Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“Maybe something from the past,” she finally said softly, surprising me. She looked down at her desk, as if embarrassed by her own untested hypothesis.
The past. Right. But what? Who?
“Who was he closest to then?” I asked, thinking aloud. “Elaine for sure. But who else?”
“Robert Weiss,” she answered quickly.
“And Robert blew himself up with fireworks,” I said. “Could someone else have bought the fireworks—”
“No,” Natalie shot back, flushing. “And don’t start
that
old rumor flying again. The police investigated at the time of the event. Robert bought those fireworks himself.”
I knew she was right. Robert bought the fireworks. He set them up himself. And they exploded. No one else rigged them. Robert’s death was an accident as much as Sid’s was murder. Still…
“But what if someone thought that—”
“Listen, Kate,” Natalie interrupted. “I’m running a business here. I have urgent priorities. Is there anything else you have to ask that really can’t wait until another time?”
“No,” I sighed, slinking out of my padded chair, suddenly embarrassed for taking so much of her time. She was right. She was running a business, and I was interrupting her.
But as I turned to leave, I changed my mind. “I mean yes,” I amended, turning back. “Can I take a peek at Sid’s desk?”
Natalie’s eyes narrowed even further. Annoyance or something else? Suspicion maybe. I couldn’t tell. But I wanted to take a look at the place where he’d worked. I wondered if the police had already looked, but I wasn’t about to ask Natalie. I had a feeling I’d used up my allotment of questions.
“If you must,” she agreed after a few taps on her desk with her pen. “I’ll show you.”
She popped out of her chair and led me out the sliding glass door and down the hall to one of the gray cubicles across the way. She didn’t waste any time getting there. I had to walk double time to catch up with her jerking stride.
But there wasn’t a lot to see once we got to Sid’s cubicle. A couple of jokes were pinned to the gray wall. One showed a preacher saying, “Aren’t you tired of being a poor sinner?” and a drunk replying, “Yeah, but I just can’t seem to get rich.” The other one was pornographic. The requisite computer monitor and keyboard sat on top of the desk next to a pen and notebook with a few doodles. I studied the doodles. “Uncle Sam,” was the clearest, and “$$$!!!!,” and a scribble that looked like an attempt at a naked lady.
“Can I look in the drawers?” I asked softly.
Natalie raised her eyebrows and jerked her hands in the air, but she didn’t say no. I took the combination as a go-ahead and rifled the drawers as she watched. Not that there was much to find there either. Pencils, pens, paper clips, and Post-its in the top drawer. A stapler and Scotch tape in the second. The only interesting thing was in the bottom drawer, a printed list of companies, contact people, and phone numbers with penciled-in check marks by a few of them. I peeked at it quickly, then said, “Confidential?” and replaced it before Natalie had a chance to do it for me.
That was it, besides another gray padded chair. I guessed Natalie was right. Sid hadn’t worked there too long. Or too hard, from the looks of it.
Natalie hustled me down the hall to the reception area after that. If she’d had security guards, I’m sure they would have done the honors for her. The look that she exchanged with her receptionist when we got there told me that my status as a future visitor was probably below that of solicitor now.
“So,” I said as Natalie turned to go back down the hall. “Elaine works for a computer company in town too.” Natalie turned back to me and jerked her head up and down impatiently.
“And?” she prompted.
“Oh, I just thought you’d be interested.”
She didn’t answer. I guessed she wasn’t interested. But I just couldn’t seem to stop my mouth. Something about Natalie cried out to be tweaked. To be pushed. Maybe it was the way she pushed first. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it her brusqueness that brought out the bulldog in me? Or her inherent correctness? I wondered how much tweaking Sid had pulled on her. Probably not much if she was his boss. On the other hand…
“Have you opened your glove compartment lately?” I asked.
“What are you talking about now?” she demanded.
“I opened mine today,” I hurried to explain. “And a big furry windup toy came flying out. Courtesy of Sid. I think he put it in during the party. Just thought I’d warn you.”
“That sounds like Sid,” she snapped, clearly exasperated. Whether at me or at Sid, I wasn’t sure. Well, actually I was pretty sure it was me.
I said a quick goodbye and left on the dot of five. With Natalie and her receptionist glaring after me.
