Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (20 page)

- Twenty-

Mark caught the orange cat in his arms just as Wayne picked up his foot and stepped on the terrier’s leash, choking the dog to a stop in midair. The dog dropped back to the ground and Wayne grabbed its leash by hand.

“Hey, buster,” he muttered, not unkindly, and pulled the dog to him with one hand, the other hand outstretched palm up.

The terrier whined and tilted its head at Wayne, with a very human plea in its eyes.
Cat, please. Oh, please, let me at the cat.

Wayne just shook his head.

Maybe all that karate practice had done Wayne some good. He was tough. And his reflexes were certainly fast enough. So were Mark’s for that matter. But this probably wasn’t the first flying cat Mark had ever caught in his practice.

“That’s all right, sweetie pie,” Mark soothed the cat, who was nuzzling and clawing his chest simultaneously as if trying to climb inside to safety.

Mark was smoothing the cat’s ruffled fur gently when the receptionist and the man who owned the terrier came racing into the office, neck and neck. It was getting a little crowded in the small space. Wayne handed the man his dog and Mark passed the orange cat to the receptionist. Finally, the woman who owned the cat came running in a late third, huffing and puffing with each step.

“Is Camellia all right?” she demanded breathlessly.

“Perfectly all right, Mrs. Harvey,” Mark assured her as the receptionist passed the cat in question to her rightful mother. “And Camellia’s fast too. Not bad for a cat her age.”

Mrs. Harvey smiled then, preening a little in Camellia’s reflected orange glow.

It was more than a little crowded in Mark’s six by ten office now. Animals and humans alike were jammed in as tightly and haphazardly as the contents of my kitchen junk drawer. Luckily the receptionist was between the terrier held by its owner and Camellia held by Mrs. Harvey. But it was still hard to breathe. Even the little yellow birds had stopped chirping. Wayne and I looked at each other and stood up. We wouldn’t be able to ask any more questions today. Time to go.

Wayne stuck out his hand to Mark.

“Good talking to you,” he said.

“Oh, you don’t have to shake my hand,” Mark teased him, squeezing around the table. “Just give me a big fat hug.”

Wayne chuckled and did just that.

I gave Mark a hug too. Then we said goodbye to all the various species of human and animal that we’d met and threaded our way carefully out of Mark’s office.

Once we were back in the Toyota, I took a moment to breathe in the lovely silence. No barking, no yowling, no chirping. Heaven.

“So?” Wayne demanded, interrupting my moment of bliss. “What did we learn?”

“Cats are faster than dogs when properly motivated?” I answered.

I have to give him credit. He tried to smile. But his heart wasn’t in it. Nor were his brows.

“I don’t know what we learned,” I admitted finally. “It’s hard to believe that Mark could be a murderer…but you never know.”

Wayne nodded glumly. “Where next?” he asked without any obvious enthusiasm.

“Charlie’s?”

Wayne looked at his watch. We were still in Mill Valley. Charlie’s place was a good hour and change away.

“Better call first and make sure he’s there,” Wayne suggested.

“Home?”

“Home, James,” he ordered, and I started the Toyota.

Unfortunately, home smelled a lot like Mark’s office when we got there. Especially at the bottom of my filing cabinets. The spraying cat had sprayed again while we were gone.

“That’s it,” I hissed. “First I’m getting a squirt gun and then I’m finding that big black cat—”

“Are we sure it was that particular cat?” Wayne asked rationally. “Just because he was in here doesn’t mean he’s the one, or one of the ones, doing the spraying. From the size of him, he might have just stopped here for a snack.”

His words pulled all the steel right out of my spine. Rationality can do that to righteousness. Rationality can be a big pain. I slumped. Wayne was right. For all I knew, my own cat was the guilty party. C.C. showed up on cue, meowing sweetly as she strode in the room. Too sweetly. I stared at her, wondering if female cats ever sprayed their own homes, while Wayne walked over to the phone.

“Charlie,” I heard Wayne say. “Thinking of coming by today…”

Good. Charlie was home. I turned back to C.C.

