The Chakra Outline

by Angie Cabot

  “We expected you earlier,” Aunt Clara said. “I was getting worried. It’s supposed to snow.”

  “Hasn’t started yet.”

  “Supposed to be blizzard conditions by seven o’clock.”

  Aunt Liz sighed. “If it gets bad, you can send Rain home and close early. Manuel can give you a ride home.”

  “Aren’t you riding up to Bostwick Manor with Kathy?” Clara asked.

  Aunt Liz nodded. “I am.”

  This was the first I’d heard about it.

  “Then I can drive the Buick home,” Aunt Clara said.

  “You’re not driving the Buick in the snow. You remember what happened last time.”

  “Mrs. Fenwick needed a new hedge anyway.”

  “And we had to spend how much on the fender?”

  Aunt Clara gave a wave of dismissal. “We have money.”

  “Not to waste.”

  “We can’t spend it when we’re dead. Life should be enjoyed.”

  “Life should be endured,” Aunt Liz said.

  Aunt Clara leaned her head to the side. “What’s that, Edward?” she asked.

  There was no one there.

  Aunt Clara laughed. “Edward says you’re what has to be endured.”

  Aunt Liz rolled her eyes.

  “Who is Edward?” I asked.

  “My lover,” Aunt Clara said. “I met him doing some automatic writing for a customer, and he decided to stay here with me.”

  “Don’t ask,” Aunt Liz told me. She went back into the office, and got on the intercom. “Manuel, please report to the office.”

  Aunt Clara leaned close. “Edward is a ghost. He lived here in the 1800s, but he foolishly went camping with Alferd Packer one winter night and got himself eaten.”

  “Uh,” I said.

  “Just ignore her,” Aunt Liz said. “She’s crazy, but because we have money, we can get away with calling her eccentric.”

  “Edward doesn’t like you,” Aunt Clara said to Liz.

  “Good,” Aunt Liz said. “I don’t like non-existent people any more than those who are really here.” She nodded in my direction. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. I looked over Aunt Clara’s shoulder, but didn’t see anything. So she had a ghost lover, and a ghost cat. Maybe I should have stayed in Denver.

  A slender Hispanic man stepped through the beads. “You called, Miss Elizabeth?”

  “I did,” Aunt Liz said. “Manuel, this is my niece, Katherine. She’s going to be the new manager. Katherine, this is Manuel, but everyone but me calls him Manny.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Katherine,” he said and shook my hand.

  “The resident demonologist,” I said.

  He smiled. “I do a little of this and a little of that. I guess you could say I’m different things to different people.”

  Aunt Liz touched his arm. “My suitcase is in the office, Manuel. Can you please carry it out to Katherine’s car?”

  “Yes, Miss Elizabeth. My pleasure.”

  “It might not fit,” I said. “I came straight here. I haven’t unloaded my car yet.”

  “Manuel will make it fit,” Aunt Liz said. “He’s the only employee I trust. Shall we?”

  Manny carried Aunt Liz’s suitcase through the beaded curtain.

  Aunt Liz turned and pulled Aunt Clara into a tight embrace. She held her for a time. “Be good when I’m gone,” she whispered.

  “Stop it,” Aunt Clara said, extricating herself from Aunt Liz’s arms. “You’ll be home Sunday night.”

  Aunt Liz straightened her blouse. She grabbed her coat and shrugged into it.

  “It’s good to see you, Kathy,” Aunt Clara said, as if things were normal. “Drive safe, but feel free to push Liz out on the highway.”

  “I heard that,” Aunt Liz said.

  “You were supposed to hear it, you old git.”

  I forced a smile. I didn’t want to deal with these two every day. Maybe I could go back to Denver and find a real job.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Aunt Liz said. “We need to get to Bostwick Manor before the snow sets in.”

  I followed her through the store.

  “Rain?” Aunt Liz said to the Goth girl at the counter. “Spit out that gum.”

  Chapter Three

  Manuel managed to squeeze Aunt Liz’s suitcase into the back of my Honda.

