Karma (2 page)

He sat cross-legged before the altar, facing us, and began a monosyllabic chant. Arms raised, he gestured to encourage the audience, and voices throughout the room picked up the sounds.
“Oh da gya chai.”
At first they were hesitant, then surer.
“Oh da gya chai.”

The guru chanted louder.

The audience chanted louder.

The guru’s volume increased again and the audience followed, again and again, till the room shook with the sounds.
“Oh da gya chai.”

The prayer wheels spun. The incense smoked. I had the sensation of sitting in a warm swirling bath.

The guru uttered one last chant, a roar.

He lowered his hands to his sides.

The room seemed to reverberate with the sudden silence.

The guru uncrossed his legs, turned to the altar, knelt before it, his body flush against the brocade cloth, his arms raised, his face lifted above the edge of the altar.

In the silence, the sound he uttered seemed like a howl.

He continued to kneel motionless for a moment, then half rose and turned to the audience, his eyes open wide.

A knife protruded from his chest.

A
LL AROUND US IN
the darkened room people screamed and cried. Ahead of me a woman fainted. I clambered over Ginny, feeling my way to the aisle, and ran toward the light on the stage.

The guru lay on his back moaning softly. Blood seeped from his chest.

I yanked open the two altar cloths, but behind them was only the underside of a table—no one hiding there. To the audience I yelled, “Someone turn on the lights. Is there a doctor here? A doctor? Everyone keep your seats. I’m a police officer. Is there a doctor?”

The lights came on. Through the commotion a woman on the left aisle called out, “I’m a doctor.”

“Hurry. Let her through. And you,” I said to the nearest red-robed Penlop, “call the police. Tell them what’s happened and where. Tell them the beat officer is already here.”

Without comment, the boy ran for the door.

I looked down at the guru. His face was taut with panic. Weakly, he clutched at the knife.

His lips moved.

Putting up a hand to silence the crowd, I bent down.

His eyes opened wider.

The doctor knelt on his far side. She touched my arm.

The guru’s mouth opened. Ignoring the doctor, I leaned closer. Again his lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Officer,” the doctor said, “give me room. This man doesn’t have time to waste.”

She had not raised her voice, but it was loud enough for the excitable gray-haired woman in the first row. She let out a scream.

All noise stopped.

The silence was broken only by the woman’s cries: “My son, oh my son!” She lunged forward, her hands grasping for a hold at the edge of the stage. Her shrieks turned to wordless keenings. She lurched at the stage again, her fingers grabbing at the flower-covered lattice, but there was no hold and she slipped back.

Who was she, this aging woman dressed like a Penlop? That, I’d have to …

On the stage the side door banged and Rexford Braga ran toward me, his white shirt stained with perspiration, a cigarette clasped between his fingers. The guru’s assistant was right on his heels. Braga stared down at the guru. “What’s going—Hey, what’s he doing? What the—”

The doctor glared up.

Braga didn’t look horrified or sickened or even sorrowful—his expression showed only indignation from the wounded figure toward the gold-robed assistant who stood motionless behind him. Putting his arm around the man’s shoulder, Braga tried to draw him away toward the edge of the stage. Chupa-da shook loose, all the time staring down at his stricken leader.

With a parting pat on the unresponsive shoulder, Braga moved to center stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, please give me your attention.”

Slowly, the audience quieted.

Pulling my badge from my purse and showing it to Braga before I pinned it on my shirt, I said, “Tell them to stay in their seats.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated. Please sit down. This has been a horrible experience for us all. Terrible. Terrible.” Braga’s glance wandered over the audience with none of the personalized intensity that had characterized his previous monologue. Was he, I wondered, more distressed than he appeared? He swallowed. “Padmasvana in his wisdom has a reason for what has happened—so that you should learn a lesson, a very difficult lesson.” He moved closer to the audience. “Just as Jesus Christ died on the cross, just as Buddha died, uh, as all great spiritual leaders have—”

Moans rose from the audience.

Braga did a double take. “I didn’t say he was dying!” Again he swallowed. “We are not in a position to know what Padma has planned. We cannot know his karma. But we do know he has done this for you. For your benefit…”

The ambulance crew burst through the door, followed by the lab crew and six patrol officers. As the beat officer on the scene, this case would be mine.

