Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (26 page)

“Hi, sweetie,” I interjected brightly.

He bent down to give me a kiss.

“Goddammit, Waynie!” Vesta shouted. “I’m not going to allow adultery under my roof!”

Wayne’s head popped up obediently. I turned to Vesta and thought about telling her this roof was mine, not hers. She squinted back at me malevolently. I thought about disputing the adultery charge one more time. She crossed her arms and smiled smugly. I thought about strangling her with my bare hands.

Wayne sighed. I looked up into his face and saw misery there.

“Let’s go,” I said softly.

“What?” he asked, his expression of misery giving way to a look of confusion.

“We’re going for a ride,” I told him. I turned to Vesta. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”

Vesta’s mouth opened but nothing came out. I grabbed Wayne’s hand and pulled him toward the door. We were almost out when Vesta regained her powers of speech.

“You can’t leave!” she screamed.

“We’ll be back,” Wayne promised over his shoulder.

I dragged him the rest of the way through the doorway.

“Where are we going?” he asked once we were in the car.

“The Holiday Inn,” I told him.

His eyebrows lifted. I saw a glint of light in his eyes. The beginnings of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. That was all I needed. I let out the breath I had been holding and turned the key in the ignition.

The Holiday Inn was great. We made love, ate a dinner ordered from room service, made love, talked a while and then made love again. The only pall over the evening was the ever-present image of Vesta alone in my house. What would she do while we were gone? Wayne seemed to sense what was on my mind.

“I don’t think she’d actually destroy anything,” he murmured unconvincingly as we drove home.

I pushed the gas pedal a little harder, thinking about fire.

“If she does,” he added, “I’ll repair the damage.”

My jaw muscles tightened. What if she got at my Jest Gifts paperwork? She could ruin my business in a matter of minutes. And we had left her alone for hours. What about my cat? My heart stopped.

“It’s okay, Kate,” Wayne growled. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Really.”

I took a deep breath and smiled. But I kept my foot on the gas.

When I pushed the front door open, I couldn’t see anything out of place. I peeked into my office. The usual mess of papers was moldering on my desk. And my cat, C.C., was dozing in my chair. I let myself breathe again.

“No, they’re splitting up. Really,” came Vesta’s voice from the kitchen. I stepped over to the doorway and saw her sitting at the kitchen table, holding the telephone receiver to her ear.

“This is your chance to make your move,” she continued, her voice low and seductive. “She’s ready for the taking.”

Wayne walked up behind me. “Mom?” he asked. “Who are you talking to?”

Vesta waved him away with her hand.

“Come over now,” she said. She paused to listen. “No, really,” she added. “It’ll be fine.”

“Mom?” Wayne pressed.

“What?” she hissed, jerking her head up to look at him.

“Who is on the phone?” he asked, each word distinct and ominous.

“Her husband, Craig,” Vesta answered triumphantly. She pointed at me and grinned. “He wants her back.”

“Craig is my ex-husband—” I began.

“Give me that phone, right now,” Wayne said, advancing into the kitchen. His voice was cold and steady.

“But—” Vesta protested.

“Now,” he hissed. I had never heard such a nasty sound from his mouth before.

Vesta handed him the phone, then stood and crossed her arms.

“There has been a misunderstanding,” Wayne enunciated carefully into the receiver.

I could hear the responding squeak of Craig’s voice from where I stood. I turned and went back to my office.

A few minutes later Wayne said goodbye and hung up.

“Well, just don’t try that again, Waynie!” Vesta spat at him.

There was a silence. I wondered what Wayne was doing. I stood up from my desk.

“That’s it, Mom,” he said, his voice as hard as marble. And just as cool. “You’re going back to Shady Willows.”

“But Waynie!” she cried. Then she whispered, “You wouldn’t.”

Wayne didn’t answer.

