Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (7 page)

- Seven -

I could see why Chief Wenger didn’t smile more often. The effort turned his intelligent, gaunt face into a death’s-head. And my temples into basketball courts.
Thud, thud, thud.

“Gonna sell me a ticket to the policeman’s ball?” Barbara asked the chief coquettishly.

“Ma’am,” Lieutenant Kettering interrupted earnestly. “We at the Paloma Police Department don’t have any balls.”

“Kettering!” Chief Wenger exploded, his smile gone. “Get in the house.”

“It’s her house, sir,” Kettering replied, nodding at me.

I choked on my laughter and at the same time, tried to look serious while Wenger glared at Barbara and me.

Barbara patted me on the back.

“Kate must have swallowed a bug or something,” she said.

All right, sometimes Barbara is cool.

I unlocked the door and led Chief Wenger and Lieutenant Kettering onto the few yards of parquet flooring that constituted the entryway to my house and living room. Kettering took a quick look around at the overstuffed bookshelves, towering houseplants, pinball machines, and swinging chairs, then wrote a few lines in his notebook. I wondered what he’d marked down. Poorly Decorated? Aesthetically Challenged? Can’t Afford Normal Furniture? Wenger sat carefully on the homemade-wood-and-denim couch, narrowing his eyes as if he expected it to crumble under his slight weight if he didn’t intimidate it into solidity.

“My friend is sick in the next room,” I whispered in introduction. “So could you please keep your voices down?”

“And just what kinda friend is that?” Chief Wenger boomed. So much for my request. I’d forgotten just how big a voice could come out of such a small man.

“Kate’s sweetie,” Barbara whispered helpfully. At least she whispered.

“He has pneumonia,” I expanded. “He needs his sleep.” I didn’t add that he especially didn’t need to know I’d been involved in another murder.

“So how does he feel about the death of Ms. Sokoloff?” Kettering asked, sotto voce.

My temples were thudding again. I took a breath and told the truth.

“He doesn’t know about her death,” I admitted. “He’s really pretty sick and I don’t want to—”

“Fives are very private, secretive even,” Kettering commented.

“Do you mean me?” I bristled.

“So what’s your boyfriend’s name?” Wenger asked.

I might have demanded an attorney at that point, but I was sure just the word “attorney” would have wakened Wayne.

“Wayne Caruso,” I muttered.

Kettering wrote it down after I’d spelled it in its entirety.

“So, how well did your boyfriend know Silk Sokoloff?” Wenger asked, leaning forward.

“Huh?” I said.

The interview went downhill from there. Wenger seemed convinced that either Wayne, Barbara, or I knew Silk Sokoloff previously. Knew her well. Or that all of us did. And he seemed to think that if he just pressed long enough, he’d get the answer he wanted. Barbara said she’d met Silk at Justine’s and knew her writing. I assured the chief that I’d never met the woman before, and that Wayne had certainly never mentioned her. But those clearly weren’t the right answers. Between Kettering and Wenger, I counted at least 156 ways to ask the same questions. Counting seemed better than screaming. When C. C. slunk in and yowled at the chief I expected him to interrogate her, but Barbara seized the moment for a preemptive strike.

“Say,” she began, bending forward with no evidence of guile in her serene face. “Are Officers Yuki and O’Dwyer dating?”

“Huh?” Kettering answered. It did my heart good to hear him. Though not Chief Wenger’s.

“No fraternization,” the chief snapped. “Though they’ve been making cow eyes at each other long enough.”

“Really?” Kettering exclaimed in wonder.

“Fer Pete’s sake, Kettering! Don’t you have eyes in your head?” Wenger exploded.

“But he’s gotta be a six and she’s an eight,” Kettering objected.

“Kettering, you’re hopeless.” Wenger sighed. And then he got up from my couch and brushed off his knees.

I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that he should have brushed off the rear of his pants instead, where all the cat hair had accumulated.

