When they’d stepped outside Kathryn Golden’s house into the late afternoon heat, Julia’s cell phone rang. She stepped away. “Wallace? Yes, I know, but have you heard about Kathryn being kidnapped? No, no, unfortunately the police have no idea where she is. What—? There are six of us in all. Yes, three are FBI agents and one is a sheriff. Really, Wallace, what—”
She listened, then slowly punched off, and said, “That was Wallace Tammerlane.” To Dix and Ruth, she added, “He’s a psychic medium, one of August’s best friends. The thing is, he’s asked that all of us come to his house, as soon as we can get there. He said it’s urgent.”
Cheney said, “But what does he want?”
“He didn’t tell me, only said it was about Kathryn and it’s urgent.”
Ruth looked from one face to the next. “We don’t have much of a choice, do we? So, let’s go see the psychic.”
Dix said, “Why do I think I’m about to take a bus to never-never land?”
CHAPTER 42
When all of them arrived at Wallace Tammerlane’s beautiful Victorian an hour and ten minutes later, Wallace’s black-garbed butler, Ogden Poe, greeted them at the door and ushered them into the living room. Wallace and Bevlin were seated in chairs facing each other in front of a roaring fire.
“What are you doing here, Bevlin?” Julia asked.
Bevlin shrugged. “Wallace wanted me to come over. It’s better with more people, you know.”
What was better, Sherlock wondered, but she knew a showman when she saw one and was willing to wait. “Some digs,” she said to Julia as she stepped into the living room. “Look at all those little teacups and saucers. I’ve seen similar ones in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. And all the old photos of the Crimean War, I wonder where those come from?”
Bevlin said to Sherlock as he rose, “I don’t like Victorian fuss. I like space and views.”
“You’re a hippie philistine,” Wallace said. “Red beanbags— just saying it makes me shudder.”
“Those red beanbags represent small vibrant areas of being,” Bevlin said, whatever that meant, Cheney thought.
“All of this is very interesting,” Julia said, aware that the three FBI agents and Sheriff Dix Noble were getting more impatient with each passing minute, “but we have more important things to do. Wallace, since you demanded that all of us come, let me make the introductions.”
Wallace shook hands with the three FBI agents, pausing briefly in front of each of them. To Sherlock, he said, “Sometimes people look at you and smile, and don’t see your substance. That’s always a very bad mistake to make, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, “one would think it is.”
He turned to Ruth, looked at her closely, then slowly nodded. “You are extraordinarily good at your job, Agent Warnecki. You see so very much, don’t you?”
“We all see too much sometimes, don’t you think?” Ruth said.
When he reached Dix, he became very still. Finally, he said, “I see a nearly desperate man, Sheriff Noble, about what I don’t know, but it’s clear to me that you’re frustrated and angry.”
“You think?” Dix said. “You’re a whiz at reading people, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Sheriff Noble, you’re here, in a psychic’s house, plainly, because you can’t see any other options. I would say you are perhaps the most determined of all your colleagues to discount anything I may say or do. I ask you to be patient.”
Dix looked at him, stony-faced.
Wallace lightly laid a hand on Dix’s shoulder. “In the end, you will do what needs to be done, I imagine,” he said, and stepped back. And that made Dix think of Charlotte—he’d forgotten to call her.
Wallace smiled at Julia, who stood very close to Cheney. “The two of you,” he said, and shook his head. “Life continually surprises me.”
When Wallace’s eyes rested on Savich, he slowly nodded, but said nothing. He finally said, “I asked Bevlin to come over as well. As I told Julia, the more people here, the better for our efforts.”
“What efforts?” Cheney asked. “Come on, Wallace, enough dancing around. Tell us why you wanted us to come.”
“Very well. Both Bevlin and I are very concerned about Kathryn. Since you don’t know what this madman has done with her, we decided that a seance, of sorts, might help us locate her.
“I wanted all of you here because I need all of your strength, your focus, your concentration. I can assure you, I am very serious. I cannot guarantee success, that is, I cannot guarantee you that I will connect to Kathryn, but I am going to try.
