A Cry for Self-Help (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (13 page)

- Fourteen -

“Are you serious?” I asked, still shaken by Diana’s unexpected ghostly appearance under the porch light.

It was a stupid question really. Diana was always serious. If not serious, then earnest at the very least.

“Um…yes,” she answered, tilting her head, her hands folded neatly in front of her.

“But why do you want us to stop investigating?” I demanded. Now that my pulse was getting back to normal, my mind was too. I wanted to throttle her.

“Because it’s causing everyone so much pain—”

“Who’s everyone?” I cut in impatiently.

“Oh…” Her eyes widened again and she turned away from me, her long black braid whipping along behind her. I had a feeling we were in for the crying routine.

We were.

“Because…” She gulped back a sob. Loudly. “Because my dreams are my own, and Gary says if it is a murder, it could be very dangerous. And…and—”

Her own sobs brought her to a choking stop. Then she really began to cry, alternating long, gulping sobs with piercing wails. Tantric yoga definitely does something for the lungs, I decided, putting my hands over my ears.

I turned to Wayne. His eyes were invisible in the weak light. Especially with his brows at half mast. But at least he wasn’t rushing forward to comfort her. Or to invite her into the house.

“You want us to quit investigating?” Wayne asked again once Diana’s sobs and wails had tapered off into sniffling. I thought I caught the tang of anger in his low, quiet tone.

She turned back to face us, looking waiflike under the light.

“Uh-huh,” she whispered finally.

“Need to talk to a few more people tomorrow at the memorial service,” he warned her.

All right, Wayne! My inner cheerleader did a few twirls and kicked out her legs as Diana shrugged and lowered her head. If I’d had a puppet, I would have wiggled it.

I crossed my arms instead, just in case Diana stooped to make a request of me personally to stop investigating. I wasn’t going to agree to stop looking into Sam Skyler’s death now. It wasn’t about Diana anymore. It was about Sam.

C.C. came out onto the deck and stared at Diana through slitted eyes. Without a sound.

That made three of us.

“Well…um…” Diana tried. She peered into Wayne’s eyes, then mine, her own eyes scrunched up as if she’d been physically beaten. Then she just shook her head sadly and walked past us and back down the stairs, her long black braid flapping against her erect spine.

Long after she’d driven off, and Wayne and I were tucked into bed, I began to feel guilty. I remembered Diana’s hurt look before she left us. Talk about your whipped dog. And if I felt guilty, I could bet that Wayne—

I turned to look. He lay with his eyes wide open, staring up into the skylight. But I’d have bet he wasn’t seeing the sky.

I moved closer to him and put my head on his chest.

“Hold me?” I suggested. And he did.

*

Wednesday was Sam Skyler’s memorial service. I got up at six and worked on Jest Gifts until ten. Then Wayne and I got ready for the services. We hadn’t discussed Diana’s request to stop investigating. That would have opened a can of worms that could wriggle across the Golden Gate Bridge. We’d told each other we were too tired the night before. And too busy the next morning. So I ran scenarios through my head solo as I paid bills and checked invoices, assuming Wayne was doing the same as he worked. And I waited for him to bring it up. He still hadn’t by the time we drove up to the Skyler Institute For Essential Manifestation where the memorial service was to be held. The reception would come later, at Skyler’s home, farther up the road in Golden Valley.

I was surprised there was still any room for my Toyota in the mammoth parking lot at the Institute. Even though the event hadn’t been publicly announced, the lot was almost full, and there were rented buses at the gates, for what purpose I wasn’t sure. The building was still three stories of rounded redwood, but it looked a little less like a spaceship this time since it was surrounded by people and vehicles in motion. Lots of people and vehicles in motion.

My friend Barbara made her way through the crowd to meet us as we joined the line of people snaking in through the doors. Almost as if she’d known we’d be arriving at that very instant. She probably had.

“Felix is here,” she whispered as she gave me a hug. Then she got in line behind me, in front of Wayne. A man with knitted puppets on his fingers and tears in his eyes took his place behind Wayne.

