When we were alone again, Bud paced around our room, muttering. I knew better than to try to engage him in conversation, so allowed him to let off some steam while I hit the bathroom, and ran some cool water over my wrists; we’d been baking in the sun for an age.
When I returned, Bud was swearing at his phone. “No signal,” he said. “Of course!”
“Who did you want to call?”
“I don’t know anyone in law enforcement down here, but I thought someone back home might rustle up a name or two for me,” he said, glaring at the useless block of plastic in his hand. “but even calling 911 would be better than nothing.”
I knew it was my turn to be the voice of reason. “The doctor’s going to record Linda’s death as suicide, based upon a statement by the daughter of the deceased; Oscar’s death will be listed as an accident, and they have a legal burial ground right here. I really don’t think there’s any more we can do. We made our opinions known, but Zara has made her decision clear.”
“But it’s not just about Linda and Oscar.” Frustration in every word.
“I know, it’s all the others, too. Neither of us believes for one minute that the voice of a dead man is predicting death from beyond the grave, which means Zara is the one doing the predicting – and these people have such faith in her, and in what they’re being told, that they’ve all just decided to end their lives to fit in with her predictions.”
“Exactly.”
“Which means that Zara Karaplis is, essentially, a mass murderer, even if ‘all she’s done’ is predict a handful of suicides.”
“Exactly.”
“I love it when you agree with me.”
“What?” Bud looked puzzled – distracted – then smiled. “Yes, Wife, you’ve summed it all up very nicely.” He stopped pacing. “She doesn’t look like a serial killer, does she?”
“They don’t all look the same, Bud.”
“I know, I know – but you know what I mean.”
“I do. But she’s fascinating, isn’t she? For a woman still only in her late twenties to possess the gravitas she does is quite something. I think of some of my students, the grad students especially, who are the same age as her, and they’re still trying to find out who they are and what they want to do in life. Zara seems so very self-possessed, at peace with herself, and the world. She’s got an incredible ability to convey a depth of emotional connection without doing much at all. I’d put money on her having spent much of her early life with adults, rather than with children of her own age; she projects the qualities of what some call an ‘old soul’. Quite entrancing, in a strange way. But, since she’s the one who’s doing all the pronouncing about deaths to come – even her own mother’s – she’d need to be that unique for her words to have the impact they do. But, even though she’s observably dynamic, what I’m struggling with is understanding why on earth she’d be doing it. My favorite question.”
Bud slumped onto the sofa. “I wasn’t looking forward to coming here, you know that.” I nodded. “But I never for one moment thought it would be…like this. They’re all nuts.”
I joined Bud. “As a professor of criminal psychology, I feel it my duty to point out that’s not a technical term. You know that, right?” Bud nodded. “But I’ll grant you there’s a communal mindset here that’s quite specific to this group, and the belief that Demetrius is speaking through Zara really does seem to have…well, I would say it’s enthralled people, in the true sense of the word.”
Bud sat up and started his head-scratching thing. “I understand what you mean about Zara and the way she’s got a certain aura about her – and I almost hate myself for using that word. She projects…oh, I don’t know, I can’t give it a name. But the way she glanced up at me when she was kneeling on that bathroom floor beside her mother’s body made me – me – believe she knew something I didn’t, which was unnerving. But what I cannot wrap my head around is why several people would kill themselves just because of what some young woman tells them a dead man has ‘told her’.”
I gave the matter some serious consideration. “In order to hold that much sway over people, and even given her unusual personality, Zara must have to ‘prove’ to those listening to her that she’s speaking for Demetrius.”
“Like the way KSue said Demetrius proved it was him? That thing about an argument only the two of them knew about?”
“Yes, like that.”
Bud stood up and started pacing again. “But how? I mean it’s a given that it’s not Demetrius doing the talking, so how does Zara have the knowledge – the insights – to convince people it really is him? Like, how did Zara know about an argument that took place between Demetrius and KSue when she was just a little kid?”
“Remember what KSue said…exactly?”
Bud shrugged. “Remind me.”
“She said, ‘Demetrius mentioned it through Zara that day, so I knew it was really him. Even then he didn’t say exactly what we’d argued about. He still wanted to protect Linda’s feelings, even from the other plane.’ Now it could be that Demetrius and KSue argued in front of the four- or five-year-old Zara, or somewhere where she could overhear, or see, them. The mind of a child is a wonderful thing – it grabs and retains all sorts of stimuli; Zara might have remembered that her father and KSue had a blazing row many years ago, even if she didn’t know what it was about…so the topic of the forgotten birthday wasn’t mentioned specifically by ‘Demetrius’ not because he wanted to ‘protect’ his widow’s feelings, but because Zara never knew what it was all about in the first place.”
Bud’s expression softened as he nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see that being a reasonable explanation. So do you think Zara has similar insights into the lives of all those people she’s convinced to kill themselves? ‘Proofs’, if you like.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, though I don’t know how. Possibly, if the people who pre-deceased Linda were all the earliest members as Serendipity said they were, they’d all also have been a part of Zara’s life since she was young. Maybe she knew a great deal more about them than they’d have imagined; adults often don’t notice that a child is lurking – and this lot do seem to be more than a little self-absorbed.”
Bud rolled his eyes. “You’re not kidding. I know we were talking last night about how good it is for people to seek out happiness through self-awareness, but there’s a normal level of self-analysis, and then there’s this bunch.”
I had to agree, then added, “Do you think we should find out more about the other people who died here? And – I hate to add this to the mix – why do you think Oscar took himself off running about the desert after his mother’s death, as Dr. Nderu’s examination of him suggested.”
Bud let out a wry chuckle. “Who knows – though running away seems appealing at the moment.”
I checked my watch. “There’ll be no running for us – we’re due to be having dinner with Serendipity and Ambroise in an hour. Besides, we don’t have a car.”
“Trust me – if we needed to get away from here, I’d find a vehicle somewhere we could use.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Car theft? You?”
Bud looked worn out, but managed a twinkle. “I’ve learned a thing or two from some of the best – or maybe that should be some of the worst – in the business, over the years. Who knows – all that knowledge might come in handy one day.”
“Well, not today. We’ve got a dinner and a double funeral to attend. And while for once we believe we know who is doing what, to whom – we both know we want to work out how Zara is able to convince people that Demetrius has returned…and why she’d bother. I mean – why would she want all those people dead…including her own mother? It’s baffling. To be honest, we could do worse than try our luck talking to Ambroise; if he’s the one Zara turns to for help with her channelling, then maybe he knows more than he’s said…or even more than he thinks he does. At least now we’ve got an idea of what we’re trying to find out, right?”
Bud looked distracted. “A framework for our investigation into five – or six, if you count Oscar – deaths? Yes, you’re right, we do. So often we’re trying to work out who has ended another person’s life; this time we’re looking for something quite different…an understanding of how a person is able to convince people that a dead man is telling them to kill themselves. Weird, right?”
“That’s a word we could apply to so many aspects of our time here so far,” I replied. “Oh, and by the way…bagsy the bathroom first.”
“You’re welcome to it,” called Bud as I headed off.
As I tried to make my hair look presentable, I wondered what would be a good wardrobe decision for an intimate dinner followed by a double interment. I hadn’t packed anything black for the trip, not imagining I’d need it, which is so unlike me as to be remarkable. That would teach me!