The Last Resort (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (10 page)

BOOK: The Last Resort (A Kate Jasper Mystery)
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Craig stared at Ruth for a while, then smiled weakly. “Well, I’m certainly glad that’s settled, Ollie,” he said in a fair Stan Laurel imitation.

Ruth smiled back. “Go ahead, joke,” she said. “But think about it.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” promised Craig. Then he pointedly broke eye contact and plunged his fork into his salad once more.

I followed suit and took a bite of polenta.

“Just what does all this have to do with political activism?” Terry asked, his weasel face pinched with irritation.

“Nothing,” said Ruth seriously. “Just that. Nothing. Sometimes there’s nothing anyone can do.” She lowered her eyes. Without the life in those eyes lighting up her face she looked elderly. “My oldest son had everything society could promise, and he died. Killed by accident in a fraternity prank. I could blame myself or blame others. I could hate forever. Or I can let it go and move on with my life. Allow closure. Allow my broken heart to heal.”

That was a real conversation stopper. Not to mention an appetite killer. I swallowed hard on my mouthful of bread. But Terry wasn’t deterred.

“You could commit yourself to work for legislation to ban fraternities,” he pointed out.

Ruth brought her eyes back up. She patted Terry’s hand. “If anyone can change the world, you can,” she said affectionately. “You’re persistent enough.”

I went back to my meal with a sigh of relief as Terry and Ruth continued to argue.

The meal was good. But Ruth and Terry’s sparring got old fast. I waited until Terry paused for air and asked him where he was from.

“Ah, the private Gestapo begins interrogation,” he drawled. His eyes filled with disgust behind his wire rims. I jerked up in my chair, feeling propelled by that disgust.

“My name is Terrance Douglas McPhail,” he rattled off, name, rank and serial-number style. “I live in Berkeley, California, where I own and operate Radical Tees.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Here’s my driver’s license and my social security card. Anything else?”

I stared at the glowering face on Terry’s license photo. Here was my opportunity for information-gathering. But his rapid-fire hostility had stunned me into blankness.

“And I didn’t kill Suzanne Sorenson,” he added truculently.

“What’s Radical Tees?” asked Ruth in an easy voice. I shot her a grateful look.

“A screen-printing shop,” Terry answered. He reached in his wallet again, this time for a business card. “T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, caps, jackets, sweats. You’ve got a message, I’ll print it for you.” He handed Ruth the card.

I pointed at his “CIA Out of Central America” T-shirt. “Yours?” I asked.

“Guilty as charged,” he said, but he was smiling now, the disgust gone from his eyes. “This too,” he added pointing proudly at his “Food Not Bombs” cap. “T-shirts, caps and bumper stickers. The literature of the nineties. People don’t read pamphlets anymore, much less books—” He broke off and frowned again. “But, that’s enough about me. Don’t you want to interrogate Ruth?”

I looked over at Ruth nervously. She beamed her gypsy smile at me. “Go ahead, honey,” she said encouragingly.

How do you interrogate a woman who calls you “honey”?

“All right, where are you from?” I asked, forcing a “just joking” note into my voice to take away the sting.

“San Anselmo,” she replied. Bingo! San Anselmo was in Marin County, my home county. And, more importantly, Suzanne’s. Ruth must have seen my eyes light up. “I’m a therapist and a writer,” she said gently. “Not a murderer.”

If I was polite, I would quit here
, I thought as I wriggled uncomfortably in my chair. But I just couldn’t. “Did you know Suzanne before you met her here?” I asked.

“No,” she answered brusquely. That was an awfully short reply for Ruth. It seemed that I was getting close to the limit of her immense supply of good humor. I looked into her eyes. They weren’t beaming anymore. Maybe I had gone beyond close and hit that limit.

“Thanks,” I said, keeping my voice cheerfully nonchalant. “Interrogation over.”

I could feel the tension lift. Ruth smiled once more. Terry relaxed in his chair. And Craig breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Terry began a new diatribe against police practices, and I sank gratefully back in my own chair. I looked around the dining hall. Avery Haskell had joined Don Logan at his table, but there was still no sign of Paul Beaumont. Was the kid hiding out? Or helping Fran in the kitchen?