It was a long drive back home at rush hour. I had plenty of time to think. About Pam. About Jack and Lillian and Aurora. And about Natalie. If the murderer could have been identified by stress levels, then I’d certainly have pointed to Natalie. That woman was wound tighter than Sid’s purple gremlin had been. But she’d probably been uptight all her life. And even if Jack didn’t have her exact kind of tension, he was certainly further out of control in his own fashion. And what did anyone’s stress and control levels have to do with it anyway?
I clenched my hands on the steering wheel as a Volkswagen bug cut in front of me. I was running a business too. And I’d wasted the whole day talking to people, most of whom didn’t want to talk to me. And for what? Nothing.
I was tired, frustrated, and sweaty by the time I parked my car in my driveway. C.C. was yowling, and the message light on my answering machine was flashing as I opened my front door.
I played back my messages first, to the background of C.C.’s loud objections.
The first one was from my ex-husband, Craig. There was a mixture of nervousness and excitement in his voice. The Gravendale police had called to check up on his opinion of Hot Flash’s potential as a murder machine. He just wanted me to know.
The second voice was unrecognizable. It sounded metallic and flat. Electronically altered? But its words were clear enough.
“Stop snooping,” it said. “Now. Or it won’t be just you who’ll get hurt. It’ll be your boyfriend. Shall I list the ten ways he could die? All by accident?” There was a pause, then the voice went on, “Or can you think of ten ways on your own?”
- Seventeen -
Unfortunately, I was one hundred percent capable of thinking of ten ways that Wayne could die. And I did, right then as the answering machine tape wound on with another call from a roofing company. Accidental poisoning, car crash, fall…
The acidic dread in my stomach churned its way into my chest as postmortem pictures flashed across the synapses of my brain.
But who had left the message? Now my mind was churning along with my body. Natalie? She’d certainly been angry with me when I’d left. But she didn’t have to leave an anonymous threat to let me know that. Aurora’s serene face appeared before me as I thought of the hypnotic quality of the last line. “Or can you think of ten ways on your own?” A little suggestibility trick she’d picked up from one of her pop psychology manuals?
It had to be someone I’d talked to today. Or did it? Pam might have called Charlie and told him I was snooping. Elaine could have called anyone I’d spoken to today and gotten the information. Or Becky. Or Mark—
I heard the sound of the front door opening and whirled around, adrenaline pumping.
But it was just Wayne who came through the doorway. No monster. No murderer. Just someone I loved more than anyone else in the world. I watched his kind, homely face as he walked toward me and suddenly remembered Barbara’s warning that Wayne might be in danger. Should I let him hear the words on the tape? I had less than a second to decide.
My hand shaking, I punched the rewind button, burying the tape’s message forever. I told myself I could let Wayne know about the threat later if I had to. But I didn’t want him to press a button and hear those ugly words by accident.
“Kate?” said Wayne, a look of concern on his face.
I rushed him before he could ask me what was wrong and wrapped my arms around his solid body, breathing in his scent like it was pure oxygen. I wanted to hold on to him forever. Whoever had left the message knew my priorities. I couldn’t even imagine a world without Wayne. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.
Eventually, I had to release Wayne from my impassioned grip. Even a man who loved hugs as much as he did might have become suspicious after a fifteen-minute embrace.
“So, how’s it going?” I asked inanely as I let him go.
“Fine,” he replied, tilting his head to the side, his brows lowering to half-mast. “Are you okay—”
“Gonna cook me dinner?” I demanded. “I’m starving.”
“Sure,” he answered, a hint of a smile battling with the suspicion that still lingered on his face. Wayne loved to feed me almost as much as he loved to make love to me. Almost. “Feel like minestrone?”
“
Sì
and
buona sera
,” I replied, using up my scant Italian, if it even was Italian, and thinking that indeed I did feel like minestrone, with all the different theories, anxieties, and impressions stirring in the cauldron of my brain. If they’d have been vegetables, I’d have been soup for sure.
I followed Wayne into the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator and began pulling out whatever he could find there. Wayne’s minestrone was different every time he made it, but always good. He gave me the job of opening a couple cans of pinto beans as he began chopping vegetables and herbs. Each to his or her own skills.
“Eat lunch with Pam?” he asked with affected nonchalance as he diced a bulb of fennel.
“Uh-huh,” I answered, lost in thought. If Wayne was in danger, maybe I should follow him around for the next couple of days. A bodyguard for a former bodyguard? Would he notice?
