Always Kiss the Corpse (2 page)

“Very nice.” Jerome's eyes swept across a red floral duvet on the queen-size bed. He hesitated, then slowly backed away.

“I'm waiting to see what Noel thinks.”

“Ah, your partner. And very
very
good friend?” Jerome arched one handsome eyebrow.

Kyra laughed. “Not in that way.” She returned to the living room, sat on the sofa again and divided the remaining wine between their glasses. “Though I had a wicked crush on him when I was between twelve and fifteen. God, over twenty years ago. No, I told you, Noel's gay.”

“Always?”

“Oh yes. Long as I've known him. Brendan was his partner.”

“Who just died, you said.” Jerome sipped his wine.

“Last June.” Kyra caught herself. Jerome's wife too had died, last January, over a year ago now. Metastasised breast cancer. In her early forties, he'd said. His son, the giver of Nelson, the dog, to his mother, was away at college in the East. Noel's Brendan had been in his fifties; non-lymphocytic leukemia. The many ways to die. “Noel and I see each other mainly when we're on a case, and sometimes not even then. He's up in BC. In Nanaimo. On Vancouver Island. He does a lot of work on-line.” Jerome's arm had again wandered along the back of the sofa. Kyra, so slightly, leaned into it. “I'm thinking of having a housewarming potluck. Can you come? I'll get some friends in, and maybe Noel can pop down. How's Thursday?”

“Sounds great.” Jerome let his hand slide onto her shoulder. “I can't remember my last potluck. What should I bring? I do a lot of things in one pot.”

“Whatever. My only rule is dishes can't be specified. If everybody brings dessert, that's that.”

“I won't let that happen.” Jerome's smile softened his authoritative tone.

She turned her face to his smile. Well, let's find out—

The phone rang. Amazing timing, that phone. Would not-answering make too strong a statement? She glanced at her watch. Five after nine. She gave him a rueful smile. “I'd better get it.” She walked quickly from Jerome's arm to the den, and picked up. “Islands Investigations International, Kyra Rachel.”

Jerome watched Kyra listen to the phone. He tried to keep himself from realizing he'd almost kissed a woman again. Was he prepared for such a— What? Just a kiss, right? Okay, he was clearly attracted to her. So more than a kiss? It wasn't as if Bev somehow hovered above his head, watching and admiring, or condemning. Bev had been ill for too long a time. But still. And then this friend, this Noel. Supposedly gay. But gay isn't enough, is it? Jerome had a cousin in Omaha who was bisexual, he just passed himself off as gay, but he played around with a lot of friends' wives. Anyway, they say very few people are absolutely one sex or another. Intriguing new material in the pharmacological journals in the last few years.

He heard Kyra disconnect. The caller had done most of the talking. He turned toward her, no, not ready. Looked now like she'd punched in a pre-coded number.

Her words came through clearly: “Noel? . . . Yeah, I know, but a worried man just phoned me. Says a woman friend of his claims it wasn't her supposedly dead son in the casket at a viewing today, so where is he and who's in the casket . . . Yeah, good question. I said I'd see her tomorrow, both of us if you can make it . . . She's in Bellingham but her son lived—or lives—on Whidbey Island . . . Can you take that Raven flight down? . . . Yes, about nine-thirty . . . I'll pick you up . . . Okay, good . . . See you.” She set the phone on its base and returned to the living room.

“I couldn't help overhearing.”

She smiled. “Well. You'll definitely meet my business associate at the potluck.”

Both stood without moving. Jerome stared at the DVD on the coffee table, and picked it up. “I'll return this. Thank you for a very pleasant evening.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she echoed, the ghost of his kiss tingling on her skin. But she made no attempt to kiss him back.

He shrugged into his windbreaker. “I'll read recipes for Thursday night. I guess you'll be busy with this case. It sounds strange.”

“I'm available by phone. Here or cell.”

Jerome's smile glowed. “I'll call.” He left.