“I didn’t mean any harm,” she said, her voice suddenly soft and placating. Then she began to sob. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry. Please don’t send me back—”

“If you don’t want to go back, you have to cooperate,” Wayne interrupted, “It’s your choice.”

He strode out of the kitchen into my office. His shoulders were straight. His face was stiff, devoid of feeling. I shivered involuntarily. He was frightening this way. No wonder Vesta had pleaded.

“Let’s go to sleep,” he suggested quietly.

I followed him into the bedroom.

Hours later, I awoke to a rasping sound I couldn’t identify at first. I reached out sleepily and touched Wayne’s face. It was wet with tears. I pulled him to me.

“It’ll be all right,” I chanted and held him close as he cried. “It’ll be all right.”

I just hoped that I was telling the truth.

Monday morning was not one I would want to repeat. Vesta, Wayne and I ate breakfast in uncongenial silence. Wayne’s face was rigid and pale, his mouth the only moving part as he methodically ate each and every bite of his bacon and eggs. I strained to swallow the first few spoonfuls of my own oatmeal, then gave up and got some juice from the refrigerator. Even that was hard to swallow. Vesta kept flicking angry glances my way in between sobs and bites of toast.

“Mom, get dressed,” Wayne ordered brusquely once he had cleaned his plate. “We’re going to interview more nurses.”

Vesta did as she was told. Ten minutes later she meekly followed Wayne out the front doorway. She turned back to glare at me just before the door closed. I looked away, but not before I saw something besides anger in her eyes, something in the way the inside corners of her eyelids curved upwards. Something that looked like fear.

The look replayed itself in my mind’s eye as I did Jest Gifts paperwork. I had no sympathy with Vesta when she was malicious. But when she was afraid? She had spent twenty years overmedicated in a mental hospital—a snake pit, filled with writhing lunatics. She had good reason to be afraid of going back. My stomach clenched. I didn’t want to feel sorry for her—but I did.

When the phone rang, I was almost grateful for the distraction.

“Hey, kiddo,” Barbara said when I picked it up. “Are you ready for class tonight?”

I SHIFTED THE phone to my other ear.

“What class?” I asked Barbara, jotting down the last number my adding machine had spit out.

“The reassembled vegetarian cooking class,” she told me. “Monday night, remember?”

“Oh,” I whispered. I set the pencil down gently.

“Alice and Meg got hold of most of the people,” Barbara went on. “Iris, Leo, Gary and Paula. I called Ken.” She paused. “They’re all coming, Kate,” she breathed. “Every single one. Maybe we’ll get the killer to confess—”

“We don’t even know who the killer is,” I interrupted.

“Not yet,” she answered cheerfully. “Pick me up at five-thirty—”

I groaned.

“Unless you want me to drive,” she offered. I could hear the grin in her voice.

“All right, all right,” I said, caving in.

I managed to get through another hour’s worth of paperwork before the doorbell rang. I stomped to the door and flung it open. How the hell was I supposed to get anything done if bells kept ringing?

A tall, handsome man with razor-cut hair and brown, puppy-dog eyes stood on my doorstep. Damn. It was my ex-husband, Craig. Apparently Wayne’s damage control hadn’t worked. From the eager smile on Craig’s face I guessed that he still hoped Vesta had been telling the truth when she told him I was ready for the taking.

“How are things, Kate?” he asked me, his voice hushed and expectant.

“Fine,” I snapped. “Just fine.”

Craig flinched and blinked. The eager smile disappeared. His puppy-dog eyes filled with an expression of hurt that those kind of eyes can evince so well.

I sighed. It wasn’t his fault that Vesta had set him up.

“Listen,” I began. “Wayne’s mother is—”

“Yoo-hoo,” came a call from the bottom of the stairway. I looked down and saw Iris’s silvery head bobbing up.

“Such an attractive house,” she cooed when she reached the landing. “I hope you don’t mind a little unexpected visit.”