“Confess,” I whispered, glaring in an imitation of Sergeant Gonzales.

For all the good it did. C.C. turned gracefully and stalked out of the room, her tail high. I could almost hear her say, “Some detective,” as she left.

A half an hour later, after scrubbing the bottom of my file cabinets and the rug they sat on, Wayne and I were on the road again, passing familiar brown hills, green oaks, and cows of many colors as we headed up the curving blacktop to Charlie’s place out in the hills beyond Gravendale. I drove while Wayne navigated as per the directions Charlie had given him over the phone.

“Maybe we should have talked to Felix,” I said as we rounded a particularly panoramic curve. There were horses on this hill as well as cows.

Wayne turned to me, his eyebrows raised as high above his eyes as they’d go.

“Why?” he demanded. You would have thought by his tone that I’d asked him to join a satanic ritual group.

“Felix gives information as well as takes it,” I explained. “I know it’s easy to forget that when you actually have to listen to him, but—”

“Like what?”

“Like who has a criminal record, who’s been in the paper, that kind of thing.” I paused, negotiating another curve. “Maybe we should give him a call.”

Wayne furrowed his brows and thought for a few more turns of the road.

“I’d rather be stuck in a locked kennel with the terrier and the orange cat,” he finally concluded.

He had a point.

It really was a beautiful drive. In spite of our discussion of Felix. And it got more beautiful as we neared Charlie’s. The rolling hills turned green for the last few miles of the ride. I wondered who or what had supplied the necessary water. And then, finally, we arrived.

There was no way to miss the place. Suddenly, there were acres of paradise to the left of us, filled with fruit-laden trees, neat lawns, and flower beds. All behind vast wrought-iron gates.

I pulled off the main road and headed toward paradise. Once we were parked in front of the gates, Wayne got out and made a phone call from the adjoining sentry box. All under the moving eyes of the surveillance cameras. And then those magnificent wrought-iron gates opened magically and silently wide. We traveled up a long, winding drive until we saw the main house itself nestled between two hills. It looked like something out of a children’s story, made of stone and wood with multilayered stories completed by turrets and chimneys and stained-glass windows.

Charlie’s cottage was at least a half a mile further past the main house, made out of the same materials but not in such dramatic proportions.

What Charlie’s cottage might have lacked in proportion however was made up for by the vast ocean of lupines that surrounded it. Stalks and stalks of gloriously blooming lupines in blues and whites. And pinks and purples. And creams and yellows. All gently swaying in the light summer breeze. The effect was astonishing. And dizzying. No wonder Charlie wrote children’s stories. Charlie lived in fairy-tale land.

We walked up the rambling stone pathway through the lupines to the cottage and knocked on the wooden door set into its stone front. There was no doorbell. Except for the crazed barking from within. I guessed it was our day for animals.

Charlie opened the door and two Labrador retrievers came bounding out, tongues lolling, ready to lick.

A pink tongue had just reached my hand and was heading toward my face when Charlie shouted, “Down Donner, down Blitzen!”

I looked anxiously for the rest of the team, but there were only those two. They were enough.

Charlie alternately shouted commands at the dogs and apologized to us as he led us into his cottage. Donner and Blitzen trailed behind, making little begging noises.

The inside of Charlie’s cottage was spacious, mostly stone except for the wooden roof, doors, and window frames. If it hadn’t been for the thoroughly modern skylights, the cottage could have been from another century. It even had the right smell, of must and cooking and animals. Books filled the room, mostly in piles, some in bookcases obscuring the stonework. And in one corner, a built-in shelf held a bank of small TV screens. No, not TV, I corrected myself as I saw the estate from twelve different angles. Surveillance screens.

“Um, have a seat?” Charlie offered, motioning us to the only couch in the room as he gazed up at the ceiling over our heads. The couch was large and covered in a rainbow crocheted afghan. Which was itself covered in dog hair.