Oh dear, thought Kyra. Dear oh dear. Should she take a long hot bath? Her body needed soothing. Jerome was unlike many men she'd met, no heavy attempt to come on to her. Something wrong with her? Clearly he'd been prepared to kiss her. Prepared? Was that good enough? Why didn't he desire her, and passionately? Maybe he was just the nice man he appeared. And did she want to become involved with just a nice man? Or maybe lots of passion, waiting to be unlocked?

She'd take her bath in the morning. In the bedroom she undressed, black slacks back in the closet, white shirt in the clothes hamper. Standing in her bikini underpants—There. She'd undressed herself. Vance, Simon, Sam, all three of her ex-husbands had enjoyed undressing her, in various ways.

From a shelf in her closet she took a small leather case. She opened it. Six padded pockets lined with blue velvet, each containing a red ball an inch and seven-eighths in diameter. She picked up one and squeezed it tight in her palm. She released it and it rolled into its pocket. No way of figuring how to juggle Jerome. To juggle, you needed options. Could she seriously become involved with a pharmacist?

≈  ≈  ≈

Dr. Stockman Jones adored his house. Others were allowed to admire it, but only he felt its caress each time he came home. That its seventeen rooms and two barns, one now a triple garage, were built 103 years ago by a Seattle ironmonger, grown rich by supplying miners off in search of Yukon gold, mattered little to Stockman. That it had been revamped in postwar plastics as a summer cottage for an aircraft czar was a concern that had been overcome by the decorating genius of his wife, professionally known as Bonnie O'Hara. But that a shingle might be loose, the cream paint on the crenellated supports of the mock fascia might be chipped, the glass on his front door might be smudged, this pained him. His house had been his reward from God, and Stockman Jones must care for it.

The house, its lawn smooth as a golf course green, stood two hundred feet back from the road up the hill from downtown Coupeville. The view encompassed the harbor, Penn Cove, and the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station Seaplane Base across the water.

When they'd taken off the plastic siding and found the old wood shingles beneath, still in good repair, Bonnie had suggested they paint them a creamy orange, the window frames highlighted in maroon, and the trim white. Stockman had been aghast. Houses should be all white. This was not a merry-go-round. She'd shown him books of turn-of-the-century wood frame houses painted a rich array of hues. He gave in. And now the colors pleased his eye. Passersby might admire the house for its nobility but could see nothing inside. Respect, like grandeur, like privacy, was indispensable in Stockman Jones' life.

All the virtues of his house were necessary this morning because Dr. Jones had slept badly. As he showered, his mind refused to give shape, much less order, to the new situation.

He dried himself and patted the soft roundness of his belly. Bonnie was right, time to lose some pounds. A thought took him: maybe direct action was the wrong way to go, maybe planned inaction should be their tactic. Not Stockman's preferred way of coping, he wasn't a passive person, not in the clinic, not at the hospital nor with his church. But in this instance, maybe. Because certainly it had been Sandro Vasiliadis in the coffin.

That poor woman, his mother. May God have mercy. Well, nothing to be done. History can't run backwards. Nothing to be done, so do nothing.

He'd try that out on the others, doing nothing. He was pretty sure of their reactions:

Lorna would agree with him. She was pragmatic and sensible about the conditions of their clients and the importance of the work.

Richard would continue to take Sandro's death hard, that was inevitable. Richard brooded about their clients, and often his brooding paid off. It was as if he placed his thoughts in some oozing cauldron and stirred them, witch-like, until he distilled a clear solution to a specific concern. The results had often brought answers, considerable credit, and research money to WISDOM.

Gary would be the most complicated. Gary, like Stockman himself, was an activist. This too had served the clinic well. It had been Gary's brilliant paper, then his politicking, that had brought in the handsome contract from Bendwell Pharmaceuticals. But Gary could also be a loose-cannon kind of activist.

Stockman dressed casually, comfortable flannels and a soft cotton shirt. After the morning's surgery he had an ethical guidance meeting at his Church, and as an elder he had noticed it was easier for the others to converse with him when he appeared informally. He smiled. And there'd be more of the casual life for him in the months and years to come, time to pay back to his community and his Church the lessons he had learned. So yes, the more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea of inaction.

Bonnie had finished her breakfast when he came downstairs. She kissed his cheek and patted his belly, raised her eyebrows and grinned.

