Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“I don’t know. And I’ve tried to figure it out over the years. I even thought about writing a short story about the whole thing. Because here was Sid, this intrinsically popular kid with unpopular parents. And here was me, this intrinsically unpopular kid with popular parents—”
“Not that unpopular,” I reminded him. Someone had to. Obviously Rodin Rodent wasn’t giving this guy enough lessons in self-worth. “Pam certainly liked you.”
He smiled softly.
“Sid did help me with Pam,” Charlie said quietly. “He told her what a great guy I was. And he convinced me she liked me too. But Pam and I never talked. I guess we were both too shy. And then one evening, the three of us went out to the beach in the Mustang, and Sid just left us there. Drove right off. So Pam and I had to talk. God, it seemed like we were there for years before Sid came back. And Sid was right, she did like me. I was in heaven.” He sighed. “We were in heaven.”
Heaven didn’t seem to have lasted though. Charlie frowned again.
“But then Sid kept wanting more stuff from me. My father found out I was letting Sid drive the Mustang without me, and he said I couldn’t let Sid do that anymore. When I told Sid, he tried to blackmail me. He told me he’d tell Pam I was having sex with another girl if I didn’t let him keep driving the car. I couldn’t believe it. I would have never made love to anyone else. I was in love with Pam. I told Sid I couldn’t disobey my father. And Sid did what he said he would. He told Pam this long story about all the girls I’d been with. Like Becky Burchell and Natalie Nusser. And a bunch of others.”
Charlie’s body tensed. I waited for another explosion. But none came.
“Luckily, Pam was a very sensible girl,” he said, his voice slower. But I could hear the vibration of the strain it took for him to keep the brakes on. “She just laughed at Sid and asked me what the deal was. I told her and she said I should stop hanging out with Sid.” Charlie shook his head ruefully.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy to stop hanging out with Sid. He was still pretending to be my friend. And oddly enough, I still believed him. Then the next thing he wanted was to date my sister. But she was a year older and definitely not interested. But Sid kept saying I could get him ‘into her pants’ if I really wanted to.”
Charlie wound his hands together tightly, his knuckles bulging.
“And then Pam got pregnant.” Charlie’s face reddened again, but I was pretty sure it was anger this time. I could even smell it in the bitter scent of his sweat now. “And I made the mistake of telling Sid. Sid treated it like a big joke, slapped me on the back. ‘No college for you, ho-ho-ho.’“
I recognized the “ho-ho-ho.” It was the evil captain’s.
“And then he sat there grinning and told me either I got my sister to give him a ‘roll in the hay,’ or he’d tell everyone that Pam was pregnant. See, Pam and I wanted to at least keep it secret until we graduated. And neither of us had told our parents yet. We were still trying to figure out what to do. I pleaded with Sid. I told him there was no way I could get my sister to sleep with him, outside of drugging her and giving him the key to her room. He told me that sounded fine. It was like seeing Dr. Jekyll turn into Mr. Hyde. Because he was serious. I guess that was when I finally realized he’d never really liked me.
“I told him no. I had to. Pam and I talked it over. I couldn’t sell him my sister, even if I wanted to. So Sid Semling told everyone he could think of that Pam was pregnant. He even made anonymous calls to both our parents. And everyone he didn’t tell, his cousin, Elaine, did.
“Pam hated it, hated me. I hated myself then too, for getting her pregnant. And for letting myself believe that Sid Semling had been my friend.”
“Did you kill Sid Semling?” Wayne asked quietly.
“What?” asked Charlie, his dreamy eyes focusing as if just awakening.
Actually, the question caught me off guard too. It shouldn’t have though. If anyone had a motive, it was this man. But twenty-five years later?
“You must have wanted to kill him,” Wayne added, his voice hypnotic.
But Charlie just shook his head.
“There wouldn’t have been any use in it,” he explained reasonably. “The harm was done. The tragedy was written. Sid just speeded things up a little.”
