Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “Kate?” he murmured before I could hear anything.

  I pulled my head up guiltily. I hadn’t meant to wake him.

  “Yes, sweetie,” I whispered back.

  I could see his vulnerable brown eyes under his brows from this angle. They were childlike, innocent. Feverish.

  I wanted to cry, but I didn’t know why.

  “Feel better,” Wayne muttered. I was pretty sure he was referring to himself. “Don’t worry, okay?”

  I put my arms around him and jammed my face into his wheezing chest, not as gently as I’d meant to.

  “What, me worry?” I demanded through his chest and my own tears. He smelled of sweat and medicines…and Wayne. I could have held him forever.

  “Love you,” he said.

  “Oh, sweetie,” I answered, still holding him. I wanted to tell him just how much I loved him, but I couldn’t even begin. Was it my “five” nature? So I mumbled, “Love you too,” instead of declaring my intention to lay down my life for him if necessary.

  The doorbell rang before I could risk embarrassing myself any further.

  I waited, hoping Barbara would answer it.

  It rang again.

  “Bell,” Wayne whispered sleepily, his eyes closing.

  I was stomping down the hallway when Barbara yelled, “It’s for you.”

  Who did she think it would be for? I was all ready to yell at her as I came around the corner of the hallway into the foyer. Then I saw a better target, a much better target, standing on my front doorstep.

  It was my ex-husband, Craig.

  - Six -

  I opened my mouth to shout at the man I’d been married to for over a decade. And the man I hadn’t been divorced from for nearly long enough.

  His puppy-dog brown eyes widened in his groomed-for-success face.

  I hesitated.

  “I gotta talk to you, Kate,” he said, and he stepped into the house.

  I should have shouted.

  “Craig,” I began gently. “This isn’t the time—”

  “Please, Kate,” he begged. I looked around for Barbara. She’d disappeared again. Probably eating anything worth eating left in the kitchen.

  I hated it when Craig begged. It was even worse than when he told bad jokes. Almost. And the last time he’d begged like this was when he’d found his girlfriend’s corpse. The air from the open doorway cooled the damp skin on my forehead.

  “You haven’t found another dead body, have you?” I asked quickly.

  “No, have you?” he asked, guffawing loudly.

  Luckily, Craig was too absorbed in his own joke to notice that I hadn’t answered him, or that my heart rate had accelerated faster than Barbara’s Volkswagen. Once he’d quit laughing, he got serious and started begging again.

  “Kate, you gotta listen,” he told me. “Bonnie and I split up—”

  “I’m sorry about that, Craig, but there’s nothing I can—”

  “And I met this new woman, Nancy,” he plowed on, undeterred. “But she just isn’t you, Kate.”

  He turned his big brown eyes on me then with the same kind of intensity that had snared me umpteen years ago.

  “I’m not me, Craig,” I told him bluntly. “Not the me you think I am.”

  Somehow, those eyes just didn’t work on me anymore. Especially with Wayne sick just down the hall. In fact, any smoldering I was doing right then was more of the ready to ignite and blast variety.

  “You only decided you were in love with me after you left me, remember?” I reminded him.

  “But Kate—” he began. He must have seen the anger in my eyes. He threw his hands into the air and grinned. “Speaking of memory, did you hear the one about the guy who wakes up in a harem with a camel, a nun, and Newt Gingrich—”

  I plugged my fingers in my ears. Sooner or later he’d notice. When we were married, it’d usually been later than sooner, but still. Even if it was a good joke, I wasn’t in the mood.

  A hand tapped on my shoulder as I was humming my own version of “Moondance.” I jumped straight up into the air. Barbara was back. And not only had she scared me into orbit, I could hear my ex-husband again. He’d apparently finished his joke.

  “…ever wonder if you haven’t remarried because you know we belong together, Kate?” he was asking.

  “Out!” I ordered.

  Craig’s head shot back, his handsome face reflecting sensitivity as awkwardly as an actor reading new lines.

