Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (5 page)

I said goodbye and hung up. I wanted to call somebody, to talk to somebody. To talk to Wayne. But my body seemed wooden and my mind sluggish. From a great distance I realized I must be in shock. I slowly walked into the bathroom, where I swallowed four NatuRest capsules. Then I put on my pajamas and went to bed.

Sleep pulled me down and my thoughts went again and again to Sarah. Pictures of Sarah pontificating, laughing and telling stories flickered through my mind. I could even hear the tone of her strident voice. And feel the array of emotions she had generated in me—anger, affection, amusement, frustration and admiration. As I finally dropped off, I saw in my mind’s eye her bumper sticker proclaiming, “Too Hip, Gotta Go.”

Early the next morning I awoke from a nightmare with tears on my face. I couldn’t remember what it was about, only that I had been saying “I’m sorry” over and over again. My sheets were soaked with sweat. Looking around the familiar room with growing recognition, I felt the relief of consciousness spill over me. But that relief was quickly displaced by the memory of Sarah’s death. And the questions. How had she died? Why had she died?

I struggled out of bed and down the hallway in my pajamas. I wanted answers, but I didn’t know who to call. Wayne? I dismissed that sentimental thought, and its accompanying twinge of self-pity, with irritation. Then I thought of Tony. As I dialed his phone number I realized that he probably didn’t know that Sarah was dead at all. Was
I
going to have to break the news to
him
?

I shouldn’t have worried. All I got were the gentle and loving tones of his answering machine. I banged down the receiver and threw myself into my comfy chair, where I sat shivering in sweat-soaked pajamas. Damn it, I needed to talk!

I could have called Peter. After all, he had called me. But I didn’t want to be the one to tell him about Sarah. I considered my friend Barbara. But she was probably sleeping. She was not an early riser. And she hadn’t ever met Sarah. I let out a sigh and decided to call Vivian.

Vivian answered after seven rings with a sleep-saturated “Hello.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

“God, my head hurts,” she replied. Her words were slurred. “I took a couple of sleeping pills. I was going to sleep in this morning, but you called,” she said. There was a note of irritation in her tone. It was better than the apathy of the night before.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. What time is it, anyway?” I asked.

“It’s five-thirty. Don’t you ever look at your clock?” The note of irritation had swelled to a full measure.

“Look, Vivian, I wanted to talk to you—”

“Why?” she interrupted.

“Because I want to know what happened to Sarah!”

“Sarah died in a hot tub,” she mumbled.

“You know what I mean,” I pressed. “How did she die? Why? What’s going on?” There was no response from Vivian. I asked, “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to talk?”

There was another moment of silence, and then she replied slowly, “Maybe… but I don’t know any more than I told you.”

“I just want to understand what happened,” I explained. “And about Sarah, I really did like her, weird as she was. I mean… Oh, I don’t know what I mean!” Suddenly I felt angry. “Do you know Sarah’s boyfriend’s name?” I demanded.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.

“I want to talk to someone who cared about Sarah,” I told her. “Maybe he did.”

After a moment of silence, Vivian spoke.

“His name is Nick Taos. It’s a ‘spiritual name.’ That means he made it up.” Vivian’s voice was friendlier now. Probably because she had some exclusive information to share. “I think Taos is supposed to have to do with Chinese philosophy, or maybe he’s named after that town in New Mexico,” she went on. “But it won’t do you any good to call. He won’t talk to you. He doesn’t talk to anyone.”

I waited for more, but she only said, “Listen, I’m going back to bed. I bet you have a stack of papers on your desk gathering dust. You usually do. Why don’t you go deal with it?”

“Vivian, come and see me for lunch today, all right?” I asked. “Just to talk.”

“I know what kinda stuff you eat for lunch. I think I’ll pass,” she said. Harsh words, but there was a hint of affection in her tone.

“I’ll make chili,” I offered. “You like my chili.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll see you for lunch, but I gotta go back to sleep now. Good night, or good morning, or whatever!” she finished, and the line went dead.

