Three O'Clock Séance: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 3) (7 page)

“Benjamin.”

“Called …?”

“Ben.”

“Did Ben love you, Rebecca?”

“Yes, but he was always working so I didn’t see him very often.”

“Tell me how he died?”

“His heart. I don’t like to think about him. I couldn’t bear it when he died.”

“Tell me more about—”

“No!” Her breath caught.

“What?” he asked. “Rebecca?”

“There. In the mirror!” She stood and so did he. He let go of her hands as he spun around to look in the mirror over the sideboard behind him.

Rebecca looked around. She found herself standing, facing a mirror. Sandy, too, was looking at it, his face white, his eyes frightened. She glanced down at the candle. It was considerably lower than when she last remembered looking at it. “What happened?” she asked.

He spun towards her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry! Did I fall asleep? Why are we standing here?”

“I believe you nodded off, and then had a nightmare. You suddenly stood up. So much for my charm,” he said with a small laugh. “Time to head back to the city, I’d say. But now that you’ve seen all this, please tell me you’ll come to a séance at my office tomorrow night. I promise you, you will not fall asleep.”

Rebecca felt strange. Had she really fallen asleep so easily? That wasn’t like her. He mentioned a nightmare, but a person usually remembers nightmares, and she remembered nothing. She looked around and a felt a sudden chill, the sort her mother used to say meant someone was walking over your grave.

“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she said.

He chuckled nervously. “Probably too much sea air. You may have caught a chill. Anyway, yesterday you asked about the Sandoristas,” he said. “Well, the séance will be an opportunity to meet some of them. Say you’ll attend. You’ll be my guest.”

Sandoristas … yes, of course. “I’ll be there,” she said.

“One more thing. Do you”—he swallowed hard—“do you now see anything in the kitchen, or perhaps in the mirror?”

“In the mirror?” Whatever was he talking about she wondered. Yet, as she looked at it, she felt that, if she could take a cloth and rub the mirror hard—as if cleaning a window—she might clear the way through the mirror and see …

“No,” she said quickly. “I see nothing at all.”

o0o

Richie finally got away from Claire Baxter, and once in his car, tried to reach Rebecca by phone. She didn’t answer, which wasn’t unusual when she was working. He drove to Homicide. Her SUV was in the parking lot so he went up to see her. Calderon and Benson were there working a murder-suicide. From them, he learned Rebecca had actually left work early that day.

That was a puzzle. She never left early.

More of a puzzle was her SUV—leaving it meant someone had picked her up there at work. But who?

He tried again to reach her by phone. Same lousy results.

Some months back when he first met her and thought she’d be an interesting date, she often ignored his calls. He couldn’t say he blamed her. So, he got over it. Mostly, he got over
her.
Or so he thought. But then, things got complicated.

He called a guy he knew in the SFPD’s Civic Center precinct where Rebecca’s latest boyfriend worked, and asked if Ray Torres was on the job that night. He learned Torres was cruising around in his patrol car at that very moment, his partner by his side.

For some reason, her dating Torres didn’t bother him—or, not a whole lot, at least. But the thought of her with that psychic …

Could she be with Geller again tonight? Was she getting to like him? Or maybe feeling something even more serious?

CHAPTER TEN

In Homicide the next morning, Rebecca was surprised to learn Richie had shown up the prior evening looking for her. Since he left no message, she assumed he must have wanted an update on her investigation. She had nothing to tell him, and no time for him today, in any case. She would be spending a good chunk of the day in court waiting to testify. She was almost glad of that because, when she did see Richie-the-fixer, she had questions for him which could lead to some unpleasant answers.

When she got back to her desk in late afternoon, she found a half dozen messages from Agent Seymour. All he wanted was to know if she’d contacted Richie and if she’d learned anything about Claire Baxter. She told him she’d get back to him if or when either happened.

By the time evening came, she was almost glad to spend it watching Sandy conduct a séance. At least the dead weren’t “fixers” hanging around her office uninvited, or snoops calling her phone multiple times.

She headed for Sandy’s offices. His assistant, Lucian, met her at the door and led her into the large room she had noticed two days earlier. It was now a very different space. The sofa and lamps had been moved to the walls, and center stage was a large round table. The room was lit only by candlelight, and the drapes had been shut so no glaring city lights shone in.

She thought she would be early for the séance, but a number of people were already present. She walked in and looked around, but didn’t see Sandy anywhere. Lucian, too, had disappeared. Back to man the door, she supposed. Three women and two men were in the room. She was the youngest by a good thirty years, she suspected, but they looked like a well-heeled group, with expensive albeit casual clothes, shoes, and stylish jewelry. At the same time, they all looked a bit wide eyed and strained, as if waiting or hoping for something.

“Hello,” the oldest fellow walked up to her. “You must be a newcomer. I’d have noticed you before, that’s for sure.” He winked. “Donald Luff’s the name. Some like to call me ‘the Luff Bug.’”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or if he was actually being serious. He looked to be in his seventies, about 5’7” or so, and wiry, wearing a suit with a pocket handkerchief that matched his tie.

