A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) by Jaqueline Girdner Read Free Book Online

it. I went to interview this geek for the Marin Mind, and I was thinking ‘jeez, what a loser,’ but then I met him. He’s so big it’s like he’s in a different time zone, man.” Felix paused as Wayne and I reached the door.
    I looked at my sweetie. Was it safe to let Felix in? Wayne shrugged. It was my call.
    “Did you really come to see us about Brother Ingenio?” I asked, wishing I had a truth serum on me.
    Felix’s soulful eyes narrowed for a moment.
    “Why?” he shot back, his voice as suspicious as my own. “Is there another friggin’ reason I oughta be here? You find another stiff or something?”
    Damn. He really didn’t know. Yet.
    “All right,” I sighed and opened the front door, balancing my bag of food on my hip. “Tell me about your spiritual whiz-bang.”
    Felix followed us into the house, babbling while Wayne and I dropped off the groceries in the kitchen. He was still at it when he finally sat on the wood-and-denim couch, and Wayne and I plopped into the swinging chair for two that hung from the rafters.
    “…see, this guru guy is the friggin’ real thing. He knows all this cool, hot stuff, about finding joy and divine light…”
    I reached over for Wayne’s hand. I couldn’t believe this was Felix speaking. I felt like I was in a different time zone—maybe the Twilight Zone. Wayne’s hand brought me back to the present. But it didn’t erase Felix. Or shut him up.
    “…and Brother Ingenio channels all these super-cool people from the other side, man—”
    “You mean dead people?” I interrupted.
    Felix squirmed a little.
    “Well, they’re dead, but they’re super-cool dead people.”
    I looked over at Wayne quickly. Dead people was not a good topic right now.
    “Why are you telling me, Felix?” I demanded.
    “‘Cause you’re a friggin’ part of it, Kate,” Felix breathed, bending forward, vibrating with excitement now. “See, Brother Ingenio says to trust your dreams, and I dreamt about you. In the dream, you said that life was a great mystery. That you had to ask for the truth. But you didn’t say who to ask. You always sleuth the truth, Kate. You know, don’t you? You know—”
    The phone rang. I thanked the caller internally for interrupting Felix before I disappointed him because I didn’t know anything at that moment except how much my legs were hurting and my mind was spinning.
    It spun a little more after I picked up the phone. Jade, the head warehousewoman for my gag-gift company, Jest Gifts, was on the phone. And Jade never called with good news. I knew it was her even before I heard her angry voice. Wayne had bought me a new phone for my birthday, a phone that could, among other things, identify the phone number of the caller (Jest Gifts, in this case), block incoming calls from certain numbers (I’d been planning on programming in Felix’s number once I figured out how the system worked), and even tell you whether someone else had picked up another extension on the same line (I was sure this feature was for teenage parent-alert).
    “You won’t believe it,” Jade greeted me.
    I stiffened. I probably wouldn’t believe it. “Tell me,” I ordered.
    “You know all the terra-cotta planter mugs for the gardeners?”
    “The ones that were just shipped,” I confirmed as calmly as possible. They were probably just broken, I told myself. I could live with that. I drew in a big breath. “The ones for the national gardening convention this weekend?”
    “Yeah, those!” Jade squawked indignantly. “Jean stacked all the boxes on the top shelves—the top shelves !”
    Then Jade was silent.
    Suddenly, I saw it all in my mind: Jean stacking the boxes on the top shelves, then climbing down the ladder, the boxes tumbling down, crushing her on the cold concrete floor.
    “Is she still alive?” I whispered.
    “Kate?” Jade replied.
    “Is she in the hospital?”
    “Who?” Jade asked.
    “Jean,” I answered impatiently. “How badly is she