Never Saw It Coming

Twelve

Garfield seemed to be taking his time in the kitchen, but when he returned, he had a stack of bills in his hand, as well as a check.

“Turns out I had four hundred and twenty in cash, so you can have that, and I made the check out for five hundred and eighty,” he said, handing her all the paper. “I left the part where your name goes blank. I wasn’t sure how to spell it. It is kind of a weird name you’ve got.”

He’d evidently forgotten that her business card was in his shirt pocket, but that was okay, she could make the check out to herself later. She took a quick look to make sure it was okay otherwise. It was amazing how often people made a deliberate mistake so it couldn’t go through. Got the date wrong, or didn’t sign it. Keisha knew all the tricks. She’d tried them herself with her landlord. But the check looked fine. She fanned the bills to make sure the amount was right, slipped the check in with the bills, then tucked all the paper into a pouch in the lining of her purse, which she set back down next to her, open, on the carpet.

“Is everything all right?” she asked. “You were gone quite a while.” She had wondered, at one point, whether he might have been calling the police.

“Fine, fine,” he said. “I couldn’t find a pen.”

“You should have asked me. I have a couple in my purse here.”

“I found one in the drawer.”

“Well, shall we continue?”

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.”

“I was actually just about to make a cup of tea when you knocked on the door. Tea?”

“No, I’m good.”

Garfield sat down on the couch. “So, do you live here? In Milford?”

What was going on? She’d brought Garfield right up to the edge of the cliff with that thing about his wife’s car not being on the road. She had him then. He was curious, no doubt about it.

It was the ideal moment to hit him up for the money.

So off he’d gone to the kitchen to find the cash and cut her a check. And now he was back, ready to continue, and he was asking her if she wanted coffee? Tea? Asking her where she lived?

Was he stalling? Maybe he really had called the police while out of her sight, told them there was a crazy lady here, trying to exploit his situation. But wouldn’t she have heard him if he’d done that? She could tell he was in the kitchen the whole time.

“I’m sorry, what was the question?” she asked.

“Do you live in Milford?”

“Yes, not far from here. Just before you cross the bridge into Stratford. We’ve lived there for a while.”

“Children?”

“I have a son. He’s ten.”

“A son,” he said, almost wistfully. “It would have been nice to have had a boy. Not that I’m sorry we had Melissa. But a boy, in addition to her, that would have been wonderful.” He smiled. “So, Keisha, do you spend the whole year in town? Or do you have a summer place?”

Keisha thought this was getting very strange.

“I’ve just got the one place, Mr. Garfield, and I live in it all year long. Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not? I mean, you’ve paid me. I’m guessing you’d like your money’s worth.”

He gave her a go-ahead wave. “By all means.”

“As I was saying, I’ve been seeing some kind of flashes of the car your wife was driving.” Keisha still had her hands on the robe, occasionally kneading the fabric between her fingers. “The silver Nissan.”

“You mentioned that the car wasn’t on the road,” Wendell Garfield said. “If it’s not on the road, where do you see it?”

Keisha closed her eyes again. “It’s not… a parking lot. I guess that would still count as being on the road, in a way. I’m not seeing it in a garage.”

“What about water?” Garfield asked. “Do you see any water?”

Curious, Keisha thought. He’d just asked if she had a summer place, and now he’d mentioned water. She’d been thinking about Florida earlier. Maybe Garfield knew more than he was letting on. Maybe his wife had taken off for Miami with another man but he was too ashamed to admit it. Then again, she’d already put it out there that Ellie Garfield was very cold, so if she raised Florida as a possibility, she was going to get caught in a contradiction.

Stick with cold. So if it’s cold, the water… could be frozen.

She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them. “It’s funny you should mention water. I was seeing something, something shimmery, that I thought might be water, but I was thinking maybe it was actually ice.”

“Ice,” Garfield said.

This time, she kept her eyes open. “Yes, ice. Ice in a glass? Ice at a skating rink? Very flat ice? Maybe black ice, on the road, that caused the car to skid? Does ice of any kind have any significance to you? Any significance where you wife is concerned?”

“Why should it mean something to me?” he said, a defensive tone creeping into his voice.

“You were the one who mentioned water.”

“And then you mentioned ice. I didn’t mention ice.”

“But it seems to have some meaning for you,” Keisha said. “I could see it, in your expression.”

“Why would you say flat ice? You mean, like on a lake?”

“That was just one of the kinds of ice I mentioned. But I can tell there seems to be a connection there. Why don’t you tell me what that might be?”

Garfield stood up. He took a few steps to the right of the couch, then turned and paced in the other direction. He was stroking the end of his chin, pondering something.

“What is it?” Keisha asked.

He paced a few more seconds, then stopped. He looked at Keisha, studied her a moment, then pointed an accusing finger in her direction. “Maybe it’s time you just leveled with me.”

“Leveled with you about what?”

“About what’s really going on here.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Garfield, but I’m not sure I understand.”