“But then he started in on you in front of Pam again at the party,” Wayne went on. “And cross-questioned you about Vietnam.”
“That he did,” Charlie agreed, sighing. “I think he still hated me after all these years. As if
I
had been the one to harm
him.
See, it’s really weird, but I think in some way he was jealous of me still, because of my parents.”
I wanted to ask Charlie if he even understood what Wayne was asking him. If he understood that we believed Sid was murdered that very day. But I couldn’t find the words. Maybe my throat was too dry, and my mouth too sour, from Charlie’s story.
And then the phone rang.
It was another solicitor. This confrontation didn’t go as well as my last one. This solicitor got in the last word, asking me what I had against recycled umbrellas before hanging up. Actually, I don’t have anything against recycled umbrellas. Or the environment. It just drives me crazy that a good cause is considered sufficient entitlement for invasion of privacy. But at least the umbrella call was a quick one.
When I got back to the couch, Charlie was mooning over Pam again.
“What if I never see her again?” he asked plaintively.
“Why don’t you come to Aurora’s tomorrow?” I suggested. “She’s asking everyone who was at Sid’s over for lunch. You gave her your card, didn’t you?”
Charlie nodded. “Do you think Pam will come?” he asked.
I shrugged impatiently. How the hell would I know?
“Kate, Pam likes you,” he said breathlessly. “Will you call her and see if she’ll come?”
I stared at the man. No wonder he’d needed Sid’s help twenty-five years ago in setting up a meeting with Pam. But Charlie was a grown man now.
“Charlie, it’s not up to me—” I began.
“It probably couldn’t hurt,” said a deeper voice from Charlie’s other side.
I looked over at Wayne. Was this male bonding or what?
All right, so I ended up calling Pam. I told myself I just wanted to hear her voice after all that Charlie had told me. To hear her as the strong, happy, vital woman she was now.
The minute I dialed the phone, Charlie stood up and started looking around the living room, as if seeing it for the first time.
“Nice place,” I heard him tell Wayne. “You take good care of your plants.”
Maybe he had some social skills after all.
“Mind if I play a game of pinball?” he asked just as Pam’s voice came on the line.
“Hi, this is Kate, Kate Jasper,” I announced awkwardly, feeling all the more foolish in my mission once I had Pam on the phone.
“Oh, Kate, I’m so glad you called!” she yelled in my ear and I relaxed a little. “I needed to talk to someone about Sid.” Didn’t we all? I thought. Maybe Aurora’s post-trauma lunch wasn’t such a bad idea after all. “Wasn’t it just awful? I guess it took a while for it to sink in that he’s really dead…”
I identified the happy pinging and chiming of Hayburners being played from behind me without turning around. Different pinball machines have different sounds, whole different personalities.
“…wasn’t the greatest guy in the whole world, but he was Sid. Such a kidder, so full of life.
Por Dios,
he was only forty-three. And then to die that way of a heart attack…”
Did Pam really think Sid had only suffered a heart attack? Didn’t she realize he was electrocuted? The queasy feeling in my stomach told me I didn’t even want to ask her that question. Not now.
“Did Aurora call you about lunch tomorrow?” I asked her instead.
“Yeah,” she told me. “I gave her a tentative yes. I think it will be good for all of us.” She paused, then asked softly, “Kate, do you think Charlie will be going?”
I couldn’t stifle the laughter that burst out of my mouth and into the phone receiver.
But Pam just laughed with me, as if she knew Charlie was behind me playing pinball.
“Listen, I’m sure Charlie will be going,” I told her. Then I added hastily, “I’ve gotten psychic over the last twenty-five years.”
She didn’t even question the explanation. Instead she suggested we get together for a late lunch on Monday at a new Nepalese restaurant in San Francisco. I agreed. I had a lot of things I wanted to ask Pam. Or didn’t want to ask Pam. But I needed to ask them anyway.
C.C. began yowling at me the minute I got off the phone. Dinner was late. I trotted into the kitchen guiltily, and was scooping up Friskies Senior when I heard a new sound coming from the living room.
