Karma's a Killer

by Tracy Weber

The lights were off when I pulled into the driveway, so I assumed that Michael had already gone to bed. I tiptoed up to the kitchen entrance, silently inserted my key, and eased open the door.

  To the obvious aftermath of a tornado.

  I looked around the kitchen remodel, taking in the day’s devastation. The smell of freshly cut wood tickled my nostrils. Sheets of white plastic covered every window and doorway, plunging the room into dreary grayness. The tiny amount of counter space that hadn’t yet been dismantled was covered with power tools, bright orange extension cords, and a thick layer of grime.

  Seriously? Every day?

  When Michael and I agreed to combine households in my tiny Ballard bungalow, I knew that we’d have some issues. Michael hated my secrecy; I was annoyed by his messiness. We were both trying to meet each other halfway, but after five months of cohabitation, I had a feeling that I’d have to learn to accept Michael’s housekeeping deficit disorder. That was okay. I had plenty of flaws of my own. Like not telling my partner about my not-so-dead mother.

  Our first couple of months went surprisingly well.

  Then we started the remodel.

  What began as a relatively simple bathroom remodel had somehow morphed into a major house expansion that included fencing my yard, redesigning both the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, and adding a two-person office next to the guest bedroom. The escalating price tag made me distinctly uncomfortable, but Michael was paying for it with the money he saved in apartment rent each month.

  Part of me felt crazy for taking on such a huge project with a man who only held the title of “boyfriend.” The other part knew that marriage license or not, Michael would be stuck with me for the rest of his life. Our relationship had already withstood my crazy commitment-phobic neuroses and a murder accusation. I figured it could withstand anything.

  I hadn’t counted on the stresses of construction.

  All sixty-seven days of it, so far.

  The single clean spot in the kitchen was the tiny, well-organized space on the table I’d claimed as my own. That four-foot-square area contained two dog bowls, an assortment of measuring cups and spoons, and the blender I used to grind and prepare Bella’s special diet. She suffered from an autoimmune disease called Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI), which left her unable to digest food on her own. Her meals had to be prepared in a highly customized way that included grinding, adding water and enzymes, and waiting a minimum of twenty minutes while the disgusting-looking concoction “incubated.”

  Michael knew better than to let anything disturb my Bella food-preparation rituals. The last time he distracted me while I was mixing her food, we ended up with a sick dog, a terrible night’s sleep, and a blow to the skull (mine, not Michael’s). Neither of us planned to repeat the experience.

  I pressed through the plastic sheeting covering the doorway and entered the living room. As Michael had promised, the living room and upstairs bedroom were mainly untouched by the construction. If you didn’t count the continual layer of dust that somehow seeped through the plastic or the Jenga-like piles of boxes, furniture, towels, and kitchen appliances stacked in every available space.

  I pulled a bottle of Merlot from the wine rack, filled a semiclean glass with liquid tranquilizer, and chugged it down. Eight ounces of twelve-percent alcohol hit my stomach at the same time, leaving me warm and deliciously woozy. Another pour and two swallows later, I headed upstairs.

  Michael snored softly on one side of the bed; Bella snored loudly on the other. I carefully wove my body between them, relishing their warmth and wondering, not for the first time, what I’d done to be lucky enough to deserve them. I laced my fingers through Michael’s, then rolled my back to him and wrapped my arms and legs around Bella. She groaned and leaned into my touch.

  I lay there for at least a hundred years, trying not to think about Dharma, breathing in Bella’s sweet scent, and willing myself to fall asleep. I could only hope that—as The Yoga Sutras promised—sleep would allow my spirit to return to its source, so that maybe, just maybe, I could find peace.

  When I woke up the next morning, Michael was gone.

  He left a note on the nightstand: You need to call the construction company. The contractors left the kitchen door open yesterday.

  Again? That was the third time they’d left the house unlocked this month. How was it that highly skilled men—who could focus long enough to cut two-by-fours to within an eighth of an inch without losing a finger—didn’t have the brain capacity to lock a door behind them?

