Double Take

Cheney said, “If August Ransom is ready to check in, Mr. Tammerlane, perhaps he can tell you who killed him.”

Mr. Tammerlane raised dark intense eyes. “It isn’t like that, Agent Stone, isn’t like that at all. August doesn’t concern himself with the past, with what came before—”

“He doesn’t care that someone cut his life short? That the same person may be trying to kill his widow?”

Wallace said patiently, “Agent Stone, when a person has crossed over, all his past pains, past insults, all of it ceases to be important. Indeed, all of life’s difficulties cease to exist. However, the truth of it is that August doesn’t know who killed him. Whoever it was came at him from behind. He told me only that he heard movement behind him, but he didn’t have time to turn around. He’d been taking cocaine, a regrettable habit of his, but he said it helped him focus, made him understand things he couldn’t have otherwise, and it slowed his reflexes, flattened any fear he might have felt. August felt only a sudden awful sharpness in his throat, then immense cold. That was the end of it, and he crossed over and everything changed. He was in The After.

“But he is concerned about Julia. He loves her, has always loved her. He is here for her, not in this room with us, mind you, but close.”

“He doesn’t know who hired that man to kill me, Wallace?”

“No, my dear, he doesn’t know. Those who have crossed over do not become omniscient. They remain themselves.”

“But he was a psychic,” Cheney said. “Didn’t those abilities carry over to The After?”

“No, Agent Stone, they did not. He’s there, you see, no need for those abilities now.”

“Perhaps,” Cheney said, his eyebrow arched, “Dr. Ransom could put the word out, ask around with the other spirits, you know. Or maybe he could hang around a bit here, keep an eye on his wife, tell her when evil is closing in on her.”

“Evil, Agent Stone? I don’t know that I’d call it evil.”

“When someone wants to murder another person, what would you call it?”

Wallace shrugged. “Anger, rage, necessity, probably all those things, but not evil. Evil seems to me to be without motive, to exist for its own sake.”

Bevlin Wagner surged to his feet, the energy nearly crackling off

him. “You said August isn’t here, Wallace. Well, I agree with you.

He isn’t here now, but he was before. Then I sensed he had to leave.”

Julia jumped to her feet. “He was really here, Bevlin?

You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I felt him.”

“But why would he leave, Mr. Wagner?”

“Who knows, Agent Stone? There’s lots of things for him to do. It isn’t all lying around and singing ‘Kumbaya.’ No, I don’t sense Dr. Ransom at all now, and I would like to. I called to him with my mind voice, trying to call him back, but he said nothing at all.

“I do agree with you, though, Agent Stone. If I were August, I’d be here with Julia, not off somewhere counseling some departed soul.” He shrugged, stroked his chin with long thin fingers. “But August always went his own path, and dying wouldn’t change that.”

Cheney wanted to throw up his hands and tell the both of them to go away, but one of them might be Dr. August Ransom’s murderer. One of them might have hired the man who tried to kill Julia.

Cheney said, “Do you speak to many dead people, Mr. Tammerlane?”

“Yes, of course. It is a gift, a responsibility, and obligation. I will admit that August fades in and out quickly, that it is difficult for him to maintain a link with me, thus I’ve gotten only brief images and spurts of his thoughts. I don’t know why. Neither does he.”

“May I come and speak to you tomorrow, sir?”

Wallace gave him a penetrating look, a very effective look, Cheney imagined, to make you believe he knew things, things that were beyond you, things not necessarily of this world. Cheney knew he had to try to keep an open mind about this, but when push came to shove, he was a lawyer, steeped in skepticism. It was hard-wired in his brain not to accept anything he couldn’t see, couldn’t manipulate with his hand and his brain.

“Of course, if it could be of assistance to Julia.”

“Dr. Ransom was your friend and colleague, was he not?”

“Yes. Poor August and I were close for many years.”

“And Julia, how do you see her, sir?”

“She is a dear girl. We were to have dinner Thursday night, but alas—you know what happened, Agent Stone. I will be at home at eleven o’clock. Does that suit you?”

Cheney nodded, turned his attention to the prowling Bevlin Wagner. “Are you related to Mr. Tammerlane?”

“Related? Goodness no. I’m Croatian. Wallace is from Kansas.”

He sounded so insulted Cheney wanted to laugh. He cleared his throat. “Would you also be available to chat tomorrow morning, Mr. Wagner?”

He agreed, shooting Julia an intense look. But, Cheney thought, neither man really looked anxious to speak to him. Why was that? Cheney wondered. Because he was FBI? Because one or both of them had murdered August