Double Take

CHAPTER 25

Cheney kept his eyes on the green Camry weaving around in front of him on Lombard Street. When the Camry driver was finally off his cell, Cheney said to Julia, “The videotapes we watched—I swear I wanted to tell you it was all a load of crap, but your husband, he was very good, Julia, very believable. The others too, but August Ransom was the one who really drew me in completely, despite my being the skeptic from hell. How much do you think was excellent performance and how much was real? It was hard for me to tell.”

Julia laughed. “I felt the same way before August was with me in the hospital. I remember rolling my eyes when the editor initially gave me the assignment to interview August. I was thinking all he wanted was a lovely positive fluff piece after I found out his wife had used August to contact her dead father and wouldn’t stop singing his praises.

“He changed my mind, I’ll admit it. I saw him in action, saw how he worked, how he dealt with grieving people, how he eased them into accepting the continual presence of their dead loved ones. He spoke openly to me about how many charlatans there are in the field, that some of them would do anything to earn a buck, and if someone had the talent—the charisma, I guess, the verbal facility, and the ability to make people buy into them—then only God knew many times who was for real and who wasn’t. Grieving people, he said, were the most vulnerable people in the world. As I already told you, I still wasn’t certain until Linc.”

“But you were grieving, deeply.” She nodded.

He turned his Audi off into the Presidio to weave smoothly through the immense former army base, and came to a stop next to the cemetery. He turned to face her. “But you believed he was really in communication with your son?”

“Yes. There is no doubt in my mind at all. Don’t you want to go see Wallace?”

“We have time.” He wanted to ask her why she had no doubts, but instead, he said, “All right, why don’t you tell me what you think of Wallace Tammerlane.”

“You already know that both he and Bevlin Wagner are fond of me, that they admired August, that they’ve grieved at his loss with me. I remember when the police kept pressuring me to give them names of people who could have killed my husband—other than myself, of course—I couldn’t say Wallace or Bevlin, I simply couldn’t. They’re both my friends. But—” She stopped, turned her face away from him. “It’s okay. Take your time.”

She took a deep breath, expelled it, and turned back to face him. “The truth is, I’ve felt so helpless since August’s murder, like the police had painted a bull’s-eye right between my eyes. And then this assassin, Makepeace, came after me.” She reached out to touch his arm. “Cheney, I want you to know I’ve decided to keep practicing with my gun so I’ll get better. I’m going to keep protecting myself. And you know something? Maybe there’ll come a time when I can protect you too, when I can watch your back.”

Cheney said slowly, “Not all that many people have ever offered to watch my back. Thank you.”

Julia smiled. “You’re welcome. So what did you think of the police files on Wallace Tammerlane’s interviews?”

“There was only one interview. Not all that much there.”

Julia lowered her voice, leaned close to his right ear. “Did you know some people believe Wallace killed his wife back in Spain in the late eighties?”

He could only stare at her. “That’s a kicker. You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, really, it’s true. I don’t believe it for a minute, of course, but I don’t know specifically what happened since it was way before my time.”

“There wasn’t anything about a murdered wife in the files. Maybe if they’d known about this they would have checked into it. Why didn’t you tell them?”

“That’s easy. August never believed Wallace was a murderer and neither do I.”

“Tell me. Don’t edit, Julia.” He covered her hand. “Look, Makepeace’s two attempts to kill you are obviously tied to Dr. Ransom’s murder. I’ve got to look at everything again, and I need all the information I can get. Don’t hold back on me, believing you need to protect anyone, okay?”

She nodded. “August said Wallace and his wife Beatrice lived in Madrid for close to seven years, moved there in the early eighties. Wallace became the psychic to all Spaniards rich and famous, even King Juan Carlos and his prissy crowd, the Spanish A-list. August said Beatrice was a lovely woman, very beautiful in an ethereal blond sort of way, but she was more like Wallace’s cipher, his companion shadow, quiet and watchful. He said he’d rarely even seen her speak to another man. She was focused entirely on Wallace.

“In 1988, Wallace took her with him to visit a client in Segovia. She jumped off the Roman aqueduct. It was ruled a suicide even though a witness reported seeing a man with her on the aqueduct. Since no one could find this man, they didn’t rule it the Spanish equivalent of death by misadventure, but rather suicide.”

“Did Tammerlane have an alibi?”

“No. He’d already left his client.”

Cheney shrugged. “Still, it seems suicide is probably exactly what happened. Was there a reason for her to kill herself?”

“August said she was unstable, that Wallace tried to hide the extent of her illness, that he tried to protect her from talk. I guess she finally broke. So, of course the rumor mill started grinding something fierce. When the Spanish media got up to full steam, even King Juan Carlos’s name was bandied around. The king wasn’t happy about it, needless to say. Wallace left the following week, accompanied his wife’s body back to Ohio.”

Cheney asked, “Where is August buried?”

“In Connecticut, outside of Hartford. That’s where he was born and grew up, where his elderly mother still resides. He wanted to be cremated, he even wrote it in his will, and so I had it done here. His mother hasn’t spoken to me since then because she’d wanted to bury him next to his brother and sister, and his father.”

Cheney fell silent for a moment. Then he reached out and took her hand again. “Julia, let me say this fiat out. I know you didn’t kill your husband, so don’t ever wonder about that, all right?”

There was that surge of gratitude toward him again. She smiled at him, leaned close—”You wanna guess Wallace Tammerlane’s real name?”

“Bernie Swartz?”

“Worse.”

