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

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  Maybe that’s why Yvonne hugged him. Because that’s what our fearless Wedding Ritual seminar leader did. The first official on the scene and she hugged him.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried and clutched him as tightly as I had clutched Wayne.

  Sorry? Sorry for what? Pushing Sam?

  Yasuda raised his eyebrows and pulled out of her grip with some twisting and fancy footwork. But he got away.

  And then Yvonne put her arms around him again.

  Yasuda’s eyebrows went even higher this time. And instead of twisting, he pushed her away, but I could see the effort he made to be gentle in his push.

  “Ms. O’Reilley?” he said. Did he know Yvonne then, if he knew her name? Was that why she was hugging him? “What is—”

  And then everyone started in at once, telling him about the scuba wedding, and Sam Skyler’s body on the rocks, while I tried to figure out just how Park Ranger Yasuda knew Yvonne O’Reilley, if he did know her.

  A few garbled moments later, Yasuda put his hand palm up for silence before walking to the edge of the bluff and looking over for himself. When he turned back around, he closed his eyes for a moment. Even when he opened them again, there was a tightness in his face that made me think it was an effort for him to keep his eyes open. He could have probably used that hug from Yvonne about then. I concentrated on studying my hand, trying to figure out if I’d be able to pull out the splinters without a pair of tweezers. It was better than thinking about Sam Skyler.

  “What happened here?” Yasuda asked, his voice low and quiet, but strong enough to be audible over the ocean and wind.

  “Well,” and “uh,” and “didn’t see,” were the only kind of answers he got.

  He put up his palm again.

  “Did anyone see him go over?” he demanded, a little louder this time.

  He got even fewer answers this time. No answers, in fact. If anyone had seen Sam go over, they weren’t talking.

  A familiar churning started in my stomach. I forgot about the splinters in my hand and glanced up at Wayne. His brows were at half-mast over his eyes. And I would have bet his stomach was feeling a lot like mine. Sam Skyler had not been a well-liked man. And now he was spread-eagled on the rocks. Finding out how he got there wasn’t going to be easy. For any of us.

  “I want everyone to walk very carefully away from the edge of the bluff,” Yasuda was instructing when the second governmental representative sirened up behind us in a car bearing the insignia of the Quiero Police Department.

  Both Chief Woolsey of the Quiero Police Department and Officer Fox, who quickly introduced himself and his superior, looked official. It wasn’t so much the uniform that Fox had on and Woolsey didn’t, but the short haircuts, lack of facial hair, and the disgruntled expressions that they both wore.

  “We’ll take it from here, Yasuda,” was the first thing Woolsey said after he took a look at Skyler’s body and asked the same, obvious questions Yasuda had, receiving the same answers. Or lack thereof.

  But Yasuda wasn’t that easy to shake.

  “I’d like to stay, sir,” he said, straightening his back, military style. “The Park is involved in this one too.”

  Woolsey turned and glared at Yasuda, finally having found someone to whom he could direct his disgruntlement. It was a good strong glare, seeming to fit his long, lean face and receding hairline. Fox glared too, his puffy moon-face not quite carrying it off so well.

  “This is City of Quiero property and City of Quiero jurisdiction,” Woolsey declared. “Your tourist park has nothing to do with this.” There was something about the way he stretched out the word “tourist” that made me think he didn’t appreciate the breed.

  “Excuse me if I disagree,” Yasuda came back, and they were off and running.

  I kept waiting to be interrogated. But we of the Saturday afternoon Create Your Own Wedding Ritual class all stood scattered around the bluff instead, listening to Ranger Yasuda and Chief Woolsey argue about jurisdiction, their voices booming over the rhythmic roar of the ocean below. And the slightly more muted sound of Diana’s whimpering.

  “Uh, guys—” Ona put in after a good twenty minutes, but the two men didn’t seem to hear her, however loud her voice was.

  “…U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will come in if the tides touch the body—” Yasuda was saying.