It took me a moment to identify it. It was the sound of a pinball machine jamming.
- Seven -
I dropped the open can of Friskies Senior onto the floor. A pinball machine was jamming. In a flash, I saw Charlie Hirsch being electrocuted in my mind.
As I ran to the living room, I considered my options, one per gasping breath. Grab him by the shoulders and pull him off Hayburners and risk electrocution myself. Or crawl around under the machine where all the old boxes of gag gifts were stored to find the plug to yank from the socket. Or just knock him off the machine with one quick push.
By the time I got to Hayburners, my body had decided for me. I turned and swept my arm against Charlie’s chest in a tai chi move that sent him reeling from the machine. Luckily, Wayne was there to catch Charlie in his arms before the man actually hit the floor.
“Are you all right?” I demanded anxiously, still gasping.
“You hit me,” Charlie whispered. His dreamy eyes were wide with what looked like fear.
“But you were—”
I stopped mid-sentence, listening more closely to Hayburners. It wasn’t making the dramatic grating sound that Hot Flash had when it’d blown. It was a more subtle sound, a more common sound. The sound of a jammed thumper-bumper. I turned and looked at the machine and could even see the bumper that was stuck in the down position, buzzing angrily.
Damn.
I turned the machine off, then on again, as my heartbeat decelerated. It was an easy repair that worked. The thumper-bumper wasn’t jammed anymore. And, of course, no one had been electrocuted.
“Sorry,” I said to Charlie. “But after Sid today, I thought you were—”
I left the sentence unfinished when I noticed the blood leaving his face. Had he just figured it out?
“The machine’s fine now,” I assured him. “You can play another game if you want to.”
“No, thank you,” he said carefully, looking over his shoulder toward the front door.
But when he turned his head back, his eyes were more determined.
“Did you talk to Pam?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I told him, feeling my own lips curve into a smile. “And she’s probably coming tomorrow.”
“Really?” he breathed, all fear gone from his eyes now.
“Really,” I told him. “And Charlie, she asked if you were coming too.”
His mouth gaped open for a moment as his face colored from white to rose-red. Then he said, “Wow.”
That was pretty much it for his conversational abilities from that point on. We eventually guided him out the doorway. And even with our help, he managed to bash himself on the door-jamb. It didn’t seem to phase him though. He made it to his gardening truck without further damage, waved goodbye with a goofy smile, and then took off, merrily rattling the rakes and shovels tied to the truck’s sides as he went.
“So,” I said to Wayne, once the truck was gone from sight. “Do you think Charlie’s crazy?”
“No,” Wayne answered, with a hint of a smile. “Just a writer.” I had a feeling that smile was because Wayne was a fledgling writer himself. And then I allowed myself a moment to be thankful Wayne wrote adult short stories, not children’s adventures.
“And here I thought Charlie was quiet,” I added ruefully.
“Maybe he is,” Wayne replied. “I think it’s his characters who are the talkative ones. Rodin Rodent. Charlie as a remembered young man. Though Charlie himself? Charlie today?” He shrugged eloquently. Beautifully. It’s amazing how really beautiful a homely man can be.
I sighed and stepped closer, putting my arms around him.
“Now where were we?” I whispered.
“Here, I think,” he whispered back and then his mouth was on mine again.
*
CC. was meowing loudly for food the next morning despite the fact that she’d eaten the full can of Friskies I’d left on the floor the night before. Or maybe her friends had. Neither Wayne nor I had remembered to shut the cat door for the night. And C.C. wasn’t the only one demanding attention. My answering machine was full of calls.
Mark wanted to know if we were going to Aurora’s. And so did Elaine. And Aurora wanted to know if we could bring something vegetarian for the potluck. Mark and Aurora were easy. Yes, and yes.
But Elaine wanted more. She wanted to talk. Not on the phone, not at the Kanicks’, but at her house.
