Read Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Online
Authors: Jaqueline Girdner
I pried my mind away from thoughts of gladiators and tried to breathe through my mouth. Then I turned to Barbara. Yuki was watching us now, enforcing the no-talking rule, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look at my friend. Barbara looked back at me and attempted a wink, but she still didn’t seem her usual self. Even silent, Barbara usually presented a picture of mischievous wisdom. Now, she just looked small and scared. I thought strength at her. She straightened her back, and mouthed a “thank you” my way. So, Yuki could shoot us, but I felt a lot better.
Then Wenger came storming in, and I didn’t feel better anymore.
“So, you hadta wait till I’m eating dinner to find the body,” he accused.
“Sorry,” I said. What else could I say?
“We could have waited for dessert,” Barbara added. Uh-oh, maybe she was feeling a little too much better.
“The Two Stooges, huh?” he commented. “So which of you wants to go first?”
“Me,” Barbara volunteered and stood, her posture strong and straight.
I was still working on “go first.” To the rack? To jail? To leave? The last thought was far too optimistic, I realized, as Wenger led Barbara down a murky hallway.
“Is he going to, um, question her?” I asked Officer Yuki.
She looked at me, looked around, and gave me a quick nod. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, after all.
“How long do you think—” I began, pressing my luck.
“No talking,” Yuki told me. Okay, she was so bad after all. If I threw up on their vinyl, it would serve her right. I thought about asking to go to the bathroom, but decided against it. Officer Yuki was fooling around with her gun again.
Officer O’Dwyer came in before Yuki got too worked up, though. He gave her a fond look as she glared at me. Barbara had been right! O’Dwyer had a crush on Yuki. I wasn’t absolutely sure it was reciprocated, though. The return look she gave him wasn’t a lot friendlier than the looks she’d been giving me. But maybe she’d never had to guard a murder suspect before.
I sighed and closed my eyes, doing my tai chi form in my head again. That amused me for all of maybe ten minutes; then I began to worry some more. Did Chief Wenger seriously suspect us? Would Wayne be missing me? He’d told us to take in a movie, but I didn’t think this was the one he’d meant.
It was funny the way my mind kept shying away from the important question. Who had killed Isabelle Viseu? Probably my mind couldn’t stay with that question because I didn’t have a clue to the answer. So, I thought about gag-gifts for a while and the deer that were eating my garden and a million other things before I got to Wayne. Ah, Wayne, there was a subject for contemplation that could keep me from throwing up for a good long time.
More than an hour later, “Your turn!” blasted me out of the warm bed where I’d imagined myself cuddled up with my sweetie.
There are limits to creative visualization. Chief Wenger of the Paloma Police Department being a major one.
At least Barbara look unharmed when I opened my eyes, even relieved as she sat back down on the green vinyl couch to wait for me.
I reminded myself what Hemingway had said about courage as I followed Chief Wenger down the hall. “Grace under pressure.” But then, hadn’t Hemingway killed himself? Sweat began dampening my whole body now. The armpits were just the beginning.
Wenger sat on one side of a vinyl-topped desk and gestured at a brown vinyl chair on the other side.
“A seat, Ms. Suspect?” he offered, smiling. I flinched. I really wished he wouldn’t smile like that. Not before Halloween, anyway. It just made gaunt features more prominent, more ghoulish.
By the time I’d perched on the interrogatee’s chair, the smile was gone anyway. He was back to his sucking expression.
“So,” he began. “You seem to be attracted to dead bodies.” He pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose with a honk loud enough to attract ducks from across the border. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?” he finished.
“Bad karma?” I tried. I even tried a little joking smile.
“Hah!” he exploded. I jumped in my chair. “Now you’re gonna complain about your childhood and how traumatized you are. And not just your present childhood, but your previous childhood. And the one before that. Fer Pete’s sake, don’tcha think I’ve heard this manure before? Marin! There used to be sane people here, you know.”
How do you answer something like that?
“Well?” he prodded.
“Listen,” I said softly, “if I knew why I found dead bodies, I’d stop doing it immediately. I didn’t kill—”
“If you didn’t wanna find a dead body, why’d you enter a house without being invited in, huh, lady?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out of it. I tried to remember. Barbara had said something that had convinced me, but I’d forgotten what it was now. The sight of Isabelle Viseu had torn it from my mind.
“Your friend is a
psychic
, right?” He pronounced the word “psychic” like another person might pronounce the word “pervert.”
I closed my mouth and nodded, hoping Barbara had given him a reasonable explanation for our actions.
