Karma

by Susan Dunlap

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Garrett Kleinfeld?” When he nodded, I said, “I need to talk to you about Padmasvana.”

  The wrinkles in his brow deepened. His forehead creased and lines descended around his mouth. His was a mobile face. Its lines had formed a picture of calm command while he dealt with the students. Now the lines pulled against themselves into a pattern of wariness.

  “This class is scheduled for fifteen minutes more,” he said. “The students will go into the shoulder stand, and then the corpse.”

  The shoulder stand, I thought, must be very taxing, indeed.

  Kleinfeld glanced back at them and then to me. “Would you prefer to come back or to hold your interview in the far end of the room once the posture is set?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Shoulder stand,” Kleinfeld announced.

  The six students adjusted blankets under their backs and wriggled around on them. Legs rose, hands pressed against backs, feet swayed in the air, until all six were still and in various degrees of verticality.

  Kleinfeld moved among them, glancing up and down their bodies, occasionally standing behind a student and pulling him up by his legs.

  When he had assessed and aligned all six, he returned to me, lowered himself to the floor, sat cross-legged and asked my name. I answered, and he repeated, “Jill. Sit down, Jill. The floor is all I have to offer.”

  After two-and-a-half years on the Berkeley police force, I was used to conducting interviews on the floor.

  Kleinfeld extended his legs and laid his torso out over them, so that his chin rested on his shins.

  To the top of his head, I said, “Self-Over’s been in Berkeley a long time. I would have expected to find more than six students here.”

  He hesitated.

  “This is an introductory body class,” he finally said. “It’s not mainstream Self-Over. And not everyone is free at one-thirty in the afternoon. I’ve had as many as fifty students in the course.”

  I wished I could see his face. For someone who advertised that he would bring his students to the physical and mental condition where they would “not merely cope but walk lightly atop the world,” he was rather defensive.

  “What other classes do you have?”

  Clasping his hands around the bottoms of his feet, he pulled. “The introductory classes are in Body Work, Nutrition for the Bay Area, Psychic Awareness in Daily Life. The main program brings together these and more subtle factors, which would take me considerable time to explain. It requires a total commitment, from my students and from myself.”

  “And that’s what you’ve had fifty people in?”

  “Yes.”

  Before I could comment further, he was on his feet instructing the class to lower their legs over their heads. Twelve legs descended. Kleinfeld walked behind the students, pushing backs straighter, tapping bent knees. Then he spoke again, and the legs raised slightly, the backs unrolled and the legs extended up, then forward till the students were lying flat on their backs.

  “Corpse pose,” he said. “Then, when you feel within yourself the time is right, leave in silence.”

  When he returned and settled into his previous pose, I asked, “Where were you last evening, after eight?”

  “You mean when Padmasvana was killed?” Glancing up at me uneasily, he added, “I heard about it on the radio.”

  “And where were you?”

  He jutted his legs out to the sides, so that they formed nearly a hundred-and-eighty-degree angle. Perhaps, I thought, if you were often in the company of body-awareness types, you got used to seeing this pose a foot in front of you.

  Kleinfeld pulled back on first one thigh, then the other, making adjustments and, doubtless, using the time to plot out his answer.

  “I was with a friend, a woman friend. Before you ask who, I’ll tell you I can’t answer that. She’s married.”

  “Mr. Kleinfeld, this isn’t the nineteenth century.”

  He sat up straighter, eyes pointed over my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “All right, for now. Tell me about your problems with Padmasvana. I understand you were forcibly evicted from the ashram.”

  He bent his torso forward, planting his forearms on the floor in front of him. “I’ll tell you about Padmasvana and Rex Braga and the crew. Yeah, I got tossed out of there, and I’d go back and risk the same thing ten times if I thought it would help. The whole bunch is a pain in the ass. Look out the door. Now, go ahead, now.”

