Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“You’re very proud of her,” I said after a moment.
“Yes,” Aurora agreed quietly. “I am. She’s the daughter of my heart. I couldn’t ask the universe for more.”
We each took another simultaneous sip of tea. And I tried to think if anything Aurora had told me about Lillian held a clue to Sid Semling’s murder. Not a thing, I decided. Tea and cookies aside, I was no further now than I had been when we’d stepped through the door of the teahouse. Except for the guess that Aurora had a real store of wisdom beneath her metaphysical exterior.
“Listen, Aurora,” I plunged in finally. “What can you tell me about Sid Semling? We were all just kids then. Did you see something in him that we didn’t?”
“Ah, Sid,” she whispered sadly. “Did you know his father beat him?”
I nodded.
“And beat his poor mother, Shirley, too,” she added. Now that I hadn’t known. What a miserable family life Sid must have had. “That kind of abuse is something that karma is supposed to explain, but…” Aurora’s voice faltered for a moment in doubt, then came back to life.
“Sid was capable of great cruelty, but unconscious of it. He hated instead of loved. Hated the people that could do what he couldn’t, the football stars, the smart kids, the good-looking ones. And he was mediocre. He didn’t have to be, but he wasted all his energy in hating. I worried about him even back then.
“But then I worried about a lot of you kids. Becky with her drug problems. And Mark, fearing his sexual identity so strongly. I used to worry he might kill himself. And Elaine. Her father wasn’t much more advanced than Sid’s—no matter however much she defended him. And her mother was a walking Barbie doll. And poor Natalie. Her mother died young— I can’t remember what of—and her father drank, drank himself to death eventually. And Pam’s and Charlie’s parents, so different but so identical in their parental attitudes, one minute doting, the next absolutely refusing to forgive their children for being imperfect human beings.”
She shook her head and then suddenly smiled across the table at me.
“And you, Kate, with that wild boyfriend of yours,” she added. “What an ego he had. No thought for anyone but himself. I used to have to pinch myself to keep from telling you that you deserved better.” A silvery little laugh ascended from her mouth.
I didn’t need a mirror to see the color that filled my face. And I had thought Ken was so cool. But once Aurora mentioned it, I began to remember little things. Like the time—
“Now I can see that each of you has your own karma,” Aurora went on, sober once more. “No one else can work out your issues for you. But it was painful to watch back then.”
Her eyes were misty now, lost in the past. Was she thinking of all of us? Or of one very troubled boy? Her own boy.
“Who did it?” I asked her in a whisper.
Her eyes cleared immediately. She looked straight back at me.
“I don’t know,” she answered crisply. “I’ve tried every technique I know to reach a higher consciousness, but nothing has worked. I’ve meditated on the question. I’ve asked my inner self. I’ve even put in a bid for a private eye spirit guide,” she said diffidently. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. “But I get no answer.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. So much for metaphysics.
“Except for one,” she added softly. Her eyes went out of focus as she spoke. Her already low voice sank even lower. “Whoever killed Sid Semling was someone he hurt on a deep, deep level. Someone who never forgave. Someone who still hates.”
The hair went up on the back of my neck. Aurora may have been joking about spirit guides, but that voice didn’t sound like her at all. It sounded like someone else, maybe the someone who never forgave. Maybe the someone who still hated.
“Who—” I began again.
“Oh, goddess, look at the time,” Aurora cut in, her voice her own again, her eyes turned toward her wristwatch. “I’ve got to get back to the store. Cassandra must be going mad with the afternoon rush.”
How very appropriate for Cassandra, I thought in frustration. But Aurora was already on her feet, dropping some bills on the table and pressing another business card into my hand.
“Come see me at the store,” she ordered, and then she turned and was gone in a whoosh of lavender cotton.
It didn’t take me long to finish my tea. And the plate of cookies. Then I walked slowly back to my car, thinking how much I liked Aurora. That was the problem. I liked everyone. Pam, Lillian, Aurora. Even Jack, for the kindness he kept intact for his children’s sake despite his overwhelming despair.
Well, not everyone, I admitted to myself. I didn’t like Elaine very much. And Becky wasn’t acting very lovable lately either. And Natalie…I pulled Natalie’s card out of my stack. “Natalie Nusser, Nusser Networks.”