  “The tides aren’t going to touch the body,” Woolsey argued. “You’re a park ranger for God’s sake. Look at the ecological situation down there…”

  I looked up instead of down as the sun began to set, backlighting the gray-blue clouds with accents of silver and apricot. Very subtle. Very artistic. Very cold. My teeth were chattering even with Wayne’s arms around me.

  It was about then that the Marin County sheriffs arrived. And I probably wasn’t the only one happy to see them.

  They did something about Sam Skyler. I could hear one of the sheriffs as he called in for the Search and Rescue Team that would retrieve Sam’s body.

  And suddenly Woolsey seemed to remember that he was a chief of police. He turned away from Ranger Yasuda and told Officer Fox to take our names. Once that was done, he herded us all into the house for interrogation.

  I heard the clicking of chopper blades as I walked through the doorway, and looked over my shoulder just in time to see the chopper flying in, a basket hanging from its belly. I was glad I wouldn’t see the rescue team in action, pulling Sam Skyler’s body from its rocky perch. I had seen enough.

  Woolsey did most of the talking once we were inside the house Yvonne’s friend owned. Inside! A real living room with long, low beige sofas arranged on an earth-gray carpet and equipped with a huge black Swedish fireplace that was unfortunately unlit. But it was still warm in there. Relatively warm, anyway, after the cold and wet outside. We all sat down under Officer Fox’s impassive moon-faced gaze as Woolsey led Yvonne O’Reilley into the kitchen for questioning. Woolsey made no comment as Park Ranger Yasuda and one of the county sheriffs followed him. Maybe the sheriffs had embarrassed Woolsey into professional courtesy. Or maybe he was just tired of arguing with Yasuda.

  My fingers had just begun to get feeling back in their tips, and my teeth had stopped chattering, by the time Woolsey finished questioning Diana. The warmth had spread to my palms, splinters and all, when he finished with Nathan. And then it was my turn.

  The kitchen was even warmer than the living room. I sank into one of the rustic wooden chairs gratefully, happy to be there, interrogation or no interrogation.

  But I was out of the kitchen in less than five minutes. Woolsey asked me my version of what had happened. I was ready, and summarized in a few succinct sentences the conversations before the wedding, Campbell’s outburst, the scuba wedding itself, and discovering Sam Skyler’s body. He asked if I had known Sam Skyler previously. I told him I hadn’t. He asked if I had seen Sam fall. I told him I hadn’t. That was it. He didn’t even ask if I had anything to add before he told me I could go. Yasuda and the sheriff sat through the three questions and answers without comment, and without expression. And then it was Wayne’s turn.

  As I sat in the living room waiting for Wayne, I wondered if Woolsey actually believed that Sam Skyler had just fallen onto those rocks. And then I wondered why I didn’t.

  For all the brevity of Woolsey’s interrogations, the sun was almost completely set by the time Wayne and I were back in my Toyota with me at the wheel, taking the newly blacktopped curves of the road home while heat blasted from the dashboard vents like a blessing. The scuba-wedding party seemed like a dream.

  Wayne and I didn’t talk much on the way. I showed him my splintered hand. He bent over to kiss it. Not quite tweezers, but good. Definitely good.

  Finally pulling into the driveway, we clumped up the front stairs, shut the front door behind us, and held each other again so closely you could almost hear the submicroscopic viruses being crushed between us.

  A yowl from the rear broke it up. My cat, C.C. Death, murder? None of it m
attered. Her dinner was late.

  Wayne picked her up, burying his face in her silky fur. I wished I had gotten to her first. But Wayne was faster. C.C. let him indulge himself for a moment, then turned her spotted black and white face toward his, widened her eyes, and blasted him with another yowl. Maybe I didn’t wish I had gotten to her first.

  “Cat food or splinters?” Wayne asked quietly as he set C.C. gently back on the floor. A lot more gently than I would have.

  “Cat food,” I answered. “We’d never get the splinters out with C.C. bonking my legs for attention.”

  We were finally sitting on the living room couch with an open bottle of alcohol (of the rubbing variety), tissues, and tweezers when the doorbell rang.