  Michael’s note ended with, Sorry I fell asleep before you got home. Everything okay?

  Excellent question. Was it?

  Bella interrupted my musing with a single sharp bark.

  “You’re right, sweetie. We should definitely go for a walk after breakfast.”

  I’d deliberately misunderstood her. Bella’s demand-bark always meant Feed me. Now. Still, her vocalization gave me the excuse I’d been looking for. I couldn’t explain why, but I was curiously drawn back to the dock at Green Lake—the first place I’d seen Dharma. Maybe visiting it would give me more clarity.

  As soon as Bella finished her breakfast, we hopped into the car and drove straight to the soccer fields.

  I had the perfect plan. By nine, the before-work exercisers would have completed their three-mile loop, leaving the dock relatively empty. I would sit on the wooden platform, touch my fingers to its rough surface, and try to tap into Dharma’s energy. If I connected with her essence, I might be able to intuit her agenda—or at least understand my own. If nothing else, Bella would get the first of her half-dozen bio breaks for the day.

  I parked near the Green Lake Community Center, clipped on Bella’s leash, and allowed her to drag me toward the water. My feet stopped near the cement tulip planters.

  Bella’s stopped, too.

  Something was wrong.

  Three police cruisers and a gray coroner’s van were parked on the trail. The area surrounding the paddleboats and dock had been blocked off with yellow crime-scene tape. A large crowd loitered and whispered outside it. Bella pricked her ears forward, raised her hackles, and stepped between me and the uniformed officer containing the gawkers. A low growl rumbled from deep in her chest.

  I placed my fingers between her shoulder blades. “It’s okay, Bella. This has nothing to do with us.”

  My words weren’t convincing, even to me. Deep inside, I knew that whatever was happening, it had everything to do with us. I considered retreating back to my car, but curiosity-laced foreboding pulled me, step by wary step, toward the water. I wrapped Bella’s leash tightly around my wrist and stood with the spectators.

  I spoke to the young Asian jogger beside me. “What happened?”

  She pointed to a trio of gray-haired men huddled near the patrol cars. “See those fishermen? They found a woman in the water. I think she drowned.”

  Drowned?

  Tiny hairs all along the back of my neck prickled. No one swam in Green Lake until the water warmed up later in summer. I stood on my toes and craned my neck to see over the crowd. Two men in dark blue uniforms lifted a female body and placed it on a wheeled stretcher. She wore a black T-shirt with an orange flame emblem.

  My heart froze in my chest.

  Could it be Dharma?

  My eyes jerked to the clear plastic bags covering her hands. The body’s fingernails were black, except for the middle ones, which were painted blood burgundy. My heart started beating again, thudding a steady rhythm of guilty relief.

  Thank God.

  It wasn’t Dharma; it was Raven.

  The man at the top of the stretcher turned, and I finally saw Raven’s face. Guilty relief turned into gut-wrenching dread.

  If Raven had drowned, how did she get that deep red gash across her forehead?

  I lowered my heels, grabbed Bella’s collar, and slowly
backed away. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go.”

  No doubt about it. Dharma’s and my meeting this afternoon had just gotten significantly more complicated.

  I arrived at the studio in time to teach a mindless rendition of my ten-thirty Flow class. I obsessed about my upcoming meeting with Dharma. Did she already know about Raven’s death? If not, how was I—a virtual stranger—supposed to tell her? After what felt like ninety years, the ninety-minute class was finally over. I said goodbye to my students, stared out the window, and waited for Dharma to arrive.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Three hours and two group classes later, I said goodbye to the Mom and Baby instructor and told her that I’d take care of the afternoon’s cleanup.

  I should have been happy. I wanted the whole Dharma situation to go away quietly, and apparently it had. So why was I still standing here, pining next to the window like a teenager who’d been stood up on prom night?

