Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (34 page)

As I turned the doorknob, I thought I heard a man’s voice. I checked the driveway again. Wayne’s Jaguar wasn’t there. I pushed the door open cautiously.

The house was in darkness. Someone had pulled the curtains closed and turned out all the lights. Vesta? I wondered.

Then I heard the sound of the deep voice again. Or did I? It was gone before I could be sure. For one instant of pure panic, I thought it was Dan Snyder’s voice. Then I remembered that Dan Snyder was dead. I stepped toward the light switch quickly. I wanted to see what I thought I had heard.

I didn’t think of Zach until my hand flipped the switch.

THE LIGHTS FLASHED on, dazzling my vision. In that instant I assured myself that Zach was in police custody
and
simultaneously realized that the police might have released him by now. My stomach lurched.

But it wasn’t Zach who was waiting for me in the living room. Even with the light still dancing in my eyes another instant later, I could tell my visitor wasn’t tall enough to be Zach. I let my breath whoosh out of me in relief. My visitor was Meg Quilter. At least I thought so. I walked into the living room, looking closer as I blinked away the light. Was it Meg?

The figure before me had the cooking teacher’s height, her coloring and her slender build. But the stance wasn’t right. Meg, if it was Meg, stood in a martial arts posture, feet spread wide, knees bent and arms slightly raised as if in readiness to fight. And Meg’s face was wrong too. It was more angular than I remembered, the green eyes too narrow and pinched. I could have been seeing a double exposure. It looked like Meg Quilter, but at the same time it looked like a young man, a very angry young man. Maybe my relief had been premature.

“Meg?” I said.

“She ain’t here, man,” Meg replied in the deep, vibrating male voice I had heard at the door. The hair went up on the back of my neck. That wasn’t Meg’s voice. It was someone else’s, someone who was made of pure rage.

I told myself to breathe evenly, and dropped my center of gravity, bending my knees slightly and trying to find the stillness inside that would be my best weapon. If I needed a weapon.

“Why are you here?” I asked, taking care to keep my voice low and calm.

“We’re here to waste the bitch, man,” Meg growled.
We?
I scanned the room. Then I saw Vesta, crouching in the corner with her arms crossed over her bowed head. Was Vesta the other half of “we”? Or was she “the bitch”?

“She’s gotta die, man,” Meg’s deep voice ground on. I kept my breathing even, but I couldn’t control the shiver that jerked my body. “You know what she is, man. You know what she does.”

“Who has to die?” I asked slowly.

Meg raised her hand high and pointed at Vesta. For the first time I noticed the glove on that hand, the kind of disposable latex glove that my dentist had taken to wearing as a protection against AIDS. But I didn’t think Meg was worried about AIDS. I thought she was worried about fingerprints. I fought to control the nausea that rose in me.

“She’s crazy!” Vesta screamed suddenly, her voice ringing shrilly in the silence. She had taken her arms away from her head and looked up, exposing a face that was twisted in fear.

“Shut up, bitch,” Meg snarled, then turned back to me.

“Why does she have to die?” I asked quietly.

“We waste all of them, man,” Meg replied matter-of-factly in her deep voice. “Anyone who hurts a little one.” Then she bent forward, her voice even deeper, her eyes dark with rage. “Everyone’s gotta pay the freight, man. The woman’s dead. She’s history.”

“But—” I stopped speaking as Meg abruptly closed her eyes.

In seconds she unbent her knees, shifted her feet closer together and drew her back up straight. When she opened her eyes again, they were cool and competent, the rage erased from their shape. I blinked, unbelieving.

“Stiletto has been responsible for many incidents,” Meg said crisply, her voice unarguably female once more. “However, we must not be caught. The children would never survive in prison.”

“Stiletto?” I asked, if only to say something while I tried to absorb what I was seeing. What I was hearing.

“Stiletto,” she said impatiently. “You have just met him.” I searched my mind for something else to say, but could only stare blankly.

