Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
When Elaine reached the podium, she turned, grabbed its sides, and spoke. Loudly.
“It’s time to begin,” she announced. “Please take a seat if you haven’t.” Her voice held a tone of friendliness it hadn’t before. But maybe that was for the benefit of the relatives who had assembled for the memorial.
I scrambled to sit down in the second row next to Wayne. The folding chair I chose was metal and sizzling hot. I could feel its brand on the back of my knees all the way through my ChiPants. I was just glad I wasn’t wearing a skirt.
“We’re all here to remember Sid Semling,” Elaine told us. She paused and pointedly turned her head to gaze at the little table that sat next to the podium. There was only one thing on that table, a brass urn in the classic Greek shape.
My heart gave a little jump in recognition. Sid’s ashes were in that urn. They had to be. My imagination traveled from his electrocution through his cremation and to the sizzling chair beneath my bottom. The trip wasn’t a pleasant one. I could have used some Dramamine.
“Sid Semling was my cousin,” Elaine said, still looking at the urn. “I could almost say he was my brother. I loved him. A lot. Some people didn’t understand Sid.” She glared for a moment before moving on. “But when you did, you couldn’t help but love him. And I know there are some of you out there who did love him.”
I hoped so, for Sid’s sake. Maybe some of those elderly relatives had loved Sid. Maybe Jack had. I wanted to look Jack’s way suddenly, as if I’d be able to see if he’d loved Sid, but Jack was sitting behind me. So I kept my eyes on Sid’s ashes along with Elaine as she introduced a tall, red-haired woman in a long, flowered dress and a large, black-brimmed hat who had seemed to appear out of nowhere.
My pulse sped up. Was this woman Sid’s secret lover? A long-lost love? She looked the right age. And she was beautiful enough for the part with her milky white skin and bright green eyes.
“This is Anna May Price,” Elaine told us brusquely. “And she will sing for Sid today.” And then the romantic balloon burst. This was no long-lost love. This was a hired singer.
But disappointment turned to appreciation when the woman began to sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…”
Her voice was as pure as her sparkling green eyes. And filled with every nuance of sadness and longing that “Amazing Grace” is capable of eliciting. I felt unexpected tears in my eyes. Tears for Sid, and tears for a vague religious yearning that I’m rarely aware of except through music. And I wasn’t the only one who was moved. I could hear sniffles all around me, even sobs. And a harmonic humming that could only have been Jack’s from behind me.
When Anna May brought the song to its last sweet note, I would have bet there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. She gave a little bow to the audience and then bowed toward the table with the brass urn before walking away and out of sight. Amazing grace indeed.
I brushed off my hot legs and prepared to stand. This was the perfect end for Sid’s memorial. But it wasn’t the end.
Elaine’s husband, Ed, was up at the podium next with another welcome for our small crowd and a rambling series of recollections of his brother-in-law. “A real funny guy,” seemed to be the common thread of his stories. Then, mercifully, his words came to an end.
The next mourner up to bat was an elderly man of a stocky build who introduced himself as Sid’s great-uncle, Steven Semling.
“That kid, Sid, was a great joker,” he told us. “A real Semling. Told me a great one the last time I saw him.”
I settled back into my hot seat, my sweaty turtleneck sticking to my shoulders. I had a feeling we were in for a joke, and I was pretty sure it was going to be longer than “Amazing Grace.”
“See, seems there’s this old guy who meets an old friend after a lot of years,” Sid’s great-uncle began with a wink. “Guy says, ‘So, how’s your wife, Mabel?’ ‘Oh, Mabel,’ the friend replies. ‘She died.’ ‘Too bad,’ the guy says. ‘What of?’ ‘Poison,’ his friend says. ‘Poison, that’s terrible!’ the guy says. ‘Did you ever remarry?’ ‘Oh, yeah, Alice. But she died too.’ ‘How?’ asks the old guy. ‘Poison too,’ his friend tells him.” Sid’s great-uncle clasped his chest in a great show of shock here.
“‘No! That’s terrible. Well I guess that must have turned you against marriage.’ ‘Nope,’ the friend says. ‘I married me a woman named Helen after that.’ ‘She still alive?’ asked the old guy, hopeful-like. ‘Nope, died of gunshot wounds.’“
Sid’s great-uncle paused and surveyed the audience now. I had a feeling the punch line was coming.
“‘Gunshot wounds?’ the old guy said. ‘How the heck did she die of gunshot wounds?’ ‘Well,’ his friend whispered, ‘Helen wouldn’t take the poison.’“
Then Sid’s great-uncle slapped his leg and began to laugh hysterically. Jack joined in from behind us, only his hysteria sounded more like the medical kind. Oddly enough, I found Sid’s great-uncle’s story touching in its own way. I would have bet it was just the kind of story Sid would have told at a memorial service. Even at the memorial of a man who had been murdered.
