Karma's a Killer

by Tracy Weber

  A minute or so later, he jumped down from the truck, slid the ramp back into place, and closed the door behind him.

  “That’s a pretty cool trick,” I said.

  “Amazing what a little bribery will get you.” The sparkle returned to his eyes. “If I waved a paper bag and yelled ‘scones,’ you’d come running faster than they did.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  He turned to the teens. “Boys, I think that’s about enough excitement for one day. I’ll figure out what to do with what’s left of the fencing. You two take those critters on home now. I’ll call you tonight to make sure they settled in okay.” He slapped them each on the shoulder. “You done good. Your daddy’d be proud of you.” The boys’ smiles spread across their entire faces.

  “Now remember, you’re in charge of the rescue until next Friday,” he added. “Feed these guys some extra treats the next couple of days to help them settle down.” He winked. “I suspect you’ll find something a little extra in your paychecks, too.”

  As the two grinning teens drove off, Dale, Michael, and I returned to the fire line. Maggie had evidently found Sally, because the two hovered near the edge of the crowd, watching the firemen douse out the remaining hotspots.

  Maggie shook her head disconsolately. “I guess I should go make an announcement. This event is officially over. What a disaster.”

  “It could have been worse,” Sally replied.

  “I don’t see how. We lost Mrs. Abernathy’s support, and now everyone’s leaving before I could give them my final pitch. You know we needed this money.”

  “There are worse things than losing a few donations, you know. At least no one was hurt.”

  Maggie sighed. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.” She chewed on her lower lip. “If we’re lucky, we might not get sued.”

  Sally didn’t reply.

  “Did anyone see who started the fire?” Michael asked.

  “Not that I know of.” Sally pointed toward the booths. “But it had to be the demonstrators. Maybe one of those two over there.”

  My eyes tracked her finger straight to Serenity Yoga’s booth. A black-clad woman with Dharma’s long braid was rifling through the information on my table. The handsome, dark-haired man I assumed was Eduardo was chatting with Tiffany at Pete’s Pets next door.

  Tiffany’s smile was wider than a shark’s at a chum factory. She played with her hair and leaned forward to touch Eduardo’s arm. He scanned the crowd, obviously looking for something. I got the feeling he was only pretending to listen to Tiffany.

  “Isn’t that the guy who was wearing the dog collar?” I asked. “He couldn’t have set the fire. He was demonstrating—on-leash, no less

  —when we heard the blast.”

  “You’re both jumping to conclusions,” Dale countered. “The fire might not have anything to do with the protest. For all we know, some kid tossed a lit match into that dumpster. That’s for the police and the fire chief to figure out.”

  “Maybe,” I replied. “But I’m going to have a chat with them.” I glanced at Michael. “Want to come with?”

  Michael and I headed across the field, fully intending to question the two protesters. But by the time we arrived at our booths, they had vanished.

  Six

  I looked for Dharma and Eduardo as long as I could, then scooted off to pick up Bella from my friend Rene’s house. From there, I drove directly to Greenwood to meet with Alicia, my private yoga student. She’d barely entered Serenity Yoga’s lobby before I started telling her about my crazy morning. I didn’t normally discuss my personal traumas with students, but I was surprisingly rattled about the day’s events. Besides, Alicia was more than a student. She was also my landlord. She owned the mixed-use building that housed Serenity Yoga, the PhinneyWood Grocer, Pete’s Pets, and the apartments above them. Beyond that, she was rapidly becoming one of my closest friends.

  As I finished my story, Alicia slipped off her shoes and slid them under the bench in the lobby.

  “So you never found out if the protesters were involved in setting the fire?” she asked.

  “No, and it’s driving me crazy. I wanted to question Eduardo and Dharma, but we couldn’t find them before I had to leave to get Bella.” I pointed at the coffee stain still decorating my shirt. “I didn’t even have a chance to go home and change clothes.”

  “Why were you so interested in talking to those two?”

  I paused before replying. Her question was reasonable; I just didn’t know how to answer it.

  “I have a funny feeling about them.”

