Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (19 page)

- Nineteen -

“I hate you!” the woman screamed. And she kept on running at me.

I didn’t have time to think about centering myself. I didn’t have time to breathe into my stance. I didn’t have time to do anything but turn my body at the waist and step out of the way. The woman sped past me, spray can still held above her head.

“Who are—” I began.

But the woman pivoted and ran at me again. She was almost to me when she brought the spray can plummeting down in my direction. I lifted my leg and kicked the can out of her hand, wondering if it was hair spray or cleaner or paint. Or an alien ray gun.

“Aaaag!”
she screamed, her voice echoing in the silence of the night. “I’ll kill you!”

I hoped she didn’t have anything but a can on her. Anything like a regular gun, for instance.

I could see her face a little in the dark now. It was an attractive face in general, maybe twenty-or-so-years-old with large eyes and symmetrical features. But the feral snarl twisting those features ruined their symmetry. And I was pretty sure I’d never seen her face before in my life. Not at one of Justine’s soirees or anywhere else. So who was she?

I decided on the mental hospital approach, all the time knowing the approach would probably work a whole lot better with the kind of staff support I’d had a few decades earlier.

“Could you tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked gently, putting a soothe-the-savage-beast tone into my voice.

“You!” she shouted in answer and swung a fist my way.

I grabbed her swinging hand and whipped it behind her in a hammerlock they don’t even teach in tai chi. That cut off any more explanation on her part. Then I put my other arm around her throat. Mental hospitals can teach you wonderful things.

“
Glarb
!” she tried as she struggled, but with each attempt at struggle, 1 tightened my hold on her arm, pushing it upwards a little. Very little—I didn’t want to break that arm. Or her throat. I could smell the rage in her perspiration now.

It seemed like an eternity before the stimulus-response experiment began to work. But then she began to relax, just a little, and I let up on the pressure as she did. She relaxed a little more. I let up a little more. A subtle rhythm guided our mutual de-escalation of hostilities.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong, now?” I asked finally.

“Craig loves you,” she croaked. I had a feeling she would have screamed again if I hadn’t had my arm around her throat.

“Well, I don’t love Craig,” I informed her bluntly. It was time for the Truth in Information Act.

“You don’t?” she burbled.

“No, did he tell you I did?”

“Well, kinda,” she murmured.

The tension was leaving her body now and entering mine. Craig!

“Well, I don’t, and he shouldn’t have told you any such thing!” I amplified. Anger was creeping into
my
voice. What had Craig been telling this poor woman?

“Who are you?” I asked once more, wishing I could see her face from behind her. But all I could see was her hair. It was long and blond and scratchy where it touched my own face.

“I’m Nancy, Craig’s girlfriend,” she replied. Then she modified her answer. “At least I would be if it weren’t for you.”

Clarity at last.

Nancy. That was the name of the woman Craig had mentioned, the new girlfriend. But he hadn’t mentioned that he’d told her about me. Or that she was crazy, for that matter. But then I knew from experience that Craig could make a saint crazy. Maybe even the Dalai Lama. So I gave Nancy the benefit of the doubt.

“Would you like to come in the house and talk?” I asked her.

She began to cry then, softly at first, but then letting the weeping take her in heaves. “I’m sorry,” she choked through her sobs. I was barely holding her now. “I shouldn’t have attacked you. I shouldn’t have thrown the paint on your door—”

“You threw the paint on my door?” I stopped her. I just hoped she was good at sanding.

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “See, all Craig ever does is talk about you.” She raised her voice, mimicking him. “‘Kate can do this. Kate can do that.’” I guess I got a little agitated. I even brought my spray paint tonight to write something. But I won’t use it, I promise.”

“Yeah, I guess you won’t,” I agreed and dropped the arm I’d held around her neck. Then I released
her
arm from behind her back, but kept it grasped in my hand, just in case, and used it to guide her toward my paint-splattered, sawdust-strewn front door. She followed my lead without any resistance.

“I guess I made a little mess,” she murmured when we reached the door.

I nudged the sander out of the way and guided her into the living room without comment. My heart was still thumping, but my head felt amazingly clear. At least one mystery was solved.

“Kate?” Wayne called out.

“Wayne, could you come in the living room?” I called back.

Wayne must have heard the alarm I was trying to keep out of my voice. He shuffled into the living room in his p.j.’s within moments. Nancy and I were sitting together on the old denim couch as he came in. He surveyed us silently and sat on her other side. I had the support staff I needed. Finally, I let go of Nancy’s arm. And breathed.

“Wayne,” I said, “this is Nancy, Craig’s girlfriend. Nancy, this is Wayne,
my
boyfriend.”

“Nancy,” Wayne greeted her politely, inclining his head. Even in p.j.’s and Vicks, the man had manners.

“You’re Kate’s boyfriend?” Nancy asked, her large eyes widening further. “Craig didn’t tell me Kate lived with her boyfriend.”

Wayne lifted his eyebrows ever so slightly. Had we been alone, I’m sure his mouth would have moved too. But he wasn’t about to start in on Craig in front of Nancy. More manners. Certainly a lot more manners than I had.

“I gotta make a phone call,” I told the two of them and crossed over to my office.

Craig had made this mess and I was determined that Craig would clean it up. I punched out the phone number, thinking of Craig’s face. Three, punch. Six, punch. Eight, punch. I got his answering machine.

“Craig, get on this phone now!” I ordered.

“Kate?” came his voice in a few seconds.

“Nancy is here,” I informed him.

“Nancy,” he replied sleepily. Good, I’d awakened him.

“Nancy, your girlfriend,” I reminded him.

A few words drifted in from the living room in the telephone silence that followed.

“And then I thought he loved me, but he started talking about his ex-wife.”

