Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (19 page)

“So, whadya want?” she shouted over the music. Ouch! Her shout was shrill and whining. Maybe she and Nick should get together.

Someone turned the music down a few notches. Our table stopped shaking just as a fork shimmied up to the brink of suicide.

“I’ll start with the minestrone and spinach salad,” Felix announced, his eyes traveling down the menu rapidly. “Then two crepes, the cajun shrimp and the three-cheese—”

“That just for you?” demanded the waitress. Her voice hadn’t improved. But it was a good question. Felix wasn’t much bigger than me. Where was he going to put it all? Not going to burn me for the meal, indeed!

“All for me, you gorgeous thing,” Felix drawled. “I’ll take a decaf espresso too. I need a lot of coal for this train,” he added, rubbing his flat stomach and winking extravagantly. Ugh.

The waitress smiled back at him.

“I’ll take the avocado and sunflower salad,” I cut in.

“Sun-avo,” the waitress confirmed shrilly and sashayed away with an over-the-shoulder glance at Felix.

I thought of Barbara. “Felix—” I began.

“So, do you want the poop on Sarah Quinn’s nearest and dearest?” he asked briskly.

“Sure,” I answered. Barbara could take care of herself.

Felix leaned forward across the table. His eyes were alive with information.

“First, there’s Sarah’s sister, Ellen,” he told me. “She’s a hot-shit insurance saleswoman from Jersey. She brings in the bucks and doesn’t spread them around. And the police are buying her alibi.” He paused. “She seems to be out of the running.”

“Seems?”

“Nobody knows but Oz, man. She might have a double, or maybe she snagged a computer hit man, or something equally bizarre. That filly’s still in the race as far as I’m concerned.” He looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. He went on. “Second, two of the players have been busted for sticky fingers—”

“Sticky fingers?” I asked.

“Shoplifting,” he clarified. Then he lifted an eyebrow at me. “Guess who,” he ordered.

I thought it over. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “Ellen, Vivian, Myra, maybe Nick? Tell me.”

“Two out of four ain’t bad,” he congratulated me. “Myra and Vivian. A long time ago for both of them and it probably doesn’t mean diddly.”

“Any arrests for arson?” I asked hopefully.

He shook his head impatiently and started back down his mental list again. “Your gardener, Jerry, he used to be a lawyer.” Felix pronounced it “liar,” but I got the point. I nodded. “Do you know why he quit law?” he challenged me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Something about mellowing out, I think.”

“Huh!” Felix grunted triumphantly. “The man
had
to cool his jets. He was deep in ethical doo-doo.” Felix watched my face and added, “without a pooper-scooper.” Then he leaned back in his chair.

“Go on,” I ordered impatiently. Felix loved the big buildup. I hated it.

Felix complied. “Under the code of ethics,” he intoned, “attorneys aren’t supposed to be playing hide-the-salami with their clients—”

“Hide the salami?”

“You know,” he insisted. He was blushing. That should have been a clue. “Bouncy-bouncy,” he explained. “Four-legged frolic, blanket drill—”

“I got it,” I cut him off hastily. Why couldn’t he just speak English?

“Well, anyway,” he pressed on, eyes lowered. He was embarrassed! Maybe that explained the exotic euphemisms. “Your gardener Jerry wasn’t just diddling his own client. He took it a step further.” He brought his eyes up. “Guess,” he said.

“Felix!” I exploded. I lowered my voice. “Just tell me, all right?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Jerry’s representing this poor sucker in a divorce.” He lowered his voice. I could tell the punch line was coming. “And he was having it off with his client’s soon to be ex-wife.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to look suitably impressed. I still couldn’t see how this tied in with Sarah’s murder.

“Yeah,” said Felix smugly. “Fraternizing with the enemy, so to speak. And,” he went on, “he appeared in court a few times totally baked on some pretty potent chemicals. The State Bar was taking a good look-see at old Jerry, so he just sleaze-balled it out the back door into a gardening business.”

