Never Saw It Coming: (An eSpecial from New American Library) (15 page)

Twenty-five

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Keisha said to Kirk, drawing him into the kitchen while Gail Beaudry stayed in the living room.

“Are you crazy?” she whispered to him once they were out of earshot.

“It’s five grand,” he said. “Just don’t go into the house and go all weird and say holy shit, I think
I
did it.”

“I can’t go into that house. Not again.”

“Sure you can,” he said. “Might as well make something out of this fucked-up day.” Kirk didn’t know she’d actually gotten some cash out of Garfield before things went off the rails. But even if he did, he’d still want her to go after this. Five thousand was a lot of money.

“It’s wrong,” Keisha said. “You don’t see something wrong, taking this woman’s money to help her figure out who killed her brother? You don’t see something just a bit off with that?”

Kirk shrugged. “So? Like you’ve never faked this stuff before?”

“I can’t do this. I—”

“Is everything okay?” Gail asked. She was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Yes,” Kirk said. “Keisha was just saying, she hates to ask you at a time like this, but she needs her fee up front, in cash.”

Gail’s eyes popped for a second, but she said, “We can stop at the bank on the way to my brother’s house. Would that be okay?”

“That’d be fine,” Kirk said.

Keisha struggled to focus. She said to Gail, “Why don’t you wait in the car and I’ll be right out.”

Once the door was closed, Kirk said, “This lady has to be loaded. I bet you can get even more out of her. Where’s she get all the dough?”

Keisha shook her head, like this was not uppermost in her mind, but said, “Her husband’s in real estate and she inherited some fortune when her parents died. I don’t care if she’s married to Bill Gates, I’m not going to milk this beyond the five grand.”

Kirk gave her a disapproving look.

“And you,” she said, “have to go back and find out what happened to that bag.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.”

Keisha glanced at the wall clock. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be with her. You have to be back here for when Matthew gets home.”

“Why? He’s got his own key. Since when do I—”

“What if the police are here? I don’t want him coming home, finding a cop on the doorstep. He’ll be scared to death, thinking something has happened to me.”

Kirk sighed. “Fine, I’ll be here. But you’re really turning him into a momma’s boy.”

* * *

Keisha got in Gail Beaudry’s Jaguar. The woman talked non-stop all the way to her bank in downtown Milford, on the green.

“I don’t know why they have Melissa in custody or why they think she had anything to do with this. They say she confessed, but that’s ridiculous. Why would a girl kill her own mother? That’s absolutely unthinkable. I don’t understand how something like that could happen. Maybe if it were an accident, like if she’d backed into her with her car, didn’t know she was there, but to deliberately do it? That defies belief. I know that girl was a world of trouble to her mother, but deep down she loved her very much. I just know that.”

Keisha wondered whether she was going to be sick again. Any second now, she might have to ask Gail to pull to the side of the road.

Since killing Garfield, she’d devoted all of her energy to covering her tracks. Going back for the earring, disposing of her clothes (a problem she hoped would soon be resolved), standing in the shower until the water ran cold, getting Kirk to clean her car. And after an initial panic about her business card, she’d come up with a creative solution involving Gail that she believed could withstand scrutiny.

But having made all these efforts to distance herself from the event, here she was, sitting in this car, heading back to the crime scene.

“I’ll just bet the police put Melissa in a room and browbeat her with questions and that was how they made her confess to something she never did,” Gail continued. “That’s what the police do. We think that kind of thing only happens in Russia or China or Latin American countries, but it happens right here in the good ol’ USA, don’t you kid yourself. The police just want to close cases. It doesn’t matter to them whether they’ve got the right person or not. And I don’t even know what happened to Ellie. If they’re charging Melissa, what is it exactly they think she did to her mother? And what does it have to do with Wendell. I’m telling you—”

“Please stop,” Keisha said.

“What?”

“I . . . I need to concentrate.”

“Of course, of course you do. I’m so sorry. Here we are anyway. I’ll go in and get your money.” Gail left the motor running as she got out of the car and went into the bank.

Take the car and run, Keisha thought. Or leave the car, but still run.

But where would she go? How far could she get? How long would it take for the police to find her? And if she wasn’t already a suspect, wouldn’t running change that? And how could she even think of leaving Matthew behind?

