Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (13 page)

Ten more minutes of massage was all it took. I talked.

I told him about Sheila Snyder’s death, about the people who were at the Good Thyme that night, about Barbara’s fear of being a suspect, about our investigations, and finally, about Dan Snyder’s ramming my Toyota. I was glad Wayne was behind me where I couldn’t see his face. But I could still feel his hands tighten when I told him about Dan Snyder’s assault.

“Wayne?” I whispered. “Are you angry?”

“Not at you,” he growled softly, depositing a light kiss on the top of my head.

“Really?” I cried. Already my neck felt better. It barely twinged when I turned to look at him.

“Really,” he assured me. He walked around my chair and knelt down in front of me. “I’m concerned about you,” he said, looking up into my face. “Afraid for you. Worried to death about you. But not angry with you.” He shook his head. “You helped me when I needed help. You have to help your friend Barbara. But…” He faltered.

“But…” I prodded.

“Be careful, Kate,” he said. His eyes filled with tears. He looked down at the carpet. “Couldn’t stand to lose you,” he said, his voice thick with feeling.

I dropped to the floor and within seconds we were both hugging and crying, then rolling on the carpet and kissing, then—

“Made you an apple pie,” someone said.

Through a blur of passion, I tried to make sense of the words.

“Mom,” groaned Wayne.

I rolled away from him and looked up. Vesta stood above us, a flour-coated white apron over her black floor-length Addams Family dress.

I sat up.

“Just for Kate,” she said, grinning. “Apple pie, natural as all get out.”

“I—” I began, planning to tell her I didn’t eat sugar.

Then it hit me. She had made me a pie. Hypoglycemia was a small price to pay for good family relations.

“I’d love some,” I said with a smile.

Wayne and I followed Vesta into the kitchen. It was obvious she had been cooking. Flour was sprinkled all over the place like industrial strength fairy dust.

“Ta-da!” announced Vesta, pointing at the golden-crusted pie in the center of the kitchen table.

The three of us sat down and Vesta cut the pie. She put a good-sized piece on a plate and passed it to me.

Wayne held out a plate for his share.

“Kate first,” Vesta fluted gaily. She handed me a fork.

Wayne shrugged his shoulders, his face troubled. Was he suffering from foreplay-interruptus, I wondered, or something else? I returned my attention to the apple pie on my plate.

Vesta watched as I cut myself a bite and put it in my mouth. Luckily, I didn’t swallow.

Ugh! The apple filling tasted like salt.
Poison
! I thought and spit it out. I ran to the sink and washed my mouth out with water.

Vesta leaned back in her chair and cackled.

Wayne grabbed the plate of pie.

“Don’t eat it!” I shouted. “It’s poisoned!”

He didn’t seem to hear me. He stuck a finger in the apple filling, brought it up to his nose and sniffed. Then he licked his finger and grimaced.

“Mom?” he growled.

“Salt,” she said, gasping between cackles. “I made it with two cups of salt instead of two cups of sugar!”

“Why?” asked Wayne, his voice as deep and angry as a volcano.

Vesta stopped cackling. She turned to him, her eyes full of innocence now.

“I know Kate doesn’t eat sugar,” she said. “So I made it with salt. I was just trying to please her, Waynie.”

“Oh, Mom,” Wayne groaned. He put a hand over his eyes and shook his head.

Don’t believe her
, I pleaded silently.
She’s not just crazy. She’s malicious. Don’t let her fool you
.

But Wayne just kept his eyes covered. It was up to me.

“Why didn’t you eat any of the pie yourself?” I asked Vesta. I kept my voice calm.

“Oh, I prefer sugar in mine,” she said smugly.

“I suppose that’s why you told Wayne not to take any,” I said angrily, my calm floating away on a cloud of steam. “I suppose—”

The doorbell rang before I could finish my sentence. As I walked to the door, I belatedly remembered my plan never to show Vesta how much she was getting to me.

The doorbell rang again.

“All right, all right,” I muttered and opened the door.

