Murder, My Deer (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Read online

  Reed sighed loudly, looked at our group, and then followed Dr. Sandstrom out the door.

  “Well, shall we have a little break?” Avis suggested shyly. “Maybe we can just mingle informally for a while. Enjoy the evening. Feel free to look around the nursery. It’s really pretty this time of evening.”

  “Righto,” Gilda Fitch agreed, popping out of her chair. “Just the thing.” She exited the front door too. This time, I caught a glimpse of twilight-blue sky and the fragrance of narcissus.

  Metal chairs clattered as the remaining members of the Deerly Abused stood.

  I vacated my chair simultaneously with Wayne.

  “Walk outside?” he asked, and I nodded silently, internalizing my romantic sigh. Flowers, magical twilight, Wayne. You betcha.

  He took my hand, and we made our way to the door. But not out of it.

  “Surely you appreciate the fact that the man is just trying to help,” I heard Natalie Miner say to Avis.

  Avis stood cornered, her panicked eyes just visible under her hat.

  But before I could think of any words of defense to offer Avis, Lisa Orton was already speaking, her freckled face earnest.

  “My therapist would say that a man with that much anger is suffering from estrogen deprivation,” she told Natalie.

  “But he—”

  “My therapist is great, she hypnotizes me and everything. If anyone can get me through the abuse I suffered as a child—”

  “Gramma sent me to a therapist too,” Darcie interrupted. “But then I stopped going. The old wackhead wanted me to say I did dirty things with my father.”

  “There are other forms of abuse besides sexual,” Darcie’s grandmother put in. “But this young man didn’t seem to understand that physical and verbal abuse can wound too, wound very deeply.” She sighed. “All this insistence upon sex as the root of all evil forgets the basic human need for compassion and love.”

  “Yeah,” Lisa agreed, with what I wasn’t sure. “Wounded, that’s it. My therapist has even uncovered memories—”

  Reed blew back in the door, chatting with Gilda.

  We all turned his way.

  “Dr. Sandstrom is ranting out there,” he told us. “God, I’d hate to be a deer in his gunsight.”

  “Or a human,” Maxwell added, laughing easily. “He’s quite a character, isn’t he?”

  “A character!” Lisa objected. “He’s worse than a character. He’s real. And nasty. And abusive!”

  I was really getting tired of the word “abusive.” And so, apparently, was Natalie Miner.

  “Hon,” she whispered, grabbing Lisa’s hand in hers. “Y’all just don’t understand what the man’s been through. You’ve got to appreciate—”

  But Lisa yanked her hand back and was next out the door before Natalie could even finish.

  And now I was curious. Just what had Dr. Sandstrom been through? What abuse had he suffered?

  I worked on formulating the question. But not quickly enough.

  “He wasn’t even interested in my manuscript,” Howie Damon piped up before my thoughts could become words.

  “Mr. Yang,” Howie pleaded, “you’re interested in my manuscript, aren’t you?” Grasping his four-inch stack of paper in both hands, he thrust it in Maxwell’s direction.

  Maxwell Yang must have spent years controlling his facial expression. He maintained his smile as he spoke to Howie.

  “Call my secretary, and we’ll see what we can arrange,” he suggested.

  “Oh, thank you,” Howie breathed, never asking the secretary’s phone number. I had a feeling Maxwell was counting on that.

  Avis stuck her gloved arm in the crook of mine. Even at night, her fair skin was covered, head to foot.

  “It’s beautiful outdoors, Kate,” she told me. “Maybe we could walk for a minute?”

  I turned to Wayne, longing for his arm tucked into mine, his hand holding mine, but Avis sounded shaky.

  Wayne just nodded. I left with Avis out the front door.

  The sky was magical, a shimmering blue over the rows of plants. No wonder Avis ran a nursery for a living. What a beautiful way to live. If it weren’t for customers.

  “Dr. Sandstrom is usually okay, Kate,” she confided as we passed the flats of late primroses. “Courteous, doesn’t argue over prices. I don’t know what’s come over him tonight. This deer thing has him all churned up.” She sighed. “I just wish people would get along.”

  “They do, mostly,” I answered inadequately, looking at this women swathed in layers of cloth and a straw hat. How much of the swathing was a protection from the incivilities of life? Plants were easier than people, that was for sure.

