A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery) by Jaqueline Girdner

tinkled all the bells on her many bracelets.
    “Come on in and take a seat,” she invited cheerfully. “Share your ideas.”
    Diana, Gary, and Liz came in, but they didn’t sit down. Or share their ideas, for that matter. Gary stood, arms clasped behind his back, staring up at the ceiling. Was he as embarrassed by this whole scene as I suspected? I glanced over at Wayne, hoping he would notice Gary’s discomfort. (Not to mention noticing that I was right concerning Gary’s real feelings about investigating Sam Skyler’s murder.) But Wayne’s low-browed expression didn’t give any more away than Yvonne’s open-eyed one had. Liz Atherton’s gaze was directed forward, but she didn’t seem to see the people in front of her. Her eyes were unfocused as she rubbed her temple absently. Only Diana was really looking, peering into each of the seminar member’s faces as if she could read her answer there.
    “Did one of you kill Sam?” she asked, her words a little gentler this time, in content and in tone. So gentle, in fact, they were almost a plea.
    And then it was as if the VCR button was pressed again, releasing the freeze-frame control. Slack mouths closed. Postures shifted. Ona was the first to speak.
    “Honey,” she said with a softness I hadn’t heard before in her voice. “You know no one’s going to answer that question. Especially since Sam Skyler was probably a murderer himself—”
    “Sam Skyler had his trial and was found not guilty,” Ray Zappa interrupted, glaring once again in Ona’s direction.
    You could almost see Ona’s fur stand up. Once more she reminded me of a Persian cat, pink and blond and round. With claws.
    Ray turned to Diana. “Listen, Ms. Atherton, the Quiero Police Department will investigate. No matter what their opinion of Sam Skyler. They are investigating. In fact, right now—”
    “The Quiero Police Department!” Ona objected. She threw a hand in the air. “How good is the Quiero Police Department going to be? Has anyone ever been murdered in Quiero before? Besides sea gulls? Listen, I’ll be blunt, Diana. I know that you’ll miss Sam. I know that you cared for him. But he wasn’t a good man. He was a cruel and abusive man—”
    “My father was not cruel,” Nathan Skyler cut in, gentleness absent from his tone for once. He got up from where he’d been sitting on the tiger-stripe pillow and shuffled his way to Diana’s side, his large shoulders stooped as usual. “And he was not abusive,” he finished up, though the gentleness was creeping back into his voice. Maybe the habit was too ingrained to control.
    “Oh, Nathan,” Ona sighed. She shook her head. “He was your father, so of course you feel you have to defend him. But you don’t have to. It’s useless. He was put on trial for killing his first wife. And all the cops knew he’d abused her, too. But that doesn’t reflect on you. You’re a good guy. You know I don’t bullshit, and I can tell you you’re nothing like your father. He just wasn’t a good man. Look what he did to his first wife.”
    “Sally Skyler wasn’t Dad’s first wife,” Nathan corrected her mildly. I looked into his face for signs of anger, but again the facade of facial hair and glasses was impenetrable. How he kept from screaming at Ona was beyond me. Maybe the Skyler Institute did teach some skills after all. “My mother was his first wife.”
    “It doesn’t matter which wife,” Ona plowed on, undeterred. I felt like pointing out it might matter to Nathan which woman had been killed, seeing as one was his mother, but I clearly didn’t stand a chance of getting a word in. Ona was talking faster and faster, shaking her finger at Nathan now like a schoolteacher who’s disappointed in her student. “I had a boyfriend who was working as a bailiff then, and even he knew Skyler killed his wife. Everyone in the legal community did. And that he abused her—”
    “Dad didn’t really abuse her,” Nathan finally broke in,