Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  My eyelids stopped drooping. He was back to Silk.

  “That woman found her own path in life. Not many people do. I’ll remember her.” Zarathustra’s large, dark eyes teared up then. Real tears. He raced to the next wall, with Wayne trailing behind him.

  “There was no reason to kill her, man,” he told Wayne. “Hope you find out who did it.”

  “Thank you,” Wayne said and stretched out a hand to Zarathustra before he reached the wall and turned again.

  Zarathustra eyed the hand for a moment, then shook it.

  After a brief goodbye to Zarathustra and his mother, who appeared to be well within earshot, we left the Howes’ neat house and breathed in the fresh non-Nietzsche air outside.

  We walked to the car slowly, each lost in our own thoughts.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked Wayne in a whisper, once we’d reached the car.

  “I think…” he began.

  “Wayne?” I asked, looking up. His face was white again.And sweat was beaded on his low brow. “I think…” he tried once more, his eyes closing. “I think…” And then he fell face down onto the hood of my car.

  - Twenty-One -

  The next moment was excruciatingly slow. I leapt forward to grab Wayne before he slid off the hood of the car and smashed onto the pavement, all the while seeing the nonevent in living, bleeding color. Luckily, Barbara was a heartbeat behind me. I held Wayne’s torso with one arm and cradled his head with the other as Barbara managed his legs, and together, we turned him over as gently as two small women can turn a much bigger man on the hood of a Toyota. If Wayne had been conscious, he might have thought he was a particularly delicate pancake being turned without aid of a spatula. But of course, he wasn’t conscious or a pancake. The best I could say was that he was lying on his back instead of his face by the time we were through. And his face didn’t look any the worse for falling on the hood of the car. Still, it was hard to assess damage on the face of a man already equipped with a cauliflower nose and an assortment of scars.

  I took a deep breath, to calm the blood dancing in my veins. I hate it when the corpuscles kick my temples.

  And then Wayne’s eyes opened.

  “Wayne?” I whispered, my blood dancing even faster.

  “What?” he returned, looking confused for a moment.

  Maybe he was wondering why he was lying on the hood of a car instead of home in bed. Or maybe he wasn’t sure who I was.

  Then his eyes seemed to come into focus. He frowned my way. He definitely knew who I was. He struggled to stand up. Barbara and I hastily shifted our positions as he did. This pancake was moving. I wedged myself into his left armpit. Barbara draped his right arm over her shoulder.

  “Take it easy, sweetie,” I told him. “You fainted.”

  He rumbled something incomprehensible.

  “What?” I asked gently.

  “Did not,” he rumbled more loudly.

  “He means he didn’t faint,” Barbara informed me from his other side.

  “I know what he means,” I informed her back, my gentle tone turning snappy. Along with my mood. Then I looked up at Wayne’s face from beneath his armpit.

  “You did too faint,” I told him. For a man in his poor physical condition, he felt mighty heavy. And for a man who’d almost given me a heart attack, he wasn’t thanking us a whole lot for our help. “How else did you end up on the hood of the car?”

  “Was tired,” he growled. “Thought I’d take a nap.”

  I opened my mouth to ask how often he napped on the hood of my car, then closed it again.

  It was time for medical advice.

  The drive to Dr. Frestansia’s office didn’t take as long as it usually did. Probably because I drove twice as fast as usual. And no one criticized me. Wayne looked positively braced by the speed of light, and a glance at the passenger-anxiety on Barbara’s face when I turned to switch lanes made the ride even more worthwhile. All the terrors of those trips in Barbara’s bug had created their own payback.

  Unfortunately, Wayne didn’t have an appointment with Dr. Frestansia, a fact that the receptionist, Reva, made abundantly and repeatedly clear once we’d dragged Wayne into the office and settled him onto the flowered couch in the waiting room.

  “But he’s sick,” I insisted. I bent across the desk. We were alone in the waiting room. There were no other patients to attend to. What of medical ethics? “He might have a concussion, you know. He fell. He fainted!”

  “Did not,” I heard from the couch.

  I ignored the patient. So did Reva.