Her office was in Santa Rosa, not far away. I looked at my own watch. It was four o’clock. I could get there before five easily and check the last rumor. Was Natalie HIV positive? Probably not. A diagnosis like that might explain why she was so uptight, but so would a lot of things. Like a guilty conscience, for one.
And I was interested in Natalie anyway. She had been Sid Semling’s boss. She of all people had spent time with him before his death, probably eight hours a day.
I’d need a map to get there, I decided. I hurried the rest of the way to my car, got in on the passenger’s side, opened the glove compartment, and slid my hand into its depths.
But I never touched the Santa Rosa map. Instead I touched something fuzzy and vibrating. I jerked my fingers back, but the thing came along with my hand in a purple buzzing blur. My heart was jumping too as I tried to get away. But now the thing was in my lap, its fuzzy legs kicking as it tried to right itself.
I closed my eyes and waited for it to explode.
- Sixteen -
But, of course, windup toys aren’t built to explode.
I held my breath for an instant, then slowly opened one eye. I saw a two-inch-long fuzzy purple gremlin, complete with a white plastic leer, orange eyes, and a windup knob on its side. And, of course, purple kicking legs. Though the legs seemed to be jerking a little slower than before, the loud buzzing sounded more like a weaker clicking now.
I couldn’t even say just why I’d expected the gremlin to explode. Somehow it had seemed logical in that instant of panic. Electrocution by pinball machine, car bomb by windup toy. Right.
I let out my breath, opened my other eye, and snatched the thing up off my lap. It wasn’t even a very cuddly windup toy. Its purple fuzz felt stiff and coarse. But at least its legs were barely moving now. They were certainly moving slower than my heart was. I set the gremlin on the dashboard and watched as it took one little step and fell over exhausted, its work done, having scared the sense right out of me.
I picked it up again and looked it in the face. Sid, I thought. It even looked like him with the close together orange eyes and the big white leer. It had to be one of his jokes. What had he done, wound it up and jammed it in so it wouldn’t start buzzing until I opened the glove compartment? Or did it have a more sinister meaning? Could it have been from the murderer? Then I noticed a flash of white on my lap. It was a little white card with a handwritten message: “Greetings from Sid Semling.” Case closed. Now if I could just get my pulse to slow back down.
I picked up the gremlin and rolled down the window, ready to throw it out, something I should have done when it first landed in my lap, I realized. But I couldn’t do it. It was, after all, all that was left of Sid. Sid was dead, long live the purple gremlin. I got out my Santa Rosa map, stuck the gremlin back in the glove compartment, and was on my way to Nusser Networks two minutes later.
Nusser Networks was housed in a low-slung building on the outskirts of Santa Rosa between a chiropodist and an accountant’s.
I opened the see-through door uneasily. I had already spotted the receptionist through the glass. She was a formidable-looking woman with short-cropped gray hair who, by the expression on her face, was not happy with whomever she was speaking to over the phone.
“No, tomorrow is not good enough,” she was saying as I stepped into the room. “I don’t care what time it is. Today or not at all!”
Then she slammed the receiver down hard and looked up at me from behind her teak desk.
“Do you have an appointment?” she demanded.
“Uh, no—” I began.
“What are you selling?” she asked with a sigh.
I felt my mouth fall open for a second before I regained the use of it.
“I’m not selling anything—”
“Right,” she interrupted. “And you don’t represent a good cause? Or have some little gadget that we just can’t do without? Or need a job at a computer firm?”
I shook my head no all three times, wondering if I had bad solicitor karma now.
“Then what are you here for?” she finally finished.
“I’m a friend of Natalie Nusser,” I put in quickly. “I was nearby so I thought I’d drop in.”
The receptionist squinted at me for a full minute and then demanded, “Name?”
“Kate Jasper,” I told her, resisting the urge to salute.
She picked up the receiver again, pushed a button, and turned away from me as she spoke. But I could still hear her.
“There’s a woman named Kate Jasper out here, claims to know you,” she said. Then she paused. “Oh,” “I suppose,” and “okay” followed shortly after.
