A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  Her lips curved in a shy smile. “My son, Gary, works for Wayne, Kate’s fiancé. That’s what got Diana into this seminar.”

  “And into my tai chi class,” I added, keeping the bitterness out of my voice with an effort. Diana had taken a year and a half to master the tai chi form I was still struggling with at year eight. And of course, she looked absolutely gorgeous doing it. It made sense. The woman would look gorgeous doing anything.

  “Oh yeah, tai chi,” Ona Quimby threw in enthusiastically, her voice loud. Too loud. Ona’s voice didn’t match her softness. In fact, it was always a shock to hear that tough, deep voice coming out of that ultrafeminine body. “I took tai chi for a while. But I just didn’t have the time to keep on. It’s great stuff, stretched my limits. People think someone as big as I am wouldn’t have the sensitivity or flexibility for a soft form of self-defense like tai chi, but that’s crap.” She brought up her leg in a kick as relaxed and limber as any tai chi student’s. “Just wish I could have stayed till we got to the push hands part.”

  “That’s the sparring part,” her boyfriend, Perry, translated eagerly. His friendly voice was as loud as Ona’s but not as deep. Or as tough. “The rest of the time they just practice the moves by themselves in this long kinda dance form. It’s really beautiful.”

  “Push hands isn’t exactly sparring,” Ona corrected him. “It’s just using the movements and the principles of the form as you interact with a partner.”

  “And push him over,” Ray Zappa said. “It’s still fighting. They wanted us to learn it at the police department. Silliest martial art I ever saw. They say it’s a big deal, but as far as I’m concerned a good partner and a good gun work a lot better then pushing people over.”

  “But a gentle way to defend yourself from attack might be great for the police,” I put in. I couldn’t resist arguing, thinking about the movies I’d seen where the Master—a small, elderly Chinese man—had lofted burly Marines into the air with those soft pushes. And how those same burly Marines couldn’t budge the Master with pushes or kicks or blows. Of course, he was a master.

  “Got some crazy kid after you with an assault rifle, you’re not going to be using tai chi or any of that airy-fairy stuff,” Ray insisted. I shrugged my shoulders. He was probably right. Still…

  Ray turned to Tessa, a big grin on his face. “I mean, you ever seen a dead body down at your mortuary, killed with tai chi?”

  Mortuary?

  Everyone’s eyes snapped in Tessa’s direction.

  “Yes, I make a living as a mortician,” Tessa admitted quietly, a sigh in her voice. Then she elbowed Ray in the ribs, much less gently than a tai chi push. He grabbed himself as if mortally wounded.

  But Liz Atherton looked truly shocked. She narrowed her round eyes at Tessa sharply. And for a moment, Tessa returned the look, tilting her head as if in sudden recognition.

  “You buried my husband,” Liz declared softly. “Now I recognize you…” Her voice faltered. “It’s been more than twenty years—”

  “And my father,” Perry Kane added, his usually high voice low and shaky now. “You buried my father. Because of the race thing.”

  Tessa turned toward Perry now, one hand raised palm-up in a gentle gesture of defeat.

  “I’ve buried a good many people here in Marin,” she said, her voice as steady and unapologetic as her hand was defensive. “I can barely go anywhere in Marin without someone recognizing me. Especially if there was an issue about using the funeral home for mixed races. Our specialty for twenty-five years.” She elbowed Ray in the ribs again. “And if someone doesn’t recognize me, there’s always Ray to make sure they do. Makes me a real popular person everywhere I go.”

  We all laughed nervously. Or tried to.

  “What I really love is my hobby,” Tessa said, changing the subject after another moment of charged silence. “I’m a baby holder. You know, for the newborns at the hospital whose mothers can’t hold them.”

  We all nodded, mesmerized. At least I was. Newborns, newly dead…

  “Well, that’s what I do, hold them and cuddle them,” she finished, her solemn face softened under her upswept gray curls.

  “My Tessa’s a great lady, that’s for sure,” Ray declared, throwing his big arm around her small shoulders, his elbowed ribs apparently forgotten.