She’d never do that. Keisha was a lot of things—and she knew it—but she was not the kind of mother who’d abandon her child.

I could take him with me.

Sure, that was a plan. Go on the run with a kid. Keisha told herself to stop it. She was in this up to her eyeballs now, and she was going to have to see how things played out.

Gail returned in five minutes, clutching a plain white banking envelope, the kind used for deposits at the ATMs. She got in the car and handed the envelope to Keisha.

“There you go,” she said, doing up her seat belt. “Good thing I have my own account. Jerry would have an absolute heart attack if he knew I was doing this.”

“Thank you,” Keisha said, putting the envelope into her purse. She’d had to grab one of her other ones as she was leaving, and toss her wallet into it.

“You don’t want to count it?”

“I trust you,” Keisha said.

That made Gail Beaudry smile. She reached over and touched Keisha’s arm. “I trust you, too. I want to thank you for helping me.”

Keisha couldn’t look at her.

“Let’s go over to Wendell’s house now and see if any of the police there will tell us what’s going on. Maybe, as we get close, you’ll start picking up some signals or something,” Gail said.

* * *

They could see police cars as soon as Gail turned onto the street. Cruisers had been used to block off the street in both directions about a hundred feet each side of the house. Gail pulled the Jag over to the shoulder and said, “Watch your step. It looks slippery here.”

They came around the front of the car and approached the house together. As they started walking up the driveway, a female uniformed officer came down to meet them.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Gail said, “I’m Mrs. Beaudry, and this is my associate. We’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge here. Is that you?”

“No, ma’am. What’s your interest here?”

“This is my brother’s house. Wendell Garfield. The man who was killed.”

The officer nodded. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll see what I can do.” Keisha watched her go into the house and close the door.

Don’t want to go in there.

Gail stood with her arms crossed. After a couple of minutes, she said, “This is what they do. They keep you waiting to wear you down. It’s all part of the game they play.”

Keisha thought that if anyone was playing a game, it was herself.

The officer came back out of the house and told them she had reached the detective in charge of the investigation, and she’d be coming by shortly.

“Would that be that black woman?” Gail asked. “Wedmore?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, but can we wait in the house, where it’s warmer?”

“I’m sorry, no, you can’t come in. Not without Detective Wedmore’s approval.”

“We’ll be in the car, then,” Gail said, and the two of them turned to start walking back to it. They were just about to open the doors when an unmarked car pulled up and Rona Wedmore got out.

She recognized the dead man’s sister from their meeting at the station. “Hello, Mrs. Beaudry.”

“I want some answers,” Gail said. “I want some answers right now.”

Wedmore cast an eye at Keisha, then looked back at Gail. “What would you like to know?”

“What happened to my brother?”

Wedmore’s gaze turned back to Keisha. “Who are you?”

“I’m Keisha Ceylon.”

The corners of the detective’s mouth turned up. “I was just talking to someone who knows you.”

Twenty-six

“Excuse me?” Keisha said.

“Terry Archer,” Wedmore said, giving Keisha a knowing look. “You offered to help him and his wife a few years back.”

“I remember,” Keisha said. “If Mr. Archer says he knows me, that’s not true. We met twice, very briefly.”

“Fair enough. But you certainly made an impression.”

Don’t be evasive, Keisha thought. Don’t be defensive. Tackle this head on. “I’m sure. I offered to help him and his wife when they were having their troubles and they chose not to engage me. Mr. Archer, in particular, was very skeptical of my gifts. All I wanted to do was help them.”

Wedmore nodded. Before she could reply, Gail said, “I’ve engaged Ms. Ceylon to help
me
. Clearly you already know her, but if you’re thinking she’s here to help you, she’s not. She’s representing my interests. All you people care about is making sure someone gets charged, whether it’s the right person or not. Do you know who did this to my brother?”

“We’re in the early stages of the investigation,” Wedmore said patiently.

“Are you still holding Melissa?”

“We are.”

“That’s ridiculous. You
have
to release her. Imagine what she’s going through. Losing her mother, and then her father, all within a few days. And suggesting she confessed! What on earth would she confess to? And where
is
Ellie? What’s happened to her body? Are you telling me Melissa was able to make her mother’s body disappear?”

