Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series) Read online

  MURDER AMONG FRIENDS

  A Kate Austen Mystery

  By

  Jonnie Jacobs

  Copyright print edition 1995, digital edition 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Author’s Note on Digital Edition –

  This is a story about murder, romance, personal secrets (and, hopefully, humor). These things don’t change much over time. But technology does. This story takes place before the widespread use of cell phones, computers, DVDs, digital cameras and other modern day conveniences we now take for granted. In going over this manuscript to ready it for digital formatting, I was surprised to find how much these things had changed. I hope none of this diminishes your enjoyment of the book.

  Chapter 1

  Mixing business and friendship is always something of an iffy proposition, even when you expect things to go smoothly. I had no such expectation where Mona Sterling was concerned. Not that Mona wasn’t wonderfully sincere and warm-hearted, because she was, in spades. But she was also opinionated, self-centered, and sometimes downright insensitive.

  Although Mona and I had been drawn together initially by the bond of divorce, we’d soon moved beyond discussion of marital termination agreements and child support guidelines to more cheery subjects such as dieting, age lines, and PMS. Whatever the subject, Mona would invariably carry on at length and with mind-numbing conviction. As fond as I was of the woman, I sometimes found her a daunting companion.

  When she’d called and insisted we simply had to meet that Monday, which happened also to be a holiday at my daughter’s school, and then announced that she was available only between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., I’d managed to shrug off my initial irritation. After all, I’d known that working for Mona was going to tax my patience. I was hoping it would also bring me a slew of flush new clients. Mona was, among other things, well connected with the moneyed elite of Walnut Hills—and as a fledgling entrepreneur, I needed all the help I could get.

  I reminded myself of this as I stood at Mona’s massive front door and rang the bell. A sharp, wet, February wind whipped strands of hair across my face and tunneled down the neck of my old raincoat. After seven years of drought, El Nino or the hole in the ozone or whatever other mysterious force was responsible had finally shifted, and we were having one of the coldest, wettest winters in California history. Like cod liver oil, it might be good for us but it wasn’t pleasant.

  Shivering, I tried the bell again, poking it several times in quick succession the way my five-year-old, Anna, does when I don’t answer instantly. I waited for a minute, which is something Anna never does, then sighed, brushed the hair out of my eyes and reached into my purse for the keys Mona had given me.

  “I might be a few minutes late,” she’d told me. “Just go on in and get started. I shouldn’t be too long.” Mona was invariably late so I’d planned for the fact and arrived almost twenty minutes after the hour myself. Apparently I’d still beat her there.

  I fumbled around in my bag, stabbing my finger on one of Anna’s stray jacks before finding the keys under the phone bill I’d forgotten to mail. There were two keys. The rounded one for the top lock, the narrow one for the bottom. Or was it the other way around? I’d been dashing off to drive the afternoon carpool when Mona had gone over it, so I’d only listened with half an ear.

  I tried the narrow key in the bottom lock. Wonder of wonders, it worked. I stuck the other in the top lock, preparing to turn it with my left hand while using my right to depress the latch, the way Mona had showed me. But the door opened immediately. All those instructions and she hadn’t even bothered with the dead-bolt after all!

  I pushed open the door and called out in case she simply hadn’t heard the bell. No answer. No sound of running water or footsteps either. Propping the door open with my purse (Mona had warned me that it locked automatically when shut), I went back to the car to retrieve the lithographs, which were the primary reason for my being there that morning. I’m an art consultant, a business I’d sort of back-stepped into when Andy and I separated and a friend offered me a job in her gallery. I’m an artist, too, but that’s an endeavor which provides more pleasure than profit. Not that I make such a killing from my consulting business. I’m counting on the fact that things will pick up over time.

  I had two pieces with me that morning. One was a monochromatic abstract which Mona had purchased, with my help, several weeks earlier. It was back now from the framers and ready to be hung. The other was something I’d stumbled across at a new gallery in Berkeley. I was pretty sure Mona would like it, but I didn’t know if the colors were right for the room.

  The pictures were large (which is what Mona wanted) and heavy (which sort of comes with the territory when you’re talking large). With the ground so damp and the wind gusting about the way it was, I decided it would be best if I carried them to the house one at a time. You drop a fifteen-hundred dollar painting and you’re liable to spend the rest of your life cursing your stupidity.

  By the time I got them both into the house and unwrapped, it was 11:40 a.m. and Mona still hadn’t shown. Grumbling, I carted the pictures into the spacious living room and propped them against the wall.

  Mona’s house is large and sprawling, unlike my own which is so cramped that people and furniture have trouble co-existing. Andy and I had planned to add on, but we’d never managed to save enough money to do more than dream. Now, with the impending divorce, money was even tighter. It wasn’t that Andy was being nasty about it. Bottom line is, he’s a pretty decent guy. Unfortunately, he’s also unreliable as all get out and practically penniless.