“Any murderer vibes?” I whispered to Barbara over my shoulder.

“Not yet,” she answered, “but the woman at the door— Jeez Louise, I wouldn’t want to share a mind with her for very long. Not even a room.” She made a fairly subtle gagging motion and then turned to hug Wayne.

The woman at the door was, of course, Martina Monteil. I should have guessed after the gagging routine. Martina greeted each of us with a special word and a well-practiced wistful look on her model’s face. She was flanked by two guards, the one we had met before and a new, scarier-looking one.

“Fantastic,” she murmured as she shook my hand.

I had no idea what she meant.

“Monumental,” she told Barbara.

I never did hear what she said to Wayne.

Two Alicia look-alikes were herding everyone down the plushly carpeted hallway into a room at the end. How were all of us going to fit?

I shouldn’t have worried. The room was an auditorium the size of a stadium. Or as near to the size of a stadium as it could be and still remain tasteful. And tasteful it was, right down to the three-story vaulted ceilings, shimmering skylights, beige walls, and teal multitiered seats. Seats that were close to full.

Felix had saved a few for us near the front. Wayne wasted no time, plopping down next to Felix and making rumbling noises in his direction. Felix started wriggling in his seat as he hissed back. The two of them sounded like my stomach on a bad day.

I was too busy scanning the crowd to even try to eavesdrop as they argued. It was easy to spot Diana’s long black braid in the front row. I assumed Liz and Gary Atherton were the two heads to her left. And I was pretty sure I saw Nathan’s furry head on her right. And next to him, the woman with her hair in a knot at the back of her neck had to be Helen Skyler. I couldn’t identify the French roll next to her, though. And I wouldn’t have been able to spot Chief Woolsey and Officer Fox if they hadn’t turned to glare behind them. Of course, that black ponytail behind
them
had to be Yasuda. And seated right beside
him,
an aurora of curly blond hair—was that Yvonne O’Reilley? Yep, I decided as she began waving her hands. Did she just happen to sit there or—

Sound issuing forth from loudspeakers shook the room.

“Grief into growth,” came a voice, Sam Skyler’s voice.

And then the puppeteers joined in.

Damn, it was cold all of a sudden. I shivered in my seat.

Even Wayne and Felix settled down as the loudspeakers continued the litany. I went back to my eyeball search of the crowd, easily finding Emma Jett’s oddly divided red hairdo next to Campbell’s conservative cut. And an upswept mass of gray curls that had to be Tessa’s next to Ray’s smoother gray hair.

Quite a turnout for a Wednesday morning mourning, I thought, and saw Ona and Perry slinking in, with guilty expressions. Guilty for attending a funeral of a man they didn’t care for? Or was it the sound of “control into cooperation” on the loudspeakers? Or just that they were late?

Suddenly, the lights dimmed and the loudspeakers went silent. As did the crowd.

Then Martina Monteil entered the room, lights shining around her, brighter and brighter, as she climbed to the podium at the front, back straight, her arms spread wide as if to envelop the whole room.

“Sam Skyler was a monumental man,” she said. And suddenly I understood her words at the door. Each was an homage to Sam. Her voice deepened and the crowd leaned forward en masse. She swayed slightly. “He was an empowered man, a passionate man.” She paused and brought her hand out from her heart. “How shall we grieve for his passing?”

“GRIEF INTO GROWTH!” the crowd bellowed.

I might not have joined in the chanting, but I was mesmerized as much as anyone else by Martina’s performance. And a performance it was, right up to the presentation of a plaque made from Sam’s ashes (and other organic ingredients). And after.

“And we will continue as Sam would have wished,” Martina finished up. “We will be unstoppable!”

“Yes!” the puppeteers agreed in unison.

Then she leaned forward and held out the plaque to the whole room. It was a home run. The crowd roared. The puppets rippled.

And then the lights dimmed once again as Martina Monteil disappeared. With the plaque.