“Before you arrived, Bevlin and I spoke about Kathryn’s vision—actually, I feared it would make the assassin hotfoot it right to her.”
“I did too,” Bevlin said.
Dix was still staring at them as stony-faced as before.
Sherlock said, “So I gather you believe her visions are authentic?”
“Oh yes,” Wallace said. “Well, for the most part. Sometimes Kathryn embroiders, and why not? Clients love detail, all the emotional stuff she dredges up, it pulls them in deeper. She says that the trappings, you know, the background, the stuff surrounding the dead person in her visions, aren’t usually very clear. It’s like there are filmy draperies blowing over everything but the person. But one thing I’m sure of—if she said she saw this guy, then she saw him. Do you agree, Bevlin?”
“I know Kathryn’s a really good performer, knows how to cuddle right up to her clients. She senses very quickly what they need and want, and colors in her lovely pictures once they give her the clues she needs. But there’ve been times I’ve had the feeling she is seeing beyond what’s there, really seeing.”
Wallace said, “The fact is, though—and I can see all of you are thinking it—anyone could have called up Agent Stone this morning, told him to beware the assassin, to watch for his car because the assassin was after him. It seems nothing more than common sense.”
Ruth held up her hand. “You said we’re here to help you conduct a séance, Mr. Tammerlane, that you want to try to contact Kathryn Golden.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Bevlin said, “The only problem we see is that if Kathryn is really scared, it might freeze her up, prevent our communicating with her. Then Wallace probably couldn’t reach her. On the other hand, and we must face this, she could already be dead. Then it would indeed be a séance.”
“Well, you’re a medium, aren’t you?” Dix said. “That should make things easier all around.”
Savich said, his eyes on Wallace Tammerlane’s elegant, aesthetic face, “No, she’s alive, no doubt at all in my mind.”
Wallace Tammerlane frowned at him, a dark brow arched. “Then I hope to connect to her. This isn’t a shot in the dark. A couple of years ago Kathryn and I experimented on sending each other messages telepathically. We wrote down what we believed we’d received from each other. We had quite a few hits. We were both pretty amazed.” Wallace looked closely at Savich. “When I look at you, Agent Savich, I see a man who has, in his turn, seen a few things in his young life. Do you believe in psychics, Agent?”
Savich said easily, smiling, “I don’t know that I believe in psychics or mediums, Mr. Tammerlane. However, I do believe that fear, that love, can sometimes come through to us, loud and clear.”
“Ah,” Wallace said slowly, staring at the big man he thought might be more powerful, perhaps even more dangerous than the man they were chasing, “so you’ve dealt with ghosts.”
Savich continued to smile. “I’m willing to have you give it a try, Mr. Tammerlane. All of us want you to try to find Ms. Golden. We will all do as you say.”
“All right. Good. Ogden!”
Ogden Poe glided into the living room, silent, an eyebrow raised.
“Dim the overhead, Ogden, you know I can’t work in this bright light. And pull the drapes tight. The rest of you, I must have utter quiet. See to the arrangements, Ogden.”
When the drapes were pulle
d, the lights dimmed, Ogden moved two sofas together. He motioned for them to sit close.
Wallace Tammerlane walked back to the huge wing chair facing the fireplace, turned its back to them and sat down. His voice floated over them. “I want all of you to hold hands, to connect your collective energy, to direct it toward me.”
Soon there was complete silence. Wallace began to hum. It sounded soft on the silent air, rose and fell, but was always there. Embers crackled in the fireplace.
Wallace said aloud, his voice deep and smooth, “Kathryn, are you there? Let me know if you can hear me. I know you must be afraid.”
A log cracked and fell apart, sparks flying upward. Shadows formed fantastic shapes on the walls. There was no sound. All of them settled in during the long moment of silence, and their hands remained clasped. Then Wallace said, “I’m thinking about you, Kathryn, trying to see you. Can you hear me, hear my mind? You must tell me where you are. You’ve done it before with me, do it now.”
More silence.