I knew I needed to take a shower eventually and begin my paperwork for the day, but I sat rooted in my comfy chair for hours thinking of Sarah and how I had failed her. Then I remembered Sergeant Feiffer. The Sheriff’s Department had to know by now how Sarah had died. I picked up the phone and dialed.

Ten minutes and three transfers later I got the sergeant. But he wasn’t very informative. He told me three things. One, Sarah Quinn was dead. Two, they were indeed investigating the death. And three, he wanted to talk to me again. That was it. All my attempts to elicit additional details were stolidly met with “We’re in the process of gathering information now,” the key word being “gathering” as opposed to disseminating. I agreed to be interviewed at my house at one o’clock.

Only then did I shower and sit down to my Jest Gifts paperwork. My mind was still churning with questions. I worked on my Saw-and-Bones Christmas ad for the medical magazines and wondered. Had Sarah succumbed to a heart attack? Wouldn’t she have shown some sign if she’d had a heart problem? I called the ceramics firm that was supplying the shrunken-head mugs for the psychiatrists. Had she drowned? Can you drown in a hot tub? I checked work orders. Of all people, how could Sarah die? And the worst question of all, would she have died if I had agreed to go and talk to her Sunday night?

Sarah was special. I had actually begun to believe she was headed for an impressive old age, if not actual immortality. I slogged through vouchers, accounts, bills, registers, freight charges, invoices and tax forms. Then I remembered the answering machine message that Sarah had talked about at our last group.

Damn. How the hell had I forgotten that? I stopped breathing. Hadn’t the message said something about Sarah’s death?

That was too spooky to even think about. Suddenly I needed to be with people. Warm living human beings to shield me from the apprehension of death. I pushed myself out of my chair, put on my driving glasses and tore out the door to the shelter of my old brown Toyota. As the engine turned over I even thought up an excuse for leaving the house. I had promised Vivian chili and I didn’t have the time, or the heart, to make homemade. I could pick up canned vegetarian chili at the health-food store downtown and claim it as my own.

I was pulling up to the stop sign at the end of my narrow street when a white Volvo came whipping around the corner into my lane. It screamed to a stop a few inches from my front bumper. My heart went berserk, crashing erratically against my ribs. I rolled down my window to yell at the driver. Then I saw who was behind the wheel. It was Linda Zatara.

She backed up and drove around me without looking me in the face. Had she even recognized me? I rolled up my window and turned unsteadily onto the main drag. What was Linda doing in my neighborhood? On my street? The third or fourth time that I asked myself these questions, and received no answers, I realized I was driving the wrong way. I was driving toward Sarah’s house.

I took a deep breath, made a U-turn, drove downtown and parked.

Walking along to the health-food store, my eyes absently skimmed the headlines of the newspapers in the vending machines. The afternoon
Marin Independent Journal
stopped me cold in my tracks. POLICE INVESTIGATE BIZARRE HOT TUB DEATH, it announced in thick black letters.

I reached into my purse for change with icy hands. There is something mind-altering about seeing a part of your life in print. I felt drugged as I pulled out a paper, walked slowly to the bus stop, and sat down, my eyes on the newsprint.

“Local Marin resident and computer programmer, Sarah Quinn, was found dead in her hot tub yesterday. With her in the tub was a robot still plugged into the outdoor electrical outlet. Death was caused by electrocution.” Oh, God! “Chief Deputy Sheriff Horace May would not reveal how the robot came to be in the hot tub. However, reliable sources disclosed that in the past the robot had been programmed to plug itself into the outdoor electrical outlets in order to recharge its batteries.” I remembered the cute little robot with the curly red wig and padded bra. Was that the killer? “It is believed that upon this last occasion the robot was additionally programmed to maneuver itself into Quinn’s hot tub, thereby electrocuting her.”

My horror in imagining death by electrocution was interrupted by a flash of indignation. Sergeant Fieffer had known this the whole time he was talking to me and had never let on. I wondered whether he had seen the
I.J.
yet.