  Wayne screwed the cap back on the bottle, stomped to the door, and reluctantly opened up. Even from where I sat, I could see who our visitors were. Diana Atherton, tantric yoga goddess, and her brother, Gary. For a moment, I studied the two, noting their similarities. Both graceful, erect, and slender, with perfectly symmetrical features and large blue saucer eyes. But at least Gary was balding.

  And then I remembered that Sam Skyler was dead. How could I have forgotten, even for a moment? Diana Atherton was in mourning and I was—

  I jumped up from the couch and marched over to express my sympathy.

  But by the time I reached the doorway, my mouth just opening to speak, Diana had put up her hands as if for silence.

  “I’ve had dreams of violence,” she announced softly.

  - Three -

  “What do you mean ‘dreams of violence’?” Wayne asked. His voice was low and serious. His face too. Diana’s words had tightened the skin over his scarred cheekbones and drawn his brows low over his eyes.

  “I…I…” Diana began to sob, higher-than-Everest-pitched sobs that brought my hands up involuntarily to cover my ears.

  But I dropped my hands and dived in conversationally before she could get any farther. I knew by now that this woman could cry or scream, or do both at once, endlessly if not diverted.

  “Do you mean you’ve dreamt of killing Sam?” I asked.

  That stopped her for a moment.

  I took a breath as she raised her now reddened blue eyes to me and stared as if trying to figure out the meaning of my words.

  “Is that what you’re worried about?” I tried again. “That you dreamt about killing Sam and then you did—”

  “No, no!” she wailed and then began to sob in earnest. So much for diverting her.

  All through this, Gary Atherton stood by his sister, his handsome face as serious as Wayne’s homely one. Without speaking. No “hiya,” no “how are you?” Nothing.

  Impatiently, I stepped closer to the group standing in the doorway. Just why were the Athertons invading our home anyway? Not to confess anything like murder, I hoped. Were they just here for sympathy? Or for advice?

  “Gary,” I greeted him.

  He shot a quick nod my way and then his eyes bounced back to his sister. Of course.

  I knew the two siblings fairly well. Or at least Wayne did. Gary Atherton worked for Wayne, managing his restaurant-cum-art gallery, La Fête à L’Oie. Gary was a good manager. And Wayne took good care of his employees, serving as psychologist, mediator, and mentor as often as boss. And I knew that Gary was very close to his younger sister, Diana. So Wayne was forever advising Gary about his sister, and Gary was forever advising his sister about her life. Their mother, Liz, got in there a lot with her advice too. And her hovering. Liz couldn’t stand Sam Skyler, but she still managed to accompany Diana to a good half of the meetings of the wedding seminar.

  Everyone took care of Diana. There was something about her that seemed to suck up advice and protection like a well-designed vacuum cleaner. Not from me, though. I was too busy being jealous. Because I was forever watching Diana’s perfection, whether in tai chi, in simply walking, or in manipulating the world at large into taking care of her. All of which seemed to be unconscious on her part.

  But the goddess’s fiancé was dead, I reminded myself once more. How could I keep forgetting?

  “Come on in and sit down,” I said. I couldn’t not say it. The phrase is programmed into my genes.

  Diana had never been in our house before, but she didn’t seem to take much notice of our living room as she followed us in, back still erect even while sobbing. And most people did notice, especially since Wayne and I had built two more four-by-nine bookshelves. Now the room was literally covered wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with bookcases. The only exceptions being the jungle of house plants stuck here and there in the crevices and the two pinball machines holding their own in the corner. And the center of the room. We hadn’t figured out how to put bookshelves there yet, only two swinging chairs that hung from the rafters, a futon, pillows, and a denim-covered couch that was a remnant of my former marriage. A remnant just like my antipathy to formal wedding ceremonies. Which was what got me into this mess in the first place, I decided as Diana and Gary took their places on the couch.

  “So?” I said, lowering myself onto a swinging chair for two next to Wayne.

  Three morose faces turned my way.

  “Sam,” Diana whimpered. Gary patted her shoulder.

  The gesture seemed to stanch her sniffles.

  “He was a genius,” she declared, her voice a little stronger, though still trembling.

