Life to Life: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (24 page)

Of course this stuff is not reserved for
religious professionals—but I do think a certain religious
orientation is required before it can happen. John Donne, for
example, the seventeenth-century poet who gave us, among many other
beautiful things, "send not to ask for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee," reported seeing in Paris a wraith of his wife
carrying a dead child within the same hour that his wife in London
delivered a stillborn son.

Similar experiences are mentioned by such as
Lincoln, Goethe, and Shelley in which the "wraith" is the
observer's own double.

All of the cases recorded in the literature
on the subject seem to involve individuals who are otherwise known
to possess strong spiritual qualities. Are all such people nuts? If
so, we should all be so nuts. It would be a kinder world.

Well, of course, I did not mention any of
this to Stewart. He probably would have suspected, anyway, that I
dreamed it up just to explain what had happened to Annie in her
jail cell.

I did follow him to police
headquarters where I dictated a statement and signed the
transcript. After that, we sat around and talked for a
while.

Like some other cops I've
known, Stewart seemed to be married to his work. It was, by now,
eight o'clock in the evening and I knew the guy had been there at
least since eight that morning.

I had not really known Stewart before this
case. I was getting to know him and like him. Another reason why I
kept a lot of stuff to myself. It is not too smart to say too much
too soon to people who have never really been exposed to this sort
of thing. You get a reputation, that way, and it precedes you
wherever you go; establishes a bias against you; be advised, if you
dabble: do it quietly. Folks loved Annie, sure, but that was
because she was discreet. She showed them a few of her lighter
tricks, and they loved it. But the whole bag would have scared the
shit out of them; they would have said she was nutty instead of
gifted, and there would go the ball game.

So when Stewart asked me, point blank, "Is
that woman really psychic?"—I replied only that I could validate
certain specific instances of strong psychic ability.

He asked, "What was she
trying to pull, do you think, doing something like that to herself?
Making some kind of statement?"

I looked at my feet and replied, "Maybe.
Maybe not."

"Don't give me that," he protested amiably.
"It was a stunt, wasn't it. I've heard of these people down in the
Philippines, these so-called psychic surgeons, who were caught
with their fingers in a bucket of chicken guts. I mean, supposedly
they were pulling that shit out of their patients without cutting
on them. But it was all rigged. Maybe her, too. Maybe one of the
lawyers smuggled something in."

"Something like what?" I inquired mildly. "A
chicken's hymen?"

He laughed and said, "Well, I don't know how
she did it. That's why I'm asking you."

I showed him my hands. "Women have been
working that con since Eve, haven't they. I don't know how they do
it. Ask one."

He said, "Already did.
Asked my wife. She told me this story her grandmother told about a
young girl who'd lost her cherry to another guy before her wedding
day. She was terrified. It was a big deal, back then. So she
managed to delay the wedding until she was on a period. Stuffed her
vagina with gauze, screamed like hell when the kid tried to
penetrate her, jumped up and ran into the bathroom and removed the
gauze behind the locked door. So she had the bloody evidence. And
she held the groom off, pleading soreness, until her period was
over."

I chuckled and said, "We made them do it,
you know. Our fault entirely."

He said, "Sure, but that's not the point.
How'd Annie do it?"

I suggested, "More to the point, why would
she?"

He frowned; said, "I don't know. And I'm
afraid to find out."

I shuffled my feet about for a moment then
asked, very offhandedly, "Think it's somehow connected to what
happened at the center?"

He replied, "How could she set up something
like that? Surely those lawyers wouldn't... And she's been
incommunicado except for them. Why would she do something like
that?"

I said, "Maybe you're reaching too far. We
don't know yet why the center staff did that to themselves. Maybe
we should wait until the facts are in."

"Yeah," he said quietly.
"We don't even know if they did it to themselves." He glanced at
the clock. "Christ, we should be getting the autopsy results by
now. What the hell are those people doing? Don't they know that all
the eleven o'clock news people back East are dying to
hear?"

I suggested, "The coroner is going to be
very careful on this, Paul. We could get nothing 'til morning. So
why don't you go home and strike up an acquaintance with your wife
and kids?"

He looked at the floor and said, "They can't
take me at a time like this."

I said, "Or you can't take them?"

"Either way," he said, "it's the same
thing."

"Not exactly," I said, and
told him good night.

I had to get out of there. Cops all over the
L.A. area were searching for Bruce Janulski. I wanted to search,
too. And I had a better way.

I was beginning to get my head back together
after the stunning events at the Center of Light, and the
realization came that I was a bit smarter than before. In fact, I
had developed my theory of the case by the time I left Paul
Stewart's office that night.

Before I say more about
that, though, I need to be certain that you are with me in this
matter of the so-called masters' game. We are talking
reincarnation, of course, but consider what I have to say before
you make up your mind as to how you want to feel about that. There
are, it seems, almost as many reincarnation theories as theorists
in the Western world—so let's just make sure we understand the
terms.

Most people raised in the Christian faith
have little if any understanding of these ideas; most who now
embrace Christianity will have nothing to do with these lunatic
ideas.

It is true that the
metaphysical system which is now in place as Christianity admits no
debt to reincarnationist theories, except a belief in some
Christian quarters that all the saved souls will rise from their
graves and be restored at the day of judgment. There is
considerable and persistent dichotomy in this particular area,
however, and therefore considerable confusion among many devout
Christians as to just what Jesus has in mind for them when they
die. This is due chiefly to the fact that Jesus himself was not a
Christian and would not understand, either, the new metaphysics
that are supposedly based on his teachings.

