Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (3 page)

- Three -

Wayne!” I screamed, burning my lungs and throat with the sound as I began running. “DON’T TOUCH HIM!”

Because Wayne was only a yard away from Sid. And Sid was still gripping Hot Flash. If Wayne touched Sid, the electricity running through Sid’s body might…

“STOP!” I yelled again.

Wayne seemed to hear me that time. He stopped and turned, his eyes on mine, questioning and then understanding.

“Yes!” was all I could say with the breath I had left.

Because I kept running.

I kept running until I got to the back end of Hot Flash and yanked its cord from the socket.

And finally, Sid was released.

He slumped over the pinball machine for a moment before slowly sliding off onto the concrete patio, his head landing last with an audible
crack.

“Oh, God. Sid!” someone wailed.

I turned and saw that it was Elaine, her hands flailing in the air as everyone else stood like statues. I was glad to be looking at Elaine. I didn’t want to look at Sid. A glimpse had already shown me his gray and blistered hands. And his pale face and blue lips.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

Abruptly, some of the statues began to move. And to speak.

“Who knows CPR?” Pam demanded, swiveling her head around to scan the group.

“I do,” Mark shot back, and loped over to kneel by Sid.

He felt for a pulse and put his ear over Sid’s mouth as Elaine began wailing again.

“Is he dead?” she kept asking. “Is he dead?”

Mark pinched Sid’s nostrils and breathed into his mouth, two slow breaths initially, then five faster ones.

“Call 911,” Becky suggested, her thin voice somehow distinct against the backdrop of Elaine’s continued wailing.

“I’ll call,” said Wayne, already heading through the sliding glass doors into Sid’s living room.

Was Sid dead? My mind didn’t seem clear enough to encompass the question. Had Sid been electrocuted by my pinball machine? I shook my head violently, trying to shake some sense into it, but that just made me dizzier. And sicker to my stomach. Carefully, I sat down on the concrete patio.

“Mommy, what happened?” asked a little voice near me.

I turned my head. Eight-year-old Lark Kanick was looking up at her mother with fear in her eyes. God, I had forgotten there were children here. Five-year-old Josh Kanick grabbed his mother’s hand and burst into tears. Lillian murmured something soothing but inaudible and then led both children to the side of the patio furthest from Sid.

When I turned back, Mark was still breathing into Sid’s mouth. But it wasn’t making Sid look any more alive.

I pulled my eyes away, surveying the rest of the watchers. Elaine was still on her feet sobbing, her fingers splayed as her hands twitched uncontrollably. I knew I should get up and comfort her, but I couldn’t seem to make my legs move. I was just too cold, leftover sweat chilled all over my body. Aurora was busy with Jack, her hand on his shoulder, whispering something in his ear as he swayed his bowed head rhythmically back and forth. And Becky and D.V. were standing side by side, hands clasped, more like sister and brother than mother and son. Natalie, Pam, and Charlie just stared. Stared at Sid and Mark.

“Damn it, Sid, just try,” I heard Mark mutter, and my eyes strayed back to him. With his elbows locked, Mark placed one hand on top of the other and pressed on Sid’s chest. Hard and fast. And then he pressed again. And again.

“Police and ambulance are on the way,” I heard from above me.

I looked up gratefully at Wayne. He knelt down in front of me on the concrete, placing his large gentle hands on mine. He looked into my eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice deep and rough. “You may have saved my life.”

I gazed back at him, astounded. Had I saved his life? With that question, my mind provided another. Had I killed Sid Semling with my own pinball machine?

“You okay?” Wayne asked softly.

To my horror, I heard my own bark of laughter at the question. And then I heard the sound of sirens.

The police car and the ambulance screeched up in front of the condo simultaneously.

Wayne trotted off to greet them.

Seconds later, a uniformed cop came striding out to the patio from Sid’s living room. He was a slender man who didn’t look up to the job before him.

“Okay, everyone stand back!” he ordered in a surprisingly burly voice.

Natalie, Charlie, and Pam were quick to follow orders, marching over to the opposite side of the patio where Lillian and her children were already seated. I was a little slower on my wobbly legs. Aurora and Jack joined us. And then Becky and D.V. And finally Wayne, his errand done. I grabbed his hand and held on. Only Mark stayed in place, his mouth on Sid’s once more, trying to breathe life into him.

And Elaine, still frozen in place.

“Is he dead?” she asked again, her voice too loud on the quiet patio. “He’s my cousin, is he dead?”

“Now, ma’am,” the officer said, kindness in his voice. “We’ll get to you in a second if you’ll just…”

I lost the end of his sentence as a tall, red-haired woman and a smaller, brown-skinned man came out onto the patio, weighted down with equipment, duffel bags, and fanny packs.

The red-haired woman tapped Mark’s shoulder, and he stood up slowly, shaking his head forlornly.

The redheaded woman took over where Mark had left off, with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The brown-skinned man inserted an IV into Sid’s vein and a tube down his throat, before lifting Sid’s shirt and attaching three round pads connected to a little box with a flip-up screen. All in seconds.

“Maybe they can do something,” Mark whispered as he joined our group. His round, youthful face looked haggard, his eyes close to tears. “I sure as hell couldn’t. I’ve saved a German shepherd with mouth-to-mouth, but a human? Why couldn’t I—”

“You did all you could do,” Aurora assured him. “You acted with loving professionalism and—”

“No, I won’t step back!” Elaine’s voice burst in. “I want to know what happened! He’s my cousin. Almost a brother to me. Don’t you understand? He can’t be dead—”

The officer looked over at our group hopefully.

