A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (3 page)

- Four -

Then someone who was at the potluck killed Steve,” Wayne finished for me. “Had to be.”

“And whoever it was planned it ahead of time,” I added, feeling cold despite the heat inside the car. This was one time I wished I hadn’t been right. It would have been a lot better if
Wayne
had been right, and the murderer had been our harmonious grocery checker.

“Kate, are you sure about the time the Jaguar key was taken?” Wayne asked.

I nodded and stuck my Toyota key in the ignition quickly, as if to keep it from disappearing, too. Now it was my turn for a question.

“Wayne, shouldn’t we tell the police about the key?”

“Captain Wooster?” he replied incredulously.

“Well, yeah—”

“Don’t want to throw suspicion on the group members till we’re sure,” he stated. And that was that.

We drove the rest of the way home in silence.

As I pulled into the driveway, I realized that Wayne was going to have to do without his Jaguar for the time being. How long could he exist without his car? I turned off the Toyota, feeling protective. I had a feeling it was going to have another driver pretty often now. I just hoped Wayne would be gentle.

If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in Wayne, Steve, and the fate of my car, I might have recognized the vintage ‘57 Chevy parked so obviously across the street. But as it was, we were halfway up the front stairs, a bag of groceries each in our arms, before either of us noticed the car’s owner, Felix Byrne, at our door—Felix Byrne, a man who was both my friend Barbara’s sweetie and, more importantly, a pit bull of a reporter. Wayne and I halted in the same instant, my muscles cramping, bringing back a kinesthetic memory of my long run after the Jaguar. Felix was a pest, a man who would extract a story with pliers if you didn’t stop him. But how had he found out about Steve Summers’ death so quickly?

Wayne shot out a palm in Felix’s direction, still gripping his bag of groceries with his other hand. “Not now,” he growled.

Felix looked at Wayne, his small and slender body vibrating with hurt all the way up to his luxurious mustache, innocence shining in his dark, soulful eyes.

“Come on, Felix, give us a break,” I chimed in. I’d seen the innocent act before.

But Felix stood his ground, a momentary look of confusion on his face.

“I’ve found Brother Ingenio, Kate,” he said, and then his dark eyes went out of focus.

“Brother Ingenio?” I repeated, trying to remember if there was a Brother Ingenio involved in the Heartlink Group. Unfortunately, my brain lines were down.

“I think he’s my spiritual master,” Felix announced, his voice low and resonant.

Spiritual master
? I tried to remember if Felix had ever uttered a spiritual word in my presence besides “Jeez Louise” or “Holy Socks.” Wayne continued up the stairs. I hastily joined him in his earthly ascent.

“I’ve been searching for the real whiz-bang all this time, you know,” Felix went on. “And I think I’ve found it. I went to interview this geek for the
Marin Mind,
and I was thinking ‘jeez, what a loser,’ but then I met him. He’s so big it’s like he’s in a different time zone, man.” Felix paused as Wayne and I reached the door.

I looked at my sweetie. Was it safe to let Felix in? Wayne shrugged. It was my call.

“Did you really come to see us about Brother Ingenio?” I asked, wishing I had a truth serum on me.

Felix’s soulful eyes narrowed for a moment.

“Why?” he shot back, his voice as suspicious as my own. “Is there another friggin’ reason I oughta be here? You find another stiff or something?”

Damn. He really didn’t know. Yet.

“All right,” I sighed and opened the front door, balancing my bag of food on my hip. “Tell me about your spiritual whiz-bang.”

Felix followed us into the house, babbling while Wayne and I dropped off the groceries in the kitchen. He was still at it when he finally sat on the wood-and-denim couch, and Wayne and I plopped into the swinging chair for two that hung from the rafters.

