Death hits the fan (27 page)

"And did those contacts tell you that Yvette Cassell has an arrest record?" Mr. Quadrini inquired politely.

"He damn well didn't," I answered, turning to Wayne. Why hadn't Felix told us?

But Wayne's poker face showed no anger with Felix. Maybe he just didn't expect as much as I did out of our friendly reporter. Maybe he didn't expect anything. Anything but aggravation, of course.

"May I ask what Ms. Cassell was arrested for?" Wayne questioned, matching his polite tone to Mr. Quadrini's perfectly.

"Protesting the Vietnam War," Mr. Quadrini told him.

Protesting? Maybe that's why Felix hadn't mentioned Yvette's record. A protest arrest was just as likely to be a badge of honor as a stain for any woman who'd gone to college in the late sixties. And I figured Yvette had to be about my age.

"Perhaps your informant also failed to mention that one of our suspects spent time in an institution for the insane?" Mr. Quadrini threw in with affected nonchalance.

I flipped through my mental records frantically, finding no reference. Zoe? Ted? Winona?

"Need I tell you who?" Mr. Quadrini asked.

"Of course, you need tell me," I shot back, wondering why Wayne wasn't as excited as I was. Maybe I was being a trifle gauche? I modified my words. "I mean, please do."

"Ivan Nakagawa," Mr. Quadrini proclaimed.

I whipped my head around to look at Wayne. He rolled his shoulders. I could hear the crackling sound his tendons made in the nearly silent room. Had he known about Ivan's stay in a mental hospital? Of course he had. I brought my head back to the front. And he hadn't bothered to tell me.

"You probably know that almost everyone there that evening had some kind of experience with syringes," Mr. Quadrini ground on.

"But how do you know?" I demanded, suddenly fed up. With Felix. With Vince Quadrini. With Wayne.

Mr. Quadrini's handsome features reddened slightly. He coughed in his hand. His cats bristled in front of his desk. I was surprised when he finally did answer my question.

"I've hired a private investigator," he admitted.

"You what. . . ?"

Of course a rich, sane man would hire an investigator.

That made sense. My brain twitched. Something else was making sense now too.

"Does your investigator happen to drive a red VW van?" I asked.

Mr. Quadrini's face grew even redder.

"And does he happen to break into people's houses—?" I went on. Or tried to.

"You must understand, Ms. Jasper," Vincent Quadrini said, his voice as rich and smooth as ever. "I cared a great deal for Shayla Greenfree. I want her killer to be brought to justice. And the Verduras Police Department, well, they are not. . . perfect." He shrugged. "In this case, I believe the ends justify the means. Don't you?"

"I—" I stopped. I'd been ready to say no ends justified a man rummaging through my house. But two women were dead. "I don't know," I answered finally.

We were back in the limousine going home, very soon after that. Wayne and I conversed in hushed whispers in the rear seats, oblivious to the lure of the little computer and the rest of the toys. And I wondered if we were being taped, no matter how low our voices were pitched. For a man like Vince Quadrini, who felt the ends justified the means, it certainly wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Maybe that cute little TV was really a camera. But still, we had to talk. Or at least, I did.

"Did you know about Ivan being—" I began as the limousine moved smoothly down the slope of the driveway.

"Yes, I knew about Ivan's stay in a mental institution," he cut in quickly.

"But then, why didn't—"

"Should have told you," he growled. "But it was a long time ago. Would have told you if it was necessary, Kate."

I opened my mouth to give him a whispered piece of my mind, but thought better of it. That was just the way Wayne was. Loyal. Somehow, I couldn't even whisper at him in

anger. Because I loved that loyalty. Anyway, I had more on my mind than Ivan's mental state.

"Quadrini's scary," I murmured in Wayne's ear. "Could he have decided Marcia killed Shayla and had Marcia killed himself?"

"Could Marcia have killed Shayla?" Wayne murmured back.

That topic took us all the way home. There could have been two murderers. Or one murder and one accident. Or . .. One thing was for sure, I needed to do up a suspect-sheet on Marcia Armeson after all.

The limousine driver dropped us off where he'd found us. We walked up our front stairs, happy in our knowledge that there was no Ingrid within. But the house was not completely intruder-free. The light on my answering machine was blinking intrusively, even aggressively, when we made our way inside.

