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

cheap, stubborn—”
    “Stubborn, whaddaya mean stubborn?” I stopped her. “Are you talking about me? Just what’s wrong with knowing things? And I certainly don’t have an inordinate need for privacy—”
    “Kate,” she stopped me. “Have you noticed you work out of your home?”
    “Huh?” I said.
    “Need for privacy,” she answered. “That’s why fives can get too isolated, even obsessive and riddled by paranoid delusions. They need privacy.”
    “Am I obsessive?” I demanded. My neck stiffened as I thought about all the people who’d labeled me obsessive in my lifetime. I wasn’t about to tell Barbara she wasn’t the first. “Am I paranoid? If you stumbled across a body every time you entered a room, you’d get a little paranoid too. Anyway—”
    “Actually, Kettering might be a seven,” Barbara interrupted, swerving into the next lane as some inspiration hit her. I just hoped that inspiration was the only thing that was going to hit her.
    “A seven!” I objected once the noise had died down behind us. “I thought you just said he was a five.”
    “Well, he looks like a five with all those books and everything. But remember how the chief said he was interested in fingerprints before. He may be one of these people who’s always into something new, you know. Fun-loving, spontaneous, undisciplined—”
    “Didn’t you say you were a seven?” I remembered. “Fun-loving, spontaneous. How come you get all the good stuff?”
    “Good stuff?” she parroted. “Listen, kiddo, sevens are manic, restless, self-destructive—”
    “Murderers?” I finished for her. It was mean, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe my privacy had been invaded or something.
    “Yeah,” she answered seriously. “A seven could kill in a moment of temporary insanity. Violence isn’t out of the question.”
    There was a temporary silence in the Volkswagen bug. I gulped down the last of my apple juice and took a bite of tofu burger as Barbara thought. I was trying to come up with something else to talk about when she finally broke the silence.
    “There’re always threes,” she murmured. “Ted Bundy was a three. And eights can be sociopaths—”
    “How can you possibly know that Ted Bundy was a three?” I challenged.
    “Felix told me,” she answered calmly. “He read it somewhere—”
    “And what is Felix?” I couldn’t help asking.
    “A three,” she answered.
    “But—”
    “Kate,” she interrupted before I could even start. “I told you there are healthy and unhealthy versions of each type. Don’t simplify like Kettering.”
    Kettering, who was either a five or a seven. I was getting dizzy with all these numbers. I wanted to go home. I wanted some time alone with Wayne, I wanted…privacy?
    “Told you,” Barbara chirped.
    “I hate it when you do that,” I said.
    “I know,” she said back.
    “Barbara,” I asked seriously, a mile and a bite of tofu burger down the road, “what do you see in Felix?”
    If she was offended by the question, Barbara didn’t show it. “Felix really is a good reporter,” she answered. “He works hard and enjoys it. Plus, he’s energetic and confident and fun.”
    Not the Felix I knew, I thought, but I kept it to myself. Maybe ripping someone’s head off or tricking them into talking made Felix a good reporter, but I didn’t think it was much fun.
    “Felix is different with me,” Barbara told me. “He’s playful and caring.”
    “I guess so,” I muttered, trying to imagine a playful, caring pit bull. In my imagination, the pit bull took the Frisbee I threw him and ripped it to shreds.
    “But Kettering is right about one thing,” Barbara announced. “We have to get to know who the suspects are to find out who our killer is. Rich McGowan, for instance—”
    “We?” I demanded pointedly. I wasn’t about to let her start. It would never stop.
    Barbara ignored me.
    “And not just Rich McGowan. There’s Gil Nesbit. And Denise Parnell. And Tory