“Did you kill Silk Sokoloff?” Barbara asked Gil casually.
“Hey, not me,” Gil answered just as casually. “Never met the woman before. See, something like that would hafta work for me. But what’d be the leverage? I mean the woman’s not going to help me if she’s dead.”
Oddly enough, he sounded sincere, even honest.
“How about Isabelle Viseu?” Barbara pressed.
“Nope, no reason.” Gil paused, his gaze tightening. “Now if it was my sister-in-law, you’d be talking something. That witch owns the company 1 work for. You know, I told you, it’s a production company, rents film equipment to wannabe moviemakers. Her and my brother. Neither of them have got any vision, you know. I could take that company and make a fortune, but they just use me as a gofer. They’re just piddling around, you know. Can’t think big. No vision.”
“So you need to make it big somewhere else,” Barbara spurred him on.
“Yeah, that’s the deal.” He leaned forward, his face animated. “Hey, if I could just win the Lotto, or even the ponies big time, I’d do my own company, you know. See, where I come from, you don’t piddle around, you do it big. So. I need a cash infusion. I gotta have it, see. Gotta do it.”
“So you came to the psychic soiree for help,” Barbara led on quietly.
“Yeah, man,” Gil agreed. “Okay, okay, I figure psychics know stuff. Now, I heard a lot of them can’t use it for themselves to make money, but that don’t stop them from giving to me, see.”
“But Silk didn’t give you anything,” I put in.
“Hey, hey, I knew her number. Selfish from the word go. She wouldn’t have shared if she could have. But you guys?” He grinned. His grin had as much appeal as his furniture.
“So, come on, give,” he ordered. “You really know, right?”
“No, we don’t, but you might,” Barbara told him.
“Me?” he said, jerking back in his chair.
“You need to cultivate your own psychic powers,” Barbara told him.
“But—”
“You have them,” she assured him. “Everyone does, even Kate here.”
I opened my mouth to snap at Barbara, but then I saw the look in Gil’s eyes. She had him. I closed my mouth again.
“You just have to open up to your own mind and listen.”
“But how?” he asked, a whine in his loud voice now.
“Meditate,” she answered firmly.
“Meditate?”
“Yeah, you know, like you could sit quietly and focus on stillness, or concentrate on your breathing, or maybe repeat one word or phrase over and over again. There’re all kinds of ways to meditate. Basically, you just need to relax, concentrate, and attune yourself to the higher self.”
I wished it was that easy for me. Then I’d be hanging out with the Dalai Lama. But I kept my wishes to myself. Gil was mesmerized.
“Focus is the key,” Barbara kept on. “You might want to read about some different techniques—”
“Repeat one word?” he whispered, his eyes glazing over.
“That’s a possibility,” Barbara agreed.
“Lotto,” Gil intoned. “Lotto, lotto, lotto.”
We left him soon after that. I had to give it to Gil. He had focus. He’d been so immersed in his repetition of the word “Lotto,” he hadn’t even seen us leave his apartment.
“Learn to drive, lady!” a male voice screamed.
We were back in Barbara’s bug. She wasn’t even on the highway yet, and she’d already drifted past a stop sign in front of a BMW that had been racing down the road that would lead us away from Gil’s. The BMW was now stalled.
“I think I believe him, Kate,” Barbara said.
“You’re going to learn to drive?” I asked innocently.
“Not him, Kate!” Barbara objected. A quick glare crossed her face, but then her features were serene again.
“Gil Nesbit. I think he’s too naive to be a murderer. And not very bright, either.”
“I suppose so,” I agreed reluctantly. “But how about that dog of his? It’s humans that make dogs vicious. That’s what Linda said. And that dog was scary.”
“Maybe it wasn’t originally his dog,” she pointed out.
“And he named it Buddha! That’s just—”
“I doubt that Gautama Buddha would care if a Doberman was named after him,” Barbara interjected.
There’s nothing worse than a smart-aleck psychic.
Barbara took the entrance ramp to the highway, ignoring oncoming traffic. A horn beeped. Tires skidded.