"You guys there?" the tape asked when I ran it. "Huh? huh?" There was a silence. "Oh, shi-shift," Yvette finally babbled on. "I'm having another meeting tomorrow, lunchtime. Bring your goodies. Everyone will be there. You guys, Dean, Ted for sure, Zoe . . ."

"Well, at least she's still alive," Wayne commented. "Lou will be happy."

"Do you think those guys will really show up at her meeting?" I asked.

"Maybe they'll make up for our absence," Wayne muttered and then disappeared into the kitchen.

I could hear him pulling supplies from the cupboard. Bread, I decided. He was going to bake bread. And cook soup? I'd let him surprise me. I sat down at my desk, happy to push my pencil through the fields of paperwork, though my conscience kicked a little at the thought of Yvette's lunchtime meeting. Would anyone show up? I should call her back. I would, I told myself. But what could I say? I was

sure she'd talk me into something, no matter what I said. So I just kept carefully out of phone range. Even Wayne seemed to have managed to forget Yvette as he clanked and tapped and hummed around the kitchen.

Good smells came from the kitchen within minutes, and even better ones after half an hour had gone by. Sweet yeasty smells floated delicately over the heavier aroma of onions simmering with bay and thyme and brandy. I inhaled happily. The doorbell rang. So much for the benefits of deep breathing.

I approached the door cautiously. But not cautiously enough. I opened it and Bob Xavier came barreling through, his dark eyes rolling from side to side. When they got to the living room, I decided to tell him the good news.

"Ingrid's gone," I announced.

And suddenly his angry eyes were panicked.

"Gone?" he said, stunned. I knew he was stunned. He wasn't shouting. "But where?"

"I don't know," I told him, glad my answer was honest. Though a tango was playing in the back of my skull.

"Look, if you know anything, you'd better tell me," he threatened. "You know who my brother is—"

"Captain Cal Xavier," I cut in, keeping my voice calm. "I know. He knows."

Bob's shoulders slumped. Bingo. He couldn't play the big brother card if his big brother hated him.

"I don't know why I even let her get to me," he muttered, shaking his head.

I was liking Bob a whole lot better now that Ingrid was gone.

"What do you see in her?" I asked, curiosity grabbing my tongue and twisting it into voice.

"Ingrid's simple, you see," he told me, smiling a little as his eyes went out of focus. "I know what she wants. No complications. No 'are we communicating?' No 'intimacy

issues.' No 'privacy issues.' No, 'I think you're in denial of your female side.'"

I nodded. I was beginning to get the idea.

"Just money," he went on. "And fun. She's fun, you see."

I was beginning to feel some retroactive fondness for In-grid. She was just childlike, I told myself. That's all. Had I failed as a mother?

"Does she really have a degree in math?" I asked aloud.

"Oh, yeah," Bob answered, nodding enthusiastically, reminding me of Apollo for a moment. "In the abstract things, she was really smart. She knew all this complex stuff, way beyond me. It was just her social skills—"

"Simple?" I put in guiltily.

"Simple," he confirmed.

And then I heard the sound of something coming up the stairs. A lot of something coming up the stairs. Footsteps and excited voices and a whirring sound that seemed all too familiar.

7 looked over Bob Xavier's shoulder. A light flashed in my eyes, blinding me temporarily. Something kaclunked and whirred, and the sound of too many voices in imperfect chorus came flying at me like rotten tomatoes. My mouth turned dry as salt. The media had arrived.

"So, Ms. Jasper," a young woman with a halo of blond curls asked, thrusting a tape recorder my way. "How does it feel to be a suspect once again—?"

"How come you keep finding—?" another voice interrupted.

"Is it true that you fought with—?"

I stepped past Bob Xavier, onto the deck, blocking the front door with my body. Not one of these guys was going to set foot in my house. Not one! I rooted myself onto the redwood planks, through the redwood planks, ready to block any invasion. And closed my gaping, dry mouth. I would probably pass for a shark in the front-page photo. Or a wide-mouthed bass. I reminded myself not to look at any papers

for a while. And reminded myself not to answer any questions.

A tall, well-groomed man pushed himself to the front of the crowd, then turned to look out at a small red-haired woman with a Steadicam slung over her shoulder.

"We are here at the home of Kate Jasper," he began. "A woman who always seems to be where the dead bodies are...