  Aunt Liz wrinkled her nose when she walked around to the passenger door. “You need a new car. This looks like it’s held together with duct tape and baling wire.”

  “Nope,” I said. “They were out of baling wire, so I used twine.”

  Aunt Liz shook her head and got into the car.

  I was about to open the driver’s side door, but Manny tapped my shoulder.

  “May I have a moment, Miss Katherine?”

  “Call me Kathy,” I said.

  He looked at the ground. Snowflakes collected in his thick, black hair. “Very well, Miss Kathy.”

  “What is it?”

  He glanced at Aunt Liz in the passenger seat, then pulled me farther away from the car onto the sidewalk.

  “I’m worried about Miss Elizabeth. She keeps talking about how I need to look out for you when she’s gone. I think she’s in danger.”

  “It’s a game, Manny. She wrote up the clues and the motives and everything. She’s done this murder game for years.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve worked here for three years. This time it’s different. She had me take her to her attorney’s office to get her will updated. She said what felt like final goodbyes to the staff yesterday and today. She wasn’t as mean as normal.”

  “It’s hard work being cruel every minute.”

  “Just please keep an eye on her. Maybe it’s not my place to say, but Miss Elizabeth may be a danger to herself.”

  I shook my head. “It’s all right. I’ll watch over her. Thank you. Now I’m going to go. It’s too cold to stand out here any longer.”

  He rushed over to open my door for me. I don’t know if it was him being chivalrous, or if he just wanted one more chance to implore me with his eyes to watch out for Aunt Liz. I got the impression he wanted to say more, but once I was in my seat, he closed the door, and hopped back on the sidewalk headed for the store.

  I wheeled out onto the street, and began the thirty minute drive to Bostwick Manor, an old mansion converted into a resort. The murder game retreat had been held there since they started all those years ago.

  “Do you remember the way?” Aunt Liz asked.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s been a long time since you’ve attended. A long, long time.”

  “If you have any more guilt trips packed away, they need to fit underneath the seat or in the glove compartment.”

  “I’m just saying we’ve missed you.”

  “That’s not at all what you were saying.”

  “Can you turn the heat on?” Aunt Liz asked.

  “It’s on.”

  “Can you turn it up? I don’t want to spend my last day freezing.”

  I cranked the heat, and aimed the vents at her. “What’s this last day nonsense?”

  “We’re going to my murder.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That was funny when I was twelve. No so much now.”

  She gazed out the window for a time. “Everybody hates me,” she said, her voice soft.

  “That’s not true.”

  “This year, I invited the six people who hate me most.”

  “I don’t hate you, Aunt Liz.”

  “You’re going to be my Miss Marple,” she said. “Or my Jessica Fletcher.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “It’s too hot in here,” she said.

  I laughed without amusement and turned the heat down.

  “No one will even miss me when I’m gone,” she said, watching the side of the road.

  We drove on in silence until she finally spoke up again. “You just missed the turn-off.”r />
  ***

  Bostwick Manor looked out of place in the mountains. It loomed on a plateau as if it had been transported from a plantation in Georgia. The white marble columns lined the front of the building. Some old guy named Horace Bostwick, with more money than sense, had the place built as his retirement home. He spared no expense, importing the colonnades from Greece, furniture from Paris, stones from quarries around the world, and decorated the walls with original Monets, Degas, Picassos, and for some reason known only to himself, three Jackson Pollocks. Then, as soon as he moved in, he promptly had a heart attack and died without even spending a single night in the place. The paintings had been sold over the years to cover renovations and taxes.

  As soon as we rounded the curve to the drive leading up to the mansion, Aunt Liz said, “You can’t take it with you, and you know how I know that? Because of Horace Bostwick.”

  And then, as if I’d never heard the story, she told it to me again.

  Once she got rolling, it was easier to let her talk because I knew if she were interrupted, she’d start over.

  The snow picked up, and the lawn was already blanketed in white. The road was wet, but not iced over, though the snow was beginning to stick.