  “What do you mean?

  “I can’t say why, exactly, but Dharma seems familiar. Like maybe I’ve seen her on the news or something. And Eduardo was acting strange, too. Why would someone so adamantly opposed to animal ownership make nice with a pet store employee?” I poured a glass of water from the studio’s water cooler, took a long drink, and shared the rest with my thirsty schefflera tree. “According to Tiffany, they took off in a hurry right before Michael and I got there.”

  “Do you think they saw you coming?”

  “Maybe, but why would they care? Neither of us knows them.” I absently chewed on my thumbnail. “Something just feels off. And get this: I read the propaganda Eduardo left with Tiffany. HEAT is a vegan animal rights group based out of Sacramento.”

  Alicia’s eyes widened. “Sacramento? Why would a group from California protest an animal shelter in Seattle?”

  “Beats me. I would have grilled him about it, but Tiffany was so starstruck by his deep baby browns that she didn’t think to ask.” I shook my head. “That girl is so gullible. Now she’s decided to go vegan. I swear she falls for anything that walks upright and has an extra appendage, if you know what I mean.”

  Alicia smirked. “Come on, Kate, go easy on her. She’s young. Besides, I seem to remember a certain yoga teacher who spent the night with a local pet store owner—on their very first date, no less.”

  I ignored Alicia’s teasing. Her words were true, but my situation was entirely different. I’d fallen for Michael well before that first date, whether I’d been willing to admit it to myself or not. Tiffany, on the other hand, had a long history of questionable taste in men.

  “Dharma took some of my flyers, but that’s not surprising. After all, that’s why I put them on the table.” I shrugged. “Honestly, if I hadn’t known that those two were protesters, I wouldn’t have thought twice about their behavior. The way Tiffany describes it, they were just browsing.”

  “You know, Kate, you might be reading too much into their actions. Contrary to your recent experiences, not everyone who acts out of the ordinary winds up being a criminal. Maybe this Dharma person likes yoga.”

  “And her friend?”

  Alicia shrugged. “I know neither of us is fond of Tiffany, but she is pretty cute, in a singles-bar-trash sort of way. Men like that.” She took off her jacket and hat. When she turned back around, she wore a big smile. “Notice anything different about me?”

  My mouth dropped open. “Wow, Alicia, your new haircut looks gorgeous!”

  Next to Rene, Alicia was the most attractive woman I knew. She somehow managed to make T-shirts seem elegant, and when she smiled, it radiated through the entire room. Still, I couldn’t quite get over how her new hairstyle transformed her. The chin-length cut fell in wisps around her face, and the new blonde highlights complemented the honey tones of her skin. She looked young, happy, confident, and, most importantly, healthy.

  Alicia shook her head vigorously and smiled as every strand fell back into place. “Thanks. My stylist convinced me to cut off the chemo curls. Between the new cut and the return of my eyelashes, I feel like a new woman.”

  Alicia was a survivor of stage IV malignant melanoma. When she was diagnosed, her doctors didn’t expect her to last more than a few months, but the
y underestimated her ability to fight. Twelve months after her last treatment and a few weeks past her thirty-fourth birthday, she was still in remission.

  We moved into the yoga room. Alicia grabbed a blue Mexican blanket for knee padding, rolled out her mat, and sat cross-legged on the floor. I lit a candle for ambiance, rang my Tibetan chimes three times, and asked her to deepen her breath. After coaching her through a few gentle poses to help her connect her mind with her body, I led her in the first of several Sun Salutes.

  She performed them almost effortlessly, cycling through Head-to-Knee Pose, Downward Dog, Upward Dog, and Cobra Pose. Her biceps bulged as she held a core-strengthening Plank Pose before lowering her body an inch from the floor and hovering, seemingly weightless, in a perfectly straight Chaturanga. I couldn’t help but admire her resilience. Ten months after literally fighting off death, she was stronger than most of the yogis I knew, including myself.

  We continued through a standing sequence with twists, squats, and balance poses, and eventually finished with some delicious-looking seated forward bends. After leading her through a luxuriously long Savasana—yoga’s pose of quiet rest—I rang the chimes three times again to signal the end of class.

