Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (2 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said to Paula. “What did you say?”

“What kind of work do you do?” she repeated crisply.

“Uh, Jest Gifts,” I mumbled in embarrassment. My profession stacked up against an attorney’s and a math professor’s about as well as my T-shirt did against Paula Pierce’s navy suit.

“Jest Gifts?” repeated Paula inquisitorially. I’d have bet she did trial work when she wasn’t taking cooking classes.

“I own a gag-gift company,” I explained. “We sell mail-order to various professionals.” Like you, I thought. I looked into her serious eyes and wondered if she had ever bought one of my shark mugs.

Someone else walked in the door before I had a chance to ask. I turned to look.

The newcomer was a good-looking older woman whose silver hair was arranged in an elaborate French twist. She wore an Indian squash-blossom necklace over a beige linen pantsuit that looked expensive. What was with these people? Didn’t they expect to get messy food all over them? This was supposed to be a cooking class.

“Oh my,” she trilled as she walked in. “This must be the place. What a wonderful atmosphere!” I looked around at the uninspired tables and chairs and wondered what she was used to.

Alice looked excited as she picked up her sign-in notebook. Maybe this newcomer wasn’t a friend of Meg’s.

I turned back to Paula, who was still eying me inquisitively.

“I make stuff for attorneys, too,” I continued. “Like coffee mugs in the shape of a shark.”

Her mouth tightened. Skip the shark mug, I thought. “And for Christmas, I have the Faw-law-law line…”

I was desperately wondering how to get myself out of this conversational hole when the woman with the silver French twist strode up to our little group. She was a handsome woman with strong facial features, widely spaced blue eyes and the posture of a retired dancer.

“I’m Iris Neville,” she announced, her voice high and musical with a touch of something aristocratic. “And you are…?”

Paula did the introductions, but surprisingly she couldn’t hold the floor. Iris met her introductions with a flood of reminiscences about the city of San Ricardo.

“Do you remember Mayor Neumann?” Iris was asking a couple of long minutes later. “Such a delightful man. I was a friend of his dear wife, Nancy. Such a wonderful soul—”

Iris stopped as if someone had kicked her. I followed the direction of her narrowed eyes, looking for the cause.

Two men had just entered the restaurant. The younger of the two wore glasses and a gray pinstripe suit that didn’t seem to fit his pear-shaped body. The older man was heavier, with dark shoulder-length hair and a Vandyke beard. He was wearing a beige linen suit. He met Iris’s gaze with his own glare. What was going on here?

I looked back at Iris for an answer. Then I saw it. His suit and hers were identical. I caught a glimpse of amusement in Gary’s brown eyes; then Iris took a breath and began to speak again. “Such a shame when men dress in women’s clothing, don’t you think?” she asked in a high, ringing voice. Damn. If I had wanted this kind of evening, I could have stayed home with Vesta.

“Personally,” Paula fired back, her head thrust forward eagerly, “I am thankful for the right of free expression that we presently enjoy in this country. If the Moral Majority, which is neither moral nor a majority, was to have its way…”

As I listened to Paula expound, I realized she probably hadn’t even noticed the man’s suit. Iris didn’t wait long to regain the upper ground, though. When Paula stopped to inhale halfway through her brief, Iris was ready.

“I remember meeting Justice William O. Douglas just before he retired. Such a delightful man,” Iris interrupted. “Of the Supreme Court, you know—”

“I know who Douglas was,” Paula said between clenched teeth.

“Of course you do, dear,” agreed Iris, her wide blue eyes round with innocence. “Such a similar philosophy to yours. And such a unique way of expressing himself.”

Paula closed her mouth, seeming to accept defeat. Gary wrapped a long arm around her stocky shoulders and gave them a squeeze.

Iris turned her eyes to Gary. “And you, Mr. Powell, you’re a professor of mathematics. Such a difficult field, I would think…”

I wasn’t going to wait around until she got to gag gifts. I smiled politely, then turned to rejoin Barbara. And ran smack into the man in the beige linen suit.

