A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (21 page)
Read A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“What if they’re a psychopath?” I asked.
“Even then, Kate. I’m trained. I’m the only member of the group who is. Anyway, there’s no psychopath in our group, and none of the significant others is a psychopath either. I’m sure of it. I’d see it. I’d feel it.”
Maybe he was right. You didn’t have to be a psychopath to murder—I’d learned that the hard way. You just had to be pushed to your personal limit.
“Do you have any guesses yet?” I prompted.
“No!” he cried. Then he paused. “Excuse me, Kate. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. But the answer is no. I don’t have any guesses. Not one. I keep going over everyone in my mind and coming up blank.”
“How about Van?” I asked.
“No, entirely the wrong type,” he assured me. Maybe to him and Wayne, I thought. Van seemed exactly the right type to me.
“Garrett, it’s not up to you. Or us,” I added dutifully. “Wayne and I aren’t investigating anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Kate,” he whispered, his voice as mournful as if someone had died. Then again, two people
had
died. “Of course, you have your reasons.” His voice went into high gear. “It’s really the murderer I’m worried about. Whoever it is, that individual is very sick. They need help. No matter what they’ve done, they are sick and crying for help. And I haven’t provided it.”
“Oh, Garrett,” I sighed. How do you reason with a saint? “Have you talked to Jerry? He loves you. He’ll tell you none of this is your fault. It isn’t, you know.”
“I’m a professional, Kate,” he reminded me. “I have more responsibility than the other group members—”
“You’re a professional psychiatrist, not a policeman. And when you’re in the group, you’re a peer. You don’t have any more responsibility than anyone else—”
“But I
feel
I do, Kate,” he cut in. “I can’t help it.”
I hate it when people use the word “feel.” How can you argue with feelings?
I stopped trying, and within minutes I’d hung up the phone. Again. I was almost into the kitchen when it rang for the third time.
“Kate,” Jerry Urban blurted when I picked it up. “Did you just talk to Garrett?”
“Um…” I faltered. Was my conversation with Garrett confidential? Garrett
was
a psychiatrist, after all.
“Never mind,” Jerry muttered. “I just called because he’s walking around like a sheepdog who’s lost his flock or something. Garrett is not himself, Kate. It’s like he’s having a permanent bad hair day—”
“Have you ever thought of finding a psychiatrist for the psychiatrist?” I asked.
“He already has one,” Jerry whispered loudly into the phone.
“He does?”
“Hard to believe, huh?”
“Maybe he needs an extra appointment,” I suggested.
“Good idea,” Jerry agreed, and I heard the scritch-scratch of him writing something down. “Do you and Wayne know who did it yet?” he asked a moment later.
“No, we don’t know, and we’ve stopped investigating.” Maybe I ought to just have little cards made up, announcing our resignation from further investigation. It would be easier than telling everyone.
“Oh,” Jerry mumbled, and I could hear a volume of disappointment in his tone.
“Jerry, go cheer up Garrett,” I ordered.
“Do you think a tutu would help?” he asked and giggled. Then he got serious again. “Believe me, Kate, I’ve tried. I even made this little robot that goes around bemoaning his existence like Ted. Garrett thought it was funny till I told him who it was supposed to be. Then he thought it was cruel.”
“Bring it over here sometime,” I suggested, laughing. Then I remembered the ground rules—no suspects in the house. Did that apply to their robots? I’d have to ask Wayne.
“Kate, he needs something from me,” Jerry confided. “I just wish I knew what it was. I’d do anything for him.”
“I know you would,” I sympathized. “Maybe you could ask him what he needs. He’s a psychiatrist. Ask
him
to figure it out.”
There was a silence, and then Jerry thanked me. He was taking my suggestion seriously. He was going to ask Garrett to figure out what he needed.
I wished Jerry luck and hung up.
Jerry
would
do anything for Garrett, I thought. Would he kill for him?
The phone rang again before I even took one step away from it.
It was almost a relief to hear my warehousewoman, Jade, announcing that there’d been an “itty-bitty” fire at the Jest Gifts warehouse. Almost.
- Twenty-Two -
An “itty-bitty” fire. It took a while for the meaning to sink in. Once it did, I clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming. Added to a couple of itty-bitty murders, not to mention an itty-bitty car and an itty-bitty Van Eisner, it was suddenly too much. And I hadn’t even had breakfast yet.
“Kate?” Jade asked. “Are you still there?”
From the processing chip somewhere in my mind, a message was sent that I couldn’t talk with my teeth clamped shut. I unclamped them slowly. A pain shot through my jaw as I did.
“How itty-bitty?” I finally managed.
“None of the merchandise,” Jade assured me. “Whatever jackass set the fire last night just burned packing boxes—”
“Someone set it?”
“That’s what the fire guy said. I called the fire station this morning when I saw the packing room. Yuck. What a mess—”
“Do you have any idea who set it?” I asked.