  “But—” he tried.

  “I’m a Scorpio, Craig!” I hissed with a step forward.

  He took a tentative step backwards, and swiveled his head to look behind him.

  “And worse, I’m an enneagram type five.” I added more menace to my voice as I took another step. I grimaced evilly.

  Craig spun around. He was almost out the door.

  “And I’m a murder type!” I shouted. It’s hard to shout in a whisper, but I did it.

  Craig was gone before I’d even closed my mouth, bolting through the doorway a lot faster than he’d come in.

  I shut the door quickly behind my ex-husband, then listened to the music of his footsteps bouncing down the stairs.

  Barbara’s arm snaked around my shoulders.

  “Jeez-Louise, kiddo, you’re a kick in the pants sometimes,” she said and gave me a kiss on the cheek, then rushed out the door and went clip-clopping down the stairs in Craig’s wake.

  I peeked out the curtains just in time to see Barbara’s Volkswagen bug spinning out of the driveway into the path of an oncoming motorcycle. I closed the curtains again and waited. But I didn’t hear a crash. I took one last look out the window, saw no flaming Volkswagens, and let all the breath out of my body, relaxing for the first time in hours.

  I closed my eyes, and visions flooded my brain. The visions had the grainy quality of home movies. The first reel included Silk’s smiling face, all the cars we’d missed riding in Barbara’s bug, Craig’s brown eyes, and finally, Wayne, sick and sweating. The second reel was of all the Jest Gifts business paperwork waiting for me on my desk. I opened my eyes and filled my lungs again. Then I hurried back down the hall to be with my sweetie.

  Sunday morning, I was talking to my warehousewoman Jade. When you own a gag-gift business, the punch lines are never-ending. Jade was working overtime at the Jest Gifts warehouse, trying to find the lost acupuncture needle earrings for the Holistic Health Fair. And trying to talk me into a different Internet Webmaster…her brother-in-law.

  “I know Peg is your friend, Kate,” she was insisting. “But business is business. This guy is really geeky cool, Kate, honest.”

  I grunted, the way I’d learned from Wayne, while sketching one more specialty computer mouse design on the pad of paper in front of me, this time a spinal mouse for the chiropractors. So far, the cat mouses for veterinarians and tooth mouses for dentists (complete with left and right cavity buttons) had yet to catch on, but Peg had assured me the Internet was the way to sell these things. She’d even built me a Website to do it.

  “Peg isn’t geeky enough, Kate, trust me,” Jade went on.

  I was between a rock and a hard keyboard here. Peg was my friend, geek-challenged or not.

  “But my brother-in-law—” Jade began.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Gotta go,” I told Jade with relief.

  I should have held off on the relief. Barbara was at my door.

  “No,” I told her as she walked in the doorway.

  She laughed and gave me a big hug. All right, the hug felt good. I’d dreamt of Silk Sokoloff all night long, in between waking up to monitor Wayne’s return to health. Because Wayne really seemed to be doing better. He was still weak, but his fever was down. He was even hungry. I’d made him oatmeal for breakfast. With bananas. I think he’d really wanted bacon and eggs, but he was too worn out to argue.

  “Gonna visit Justine’s today, kiddo,” Barbara told me. “You need to come with me.”

  “Like yesterday?” I demanded.


  “Because of yesterday,” she shot back, no longer smiling, her lovely, symmetrical face suddenly serious under her asymmetrical haircut.

  I sighed. I did want to get rid of Silk Sokoloff’s ghost. At least to get rid of her face in my mind. Would she have died if I hadn’t been there? Had I been a contributing cause?

  “You’ll never know if you don’t try to find out,” Barbara replied.

  I didn’t even object to her answering my thoughts without waiting for me to voice them. I just sighed again. Loudly.

  “Will Justine be alone this time?” I asked after a few minutes’ consideration.

  Barbara closed her eyes. “She ought to be,” she concluded.

  “Are you sure you can’t just close your eyes and figure out who killed Silk Sokoloff?” I asked.

