Double Take ft-11

by Catherine Coulter

  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.”

  Would you have stayed married to that old man? “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 arc 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.”

  “When his parents came to the United States, where did they live?”

  “New Hampshire. Bevlin always likes to say he’s from Croatia, first thing when he meets someone new—I think he believes it makes people think of Transylvania and vampires and things that go bump in the night—you know, it makes him sound like he’s steeped in otherworldly knowledge.”

  “Even though Transylvania is in Romania.”

  “I remember I said something smart-mouthed like that once to August.” She frowned.

  “What?”

  “August didn’t like that I’d said it, that I’d poked fun. Take a left at this first light, Cheney. Hey, would you look at all the tourists. They’ve got to be freezing.”

  There were a good hundred out-of-towners huddled in jackets on the sidewalks of Sausalito, giving their custom to all the scores of clever tourist shops on either side of the street, ice cream cones and umbrellas in their hands.

  “He didn’t like it? Why would he care?”

  “You’ve got that bone in your mouth again. August felt I shouldn’t mock a man who might have much to offer the world sometime in the future.”

  Cheney turned up Princess Street and began tacking his way up the hill.

  “Do you think Bevlin Wagner has a lot to offer the world in the future, Julia?”

  She stared out the window a moment, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t know, I really don’t. He has written one book on spirituality—To Watch Your Soul Take Flight, I have a copy, I’ll lend it to you. Read it.
It—well, it helped me once.”

  “All right, I will. But how can you not be a skeptic? I mean, finding lost children, maybe even forecasting disaster, but really, talking to dead people? Give me a break. It sounds absurd.”

  “Everyone should be a skeptic, but keep an open mind. In the end, though, we all have to make up our own minds, Cheney.”

  “Why should I really care one way or the other?”

  “Because at various times in our lives we have need of something to help us make sense of things—of senseless tragedy, for example. I know that makes us more vulnerable to those who would deceive us—you bet it does. But if you’ve never felt ground under with despair or grief, if you’ve never been forced to focus inward rather than at your outward daily routine in the world, then I don’t think you should judge them or what they do because that inner eye of yours is closed to it, as they’d say.”

  “Inner eye?”

  “That’s their word for it. They speak of it as a door deep in our minds that cracks open occasionally, usually when we have need of spiritual comfort. Of course you can’t prove it with any sort of science or critical argument.”

  “Is your inner eye open now?”

  “No. That’s Bevlin’s house up there, perched right over the cliff.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Cheney parked the Audi on the narrow curb at the base of a dozen steps that led upward to an eagle’s-nest house.

  They walked up the thick old wooden steps to Wagner’s house, skinny trees and brush pressing in on either side—it felt like a small wilderness, dense and wild.

  The front door was ajar and so they walked into a small, dimly lit entrance hall. Cheney called out, “Is anyone here?”

  “A moment,” a man’s shout came from upstairs. “Go into the living room, on the right.”

  The small front room was all windows that looked toward the bay—the tip of Belvedere, Angel Island, even Alcatraz was in view. Beanbags, all of them bright red, were scattered throughout the room, some in small groupings, some alone. The walls were bare, no bookshelves, no photos, nothing but those dozen or so bright red beanbags.

  In less than a minute, Bevlin Wagner walked into the living room, wearing only a thick white towel knotted below his waist.

  “Hi, Bevlin,” Julia said, evidently finding nothing strange in this.

  He walked up to her, leaned down, and kissed her mouth, then straightened to study her face. “You look beautiful, Julia. I was so worried about you yesterday, you were so pale, so frightened.”

  She nodded. “I’m fine now. Thank you for taking the time to speak to Agent Stone.”

  “No problem.” Bevlin, the towel loosening a bit around his waist, nearly mesmerizing Cheney, said, “Agent Stone. I’m pleased you’re keeping Julia safe.”

  When in psychic Rome, Cheney thought, and shook the man’s hand. He wanted to tug on the towel just to see what he’d do. Bevlin Wagner was dead white, and his burning dark eyes and long black hair made for a compelling contrast. He had very little body hair.

  “I was in the shower, didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

  “You’re always in the shower, Bevlin,” Julia said. “Go put some clothes on. We’ll be right here when you get back. I promise I won’t let this dangerous FBI agent search the beanbags.”

  Those soul-probing dark eyes hit Cheney’s face square on. “I didn’t have time to wash my hair,” Bevlin said.

  “It looks clean enough, don’t worry,” Julia said. “Get dressed.”

  Bevlin left the room, whistling Bolero, if Cheney wasn’t mistaken.

  “He does this exhibitionist thing often?”

  “Oh yes. It’s sort of his trademark. I don’t know why, since he isn’t all that remarkable a specimen.”

  “Has he ever lost the towel?”

  “Yes. He paraded out with his towel once when I arrived before August did. The towel hooked on a doorknob and whipped right off. I looked him straight in the face and told him I knew a really good personal trainer.”

  “He wasn’t insulted?”

