Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (9 page)

“Well?” Paula prodded impatiently.

“We wanted to get your thoughts on the murder,” Barbara said, smiling.

Paula didn’t return the smile. “I don’t have any more knowledge concerning last night’s events than you do yourselves,” she stated categorically.

“But you might,” I argued, appealing to her sense of fairness. “You don’t really know unless we compare notes.”

“Perhaps,” she answered, her eyes thoughtful. “But I’ve already told the police everything I consider relevant.”

I thought for a moment. The woman was a cause attorney. What would it take to move her? “The police think Barbara was the murderer,” I said.

Bingo. Paula sat upright in her chair, her face now filled with concern.

“Have the police harassed you?” she asked Barbara.

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. “Not really,” she said softly, looking down at her lap. “But I’m scared. They don’t like me. They don’t know what to make of an assertive Asian woman. I don’t fit their stereotypes.” I knew that Barbara wasn’t just making this up from whole cloth. I had seen it in people’s eyes before, the confusion and affront over this rowdy Chinese-American woman. She had more in common with Bette Midler, even Madonna, than Susie Wong.

Barbara raised her eyes to Paula’s. “Will you help me find the real murderer?”

Paula nodded. She was hooked.

“What did you and your husband do on the break?” Barbara asked.

Paula pursed her lips more tightly. For a moment I thought that Barbara had lost her. But then she spoke.

“We chatted with Meg Quilter for probably one or two minutes. Meg is an old friend.” Paula paused, her eyes looking past us, remembering. “Then I went to the bathroom. Gary waited for me in the dining room. The two of us left the restaurant and walked to the park across the street. We saw you there, lying on the grass,” she said with a nod in my direction. “And that woman, Iris. Though I think she left fairly soon afterwards. I don’t know where she went.”

She squinted her eyes. “Later, Leo and Ken came down the block. Leo had been drinking, apparently. He made crude remarks to a young woman walking by.”

I nodded. I remembered the young woman in the halter top.

“Then Leo and Ken returned to the restaurant. I’m afraid I can’t vouch for anyone else,” Paula said with a little sigh. “Gary and I walked inside again. I wanted to speak to Leo, but I couldn’t find him. Ken said he was in the bathroom. Gary and I wandered back into the kitchen. A few minutes later we heard your cry from the pantry.”

She shrugged her shoulders and her eyes focused on us again. “You know the rest,” she said.

“Had you ever met Sheila Snyder before last night?” Barbara asked, her eyes on Paula’s face.

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” Paula answered with a change in expression.

“How about Gary?” Barbara pressed.

“My husband has nothing to do with this mess,” the attorney rapped out, jutting her chin forward.
So, Gary is the sore spot
, I thought.

“Could we arrange a time to speak to him?” Barbara asked, lowering her voice a bit. “He might have noticed something.”

“Or he might
not
have,” Paula pointed out. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m sorry to be so brusque,” she said after a moment. “I’m concerned about my husband. Mr. Snyder, the dead woman’s husband, has been making phone calls to Gary, accusing Gary of murdering his wife.”

“Dan Snyder called Gary?” Barbara and I cried together.

Paula nodded, her eyes perplexed.

“He called each of us too, and accused us of murder,” I explained. “Maybe he’s calling everyone.”

The information flowed more freely after we told Paula about our own troubles with Dan Snyder. She expanded on his phone calls to her husband. First he had accused Gary of being Sheila’s lover, then he moved on to an accusation of murder. Using a string of racial epithets, he had threatened to kill Gary, and to kill Paula just to “even the score.”

No wonder Paula was sensitive about her husband.

Finally, Paula said that she and Gary were usually home together on Thursday afternoons. I could see the reluctance in her face when she gave us her home address. We might still be the murderers for all she knew. But she gave it to us, then showed us out. She was a fair woman.

The reception area was empty when we left. The young mother had gone home, along with her baby and her baby’s story.