  I got up and went to the door as two students slipped into their sandals and exited. In the middle of the path was a Penlop. There was no way for the students to avoid him. They accepted literature, nodded and escaped when the boy’s attention was attracted by a third student coming toward them. This woman wasn’t so fortunate. I watched for several minutes before she was able to extricate herself.

  To Kleinfeld, I said, “Why didn’t you contact the police if it’s that much of a problem?”

  “I would have looked bad.”

  “As if you were afraid of Padmasvana’s appeal?” He gave me a grudging nod.

  “So you went to the ashram?”

  “Yeah, I went there…”

  “When?”

  He slid his legs under him, knelt and planted the top of his head on the floor, rounding his back forward till it formed a nearly perfect arc.

  I repeated, “When?”

  “Sometime last year.” His voice was muffled.

  “What time?”

  “About this time. About a year ago.”

  “Around the time when the boy died there?”

  He was silent.

  “Mr. Kleinfeld, sit up and answer my questions.”

  He unrolled slowly, and when his face became visible, it was clear he had had time to decide on an answer.

  “Yes. It was shortly after that.”

  Now I hesitated, then decided to go with my feeling. “You knew the boy who died, didn’t you?”

  Kleinfeld paused, then nodded. “Yes, dammit. I knew Bobby Felcher.” The lines around his mouth pulled down hard in anger. “Yes, Bobby’d come here for the body class. He’d taken it on and off. He was on something—not heroin, probably reds. He was too hooked on whatever it was to get much out of body work. You need a steady base and good concentration. But maybe if he’d kept at it he could have shaken the habit; I don’t know. I don’t even know what possessed him to come here in the first place.”

  “What did happen to him?”

  “He got caught by one of those goddamn Penlops. The next thing I knew, he wasn’t coming here anymore; he was over there, living in their goddamn ashram. And then he was dead.”

  “The report says he brought the stuff in himself.”

  Kleinfeld’s fists hit the floor. “So what does that prove? What kind of a place is that? A kid OD’s and no one notices?”

  “And then you went to the ashram?”

  “Not right away. I was outraged, but there was nothing to do. No, I went there when they co-opted my next student. I went over there and found the kid, told him he was abandoning his potential, he was becoming … a tool. That’s when they threw me out.”

  “And the student?”

  “He stayed. His ‘self’ is a mere shadow now. I’ve seen him.” Kleinfeld’s face was red, and nothing so well described his tone of resentment as “sour grapes.”

  “I thought,” I said, trying to disguise my tone of irony, “body work brought some sort of balance—that you wouldn’t be so disturbed by life?”

  I watched as he struggled to put together an answer. “It does,” he said at last, meeting my gaze with difficulty. “For me, this is calm. Before I started I was angry all the time. I was discharged from the army because I nearly killed my sergeant.” Noticing my expression, he added, “Don’t worry. That was years ago. I’m under control now. I run, too. Five miles a day.”

  I nodded, and changed direction. “Do you know much about Buddhism?”

&nbs
p; “Some.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What about it?” A flicker of irritation was apparent.

  “The Buddhist attitude toward death.”

  “You want to know what they’ll do with Padmasvana’s remains? Well, they won’t follow the practice of the Himalayas.”

  I waited.

  “In the Himalayas, they don’t bury the dead; the ground’s too hard, mostly rock. They dissect the body and feed the organs to the vultures.”

  I shrank back.

  “It’s the only sensible thing. Dead is dead. It beats rotting underground.”

  I decided not to pursue that line of thought.

  I glanced at my watch. I was cutting it close. “What do you think the ashram will do with Padmasvana’s body?”

  Kleinfeld smiled, a sarcastic smile. “Braga will arrange to milk it for everything he can get. He’ll run the funeral as long as the health department lets him keep the corpse above ground. Then he’ll start memorial services. If Rexford Braga had known the financial possibilities, he probably would have killed Padmasvana long ago.”

  “Are you accusing Braga?”

