Double Take (14 page)

“But he is concerned about Julia. He loves her, has always loved her. He is here for her, not in this room with us, mind you, but close.”

“He doesn't know who hired that man to kill me, Wallace?”

“No, my dear, he doesn't know. Those who have crossed over do not become omniscient. They remain themselves.”

“But he was a psychic,” Cheney said. “Didn't those abilities carry over to
The After
?”

“No, Agent Stone, they did not. He's there, you see, no need for those abilities now.”

“Perhaps,” Cheney said, his eyebrow arched, “Dr. Ransom could put the word out, ask around with the other spirits, you know. Or maybe he could hang around a bit here, keep an eye on his wife, tell her when evil is closing in on her.”

“Evil, Agent Stone? I don't know that I'd call it evil.”

“When someone wants to murder another person, what would you call it?”

Wallace shrugged. “Anger, rage, necessity, probably all those things, but not evil. Evil seems to me to be without motive, to exist for its own sake.”

Bevlin Wagner surged to his feet, the energy nearly crackling off him. “You said August isn't here, Wallace. Well, I agree with you. He isn't here now, but he
was
before. Then I sensed he had to leave.”

Julia jumped to her feet. “He was really here, Bevlin? You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I felt him.”

“But why would he leave, Mr. Wagner?”

“Who knows, Agent Stone? There's lots of things for him to do. It isn't all lying around and singing ‘Kumbaya.' No, I don't sense Dr. Ransom at all now, and I would like to. I called to him with my mind voice, trying to call him back, but he said nothing at all.

“I do agree with you, though, Agent Stone. If I were August, I'd be here with Julia, not off somewhere counseling some departed soul.” He shrugged, stroked his chin with long thin fingers. “But August always went his own path, and dying wouldn't change that.”

Cheney wanted to throw up his hands and tell the both of them to go away, but one of them might be Dr. August Ransom's murderer. One of them might have hired the man who tried to kill Julia.

Cheney said, “Do you speak to many dead people, Mr. Tammerlane? ”

“Yes, of course. It is a gift, a responsibility, and obligation. I will admit that August fades in and out quickly, that it is difficult for him to maintain a link with me, thus I've gotten only brief images and spurts of his thoughts. I don't know why. Neither does he.”

“May I come and speak to you tomorrow, sir?”

Wallace gave him a penetrating look, a very effective look, Cheney imagined, to make you believe he knew things, things that were beyond you, things not necessarily of this world. Cheney knew he had to try to keep an open mind about this, but when push came to shove, he was a lawyer, steeped in skepticism. It was hard-wired in his brain not to accept anything he couldn't see, couldn't manipulate with his hand and his brain.

“Of course, if it could be of assistance to Julia.”

“Dr. Ransom was your friend and colleague, was he not?”

“Yes. Poor August and I were close for many years.”

“And Julia, how do you see her, sir?”

“She is a dear girl. We were to have dinner Thursday night, but alas—you know what happened, Agent Stone. I will be at home at eleven o'clock. Does that suit you?”

Cheney nodded, turned his attention to the prowling Bevlin Wagner. “Are you related to Mr. Tammerlane?”

“Related? Goodness no. I'm Croatian. Wallace is from Kansas.”

He sounded so insulted Cheney wanted to laugh. He cleared his throat. “Would you also be available to chat tomorrow morning, Mr. Wagner?”

He agreed, shooting Julia an intense look. But, Cheney thought, neither man really looked anxious to speak to him. Why was that? Cheney wondered. Because he was FBI? Because one or both of them had murdered August Ransom?

Julia said, “I'll come out with Agent Stone. He'll want to keep me within sight at all times. He's the one who saved me Thursday night, you know.”

And it was done. She'd nailed coming with him very efficiently, no fuss at all. Cheney could have told her he actually welcomed her company, and he did want her close, but he liked that smug, triumphant expression on her face. It was better than the empty fear.

“I can still ditch you,” he told her when they were finally alone again.

“Nah, you can't get away from me now. Besides, I can tell you all about Wallace and Bevlin.” She lowered her voice to a Transylvanian whisper. “Stuff that will make you shudder and turn pale, roll your eyes back in your head, jerk up in your bed in the middle of the night out of a sound sleep, sweating, your heart booming like a native drum. You haven't seen their old interview records yet, have you?”

