Karma's a Killer (7 page)

A familiar churning agitated my stomach. I had to do better—to
be
better, not just for myself, but for Michael, Bella, and anyone else I might hurt. My angry outbursts had already caused more than enough suffering. And, as
The Yoga Sutras
asserted, future suffering should be avoided.

Refusing to cross emotional minefields—like opening up to your estranged mother—might be a good start.

“Kate, are you listening?”

I jumped at the sound of Rene's voice. “No, sorry. I tuned you out for a second.”

“I said you should meet with your mother and tell her how you feel. Go ahead and get angry with her. Yell if you want to. Tell her how much she hurt you. You've kept way too much bottled up inside lately. Releasing some of those pent-up emotions might do you a world of good.”

Rene meant well, but I couldn't risk it. Not again. The collateral damage might be too high.

I smiled, looked my friend straight in the eyes, and lied. “I'll think about it, I promise.”

Eight

The rest of the
afternoon was blissfully uneventful. I went back to the studio at five-thirty to check on Bella, only to find an empty car and a note from Michael saying that he'd taken her home with him. I left a vague message on Michael's cell phone telling him that I'd be home late because I had some “things” to do at the studio. After a year together, Michael could read me almost as well as Rene. Until I was ready to tell him about Dharma, my best strategy was avoidance.

I plastered on my most soothing smile and greeted the fifteen stressed-out yogis who came for six o'clock Yoga Nidra—the comforting meditation sometimes called the Divine Sleep. Truthfully, I taught that class completely on yoga teacher autopilot. Physically, my students and I shared the same space. My body sat at the front of the room, shadowed by flickering candles; my voice filtered through the darkness, creating a soft, spoken lullaby; but my mind never entered the building. It remained out in the parking lot, staring into those eyes so uncannily like my own. What could Dharma possibly want with me after all of these years? And was I even remotely capable of giving it to her?

Fortunately, my students didn't seem to notice my mental distraction, or if they did, they were kind enough to not say anything. Yoga students were lovely that way. I said goodbye to the last straggling practitioner, locked the door behind her, leaned against it, and sagged to the floor.

Dad's voice scolded from inside my head.
Get it together, Kate.

In a few minutes, Dad. I promise.

I allowed myself twenty minutes to wallow in self-pity, then forced myself to take action. I symbolically cleared my mind by cleaning the yoga studio. I scrubbed the sink and the toilet. I vacuumed the lobby. I swept and reswept the already clean hardwood floor. I pinched the brown leaves off my jungle of house plants and fertilized the orchids. I folded and stacked the blankets, organized the blocks, and wound up the yoga straps. None of it mattered. No matter how orderly I made the space surrounding me, my mind still whirled in a disorganized mess. I laid out my mat and tried practicing some focusing, breath-centered asanas, but my mind and my body refused to connect.

Even Buddha must have had an off day every now and again.

I gave up and trudged to the front desk. If I was going to be miserable no matter what I did, I might as well do something I hated. I'd already cleaned the bathroom, so bookkeeping would have to do.

Next to paying the quarterly taxes, bookkeeping was my least favorite business activity. Immersing myself in the numbers always reminded me how vulnerable Serenity Yoga was financially. I wasn't exactly immune to financial challenges. Any Girl Scout raised by a single-parent cop earned her coupon-clipping badge at a very young age. But that didn't prepare me for the realities of being a small
business owner. Steady paychecks—not to mention frivolous benefits like health insurance and disability leave—were luxuries I'd lost when I opened the studio three years ago.

Part of me—probably the delusional part—knew that Serenity Yoga would eventually make it. The first person I'd hire on that glorious day would be my very own bookkeeper. Until then, performing the odious task when I was already in a bad mood would have to do.

I spent the next 173 minutes immersed in number-crunching torture. I budgeted the next six months' rent payments. I paid every bill and entered every petty cash receipt. I created a monthly budget for candles and cleaning supplies. At midnight I finally gave up and drove home.

The lights were off when I pulled into the driveway, so I assumed that Michael had already gone to bed. I tiptoed up to the kitchen entrance, silently inserted my key, and eased open the door.

To the obvious aftermath of a tornado.