  “Didn’t seem to be. He said personal trainers were too hairy except for the women, and they scared him.”

  Cheney laughed. “What’s the deal with all these red beanbags? How long has he been doing this?”

  “Ever since I’ve known him, and I don’t have a clue.”

  Bevlin Wagner came back into the room, wearing old gray sweats, his long narrow feet bare. “Agent Stone, I know you’re here to question me about the attempts on Julia’s life.”

  Cheney said, “Yes, I appreciate your time. Mainly, I’d like to ask you about Dr. August Ransom’s murder. There seems to be little doubt that the attempts on Julia’s life and his murder are connected.”

  “I don’t know anything about any of it, I’m afraid.” He looked over at Julia and blessed her with his sweeping intense look. “If only I did know something—are the two really related? Okay, maybe, maybe. Wallace and I wondered about that, of course. I must tell you this, Agent Stone, when August visited me last night, he told me he really doesn’t like you, that you might be dangerous, and I should be careful not to anger you. He’s displeased about your being with Julia. He didn’t say so, but I’d wager he’d be much happier if she were with me.”

  Julia said, “Bevlin, there is no earthly—or unearthly—reason for August to be concerned about Agent Stone. He’s trying to find out who garroted him, after all. Despite what Wallace says, I think August would want his murderer brought to justice.”

  Cheney said, “Bevlin, what you said, it is what August thinks, not what you think, is that right?”

  Bevlin walked to the huge front window. “Of course it’s what August thinks.” He paused. “The fog’s finally lifting. I have three clients today. The first one a batty old doll who wants to give all her money to a nice-looking young man who says he’ll set up a trust for her. There’s a big commission for him, naturally. God knows what’s in the fine print.” He shuddered.

  Julia asked, “What is your role in it?”

  “I’ve already approached her husband, so to speak. His name was Ralph, owned a large piece of Sausalito at one time. He asked me to call his son, try to keep her from losing every dime he earned. Said those dimes had been too hard to come by to hand them over to a smarmy, good-looking crook. Ralph said he heard she’s not going to be joining him for a number of years yet, so she’ll need all the money he left her. I called the son a little while ago.” He shrugged again. “He was foaming at the mouth. Maybe some good will come out of it, we’ll see. Hey, Agent Stone, maybe you could go pop this crook.”

  Cheney found himself drawn in, believing for a moment that this very strange man had indeed spoken to Ralph, a very dead person.

  He couldn’t help himself, whatever Julia thought. “Did you really dial up the dead husband, Mr. Wagner, give him the lowdown?”

  “Ralph? Well, not really,” Bevlin said. “It was one of my guides who tugged on me, told me to talk to this old geezer, he needed to know what was going on.”

  “Guide?”

  “Yes, my guide. I am speaking English, not Croatian, Agent Stone. All of us have guides, all of us. But some of us are too unaware to even recognize that they’re there. I happen to have a good dozen of them, all for different matters, you see. One knows finance, one speaks beautiful Hindi, one has perfect pitch, is very proud of that and is often telling me what he’s listening to at the moment, and the key that’s being played—but he’s not much use, as you can imagine. There’s this one guide, all he can talk about is Egypt, about all the time he spent in the library at Alexandria.

  “My best guide is a real schmoozer, can chat up those who have passed over, tell me what’s in their hearts.”

  “Do your guides have names?”

  Bevlin frowned. “Do you know,” he said slowly, bending those dark eyes on Cheney’s face, “I’ve never thought to ask and they’ve never offered. They’re all very individual, really. I never had need of names to
speak with them.”

  Julia said, “Bevlin, you said yesterday you knew August had been there, but he’d had to leave. But you spoke to him last night?”

  “Of course.”

  Cheney asked, “When you spoke to him, was it through a guide?”

  “Ah, August is different. He isn’t like other people who’ve passed. He already knew how things work, how to get through to me.”

  “I’ve never heard about guides before,” Cheney said. “I mean, are they dead people who volunteer for this duty?”

  “That’s a novel thought, Agent Stone. They’re simply—there,” Bevlin said. “Simply there, like when I first realized I could see things other kids couldn’t, a guide told me what was happening. He’s still with me. Sometimes he wakes me up when I oversleep and a client’s coming.”

  Cheney said, “Can you talk to one right now?”

  Bevlin Wagner eased down into a big red beanbag and closed his eyes. He sat perfectly still.

  Cheney felt like he’d wandered into Disneyland Croatia.

  Bevlin’s eyes slowly opened. They looked dreamy and vague. Odd how that could change so quickly. “I spoke to my first guide. He told me I had the gift but I have to continue to grow before I can truly become what I was meant to be. He said I had to work on being more grounded, and listen to those who know more than I do. He knows I can reach my potential, and he’s doing his best to help me.”

  “But why did he come to you specifically and not someone else?”

  Bevlin cocked his head at Cheney. “This might take a while. Please go into the kitchen, have some coffee. I made it this morning.”