“Nah,” Jade told me. “I dunno who. The fire guy said it coulda been anyone. Teenagers, maybe.”
Or a murderer, I thought.
No.
I shook my head and refused that vista of paranoia.
“I’ll call in an order for boxes—” I began.
“Hey, I’ll do that, Kate,” Jade insisted. “I’m just glad you’re not, like, all hysterical or something. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”
“Thanks, Jade,” I whispered, and I meant it. Jade was a good warehouse woman. I’d have given her another raise if it weren’t for the fact that she already made more money than I did. Maybe I’d give her another raise anyway.
Jade and I discussed the coming week’s business, and then I calmly hung up the phone.
I stood, staring at the floor, wondering what it would take to stop whoever had started this fire from starting another one.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and rocketed into the air. The minute I did, my mind told me that the hand belonged to Wayne, and that I had to stop jumping every time he snuck up on me. Still, I turned as soon as my feet hit the ground again just to make sure I was right. I was.
“Sorry,” he offered. “Maybe I should wear a bell around my neck.”
“Maybe you should learn to walk like other people,” I suggested impatiently. “
Clomp, clomp, clomp,
all right? Practice!”
Wayne stepped away from me, his bare feet slapping the carpet in a way that had to be painful to the soles of his feet.
“Is that any—” he began.
The phone rang, interrupting whatever he had to say. I was already smiling—until I picked up the phone.
Janet McKinnon-Kimmochi was on the other end of the line. And she was angry. I plopped down in my comfy chair, ready to have Janet eat a good portion of my morning. C. C. plopped down in my lap as if she’d just materialized on the planet. Luckily, her claws were sheathed for the moment. Then she began to purr. Unfortunately, Janet wasn’t purring.
“I am too a good mother!” she screamed at me.
“I’m sure you are,” I replied, wondering if I’d ever have time to change out of my pajamas.
“Shower?” Wayne whispered, pointing at himself.
I nodded. I’d miss being in it with him, but I had other matters to tend to.
“I don’t care what your Aunt Dorothy says—”
“Aunt Dorothy?”
“Yes, your deranged aunt has some kind of idea that Steve Summers was molesting my girls. She called me five minutes ago.”
I closed my eyes and listened to my stomach practice knotting itself—internal macramé.
“What kind of mother would I be to let anyone molest my children?” Janet bulldozed on. “Do you think I wouldn’t notice? Just because I work hard doesn’t mean that I’m not watching them. Working mothers are the brunt of the worst kind of sexist nonsense. I’m used to that. But molestation!” Her voice raised an octave on the last word.
“Did my aunt actually say you did anything wrong?” I demanded.
“No, but that’s not the point. That she could even believe such a thing at all is enough of an insult.”
“Janet, I doubt that she believes it. It was probably just a theory.” I hoped I wasn’t lying. “I’ll talk to her,” I promised.
“You do that!” Janet ordered and hung up.
“We aren’t investigating anymore,” I said to the dial tone.
And then, I just sat in my comfy chair, thinking of pleasant places. It’s never too late to try astral projection.
Wayne showed up minutes later, showered, shaved, and smelling good. His step was good and heavy, too.
“Breakfast?” he offered.
I didn’t need any arm-twisting. He pulled a homemade coffee cake from the freezer and stuck it in the microwave, apologizing for of its lack of freshness. I just sat at the kitchen table and smiled as he threw a thousand and one ingredients in the blender for a vegan smoothie and then bent down to feed C. C. her Fancy Feast. Finally, he made me a pot of peach tea. I had just drunk the last of my smoothie and was reaching for the rest of my coffee cake when the doorbell rang. I looked down. Yup, I was still in my pajamas.
And suddenly, I remembered our second ground rule: No suspects in the house. Wayne snuck to my office window and peeked out.
“Helen Herrick,” he whispered.
“Oh Wayne, we can’t just leave Helen standing there,” I insisted.
“She’s a suspect,” he insisted back, crossing his arms.
“How about the deck?” I tried.
He opened his mouth to object, then seemed to think better of it.
“Okay, the deck, but only because there are two of us,” he conceded.
Wayne and I walked out on the deck to greet Helen. I just hoped none of the neighbors were seeing me in my pajamas, cute as they were, with their large, turquoise cat paw prints. The pajamas were a gift. I swear.
“I’ve been to see Wooster,” Helen started out. As far as I could tell she hadn’t even noticed my pajamas or our use of the deck as the venue for our discussion. “Wooster is off his rocker.”
Wayne and I both just nodded.
“I want justice,”
“Helen, you’ll get justice,” Wayne said soothingly. “Remember, Wooster isn’t the entire Cortadura Police Department.
“There’s Sergeant Marge,” I threw in.
“I don’t care!” she cried out. “I want justice
now.
