A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery) by Jaqueline Girdner Read Free Book Online Page B

my eyes for a moment, thinking of all the Jest Gifts paperwork waiting on my desk while I was gallivanting around at a wedding seminar that felt pretty useless so far. Not to mention dangerous.
    But when I opened my eyes again, I remembered why I’d smiled. It was the sight of Yvonne’s cow rubbing up against a six-foot wooden statue of some goddess or other that stood on the other side of the chainlink fence. The goddess looked Hindu. The cow looked ecstatic.
    Yvonne’s house was big and redwood and well-baubled. Chimes hung everywhere, singing their discordant notes next to billowing windsocks. Live animals roamed the enclosed yard, alongside stone Buddhas and marble dolphins and wooden owls. Everything from quail and chickens to potbellied pigs and horses. And more. I even spotted a llama munching herbs around the corner of the house.
    We opened the chainlink gate, drove in, and closed it behind us quickly. You never knew what might escape from Yvonne’s yard, cosmically or otherwise.
    The door was open when we got there. And the whole gang was in Yvonne’s front room, mixed in among a collection of kitsch and Oriental gewgaws that could have filled Cost Plus Imports, prominent against the metallic madras wallpaper that only Yvonne O’Reilley could have found. Or lived with. Yvonne waved from where she sat on her rattan throne as we closed the tinkling door behind us.
    At least all the couples seemed to be together. I wondered who Yvonne had meant the night before when she’d mentioned that she couldn’t say that all the couples loved each other. Maybe Wayne and me, I thought with a sigh and looked around, nodding at those who’d acknowledged our entrance.
    Ona and Perry shared a white wicker love seat loaded with velvet cushions. Emma and Campbell were seated on neon purple molded plastic. And Nathan and Martina were curled up on a pair of tiger-stripe pillows on the floor. But Tessa Johnson and Ray Zappa were standing.
    The first thing I noticed after the initial shock of entering a room vibrating with every color of the rainbow was that Ray Zappa wasn’t smiling his affable, good-ole-boy smile. He was glaring. Almost as well as Wayne could. I followed the direction of his glare. Ona Quimby.
    “Everyone knows he was an s.o.b.,” she was insisting. “So what’s the big deal? The guy killed his former wife—”
    A soft voice interrupted her.
    “You’re talking about my father,” Nathan said. It was hard to see if there was any anger behind the glasses and the facial hair. But there was something there, a tremor in that mild voice.
    Ona opened her mouth to object, but closed it again. For a moment her pretty, round baby face looked chastened, but I had a feeling the expression wouldn’t last long. It didn’t.
    “Look, Nathan, no offense—” she began again.
    The door chimes rang, cutting her off.
    Yvonne made her way to the door and opened it, smiling all the way. Was the world wondrous as usual for her?
    Diana, Gary, and Liz Atherton walked in, their familial resemblance accentuated by their identical grim expressions.
    But even then, Yvonne’s smile didn’t fade.
    It was a moment before Diana spoke, but her question was worth the wait.
    “Which one of you killed Sam?” she asked.
     
     
    - Five -
     
    There was an infinitely long silence after Diana’s question. At least it felt infinite, tempered only by the sounds of Yvonne’s discordant wind chimes and the various mooings and cacklings and other animal noises from outside. But the humans inside didn’t moo or cackle. They just stared silently at Diana and her assembled family, faces slack and as still as if someone had pressed the freeze-frame button on a VCR. Even Yvonne had stopped smiling, her eyes widened in an expression that might have been sympathy. Or maybe just shock. Or guilt? With Yvonne, it was impossible to tell.
    And then Yvonne’s smile was back. She ushered the Athertons into her front room, flinging out an arm that