Murder Most Mellow (A Kate Jasper Mystery) by Jaqueline Girdner Page B

lady, ya wanna buy a good set of encyclopedias?” Craig asked in his former New Jersey accent.
    I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling.
    He grinned. “No? Then how about some rug cleaner? Aura cleaner? Healing crystals? Herbal laxatives?”
    “Not funny,” I said, but a small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.
    “How about a little support and comfort, then?” he suggested, his accent returning to California. The grin left his face. “I heard about Sarah.”
    My ex-husband, Craig, looked good as he stood there framed in the redwood doorway. He had left his suit jacket in the car. The white sleeves of his shirt billowed out from his grey pinstripe vest, hinting at hidden muscles. He brushed a few errant brown strands back into his groomed-for-success hair and surveyed me with puppy-dog eyes.
    I wished for a moment that we had our old post-separation friendship back. But that had passed when he lost his girlfriend. Now his brown eyes held that Why-can’t-you-fall-in-love-with-me-again? look.
    I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to look forbidding.
    He put up his hand as if to ward off my anger. “Just passing by,” he assured me. “Thought you might have a cup of herbal tea for a thirsty man.” He cocked his head and smiled a little-boy smile.
    Then I remembered that my ex-husband was something besides a pain in the rear. He was a computer expert! I stuck Wayne’s photo in my back pocket and silently ushered Craig in.
    At the kitchen table five minutes later I handed him his favorite mint tea, taking care not to touch his fingers. “How much do you know about Sarah’s death?” I asked him.
    “Just what I read in the paper,” he answered, shrugging. “Something about her being electrocuted in the hot tub. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, but it’s still a shock.” He made a wry mouth and laughed. “Sorry, wrong word.”
    Then he looked into my eyes. “I thought of you, Kate,” he murmured softly.
    The tenderness of his expression almost snared me, until I noticed that familiar smirk lurking around his mouth. Was he setting me up for seduction? I averted my eyes from his face and reminded myself that the man was merely a good source of information.
    “Just how difficult would it be to program her robot to land in the hot tub?” I demanded. I kept my voice steady and hard. “How much experience would you need to pull it off?”
    He cocked his head again. “Are you sure you’ve really considered the advantages of owning an encyclopedia?” he asked.
    “Still not funny,” I told him. “Answer the question.”
    “It would depend,” he temporized. He shot me a sharp look. “Do you really need to know this?”
    “Yes,” I answered brusquely.
    He sighed and put down his cup, the tea untasted. “The robot is probably pretty easy to run, even to program, given that you’d seen it done before,” he admitted.
    “But would it show that you were the one who did it?” I pressed.
    “Not necessarily,” he said slowly, thinking. “All you’d have to do is delete any references if it did. You could just type in a different name and time for that matter, if those things were even required to get on the system.”
    “I’ve been thinking about it,” I told him, my thoughts crystallizing as I spoke. “For all her eccentricities, Sarah was a creature of habit. She meditated in the hot tub every evening around the same time. And she went into a pretty deep trance.” I looked at Craig for confirmation. He nodded.
    I went on. “Then there’s her sunken tub, and her robots that can plug themselves into the outdoor electrical outlets. What if…” I felt suddenly lightheaded. I took a breath and continued. “What if someone—someone who had the coordinates of the setup outside—programmed one of her robots to plug itself in, traverse the necessary distance, and plop itself into the hot tub at the given
    time? Could it have happened that way?” I asked him. I could feel my pulse