I made myself a mental note to talk to Jerry soon, while Felix continued down his list.

“Your friend Peter, however, is squeaky clean,” he told me. “There’s a lot of buzz about a judicial appointment for him. The only naughty whiff in his past is his dalliance with left-wing politics. He might have had S.D.S. links. But nothing that can be proven.”

Good. Even Felix hadn’t been able to uncover the drug angle. Maybe Peter had a chance.

“Same clean slate for your friend Tony,” Felix grumbled. “Aside from his being gay as gathering nuts in May, which he’s completely up front about, there’s nothing I could dig up.”

“How about Linda—”

“Sun-avo for you, poppy seed dressing,” came a shrill voice at my side. Damn. Was Felix paying this woman to distract me? “And salad, soup, two crepes and espresso for you,” our waitress purred at Felix. “I brought them all at once. I thought you’d be too hungry to wait.”

“You’ve got it, sweet thing,” Felix purred back, beaming up at her.

Should I tell her
I
was going to be the one in charge of her tip? She walked away before I had a chance.

Felix began slurping soup noisily. I looked down at my salad without interest.

“Come on, Felix,” I cajoled. “Tell me about Linda Zatara.”

Felix grinned at me. “You mean you really don’t know who she is?” he asked.

I shook my head. He went back to his soup.

“Felix,” I snarled.

He finished his soup, unperturbed, spoonful by slurping spoonful. Finally, he looked up at me.

“Have you told me everything you know?” he demanded.

“Yes, I have told you everything,” I lied through clenched teeth.

He blotted his mustache with his napkin and settled back in his chair. “Linda Zatara,” he announced, “is an investigative reporter.”

“Oh no,” I groaned. One was bad enough.

“Oh yes,” he assured me. “She used to work for the
San Francisco Chronicle.
Now she writes best sellers,” he said in an awed voice. He pulled his salad in front of him.

“I’ve never heard of her,” I objected.

He took a bite and crunched, then smiled. “Have you ever heard of Z. L. Harvard?” he asked.

“Linda is Z. L. Harvard?” I yelped.

He nodded. I took a bite of my own salad. I needed time to assimilate this information. Z. L. Harvard. She infiltrated various groups, then wrote pseudo-documentaries about the gnat-brains that were in them. Of course the names were always changed to protect the innocent, but still… I chewed without tasting. I had read her book on the members of the prostitutes’ union. She had exposed them down to the roots of their dyed hair. Their sad self-delusions, their abysmal mothering attempts, their foolish prattling, their sordid childhoods. Those poor women must have felt skinned alive. The pen can be crueler as well as mightier than the sword.

I looked up at Felix. He had finished his salad and was going for the crepes. I put down my fork.

“Did you read the one about A.A.?” he asked cheerfully through a mouthful of cajun shrimp.

I shook my head. Though I could imagine her pitiless review of recovering alcoholics.

“How about the one on funeral homes?” he went on eagerly after he swallowed. “Holy socks! No wonder she writes under a pseudonym. That woman’s lucky she isn’t laid out under lilies herself. And the one about women who marry prisoners sure must have pissed off some of San Quentin’s finest. She’s lucky they didn’t chew through the bars to get her.” There was a glazed expression in his eyes as he took another bite.

“Felix, do you actually admire her?” I asked.

“Holymoly, Kate, of course I do,” he said. “That woman’s so big she’s in a different time zone. Do you know the bucks she gets for just one book—”

“Do you know what she’s writing about now?” I asked, cutting him off. I couldn’t wait. I had a nauseating suspicion it might be human potential support groups.

He shook his head. He must have seen the look on my face. “Hey, Kate, I don’t know everything,” he apologized.

I finished my salad slowly as Felix gobbled up his crepes and washed them down with espresso.

“Do you know Linda’s address?” I asked as he took his last bite.

“You mean this?” he said, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket. He leaned forward with a grin. “That woman thinks nobody knows her address, but I do.” He put the slip back in his pocket.

