Dolled Up to Die (5 page)

Cate swallowed hard to keep a bray from erupting.

“And you probably know what kind of opinion Lance has,” Robyn added with an exaggerated roll of eyes at her fiancé. “He doesn’t care if I even wear shoes, let alone an ankle bracelet.”

“She’s right,” Lance McPherson agreed cheerfully. “The more I see of this wedding stuff, the more I think we should run off to Reno and do it up quick. With or without shoes.”

Cate slid into the booth across from the couple, and Mitch followed. The waitress came, and Cate ordered a caramel latte and Mitch a plain coffee. Robyn had pictures of a dozen different ankle bracelets spread across the table. Robyn did much of her shopping on the internet. Her bead-encrusted, strapless wedding gown had come from San Francisco, the tiara and veil from Houston.

“I think this one would go best with my shoes,” Robyn said, tapping a string of sparkles that might or might not be tiny diamonds. “But I don’t want something that will compete with my shoes, do I? So maybe I should go for something simpler, like this.” Her finger moved to the photo of a silver chain with a tiny heart pendant.

Robyn rearranged the prints, like a general plotting strategy from reconnaissance photos. “What do you think?” she asked Cate.

What Cate thought was,
Between that $2,500 wedding dress and those $500 shoes, who’s going to notice an ankle bracelet?
Since that didn’t seem like a diplomatic response, she said, “Um.”

Robyn swept the scattered pictures into a pile. “I’ll think about it later. But we do need to decide about the sauce for the chicken.” She looked at Lance. “I’m leaning toward—”

Lance groaned. “Any sauce is fine with me.”

“I have to tell the chef at Mr. K’s within the next few days what we want.”

“Or you might wind up with naked chicken?” The snarky remark was out of character for Mitch, but he turned it into a gentle tease with a grin. He and Lance butted fists over the table, and even Robyn smiled.

“I know. With you two, ketchup would be a fine sauce. Over hot dogs. And we can have Oreos instead of a wedding cake. Afterward, instead of dancing, we’ll all tromp out to the vineyard and stomp grapes in our bare feet.”

“Hey, that sounds like fun,” Mitch said, and Cate almost wished the facetious scenario were possible. It sounded more interesting than the actual plans. But now she latched onto something Robyn had said a moment earlier.

“Mr. K’s is doing the dinner for the reception?” That was the restaurant where Uncle Joe and Rebecca were celebrating their anniversary tonight, so expensive that they’d joked about eating beans for the coming week. Mitch had mentioned taking Cate there sometime, but they hadn’t done it yet.

“Mr. K’s does all the food for Lodge Hill weddings. The same man, Ed Kieferson, owns both places. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before.” Robyn gave Cate an annoyed glance, as if Cate not remembering this bit of information was right up there with forgetting the date of the wedding. “The reputation of the food was one reason we chose Lodge Hill. Though it’s also such a romantic setting out there in the vineyard. Aunt Carly knows Mr. K too, of course.”

“A wise choice, I’m sure,” Cate murmured. A moment later, as the name familiarity that had evaded her earlier suddenly clicked into place, she wondered if this would turn out to be such a wise choice after all.

Jo-Jo had said that Eddie the Ex owned that “most expensive restaurant in town.” Which would be Mr. K’s. And the K of Mr. K’s would be Kieferson. Who also owned Lodge Hill, which Robyn certainly had mentioned before. Which
was why the Kieferson name had sounded vaguely familiar to Cate.

Cate started to say something to Robyn about Ed Kieferson’s demise, but the arrival of her latte, plus an elbow nudge from Mitch, gave her time to reconsider. Robyn was a little high-strung about the wedding . . . make that explosive as a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse . . . and who knew what hysterics this information might bring on?

Instead Cate asked, “There really is a vineyard at Lodge Hill?”