  We continued our short stroll, arm in arm. At the end of a row of sweet alyssum six-packs, I stumbled over something.

  Something substantial. I looked down and blinked, hoping I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing.

  Was that Dr. Sandstrom crumpled on the ground, a dark sticky patch on the back of his head?

  And was that a bronze deer statuette lying beside him?

  If it was, the deer had clearly won.

  - Two -

  I sucked in a big breath of sweet alyssum and locked my lungs around it, unable to take my gaze from Dr. Sandstrom’s body. My muscles stiffened till they felt as rigid as the bronze that formed the deer statuette. Still, I doubted that the statuette’s shoulders hurt like mine did. Or its head. Or its stomach. Or its conscience. Because here I was again, on the scene of homicidal violence, the Typhoid Mary of Murder. Here I was in a small group of people, and…and…It couldn’t have been a mistake. It couldn’t—

  “Stupid morons,” Dr. Sandstrom’s body erupted.

  I looked down, really looked, delivered from my self-absorption by the sound. Since when did dead men speak? Since when did they move? The doctor was rolling over now onto his back. Then he groaned and clutched his head.

  Dead men spoke when they weren’t dead, I answered myself. The relief unlocked my lungs long enough for a long gush of outgoing breath and loosened my muscles. In fact, my muscles couldn’t seem to stop loosening. Was I going to end up on the ground like Dr. Sandstrom?

  I couldn’t have joined the doctor anyway. He stood before I had the chance and brushed off his clothing with his hands, making dust clouds in the twilight.

  Avis jerked, her arm still linked with mine.

  “You’re alive,” I told him. My words sounded strange in my ears. Maybe the sound had something to do with the dryness of my mouth.

  “Don’t be a complete fool,” he snapped back. “Of course I’m alive.”

  “But your head,” I objected. Because standing or not, the doctor’s head was still sticky with blood.

  “It’ll be fine,” he assured me. “The clown who hit me didn’t hit me hard enough.”

  “What clown?” I asked.

  The doctor stared at me, his long, pinched features in thought.

  “I never saw him,” he admitted. “Coward snuck up behind me. Could have been anyone—”

  “What happened?” asked a voice somewhere in back of me. Reed Killian’s voice. And then his voice was joined by Lisa Orton’s, and Darcie Watkins’s, and Gilda Fitch’s. Each voice seemed louder than the one before, each asking questions. And then Howie Damon and Maxwell Yang joined the chorus along with Jean Watkins and Natalie Miner. It was getting mighty noisy. Still, Avis remained mute, though she gently extracted her arm from mine.

  “Some sneaky jackass hit me over the head,” the doctor broke in. “I didn’t see him, but I’ll figure out who it was.” He paused, eyeing the Deerly Abused. “That’s a promise.”

  Wayne’s hand grasped mine as Reed offered medical assistance, which Sandstrom of course refused.

  “Doctor, you really need to have that attended to,” Jean Watkins insisted.

  “Oh, Lord, yes,” Natalie Miner chimed in. “That’s a really nasty—”

  “I am a doctor, okay!” Sandstrom cut her off. “I’ll find out what imbecile pul
led this stunt, and I’ll feel much better, trust me.” Then he actually smiled in the descending darkness. It was not a pretty sight.

  “We need to call the police,” I began. “Let them find out who did—”

  “No!” he bellowed. “Will you folks get it through your thick skulls that I can deal with this?” Then he winced. Ow, it must have hurt to bellow with a head like that.

  “Fine,” Avis whispered next to me. I jumped. I’d almost forgotten her.

  Gilda broke the ensuing silence. “Were there any deer hoofprints?” she asked.

  I actually looked back at the ground for a giveaway clue left by a representative of the species. But all I could see was the bronze statuette, soil, plant detritus, and a mint-green capsule that the doctor picked up and shoved in his jacket pocket.

  I looked back up at Gilda and saw the sparkle of her smile. Hoofprints. A joke. Ha, bloody ha.

  “So who—”

  “So what—”

  “So do you think—”

  The iron gate at the end of the parking lot rattled and all of us started. Was a deer rebellion in progress?

  “Holy moly,” a familiar voice boomed. But not one I’d expected here. “This place is locked tighter than the President’s corset. Where’s the friggin’ class?”