  Whatever Dharma was doing, it was, as always, more important than me. I grabbed my jacket from behind the chair, unlocked the filing cabinet, and pulled out my purse. It was time to go home and figure out what to tell Michael.

  I was three steps away from the desk when the phone rang.

  “Serenity Yoga, this is Kate. How can I help you?”

  A mechanized voice answered. “This is a collect call from the King County Jail.” Then Dharma’s voice came on the line. “Kate, it’s Dharma. Please pick up.” The mechanical voice continued. “Will you accept the charges?”

  Every part of my body constricted. Unyogic or not, I wanted to say no. If Dharma was a guest at King County’s correctional facility, it could only be for one reason: Raven’s death. In the past year, I’d already been mixed up in two murders too many. I had no desire to get sucked in again. Especially not for a stranger who’d walked out on me three decades ago.

  I took a deep breath, fully intending to tell the robot voice no. To tell Dharma that she should call someone that she actually knew. Someone she cared about. Someone who cared about her. But then I flashed on my last image of George: dirty clothes, whiskey-laden breath, worried eyes. George adored his daughter even though he’d abandoned her. Given the opportunity, he might have proven it.

  “Yes, I’ll accept the charges.”

  “Thank goodness you answered, Kate. Thank you.” Dharma’s voice sounded shaky, frightened even. Almost hysterical. Not at all like the woman I’d met the day before.

  “What happened, Dharma?”

  Delusional Kate hoped that Dharma’s answer would be a surprise. Maybe she’d been arrested for some minor pet-activist crime, like chaining herself to an Animal Control vehicle or stealing some poor unsuspecting pit bull from inside its own yard.

  “Kate, I—” Her voice caught. “I can’t say it. I can’t even believe it.” When she spoke again, her voice was so soft, it was almost a whisper. “Kate, I need you to come see me. I’ve been arrested for murder.”

  Nine

  For the record, telling your boyfriend that your not-as-dead-as-you-might-have-implied mother has been arrested for murder doesn’t go over well. At least it didn’t in my case.

  Michael was still fuming the next morning. He road-raged his way through downtown Seattle’s Monday morning traffic, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white. His jaw trembled. A small vein pulsed high on the side of his forehand. His face glowed so red I was afraid he might have a stroke.

  “Explain this to me again. You told Rene that your mother was alive and in town when?”

  “Saturday.”

  “A full day before you told me.”

  “It was less than a day, Michael. More like twenty-two hours.”

  Michael’s look would have soured milk.

  “I swear, I wasn’t going to hide it from you forever. I was planning to talk to you after Dharma and I met yesterday, but as you know, I never saw her.” I cringed and tried to look innocent. “It could have been worse. I didn’t tell you about Dharma right away, but at least I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Only because you didn’t get the chance. You came home so late on Saturday night that … ” His shoulders, already tense to begin with, shot up to his ears.

  Busted.

  He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “That’s why you came home so late, isn’t it? You were avoiding me.”

  “Michael, I—”

  “Enough, Kate,” he interrupted. “I don’t want to hear it.” He reached over and cranked up the radio’s volume, clearly ending the conversation.

  The safest response was to let him sulk in silence. I didn’t have a good explanation for my behavior, anyway. Michael was right. I’d already kept way too many secrets from him. I knew he’d calm down eventually; Michael wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. I also knew that each time he caught me in an evasion—and each time he blew his stack at me for shutting him out—it chipped away at the foundation of our relationship. If we were going to work as a couple, we’d have to figure out a compromise.

  I glanced at Michael’s anger-rigid body. Necessary or not, today wasn’t the day to begin negotiating a peace treaty.

  Instead, I stared out the passenger-side window, watched the skyscrapers go by, and made up fairytales about Dharma’s arrest. Imagined scenarios were all I had to work with. Other than telling me she’d been accused of killing Raven, Dharma had refused to discuss the charges against her unless I came to see her in person. She claimed that her lawyer warned her not to talk on the jail’s phone system, but I suspected that the decision to hold back was hers. Information was the only bait she had to lure me into her lair.