Wayne’s voice answered in a low rumble. I couldn’t make out his words.

“Kate, she isn’t my girlfriend,” the phone said finally.

“Craig,” I whispered, my hand cupping the speaker, hoping Craig could hear and Nancy couldn’t. “I don’t care if you think Nancy is or isn’t your girlfriend. You come right over here and make the poor woman feel good.”

“But it’s late,” Craig whined. 1 asked myself how I had ever loved this man. Memories of laughter and silliness came drifting my way. I swept them out of my mind.

“I guess I was hurt,” Nancy said in the next room.

“Hurt,” Wayne repeated.

“I don’t care if it’s late,” I told Craig. “I don’t even care what planet you’re on. You come over here right now.”

By the time I’d hung up on Craig, he’d promised to be there as fast as humanly possible and Nancy was telling Wayne the story of her life.

“See, my parents got divorced when I was twelve, and my father married some bimbo.”

“Ah,” Wayne responded.

Writer? The man should be a therapist.

“D’you think that’s why I get so jealous?” Nancy was asking as I went outside to clean up the front deck. And to find the spray paint. Wayne was doing so well, I decided to leave the two of them in peace for a while. I’d found the can of spray paint (neon green), swept up the sawdust, disconnected the sander, and wrapped up the extension cord by the time Craig came driving up.

I caught him before he even made it over the threshold.

“Look at this door!” I hissed. “Your friend Nancy did this.”

“I didn’t know—” he began

“Well, you do now,” I told him. “I want you to buy me a new door and install it, understood?”

“But Kate, I didn’t—”

“Craig, you say you love me, and you won’t even replace the door?”

I saw the struggle on his handsome face under the porch light. Craig is a notoriously cheap man. But I’d hit him where it hurt. I hoped.

“Okay,” he muttered. “A new door.”

“All right,” I breathed. “Now go and comfort that poor woman.”

He started to step into the house.

“And I don’t ever want to hear another thing from you or anyone else about Nancy or any of your other girlfriends.”

“But, Kate,” he objected. “You’re the one—”

“Not about me either,” I told him, thrusting my head up as if to jam it into his Adam’s apple. A fairly appealing thought, about then. “Especially not about me. Not ever again!”

Anger can carry a lot of weight, even feigned anger.

Because at this point I was too tired to be really angry anymore. All I wanted was my door replaced, and Nancy and Craig out of my house…and a couple of murders solved, but those would have to wait.

I don’t know if it was the sight of Nancy weeping and clutching Wayne’s pajama lapels that made the difference, but Craig did try to comfort Nancy. Awkwardly at first, but then more seriously.

“I do care for you,” he was saying when Wayne and I slipped out of the living room, minutes later.

“Really?” Nancy murmured back.

Their two voices intermingled as we made our way down the hallway.

Wayne and I had reached the bedroom and were all set to go in when I heard, “We can go halfsies on the door, okay?” from Craig and almost turned back.

But it was none of my business now. I could only hope I’d seen the last of Nancy. And of Craig.

Wayne just held me when we went to bed. No whining. No cajoling. I sighed appreciatively. Some things were right with the world. Wayne didn’t even ask about Nancy or Craig. He just consoled me, gently and sensually. Very sensually.

Later, I told Wayne the story of the two murders, like a lullaby. I don’t know which of us fell asleep first.

Friday morning, I was working on Jest Gifts paperwork again. But a new product line was creeping into my head. Psychic products. And I didn’t mean ether. My pencil had traveled without permission from a ledger sheet to a sketch pad when Craig and Nancy showed up with my new door. Surprisingly, it was a good, solid, oak door. And more surprisingly, the two of them installed it without incident under Wayne’s gargoyle glare as he sat on a deck chair in his robe. Craig didn’t ask to speak to me. Sometimes, life is really fine. And it’s good to treasure those times. Because they don’t always last long enough.

Nancy and Craig had just driven away, and Wayne and I were admiring our new front door when Barbara’s Volkswagen bug shot into my driveway, popping gravel. It was surprise time.

“Nice door,” she shouted as she got out of the car. A skinny guy with long, straggly hair got out the passenger’s side. He looked behind him as if assessing his chances of escape. Was he the surprise? Barbara grabbed the straggly guy’s arm and pretty much dragged him up the front stairs and onto the deck.

“Paul is a dowser,” she announced with a nod in the direction of the man whose arm was imprisoned by hers.

“Paul,” Wayne greeted the man, nodding as if he entertained dowsers on his front deck in his p.j.’s every day.

“These are the guys I’ve been telling you about, Kate and Wayne,” Barbara went on cheerily.

“We have plenty of water,” I informed Paul.

“Yeah,” Paul mumbled and looked behind him again. “Probably a spring back there.”

Actually, he was right. We did have a spring at the beginning of the driveway, one that became a river during the winter rains, not to mention municipal water all year round that ran into our pipes and out our faucets. So why had Barbara brought me a dowser?

“Paul’s going to dowse for the murderer,” Barbara declared, and her eyes lit up. She probably would have clapped her hands too if she hadn’t been holding her surprise so tightly.

I groaned. Wayne shook his head ever so slightly. And Paul mumbled unintelligibly and looked at his feet.

“…usually do water…” was all I caught of his words.

“Guess I’d better take a shower and get dressed,” Wayne announced, rising from his deck chair.

“But—” I began.

“Going with you,” he growled.

“Sure,” Barbara agreed for all of us, her grin widening. “It’ll be fun.”

So Paul followed Barbara and me into the living room to have a seat and mumble about dowsing while Wayne showered. And I whispered.

“Barbara,” I hissed. “Wayne is sick. He shouldn’t be going out.”

“He’ll be okay, kiddo,” she assured me. Then she frowned again. “Eventually,” she added.