  I told myself it couldn’t be, not my friend Barbara’s sweetie, pit bull reporter, annoyance of annoyances. Felix? Why would Felix come to a deer-abused support group? And precisely when I’d found an undead body? My brain was fritzing like an elderly TV set about to die. I hit the side of my head with the heel of my hand. Percussive maintenance. It didn’t work.

  “Hey, man,” the familiar voice came again. “How do you get into this friggin’ mausoleum?”

  Avis stared at the gates. Wayne looked down at me just as I looked up at him. Dr. Sandstrom eyed the crowd, and then strode off in the direction of the shed behind the main building, where the nursery wheelbarrows, tools, smocks, and gloves were stored. And more importantly, the restrooms. Presumably he wanted to clean his head wound.

  Reed took over. “Cripes,” he muttered, looking down at the statuette. No one seemed to want to touch it. “I guess the show goes on. Avis, you gonna open the gate?”

  Avis turned slowly to look at Reed. She could have been an extra for The Night of the Living Dead. Actually, she really might have been one, I realized. She’d probably been a working actress when it was filmed.

  “Oh, of course,” Avis murmured and pulled a large bunch of keys from a pocket beneath one of her many scarves.

  “Did someone hit the ole dude?” Darcie Watkins asked as Avis opened the iron gate with a great clanging noise.

  “It looks like—” I began.

  “Here comes the bride,” the voice from outside the gate sang. Then it came in the gate, getting louder. “So stout and wide. Here comes the groom, all full of—”

  “Stop that!” I shouted, my brain suddenly clearing. It was Felix. Even though it was nearly dark, it was still easy to make out his small, slender body, luxurious mustache, and dark, soulful eyes. Not to mention his smile, Cheshire cat-wide. But he was singing about weddings. How could he know? Barbara, my friend and our witness, had promised not to tell, especially not to tell her sweetie, Felix.

  “Hey, musta been some whiz-bang nup-che-al,” Felix went on, teasing out the syllables of the word so that it sounded obscene. Then he went into falsetto mode. “This inquiring mind wants to know what the bride wore.”

  “Ask Barbara,” I responded angrily. But still, I didn’t really believe that my friend would have told Felix, even if she did care for him for some irrational reason that I had never quite understood. I felt Wayne’s hand on my shoulder. Was there a message in that hand?

  “Why ask Barbara?” Felix replied, glaring. “My honeybun didn’t tell me a friggin’ thing. Doo-doo. Nada. Nooo. Not a word to her sweet tiger-muffin—”

  “Then how’d you find out?” I demanded.

  “Ever hear of public records?” he returned my question.

  So that’s why Felix had come to the first meeting of the Deerly Abused. He’d come to torture me. It had nothing to do with Dr. Sandstrom’s un-demise. And I knew why Wayne was squeezing my shoulder too. The trick with Felix was to refuse to interact with him in any way. No matter what I said, I’d get entangled. I’d forgotten that trick.

  I’d also forgotten the group behind us.

  “Who is this guy?” Reed asked. But before he could get an answer, Dr. Sandstrom walked back on the scene, holding a soaked paper towel to his head.

  “Hon,” Natalie said to the doctor. “Are you sure you’re all right? God knows you’re a doctor and all, but a blow to the head—”

  “A blow to the head?” Felix chimed in, his soulful eyes lighting up like headlights.

  Dr. Sandstrom squinted through his aviator glasses. “And just who are you?” he asked.

  “Felix Byrne,” Barbara’s sweetie replied.

  “Ace reporter,” I added, just to keep things clear.

  Felix shot me a venomous look.

  “Reporter!” Dr. Sandstrom yelped. “What fool called a reporter?”

  “Why?” Felix inquired innocently. “Did someone attack you?” Felix was annoying, weasely, and sneaky, but he wasn’t slow.

  “Just a bop on the head,” the doctor said dismissively. “And none of your business in any case. Why are you here?”

  “I think he wants to join the group,” Avis interjected softly. She turned to Felix.

  “Sure,” Felix agreed earnestly. “Deer, gardens—”

  “But you live in an apartment,” I objected, my voice whining without my permission. “You don’t even have a garden.” Wayne squeezed my shoulder again. “But he doesn’t,” I insisted, looking up at Wayne. Wayne’s eyebrows were lowered, his features impassive. The granite gargoyle was in place.