  “Don’t you think I would if I could, Kate?” There was a hint of uncharacteristic sharpness in Barbara’s tone. “It’s so frustrating.”

  It was Barbara’s frustration that ultimately decided me.

  Barbara was impossible, but she was my friend. My good and loving friend. Even if she was psychic only at the wrong times.

  I checked on Wayne, filled his water and apple juice bottles, and told him I was going out with Barbara.

  Wayne wasn’t even suspicious. He just looked up at me, his eyes soft and weary under his low brows, and assured me he could take care of himself. I almost told him about Silk then. Almost. Instead, I turned around and got my last-ditch spare box of fruit-sweetened, carob-oatmeal cookies to lay on the nightstand with his water and apple juice. I was surprised Barbara hadn’t found the cookies the night before. Or maybe she had and decided they weren’t worth it.

  Guilt was thudding in my brain like a bad rap group by the time Barbara and I got to her VW. But not loud enough to completely distract me from self-preservation.

  “Let’s take my car,” I suggested. When she objected, I turned the suggestion into an order.

  The drive to Justine’s might have been slower than the one the day before, with Barbara at the wheel, but I was sure it was safer. I chose to park next to the curb, not on it, but the walk up the stone path to Justine’s redwood-shingled cottage was far too much like the previous day’s for my liking.

  At least Justine was alone. Well, almost. She had just ushered us into her living room, minus the circle of chairs, when Linda Underwood came bounding in, the tabby and the marmalade racing after her.

  “Oooh, Kate, Barbara,” she greeted us. “Good to see you. How’s your kitty?”

  Since Barbara didn’t have a cat, I was pretty sure the question was directed toward me. But I hadn’t told her I had a cat, had I?

  “C. C.’s fine,” I said tentatively.

  “Oh, good,” she chirped. “Cats are sensitive to these things, you know.”

  Then she turned and left the room before I could ask her what things, and how she knew I had a cat, and whether she was as spacey as she acted.

  “Linda can be very crisp and focused when she needs to be,” Justine declared. Shades of Barbara. I hadn’t asked anything aloud.

  I stared at the two women for a moment, one delicate, elegantly dressed woman of Asian descent, another large, broad, blue-jeaned woman of African descent. Then I saw the same little twist of amusement shaping their eyes.

  “Not two of you,” I groaned aloud. I figured I might as well. They’d probably heard my unvoiced groans already.

  Justine and Barbara laughed together, but then both got serious again at the same instant.

  “You’ve come about Silk,” Justine announced.

  Barbara nodded.

  I wondered why they were bothering to talk at all. Maybe it was for my benefit. I was actually beginning to sweat under their intense gaze.

  Justine gestured us to pair of comfortable, well-padded, corduroy armchairs positioned just perfectly so we could look out the windows into Justine’s wisteria-covered bower. Justine lowered herself onto an ottoman across from us and began to speak without further prompting, gently and quietly.

  “My friend Silk was a professional irritant,” she began. “She loved to be outrageous. If a UFO landed, she’d be first in line to hitch a ride.”

  “Was that why she chose bisexuality?” Barbara asked.

  Justine smiled and nodded, while I wondered if one could “choose” a sexual identity. I’d always thought it chose you.

  “The capacity to be attracted to members of both sexes is something no one talks about, but on some level, I do believe we all take it for granted.”

  I found myself nodding too, more in response to Justine’s hypnotic tone than in agreement with her opinion. I’d have to think more seriously about her actual proposition. Justine registered my nod, and probably my reservations, and went on.

  “It’s very brave to admit confusion about sexual identity.” Justine put her hand on her stomach and took a deep breath. “But Silk made a production of her own bisexuality. She made advances to just about anyone who moved, including Zarathustra. She wasn’t really serious, but she freaked out some folks anyway.”