“Rebecca Mayfield,” she said, “and I am new. Have you been coming here long?”

He explained that he started attending séances a few years earlier because he missed his wife, and then quickly learned that he had an ability to conjure spirits. He had been a computer mainframe programmer “in his youth,” and although he switched over to programming PCs, he simply didn’t enjoy it the way he had the big boxes. Now, as a Sandorista, he liked to say he went “from high-tech to no-tech.”

“So you’re a Sandorista,” she said, doing her best to sound impressed. What luck, she thought, to have found one so easily. “I’ve heard of them.”

Donald Luff beamed. “Yes, I am. There are four of us here tonight, in fact. Myself, Candace Carter, and Henry and Marta Highfield—the couple over by the wine. All of us love coming, and do so as often as allowed.”

“Allowed?” Rebecca asked.

“Sandy only has room for so many people at a séance. They can’t be too large, you know. So you have to apply, and then he makes his selection, attempting to have a mix of men and women, experienced and newcomers, and so on. Since there aren’t that many men involved, I’m able to attend pretty often, same as Henry Highfield. For me, it’s also a nice way to meet some pretty neat gals, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled.

She really couldn’t take much more of this character. “I’d love to meet the Highfields,” she said.

“I’ll introduce you.” The eager beaver took her arm, led her across the room, and made introductions.

She quickly learned that Marta and Henry Highfield had been followers of Sandor Geller ever since attending one of his events when they were vacationing in Denver, some fifteen years earlier. They were in their sixties and had been married for over thirty years, having spent many of those years studying psychics and mediums. Henry, with thick white hair, a rangy build, and dark tan, had taught high school math and science before retiring, and Marta had been a paralegal at a law firm. Marta was still attractive with dyed blond hair, and what was probably a once voluptuous figure that had now thickened with age. The couple confessed to Rebecca that they had “dabbled” with becoming mediums themselves, but found it too scary when they had felt something demonic coming closer to them. After that, they decided to let Sandy be their go-between with “the other side.”

Rebecca was finding this almost too easy. Usually, it was like pulling teeth to get people she came into contact with to talk about themselves and their interests. These people all but spewed out their stories for her. Almost as if concentrating so much on the dead made them value their time with someone alive more than most people did.

The thought jarred her. It was, she hated to admit it, rather like the life of a homicide detective. She pushed aside the thought. “So, tell me,” she said to Marta, “do you come to these séances very often?”

“Absolutely!” Marta exclaimed. “We were so thrilled when Sandy moved his home and offices to San Francisco some five years earlier, we could scarcely stand it. Sandy’s wonderful, and because we’ve followed him for so long, he only charges us the one participant price, although the two of us attend. Isn’t that wonderful and generous of him?”

Rebecca thought quickly. “I’m here as a guest tonight. If I did come on my own, could you tell me the cost to take part in a séance?”

“It’s five hundred dollars,” Henry said. “And worth every penny. It’s not often you get a vision of the life to come. Most people sit around and play the agnostic, saying they don’t know if there’s life after death. Or they want proof. Well, it’s right here. All the proof they could want. They’re just too damned stupid or lazy to come and see for themselves.”

“Now, Henry,” Marta said with a smile, “don’t be harsh. Not everyone is open to reality.”

Rebecca was struck momentarily speechless by not only the amount of money these people were paying for a couple of hours with Sandy, but that they were so completely convinced what happened at the séances was real. She noticed that Donald Luff had left her side and was now talking to two woman who had entered after she had. One of them appeared quite young and wore jeans and a leather jacket, while the other looked middle-aged with graying hair and glasses.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to introduce myself to the other Sandorista here,” Rebecca said to Henry and Marta. “I really enjoy talking to people who have some experience with all this. It was nice meeting you.”

“We’ll talk again, I’m sure,” Marta said.

Rebecca found Candace Carter, who stood alone after wandering over to a trash bin to throw away her plastic water glass. Candace appeared to be another strong, spry septuagenarian. Her short hair was dyed brown, her make-up light, and she wore a bright green pants suit.

“Excuse me,” Rebecca said, then introduced herself as a person interested in learning more about the afterlife.

“You’ve come to the right place.” Candace smiled pleasantly at her, and then looked over the room. “I think you’ll enjoy it here. I do. It’s my way of being around people I like.”

“The Sandoristas?” Rebecca asked.

“Hell, no.” She chuckled. “I mean my friends who have died.”

Rebecca gaped.

“I hardly knew what to do with myself after I retired,” Candace began. She had taught second graders until she was forced to retire at age 70. She confessed that before she found Sandy and the Sandoristas, she had been lost.

“Rebecca, I’m so glad you decided to join us,” a familiar male voice said.