“There are many of us here besides the woman who calls herself Meg,” she told me, assuming a lecturing tone now. I recognized that tone. It was the one Meg had used when she was teaching her class. She had seemed to change into a different person then, too, I remembered suddenly. Multiple Personality Disorder. My shoulders jerked as the diagnosis came to me.

“The original Meg left to go to sleep the day her mother stuck her hand in boiling water,” the lecturer continued. “She was two years old.”

My body stiffened. Two years old.

“Another child left when Meg’s mother locked her in a box for two days in her own excrement,” she went on, unheeding of my horror. “Another when the mother broke her wrist because she had drawn a flower, another when she was held under water…”

My mind refused to take any more in as the lecturer spoke of blows and burns and forced sex with her mother’s boyfriends. And worse. And as my mind shut off, I glimpsed for a moment how it would be if these things had happened to
my
body, how I might have let the part of me who had the experience leave and create a new person, a new personality, to replace her.

“We had to find some way, someone to bear the pain,” the lecturer was saying. “And then later, someone to prevent it from ever happening again. Someone to avenge the children. Stiletto.” She looked me in the eye. “Do you understand now?” she asked.

I nodded. I was beginning to. “But what about the Meg I met before, the…the shy one—?”

“The airhead?” the lecturer responded drily.

“Yes, how does she feel about—”

“The woman who calls herself Meg is a sniffling ninny,” she told me. Then she paused and cocked her head as if listening to someone else. “That’s right. She’s useless. She couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag.”

“But what does she think about you?” I asked, still confused by her attitude.

“She doesn’t know us,” the lecturer said brusquely. “We know her. Sometimes—” She stopped again to cock her heard. “Stiletto wants to come out again. He wants to complete his mission.”

“Wait!” I yelped.
Keep her talking
, I thought.
Keep Stiletto at
bay
. “Wait,” I said more evenly. “I still don’t understand. Can you explain how this all works?”

The lecturer nodded tersely. It was her role to explain. At least I had guessed that much correctly.

“Children should not be hit,” she told me. “It is The Rule. Stiletto enforces The Rule. He had to kill Sheila Snyder. And Dan Snyder.” She paused and looked into my eyes. I shivered again. The coolness in her gaze was almost as frightening as Stiletto’s rage. “Do you understand?” she asked.

I nodded. There’s a difference between understanding behavior and condoning it.

“Stiletto met Sheila Snyder when the woman who calls herself Meg went with Alice to arrange the class. Sheila hit the child that day. And we knew that if she hit the child in public, worse would be happening in private. Beatings, burnings, torment. But we waited. There had been too many incidents. We did not want to have to leave California as we had Oregon.” She paused, her eyes still cool and competent. I wondered if this part of Meg was completely devoid of feeling. “Then Sheila hit the child again on Monday night. We agreed that Stiletto must act.

“Stiletto called up the stairs after everyone else had left. He told Sheila there was something she must see in the pantry. Then he strangled her there with the cord from the food machine.

“Dan Snyder’s death was just as easy to arrange. Alice told the woman who calls herself Meg that she was going to pick Dan up from jail. We followed Alice until she had taken Dan to her apartment and left him there. I rang Alice’s doorbell and talked to Dan. Once Dan let us in, Stiletto took over.”

She started to close her cool eyes again.

“But Vesta?” I interjected hastily. “Do you have to kill Vesta? She doesn’t have any kids to hurt now.”

“We know she hit her son in the past,” the lecturer argued. “She broke The Rule. And she told us that she still believes ‘hitting kids is good for them.’ Though perhaps you are right. She will probably do no future harm.” She frowned in concentration. “Stiletto wants to come out,” she told me. “He says we must kill the old woman. And you. There is some disagreement here. But we will not go to prison.” She gazed directly into my eyes. “Will you tell the authorities what you now know?” she asked.

I should have just said no. But I couldn’t lie under her cool gaze. “Maybe not,” I said finally.

“You must consider the children,” she reminded me.

“What children?” I asked.

