Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

Murder Most Mellow

by Jaqueline Girdner

Copyright © 1992 by Jaqueline Girdner

Published by E-Reads. All rights reserved.

www.ereads.com

KATE JASPER MYSTERIES

by Jaqueline Girdner

Available from E-Reads

ADJUSTED TO DEATH

THE LAST RESORT

TEA-TOTALLY DEAD

A STIFF CRITIQUE

DEATH HITS THE FAN

MURDER, MY DEER

I’d like to thank the “critters”: Terry Shames, Merrill Sanders, Annie Reasoner, Lynne Murray, Judy Koretsky, Marjory Harris, Virginia Crowder, Susan Cox and Janis Bradley, for their thoughtful critiques; the proofers, Eileen Ostrow-Feldman and Greg Booi, for their unerring eyes; my editor, Hillary Cige, for her manuscript-saving edits; and my agent, Sandra Watt, for believing in Kate Jasper.

I couldn’t have done it without you all!

Thank you.

- One -

I watched through the steam as a drop of sweat rolled slowly down Peter’s long, thin nose and into the churning waters of the hot tub, then let my own hand float down through the hot, hot water to touch the molded fiberglass bench lovingly. This was my own hot tub on my very own back deck, financed by my recent divorce settlement. And I loved it unconditionally, from its rough redwood exterior to its smooth fiberglass heart. Soaking in the hot water could be so sensuous, so relaxing, so mellow. At least it could be when there weren’t a lot of other people there to share the experience with you.

But there were other people in the tub with me that cool Sunday in October, four other people in fact, all there to discuss human potential. I wasn’t feeling very sensuous, relaxed or mellow. Tense, troubled and angry was more like it. And it wasn’t just the others in the tub. It was the one person who wasn’t in the tub who had me upset, my sweetie, Wayne. I brought my wet hand back out of the water to wipe the perspiration from my forehead and tried to force my mind back to what Peter was saying. But my mind just couldn’t digest one more lecture on the meaning of being human.

I slid deeper into the tub, slowly surveying the others as a jet of hot water massaged my tight shoulders. Were they really interested in what Peter was saying? Sarah sat next to me, her moist Howdy Doody face alert and smiling at Peter through the steam. She seemed to be listening. On my other side however, Tony was staring vacantly at the patterns his hands were generating in the bubbling water. I wondered what he was thinking about. I’d have bet it wasn’t Peter’s lecture. Linda’s head was turned toward Peter, but her brown face was expressionless. Of course, this was nothing new. In the six months since Linda had joined our group, I had never seen her face do anything more athletic than lifting an eyebrow.

“Self-esteem goes hand in hand with responsibility,” Peter was insisting.

Peter Stromberg habitually insisted, argued or contended, rarely satisfied with merely making a statement. His contentious nature may have made him an effective career attorney, but he could certainly be a wearing conversationalist. I turned my eyes back to his long, pinched face with a sigh. His body was long and lean too, but somehow he looked elderly at forty-six years rather than fit. He waved his nearly empty Perrier bottle in the steam as he continued his lecture.

“Personal responsibility isn’t limited to our own lives,” he declared. “We have a responsibility to help others who are less fortunate.”

Sarah bent forward, grazing me with her elbow as she did. My new hot tub was a tight fit for five people.

“It isn’t up to us to tamper with the lives of other people,” she countered, her voice loud and clear with confidence. “They have their own karma, their own lessons to learn from the universe.”

Peter opened his mouth to disagree, but Sarah kept on talking. “You label these folks ‘less fortunate.’ But you’re forgetting that they create their own fortune, good or bad. The most humane thing you can do is to leave them alone and let them do their own—”

“Sarah!” Peter objected. He sat bolt upright, sending a wave across the hot tub to splash over the side, spraying our faces in the process.

“It’s true,” she said, then giggled at the outraged look on Peter’s face. “My sister was like that. Bad grades in school, in a shitload of trouble most of the time. I tried to help her out. A lot of good that did!” Sarah shook her head. “But the minute I left home, she got her act together. Without my help!”

“That’s not the point,” Peter corrected her.

“Isn’t it?” replied Sarah, tilting her head to the side and grinning. Sarah Quinn was the only person I knew who liked to argue even more than Peter did. Not that Peter would ever admit that he enjoyed arguing.

“No,” he snapped. “The point is our own responsibility…”

My mind shut down. I couldn’t listen anymore. I looked out over everyone’s heads, over the log pile against my redwood fence, and over my neighbor’s shingled rooftop to Mount Tamalpais in the blue distance. I wondered what it would be like to be Sarah, to be that confident, that positive. If I were Sarah, would I be having problems with Wayne?

Sarah didn’t have problems. She had “learning experiences.” But then, Sarah was positive in everything she did. She even claimed to be immortal, to be “youthing” instead of aging. Sometimes I wondered if she really was getting younger. She had been forty-five when I had first met her, and she had looked it. Now, a few years later, she looked about forty. She was a tall blond woman with a big bosom which had been gradually unsagging, and a clear face which had been unwrinkling ever since I had met her. I suspected exercise, maybe even surgery, but I wasn’t certain. I turned my eyes in her direction, squinting at her face, examining her intense hazel eyes, heavy brows and wide Howdy Doody mouth. If she had undergone surgery, there were no scars to prove it.