  A row of cars lined the drive. A red Camaro with a personalized license plate: WARLOK2, an old blue Subaru, a white Prius, a green Ford Escort, and a beat-up Jeep Liberty. I couldn’t tell what color it was because it was covered in mud. I parked at the end of the row, looked at the cars, then at Bostwick Manor, and realized that the ornate front door cost more than all the cars parked out front put together.

  “We’re the last ones here,” Aunt Liz said.

  I pulled out my cellphone to check messages, but had no bars.

  “You won’t get any signal up here, dear,” Aunt Liz said. “We’re essentially cut off from civilization now. If we’re not careful, we’ll have to talk to actual people.”

  A Siamese cat sat on the front porch eyeing us as we got out of my Honda.

  “Maybe I’ll just engage with the cat instead,” I said.

  “That would probably lead to a more fulfilling conversation,” she said.

  I grabbed Aunt Liz’s suitcase as well as my own. She led us up the walkway to the door.

  The cat meowed at me. Her mask was a dark brown, and the fur on her back was only a few shades lighter.

  “Hello to you, too,” I said.

  “That’s Nico,” Aunt Liz said. “She’s a temperamental little cuss, but already more intellectually stimulating than the humans waiting inside.”

  “Who does she belong to?” I asked.

  “She owns the Ravens.”

  “The football team?” I asked because my ex-husband, Derek, was a big fan of a player named Shannon Sharpe who was a Denver Bronco for a time, but became a Baltimore Raven.

  “Balthazar and Diana Raven. You’ll meet them inside.”

  “Balthazar?” I asked.

  Aunt Liz gave one of her patented eye rolls. “His real name is Todd. He goes by Balthazar because he felt Todd was inappropriate for someone involved in mysticism. Men find all kinds of ways to compensate.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He owns the Camaro.”

  “Nice try,” she said. “He and Diana own the Jeep.”

  Nico padded over to the door and meowed.

  Aunt Liz tried to push the cat away with her leg, but Nico slid around the attempt, looked up at me with her big blue eyes and meowed again.

  “All right, Nico,” I said. “We’ll let you in. It is cold out here.”

  Nico meowed in response.

  I liked her instantly, but I’d been a fan of Siamese cats since watching Lady and the Tramp as a child. The way they started trouble and played innocent to get away with it, resonated with me. The only problem was that I got the “Siamese Cat Song” from the film stuck in my head.

  I had to set down one of the suitcases to open the door. The cat darted inside ahead of me, running up one of the white carpeted staircases leaving a trail of muddy paw prints behind.

  “No, Nico!” Aunt Liz yelled as we entered the mansion. But Nico was long gone. “I hate that cat.”

  A young man in tan slacks and a blue button-up shirt stepped into the open foyer.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said.

  I wanted to take in the sweeping staircases that led to the second floor, or the large chandelier that hung from the ceiling, or the long hallway that rolled down the center of the building, but there would be time for gawking later. I set the suitcases on the ground next to the wall, then stepped forward to extend my hand. “I’m Kathy Sinclair,” I said.

  He accepted my hand. “Carl Kent,” he said, then leaned forward and added, “Not to be confused with Clark.”

  “I doubt Katherine knows the first thing about Superman,” Aunt Liz said. “You need new material, Carl.”

  “Hello, Ms. Henderson. Everyone is gathered in the drawing room.”

  “Excellent,” Aunt Liz said and grinned at me. “Would you care to meet the suspects?”

  “Can’t they just be employees until tomorrow night?” I asked.

  Aunt Liz ignored me and walked through the doorway. I followed her.

  The drawing room was as big as my old apartment. A long sofa took up the center of the room with a long coffee table positioned in front of it. A fire blazed in the fireplace, and above the mantle a portrait of Horace Bostwick gazed down at us.

  A semi-circle of chairs arced in front of the sofa, each with a small end table.

  “Everyone, this is my niece, Katherine Sinclair. She’s the new store manager starting Monday.”

  Two women and a man sat on the sofa. The man nodded to me. He wore a nice black suit with a red power tie. His long, white hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore a Van Dyke beard. A gold band resided on his left ring finger.

  Aunt Liz introduced him. “This is Todd Raven.”