A couple of other relatives got up and spoke after that. Most of them dwelt on Sid’s childhood antics and sense of humor. Some of them talked about other funny members of the family too. By the time they were through I had sweated completely through my black turtleneck and through the back of the thighs of my ChiPants.
Then Elaine looked out at the rest of us and asked if we had any remembrances we’d like to share.
After a long uncomfortable silence, Mark finally stood up and told us that Sid was “outgoing, funny, and always glad to meet new people.”
But that wasn’t enough for Elaine.
“Natalie?” she demanded as Mark took his seat again. “You were Sid’s boss. You must have something to say.”
But Natalie wouldn’t take the bait. She shook her head. Elaine glowered.
Natalie glared back.
Elaine glowered even more fiercely. And won.
Natalie rose, jerking out of her chair with all the grace of a badly designed robot. “Sid was a good salesman,” she offered tersely. “Sid was a determined man. He never gave up until he got what he wanted.”
Then she sat back down, dropping into her seat like a cannonball. She was the only one who hadn’t mentioned Sid was funny. Maybe she’d never noticed.
Finally, it seemed that even Elaine had heard enough.
“Anna May!” she called out.
And then the lovely woman with the red hair and black-brimmed hat appeared once more, walking up the path from around the other side of the pond. When she got to the podium, she nodded at the urn on the little table and began to sing again.
This time, the song was “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” Another tearjerker. But I was just too hot to cry anymore by then, though I did do my best to imagine Sid walking with God in whatever form God took as Anna May’s pure voice soared above us into the bright sunlight.
Once Anna May was finished, Elaine asked us to join in a silent prayer for Sid. I lowered my head and did my agnostic best, offering my sincere wish that Sid might find peace and light. And joy. And maybe even laughter. It couldn’t hurt to try.
I had just raised my head again when I heard a shout coming from the podium. No, coming from the table with the brass urn on it.
“Help!” it bellowed. “Help! Let me outa this urn! Whoa, I really made an ash of myself this time!”
- Eighteen -
I jumped up out of my folding chair, barely hearing the crash as it fell over behind me. Sid. That was Sid calling from the urn!
“Help!” the voice from the urn shouted again.
In the same instant, I heard a startled yelp from my right side and felt Wayne rise on my left. And then the shouts and cries from all around us.
My pulse beat as erratically as the bedlam that surrounded us. But seconds later, it began to slow as I realized Sid’s voice was just a prank. One more obnoxious prank.
“At least I lost weight!” the voice went on, still bellowing. “Would you believe I can fit in this little tiny urn?”
Damn Sid and his stupid pranks, I thought. And then the sweaty little hairs on the back of my neck went up. Sid was dead. But Sid was still playing pranks.
No, not Sid. I shook the thought out of my head violently. That was impossible. But if not Sid, then—I scanned the gathering quickly, glancing at Wayne’s face first to see if he was all right. His halfway-lowered brows told me he was puzzled but not panicked. Rare in this crowd. I looked to the front row, but I couldn’t see Pam’s and Charlie’s faces, only their backs. Pam’s arms were waving a mile a minute though. Charlie placed one tentative hand on her runaway shoulder as I turned to my right. Natalie stood next to me, her face white and slack-mouthed with shock. Mark didn’t look a whole lot better on her other side. And Becky had closed her eyes and was holding her hands over her ears.
I swiveled my head around and saw Jack and Aurora, each with identical looks of perplexity on their faces. Even in the bedlam, I found their reactions interesting. The person in the crowd most likely to be voted insane seemed to be as calm as the person most likely to be voted sane. Assuming serenity equaled sanity.
“Actually, it ain’t so bad in here! I think I’ve
urned
a little respect.”
Finally, I jerked my head in the direction the voice was coming from. To the table by the podium. Where Elaine Timmons nee Semling was standing. And then asked myself why I’d even bothered to look anywhere else. Of course it was Elaine who’d done this. I could even see the smug little smile tugging at her lips as she tried to keep her expression somber. This was Elaine’s tribute to her cousin, to her beloved almost-brother.
I smiled a little myself in that moment of recognition. Because the voice from the urn really was the perfect memorial for Sid. Far more fitting than “Amazing Grace” or “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.”
“In all
urn-estness,
I must say that I appreciate your coming to see me today…”
And then I even recognized the voice. It was Elaine’s husband Ed’s voice. Despite the volume of its bellowing, Ed Timmons’s voice lacked the richness and timbre that came from a man of Sid’s size. A man who
had
been Sid’s size, I corrected myself sadly.
