Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“I am?” That was a new one on me.
He turned to me, his vulnerable eyes amused and liquid with affection at the same time.
“You really listen,” he assured me. “You’re curious about other people. And kind. And you probably were the same twenty-five years ago.” He smiled. “It’s your own fault.”
“It is not,” I objected. “I’m not kind. Well, sometimes I’m a pushover.
“Co-dependent,” Wayne muttered under his breath.
“But it’s like I have this sign printed on my forehead that says ‘tell me about it.’ I swear. When I was living in the city and taking the bus to work, every single human being with a personal problem would sit next to me and tell me their story. I began to wonder if I looked like a therapist. A nun even told me she was afraid she was losing her vocation. And one day I got a wife talking about leaving her husband and the next day I got her husband. I was sure of it. They had the same kids and everything. At least no one ever confessed to any serious crimes. I’d started worrying about confidentiality—”
Wayne’s laugh rumbled out, surprising me from the depths of my speech.
“I’m serious,” I insisted, but I couldn’t help smiling. In memory, it was kind of funny. Now that I didn’t take the bus anymore.
Then Wayne took on a serious look himself. “Let me state something for the record,” he announced. “I never knew Sid Semling before your high school reunion.” He paused, then added, “To the best of my knowledge.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that,” I objected. “It was enough to hear you tell Elaine.” But even as I spoke, I knew I was glad he’d made the statement. I could feel it in the release of tension in my shoulders.
I would have hugged him to make my acceptance of his statement official, but my hands were on the steering wheel. And we were close to the Kanicks’. We passed onto a block with older houses on regular quarter-acre lots with well-trimmed lawns.
I recognized the Kanick house immediately. It was still painted white with green shutters. Only the tree in front looked different. It was an old evergreen that had grown immensely wide but been kept trimmed short to the confines of the electric utility lines. It looked like a children’s drawing of a tree, as broad as it was tall.
I pulled up to the curb and stared, thinking how strange it would be to still live in the house you grew up in. Would it be comforting? Or traumatizing?
“If both of Sid’s parents are dead, who inherits?” Wayne asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Elaine?” I said, taking my key from the ignition. And a whole new world of motive popped into my mind. The world of money. “But Elaine certainly looked like she had plenty of money and Sid—”
“Hey, Kate,” a voice broke in from outside the car.
I saw Becky leaning down toward my open window. Her fragile face looked drawn and serious today.
“Sorry about last night,” she murmured. “Jeez, I was stinking drunk and I busted in on you guys—”
“No problem,” I lied and got out of the car. I would think about Elaine later.
Becky, Wayne, and I walked up the flagstone path to the Kanicks’ house together, breathing in the scent of sweet alyssum that filled the gaps between the stones. And admiring the Shasta daisies and delphiniums bordering the yard, with the smaller petunias and nemesia nestled beneath them. A colorful and elegant arrangement. Someone clearly loved this yard and put work into it. Jack or Lillian? I wondered.
It was neither Jack nor Lillian who opened the front door, though, but Aurora Kanick. Aurora was wearing a rainbow-beaded vest over jeans and a white T-shirt today. No, she definitely wasn’t Mrs. Cleaver anymore. Her eyes crinkled in greeting from beneath her oversized glasses as she led us into the living room.
The interior of the house didn’t look anything like it had twenty-five years ago. The heaviness of mahogany and dark woven upholstery was gone. Teak and glass and stripes and bright florals were in their place. And wonderful curling bronze sculptures, some abstract, some formal busts. One wore a definite resemblance to Aurora.
“Did Lillian do—” I began, but Mark apparently didn’t hear me.
“Take a seat, you guys,” he interrupted benignly. “You’re nearly the last of the litter to arrive.”
So Wayne and I squeezed onto a navy-and-white-striped couch next to Natalie Nusser. She gave us a curt nod as Becky sat next to Jack and Lillian on the other couch. Their smiles seemed friendlier, but forced. Charlie and Pam sat next to each other in separate chairs that looked like they had come from the kitchen, carefully avoiding each other’s faces, but bobbing their chins our way in tandem. Mark leaned back in a floral easy chair.