I watched Haskell bow his head before eating. “Thank you, Jesus,” he said.

“Anyone want something from the kitchen?” I asked.

“No thank you, Jesus,” replied Craig loudly.

Haskell’s head jerked up. He scowled in Craig’s direction. No wonder he wasn’t a member of the Craig Jasper fan club.

I glared my own disapproval at Craig. When was he going to learn? He deflated and mumbled, “Jeez, I was just kidding.”

“You might feel better if you apologized to Avery,” Ruth suggested in a whisper. She sounded just like my second-grade teacher, Miss Johnson.

Suddenly, it was all too much for me. The omniscient Miss Johnson had always made me nervous. And I was tired of Craig’s antics. I got up, walked to the kitchen and peered in over the swinging doors. But the kitchen was empty. Not even Fran was there.

“Looking for me?” came her musical voice from behind me. I swung around to face her. Her delicate face was shining with sweat. “I’ve been setting up our video for the evening,
Solar Cooking for Vegetarians
, in the old theatre. I ran all the way back in case anyone needed anything,” she explained.

I surveyed the hall. Bradley had disappeared from his station at the front counter. Paul was still nowhere to be seen. Avery Haskell sat eating quietly, the only other representative of Spa Santé.

“Is your son around?” I asked.

Fran blinked, but answered without asking me why I wanted to know. “I think he’s doing homework. But he should be there at the video.”

That’s how I ended up spending my first evening at Spa Santé watching a video about cooking vegetables and grains with sunshine. A method I hope I will never have to use. Or hear about again. And Paul Beaumont never did show up.

During the first segment of the video—how-to graphics for putting together the insulated solar-box cooker—I tried to make some sense of Suzanne’s death. I considered means, motives and opportunities all the way through construction to solar recipes. By the time we got to the ecological benefits to be derived if all good citizens cooked with sunshine only, my thoughts had drifted to Wayne. I let them drift.

Craig was silent as he walked me back from the theatre. I was glad for his company, voiceless as it was. The night air was cool and the spa was quiet. Too quiet. The white nylon ropes surrounding the old deserted buildings gleamed in the moonlight. Ghosts guarding ghosts. I could barely see the path. I sensed my way by the feel of the packed earth under my feet as we walked to Rose Court.

Craig broke his silence at my door.

“Kate, I’ve thought about us a long time now,” he said slowly, his brown eyes serious. “We could make it work if we gave it another try.”

I was too stunned to respond, blind-sided by his proposal. He tried on a grin before continuing. “I could stop being such a bozo. How would that be?”

“Don’t do this to me,” I said. I could hear my own voice rise in pitch as I panicked. I lowered it. “Or to yourself. I’m with Wayne now. You and I are friends. That’s what works.”

“We’re still husband and wife,” he said wistfully.

“Not anymore,” I answered. “The divorce was final two days ago.”

His eyes widened for a moment and then he slumped down into himself. “I didn’t know,” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning away from him. I didn’t want to see his face filled with hurt. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I wanted to hide in my room.

“Kate,” he said. I turned back to him. An effort at a smile was stretched painfully over his face. “Don’t worry. I was just kidding around. You know me, always joking.”

He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “I’ll settle for friendship,” he said. Then he was gone, in a clatter of footsteps down the stairs.

I took a big breath and opened the door to my room.

 

EIGHT

A BLAST OF psychedelic paisley greeted my eyes when I opened the door. But all else was quiet. At least until I went to bed. Then my mind assaulted me.

I stared at the white stucco ceiling, seeing things projected there that I wished would go away. Paul Beaumont’s hatred as he leapt at me. The cross on Avery Haskell’s hairy chest. Don Logan’s crippled legs. My imagination’s view of Suzanne’s crumpled body. Fran’s knife, efficiently slicing vegetables. Bradley’s crazy eyes. And Craig’s mobile face in attitudes of hurt, shock and anger.

I pulled my tense body out of bed, grabbed an orange leatherette chair and shoved it against the door.