“No. It's Sunday. Frank said he'd get all the files ready for me tomorrow morning. I'll go over to Bryant Street and look at them before I come here to pick you up. I have this feeling, though, that since you were always their focus, there won't be a lot of in-depth information on any other players.”

“Yes, I was their only focus.”

“Yes, I realize that. You wanna know something else? Don't you think Tammerlane and Wagner could be related—they look like father and son?”

“I haven't really noticed before, but yes, maybe you're right. They do hang out together quite a bit. Bevlin lives in Sausalito— you're going to love his house. He asked me to marry him a couple of months ago.”

She nodded. “Yep. And dear Wallace asked me for a date at about the same time. I figured that since I'm no beauty, it was because I'm rich. But both of them are quite well off financially, what with the lucrative book deals and their group consultations that bring in something like a thousand bucks an hour. Maybe they would both like to live in this beautiful house with me.”

“A thousand bucks an hour? What a racket.”

“A racket? Maybe, but—”

“But what?”

“Come on back to August's study. I've got lots and lots of tapes, of August and Wallace, even a few of Bevlin on TV. Also some of Kathryn Golden, another psychic medium. You'll want to speak to her too. Let's see what you think after you've seen them.”

“I'm trying to keep an open mind.”
Yeah, like I'm going to believe in spirit communication. Not in this lifetime.

“The mediums—do they see themselves as something like priests—the great connectors between those left behind and those in the beyond?”

“Something like that.
The Beyond
is just one name for the afterlife. August always called it
The Bliss
, Wallace calls it
The After
. I'll give you one of the books August wrote.”

“And one each of Tammerlane's and Wagner's.”

She nodded. “Yes, and Kathryn Golden too. Come and watch the videos and tell me August isn't for real, Cheney.”

CHAPTER 22

David Caldicott lived on Lily Pond Lane in Buckhead. His hundred-year-old wooden house, set back from the road, was funky, no other word for it, with its pale blue and bright yellow paint job, seven bicycles lined up on the deep front porch, and a good dozen glorious old magnolia trees pressing against the house on all sides, making it one glorious fire hazard. Yet the big house fit in nicely with the other well-tended homes on either side. It was the charming one, the one that drew the eye and a smile.

They knew he was home, but had decided not to call him first. This was to be a surprise.

A young girl, nicely tanned, wearing short shorts and a halter top, her hair in a ponytail, opened the door and stared at them. She was chewing gum. She blew a lovely big bubble and popped it, splatting it over her mouth and half her face.

Dix said, “How old are you?”

She gave him a huge grin through the bubble gum, pulled it off her face and suddenly she didn't look like a teenager anymore. “Goodness, I love you, whoever you are. I'm thirty-three. You did think I was really young, right? If not, please lie. My ego needs a boost right now. David's being a real jerk and I'm ready to drop-kick him out the window except it's his damned house.” She shrugged. “Come on in. You want to see him, right?”

“Right,” Ruth said. “I'm Special Agent Ruth Warnecki, FBI, and this is Sheriff Dixon Noble.”

They badged and shielded her as she popped another bubble, looked startled, then shook their hands. “Hey, I'm Whitney Jones. You here to arrest David? Was he smuggling violins from Russia? A stolen Stradivarius maybe?”

“Not that we know of,” Ruth said. “No, we need to speak to him about another matter. We'll keep the smuggling in mind, though.”

“I know the FBI has this stolen art section, right? He's guilty as sin, I know it. David! Come on down, you've got cops here to speak to you or arrest you, or something.”

Ruth laughed, couldn't help herself. “What'd he do, Ms. Jones?”

“He was supposed to cook out steaks with me last night, but he got caught up in a jam session with some of the other musicians in the orchestra, played in this sleazy dive, and forgot.”

“A real jerk, all right,” Dix said. “You want me to knock some of his teeth loose?”