“And?” he prompted, flashing me a look over his muscular shoulder, suspicion in his voice again.
So I told him all about my lunch with Pam, playing up her feelings for Charlie and playing down my questions about murder as he combined the beans, garlic, homemade broth, and massive fistfuls of vegetables in a big pot. He handed me some mustard greens to chop, and I gave him the short version about visiting Lillian at Karma-Kanick.
“Her bronze busts are incredible,” I finished up. “Do you think you could fit them in your gallery?”
Wayne turned slowly away from the bubbling pot on the stove and looked me full in the face.
“You visited Lillian at her shop?” he asked, his voice as low as his eyebrows.
“There were people all around,” I defended myself. “It was perfectly safe.”
He sighed and turned back to the stove, giving the soup a long, deep stir with his wooden spoon, then adding more vegetables in silence. He didn’t say anything more either as he pulled his leftover homemade bread from the refrigerator and heated it in the microwave. Or as he put the finishing touches on the soup.
It was in that silence, filled only with the aromas of garlic and herbs and bread, that I decided not to tell Wayne about my visit to Jack. Or Aurora. Or Natalie. Or about the answering machine message. And I decided to stop snooping. Nothing was worth any danger to Wayne. Nothing. Why did I care who killed Sid Semling? I was done with it.
We ate a dinner that was probably delicious, but I could barely taste it. And we talked off and on. We talked about food and an interview of Maya Angelou that Wayne had heard on the radio coming home. Then we talked a little about gardening. And trimming our fruit trees this year. We didn’t quite get to talking about the weather.
The one thing we didn’t discuss was Sid’s murder. I could tell by the abstraction in his voice that Wayne was as much on automatic pilot as I was. We might as well have been speaking Italian. Or Mandarin, or Hindi, for that matter. I wasn’t exactly sure what Wayne was really thinking about. But I knew what was on my mind. Murder was dangerous. How could I have forgotten?
*
I didn’t talk to anyone even remotely connected with Sid Semling’s death for the rest of the evening. Or the next morning. Instead, I worked diligently on Jest Gifts like a good little sole proprietor. But I had to answer the phone when Elaine called to make sure Wayne and I would be at the memorial service for Sid that afternoon. And I told her we’d go. For sure. The fierceness of her tone as she insisted that everyone
had
to come to the service convinced me that it might have been more dangerous to refuse her invitation than to accept. And attending a memorial service was not the same thing as snooping. Right? Luckily, Wayne concurred when I called him to tell him I’d agreed to go. For both of us.
Wayne came home an hour later and we climbed into my Toyota to make the trip to the old Sonoma winery where the memorial service was going to take place. Apparently, the winery was owned by one of Elaine’s in-laws and the extensive grounds were often rented for company picnics and weddings. And funerals.
When we got there, I could see why. The winery operations were housed in modest, almost shabby, wooden buildings, but the grounds themselves were glorious in the afternoon sun. Spacious lawns extended beyond the modest buildings with scattered oak trees, picnic tables, and even a small pond complete with ducks to exude a picture of rural bliss. Rows of folding chairs and a podium had been set up on a sparkling patch of lawn near the pond. The picnic tables were filled with food and drink. I saw Elaine’s husband, Ed, busily arranging a tray of what looked like cheese wedges as we got out of our car in the nearby parking lot. I took a deep breath and looked at my watch. We were still fifteen minutes early for the ceremony.
Wayne nudged me gently and pointed his head toward the other side of the tables. I turned my own head and saw Elaine there, dressed in black. But her clothing was party-black not funeral-black. Her silk dress was cut low down the spine and short at the hem. Her black stockings glittered with gold threads, and her black stiletto heels were complete with big gold bows that matched her bracelets and layers of necklaces. I wondered if the stiletto heels were sinking into the lawn at the same time as I compared my own black cotton turtleneck and ChiPants, the best I could do on short notice.
I also spotted Becky, standing nearby in a modest black suit and low heels. And Pam and Charlie sitting next to each other in the first row of folding chairs. Charlie was in a black turtleneck too. That made us a set, but somehow I still didn’t think the two of us were making the proper funereal fashion statement.
“Been to too many of these damn things lately,” a voice murmured from behind us.
I didn’t leap out of my shoes, but my shoulders hopped.
Damn, I was jumpy. I turned and saw Mark Myers, somber in his black suit.
