Death hits the fan (24 page)

Wayne must have heard the drums from my side, because he spoke up again and quickly.

"Lou's worried about you," he said. "Wants you to be careful."

"Yeah, Lou's such a sweetie," Yvette murmured, a smile softening her sharp face. "He's so worried about his trip. But he's gotta make it." She smiled again, and pulled a couple of feet of wooden cudgel from the sleeve of her robe.

Wayne and I stopped swinging in our chair simultaneously. Was that thing lethal? It was a different cudgel than the oak one she had brandished at her house. Longer. Scarier. Yvette slapped the club in her hand. I thought about centering myself. Not easy to do in a chair that didn't touch the ground.

"See, I'm safe," she informed us. "Got my fuddin' shillelagh."

"Yvette," Wayne tried reasonably. "That shillelagh isn't going to do much good if someone is really determined to—"

"Huh!" she came back. "And anyway, I'm almost there. I've almost got it."

I wouldn't ask "what" this time. I'd just beat it out of her, shillelagh or no shillelagh. Verbally, I decided. There had to be a button to push on Yvette to get her to talk sensibly. Vanity?

"I should have known you'd figure it out," I began. I swallowed to keep from choking on my insincerity and plodded on. "You're so good at—"

The phone rang, interrupting me.

I ignored it, throwing pride and ethics to the wind. "Maybe we can help you, now that you're almost there. Maybe—"

"Kate, this is Zoe," the machine said hesitantly. "Zoe In-gersoll. There's some stuff I think you ought to know."

Damn.

I rushed to the phone as Zoe was apologizing for the call. I caught it just before she hung up. Maybe Wayne could suck the story out of Yvette, whatever it was. But Zoe had information. And I wouldn't have to beat it out of her, verbally or otherwise.

"Hello, hello!" I shouted into the receiver. "I'm really here."

Zoe's laughter greeted me over the line.

"I wish I could say the same," she told me. "I'm never sure if I'm 'really here.' Or if I want to be . .."

I took a seat in my old Naugahyde comfy chair by the phone. I could still see Yvette and Wayne across the entry-way, but I wouldn't be able to hear Zoe and them at the same time. In fact, I was barely hearing Zoe now, just watching them. I turned my back to the living room and pressed my ear to the receiver to really listen.

". .. being too existential," Zoe was saying.

"You said you had some stuff to tell me," I prompted, hoping I hadn't just missed the important stuff.

"Oh, yeah. Duh, sorry, did it again," Zoe reproached herself. "See, I talked to Dean." Her merry voice turned serious now. "He told me I was holding back on you. Holding back on my feelings. Self-denial, I'm an expert—"

"And?" I cut in, unable to resist the temptation to glance over my shoulder at Yvette and Wayne again. Yvette was waving her arms now. Wayne was nodding. I brought my head back around, bringing my mind and ears back to Zoe at the same time.

"See, I told you that Shayla really cared for me." Zoe's voice raced now. "That she really believed I could get well. You know: creative visualization, white light and coffee enemas. Would you like your coffee with white light? Anyway,

there's a part of me—okay a lot of me—that doesn't believe that. About Shayla, I mean, not the white light."

Then silence. I could still hear Zoe breathing, but she wasn't talking anymore.

Yvette was, though.

"You guys hafta come, get it?" Yvette was demanding. I wondered if Wayne was agreeing to her demands. I pulled my mind back to Zoe again.

"What is it exactly that a lot of you doesn't believe?" I asked her cautiously. Was talking with Zoe going to be as frustrating as it was with Yvette?

"That she really cared." Zoe sighed. "Dean told me it was important to be honest about Shayla. And, oh phooey, I think all the stuff she said about how I should throw away my medications and heal myself was just to piss me off enough so I'd stop being her friend, her insignificant other. You know, so it wouldn't be her fault. I think she wanted me to break it off. So she could still see herself as the great and compassionate goddess, you know." Zoe laughed, but her laughter was maniacal now. "Only it didn't work, 'cause I'm too big a wuss to blow up. So then she just stopped talking to me altogether."

"So, you think she wanted to end your friendship, but didn't want to be the guilty party?" I summarized slowly, trying to understand, hoping this had something, anything, to do with Shayla's murder.

