She took a deep breath, expelled it, and turned back to face him. “The truth is, I’ve felt so helpless since August’s murder, like the police had painted a bull’s-eye right between my eyes. And then this assassin, Makepeace, came after me.” She reached out to touch his arm. “Cheney, I want you to know I’ve decided to keep practicing with my gun so I’ll get better. I’m going to keep protecting myself. And you know something? Maybe there’ll come a time when I can protect you too, when I can watch your back.”
Cheney said slowly, “Not all that many people have ever offered to watch my back. Thank you.”
Julia smiled. “You’re welcome. So what did you think of the police files on Wallace Tammerlane’s interviews?”
“There was only one interview. Not all that much there.”
Julia lowered her voice, leaned close to his right ear. “Did you know some people believe Wallace killed his wife back in Spain in the late eighties?”
He could only stare at her. “That’s a kicker. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, really, it’s true. I don’t believe it for a minute, of course, but I don’t know specifically what happened since it was way before my time.”
“There wasn’t anything about a murdered wife in the files. Maybe if they’d known about this they would have checked into it. Why didn’t you tell them?”
“That’s easy. August never believed Wallace was a murderer and neither do I.”
“Tell me. Don’t edit, Julia.” He covered her hand. “Look, Makepeace’s two attempts to kill you are obviously tied to Dr. Ransom’s murder. I’ve got to look at everything again, and I need all the information I can get. Don’t hold back on me, believing you need to protect anyone, okay?”
She nodded. “August said Wallace and his wife Beatrice lived in Madrid for close to seven years, moved there in the early eighties. Wallace became the psychic to all Spaniards rich and famous, even King Juan Carlos and his prissy crowd, the Spanish A-list. August said Beatrice was a lovely woman, very beautiful in an ethereal blond sort of way, but she was more like Wallace’s cipher, his companion shadow, quiet and watchful. He said he’d rarely even seen her speak to another man. She was focused entirely on Wallace.
“In 1988, Wallace took her with him to visit a client in Segovia. She jumped off the Roman aqueduct. It was ruled a suicide even though a witness reported seeing a man with her on the aqueduct. Since no one could find this man, they didn’t rule it the Spanish equivalent of death by misadventure, but rather suicide.”
“Did Tammerlane have an alibi?”
“No. He’d already left his client.”
Cheney shrugged. “Still, it seems suicide is probably exactly what happened. Was there a reason for her to kill herself?”
“August said she was unstable, that Wallace tried to hide the extent of her illness, that he tried to protect her from talk. I guess she finally broke. So, of course the rumor mill started grinding something fierce. When the Spanish media got up to full steam, even King Juan Carlos’s name was bandied around. The king wasn’t happy about it, needless to say. Wallace left the following week, accompanied his wife’s body back to Ohio.”
Cheney asked, “Where is August buried?”
“In Connecticut, outside of Hartford. That’s where he was born and grew up, where his elderly mother still resides. He wanted to be cremated, he even wrote it in his will, and so I had it done here. His mother hasn’t spoken to me since then because she’d wanted to bury him next to his brother and sister, and his father.”
Cheney fell silent for a moment. Then he reached out and took her hand again. “Julia, let me say this fiat out. I know you didn’t kill your husband, so don’t ever wonder about that, all right?”
There was that surge of gratitude toward him again. She smiled at him, leaned close—”You wanna guess Wallace Tammerlane’s real name?”
“Bernie Swartz?”
“Worse.”
He grinned at her vivid face. “I give.”
“Actis Hollyrod.”
“Come on, Julia. Actis? What kind of a name is that?”
“His parents must have been spaced out on drugs when he was born, don’t you think?”
“Something for sure.
“Another thing, Cheney. Wallace likes young girls.”
“So do a lot of older men. Wait, don’t tell me he’s a pedophile.”
“Oh no, certainly not, but he appears very partial to females who haven’t quite yet reached voting age.”
“Do you know this for certain? Or are these rumors in the psychic world? Or did his colleagues simply read his mind and see visions of what he was doing?”
She cocked her head to one side, sending her hair falling beside her face. “Do I hear a bit of snark in your tone?”
“I’m trying to be open about all of it. When did Wallace start preferring younger women?”
“I’m not sure. I hope it was after his wife died. August found it funny. He’d say that even though I was way over-the-hill for Wallace, he, August, still appreciated me.”
Cheney noticed her eyes then, maybe because of the way she’d angled her head toward him. Her eyes, a quite nice light green, were bright today. He thought of the woman he’d saved the previous week—pale, hunched down, drawn in on herself. She’d changed, and the change had begun when she’d saved herself. She still looked thin, but not fragile, leached-out thin—she looked sleek and strong. She looked ready to vibrate, she was so solidly in the
