Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (24 page)
Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
“Don’t know,” Wayne mumbled sleepily. “Don’t know.”
I put my arms around Wayne and pulled him to me, cuddling him like a baby. It wasn’t easy. He was heavy, deadweight. No, not dead, I corrected myself hastily. Alive and breathing weight. His head flopped against my chest, cheek first. It couldn’t be that comfortable, but he was still breathing.
“I love you so much,” I whispered in his ear. “Come out of this. Feel better.”
His breath wheezed in a happy little sigh. At least it sounded happy. I panicked for a moment. Maybe I should be shaking him instead of cuddling him. I had no idea. How many minutes had passed? Where was the ambulance?
“…and then Robert blew himself up with his fireworks,” Natalie was saying behind me, her voice almost calm again. I craned my neck to look at her for a moment. The fireworks. I knew there’d been a connection. “And Sid told me he’d convince the police that
I’d
been the one to give Robert the fireworks. And he could have. He’d already done it once. He’d convinced everyone I was a whore. He could convince them I was a murderer too. And I’d been out of town with my grandmother that summer. Everyone would’ve believed him. So I accepted his offer. I slept with him. I was Sid’s graduation present…”
So that was why. God, no wonder she’d killed him. But Natalie’s motives didn’t matter to me now. Only Wayne mattered. Coffee, I thought again. I had a jar of instant, didn’t I? Somewhere in the kitchen for a friend who couldn’t visit without coffee. But where? I tried to visualize it on the shelves. Behind the herbal tea?
“…Twenty-five years later, Sid shows up out of work as a salesman and wants a job. I do my own sales. I didn’t need him. But he’d heard about my prospective contract with the Defense Department. From Elaine. The deal was almost closed. Then he said he’d tell the feds I was an addictive gambler. That’s the one thing that would have scuttled the deal. You can be a child molester and the Defense Department will work with you, but not a gambler. They’re afraid you’ll sell their secrets to cover your debts…”
“Rosemary,” Wayne gurgled. My ears perked up. Another woman? “And parsley,” he added.
“…And there was Sid again, telling me he’d convince them. And not just the Defense Department, but the rest of my customers too. He could have done it. He could have put me out of business.” Natalie’s voice rose to a shriek. “What would have happened to my employees then?! So I hired him. And two weeks later, he started in with the sexual demands.”
“I’m sorry, Natalie,” I told her, meaning it, feeling for a moment what hell it must have been. In spite of the man in my arms.
But she didn’t seem to hear me anyway. I craned my head around again. Her irises were rimmed with white once more.
“Doggie,” Wayne mumbled near my ear. At least that’s what it sounded like. “Good doggie.”
“Sid had to die,” Natalie told me. Or maybe she was telling herself I was pretty sure I knew where the coffee was then, but something kept me there, holding Wayne in my arms. Could I leave him alone in the room with Natalie, even if she was tied up? I felt as if her rage alone could choke him. It was choking me. My knees and arms and back ached with Wayne’s weight, but I couldn’t move. I wouldn’t move.
“So I killed him,” Natalie said, her voice cold and distant now. “It was a fair deal. He made an offer. I made a counteroffer. I saw my mother die of leukemia when I was ten, you know, saw my father drink himself to death. A quick death is better. I did Sid a favor. It was a fair deal.”
“Do you know the antidote for the sedative you gave Wayne?” I asked quietly. It was worth a try.
“Sleep,” she replied brusquely. “He’s fine. I keep telling you that. You just don’t know what’s important.”
I held on to Wayne’s warm body. Wayne was important. I knew that. And he’d be all right soon. Ten or so sleeping pills couldn’t hurt anyone too much, could they? I couldn’t see my watch with my arms around Wayne. But it seemed like hours had passed. Damn it, where was the ambulance?
“I thought about it a lot over the years,” Natalie went on, her voice suddenly intellectual, speculative. Calm. “Sid was jealous of me because I was an A student. More than jealous. He hated me for it, and he wanted to sleep with me because then he’d have power over me. And when I wouldn’t do it, he hated me enough to destroy me.” She paused. “And twenty-five years later, he was jealous that I had my own successful business, so he decided to destroy that too.”
