by Joanne Pence
Next, he gave a quick description of his childhood, of growing up a loner with no friends because of his psychic gifts. He did it in a way that caused the audience to care about and connect with him. They laughed at some of the stories, and he brought many people to tears with others, such as when he spoke of being with his grandmother as she was dying, and how he witnessed his long-deceased grandfather appear at her bedside. He described her joy at seeing her husband again, how she was then no longer afraid to die, and let herself go. He watched her spirit walk with her husband to the “other side.”
Despite herself, Rebecca hung onto his every word. Although she’d had a youthful interest in psychic mediums, she’d never gone to one of their performances—the cost of them being a big factor. She grew up on a farm where money was in short supply.
Sandy abruptly stopped his ramblings in mid-sentence. “Oh, my God! Someone is here.”
The audience froze, waiting, listening.
Sandy put his hand to his forehead. “He refuses to wait, but says he needs to talk now. I’m hearing a name. It seems to start with a D. Or is it a B? P? The letter T, perhaps?”
She leaned towards Richie. “What’s this? Do spirits mumble or is ‘Sandy’ hard of hearing?”
Richie grinned. “The letters he should be hearing are P.O.S.”
She chuckled and poked his arm with her elbow.
In answer to Sandy’s question, several women waved their arms, stood up and shouted names like Debbie, Barbara, Pam, and Theresa.
Sandy studied them a moment, then in a hushed voice said, “He’s saying another name. Ch…Chuck, is it?” The women shook their heads. “Charles!” he cried.
“Yes,” one of the women called. “That’s my husband’s name.”
“Is he deceased?” Sandy asked.
“Yes, these past fifteen years.” A spotlight found the stout woman with short white hair who was answering. She blinked hard from its brightness as, in answer to Sandy’s questions, she said she was Barbara from Walnut Creek.
“Charles is here now, Barb. Oh, my. Was that his nickname for you? Barb?” Sandy asked, then, without waiting for her answer, said, “What would you like to say to him?”
Rebecca nearly tossed her cookies at the syrupy-sweet discourse that followed. Barbara, who was very shy, said little, but Sandy allowed himself to be the “vessel” through which Charles spoke. As Charles, his voice turned thin and slightly raspy, and his shoulders seemed to hunch up, while his head sank a bit in the way of an older man. “Charles” told how much he loved and missed Barbara. He spoke of her as a young, beautiful bride, of their vacations together, her wonderful cooking, and most of all, the way they had loved and made love. Somehow, Rebecca was sure Barbara and Charles didn’t have the passionate sex life Sandy conjured up, but “Barb” wasn’t about to admit it before all those people. The woman put her hands to her cheeks and blushed bright red, but her gaze was filled with complete love … for Sandy.
Rebecca now understood the loose cream-colored shirt and longish hair. He looked like Lord Byron or the hero of some historical romance novel.
She could hardly suppress a giggle, but most of the audience was completely enthralled, many in tears, and even more with expressions of undying adoration, just like Barbara.
“He’s gone now,” Sandy whispered, then dropped to his knees with a face so filled with sadness he looked like part of a medieval painting of the crucifixion.
Rebecca couldn’t stop a derisive snort, and quickly put her hand to her nose, pretending it was a cough as murder flashed in the eyes of the women seated near her—her murder.
Barbara, who was now fully engulfed in tears, worked her way to the aisle, wiping her cheeks and nose with her hands as she went. Sandy’s bodyguards acted as if they were going to try to stop her, but the blatantly compassionate Sandy insisted they let her pass and that she be allowed to approach him, a gesture to make the audience love him even more, no doubt. He stood as she ran into his arms, and they hugged. Rebecca suspected “Barb” was thinking more about Sandy than poor dead Charles.
Sandy quickly sent her back to her seat.
The evening went on that way, although later encounters weren’t nearly as dramatic. Still, Rebecca knew the majority of the audience believed he was truly psychic. He had a way of working the crowd that, to a skeptic like Rebecca, came across as plastic, phony, and with all the subtlety of a hand grenade. Yet, no one in attendance seemed to notice.
He said things like “I see a body of water. Does that mean anything to anyone?”
Rebecca would have loved to point out that since they were in San Francisco, with water on three sides, it certainly should have meant something.