I reached behind me and picked up my half-flattened chair and bent it back into shape again. Most of the assembled mourners had begun to quiet down by now. Yelps and cries had been replaced by frantic conversations, some whispered, some aloud, as people tried to explain the trick to one another. I sat down, feeling a lot cooler than I had before in my sweat-soaked clothes, thankful that acute shock is chilling among other things.
“Hee-hee-hee!” Sid’s great-uncle laughed nearby, slapping his leg. “That was a good one, Sid.”
I took another glance at Wayne, whose face was about as readable as rock now, and gave his hand a quick squeeze. He squeezed back without blinking and resumed his own seat.
And then Ed’s imitation of Sid’s voice was abruptly gone. And Elaine’s voice was back.
“You know Sid wouldn’t pass out of this world without one final prank,” she told us, at the podium again. A full smile stretched all the way to her broad cheekbones now.
There were some murmurs of assent from the crowd. As well as a few angry comments from the unamused. And more than one “humph.”
“So say goodbye to Sid,” Elaine went on, unfazed. “And then stand up and enjoy some of the great food that Aunt Lenore and Uncle Marty were good enough to provide today.”
Elaine’s smile faltered then as she added, “In the memory of one heck of a funny guy, Sid Semling.”
There went my appetite. Because, for all the pranks, Sid was still dead. But I stood up and mingled even though I didn’t feel like eating. Mingling was not snooping. And I was still curious, appetite or no appetite.
As I suspected, the people in the crowd that I hadn’t recognized were mostly Sid’s and Elaine’s relatives with a couple of Elaine’s friends thrown in for good measure. Ed introduced me to his sister, Ursula, the woman I had seen with his children earlier. Ursula shook my hand briskly, then turned to Ed.
“I’m taking the children for a walk,” she told him. Then she took his shoulders in her strong hands and gave him a little shake. Clearly, she was an
older
sister. “Bad, bad taste,” she scolded him, but there was a hint of laughter in the shape of her eyes. “But then humor is relative.”
With that, she winked and released him, walking off with his children.
“The kids knew all about the joke,” Ed assured me as we watched Ursula lead them laughing down the path that led around the duck pond.
“It was your voice, wasn’t it?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t being too nosy. And knowing I was. “How’d you set it up?”
“A little tape recorder under the table,” Ed admitted, blushing. “A friend of mine thought it up. All Elaine had to do was hit the switch while everyone’s heads were bowed.”
“No remote control?” I asked.
Ed shook his head, his eyes widening a little.
It was a question I had to ask. Because if it had been remote control, it would have been the same MO as the pinball machine pranks. For whatever that would have proved. I repressed a sigh. The remote control idea had probably been Sid’s in the first place. The same MO wouldn’t have proved anything anyway.
I was just reminding myself not to snoop anymore when Pam walked up to me and grabbed my arm.
“Kate!” she hissed in my ear. “You have to take a walk with me.”
I looked around me and saw Wayne safe, talking with Aurora. I just hoped taking a walk with Pam didn’t look like snooping to anyone.
But nobody seemed interested in us anyway, so I let Pam drag me up a grassy slope to one of the old oak trees, talking the whole time.
“…So Charlie called me and asked if he could pick me up and bring me to the memorial, and I said yes, but then when I hung up I realized he had to drive all the way down to my place just to drive all the way back up here.” I took a deep breath for both of us. Pam didn’t seem to be able to stop long enough to breathe, she was talking so fast. “And then on the way up here he tells me when his father died, he inherited his estate.” She paused for one short second, then pulled me toward her so that our faces were inches apart. “Kate,” she breathed. “He’s worth close to a million dollars.”
“Charlie?” I said, unbelieving.
“Yes, Charlie!” Pam yelped and let me go. “
Por Dios
, he lives in this handyman’s cottage on his friends’ property and does grounds keeping for them because that’s what he’s always done. Not for the money at all. And he writes his Rodin Rat stories. But he’s rich—”
“But that’s great!” I told her. “Now you don’t have to worry about being laid off or about supporting him or—”
“That’s what Charlie said,” she interrupted. “He said now that he’s met me again, he’d move anywhere I wanted, that we could live off the royalties from his books and the interest on his father’s money. But…but, I feel like such a gold digger. The inheritance isn’t my money, Kate. I didn’t earn it—”
“Nor did he,” I reminded her.
“That’s what he said!”
“Listen,” I told her, leading her back down the slope. “This is almost like what happened to Wayne and me. Wayne inherited a big estate too, but we live in my little house and split the expenses. He could live in a mansion if he wanted. But he doesn’t want to. The only real money he ever spent was on his mother. And I keep on with Jest Gifts because I want to.”
