were long, razor sharp and as red as a gaping wound, flat on the table. The candle wax that had dripped onto the wood was damn near the same color as her nails. This pair was good. They were worth whatever they charged.
“Thank you for your presence,” she said. Her hair, what I could see of it under the hood, was jet-black and pulled away from her face; she wore a single, circular gold earring, the one overtly gypsylike touch. “You are Mr. Breckinbridge.”
Breckin
But Colonel Breckinridge did not correct her; it isn’t polite to correct a psychic.
“You are a police officer,” she said to me, smiling as sweetly as a shy schoolgirl.
“That’s right,” I said. Breckinbridge, Schmeckinbridge, if this babe said she was psychic, she was psychic by me.
“And your name?”
“Nathan Heller,” I said. Christ, she smelled good.
“Mr. Heller, will you take my hand?”
Is the Pope Catholic?
She joined hands with me, and squeezed. Yowsah.
“When my companion has induced my trance state,” she said, “please clasp hands with Mr. Breckinbridge. And Mr. Breckinbridge, please clasp hands with Martin. And Martin will take my hand, and the psychic chain will be established. Please do not break the psychic chain.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.
Marinelli slowly, pompously, removed the golden, jeweled cross from around his neck. Holding it by its chain, he began to slowly pass it before the great big beautiful brown peepers of his wife.
Wife, hell. She called him “companion,” and he introduced her as Sister Sarah Sivella, not Marinelli. If anything, they were common-law. My conscience was clear, thinking the thoughts I was thinking.
He was mumbling something; an incantation, something—it was barely audible. But she seemed to hear it. Her eyes traced the slow, sensual movement of the cross before her, and when Marinelli with his free hand snapped his fingers,
Then he clicked his fingers again and her eyelids rolled up the same way. Those eyes, deep brown and flecked with gold, were open wide in the stare of the dead. Her face seemed to lengthen; her expression was blankly sour. It spooked me. Breckinridge was similarly transfixed.
We both knew this was a bunch of bullshit; but the act was a good one, thanks to its fetching heroine, and we were caught up. We had all joined hands, now; in my right was the smooth delicate hand of the pretty medium, and in my left was Breckinridge’s big lawyer-soft paw.
“Who am I speaking to?” Marinelli asked.
“Ugh,” she said.
Ugh?
“Chief Yellow Feather—are you with us?”
She nodded. “Yellow Feather here.” Her voice was forced down into a male register. It sounded as ridiculous as you’re thinking.
I would’ve laughed, and on reflection did; but at that moment, I just went along with the ride. She smelled good, and I never heard a twenty-two-year-old dame with her nipples poking out of her shirt talk like an Indian before.
“Mr. Breckinbridge,” she continued, in the deep mock-male voice. What do you know? Chief Yellow Feather had the name wrong, too. “Spirits say kidnap note was left on windowsill in nursery.”
Breckinridge remained unruffled, when I glanced at him, but we both knew that this piece of information had not been released to the general public.
“Is this correct?” Marinelli asked Breckinridge.
“I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny that, sir,” the Colonel said, in a stiffly dignified manner that seemed about as silly, under the circumstances, as the voice of Chief Yellow Feather.
“Mr. Breckinbridge, you got note at your office today.”
“Note?” Breckinridge asked.
“Kidnap note.”
“No notes have been sent to my office.” He seemed relieved to be able to say that; it was, as far as I knew, the truth.
“All right,” said the girl huffily, in her big-chief voice. “Be at your office tomorrow. Nine in morning.”
“That’s pretty early.”
“Be at office!” The “chief” was firm.
“All right,” Breckinridge said, probably just to placate him. Her. Whoever.
Marinelli said, “Chief Yellow Feather—have you received any other spirit messages?”
“Yes. I see name.
“What name do you see?”