  “Start by wiggling your fingers and toes, maybe yawning and stretching. When you’re ready, roll to your side, then slowly press yourself up to sitting.”

  Alicia placed her palms together at her heart. We finished by saying the word “Namaste,” which loosely translates as “the light within me acknowledges the light within you.” When she opened her eyes again, her skin seemed to glow.

  “That was amazing, Kate. Thank you.” Alicia rolled up her mat, gathered her belongings from the reception area, and handed me a check. “I need to do some work in the office, so I’ll leave through the garage.”

  I grabbed my keys and walked her to the studio’s back entrance. “See you on Wednesday at our normal time?”

  “Deal.”

  I opened the door, but Alicia stopped, unwilling to take the first step. “That’s disgusting!”

  Dozens of bird droppings decorated the steps to the parking garage. Similar splotches painted the handrails.

  “Sorry. I noticed it on my way in, but I didn’t have time to clean it up.” I pointed at the Road Warrior–like assortment of chicken wire, netting, and metal spikes that Alicia had installed above the back entrance. A gunmetal-gray pigeon roosted comfortably between two metal spikes. “Looks like your newest bird-deterrent didn’t work any better than the others.”

  Alicia scowled. “I’m getting really sick of that flying waste generator. The apartment residents have started complaining, too. But every time I come up with a new plan to keep him out, he figures out how to overcome it. I swear that bird is smarter than I am.” She paused. “I know we’ve talked about this before, but … ” Her voice trailed off.

  I shook my head emphatically. “Absolutely not. I don’t want you to use anything that isn’t completely humane. It’s my studio’s entrance that he’s messing up, so I should have the final word. I don’t want him harmed.”

  She sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll get maintenance to pressure-wash the cement. Again.” She trudged toward the office, mumbling words never uttered by the Dalai Lama. At least not in front of his yoga teacher.

  Contented cooing filtered down from the ceiling.

  I lifted my eyes to the feathered menace and scowled. “You don’t have to be smug about it.” I double-checked to make sure that the studio door had locked behind me and skirted around the mess toward my car. Time to give Bella a bio break.

  Figuring out where to leave Bella during the workday was always a dilemma. When I originally fostered her, I tried letting her hang out at the yoga studio. What a disaster. She’d made it her life’s work to chase intruders and junk mail–wielding psychopaths—aka customers and mailmen—out of the building. Doggy daycare? Perish the thought. Bella would have to be the only four-footed creature on the premises. Ditto for leaving her with Michael at Pete’s Pets.

  The problem was compounded when Michael moved in with me and we started remodeling my tiny two-bedroom house. If we left my overly territorial German shepherd alone with the contractors, we’d come home to find construction-worker body parts scattered all over the yard.

  Besides, Bella—though perfectly content when guarding the back seat of my ancient Honda Civic—suffered from significant separation anxiety when left home alone. I couldn’t blame her. Her first owner had tied her up to a stake in his yard; her second left her locked in a crate the night he was murdered. Keeping Bella in my car wasn’t the most politically correct alternative, but according to her vet and her trainer, it was the safest, as long as the car remained cool. So I’d begged Alicia to rent me one of the resident parking spots inside the building and checked on Bella every couple of hours. The back-seat solution wasn’t perfect, but it worked for the time being.

  I clipped on Bella’s leash, glanced around to make sure no off-leash dogs or bearded men were nearby, and let Bella out of her mobile home away from home. She hopped to the ground, did a quick happy dance, and pulled me through the garage’s exit toward the large outdoor parking lot shared by the businesses.

  Bella stopped at the entrance to Pete’s Pets and nudged the door with her nose, clearly hoping to go inside and bond with her cool friend Tiffany. I could have sworn I saw the question Where’s the Cookie Lady? dance across her pretty, deep brown eyes.

  “Sorry, sweetie. Michael and Tiffany aren’t here. The store is closed today because of the event at Green Lake.”