I read further. “May, who is in charge of the Sheriff’s detective bureau, would not comment when asked if the death was being treated as an accident, suicide or murder.” Murder. There it was. “Sheriff’s Sgt. Tom Fieffer commented that they have some key pieces of the puzzle but haven’t yet been able to assemble them.”

I wondered what key pieces they had. Whatever they were, Feiffer wasn’t going to share them. That was clear. I thought again about Sarah’s answering machine message. I looked up from the paper. How had she described the message? Something about her money not doing her any good when she was dead. Had that message been a death threat? Had the mysterious caller carried out the threat? I looked back down. The paper went on to discuss Sarah’s illustrious career.

“Sarah Quinn came to Marin in 1978. She established a word-processing business, Word Inc., with partner Myra Klein at that time. In 1981 Quinn left the word-processing business to start her own computer software company. This company, Quinn Unlimited, had been quite successful, according to Steve Barnard, local Chamber of Commerce leader. Most recently, Quinn had been engaged in programming domestic robots. It was one of these robots that was found in the tub with her.”

Murder? Or, just maybe, the ultimate practical joke gone awry?

The article concluded by listing Sarah’s civic activities: the Marin Business Exchange, the Marin Ecology Club, and Citizens for a Nuclear Free Marin. There was a picture of Sarah staring out at the camera from the Citizens for a Nuclear Free Marin campaign headquarters. It didn’t capture her spirit. Maybe that was because the picture was motionless. Sarah had always been in motion.

I tucked the paper into my purse, bought my chili, found my car and drove slowly back home. During my drive I considered the possibilities: accident, suicide or murder. And in my mind’s eye the word “murder” was repeatedly circled in red ink. Suicide was unthinkable in respect to Sarah, and she had loved life far too much to fail to guard against accidents. Even from my dazed point of view, I could see that murder was the only reasonable answer to the question of “how” someone like Sarah could die. And I might have prevented it.

“Why?” remained unanswered And I had a new question, “Who?”

- Four -

The “who?” question didn’t go away as I drove home. If Sarah had been murdered, the murderer had been no random street killer, no interrupted burglar. Whoever had killed Sarah must have been someone familiar with her house, hot tub and computerized robots. How else could they have programmed the robot? I knew Sarah had opened her home to only a few select people. Peter, Tony, Craig, Linda and I had qualified to visit as group members. Vivian had been there to clean, and Jerry to garden. Maybe Sarah’s boyfriend, sister, neighbors or business associates had been invited. I might be able to find out.

But even among those who had been in Sarah’s house, how many knew how to use her computer system? How to program her robots? I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. Of course, she did tend to show off that computer system.

As I pulled into my driveway I could hear an internal voice whispering insistently, “It’s someone you know.” The tone and tempo of that voice were my grandmother’s. She had always prided herself on a fierce pessimism disguised as practicality. I shook my head emphatically. It was not anyone I knew! But still…

Once I opened my door, I hurried to my desk, made a foot-square clearing in its forest of paperwork, and set my telephone in the exact center.

I phoned Peter first. As I punched out the numbers, I considered briefly just what I could say to him. He might not even know that Sarah was dead. Her death had seemed so all-encompassing a reality for me that I had forgotten how little time had actually elapsed.

“Law office,” the voice at the other end of the line said. I had also forgotten the lioness at the gate. I told her my name and asked to speak to Peter.

“And what is this concerning?” the voice inquired politely.

“Uh, Sarah Quinn.”

“I’ll see if Mr. Stromberg can speak to you now,” the voice said and put me on orchestral hold. Piped music poured relentlessly from the telephone receiver. Holding it as far away from my ear as I could and still be alert for the change to a human voice, I stared at the old photos, postcards, aphorisms, articles and shipping schedules that were tacked haphazardly to my bulletin board.

The voice came back. “Mr. Stromberg is in conference right now. May he return your call?” The “conference” probably consisted of Peter and some files. This, on top of the piped music, fueled my annoyance.