Tiredly, Wedmore said, “We can set up a meeting between you and Melissa. From what I can see, you’re the only family she has left. She waived her right to legal representation, but you should get her to rethink that, so she gets the best advice possible as this moves forward. There may be extenuating circumstances that might have an impact on sentencing. You might want—”

“Good heavens, what on earth did she tell you?”

Wedmore sighed. “Melissa stabbed her mother, called her father, and he helped her cover it up. They drove the car out onto a lake and waited for it to go through the ice.”

Wow, Keisha thought. Maybe I really can do this.

Gail was speechless, so Wedmore added, “What we’re trying to figure out now is what kind of connection there may be between Ellie’s death, and what happened to your brother.”

Gail managed to ask, “Is my brother’s body still in the house?”

“No. The coroner is conducting a post-mortem.”

“Ms. Ceylon wants to go inside.”

“Excuse me?” said Wedmore.

“No,” Keisha protested. “That’s not nece—”

“She needs to go inside and see what she can feel,” Gail said. She looked at Keisha and said, “I’m betting the sooner you get in, the better, right? The vibrations, whatever it is you feel, will still be fresh?”

“It may already be too late,” Keisha said.

Gail took hold of Keisha’s arm and looked imploringly at her. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I can’t do it. I can’t go in there. I want you to be my eyes. I want you to see where it happened. Won’t that help you? Won’t that help you visualize, to connect, to feel what happened?”

Keisha said, “If you could just find something of your brother’s for me. Maybe you have a letter at home from him.”

Gail continued to squeeze her arm. “I really need you to do this.” She turned to Wedmore and pleaded, “Will you allow her to see where it happened?”

Wedmore thought for a moment. “Ordinarily, I’d say no, but I think maybe it’d be a good idea for Ms. Ceylon to come in and have a look-see.”

Keisha was taken aback. She couldn’t see Wedmore playing along with this unless there was something in it for her. “I totally understand if you’d rather I stayed out here and—”

“Come on,” said Wedmore. “Mrs. Beaudry, why don’t you wait in your car and stay warm while we do this?”

“All right,” she said, as Wedmore put her hand gently on Keisha’s back and led her toward the house.

She took her hand away as they continued walking. “How did you and Mrs. Beaudry connect?”

“She’s a client of mine,” Keisha said. “She’s consulted me for a few years now.”

“What kind of consulting?”

“You’d have to ask her that.”

“Oh. Psychic–client privilege?”

Keisha gave Wedmore a look. “That’s why I don’t come to the police when I have information about a crime.”

“Information? What do you mean by information?”

“Things come to me, Detective. Visions, images, likes pieces of a puzzle. But I don’t expect you to believe me any more than the Archers did.”

“When we go into the house, you’re not to touch anything. And we’re just going to step in. You can see the living room from the front door.”

“Is that where it happened?” Keisha asked.

Wedmore looked at her and smiled. “Yes, that’s where it happened.” The officer Keisha and Gail had spoken to earlier was guarding the front door, and stepped aside to let them through.

Keisha was rehearsing in her head how she’d act surprised. Turned out she didn’t need to rehearse at all.

What she saw as she looked into the living room horrified her.

A massive puddle of dark red had saturated the broadloom. It was concentrated in one area, but there were scattered splotches of red between where the body had been and the door.

“Dear God,” Keisha said, her eyes fixed on the scene for several seconds before she turned away. “That’s horrible.”

“Yes,” said Wedmore. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Can we go now?”

“Let’s just hang in for a second. Give your spidey senses a chance to pick something up, see who did it.”

Keisha shot her a look, and turned away from the living room. “It’s not like that. I can’t just say, oh, it was a man, six two, heavyset, with a thick beard and a dark coat, driving a red Mustang, license plate 459J87.”

“Is that a vision that just came to you?”

“No! I’m trying to make a point.”

“Okay, okay,” said Wedmore. “Maybe it would help, though, if you looked into the room one more time. There’s some things I could point out to you.”

“Like what?”

“Pull yourself together and have a look.”

Keisha did as she was told, steeled herself, and turned around. “What things?”

“You see the pink robe over there?”

