“You’re a psychic, you tell me,” I answered. I never could tell if Barbara really was psychic. But she did a damn good imitation of it if she wasn’t. Sometimes it drove me crazy— because she knew things, but they weren’t ever things that did you any good.
“You found another body?” she guessed after a moment.
I sighed. I should have known she’d know.
“Don’t tell Felix,” I added quickly. Felix was Barbara’s boyfriend, but he was also a vampire of a reporter. I didn’t want him over here with his fangs out.
“I won’t,” Barbara promised. Then she whispered, “But he’ll find out anyway.” She didn’t have to be psychic to tell me that. Felix always found out. And then interrogated unmercifully.
“Do you think it was murder?” I asked Barbara on impulse, keeping my voice as low as I could manage, hoping they wouldn’t hear me in the living room.
“Yes,” Barbara answered calmly after less than a second’s consideration. My body stiffened. I hadn’t wanted her to say yes.
By the time I’d heard about all the great mushroom appetizers she and Felix had consumed and hung up the phone, I was ready. Ready to ask the obvious question that no one had bothered Diana with yet.
The living room was silent when I walked back in. Then C.C. wandered in behind me and leapt gracefully into Diana’s lap. The little fink. A mini-bomb of forgotten jealousy exploded in my chest, flinging up the rubble of all my old feelings toward Diana. At least it wasn’t Wayne cuddling up in Diana’s lap, I told myself and asked the question.
“Do you think Sam was pushed?”
“I don’t know!” Diana wailed, her voice ringing off the rafters. C.C.’s ears flattened against her skull.
Whoops. I’d forgotten to be sensitive. Wayne sent me a look out of the corner of his lowered eyelid as I sat back down next to him.
And Diana began to sob again.
“That’s why we’re here,” Gary explained. “We know you two have investigated these things before. And Diana thought—”
“Oh, no,” I said loudly and clearly. “Not this time, not ever again—”
Diana turned her weeping eyes on Wayne. “That’s the awful part,” she cried. “Not knowing. I can’t…I just can’t believe he fell. He was a feeling man, physically as well as emotionally. And he would never jump. But I can’t imagine…I can’t imagine…”
“Anyone killing him,” I finished for her.
She turned back to me.
“You see, I have to know, Kate,” she told me, bending forward, wrapping herself around C.C. “And you and Wayne—”
I shook my head, opening my mouth to explain why neither Wayne nor I would ever presume to investigate a murder again. Not after the last time, when I’d almost lost Wayne. Not after—
“I’ll look into it,” Wayne announced from my side.
My mouth fell open even wider, empty of words.
And that was that. As I sat and seethed, Wayne asked Diana more questions. And C.C. purred and rubbed up against Diana’s face, licking away her tears. I told myself C.C. just liked the salty flavor. It wasn’t true love like the times she had licked away my own tears. Gary was the only one other than me who seemed uncomfortable with the situation. I watched his handsome face as Diana and Wayne made plans, and it was troubled. Did Gary think that asking for help investigating a murder was going just the tiniest bit over the line in employee benefit demands?
Wayne didn’t.
He made that clear once Gary and Diana had left.
“Gotta do it, Kate,” he told me once the door had closed behind them. “Gary’s my responsibility.”
Then he took me sputtering back to the couch and grabbed the tweezers and rubbing alcohol to remove the splinters from my hand.
“But Diana isn’t your responsibility!” I objected, withholding my splintered hand, a hand I was beginning to think I might withhold in marriage too. “And Sam Skyler certainly isn’t your responsibility—”
“No, not Sam Skyler,” he agreed, bitterness flavoring his low tone.
“What did you have against Sam Skyler, anyway?” I asked, anger replaced by curiosity suddenly. Because it wasn’t just Wayne. Sam had engendered antipathy in too many people. I’d seen it in their faces.
“Sam Skyler abused his wife,” Wayne answered quietly, looking away from my face.
“‘Skyler abused his wife,’“ I repeated. “What is that supposed to—”
Wayne looked back into my eyes.
“He murdered her, Kate,” he told me. “He murdered her.”