I found myself nodding. She was probably right. At least about Sid’s motives.
“But it wasn’t just me,” she added, cold rage replacing the calm in her voice. “It was my employees. They depend on me. If my business had gone down, they would have gone with me. But Sid didn’t care. What if my employees were out of work? Do you think anyone would hire a woman whose husband’s dying of cancer? No, they can’t because of their insurance rates. Sid might as well have pointed a knife at her throat. I couldn’t allow that. Offer. Counteroffer.”
Then Natalie laughed. I couldn’t remember ever hearing her laugh before. The sound was high and musical, pretty as an opera star’s. I held Wayne closer, my arms cramping with his weight.
“Pretty,” he murmured. “Pretty, pretty.”
Was he talking about Natalie’s voice? Or had he snagged the word “pretty” from my own mind? What was he seeing in his over-the-counter, drug-induced dreams?
“And then Sid submitted his proposal for his own death. He asked me to rig the pinball machine for his party. To rig it to make menopause jokes when he pushed the remote control. So I did, but I had my own remote control. A double throw switch with a secure firing mechanism. I took the ground wire off each side of the machine and hooked it to a 220-volt transformer. I wasn’t even sure it would kill him, but it was a good possibility with his bad heart. A calculated risk. And even if it didn’t kill him, it would have scared him, scared him out of messing with me anymore. He would have lost his leverage.”
“And you were going to electrocute Wayne too?” I asked through clenched teeth. I should have just left her alone, but I couldn’t.
“Yes,” she said, her voice too high now, defensive. “But not to kill him necessarily. It might not have, you know. Just so it would look like it was your machines that were at fault, so they’d stop looking for a murderer.”
“Or,” I countered, “so they’d think I was the murderer.”
“I couldn’t help it!” Natalie screamed. “I have responsibilities!”
And then I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Were those sirens heading here? Was one of them an ambulance? The other the police?
“How about Elaine?” I asked quickly. I wanted to know now. Before the police. And the lawyers. And the psychologists.
“Elaine told me to come and talk to her after the memorial. She didn’t ask me, she told me. So I left a few moments behind her in my car. She told me to park on the street and follow her up on foot. When I got up to her house, her car was still in the driveway. She ushered me through the front door like I should be honored and put her purse down on an end table. No one else was home. She didn’t even ask me to sit down.”
Natalie went silent.
“And…” I prompted.
“Elaine told me she knew Sid had blackmailed me to get a job. She said I deserved blackmail, that I was always ‘stuck-up.’ Can you imagine? Me, stuck-up? And then she asked if I’d helped Sid rig the pinball machine. I knew she knew then. And her purse was just sitting there. I grabbed it and scooped out her car keys and ran out the door. And the fool came running after me. I knew she would. I jumped in her BMW and revved the engine. Elaine ran in front of the car waving her arms, just like she wanted me to run her over. Offer. Counteroffer. So I obliged her. I knew I’d killed her the first time the car rolled over her skinny body, but I went back and forth a couple of times to be sure.” She paused, then added calmly, “And then I wiped off my fingerprints and left. No one saw me leave.”
I gulped down a wave of nausea and listened. The sirens were getting closer. They had to be the ones coming for us.
“When were you going to stop killing people?” I asked.
“I never meant—” Natalie began.
“How about Becky?” I interrupted. “She knew you did Sid’s tricks.”
“That’s right,” Natalie said slowly. I could hear the cool calculation in her voice. Did she still think she could get out of this? Kill me? Kill Wayne? Kill Becky?
“You were the one who started the false rumors, weren’t you?” I pressed on. “Doing just what Sid did to you, only to the rest of us—”
“No, no!” she shouted. “It was different. I wasn’t—I did it for my company. He was going to ruin it. Ruin me. Ruin all my employees!”
I heard the sirens in the driveway and held Wayne even tighter.
