Cheney said slowly, “I don’t understand, Julia. Didn’t August Ransom claim he spoke to dead people?” Yes.
“Did the dead at least give him their names?”
“I can’t say, since his consultations were always private, and he never spoke to me about them, or to anyone else.”
“But you believe he spoke to the dead? Communicated with them, passed on messages to those grieving left behind?”
“He told me he’d spoken to Lincoln, and I believed him.”
She sounded so certain, so settled in her belief. He eyed her. He didn’t know what to think. He decided to leave what she’d said alone. She’d evidently bought into everything her husband had told her. He wasn’t going to make her defend him.
A horn sounded, and he focused on the road again. He finally saw the exit sign to Livermore. “I want to hear more about all this, but first, we’ve got about five minutes for you to tell me about Kathryn Golden.”
She said, “I think Bevlin’s wrong about Kathryn being in love with August. She’s too—together, I guess is the right word, too focused on what she is, to love someone like that. And besides, if she wanted him, why would she kill him? Why not me? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe when she approached him one last time and he turned her down, she was enraged, made plans to get even.”
“She always has lovely fingernails. I can’t see her doing anything to endanger them, much less garroting him. Okay, that was a bit snippy, but the fact remains no way does she have the strength to garrote anyone.”
“Okay, you’re probably right. So she could have hired someone. I’m getting the picture here that you simply never considered her any sort of threat, that you might even like her.”
“I suppose I do like her, and you’re right, I never saw her as a threat of any kind. August loved me, I knew that. He never gave me cause to doubt it.”
Cheney chewed that over for a moment, then asked, “Do you think she’s really psychic? Like August was?”
“August used to say that many people who thought they were psychic simply overflowed with intuition. With those people he really believed did have psychic gifts, he said he pictured two big beakers—one to measure their actual psychic ability, the other to measure their ambition for material gain. He saw their beakers filled accordingly when he made a decision about them. He said Kathryn’s psychic beaker was more than half full, but her ambition beaker flowed nearly to the top. So she stepped over the line sometimes. But he said she was so smooth and charismatic, such an expert at reading people, she could make anyone believe she was communicating with their dead Saint Bernard.”
When Cheney pulled onto Raleigh Drive, a street that speared up a barren hill where the houses were large and set wide apart, he paused a moment, looking around. “The psychic medium business appears to be good to Ms. Golden.”
“She’s practically a regular on daytime TV, you know, some of the talk shows. She even had her own show for a couple of years. She’s written a couple of books and both did fairly well, as Bevlin told you. I read The Soul’s Search. It was actually good. The fact is, Cheney, though I’ve never disliked her, I have gotten the impression she thinks I’m an opportunist, that I married August mainly for his money. I suppose she thinks August was taken in, dazzled by my youth and beauty.”
“Do I hear a whiff of sarcasm?”
“Well, yes. Youth and beauty, give me a break.” Cheney looked at her high cheekbones, the bruise fading, her creamy white skin, and her pale green eyes, ever so slightly tilted at the corners, her mouth with its light coating of pale peach lipstick. He wondered if Kathryn Golden had a point.
Julia was saying, “I don’t know of any scandals in her past, nothing like that. She’s always been a little aloof to me. She did love August, though not, I don’t think, in the physical sense. She admired him as much as everyone did.”
She added as they pulled into the driveway, “I don’t like it that we didn’t call her, to tell her we were coming.”
“We know she’s at home, that’s enough,” Cheney said as they walked up the flagstone path to the front door. There were flowers everywhere, in beds lining the walk, in flower boxes, and hanging in baskets from thick black chains, in wild spills and vibrant colors, scenting the dry air with jasmine and violet. “We might learn something by catching her off guard. It’s an old trick. Hey, the door’s open, just like Bevlin’s. What’s with psychics?”
Julia shoved the door open, called out, “Ms. Golden? Kathryn? It’s Julia Ransom.”
There was no answer.
Cheney called out this time.
Still no answer.
They walked into a windowless entrance hall, the marble tile such a dark green they looked almost black in the dim light. “Suck in some air,” Julia said.
Cheney sniffed. “It’s vanilla, too much vanilla.”
“It’s her trademark scent.”
Kathryn Golden appeared in the living-room doorway, framed and posing. She looked around forty-five and was dressed beautifully in a full-skirted long-sleeved black dress, her black hair in a stylish chignon. She wore open-toed three-inch heels and diamond studs in her ears. She looked ready to tango. TV appearance?
She arched an eyebrow. “Julia, whatever are you doing here? And who is this man?”
“This is Special Agent Cheney Stone, Kathryn. May we speak with you?”
“I’ve been watching the news. I hope you’re being careful. Yes now I recognize you, Agent Stone. You saved Julia’s life.”
Julia nodded. “Yes, he did. Agent Stone is continuing to keep me safe.”
They followed Kathryn Golden into the immense living room that stretched, Cheney saw, the entire length of the house. It was long and narrow, with thick burgundy drapes closed over the wall-to-wall windows set at both ends. The floors were darkly varnished, bare of rugs. He looked over at a huge dark-veined golden marble fireplace on the opposite wall that looked like it had never been used.
The room was starkly elegant, like a museum, until you realized all the furniture groupings in the long room were black woven rattan. The extreme contrast in styles wasn’t tacky, but rather oddly charming. There had to be a story behind this. Then he noticed the modern art covering one of the stark white walls, dark violent paintings, some of them of mouths that seemed to be screaming at him. It gave him the willies to look at them.
Suddenly Kathryn Golden stopped in her tracks, and didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe.
CHAPTER 33
“Ms. Golden? Are you all right?”
“Please be quiet. I’m having a vision. You and Julia—back away. Go sit down.”
Julia didn’t seem at all alarmed or find this particularly strange. She shushed him, pointed him to one of the long rattan sofas.
He watched Kathryn Golden kick off her high heels, sink to the floor, and assume the lotus position facing the fireplace, her black skirts billowing out around her. He guessed she knew better than to wear a tight skirt. He saw she had a nice French pedicure and perfect fingernails.
He opened his mouth but Julia shushed him again.
They sat silently as Kathryn Golden threw her head back, clenched her hands on her thighs and began to weave, left to right, right to left, and started to keen, an eerie sound that was vaguely ridiculous but nevertheless raised gooseflesh on his arms.
She began moving in a wide circle now. He heard her breathing heavily. He felt like arresting her for fraud, or maybe for trying to scare an officer of the law.
The weaving lessened, the keening became low, almost a whisper. Then, suddenly, it was over. She snapped awake, came to her feet in a single graceful motion and smoothed her skirts back down. She slipped her heels back onto her feet.