  “Balthazar, if you please,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you, Balthazar,” I said. It cost nothing to humor him, and it allowed me to show I wasn’t like my aunt.

  “This is his wife, Diana,” Aunt Liz said, gesturing to the woman seated next to him.

  Diana had dark black hair with a few purple highlights at the tips. Her sleeveless black dress revealed that her arms had some extra skin, telling me she’d had weight loss surgery. Other than that, she looked sensational, so I hoped she had more flab that was simply well hidden. I may not be like my aunt in some ways, but I had a superficial streak. Who doesn’t? Diana’s brown eyes met mine, and she gave me a quick once-over as she gripped the man’s arm possessively, angling her left hand so the light glinted off her diamond wedding ring. Did she see me as a threat? Todd wasn’t attractive on any level, so she could have him.

  Aunt Liz motioned toward the other woman on the sofa. “And this is Zenna Astrid, our resident Wiccan.”

  “Hello, Katherine,” Zenna said. She had lovely, shoulder-length blonde hair with natural curls I’d have paid a fortune to have. She didn’t wear much makeup, and didn’t need it. She wore a black leather jacket over a white button-up shirt, blue jeans, and black boots. Silver rings graced her fingers. Pentagrams and moons.

  “Call me Kathy,” I said.

  Zenna nodded to me, and her green eyes suggested she held the secrets of the universe.

  “Call me Zen,” she said.

  Aunt Liz pointed to the two women seated in chairs across from the sofa.

  “Morgan Wightman is one of our many tarot readers, but she’s also an expert on the various herbs we sell, though she partakes a bit much of some of them.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  Morgan was a large woman with graying hair braided and tied back. She wore a long green dress with a black belt. Her brown eyes were a bit glassy.

  She gave me a nod and a slow wave.

  “Finally,” Aunt Liz said, “meet our failed librarian, Sandra Quentin, who spends far too much time reading, and far too li
ttle time working.”

  Sandra was a slender, mousy young woman with short brown hair, thick glasses, and large teeth. She gave me a shy smile, and practically whispered, “Hello.”

  “Hi, Sandra. Or do you prefer Sandy?”

  She shrugged. “I answer to both, or either, or ‘hey you.’ Whatever.”

  If she’d ever stood up for herself, I’d be shocked. Aunt Liz didn’t like women who cowered before her. Not that Sandra cowered, but she refused to look my aunt in the eyes, and barely met my gaze either.

  “She doesn’t do well with confrontations,” Aunt Liz said, “but she does okay with bookkeeping. Alas, she’s so slow, I’d love to replace her. But that’s going to be your problem soon.”

  “I don’t do math,” I said.

  “Pop quiz, Katherine,” Aunt Liz said. “What are the names of your suspects?”

  I grinned because I knew she was going to go there. I pointed to each person in turn, and said, “Carl, Balthazar, Diana, Zen, Morgan, and Sandra. Oh, and Nico,” I added as the cat wandered into the room.

  “Which of them can do tarot readings?” Aunt Liz asked.

  I laughed. “To work for you? All of them.”

  “Give the girl a big gold star,” Balthazar said.

  “I’ll pass,” Aunt Liz said. “Where are Emma and Jenn?”

  “Preparing dinner, of course,” Zen said. She looked at me. “Staff. Two poor women who have to cook and clean for all of us this weekend.”

  “They’ll be fairly compensated,” Aunt Liz said. “I hate having staff underfoot. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to my room to rest until dinner. Carl, take my suitcase up for me.”

  “All right,” Carl said. He started toward the foyer, but stopped. “Want me to take your suitcase up, too?” he asked me.

  “I don’t even know which room is mine,” I said.

  “The one next to mine,” Aunt Liz said. “And I, of course, am taking the master bedroom.”

  “Same rooms we always got?” I asked.

  “Why change now?” Aunt Liz asked. She put a hand on her heart. “I feel a serious blockage in my anahata.”

  “Your what?” I asked.

  “Her heart chakra,” Balthazar said. “But to feel a blockage she’d have to actually have a heart.”