  “No, no. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I’m not pointing the finger.”

  “What do you know about Braga?”

  Kleinfeld stood up and I followed suit. “Not much,” he said. “I never heard of him before he opened shop here. Or of Padmasvana. Someone said Braga came up from L.A. There he could have been into anything.”

  I closed my notebook.

  “You want some tea?” Kleinfeld asked, catching my eye and smiling disarmingly. “I could even come up with a Danish.”

  I hesitated. This was not among the standard offers made to cops, even in Berkeley. But, although the mention of a Danish made me realize I was hungry, I wasn’t about to spend another half hour with Garrett Kleinfeld—not on my own time. “Thanks, but I’m already late,” I said, moving out the door.

  As I tried to get my car engine to turn over, I wondered about Kleinfeld and his apparently strained financial condition. From the sound of his invitation, he was living in some corner of his studio. How much had Padmasvana cut into his livelihood? And he had nearly killed a man once. How much would it take now to push that temper to the point of stabbing?

  Chapter 7

  BY THE TIME I got to the station, the staff meeting was over. Officers were straggling away from the long table, grumbling about the work left by Morning Watch, about the afternoon heat that would turn to damp cold as soon as the fog rolled in, about the wool uniforms, the lack of Maintenance on the patrol cars, the—

  “Smith.” It was Lt. Davis, the watch commander.

  “Yessir. Sorry I’m late. I was interviewing a suspect—”

  “Fine.” His tone belied the word. “That doesn’t excuse you from staff meetings.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I’ll see you in my office. Bring your notes.”

  “Yessir.”

  Lt. Davis’s glass-sided office was spotless. In a building that had been painted too infrequently to keep pace with the coffee spills, scuff marks and the general grime of three shifts of police officers, Lt. Davis’s office sparkled. And he fitted right in. His uniform was starched. Wiry black hair topped his caramel-colored face, and no errant strand marred the line of his mustache. If the thought of promotion was a consideration to Howard and me, it was the air he breathed to Lt. Davis. As he well knew, when the captain’s job became available, the prospect of a black man with a Master’s degree would be almost more than Berkeley could resist. Still, the lieutenant was not one to take chances. He was a fanatic for detail and would not hesitate long before replacing an officer whose rate of progress didn’t meet his standards.

  As I sat down he tapped his finger on the desk. “What have you got, Smith?”

  I started to review the case, but he stopped me. “I’ve read the reports.”

  “Well, then,” I said, “this afternoon I saw Leah deVeau, the housemother, and Chupa-da, the guru’s assistant. Padmasvana may have lived simply, but Chupa-da isn’t doing anything to curb his taste for luxury.” I went on to describe the attic room. “I asked him about the symbol on the knife.”

  Lt. Davis flipped through the reports until he came up with the one from the lab. Looking at the picture of the symbol, he asked, “What is it, some Buddhist sign?”

  “Not according to Chupa-da. He says he’s never seen it before.”

  “Check it out, Smith. It may be something he just doesn’t know. Go to the library. There are plenty of Buddhist places here in Berkeley; check with them. Get in touch with the consulate.” He leaned forward, fingering his mustache. “The consulate. Smith, the Indian Consulate in San Francisco has already called here, you understand?”

  “The Indian Consulate?”

  “Bhutan doesn’t have a consulate. India handles its foreign affairs.” He waved off any further comment. “Naturally the consulate keeps a close eye on news about nationals under its jurisdiction. They are very concerned. This is no family knifing. They’ll be getting in touch with the monastery in Bhutan right away. You see what I’m saying, Smith? This has got to be cleared up quickly. You see the paper this morning?”

  Without comment, Lt. Davis extracted the paper from his desk drawer and smacked it down in front of me. The headlines were: “Guru knifed in Berkeley.” Beneath was a picture of Padmasvana. The smaller print said, “Police Say No Leads.”

