Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (25 page)

“It’s been so nice visiting with you, Cynthia,” she trilled and led the way out the door.

Betty spoke more quietly as she walked me back to my car.

“I really did love Sarah,” she told me. “She livened things up so. And she had a wonderful spirit. I certainly hope your memorial investigations bear fruit.” Her eyes scanned my face for a moment. “I just couldn’t bear the thought that we’ll never know what happened,” she said finally.

We talked by my car a little longer, then parted with mutual promises not to be strangers. Once Betty had walked back through her gate, I looked over at Sarah’s house. How could I get in? I wanted to see the inside of her house one more time, not only to investigate, but because it would be my last glimpse of the heart of Sarah’s home. I stood and stared at the fish-trimmed hedge. Then I heard a voice behind me.

“I really wouldn’t do it, dear. The neighbors here are so nosy… and the police wouldn’t be amused.” I turned to look at Betty. “Here are those rosemary cuttings I promised you,” she finished.

“You’re a lot sharper than you pretend,” I told her. “I can see why you and Sarah got along.”

Betty’s cheeks grew a little pinker with the compliment. She grasped my hand for a moment, then gave me the cuttings. I slid into my car, waved and drove away.

On my way home I saw Jerry’s van still parked where I had seen it earlier. I braked and pulled over to the curb. I was tired of missing opportunities to talk to my gardener. If he had any information for me, I wanted it now.

I jumped out of my car and marched up to the van shouting, “Jerry!”

No one yelled back. Damn. I had yelled loud enough to reach the yard. Where was he?

I walked around the van and saw the answer to my question.

- Seventeen -

A body lay face down in a bed of impatiens and alyssum. A litter of broken pink and white blossoms obscured the body’s edges.

“Jerry?” I whispered, trying to persuade myself that I was seeing a man who was merely asleep.

But the body was too still, the limbs positioned too awkwardly for sleep. And the back of the head didn’t look right. It was misshapen under the blood-matted hair, like dough that had risen improperly.

“Jerry!” I called out urgently. The body didn’t move.

My brain was buzzing with adrenaline, my vision preternaturally clear. A voice in my head told me that I was looking at Jerry’s body, Jerry’s dead body. But I didn’t want to believe the voice.

I stepped across the impatiens and knelt down beside the body, crushing more blossoms. I took a deep breath and forced myself to reach for his wrist to check his pulse. But my hand stopped before touching him. It jerked back as if it had a will of its own.

Then I noticed something moving on his head and neck. What were those black specks? I bent closer. Ants! Jerry was covered in ants!

I jumped up and staggered away, willing myself not to vomit. I came to a stop on the other side of the van. I leaned up against it, comforted by the cold metal against my forehead. Then it came to me. The killer might still be here.

I whirled around. I couldn’t see anyone. I strained my ears. I couldn’t hear anyone either. I told myself I had to call the police.

I ran to the front door and rang the bell. There was no answer. I tried the doorknob. Locked. I stood on my tiptoes and ran my hand along the top of the lintel, hoping for a key. Nothing. Frantically, I yanked the doormat up, dislodging a rock. There was nothing underneath the mat. But the rock felt strange when I picked it up to replace it. It was too light. Then I realized it wasn’t a rock at all. It was plastic, molded to look like a rock. And there was a compartment on its flat bottom. I slid the cover open and found a key.

I felt a brief surge of triumph when the key opened the front door. It was enough to carry me through the dark house as I searched for a phone. I found one in the kitchen and called the police.

I was back outside, leaning against my car when I heard the police sirens. I didn’t feel triumphant anymore. I just felt sick.

A car screeched to the curb and stopped behind my Toyota. A uniformed sheriff popped out and trotted toward me.

“Are you Kate Jasper?” he asked.

I nodded. It was all I could do. I heard more sirens, more cars stopping.

“Where’s the body?” he demanded.

I led the sheriff back around the van to the flower bed and pointed a shaking finger. I glanced at Jerry, then turned away, only to come face to face with Sergeant Feiffer.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed at me angrily.