“Oh yes. Rows and rows of grapevines. Although Mr. Kieferson doesn’t run the vineyard himself. The manager is this hottie who lives in a little cottage behind the main building.” Robyn glanced surreptitiously at Lance to see if her description of the vineyard manager had any effect on him.

It didn’t. Not even when she added, “I think he used to be into motorcycle racing.”

Motorcycle racing and raising grapes sounded like an unlikely combination to Cate, but all Lance did was say enthusiastically, “Maybe he’s found a new way to stomp grapes, with a motorcycle. I’d like to see that.”

Robyn refused to get into any lighthearted banter now. In cool tones, she said, “The grapes are trucked somewhere else for making wine now, although Mr. Kieferson plans to build his own winery later on.”

Not going to happen. But instead of pointing that out, Cate said, “Have you ever met Mr. Kieferson?”

“Oh yes. He’s been at Lodge Hill a couple of times when I was talking to LeAnne, the manager there. Such a distinguished-looking gentleman. And so elegant.”

“Elegant?” Lance snorted. “He’s a hand kisser. Can you imagine that? That’s why she was so impressed with him. Because he kissed her hand.”

“I thought it was sweet. Very old-fashioned and chivalrous.”

Lance grabbed her hand and covered it to the elbow with noisy kisses. “How’s that for old-fashioned and chivalrous?”

Robyn momentarily looked as if she might toss her latte in his face, but then she laughed. Cate mentally shook her head. She could never figure out if these two were going to have the happiest marriage ever or be in divorce court a month after the wedding.

“How about Mrs. Kieferson?” Cate asked. “Have you met her?”

“She and her mother own some kind of New Age shop, gifts and little one-of-a-kind things. Funky-fashionable, Aunt Carly called it. She knows Mrs. Kieferson’s mother too, but I’ve never met either of them.” Robyn’s face brightened. “Hey, maybe I could find an ankle bracelet there.”

Cate was disappointed. She’d have liked to have an outside perspective on the new wife, something other than Jo-Jo and Donna’s not exactly unprejudiced descriptions.

“How’s the new house coming along?” Lance asked Cate in what she suspected was an effort to get off the subject of the wedding. “Last time I was by there, it looked almost finished.”

“I wish someone was giving me a house,” Robyn muttered. “I mean, how often does
that
happen?”

Not often, Cate agreed silently. Something in which God definitely had a hand.

“Your great-aunt is paying for half our wedding, which is a pretty generous gift,” Lance pointed out. This was not something Cate had known before. Either the fact that the aunt was paying much of the wedding costs, or that she was actually a great-aunt. “You don’t even like cats, so you probably wouldn’t appreciate a ceiling-high scratching pole in the living room.”

Robyn wrinkled her nose. “Does it really have that?” she asked Cate.

Mitch answered the question. “The pole doesn’t actually go all the way to the ceiling, just up to the walkway that runs through a couple of rooms. Cats like high places.”

“Mitch calls it the Kitty Kastle,” Cate added.

“Didn’t you have anything to say about the house?” Robyn asked. “I mean, who wants a house that’s just peculiar even if it is free?”

“It isn’t peculiar,” Cate said, her tone a little more frosty than she intended. “It’s a great two-story, three-bedroom, two-bath house. I picked out the bathroom fixtures and the granite countertops and paint colors myself.”

Although it did have a few cat-friendly differences from most new houses. Mr. Ledbetter, the lawyer who was handling construction of the house as part of the estate of the woman who had originally owned Octavia, had diligently researched the internet for helpful ideas.

“Cate will pick out all the furniture herself,” Mitch said.

“You mean furniture is part of the deal too?” Robyn asked.

“You can’t expect a cat like Octavia to live in an unfurnished house.” Mitch managed to sound shocked at the prospect.

“What happens if the cat dies or something?” Robyn asked. “Do you have to give the house back?”

“No. But I’d do everything I could to give her a long and happy life even if a house weren’t involved,” Cate said firmly. “Octavia is a unique cat, with a personality all her own.”