“So why would a psychic go in a house where there’s a dead woman?” he demanded.
“ ‘Cause it was important to know for sure?” I guessed.
Wenger threw up his hands. “If she’s psychic, she
did
know for sure. Why didn’t she just call us?”
I wished Barbara was here to answer her own questions. How could I explain her on-and-off powers? I never got a chance.
“And that still doesn’t explain why
you
went in,” he bulldozed on. “Explain that to me, Ms. Jasper. Will you please do that little ole thing for me? Explain why you went in.”
“I…I—The door was open,” I remembered.
“And do you always check the doorknob and go into strange houses when they’re open? Ever hear of burglary?”
“I—”
“So, how did you know Isabelle Viseu previously?” he asked before I could even begin to unravel the unanswered questions. Didn’t burglary mean stealing? Or did just entering a house count?
“Isabelle Viseu?” Wenger brought me back.
“Oh, I didn’t know her,” I answered hastily. “I never met her until the soiree, I mean—”
“Did your friend know her?”
“Only at the soirees, I think.”
“How about your boyfriend?” he pressed on.
“My boyfriend? You mean, Wayne?”
“How many boyfriends do you have, Ms. Jasper?” he asked, smiling again. Yuck. I pressed my back into vinyl. Double yuck. To both the question and the smile.
“I have one boyfriend, Chief Wenger,” I told him, a little angry now, just enough to keep my voice from squeaking. “And to my knowledge, he never knew Isabelle Viseu.”
“You expect me to buy that?” the chief demanded, leaning forward in his chair, his eyes on mine.
“Hello, sir,” a new voice announced from behind me. “I got here as soon as I could.” There was no mistaking the eagerness of that voice. I knew it was Lieutenant Kettering before I even peeked over my shoulder.
“I thought I might facilitate the interrogation, sir,” Kettering went on. “As a five and a Scorpio, Ms. Jasper—”
“Will you put a lid on it!” Chief Wenger shouted.
“Certainly, sir,” Kettering complied, hurt flavoring his voice.
Chief Wenger threw up his hands.
“Twinkies to the left of me, bliss-ninnies to the right. How the heck is a man supposed to think straight around here?”
“Well, sir,” Kettering offered. “I’ve always found a quiet moment of meditation—”
“Out!” Wenger bellowed.
I heard a little sigh, the shuffling of feet and paper, and then the door closed behind me.
“Okay, we’re just gonna get this done,” Wenger said to me. “No more wiggling out of things—”
“But I never—”
“Did you kill Isabelle Viseu?” he asked me.
“No,” I answered.
“Did your friend?”
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head.
“Did your boyfriend?”
“My boyfriend!” I began. I saw the look in Wenger’s eyes. It was tired. It was angry. “No,” I finished meekly.
“Do you know who killed Isabelle Viseu?”
I shook my head.
“Do you have any idea at all who killed her?”
I shook my head again, beginning to feel a little sorry for Chief Wenger.
“You opened the door to Isabelle Viseu’s house and entered without permission?”
“Well, yes…” I faltered. I didn’t feel sorry for the chief anymore.
“Did you leave the house exactly as you found it?”
“Yeah, I think so,”
“She thinks so,” he said to some unseen friend behind him. “The woman says she thinks so.”
“I’m pretty sure—”
“Fer Pete’s sake, you’d better be,” he told me and let that sink in as a clock I hadn’t noticed before clicked from the top of the desk.
“Anything else you wanna tell me?” he asked finally.
“Um, no,” I muttered.
“Then get outa here,” he told me.
I ran out the door so fast, I practically knocked down Lieutenant Kettering. I had a feeling his ear had been pressed to that door, but I just smiled and helped him pick up a book on guardian angels. I was free!
And I was as wet as if I’d been swimming in my clothes, which I realized as Barbara and I left the police station and a gust of wind hit me. I was glad it wasn’t the dead of winter. I’d have been an instant icicle.
My teeth were chattering by the time we made it down the endless, dark blocks to Barbara’s trusty Volkswagen bug. I suppose we could have asked Officer Yuki or O’Dwyer for a ride, but we’d both been in too much of a hurry exiting the police station.
“I’ll put on the heat, kiddo,” Barbara promised as she let me in my side of the car with a little shoulder hug. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to give me the whole treatment. It’d be like hugging a wet puppy.
We were roaring down the highway when the heat kicked in, stirring up dust and mold from the car’s entire lifetime. I sneezed. She turned up the heat another notch. Her psychic radar was definitely down. And apparently she knew it. Barbara was driving carefully. I couldn’t decide if this was cause for feeling assured or alarmed.
