Double Take (18 page)

Cheney said, “From what I understand, the psychic line always seems to be that all dead loved ones are at peace and happy, no matter what they did in life.”

“Not necessarily,” Wallace said. “You have nine minutes, Agent Cheney.”

“Do you think your wife Beatrice is at peace now, and happy?”

If he'd shot him in the gut, Wallace Tammerlane couldn't have been more shaken. He lurched forward, nearly falling. “How dare you say anything at all about my wife?”

Julia rose quickly to go to him. “Agent Stone didn't mean it to come out that harshly, Wallace. But he's an FBI agent, and he's got to question you about your wife's death. Surely you understand.” Julia touched his arm, to calm him. “I know it came as a shock, but he's only doing his job. Please tell him about Beatrice.”

Wallace looked down at her thin white hand. His mouth was tight. “You're saying, Julia, that August told you about that horrible time in Spain and you repeated it to Agent Stone?”

“Yes, of course she told me,” Cheney said. “I told her it was critical that she tell me every single thing about all of you. Don't blame her. Now, did August Ransom find proof you'd shoved your wife off that aqueduct in Segovia? Threaten to expose you?”

Wallace shook off Julia's hand, shoved away from the mantelpiece. “I won't listen to this. Julia, how could you?”

“I'm sorry, Wallace. Agent Stone, surely you're not being fair.”

Cheney shrugged, looked down at his fingernails.

Wallace shouted, “That's it! I want you to leave now, Agent Stone. Julia, you can stay, but not him. I'm going to call my lawyer, and you can talk to him from now on.”

Cheney said, “Tell me, Mr. Tammerlane. As a renowned psychic medium, do you ever speak to your dead wife?”

CHAPTER 27

Wallace Tammerlane was breathing hard and fast; anger reddened his cheeks, nearly reached his eyes. Cheney waited patiently.

Finally, Wallace drew in a deep breath. He got himself together. Julia held her breath, watching the man she'd always liked, a man she knew liked her and had honestly admired her husband. She'd never been certain if he was a legitimate psychic or simply a great showman, if he was also a legitimate medium or one of those despicable individuals who claimed to speak to your dead father and tore out your heart. When she'd asked August, he'd evaded her, said only that belief in someone was based on indefinable things, that we each had to decide for ourselves, which meant nothing. She touched his arm again.

Wallace said finally, calmer now, at least on the surface, “No, I do not speak to my wife. I have never tried to speak to Beatrice. She killed herself, that is all. She was an unstable woman, on medications, which she many times forgot to take. Her suicide was the result. It was a horribly painful time for me, Agent Stone.”

Cheney nodded. “Your real name is Actis Hollyrod?”

“Yes. My parents were sadistic and insane to name me that. I had my name legally changed when I turned eighteen. I changed it to something more suited to my actual self.”

“You knew your actual self at eighteen?”

“Naturally. I knew I had a precious gift from the time I was seven years old, a gift that demanded I use it to help others, to provide healing and comfort to those in grief. I try to provide counsel and hope that will also assist me along my own path to spiritual awareness.”

“Mr. Tammerlane, you're speaking of
The Bliss
?”

“No. One must strive for spiritual awareness during the few years allowed us on this earth.
The Bliss
is what is after you pass from this world. I do not use that term.
The Bliss
is one that August adopted many years ago, and many younger mediums have embraced it. I think it sounds pretentious, rather too much like a bit of New Age feel-good nonsense. Sorry, Julia. However, August felt comfortable with it, as do others.”

“What do you call it, Mr. Tammerlane?”

“I call it simply
The After
.”

“What exactly is
The After
?”

“Simply stated, Agent Stone, it is the continuation of man's after-death destiny, our immersion into the ultimate loving beneficence of a serene and infinite eternity.
The After
is the embodiment of perfection that we will dwell within, Agent Stone.”

Wallace pulled a lovely gold pocket watch out of his white vest, consulted it, tried to keep Cheney from seeing that his hand was shaking. “My client is due in three and a half minutes. My clients are never late.”