  Liz took a big breath and threw herself back into conversational duty with an obvious effort. “I do chain-saw sculpture myself. Saw a man doing it a few years ago and decided I’d give it a try—”

  “You son of a dog!” The bellow erupted from behind us before Liz could even finish her sentence.

  Wayne and I turned simultaneously and saw Campbell shaking his fist about a foot from Sam Skyler’s face. I didn’t see any puppets on his clenched fingers, so I assumed the meaning of his shaking fist was the traditional one. But where did he get his insults? Son of a dog? This guy was closer to thirty years old than two hundred.

  “Now, Campbell,” Sam was saying calmly, “I’m sure that was very energizing, very empowering. In fact, I feel you’re on the road to a real turnaround…”

  “I’ll turn your quiffing face around!” Campbell shouted.

  “Hey now, sweet-cakes,” Emma intervened, physically as well as verbally, inserting her small body between the two men’s, and batting Campbell’s fist out of the air like a cat with a toy mouse. “Don’t be boring. Sam and I were just—”

  “Emma, it’s not you!” Campbell howled, waving his hands above her head in frustration. “It’s that…that pompous piece of— “

  “Now, I know you’re really tinkled,” a new voice broke in cheerfully. Yvonne. I’d hardly seen her approaching the trio. I’d been too fascinated by Sam’s slow and barely discernible retreat from the range of Campbell’s fist. Talk about tai chi. This guy was over a yard away now and you could barely see him moving.

  “But you see, it’s just the dark side of love,” Yvonne went on. “Channel it now. Channel it into the light of love. Channel it into loving your Emma.”

  Campbell was cruelly outnumbered. And outmaneuvered. Within minutes, he, Emma, and Sam had joined our group and we were all talking about hobbies again. At least Ona was talking about Perry’s.

  “He teaches kids in the inner cities about computers,” she told us, patting Perry’s arm firmly as if he were a dog. Perry turned his head away shyly, a flush reddening his brown skin. “He says that within a few years the computer illiterates will be the real have-nots. And he’s doing something about it. He really cares.”

  “Precisely,” Sam agreed, putting in his five hundred dollars worth. “That’s what this country needs. More people pushing their limits. Everything we do, or don’t do, can be empowering or impoverishing, whether we’re paid or not paid. All of our actions reflect the potential to channel higher consciousness into living grace—”

  “Did you say ‘leaving grace’?” asked Ray Zappa, cupping his ear innocently. But I could see the suppressed grin lifting his eyebrows.

  “No, no,” Sam answered, a shadow of irritation passing over his gorgeous face. He stared at Ray for a moment, as if trying to figure out whether or not he was kidding and then deciding he couldn’t be. I wished I had that kind of ego. “Living grace. You see the Skyler method teaches us to turn our higher consciousness into living grace. Actual living harmony—”

  The sound of a conch shell being blown interrupted his speech. Just in time. Did people really pay five hundred dollars a pop to listen to this man?

  “Oh, it’s beginning!” Yvonne sang out. She ran to the edge of the bluff. “Everyone get a good place to watch now. You’re going to see magic.”

  Suddenly I was glad the overlook railing extended so far along the bluff. Everyone could get a view without being crowded. We all spread out yards apart, from Sam Skyler alone at the far end by the brass vases to Yvonne O’Reilley alone at the end nearest Point Abajo. Wayne and I cuddled together somewhere in the center, and then the conch shell sounded again.

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nbsp; We peered down at the cove and enclosed beach to our right and waited for the magic Yvonne had promised. The little brightly colored stacks had stopped racing around and were standing in motionless rows now with a space very much like an aisle down the middle of their ranks. Sure enough, the one in black farthest from the water appeared to be the minister. Now that our group had fallen silent, the ocean’s roar seemed more rhythmic. Almost hypnotic. The wind even seemed to defer, dying down for the moment. And the misting rain had disappeared. The warmth that radiated from Wayne’s body began to seep into mine. Magic?

  A lone bagpipe began to play somewhere below. “Brigadoon.” Would the fog lift for the ceremony now?