  “I might get a house,” Felix told us. Then he turned to Avis and smiled ingratiatingly. “And my mother has a garden.”

  Wayne was right. His hand on my shoulder was right. I had to ignore Felix. I clamped my lips shut and tried to look like Wayne, thinking granite. At least Dr. Sandstrom hadn’t been murdered. So what did it matter if Felix was here? He knew we were married, that’s what it mattered. And if Felix knew, he’d spread the word just for spite’s sake. And we’d wanted to keep it secret for too many reasons to even keep track of. Of course, Felix wanted to stay for the last half of the meeting. He hadn’t tortured us nearly enough yet.

  Felix smiled in the near-darkness. My hands curled into fists.

  “Shall we go back inside?” Avis asked quietly.

  “But what hap—” Darcie Watkins tried.

  “Nothing,” Dr. Sandstrom interrupted her. And then he led the way back into the building with the military gait of a general leading his troops. Everyone glanced around, then each of us followed, including Felix.

  Within minutes, we were all sitting in a semicircle around the podium again, plus one chair. One chair with one grinning, nosy reporter.

  I tried not to think about Felix as Reed spoke. But as soon as I stopped thinking about Felix, I started worrying about Dr. Sandstrom again. It was true he was alive, but had his attacker intended him to be alive? The blow to his head hadn’t been a minor one. I certainly didn’t know how hard to hit someone in order to kill them. Maybe Dr. Sandstrom’s attacker hadn’t either. I brought my mind back to focus on Reed’s words of wisdom. Deer, I told myself. I was here to learn about deer.

  “…to try safe plants. Lavender, oleander, rosemary, lantana, foxglove, yarrow, daffodils, iris, wisteria, zinnias…”

  The doctor certainly hadn’t made any friends in class. Thinking about it, I could imagine almost any one of the Deerly Abused clobbering him with a deer statuette. Or a deer clobbering him, for that matter. Maybe Gilda hadn’t been kidding with her “hoofprints” question. Ghostly deer spirits danced through my mind, their brown eyes suddenly intelligent, focused…deadly. I shook my head and tried to list
en to Reed again.

  “Some of the best deer repellents are actually plants,” he was saying.

  Or Felix, I thought. Felix could probably repel deer or just about anything. Maybe I should just nail his feet to our front gate. That was a cheery thought. Upside down would be especially nice.

  “…mothballs, soap, Tabasco sauce, monofilament line, sprinklers…”

  And if I nailed Felix up by his heels, he wouldn’t be able to tell everyone that Wayne and I were married. Fantasy is a wonderful place to dwell.

  “…of course, and then, there’s always fencing. Fencing can be expensive, but it’s highly effective…”

  At least Dr. Sandstrom was quiet now. Maybe that knock on the head had done him some good, after all. As soon as the thought went through my mind, I felt guilty. What if the man was really hurt? I glanced over at him. He didn’t look hurt. He looked alert. Alert…and angry.

  “…the double fence is really cool…”

  I kept my eyes on Dr. Sandstrom. His face was reddening, his thin lips tightening.

  “It can actually be fun to foil the deer,” Reed went on. “These animals aren’t evil. They’re gentle. In fact, Native Americans—”

  “If you were a rosebud, you wouldn’t think the deer were so gentle, you dunce!” Dr. Sandstrom bellowed. In the ensuing moment of silence I wondered how many of us were thinking that the good doctor hadn’t been hit hard enough on the head.

  Reed’s handsome mouth gaped open.

  “Native Americans didn’t grow rosebushes,” Dr. Sandstrom bulldozed on. “And don’t tell me they never heard of venison.”

  “Excuse me, Doctor,” Howie Damon said quietly. “I think Reed was talking about the historical relationship between man and deer, their natural alliance.”

  Now it was time for my mouth to drop open. Howie Damon was braver than I’d given him credit for. His round face looked more distinguished now, as if it was taking shape under an artist’s pen, the blobby nose and small mouth suddenly sharper, clearer. Being a high school administrator probably gave him a lot of practice in dealing with bullies.

  “Well, yes, right.” Reed recovered, his mouth moving again, but his eyes still glazed. “Um, thank you, Howie—”