  The lieutenant eyed the smaller print, his lips turning down. “Not good. For today, Smith, I will deal with the press. I expect you to get me something to tell them.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Smith. You’ve got Pereira. Howard can assist. What else do you need?”

  “Nothing right now, sir. It’s under control,” I said with more certainty than I felt.

  “One final word,” the lieutenant said as I stood up. “This has got to be cleared up before Sunday. Now we’ve just got the newspapers and the consulate to deal with. By Sunday we’ll have every church in Berkeley wondering if the police are giving them proper service. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Yessir,” I said as I moved out the door.

  When I got to my desk, Howard was there.

  “Where’s Pereira?” I demanded.

  “You’re in a grim mood.”

  “Pressure from above.”

  “Like I told you, Jill, this is no ordinary murder. The pressure’ll only get worse.”

  “Thanks.” I sat down. “Have you seen Pereira?”

  “Connie went for coffee.”

  “Shit.”

  “It’s not that bad.” Howard grinned sheepishly. It was his pun look.

  His mood was contagious. “I didn’t mean to growl,” I said. “Much as I would love a cup of coffee—even the Donut Shop’s coffee—the last thing I need now is to have Davis spot me sitting here having a leisurely break.”

  “Okay, I’ll drink yours. And what do you want me to do on the case? I’ve got time.”

  “Would you see what you can find on Garrett Kleinfeld, the Self-Over founder? And the temple?”

  “You know I love research!” Patting my shoulder, he moved down the aisle.

  I turned my attention to my in box, glancing through the papers, finding nothing new on the case. There were two frantic messages from Nat, but the stainless could wait. The whole set had cost only twenty dollars. I left a note for Pereira, asking her to see what she could find out on Braga from the LAPD, and to check the libraries for any clue to the marking on the knife, and headed downstairs to the motor pool.

  For myself I had saved the questionable task of another visit with Braga himself. But when I arrived, the temple was still empty. As I headed across the yard to the ashram, I noticed the flap of the tepee was up.

  “Hi,” I said, poking my head inside. The tepee looked the same as last night, with the sleeping bag and pillow next to the vanity table that held the marble oil lamp. Only Heather was different. Instead of the sequin
ed cowboy outfit, today she sported a Gypsy ensemble, with a neck-straining collection of gold chains.

  “Hi,” she said, making no effort to hide her irritation.

  Again, I had the feeling that she might have been attractive had it not been for her seemingly permanent scowl.

  “I see your baby’s not here.”

  “Yeah. Leah’s got the kid. I’ve gotta have time off. I can’t be looking after that kid seven days a week. She takes him a few days.”

  “Nice of her.”

  “Well, I’ve gotta have some time to myself. It hasn’t been easy, the last twenty-four hours.”

  Sitting on her vanity stool, I said, “This is a very serious crime, Heather. I need to know about everyone here. Why don’t you start by telling me how you came to know Rexford Braga?”

  “This is my afternoon off. Come around later when I have to be here, anyway.”

  “Heather.”

  “Okay, okay. I came to a ceremony.”

  “Here?”

  “Yeah. I was in college back East. I came here for spring vacation.”

  “And Braga held the ceremony?”

  “No, of course not. What could that old buzzard do? Padma held the ceremony, just like he always did.”

  “And so what happened to you?”

  She pulled a lock of sandy hair in front of her shoulder and divided it into thirds to braid. “I got fascinated. That’s how I met Braga.”

  “And then?”

  Pulling her fingers through the braid, she loosened the hairs, redivided them and began the intertwining again. “Well, nothing, really. I just went to the meetings. Like I said, I was really into it. When the girl I drove out here with went back East, I stayed.”

  “And had the baby?”

  “Well, not right away. Not till a year later.”

  “Heather, who is the baby’s father?”

  “What? Listen, what business is that of yours?”

  “Heather.” I sounded like my mother.

  “Okay, okay. He was a guy passing through. His name was Lee.” But there had been a pause before she gave the name.