“Yes.”

“And if you look there, you’ll see the sash from the robe. Also pink.”

“Okay.”

“So why isn’t the sash in the loops of the robe, do you think?”

Keisha resisted an urge to touch her neck. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“No. But I’ve an idea. I’m wondering if there was an attempted strangulation.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to think it through. You see, I don’t think anyone came here intending to kill Mr. Garfield. I mean, if you were coming here to kill him, you’d bring along something other than a knitting needle, don’t you think?”

“A knitting needle?” Keisha said. “He was killed with a knitting needle?”

Wedmore nodded. “That’s right. If you were coming here intending to kill him, you’d bring a gun, or a knife, even a baseball bat. Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Keisha said.

“To kill him with a knitting needle, that tells me that the perpetrator acted impulsively, that the needle was the closest thing at hand.”

“You may be right, I honestly have no idea. Do I have to keep looking?”

Wedmore ignored the question. “Even then, if you were going to act, like I said, impulsively, wouldn’t you be more likely to just hit him? Or grab something in the room that’s heavy and clunk him over the head with that? Like a lamp, or an ashtray, maybe, although I don’t think Mr. Garfield smoked.”

“Really, I have no idea.”

“To my way of thinking, the knitting needle is an act of desperation. A last-ditch effort or attempt at something. Maybe the only thing that the person who did this could reach. I’m even thinking it might have been a defensive move.”

“Defensive?” Keisha asked.

“Now we’re back to the sash. Suppose Mr. Garfield was strangling someone with that, and that someone grabbed the needle to try to save himself.”

“You know it was a man?” Keisha asked.

“I’m just saying,” Wedmore said. “I think it could as easily have been a woman.”

Keisha swallowed but said nothing.

“Is that how it happened?” Wedmore asked.

“I don’t know,” Keisha said. “I’m not picking up anything like that.”

“No, no,” Wedmore said. “I don’t mean in a vision. Is that how it happened, to you?”

“What?”

“Did he try to strangle you, Ms. Ceylon? When you came here to offer your services? Did he think you knew what had happened?”

Keisha stared, dumbfounded, at Wedmore. “What?”

“I was wondering if that’s how it played out,” the detective said innocently.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never been here before.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I am.”

“Because we found your card. Tucked right into Mr. Garfield’s shirt pocket. Your card, Ms. Ceylon. With your name on it, your phone number and website. ‘Finder of Lost Souls,’ it said on it.”

“Really? He had my card?”

“How do you explain that?”

“Well, I mean, quite easily, actually.”

Wedmore raised her eyebrows. “Go ahead.”

“I’ve provided business cards in the past to Gail, to Mrs. Beaudry. She must have given one to her brother. You should ask her about it.”

“I will.”

“And when he started wondering whether you were ever going to find his wife, he went looking for that card and was probably going to give me a call.”

“You were paying attention outside, weren’t you?” Wedmore asked.

“About what?”

“Wendell Garfield knew what had happened to his wife. He helped get rid of her body. He hardly needed to engage the services of a psychic to find her.”

“It makes about as much sense to call me as to call a press conference,” Keisha shot back.

Wedmore smiled. “Yes, but that was a performance. A public demonstration to make us think he and his daughter were in the dark about what happened to Ellie Garfield. But one of your cards, tucked into his shirt? Who was he trying to impress with that?”

Keisha said nothing.

“You know what I think?” Wedmore said. “I think you came here and tried the same scam you tried with the Archers. Asked Garfield for money in exchange for information you really didn’t have. It’s your thing. It’s what you do. And then something went wrong. I don’t know what, exactly. But he ended up dead, and you got away.”

“That’s insane,” Keisha said, feeling as though her insides would let loose. “I can’t take any more of this. I’m leaving.”

She was turning for the door when Wedmore reached out and held her arm. “I’ve a card of my own I’d like to give you.” She placed it in Keisha’s palm. “You find yourself changing your mind, wanting to talk, you call me any time.”

“I think that’s unlikely,” Keisha said, pulling her arm away and heading outside, but tucking the card into her coat pocket.

She was a few steps down the walk when Wedmore called to her. “That high collar you’re wearing, it’s the perfect thing when it’s cold like this, isn’t it?”