Fat-Free and Fatal (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Read online

  “And Meg’s artwork is so neat…” Alice was saying.

  “Bad vibes, huh?” Barbara whispered out of the side of her mouth. I nodded fervently.

  “You wouldn’t believe what Meg can do with tofu…” Alice continued.

  Well at least I wasn’t at home, hanging out with Vesta, I told myself. Nothing could be worse than that.

  Then Leo and his friend Ken joined us.

  “Haven’t I met you somewhere before?” Leo asked Meg.

  Meg gazed at him, her sea-green eyes wide with bewilderment.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered softly. Then she dropped her gaze and went back to sniffling.

  I was better off with my original group. I turned back to Paula, Gary, and Iris with new appreciation. Paula was listening to Iris with apparent interest now, though Gary’s eyes were half closed as he stood behind her.

  “Some of the most interesting people are vegetarians,” Iris told us. “Carlos Santana, dear Carlos, such a really nice man. Do you know him? And Dennis Weaver, Dick Gregory. And historically, of course, George Bernard Shaw, Ralph Waldo Emerson—”

  “Hitler was a vegetarian, too,” came a loud voice from down the dark hallway that led to the kitchen and rest rooms.

  It took a few more seconds for the woman who was attached to that voice to emerge into the light. But when she did, it was worth the wait. She was tall and slender with long, blow-dried hair, heavy eye makeup and large, round breasts prominently displayed in a tight red-and-white striped top. The rest of her outfit consisted of a pair of red short-shorts and spike heels. Suddenly, I was feeling okay about my T-shirt.

  The two separate social groups that had formed earlier congealed into one as everyone turned toward the newcomer.

  “Sheila…” said Alice. She stared at the woman, presumably Sheila, without finishing her introduction, her mischievous eyes subdued now.

  Leo recovered first. He stroked his beard, eyed Sheila appraisingly and said, “Say, honey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Well, I certainly don’t know you,” Sheila snapped. She crossed her arms under her large breasts and squinted her black-rimmed eyes. “But I’ll bet I know your sign. You’ve just gotta be a Sagittarius.”

  Her tone gave me the feeling this wasn’t a compliment. Leo must have felt it too. His face was red above his beard as he turned away.

  Iris recovered next.

  “I don’t believe Hitler was really a vegetarian,” she objected, her musical voice cracking on a high note.

  “Fine, believe what you want to,” answered Sheila, shrugging her shoulders. “So, Alice, introduce me,” she ordered.

  Alice didn’t look enthusiastic anymore as she dutifully introduced the woman to each of us. Her name was Sheila Snyder. She and her husband owned the Good Thyme Cafe. Sheila’s eyes stopped and fastened themselves on Gary Powell before the introductions were even finished. In her high spike heels, she was eye level with the tall black man.

  “I’ll bet you’re a Gemini,” she said to him. Her voice was low and intimate, but still quite audible. “You remind me of an old friend who was Gemini. Very mental.” She ran her gaze down his body. “What’s that you have in your hand?” she asked him.

  “A crystal,” he muttered, then added more clearly, “This is my wife, Paula.”

  Alice straightened her plump shoulders and jumped into the fray.

  “Meg and I certainly enjoyed visiting you and the kids yesterday.” she said to Sheila with forced friendliness. “Though I was sorry to miss Dan. How’s he doing?”

  “Oh, Dan’s fine,” Sheila said. “Getting fat, though.”

  The blush that rose slowly up Alice’s neck and into her heart-shaped face matched her magenta pantsuit perfectly.

  “Of course, I never gain any weight,” Sheila went on. “I eat ice cream, butter, cheese, the whole bit. But I’ve just got one of those bodies.”

  I sighed. She certainly did.

  “But those are dairy products,” announced a shrill voice from behind me. It was the young man in the pinstripe suit, the friend of Leo’s. What was his name?

  “Ken,” Barbara whispered in my ear. Psychic friends are useful that way.

  “There are all kinds of poisons in dairy products,” he told her, his eyes earnest behind thick glasses. “The antibiotics they put in milk, for instance, can give an allergic person hives, headaches—”

  “Well, I don’t have any hives or headaches—” Sheila interrupted impatiently.