I was impressed. Aurora had done well. When Elaine arrived, we’d have pretty near the same group that had been at Sid’s party. Except for D.V. And the Kanick children. And, of course, Sid.
“Same darn house,” came Elaine’s voice from the doorway. “Amazing.”
We were all here.
Elaine and Aurora took the two remaining seats and Aurora began.
“A profound event has touched all of our lives,” she told us, her voice crisp and resonant. There were some nods and murmurs of assent from the group. “A profound and troubling event. But if we act collectively today, it is possible that we can transform this event into something less troubling. In sharing our experience, we can overcome the pain.”
I was nodding now too. It sounded great to me. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a breath, and went on.
“The first thing we must agree upon, however, is whether or not Sid Semling was murdered yesterday.”
- Nine -
“You think Sid was murdered?” whispered Charlie.
Even for me, it was a shock to hear the proposition stated so baldly. But it was clearly more of a shock for some of the others. Especially Charlie. His dreamy eyes were wider than ever in his long, lean face as he stared at Aurora. Even his mouth was gaping open.
“Yes,” Aurora answered deliberately, her own face as serene as Charlie’s was shocked. “I do believe Sid Semling was murdered.”
Lillian Kanick snorted loudly, shaking her head. I had a feeling she had already heard this proposal from her mother-in-law and rejected it.
“And quite possibly by someone in this room,” Aurora continued unperturbed. “Pinball machines do not normally electrocute people. I spoke to an electrician, one of the members of my community, and he assured me it just plain doesn’t happen. Not by accident.”
“But God, I mean…I thought Sid might just have had a heart attack or something,” Becky said softly.
Her tone held something like a plea in it that was reflected in the shape of her brows over her round blue eyes. She wanted it to be simple. She wanted it to all go away. I could tell that’s what she wanted because the feeling part of me agreed with her absolutely.
“Electrocution probably
caused
Sid to have a heart attack,” Mark put in. He was sitting up straight in the floral chair, his eyes intense in his round face now. “But he was electrocuted. I know. I worked on him, trying to revive him. And I saw—”
He put his arm in front of his face, stopping himself. I was just as glad. I didn’t want to hear a description of Sid’s body. Or of his burnt hands. I shivered, my mind unkindly providing the description Mark had so kindly spared us all. With matching pictures.
“I’ve meditated on this matter,” Aurora went on. “And I truly believe the only way to restore emotional and spiritual harmony for each of us is to discover exactly what happened to Sid yesterday.” Then she let her eyes move slowly around the group gathered in her former house. “Especially for the murderer. There can’t be any peace for that person until the truth is told.”
Her tone was so clear, so certain, I almost expected someone to confess. But what hope could she offer if someone did? She couldn’t stop the course of the law.
My own gaze began to follow the path her eyes were taking around the group when a new thought stopped me. By playing the role of truth-seeker, Aurora had put herself out of the running as murderer in my mind. Had she played it that way on purpose? I jerked my head back, studying her face more closely. Aurora had to be at least sixty, but her elegant face was barely lined, and her eyes were radiant under her oversized glasses. Was her beauty the outer manifestation of her inner spiritual life? Not necessarily. And I reminded myself that neither age, beauty, nor spirituality equaled incapacity for violence. And that psychopaths were often described as charming and good-looking.
Mark opened his mouth to speak again. But Lillian beat him to it.
“Mom has a ‘bug in her ear,’“ she told us, the American idiom spoken carefully. “There are police officials involved already. I think we should just let them—”
“No way,” Elaine interrupted. She wasn’t yelling. She was hissing. Somehow I would have preferred yelling. “If someone here thinks they can get away with killing my cousin, just because—”
“I’m not saying let a murderer go,” Lillian interrupted right back, “if there is a murderer. I’m just saying that the officials—”
Jack tapped his wife’s arm softly and she stopped speaking instantly. It was then that I noticed the tears falling from beneath his black-rimmed glasses. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, swinging his head back and forth slowly. With the beard and long hair, he could have been an old bear in pain.
And I wasn’t the only one looking at him. We all were. Silent and staring. Elaine wasn’t even hissing anymore as she squinted her eyes his way. Did she suspect Jack’s tears were tears of confession? Did I?