“Just a couple more seconds, sweetie,” I breathed into his ear.
“My company’s all I have!” Natalie shrieked. “Don’t you understand? That’s all I have!”
And then I heard the sound of footsteps coming up the front stairs.
- Twenty-Four -
There was a knock on the door.
The Kanicks’ door, not my door. Four days had passed since Natalie Nusser had confessed to murder. Once the local police had arrived, she’d babbled out her unsolicited confessions (and her unsolicited justifications) before they could even get their Miranda warnings in order. They kept on trying to shut her up, but she kept on talking. And talking. One of the uniformed officers had even put his hands over his ears like the hear-no-evil monkey. The whole scene might even have been comical, if it hadn’t been for Wayne still half-conscious in my arms.
But luckily the paramedics had been less than a minute behind the police. No matter how long it’d felt.
Now the old gang, minus three, was having their final Sunday get-together. Aurora Kanick had insisted, even though the murderer had been identified. And she was right. If sharing something meant giving away a piece of it, I was all in favor of sharing my experience of Natalie Nusser with the rest of the Gravendale High class of ‘68.
Lillian Kanick opened her front door, and Mark Myers came through, smiling widely, his hands behind his back. For a moment, I thought I heard him mew. Maybe he had. He was a veterinarian, I reminded myself. Mewing might be contagious for all I knew.
It couldn’t have been anyone but Mark at the door. Becky was already here, fidgeting on her wooden chair, but looking much better than she had on Wednesday. Pam and Charlie sat together on one of the navy-and-white-striped couches, glancing at each other furtively every couple of seconds and then turning away…and then turning back again. Aurora was perched on a floral easy chair, beaming serenely at her son Jack. And Wayne was sitting next to me on the remaining blue-and-white-striped couch, safe and sound. And warm and muscular and—
“Anyone for kittens?” Mark asked, bringing his hands out from behind his back, his left hand in a flourish, his right hand holding a basket containing four tiny mewling balls of fur.
“Oh, kitties!” Becky trilled, brightening. But then the light went out of her face. “But I won’t— They’ll have to wait—”
“I’ll keep a couple of them for you until you’re ready,” Mark promised. Then he walked up to her and unceremoniously grabbed two of the creatures by the scruffs of their little necks and plopped them into her lap. Becky’s fragile face held a childlike look of wonder as she bent over the tiny tiger-striped forms and began to make all the oohing-cooing noises that only kittens (or possibly baby otters) can inspire.
“They’re orphans,” Mark added, looking around the room, his ever-alert eyes round now like a seal pup’s about to be clubbed. I kept my own eyes averted. C.C. would make my life completely miserable if I got another cat. Not to mention the other cat’s. “Little baby orphans—”
“Kate was just enlightening us about the legal status of Natalie Nusser’s case,” Aurora broke in.
I was impressed. Aurora appeared impervious to the kittens. Maybe I should meditate more. Was that her secret?
“Perhaps Jack would like a kitten,” she added.
Forget that meditation, I decided.
On the other hand, maybe Aurora was just as astute as ever. She wasn’t talking about taking a cat herself. She was talking about Jack taking a cat. Jack would get to feed it, drag it to the vet’s for shots, and clean up after it. And due to Mark’s alacrity, Jack already had the third kitten in his big hand and was smiling down at it with a light in his eyes that all the medications in the world wouldn’t have provided him. Lillian was next to him, an arm around his shoulders, staring down more thoughtfully at the newest member of their family. Was she wondering how a kitten would translate to bronze?
I looked back at Aurora. Her face was serene as ever. Or was that smug? She was sure to get visiting rights. Without any of the work. All right, all right. Maybe meditation did clear the mind.
Five minutes later, Mark had placed all four cats, the fourth going to Pam Ortega. I wondered how it would get along with Charlie’s Labrador retrievers. It would probably terrorize them, I decided, looking at the squirming bundle in her lap. I thought I heard Pam whisper, “
Loca, loca
.” I wondered if she meant herself or the kitten. She pulled it up to her ample breast and gave it a little kiss with Charlie looking longingly on.