Actually, there’s nothing worse than a smart-aleck psychic who can’t drive by the rules. Or won’t drive by the rules.
“I keep wondering about Elsa,” Barbara went on, ignoring the highway and all its vehicles.
“Elsa?” I squeaked, clutching my seat with one hand and covering my eyes with the other. “What about Elsa?”
“I don’t think she killed Isabelle,” Barbara explained. “But I wonder if she had something to do with Silk’s death.”
“‘Something to do with’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Conspiracy, Kate,” Barbara whispered and switched lanes.
I just wished I had more hands. Then I could clutch my seat, cover my eyes, and cover my ears. But I didn’t. So I listened to Barbara’s conspiracy theories all the way back home. And they were extensive.
“See, Kate,” she finished up when she finally skidded into my driveway. “Two people could have been in on it. Or three, even. That’s why I want to get my CAD program up and running. We can use it to place people at the scene.”
Wayne was standing in the entryway in p.j’s and a robe when I opened the front door. I looked at him and wondered why I hadn’t had the sense to wear a robe when the police had visited that morning. I was just going to compliment him on his common sense when he spoke.
“Where have you been?” he demanded, his brows low over his eyes. His voice was low too. Damn. No visual or auditory clues. Was he angry or just concerned? Angry, I decided.
“Out doing our homework,” Barbara answered brightly before I could fly off the handle.
“And now we’d like to use your computer, if it’s all right,” I added quickly. “Barbara has a program she wants to install.”
His brows rose. And so did his voice.
“On my computer?” he yelped.
“Could help us find the murderer,” Barbara told him.
“From home,” I added.
Wayne’s eyes were wide and vulnerable now. I saw fear there, then ambivalence, and finally resignation.
“Of course,” he conceded politely. “I’ll go back to bed now.” Then he shambled back down the hallway and closed the bedroom door ever so softly behind him.
I looked at Barbara.
“Listen, maybe this computer idea isn’t so great—”
“It’s a piece of cake, kiddo,” she assured me, heading down the hall and past the bedroom to Wayne’s home office. I thought I heard a groan as we passed the bedroom.
She pulled out a CD once she was in the office.
“It’s all on here,” she told me, pushing a switch on Wayne’s computer.
She pushed a few more buttons and played with the computer, her fingers moving faster than my eyes could follow. A little drawer popped out of the computer’s side.
“The coffee cup holder,” I murmured. “I never could believe they’d put a coffee cup holder on such an expensive piece of equipment.”
Barbara laughed, almost as long as Chief Wenger had laughed at my p.j’s this morning. “They didn’t, kiddo,” she told me finally. “This is for the CD-ROM.”
“Oh,” I mumbled as she placed her disk on the indentation I’d thought was for coffee cups. Then she turned to me.
“Sometimes it’s painful to watch someone install a program,” she whispered seriously. “You might want to leave the room now.”
I didn’t need any more urging. This might be worse than watchin
g a cat having its teeth cleaned. I went next door to comfort Wayne, but he was asleep again. Or feigning sleep. I lay down next to him as quietly as possible and felt his forehead. It was cool. That was a relief.
“Damn!” I heard from the next room.
Wayne flinched. He was feigning all right. I put my arms around him. He returned my embrace with a strength that must have been fueled by desperation.
“Stupid machine!” Barbara added minutes later. I wished the walls were thicker.
Wayne and I lay listening and holding each other as Barbara cursed.
Finally she yelled, “It’s up, Kate!”
“Okay?” I said to Wayne.
“Okay,” he said back, and I left the bedroom to see what Barbara had done.
I entered Wayne’s office cautiously. And saw the same glowing screen that I’d seen at Barbara’s apartment two days before, now astrally projected onto Wayne’s computer. She was already tapping the keys, and squares that represented the chairs at Justine’s soiree were popping up like virtual mushrooms on the screen.
She typed a K in one square and a B in the other, then turned to me.
“Silk,” I ordered, pointing. “And Justine.”