“Why are your clients never late?”

“Why, Agent Stone? I charge them, naturally. My time is far more valuable than any of theirs, or yours, a common policeman for the federal government. I have a mission in this life and you are interfering with it, for no reason I can ascertain. You come into my house and insult me. You make insinuations about my poor dead Beatrice. I want you to leave.”

“Wallace, don't be so angry at Agent Stone. Like you, his mission is to help people.”

“You've disappointed me, Julia, disappointed me gravely. I dislike seeing you with him.”

“I'm sorry, Wallace,” Julia said. “But I'm concerned that the third time this man tries to kill me he just might succeed. And I must find out who killed August.”

Cheney said, “I watched several of Dr. Ransom's videos. He said in one of them that he believed that in
The Bliss
there is a sort of caste system—the more worthy the dead person was, the higher the regard everyone already there will have for him.”

“Yes, yes, but what does that have to do with his murder?”

“I'm not sure,” Cheney said, “but could someone have killed him even believing it would lower his own position in
The After
?”

“August was right. Naturally some people deserve more consideration than others, whether it is here on this earth or in
The After
. There is little justice here, despite the efforts of the FBI or the police or our damnable court system, but in
The After
? It is entirely different there. No one who believed as we do about eternal justice in
The After
could have caused August's violent death. August is basking in the fullness of what his innate goodness grants him in
The After
. Don't you believe he is watching over you, Julia? What do you think he feels when he sees you allowing a stranger to attack one of his dearest friends? Your keeping company with this man does not become the widow of Dr. August Ransom.”

Cheney said, “Do you believe in God, Mr. Tammerlane?”

Wallace whirled around as if shot. “What? God? Do I believe in God? What I believe is there is more in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“So you believe in an eloquent oration of Shakespeare's. What about God?”

“There is always that which is beyond what we are, Agent Stone, what we think we know, what we imagine. There is always what is beyond death, always
The After
. But not some supposedly omniscient, all-powerful personage—God, Zeus, Allah, whatever, take your pick. No. These are man's creations, formalized constructs—man's attempt to explain what he can't begin to understand. Every culture, every civilization has created some deity to comfort them in death, to explain the simple change of the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, ever since we had words for those things.” He flapped his hands at Cheney as if to shoo him away. “I don't like to discuss this with you in any case. Yours is an untutored mind.”

He whirled around and walked away from them. He said over his shoulder, “You are incapable of understanding anything of metaphysical importance. You think in provincial paradigms— good and evil, Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil. This is fitting to a man of your station. And I am tired of your insults. Good-bye, Agent Stone, Julia.”

Cheney smiled at him. “You're not bad at insults yourself. I really would have liked to know who or what it is who doles out the perks in
The After
. Good day.”

They left, passing by a man in his late sixties, huddled in a gorgeous cashmere coat, his face pale, his eyes lost and bewildered, his thick gray hair blowing in the stiff wind.

CHAPTER 28

As he drove his Audi on 19th Avenue toward the Golden Gate Bridge, Cheney asked a silent Julia, "How long were you and your husband married, Julia?"

"Nearly three years. Then he was killed.”

“How old are you?”

“I'm twenty-nine.”

“I had a woman friend who said she was twenty plus nine.”

She said nothing, looked straight through the windshield.

“I believe he was in his late sixties, sixty-eight, I think.”

“You think? You don't know the age of your own husband?”

“No.”

“All right, you're angry with me. Come on out and say it.”

She whirled around to face him. “You're a jerk! You were needlessly rude to poor Wallace. You baited him, you sneered at him. I'm surprised you didn't accuse him of molesting teenagers!”

“I thought about it, but couldn't see any payoff.”

She smacked his arm with her fist. “Wallace didn't kill August. He didn't kill his wife. Just because you're a skeptic, you don't have to act like an ass.”