  All eyes were on the cove as the surf deposited two sleek black seals onto the beach. Only they weren’t seals. The bride and groom? No, no, they weren’t, I decided. They were two men. The groom and his best man, I guessed. They stood and walked in the giant, exaggerated steps of those outfitted with flippers and oxygen tanks, making their way down the space in the middle of the stacks of colors until they were in place to one side of the black block that had to be the minister. Just before they turned, I noticed the patches of phosphorescent white that their suits had been painted with, approximating the boiled fronts of tuxedos.

  The bagpipe continued to play and then two more seals emerged from the water. These two were easier to identify. At least the one with the long white veil attached to the headpiece of her diving suit and the white train floating from her waist at least three yards out into the water. She and the other seal climbed onto the beach, arm in arm, followed by the smallest seal of all, holding the end of the train. I resisted the urge to applaud as they solemnly followed the awkward path the first two divers had taken through the middle of the crowd.

  The bagpipes went abruptly silent as the group of divers arranged themselves before the minister. Then the conch shell sounded again. I wished I could see more, but no one had thought to bring binoculars any more than they had thought to bring jackets.

  I wasn’t even sure if it was the hum of marriage vows I heard over the ocean and wind. But I saw the ring being transferred and the seals kiss. And heard the cheer from the crowd. All right, it was magical. A magical wedding was possible. At least from this distance.

  And then, as the pipes played once more, the two newly married seals duck-walked back to the water’s edge and dived, the tip of the bridal train the last vision to disappear beneath the pounding surf.

  The conch shell sounded one final note, and another cheer rose from the beach. The wedding was over.

  I looked up at Wayne and put my arms around him. His soft mouth landed on mine and I closed my eyes, lost in the moment.

  “Sam?” I heard from behind me. Diana’s voice. I kept my lips on Wayne’s.

  “Sam?” again, a little more urgently. “Has anyone seen Sam?”

  It was no use. I could feel the kiss lose momentum as certainly as a car with a stalled engine.

  I looked around and saw various groups of people, standing and talking, but I didn’t see Sam.

  “Maybe he went back into the house,” Ray suggested.

  I took Wayne’s hand before he went to comfort Diana directly, and walked impatiently to the place I had last seen Sam, by the vases at the far end of the railing. But the vases were gone.

  Had they fallen over the bluff? I looked down over the railing. I didn’t see the vases. But I did see the answer to the question that Diana was asking more and more hysterically.

  Sam Skyler was spread-eagled below, a guru on the rocks.

  - Two -

  I was looking over the railing at Sam Skyler’s spread-eagled body when Diana came up behind me and looked too. In the shallow bubbling water below the body, a life preserver was floating merrily. Not that it would do Sam any good up on the rocks. Actually, it didn’t look as if anything was going to do Sam a lot of good.

  I was still watching the life preserver when Diana screamed and grabbed my shoulders. And I felt myself tilting forward. The wooden two-by-four railing ground into my hip bones as Diana’s screams pierced my eardrums. I wanted to cover my ears, but clasped the railing instead, concentrating on taking the energy that was tilting me forward and using it to tilt myself back again. Like in push hands. But this wasn’t push hands. There were rocks down there. I centered myself and rolled my shoulders out of Diana’s grip. I wasn’t going over that railing. No way.

  And suddenly, I felt a new pair of hands on my shoulders, but these were pulling me back. Wayne’s hands. Then he picked me up and set me down at least a yard away from the railing.

  “Okay?” he asked softly. At least that’s what I thought he said.

  Because my heart was thumping so hard in my chest, I could barely hear him. Was that what Sam had felt when he had gone over, his heart thumping, his ears buzzing? And then hitting the first rock. Because he had hit a lot more than one of those triangular rocks, the hundred feet or so he had bounced before landing on the large flat one sticking out like an oversized pie-server. His body was smashed and tattered as if…I shook the thought out of my head. Sam Skyler had to be dead. And I didn’t want to know how his death had felt. Ever.

  I forced my stinging eyes to look out at the gray-blue sky and saw that it was shimmering. But five o’clock was still too early for twilight. Or was it? I couldn’t seem to think.

  And Diana just kept screaming.

  Wayne turned her way, his rough face white and drawn. Even in my shock, I could see his shock. And his conflict. A caretaker torn between two needy women. One woman his fiancée, the other having just seen her dead fiancé’s body smashed on the rocks below. Diana’s hands were now clamped over her eyes as she screamed.