And Barbara was quiet. She didn’t say a word the whole musty ride home. And neither did I. After Chief Wenger, I didn’t ever want to talk again.
Barbara pulled into my driveway slowly.
“Sorry, kiddo,” she told me.
“Barbara, it’s not your fault,” I objected and sneezed again.
“Maybe it is,” was how she answered me. And then she gave my shoulder another squeeze, and I crawled out of her bug.
“I care about you, kiddo,” she whispered. “I really do.” With that, she rolled up the window and backed out of the driveway.
I’d forgotten all about the red paint on my formerly redwood door. I stared at it, wondering how I was going to get it off. Then Wayne swung the object of my inspection out of my field of vision.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked softly.
I remembered my vow of silence and threw myself into his arms.
“Wet,” he said to the top of my head, but he held me anyway.
“Kate?” he began when he let me go.
“What do you think?” I asked him, moving through the open doorway and shutting the offending door behind me. “Solvents, sanding, scraping, or sandblasting?”
Wayne opened his mouth.
“Or maybe we could have it painted over,” I went on. “Cream might be nice. Or tree-green. Or—”
The doorbell rang. I couldn’t believe it. It was close to eleven o’clock.
I yanked open the door, all too afraid I was going to find a ranting Felix on my doorstep, but I came face to face with Gil Nesbit instead.
- Fourteen -
“What are
you
doing here?” I demanded once I recognized the bland all-American face of the Lotto man. Then I changed my approach. This was not a man who needed to be asked questions. This was a man who needed orders. Marching orders. “Go away,” I amended.
But it didn’t work. Gil Nesbit slipped in the door with the finesse of Felix Byrne. I wasn’t sure how he’d ducked under the arm I’d stretched across the entrance, but he had. Once more, I wished I’d been to my tai chi class that night.
Then Gil saw Wayne standing behind me.
He seemed to shrink a little at the sight of my sweetie, his smile wavering.
I turned and surveyed Wayne affectionately. A gargoyle in p.j.’s. What was so scary about that?
“Who-is-this?” the gargoyle asked, fie-foh-fum style.
“Gil Nesbit,” the Lotto man introduced himself cheerfully, apparently recovered from his first view of Wayne. Too bad.
“He’s from the psychic group Barbara and I are going to,” I explained hastily, hoping Gil wasn’t here to let the cat out of the metaphysical bag.
But Gil just straightened his back and smiled ingratiatingly. He was dressed for success, or what I imagined success looked like to the gambling set, in a white linen suit over a black shirt with black loafers and no socks. Or maybe it was just the bad-taste set.
“So,” he began. “Psychics must win the Lotto all the time, huh?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I answered. “I’m not a psychic.”
That took him back for about two seconds; then he smiled a winning smile.
“But, I’ll betcha you know the system, right?” he suggested.
“Nope,” I replied.
It was too bad Wayne was there. I would have liked to ask Gil a few questions of my own. Like whether he’d visited Isabelle Viseu to ask her about Lotto numbers. And just how angry he’d been with Silk for her active and insulting brushoff of his persistent questions.
“Hey,” Gil persisted, a whine making his relentless voice just that much more unpleasant. “I gotta get me some luck, you know what I mean? I got this film company, you know, for wannabe producers—”
“You
own
your own company?” Somehow, I had a hard time believing that.
“No, no. My jerk of a sister-in-law owns it. I could do a better job, okay? I’ve got lots of ideas but she doesn’t have my vision, you know what I mean?”
I had a feeling I did. And I felt sorry for his sister-in-law already.
“So, it’s like I gotta have a Lotto number or something to come up with the cash to do my own thing, right?”
“Well, good luck,” I told him. “I don’t know anything about Lotto numbers. So, why don’t you just—”
“Hey, ever play the ponies?” Gil asked hopefully.
“Never,” I said. “I play with cats. They’re much safer. So, anyway, Gil, it’s been nice talking with you, but it’s getting late—”
“Hey, hey,” he stopped me, no more whine, just rabid insistence in his voice now. “You gotta know something.”
I stepped closer to him, very close to him, actually in his face, arranging myself in a classic push hands position, back foot angled, front foot straight between his legs. I could smell smoke and garlic and mouthwash this close. I just hoped I smelled worse than he did, with all the sweating I’d done lately.
“Leave now,” I ordered and brought my arm up in a ward-off movement that grazed his chest in our intimate position. The ward-off seemed especially appropriate. But Gil barely flinched at the invasion of his personal space.