”
“Helen, we’re not investigating anymore,” Wayne announced.
I shrank beside him. I wished he hadn’t said it. I wanted to take Helen in my arms and promise that we’d find her husband’s murderer. But I didn’t.
Helen gave us each a look that could have fried tofu…and burned it to ash. Then she turned and stomped down the stairs without another word.
“Oh, dear,” was all I could say.
Wayne escorted me back inside and locked the door behind us. The phone started ringing the minute the door was locked. I picked it up automatically.
“Ms. Jasper, this is Mike Russo,” a hesitant voice announced.
“Hi there, Mike,” I tried.
“It’s my dad. He’s crying. I don’t know why. Do you think Wayne could, like, talk to him?”
I turned to Wayne and pointed at the phone.
“This one’s yours,” I informed him and handed him the receiver.
I listened for a few moments as Wayne talked to Mike. Then there was a short silence, and his voice tone changed. He was talking to Carl.
Finally, I headed down the hallway to take
my
shower. I made it quick, no matter how good the hot water felt on my tense muscles. Then I brushed my teeth, fussed with my hair, and changed into a T-shirt and Chi-Pants. I was back in my office within fifteen minutes.
Wayne was standing by the phone, a scowl on his face.
“Bad?” I asked.
“Worse,” he replied. “Carl’s a good man. But he’s a rigid man. These deaths have really thrown him. He can’t understand how it could happen. He’s flailing, worried about his kid, worried about himself, worried about the group.”
“You can’t blame him,” I said.
Wayne nodded. “Told him we weren’t investigating anymore. That really upset him.”
Wayne looked me in the eye.
“Kate, we’ve done all we can, right?”
“I think so.”
“If there was something else we could do, I’d try. But it’s useless. I’m out of ideas. You got any?”
I shook my head slowly. But even as I did, a picture of Barbara formed in my mind. I wondered what it was I thought Barbara could do for me. Maybe I just needed to talk to a friend. I promised myself that I would give her a call.
Wayne sighed. “Going to work,” he told me. “Have to do menus for the week, and see what’s been going on while I was gone.”
I nodded, then remembered our transportation dilemma.
“Wait a minute,” I stopped him. “You don’t even have a car, and I’ve got tai chi practice tonight.”
“Not to worry,” he assured me. “My manager is on his way to pick me up.” He paused, and his scowl deepened. “But I don’t want you here alone, Kate.”
“Me, neither,” I agreed, feeling cold already at the thought of Wayne’s departure. This time, I wasn’t arguing. Wayne wasn’t speaking from male arrogance; he was just being practical under the circumstances. I would be a sitting duck without him.
“Dorothy,” I said. “I’ll call my Aunt Dorothy.”
And I wasn’t kidding. I was on the phone to my aunt before Wayne and his manager had stuffed themselves into his manager’s car and driven off at a sedate speed.
“Of course, Katie,” my aunt told me. “I’ll be over as soon as I call Helen back. Just leave a key under the mat for me if you’re busy, or leave the door unlocked. And I’ll ring the doorbell to let you know I’m there.” She paused. “Helen says you’ve stopped investigating.”
Guiltily, I explained about Van’s attack and the threatening letters.
“Oh, Katie,” she murmured. “Of course, you must stop.”
When I hung up the phone, I had the feeling that everything would be all right. Aunt Dorothy was coming. I reminisced about how she’d let me make cookies and eat the cookie dough as a child, and my rigid body relaxed. Then I remembered that I had one trick left up my sleeve: I’d never called the DRUGLAW people to find out just how much trouble Van Eisner would be in if the cops
did
find his drugs. There was still research that I could do without talking to suspects. I smacked my fist into my palm and picked up the Yellow Pages.
I knew a lot more about 1-900-DRUGLAW after scouring their ad. For a set fee per minute, a caller could not only speak to a lawyer, but also to a psychologist or a general counselor about their drug problems. It was a lot cheaper than finding a lawyer, driving there, and asking about Van Eisner, especially since I was under house arrest. I shut the phone book, went outside and stuck a house key under the doormat, and dialed 1-900-DRUGLAW.
I got their law division and gave them my credit card number, and then the meter was running.
“Um,” I began, wishing I’d written out my questions beforehand. It would have been a lot cheaper. “I have a friend with a drug problem.”
“Right, a friend,” the voice on the other end of the line replied, a sneer evident in its tone. Jeez, you’d think a professional wouldn’t be so judgmental.
“He has a former conviction for drug use, and he’s afraid the police will find the drugs he’s currently using in his house. What kind of trouble would he be in then?”
“Depends on the nature of his prior conviction.”
“Um,” I said again.
“Never mind,” the voice told me. “Whatever the nature of his prior conviction, your
friend
could be in big trouble.”
“Oh.”
“So, if I were you, I would call counseling and get a recommendation for a rehabilitation center.”
“He won’t do that—” I began.