The chairs filled. And the spots outside the chairs. Linda and Zarathustra. Denise.
Finally, everyone was there, just as they had been on the day of the murder.
Barbara turned to me from the glowing screen
“Do you see what I see?” she asked.
- Twenty-Three -
I just nodded, my breath coming hard now.
“Could it be that simple?” Barbara whispered, as if to herself.
“One person had the best opportunity,” I whispered back. “Unless—”
“There are a thousand possibilities, kiddo.” Barbara stopped me, her small hand raised in the glow of the computer screen. “But only one is probable.”
“No,” I corrected her. “You were right the first time. It can’t be that simple. What about motive? Abrasive isn’t enough for motive.”
“We’ll just have to go and find out about motive,” Barbara announced and stood up, switching off Wayne’s machine as she did. The glowing screen died abruptly.
“But—”
“It’s the only way, Kate,” she said seriously, striding out of Wayne’s office and down the hallway. “And you know it.”
“But Wayne—” I tried, following her into the living room.
“He’s asleep again,” she declared. “He’ll never even know we’re gone.”
Unless we’re killed. 1 couldn’t help but think it.
“No, Kate,” Barbara assured me. “We’re safe, the two of us together. A direct challenge is the best.”
“I gotta check on Wayne,” I told her. I needed to think.
At least Barbara’s psychic abilities were functioning as to my sweetie. Wayne was asleep and snoring when I peeked in on him. He didn’t even wake when I touched my lips lightly to his forehead. But my sanity returned with a thump after a whiff of Vicks. How would I ever explain it to Wayne if I were killed? He’d never forgive me.
I left the room, straightened my shoulders, and told Barbara, “We need to call Kettering or Wenger.”
She nodded solemnly. I let myself breathe. I was dealing with a relatively sane woman, after all.
But unfortunately, neither Wenger nor Kettering were in when I phoned. Most likely, they were out checking enneagrams or color preferences or anger meridians somewhere. Even Officers Yuki and O’Dwyer were nowhere to be found.
“It’s up to us, kiddo,” Barbara declared, Clint Eastwood in a small, elegant, Asian package.
“No—” I began.
The phone rang. Barbara and I both flinched, startled by the noise. She reached a hand out and squeezed my shoulder for an instant before I ran to answer it.
I shouldn’t have bothered running. Craig was on the line.
“So, how’s that new door doing?” he asked.
“Fine,” I snapped.
“We got the best,” he added. “Kate, you know I’ve always—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted him. Barbara had grabbed her purse and was walking toward the front door. She was going alone to challenge the person she thought was the murderer.
“Gotta go now,” I told Craig.
“But, Kate!”
“No, really, Craig,” I insisted. “Emergency.” Then I slammed the phone down.
I grabbed my own purse and followed Barbara out the front door.
“Coming?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
I sighed, and tried to remember where I’d checked my brains. She took a step down the front stairs.
“Only if we go in my car,” I answered before she took another step. At least we wouldn’t die on the way.
Linda was right, I decided halfway up the highway. Barbara was manipulative, and I’d never really noticed. Though I had noticed she was impulsive. Was that part of her catlike nature too? She hadn’t even given me the time to leave a note for Wayne. Or to leave a message with the police. But manipulative or impulsive, Barbara was also my friend. Wasn’t that the mantra I didn’t need anymore? I shook my head. I wasn’t letting her do her Clint Eastwood act alone. Two were bound to be safer than one. I hoped.
I took the exit into Larkspur.
“You’re my friend, too, Kate,” Barbara murmured.
When we parked in front of the familiar condo, Barbara pointed at the car in the owner’s space. It was a grayey-beigey car, just like the one she’d said had followed us. I thought of Wayne, and then banished his image from my mind. I’d never do this if I thought about Wayne.
“Barbara?” I began as we got out of the Toyota. Suddenly, I was very cold. I didn’t like the feeling.
Barbara just hugged me and then marched up to the door of the condo.
Denise Parnell opened her door and smiled at us.