She closed her eyes and I braced myself to meet Stiletto again. But when she opened her eyes she was smiling a soft little smile.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Sweetie,” she answered in a high voice of childhood. “I’m five years old. Do you have any cookies?”

Before I could answer, she had closed her eyes again.

Her body bent forward into a stoop and the face that looked up at me when she reopened her eyes seemed far more wrinkled than a moment before.

“I’m Granny, dear,” she told me in a voice that trembled lightly. It was a kind voice. “I take care of the children. There are many children here. Many. Sweetie and Baby and Joey and Toby, just to begin with. They’re afraid they’ll be hurt.” Her voice cracked as she spoke. “Many of us are tired of the killing, dear. But prison is no place for the children. Stiletto would be the only one left if we go to prison. We don’t know what to do.”

Then her eyes closed and the lecturer was back. I could tell by the sudden coolness of her gaze.

“Do you understand?” was all she said.

“No,” I answered quickly. If I could keep asking questions maybe I could figure out what to do. “What about Meg…the woman who calls herself Meg?”

“I have told you,” the lecturer said impatiently. “Meg does not know us. She hears us sometimes, but she thinks she’s going crazy. Hearing voices. She can’t figure out where the paintings come from. She doesn’t understand why she can’t remember what has happened when we’ve been out—”

Her eyelids sank to half mast, then popped up again. I could see the struggle there in her face. She clenched her teeth. The muscles around her eyes bulged. And then her eyes were closed. And her body was changing, crouching. When her eyes opened they were no longer cool. They were filled with rage.

I centered myself.

“We gotta waste you too, man,” Stiletto growled as she raised her gloved hands. “You’re too dangerous, man. You won’t keep quiet.” She took a step toward me.

I took a backstep without thinking. “Killing me won’t protect the children,” I said quietly. “They need help, a therapist. Someone who understands.”

There was no change in Stiletto’s angry face. But in a moment, she lunged at me. I stepped to the side, avoiding her. Stiletto made a noise deep in her throat as she almost fell, then righted herself. I stepped quickly around the couch, nearer to Vesta. Stiletto followed.

“Ain’t gonna help you, man,” she snarled. “You’re dead.”

“But I’m a child too, sometimes,” I squeaked. My voice was high and frightened enough to pass for a child’s, I thought, then hoped.

Stiletto stopped short, her face contorted. Her eyes closed, then opened again. The face staring at me was wrinkled, the body stooped.

“There has been enough killing, dear,” the voice trembled. “But you must hurry. Run while you can. I can’t—”

Her face contorted again. She kept her eyelids open, but her eyeballs rolled upwards.

“Vesta, come on!” I shouted, not waiting to see what happened next.

“No, Stiletto,” Granny groaned.

But Vesta didn’t come. I turned and saw the hesitation in her face. Why was she hesitating? Was her hatred for me stronger than her fear of death?

“Come on, dammit!” I bellowed as I ran toward her. I grabbed her hand and pulled her onto her feet. Finally, I felt her body give.

“Run!” I shouted.

And we ran.

“SEE YA LATER, kiddo,” Barbara was saying to me the next afternoon. It was the fifth time she had said goodbye. She took one step out the door, then turned back to hug me again. When she let me go, her model-beautiful face stretched into a big grin no model would ever exhibit in public.

“We did it, Kate!” she whooped. She shook her fist in the air triumphantly. “Forget the rest of it. Just remember…” She took me by the arms and stared into my eyes, as if she could mesmerize me into jubilation. “We flushed out a murderer. You’re a hero.”

“Yes, Master,” I replied in a B-movie zombie’s voice. “I am a hero.”

She shook her head and laughed, then gave me yet another hug. “You’ll be okay, kiddo,” she whispered. “You’ll see.”

I pasted a smile on my face for her.

Barbara turned back to Felix, who was waving his arms as he yakked at Wayne. She caught his wrist on the downswing. “Come on, sweetie pie,” she said, tugging. “Let’s go.”