I could hear Wayne in the kitchen, whipping up something for the potluck as I listened to Elaine on the telephone. He’d started cooking once the conversation began sounding complicated. I was glad. There was one thing about living with a restaurateur. He could, and did, cook a lot better than I. Whatever he made would be good.
“There’re some things I’ve gotta tell you,” Elaine insisted over the sound of something sizzling on the stove. “Things I’ve found out that might be important—”
“So tell me now,” I tried again.
“No,” she whispered. “Not on the phone.”
Who’d she think was listening in? The FBI? C.C.? For all I knew maybe she was worried about Martians. I didn’t know this woman very well. Especially after twenty-five years.
“Look,” she went on, louder. “I’m right here in Gravendale. Not that far from the Kanicks’. You can stop in on the way.” She paused and her voice lowered again. “Then we can talk.”
“I suppose,” I said, still considering. Now I heard the blender whirring from the kitchen. A whiff of something, soy sauce maybe, teased my nose. If anyone knew Sid Semling well, it was his cousin Elaine. She might have some interesting things to say about him. Very interesting things. And I wondered just what it was that she had found out.
“Wayne’s coming with me if I do,” I added finally.
There was a long pause, then she asked, “Does he really have to?”
“Elaine, what is your problem—” I began, exasperated.
“Okay, okay,” she conceded before I could get into it. Then she gave me a long series of directions to get to her house, telling me—ordering me—to get there an hour before we were due at the Kanicks’.
“We’re at the top of a long driveway,” she finished up. “But don’t drive up the driveway. Park at the bottom on the street and walk up. Or else you’ll block the garage.”
“All right,” I agreed peevishly, thinking that Elaine’s visit and Aurora’s lunch pretty much took care of Sunday as a day of rest and relaxation.
“Thanks, Kate,” Elaine offered, and the unexpected warmth of gratitude in her voice surprised me into a moment of liking her. And wondering if she really had found out something important.
A couple of hours later, we were on the road.
“So what’s in the salad?” I asked Wayne as I steered my Toyota toward Gravendale past rolling straw-brown hills brightened by bursts of shining green oak trees.
“Chinese vegetable salad,” he answered. “Lettuce, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, broccoli, and a bunch of other vegies. Plus pine nuts and rice sticks and tofu.”
“And ginger and soy,” I said. I’d been smelling it for the last half hour.
“In the dressing,” he admitted, smiling. “Hungry?”
I nodded. And returned his smile. The straw-brown hills took me back to my childhood in Gravendale. Just the look of them and the scent (probably enough to give me allergies for a week) relaxed me into a spell of nostalgia. And the cows wandering on those hills loosened my mind even further. Black cows, brown cows, and black-and-white-spotted cows. I wanted to
moo.
But as we got closer to the outskirts of the city, Gravendale didn’t look much like I remembered it. There were warrens of condos and housing developments now. And even a couple of small shopping malls.
And then the outskirts gave way to downtown Gravendale. At least there was no McDonald’s there. Though there was a pink brick drive-in restaurant that advertised “the finest in automotive dining.” I noted a vegetarian restaurant too, an art gallery, a few boutiques and, to my relief, a grocery, a hardware, and a drug store that probably weren’t but might have been there twenty-five years ago.
Elaine’s house was way out on the other side of downtown Gravendale, the undeveloped side. The houses out here were spread over full-acre lots and more, and the lots were separated by great stands of trees. Mostly oak, but spruce, apple, and walnut were mixed in too. It was beautiful. And expensive-looking. If Elaine worked as a secretary, I wondered what her husband did for a living.
I parked on the street as ordered, and Wayne and I walked up the long tree-lined driveway. The trees blocked all view of the neighbors and muffled the sound. It would have been easy to believe we were alone in the country. Birds called, insects buzzed, and dogs barked, but most of the sound of traffic and human activity blended into a pleasant background hum. I put my arm around Wayne’s waist and leaned into him, enjoying the momentary peace before we got to the house.