“Well, hello, sweet thing,” he murmured with a lecherous smile. I should have smelled him coming. He reeked of partially metabolized wine. “You can bump into me anytime, honey.”

I glared into his leering face. I don’t mind when waitresses call me honey, but this guy was a different story. His close-set eyes were gleaming with lewd pleasure. He stroked his beard slowly. I had a feeling he was trying for a devilish image with that Vandyke beard and long hair, but he looked like an aging Maxwell Smart in disguise to me.

“Call me Leo,” he murmured suggestively and tossed his hair back with a flick of his head.

“Fine, Leo,” I said and stepped around him.

“Wait a minute,” he called. “You gotta meet my main man, Ken.” He nodded to the younger man in the pinstripe suit, who goggled at me through thick glasses as he cracked his knuckles.

“Nice to meet you, Ken,” I said and almost ran the last step to Barbara’s side. She was still standing with the pale cooking teacher and her plump friend Alice.

“And Meg’s artwork is so neat…” Alice was saying.

“Bad vibes, huh?” Barbara whispered out of the side of her mouth. I nodded fervently.

“You wouldn’t believe what Meg can do with tofu…” Alice continued.

Well at least I wasn’t at home, hanging out with Vesta, I told myself. Nothing could be worse than that.

Then Leo and his friend Ken joined us.

“Haven’t I met you somewhere before?” Leo asked Meg.

Meg gazed at him, her sea-green eyes wide with bewilderment.

“I don’t think so,” she answered softly. Then she dropped her gaze and went back to sniffling.

I was better off with my original group. I turned back to Paula, Gary, and Iris with new appreciation. Paula was listening to Iris with apparent interest now, though Gary’s eyes were half closed as he stood behind her.

“Some of the most interesting people are vegetarians,” Iris told us. “Carlos Santana, dear Carlos, such a really nice man. Do you know him? And Dennis Weaver, Dick Gregory. And historically, of course, George Bernard Shaw, Ralph Waldo Emerson—”

“Hitler was a vegetarian, too,” came a loud voice from down the dark hallway that led to the kitchen and rest rooms.

It took a few more seconds for the woman who was attached to that voice to emerge into the light. But when she did, it was worth the wait. She was tall and slender with long, blow-dried hair, heavy eye makeup and large, round breasts prominently displayed in a tight red-and-white striped top. The rest of her outfit consisted of a pair of red short-shorts and spike heels. Suddenly, I was feeling okay about my T-shirt.

The two separate social groups that had formed earlier congealed into one as everyone turned toward the newcomer.

“Sheila…” said Alice. She stared at the woman, presumably Sheila, without finishing her introduction, her mischievous eyes subdued now.

Leo recovered first. He stroked his beard, eyed Sheila appraisingly and said, “Say, honey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Well, I certainly don’t know you,” Sheila snapped. She crossed her arms under her large breasts and squinted her black-rimmed eyes. “But I’ll bet I know your sign. You’ve just gotta be a Sagittarius.”

Her tone gave me the feeling this wasn’t a compliment. Leo must have felt it too. His face was red above his beard as he turned away.

Iris recovered next.

“I don’t believe Hitler was really a vegetarian,” she objected, her musical voice cracking on a high note.

“Fine, believe what you want to,” answered Sheila, shrugging her shoulders. “So, Alice, introduce me,” she ordered.

Alice didn’t look enthusiastic anymore as she dutifully introduced the woman to each of us. Her name was Sheila Snyder. She and her husband owned the Good Thyme Cafe. Sheila’s eyes stopped and fastened themselves on Gary Powell before the introductions were even finished. In her high spike heels, she was eye level with the tall black man.

“I’ll bet you’re a Gemini,” she said to him. Her voice was low and intimate, but still quite audible. “You remind me of an old friend who was Gemini. Very mental.” She ran her gaze down his body. “What’s that you have in your hand?” she asked him.

“A crystal,” he muttered, then added more clearly, “This is my wife, Paula.”

Alice straightened her plump shoulders and jumped into the fray.

“Meg and I certainly enjoyed visiting you and the kids yesterday.” she said to Sheila with forced friendliness. “Though I was sorry to miss Dan. How’s he doing?”