  I dragged my disappointed canine buddy away from the door, turned toward the front entrance of Serenity Yoga, and froze. A woman with a long braid loitered outside the entrance, holding one of my pamphlets.

  What was Dharma doing outside of my yoga studio?

  Up close, I could tell that Dharma was older than I’d originally thought, likely in her early fifties. Deep creases surrounding her eyes hinted at too much sun exposure and too little sunscreen. She wore minimal makeup, but then again, she didn’t need to. Her face was naturally attractive. In her youth, she had probably been stunning. Instead of the solid black outfit she’d worn earlier, she was dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, and a light blue sweater.

  My skin prickled with the same apprehensive sense of déjà vu I’d felt earlier, as if this woman and I were somehow connected. I knew her, but how? I closed my eyes and tried to remember, but nothing pierced through the fog.

  When I opened my eyes, Dharma was staring at me. She raised her hand in a tentative wave. Bella moaned, relaxed her ears, and slowly swished her tail, clearly inviting her closer.

  “Stay, sweetie,” I whispered.

  I watched, feeling uneasy, as Dharma moved toward us. When she was three feet away, Bella broke her stay, wiggled up to her, and nudged her hands.

  Dharma kneeled next to her and gently rubbed her ears. “Some big scary guard dog you are.”

  Bella leaned into Dharma’s touch, entranced by her new stranger-friend. She gave Dharma several warm, sloppy kisses and offered her paw. I was so taken by the ease of their friendship that several moments passed before I realized that Dharma was paying attention to Bella—at least in part—to avoid looking at me.

  “Excuse me, but do I know you?”

  Dharma froze, mid-scratch, and lowered her hand. She stood and tentatively reached out her fingers as if testing the burner on a recently turned-off stove. A smile touched her lips, then faltered. “Yes, you do. My name is Dharma. I knew you when you were little.”

  Every cell in my body reacted to this stranger’s words. My stomach clenched, my throat constricted. Nerve endings tingled along my spine. My mind whirled, trying to connect the disparate pieces in some way—any way—other than the truth. I knew the term ‘dharma’; it was the Sanskrit word for “duty.” And, of course, Dharma was this stranger’s name. But that wasn’t what
felt familiar. Somewhere deep in my subconscious I had to have known who Dharma was, but I didn’t want to—I couldn’t—accept it.

  Bella sensed my inner turmoil. A low sound rumbled deep in her throat. She backed slowly away from Dharma and stood in front of me. Stranger-friend or not, if Dharma meant me harm, she’d have to go through Bella first.

  “Easy, girl,” I said automatically. “This is our friend.” I wasn’t sure I believed it.

  Dharma took several steps back, but she didn’t break eye contact.

  I wanted to flee. I wanted to go home. I wanted to jump back in bed, pull the covers over my head, and live the rest of my life blissfully unaware of this woman’s existence. But I couldn’t. A ten-ton weight had fallen from the sky and pinned my feet to the earth. My heart got crushed somewhere beneath it.

  “You might not remember me anymore,” Dharma continued. “When you were a little girl, I went by Daisy. My last name is Carmichael now, but for a very short time, it was Davidson.”

  I couldn’t delude myself anymore, no matter how much I wanted to. I knew exactly where I’d seen Dharma’s eyes before: every morning in the bathroom mirror. I opened my mouth to reply, but the sound that emerged was an unintelligible hybrid of a squeak and a croak.

  The no-longer-a-stranger-and-certainly-no-friend tentatively smiled.

  “It’s nice to see you after such a long time, Kate. I’m your mother.”

  Seven

  “You lied to me. You told me that your mother was dead.”

  Rene’s voice was significantly louder than I would have preferred, given the circumstances. Every coffee drinker within a twenty-foot radius halted mid-sip and craned their necks in our direction. The barista even stopped steaming my soy milk to peer at me over the espresso machine.

  At least someone found my life entertaining.

  Dharma had left after dropping her emotional bombshell. She claimed that I needed time alone to think, which was proof positive that the woman knew nothing about me. Stewing in solitude would have eaten a hole in my stomach.