In those long moments, Savich felt the soft warm air settle over him, enfolding him like a blanket. He felt Sherlock’s hand in his, as soft and warm as the air, and he concentrated on Kathryn Golden, pictured the photo of her he’d seen on her dresser. A handsome woman, an intelligent face, eyes that saw, perhaps, things other people’s eyes didn’t. He remembered Samantha Barrister, long dead, yet he’d seen her, spoken to her, that long-ago night in the Poconos. But unlike Samantha Barrister, Kathryn Golden was alive. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he knew.
Was it possible for Kathryn Golden’s mind to connect to Wallace Tammerlane’s?
Kathryn was smart, he knew she was smart, knew she was so frightened that her fear was eating deep. Savich stilled, and felt a ripple of awareness touch his mind, veer away, circle back again. It was very gradual, this awareness sifting like a shadow through his mind. No, not a shadow now. Savich felt a sudden ferocious fear—frantic and violent. It burrowed into him, paralyzing and chaotic. Then he perceived that whatever it was touching him had begun to change. The fear softened, the cacophony waned, and then there were jagged lines. He saw them clearly, like the static on an old TV. Savich forced himself to focus again, to smooth away the jagged lines. They began to slow and lighten until they finally faded into nothing. Savich saw it clearly now, a movement, not from the corner of his eyes, but straight in front of his face. It was a pale and vague image, rippling in soft colors, then it slowly sharpened, and he saw her clearly even though she was in a dark place. A woman, her hair straggling around her face, her clothes ripped, her feet bare, tied to a chair, a gag in her mouth. He saw her head jerk up. It was Kathryn Golden. She was alert now, her every sense focused on him. Oh God, who are you? I feel you. He’s left me, but not for long. Help me. Dillon? Is that your name? Help me.
Savich focused on her face, the ugly bruise on her jaw where Makepeace had struck her. Without even wondering what he was doing, he thought, I will, stay calm.
Oh, thank God you’re there. Dillon—
Then it was as if someone yanked a plug out of the wall. She was gone. His mind was empty of her. Had he imagined it? Had he experienced some kind of waking dream? No, he had not.
Wallace Tammerlane stood up a minute later and faced them. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I got through to her. There wasn’t any answer.”
Ogden turned up the lights.
“Maybe,” Savich said, rising slowly, “the line was busy.”
When at last they were ready to leave, Savich shook Wallace Tammerlane’s hand, then Bevlin Wagner’s. “Thank you for your efforts. We have to be leaving now. If Kathryn makes contact with you, or you happen to find out anything that could help us, please call my cell.” He gave each of them his card.
Cheney turned at the front door. “Do either of you keep journals?”
“Of course,” Tammerlane said, and Bevlin nodded. “All of us do.”
Savich heard everyone else murmur their good-byes, Bevlin assuring them it was okay, that they’d find Kathryn, that Wallace would keep trying.
When Julia and Cheney piled into the backseat, Julia asked, “What do you want me to do, Dillon?”
“First, I want you and Cheney to have that visit you were planning with Soldan Meissen. He’s somewhere in the middle of this, he must be. Then I want both of you to come to the Sherlocks’ house. You’re both going to be guests there, along with the rest of us.”
CHAPTER 43
There was a stark white half-moon shining directly down on Cheney’s borrowed wheels, an older dark blue Audi, on temporary loan from the dealership while his own Audi was getting patched up from its beach run that morning.
It had all happened twelve hours ago. Amazing. He turned to Julia. “You hanging in there?”
“It’s been a wild day, that’s for sure.”
“What did you think of Tammerlane’s séance?”
“Well, I suppose it didn’t work, did it? We’re no closer to finding Kathryn. Do you think she’d dead, Cheney?”
He thought about that for a moment, then said, “No, the fact is, I don’t. However, I’m still not certain why Makepeace took her.”
“How about he believed she could have some visions for him, about where I am. What do you think?”
He laughed. “Yeah, right.”
But Julia wasn’t so sure. She’d lived in the world of psychics for three years, and sometimes she still wasn’t at all certain what was and what wasn’t real.
“I hope I can keep focused. Soldan Meissen’s got to be at the center of this thing, along with Pallack, and now he’s Pallack’s medium.”
She nodded. “I think you’ll find Soldan interesting. He’s, well, he’s even more different. You’ll see.”