  “But growth hormones—” Ken insisted.

  “Oh, please,” Sheila groaned. “I don’t want to hear about growth hormones.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know why I came tonight. I certainly don’t need a cooking class. I’ve done the cooking here at the Good Thyme since we opened.”

  I felt a nudge from Barbara and stifled a snort of laughter. So this was the woman responsible for the two wretched meals I had eaten here. I saw two little girls emerge from the dark hallway behind Sheila. Were these her kids?

  “But when Alice asked to use the place, I thought, why not?” Sheila continued. “Dan is out with his friend Zach tonight, anyway, so—”

  “Mom, we’re hungry, can we have the leftovers in the fridge?” interrupted the taller of the two little girls.

  Sheila jumped, startled. Then her face darkened. She whirled around and slapped the girl across the face.

  The girl stumbled to one side, then regained her footing.

  “What are you, stupid?” Sheila shouted at her.

  TWO

  THE SOUND OF the slap still reverberated in my mind as Sheila berated the little girl. I could almost feel its sting.

  “Goddammit, Topaz! Why do you sneak up on me like that?” Sheila demanded.

  The girl was still now, frozen. Her face was splotched with red where she had been struck. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but her eyes were already dead. There was no feeling visible in them, except for the long-suffering vacancy of an old woman. Her arms were alive, though. They lifted hands bunched into fists, then dropped them, then lifted and dropped them again, and again, in a slow, rhythmic cycle. A shiver prickled the skin on my own arms into goose flesh.

  “Look, I’ll be up in a minute,” promised Sheila, her tone more placatory than angry now. As she let out a long sigh, she seemed to diminish in size. Even her prominent breasts sagged into insignificance. “Okay?” she asked softly.

  The girl muttered, “Yes, Mom,” and turned to make her way back down the darkened hallway. The smaller girl stared at Sheila with round eyes for a moment, then turned and raced after her sister.

  It was only after the children were gone that I remembered the rest of the audience to this family drama. I sneaked a peek at the faces around me as I struggled with my own churning feelings. Each face bore the imprint of what we had witnessed, some more starkly than others. Barbara’s and Paula’s faces were tight with rage. Even Meg’s wide eyes were narrowed fiercely in her pale face. And Iris—

  “Hey!” Barbara barked. “You don’t need to hit a kid to get her attention.”

  “So, what’s it to you?” Sheila shot back defiantly. She glared at Barbara for a moment, then drew herself up to her full height, turned on her red spike heels and clattered back down the hallway.

  As I let out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding, I heard one or two others echoing my relief. Then I heard a nervous giggle. I turned and caught Ken in the act, giggling behind his hand. Paula and Barbara were still glaring, but everyone else had pasted their social faces back on.

  “Is it time to start yet?” Meg asked Alice softly.

  Alice looked at her watch. “It’s time,” she confirmed, her plump, heart-shaped face smiling again.

  Meg gave out a miserable sniffle and murmured something about getting it over with.

  Alice patted Meg’s arm and took charge. Switching on the hallway light, a single bare bulb that couldn’t have been more than forty watts, she led the group forwa
rd, pointing like a tour guide to the rest rooms and pantry on the left, the kitchen on the right and the stairway at the end of the hall that led to the Snyders’ flat.

  The kitchen, behind swinging doors, was better lighted than the hallway. And very well outfitted. Someone had put some money into this kitchen. Too bad they hadn’t put the money into a better cook.

  I saw at least a dozen burners on the waist-high stoves, with ovens underneath and cabinets above that stored bottles, canisters and shakers. Stainless steel sinks gleamed under shelves of dishes, pots and pans. A bank of refrigerators and another row of shelves filled the far wall. In the center of the room a twelve-by-four butcher-block table sat with some dining room chairs scattered haphazardly around it. And just past the end of the table stood a ratty-looking podium and a large pad of paper on an easel.

  “So, take a seat, everyone,” Alice ordered cheerfully, waving her arms.