- Four -
Sam Skyler murdered his wife?” I breathed. “But—”
The doorbell rang, bouncing me out of my skin before I could get any farther. Diana and Gary again?
I yanked open the door. But it wasn’t Gary and Diana on our doorstep. It was Yvonne O’Reilley, still dressed in her cherry-red silk tunic and pants. And still smiling. Somehow, that smile seemed almost as bad as Diana’s sobs. It certainly didn’t hurt the ears as much, though.
“Just dropped by to make sure everything was copasetic,” she told us, her voice Tallulah Bankhead low. For her, this might have indicated seriousness, but I wasn’t sure. She was still smiling. She ran a hand through her crinkly blond hair, snagging a pink barrette. “Really, really cosmic events today.”
Cosmic, indeed.
“We’re fine,” I said, wishing her away.
It was Wayne who invited her in. Personally, I wanted to make Yvonne disappear so I could get Wayne into a hammerlock and interrogate him about Sam Skyler’s wife. His murdered wife? I still wasn’t sure I’d heard Wayne right. Or if he had meant the word “murder” literally.
Yvonne was sitting across from us in the other swinging chair before I really tuned in to what she was saying. And C.C. was long gone. She hated those swings. Not good for lap-sitting at all.
“…knew Sam through the seminar circuit,” Yvonne said, her voice still low. She pushed back with her feet and got her chair swaying. Faster and faster. I knew the woman was close to fifty, but she could have been eleven at that moment, swinging back and forth. “Sam Skyler, the man was moving at warp speed.” I winced, imagining his descent down the rocks. “His Institute was cosmically charged. You know all that grief stuff about his dead wife really worked. He really had it scanned.”
Dead wife? Did everyone but me know about this dead wife? I opened my mouth, but not fast enough.
“Like my Wedding Ritual seminars,” she went on. “I’ve been married three times so I really know what works. You gotta have a real sense of wonder in the ceremony. Intimate, sumptuous wonder.” Her eyes moved up to the ceiling. “David was really wonderful about setting up the scuba wedding—”
“David?” I asked.
“Oh.” She giggled. “I mean Park Ranger Yasuda. We worked together on creating the event. He’s very concerned about Sam Skyler’s death.” Her voice went low again, but this time it sounded more sexy than serious. Could Yvonne O’Reilley have a crush on Park Ranger Yasuda? “Very, very concerned. He takes his responsibilities super seriously.”
“Does he think Skyler was murdered?” I asked.
Yvonne’s gaze dropped from the ceiling to stare in our direction.
“Murdered?” she repeated, her voice up nearly an octave.
“Pushed,” I amplified.
Her eyes got wider.
“Wow,” she murmured. “I mean, I thought maybe it was, like, really bad karma about his wife and everything, but pushed?” Her eyes went back to the ceiling. “What a concept. I can almost see it, though. Someone with that kind of charisma, you know, they just throw out all this energy and sometimes it comes blasting back.”
“But who?” Wayne put in quietly.
“Wow,” Yvonne said, louder this time. “Maybe there’s, like, an illegitimate kid. Men like that—” She interrupted herself. “Or some kind of scam. Or something from his past life. Or an avenger. Or maybe something not even human. A force that pushed
him. What goes around, comes around.”
My head was reeling. This woman had a wilder imagination than my friend Barbara, and that was saying a lot. I was still trying to work out what she meant by the first theory about the illegitimate kid, as she went on.
“Or the wind, you know,” she whispered. “Very powerful. Maybe it’s a spirit.”
I shivered in spite of myself. The wind had been wild out there. And Sam had been leaning his huge upper body over the railing—
“Who’d Sam know in your class?” Wayne asked and the picture disappeared. But not the idea. A nonhuman force sounded appealing about now, no matter how farfetched. You didn’t have to investigate nonhuman forces.
“Ona’s experienced Sam’s whole seminar,” Yvonne answered, landing back on earth. “But Perry wouldn’t. Didn’t like the puppet stuff. Too much like religious idols or something, he said. Those poor guys, Ona and Perry. They have a set of kids each. He’s got girls and she’s got boys and the kids hate each other. We’re trying to get the kids involved some way in the Wedding Ritual Class, so they’ll feel connected to the process, you know. But it isn’t easy. Well, you saw.”