I looked around the kitchen remodel, taking in the day's devastation. The smell of freshly cut wood tickled my nostrils. Sheets of white plastic covered every window and doorway, plunging the room into dreary grayness. The tiny amount of counter space that hadn't yet been dismantled was covered with power tools, bright orange extension cords, and a thick layer of grime.

Seriously? Every day?

When Michael and I agreed to combine households in my tiny Ballard bungalow, I knew that we'd have some issues. Michael hated my secrecy; I was annoyed by his messiness. We were both trying to meet each other halfway, but after five months of cohabitation, I had a feeling that I'd have to learn to accept Michael's housekeeping deficit disorder. That was okay. I had plenty of flaws of my own. Like not telling my partner about my not-so-dead mother.

Our first couple of months went surprisingly well.

Then we started the remodel.

What began as a relatively simple bathroom remodel had somehow morphed into a major house expansion that included fencing my yard, redesigning both the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, and adding a two-person office next to the guest bedroom. The escalating price tag made me distinctly uncomfortable, but Michael was paying for it with the money he saved in apartment rent each month.

Part of me felt crazy for taking on such a huge project with a man who only held the title of “boyfriend.” The other part knew that marriage license or not, Michael would be stuck with me for the rest of his life. Our relationship had already withstood my crazy commitment-phobic neuroses and a murder accusation. I figured it could withstand anything.

I hadn't counted on the stresses of construction.

All sixty-seven days of it, so far.

The single clean spot in the kitchen was the tiny, well-organized space on the table I'd claimed as my own. That four-foot-square area contained two dog bowls, an assortment of measuring cups and spoons, and the blender I used to grind and prepare Bella's special diet. She suffered from an autoimmune disease called Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI), which left her unable to digest food on her own. Her meals had to be prepared in a highly customized way that included grinding, adding water and enzymes, and waiting a minimum of twenty minutes while the disgusting-looking concoction “incubated.”

Michael knew better than to let anything disturb my Bella food-preparation rituals. The last time he distracted me while I was mixing her food, we ended up with a sick dog, a terrible night's sleep, and a blow to the skull (mine, not Michael's). Neither of us planned to repeat the experience.

I pressed through the plastic sheeting covering the doorway and entered the living room. As Michael had promised, the living room and upstairs bedroom were mainly untouched by the construction. If you didn't count the continual layer of dust that somehow seeped through the plastic or the Jenga-like piles of boxes, furniture, towels, and kitchen appliances stacked in every available space.

I pulled a bottle of Merlot from the wine rack, filled a semiclean glass with liquid tranquilizer, and chugged it down. Eight ounces of twelve-percent alcohol hit my stomach at the same time, leaving me warm and deliciously woozy. Another pour and two swallows later, I headed upstairs.

Michael snored softly on one side of the bed; Bella snored loudly on the other. I carefully wove my body between them, relishing their warmth and wondering, not for the first time, what I'd done to be lucky enough to deserve them. I laced my fingers through Michael's, then rolled my back to him and wrapped my arms and legs around Bella. She groaned and leaned into my touch.

I lay there for at least a hundred years, trying not to think about Dharma, breathing in Bella's sweet scent, and willing myself to fall asleep. I could only hope that—as
The Yoga Sutras
promised—sleep would allow my spirit to return to its source, so that maybe, just maybe, I could find peace.

When I woke up the next morning, Michael was gone.

He left a note on the nightstand:
You need to call the construction company. The contractors left the kitchen door open yesterday.

Again? That was the third time they'd left the house unlocked this month. How was it that highly skilled men—who could focus long enough to cut two-by-fours to within an eighth of an inch without losing a finger—didn't have the brain capacity to lock a door behind them?

Michael's note ended with,
Sorry I fell asleep before you got home. Everything okay?

Excellent question. Was it?

Bella interrupted my musing with a single sharp bark.

“You're right, sweetie. We should definitely go for a walk after breakfast.”

I'd deliberately misunderstood her. Bella's demand-bark always meant
Feed me. Now.
Still, her vocalization gave me the excuse I'd been looking for. I couldn't explain why, but I was curiously drawn back to the dock at Green Lake—the first place I'd seen Dharma. Maybe visiting it would give me more clarity.

As soon as Bella finished her breakfast, we hopped into the car and drove straight to the soccer fields.