I saw Sky-Guy and the man from Growth Imperatives, Unlimited on the way out of the Institute. Luckily, neither man seemed to see me in the crowd that surged out the doors and hurried toward their cars to follow the blacktop road up the next couple of rolling miles to Sam Skyler’s home.

I saw the reason for the hurry when we got there. Sam’s home had a parking lot too, but not as big as the Institute’s. Lots of people had opted to leave their cars at the Institute and ride in the rented buses I’d noticed before. But I hadn’t even thought to ask about the function of the buses, so Wayne and I, along with half of the rest of Marin, drove to Sam Skyler’s. I ended up parking in the first legal space I could find, nearly a mile away.

As Wayne and I huffed and puffed back up the long, winding road, past all the illegally parked cars between my Toyota and Sam’s driveway, I couldn’t help hoping the Golden Valley Police Department had been informed. They could probably make their year’s revenue in parking tickets this afternoon alone.

The exterior of the house looked a lot like the Institute, a slimmer version of the redwood spaceship, complete with the glass and brass and skylights and solar collectors and oddly shaped projections.

But inside it was different. Very different.

Once Wayne and I muscled our way through the crowd outside, past the front door and into the living room, we both looked up. And up. Sam’s living room was a cathedral. Golden light streamed down from a ceiling at least four stories high, illuminating the candelabra, the velvet and gilt furnishings, the rows of bookshelves filled with leather-bound books, and the grand piano. Not to mention the gilt-framed works of art work on the walls. And I mean Art with a capital A. The horde of humans crowding in hardly seemed to put a dent in the room. Vertically that is. Horizontally, it was getting hard to breathe in there.

Nathan and Diana stood together near the door, forming an impromptu receiving line. At least it looked as if neither of them had planned any such thing. Both seemed dazed as people shook their hands and offered condolences. Wayne and I moved toward them, propelled by the crowd. Diana pulled out a little bottle of oil and rubbed her hands during a lull. I could smell the scent of honeysuckle floating on the air.

Martina stood a few feet away, momentarily ignored. There was a chilly expression of anger on her face as she looked over at Diana and Nathan. But then a woman with puppets on her hands approached Martina and bowed. If there had been more room, I’m sure the woman would have prostrated herself. Martina’s beautiful face took on a look of solemn concern. And then she was lost in a swarm of puppeteers.

“Hello there, Kate,” someone whispered in my ear and I twisted my head far enough around to see Tessa, her small frame as upright as ever, though I could smell a faint whiff of alcohol on her breath.

I couldn’t blame her. This must have been a real busman’s holiday for her. But at least she didn’t have to direct Sam’s memorial.

“How’re you doing?” I greeted her back, but before I got any further, my attention was diverted by a mourner I hadn’t seen before. The woman who stepped up next to Nathan with a smile on her face was probably in her seventies. But her bouffant hair, done up in a French roll, was jet black with tendrils of curls softening her wrinkled forehead, and her skirt was at least six inches above her knees. She had great legs.

“Sam’s mother, Irene Skyler,” Tessa informed me, her voice a little louder. It had to be, to be heard in this crowd.

Though I could certainly hear Irene.

“So I bet on this big ole stallion named Samson, and sure enough he came in first,” she was telling Nathan. “Neck and neck, then, boom, Samson just goes blazing ahead. Won by a nostril. Just like my Sammy…”

The receiving line was breaking up, Diana sneaking off toward the buffet set up at one end of the room. I’d follow her soon, I promised myself. I wanted some answers from that woman. Real answers.

“The daily double had a gorgeous chestnut, name of Horizon. So I said to myself, ‘Horizon is like sky, right?’ And I put a hundred on that one too,” Sam’s mother went on.

“She doesn’t seem too upset,” I said to Tessa.

“You’d be surprised how often joy and relief are the dominant feelings of the so-called mourners,” Tessa replied, a hint of laughter in her voice.

Just then, the woman in front of us swiveled her head around. It was Liz Atherton. And she wasn’t smiling. She narrowed her eyes in Tessa’s direction, rubbing her temple at the same time.