“Let’s forget your
friend
for a moment.
You
have a problem. You need help. Let us help you.”
“No, really—” I objected.
“We hear it all the time, lady. Now, listen…”
Me, Kate Jasper, with a drug problem? I don’t even drink coffee! Huh! I smashed the receiver into its cradle. Then I hoped I hadn’t just goofed up my new telephone system. So much for my last investigative ace in the hole.
I sat down at my desk to do some work for Jest Gifts, trying not to think of murder or burning warehouses. But I couldn’t concentrate. It was time to call Barbara.
I went to my bedroom. For this phone call, I wanted to lie down. I only wished I’d been lying down for the last one. I pulled the extension as far as it would reach and lay down backward on the mattress that served as our bed.
I punched in the first digit of Barbara’s phone number. But a mechanical voice stopped me before I could go any further.
“Someone is on the other line,” my new phone system told me.
- Twenty-Three -
I dropped the phone and got up off the bed, my heart racing. Who was on the other phone receiver?
I opened the bedroom door and looked out into the hallway, wondering if Wayne had come home already. Maybe he’d forgotten something. Maybe—
“Wayne?” I whispered and walked down the hall toward his home office.
There was no answer. I told myself to calm down and wriggled my shoulders as if to pull back the hair that was rising on my neck.
There were only three phones on that line in the house: one in my office, one in Wayne’s office, and one in the bedroom. It had to be Wayne on the line. Or maybe Aunt Dorothy? Could she have walked in and borrowed the phone in my office? No. I shook my head, my aunt wouldn’t be that rude. It had to be Wayne.
“Wayne?” I tried again, louder than a whisper this time. What if he just hadn’t heard me before?
But all I heard was silence. No, not silence, I realized suddenly. Somewhere behind me, something moved. I heard a footstep—a soft one, but a footstep nonetheless. I stopped my forward movement and listened. Someone was breathing behind me.
I centered myself and turned around slowly, raising my arms in a tai chi ward-off position.
My senses hadn’t deceived me. That someone who had stepped and breathed was down the hall, only a few yards from me. Someone in chinos, a loose sweater, dark glasses, and with a scarf wrapped around their face. Someone with a gun in their hand, pointed in my direction.
So much for tai chi. Even with a kick, I couldn’t reach that gun. I considered running toward it, then dismissed the idea. This wasn’t a movie; I didn’t want to feel what that gun could do to me.
Slowly, the hand that wasn’t holding the gun unwrapped the scarf and shoved it in a pocket. Laura Summers’ face emerged.
Laura Summers? My mind refused to believe it. Logic told me the only reason Laura Summers would be pointing a gun at me was if she was the murderer. And—
“But you loved Steve,” I mumbled, dazed.
“Maybe,” Laura replied, her deep, quiet voice as soothing as usual. She removed her glasses and tucked them in another pocket. She had come well-equipped. “You shouldn’t have left your key under your doormat,” she informed me. “You aren’t careful enough with your keys.”
I stood, gazing at Laura. She was so tall and broad; I could imagine how she could disguise herself so no one could be sure if they’d seen a man or a woman. I saw her pert, earnest face with shimmering clarity now. No wonder she’d had to wear dark glasses and a scarf—evil didn’t show on that face. It wasn’t even showing now. But I could smell the evil, acrid and angry, burning. All my senses seemed heightened. I felt something that might have been exhilaration, all the while knowing I should be afraid. But I was talking to the murderer. She might tell me everything. And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t kill me.
“Why?” I asked, not stalling for time but genuinely curious.
“You know!” Laura hissed, her face almost the same as usual, except that now her eyes were bright with hatred.
“No,” I told her in all sincerity. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t try to fool me,” she articulated slowly. “You and Wayne. You couldn’t give it up. You must have put together all the pieces by now. Steve was going to write an article about me.”
“And?” I prodded. I had to know.
“I’m dyslexic,” she rapped out, her gun hand dancing in frustration. “How do you think a dyslexic person can take the state bar exam to become an attorney?”
It was interesting puzzle; I ran it through my brain. The answer had to be that a dyslexic person
couldn’t
take the bar exam. But Laura had been a lawyer before she became a politician.
Laura took a step closer to me. My pulse took a step, too, but she still wasn’t close enough for me to disable her gun hand.
“I took your phone off the hook,” Laura whispered, and then she smiled, a smile that would have bought my vote under other circumstances, but that chilled me to the bone under these. I was no longer exhilarated by the prospect of knowing why. I just wanted to live.
“No one can call,” she told me. The smile left her face. “You paid no attention to my notes. You didn’t care when I tried to run Wayne over, or when I burned your warehouse. What did you think I would do next?”
I didn’t want to answer that question because the answer was obvious: Kill. Kill me. Kill Wayne.
“We stopped investigating,” I said.
“You what?” she demanded, her head rearing back.