I let out another sigh as Sarah leaned forward again, happily sparring with Peter. Being forty years old and short, dark and A-line myself, I envied Sarah not only her self-assurance but her height and bust measurement.

I closed my eyes to better brood over my deteriorating relationship with Wayne. I had thought that finally divorcing my husband, Craig, would free me to have the relationship I wanted with Wayne. Wayne was a passionate, kind and intelligent man, but as far as I was concerned he had been pretty damned unreasonable lately. Of course,
he
thought
I
was the one being unreasonable.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Startled, I opened my eyes and found Tony peering into my face anxiously.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked softly as Peter ranted on.

I smiled at him. Tony Olberti was such a kind man. He was easy to smile at. And he was certainly easy on the eyes. Thirtyish, compact and muscular, his cinnamon-colored hair, round blue eyes and open Irish face belied his Italian ancestry. Tony was also unashamedly gay, but again he belied the stereotypes. He was earnest and slow-speaking, rarely witty, and never biting in his comments.

“I’m fine,” I whispered back to him.

His eyes remained round with concern. Tony was kind, but he wasn’t stupid. He squeezed my shoulder gently.

“Let me know if you feel like talking,” he said and turned his face away, allowing me my privacy.

I pulled myself up straight in the hot tub, exposing my wet shoulders to the cool October air. Sarah was speaking again. I tuned in.

“You create your own reality,” she said.

I tuned back out hastily. I didn’t need to hear any more of this particular sermon. The first time I had heard Sarah say, “You create your own reality,” the concept had seemed profound. But after a few hundred too many repetitions, it had begun to sound more like the metaphysical equivalent of “so’s your old man” to me.

One look at Peter’s face told me he didn’t want to hear the phrase again either. The skin on his dripping face was so tight as he glared at Sarah that it looked as if his cheekbones were ready to slice through.

Then Linda caught my eye. She was staring at me, with no more expression than usual, but staring all the same. Damn. Why was she looking at me like that? Linda Zatara, I thought, woman of mystery. Linda was a brown-skinned woman with long, prematurely grey hair and matching grey eyes. The combination was chilling, especially when combined with her emotionless face. Six months ago, Sarah had introduced Linda to our group. I still didn’t know much about her. Her job, her hobbies, her ethnicity, even her marital status, remained a mystery. As for her opinions, she was as reticent as a Supreme Court nominee. The woman even sweated unobtrusively! But the real mystery was why she bothered to come to our group meetings.

None of us was really comfortable with Linda. She had to know that. But every time one of us questioned Linda’s presence in the group, Sarah had shouted the questioner down. She had even out-shouted Peter. And after a while Linda had just seemed to melt into the smooth inner surface of the hot tub. Except for her eyes, which were now unblinkingly fixed on mine. I crossed my arms uncomfortably.

Suddenly I noticed that Linda wasn’t the only one with her eyes on me. Peter and Sarah had stopped arguing and were looking at me curiously, too. What were they looking at? A scarlet A on my chest, spinach between my teeth?

“Kate, you’re awfully quiet today,” said Sarah. “Is there anything you want to share with the group?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony turn my way again. That made it unanimous. The pressure was on. Should I tell the group about my troubles with Wayne?

“I’m all right,” I muttered. I needed time to think about the offer.

The group in the hot tub were not really my closest friends. I had met Peter, Sarah and Tony a few years back at a Human Potential in Business seminar that my then husband, Craig, had dragged me to. After the seminar, which had turned out to be unexpectedly useful as well as fun, the five of us who lived in Marin County had decided to continue the exercise in a study-group format. Somehow we usually ended up at my house, where we discussed whatever new business, success and personal-growth techniques were floating around. Then we generally alternated griping or bragging about our businesses. Craig had dropped out of the group when the two of us had separated. And Linda had dropped in. Now it looked like the only way Linda would ever leave the group was on a stretcher.

I leaned back against the tub’s edge and sighed.

“There you go again,” Peter remarked peevishly. “You’ve been sighing all day, for God’s sake. What is the matter with you?”

No, they weren’t my closest friends, but they sure felt like family, if family means a bunch of people who jointly and individually drive you mad half the time and are there to support you the other half. I even shared Sarah’s gardener and cleaning lady. When my workload had gone over sixty hours a week, she had taken me in hand, convinced me that I would ultimately save money if someone else did the housework and gardening, and arranged everything for me.

I looked at the sweating, staring faces one more time.

“All right, all right,” I muttered ungraciously. I took a breath. “Wayne wants to marry me,” I confessed.

The hot tub went silent except for the whoosh and gurgle of the circulating water. The faces around me didn’t look particularly enlightened by my confession. Even Sarah’s ever-present smile held a hint of uncertainty.

“That’s it?” asked Peter incredulously, breaking the silence. “Wayne wants to marry you and you’re upset!”

Tony put a wet hand on my shoulder. “Take your time, Kate,” he said gently.

I took another breath and explained. “You see, he wants to get married, but I don’t. Now he’s refusing to see me at all if I won’t agree to marry him, and—”

“Then why don’t you agree to marry him?” Peter demanded.

Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have opened up. Did I have to explain how I felt about marriage, only a year after my divorce from Craig?

“I just don’t want to, all right?” I said finally.