“Do you have a cat? A dog?” Someone in any large audience could usually answer affirmatively to that one. But he also had many misses, and, to help keep them hidden, he spoke so quickly it was like a multiple choice exam with untold possible answers. Tossing out a number of possibilities meant at least one would solicit a “Yes!”
Sandy would then zero in on that “yes” and ask that person to stand. He then continued with questions or statements, rapid-fire, until he hit something that would make the person say “Yes!” again.
Sometimes, nothing seemed to work and the person standing kept shaking his or her head. Before he allowed that to go on very long, Sandy would notice someone else in the audience nodding, and immediately swivel around to focus all his attention on the new person, abandoning the earlier one, who would be left there feeling foolish, and eventually sit down. A loser.
He ended the evening with a tear-jerking connection with someone who had recently lost a beloved cat. Thank God, Rebecca thought, Sandy didn’t meow for her.
Then, exactly one hour after he stepped onto the stage, his performance was over.
“That’s it?” Rebecca asked. “Seventy-five bucks each for that B.S.?”
“You got it,” Richie said. “And now we can buy Sandy’s book and the T-shirt. And we can become Sandoristas for only $6.99 a month.”
“You sound like an infomercial.”
“Well, you do get the newsletter if you sign up,” he chided.
“Such a deal!” Rebecca quipped. But then, as they walked through the lobby where people were buying the Sandorista bling, her smile vanished. “Wait a minute. That Sandorista name sounds familiar.”
“It sounds like Sandinistas, but—”
“That’s it!” she said.
“I know, but—”
“No, no. Let’s get out of here.” They left the theater and headed towards Richie’s car when Rebecca continued. “The name came up in a case Sutter and I worked a while back.”
He gave her a smug look. “If you and Sutter were involved, that means someone was dead, just as I was saying.”
“Saying ‘I told you so’ is not an attractive trait,” she said. “Besides, it could be nothing.”
“Or something. Is it a case you cleared, or is it still open?”
“I can’t remember which one it was. I think it was a throw-away line, something we saw and dismissed, but I’m just not sure.”
“Probably still open, then. We should check it out.”
“We?” She lifted her eyebrows.
“Sure. I’ve already gotten you this far,” he said.
“This far? I haven’t actually said I was interested, you know.”
Rebecca slowed her steps as she noticed an attractive woman in a green coat with a fur collar, her auburn hair cut in a shiny smooth chin-length bob, leaning against Richie’s car smoking a cigarette. When the woman saw the two of them, her eyes went to Richie. She dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and stepped on it. Then walked away.
“Was she waiting for you?” Rebecca asked as they continued to his car.
Richie shook his head. “I think she was just someone having a smoke. Anyway, now I see the future.”
“You do?”
“It has you and me, together, working on the cold case you were
talking about. Time for a trip to Homicide.”
She shook her head at the thought of allowing him to work a cold case with her. Sandy wasn’t the only one around who was delusional.
CHAPTER THREE
Rebecca saw nothing illegal or fraudulent in Geller’s act. It was pure theater, a performance—a magic trick—and not a particularly clever one. The people who believed in him did so because they wanted to and perhaps found it comforting. Sandy was a good performer, throwing out questions, ideas, and images at such a fast pace that the people listening were overwhelmed. He never said anyone should “believe” anything—he carefully kept saying what “he” saw or heard or felt. It was up to the audience to decide how much credence to give to his remarks.
Richie drove to Homicide and parked in the employee lot of the Hall of Justice, a massive gray, bland building devoid of design that took up one side of Bryant Street between Sixth and Seventh. They rode the elevator to the fourth floor where the Homicide bureau was located.
The department was empty. Only the night lights were on, casting a dim florescent glow over the large room, one bulb flickering.
Rebecca didn’t bother to turn on all the overheads since she had a lamp on her desk, the one she used when she worked long into the night. She switched it on now.
“Why don’t you tell me all you know about Sandor Geller and his Sandoristas,” Rebecca said as she sat and began thumbing through her files of open cases.
Richie slid the guest chair to her side to better see what she was looking at. “My mother told me it all started with her best friend Geraldine Vaccarino. Geri, as she’s called, had a sister, Betty, who was quite a bit older. She lived in Los Angeles, had never married, and was estranged from the family. Geri didn’t know until about a year after it happened that Betty had died.”