The chief and the lieutenant clattered down the stairs unceremoniously after that. Then C. C. jumped on the warm spot the chief’s slight frame had left on the couch.

“Did you do that on purpose?” I asked Barbara.

“Is Chief Wenger a four?” she answered.

“Barbara, I don’t know if he’s a four. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know—”

“He is, kiddo,” she interrupted. And then she was gone too. It took me a couple of seconds after she’d hugged me and disappeared through the open doorway to realize that she’d answered in the affirmative. Barbara had distracted Wenger on purpose.

I didn’t even listen for her Volkswagen’s departure. I just smiled. Barbara could take care of herself. But I wasn’t so sure about my sweetie. I turned and ran down the hall to check on Wayne.

“I heard voices,” he murmured when I stepped into the bedroom. His voice was groggy with sleep.

“Roofers,” I said and put my hand on his forehead.

“Roofers?” he asked innocently.

I kissed his damp but cool brow.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked. My hand told me his fever remained normal, but his eyes were still bleary. Or maybe it was my eyes. The whole room felt unnaturally humid to me, filled with sickness.

“Guess I’m sad,” he murmured.

“Sad?” That wasn’t the answer I’d expected.

“Anne’s getting married,” he explained.

My body stiffened. That was all the explanation I needed. Our friend Anne Rivera was getting married. She’d known her prospective groom a little over four months. Wayne and I had been talking about getting married for years. Or at least Wayne had. Something in me always held back, especially with the specter of a formal marriage. I’d participated in one of those already, as the bride. I knew that Wayne wasn’t my ex-husband, Craig, but still…

“I love you, sweetie,” I told Wayne, shaking off the ghosts of marriage past. “We
will
get married, I promise.”

He smiled softly.

“Bridesmaids?” he asked.

“Bridesmaids?” I yelped, but then I saw that his soft smile had turned to a teasing grin. He
was
feeling better.

I hugged him hard, relief flooding my stiff body.

“You don’t want flower girls?” I asked innocently.

“And flower boys—” he began.

The doorbell rang before he could add any more details to the proposed wedding from hell.

Barbara was on my doorstep when I yanked the front door open impatiently.

“Didn’t you just leave?” I asked her.

“Zarathustra’s at his aunt Justine’s,” Barbara told me.

“No,” I said.

I don’t understand why the word “no” seems to work for other people but not for me. Maybe because they don’t have friends like Barbara.

“Your car or mine?” she offered.

“Barbara!” I shouted. “I don’t want any more to do with this—”

“Shush,” she warned, a finger across her pursed lips. “If Wayne hears you, he’ll never believe they were roofers.”

She smiled and waited. My heart thumped three times, and then I realized what she’d said.

“Roofers?” I demanded. “How’d you know I told him they were roofers?”

She didn’t ever answer me, of course. But twenty minutes later, I was all yelled out and climbing into my car for the second time that day to drive to Justine’s. Wayne had told me he’d be fine on his own. I knew he probably would be, but I wasn’t so sure about myself. Deception doesn’t come naturally to me. Barbara’s final argument had appealed to me, though. She’d told me that if we solved this murder quickly, Wayne would never have to know about it. Deception may not come naturally to me, but self-deception is a whole other story. I chose to believe her.

Once again, Barbara and I walked up the stone path to Justine’s house. But this time Justine wasn’t alone in her living room. Zarathustra was sprawled on the floor next to the ottoman that Justine had previously occupied. He didn’t stand when Barbara and I walked in, or even raise his head when Justine sat next to him and gestured us to the corduroy armchairs we’d sat in earlier.

“Zara, Barbara and Kate would like to speak to you,” Justine told the teenager gently once we were seated.

He raised his head finally. I’d remembered his broad, sullen features, but I’d forgotten his pierced ear and cheeks. It still hurt to look at him. And not just because of the piercings. For all of Zarathustra’s studied sullenness, there was vulnerability evident in his wide eyes, big brown eyes that looked so much like his aunt Justine’s. I wished there was a way troubled teenagers could pass magically through those years, growing but not suffering. I crossed my arms protectively.