It was almost seven by the time I got home. I had left Barbara at her apartment, still clutching her chart, then driven the last few miles to my house in a state of exhaustion. Wayne’s car was conspicuously absent when I pulled into the driveway. Damn. I was going to have to face Vesta alone. I pulled my box of paperwork out of the car and took a deep breath.

She was waiting for me at the door.

“About time you were home, Little Miss Stuck-Up,” she said.

“Did you miss me?” I asked sweetly.

I was gratified to see her jaw drop. I left her standing in the entryway and put my box down next to my desk, smiling a secret smile. One point for Kate. Finally.

Why had it taken me so long to score? Working in a mental hospital some years earlier, I had learned that the personalities of the insane vary widely beyond their diagnoses. There were friendly schizophrenics, quiet schizophrenics, and spiteful ones. The same went for the manic-depressives and the alcoholics. Vesta was a spiteful one, whatever her diagnosis. And the only way to handle the spiteful ones was to ignore the spite, to act as if their words and gestures were benevolent. It always threw them. I had also learned never to turn my back on them. Another important lesson. How could I have forgotten?

The doorbell rang-before I had a chance to ponder the question any further.

Vesta was at the door in a heartbeat, opening it an instant later. I wished she would show more restraint. There was still a murderer running loose.

“Does Kate Jasper live here?” came a high, trembling voice that seemed familiar.

“She asked us to visit if we were in town,” added a deeper, gruffer voice.

I walked up behind Vesta, who seemed to have been struck mute, and I looked over her shoulder.

Two women, both older than Vesta, stood at my door. Two women I hadn’t seen in two years. The first woman still looked like a geriatric schoolgirl, her frail body dressed in a bright yellow T-shirt, culottes and knee socks. Her tiny face was framed by wispy white hair. Thick glasses obscured her eyes. The second woman was larger, more substantial. Her solid body was packed into heavy jeans and a flannel shirt. Her cheeks were even jowlier now, and there was some white in the gray braid wrapped around her head. But her blue eyes were as bright and sharp as ever.

I pushed past Vesta with my arms extended. The twins! That was what the Delores locals had called these two lifelong companions. And that was how I remembered them. Arletta Ainsley and Edna Grimshaw, the twins. The women who had saved my life.

I hugged Arletta first, gently. I was always afraid I’d crush her frail body. Then I hugged Edna, hard.

I stepped back and looked at the two of them. Edna’s jowly face grew flushed. Was she embarrassed? Living in Marin, it was easy to forget that some people didn’t hug automatically. But Arletta’s face held a different emotion beneath her glasses. Curiosity.

“Introduce your friend,” Edna ordered, with a jerk of her head in Vesta’s direction.

I looked back at Vesta. Now I understood the looks on the twins’ faces. Vesta had turned on a hundred-watt glare for the occasion.

“Vesta Caruso,” I rattled off quickly. “Wayne’s mother. You remember Wayne, don’t you?”

“Of course we do,” Arletta warbled. “A very kind man, as I recall.”

She stepped forward and pumped Vesta’s hand, introducing Edna and herself with the grace of a diplomat.

Even Vesta couldn’t resist her. She mumbled an acknowledgment, then backed away from the doorway.

I motioned the twins into the living room. Edna’s sharp eyes darted around the room and landed on the canvas chairs that hung from the ceiling beams. She smiled and lowered herself into the chair for two. Arletta fluttered down beside her.

“Good as a porch swing,” Edna commented. She pushed off with her feet without being instructed.

“We read about last night’s murder in San Ricardo,” Arletta whispered. She leaned toward me, her voice soft but insistent. “Do you know anything about that one?”

My mouth dropped open. How did she know? Did she just figure I would be involved in any murder in the vicinity? Or was it was an inspired guess?

The silence grew longer. I looked behind me. Vesta still stood in the entryway watching us. And listening.

“No,” I squeaked. I hated to lie to them. “Not really,” I amended.

Arletta looked at Edna with triumph in her eyes.

The doorbell rang again. This time I beat Vesta to the door. When I opened it, I wished I hadn’t.