He stroked her short brown hair, graying in front but dark still on top and in back. “I've decided inaction is the best way to go.”

“Does that include not eating?” She tilted her head to the right, a kind of flirting that always warmed him.

He laughed a little. “We'll see.”

“You sound better than last night.”

“Inaction. Just let go, that's the way. That's what I'll suggest.”

“The Zen of WISDOM?”

“Zen?” He chuckled. “You been spending time with the granola crowd?” He poured himself some coffee, started to add sugar, stopped himself. He saw Bonnie's wry smile.

“The Zen of control,” she said, “like your Zen of management. You're getting to be quite the Zen master.”

He shook his head, ending their banter. “And what have you got going today?”

“Back to the cedar coastal by the Rhododendron Gardens, the owners aren't happy with the colors of the billiard room. Then up to the base, the new admiral's been given a house that's too small for his six kids so they have to re-do the basement.”

“Doesn't sound like much fun.”

“I know. So I tripled my fee. They didn't bat an eye.”

“Government's paying.”

“I guess. Anyway, we can use the money. Franny called while you were in the shower. They've found a house, could we lend them eighty thousand for a down payment please.”

Stockman laughed. “Those kids've figured it out. Money does grow on the parent tree.”

She grabbed her jacket, “Got to run,” pecking his mouth as she passed.

He phoned the clinic to leave a message for Dawn but she was already there. Such a conscientious girl! Yes, she'd call the others for a meeting. She checked their calendars. Had to be late afternoon. Stockman would have preferred a morning meeting. No, Richard and Gary had appointments till four.

He cut two slices of bread and made toast. He buttered them and spread a little marmalade. No, a lot of marmalade, he'd need the energy before the day ended. He chomped it down. He stuffed a file into his briefcase. Jacket, new snap-brim fedora just back in style. Out the back way, past a million crocuses, purple and yellow against new young green, to the barn Bonnie had turned into a place of comfort for their vehicles, and a separate apartment on the second floor designed with the kids in mind and whatever babies would come along.

He'd take the Jag today. He drove down his driveway and glanced back at the house. He had wrought all this. After medical school he'd been in deep debt. Twenty-one years of surgery had brought him what he had. He pulled into the street.

TWO

Noel Franklin was looking forward to working with Kyra again. Only three weeks since their last case, someone sabotaging generators on Lasqueti Island. A collective of islanders had hired them, and what fascinated Noel was not so much solving the case, which they had, but that the islanders were unanimous in wanting their services in the first place. Unanimous islanders? Unheard of.

He glanced through the float plane's window, so tiny it seemed as if he had to view the constricted panorama with only one eye at a time. Below him the south end of Gabriola Island gave way to Valdez. Off its southwestern edge the green lumps of Reid, Ruxton and DeCourcy, then Thetis and Kuper Islands. This has to be one of the most beautiful parts of the world, these jade-like islands rimmed with white where green-blue waves broke on their rocks. He'd lived on this coast all his life, had never wanted to live elsewhere.

The morning sun was shining as if it were May, not early March. Maybe it'd burn the last of the clouds away. If the wind didn't scatter them; it was buffeting the plane hard enough. No matter, he loved float planes, trusted them in a way he never trusted jets. Something goes wrong, just glide on down to the chuck and skitter along on pontoons.

Another nice thing about float planes, they were so noisy you didn't have to feign sleep or read a book to avoid conversation with a seatmate. This one was hogging the shared armrest. Okay, he silently told the log boom beneath him, that's a big man and he can't help it, it must be really uncomfortable. But still Noel felt irritated. Only six passengers in this twelve-seater, and Biggo didn't have to sit next to him.

Convenient of Raven Air to start this service, Campbell River, Comox, Nanaimo, Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, just when he and Kyra were getting Islands Investigations International off the ground. The case on Gabriola Island had been their first and, he'd vowed, it would be the last time he'd join her in anything physically dangerous. But what he'd appreciated about Kyra then, she'd just shrugged, agreed break-ins didn't suit some people, lots of investigation could be done on computers and telephones, and dropped the topic. When Brendan passed away, Kyra became his only friend. He needed her.