  The financial fallout from Mona’s divorce was different. Her husband was a first-class sleaze, but a rich one. Although he’d fought her tooth and nail over everything from the country club membership to the leftover Christmas wrap, Mona had wound up with a more than satisfactory settlement. She got the house and a sizable portion of their assets, while Gary got the furniture, Persian carpets, and china, all of which he was eager to install in the even bigger house he and his wife-to-be were building on the edge of town.

  I’d only seen Mona’s house once in its former, sumptuous state. It had been decorated to the nines with massive and, to my taste, overly ornate antiques. Impressive certainly, in a formal, heavy-handed way, but not the sort of place where you’d want to kick off your shoes and stretch out. At that time the walls had been adorned with gold framed hunting scenes and pseudo Rembrandts. In forging her life anew, Mona had gone from one extreme to another. She was now into serious minimalism. The walls were white, the floors and windows bare, the furnishings sparse. Libby’s was the only room that actually looked inhabited. And it was a mess. Exactly what you’d expect from the teenage daughter of a woman who’d elevated empty space to new heights.

  I checked my watch again, then stood back against the fireplace to get a feeling for the two pictures together. I liked the effect, though of course Mona would have the final say. If she ever got there. I couldn’t imagine what was keeping her. Or why she didn’t at least call.

  Damn her anyway, I thought. I’d arranged my whole morning around her schedule. Mentally giving her the what-for, I stomped off into the kitchen, newly refurbished in white and chrome, and put on a kettle of water for coffee. Mona had told me she had something to discuss, and with Mona this meant coffee. It would speed up the process considerably if the coffee was ready when she was.

  And that would have to be soon or we’d never get t
o the conversation part of the visit, which seemed, from Mona’s tone, rather pressing. She wasn’t the only one with an afternoon commitment. I had a one o’clock meeting, a final planning session for the upcoming school auction, and I’d promised Sharon I’d stop by the bakery on my way over. God forbid we should have to do all that planning without the benefit of oatmeal bars and brownies.

  The water began to boil. I measured the coffee and then pulled down the cups, taking care not to knock against the two crystal tumblers sitting next to the sink. They hadn’t been emptied completely, and had that heavy, boozy odor you never notice until the morning after. I dumped the contents, then rinsed them carefully. While I was at it, I dumped the ashtray, as well. Company and a late night, I thought, maybe that explained it. Mona had probably slept through her alarm this morning and had been running late ever since.

  If that was the case, though, she probably hadn’t had time to pull together the samples I’d asked for. We were looking for a large, horizontal piece to hang above the couch in the den. I wanted to measure the space and maybe take one of the throw pillows to use in matching colors. I poured the water through the coffee, and then while it dripped, went to the den to gather what I’d need.

  The smell was what I noticed first, even before I reached the den. An indistinct, slightly rank odor, like rotting leaves or a garbage disposal that hasn’t been run through. Inside the room it was stronger and more fetid. I gagged slightly, thought about opening a window, then decided against it. Mona was not the fresh air freak I was.

  I was halfway to the sofa before I noticed a shape mounded at one end, and even closer before it hit me.

  The shape was Mona.

  She was slouched against the back cushion, sweat pants twisted around her outstretched legs, one arm flung out to the side, the other draped across her chest. Her tee shirt had ridden up, exposing a band of bare skin across her middle — skin that seemed oddly tight and waxy. Her head had rolled back so that she was facing the ceiling, her expression frozen and masklike.

  I closed die distance between us in a flash, grabbed her arm and felt for a pulse. The flesh my fingers touched was cold. Clammy and lifeless, as I’d known it would be. The prescription bottle and half-empty fifth of scotch on the table left little room for doubt.

  “Mona. My God, Mona. Why?” My mouth was too dry to actually form the words, but inside my head someone was shrieking, and sobbing her name over and over again.

  I stumbled back to the kitchen where I called the paramedics, although I knew there was nothing they could do. Then I hung up and placed a second call to Lieutenant Michael Stone.

  Chapter 2

  The paramedics arrived first. A dark-haired man with a sizable beer gut and a lanky, freckle-faced woman. Neither of them looked a day over twenty. They moved briskly and efficiently, communicating with each other in a sort of verbal shorthand. I huddled in the kitchen, trying hard to distance myself from the unfamiliar thumping and rustling of their movements, and the sharp, staccato rhythm of their dialogue. After an initial flurry of activity, everything was quiet. Several moments later, the woman joined me in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do at this point.”

  I nodded numbly. I hadn’t expected it to be otherwise.

  “She a relative?”

  “A friend.”

  “The police should be here any minute. And someone from the coroner’s office.”

  I nodded again. The words floated past like skywriting blurred by the winds. I understood but I didn’t. How could Mona be dead?

  Two uniformed cops arrived a few minutes later, followed soon after by Michael.

  Lieutenant Michael Stone, whose taut, lean body had left my bed not more than seven hours earlier, sliding into the frigid morning darkness before Anna awoke. He and I are, as they say, “involved,” although we’re having a little trouble figuring out what, exactly, we’re involved in.