  I took a chair and found that the table was chest-high once I was seated. I looked around as the others sat down. The butcher block was obviously meant for standing and cutting, not for sitting. Even Gary, the tallest of our bunch, looked like a kid at the grownups’ table as he sat next to his even shorter wife, Paula.

  Alice’s smile faded as she joined us at the table. Had she only now realized the inadequacy of the seating arrangements? People began pulling out notebooks, and I realized the inadequacy of my note-taking arrangements. Leo and I were the only ones who hadn’t brought anything to write on.

  Meg closed her eyes for a moment, then straightened her back and strode up to the podium. As she turned to face us, I saw new color in her pale cheeks. Between the color and the improved posture, Meg managed to look elegant in her baggy pants and white blouse instead of too thin.

  “Thank you all for coming this evening,” she began, her voice crisp and clear now. “Tonight we’ll talk about the basics of vegan cooking. As you may know, a vegan diet is one without any animal products, be it meat, dairy, fowl or fish…”

  I was impressed with Meg’s delivery. When she was on, she was on. Maybe the class wouldn’t be a total fiasco, after all.

  “There are numerous advantages to the vegan diet,” she went on. “It is healthier, lower in cholesterol—”

  “And saves the lives of innocent animals,” Paula Pierce pointed out. I groaned inwardly, hoping that Paula wasn’t planning to go into details.

  “You don’t have to worry about growth hormones or antibiotics either,” added Ken. “But then with vegetables and grains, there’s always the risk of pesticides—”

  “We will talk about those risks later,” Meg interrupted briskly.

  All right, Meg! I cheered silently.

  “Tonight, I’d like to start with some of the staples of a vegan pantry,” she told us, turning to the pad of paper on her easel. As she spoke, she wrote in a graceful cursive hand. “Grains, legumes, soyfoods and vegetables—”

  “Say, how about a drink while we listen?” Leo suggested. He stroked his pointed beard thoughtfully. “There’s gotta be some wine, or something, somewhere in this joint.”

  Iris shook her head and clicked her tongue. I thought I heard her murmur “such a shame.” She probably still hadn’t forgiven him for wearing the beige linen suit.

  “I’m sure you can get a glass of water from the tap,” Meg said in a voice that could have frozen the water into ice cubes.

  I tallied up another point for Meg.

  She continued uninterrupted, telling about the different kinds of vegan foods, beginning with grains and ending with sea vegetables. She showed us some of the special tools of the vegetarian cook: juicers, grinders, steamers and a cute little handheld electric appliance called a SaladShooter whose cord plugged into the wall and shredded fresh vegetables in a matter of seconds. Was this an end to scraped knuckles?

  Then came the best part. Meg passed around trays of some of the appetizers we would learn to cook, along with three pitchers of herbal iced tea.

  “Oh my, this is simply delicious,” Iris declared after tasting the lentil-walnut pâté on rye toast. “Such a deft hand with the seasoning. Is that marjoram I taste?”

  Meg nodded.

  “Mrmph,” I added in approval as I stuffed barbecue-flavored soybean riblets into my mouth. I wasn’t going to say any more than that until I got my share of all the food that was being passed around.

  Which wasn’t going to be easy. There was a stiff competition for the appetizers. Leo was loading up squares of cracked wheat bread with large portions of both hummus and herbed tofu dip.

  “Doesn’t seem right without wine,” he complained as he stuffed a chunk of dip-laden bread in his mouth. He swallowed, stroked his beard for a moment, then scraped the bowl of hummus clean with the rest of his bread.

  Paula Pierce grabbed what was left of the tofu dip before Leo could finish it, and scooped it up with the homemade sesame herb crackers she had already snagged. Barbara was gobbling curried mushrooms and eyeing the tray of Mandarin vegetable kebabs that Gary and Alice were decimating. Only Meg and Ken seemed aloof from the frenzy.

  “Are these organic?” Ken asked suspiciously as he pointed at the untouched platter of raw vegetables.

  “I always use organic foods,” Meg assured him.

  Ken took two carrot sticks and nibbled cautiously. At least he wasn’t going to eat more than his share.

