toyota, but I didn’t start it up right away. I was tired of talking to my windshield. I wanted to see Wayne’s face.
“What about Steve?” I began again.
Now that I was seeing Wayne’s face, I saw that it didn’t look good. Or happy. Sweat was beaded on his pitted forehead, and the lower half of his eyes, visible under his brows, looked bleary. And then there was the color of his skin, a mottled red and white combination that would have looked nice on a rose but was a little scary on a human being.
“Honey, are you all—” I began.
“Steve said he didn’t write a story he should have,” Wayne gruffly interrupted my attempt at consolation. “Said the story would have helped others.”
“That’s it?” I objected. “Some worst secret.”
“You know Steve,” Wayne growled, turning his head away from me. I might as well have been looking at the windshield. “Everything was black and white, right and wrong to him.”
“And he always did right,” I agreed. “But what was the story?”
Wayne turned back to me, the muscles in his face tightening.
“Steve wouldn’t talk about the unwritten story to the whole group. That’s what he told me today on the way out of the library—that later he wanted to get together with me, alone, and explain.”
My brain began to tingle along with my body. Now I really wanted to know about the story.
“Was it about someone in the group?”
“I don’t know.” Wayne shook his head. “I hate to think so. But the ‘worst secret’ discussion seemed to upset him. And he was quiet today, even more than usual.”
“It could have been any of them,” I said under my breath. But what was there to interest a journalist of Steve Summers’ caliber? I’d heard the worst secrets, and none of them was bad enough to write home about. Certainly, none of them was interesting enough for an article.
“Where was everyone?” Wayne asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Does it matter?” I questioned. “Anyone could have done it and been at work or at home by the time Wooster’s people got there.”
Wayne’s shoulders slumped. This wasn’t going to be easy. We sat in silence for a few minutes.