“So, are you two some kinda amateur five-0’s or something?” he challenged, narrowing those wide, vulnerable eyes I’d taken pity on and looking somewhere past us.

Maybe there was a way teenagers could pass through those troubled years without talking either, I reflected.

“We wanted to ask you about Silk Sokoloff,” Barbara said, smiling as if he’d greeted us with hugs instead of snarls.

“Silk, she got her wig split,” Zarathustra replied, looking at the ceiling. “Silk was a hustler, man, a nasty old grinder.”

“James,” Justine warned. There was no more gentleness in her voice, just steel. I looked around for James and realized he was on the floor in front of me. I should have guessed Zarathustra had named himself. No parent would be that cruel.

“But Aunt Justine,” the teenager in question objected. “I’m just telling the truth. Ignorant folks hated Nietzsche for telling the truth, too. And you know I go by Zarathustra. I’m not James anymore.”

“A woman was killed, Zarathustra,” Justine told him, her deep, soothing voice now a blend of steel and honey. “No matter how she goofed on you, she was a living, breathing being. And someone killed her. Do you think that killing her was right?”

“No,” he muttered, looking at the floor now.

“And…” Barbara prompted.

“Silk coulda been a player,” Zarathustra finally answered, looking at us directly for the first time. “Like Nietzsche, man, she didn’t conform to established morality. But she didn’t make the last step either. She wasn’t serious about excellence. And she treated me ugly. I think I woulda figured out how to do the right thing by her if I’d had the time. Linda and I were talking about it just before…” His eyes gravitated toward the floor as his words died away.

“Before she was killed,” I finished for him.

“Yeah, man. Aunt Justine is right. There was no call to kill the woman just ‘cause she was different. Somebody fitted her up for the trauma-drama, but it wasn’t me.”

I sank back into my chair, comfortable for the first time since we’d entered Justine’s living room. Because I believed Zarathustra. I not only believed that he hadn’t killed Silk, but I also believed that he understood Silk. In fact, he had a pretty good store of wisdom for a kid whose cheeks were pierced.

“See, Nietzsche got the skit without punkin’ anyone. ‘The will to power,”transvaluation of values.’ Personal power, man. He set up shop before any of the rest of these hooriders—”

“Zara, can you please speak in English?” his aunt requested, but her tone was relaxed now, affectionate.

“Aw, you know what I mean,” Zarathustra told her. “Nietzsche knew what was happening. The rest of these guys are just beginning to figure it out.”

So maybe his wisdom was a little mangled by the original superman, but I still believed his declaration that he wasn’t a killer.

“Ever read
Thus Spake Zarathustra
?” he asked.

I shook my head, embarrassed by my own ignorance in the presence of this seventeen-year-old kid. Had he just happened on Nietzsche while reading Hume and Kant and Hegel? I certainly hadn’t ever had the urge to read heavy philosophy at his age. I was too busy trying to figure out the naughty bits in D. H. Lawrence. I wriggled in my chair, trying to get comfortable again.

“That’s where I got my name,” he went on. “Nietzsche was really cool for a white guy—”

Twenty minutes later, I’d amended my initial assessment. Zarathustra couldn’t kill anyone except by boring them to death. I wondered how Nietzsche had died. Listening to his own theories?

“Well, that was really interesting,” Barbara said, standing just as impatience threatened to catapult my twitching body out the window.

Zarathustra looked confused, caught between sentences.

“Oh, right,” I said, jumping out of the overly warm embrace of my corduroy chair to join her. “I’ve really enjoyed hearing about Nietzsche,” I lied.

It was worth it to see the confusion leave Zarathustra’s face, replaced by a flicker of shy pride.

“Thanks for listening,” he murmured.

He could be polite beyond his years, as well as wise. I would have hugged him, but something about the studs on his black leather discouraged me.