“Wayne and I decided to stop investigating. I guess we didn’t tell you that.”
“Well, you’ll both have your chance,” she said. She looked around suddenly, as if remembering something. “Where is Wayne?” she asked abruptly.
“Wayne isn’t here. He’s at work.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Of course you’d say that, to protect him.”
“No,” I insisted. “He really isn’t here. You can search the house if you want to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped impatiently. “I’ll just take care of him later.”
“You don’t have to,” I told her, working to keep my voice steady. “He doesn’t know any more than I did. Neither of us suspected you—”
“Ha!” she cut in. At least she wasn’t pointing the gun at me now. She held it at her side as she spoke. “When our son was conceived, I told Steve I was dyslexic. I was worried about the genetic factor. Steve was, of course, thrilled. He marveled that I had overcome such odds, done so much despite my disability, blah-blah-blahdee-blah, ad nauseam. He wanted to write his story then, as an inspirational piece. He never did think about the implications. How did he think I took the state bar exam? I talked him out of the story, then, for my baby’s sake. I didn’t want my child worrying that he might be dyslexic. And he wasn’t. My son never realized that
I
was, either.”
“But at the funeral—” I began, suddenly remembering.
Laura shook her head. “I know, I know. ‘Invisible disabilities.’ I don’t know if Steve Junior figured it out unconsciously, or if I left some sort of clue. But he’s always known something was wrong with me. He just didn’t know what.”
“Oh.”
Laura looked at me as if she’d forgotten I was there for a moment, or forgotten the circumstances that had brought us here. Finally, she straightened her shoulders and went on.
“So, Steve forgot about writing the story until the men’s group meeting when everyone talked about the worst thing they’d done. Then Steve remembered the fabulous story he’d left unwritten. He told me he needed to write it, that it would help others who suffered from dyslexia. He said that it would get him over his writers’ block. Steve…” Her hand searched her pocket, and she used her scarf to blot her eyes. Were those tears? Yes, they were. Steve had hurt Laura. Had he ever realized what a big mistake it was to have hurt this woman?
“Steve,” Laura went on. “Never a clear thought in his head. Did he think dyslexics were actually going to
read
his article? He was the same way about my growing up wealthy—he thought it must have been so great. Well, it wasn’t. I was raised by a series of nannies. Some of them liked me, some didn’t. One dropped me on my head all the time. Another one hit me. I got everything…except love. He never understood.” Her voice dropped to a low pitch. “I asked him to hold off for a month on the article. Then I made my big mistake: I told him he couldn’t write the article, that if he did, people would figure out I’d hired someone to take the bar exam for me. That’s fraud. Do you think I could stay in office if anyone found out? And Steve was offended!
Offended!
After I’d spent more than half my life married to him, he said he couldn’t believe I had done something so unethical. He told me he wasn’t sure he could remain married to me. He acted like I was slime. It wasn’t good enough for him that I’ve done all the right things, taken the right stands, helped the state, raised our son. One mistake, and he hated me.”
Yes, Steve had hurt her. Laura blotted her eyes again. “And I knew that if he left me, he’d write the article, that he’d probably include the part about the bar exam. What did he care if he ruined my career, ruined his son’s life? He’d be over his oh-so-important writers’ block. But he said he’d keep his promise, that he’d give me a month to think about ‘helping’ him with his article. The s.o.b. was going to leave me and then destroy me. I couldn’t let him do that, so I planned his murder. I’m good at planning—”
“But why Wayne’s car?” I asked. The words seemed to tumble out of my mouth without thought.
“To discredit Wayne. I thought Steve might have told Wayne he was going to write an article about me. I figured no one would listen to Wayne if he was the prime suspect…but then you had to show up to alibi him! Because of you, Wayne was never the main suspect.” Laura’s face actually looked angry now, her brows low and her lips thin. “And then you two had to keep sticking your noses in. I know you talked to Steve’s so-called friends. I know you know he caused one suicide. You
had
to see the parallel. You
knew
it was me!”
“No,” I insisted. “We didn’t—”
“And Isaac, with his goddamn dyslexia obsession. He once told me he knew I was dyslexic. He thought it was a great joke. I knew he would eventually figure out why I killed Steve—”
I opened my mouth to tell her once more that Wayne and I hadn’t known, but the doorbell rang before any words came out.
The doorbell?
Laura lifted the gun and pointed it my way. She took a couple of steps toward me. She was only a few feet away from me now. I heard the front door open. Then I realized that Laura had left the door unlocked when she’d come in.
“Yoohoo!” Dorothy called out. Laura looked behind her. I took one long step, shortening the distance between us. I lifted my knee. Then I circled my foot in a lotus kick, meant to disable an assailant’s kidney, this time modifying it so that I knocked the gun from Laura’s hand. Laura’s mouth stretched and she let out a piercing scream.