  I reached for Wayne’s hand, but a new thought froze my own hand before it even got that far. Had Diana tried to push me over the edge? No, I decided. No. I shook my head violently. Much as I didn’t appreciate the presence of Diana in my life, I didn’t think my animosity was returned. At least not enough to kill me. Especially in front of witnesses. Witnesses. My mind repeated the word. I hadn’t even thought about witnesses.

  I swiveled my head around, suddenly seeing the spasming of movement around us. Liz was running toward her daughter now. And Nathan was veering her way, too. Everyone else was moving toward the bluff on different paths. Looking over. Pointing. Exclaiming. Turning away. Turning back.

  “My vases,” Yvonne’s voice came floating over Diana’s screams. “Where are my vases?”

  And then Liz had Diana’s face in her hands and Nathan was patting Diana’s back. And finally Diana stopped screaming. All I could hear was ocean and the ringing in my ears as Wayne locked his arms around me.

  “Police matter,” came a voice into that relative silence. I peeked around Wayne’s arm and saw Ray Zappa, no longer looking hearty, his good-time face angular with sobriety. He turned and jogged toward the house.

  I pressed my face into Wayne’s chest as I threw my arms around him, hoping I was comforting him as well as myself, breathing in his scent, holding onto his heat. Holding onto his strength. Our strength. He squeezed me back even harder, not quite hard enough to break ribs, but close. And the pain of the embrace felt good. I was alive. But I could still hear the voices that drifted around us on the cold, wet air.

  “Police?” asked at least three voices at once. Yvonne’s and Perry’s, I was pretty sure. And Martina’s, I thought.

  “The man is dead.” Gently. Clearly. That one was Tessa’s voice.

  “Dead?” That one I couldn’t identify. The wet wind took it and twisted it out of recognition. It might have been Campbell. Or it might have been Emma. Or anyone.

  And then suddenly, “Was Skyler murdered? Is that what Ray meant?” Ona’s voice was too loud to twist, too authoritative. But still her question went unanswered. “Did someone push him?”

  I buried my head further into Wayne’s chest.

  Did someone push Sam Skyler? Or did he fall? Or did he jump? Or—

  An
d then the voice I hadn’t thought to listen for came rising over the currents. Nathan’s.

  “Did someone kill Dad?” he asked, his soft voice high now, incredulous.

  I peered around Wayne. Nathan wasn’t patting Diana’s back anymore. He was looking over the bluff.

  “Oh no,” he said to himself, shaking his head. “No.”

  That’s when I remembered. Sam Skyler had been Diana’s fiancé, but he had also been Nathan’s father. Oh God, what was Nathan Skyler feeling now? What—

  And then Diana began to sob. “Killed, killed,” she repeated, her voice getting progressively higher through her tears. “Why wasn’t I standing with him? Killed. Oh why? Why…”

  I closed my eyes and thought of Sam’s huge upper body and the low railings. If they had been hip-high on me, they must have been thigh-high on him. And he was already overbalanced on top. He could have fallen. I had almost gone over from Diana’s frightened grasp myself. And Sam had been at the end of the bluff farthest away from the wedding ceremony. No one would have been looking his way. Could someone have pushed him, hoping their risk of being seen was minimal? Was minimal enough to hope for? Had someone else seen what happened? The thoughts went through my head even as the horror coursed through my body. I couldn’t seem to stop them once they started. Then I remembered all of our talk of push hands, of pushing. And Ray asking if anyone had ever been killed with tai chi.

  I shivered in the wet, salty air. Magic had been replaced by something else. Something I didn’t want to think about.

  And Diana continued to sob.

  The federal government, in the person of one Park Ranger Yasuda, was the first representative of authority to arrive on the bluff. He appeared just about the time I noticed the splinters from the wooden railing in my right palm.

  Park Ranger Yasuda didn’t look much like an official, though. True, he wore the drab gray and green uniform with the Point Abajo insignia and a name tag, but his long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. His thick, arching eyebrows gave his intense eyes and square features the look of a samurai, a concerned samurai.