Hours later, I woke up in the heart of a nightmare, sweating, my pulse pounding. A bodiless fanged face, distorted beyond recognition by hatred, had forced me to the edge of a cliff. Its shouts were hoarse and garbled with rage. And I couldn’t breathe. My long blond hair was strangling me.

I threw off the tangled covers that were bunched up around my neck and convulsively reached to run my hands through my own short dark curls. Their damp, springy touch reassured me. I jumped from the bed into the shock of cold air.

The orange-trimmed chair was still there against the door. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Apparently no one had entered my room during the night. But the chair had failed to protect me from my own fears. I shivered in the cold, then began to move.

I have a rule. When assailed by overwhelming anxiety, make a list. As an abstemious obsessive-compulsive, list-making is my equivalent of a double scotch. I pulled the chair away from guard duty at the door and pushed it up to the small desk against the wall. Spa Santé writing paper sat on the desk, compliments of the Beaumonts. I pulled out a buff sheet and quickly began making rows and columns.

I labeled the columns SUSPECT, MOTIVE, MEANS and OPPORTUNITY. Then I began filling in the names of the suspects: Bradley Beaumont, Fran Beaumont, Paul—

The shriek of the telephone in the silent room startled my hand into spasms of illegibility. I sprang out of my chair and ran to the bedside stand to grab the receiver on the second shrill ring. Please be Wayne, I implored it.

No such luck. The voice on the phone was Fran’s. “Excuse me for disturbing you, Ms. Jasper,” she twittered anxiously. “But Chief Orlandi would like to speak to you.”

“No problem,” I assured her nonchalantly. “Put him on.”

There was a silence on the other end of the phone.

“Fran?” I probed.

“Oh. Sorry, Kate. He wants to
really
talk to you. In person, I mean. To…to interview you.” I had a sinking feeling she had been seeking a euphemism for “interrogate.” Damn. What did he want from me?

“Where is he?” I asked gloomily. “Down at the police station?”

“No, no.” Fran giggled. Did she think I was joking? “He’s in my office. There’s a door off the lobby on your left, before you get to the dining hall. He’ll interview you there. I mean, if that’s okay?” she added hastily.

“Fine,” I said. I kept my voice friendly. Poor Fran. Not only was she doing most of the work at Spa Santé, now she was making phone calls for the police. “Is fifteen minutes all right?” I asked.

“Perfect,” she said, obviously relieved. “Thank you.”

It took me four minutes to shower and dress, two minutes to call in at Jest Gifts, two more minutes to write out a list of questions for the Chief, and six minutes to jog to the main building. I climbed the stairs and came to a stop in the lobby a full minute early. Not bad, I congratulated myself.

A uniformed policeman emerged into the lobby from a door near the registration desk. He was tall and stringy, with an oddly protuberant belly that could have been a recklessly swallowed cantaloupe.

“Mrs. Jasper?” he inquired. I jerked my eyes up from his belly guiltily and nodded.

“The Chief’s in here,” he said, opening the door and pointing inside with a hitchhiker’s thumb. I forced my features into the smile of a conscientious citizen and entered the room.

The room was no bigger than a large hot tub. There were some tall ferns in two corners, but most of the floor space was taken up by a battered grey office desk, behind which Chief Orlandi sat. A photo blowup of Fran, Bradley and a younger and happier Paul Beaumont peered over Orlandi’s head. An open box of doughnuts, some styrofoam cups and a thermos of coffee sat in a clearing on the desk, surrounded by stacks of paperwork. It reminded me of my own desk at home. Except for the doughnuts and coffee.

“Pull up a chair,” Chief Orlandi said with a grin. “Thought we could have a little talk.” The grin transformed his face from Santa Claus’s into a crocodile’s. I wondered if he thought his grin was reassuring. Or was it a conscious effort at intimidation?

I sat down as ordered, my own smile wavering. The man in the uniform sat down next to me and pulled out a notebook and pen.

“Officer Dempster, here, is going to take a few notes,” Orlandi said genially. “If you don’t mind.” I shook my head vigorously. Not me. I wouldn’t mind. I’m a good citizen.

BOOK: The Last Resort (A Kate Jasper Mystery)
12.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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