Rebecca turned to see Sandy approach. As opposed to the older group who had dressed up a bit, he wore jeans and a bulky off-white fisherman’s knit sweater. He greeted Candace quickly, then faced Rebecca again. “You seem to be making friends.”

“Yes. I’m meeting very interesting and nice people,” she said with a smile at Candace who all but had stars in her eyes as she looked at Sandy. School girls swooning over pop idols had nothing on her.

“Excellent! Well, now that I’m here, it’s time to get started,” Sandy said.

He began by having them all sit at the table. Rebecca found herself between Donald Luff and Marta Highfield. She noticed that the four Sandoristas present had automatically positioned themselves between the four newcomers.

“Before we start,” Sandy said, “I want to explain a couple of things to our new people. First, forget everything you’ve ever heard or seen on TV or in the movies about séances. They’re all crap.”

Everyone laughed.

“Here, we rely on science. Okay, I can feel you newcomers laughing again.” Sandy’s dimples deepening as he smiled and went around the table, catching each woman’s eye and holding it a moment, causing a spate of more nervous laughter. “Let me put you at ease by letting you in on a secret. Beginning in the 1970’s, the CIA spent billions of dollars studying psychic phenomena, which led to its Stargate project on psychic remote viewing. In it, people used their brain power to psychically view what someone else—perhaps on the other side of the world—was seeing at that very moment. And, here’s the secret: it worked. It wasn’t stopped until the 1990’s, not because it wasn’t producing results—FOIA requests have shown some very real results—but because politicians grew tired of being mocked by their constituents for throwing money away on ‘charlatans.’ But I know, just as the CIA does, and now you also know, this is
not
trickery.”

The Sandoristas nodded sagely. Donald Luff caught Rebecca’s eye and winked. She ignored the old fart. He really thought he was something.

“So, you may be thinking, what is it? Those of us in what some call the ‘New Age’ understand that we all have a Spirit Self, and that self is aided through life by our Spirit Guide. When you die, that connection does not end, which means all of us have the ability to communicate psychically. We can contact each other through channeling, remote viewing and other such means, or with the dead through Spirit Guides.

“The only danger,” he continued, “is for the medium. We mediums know that when we open ourselves up to The Other, we are open. Period. That means anything can enter—
anything
. And when you’ve experienced what I have, you know this is dangerous. That’s why anyone who is a serious psychic does not, I repeat,
does not
encourage a layman who hasn’t had a lot of training to try to do this on her own.”

Of course not, Rebecca thought. If he or she succeeded, Sandy wouldn’t get paid. This was getting tiresome, and she was sure wasn’t any help in determining what might have happened to Neda Fourman and Betty Faroni.

“Are you ready to begin?”

Everyone murmured “yes.” He asked them to hold hands, and to rest their hands on the tabletop. “I will now ask my assistant to blow out all candles except the one on the table.”

Rebecca was startled when a man, dressed all in black, stepped out from the shadows with a candle snuffer. It was his assistant, Lucian.

Donald Luff squeezed her hand and then rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. She wasn’t amused, and simply tightened her hand on his. A lot. His eyes widened, and then his mouth opened. She pretty much figured how much pressure to put on before he’d let out a yelp, and she eased up before that point. He stared at her, red-faced, and with a little tear in the corner of one eye.

She focused on Sandy.

“For the newcomers,” Sandy said, “my friend, Lucian, will sit quietly in the corner and be ready to assist if any of you faints or feels as if a spirit is trying to take over your body or your mind. These things have happened, so it is always wise to have an observer who can step in. Sometimes you might be so completely overwhelmed by a spirit that you don’t even know you’re in trouble. Lucian will be watching for those circumstances as well.”

Rebecca imagined the other newcomers would be frightened by such words, and she was right. It put into their heads the possibility they would do and say things they normally wouldn’t. The power of suggestion, she imagined, could create some interesting results.

The room was now almost completely dark except for the candle on the table. Its shape was low and squat, and as Sandy pulled it closer to him, its light reflected upward on his face making him look positively demonic. Once again, Rebecca found herself on the verge of snorting with derision. She and her sister had done the same thing with candles when they were kids, seeing who would make the scariest “demon.” 

“Now,” Sandy said, “I need all of you to focus your thoughts on what we are about to do.”

He began with long breaths in and out, getting everyone to breathe in unison. Next, he went to the typical calming exercises of “You’re getting sleepy” and “Your head is getting heavy.” Instead of concentrating on what he was saying, Rebecca paid more attention on the others, keeping her eyes open and watching. She couldn’t help but wonder why she’d fallen asleep so easily the night before. It wasn’t like her to be such a limp noodle. She had seen this sort of thing in connection with hypnosis, but she wasn’t a person who could be hypnotized in any way, shape or form. She would never give any other person that much power over her.

Sandy began a call for spirits. He spoke in little more than a whisper, calm, and inviting. “Come to us, spirit. Talk with us. We’re here because we want to communicate with you. We want to know you, and to let you know you are not forgotten.”