Adjusted to Death Read online

  “Don’t move,” Carol snapped at the back of my head. She accelerated her pruning operation.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” Tiffany began.

  “I’ll bet,” said Carol.

  “You’re investigating that terrible murder. I’m so impressed.” Tiffany smiled encouragingly at me. I could just see her pink-cheeked face in the mirror without moving my head.

  “Thank you,” I said. “But I’m not really investigating.” Except for a little trip to see Ted and Bonnie at the hardware store, perhaps. I was fairly certain I still had Ted’s business card.

  “Of course she’s not investigating,” said Carol. “The man’s a drug dealer. Whoever killed him should get a medal.”

  “But you’d just have to know, wouldn’t you?” Tiffany said breathlessly to my reflection in the mirror. “You can’t just let something like that go by.”

  “The police are on the job,” I said. Busily trying to build a case against Wayne, I added silently. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

  “Don’t move,” said Carol. “The police are so corrupt. I was reading this book about how the cops—and the FBI, mind you—phony up evidence all the time to put criminals away.” God, that was an awful thought. My stomach kinked. Don’t panic, I told myself. I would see Maggie and Eileen for lunch, and Valerie for dinner. I could always call Devi. I had her phone number.

  “The police wouldn’t do that,” Tiffany argued. “Not here.” Not in Mill Valley or not in America? Either way, I hoped she was right.

  “You wanna bet?” asked Carol and she was off and running. For the next ten minutes she clipped hair furiously and voiced her opinions on everything from corrupt police officials to the failure of the Vietnam war (actually a damned clear analysis), to what we ought to do about Libya’s Qaddafi. I closed my eyes and let her voice roll over me. Tiffany’s disagreement was reduced to a series of indignant peeps by the time Carol had finished.

  “Well,” Carol said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “What do you think?”

  I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror. My hair was shorter than my ex-husband’s.

  “I could always become a skinhead,” I said softly.

  “Now, skinheads,” she said, picking up her scissors once more. “They’re real scum. Do you know about the neo-Nazi link to the Fundamentalists…”

  I fumbled in my purse for her tip, placed the dollar bills in her hand and leapt down from the pink chair.

  - Sixteen -

  I was lost in the consideration of Ted and his younger wife, Bonnie, as I paid my bill and made my escape from the Golden Rose Beauty Salon. The receptionist mumbled something at me through her gum, which I was too distracted to decipher. I just smiled as if I understood, and left. I was halfway to my car, reaching to scratch the itchy hairs that had worked their way under my sweat shirt, when I realized I was still wearing the rubbery gold sheet that Carol had draped around my neck.

  As I returned the sheet, I felt that kind of mental tickle that tells me I’ve forgotten something. It couldn’t be the sheet around my neck. I was handing that over. But something. Damn. I couldn’t quite coax it into consciousness. As I drove home I did a mental inventory of those items I might have overlooked. I’d set the answering machine, fed the cat, locked the doors. I hadn’t left anything on the stove or forgotten any appointments. The inventory was useless. By the time I returned home I knew I had lost it, whatever it was.

  There was one message on my answering machine. I pushed the button to listen, hoping to hear Wayne’s soft growl. Instead I heard my husband Craig’s smooth tones, as disappointing as the taste of stale white bread after a loaf of fresh baked wholewheat. I indulged in a shoulder-heaving sigh that I instantly regretted. I would become my mother yet if I kept those sighs up.

  “Let’s get together soon.” Craig’s voice said. “We need to talk settlement.”

  Settlement? Three days and he wants settlement.

  “Call me when you get in,” the voice continued. “Talk to you then.”

  I turned off the machine and began to dial his number. But mid-dial a revolutionary idea waltzed into my mind. I didn’t have to return his call! I sat in my comfy chair and submitted this idea to rigorous testing. Did I have a moral obligation to call him as he had requested? Not really. A legal one? No. How about common courtesy? No way, I assured myself. But the sudden shriek of the doorbell obliterated that self-assurance. I jumped up guiltily to answer the door.