  “It’s the doctor’s lunch break,” she forced out through clenched teeth. It was pretty easy to guess that it was her lunch break too from the sandwich on her desk. I could even smell avocado over that particular hygienic scent common to all doctors’ offices. And I could see a paperback novel flattened on top of a stack of papers. I looked at the title. At least it wasn’t a Silk Sokoloff. “A very late lunch break,” she added, as if this was my fault too.

  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye as I bent even further across the reception desk to escalate my attack on fortress Reva. The movement was Barbara, Barbara heading back to the doctor’s office. Reinforcements were on the way. I let my voice ease up a little.

  “Well, I guess we’ll wait till the doctor’s finished with lunch,” I told Reva reasonably. “And then—”

  “Mr. Caruso,” Dr. Frestansia’s voice broke in.

  I turned. Dr. Avria Frestansia, almost six feet of big and beautiful, black-haired, white-skinned femininity stood next to Barbara, looking critically at Wayne. He flinched.

  “Have you been resting, Mr. Caruso?” the doctor asked, accusation in her high tone.

  “I—”

  She pointed her finger. It was the finger of guilt.

  “You’ve been running around when I told you to get rest,” the doctor finished for him. “Do you really want to go to the hospital?”

  Wayne shook his head mutely, glaring past the doctor in my direction.

  I was beginning to feel sorry for him, and not just because he was sick.

  “There was a murder,” I put in tentatively.

  “What do you mean, a murder?” Dr. Frestansia shot over her shoulder.

  “Two women we know have been killed, and Wayne wanted to help us—” I began.

  “You’re not talking about Elsa’s murders are you?” the doctor demanded, turning to me now.

  “Huh?” I said, momentarily stunned. Dr. Frestansia often had that effect on me even when she wasn’t asking hard questions.

  “Elsa Oberg,” Barbara hissed my way.

  “Yes,” Dr. Frestansia agreed, nodding as if Barbara had been hissing at her. “Elsa Oberg is also my patient. She spoke to me of this murder.”

  “What did she say?” I asked eagerly, my brain clearing quickly in the face of this unexpected source of information.

  Dr. Frestansia was from Absaplania. I’d noticed long ago that the concept of confidentiality was not one that they taught in Absaplanian medical schools.

  “Ah, that Elsa, she has spirit,” the doctor replied. Her gaze softened. “She said there was a murder at some kind of—how you say—séance?”

  “Right,” I prompted. “That’s the one.”

  “Elsa said the murdered woman practically wore a sign around her neck saying ‘Kick me.’ A most aggravating woman, Elsa implied.”

  “Who does Elsa think did it?” I asked.

  “She did not say. Though she was quite concerned about the death of the second woman. She says she doesn’t understand that murder at all. It upset her a great deal, this second death, more than the first.”

  I thought about Isabelle Viseu guiltily. Her death did seem unwarranted. And Isabelle was so easy to forget in death, just as she had been in life. She was especially hard to remember when Silk was in the picture. Still, Silk’s death was unwarranted too, no matter how aggravating she was. Then another thought caught me short. Elsa Oberg was seei
ng a doctor.

  “Is Elsa sick?” I asked.

  “Hah!” the doctor snorted. “Elsa is strong enough to lasso cattle. She is just old.”

  I wished she hadn’t mentioned lassoing. It seemed a little too close to garroting. I rubbed my neck and swallowed, imagining Elsa Oberg in action.

  “But you!” the doctor declared, turning back to Wayne. “Murder or no murder, you should be in bed.”

  “Right,” Wayne conceded, struggling up from the depths of the flowered couch.

  “But not before I examine you,” the doctor amended, and led Wayne back to her office. She didn’t need any help supporting Wayne’s weight, whether Wayne wanted the support or not. As he passed by in Dr. Frestansia’s grip, Wayne looked at me just the way C. C. does as she’s taken into the vet’s inner sanctum.

  For the next twenty minutes, Barbara and I whispered anxiously on the flowered couch as Reva finished her sandwich and glared at us.

  And then Wayne and the doctor were back. I was glad to see that Wayne was standing on his own two feet now.

  “But she was a good writer,” Wayne was insisting. “Her death was unjust.”

  “Fah!” The doctor dismissed his words with a wave. “All death is equally unjust. Do you think it’s any better to die of cancer than to be strangled?”