Lillian’s eyes were on Jack too, but hers were filled with concern. She stretched her small wiry arm around his shoulders and murmured something I couldn’t hear.
I thought he was going to say something now, finally, but he just closed his eyes and began humming softly instead. The tune sounded like “Imagine.” Was this the musical portion of our entertainment? Or was this how Jack dealt with distress?
Because Jack wasn’t the only distressed person in the room. I could certainly see the distress on Elaine’s face and in the tightness of her thin body as she dug her nails into the arms of her chair. I was glad I wasn’t sitting next to her because I was pretty sure she was going to jump down someone’s throat soon, Jack’s behavior only acting as a convenient intermission.
And I could
feel
the distress emanating from Natalie sitting next to me. When she crossed her arms and shoved her body back against the cushions of the couch, the whole damn thing shook. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she pursed her lips and jerked her head over and over again, ruffling her short blow-dried hair with the violent movement. What the hell was that all about?
I felt like I’d gone back twenty years in time, working on the ward of a mental hospital again, watching my patients. We had some inappropriate crying, some inappropriate humming, and some repetitive head-jerking. Elaine was clawing her chair. Pam and Charlie were each sitting bolt upright, as if in catatonic stupors. And Becky was hugging herself and starting to rock. But unlike twenty years ago, this time I was one of the inmates.
I decided to speak up before I started pacing and muttering myself. If we were going to talk about murder, we were going to talk about murder.
“I don’t believe Sid’s death was an accident either,” I announced. “I think someone rigged the machine—”
Becky stopped rocking to interrupt me. “But, but…I thought Sid rigged it, you know, to make jokes—”
“He did,” Elaine told her. “He told me he was going to. That’s all fine and dandy. He was gonna rig it to talk when people played it. A joke. A prank. But someone else rigged it to kill him.” She leaned forward in her chair. The hiss of her voice lowered even further. “And whoever it is, they’re gonna pay.”
Now she looked around the group as Aurora had, but her expression was not serene. It reminded me of the look my cat had given me the day I had snatched the snake she was busy killing from her bloody claws. A look that had scared me far more than any look from a being less than a tenth of my size should have.
When Elaine’s accusing gaze made it to Pam, Pam came out of her catatonic posture long enough to turn her lovely heart-shaped face to Charlie, her dark lustrous eyes touched with panic. Charlie clasped Pam’s hand for a moment, then looked down in horror and dropped it like it was a nuclear potato. Then they both turned their eyes guiltily straight ahead again.
“So which one of you did it?” Elaine demanded, her voice louder now. “Which one of you killed my cousin?”
No one answered her.
“Don’t think I won’t figure it out,” she warned. “You all think I’m stupid. You thought Sid was stupid too. Pretending to like him and laughing behind his back.” She was crying now on top of everything else. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “Well, Sid was laughing too. He knew lots. Plenty of secrets. He was as good as any of you—”
“Of course he was,” Aurora put in softly. “Sid was a smart boy. I remember. And funny.”
Elaine stopped as if slapped. Then she began to cry in earnest. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kanick,” she sobbed. “I know some of you liked Sid. It’s just…” The rest of her words were lost in her tears.
“Elaine, I am sorry too,” Lillian offered in her gently accented voice. “Sorry if you thought we didn’t like Sid. I didn’t know him very well, but he did seem like a…a charming man. And if he was murdered, his murderer must be found. I only wonder if it might truly have been an accident.” She turned to me. “Kate, it was your machine…”
I felt every gaze shift toward me, weighing me. Remembering me. Remembering that Hot Flash was indeed my machine.
“I’ve thought about it, believe me,” I told them briefly. “And talked with an expert. An accident would be highly unlikely.”
“But what if Sid did it himself, by mistake?” Lillian pressed.
“No,” I answered after less than a minute’s thought. It would have been too damn complicated to do by mistake. I just wished I could have said yes. I just wished I could have really believed that theory.
Because I could feel Natalie’s eyes burning into me from my side. Burning me at the stake along with the others. Negligence, murder, I thought. Either would fit.