  When I saw Sergeant Feiffer standing in the doorway I froze. The fear that Wayne had been arrested grabbed my chest and squeezed. I couldn’t breathe. Feiffer’s look of concern seemed to confirm my fear.

  “What happened to your hair?” he asked.

  My hand shot up to touch the ends of my cropped hair, and I remembered. “An overzealous hairdresser,” I answered briefly. “It’s not a criminal matter, no matter how it looks.”

  He gave a faint smile in reply.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, my voice tight. I couldn’t even pretend nonchalance.

  “Just to ask a few more questions about Scott Younger’s death,” he answered. “Sergeant Udel wanted to interview you, but I thought it would be easier for you to talk to me.” He was smiling again, his Santa Claus blue eyes twinkling in friendliness. Was he playing the old good cop/bad cop game with Udel? Or was he really trying to make it easy for me?

  “They haven’t arrested anyone yet, have they?” I had to ask. At least I didn’t mention Wayne.

  “No, they’re still in the process of gathering information,” he answered. I let my breath out slowly and silently, trying to hide the relief that was flooding my body. Feiffer’s eyes never left my face.

  “Like to play a little pinball?” I challenged. Let him think I was calm enough to play. Actually, it would have helped to have something to do with my hands.

  “No.” he said, wistfully glancing over my shoulder at Hayburners. “I really can’t.” I knew then that this was to be a serious interrogation.

  I invited him in and directed him to sit in a swinging chair, hoping that the absurdity of that seat would interfere with his interrogatory mind set. It didn’t. He led me back to the day of the murder with some general questions. Then he narrowed the focus to Wayne.

  “When Mr. Caruso came back from the treatment room, did he display any signs of agitation?”

  “Not that I noticed,” I answered honestly. “Mr. Caruso” sounded so strange to my ears; all it conjured up for me was the operatic tenor that Wayne’s mother had admired.

  “Was he holding anything in his hands?” asked Feiffer. Like a metal bar, I silently finished his sentence.

  “No,” I said.

  “Was there anything different about his clothing? His face? Was he sweating? Trembling?”

  “No,” I answered to these and the other questions that followed. The repetition of the word lulled me into a state of drowsiness. I swung in my chair, my eyes half-closed.

  “How long have you known Mr. Caruso?” Feiffer asked quietly. My eyes popped open. I saw his eyes observing me closely. This question required more than “no” for an answer.

  “I saw him at Maggie’s a few times but I really never knew him until after… after Younger was killed,” I said. I could feel the blood rising in my face. I wondered if Feiffer would interpret the word “knew” in the biblical sense. My face burned hotter. I looked down at my hands. C.C. chose that moment to announce her arrival with a plaintive meow.

  “Did you ever see him, outside of your chiropractor’s, before the day of the murder?” he asked, ignoring the cat.

  “No,” I answered, relieved to be able to use that simple word once more. C.C. rubbed up against his legs. The little traitor.

  “Just exactly what is your relationship to Mr. Caruso?” Feiffer asked.

  I swallowed a series of possible replies. “None of your business” or “that’s a good question,” among them. It was difficult to articulate a coherent answer. I found a littl
e smile forming on my face as I remembered Wayne’s fumbling approach and my equally fumbling response. How to explain? I looked up and saw that Feiffer was not smiling. His look was the look of an angry father who discovers his daughter has done something very foolish. I wondered if he was really angry, or if that look was just one in his repertoire of looks to unnerve reluctant witnesses.

  “We’ve gone out a couple of times,” I mumbled. C.C. tentatively clawed one of Feiffer’s pants legs. I looked at her with new fondness.

  “In less than a week?” he asked. His tone was incredulous He continued to ignore C.C., who clawed more and more enthusiastically.

  “Yes,” I answered sullenly. How easily I had slipped into the role of teenage daughter.

  Having established the fact that I was foolish enough to have communicated with Wayne, Feiffer asked me a series of questions. Had Mr. Caruso and I discussed the murder? Was I aware of any financial problems on his part? Did I know if he had been angry with his employer, Scott Younger? Or if he and his employer had been lovers? Just what was their relationship, anyway?