“Go on, Kate,” Aurora ordered.
For a moment I thought she meant to go on and get a kitten for myself. But there weren’t any left. Luckily. So I went on with my story about Natalie.
“My reporter friend, Felix, told me that Natalie confessed once they got her to Gravendale, after a perfectly unassailable rendering of her Miranda rights.”
Yes, my “friend,” Felix. At least Felix was acting pretty friendly now. Downright charming, in fact. Of course that might have had to do with the fact that I’d called him once I was absolutely sure Wayne was out of danger, and told him every detail of my encounter with Natalie. Maybe because I knew Felix was the one person who would listen with relish, instead of horror and sadness. Felix was so grateful for the information, he would have cooked me a vegetarian meal…if he could have. Or so he assured me.
“Now Natalie’s attorneys are trying to get her confession suppressed,” I went on. “They’re claiming it was tainted by her earlier guilty ramblings at my house. But Gonzales did it clean. It looks like they’ve got her.”
“But isn’t she insane?” Lillian asked softly, turning momentarily away from Jack as she spoke. “What’s the word, ‘cracked?’“
“
Por Dios
, she must have been,” Pam answered just as softly. “If Anna May and I had dropped by Elaine’s house and caught them—” She stroked the kitten in her lap furiously as if to stop the thought. “But we never did, because Elaine was still at the memorial when we left…still talking to Natalie.” She shivered. Charlie put a sympathetic hand on her arm, and then slipped it downward as if merely petting the kitten.
Insane? Maybe not legally. But in any other human use of the word? I remembered Natalie’s white-rimmed irises and the sound of her voice as she described driving back and forth over Elaine’s body. I closed my eyes and took a big breath. And felt Wayne’s sympathetic hand on
my
arm.
“She didn’t just have a computer science degree, she had an electrical engineering degree too!” Mark Myers put in, shaking his head violently. He smacked himself on the forehead. “For God’s sake, it said so right in the
Where Are We Now?
pamphlet. She was the one critter who knew how to use the right tools. Of course she rigged it.”
“And Sid used the same MO on her as he used on us,” Charlie added grimly. He glanced at Pam’s face. She looked back, her lustrous brown eyes full of pain. And affection.
“Blackmail,” Pam explained briefly. “Only neither of us killed him.” She took her free hand and held Charlie’s. “That’s a line neither of us would ever cross. Especially you, Charlie. You’re far too gentle.”
Charlie and Rodin Rat, I thought, as I watched gratification and embarrassment battle on his pinkened face. Gratification seemed to win as he squeezed Pam’s hand back. The kitten nuzzled their joined hands as if to pry them apart. Jealous already?
“But how could she actually kill two people?” Becky asked, her voice low with wonder. “I mean, Jeez, I’m a complete mess. But still, I can’t even imagine doing such a thing.”
“Her employees,” I answered. “They were her life. I’ll bet they were the only friends she had. Her only family. And Sid and Elaine threatened them. At least in her mind.”
“The woman was nuts,” a low, clear voice commented. I looked up, surprised to hear Jack, not only talking but speaking clearly. “I ought to have known. I’ve seen people like that before.”
He didn’t have to say in mental hospitals. I knew where he meant. I just nodded.
“Her employees have all offered to help with her defense expenses,” I went on. “And they’re going to keep the business going in her name. They really do care about her.”
“I’m glad of that tiny bit of grace,” Aurora pronounced. “She executed these terrible acts on their behalf, at least in the context of her own illusions.”
“Or else she just did it for her business,” Lillian put in cynically.
“Or just for her own revenge,” Mark put in even more cynically. I remembered him saying animals were easier than people. Maybe he was right.
“Twenty-five years of festering hate,” Wayne growled from beside me. Maybe only I could hear the sympathy in that growl for Natalie. For all she had done to him, I knew he still felt sorry for her. “She never forgave Sid Semling for his treatment of her. She lost her self-respect and her reputation. Maybe even her ability to ever relate as a normal human being. All because of Sid Semling’s whim.”