"See, that's what Dean wanted me to explain, I think," Zoe went on eagerly. "That's how Shayla operated. She wanted to be a good person. To think of herself as a good person. And basically she was, I guess. But when she wasn't, she always found ways to rationalize her ruthlessness. That's why she didn't have many friends. It was just too hard for her, too risky, you know. 'Cause it was too hard to be perfect and she wanted so much to be perfect."

I was nodding like a fool. Zoe couldn't see me over the phone.

"But in a weird way, Shayla really was an okay person. She might have been into twenty ways of creative denial, but it was 'cause she tried so hard to be good that she got all tangled up. She couldn't bear to realize she hurt people. That's why she was so unapproachable. Oh, phooey, I don't know. But in spite of everything, I want to help you guys find her killer. Because / really did care about her. And I know Scott trusts you."

There was another silence while I wondered if I trusted Scott Green. He was Shayla's husband. Didn't husbands kill wives? Or his lover, Dean Frazier. Or Zoe Ingersoll for that matter longing to be part of the magic circle. Was it more toxic than magic?

"So how do I help?" Zoe asked.

"Urn . . . uh," I answered. Her question caught me off guard. When someone asks how they can help at a party, it's easy. They can put crackers on a tray, or cut up vegetables, or make a dip. But how can someone help solve a murder?

"Outside of confessing," she added.

I took a deep breath. Was she confessing?

"Just kidding," she assured me quickly. "Even on steroids, I'm too big a wuss to actually kill anyone."

I sat there in my Naugahyde chair and tried to think of a way for her to help. But I couldn't. Unless ...

"All right, you're an artist," I suggested finally. "Think of this as a puzzle, as a great big piece of art. You have all the pieces, how do they fit together? Help me think."

"I can do that," Zoe answered slowly. Then her voice took on speed. "At least most of the time, I can think. Duh. Maybe if I cut out pieces of fabric, like each one is a suspect and then ..."

I hung up the phone after at least fifteen more minutes of hearing Zoe's creative process unfold aloud. I'd never look

at artwork the same way again. But at least Zoe's investigative process was safe. Unlike some of ours. I turned to look at Yvette.

But Yvette was gone. And worse yet, Ingrid wasn't. She was still folding pieces of clothing while Wayne sat in the hanging chair, swinging slowly back and forth.

I walked over to the living room and waited until his chair swung to the rear. Then I kissed the back of his head. Ingrid wasn't looking, anyway.

"We're going to a meeting of science-fiction writers tomorrow," Wayne announced quietly, turning his head my way as he stilled the movement of his chair.

"What?" I demanded.

"Yvette's suggestion," he explained. "Shayla was a member of the organization. People there knew her. Yvette thought we might learn something by going."

"And that way we can keep an eye on Yvette," I added, suddenly realizing why he'd agreed.

He nodded. "Just a couple of hours, okay?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at me, his vulnerable eyes peeking out from beneath his brows.

"Of course," I agreed and kissed him again, this time on the mouth.

Ingrid sniffed, loudly.

How could I have forgotten Ingrid? Wishful thinking?

"Bedtime?" I suggested to Wayne.

Ingrid sniffed even louder. I thought I heard her murmur "homeless," and "no one cares," among other things.

Wayne pulled himself out of the swinging chair and walked around it to put his hand in mine. I thought of romance. And then of Ingrid. And then the doorbell rang.

I opened the door cautiously, but not cautiously enough. Felix Byrne passed by me like a torpedo. Like a small projectile that explodes when meeting a hard object. The hard object was Wayne.

Felix was halfway into the living room, ranting about his "so-called friends," "potato brains," and unexplained "stiffs" when Wayne blocked his way.

"Another goner, mashed into glopperoo, and I get diddly!" Felix protested loudly.

Wayne stared down at him, like a man ready to pull an unsightly weed from his prized begonias.

"You guys are supposed to be my pals," Felix tried again, but the righteousness in his voice was fading.

"Calm down," Wayne suggested with all the friendliness of an execution squad. "Or leave."

"But," Felix objected. Then he spotted Ingrid.

He smiled her way unashamedly. "Hey, howdy-hi there, Ingrid," he called out.

And Ingrid smiled back.