  I noticed neither Wayne nor Gary threw in any words or nods of agreement. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that Wayne was rolling his eyes under his lowered brows. I nodded encouragingly for the two of them.

  “Oh, Kate,” Diana sniffed, turning my way now. “Not everyone appreciated Sam, but he really was a genius at bringing out people’s essential selves, their lost selves, their higher selves.” She stuck out her ring finger. At first I thought she was showing me her ruby-encrusted engagement ring, but then she intoned, “Grief into growth,” and I remembered the puppets. I could almost hallucinate one on her fingertip.

  Actually, I was more interested in the people who didn’t appreciate Sam Skyler, but Diana went on with her fingers before I could formulate the sensitive kind of question that seemed essential to ask someone like her.

  “Control into cooperation,” she proclaimed, sticking out her thumb. “Denial into determination.” Her pinkie popped out. “Grief into growth,” she said again softly. Her eyes misted up precariously. But she went on. “I can feel Sam with me now, merging with me.” She pulled up her head, middle finger gracefully extended. “Anger into achievement.” And finally with her index finger, “Higher self into living grace.”

  Then she smiled beatifically. Wayne and Gary sat stony-faced. What was wrong with these guys? I was beginning to feel protective toward Diana now.

  “So that’s what Sam taught at his Institute?” I offered as the silence lengthened.

  “That’s it,” she agreed, bobbing her head enthusiastically. “The Skyler Institute for Essential Manifestation.” Her round eyes teared up again. “Sam was such a creative, intuitive man. He…He…”

  “Were any of Sam’s students in the Wedding Ritual class?” Wayne broke in. Finally, one of the questions I hadn’t yet formulated. And Wayne’s low voice was gentle enough to give it the sensitivity I’d been searching for.

  “Ona Quimby took one of his seminars,” Diana answered after taking a trembling breath that seemed to last forever. It must have been all that yoga training that gave her the lung power. “Ona didn’t really, well, appreciate Sam, though. They were never really able to merge emotionally.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Well.” Diana shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Ona is a big woman, ‘a woman of size,’ she calls herself, and Sam thought she ought to lose weight to self-actualize. We even argued about it. Ona was that size naturally, organically. But Sam thought she could change if she really wanted to. He always wanted people to push their limits.”

  The word “push” brought up a picture in my mind of Ona pushing Sam. Pu
shing his limits right over the bluff. I shook the thought away.

  “Anyone else?” I asked quickly.

  “I think Perry Kane came to an introductory class,” she answered after a moment. “But he didn’t stay.”

  “How about Emma?” Wayne pressed, his voice still gentle.

  “I don’t think Emma took any classes, but he might have known her,” Diana answered, frowning. Her usually sweet voice had a touch of acidity. Had she been jealous of Emma? Could a woman like Diana feel jealousy? What a delightful thought. I quickly erased the smile from my face, forcing myself to heed the seriousness of the current situation. “And of course he knew me and Mom. And Yvonne, I think…”

  “And his son, Nathan,” Gary threw in from the sidelines.

  Diana’s perfect skin took on a blush with this information. What the hell was that about?

  “And Martina Monteil,” she added after the blush faded. “Nathan and Martina both worked for the Institute.”

  “So what happens at the Institute now that—” I began.

  But the ringing of the telephone cut me off. I was just getting to the good part with Diana, so I let the answering machine deal with it.

  “Pick up the phone, Kate,” the machine ordered in the voice of my friend Barbara Chu.

  Barbara Chu. I looked down at my watch. It was after eight o’clock. And Wayne and I were supposed to have met Barbara and her boyfriend, Felix Byrne, for dinner at seven. We’d thought that would give us plenty of time after the scuba-wedding ceremony. I felt a flutter of panic in my chest. Social obligations clearly weren’t as vital as death, but my physiology didn’t seem to be clear about the distinction.

  Nor did Wayne’s, obviously, as we both leapt from the swinging chair, leaving it careening haphazardly. I motioned him back down and trotted over to take the call myself.

  “Jeez-Louise, what happened to you guys?” Barbara demanded when I picked up the phone as ordered. “We’re still at Mushrooms. You guys never showed.”