I jumped in place. I hadn’t expected her to scream. But I also hadn’t expected C. C, who wobbled precariously on Laura’s shoulder, her claws embedded in Laura’s sweater and the flesh beneath it.
I kicked the gun behind Laura, taking a second to watch it skid down the carpet of the hallway. I would thank C. C. later.
Laura turned, looking for the gun even as C. C. leapt from her shoulder and slunk away. I grabbed her wrist from the side and tried to force it up behind her back, but Laura squirmed away from my awkward grip. Laura advanced on me, and I shoved her, much as I had shoved Van the night before. Laura flew backward…toward the gun. Damn. I ran after her and shoved again, losing my balance. My tai chi teacher hadn’t taught me to fight someone who wasn’t attacking me first. Now I saw why—it didn’t work. Laura hadn’t thrown any momentum my way, so I had nothing to use against her. Still, I regained my balance in time to kick the gun further down the hallway.
I had to keep Laura Summers from that gun.
Talk,
I thought; if only I could get her talking.
“But how could you kill your own husband?” I demanded.
It worked.
“A widow is just as electable as a wife; maybe more so,” she told me. But then she turned her head, her eyes searching for the gun. “All that sympathy helps. Divorcees don’t get sympathy.” She could talk and attack at the same time. I should have known.
She turned away from me, toward the gun. We don’t get much practice shoving people from behind in tai chi, either, but I did it anyway. She swung around so that she was facing me once more.
“Forget it,” she declared, her voice low. “You’re dead.”
Then I saw my Aunt Dorothy over Laura’s shoulder.
“You’re as bad as Steve—”
My aunt trotted toward the gun, picked it up, and pointed it at Laura Summers’ head. Dorothy moved her gun hand, and something clicked. I didn’t care what. Maybe Dorothy had cocked the gun. I didn’t know. All that mattered to me was that the gun was no longer in Laura’s hand.
Laura must have heard the click, too. She whipped around to face Dorothy. But my aunt’s grip on the gun didn’t waver; she kept it pointed at Assemblywoman Summers’ head.
“You!” Laura screamed.
“Go ahead,” Dorothy told Laura, her voice no longer sounding like my sweet aunt’s. She spoke each word with ugly menace. “Make…my…day.”
- Twenty-Four -
It was Wednesday, and the members of the Heartlink Men’s Support Group, their significant others, and a couple of my significant others were having their last meeting in Carl Russo’s garden, mingling in the sun and shade. The smell of barbecue floated over from the yard next door, as did the sound of rap music. Carl looked good in his Hawaiian shirt, better than he looked in a suit. And he was proudly showing his roses to Garrett, Ted, and Helen. Garrett bent over to smell a crimson rose and sighed with pleasure. Jerry and I looked at each other and joined Garrett in the sigh. But our sighs were of relief because Garrett actually looked happy.
Ted Kimmochi, however, still looked moody, his eyes turned to the clouds instead of the roses. But somehow, he managed to look content in his moodiness. Helen Herrick didn’t look entirely happy, but she looked satisfied and peaceful as she fingered the petal of a lavender bloom.
“Closure,” Jerry mouthed.
I nodded.
This was the good life, rap music, barbecue smells, and all. I grabbed Wayne’s hand and squeezed as the sun beat down on the tops of our heads.
Meanwhile, Janet McKinnon-Kimmochi stood a few feet away, attempting to instruct Mike, Niki, and Zora in the finer elements of language.
“You don’t call anyone a wiener-head…” she tried, shaking her finger.
Felix and Aunt Dorothy guffawed along with the kids. For some reason, they’d become great friends once Laura Summers was behind bars. I shivered in the sun, remembering again why we were all gathered—to speak of Laura Summers.
“So,” Jerry asked, as if he’d caught my thought. “What happened after your aunt got the gun?”
Aunt Dorothy turned our way. “It wasn’t just any gun,” she told him. “It was a Colt .38 special. Splendid, sturdy—”
“Aunt Dorothy!” I yelped.
“Well, aren’t you glad I know about guns, Katie?” my aunt teased. She tilted her face, the curlicues on her head looking like little goat horns. And I’d thought this woman was old.
She strode my way and wrapped me in a hug, only letting me go so that I could continue telling the story of her bravery.
“Laura jumped at my aunt—” I began.
“So I shot in the direction of her feet,” Dorothy tossed off nonchalantly. “My, you should have seen her face change then—”
“Especially when you said, ‘Next time, I go higher.’” I giggled. I couldn’t help it. It seemed funny now, though it certainly hadn’t at the time. And I wondered if we’d ever be able to replace the carpet where the police had pulled it up to find the bullet lodged in the wood below.
“And then my Katie got Laura in some kind of choke hold, and we tied her to a chair,” my aunt went on.
“Finally, we called the police,” I ended.
