A Stiff Critique (20 page)

“Vicky, you’re thin,” I tried again. “Try letting yourself eat something good for you.”

“No!” she yelped, shaking her head. She grabbed a handful of her slacks at stomach level. “Look at this, I’m fat. A fat pig. It’s so disgusting. If I could only stop, but I just can’t…”

I looked into her face as she went on and saw insanity there.

The hair went up on the back of my neck. Could she die from her beliefs? Could she literally starve to death in between her binges on cakes and cookie dough? Probably. And then another question popped into my mind. Was she crazy enough to kill someone other than herself?

“Vicky, you must get professional help,” a voice said from behind me. I turned and saw Carrie. Her freckled brow was wrinkled with concern. “I will be happy to help you find a therapist if necessary, but you can’t go on—”

“No, no,” Vicky interrupted, shaking her head roughly. “I just have to learn to control myself. I just need to stop eating.” Then she closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll be fine,” she told us when she opened them again. She tugged the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Damn,” I whispered once Vicky was gone.

“Damn, indeed,” Carrie agreed soberly. “And she’s getting worse.”

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

“Mave’s been trying to contact Vicky’s family, but…” Carrie shrugged a perfect mime of hopelessness.

“Hey, where’s Travis?” I asked. Somehow, he’d managed to disappear while I was listening to Vicky.

“Travis is in the kitchen, washing the dishes,” Carrie told me. She smiled. “I convinced him that housework was the most significant action he could undertake to protect me.”

I chuckled. I told myself I shouldn’t worry so much about Carrie. She could take care of herself. But I had seen fear on her face earlier. I was sure of it.

“Carrie—” I began. But she was faster.

“I’m concerned about Nan as well,” she told me.

“Nan?”

“Don’t you remember, Kate? All that innuendo about seeing something across the street at Slade’s house after the group last Saturday.”

“The murderer?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Then her eyes went out of focus as she thought.

What was she thinking? Whatever it was, it was frightening her. As I watched, her shoulders jerked in a sudden shiver.

“Carrie,” I said softly. “Why are you so afraid?”

“I had a dream last night,” she answered slowly. “Actually, I believe I should call it a nightmare—”

“Hey, Carrie!” Travis shouted from the doorway. “Where do the glasses go?”

“Ye gods and goddesses,” she protested, winking largely in my direction. “It’s so hard to find good servants these days.”

“Carrie!” Travis shouted again. And Carrie turned to join him in the kitchen.

I would have asked her more about her nightmare if I could have pried her away from Travis. But I couldn’t seem to get her alone. He even followed her to the door when she showed me out.

“Don’t worry unduly, Kate,” she advised before she shut the door behind me.

All the way home, I tried to apply the word “unduly” to my worries. Was it undue to wonder if Carrie’s new sweetie was a murderer? Was it excessive to wonder if Nan had seen Slade Skinner’s murderer? Or to wonder if Vicky was going to starve herself to death? I still wasn’t sure by the time I rolled into my driveway. But before I could come to any conclusions, I heard the sound of another car rolling in behind me.

In the instant it took me to swivel my head around, my heartbeat accelerated to maximum cruising speed. But it slowed again when I saw the familiar Volkswagen bug parked in back of my own Toyota.

My friend Barbara Chu jumped out of the bug, looking cool and elegant in a sleeveless aquamarine jumpsuit. I always thought Barbara could have been a model if she’d have been a foot or so taller. At five feet, she had to settle for being a beautiful, well-dressed electrician. Not that she minded. She liked the electricity. She even swore working with it energized her.

“Hey, kiddo!” she shouted enthusiastically. Maybe she’d been playing with a live cable. “How the hell are you?”

“How did you know when I was coming home?” I demanded as I climbed out of my car and looked into her all-too-scrutable Asian eyes.

“I’m psychic,” she answered with a laugh. I continued to stare at her. I never had figured out if she was really psychic, but her perfect timing could be spooky sometimes.