“Well, it’s one unusual deal,” Robyn declared.

Cate had to agree. Octavia’s owner, long before she was murdered, had specified in her will that whoever got the cat also got her house, and she had left the decision about the cat’s ownership to her lawyer/executor. Cate hadn’t actually saved Octavia’s life, but she had kept her from being dumped
at the animal shelter, and so Lawyer Ledbetter had decided Cate should be the cat’s new owner. Then, after the house burned down, he had also decided a new house should be built to fulfill the provisions of the will. A house suitable for a deaf cat with a trust fund. And furnished, of course, because the original house Octavia should have inherited had been furnished.

Robyn suddenly lost interest in Kitty Kastles and whipped out a notebook. “I almost forgot. I have to change the shade of blue for the ribbons on the wrist corsages for the older women.” She slashed through something written in the notebook. “I’ve been planning on cerulean, but now I realize that just won’t work.”

“Yes, cerulean would be a disaster,” Cate murmured, and then she gave herself a mental whack for the snide comment. She tossed out a word she’d heard somewhere. “What about periwinkle?”

“Periwinkle?” Robyn looked up from the notebook, eyes squinted in thought, and Cate thought,
Oh no, I’ve just made the faux pas of the wedding world
. But then Robyn smiled and slammed a palm down on the notebook. “Yes! That’s it. Periwinkle! What a marvelous idea, Cate. Thank you!”

She appraised Cate with what appeared to be new respect, as if the periwinkle suggestion had elevated Cate from frump to fashionista. Although what Cate was thinking was that she’d better use her investigative skills and find out what color periwinkle actually was.

 5 

Uncle Joe and Rebecca were already home when Cate got back to the house. She asked about their dinner at Mr. K’s, and they were enthusiastic about the prime rib, and the amaretto cheesecake for dessert.

“I was hoping Mr. K would come around and offer us a free dessert,” Rebecca said. “I’ve heard he does that occasionally. But we never even saw him.”

“That’s because he’s . . . dead,” Cate said.

That received a double response. A shocked “Dead!” from both of them. Then, from Rebecca, “Was it on the news?”

Cate told them about Jo-Jo’s call, the decimated dolls, and Eddie the Ex dead on the floor with the gun beside him, an apparent suicide.

“Did it look to you as if he’d killed himself?” Joe asked.

“I guess, although shooting the dolls first seems peculiar. And Jo-Jo’s house seems like an odd place to kill himself.”

“You said there wasn’t another vehicle there at the house, so that makes you wonder how he got there, doesn’t it?”

“I’m curious,” Cate admitted.

“Curiosity can be a valuable asset for an investigator,” Joe said. In a sterner tone, he added, “It can also get you
in trouble. Big trouble. As we’ve discussed before, Belmont Investigations doesn’t do murders.”

Cate determinedly stuffed her curiosity in a mental corner and repeated the line to herself. Belmont Investigations doesn’t do murders.

“I was there for several hours, but I’d rather not bill Jo-Jo for the time, if that’s okay with you. All I really did was take her to a friend’s house for the night, and I think she’s short on money.”

Uncle Joe nodded. “Write up a report for the files.”

Joe was a stickler for keeping a written record of everything Belmont Investigations did. Cate intended to wait until morning to do the report, but she found she couldn’t sleep and wound up padding barefoot into the office just after 2:00 a.m. Writing the short report again raised doubts in her mind, but she stuck to the facts and didn’t include her questions. Her current case was to deliver a subpoena the following day.

She printed out the report and tucked it in a folder to file later. Then, strictly because she couldn’t sleep, of course, not because she was
involved
, she found a book in Joe’s criminal research library and read up on suicides. One item she gleaned: gun suicides weren’t unusual, but a bullet to the forehead was definitely out of the ordinary. Most gun suicides were done with the weapon stuck in the mouth or aimed into the temple.

Interesting.