“Finding… finding… “ I faltered. I pointed at Jerry’s body again. Feiffer’s features softened.

“Just a few questions,” he said gently.

“A few questions” turned out to mean a few dozen. And he repeated them over and over again. “Why were you in the neighborhood?” for example. “How come you stopped to talk to Jerry?” “Why did you walk around the van?” “Why did you break into the house?” And the big one: “Did you kill him?” He only asked me that once. But he was serious. When I answered, “No,” he told me I could go.

I drove home slowly, unable to focus on the implications of Jerry’s murder. I had no doubt that it was murder. But my mind refused to stay with it. I turned on the radio and listened to some solid-gold hits. Diana Ross sang “Someday We’ll Be Together” and I felt nostalgic tears pricking my eyelids. The Four Tops were next with “I Can’t Help Myself and I was transported back through the years, to my girlfriend Laurie’s bedroom, where we were illicitly drinking rum and Coke. When “Eve of Destruction” came pouring out, I came back to the present with a shudder and turned off my radio.

Coming up my driveway, I realized my clothing was soaked with sweat. My mother’s voice barged into my mind. “Horses sweat, people perspire,” it corrected me. I parked, and pulled my sweaty body out of the Toyota. A searing pain shot up from the base of my spine. For a moment I thought that someone had actually shot me. Then I realized that I had once again popped my lower back out of alignment. I could just hear my chiropractor asking me if I’d been under any stress lately.

I limped my way into the house and checked the answering machine, hoping Jerry’s message was still there. It wasn’t. Once the machine was reset, any new calls recorded over the old ones. Jerry’s message had been buried under a series of calls ending with a plea from the Marin Sheriff’s Department for a donation to take a needy child to the circus.

I stood there and screened suspects in my mind. Jerry was out. That only left Linda, Ellen, Myra, Peter, Vivian—Vivian! She had been there this morning when I had played the message from Jerry. But then I remembered. She had been in the back room. Could she have overheard the call from the back room? I set the messages going at full volume on the answering machine and hobbled as fast as I could to the back room to listen. I could only hear a faint blur of noise. I certainly couldn’t hear any distinct words.

I walked back down the hallway slowly, every step marked by pain. After I reset the machine, I lay down on the floor to do some back exercises. As I pulled my left knee across my body I wondered whether Jerry had confronted the killer. Or had the killer just figured out what Jerry knew? I pulled my right leg across. Maybe he hadn’t been killed for his secret knowledge at all. Maybe his death was brought about by the same unascertained motive as Sarah’s. Or maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have anything to do with Sarah’s death at all. That was an encouraging thought. I sat up quickly. My spine sent me a signal I couldn’t ignore.

I called my chiropractor and made a late afternoon appointment. As I hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. I groaned. The only person I wanted to see was Wayne. It rang again. I hobbled to the door and opened it. Wayne wasn’t at the door. Sergeant Feiffer was.

“Well?” he demanded, marching into the living room.

“I told you, already,” I muttered. He didn’t respond. Wearily, I repeated the story I had given him earlier. “I was driving by when I saw his van. I walked around it because I knew he had to be there.”

“You just happened to be driving by. On the same street where Sarah Quinn was killed. Then you stopped and found another dead body,” he summed up. He shook his head. “Tell me another one,” he said, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

“I was out talking to some… some friends,” I stammered.

His face told me that my faltering did not go unnoticed. Suddenly I took a mental leap into Feiffer’s shoes. I was looking through his eyes and listening to my voice. And what I was hearing sounded very suspicious. In fact, what I was hearing sounded like someone guilty of murder.

“All right, all right,” I gave in. “I was talking to Sarah’s neighbors. I thought maybe I could come up with something. I didn’t expect…” A picture of Jerry’s body flashed in front of my eyes with sickening clarity. “I didn’t kill anyone, honestly,” I finished.

“You are in the interesting position of having known both of the victims,” Feiffer said, his voice tense with anger. He fixed accusing eyes on me. “I could say that you are the link between the murders.”