She turned back to me as she put down the receiver.
“Sorry about that,” she said, her voice and face softening into that of a friendly human being. “You wouldn’t believe how many solicitors have been here today.”
“Oh, yes, I would,” I assured her earnestly.
We were still exchanging solicitor stories when Natalie Nusser came walking down the hall a few minutes later.
Natalie looked good in her business suit, navy pin-striped with a rose-colored blouse. In fact, she really was an attractive woman, slender with full breasts and a plain but pretty face. But the awkwardness of her movements robbed her of the grace that might have made her seem beautiful at first glance. Her jerking gait as she walked toward me was the same she’d had as a teenager. Though the tension I saw in her face as she came closer was new. It stretched her pretty eyes and mouth into narrow, severe contours.
“Kate?” she said brusquely, a question in her voice as she stuck out her hand to be shaken.
I shook her hand firmly and answered just as brusquely, hoping for some rapport, “Thought we could talk about Sid.”
Her face tightened even further. I hoped her day hadn’t been as bad as her receptionist’s had.
“I can give you a few minutes,” she finally answered. “Why don’t you come back to my office?”
So I followed her past a few cubicles corralled off by gray room dividers to a room with a sliding glass door. I could hear the sound of computer keys being tapped as we walked and one low voice on the phone to someone who sounded suspiciously like a sweetie, not a business contact.
And then we were sitting in Natalie’s office in identical gray-padded office chairs on opposite sides of her wide and crowded desk, the sliding glass door closed and shutting out the sound of the rest of the office. It was time to talk. And I didn’t know exactly how to start. For a moment, I wondered how anyone could even suspect me of being a solicitor, I was so lousy at opening lines.
“So, this is your own company,” I began, smiling so hard my lips felt stiff.
Natalie nodded curtly, pursing her own lips.
“Nusser Networks,” I pressed on cheerily. “Computers?”
“Computer networks,” she clarified.
“Oh, like connecting computers together?” I hazarded.
“I specialize in secure network communications,” she told me. “Are you interested in our services?”
“No, no,” I answered, shaking my head and waving my hand and wondering why the hell I’d ever even brought up her business in the first place. I was beginning to sweat. “I was just curious.”
She bent forward abruptly and glared at me. “You’re not in the computer business yourself, are you?” she demanded.
“Not at all,” I answered, my voice too high. I squirmed in the padded chair and sweated some more. Did she think I was here to steal company secrets? “Gag gifts,” I added desperately. “Shark earrings for lawyers, mugs with twisted spines for chiropractors, ‘uh-huh’ ties for psychologists—”
“Oh, that’s right,” she murmured and leaned back in her chair, her tense face relaxing a quarter of a muscle. “I’d forgotten.”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” I assured her. “I was just wondering.”
“No, no,” she assured me back with a quick twitch of her hand. “Sorry to be so secretive, but our clients are confidential, some are even classified. And you know how careful you have to be as a woman in business. You have to go that extra mile. Especially in the arena of confidentiality.”
I nodded knowingly. Though I hadn’t actually run into many confidentiality problems in my gag gift business.
“You know the stereotypes,” she went on, clasping her hands together so tightly her knuckles were mottled red and white. “Women aren’t as smart as men. Or as politically savvy. We’re too governed by our emotions, too talkative.” Her eyes darted around the office angrily as her voice grew louder. “I have to fight like hell for my contracts. Technically, no one can beat Nusser Networks, but I have to prove myself again and again every damn time.”
Maybe her day hadn’t gone any better than her receptionist’s, I thought as I watched her talk.
“It looks like you’re doing well though,” I offered tentatively.
She focused in on me again.
“You’d better believe we are,” she replied. “We have to be. Nusser Networks’ continued existence is nonnegotiable as far as I’m concerned. I have to keep the company viable. Not just for myself, but for my employees. What are they going to do if I go under?” She grabbed a pen and pounded it on a pad of paper. “One of my employees’ husband has cancer. Do you know what a difference the right medical coverage means?”
I shook my head, enthralled by her intensity. No wonder she was successful. She had the energy to fuel a rocket ship, more than enough for a computer company.