“Nah, I couldn't French kiss him then. No, I'll get him where it really hurts—he loves sex and that's easy enough to withdraw from his diet. He'll be going cold turkey.” She laughed and waved them into a living room filled with an assortment of eclectic furnishings, from a huge overstuffed red velvet brocade Victorian sofa to a heavy, highly ornate, nearly black Spanish chest that looked to be five hundred years old, with every year showing on its highly shined battered surface. Dix supposed David Caldicott used it for a chair since there was a twisted retro hippie table with a chipped lava lamp sitting next to it. Persian carpets covered the banged-up oak floor, many of them so old they were nearly in tatters. Paintings and photos covered most of the walls—highly romanticized pre-Raphaelite copies and dozens of photos, all of them of famous composers and performers going back to daguerreotypes from the nineteenth century, showing men with bushy whiskers, wiry beards, and fanatical eyes.

Sunlight poured through the wide front windows, the only spot where a huge magnolia wasn't pressing in.

She turned when she heard David's voice calling out from the top of the stairs, “Whitney, I'm sorry! Come on, we'll do the steaks tonight after I get home from the performance. Wait!”

“Forget it,” she yelled up at him. “I'm outta here, soon-to-be gone. I'm going out with that bank president.” She winked toward Ruth and Dix, leaned close to whisper, “That drives him nuts. He still thinks it's a believable threat, even the bank president part. I'll probably marry him, but not until he shapes up first. See you.” Whitney Jones sashayed out of the room. They heard her pop her gum just before the front door slammed.

A few minutes later a tall thin man appeared in the living-room doorway, panting, but evidently he hadn't run fast enough to catch Whitney. He was wearing baggy shorts, a ratty light blue T-shirt, and nothing at all on his long narrow feet. He had a lovely big diamond stud in his right ear, about halfway up.

“Was Whitney putting me on? Are you guys really cops or are you selling something? You aren't from a bank, are you? I'd sure like to meet a banker, I need another home improvement loan.”

Dix introduced them, told him they weren't here to help him fix up his house, showed David Caldicott their I.D.s. He didn't offer to shake his hand.

Caldicott studied Dix's badge. “Maestro, Virginia? Oh man, this is too much—I went to Stanislaus. You're the sheriff, Dixon Noble?” He grabbed Dix's hand, pumped it, then began to shake his head. He didn't say another word, just suddenly looked afraid, and began to back away. Now that was interesting, Ruth thought, as Dix said calmly, “I understand you attended Stanislaus at the same time my wife, Christie Noble, disappeared, Mr. Caldicott.”

“Yes, yes, I did. It was bad, everyone was talking about it, speculating, you know? It was scary. She was gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. I'm sorry, man, did you ever find out what happened to her?”

Ruth saw that Dix had stiffened up, his way of controlling pain, she knew, and so she said, “May we sit down, Mr. Caldicott?”

He turned to Ruth. “Sure, go ahead. Anywhere you like. The chest isn't very comfortable, though. When Whitney and I get married, I plan on inviting her mother to sit there.”

They chose the Victorian sofa with the big red cabbage roses.

David Caldicott sat on the floor in front of them and leaned back against the Spanish chest. “Hey, you guys want anything to drink? I think Whitney opened some wine. Oh, sorry, you're cops, you can't drink.”

Ruth smiled down at him. “We're fine, Mr. Caldicott. You have a lovely home.”

He beamed, relaxed a bit. “Thank you. I bought it three years ago when I moved here. I'm fixing it up myself and decorating it myself. The upstairs is still pretty empty, needs some work, especially the bathrooms, but I'm taking my time, finding exactly the right pieces, the right tile and design, you know?”

Dix said, “Did you know my wife, Mr. Caldicott?”

He nodded and said, “Well, yeah, most of the students knew her or knew who she was. She was awful pretty and really nice. She came to most of the concerts. I know her uncle was Dr. Golden Holcombe, the director of Stanislaus, and a lot of the students tried to kiss up to her, but she'd just laugh and tell them how marvelous they played. I remember after one of my recitals she came up to me and told me how much she'd enjoyed my performance. She even said I was a natural for a symphony orchestra, even spoke about the Atlanta Symphony. I know she was real good friends with Gloria Standard Brichoux—you know, she's that really famous violinist who came down to teach at Stanislaus after she retired from the stage—and her daughter Ginger, who's some kind of lawyer, not a musician—go figure that. Ginger didn't like me much. I don't know why.” He stopped and looked hopefully at Dix.