I nodded. The kids had attended one of the meetings and spent it in separate corners glaring at each other. And that was before they’d started the spitting part.
“I’m on the City Planning Commission in Golden Valley,” Yvonne added. “And Perry’s on the City Council. And Golden Valley’s where Sam’s Institute is, but I don’t know if that could mean anything. And then there’s Diana and her mother. And Nathan and his girlfriend, Martina.”
Yvonne shook her head suddenly as if to clear it. Her face curved back into an easy smile as she stood up from the swinging chair.
“But everything’s fine,” she assured us. “More than fine. Wondrous.”
She moved toward the door. Wayne and I jumped up hastily, following her.
She gave us both big hugs before she trotted down the front stairs, shouting over her shoulder.
“Can’t say the same for everyone in the group, but Emma and Campbell really do love each other. The Universe will provide.”
Then she twirled all the way around to face us, raising her hand in goodbye.
“See you tomorrow at class!” she sang out.
An instant later, she’d jumped into her Saab and was gone.
I strong-armed Wayne back into the house the minute her car lights disappeared.
“Well?” I demanded.
“Well, what?” he muttered, looking at his feet.
“Well, what!” I shouted, grabbing his arm even harder, and abruptly remembering the splinters in my hand. “Did Sam Skyler really kill his wife?”
“Think so,” he mumbled. Now I knew he was upset. Full sentences were always the first to go when he was upset. “Might be wrong, though. Shouldn’t really say.”
“Just tell me, all right?” I said with false calm, resisting the urge to shake him. It’s not easy to shake a man as tall as Wayne, anyway. Especially a man with a black belt in karate. No matter how many years I’ve practiced tai chi.
But I didn’t have to shake him. He told me his story, Sam’s story, however reluctantly. Sitting on the couch, removing splinters from my hand as he talked.
“I was doing an internship with the Public Defenders Office when Sam Skyler went on trial,” he began.
“Ouch,” I bleated as a splinter came out.
“Sorry.”
“No, go on,” I told him as he wiped the spot with stinging alcohol. “Sam Skyler was on trial for murdering his wife?”
“Yeah.” He pulled another splinter. I restrained myself from further bleating. “About ten years ago. Sally Skyler, her name was. She fell from the balcony of their house onto the rocks overlooking the ocean in Eldora.”
“And Sam fell onto the rocks from a bluff in Quiero,” I murmured. Avenging spirits floated through my mind, prickling the hair on the back of my neck with their flight. This was getting too spooky.
“Everyone in the legal community thought the man did it, but people were placing bets that he’d get off.” The third splinter came out. Painfully. “Skyler married Sally not long after her first husband died. Her first, very rich husband. Then she was a very rich widow. And Sam became a very rich widower.”
“But it still could have been an accident,” I argued. “Rich wives can fall by accident, can’t they? Why were people so sure he did it?”
“There was a witness, but the defense discredited him, got him to say he wasn’t absolutely certain.”
“Ah,” I murmured. A witness. Then I noticed Wayne was looking down at his feet again. And he’d stopped torturing my hand. He was holding something back. I could tell.
“And?” I prodded.
Wayne sighed and squirmed in place awhile, his eyebrows low on the horizon of his eyeballs.
“Tell me,” I ordered, my voice deep with threat. Threat of what I’m not really sure. But it seemed to work.
Wayne turned to me, eyebrows rising. He sighed again.
“You have to promise to keep this part in confidence,” he said, his voice deepening, too.
“But what if it has a bearing on Sam Skyler’s death?” I asked. I don’t make promises lightly. Especially not to Wayne.
His brows dropped again.
“All right, all right,” I gave in. “This part in confidence. But the rest is public knowledge.”