“Well, I know,” she told me, her eyes fierce. “I saw my mother die of leukemia on the county ward. That’s not going to happen to one of my people. Not if I can help it.”
I nodded earnestly. I believed her. Then I started wondering if it was the receptionist whose husband was dying of cancer. Somehow, I hoped not. I opened my mouth to ask, but I wasn’t quick enough.
“All this fuss over Sid Semling’s death,” Natalie was saying. “At least he went fast. That’s merciful compared to a drawn-out illness.”
“I guess so,” I agreed slowly, slowly because now I was remembering one of the reasons I’d come here. To ask Natalie about the rumor that she was HIV positive. Suddenly, the idea didn’t seem so ridiculous anymore. Was that why Natalie was so concerned about illness?
“There are some terrible rumors going around,” I led in. “About the people who were there when Sid died.”
Natalie’s eyes widened in question.
“Natalie,” I blurted out. “Are you HIV positive?”
“Good Lord, no,” she replied, her skin turning the identical rose color of her blouse.
“Just a rumor,” I assured her, feeling my own face heating up. “A false one like the rest.”
“Well, I can disprove that one easily enough,” she said briskly. “I was tested for insurance purposes earlier this year. All Nusser Networks employees are.”
I put up my hand. That was enough proof for me.
“You might want to tell the police that,” I advised her as an afterthought. “The person who heard these rumors passed them all on to the Gravendale Police Department”
Natalie’s cheeks got even rosier. I thought for a moment about strangling Elaine myself. Why the hell had she passed on the rumors? And who had called her with them in the first place? I shook my head. It was time to pull one foot out of my mouth and insert the other.
“I really came to get some feedback from you about Sid,” I told Natalie. “You were his employer. You must have known him about as well as anyone—”
“Not really,” she disagreed before I’d even finished. She sat back in her chair, clasping her hands together again. “Sid had only been on board a relatively short time. I’d done my own sales and marketing up until very recently. But the company seemed poised for expansion, ready for a full-time salesman.”
“Didn’t Sid say he’d just lined up a big government contract?” I asked, just remembering.
Natalie glared and then I remembered something else, Natalie’s feelings about confidentiality. I wondered why Sid hadn’t. Time to change the subject again. But I was running out of feet to put in my mouth. Might as well go for the big question.
“You’re a smart woman,” I began, figuring a little flattery couldn’t hurt the proud owner of Nusser Networks. “Who do you think murdered Sid Semling?”
“Are we sure he was murdered?” Natalie returned coolly. So much for the flattery.
“I think so,” I answered, feeling like a school kid with the wrong answer as I tried to keep my voice firm.
“Have accident and suicide been ruled out?” she pressed.
“You knew Sid,” I objected. “Sid would never kill himself.” But even as I said it I knew I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. Probably the effect of being around all those mathematically certain computers. Then another thought surged up into my mind. “Sid wasn’t sick, was he?” I asked.
“He had a bad heart,” she answered.
“But you don’t kill yourself over a bad heart,” I insisted. I’d been thinking cancer, AIDS, leukemia, all the sad possibilities we’d been discussing.
Natalie shrugged. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t,” she said. “But I wouldn’t presume to speak for Sid.” She crossed her arms over her chest. I was losing her. “In any case, I’m not convinced that Sid’s death wasn’t an accident. A man with a bad heart playing a faulty pinball machine.”
“Hot Flash was not faulty!” I answered a little too quickly and a little too loudly. Actually, a lot too loudly. My pulse wasn’t quite racing, but it was jogging. I took a deep breath to slow it down.
This was ridiculous. Sid had been murdered. The police knew it. I knew it. My ex-husband knew it. Aurora knew it.
Another approach, I decided. For some reason Natalie’s refusal to see Sid’s death as a murder made me all the more tenacious.
“Just pretend for a moment that Sid was murdered,” I began.
“Hypothesize?”
“Yeah,” I said eagerly. Maybe this was how you got through to these science types. “Hypothesize. If Sid were murdered, can you think of any reason why?”
Natalie’s eyes flickered, but again she just shrugged her shoulders.
“Any idea who?”
Another shrug answered that one.
I stared at her across her crowded desk. She stared back at me.