  Meg continued with her lecture as the rest of us ate. It was no wonder she was so thin if she could ignore food this good. Once the food was gone, she finished up with a promise to teach us how to cook all the things we had tasted and told us it was time for a break.

  “Good, I need a drink,” boomed Leo, rising. He made a quick exit out the kitchen doorway. Ken looked back at the rest of us briefly through his thick glasses, then followed Leo out.

  As Meg walked away from the podium she closed her eyes. When she opened them again a moment later, they held her old expression of faint bewilderment. Even her body was drooping once more. Poor thing, I thought. Public speaking was bad enough, and she had spoken for close to an hour and a half.

  “I did so enjoy your lecture,” Iris told her. “You have such an imaginative touch with vegetarian foods.”

  Meg looked down at her feet and mumbled a thank-you.

  “Now, how long a break should we take?” Iris asked briskly as she stood, smoothing the wrinkles out of her pantsuit.

  Meg turned to Alice for an answer.

  “How about fifteen minutes?” Alice suggested. A smile curled the sides of her Kewpie-doll mouth. “Then I can do a quick jog around the block and burn off some of these delicious calories.”

  “Fifteen minutes sounds perfect,” Iris agreed. “The park across the street is one of the nicer ones in the area. I’ve spent many a quiet afternoon there reading. Such a peaceful atmosphere.”

  As Iris turned to go, Paula Pierce strode up and put an arm around Meg’s slumped shoulders. “You did great, honey,” she said.

  “A very well organized lecture,” Gary added from behind Paula.

  I didn’t wait for any more rave reviews. I needed some fresh air. Actually, I wanted to talk to Barbara about the evening’s events. The two of us walked out of the kitchen, back down the dimly lit hallway and through the dining room, whispering back and forth.

  “That woman ought to have her children taken away,” Barbara hissed as we emerged into the cool evening air.

  I didn’t ask who Barbara meant by “that woman.” I knew she meant Sheila Snyder. Maybe I was getting psychic too. I looked out across the street and saw Iris seated on a bench in the little park she had recommended, her silver hair shimmering in the luminous twilight as she turned a page of the book in her lap.

  “I’m going to call Social Services tomorrow,” Barbara muttered as we crossed the street.

  We sat down on the grass under an old, gnarled oak tree on the other side of the park from Iris. When I took a good look at Barbara, I saw lines of anger creasing her usually peaceful face. There was
no humor left in her eyes. They looked old without it.

  “My father used to hit me like that,” she said, and then I understood the intensity of her anger.

  “You don’t know how that can mess a kid up,” she went on. She pulled up a handful of grass and dropped it again. Her face softened into sadness. “Those poor kids. Who knows what she does to them in private.”

  She lay down full-length on the ground, her pink jumpsuit a crisp contrast to the bright green grass. “It will take them years to find their self-worth. It did me.”

  I lay down beside her and stared up at the twilit sky, waiting for more. But Barbara was quiet. Barbara was never quiet. I began to worry.

  “You came out pretty well, if you ask me,” I said softly.

  She laughed. “I put on a good show, don’t I?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I reached out and patted her hand.

  “Thanks, kiddo,” she murmured and sat up.

  I sat up too and scanned her face once more. I relaxed when I saw her eyes crinkling with their customary humor. She snaked an arm around me and squeezed my shoulders briskly.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice filled with mischief. “I could use an ice cream cone. How about you?”

  “Barbara!” I objected. “What’s the use of a low-fat, vegan cooking class if you top it off with an ice cream cone?”

  But before I could stop her, Barbara was up and off to the ice cream parlor she had spotted on the corner. I watched her hurry up the street, almost colliding with Alice, who came jogging down the other way. Then I smiled and lay back down. My disapproval would make the ice cream cone taste all the better to her.

  Ten minutes later, I had closed my eyes and drifted into a half dream about new gag gifts. A whistle jerked me awake. I sat up and looked around me. Paula and Gary were sitting on the bench where Iris had been. A young woman in shorts and a halter top was walking by. And Leo and Ken were standing across the street in front of the restaurant. Leo, I should have known.

  He took a sip out of something in a brown bag and shouted, “Great legs, honey!”