“I’m hungry too,” she added as she pulled me into a hug. “Want to go for an early dinner?”

“I ate a late lunch,” I said slowly, wondering if I wanted to go with her anyway, if only to tell her about Carrie’s critique group. I was surprised she hadn’t picked up any vibrations about the murder yet. I stepped back from her embrace and smiled. She wasn’t that psychic.

“Yes, I am,” she said. I hated it when she did that. “Anyway, there’s this great new cafe in San Ricardo. Tamales and Cajun sausage sandwiches to die for.” I opened my mouth automatically to ask about vegetarian dishes. “Grilled baby eggplant marinated in lemon-herb vinaigrette, pasta primavera and tofu burgers,” she finished off.

I told myself it still didn’t prove she was psychic as we climbed into my Toyota.

Cafe Cachucha was a small but sunny cafe with tables covered by fabric swatches in all the colors of the rainbow. The menu was colorful too. Worrying had to work off calories, I decided, and ordered a small cachucha vegetable salad and an herbal iced tea. Barbara asked for the Cajun sausage sandwich with fries and a caffe latte. At least her order made me feel better about my own gluttony. Not gluttony, I corrected myself, thinking of Vicky. I wasn’t a fat pig, only a woman with a good appetite.

Then Barbara and I got down to talking. Barbara and her reporter boyfriend, Felix, were living in separate, adjoining apartments now. It was really cool, she told me. I smiled and nodded. I was happy for her in spite of the fact that I could never figure out how Barbara put up with the man. Though maybe Felix could be human when he wasn’t trying to get a story. Maybe. My mind drifted to Slade’s murder. Felix would kill to get a piece of that story, I realized. I just hoped he never found out that I had seen Slade’s dead body firsthand.

Barbara’s happy flow of chatter stopped abruptly. I brought my eyes back up to look across the table at her. She was bent forward, her hands on the bright tablecloth, her eyes focused on mine.

“Are you involved in another murder?” she demanded.

“Felix told you,” I accused.

“Nope.”

“You read about it in the paper.”

She shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips. Then she got the smile under control and ordered me to tell her about it.

I knew I’d never get her to tell me how she figured out I’d been involved in another murder. So I settled down into my chair and told her about it as ordered. All about it. I described each meeting and everything I could remember about the individual group members. The only thing I left out was my attempt at poetry. She didn’t need to know about that.

“So this Slade Skinner guy was a real weenie,” she summed up once I was finished.

I opened my mouth to object.

“I know, I know,” she said, putting up a hand. “You think just because he was a good writer, he couldn’t have been a weenie. Jeez-Louise, lots of good writers have been weenies—”

“All right, he was a weenie,” I conceded. “But who do you think killed him?”

Barbara closed her eyes and sat very still for a few moments, looking like a feminized Buddha. I held my breath, beginning to hope for an answer.

“I don’t know who killed him,” she said finally. I let out my breath in a long sigh. That wasn’t the kind of answer I had hoped for. “But I’ve got some ideas,” she added.

Uh-oh. I should have never gotten her started. Psychic or not, Barbara had an imagination that wouldn’t quit. And it ran in all directions simultaneously. If you tried to graph her thought processes, you’d need graph paper the size of California.

“What if one of the women in the group was one of his ex-wives incognito?” she proposed eagerly.

In spite of myself, their faces flashed in front of me. Nan, Vicky. Joyce. Donna. Maybe. But Carrie? Or Mave? It was getting ridiculous.

“But why would they keep it secret?” I asked. “Slade had to know his own wife—”

“You said he was insensitive.”

“Not that insensitive—”

“Okay, so what if he married this woman in the sixties and fathered a kid? And the kid’s all grown up now.” Barbara stopped mid-sentence and hit the table in front of her, her eyes lighting up like LED’s. “No, not his wife. His own kid. What if he doesn’t know what his own kid looks like grown up. But the kid inherits, so she—or maybe it’s he—infiltrates the group to murder him. Then once the deed is done, he goes back home. I like Travis for this one.”

