A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) by Jaqueline Girdner Page A

now. Carl’s fleshy features reddened.
    “How about claiming authorship of things you don’t really write?” Carl put in, obviously angry.
    Isaac just laughed again. His laugh had a braying quality that wasn’t fun. Or funny.
    “That can’t be proved in court, unlike some of our secrets,” Isaac stated, and there was a warning in his voice.
    Carl turned his head away, the muscles in his arms and back bunching up under his coat.
    “Enough, Isaac,” Helen Herrick snapped. She slapped her husband on his shoulder, and it wasn’t a light slap. “You think you’re just teasing, but these are people’s lives you’re playing with. And a man’s been killed.”
    “Okay, my sweet,” Isaac answered, apparently unfazed by either his wife’s tone or slap. No wonder she was divorcing him. Then he bent over and kissed Helen on her cheek and, amazingly, she smiled back at him. They really loved each other, I realized with a jolt.
    “Okay, my sweet,” Mike Russo imitated.
    Niki and Zora giggled, and I wondered if the children should be in the room at all. This was too heavy. Carl turned on Mike and shook his finger.
    “Stop it, Mike,” he growled. “Stop it now.”
    Mike stopped it. And Garrett started up again.
    “Listen, we need to talk about these issues seriously,” he put in. “Maybe even share our secrets with everyone.”
    “Like my meditating and thinking about chocolate,” Ted jumped in quickly. That was a pretty good preemptive strike from a depressed man, I thought, because no one else jumped in and mentioned his affair.
    “What else?” Janet brayed. “What?”
    Ted looked at her nervously, but she was obviously addressing the other group members.
    Van said he had trouble with women, passing up the opportunity to talk about his drug use. He must have been taking a cue from Ted.
    Garrett was telling us about the suicide he didn’t prevent when the doorbell rang.
    Janet marched to the door impatiently and flung it open. Two young women were standing there, one blond and tall, one short and Hispanic.
    “I’m a friend of Van’s,” the two women said simultaneously. Then they whipped their heads around to stare at each other.
    “You invited them both?” Isaac murmured incredulously.
    He shook his head, but there was an admiring glint in his eye.
    “No,” Van whispered. “I just told them where I’d be. Jeez, I never expected—” He stopped. The two women were advancing on him in tandem.
    “Listen, Claire, Suzi,” he said, a broad smile on his weasely face. “This is a private meeting. I—”
    “Who’s she?” the Hispanic woman said, pointing at the blond.
    “Who’s she?” the blond pointed back.
    “Look, we’re all friends, okay?” Van tried. It was amazing that he could smile at a time like this, but he did. It must have hurt.
    “Has he been dating you?” the blond asked. “Dating” sounded like a euphemism to me, but I kept my mouth shut.
    “Yeah,” the other woman answered. “Has he been dating you, too?”
    “Yeah,” the first woman snarled. It was a scary sound.
    Both women put their hands on their hips. The doorbell rang again.
    “Ted, you get it,” Janet ordered.
    Ted opened the door and a third woman entered, this one a dark, statuesque beauty. You know how they say some women are beautiful when they’re angry? Well, she was.
    “Van Eisner,” she accused. “I followed you here and then I saw these two.” She pointed at the first two women.
    “But you weren’t supposed to come,” Van whispered desperately. He began walking backward and tripped over a low couch. No one came to his aid.
    The blond woman asked, “Are you with Van, too?”
    “Not anymore,” the dark beauty answered. “He’s pond scum!”
    “An earthworm,” the Hispanic woman agreed.
    “Dog dirt,” the blond put in. “And I say we just leave.”
    “Yeah!” the other two women answered.
    “Wanna go for a drink?” one of them asked the others.
    And before Van even had a chance to