“Just on time,” Elaine greeted us, opening the front door before I even pressed the buzzer. She was dressed today in a fitted, scroll front mauve jacket over matching linen pants, with matching platform pumps and silver jewelry. Oh, well. I’d worn my Mill Valley Library T-shirt and jeans for lunch at Aurora’s.
“This is my husband, Ed,” she added, pointing to a short, stocky man who nodded briefly at us. “He’s in securities.”
“Brandt Financial Group, Santa Rosa,” he confirmed, sticking out his hand. That explained the expensive property, I decided. Probably the expensive clothing too.
“Glad to meet you,” I muttered and grasped his hand. As he energetically shook mine, I introduced Wayne and myself, hoping Ed wasn’t going to ask about our investment portfolio.
He didn’t. Maybe it was a good thing I’d worn the T-shirt.
“And these are my kids,” Elaine went on. “Dawn, Elyse, and Eddie Junior.” She smiled down at three children, none of whom looked over ten.
All three glared back up. I could see the Semling genes in their small, squinting eyes. Meeting Mommy’s friends wasn’t apparently on the top of their list of favorite activities.
“Hi there,” Wayne tried. “How old are—”
“Can we go now?” the biggest one demanded.
“Ed?” Elaine murmured with a jerk of her head upwards.
On cue, father and children disappeared up a long flight of stairs.
Elaine watched their ascent and didn’t turn back to us until the sound of television floated back down the stairs. At least I hoped it was television. Or else there were cars screeching and people shouting and shots being fired on the upper floor of the house.
“Now we can talk,” Elaine whispered.
I kept myself from screaming, “About what!” as she led us into a formal living room that was the size of my whole house. Or at least near to it. I didn’t have a tape measure with me, so I couldn’t be sure. Wayne and I took our places on an ivory brocade couch in a grouping set on an expanse of salmon-colored Aubusson carpet tucked into the left-hand corner of the room. Elaine swiveled her head around to look behind her, then pulled a matching Victorian chair closer to us before sitting down.
She stared at Wayne. Longer than was polite. As seconds became minutes, I felt blood beginning to pump into my face. Didn’t she think he looked right on her fancy furniture? I stared back at her. As thin as she was, and with all the cosmetics she was wearing, she still bore an amazing resemblance to her cousin Sid with those broad cheekbones, the wide nose and wide mouth. And those small, calculating eyes.
“So talk,” I said finally.
Her body jerked slightly, then she leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands together.
“Wayne,” she said, her voice hushed and conspiratorial. “Where’d you know Sid from before?”
“Before the reunion?” he asked back, his brows lowering to half-mast.
She nodded.
“As far as I know, I’d never met your cousin before the reunion,” he told her, brows lowering even further.
“What makes you think Wayne knew Sid before?” I demanded, any friendliness I had felt toward Elaine now completely evaporated.
“Someone told me,” she whispered.
“Who?” I shot back.
“I don’t exactly know,” she admitted, pink coloring her cheeks. She crossed her arms and looked down at her expensive pumps. “I got an anonymous phone call last night—”
“An anonymous phone call!” I yelped.
“Shh,” she warned, a finger to her lips. “I didn’t tell Ed about it.”
“Did you tell the police?” I asked.
She nodded, her cheeks flushing even pinker.
I glared at her. Great. Now the police would think Wayne was involved. The only person who had no connection to Sid Semling would be a prime suspect along with the rest of us. Only if the police were even considering murder, I reminded myself.
Elaine crossed her arms again and returned my look, her head tilted back defiantly.
“Anyway, it wasn’t just about Wayne,” she said defensively. “The person on the phone told me all kinds of stuff.”
“Like what?” I asked in spite of myself. If the other tips were as good as the one about Wayne, they were probably useless. But I was still curious.
“That Natalie Nusser has AIDS,” Elaine told me.
Even though I guessed it wasn’t true, the statement pinched my diaphragm for a moment. I’d known two people who’d died of AIDS. I didn’t know if my heart could take knowing any more.