  A quick summary of my various mumbled answers might have been “no comment” or “Jeez, I don’t know.” And I wasn’t just feigning ignorance. I still couldn’t understand, much less explain, Wayne’s connection with Scott. I was toying with the idea of telling Sergeant Feiffer about the boss. But how could I put him in a more receptive state of mind?

  “Ms. Jasper,” Feiffer said in a softer voice, “I know you, and I know it might be useless, but I’ve got to warn you.” He paused and looked at me, concern in his eyes. “Ouch, goddammit!” he bellowed, and exploded out of his chair.

  I jumped in my seat, on the alert. Was this a new interrogation technique? Then I followed Feiffer’s angry gaze down his body to C.C., who sat nonchalantly licking her paw. Feiffer’s grey pants leg was newly frayed. He reached down and gingerly touched his leg.

  “The little bugger drew blood,” he said, licking his finger in awe.

  C.C. turned to me, her eyes squinting smugly, drew herself to her feet majestically and strode out of the room, tail high. I resisted applauding, but was not quick enough to erase the grin that appeared on my face.

  “Can I get you a Band-Aid?” I asked meekly. “Some alcohol?”

  “No,” he snapped. But his subsequent recovery of composure was admirable. He relaxed his posture and his tone. “No thank you,” he corrected himself and flashed a sickly grin. “It’s not going to do any good to tell you to be careful, is it?”

  I shook my head in confirmation, relieved at his return to reason.

  He walked toward the door. “Tell your cat I won’t arrest her this time…” he began. I laughed. “And I hope you enjoy talking to Sergeant Udel,” he finished. My laughter died in the air.

  For some time after Sergeant Feiffer left I sat paralyzed with dread. But not for too long. The dread eventually turned to anger. Anger toward a predisposed police force focusing on only one suspect. This anger slowly burned my doubts about Wayne down to a thin layer of ash. And with the anger came the adrenalin-fueled determination to find out who had killed Scott Younger. But I needed information. Felix, I thought. A reporter would know everyone’s background. I reset my answering machine, said goodbye to C.C., and was out the door.

  Felix lived and worked out of an apartment in downtown Mill Valley. He paid for the address. That same small apartment would have gone for six hundred a month in Novato. It was nine hundred in Mill Valley. But he could walk to the local bookstore/ cafe in the morning for a cup of literary espresso and pastry, and to the health food store in the afternoon for his penance of wheatgrass juice. I parked my car down the hill from his apartment and wondered if I had come too early to find him back from breakfast. It was a few minutes past ten o’clock. Downtown Mill Valley was just awakening.

  I was relieved to hear the whine of the Rolling Stones coming from his door as I hurried up the stairs. Felix was in. I rang his doorbell.

  “Howdy, hi,” he greeted my hurtling backside as I shot through his doorway into the living room. I wasn’t giving him a chance to challenge my arrival.

  He shrugged his shoulders, took my coat and threw it over the six-foot inflated Godzilla that guarded the entryway. Then he followed me into his living room. It was decorated in neon. A hot-pink neon flamingo dominated one wall, a lime-green neon palm tree another, and over the mantelpiece the five letters of Felix’s name glowed in electric blue. I flopped down on the turquoise futon that served as his couch, ignoring both the blinking word processor that signaled his work in progress and the overflowing laundry basket that sat in the middle of the floor.

  “What happened to your hair?” he yelled over the Stones.

  “Is it that bad?” I yelled back, my hand involuntarily reaching up to my shorn skull.

  “No, not really,” he shouted. He fiddled with a knob, mercifully reducing Mick Jagger’s shrieks to whispers. “Actually, it’s pretty punk,” he continued at normal volume. “If Barbara was here she’d show you how to spike it.” I saw a twitch of a smile underneath his shaggy mustache. I took my hand away from my hair. If he was teasing, I didn’t have time to play. I had a mission.

  “Sit down,” I ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He saluted and dropped his wiry body to the floor by the laundry basket. “Mind if I sort my laundry?” he asked and simultaneously upended the basket. A small brightly colored mountain of cloth appeared.

  “The police are harassing me about Wayne,” I ventured. The twinkle went out of Felix’s brown eyes. He looked serious and uncomfortable. “He didn’t do it,” I said. My anger kept my belief strong.