I could feel Wayne squirming beside me, feeling guilty for having left me alone. I thought maybe it was time to change the subject, but Dorothy wasn’t finished.
“Even tied up, Laura kept talking,” my aunt remembered. “It was as if her mouth couldn’t stop her thoughts from flowing out, even when the police came.” She shook her head.
Dorothy probably would have just kept silent and asked for an attorney. Of course, my aunt wasn’t capable of murder…I hoped.
“Did she confess?” Garrett asked from his position near the roses.
“Boy, did she—” I began, but Felix had to have his say.
“Not only did she tell every friggin’ thing she’d done from age one,” he interrupted, “but that potato-brain Wooster got corroborating evidence. Laura’s sister’s mouth couldn’t stop, either. Blathered all about Laura’s big-deal dyslexia, the schools with the greasy palms, the whole enchilada—”
“‘Told you it was the wife. Hell’s bells, just look at her,’” my aunt mimicked the captain all too accurately.
I shook my head, putting my hand over my grinning mouth because this was serious. One look at Helen Herrick was all it took to remind me.
“I hadn’t told Laura yet that we’d stopped investigating,” I admitted.
Wayne put his arm around me and kissed my cheek, and the garden was beautiful again. I didn’t want to talk any more. Of course, Felix was more than happy to take over.
“Ms. Bigshot Laura Summers has been dyslexic since day uno,” he began. “Like it was a friggin’ life-stopper or something.” I wanted to say that it was a life-stopper for her, but I kept my mouth shut. “Mummy and Daddy had big bucks, so no one ever had a clue. She went to hoity-toity ‘experimental schools’ from kindergarten through law school, with the experiment being verbal exams, at least for lucky Laura. And Big Daddy slipped all the educational institutions major money for endowments. But then Laura got to the state bar, and even Big Daddy didn’t know whose palm to grease there. So, he bought his daughter a proxy to take the bar for her.” Felix paused, making sure he had his audience. Then he went on.
“From the moment Laura passed the bar, she was Ms. Bigshot Attorney. She didn’t have to read. She didn’t have to write. She owned a stable of geeks to do her work for her. She dictated everything that she signed.” He shook his head. “Un-friggin’-believable.”
“She really was a good person…as an assemblywoman,” I murmured. I shrugged my shoulders, wondering why I’d felt the need to defend her. “She and Steve believed in the same causes. And as humans, she and Steve were a matched set—good with causes, but they didn’t care much about people. She asked Steve for a month to think about writing the article, but she was sure he would just leave her and write it anyway.”
“And he hurt her,” my aunt sighed, no longer smiling.
Yes, he hurt her. I remembered Laura’s tears for the husband she had killed.
“Do you think he would have?” Jerry asked.
“Would have what?” I said, shaken from my reverie.
“Written the article? Left her?”
“We’ll never know. But Laura was so paranoid about it, so ashamed of her dyslexia, that
she
was sure he would.”
“I don’t think Steve would have,” Wayne declared, loyal to the end.
“I hope not,” I told him, turning and looking into his vulnerable eyes. “But she thought
we
knew.” I turned back, facing the others. “She tried to run Wayne over, and when she failed, she came back to kill us both. And she was smart; when my aunt whisked her out of the house in disguise to avoid the reporters that day, I should have noticed how good she was. Laura had already used someone else’s car to come to our house. It never occurred to me it might be a habit.”
“She thought Isaac knew she killed Steve,” Helen put in.
I nodded, my heart nodding in tandem with my head for Helen’s loss, a loss none of us were speaking of directly.
“I’m sure Isaac didn’t know,” Helen whispered.
For a moment, I glimpsed Isaac’s weathered face nodding, too, from behind black-rimmed glasses, but then his ghost was gone. I just wished it could have been as easy for Helen to let him go.
“Laura thought she had a month to kill Steve,” Wayne took over the narrative. “She stole Kate’s spare key to the Jaguar at the potluck, then waited for the group meeting and walked from the beach to where the car was parked. She wore a scarf wrapped around her hips, and a wig and dark glasses. Then she took the scarf, wrapped it around her head, and drove my car into Steve—”
“Oh, my God,” Janet muttered, shaking her head.
“And now she’s got some nutso defense,” Felix said, jumping back into the act. “Some diddly-doo about an abusive nanny who dumped her on her friggin’ head when she was a baby. Hey, dyslexia, murder, all little neurological problems—”
“Is it true?” Carl Russo asked seriously.
“No one knows but Oz, man,” Felix replied.
“After she’d hit Steve, she dumped the car, dropped the scarf back around her hips, and jogged down the beach in her wig and dark glasses, looking like any other jogger,” Wayne finished up. “Got in her own car, pulled off the wig and dark glasses, and drove away.”
“She was very proud of her planning,” I said, remembering.
“Her logic was convoluted by fear,” Helen Herrick objected. “She should have been more worried about getting caught killing two men than about using a proxy for the bar.”