“This whole psychic mumbo-jumbo act you’ve got going on, that’s a load of bullshit, isn’t it?”

Keisha sighed. “I told you, if you want to call Nina’s father for a reference, I have no problem with that. I’m happy to give you the number.”

“Have you got someone all set up to take the call? Someone who’ll tell me what I want to hear?”

Keisha shook her head and gave him a bruised look. Trying to make him think her feelings were hurt. What she was actually thinking was, good thing he paid almost half in cash, and that she had the check. She’d hit his bank on the way home, get it cashed before he decided to call and stop payment on it.

“I’m very sorry you’d think that of me, Mr. Garfield. Just when I thought we were making some real progress here. I have much more to tell you.”

“I’ll just bet you do. And whatever you know, whatever you think you know, it’s got nothing to do with visions or communicating with the dead or goddamn tea leaves for that matter. Whatever you know, you found out some other way.”

“I assure you, I-”

“Give me my wife’s robe. I don’t want you touching it any more.”

Keisha handed it to him. It certainly appeared she was done here.

“Thank you,” he said, gathering it up into a ball.

Keisha reached down for her purse, set it into her lap, made sure it was zipped tight at the top, and started to stand.

Garfield said, “No, don’t go yet.”

“I can’t see what possible point there would be in staying any longer, Mr. Garfield. I can tell that you view me as some kind of con artist. I’ve been at this long enough to know when my talents are being mocked. That’s how some people react, that what I do is a sham, and if that’s your conclusion, then I’m happy to be on my way.” Thinking, Don’t ask for the check back, you son of a bitch. You’ll have to dig into my purse to get it.

“Did I offend you? Oh, I’m very sorry if I did that.”

“You just accused me of having someone standing by to-to lie to you about my successes. Wouldn’t you expect me to take offense at that?”

He was still pacing, still fondling the robe, doing something with it, like it was a mound of clay he was shaping into something. Keisha watched as he took a few steps one way, then the other. It struck her that this was how he formed his thoughts, by making these little journeys around the room.

“You are very clever, I have to give you that,” he said.

Keisha said nothing. She was starting to get an inkling of what was going on. She should have caught on a little sooner.

“Very, very clever,” he said, stepping over to one of the living room windows, peering through the slats of the blinds to get a look at the street. This put him off to one side and slightly behind Keisha, and she had to twist around in her chair to see him. “I’d like to apologize. Forget what I just said. Why don’t you carry on, let me hear some more about your vision.”

“Mr. Garfield, I’m not sure-”

“No, no, please, go on.”

Keisha put her purse back down on the carpet and rested her hands by her thighs on the seat cushion. “Would you like me start again with the ice, or move on to something else?”

“Why don’t you just say whatever comes into your head.”

Keisha had a bad feeling. She’d never dealt with anyone like this before. Garfield was all over the map. At one point, he’d lost interest in what she had to say, then wanted her to leave, and now he seemed to be having a change of heart, asking her to tell him more.

He didn’t care what she had to say, but he didn’t want her to leave.

Something was very wrong here. She thought she had it figured out.

It’s him. He did it.

It explained everything. Keisha wanted to kick herself for not realizing it sooner. She’d been at this long enough, of course, to know that when a wife was murdered-or went missing-the husband was always a prime suspect. It wasn’t very often people were killed by strangers. They were killed by people they knew. Wives were killed by husbands. Husbands were killed by wives.

The man had moved away from the window, and was taking a route behind Keisha’s chair. She was going to have to turn around to keep her eye on him.

“On second thought, sure, tell me about the ice.”

What threw her off was the televised news conference. She’d figured, first of all, that if the police strongly suspected that Garfield had offed his wife, they’d never have let him go before the cameras. Would they? She had to admit, he was good. Those tears looked real. The way he took his pregnant daughter into his arms to comfort her, that was pretty darn convincing, too.

Not that it had never occurred to Keisha that the people she preyed upon could be something other than innocent. Guilty people often made the best targets. They could be so eager to prove they were as much in the dark as everyone else that they leapt at the chance to pay to hear what she had to say.

Telling themselves, I look so innocent. A real murderer would never pay a psychic for help, right?

Maybe that explained why Garfield, at first, had agreed to listen to her. But something had happened during their conversation. The ground had shifted. He’d grown increasingly anxious. Had she actually hit on something? By accident?

Was it when she said his wife was cold? When she said something about the car being off the road? Had those comments been close enough to the truth to make Garfield think she actually knew what had happened?

It was time to bail. Maybe-and she couldn’t believe she was even thinking of this-even give him back his money. Say something like, “You know what? Whatever vision I may have had, it’s gone. I’m not picking up anything. The signals have faded. The flashes, they’re over. So I think the best thing to do would be for me to return your money and I’ll just be on my-”

But just then, a flash of pink before her eyes. Not a vision this time, though. It was the sash, from the robe.

And now Garfield was looping it around her neck and drawing it tight.