“Setting’s gorgeous though,” Wayne offered quietly.
Mark surveyed the scene. I could tell when his eyes lighted on the ducks. His face softened into a little smile.
“Don’t get many waterfowl in the office,” he commented. “Well-groomed feathers. Don’t look overfed either.”
For a moment I was disconcerted. Waterfowl in the office? Then I remembered that Mark was a veterinarian. In that suit I’d taken him for a lawyer. Or maybe an undertaker.
Mark started whistling something that sounded suspiciously like “Be Kind to Our Web-Footed Friends” as I tried to think of something socially acceptable to say.
Natalie Nusser joined us before I could.
“Kate,” she greeted us brusquely. “Mark. Wayne.”
She seemed to have forgotten yesterday’s pique for the occasion. But she still looked tense, her lips pursed and her hands clasped behind her military fashion.
The four of us stood for a short but infinite space of time without speaking until Natalie looked at her watch.
“Time to join the others,” she said and strode toward the gathering by the pond.
We followed her jerking steps without hesitation, ending up scattered behind the folding chairs. Natalie was a natural born leader. No wonder her employees appreciated her.
As we arrived, I noticed how few mourners there really were assembled for Sid’s memorial. We still had a few minutes to go, but there couldn’t have been more than a dozen people present that I didn’t recognize, A handful of elderly men and women. A few more a little younger. Were these Sid’s relatives? I wondered. Or were there some of his friends scattered among them? Had Sid had any other friends?
Elaine’s three children sat in the last two rows of folding chairs, gathered around a short, stocky woman whose face reminded me of Ed Timmons. His sister? She held an open book in her lap as she spoke to the children.
“If everyone is sitting on a table, is it still a table?” I heard her ask. “Or is it now a chair?”
“Or maybe a couch?” Dawn offered seriously.
“Very good,” the woman commented as Elyse giggled at the thought. Eddie Junior tilted his head professorially.
“So, it’s the perception and belief about the nature of the object that really defines it,” the woman went on.
All three children nodded solemnly. She had their interest completely. At that very moment, I was sure each of them had forgotten just why they were sitting in the folding chairs near a duck pond. I just wished I could join them. In mind as well as body.
“Aunt Ursula…” Dawn began.
“Gad, Kate,” a new voice hailed me.
I turned to see Becky, standing, leaning a little, in front of me. Her fragile face was close to mine, her blue eyes already tear-filled.
“Poor ol’ Sid,” she muttered, and I caught the bouquet of alcohol on her breath.
Poor old Becky, I thought back. And I pulled her into my arms for a quick hug. As I let her go, I peered into her face. She had too many damn wrinkles there for her age. And too many broken blood vessels. I knew it was none of my business, but I wanted to take care of her in that moment, to pull her back to sobriety if I couldn’t bring her back to her youth. She had been so alive twenty-five years ago, so full of mischief. But then, so had Sid. Pretty soon my eyes would be filled with premature tears too, I decided, and turned my face away. Just in time to see Aurora and Jack arrive.
Jack was humming as he shambled along beside Aurora, his head down and swinging to his own melody. At least it wasn’t “Be Kind to Our Web-Footed Friends.” It sounded more like “Good Night, Irene.” In fact I was sure of the tune for once because Jack’s hum was loud today, loud enough to record. Aurora looked as serene as always by his side in a flowing purple pants suit.
Could this woman have left me a threatening message? She enclosed me
and
the question in a solid hug before I even had time to consider it. Then she turned to hug Wayne. And Mark. I wondered if she’d have the guts to tackle Natalie. But I never found out. She had just taken Becky into her arms when Elaine arrived.
“I knew you’d all come,” Elaine said, surveying us slowly, one by one. Her voice was not particularly welcoming. Nor was her smile. There was more triumph evident in its curve then cordiality. And then even the smile evaporated.
“Where’s Lillian?” she demanded.
“Lillian had to mind the shop,” Aurora answered quietly.
Elaine opened her mouth as if she was going to demand that Lillian be produced that instant, then clamped it shut again and glared at us for a few heartbeats.
“This is for Sid,” she told us finally and spun on her stiletto heels to walk up to the podium, golden threads glinting off the black of her stockings in the sunlight. The warm June sunlight.
I was already beginning to sweat under my black turtleneck. There was no shade by the pond and the afternoon sun was beating down, doing its best for the occasion.