“All right, so maybe I was a bit over the top. Look, Julia, I'm not only an FBI agent, I'm also a lawyer. I have to see something, feel it, understand it, before I can believe it. And we're pressed for time here—I needed to rile him to see what would happen. I didn't have time to make nice. Do you understand?”

“Be a skeptic, just don't insult my friends.”

“I'm thinking it would do you some good to have some different sorts of friends.”

“You're right, I do want some more friends. None of them will be cops, that's for sure.”

“Hey, maybe you're more interested in Tammerlane than you let on. Are you sure you only think of him as a friend?”

“You're ridiculous, Cheney Stone. You sound jealous. Young men—I'd forgotten about all that testosterone clogging your brain cells.”

Cheney wanted to yell back at her, but he reined himself in. “I don't sound jealous, dammit.”

“Forget it.”

Since it was late morning, traffic wasn't heavy on the bridge. No northbound toll, so Cheney drove right through.

“I won't tell you where Bevlin lives until you promise you won't act like an ass around him.”

Cheney sighed. “All right, I'll be more light-handed with Bevlin Wagner.”

“You swear?”

“What will you do if I overstep my bounds—or rather
your
bounds?”

“I'll shoot you.”

He laughed, couldn't help it, and raised his hand in surrender. “Okay, I'll be very cool with Bevlin.”

“Good. Now, take the first exit onto Alexander and stay on it into downtown Sausalito.” She paused, looked out the Audi's window. “I wish those blasted clouds would burn off. There's nothing on earth more beautiful than the ocean on one side, the bay on the other, all glistening under a bright sun.”

“All chirpy now, are we, since you've got me in a choke hold?”

“Yep. I don't believe in rubbing salt in wounds.”

“So you married August when you were twenty-six.”

“You're a dog with a meaty bone, aren't you? Yes, that's right. How old are you?”

“Me? I'm nearly thirty plus three, in November.”

She laughed, but it wasn't a freewheeling laugh. “Why are you asking me these personal questions?”

“Humor me, please. I'm trying not to be a jerk about it. I just need all the background I can get. You married him because you felt gratitude toward him since he was with you when your son died.”

“You just crossed the line,” she said.

Cheney drove the beautiful winding road into the town of Sausalito. Due to the heavy winter rains, the Marin Headlands were richly green, nearly an Irish green. By August, unfortunately, the hills would be brown and barren, a perfect setting for Heathcliff.

“So what do you want to tell me about Bevlin Wagner? Other than he wanted you to marry him. Is that his real name?”

“Doesn't sound Croatian, does it? He told me he was from Split, a city on Croatia's Adriatic coast. Evidently his parents changed their names when they came to the U.S. when he was a young boy. He's never mentioned another name. Bevlin's been on the local psychic scene for about eight years.”

“He's also a medium—talks to dead people?”

“That's right.”

“So, a psychic medium is your ultimate woo-woo master. Not only can he put on the psychic show—tell fortunes, see a building fall down before it actually does, see a murderer do the deed—he has the additional selling point of talking to dead great-uncle Alfie.”

“That's right, and you're being an ass again.”

He gave her a crooked smile.

She said, “August told me once that Bevlin had no center yet, that he didn't know quite who he was, or what he was supposed to do with himself. But he was young, there was time for him, he said. August hoped he wouldn't give up on what was in him before he found out what it was and how to use it.”

“This guy seemed so intense—if it's for real he's got to be burning himself up from the inside out. On the other hand, when he turned that intense expression of his on me yesterday, I thought he looked like he wanted a drink.”

This time a chuckle burst out of her, whole and clean. Good, she wasn't as pissed at him. She cleared her throat. “I shouldn't have done that, really. Maybe Bevlin does drink too much on occasion. I remember a get-together last year. Bevlin was ‘intensing' everyone, as I think of it—you know, sitting in a corner pretending to brood and staring everyone down—until I realized he had a fifth of vodka behind him. I saw him turn a couple of times, sort of hunch over, and swig right out of the bottle.”