“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?”