“If Sid rigged the machine for the jokes…” Mark began ponderously. He looked at Elaine and softened his voice. “Remember, this is just an idea. But if Sid rigged the machine, could he have rigged it to kill himself? Was he depressed about any—”
“No!” Elaine shouted, jumping from her chair. Her face was still wet with old tears. But her righteous fury had dammed any new ones. “No one’s gonna get away with putting suicide on Sid. Or accident. Sid was
not
depressed. Or stupid. He was happy. He had a new job, a new place to live. And he was seeing his friends. Even when things were bad, Sid was never depressed. He was too alive to be depressed, too full of life.” She slammed back into her chair and raked its arms with her fingernails. “But one of you killed him.”
That about covered it, I thought. Accident, heart attack, suicide. Or homicide. And I was voting with Elaine.
“Perhaps we should table this discussion until we’ve had some time to think,” suggested Aurora after a moment of silence that seemed to extend endlessly.
I turned to her. The woman had some nerve. Had she just wanted to see all of our reactions? Or was there more to come?
“And some time to have lunch,” she added. “If everyone will bring their food to the kitchen who hasn’t, I have plates and utensils set up. We can all dish up and come back here to eat.”
And by God, that’s exactly what we did. Even Elaine. Everyone trooped out into the kitchen and filled their plates, some even exchanging small talk, and then we were back in the living room eating. Aurora had turned the group therapy/ murder interrogation back into a friendly luncheon again.
Conversation was a bit awkward, but no more than at some slow parties I’ve been to, especially in the opening stages.
“Plenty more apple juice,” Aurora assured Wayne as he gulped down his third glass. “I brought a few gallons down from the Community. I can tell that you appreciate it. We press it ourselves from our own apples.”
“Really good,” he offered quietly. “Tart, not too sweet. So tell me about this community of yours.”
I took a bite of Wayne’s Chinese vegetable salad. It tasted as good as it had smelted, sweet and hot, and crunchy with vegies, nuts, and rice sticks.
“Well, one of our members inherited acres and acres of apple orchards out in Lupton about the same time another one inherited enough money to turn some of those orchards into a community,” she explained, putting down her plate. Her eyes shined brighter than ever now. “
The
Community. Not a housing development, mind you, but a real experimental community designed with the environment in mind. And designed with the social environment in mind. All decisions are made collectively. We have day-care for young and old, our own playgrounds, a community dining hall, and our own tourist business. An inn, restaurant, and general store. You’d be surprised how many people want to vacation in a place where there are no McDonald’s—”
“And more masseuses and masseurs per customer than anywhere else for miles,” Lillian added.
Aurora laughed. “That’s true,” she admitted. “They come in part to be pampered. But they support our programs too. We have our own sewage treatment, our own recycling program, and our own organically grown vegetables and fruit. And best of all, we’ve each helped build each other’s houses, from pouring concrete to plumbing to sawing and hammering—”
“And electrical wiring,” Wayne put in softly.
Aurora’s smile dimmed for an instant, but only an instant. Then she laughed.
“And electrical wiring,” she admitted with a wink, acknowledging his suspicions. Suspicions I was glad he had. Indulgence in apple juice was not dimming his perception any. “I’ve done my share. Though only under the direct supervision of our community electrician. Our houses are small but solid. And the wiring has to be done to code.”
“Mom could do anything she put her mind to,” Lillian told us. Were those words meant to be damning? I doubted it from the smile on Lillian’s face. For once, her Asian features were relaxed in Buddha-like composure. “Mom has a…a…”— she waved her hands for a moment, trying to capture the words—”a ‘green thumb’ for learning new things. Jack and I have offered her a job at Karma-Kanick’s, but she loves her bookstore too much.”
“I didn’t know you owned a bookstore,” Pam said in surprise. She leaned forward eagerly. “That’s wonderful. What kind?”
I was surprised to see a faint blush on Aurora’s face as she answered. “Mostly metaphysical,” she said. Was that what she was embarrassed about? Or maybe it was the capitalistic impudence to own her own store without collective input? “I carry some recovery books too. And self-help, personal growth, that kind of thing. And a few treasures to go along with the books themselves.”