  I met him in the hallway. “What took you so long?” The words, which were not at all the ones I’d intended, squeaked out, jerky and uneven.

  Michael ignored my question and put an arm around me instead. “You okay, Kate?”

  “Yes, I think so.” My throat constricted and my stomach did a funny little two-step. “No, maybe not.” I rested my forehead against his chest and took a deep breath. “All of the above, I guess.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I was supposed to meet Mona here at eleven. I brought pictures for the living room. We were going to start on the other rooms, too. She’d given me a key because she knew she might be a few minutes late.” I paused for another breath. “I went into the den to get a couple of pillows to take with me—fabric samples for matching colors—and that’s when I... when I found her.”

  “She was already dead?”

  I nodded, feeling again the unyielding stiffness of her flesh under my fingertips. I shivered.

  “How well did you know her?”

  “She was a friend as well as a client, but I didn’t know her all that well. She was more Sharon Covington’s friend really. That’s how I met her in the first place. The two of them go way back.” Poor Sharon. I hadn’t thought about that part of it. Mona’s death was going to hit her hard.

  Just then a uniformed officer appeared in the doorway. “Hey, lieutenant, what are you doing here?”

  “You can relax Jerry, it’s unofficial.”

  Jerry Watkins, fair-haired and baby-faced, was the sort of young man who’d look more at home in a football jersey than a police uniform. But since he was the captain’s favorite nephew, he’d probably never been given the choice.

  He frowned for just a moment, then shrugged. “Since you’re already here,” Jerry said, “you might as well have a look. I’d have probably called you anyway. Better make it fast though. The guy from the coroner’s office is anxious to get the body moved.”

  The body. Mona Sterling, the body.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Michael said to me, then paused at the doorway to catch my eye.

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I replied, as much to reassure myself as him.

  He headed off to the back of the house. I opened the outside kitchen door for a breath of air. A fine, gray drizzle had begun falling. I wondered if the body would get wet on the way to the coroner’s van. I wondered if it mattered.

  Suddenly, I was gripped by a numbing cold that had nothing to do with temperature. To take your own life like that, to make that final irreversible decision. What terrible sadness, what unbearable dread would lead a person to do such a thing? And why hadn’t any of us seen it coming?

  I went back inside and found the female paramedic. “You think it would be okay if I used the phone?” I asked.

  “Sure, I don’t see why not.”

  It was clear I wasn’t going to be stopping by the bakery on my way to the auction meeting. Assuming I made it at all. Telling Sharon that part would be the easy part. Telling her about Mona was going to be much harder.

  Had it not been for Anna, I might well have put off making the call altogether. When it comes to things that make me uncomfortable, I’m a skilled procrastinator. But I’d farmed Anna out with Sharon that morning, and I had a sudden, irrational urge to make sure she was okay. News of even distant misfortune sends my maternal worry meter into high gear. Finding a corpse had sent it clear into overdrive.

  I’d intended to break the news to Sharon gently (however one does that), but instead, I blurted it out the moment she picked up the phone.

  “Dead?” Sharon said. Even though it was a one syllable word, her voice broke in the middle. “How could Mona be dead?”

  I told her what I knew, which answered neither her question or the more troubling “Why?” We went back and forth for five minutes of “I can’t believe it,” and then there was a long silence.

  “I guess I’d better call everyone and cancel the meeting,” Sharon said f
inally.

  I mumbled agreement. “I’ll come get Anna as soon as I can. She’s doing okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  We went through a second round of “I can’t believe Mona’s really dead,” then I let Sharon go so she could call the others. I tried to stand, but my legs refused to cooperate, so I sat by the phone and stared blankly at the remnants of Mona’s life spread out across her kitchen desk. A stack of bills, a grocery list scratched on stationery from The Timbercreek Lodge in Mendocino, a flyer from a window-cleaning service, a student essay entitled, rather unimaginatively, Assignment #12, by Eve Fisher. Mona taught English at the local community college, although she was quick to point out that “teach” was a somewhat misleading term for what actually took place.

  In an effort to shut out the demons, I picked up the paper, which was typed with so many strikethroughs it looked at first glance like something written in Sanskrit, and started to read.

  When the winter winds blow harsh and cold, she thinks of snuggling by the fire with Madelaine. And dies a little more inside. When the summer sun is bright and warm, she thinks of wading in the creek with Madelaine. And dies a little more inside. Washing her face at dawn and the dishes at night, in the dentist’s chair and the grocery line, the memories spring forth with a life of their own. The void is so great. . .

  At that point I stopped really reading and skimmed the rest of the page. It seemed to be about the memory of a child, though whether the child was dead, grown, a figment of the author’s imagination, or simply indifferent to her mother, was hard to say. Even I could tell that it was poorly written. Awkward and mawkish, the kind of thing that Mona would have hated. Given my present state though, the sentiment struck a chord. I felt a lump forming in my throat

  Michael reappeared just then, saving me from my own dark thoughts. “You doing okay?” he asked.