“Hey, I—” he began.
I turned my hand and body until my palm was lightly touching his chest. Lightly and firmly. I could feel his body stiffen with the touch. I pushed ever so gently. Gil began to move backwards involuntarily. Pretty soon his feet caught up with his torso. I was glad. I didn’t really want him to fall over.
“Hey, you—” he tried once more.
I kept pushing as softly and lightly as I could, stepping toward him as quickly as he backpedaled out of my front door. Once his last black loafer disappeared, I slammed the door after him and turned back to Wayne.
Wayne was smiling now, a big smile for Wayne, just tugging the corners of his mouth, his brow-lidded eyes unaffected. A lot of people wouldn’t have even recognized it as a smile. But I did.
“Thought of stepping in,” he told me. “Glad I didn’t. Wouldn’t have been half so much fun.”
“Want me to push you around a little?” I asked seductively.
“And me, just a poor sick boy,” he replied piteously. But then he stopped smiling. “So what’s this psychic group all about, anyway?” he asked.
“Oh,” I said, scrambling for the right words. “Just one of these weird groups Barbara’s always dragging me to.”
Wayne groaned in sympathy.
Little did he know. And I hoped he never would.
Thursday, I was up and working on Jest Gifts paperwork again. I’d had enough of murder. I just hoped Barbara had too. My stack of accounts payable was even looking good to me. At least it didn’t have any blood on it. And bills were incapable of speech. I sighed in a fit of momentary bliss.
I’d had a wonderful lunch. And more important, Wayne did too. His restaurant manager had made the trek up from La Fte l’Oie with a huge tureen of homemade chicken soup for Wayne, fresh baked bread, pastries, and even some vegetarian delicacies for me. No wonder Wayne hired this guy.
I wasn’t feeling too good about my own hiring decisions, though, having just hung up on Eddie, Jade’s brother-in-law, the computer nerd. The person who Jade had decided should replace my friend Peg in designing my new Website. This time my sigh was not rooted in bliss but in annoyance. Eddie was quite a talker for a computer nerd. Or else I had the wrong stereotype in mind about how computer nerds were supposed to act. Because this man came on with the enthusiasm of Tony Robbins when he gave his sales pitch. And he delivered the pitch with the lung power of Pavarotti. “No,” didn’t register in the guy’s brain, no matter how many times I said it before hanging up. For all I knew, he was still talking. I wondered for a moment if he was related to Gil Nesbit, and picked up another bill.
Five or ten bills later, my accounts payable stack wasn’t looking so good to me. I thought about the front door. I’d sand a little, then work on bills a little, I decided. I’d found the sandpaper and was working away, great globs of red staining the grit, when a hand touched my shoulder.
As my body rose into the air, I decided I might have a new career training pole vaulters if I could just figure out how I’d propelled myself that high. No pole necessary. And my innards had jumped even higher than I had. I concentrated on landing without breaking any bones. When my feet touched redwood deck firma again, I whipped around and saw Barbara.
“Jeez-Louise, kiddo,” she said, laughing. “Ever think of joining the circus? That high jump’s a real crowd-pleaser.”
“Barbara—” I began indignantly.
But then I saw that her old grin had returned. I was so relieved that she’d recovered from the night before that I decided not to kill her. I’d have to wait till my innards settled, anyway.
“Thanks, Kate,” she acknowledged.
“You’re welcome,” I replied and handed her some sandpaper. “Work,” I commanded.
We worked together for a while, sanding in a pleasant silence, broken only by the occasional cawing of a crow, crying of a baby, or barking of a dog. A suburban meditation. The sun felt good on my shoulders as we worked. The rhythm of the sanding brought a sense of peace. Last night’s events might never have happened. I breathed in the smell of paint and redwood.
“Is C. C. all ready for her trip today?” Barbara asked.
“What trip?” I shot back, spitting fine redwood-and-paint residue. Rule One: Never open your mouth while sanding.
‘The trip to Justine’s,” she reminded me. “C. C.’s going to talk to Tibia and Femur.”
“You are kidding, aren’t you?” I demanded, turning away from the door and away from the residue waiting to jump into my mouth.
“Me, kid you?” Barbara’s laugh was high and tinkly.
“Barbara, you know C. C. hates other cats,” I told her. “And who’s she gonna tell if she finds something out—?”
“Linda,” Barbara answered. “C. C. can talk to Linda.”