“Oh, Dan’s fine,” Sheila said. “Getting fat, though.”

The blush that rose slowly up Alice’s neck and into her heart-shaped face matched her magenta pantsuit perfectly.

“Of course, I never gain any weight,” Sheila went on. “I eat ice cream, butter, cheese, the whole bit. But I’ve just got one of those bodies.”

I sighed. She certainly did.

“But those are dairy products,” announced a shrill voice from behind me. It was the young man in the pinstripe suit, the friend of Leo’s. What was his name?

“Ken,” Barbara whispered in my ear. Psychic friends are useful that way.

“There are all kinds of poisons in dairy products,” he told her, his eyes earnest behind thick glasses. “The antibiotics they put in milk, for instance, can give an allergic person hives, headaches—”

“Well, I don’t have any hives or headaches—” Sheila interrupted impatiently.

“But growth hormones—” Ken insisted.

“Oh, please,” Sheila groaned. “I don’t want to hear about growth hormones.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know why I came tonight. I certainly don’t need a cooking class. I’ve done the cooking here at the Good Thyme since we opened.”

I felt a nudge from Barbara and stifled a snort of laughter. So this was the woman responsible for the two wretched meals I had eaten here. I saw two little girls emerge from the dark hallway behind Sheila. Were these her kids?

“But when Alice asked to use the place, I thought, why not?” Sheila continued. “Dan is out with his friend Zach tonight, anyway, so—”

“Mom, we’re hungry, can we have the leftovers in the fridge?” interrupted the taller of the two little girls.

Sheila jumped, startled. Then her face darkened. She whirled around and slapped the girl across the face.

The girl stumbled to one side, then regained her footing.

“What are you, stupid?” Sheila shouted at her.

THE SOUND OF the slap still reverberated in my mind as Sheila berated the little girl. I could almost feel its sting.

“Goddammit, Topaz! Why do you sneak up on me like that?” Sheila demanded.

The girl was still now, frozen. Her face was splotched with red where she had been struck. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but her eyes were already dead. There was no feeling visible in them, except for the long-suffering vacancy of an old woman. Her arms were alive, though. They lifted hands bunched into fists, then dropped them, then lifted and dropped them again, and again, in a slow, rhythmic cycle. A shiver prickled the skin on my own arms into goose flesh.

“Look, I’ll be up in a minute,” promised Sheila, her tone more placatory than angry now. As she let out a long sigh, she seemed to diminish in size. Even her prominent breasts sagged into insignificance. “Okay?” she asked softly.

The girl muttered, “Yes, Mom,” and turned to make her way back down the darkened hallway. The smaller girl stared at Sheila with round eyes for a moment, then turned and raced after her sister.

It was only after the children were gone that I remembered the rest of the audience to this family drama. I sneaked a peek at the faces around me as I struggled with my own churning feelings. Each face bore the imprint of what we had witnessed, some more starkly than others. Barbara’s and Paula’s faces were tight with rage. Even Meg’s wide eyes were narrowed fiercely in her pale face. And Iris—

“Hey!” Barbara barked. “You don’t need to hit a kid to get her attention.”

“So, what’s it to you?” Sheila shot back defiantly. She glared at Barbara for a moment, then drew herself up to her full height, turned on her red spike heels and clattered back down the hallway.

As I let out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding, I heard one or two others echoing my relief. Then I heard a nervous giggle. I turned and caught Ken in the act, giggling behind his hand. Paula and Barbara were still glaring, but everyone else had pasted their social faces back on.

“Is it time to start yet?” Meg asked Alice softly.

Alice looked at her watch. “It’s time,” she confirmed, her plump, heart-shaped face smiling again.

Meg gave out a miserable sniffle and murmured something about getting it over with.

Alice patted Meg’s arm and took charge. Switching on the hallway light, a single bare bulb that couldn’t have been more than forty watts, she led the group forward, pointing like a tour guide to the rest rooms and pantry on the left, the kitchen on the right and the stairway at the end of the hall that led to the Snyders’ flat.