  “But—”

  “Go back to bed, Mr. Caruso,” she ordered. “And if you’re so concerned with writing, do some of your own.”

  “I’m sick of people telling me to write—”

  “You are correct in one matter, Mr. Caruso. You are sick. You belong home in bed.” And with that, Dr. Frestansia spun on her heel and returned to her late lunch.

  I drove home at a normal speed while Wayne growled and Barbara chirped. A small zoo in a small Toyota.

  “Maybe Elsa killed Silk Sokoloff but not Isabelle Viseu,” Barbara proposed. “That’d explain why she’s so freaked about Isabelle but not Silk.”

  “Why?” Wayne asked brusquely. He may have been conscious, but his usual good nature hadn’t returned yet.

  I hoped Barbara wasn’t going to bring up any more illegitimate children theories.

  “Maybe Silk was really her love child.”

  I groaned and released all hope.

  “So why would she want to kill her own daughter?” Wayne pressed. “And why would someone else kill Isabelle?”

  “Isabelle saw something,” I heard my own voice say. I hadn’t meant to join the zoo, but there it was.

  “Then why didn’t she just tell Justine?” Barbara demanded.

  I hesitated before plunging ahead. “Because Isabelle was a fair woman. She wouldn’t make a public accusation without giving the murderer a chance.”

  The zoo quieted down briefly.

  “But who?” Barbara whispered.

  Who? Who? An aviary of owls had joined the zoo.

  And then we were home. I pulled into the driveway, blessing the gravel as it popped under the car’s tires. This must have been how Ulysses felt when he finally returned to Penelope. We might have been gone for decades.

  As we got out of the Toyota, Barbara asked, “Did you notice that car?”

  “What car?” I asked, looking behind me. There wasn’t any car visible now.

  “The one that pulled in behind us on your street, and then slowed down when you slowed down to turn, but then took off when you finally did turn.”

  “Oh, that car,” I said. But sarcasm was wasted on Barbara. “What did it look like?”

  Barbara frowned for a moment.

  “I think it was one of those kinda grayey-beigey type cars,” she answered finally.

  “American or import?” Wayne asked.

  “Um, I’m not sure.”

  “Big car?” I tried.

  “Not really,” Barbara told us. Then her smile returned. “But I’d know it if I saw it again.”

  “Are you saying this car was following us?” Wayne asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Barbara admitted, and her smile faded.

  I hugged her anyway. Barbara had helped me get Wayne to the doctor’s, and for the moment, that was all that counted. Anyway, I hated it when she was unhappy. All right, I had to face it. She was my friend, even if she was as aggravating as Silk Sokoloff. Telling myself that Barbara was my friend, no matter what, was beginning to sound like a mantra, I realized. Maybe I needed a new mantra.

  “Thanks, Kate,” she murmured, emerging from my arms. And then she climbed into her Volkswagen and raced it out of my driveway backwards.

  I heard the sound of wheels screaming in the direction of the bug. There was no resulting crash, however. And I wasn’t in the car with Barbara. I smiled affectionately.

  Wayne refused my assistance, going up the front stairs and through the house to bed. But he did go to bed. He even let me tuck the covers beneath his chin.

  “It’s because I love you, Kate,” he muttered.

  “I know, sweetie,” I assured him. It was easier to be reasonable now that he was in bed. I kissed him on the forehead and wished him sweet dreams. He was snoring before I left the room.

  When I got back to the living room, Barbara was sitting on my couch. For a breath, I thought I’d imagined her. The ghost of the day past. But I knew she was real when she spoke.

  “Hey, Kate,” she whispered, as if she knew Wayne was asleep. She probably did.

  “I thought you left,” I whispered back. Affection for Barbara was easier in absentia. Even in near absentia. But here she was back again.

  “I did, but then I got to thinking,” she answered. She laughed. “One of your goofy neighbors didn’t like my U-turn. But I’m here. So, anyway, Wayne has a computer, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” I conceded slowly.

  “Cool, then I can load my CAD program on his computer and we can get back where we started—”

  “Before you killed your computer,” I interrupted.

  “I didn’t kill it,” Barbara corrected me. “They’re fixing it right now.”