“May I have the address, please?” I asked as calmly as possible.

“Buy me dessert and it’s yours,” he bargained.

My mouth dropped open. How could he stuff any more into that short, skinny body? Never mind. I told myself and looked for the waitress.

Felix ordered the chocolate mousse crepe and another round of decaffeinated espresso. The waitress was clearly impressed with his appetite. She was giggling as she sauntered back to the kitchen.

Felix handed me the slip of paper with Linda’s address. I glanced at it and dropped it in my purse. Then Felix-bent forward across the table. “I’ve got more, you know,” he whispered enticingly.

“Give,” I ordered.

“Guess who’s spent time in the loony bin,” he said.

I sighed, but played the game. “Myra maybe,” I hazarded. “No,” I corrected myself, “Nick.”

“Bingo,” Felix caroled. “A few years ago he wigged out totally. Wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t eat. Sarah hauled his keister down to the local mental health facility. He wasn’t there long. Being forced to spend time with other people was enough to get him functioning again.”

I laughed appreciatively. “I’ll bet that’s exactly why Sarah did it,” I told him.

A picture of Sarah chuckling flashed into my mind. I smiled, then shook my head to rid myself of the specter. She was dead. I’d go for nostalgia after I found out who killed her.

I watched Felix eat his dessert crepe and paid the bill. Funny how expensive a student place can be when your guest is eating for three.

By the time Felix drove his Chevy carefully into my driveway we were all out of conversation. We had pumped each other’s brains dry as the drought.

Felix didn’t even bother to turn off the engine of his car. He pulled up to the house, bent across me and opened the car door.

“Thanks, Felix,” I said sleepily.

As I got out I heard another car turn off its engine. I looked over my shoulder. Wayne’s Jaguar was parked across the street.

I walked into my house and headed for the bedroom. It might have been only eight o’clock on Saturday night, but I was tired. I picked up my pajamas. They smelled of smoke. I dropped them into the laundry basket and went back out into the night. I crossed the street and knocked on Wayne’s car window. He looked up, startled. Some bodyguard. Then he rolled his window down.

“Don’t you think you could protect me more efficiently if you were in the same room with me?” I asked conversationally. “The bedroom, for example?”

- Fourteen -

Wayne’s brows dropped like a curtain over his eyes. Was he angry at my flippant proposition?

He opened the door and got out of his Jaguar slowly, then straightened up to his full height and stared down at me without speaking.

Damn. I felt myself wither under his towering gaze. “Sorry,” I muttered.

Then he smiled.

He hoisted me up in his arms and hauled me back to the house. He wasn’t playing coy maiden anymore.

I woke up late Sunday morning in a state of sleepy optimism. I turned to look at Wayne sleeping by my side. His long, muscular body was curled into a fetal ball. His rough face was softened by sleep. He didn’t look like a bodyguard anymore. He looked like a child. I kissed him softly on the forehead. He smiled sweetly from his dreams.

I decided to let him sleep. He needed some rest. We had made love ravenously the night before, gluttons after three months of famine. And once the initial hunger had been sated, we had savored the touch and taste and scents of old territories more slowly, assuring ourselves nothing important had changed.

I curled my body next to Wayne’s, at peace with the world. I could hear birds calling and the sounds of my more industrious neighbors mowing, hammering and shouting. The light from the twin skylights made glowing, square imprints on the wall across from me. Warm and comfortable, it felt like a birthday morning or maybe Christmas. Then I remembered it was the day of Sarah’s funeral.

Suddenly I was nauseated. Mourning sickness, I diagnosed quickly. I remembered the last funeral I had attended. Almost everyone had wept, the protocol being mass indulgence in a public outpouring of sorrow. It was like being in the movie audience when Bambi’s mother died. I don’t like to cry in public. Or in private for that matter.

I groaned. Wayne opened his eyes and looked at me, his face full of the same innocent optimism that I had been feeling moments before.