“Really?” Her liquid brown eyes widened.
“Don’t you want to keep working as a librarian?” I demanded.
“Well, of course. Wildspace is one of the few organizations that’s really—”
“Then just keep on doing it,” I told her. “And pick a place to live somewhere between the two of you. Or just stay at your place.”
I gave her a great big smile, remembering worrying about all the same things. Damn, it felt good to be able to pass on my experience, real experience that might actually help her. Unless Charlie was a murderer, of course. There was always that possibility.
“But date for a while and live apart till you’re sure,” I amended quickly. “That’s what we did.” At least “dating” was a good euphemism for what Wayne and I had done. Almost every night. But I was pretty sure Pam got the point.
She nodded her head, her eyes still wide open.
“It’ll be perfect,” I promised her, just hoping I wasn’t lying.
“Ay, Kate,
muchas gracias
!” she cried and pulled me into a hug that almost smothered me. She was a big and beautiful woman all right, all the way around.
Once I caught my breath, Pam and I walked back to the crowd, arm in arm. I looked over at Charlie who was standing with Anna May, the woman who had sung “Amazing Grace” and “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” but Charlie’s eyes were on Pam. And they were sparkling. I would have bet mine were too. Love really was grand. As long as neither of the lovers were murderers, anyway.
We were almost to Wayne and Aurora when I heard Aurora’s clear, deep voice chime out.
“…And it was so good to see Kate yesterday,” she was telling Wayne. “And as far as her talking with Jack, I think she might actually have been helpful in unlocking the abundance of joy Jack holds within his heart.” She reached out to put a wrinkled hand on her son’s arm. Jack did look pretty good. He was humming, his eyes focused. But Wayne. All I could see of my sweetie was his back, but the sudden stiffness in his neck and shoulders said it all. Damn. I never had told him about meeting Aurora yesterday. Or Jack. Or Natalie for that matter.
“You know,” Aurora continued, “sometimes the most fantastic miracles can arise from events that look disastrous at face value.” I hoped she was right as she turned to give Jack a small embrace.
Wayne took Aurora’s momentary distraction as an opportunity to jerk his head around and aim a quick glare my way, before turning back just as quickly. My whole body flinched in guilt. And then I wondered how he’d even known I was behind him.
“It’s really true, what the masters say,” Aurora went on serenely as she released her son from her embrace. “Transformation is always possible.”
I slapped an inane smile on my face and pulled Pam the other way, wondering what I would say to Wayne when we finally discussed the matter. If we ever did discuss the matter. My legs felt weak as we drifted over to where Natalie and Mark were talking. Actually, to where Natalie was talking.
“People die,” she was saying, her usual brusque voice tight with something that sounded like more than just sadness. Was it fear? Or maybe even anger? “There’s no net gain. There’s no net loss. People just die! That’s just the way it is!”
Another conversation I didn’t feel like joining in. I looked at Pam. She looked back at me. And we abruptly executed an about-face and walked the other way. And saw Becky and Charlie heading toward us.
“Talk to him,” I whispered when Charlie reached us, giving Pam a little push. “Just talk to him.”
Pam gave me a kiss on the cheek and left with Charlie, walking toward the duck pond. They weren’t holding hands, but their bodies were so close, it would have been hard to slide a ruler between them.
“Are they a couple again?” Becky asked me softly.
“I hope so!” I answered with all my heart.
“I hope so too,” Becky murmured. “There ought to be some happiness for someone out of all of this, this…”
I swiveled my head back her way as she began to cry.
“Oh, Kate,” she sobbed, grabbing my arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“About what?” I asked impatiently. And then realized that this was my chance. I looked around us. There was no one within ten feet.
“Becky,” I whispered. “Did Sid rape you in high school?”
Her head bobbed up, and she dropped my arms. She gazed at me, her wet blue eyes wide with surprise.
“What?” she demanded and leaned back precariously.
I reached out an arm to steady her. She grabbed it and pulled herself forward again.
“Did Sid rape you in high school?” I repeated.
She stared at me for a moment more and then began to giggle, her eyes still wet with tears. I wondered how much alcohol had played a part in the spread Aunt Lenore and Uncle Marty had provided.
“Sid never had to rape me,” Becky declared, forgoing even a hint of a whisper now. I glanced around stealthily, but no one seemed to be listening. “You know how Sid could talk. Talk, talk, talk. He could have talked his way into a nunnery. Hell, he’s probably talking his way into heaven right now. Well, he just talked me right into, well…you know.” She winked one wet blue eye largely. “Course, we were awful stoned at the time.” Then she giggled again, leaning into me. “Awful stoned.”