Felix was on my doorstep. His big brown eyes were squinting angrily.

“Where is she?” he demanded as he pushed his way inside.

“Where is who?” I returned, closing the door behind him. Was he looking for Vesta?

“Barbara Chu, that’s who,” he barked. “Barbara Benedict Arnold Chu.”

“I don’t know where Barbara is, Felix.” I sighed.

He looked into my eyes and stroked his mustache thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he looked beyond me to the living room, searching it with his eyes.

“Felix, I am not hiding Barbara behind a potted plant,” I said evenly, pressing my fingernails into my palms to keep from screaming at him. I had lost my cool with Vesta. I wasn’t going to lose it with Felix.

“Well, then where the Sam friggin’ Hill is she?” he pressed. “I called her apartment. I’ve left messages on her bloody friggin’ answering machine. She’s not communicating with me, Kate,” he whined to a finish.

I looked down at the sock-covered toes sticking out of Felix’s sandals. Which one was the toe with gout? Maybe I’d just step on all of them.

“You’re both holding out on me,” he started up again. “A big bucks story like this and neither of you will give me diddly. You better talk to me or—”

“Or what, Felix?” came Wayne’s deep voice from behind me.

Wayne walked to my side and crossed his arms over his mesomorphic chest. He scowled down at Felix, using the formidable scowl that had won him a job as a bodyguard, his eyes nearly invisible now under angrily furrowed eyebrows. Wayne was over six feet tall, and muscular. Felix’s slight body couldn’t have been over five feet five. For a moment I felt sorry for Felix. Then he opened his mouth again.

“Hey, Wayne,” he said with a comradely wave. “My old lady won’t give me poop for a pig farm. And Kate, here, is holding out too. And—”

The doorbell rang before either Wayne or I had a chance to throttle him.

I opened the door, and Barbara bounced in with a big smile on her face. Had her psychic powers returned?

“Hi, kiddo,” she said cheerfully. “Ready to go for a ride? I talked to Alice and we—”

Then she noticed Felix. The smiled turned to a glare.

“Where the friggin’, fraggin’ hell have you been?” he demanded.

Barbara continued to glare without replying.

C.C. wandered in and interjected a pitiful yowl.

“Holy Moly, babe—” began Felix again.

“Don’t start in,” warned Barbara, her voice low and vibrating.

“Start in? Waddaya mean, start in? All I want to do is talk to you—”

“Interrogate me, you mean! Jeez-Louise, have you ever asked if I’m okay? I found a dead body!”

Felix opened his mouth to reply, then seemed to think better of it.

Vesta stepped up to our little group, smiling.

“Felix,” she purred. “How about some apple pie?”

I GRINNED AT Vesta with a spark of genuine affection. My mother-in-common-law wasn’t so bad, I decided. How does the saying go? “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”? Vesta’s heart might not have been in the right place, but her spleen certainly was.

“The pie’s homemade, Felix,” I said seductively, telling myself I wouldn’t
really
let him take a bite.

I heard Wayne try to suppress a snort of laughter. Felix heard it too. He peered at me suspiciously. Then his eyes traveled back to Vesta.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Caruso,” he said politely. “I’m on a restricted diet. I’m not allowed diddly.” He let out a long, deep sigh, his face a study in martyrdom.

Barbara stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes heavenward.

“Listen, kiddo,” she said to me impatiently. “We gotta get a move on.”

“Where’re we going?” asked Felix.

“I don’t know where
you’re
going,” Barbara said, her tone cool enough to freeze summer. “
Kate
and I have a date.”

I didn’t remember any date, but I figured Barbara had probably made one for us with one of the murder suspects. It seemed to me she had mentioned Alice on the way in.

I turned to Wayne. “All right, sweetie?” I asked him softly.

His head nodded, but his eyes were worried.

“Barbara will be with me,” I assured him. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” he growled, then turned away.

I fed the cat, kissed Wayne and left with Barbara as Felix and Vesta watched.