  At first, I was torn. Dharma should be making nice with her lawyer right now, not her estranged daughter. But my old nemeses—curiosity and guilt—drew me toward Dharma like a mosquito to a bug zapper, with the same likely outcome. Within minutes of hanging up the phone, I was back on it with John O’Connell, my father’s old partner at the Seattle Police Department, begging him to expedite my background check so I could secure a coveted spot on Dharma’s approved visitors list.

  All of which led to this—me having to endure the silent treatment from Michael as we drove to the King County Jail for the first of two weekly visiting times. I had a gazillion questions for Dharma, and I intended to get answers to all of them. Two prime examples: Why do the police think you killed Raven? And, more importantly, Did you do it?

  Twenty minutes later, Michael and I opened the double glass doors of the King County Jail, passed through the metal detectors, and submitted to a brief and minimally invasive pat-down. We signed in at the front desk and handed a bored-looking officer our photo IDs. She scowled over the top of her glasses at Michael.

  “You’re not on the inmate’s approved visitors list.”

  Michael’s mumbled response was unintelligible, which was probably a good thing. There were children in the room, after all.

  I smiled and did my best impersonation of a trustworthy yoga teacher. “We were hoping to go in together. Can’t you make an exception?”

  “Listen, Ms. … ” She peered down at my ID. “Ms. Davidson.” She wrinkled her nose as if the name were somehow distasteful. “There is only one way your friend here is getting into the jail today, and it is not as a visitor. Would you like to accompany him?”

  I sensed it was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer. I turned to Michael as she handed him back his driver’s license. “Don’t take it personally, Michael. I didn’t tell Dharma about you, and—”

  Wrong answer.

  “Of course you didn’t,” he growled. “But I’ll bet you told her all about Rene.”

  I hadn’t, actually, but now wasn’t the time to argue.

  He shoved his wallet into his back pocket. “I’ll wait in the chairs with the rest of the chauffeurs.”

  I tur
ned back to the police woman/receptionist. “I guess it will be just me.”

  She recited the rules in a perfect monotone.

  “Thirty minutes maximum per visit. The clock starts as soon as the inmate sits down. No cell phones, keys, or other personal items. Inappropriate attire, profanity, or disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. Shoes must be worn at all times.”

  “Seriously? Who goes inside a jail barefoot?” As a yoga teacher, I spent most of my workday in bare feet. But tiptoeing shoeless through a space that housed prostitutes, drunks, and IV drug addicts? Well, that seemed like a poor hygiene choice, even to me.

  Officer Friendly gave me a droll look and continued. “Any attempt to smuggle in contraband materials will result in expulsion and further sanctions.” She pointed to the crowded waiting area. “Have a seat and wait until your name is called.”

  I turned away from the desk and stared across the dismal room. Screaming children, exhausted-looking mothers, well-dressed professionals, broken-hearted grandparents. All loitered together in the suffocating space, waiting for the chance to spend thirty no-contact, monitored minutes with their loved ones.

  I claimed the orange plastic chair bolted to the floor next to Michael, closed my eyes, and tried to numb myself to the energy around me. Like many yoga teachers, I had become highly attuned to energy. I wasn’t psychic, simply sensitive to the subtle energies of people and places. Sometimes horrifically so. This room was one of the worst. Anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and depression rippled through the air, as suffocating as the heat waves rising off a Death Valley freeway.

  I’d spent more than a few hours at the West Precinct with Dad, but the closest I’d been to this side of the American justice system was my arrest on Orcas. At the time, I’d thought nothing could feel as claustrophobic as the baby-vomit-green inquisition room they’d used to detain me.

  I was wrong.

  This was worse.

  Much worse.

  I passed the next several minutes emptying my pockets. Cell phone, change, keys, and dog treats all went into my purse, which I set on the floor next to Michael. He refused to make eye contact, so I spoke to the side of his head.