Wayne and I sat down and the dogs sidled close to either side of the couch as Charlie pulled up an easy chair covered in another rainbow/dog hair afghan and lowered his lanky body onto it, his eyes still focused on the ceiling.

I felt a cool moist nose nuzzle my hand from the right side of the couch and gave a surreptitious pat to either Donner or Blitzen’s head.

“Been looking into this thing about Sid,” Wayne began brusquely.

Charlie brought his gaze down from the ceiling and looked into Wayne’s eyes, locked in by the man-to-man approach.

“Sid,” Charlie repeated as if hypnotized. “Right.”

“Need to make sure no one else is in danger,” Wayne went on. Charlie’s dreamy eyes widened as he leaned forward in his chair. “Especially the women.”

“Pam?” Charlie whispered.

I wouldn’t have believed Wayne had that much manipulation in him. But he certainly had Charlie’s attention now. And he was milking it too, taking his time before answering Charlie.

“Pam’s okay, isn’t she?” Charlie demanded more loudly, halfway out of his chair now. The dog to my right sidled in a little closer. I gave it another pat for reassurance. Mine, not his.

“Pam’s fine,” Wayne told him. Charlie sank back into his chair with an audible gasp of relief. “As far as we know,” Wayne added. Charlie looked at him again. “If there’s a murderer at large, we can’t be sure who’s safe,” he finished up.

“Wow,” Charlie whispered. “What can I do?”

“Answer a few questions,” Wayne suggested. “Offer a few observations.”

“I’ll be glad to,” Charlie agreed. “If Pam is in danger, maybe I should stay with her. Or bring her up here where she’d be safe.” His voice took on speed. “Pam’s an incredible woman. I’m sure she can take care of herself, but still—”

“Back to Sid,” Wayne broke in quietly but firmly. “Why wouldn’t you talk to him about Vietnam?”

“Huh?” Charlie responded.

“Sid asked you about your experience in Vietnam and you didn’t answer him,” I translated.

Charlie looked up at the ceiling again. “I suppose I didn’t want to talk about my experiences with Sid because he might have been one of those guys who liked killing people over there,” he answered. “I hate that stuff.” He brought his eyes back down again, squinting in confusion. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Gotta cover all the angles,” Wayne growled, detective-style. Charlie still looked confused.

“Who do you think killed Sid?” I asked before Charlie could get unconfused enough to see where Wayne’s question had been heading.

“Gee,” he answered slowly, looking down at his hands now. “I just don’t know. Becky’s kid was sure mad at him, but…” His voice trickled away. I opened my mouth to prompt him, but he started up again before I had to. “And Mark was mad for a little while, but Mark’s too nice a guy. And anyway, everyone was mad at Sid, I think. I was and I didn’t kill him.”

“Who would Rodin Rodent believe killed him?” Wayne asked quietly.

Charlie’s shoulders straightened with the question. His dreamy eyes came into clear focus. Damn. It was working. I’d compliment Wayne later. He was getting good at this stuff.

“Hmm,” Charlie murmured. I could almost see his whiskers twitch. He popped up a finger. “One, someone who kept their real anger well hidden at the barbecue.” Another finger came up. “Two, someone who was capable of careful planning. Three, someone who hated Sid a great deal or had a lot to lose with him alive. And four, someone incapable of empathy, at least for Sid.”

“Who?” I demanded when he ran out of fingers.

Charlie squinted his eyes for a while, then flung his hands in the air.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and he was Charlie again, slumped shoulders and all. He gazed at the floor. “I can’t imagine any of us doing it.”

I wanted to fling my hands out too. But one of my hands was too busy petting the Labrador, whose chin was now on my knee.

“Where did you and Pam go after the memorial?” I asked casually.

“Oh, I came home,” he replied just as casually.

“But I thought you were going to take Pam back to San Francisco,” I objected.

“I was, but it turned out that Anna May, the woman who sang for the memorial, was practically Pam’s neighbor, so Pam decided to hitch a ride with her instead of putting me to the trouble.” Charlie sighed. “At least, that’s what she said.”