Cate spent most of the next day looking for the woman on whom she was supposed to serve the subpoena, finally locating her hiding under a blanket in the backseat of her car. The woman was not complimentary about Cate’s talent or persistence in tracking her down. She fired off a barrage of language hot enough to toast Cate’s ears, then smashed the remains of a chili dog in her face. The woman had to get close
to Cate to do that, however, and Cate triumphantly stuffed the papers down the front of the woman’s baggy sweatpants. Subpoena served! And case closed.

This time, when she got home, she found Uncle Joe sprawled on the sofa, leg stretched out on a pillow. The hip he’d broken several months ago still gave him occasional problems and limited his activities. Now he grimaced with a twinge of pain as he shifted on the sofa and lowered the copy of the Eugene newspaper he was reading.

“Your dead man is featured,” he said. He handed the front section of the newspaper to Cate.

Cate was headed for the shower to get rid of a chili-dog scent powerful enough to interest the neighbor’s German shepherd when she got out of the car, but she stopped to look at the newspaper. The article about Eddie the Ex wasn’t the top story, but it was on the front page, with a photo and a headline that read “Death of Prominent Businessman Investigated.”

The article was short, as if the law enforcement people had been close-mouthed with information. Ed Kieferson had been found dead in the home of his former wife, Josephine Joanna Kieferson, in a rural area south of town. He’d been shot, but the article didn’t go into specifics, didn’t call it suicide, and didn’t mention the dolls. It gave background information about Kieferson’s business interests and named his survivors as wife Kim, living here in Eugene, and a son living back east. Cate was relieved to see her own name was not mentioned.

She studied the photo. A bullet hole in the forehead tended to alter anyone’s appearance, of course, but in this apparently older photo he didn’t have the beard, and his face was on the chubby side. Not what she’d call, as Robyn had, distinguished looking. Maybe his midlife crisis had included a face-lift? Or maybe he’d grown the beard to mask the saggy jowls visible in this photo?

“I think I’ll cut this out and stick it in the file with my report,” Cate said.

Cate talked to Mitch later, telling him about her day and hearing about his, and then went into the office to write up her brief report on serving the subpoena. She was surprised when the office phone rang after 10:00. Joe and Rebecca had already gone to bed.

“Belmont Investigations, Assistant Investigator Cate Kinkaid speaking.”

“Cate, this is Donna Echelon. Jo-Jo Kieferson’s friend?”

“Yes, of course. How’s she doing?”

“Not great. An officer was here this morning and asked her all kinds of questions.” Donna’s voice was almost a whisper.

“But she’d already been questioned out at the house.”

“I know,” Donna said in a tone that put ominous significance on the double questioning.

“She can’t go back to the house yet?”

“The officer said they weren’t finished there.”

Cate scrunched the phone closer to her ear. “I’m sorry, but I can barely hear you.”

“I don’t know if Jo-Jo would want me to call you. I waited until after she went to bed, but she may not be asleep yet.” A pause, as if Donna were listening for something from the bedroom, then another whisper. “I know you said you weren’t investigating Eddie’s death, but I think you should be.”

“Why is that?”

“I stayed home from work today because I was concerned about Jo-Jo being here alone. She still seems so dazed. I probably shouldn’t have listened in when the deputy questioned her, but I kind of . . . did.”

“What kind of questions were they?”

“Oh, mostly about where she was, and who she’d talked to. It certainly sounds to me as if they suspect Jo-Jo killed him, though I don’t think she realizes that yet. She’s just too upset to think clearly about anything.”

“Why would they be suspicious of Jo-Jo?”

“Oh, you know. There are . . . peculiarities.”

Cate had to agree with that, although she wasn’t about to offer her own list of peculiarities. One thing she hadn’t thought about before occurred to her now. It had seemed accidental when Jo-Jo picked up the gun beside Eddie’s body, then dropped it in apparent horror, but could the police be thinking that might not have been accidental? That she was cleverly making a legitimate reason for her prints to be on the gun to conceal the fact that they were already there?