I had the perfect plan. By nine, the before-work exercisers would have completed their three-mile loop, leaving the dock relatively empty. I would sit on the wooden platform, touch my fingers to its rough surface, and try to tap into Dharma's energy. If I connected with her essence, I might be able to intuit her agenda—or at least understand my own. If nothing else, Bella would get the first of her half-dozen bio breaks for the day.

I parked near the Green Lake Community Center, clipped on Bella's leash, and allowed her to drag me toward the water. My feet stopped near the cement tulip planters.

Bella's stopped, too.

Something was wrong.

Three police cruisers and a gray coroner's van were parked on the trail. The area surrounding the paddleboats and dock had been blocked off with yellow crime-scene tape. A large crowd loitered and whispered outside it. Bella pricked her ears forward, raised her hackles, and stepped between me and the uniformed officer containing the gawkers. A low growl rumbled from deep in her chest.

I placed my fingers between her shoulder blades. “It's okay, Bella. This has nothing to do with us.”

My words weren't convincing, even to me. Deep inside, I knew that whatever was happening, it had
everything
to do with us. I considered retreating back to my car, but curiosity-laced foreboding pulled me, step by wary step, toward the water. I wrapped Bella's leash tightly around my wrist and stood with the spectators.

I spoke to the young Asian jogger beside me. “What happened?”

She pointed to a trio of gray-haired men huddled near the patrol cars. “See those fishermen? They found a woman in the water. I think she drowned.”

Drowned?

Tiny hairs all along the back of my neck prickled. No one swam in Green Lake until the water warmed up later in summer. I stood on my toes and craned my neck to see over the crowd. Two men in dark blue uniforms lifted a female body and placed it on a wheeled stretcher. She wore a black T-shirt with an orange flame emblem.

My heart froze in my chest.

Could it be Dharma?

My eyes jerked to the clear plastic bags covering her hands. The body's fingernails were black, except for the middle ones, which were painted blood burgundy. My heart started beating again, thudding a steady rhythm of guilty relief.

Thank God.

It wasn't Dharma; it was Raven.

The man at the top of the stretcher turned, and I finally saw Raven's face. Guilty relief turned into gut-wrenching dread.

If Raven had drowned, how did she get that deep red gash across her forehead?

I lowered my heels, grabbed Bella's collar, and slowly backed away. “Come on, sweetie. Let's go.”

No doubt about it. Dharma's and my meeting this afternoon had just gotten significantly more complicated.

I arrived at the studio in time to teach a mindless rendition of my ten-thirty Flow class. I obsessed about my upcoming meeting with Dharma. Did she already know about Raven's death? If not, how was I—a virtual stranger—supposed to tell her? After what felt like ninety years, the ninety-minute class was finally over. I said goodbye to my students, stared out the window, and waited for Dharma to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

Three hours and two group classes later, I said goodbye to the Mom and Baby instructor and told her that I'd take care of the afternoon's cleanup.

I should have been happy. I wanted the whole Dharma situation to go away quietly, and apparently it had. So why was I still standing here, pining next to the window like a teenager who'd been stood up on prom night?

Whatever Dharma was doing, it was, as always, more important than me. I grabbed my jacket from behind the chair, unlocked the filing cabinet, and pulled out my purse. It was time to go home and figure out what to tell Michael.

I was three steps away from the desk when the phone rang.

“Serenity Yoga, this is Kate. How can I help you?”

A mechanized voice answered. “This is a collect call from the King County Jail.” Then Dharma's voice came on the line. “Kate, it's Dharma. Please pick up.” The mechanical voice continued. “Will you accept the charges?”

Every part of my body constricted. Unyogic or not, I wanted to say no. If Dharma was a guest at King County's correctional facility, it could only be for one reason: Raven's death. In the past year, I'd already been mixed up in two murders too many. I had no desire to get sucked in again. Especially not for a stranger who'd walked out on me three decades ago.

I took a deep breath, fully intending to tell the robot voice no. To tell Dharma that she should call someone that she actually knew. Someone she cared about. Someone who cared about her. But then I flashed on my last image of George: dirty clothes, whiskey-laden breath, worried eyes. George adored his daughter even though he'd abandoned her. Given the opportunity, he might have proven it.

“Yes, I'll accept the charges.”

“Thank goodness you answered, Kate. Thank you.” Dharma's voice sounded shaky, frightened even. Almost hysterical. Not at all like the woman I'd met the day before.