I stiffened with jealousy for a moment. Then I came back to my senses. “Barbara, you’re making me crazy. C. C. won’t talk to Femur or Tibia. C. C. won’t talk to Linda. C. C. wouldn’t talk to me if she had a little human mouth put on—”
“You’ll never know if you don’t give her a chance,” Barbara pointed out.
“Look, it’s Thursday,” I pointed back. “Linda’s going to be wherever she works—”
“I already called her,” Barbara cut me off. “She’ll be at Justine’s in”—she paused to look at her watch—”in ten minutes.”
I gave up and went inside to find the cat carrier.
As it turned out, it was easier finding the cat carrier than finding C. C., who was as psychic as any of the members of Justine’s group.
But Barbara finally captured her where she stood, back humped and hissing, behind a potted plant.
It took the two of us to get C. C. into the homemade wood and wire-mesh cat carrier. And I felt guilty. It was bad enough to do this to her when she went to the vet, but doing this to her so she could talk to other psychic cats? I apologized mentally, but by the time I felt guilty enough to actually back out, the little gate was locked firmly on C. C.’s twitching tail.
“It’ll be all right,” Barbara told C. C., and C. C. tilted her little painted face through the mesh like she might believe her. “It’ll be an adventure,” Barbara promised and C. C. slit her eyes knowingly and lay down in the cat carrier, making herself comfortable.
Now all I had to do was explain to Wayne what we were doing.
“Veterinarian’s,” I announced cheerfully as I walked into the bedroom.
“Mrrmph,” Wayne answered, his eyes barely opening. Then his eyes gently closed again and he turned over, one hand tucked beneath his chin like a poster boy for angelic gargoyles.
I left him a note.
It was a lot different walking up the stone path to Justine’s redwood-shingled cottage carrying a cat carrier. Especially since C. C. was yowling and hissing again, psychically blind to Barbara’s blandishments now.
Linda met us at the door, smelling of fresh baking. The twin aromas of vanilla and nutmeg clung to her like friendly spirits. I wondered if we’d get cookies today.
“Oooh, is this C. C.?” she asked as if the cat in question was snuggling up to her instead of clawing frantically at her, only blocked from ripping her to pieces by the mesh walls of the cat carrier. C. C. could smell a veterinarian at twenty paces. And she didn’t like cookies.
“C. C., say hello to Linda.” I introduced the two briefly as we walked inside. C. C. let out a low-throated snarl that would have scared anyone sane.
“Ah, let the poor little thing out of that cage,” Linda suggested. Right, Linda wasn’t exactly sane. I knew that.
I lifted the gate of the cat carrier carefully, and C. C. scooted out like she had a rocket booster for a tail. She was on top of a tall shelf within seconds, alternately hissing and sneering at her assorted admirers beyond arm’s reach. A breeze fluttered a set of white curtains. C. C. eyed the open window. I hoped she wouldn’t escape that way or I’d never get her back.
I hopped across the room ahead of her and closed the possible exit.
Justine strode in just as I’d bolted the window shut, her face tired. More than tired, Justine’s broad face was drawn and her brown eyes were deeply shadowed.
“Barbara told you about Isabelle?” I guessed.
She nodded silently, her eyes slowly scaling the shelf that C. C. topped.
Then she smiled.
“Cool cat,” she commented.
Which is what C. C. stood for in the first place, in honor of the goatee and beret so artistically rendered by her black and white markings.
I stared at Justine. Had she known that?
But before I had a chance to ask her, Linda was calling in her feline reinforcements.
“Tibia, Femur?” her voice caroled. “We have a new kitty for you to play with.”
I looked up at C. C. on the shelf.
Play? Her fur stuck out on end at the very idea.
“Now, Tibia and Femur,” I heard Linda instructing in the next room, “we’ve brought C. C. over so you can tell her what happened to Silk, okay?”
I heard a distant mewl of doubt.
“Then C. C. will tell Kate and we’ll all know.” Linda paused as if listening for a moment, then went on. “Well, I can’t promise, but I’ll bet C. C. will like you. Just give her a chance.”
It seemed to me my mother had told me the same thing as a child just before Lila Ralston had stomped my doll-house into oblivion.
Linda came loping back into the living room, Femur and Tibia in her wake. It felt very warm suddenly, with the window shut.
“Now, C. C.—” she began.
There was a moment when the room seemed frozen in time, and then C. C. leapt. It was a grand leap. And then marmalade and tabby and black-and-white all were swept together into a whirling mass that blurred into one color. They might have been in a blender jar. Only this blender didn’t grind, it hissed and yelped and roared.