“None of the others we’ve spoken to have much respect for him.”
“True. However, given Thomas Pallack’s experience—I mean he was with August and also with the famous medium Linz Knowler before him—I can’t see how Soldan could con him. He’d be very hard to scam.
“I remember seeing Soldan on TV maybe three months ago on one of those Hollywood entertainment shows. He was standing in a gloomy cemetery, naturally after dark, with manufactured fog creeping up to his knees. He was wearing jeans and three-inch stack-heeled boots to make him look more formidable, I guess—tough sell, let me tell you, because Soldan is really quite puny-looking. He was standing next to an oohing and aahing fluffy blonde who was handing him eight-by-ten photos of famous dead people. He told the camera what these folks were doing, how they felt about what their famous living relatives were up to. The blonde seemed to be impressed.
“August always said Soldan couldn’t carry it off in front of a camera, that anyone seeing him would believe he was a gold-plated fraud. He’d say Soldan gave psychics a bad name.”
Cheney pulled into Soldan Meissen’s big circular driveway, stopped in front of the front door, cut the engine, and looked around. “Another big spread. I guess the psychic business is thriving.”
Julia said, “Oh yes. Atherton is one of the biggest hubs of conspicuous consumption in the Bay Area. Soldan used to have a Spanish-style hacienda, then moved two blocks and went Oriental.”
Cheney looked at the long, single-story house, solid windows all along the front, bonsai trees thick on the ground, crowding close to the house. “Is the guy married? Any children hanging around?”
“I don’t know about kids, though there maybe a former wife. A couple of months ago I heard a woman moved in, but I don’t know anything about her. I sure hope he’s here, Cheney. It’s late. Maybe this time we should have called.”
“Nah, a surprise visit you never know what’s gonna pop. Look, there are some lights on at the end of the house.”
They walked along a flagstone path lined with Japanese-garden-style bushes and flowers. There was a double front door lacquered glossy black with shiny gold dragon’s-head doorknobs, flanked by a pair of huge Asian stone statues, too dark to tell any detail. Cheney pressed his
finger against a dragon’s snout and heard the bell chime some creepy music from that old Bela Lugosi film Son of Frankenstein.
“Maybe the guy’s a warlock too.”
There was no answer for perhaps a minute, then came the sound of mules flapping up and down on tile. The door was opened by a woman wearing a very low cut frothy peach peignoir that floated around her ankles. She looked, Cheney realized, with those prodigious breasts framed by silk and feathers, like a saloon girl from a western movie, a little over the hill, a little too much makeup, but authentic enough, at least TV authentic.
Cheney said, “Hello. This is Julia and I’m Cheney. We’re here to see Soldan. Is he available?”
“You look familiar,” the woman said to Julia. “You don’t, sir. It’s after nine o’clock. At night. What do you want? Soldan is tired. We don’t see uninvited visitors. Besides, I don’t like the look of either of you.” She stared at Julia. “Yeah, you do look familiar. Is there a reason I don’t like you?”
Cheney smiled at the woman; she looked like she could shoot them both, then blow the smoke off the end of her six-shooter and toss back a shot of straight whisky. “We’re harmless. Actually, maybe you have met Julia. She’s Julia Ransom, Dr. August Ransom’s widow. And I am Cheney Stone, FBI. We won’t take up much of Soldan’s time. And who are you?”
“You’re sounding all chummy, aren’t you now? I’m thinking you’re the best-looking paid federal assassin I’ve ever seen. Fact is, you probably make use of being gorgeous, don’t you, makes it easier for you to flimflam innocent women like me.”
“Nah,” Cheney said. “They don’t pay me that much.”
“A federal assassin making jokes—you’re smart too, but really not that funny.”
“Who are you?” Julia asked.
“I’m Sol’s mother. Okay, okay, you got me. Obviously I’m far too young and beautiful to be his mother. I’m Sol’s sister—younger sister. Hey, I bet if I don’t let you in, you’ll pull a gun and force your way in. Isn’t that what you secret fed enforcers do?”
‘Yeah, that’s exactly what we do,” and Cheney showed her his SIG on the clip at his waist.
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