Tea-Totally Dead (29 page)

It was all true. I felt for Wayne’s hand again and held it, wondering why I had failed to notice these good qualities in Vesta when she was alive.

“Mrs. Caruso’s unique nature is both a cause for grief and a cause for celebration. It seems that if you look through the whole universe you will not find anyone else like Vesta Skeritt Caruso…”

Amen to that, I thought.

“… we will each remember her in our own way…”

Especially the murderer. I shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench. The murderer was probably sitting somewhere behind us.

“And now we have come to the end of our ceremony,” the minister told us. “Will you please stand and observe a moment of silence for Vesta Skeritt Caruso?”

We all rose. I could hear Wayne’s hoarse breathing beside me. I put my arm around his waist, my own crying finished as I leaned into him, ready to support his weight. He sagged against me for a few more ragged breaths, then straightened. Finally, I allowed myself to look into his face. His eyes were closed and his face was wet with tears. I closed my own eyes and said a quick goodbye to Vesta.

The moment of silence seemed awfully long. I could hear more than one person crying behind me as I waited for it to end. And then I heard the sound of something electric. I opened my eyes and watched as the golden curtains closed around Vesta’s coffin as if by magic.

“In a little while you will leave this chapel,” the minister resumed, her voice softer now. “You will go to your homes, gathering places or places of work. As you go, remember Vesta Skeritt Caruso in your own way. And in the days to come, share your thoughts and feelings with others. There is no burden so large that it cannot be shared.” She paused for a moment. “And now let us be seated and listen to Chopin.”

We sat. The music came on again, softly in the background.

The minister stepped down from behind the lectern and put a hand on Wayne’s shoulder, then bowed her head at the rest of us and left.

When the music ended, we all rose.

Ingrid came to Wayne first and kissed him softly on the cheek. Trent shook his hand. Ace engulfed him in a bear hug. Somehow, Wayne had become a receiving line. He endured it all stoically, his face stiff and set. Mr. Quaneri was next.

“For your mama,” he said to Wayne, and pulled a bouquet of roses from behind his back and thrust it into Wayne’s outstretched hand. He stood on his tiptoes, gave Wayne a peck on the cheek and then retreated as if embarrassed by his own audacity.

Wayne’s eyebrows rose, then came down again as Lori approached him with arms open wide.

A couple of Vesta’s other neighbors shook Wayne’s left hand, the one without any roses. Dru offered her own variety of cheek-kissing. And finally, Paul Paulson came over and patted Wayne on the back.

“Your mom was one great lady!” he boomed and pressed a business card into Wayne’s empty hand.

Wayne looked over at me, a plea in the curve of his eyebrows.

“Time to go?” I whispered.

He nodded.

I could hear Paulson on our way out.

“Have you ever considered an investment in predeveloped land?” he was asking someone.

I resisted the urge to look and see who that someone was, and led Wayne out of the McLoughlin and Edwards Funeral Home just as fast as I could without running.

On the way home in the Jaguar, I thought of Harmony suddenly. Who would arrange her funeral? I turned to ask Wayne, but his scowling profile told me this was not the time. Did Harmony have relatives? Had they been notified? And what about Clara? My hands went cold as the question hit me. No, I reminded myself. Clara was going to be fine. She wouldn’t need a funeral.

I still hadn’t convinced myself by the time we pulled into the driveway, but I tried to smile anyway. Someone had to. I turned to Wayne.

“How are you doing, sweetie?” I whispered.

Before he could answer, a car pulled in behind us, a blue Ford that I had never seen before. And a second car pulled in behind the Ford. I recognized the second car by the familiar insignia on its door, which read “La Risa Police Department.” Uh-oh, I thought as a van pulled in behind the police car.

Then a woman stepped out of the driver’s side of the Ford. It was Detective Amador. Detective Sergeant Upton hopped out of the passenger’s side and turned to Amador.

“Tell them we have a search warrant,” he bellowed.

- Twenty-Two -

“We have a search warrant,” Detective Amador told us as we climbed out of the Jaguar.

“But what for?” I asked in confusion, slamming the door behind me. I couldn’t seem to get my mind around what was happening.

“For your house and for both of your cars,” she answered without consulting her boss. I thought I saw sympathy in her gentle smile. Or maybe it was just pity.

“Like to see the warrant,” Wayne requested quietly as he walked up behind me.

Amador handed it over. Wayne scanned the document and handed it back to her.

“Looks fine,” he said.

I was glad it looked fine to him. I had no idea what a search warrant was supposed to look like. I still couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Tell them to get going,” Detective Sergeant Upton ordered.

At first I thought he meant for her to tell
us
to get going, but Amador turned and delivered the order to Yoder and Zappetini, who had popped out of the police car like eager genies. I wasn’t sure if the cheerful-looking blond woman emerging from the van behind them was included in the order too. The blonde wore a baseball cap with the La Risa police insignia, but no uniform.

I was about to ask who she was when she turned and slid open the rear door of her van. The back of her blue windbreaker read evidence technician in white block letters.

She pulled out a pair of latex gloves, shut the door and walked up the crowded driveway, smiling pleasantly.

“Do you have a key for the front door?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ll let you in,” I assured her. I started toward the stairs.

“Tell her and her boyfriend to wait out here,” Upton snapped. At least he didn’t bellow this time.

As Amador transmitted the message, Zappetini pushed by me and stood in my path. Did he think I was going to make a run for the house? My hands were trembling when I gave the technician my house key, with anger as much as fear. She and Yoder marched up the front stairs and into the house. Zappetini followed them and stationed himself at the front door with his arms crossed.