“Hello, Kate, Barbara,” she greeted us in that incredibly smooth, deep, radio voice.
“Hi,” I replied guiltily. This was all wrong. It couldn’t be Denise.
My thoughts didn’t seem to matter to Barbara, though. She was busily chatting up Denise now, and asking if we could come in for a few minutes. I hoped for a no.
But Denise nodded gently, smoothing her pageboy, as if a few strands might be out of place. Even today, on a Saturday, she wore a perfectly crisp, cream-colored silk blouse and turquoise gabardine trousers.
I took one last look at Barbara. Denise couldn’t surprise us with a cat toy or a blunt object, not both of us. Not both of us, I repeated in my mind, feeling like Gil with his Lotto mantra.
“Gee, did you two come to talk about the case?” Denise asked.
“Yeah, hope that’s okay,” Barbara replied, casually. Or at least, she attempted to sound casual. But I could hear her tension vibrating through the casual phrasing. My own body began to vibrate with her. A tense psychic can be the Typhoid Mary of nerves. “We had a couple more questions.”
“Well, please do come on in.” Denise smoothed a few nonexistent creases in her trousers and straightened her back. “I’ll try to be more hospitable than last time.”
And she was. She led us into her living room, still as neat and clean as it had been during the last visit. Nothing had disturbed its soothing abstract art, bookshelves, or bust-laden mantelpiece. Even the scent was the same, furniture polish and disinfectant. Barbara had to be wrong.
But then, I sniffed again. I could smell perspiration, the nervous kind. Was it coming from Denise? Somehow, the idea was unimaginable. Denise was too immaculate to perspire.
“Good grief,” she said. “I keep forgetting to be a good hostess. Please, take a seat. Let me make you some tea.”
So Barbara and I sat on her white leather couch.
I sank into the comfortable cushions and began feeling foolish about my suspicions. Our suspicions.
Barbara whispered, “Could be wrong, kiddo. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“W
hat?” I demanded, turning to her. “You said—”
And then Denise came back from the kitchen. But she wasn’t carrying a tray of teacups. She was carrying a gun.
“Oh the other hand,” Barbara whispered. “I could be right.”
Fine, Barbara could be right. And Denise had a gun. Not a cat toy. Not a blunt instrument. A gun. Now, I was cold and sweating at the same time. Had the perspiration I’d sniffed been my own? No, I realized, it really was Denise’s, even more acrid now as she held the gun and smiled ever so gently in our direction.
I sat on her comfortable couch and wondered if I could kick that gun out of her hand. There was a tai chi move, but I wasn’t close enough, and I was seated. And Denise was standing. How had that happened? Oh yeah, she was being hospitable.
“You’ve figured it out,” she told us. Her voice could have been announcing a piece of Brahms on a classical music station.
“Not really—” I tried.
“Hey, nice gun,” Barbara put in, her voice a friendly chirp, a friendly, nervous chirp.
“Yeah,” I pushed on desperately. There was still a way out. A simulation of complete innocence, complete naïveté, complete stupidity. It wouldn’t be hard. “I can understand the gun,” I told Denise, smiling so hard my face hurt. “I guess you feel like you need protection with the murders and all.”
“Not really,” she answered, shaking her head slowly.
Damn.
I remembered hearing the Master’s advice on a gun. The gist of the advice was that your strategy depended upon how close you were to the person with the gun. If you were close enough, you could kick. If you weren’t, you should raise your hands and let them take your wallet.
But Denise didn’t want our wallets.
It seemed she wanted our ears.
“Let me tell you about my work,” she suggested, with a little wave of the gun.
Barbara and I nodded simultaneously and enthusiastically, like bobbing-head dolls.
“It started out as a good show. We dealt with real issues, family issues: couples with fertility problems, private versus public schools, day camps, disciplinary problems. That kind of thing. But then they wanted shock radio: transvestite couples, teenage sex experts, bikers channeling aliens.” She ground her teeth and her hand clenched the gun. It could have been clenching my heart.
Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 24