  “Kate, he probably did—” he began softly.

  “No, you’re wrong! There are things going on the police don’t even know about.” I told him the story of Scott’s blackmailing the boss and about my encounter with the men in the Reagan masks. When I had finished, Felix sat without moving, an unfolded purple washcloth in his hand.

  “Has it occurred to you that Wayne might have made up that story?”

  My head jerked back as I sucked in my breath. How could Felix ask that question? But, unbidden, my mind sought to answer. Because it hadn’t ever occurred to me.

  “But the Reagans,” I objected. “They were real. I have the bruises to prove it.”

  “And what did they say exactly? A lot of vague threats about some pictures. Wayne is the one who told you a story to fit the facts.”

  I ran back in my mind to Sunday morning. “They knew who Scott Younger was,” I said triumphantly. “They even wanted me to find out who killed him.”

  “How do you know these guys weren’t actors? Maybe Wayne hired them.” Felix was still holding the washcloth and watching me sadly.

  My mind came back to center after this last scenario. Wayne wouldn’t hire actors to frighten me, and then advise me to keep it from the police. I took a deep breath. Felix was just wrong. But if Felix reacted this way to the story, I was just as glad I hadn’t told Sergeant Feiffer. Wayne was right. The police wouldn’t have believed us.

  “All right,” I said. “You think Wayne is guilty. I don’t. Someone else did it and I want to find out who that someone was. Will you just pretend for a while that you have an open mind, and tell me what you know about the other suspects?”

  He hesitated.

  “I’ll help you fold laundry,” I said.

  “How about an interview with Wayne?” he asked.

  “I can’t promise that. I told him you were interested. Maybe, if you and I break the case…” I let my sentence trail off in a tantalizing whisper.

  “I give,” he answered finally. He stood, scooped up half the pile of laundry and dumped it in my lap. “What do you want to know?”

  “I realize it’s not likely,” I began, in order to forestall objection, “but I’d like to rule out any of these people as being the boss or one of his kids. And for that I need background.” I picked out a Betty Boop towel and folded it carefully. “Parent
s especially. Do you have that kind of background on these folks?”

  “Hang on a second,” he said. He went over to a black file cabinet next to his computer and rummaged through it. I folded some washcloths and admired Felix’s shorts. No plain white Jockey for him. I made a pile of skimpy red and white stripes, turquoise polka dots and black silk bikinis. I wondered if Barbara had picked them out. Felix came back with a thick manila file. He blushed and turned his head when he saw his neatly piled underwear.

  “I’ve got a little background on everyone. Just in case,” he said. He sat back down on the floor.

  “Just in case what?” I asked.

  “Well, let’s say the police arrest one of these guys today. I’ve already got his background story ready to go. Or, say one of them is a second victim. The same goes.”

  A second victim? I shuddered.

  “What do you have on Eileen?” I asked. I still hoped she might turn out to be the boss’s daughter.

  “Eileen,” he repeated, rifling through the papers. “Here it is. Eileen Garza, thirty-four years old, parents: Felipe and Delores Garza. She was crowned Football Queen at Cal State Hayward in seventy-five. Her parents own a nursery in San Rafael.”

  “A nursery!” I threw down a sock in disappointment.

  “Yeah, plants. Felipe did gardening for twenty years, his wife did the bookkeeping. Saved enough to buy a nursery six years ago. An American success story.”

  “How do you find these things out?”

  “From the publicity blurb when they opened the nursery. Hey, here’s something interesting. She has the same address as Maggie Lambrecht.”

  “I knew that already,” I said. “They’re…” I trailed off. Should I offer the private facts of Eileen and Maggie’s relationship to a reporter?

  “Lovers,” Felix completed my sentence for me. His voice was filled with annoyance. “Thanks for the information. Anything else you’re holding out on me?”

  “Well, Ted has a much younger wife, Bonnie,” I offered.

  “Ted,” he mumbled, back to his file. “Ted Reisner. Sixty-nine years old. Married to Bonnie Harris, never changed her maiden name, twenty-nine,” he rattled off. “That is pretty young for the old boy.”