“And Sid was using and abusing her again,” Aurora added sadly. “It must have seemed an infinite torture to her.”
Mewing was all that was heard in the Kanicks’ house for a few moments. Maybe we were all busy pitying Natalie Nusser. I was.
But then I thought of Elaine Timmons. And of Wayne. I turned to him, my chest tightening with remembered panic. He raised his eyebrows in recognition and gently stroked the back of my head and neck. He’d been about to call me at Becky’s that afternoon with his new plan to work out his restaurant computer problems from Becky’s phone instead of his. Then Natalie had knocked on our door. And Wayne had been as polite as ever. He’d not only invited her in. He’d drunk her bitter apple juice “like a good little boy.”
“What happens to Elaine’s kids?” Wayne asked quietly.
“Aunt Ursula,” Aurora replied crisply. I should have known she’d have the information, if anyone would. “I’ve spoken to Ed Timmons. His sister, Ursula, is going to move into his house to help care for the children. She’s an extraordinary woman: vibrant, joyous, and intelligent. And she loves those children. She’s also single, a philosophy professor by trade. And from what Ed tells me, she’s been there emotionally for the children all these years in any case. If anyone can help them transcend the experience, it’s Aunt Ursula.”
“Good,” Wayne breathed, and I felt something within him relax. And something within me.
“Becky has some news,” Mark said with a nudge in her direction.
“They don’t want to hear,” Becky murmured, her eyes down.
“Yes, we do,” Aurora told her. “The saying of something can make it true.”
Becky looked across at her, tilted her head and laughed.
“Maybe it can,” she conceded, her voice stronger. “Okay, here goes. I’m going to a drug rehabilitation facility for two weeks, beginning tomorrow. And…” As she faltered, one of the kittens in her lap began a slow crawl up her blouse. Becky looked down at it, placed a reassuring hand on its bottom, and then went on. “And I haven’t had a drink or any drug but Advil for four days. I think I’m going to be sober from now on.”
She lifted her head and corrected herself. “I
am
going to be sober from now on.”
She waved away the round of applause she got from everyone who wasn’t holding a kitten. But there was pride and belief on her face now.
“I decided to go to rehab once I finally understood that I’d been too damned drunk to realize that it must have been Natalie who rigged the pinball machine,” she told us seriously. There was no giggle in her voice now. “I was the one who knew that she’d rigged Sid’s tricks in high school, and I didn’t even stop to think how relevant that information might be. I could have saved Elaine’s—”
“You don’t know that,” Aurora interrupted. “You can’t second-guess life. Everything is exactly as it is. Maybe even as it should be.”
“Thank you,” Becky replied quietly.
“We can all forgive ourselves,” Jack piped up unexpectedly.
I took a quick look at Wayne. And was relieved to see him smile back. Wayne had already forgiven me for not telling him about the threat against his life…and for the unnecessary stomach pump. But I was having a hard time forgiving myself. I was just thankful that Natalie had only given him a mild dose of over-the-counter sleeping pills after all.
Aurora smiled at me too. Somehow, her smile made me nervous.
“Have you and Wayne thought of your wedding ritual yet?” she demanded.
We both shook our heads hastily, caught unawares.
“Wayne and Kate are going to have a very special wedding with their own unique ritual,” she explained for us. Talk about unsolicited confessions. I wanted to put
my
hands over
my
ears. “Something that matches both of their metaphors.”
“Jeez, you mean like something to do with what they both have in common?” Becky asked.
Aurora nodded. I wondered if my face was as pink as Wayne’s.
“How about something with kittens?” suggested Mark. “I have plenty more where they came from.”
“I had some friends who had opera singers sing their wedding vows,” Pam threw in.
And then everyone was making suggestions.
“…a ceremony in a bookstore because that’s where they met…”
“…virtual reality…”
“…in a hot tub…”
“…or you could…”
“Well, what
are
your common interests?” Mark finally broke in.
“Huh?” we both responded.
“What brought you together?” Mark kept on.