“…see, this guru guy is the friggin’ real thing. He knows all this cool, hot stuff, about finding joy and divine light…”

I reached over for Wayne’s hand. I couldn’t believe this was Felix speaking. I felt like
I
was in a different time zone—maybe the
Twilight Zone.
Wayne’s hand brought me back to the present. But it didn’t erase Felix. Or shut him up.

“…and Brother Ingenio channels all these super-cool people from the other side, man—”

“You mean dead people?” I interrupted.

Felix squirmed a little.

“Well, they’re dead, but they’re super-cool dead people.”

I looked over at Wayne quickly. Dead people was not a good topic right now.

“Why are you telling
me,
Felix?” I demanded.

“‘Cause you’re a friggin’ part of it, Kate,” Felix breathed, bending forward, vibrating with excitement now. “See, Brother Ingenio says to trust your dreams, and I dreamt about you. In the dream, you said that life was a great mystery. That you had to ask for the truth. But you didn’t say who to ask. You always sleuth the truth, Kate. You know, don’t you? You know—”

The phone rang. I thanked the caller internally for interrupting Felix before I disappointed him because I didn’t know anything at that moment except how much my legs were hurting and my mind was spinning.

It spun a little more after I picked up the phone. Jade, the head warehousewoman for my gag-gift company, Jest Gifts, was on the phone. And Jade never called with good news. I knew it was her even before I heard her angry voice. Wayne had bought me a new phone for my birthday, a phone that could, among other things, identify the phone number of the caller (Jest Gifts, in this case), block incoming calls from certain numbers (I’d been planning on programming in Felix’s number once I figured out how the system worked), and even tell you whether someone else had picked up another extension on the same line (I was sure this feature was for teenage parent-alert).

“You won’t believe it,” Jade greeted me.

I stiffened. I probably wouldn’t believe it. “Tell me,” I ordered.

“You know all the terra-cotta planter mugs for the gardeners?”

“The ones that were just shipped,” I confirmed as calmly as possible. They were probably just broken, I told myself. I could live with that. I drew in a big breath. “The ones for the national gardening convention this weekend?”

“Yeah, those!” Jade squawked indignantly. “Jean stacked all the boxes on the top shelves—the
top shelves
!”

Then Jade was silent.

Suddenly, I saw it all in my mind: Jean stacking the boxes on the top shelves, then climbing down the ladder, the boxes tumbling down, crushing her on the cold concrete floor.

“Is she still alive?” I whispered.

“Kate?” Jade replied.

“Is she in the hospital?”

“Who?” Jade asked.

“Jean,” I answered impatiently. “How badly is she hurt?”

“She isn’t hurt at all,” Jade told me. “I just wanted you to yell at her for doing something so stupid.”

I sat down in the comfy chair at the end of my desk and began crying. I didn’t want to yell at anyone. I was just glad that my two warehousewomen were alive and well. I wished I could have said the same for Steve Summers. As the tears ran from my eyes, I realized that Wayne wasn’t the only one in shock about Steve Summers’ death. I had simply managed to numb myself with speculation about his murderer.

“Kate?” I heard Wayne’s voice from the living room. He sounded worried.

I blew my nose and yelled back, “It’s nothing, just some problems at Jest Gifts.”

“Kate, what’s your problem?” Jade demanded.

“Nothing,” I lied again. “Just tell Jean to stack them on the lower shelves. The top shelves are only for soft, light things.”

“
I
know that!” Jade shouted.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Wait a sec,” Jade stopped me. “I gotta tell you about the acupuncture earrings. They’re all bent. They were shipped that way.”

“I’ll call the manufacturer tomorrow—”

“And the new hollow-tooth computer mousse…”

Business reality, no matter how mundane, has a way of bringing you back to, well, business reality. By the time I hung up the phone, my head had stopped spinning.

I was writing myself notes when Wayne’s business phone rang. I just hoped that a minor crisis at Wayne’s restaurant cum gallery, La Fête à L’Oie, would bring him back to earth, too. A curdled béarnaise sauce, wilted escarole, limp rotini—anything but Steve Summers.