“I have work to—” I began. I stopped myself with an effort, swallowing the rest of my honest words unsaid. I started over. “It’s great to see you,” I lied. “What are you doing…”

I forgot what I was saying as a familiar rental car pulled into the driveway behind the other cars. The twins were here.

“Iris, this is Craig.” I introduced them absently, watching Edna and Arletta alight from their car. “Craig, this is Iris. Would you like to come in?”

At least I didn’t have to introduce Arletta and Edna. They remembered Craig from a couple of years back. And they had already met Iris. Of course. I should have remembered. The twins had probably met everyone in the cooking class by now.

I led the party into the house with a gracious smile on my lips and very ungracious thoughts on my mind.

Thirty minutes later they were all gone. I couldn’t tell you exactly what they had talked about. Vacations, gardening, the weather. As I sat down at my desk again, I realized I had no idea why the twins had come by. Or Iris, for that matter. My back stiffened. Why had Iris visited?

I was still trying to figure it out when I picked Barbara up that evening to go to class. “Why do you suppose Iris came by?” I asked her.

“She’s probably just investigating,” she replied reasonably as we got on the highway to San Ricardo. “We visited
her
when
we
investigated.”

“I guess so,” I said slowly, unconvinced.

“Iris wouldn’t kill anyone,” Barbara added. “She’s too much of a lady.”

“Strangling is a fairly ladylike form of murder as murders go,” I argued, an unfortunate image entering my mind, an image of Iris wearing a clean pair of white gloves as she wrapped a white cord around Sheila Snyder’s neck and twisted it. My stomach did a back flip.

“I hope Meg’s gonna give us some food tonight,” Barbara said, blithely changing the subject.

“I just hope we’re going to
live
through tonight,” I countered.

“Kate!” Barbara objected and lectured me about positive thinking until we reached the Good Thyme Cafe.

The CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign was still in the restaurant window. But there was another familiar sign back on the door, reading “Welcome, Vegetarian Cooking Class Tonight.”

Barbara pushed the door open energetically. I followed her in, thinking woefully negative thoughts.

Most of the chairs were still upended atop the tables in the dining room. But ten or twelve had been set right-side up and placed around two tables that had been shoved together in the center of the room. Three women and a tall, thin black man stood by the tables. I shivered. They were the same four people who had stood waiting for us the first night of class.

“Hi, you guys!” Alice called out. Her heart-shaped face was as friendly as ever as she jogged toward us, her high heels tapping on the floor. She looked completely relaxed and unafraid. I wondered why. My whole body was stiff and tight with fear.

“Dynamite outfit,” Barbara told her.

Alice giggled and did a model’s turn to show off her slinky plum-colored jumpsuit. “The lines take off about ten pounds,” she whispered.

I smiled in spite of myself. Here I was, worried to death about murder, and Alice was still worried about her weight.

“Yo, Meg!” Alice shouted. “Come and say hello.”

Meg Quilter was living proof that there was such a thing as too thin. I considered and rejected the idea of pointing this out to Alice as Meg shuffled our way, looking like an anorexic teenager in a white cotton blouse and baggy gray pants. Her silky blond hair was pulled back and stuffed into a plastic barrette.

“Hello,” she mumbled. She looked up for a moment, her sea-green eyes large in her pale, freckled face. I caught a glimpse of the lines radiating from the corners of those eyes, lines marking her as an adult. She lowered her gaze.
At least someone has the sense not to be cheerful
, I told myself.

“Tell Kate and Barbara about the food you made for tonight,” Alice prodded Meg.

“Oh, just some more appetizers,” she mumbled.

“Meg never does herself justice,” a new voice declared from behind us. I turned and saw Paula Pierce, stocky and severe in a navy blue business suit. She frowned. “Meg’s a talented woman,” she reminded us. “A very good artist.”

“And very modest,” Gary said softly. He smiled a kind, reassuring smile. Then he put his long arm around Paula’s shoulders. “Unlike some of us,” he added.