  Justine’s eyelids lowered. Was she thinking of her nephew? How far had Zarathustra freaked? I looked at the knotty-wood paneling and thought I could see outraged faces there. I blinked and they were gone. Damn. That was spooky.

  “Silk made a carnival show of her sexuality,” Justine’s smooth voice flowed on. “I loved her for that sometimes. It was her way of saying, ‘The emperor has no clothes.’ But I worried too. Because her outrageousness might have made it harder for others who were bisexuals but not…not—”

  “Not obnoxious?” I filled in for her.

  “Yes,” Justine said, her eyes opening wide with amusement. “Just that. Still, Silk could be loving and fun, even if she was unintentionally cruel sometimes.”

  A cool breeze blew in through the window, billowing the white curtains with an otherworldly whistle. I remembered Silk and felt some of Justine’s affection for her in that breeze. But I was chilled too. Someone hadn’t felt affection for Silk.

  “I’ve been thinking about the others too,” Justine piped up, just when I was going to ask if she had.

  Psychic interrogation had its virtues. Speed, if nothing else, Justine raised a finger. “You’ve met our Tory,” she said. “She talks to angels.”

  “Does she really?” I demanded.

  “I haven’t personally sensed their presence,” Justine answered, laying her hand on her stomach again. Did her stomach hurt? “But that doesn’t mean they’re not really there. Different strokes for different folks.”

  Justine raised a second finger. “And you’ve met poor Artemisia,” she went on. “I’m afraid that woman is truly troubled. She says she’s haunted by bad spirits. She practices Santeria—”

  “Voodoo?” I interrupted.

  Justine’s brows rose. Oops, I’d obviously made an occult faux pas.

  “Let’s just call it magic,” she answered kindly.

  “But is Artemisia really haunted?” Barbara asked. I was surprised that Barbara didn’t know the answer to that one herself. And then it got worse.

  Justine just sighed and closed her eyes for a moment before admitting, “I truly don’t know.” And these guys were supposed to be psychic! “Metaphorically, Artemisia is clearly haunted, but beyond that…Again, I’ve never felt an alien presence, but I’m not really into that aspect of healing.” She shook her head. “My guess is the long-term effect of abusive parents. There’s something wrong, that’s for sure. I’ve been working with her for years, but I can only calm her for short periods of time. She thought Silk could help her.”

  “Why?” I asked. My armchair wasn’t feeling so comfortable anymore. I wanted real answers, not metaphors.

  “Silk exuded personal power,” Justine answered simply. “Artemisia needed that kind of power.”

  “But—” I began.

  “Kate,” Justine broke in, leaning forward. “I have no clear-cut answers for you. I get glimpses here and
there. Sometimes I can help a body to heal. But beyond that?” She threw her hands in the air and settled back onto her ottoman. “Denise is like you, always asking questions to which there are no answers. She wants to do a radio show featuring psychics. She could really use some work herself, but—”

  Justine shook her head again, cutting herself short.

  “Gil Nesbit,” Barbara prompted. “Cocaine addict?”

  “Classic signs,” Justine answered. Or didn’t answer.

  “Huh?” I said. I hadn’t noticed any classic signs. But then all I knew how to do was ask questions to which there were no answers. I tried to think of some more as I sniffed the cooking aromas drifting into the living room now. An herb, maybe rosemary, and toast and mustard for sure. My salivary glands kicked in. And I wondered if Justine would kick us out. I was pretty sure I was smelling brunch.

  “Would you consider another group meeting here on Wednesday evening?” Barbara asked Justine, and the two of them discussed the idea as I sat back in my chair and tried to process the information Justine had given us.

  Too much was new to me. Psychics, alien presences, bisexuality, classic signs of cocaine addiction. Gag gifts were looking easier all the time.

  Linda galloped into the room just as I was drifting off into the land of computer mouses. That made sense. She was a veterinarian after all.

  “The kitties are glad you came, Kate,” she assured me. And then I had an idea.

  “Do your kitties know who did it?” I asked. “I know you’ve asked them before, but now that it’s calm…”