  “Resurrecting it,” I corrected her back. “Didn’t you tell me you fritz computers?”

  “Kate, do you want to solve this murder or not?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to object to breaking Wayne’s computer to do it.

  “Without leaving the house?” she added.

  I closed my mouth.

  “I’ll be here tomorrow to install the CAD program,” Barbara promised as she rose and threw me a kiss on the way out the door.

  The couch was still warm when I sat down where Barbara had been. I knew I should get to work. There were bills to be paid, ledgers to be filled, and designs to be imagined. But my mind had gone on strike. It refused to think, except in little spurts. Was Elsa really a killer? Blank. What had I been going to do to today? Blank. Did Silk cause her own death? Blank. How sick was Wayne really? Blank. Would Craig—

  The doorbell rang.

  I rose from the couch with a snarl on my lips. Why wouldn’t Barbara leave me alone?

  But when I flung the door open, I didn’t see Barbara. I saw Linda Underwood. Though it took me a moment to recognize her, this stocky woman with the broad, weathered face where I’d expected to see the pint-sized and elegant Barbara Chu.

  “Oooh, hi, Kate,” she greeted me and smiled, crinkling her eyes and exposing big teeth.

  A little shiver ambled up my spine. Not a big one, and it wasn’t going very fast, but still, did I want to let Linda Underwood in my house? Even if Linda did strike me as the least likely of all our murder suspects, I was alone except for Wayne, and Wayne—

  C. C. yowled behind me. All right, except for Wayne and C. C.

  “Oooh, C. C., it’s so good to see you again,” Linda purred. “Such a sweet kitty.” Could she have really forgotten C. C.’s attack on Justine’s cats?

  But within seconds, C. C. was purring with Linda, begging for a lap. And for a lap, a person has to be sitting. I looked at C. C. rubbing up against Linda’s leg. And Linda was a veterinarian. You�
��d have thought C. C. would have been running the other way.

  “Would you like to come in?” I asked the veterinarian, telling myself that it would be C. C.’s fault if I was inviting a murderer into my home. Not that C. C. would care. As long as the murderer fed her. And Linda would, I was certain.

  “Oh sure, Kate,” Linda replied, bent now and petting my cat. “I just kinda thought it would be, like, okay maybe, if we talked, so I came over. Is it okay?”

  “Of course it is,” I assured her. And somehow saying it, I reassured myself.

  “Oooh, nice stuff,” Linda commented as she followed me into the living room. “I love books and plants and stuff.” C. C. jumped into her lap once she sat on the denim couch. “And cats,” she added.

  Then we sat for a couple of moments, listening to C. C. purr. The moments stretched out. Linda was engrossed in C. C., but I wasn’t.

  “Well?” I prompted finally.

  “Oh!” Linda yelped, her face startled as she looked up from the cat to where I’d taken my place in the hanging chair. Had she forgotten where she was? Or maybe she’d come to see C. C. in the first place.

  “You wanted to talk?” I tried again.

  “Oh, right, Kate,” she agreed, smiling her toothy smile. “Justine, you know, well, she doesn’t get it.”

  “Justine?” I knew I was leading the witness, but she seemed to need leading. Maybe even pushing.

  “Did you ever notice how people are like animals?” Linda asked earnestly, bending over C. C. and fixing my face in the beams of her eyes. I wriggled in the hanging chair, pushing off with my feet and swinging. The intensity in those flaky eyes was disconcerting.

  “I guess so,” I answered tentatively. Actually, Linda looked a little like a hamster. Or maybe a beaver.

  “Well, Justine is like a dog, faithful and protective and loving.”

  All right, I thought. We’ll play animals.

  “Do dogs ever kill to protect those they love?” I asked quickly, softly. Sneakily.

  Linda jumped in her seat. C. C. aimed a hiss in my direction. Lap disturbance was a serious crime.

  “Dogs don’t kill inappropriately unless they’ve been raised wrong, Kate,” Linda informed me. Her eyes widened. She hugged C. C. to her. And C. C. put up with it. “Even pit bulls. Everyone says they’re mean, but they’re not. They’re good, sweet little guys. Unless people train them wrong. And Dobermans. It’s all the humans—”