I looked over my shoulder at Wayne. His face was a study in impassivity, but I could see the tension in his stiff shoulders and in his clenched hands. He needed comfort now. He had been through enough at his mother’s funeral. Then I wondered if Upton knew about the funeral and had timed this search accordingly, hoping to rattle us.

“So, do we all just stand around waiting in the driveway?” I demanded angrily.

When no one answered my question, I took a deep breath and tried to make my face as wooden as Wayne’s. I doubt if I succeeded. But I must have made some impression, because Detective Amador let out a little sigh and whispered in her boss’s ear, then climbed the front stairs and started nosing around the deck. She poked at the potted plants sitting near the door and hanging from the deck railing. She picked up each of the sagging porch chairs and looked under them. She kicked at the mounds of leaves from the walnut tree. Then she came back down and whispered in her boss’s ear again.

“Tell them we can all wait on the deck,” he said.

Once the message was duly transmitted, the four of us trooped up the stairs, passed Officer Zappetini on guard at the front door and took seats on the sagging porch chairs, which Amador had rearranged. I heard voices coming from the living room as I sat down.

“… some really nice pinball machines.” That sounded like Yoder.

“Anything inside them?” A woman’s voice. The evidence technician’s.

“Nothing yet.”

“Keep looking.”

I turned to Amador. I didn’t want to think about the two people searching my house. If they were searching my house, that meant the police thought we had something to hide. Something like poison or a weapon. Or bloodstained clothing. And that meant they thought either Wayne or I was a murderer. My skin tightened. I shook my head. How could they think that? Then I remembered Clara.

“Is Clara all right?” I demanded.

Amador turned to Upton for an answer.

“Tell her we don’t have any information about Clara Kushiyama at this time,” he said. Then he rotated his head and began to drum his fingers on the porch chair.

“But she is alive and functioning, isn’t she?” I pushed, not waiting for the delay of Upton’s words. “She knows that neither Wayne nor I attacked her. All you have to do is ask her who did.”

When Upton didn’t say anything, Amador gave a little shrug. I knew it was hopeless. But why hadn’t Clara spoken up yet?

I didn’t like my own answers to that question very much.

“Tell her we know she’s been involved in murder before,” Upton said, interrupting my grim train of thought.

“We know you’ve—” Amador began.

“Kate’s only ‘involvement’ was as a witness,” Wayne interrupted. He sat up straight in his chair, 200 watts of glare radiating from his eyes. “Each of those cases was solved. The murderers confessed. Kate can’t be blamed for those murders or for any others.”

Upton looked over Wayne’s shoulder, apparently unimpressed, and popped a knuckle.

“Tell him we know he inherited from a man who was murdered.”

“We know—”

“Now stop that!” I snapped. “You know damn well Wayne didn’t murder that man.”

Upton shrugged and looked up at the October sky.

“Wayne is not murderer material,” I insisted. I lowered my voice. “He couldn’t hurt anyone, much less his mother. He loved her. You ought to be looking at the rest of the relatives. They’re the ones who hated her. You should have heard the things she said to her sister and her brothers—”

I stopped when I noticed that Upton hadn’t bothered to interrupt me. He wanted me to jabber on like this. I was sure of it. I closed my mouth and joined him in staring up at the October sky. The view through the limbs of the walnut tree was especially nice.

Upton’s further attempts to prod us into unguarded speech seemed painfully obvious. He instructed Amador to tell me that he had signed statements from witnesses who said I disliked Wayne’s mother intensely. Wayne didn’t bite. Instead, he moved his own gaze upwards. That made three of us. If anyone walked by, they’d probably look up too, wondering what we were all watching so intently. Upton went on. Then there were the statements that Wayne had endured a dysfunctional childhood, that Wayne was a deeply conflicted and potentially violent man. I had a feeling we had Gail to thank for that assessment.

Upton took a couple more jabs at us, then got up and stomped to the other side of the deck. Amador followed him. I moved my chair closer to Wayne’s and took his hand in mine, then closed my eyes and leaned nonchalantly back in my seat.

Time moved excruciatingly slowly after that. Sometime during the next couple of hours, the evidence technician exited the house. She went to her van and got a roll of brown wrapping paper and some paper bags, then went back inside. That was pretty exciting.

A while later she and Yoder brought out three wrapped packages, each slender enough to be held in one hand but at least four feet long. It felt like Christmas in hell as I tried to guess what was in the wrapped packages. Yardsticks? I had only one that I knew of. Rolled up posters? Broom handles?

What? Then she went back in and brought out a bunch of paper bags. I wouldn’t even try to guess what was in those. I looked at Wayne. He shrugged his shoulders.

Then they started their search of the yard, taking cuttings of various plants and putting them in plastic bags. They searched the cars. They searched the backyard. They searched the deck. And finally, they were done. The technician handed me my keys and a written receipt. It listed “3 wooden rods, approx. 4 feet long and 1½ inches in diameter; misc. herbs, teas and spices; misc. plant cuttings.”

Upton told Amador to tell us not to leave town, Amador told us and then the whole lot of them pulled out of the driveway in reverse order.

“Three wooden rods?” I murmured to Wayne as we watched them go. “Where did they find three wooden rods?”

“Curtain rods?” he guessed.

I shook my head. As far as I knew, all my curtain rods were brass not wooden. And they certainly weren’t an inch and a half in diameter. Unfortunately, I’d have to go inside the house to find out what was.

“After you,” I said to Wayne.

We walked through the front door. I suppose it could have been a worse mess inside. At least the furniture in the living room was still standing. But the pillows were all piled on the wrong side of the room and the books were in a series of piles near the empty shelves. I started to feel sick when I peeked into my office. My stacks of paper were no longer in stacks. One desk had been pulled out from the wall along with the crates of old paperwork I had stored underneath it. Another—