I had actually forgotten Felix until he yelled out from the living room, “Sheesh, Lucy, if no one’s gonna friggin’ listen to me, I’m outta here.”

I kept quiet, but I didn’t hear a door slam.

I made my way back into the living room cautiously. Felix was sitting cross-legged on the couch with his eyes closed.

“Felix?” I tried.

“Shush!” he hissed. “Can’t you see I’m friggin’ meditating?”

I drew myself up to my full height. It wasn’t much, but it was all my short, A-line body had to offer.

“Spirit is everywhere, Felix,” I pronounced. “Go find it in your own apartment.”

He opened one eye.

“Really, Kate?” he asked softly.

“Really,” I assured him, belatedly realizing he was actually taking me seriously. I hoped I was telling the truth. He was asking an agnostic, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that.

Finally he left, talking to me, or to himself, or maybe to one of those super-cool dead people from the other side, all the way down the stairs. All I heard that made any sense was “see ya later.” I slammed the door behind him and sunk back into the hanging chair.

Wayne came wandering in the minute I heard Felix’s car start up. I had a feeling he’d been waiting for that sound. He took his place next to me in the hanging chair.

“Everything all right at La Fête?” I asked.

“Lost a busboy,” he murmured. “Kid left without notice. Went back to Canada.”

Worse than curdled béarnaise but still no big deal, I decided, and pushed off with my feet, causing our hanging chair to swing gently back and forth. The passing air felt good on my face.

“Felix is in spiritual crisis,” I commented after a few silent swings.

“
We’re
in real-life crisis,” was Wayne’s only comment.

“Yeah,” I agreed helpfully.

“What happened, Kate?” Wayne asked. I turned to him for clarification of the question, but then I saw his eyes. They were wide open for once, but it looked like someone had turned out the lights behind them.

“Could someone at the group potluck really have killed Steve?” he asked, his voice dazed.

I wanted to tell him no, but I couldn’t. So I just put my arm around his shoulders instead.

“Sweetie—” I began.

My cat, C. C, yowled from behind us. It was her opera yowl, the one she’d been practicing for the occasion.

Wayne and I both jumped and bounced in the chair. It was lucky our combined weight didn’t yank the ropes from the rafters. Damn. I jump when yowled at, but Wayne usually doesn’t. He must have been well and truly shook up.

“Kate, I can’t believe it,” he murmured. “But it must be true.”

“Sweetie,” I began again. “It’ll be all right. We’ll figure it out—”

The doorbell rang and I was saved an explanation of how Steve Summers’ death could ever be “all right.”

I approached the door cautiously. What if Felix had found out about Steve Summers and returned? But it wasn’t Felix at the door. It was Van Eisner.

“Wayne here?” he inquired, looking over my shoulder. His pointy little features now looked like the cartoonist had drawn them with fear in mind.

I considered lying about Wayne’s whereabouts, but Wayne had already extracted himself from the chair and followed me to the door.

“Hey, Van,” Wayne greeted his groupmate quietly, shaking his hand.

“Oh God, Wayne,” Van replied, his voice shrill. “Did you find out anything from the cops?”

Wayne shook his head.

“Are they looking at drugs?” Van plowed on.

“Why?” Wayne asked, his voice not so quiet now. “Did drugs have anything to do with Steve’s murder?”

“How would I know?” Van shrilled. He rubbed his sharp little nose. “It’s just, just…” He looked my way pointedly.

“You can say anything in front of Kate that you can say in front of me,” Wayne assured him.

But Van didn’t look reassured. His small eyes widened.

“Hey, I thought you were into this big confidentiality trip. You’re the last one I’d think would be shooting off your mouth—”

“Steve was murdered, Van,” Wayne reminded him.

“Well, just ‘cause I do a little coke occasionally doesn’t make me a murderer, for God’s sake.”

“Are you sure?” Wayne asked.