Murder on the Astral Plane (A Kate Jasper Mystery) by Jaqueline Girdner Page A

through an intersection, ignoring a stop sign…and the blare of a horn from an oncoming car.
    I closed my eyes and grabbed for my seat belt. I’d forgotten the smell of fear.
    “What makes you think that?” I replied, on automatic.
    “Jeez-Louise, Kate,” Barbara replied. “Weren’t you watching? When the boss isn’t there, it’s like someone pushes the ‘zombie-off button on those two. They get human. And then, O’Dwyer—”
    “Wayne,” I yipped. I hadn’t meant to let it slip out, but Barbara probably knew I was worried, anyway.
    “I’ll go faster,” she assured me.
    “No, that’s all right—”
    “He’s okay anyway, Kate,” she said seriously, even as she tromped the accelerator.
    And despite the fact that Barbara had led me to another dead body, and didn’t have a clue whodunit, I believed her when she said Wayne was okay. I felt my neck muscles loosen a little. As much as was possible anyway with Barbara at the wheel.
    “In fact,” Barbara went on, “I’m hungry. Wanna catch an early dinner?”
    “Barbara!” I objected, though my salivary glands and rumbling stomach seemed to agree with her suggestion. “I’ve gotta see Wayne.”
    “We’ll stop at the Seven-Eleven,” she declared.
    I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again. I figured it would take less time to pick up a tofu burger and apple juice than it would to talk her out of it. So we stopped, stood in line for a few minutes, and then we were on the road again. Now Barbara was driving and eating a red-hot beef burrito at the same time. Not that it really changed her driving skills any. It just didn’t improve them.
    I waited until we were on the highway, traveling at a relatively even pace, before I opened my apple juice. I didn’t want to see how far apple juice could splash in a Volkswagen. I had just popped the top when Barbara started in on the murder, the possible suspects, our duty to investigate, and Lieutenant Kettering, all through her third bite of burrito.
    I gave in to the inevitable and joined the one-way conversation. It couldn’t make her driving any worse. At least, I hoped not.
    “So what was that you were saying about the personality typing?” I asked. It seemed safer than discussing suspects.
    “Just that Kettering’s a weenie-brain,” she explained. “He’s taking a lot of really cool, complicated stuff and simplifying it. Listen Kate, he’s looking at everyone’s sun sign and calling himself an astrologer. That’s not enough. You have to look at someone’s whole birth chart to really get anywhere. And his whole bit about enneagrams. Enneagrams just show you a glimpse of a person’s motivations and worldview. There’s no such thing as a bad enneagram type. There are healthy and unhealthy manifestations of all nine the enneagram types. They’re just personality types designated by numbers. Every single one is probably capable of murder. The murder would just be for a different reason.”
    I took a careful sip of my apple juice as Barbara went on. The sweet, cool liquid tasted wonderful. I hadn’t realized just how dry my mouth was.
    “Don’t worry, kiddo,” she said, sliding into the next lane effortlessly. An Accord skidded around her, too shocked to honk. Apple juice dribbled down my shirt. “Kettering just got on your case because he was embarrassed about bumping his head. And he’s probably a five.”
    “A five!” I objected. “As in enneagram five?” Now I was considering hurling my apple juice all over the Volkswagen just for fun. “As in my enneagram type five?”
    Barbara laughed as if I’d said something funny, and threw me an affectionate look. “Drink your apple juice,” she ordered. I did. I wanted her to look at the road.
    “Five enneagram,” she recited, half-closing her eyes. “The observer. Concerned with knowing things, needs privacy, can find the world invasive.” She took another bite of burrito and continued. “Analytical but intellectually arrogant,