I nodded. That logic would work for any of us. Still, were Laura’s neurological wires really so crossed that her logic was different? Or was the hurt just too great to bear?
“Made sense to her,” Wayne growled. “Wondered why she kept sidling up to me, hugging me all the time.” His face flushed. “Steve and I were close. She was afraid Steve might have given me a clue.”
“And then she tried to run you over when the hugs didn’t work,” Aunt Dorothy chirped. “My, she
was
confused.”
“But why was it such a big deal that she didn’t take the bar?” Mike Russo asked.
“Might be criminal fraud,” Wayne answered. “Could have gone to jail.”
“She certainly couldn’t have practiced law,” Garrett pointed out.
“Much less stayed in office,” Ted added.
“She friggin’ panicked—” Felix began.
Something clicked behind me in the yard. I spun around, irrationally expecting to see Laura Summers cocking a gun.
But the click was only the latch to the garden gate opening, and the only person coming our way was Van Eisner.
He slunk in, his eyes downcast.
“Hey, man,” he muttered to Wayne. “Sorry.”
Wayne shrugged, his face granite.
“I’m going into rehab,” Van whispered.
Wayne’s features softened into flesh again. He smiled and shook Van’s hand. Someone started clapping—maybe it was Garrett—and then everyone was clapping.
“I have an announcement, too,” Ted broke in, once the clapping had died down. “Thanks to Felix, I’ve finally found meaning in my life.”
“Brother Ingenio?” I demanded.
He nodded eagerly. “Jim Morrison has…talked to me.”
Janet stopped lecturing her kids and walked over to stand by Ted, her face proud.
Couples,
I thought. You never know.
Felix looked at me and laughed. I shut my hanging-wide-open mouth.
“How about a friggin’ spiritual candidate for Summers’ assembly seat?” he suggested, standing straighter.
“Brother Ingenio?” I demanded again.
“Nah, forget him,” Felix shot back. “How about me?”
This time, it was Ted who started the clapping. People clapping for Felix? This worried me. I opened my mouth to object, but someone else was shouting over the clapping. It was my Aunt Dorothy.
“You’re all invited to Kate and Wayne’s formal wedding ceremony!” she sang out. “Will you all come?”
Now they were seriously clapping—and whooping and hollering. And I was seriously worried.
Wayne grabbed my hand and tugged.
“We have to wash our hair that day!” he roared.
Dorothy put her head back, frowned for a moment, and then grinned.
As we ran through Carl Russo’s back gate to my Toyota, I could hear the clapping give way to laughter. And then I heard the clatter of high heels on the sidewalk.
“Hitch a ride?” my aunt asked flirtatiously.
Wayne and I looked at each other. He lifted his eyebrows mischievously and nodded toward the back seat. Whatever he wanted to do, it was fine with me. I winked my consent and opened the back door of the car for my aunt.
Wayne grabbed Aunt Dorothy’s hand and kissed it long and passionately, then swept her up into his arms, lifting her into the air. Then he folded her into the back seat and finished up with a deep bow.
“Oh, my,” my aunt breathed, goggle-eyed. My unflappable aunt was finally flapped.
Wayne and I climbed into the front seats, giggling, and I drove us all home.
For Whom the Bell Pepper Tolls
(With Ernest apologies to Mr. Hemingway)
Yield: Massacre for 4…and final triumph.
INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon innocent sesame oil
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
¼ teaspoon chopped ginger
1 handful sundered fresh basil
1 bunch amputated green onions
½ cup broken red bell pepper bits
2 tablespoons suspiciously sweet maple syrup
1 tablespoon silent soy sauce
¼ cup wet sherry (or apple juice)
½ cup hewed eggplant
1 cup flayed and slashed mushrooms
½ cup hacked zucchini
1 pound dismembered, marinated tofu
1 tablespoon hot and sweet mustard
DIRECTIONS:
1. Stalk your ingredients in local markets. Carry a stun gun. You never know when veggies will get wise to you.
2. Use revolver to blow away the ends of the zucchini and eggplant, then hack them into desired state of submission.
3. Drown the mushrooms and scrub them till they hurt before slashing them to bits.
4. Place tofu in your favorite marinade. Then dismember the soy body.
5. Place unsuspecting sesame oil in frying pan, then scald. Add garlic, ginger, basil, green onions, bell pepper, maple syrup, soy sauce, and sherry. Keep the heat on until they squeak for mercy.
6. Add eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, and tofu. They deserve it!
7. Continue cooking until the vegetables become limp.
8. Stir in the mustard, hot and sweet—the ultimate irony.
9. Serve over seething soba noodles or rice. It won’t do them any good. You may now eat and celebrate your single-minded mastery.
10. Hide the remains.
*The preceding recipe has been added to increase the violence quotient of this book in order to meet community standards.
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