Ugh. I clamped my jaw tight.

And felt someone trying to push around me as my teeth ground together. I centered myself, relaxing my mouth and my whole body, rooting even deeper, trying to imagine my stance both soft and impenetrable. But, wait a minute, they were pushing from behind! I stood my ground, not even turning to look. And then I remembered Bob Xavier. Damn. Bob was behind me and he wanted out. I swiveled my body ever so slightly to the left, creating a narrow exit for him. Once he'd slid by, I swiveled back and waited for him to talk as the reporters pushed microphones in his face. Waited for him to accuse. Waited for him to malign.

But all he did was slink through the crowd with what appeared to be a technique born of experience. Was this something drug-defense attorneys learned early on?

"Ms. Jasper?" the well-groomed man inquired smoothly, as he pivoted his glossy head my way, a slim microphone in his hand. "How does it feel—?"

Another light flashed in my eyes. And finally, one went off in my head.

"Did Felix Byrne send you guys?" I demanded, remembering my ex-buddy reporter lagging farther and farther behind us as Wayne and I had marched on two nights before. Was this his revenge? I would have bet a box of Jest Gifts speculum earrings on it.

"What?" the well-groomed man said. Apparently, Felix Byrne wasn't in his script.

"My paper got an anonymous call saying you had new information about the Verduras murders," the young blond woman with the tape recorder told me. Suddenly I liked her despite her tape recorder. She was honest. Or at least doing a damn good imitation of being honest. "It said you knew a lot you weren't telling. And all this stuff about the previous bodies you'd found."

"Us too," someone else murmured.

"Felix Byrne likes to sic the media on me," I told the crowd, taking advantage of their sudden slackness. They weren't taking pictures or asking questions anymore. "It's his idea of a practical joke."

"You'll find that Mr. Byrne has done this sort of thing before," came Wayne's authoritative voice from behind me.

The reinforcements had arrived. I let myself lean into Wayne's solid body, wondering how I could have forgotten that he was within calling range. Wondering how I could have forgotten him at all.

"We suspect some kind of mental illness in Mr. Byrne's case," I put in solemnly, taking Wayne's cue. "Maybe you should interview him."

". . . guy is gonzo ..." A high voice surfaced from the mutterings and rumblings of the crowd.

".. . probably she's telling the truth . . ." another called out.

"Let's get him," a deeper voice suggested.

And then the wave of people and light and sound retreated en masse. After five minutes, nothing remained but the echoes of their shouts and shoves and flashes.

"Hope they're on their way to see Felix," Wayne growled as the last news truck pulled away.

"What a lovely thought," I murmured and leaned all the way back into Wayne's arms. The air was clear and crisp. Wayne was warm and substantial. Somewhere a child was laughing. And I could smell...

"Something burning," Wayne muttered urgently. And then his substantial body was gone.

I dragged my feet back to my desk, suddenly exhausted, smelling burnt onions and herbs, and listening to Wayne's mutters from the kitchen.

As my pencil pushed through paperwork as efficiently as a lone lawn mower in the Amazon jungle, an idea occurred to me. And for once it wasn't about murder. It was about tai chi. And Jest Gifts. The acupuncture-needle earrings seemed to be selling much better than I'd expected through the professional acupuncture magazines. Phyllis Oberman jumped into my mind. I shoved her back out. Not now. I wanted the relief of creativity now. And I had an idea.

How about something for tai chi teachers and students? A tai chi magazine existed. I'd seen it. Yes! When I'd started tai chi some ten years ago, there had been a handful of classes in the Bay Area. Now there were a truckload. How about tai chi cups with the appropriate Chinese symbols, each handle a leg kicking ... and earrings shaped like those ubiquitous Chinese slippers? My mind began to buzz pleasantly and my pencil sketched on the back of a ledger sheet. This was as good as it got. Creative bliss.

I breathed in deeply. The doorbell rang. Damn. Did I have to stop inhaling? Was that the trigger for those chimes?

This time I approached the door even more cautiously. And blocked Raoul Raymond quickly before he slithered his way into my home.

"Ingrid's gone, you know," I told him right off the bat. Or maybe it was off the beat of the tango.

"My Ingrid is gone?" he cried out, his hand slapping his heart. "My sweet, innocent Ingrid."