“So, what was in the pie?” Barbara asked once we were in the car.

“Two cups of salt,” I muttered, feeling suddenly ashamed of myself.

I had to wait a full minute for Barbara to stop laughing and give me directions.

At least we weren’t going far. Alice lived a freeway exit away in Sausalito. We were parked in front of Alice’s apartment building and on our way up the rickety stairs before Barbara thought to ask me how come I had a pie made with two cups of salt in the house.

“Vesta,” I whispered and rang Alice’s doorbell.

“Hi, you guys,” Alice caroled as she opened the door.

For all her concern about her weight, her plump body managed to look far better in a fuchsia sweatshirt and sweatpants than mine would have in a designer business suit.

I said “Hi” back and gazed at her, wondering what it was exactly that gave her that elegant look. Was it her posture? Or maybe her personable, heart-shaped face? Or was it her well-cut black hair?

Barbara gave me a little shove and I remembered myself. I stumbled into Alice’s apartment with a smile on my face.

Barbara followed me in, gushing. “I love your place,” she told Alice. “The colors are just gorgeous!”

Alice’s living room was as elegant as she was. It had probably started off with a beige rug and white walls, the same way my living room had. But the resemblance ended there. Alice had added white wicker furnishings with pillows in blue-greens, pinks and lavenders. The curtains and paintings reflected the same clear colors. There was nothing jarring here, nothing that clashed. Even Alice’s fuchsia sweatshirt looked right for the room.

“Gee, thanks,” Alice was saying to Barbara. She smiled broadly, evidently pleased by Barbara’s praise. “I love these bright colors. I couldn’t stand a room filled with yucky browns or something.” She waved her hand at a wicker couch for two. “So, siddown, you guys.”

We did. The wicker was easier on the eyes than it was on the body. The pillow under me didn’t extend to the knobby edge of the seat. I could feel the contours of bent twigs poking into the backs of my knees as I squirmed around trying to get comfortable.

Alice sat across from us, apparently at ease in her wicker chair. “So,” she said, bending forward eagerly. “Are you guys still investigating?”

I didn’t really want to answer that question. “Bumbling” was a closer description of our activities so far than investigating. Dangerous bumbling at that, I thought, rubbing my neck. Luckily, Barbara spoke first.

“We’re still trying to figure things out,” she said, her voice low and sincere. “And we need your help. You knew Sheila Snyder. You know Dan Snyder. What can you tell us about them?”

“Well…” Alice faltered. She ran her hand through her black hair and thought for a moment.

“I gotta be honest,” she said finally. “Sheila could be a bitch. Back at the commune she was on everybody’s case all the time about better organization. She made all these crazy lists. And schedules and stuff. Tried to get us to follow orders. Then she’d get drunk and forget her own rules. What chutzpah!”

“Was she an alcoholic?” Barbara asked quietly.

“Maybe,” said Alice, staring over our heads with eyes that were out of focus, lost in memory. “The rest of us were more into weed than alcohol in those days. But whiskey was definitely Sheila’s drug of choice. Though I think she stopped drinking recently. At least that’s what she said when I visited her to set up the class. She was in A.A. or something. But…”

“But…” Barbara repeated encouragingly.

“Well, the way she hit those kids,” Alice said, shaking her head and frowning. “It was obvious she still had some kind of problem.”

“How about Dan?” Barbara slipped in quietly.

“Dan was different,” Alice replied. She smiled and her eyes went out of focus again. “He was always easygoing. Mellow…”

Mellow! He hadn’t been mellow when he rammed my car, I thought angrily. My neck and shoulders stiffened as I remembered. I realized then that I hadn’t ever told Barbara about the incident. I’d better warn her soon, I thought, and tuned back in to Alice.

“…made flutes out of bamboo and sold them. He’s a real good musician, you know. Dan can play anything. He might have had a good music career if Sheila hadn’t dragged him down so bad.” Alice shook her head again. “Maybe now he’ll get back to his music again.”