From the midst of my distress I realized Jerry had called me because I was a link, a link between him and Sarah. He had called me because I was the only person he knew who had been a friend of Sarah’s.

“You know something you’re not saying,” Feiffer enunciated slowly and carefully. “You are hiding something. What you are hiding may get you killed.” He was deadly serious.

“Jerry called me this morning,” I confessed. Suddenly I wanted to tell Feiffer everything I knew. “He left a message on my machine.”

“What did it say?” Feiffer asked eagerly. “Can we listen to it?”

“No, it was recorded over.” Feiffer’s face hardened. Damn. Now that I was telling the truth, he looked like he didn’t believe me. I rattled on anyway. “He just said he wanted to talk to me about Sarah. But I couldn’t get him on the phone. So when I saw his van—”

“What were Jerry’s exact words on the machine?” Feiffer interrupted. “Do you remember?”

I stood there and tried to remember. “I think he just said ‘this is Jerry’ and ‘I want to talk to you about Sarah’ or ‘it’s about Sarah’ or something.” I threw my hands up. “It wasn’t a long message.”

“And you didn’t talk to him?” Feiffer prodded.

“No, I was too late.” I looked down into my lap. Poor Jerry. “Was he married?” I asked. “Did he have kids?”

“Yes, he had a wife. No, he didn’t have kids,” Feiffer rapped out. “Now let me ask
you
some. How well did you know him?”

“Hardly at all,” I squeaked defensively. I took a breath and deepened my tone. “Sarah recommended Jerry to me. I barely spoke to him. He showed up twice a month to mow the lawn and keep things trimmed. Then he billed me through the mail.”

“He knew you well enough to call you,” Feiffer insisted.

“I wish he hadn’t!” I burst out. “If he really knew something, why didn’t he call you guys?”

“Right,” said Feiffer. “I want you to keep that question in mind while you listen to me.” He spoke in a tone of controlled fury. “If you know anything else about this business I want you to tell me. And I want you to stop your meddling in this as of now. Do you understand?”

I nodded yes.

“Is there anything else you have to tell me?” he asked.

I shook my head no. As far as I knew, I didn’t know anything.

“I’m not even going to try to convince you to be more careful,” Feiffer continued. “It would probably be useless. But I want you to think about Jerry Gold before you do anything foolish. And call us if you have any information at all. Or if there are any new phone threats. Or if you feel you’re in danger in any way.”

With those words he turned and marched out my door. It was a very effective exit. At that moment, I felt sure that my sleuthing days were over. I wanted no more part in murder.

I dutifully locked all my doors and windows. Then I sat down at my desk to do paperwork. I was negotiating with one of my suppliers on the telephone when the doorbell rang. I told the supplier that I’d get back to her. Then I crept to my office window. Felix was on my doorstep. I kept quiet, hoping he’d go away.

He pressed the doorbell again.

I gave up and opened the door.

“We need to talk,” he said. His voice wasn’t as demanding as usual. Trying to catch more flies with honey?

“About Jerry?” I guessed.

He nodded, then tried to step past me into the house. I held my ground, straining my back as I tensed. But Felix didn’t get in.

“Who told you I was the one who found him?” I demanded.

The moment the words left my mouth I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Felix’s eyes widened, then narrowed angrily. No one had told him. No one until me.

“You found his friggin’ body!” Felix shouted in my face. “And you didn’t call me!” So much for the soft-pedaling.

“Listen, Felix!” I shouted back. “I found a dead body. It was horrible. I need support now, not yelling. So be nice or leave!” I looked him in the eye.

He returned my angry gaze for a few heartbeats, then lowered his eyes.

“Okay,” he capitulated. He patted my shoulder awkwardly.

I let him into my house. The shoulder-patting ended the moment he was in. He hounded me for details I didn’t have. I threatened to throw him out. After fifteen minutes he decided to believe me. Then he started telling me about the book he wanted to write about the murders.