Terrifying thoughts filled my mind. My mouth went dry. Felix and Ingrid. Ingrid confesses all. Banner headlines: I lived with a monster murderess — Then someone pushed the rationality switch in my brain. Because I wasn't sure yet that Marcia's death was necessarily murder. I wondered if our reporter pal knew.

"All we saw was a dead body," I told Felix. His eyes bounced from Ingrid to me like Ping-Pong balls. That was good. "Was Marcia Armeson murdered?"

He opened his mouth to rant a little more, looked up at Wayne, and visibly changed verbal direction.

"Not necessarily," Felix answered. "Guys at the Verduras cop shop say it could have been an accident. Ho, ho, ho— some accident. Like Dahmer just messed up with his lawn mower, you know what I mean—"

"And if it wasn't an accident?" I prompted.

Felix sighed. I was killing the melodrama. But he answered.

"Looks like this Marcia broad got herself pushed into a

pile of boxes and then the handcart fell on her. The pushing part being pretty essential to her little 'accident.'"

My mind went back to the storeroom. I could imagine pushing Marcia myself if she'd launched herself at me like she'd done before. And then she would have fallen into the boxes and the handcart would have tumbled down—

I wrapped my arms around myself to stop the shivers, to stop the image.

"But you guys were there," Felix went on. "What did you see?" His eyes were glittering.

"Time for a walk," Wayne suggested and grabbed my elbow. That shook me out of my thoughts. Because we were out the door, down the stairs, and tramping down the driveway before I had a chance to breathe, much less think. And then Wayne marched me up the dark and cold unpaved edge of the road. Wayne's walks belonged in triathlons.

I panted, but kept up the pace as Felix followed us, puffing loudly and calling out questions even more loudly. Questions that I didn't have enough air to answer. After about six or seven blocks, however, Felix tripped over something behind us. Hah, no night vision, I thought, and then slammed my foot into a slab of concrete.

"Holy socks, you guys," he pleaded as we passed the concrete and moved out of range. "You on some gonzo health kick or what?"

Neither of us replied. We just kept marching as Felix's dispirited mutterings grew fainter and fainter until they blended into the night sounds of cars and dogs and wind.

Wayne slowed down then, and we circled back, walking leisurely but our minds racing.

"Could it have been an accident, Kate?" Wayne asked me, his voice a quiet murmur in the cold night air.

I shrugged, then realized he probably couldn't see me.

"The scary thing is whoever killed her might have just meant to push her," I answered. "But the handcart..."

"Couldn't have planned the handcart, do you think?" Wayne ventured.

I put my arm around his waist in answer. He reciprocated with an arm around my shoulder and we shuffled the rest of the way home in the awkward embrace.

When we got there, all the lights were off. Even the living room lights were dimmed as we opened the front door.

"Do you think Ingrid's still here?" I whispered to Wayne.

But before Wayne could answer, a tall figure came barreling past us, nearly knocking us over on the way out the front door.

It wasn't Ingrid, that was for sure. But, if it wasn't Ingrid, who was it?

>^\y body remained frozen at the front door as my mind tried to figure out who'd just run past us. But Wayne's body wasn't frozen. He'd paused for about the time it took my brain to process the information that I wasn't breathing. Then he raced across the deck and down the stairs after the person or thing who was still running, frantic steps clattering on the gravel of the driveway now.

I ran after Wayne just before he gave up the chase. I heard the sound of some kind of vehicle starting up as I hit the top stair. A car? A truck? And then the screech of tires.

Wayne came shambling back up the stairs before I even reached the bottom one.

"Same VW van," he informed me briefly. "Could see its shape."

"The one that followed us before?" I asked, my brain still not processing very swiftly. It was too cold, too dark, to think. At least that's what I told myself.

He nodded and continued up the stairs. I climbed the last

three with him. We stopped on the deck, both lost in thought. Or shock. My mouth revived first.

"But who—" I began.

"Yeah, who was that guy?" a voice from behind me demanded.

I hopped a couple of inches into the air to keep up with my heart, even though I knew that voice couldn't belong to anyone but Ingrid.

"You guys are mixed up with some really, really icky people, you know," she continued defiantly. I turned in the dim light and saw her put her hands on her hips.

"Did you see the intruder?" Wayne asked brusquely.

Ingrid shrugged her tanned shoulders. How could she look so warm out here in the cool night air, wearing nothing but spandex shorts and a halter top?