I had just finished instructing the officers to get the names and addresses and row numbers of those in the audience when the ambulance men slipped the guru onto a stretcher and started down the steps. The guru’s assistant started after it, but an officer stopped him.

I looked pointedly at the doctor.

“He won’t make it to the hospital,” she whispered.

Four officers moved to the last row of the audience and started taking down names and addresses, working their way from the sides to the center aisle until they’d meet and begin on the next row. It would be a long, tedious process.

Again Braga faced the audience and started to speak, but his words died in mid-sentence. The required mood was gone. The crowd was restless, watching the print man as he spread powder near the spot where Padmasvana had fallen, murmuring in reaction to the flash of the photographer’s bulbs.

Turning his back to them, Braga paced to the rear. As he neared the wall, the guru’s assistant, Chupa-da, grabbed his arm. His words were muffled, but anguish was etched on his round face.

Braga shrugged.

“Miss, Miss.” Chupa-da rushed toward me. “I must go. I must be with Padmasvana. He will need me.”

Softly, I said, “No, he won’t. He’s probably already dead.”

He stared, unbelieving.

“I’m sorry.”

Without comment, he walked back toward the wall. The residue of shock was visible on his face. The stiffness of his walk and the tremor of his hands suggested that only by a great effort of will was he managing to contain his distress.

I looked away, an awful feeling of helplessness welling up inside. Above the altar, Padmasvana’s likeness still smiled down.

Forcing myself to be professional, I surveyed the stage itself. The only access to it was through the side door that Braga had used. Steps that led to the audience had been blocked off with giant pictures of deities. The stage was about four feet high and the latticework railing that extended up from its edge added another foot or so. Only a pole-vaulter could have got to Padmasvana from the audience. I caught myself thinking how ridiculous it was even to pursue this line of thought. Padmasvana’s presence was so mesmerizing that the audience’s attention had been firmly fixed on the stage. No one could have attacked him that way unseen.

Catching the pacing Braga on a turn, I said, “Where were you during the ceremony?”

He stopped. “What?” He glanced at the crowd and, turning back to me, lowered his voice. “I was downstairs in my office taking care of the donations.” When I let my gaze rest on him, he added, “I’ve already been blessed. I am free of hate. You don’t need it more than once.”

“Smith?” It was the print man addressing me. “The altar’s been done,” he said. “Everything but the brass box. You want that?”

I turned to the altar. It stood a few feet right of center stage. The brocade cloths had been pulled slightly apart, revealing the edge of a yellow metal folding table that had probably held tea and cookies at P.T.A. meetings. Still on the altar, still sending smoke on high, were four incense burners, and in the middle sat a long, narrow brass box, studded with what appeared to be rubies. The box was the right shape to have held the knife. Its lid was fastened by a snap hinge that would catch on impact. The guru could have pulled the knife from it while shielding it from view with his body. He could have plunged the knife into his chest as the lid of the box snapped back. I didn’t know why Padmasvana would kill himself, but motive would wait.

To the print man I said, “Yes.” He reached toward it.

“Cease!” Chupa-da yelled.

The room turned silent once more.

“Do not touch the Tsali-deho.”

“You mean this box?”

“The Tsali-deho. Only Padmasvana can open the Tsali-deho.” He stepped between us and the box, his hands shaking visibly. All the emotion he had been trying so hard to control up to now seemed ready to burst out.

Pausing for a moment to show we were not about to grab for the box, I said, “What is inside the Sally, uh—” I pointed to it.

Chupa-da bowed his head. Clasping his shaking hands together, he said, “The Tsali-deho holds holy incense. Padmasvana frees the incense at the finish of his blessing. It is very holy.”

“Is that all that’s inside?” A few sticks of incense would hardly fill the box. There would have been plenty of room for the knife. The box was the only place the knife could have been.

“Only incense is inside,” Chupa-da said. “Incense is very important. In Bhutan, Padmasvana used it to keep away evil spirits. But here”—he glanced sharply at the audience—“here people do not believe in spirits. People believe only what their eyes see. They think they are as gods. What they choose to believe—only that exists. Here Padmasvana used the holy incense to end his blessing. A symbol, Westerners say. We allow that.”