He grinned at her vivid face. “I give.”

“Actis Hollyrod.”

“Come on, Julia. Actis? What kind of a name is that?”

“His parents must have been spaced out on drugs when he was born, don’t you think?”

“Something for sure. Actis. What a thing to do to a kid.”

“Another thing, Cheney. Wallace likes young girls.”

“So do a lot of older men. Wait, don’t tell me he’s a pedophile.”

“Oh no, certainly not, but he appears very partial to females who haven’t quite yet reached voting age.”

“Do you know this for certain? Or are these rumors in the psychic world? Or did his colleagues simply read his mind and see visions of what he was doing?”

She cocked her head to one side, sending her hair falling beside her face. “Do I hear a bit of snark in your tone?”

“I’m trying to be open about all of it. When did Wallace start preferring younger women?”

“I’m not sure. I hope it was after his wife died. August found it funny. He’d say that even though I was way over-the-hill for Wallace, he, August, still appreciated me.”

Cheney noticed her eyes then, maybe because of the way she’d angled her head toward him. Her eyes, a quite nice light green, were bright today. He thought of the woman he’d saved the previous week—pale, hunched down, drawn in on herself. She’d changed, and the change had begun when she’d saved herself. She still looked thin, but not fragile, leached-out thin—she looked sleek and strong. She looked ready to vibrate, she was so solidly in the present, focused and involved. Yes, involved, that was it, no longer a victim, no longer helpless.

Cheney realized he liked her, realized he really didn’t want her to die by an assassin’s hand.

She snapped her fingers under his nose. “Earth to Cheney, you there?”

“Yes. Now, are these all rumors about Wallace’s young groupies?”

“Nope. Actually I saw one of his girls coming out of his house. He obviously didn’t think anyone was around because he fondled her on the top step. Then he saw me, saw that I’d seen what he was doing, and he looked bilious. When he realized I didn’t condemn him or anything, and never made any smart-mouth cracks, he was as he’d always been toward me, kind and charming. Like I already told you, Wallace asked me out, but before that, he’d call simply to see how I was, to hear the sound of my voice, send me the occasional flowers. I remember telling him once I was far too old for him. He only laughed.

“I only went to dinner with him occasionally since the police were still looking hard at me, probably even had me followed.”

“Nah, they don’t have the manpower.”

“No, really, I just bet they reasoned that since I’d already married one older man, why not another? I could be following a pattern, no?”

“What did Bevlin think of Wallace’s wooing you?”

“He’s young, he sees Wallace as old. I don’t think he was worried, or even cared. The psychic community is small and very incestuous. There aren’t many secrets.”

“Well, naturally not—they read each other’s minds, right?”

“More snark. To be honest, I don’t hear much about mind reading, but it would be really scary if some of them could do that.”

Cheney turned on the ignition. “Okay, let’s go see if we can catch Tammerlane fondling another teenager. Filbert, right?”

“Right, fourth house from the corner on the left.”

“A mansion like yours?”

“It’s very different from ours—mine. You’ll see. How odd. I’ve never thought of my house as a mansion. It’s just my house, where I live, where Freddy sometimes visits and sheds all over the sofas.”

He thought of his condo, how it would fit into a third of her downstairs, thought of that big cat hissing, and smiled.

There was a lot of traffic that morning under a steel-gray April sky, and the wind blew sharp and chill. An hour of sun would have been nice, Cheney thought. At that moment, the thick clouds parted and a wide shaft of sun speared through in front of the Audi. A good sign, he hoped.

As Cheney’s Audi muscled its way smoothly up the thirty-degree-angled street, he said, “I’ll never forget the first time I drove up one of these steep hills—I thought I was going to sail right off the top of the earth. It still gives my old heart a leap.”

“Just try it driving a stick.”

Cheney said, “A friend of mine, another agent who’d transferred in from Utah, drove a stick, bragged he was the only real man in the office, that it took real skill to do it right, until one day his clutch gave out and he went hurtling backward down into an intersection filled with cars. Thankfully, no one was hurt. No one in our office drives a stick anymore, him included. Do you know your hair looks like my desk?”

She whipped her head around. “What? I look like your desk?”

“Your hair—it’s the same mahogany color.”

“I see. So, do you like your desk? Admire the finish? Polish it every day? Maybe you even like it so much you don’t put your feet on it?”

He laughed, felt every care roll off his shoulders for a moment. He hadn’t laughed much in too long a time, too much crap at work, too many crooks they couldn’t catch up with, too much frustration. But he felt good right then, really good. He said, “Nah, I never put my feet on my desk unless I’m barefoot. I worship my desk, I even have papers under my computer so it won’t scratch the finish. I plan to be buried with my desk.”

She laughed, lightly touched her fingertips to his hair. “The color of your hair reminds me of a tan-colored Subaru I once owned. Soft and creamy, sort of like a caramel.”

He turned onto Filbert Street. “Pay attention. I ain’t no caramel. My hair’s plain old brown.”

He turned right from Filbert, and in the next minute he turned his Audi onto Wallace Tammerlane’s wide driveway. “Dear God in heaven, a double garage in San Francisco,” Cheney said. “That alone has got to make this place worth big bucks.”

“Probably.”

“Julia, I know he’s your friend, that you care about him, but be watchful—you know his body language, his expressions, okay?”

She gave him a look, then nodded.

As he walked her to the front door of the flamboyant three-story Victorian, he said, “Just jump in when and if you think it’s appropriate.”

He was including her, really including her. She gave him a blazing smile.