“Shouldn’t even know this myself,” Wayne started off, grabbing my hand again. “Had a friend from law school, Joey—” He cut himself off and started over again. “Had a friend from law school who was interning in a prominent defense firm at the same time I was at the P.D.’s Office. He called me one day and we got together for lunch. At his house. He said he had to talk to someone and made me promise never to say anything to anyone.”
Wayne turned to me again, glaring. I nodded my understanding.
“He was an ethical guy, more ethical than most, and he was bugged. He’d been in the room when Skyler’s attorneys— Skyler had a whole team—were talking with him. For some reason, one of them asked the question you’re never supposed to ask: ‘Did you do it?’ And Skyler answered, ‘Does it matter? By the time I’m through with the jury, no one will believe I did it.’ Not an actual admission, but still. And my friend was supposed to work on the team defending this man. This man he was sure had murdered his wife.”
“So what’d your friend do?” I asked, now lost in his ethical dilemma myself.
“He got himself transferred to another case. But he never forgot the remark. Or Sam Skyler.”
And with that, Wayne pulled the last splinter from my hand. That hurt. And it brought me back to the case in point. Even as Wayne bent down to kiss my palm before dabbing on the last of the alcohol.
“But Sam Skyler got off,” I prompted.
“You’ve seen him, Kate,” Wayne growled. “He could charm anyone. Joey said he actually used hypnosis techniques when he got on the stand. By the time Skyler finished with the jury, they thought he was a grief-stricken widower, oppressed by an insensitive legal system, who deserved a medal for what he’d been through. Certainly not a man who had pushed his wife off the balcony.”
“So that’s why you kept glaring at him,” I murmured finally.
“Did I?” Wayne asked, brows rising. “Didn’t think it was that obvious. But the man gets to me—got to me. Seven months after the trial, his book Grief into Growth was published. It was an instant bestseller. He must have been writing it all through the trial. And then he started his seminars based on the book’s success.” He paused. “Guess maybe I did glare. And Gary. Gary was worried sick about Diana. This man who may have murdered his wife was going to marry his sister—”
“Did you tell Gary all this?” I asked.
Wayne shook his head. “Couldn’t decide what to tell him. Skyler had a fair trial. In fact, maybe he didn’t do it. Just because my friend thought so, doesn’t mean it was true. And Skyler did seem to have real affec
tion for Diana.” Wayne stood up from the couch. “It’s been driving me nuts. Whether to tell Gary what I knew. He already hated Skyler. And he’d already made up his mind that Skyler killed his wife. Of course Diana didn’t believe it for a second.”
Wayne threw out his arms in frustration, then dropped them again slowly.
“And now the man’s dead,” he ended quietly.
“And you still feel you owe Gary,” I said just as quietly.
I wanted to scream at him to leave it alone. Sam Skyler was dead. Let the police take care of it. But I knew he never would. I probably wouldn’t either in his position.
“Oh, sweetie,” I sighed.
Then I just stood up and put my arms around him. And we held each other for a long, long time.
*
Sunday morning in bed, we were still holding onto each other. But I was having my doubts about Wayne’s investigating.
If Gary Atherton really believed his sister’s fiancé had killed his wife, then why did he even care who’d killed Sam Skyler? If Sam Skyler had even been killed. Or killed his wife. The words he’d uttered to his attorneys were subject to more than one interpretation. And Wayne hadn’t even heard them himself, for that matter. Sam Skyler might have fallen by accident, just as his wife might have fallen by accident. Despite my friend Barbara’s psychic opinion. In fact, it was lucky Gary hadn’t been on the scene. Assuming Sam had been murdered, Gary would be prime suspect material if he’d been there.
I moved my head higher onto Wayne’s warm shoulder, snuggling in. It wasn’t Gary who wanted to know who killed Sam Skyler. It was Diana. And as far as I was concerned, employee benefits didn’t extend to sisters, especially gorgeous, tantric yoga instructor sisters.
“You know,” I suggested softly, “I’m not so sure Gary really wants you to investigate this thing.”
Wayne’s warm body shifted abruptly. My head bounced lightly off his shoulder.
“I think it’s really Diana—”
Wayne untangled himself from my arms and legs and sat up, glaring.
A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 4