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

hide, the three women left together, talking about him. At least it looked like they’d made friends, and Van had lost some of his “women problems.”
    Mike had a field day then, imitating the women. The Kimmochi girls were doubled over with laughter. Even Isaac put his arm around Mike affectionately.
    “Way to go, Van,” Isaac congratulated our resident amorist. Then he stopped smiling for a moment. “Hey, are we really going to ferret out who killed Steve?”
    “How about divulging your secret?” I asked. “That would help clear the air.”
    Helen Herrick grinned. Whether it was at Isaac or with him was hard to tell. Helen was generally as quiet and polite as Isaac was loud and rude.
    “Moi, a secret?” Isaac answered in a falsetto. “Me, an author, the world’s expert on dyslexia?”
    “This is no joke,” Laura Summers reminded us. She was right.
    Everyone shut up then, even Mike and the kids in the background. The younger generation were huddled by the window now.
    “My husband is dead,” Laura reminded us, just in case we didn’t feel bad enough. “I want to know everything that was said at that group.”
    Ted argued for confidentiality. Carl looked worried. Van took a convenient trip to the restroom.
    Laura turned to Carl Russo. “Carl, is it your son?” she asked gently and slowly.
    Carl nodded reluctantly.
    “Carl, you’re doing the right thing,” she assured him. “Nothing your son has done could have had anything to do with Steve’s murder. I’m not even convinced that anyone in this group had anything to do with his death.” Her expression was bleak, for all the confidence of her words.
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Summers,” Mike said and then began nervously juggling some heavy bronze candlesticks he’d picked up from the mantel. I wondered how much the candlesticks cost. Not that they looked breakable.
    “Mo-om!” Zora called out, but Janet wasn’t even looking at Mike. She was looking at Laura.
    “She’s right,” Isaac assured Carl. “Prig that Steve was, he would never have written about Mike.”
    “Yeah,” Janet put in. “Steve always was a little repressed, huh? I wonder…”
    Wayne glanced at Laura, whose back was stiffening. Time for a distraction?
    “No one should be forced to tell their secrets,” Wayne interrupted.
    “The real question,” I followed up quickly, “is whether there was anything said at the meeting that might have been cause for murder.”
    There was a long silence after that. How could we know what was important and what wasn’t? Finally, Ted broke the silence.
    “Let’s take that as a no,” he suggested. “Let’s move on to the potluck.”
    “Are you forgetting Laura?” Garrett asked and walked over to put his arm around the woman whose husband had been killed.
    Laura sank back into the support his arm gave her. Slowly, each of us offered our awkward condolences.
    “You ought to read a good novel,” Janet told Laura when her turn came. I flinched. Did she have any idea how she sounded? Obviously not. “That’ll take you out of your funk. It always works for me.”
    “I don’t have time for fiction,” Laura replied, her cheeks reddening.
    “Hey,” Ted said to Wayne. “You and Kate have solved these things before. Why don’t you give it a try?”
    A chorus of voices, including Carl’s and Helen’s and Jerry’s, seconded the motion.
    “Well,” Wayne temporized, his pocked skin pinkening.
    “We can only try,” I put in.
    “Maybe it’s not fair to put Kate and Wayne in exclusive danger,” Garrett argued. “This should be a group effort.”
    Everyone squirmed then. From guilt? Or from fear?
    “Or perhaps the police would be the best in any case,” Laura murmured reasonably.
    Garrett opened his mouth to add more, and then the room was immobilized by the sound of shattering glass.
    “Mo-om!” Niki squealed.
    And then all hell broke loose.
     
     
    - Eight -
     
    I thought terrorism as I heard the shattering glass. Van Eisner