And he was as sure as he could be that they never would.
Pull yourself together, he told himself.
The doorbell rang.
Jesus, he thought. They really were listening to his phone, and now they were here to question him about Laci, about whether he killed his wife to be with this other woman.
He took a couple of deep breaths, composed himself, and strode through the living room to the front door. He pulled the curtain back first, to see who it was.
It was not the police. It was a woman. With green parrot earrings.
FOUR
Keisha
Keisha Ceylon was ready with her “I feel your pain” smile. First impressions were everything. You had to come across, first and foremost, as sincere. So you couldn’t overdo the smile. It had to be held back. You didn’t want to show any teeth. No empty-headed Stepford wife/Jehovah’s Witness smile that looked like it had been pasted on. You had to get into the moment. You had to believe you were on a mission. And you had to look as though you were sorry to even be here, that this really was the last place on earth you wanted to be.
But you were compelled to be here. You simply had no choice.
She saw the man pull back the curtain to get a look at her, and gave him the smile. Almost apologetic.
Then the door opened.
“Yes?” he said.
“Mr. Garfield?”
“That’s right.” He leaned out of the door, looking past her down to the street.
“My name is Keisha Ceylon. I’m so sorry to trouble you at a time like this.” She extended a hand. The man hesitated before he took it.
“Yes, well, this is a very stressful time. Who are you… who are you with?”
Keisha guessed, what with those parrots dangling from her lobes, Garfield wasn’t going to figure she was some plainclothes detective.
“I guess I’m what you’d call a consultant,” she replied.
“For who?”
“I work for people who find themselves in situations such as yours, Mr. Garfield.”
“You’re, what, a private detective?”
“No. Perhaps, if I could come inside, I could explain it better to you?”
When you were still on the front step, they could slam the door in your face. But once you were in the house, it was harder for them to get rid of you. She could see he was thinking about it.
After a moment’s hesitation, he opened the door wide. “Of course, come in.”
He led her into the living room and invited her to take one of the chairs across from the couch, which was where he sat.
“What was the name again?” he asked.
“Keisha Ceylon. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.” Before she could sit, she had to move a ball of green yarn with two blue, foot-long knitting needles speared through it. She slid the bundle over to the edge of the chair.
“I… I can’t say that I have. What is it that you do? I mean, what’s the nature of your consulting?”
“As I said, I offer my services to people when they’re dealing with the kind of crisis you’re currently experiencing.”
“Missing wives?”
“Well, any kind of missing person. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions first?”
“I suppose not.”
“I know you and your daughter made yourself available to the media yesterday to outline your concerns about Mrs. Garfield.”
“That’s right.”
“What sort of tips have the police received since then?”
Garfield shook his head. “Nothing.”
Keisha nodded sympathetically, as though this was exactly what she’d expected. “And what other efforts have the police been making to find Mrs. Garfield?”
“Well, they’ve been trying to trace her movements since she left here Thursday night. That’s the night she does the grocery shopping, but she never went to the store.”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“And her credit cards haven’t been used. I know they’ve been showing her picture around to all the places she usually goes, talking to her friends, talking to people she works with. All the things you might expect.”
Another sympathetic nod. “But so far, no leads. Is that what you’re telling me, Mr. Garfield?”
“It would seem so,” he said.
Keisha Ceylon paused for what she thought was a dramatically appropriate period of time, and then said, “I believe I can help you where the police cannot.”
“How’s that?”
“The police have employed all the typical methods that you would expect,” she said. “They do what they do, but they are not trained to, what’s the phrase? Think outside the box. What I offer is something more unconventional.”
“And what is that, exactly?”
She looked him in the eye. “I see things, Mr. Garfield.”
His mouth opened, but he was briefly at a loss for words. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry?”
“I can see things,” she repeated. “Let me make this as simple and as straightforward as I can. Mr. Garfield, I have visions.”
A small laugh erupted from him. “Visions?”
Keisha was very careful to maintain her cool. Don’t get defensive. Don’t overplay your hand. “Yes,” she said simply. Draw him out. Make him ask the questions.
“What, uh, what kind of visions?”
“I’ve had this gift-if you can call it that, I’m not really sure-since I was a child, Mr. Garfield. I have visions of people in distress.”
“Distress,” he said quietly. “Really.”
“Yes,” she said again.
“And you’ve had a vision of my wife? In distress?”
She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I have.”
“I see.” A bemused smile crossed his lips. Keisha had expected this. “And you’ve decided to share this vision with me, and not the police.”
“As I’m sure you can understand, Mr. Garfield, the police are often not receptive to people with my talents. It’s not just that they’re skeptical. When I’m able to make progress where they have not, they feel it reflects badly on them. So I approach the principals involved directly.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “And how is it you get these visions? Do you have, like, a TV antenna built into your head or something?”
She smiled. “I wish I could answer your question in a way that someone could understand. Because if I knew how these visions come to me, I might be able to find a way to turn them off.”
“So it’s a curse as well as a blessing,” he said.
Keisha ignored the sarcasm. “Yes, a bit like that. Let me tell you a story. One night, this would have been about three years ago, I was driving to the mall, just minding my own business, when this… image came into my head. All of a sudden I could barely see the road in front of me. It was as though my windshield had turned into a movie screen. And I saw this girl, she couldn’t have been more than five or six, and she was in a bedroom, but it was not a little girl’s bedroom. There were no dolls or playhouses or anything like that. The room was decorated