“Are you suspicious of her?” Cate asked bluntly.

“No! Of course not. Jo-Jo’s my friend. I’ve known her for years. She’s a wonderful woman.”

Cate thought that statement came with more hasty indignation than actual conviction, and she had the feeling that Donna did have suspicions about her old friend. Still, Belmont Investigations did not do murder.

“It sounds as if the sheriff’s office is simply doing a thorough investigation,” Cate said. “Actually, law enforcement officers usually treat any death that isn’t natural as a possible crime.” That information had come from Cate’s middle-of-the-night reading. “It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re suspicious of Jo-Jo.”

“They sounded suspicious of Jo-Jo to me.” Donna sounded accusing, as if she thought Cate was shirking her duty.

“A private investigator can’t just barge in and start investigating the way law enforcement officers do,” Cate pointed out. “It’s their job to investigate any unnatural death, but a
PI doesn’t have that right. It would probably be a good idea for Jo-Jo to talk to a lawyer.”

“Okay. I’ll tell her.”

Cate started to hang up, but curiosity got the better of her. “By the way, I understand Eddie’s new wife has a store or shop of some kind. Do you know anything about it?”

“The Mystic Mirage,” Donna said promptly. “Lots of incense and crystals and candles. Tarot cards. Astrology stuff. Jewelry and some clothing, with a big emphasis on natural fabrics and dyes.” Donna spoke in a disparaging tone, but then, as if she made the admission reluctantly, she added, “Although some of it is rather attractive, especially the antique jewelry and the leather sandals. In a, um . . .”

Cate filled in with Robyn’s word. “Funky-fashionable way?”

“Yes, funky. But I found her selection of books really disturbing. Everything from New Agey spiritual stuff to books about Atlantis and out-of-body experiences. UFO books, even some on witchcraft and the occult. Creepy.”

“You’ve been there?”

Moment of silence, as if Donna realized she’d again revealed too much. “These friends from Portland—”

Cate let her off the hook, although she suspected nosiness rather than insistent friends may have motivated Donna’s visit to the shop. “I understand.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. Jo-Jo says the reason Eddie left her was that Kim put a spell on him.”

“A spell? Like voodoo or witchcraft?”

“I don’t believe in far-out stuff like that, of course,” Donna declared. “I think poor Jo-Jo is just desperate to explain to herself how Eddie could up and dump her like he did. But if thinking the woman put a spell on him makes it easier for Jo-Jo, well, okay with me.” Donna might have concerns about
Jo-Jo’s involvement in Eddie the Ex’s death, but her loyalty to her friend stood firm as a concrete wall.

“Did you meet Kim when you were in the store?”

“Yes, although I didn’t let on that I was a friend of Jo-Jo’s. The mother was there too, and if you ask me, she’s the really strange one.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Oh yes. She was pushing her book about her taking people into their ‘past lives’ through hypnotic regression. She has a ‘Doctor’ in front of her name and calls herself a metaphysical psychologist, whatever that means. She managed to get herself on a bunch of big TV talk shows, as she made certain I knew.”

“Have you read the book?”

“No way! And I don’t intend to,” Donna declared, and Cate suspected Donna was relieved that it wasn’t another indiscretion she had to admit to. “But if anybody put a spell on ol’ scumbag Eddie to snag him for Kim, I’d bet it was her, the Queen of Weird.”

“But Eddie was already married.”

“He probably looked like a great catch, with his fancy restaurant and wedding business and all. Being married is no obstacle to some people,” Donna said meaningfully.

“Well, tell Jo-Jo I’m thinking about her and praying for her, okay?”

“But you won’t actually help her?”

Cate mentally protested that statement. Prayer
was
help. The most powerful kind of help. But Cate knew what Donna meant. “Maybe I’ll drop by and see her.”