A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

captain’s day. He sat back in his chair and roared with laughter.
    “Your car is evidence, now, boy,” he finally answered. “Wanna clue? Think Armageddon.”
    Then Ted Kimmochi and his wife came in. Ted’s perfect oval face was blessed with a round nose and expressive eyes under dark brows. Unfortunately, his expression was usually tragic. Today, at least, it was appropriate. Janet McKinnon-Kimmochi looked a lot like Ted, except that she wasn’t Asian, and her round nose was scattered with freckles, her oval face topped with red hair. Her expression was not tragic, however—it was irritated.
    “We have clients waiting,” she announced as she sailed into the room with Ted in tow. “What’s this all about?”
    “I’ll ask the questions,” Captain Wooster assured her. And he did, at length. Ted’s alibi was driving to the office (and Janet’s, being at the office), but still that wasn’t a real alibi because he arrived there after Steve Summers had already been hit by Wayne’s car.
    “This is awful,” Ted murmured. “Just awful. Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it?”
    “Yep,” the captain agreed and let them go.
    I had a feeling that even Captain Wooster’s energy had its limits, and those limits were sorely tried by the arrival of a drunken Isaac Herrick, accompanied by his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Helen. He had visited her after the group, but, of course, not soon enough to let him off the hook for Steve Summers’ death.
    The captain’s interrogation was interrupted by Isaac’s jokes, guffaws, and scatological references. Helen might have been mute. But Isaac, even in his drunken state, was worried. I could tell by the unease with which he delivered his jokes, and by the worry in his weathered red face, its redness accented by his white, wavy hair. He took off his black-rimmed glasses and polished them, and I saw even more worry in his bleary eyes, a look that was reflected on Helen’s plump, no-nonsense face.
    “Bad?” he asked finally.
    Helen looked at the captain, her intelligent eyes searching…and finding.
    But the captain didn’t answer. Marge did.
    “Bad,” she confirmed.
    Carl Russo was the last one to be escorted in. His son Mike wasn’t with him. If you wanted to go by looks alone, Carl would be your man for murder. He was a broad man with fleshy features and a habitual, guarded look of disinterest. He squirmed through all of the captain’s questions. Carl had no particular alibi. He had driven down to the beach to think after the group. He wouldn’t say what he was thinking about, but I would have bet it was his absent son, Mike.
    After Wooster had finished with Carl, he turned to Wayne and me with one word: “Go!”
    We went. As fast as we could stumble out of the room.
    None of the group members were left in the main room of the library. I was initially surprised, but then I saw the policeman who had probably chased them away.
    On the way home in my Toyota, I prodded Wayne about Laura. Was Captain Wooster right? Was it usually the wife? I thought of her slumped shoulders and graying skin; but still…
    “Did Steve want a divorce?” I asked Wayne, not really expecting an answer.
    “No, he adored her,” he told me, his voice gruff with tears.
    “This was her day off,” I reminded him. I remembered her talking about it at the potluck, how she had to have one day out of the public eye, one day alone with her husband when the legislature wasn’t in session. “Wasn’t that awfully convenient for her?”
    “She took the day off to be with Steve,” Wayne murmured. “You know Laura and Steve, they were Frick and Frack. They agreed on politics, on ethics, on everything.” His voice faltered.
    “All right,” I conceded. “Not Laura Summers. But who else would want to kill Steve Summers?”
    “Journalist,” Wayne muttered.
    “He made someone angry with his articles?”
    Wayne made a sound that was somewhere between a cry and a whimper.
    “We talked about our