My stomach tightened. For Carrie’s sake, I didn’t want it to be Travis. But no, Travis wouldn’t work anyway, I decided. Travis had talked about his father. They’d shared a pair of earrings after all.

“Herbal iced tea and caffe latte,” came a voice from above. I nodded gratefully at the waitress as she handed us our drinks. I took a sip of tea.

“Or Russell,” Barbara added.

I choked on my tea. Damn. As I coughed, I thought about it. I’d put Russell at thirty years of age or so. A little older than Travis. And Slade was about fifty. I supposed it was possible. Just like it was possible to win the state lottery. Possible but not likely. Anyway, Russell had talked about his parents too—

“Slade put Russell in his story,” Barbara went on, obliterating my train of thought. “And Nan. Maybe he was blackmailing one of them. Maybe one of them really is a fugitive from the law. So he says, I’ll put you in my story if you don’t pay up-”

“Slade didn’t need money,” I told her. “He was rich. If anyone was blackmailing anyone, it would have been the other way around.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. Her eyes turned thoughtful.

“Forget I said it,” I told her. “If someone was blackmailing Slade, why would they kill him?”

“They hated him?”

The hair went up on my arms. Someone must have hated Slade to beat him to death like that. At least temporarily. You don’t do something like that calmly and rationally.

“But who?” Barbara asked.

“Maybe one of the women,” I thought aloud. “Remember, Slade was a lecher.”

Our food arrived as Barbara thought that motive over.

“Vicky’s nuts,” she said, biting into her Cajun sausage sandwich. “Maybe he did something to her that pushed her over the edge,” she mumbled through her mouthful.

“But what?”

“Maybe he taunted her about her food problem. Or maybe he tempted her with food. Or maybe”—Barbara stopped for another bite—”maybe he told her she was fat.”

That was an awful thought. I picked up my fork. The salad looked good, glistening with bits of marinated vegetables. But it was hard to eat while considering Vicky Andros. I could just picture her hungry eyes on my food.

“And then there’s the woman who’s celibate, Joyce,” Barbara went on. “Maybe Slade raped her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he was the rapist kind. Insensitive, but not a rapist—”

“I’ve got it!” Barbara shouted. I looked around at the other tables, but no one except me seemed startled by the shout. “It’s Donna’s family. See, Slade seduces Donna. Donna tells her family. They send out a hit man—”

“With a dumbbell?” I objected.

“Okay, how about Carrie?” Barbara asked. She stared across the table at me.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably. I shifted in my chair. “Slade did tempt her with the possibility that he’d recommend her to his agent, but I don’t think Carrie’s possible. She’s just not like that—”

“Of course she isn’t,” Barbara agreed suddenly. “I’ve met Carrie, remember? She’s not murderer material.”

I ate a forkful of salad, relieved by Barbara’s assessment of Carrie, whatever its reason. The vegetables were tangy with lemon. And there was a barbecue flavor to them too.

“Listen, Kate,” Barbara said after I had taken another bite. “If Slade was hitting on the women all the time, they must have been used to it. So whoever killed him must have been someone new to the group. Someone who hadn’t had to deal with him before—”

“I was the only new member that day,” I interrupted.

“Oh,” she said and went silent. But not for long.

“Maybe someone was protecting someone else’s honor,” she started a moment later. “Like Mave. You said she was a lesbian. Maybe she decided to teach Slade a thing or two. Or Travis—he sounds hotheaded enough. Or Russell. Don’t discount him because he’s Asian. Asian-Americans can be just as violent as anyone else.”

Just what I needed to hear. I pictured Russell’s still face in my mind and shivered.

“Don’t worry, Kate,” Barbara assured me. She reached across the table to give my hand a squeeze. “I don’t see any danger for you in the immediate future. And I’ve looked.”

I never know what to think when she says those things. Was she really able to see into the future? There was no way I could tell. So I just said “thanks,” and left it at that.