“Just that he had teeth.”
“I guess that must have been what she noticed. Melissa. She must have been frightened of him because of the teeth.”
“Did he bite her? Because if he did—”
“No,” she said sharply. “Or I don’t know, perhaps he did, but it was the appearance of the teeth that frightened her. He had bad teeth.”
“Bad teeth?”
“Crooked, discolored, broken. They must have made a considerable impression on her.”
“Jesus,” he said, and into the mouthpiece he said, “You still there? What was the name of that son of a bitch, did some handyman work for the kid’s mother? Henrich, Heinrich, something like that? Looked like a dentist’s worst nightmare? Yeah, well, pick him up again.”
He hung up the phone. “We questioned him,” he said, “and we let him go. Big gangly overgrown kid, God made him as ugly as he could and then hit him in the mouth with a shovel. This time I think I’ll talk to him myself. Ms. Belgrave? You all right?”
“Just exhausted, all of a sudden,” she said. “I haven’t been sleeping well these past few nights. And what we just did, it takes a lot out of you.”
“I can imagine.”
“But I’ll be all right,” she assured him. And, getting to her feet, she realized she wouldn’t be needing any more aspirin. The headache was gone.
The handyman, whose name turned out to be Walter Hendrick, broke down under questioning and admitted the abduction and murder of Melissa Sporran. Sylvia saw his picture on television but turned off the set, unable to look at him. His mouth was closed, you couldn’t see his teeth, but even so she couldn’t bear the sight of him.
The phone rang, and it was a client she hadn’t seen in months, calling to book a session. She made a note in her appointment calendar and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She was finishing the tea and trying to decide if she wanted another when the phone rang again.
It was a new client, a Mrs. Huggins, eager to schedule a reading as soon as possible. Sylvia asked the usual questions and made sure she got the woman’s date of birth right. Astrology wasn’t her main focus, but it never hurt to have that data in hand before a client’s first visit. It made it easier, often, to get a grasp on the personality.
“And who told you about me?” she asked, almost as an afterthought. Business always came through referrals, a satisfied client told a friend or relative or co-worker, and she liked to know who was saying good things about her.
“Now who was it?” the woman wondered. “I’ve been meaning to call for such a long time, and I can’t think who it was that originally told me about you.”
She let it go at that. But, hanging up, she realized the woman had just lied to her. That was not exactly unheard of, although it was annoying when they lied about their date of birth, shaving a few years off their age and unwittingly providing her with an erroneous astrological profile in the process. But this woman had found something wholly unique to lie about, and she wondered why.
Within the hour the phone rang again, another old client of whom she’d lost track. “I’ll bet you’re booked solid,” the woman said. “I just hope you can fit me in.”
“Are you being ironic?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Because you know it’s a rare day when I see more than two people, and there are days when I don’t see anyone at all.”
“I don’t know how many people you see,” the woman said. “I do know that it’s always been easy to get an appointment with you at short notice, but I imagine that’s all changed now, hasn’t it?”
“Why would it...”
“Now that you’re famous.”
Famous.
Of course she wasn’t, not really. Someone did call her from Florida, wanting an interview for a national tabloid, and there was a certain amount of attention in the local press, and on area radio stations. But she was a quiet, retiring woman, hardly striking in appearance and decidedly undramatic in her responses. Her personal history was not interesting in and of itself, nor was she inclined to go into it. Her lifestyle was hardly colorful.
Had it been otherwise, she might have caught a wave of publicity and been nationally famous for her statutory fifteen minutes, reading Joey Buttafuoco’s palm on Hard Copy, sharing herbal weight-loss secrets with Oprah.
Instead she had her picture in the local paper, seated in her garden. (She wouldn’t allow them to photograph her in her studio, among the candles and crystals.) And that was enough to get her plenty of attention, not all of which she welcomed. No one actually crept across her lawn to stare in her window, but cars did slow or even stop in front of her house, and one man got out of his car and took pictures.
She got more attention than usual when she left the house, too. People who knew her congratulated her, hoping to hear a little more about the case and the manner in which she’d solved it. Strangers recognized her — on the street, in the supermarket. While their interest was not intrusive, she was uncomfortably aware of it.
But the biggest change, really, was in the number of people who suddenly found themselves in need of her services. She was bothered at first by the thought that they were coming to her for the wrong reason, and she wondered if she should refuse to accommodate such curiosity seekers. She meditated on the question, and the answer that came to her was that she was unequipped to judge the motivation of those who sought her out. How could she tell the real reason that brought some troubled soul to her door? And how could she determine, irrespective of motivation, what help she might be able to provide?
She decided that she ought to see everyone. If she found herself personally uncomfortable with a client’s energy, then she wouldn’t see that person anymore. That had been her policy all along. But she wouldn’t prejudge any of them, wouldn’t screen them in advance.
“But it’s impossible to fit everyone in,” she told Claire Warburton. “I’m just lucky I got a last-minute cancellation or I wouldn’t have been able to schedule you until the end of next week.”
“How does it feel to be an overnight success after all these years?”
“Is that what I am? A success? Sometimes I think I liked it better when I was a failure. No, I don’t mean that, but no more do I like being booked as heavily as I am, I’ll tell you that. The work is exhausting. I’m seeing four people a day, and yesterday I saw five, which I’ll never do again. It drains you.”
“I can imagine.”
“But the gentleman was so persistent, and I thought, well, I do have the time. But by the time the day was over...”
“You were exhausted.”
“I certainly was. And I hate to book appointments weeks in advance, or to refuse to book them at all. It bothers me to turn anyone away, because how do I know that I’m not turning away someone in genuine need? For years I had less business than I would have preferred, and now I have too much, and I swear I don’t know what to do about it.” She frowned. “And when I meditate on it, I don’t get anywhere at all.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Claire said. “You don’t need to look in a crystal for this one. Just look at a balance sheet.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sylvia,” Claire said, “raise your damn rates.”
“My rates?”
“For years you’ve been seeing a handful of people a week and charging them twenty-five dollars each, and wondering why you’re poor as a churchmouse. Raise your rates and you’ll increase your income to a decent level — and you’ll keep yourself from being overbooked. The people who really need you will pay the higher price, and the curiosity seekers will think twice.”