“Okay, Kate,” Felix snarled. “Give!”

I put a finger up to my lips, gesturing for silence. Felix ignored it.

“Barbara won’t talk to me,” he whined. “I can’t friggin’ believe it. I’m her old man and she won’t give me diddly.”

“Felix—” I tried.

“Well, there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” he said, his big brown eyes narrowing. “And you’d better tell me what you know.
Capeesh?
You were with her when she found the body. And now the two of you are bugging the suspects, asking questions. I know it!”

I looked behind me. Vesta was smiling again. Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach.

“What are you two up to?” he demanded.

I did the only thing I could think of. I suggested dinner. Dinner out. My nausea would pass once we were out, I told myself. Edna, Arletta, Felix and I could share a friendly meal. The twins had met Felix a couple of years before in Delores. I even essayed a half-hearted invitation to Vesta. She declined. I almost kissed her. Almost.

The rest of us piled into Edna’s rental car. I was so relieved that Vesta wasn’t joining us that I didn’t stop to ask what restaurant we were headed for.

Fifteen minutes later, we were parked a block from the Good Thyme Cafe. My stomach was doing high jumps, aiming for my throat.

“They won’t be open,” I kept saying as we walked up the block. Nobody seemed to hear me.

Edna, Felix and Arletta shared a smile when we got to the entrance. The sign on the Good Thyme door said “Welcome.”

Edna pushed the door open. Then someone inside the restaurant screamed.

THE FOUR OF us rushed through the doorway of the Good Thyme Cafe as the long, undulating scream came to an end.

It wasn’t hard for me to spot the screamer over Arletta’s shoulder. There weren’t many patrons in the dining room, and they had all turned to look at a young, red-haired woman wearing a checked apron. She stood in the center of the sea of white, vinyl-covered tables with her eyes closed and her head thrown back.

“I can’t take it anymore!” she howled. She let out another, shorter scream in confirmation, then shouted, “I quit!” and ripped off her apron.

“Maybe we can eat here another time,” I whispered hopefully.

My whisper fell on deaf ears. Felix, Arletta and Edna stood transfixed as they watched the young woman. I walked in front of Felix and waved my hand in his face. It was useless.

“Earth to Felix—” I began.

“You can’t quit!” shouted a new voice.

I spun back around just in time to see Dan Snyder stomping into the dining room. Kitchen whites clothed his burly body. Anger clothed his face.

“Oh, yeah?” said the redhead. “Watch me.”

She strode to the cash register, grabbed her purse, then sauntered past us and out the door, without a backward glance.

Dan watched her exit with squinting eyes. As I watched him watch her, a thought occurred to me. Maybe his squint wasn’t a sign of a cruel nature. Maybe he just needed glasses. He wasn’t a bad-looking man otherwise. His jaw was strong, his features were even, and the combination of his curly black hair and mustache was appealing. His gaze shifted to the four of us near the doorway.

“You!” he roared.

Damn, Nearsighted or not, he had spotted me. I swallowed, then attempted a friendly smile.

“You’ve got some fuckin’ nerve, showin’ up here,” he snarled. “Wanna see where she died again, huh? Wanna check that you didn’t leave anything behind, maybe?”

I let my smile die.

Dan was within a foot of me in four long strides. He bent his head toward my face. He wasn’t squinting anymore. But I still didn’t like the look of his eyes, whites showing around dark hazel irises. I swallowed again.

“Was it you, bitch?” he hissed. “Was it you? Or maybe that lesbo friend of yours?”

Lesbo friend? I wouldn’t even attempt to address that one.

“I didn’t kill your wife,” I said, taking a step backwards. I wished I could stop my voice from shaking. “Nor did my friend—”

“No!” he roared. “No more bullshit!”

I closed my eyes. No wonder the waitress had quit, I thought with sudden sympathy. My whole body was trembling now. I knew I shouldn’t keep my eyes shut, but I didn’t want to see Dan Snyder’s face anymore.