Jesus was a Jew. He was a
very devout Jew and obviously well educated into the liturgies and
the traditions of Israel. I believe that he was also a psychic,
or—at the very least—particularly sensitive to the needs and
aspirations of his own people. He was also a hell of a logician,
and his command of semantic symbology was positively brilliant. How
better get the attention of hardworking fishermen intent at drying
and repairing their nets on a hot Mideastern day than to suggest to
them, "I will make you fishers of men." And how much cooler and
quieter win the confidence of a frightened woman outside the gates
of a remote village, surprised by male strangers as she labors to
draw water from the well which then must be carried upon the
shoulder all the way home (and how many tiring trips each day?),
than to promise that woman, "I can give you living
water."

He had their rhythms, see,
and he had their moods. He knew who they were and where their heads
were because he was one of them and because he was smarter than
most.

And because he believed the traditions.

He knew who he was; he knew who they were;
and he had a sensing of his own destiny.

And maybe a whole lot more.

In Luke 9, the story of the transfiguration,
he had gone to the mountain with three disciples to pray. As Jesus
was praying, the others saw that "the appearance of his
countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white.
And behold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared
in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at
Jerusalem."

Moses and Elijah were, of
course, greatly revered teachers in the Jewish tradition—but both
had died centuries before. The phrase
appeared in glory
is typically used
in scripture to describe a Godly or angelic manifestation. The
"departure" at Jerusalem refers, of course, to the death of Jesus.
"Which he was to accomplish" speaks, I think, for itself. This was
a strategy session.

The very next day, Jesus
gathered his disciples and said to them, "Let these words sink into
your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of
men."

It is later reported, in that same chapter
of Luke, that "when the days drew near for him to be received up,
he set his face to go to Jerusalem."

The same story, in Matthew 17, tells an
important detail that for some reason did not survive in the Luke
narrative. As they are coming down the mountain after the meeting
with Moses and Elijah, Jesus commanded the three disciples who
witnessed that to say nothing of the vision "until the Son of man
is raised from the dead."

One of the disciples then
asked Jesus, "Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must
come?"

Jesus replied, "Elijah
does come, and he is to restore all things; but I tell you that
Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him
whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man wdl suffer at their
hands."

Matthew then tells us:
"Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John
the Baptist."

Is this a masters' game or not? If Elijah
returned as John the Baptist, is this a reincarnation or not?

As a matter of fact, all
devout Jews of the period believed that their prophets returned in
life after life to guide them. The conference on the mountaintop
among Jesus, Moses, and Elijah is not at all startling in Jewish
tradition. This was an entirely normative transaction in the lives
of the prophets.

And now the entire
Christian edifice is built upon the proposition that Jesus entered
Jerusalem with every expectation of dying there and being lifted
up to heaven; furthermore, he was careful to follow the tradition,
even as to his entry into the city (Matthew 21):"This took place to
fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of
Zion,

'Behold, your king is
coming to you,

humble, and mounted on an ass,

and on a colt, the foal of an ass.'

"The disciples went and did as Jesus had
directed them."

Nobody ever said that a masters' game was an
easy one. But sometimes it's the only game in town.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Game of Masters

Remember the trouble I'd had breaking the
tutorial? Well it had all come together somewhere down inside the
labyrinths of mind, maybe after bumping against the stuff I'd
filched from Paul Stewart earlier and the conversation with Dear
old Dad after my phantom cavorting with Annie. I checked the
context with the fragments of older records picked off the bonfire
pile before the destruction of the center, and I am entirely
satisfied in my own mind that I have reconstructed the message as
it was intended to be understood.

Before I give you that,
though, here is the other stuff I promised you when I told you
about Carver's connection to Annie via Donald Huntzermann, who was
Carver's maternal grandfather. It is rather intricate and amazing
stuff, but try to keep in mind the game that we are tracking here.
Don't bother about trying to unscramble these relationships; just
remember that they exist.

Charles McSweeney was a first cousin to
Annie's late father, Tony Mathison, so second cousin to Annie.

Herman Milhaul, sometimes also known as
Esther, was distantly related to McSweeney and had figured in a
molestation charge when Herman was ten years old. He testified to
a relationship spanning several years but later recanted and the
case against McSweeney was dropped. Some sort of relationship
evidently continued through the years because Milhaul worked at the
film lab that was involved in processing and copying McSweeney's
old 16mm film that figured in the kiddie porn case still pending
against McSweeney at the time of his death.

Herman was also Clara Boone's nephew. Both
he and McSweeney were occasional participants in Clara's past-lives
study group.

Now Clara's half-sister,
Mary, the silent film star, is the mother of Annie's first husband,
Nathan, which means that Ann was briefly related by marriage to
Herman—but look out for this one—Herman's mother, and I have no
idea what her name is (nor do I wish to know)—Herman's mother was
Nathan's father's sister, so that makes Wayne Sturgis the uncle of
Herman Milhaul and therefore related by one device or another to
McSweeney.

But I am not finished with this.

Clara Boone's brother
(whom we have not and will not meet here) was married to Maizey
McCall before Maizey was married to Tony Mathison, Ann's father.
And Tony Mathison, believe it or not, was married to Clara's
sister, Mary—Wayne Sturgis's present wife—when Tony met Maizey.
(Which could explain why the sisters were estranged all those
years; Maizey and Clara were good buddies.)