“Elaine,” I tried softly, not expecting much. I opened up my arms. “Come stand here with us. You’re not going to help Sid any—”

But Elaine surprised me as she came rushing, sobbing, into my arms, almost knocking me over with the impact of her small, anorexic body. I wrapped my arms around her, feeling the prominent bones under her thin flesh as she trembled. And then tears came from my eyes too. For Sid, and for this woman I’d never really liked as a girl. I remembered how close Elaine and Sid had been, both only children, more like siblings than cousins. Both obnoxious at times, but always together, always supporting each other.

I heard the sound of something winding up and peeked over Elaine’s shoulder. Little paddles shaped like irons were on Sid’s chest now, linked to a gray box with coiled cords.

“Stand clear!” the brown-skinned man ordered. Both paramedics stood away and the man pushed a button.

Sid’s body jerked, his head, his hands, and his legs.

“Is he alive?” someone murmured behind me.

Elaine’s body jerked too, out of my arms to look.

But the electrically induced spasm was all there was to see. Nothing else happened.

The paramedics kept trying as we heard the sound of another police car sirening up. They put more stuff into Sid’s IV. They did more CPR. They hooked up the box and made him jerk again. But it was no good.

By the time two more police officers came on the scene, the paramedics were shaking their heads.

“Do we get the body?” I heard the red-haired woman whisper to one of the new police officers, a big man who seemed to be in charge. I winced. If I could hear this, so could Elaine. I wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders. I would have liked to have plugged her ears. Or plugged the red-haired woman’s mouth.

“Dead?” the big officer asked in turn.

“Yeah, but we don’t get paid unless we give him a ride,” she whispered back. “You know that.”

“Suspicious death, 187,” he replied, throwing out his hands. “
You
know—”

“He’s not dead!” Elaine screamed. “You gotta do something!”

The only female officer on the scene turned to Elaine as the two paramedics packed up and left. Quickly.

But Sid was still there, lying on the concrete patio in front of Hot Flash, IV and throat tube in place.

That’s when Elaine really began to scream. No words, just long, wailing screams. The female officer grabbed Elaine, taking her arm gently but firmly and leading her into Sid’s living room. Then the original officer on the scene began cordoning off an imperfect circle around Hot Flash and Sid’s body with yellow tape. The remaining officer turned to the rest of us.

“No one is to leave,” he announced. “Your statements will be taken in turn.”

A lot of nothing seemed to happen in very active slow motion after that. One by one, we were each taken into the condo to give statements. Becky asked if she could have a beer. Permission denied. Wayne was taken inside for questioning. Pam tried to make conversation. Permission denied. More police came. Aurora wanted to do a “ritual of passing” for Sid. Permission denied. A crime scene technician came and went, sketching, photographing, and measuring.

And then Jack began weeping. Not as dramatically as Elaine, but weeping all the same, softly and hopelessly.

“It should have been me,” he whispered. “It should have been—”

“No, Jack,” Aurora said and put a hand on his shoulder. “Remember what is written on your heart. Remember…”

Lillian jumped up from where she sat with her children and pushed past Becky and D.V. toward her husband.

I bent closer. What did Jack mean, it should have been him? And what the hell was written on Jack’s heart? And why was Lillian—

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Damn.

“Ms. Jasper,” the officer said. “Please follow me.”

Slow motion was over.

The officer waved me into Sid’s tastefully decorated living room and onto a comfortable yet elegant sofa, which I suddenly realized was not Sid’s at all but some absent investment counselor’s, and I was introduced to Detective Sergeant Gonzales.

Detective Sergeant Gonzales was the only officer on the scene who wasn’t in uniform, a tall, dark, and handsome man with a Clark Gable mustache. In fact, he looked a bit like Clark Gable, on a morose day. And he was cool. Cool, thorough, and intelligent. He questioned me quietly and efficiently, establishing among other things that Hot Flash was my pinball machine. After about twenty minutes, he finished up with the one question I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask.

“Ms. Jasper, in your opinion could Mr. Semling’s death have been an accident?”

I clasped my hands together and took a quick breath. I wasn’t going to lie. But I wasn’t going to give him a straight “yes” or “no” either.

“I don’t think so,” I told him finally.

And then they let me go.

Wayne reached over and squeezed my leg as I drove home from Sid’s. The squeeze seemed to say, I love and adore you and will always stand by you despite our differences. Then again, maybe it was just a squeeze. I reached over and squeezed back just in case.

Communications got even better after we arrived home. Well, at least after we checked for feline marauders. Lately, neighborhood cats had been coming in through the cat door I had so expensively and laboriously installed for my own cat, C.C., coming in to spray the house. Desks, papers, towering bookshelves, a jungle of houseplants, pinball machine legs,

swinging chairs. They had marked them all. I wasn’t sure if this was a war with C.C. or a war with us. But it was war. So when we came home, we always sniffed.

C.C. came ambling in from the kitchen as Wayne and I were doing our bloodhound act.

“Well, C.C.—” I began and then saw the orange streak of an enemy cat retreating through C.C.’s door.

I sprinted out the front door, shaking my fists and making threatening noises as the orange cat loped across the redwood deck and over the fence. When I came back, panting for breath, C.C. just looked up at me, her smooth black coat unruffled, the little white patches of fur resembling a beret and goatee, respectively, in place. Then she squinted her eyes serenely and opened her little lizard lips to demand food.

“You need assertiveness training,” I growled at her.

“Unlike your mother,” Wayne muttered.

I turned on him.

“Unlike your mother who is brave and intelligent as well as beautiful and funny,” he went on quickly. Then he opened his arms.

Ah, nonverbal communication.

We held each other for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, feeling each other’s heat and heartbeats and smelling each other’s scents. When Wayne ran his gentle hand down my back I began to cry. And then I began to think. Always a mistake, thinking when you’re crying.