“I understand,” I said, choosing my words carefully. I could feel the growing tension in the room. “But I have to see the inside of the box.”

“No!”

“It is possible the knife could have been in there.”

“No!”

Chupa-da’s voice had risen to a shout. The audience gasped. Braga moved away, seeming to shrug off the dispute as unworthy of his attention.

I called him back. I needed his intervention. The last thing I wanted was an international incident, an accusation that a Berkeley police officer had violated a Bhutanese temple.

“Braga,” I said, and a note of appeal was in my voice, “I have to check the box. I won’t disturb the incense, but I must see it.”

Braga looked from me to Chupa-da and back, his face tense. “Look, I, uh—”

“Women cannot touch the Tsali-deho!” Chupa-da yelled.

Distractedly, Braga ran a hand over his hair. He glanced at the audience and back to the box. “It has to be opened,” I said.

Braga’s hand moved toward it, but he stopped halfway. “Only Padmasvana’s most trusted disciple may exercise that duty.”

As one, the audience inhaled.

Pointedly, I stared at Braga.

“No, Officer, I can’t open it. I am not a disciple. I am an associate.” His voice rose as he made the distinction.

Without looking, I knew every eye in the house was on us.

“It has to be opened,” I repeated.

To Chupa-da, Braga said, “Naturally I am not as well versed as you are in the laws of Buddhism, though”—his voice grew louder—“I am not ignorant. There are laws that govern normal circumstances in Bhutan, but here in America”—he shifted, facing the audience—“circumstances change. There may be nothing written in the holy books to cover these circumstances, but Padmasvana would have expected you to do what is necessary.”

When the smaller man made no move, Braga said, “Padmasvana would have expected it.”

The fans hummed, the prayer wheels whirled. The audience held its breath. Chupa-da stood motionless. Then, facing the box, he extended his hand slowly and, with one move, jerked open the lid. As the box clattered to the floor, I jumped back. The audience gasped. Sticks of incense tumbled out and Chupa-da fell to his knees, feverishly gathering them up.

I stared down at him. The box would have to be checked, of course, but from the number of incense sticks that had been crammed inside, no one could have fitted in a knife, too.

Sighing I leaned back against one of the two chairs, ignoring the grumbling from the audience. So the knife had not been hidden in the box. Where had it come from? Chupa-da was dressed as Padmasvana had been—in a flowing robe that hung open over a gold T-shirt and pants. There was no place to conceal a knife. As he stood up, I noted the tight fit of the shirt as it outlined his ribs—a perfect target to drive a knife into.

I tried to run the minute prior to the stabbing through my mind. I remembered Padmasvana kneeling, his arms raised, his chin just above the edge of the altar. He had made no move that could be construed as stabbing.

And yet he had been alone on stage.

His assistant was tucked away downstairs, his followers beyond the barrier of the stage. Did the guru have any enemies? What if he did? Had they flown down invisibly to stab him?

There was only one conclusion that could be drawn from the facts I had—one of the facts had to be wrong. One seemingly solid fact was not as solid as I had thought. As I reviewed the scene once again, it became obvious where the break had to be.

I
BORROWED A FLASHLIGHT
from a patrol officer and, pushing back the altar curtain, shone it on the floor. There just might be a trapdoor … and there it was.

I beckoned the print man, and while he dusted the trapdoor, the ladder that hung from it and the area below, I briefed Connie Pereira, one of the patrol officers who would assist me. Then, leaving her in charge, I climbed down the ladder, noting the grime-covered nails that secured it at the top.

The basement room I found myself in was the width of the stage. The temple was built on a down slope so that the front door was at ground level, but the rear section—where the stage was—was sufficiently above ground to allow space for this half basement.

Along all four walls were brightly labeled cartons of Padma Herb Tea. The weary red-robed Penlops were a familiar sight, hawking their tea at all hours of the day on Berkeley streets. I wondered how much this little enterprise grossed. From the persistence with which the Penlops tackled prospective customers (and from the number of complaints we’d had), it should have been quite a profitable business.