“What was Betty’s full name?” Rebecca picked up a pen.
“Elisabetta Faroni.” He spelled out Betty and Geri’s full names for her. “After getting over the shock of her sister’s death, Geri started to think about Betty’s money. I don’t know if you’ve had much experience with Italian families and money, but believe me, Geri would have started to think about it by the next day, if not sooner. She wondered where Betty’s money and belongings had gone. She especially remembered an antique sewing machine from the old country that had been their mother’s. It was built into a fancy wooden cabinet, and used no electricity. The sewer worked a pedal under the machine.”
“I’ve never seen such a thing,” Rebecca said.
“If a person had one of those in good working order these days, it’d be worth something, so Geri started to look into it.”
“Uh huh.”
“And since Betty died intestate, you know, without a will, Geri couldn’t find anyone who had any idea of where the money went. The landlord said he gave her things to Goodwill after no one claimed them for several months, but who knows?”
“So how is Sandor Geller involved?” Rebecca asked.
“Because one minute, Betty had money and savings, and the next, she didn’t—or so it seemed to the family. One of Geri’s sons drove her down to Los Angeles where she talked to Betty’s neighbors to see what they knew.” He took a deep breath, and his next words were spoken with a conspiratorial edge. “Geri learned that Betty had been introduced to Geller by a friend of hers who had gone to his séances for years. And then, one day, that friend was found dead. Betty was inconsolable.
“That, and family hints and silences, make me think she and her girlfriend were more than just friends, if you get my meaning. But my mother’s generation rarely talked about such things, especially about family. Still, my suspicion could explain Betty’s estrangement from them. Anyway, Geller calmed her down and let her talk to her friend during a séance. Betty claimed they spoke of things only the two of them knew about, but you’ve seen how clever Geller is suggesting something and letting his prey fill in the missing parts.”
Rebecca was taken aback. “Prey?”
“Damned right,” Richie said. “This guy took advantage of a lonely old lady, gained her trust, and took her money. Betty had become a confirmed believer in Geller’s abilities, and ended up broke.”
“Or,” Rebecca said, “you can look at it from Geller’s viewpoint. People pay him money to take part in a séance. It’s not up to him to go into their finances to be sure they can afford his sessions.”
“True. But that’s where this gets really weird. After Betty spent all her money on Geller’s séances, she told a neighbor he was helping her with expenses.”
Rebecca was stunned. “Geller gave her money?”
“Yes. And, she told the neighbor he’d done the same for her friend who’d died—the one who had introduced her to Geller in the first place.”
“Could it be he’s a good man who felt bad that the woman went so far overboard? Maybe, once he found out, he simply wanted to help.”
“Yeah, he’s a real prince among men.” Richie apparently couldn’t sit and stare at paperwork any longer. He got up and paced. “I’m telling you, something’s wrong. But that’s all background. It’s what’s going on now that worries me.”
“Which is?”
“A few months ago, Geri learned Geller’s now in San Francisco and she went to see his act. She kept going, and now she’s convinced Carmela to join her. They claim they’re going just to be entertained, but I don’t buy it.
“Then, last week, Carmela and Geri went to a funeral of one of the women Geri would sometimes see at Geller’s séances. The woman supposedly had money, a nice house in the Marina, but she died alone, suddenly, and her funeral was practically that of a pauper. She had no family or anything, and her whole life revolved around her séances with Geller. She was, in fact, one of the very first Sandoristas in San Francisco. All in all, to me, her story sounds too similar to Betty Faroni’s to be a coincidence.”
“Now I remember!” Rebecca opened a file cabinet drawer, rifled through it, then pulled out a folder and put it on her desk. “It’s not a cold case, because it wasn’t even a case.”
She looked through the papers, then stopped at one of them and read it over quickly. “This is it. The deceased, Neda Fourman, was eighty-nine years old and had a heart condition. When the building manager found her dead in her apartment, we were called in. I remember Bill Sutter, who was working the scene with me, finding pamphlets about life after death, séances, and a group called the Sandoristas. At first he thought she was involved in Nicaraguan politics—as in San-din-istas. It was actually pretty funny.”
At Richie’s expression, she said, “Death-cop gallows humor, what can I say?”
He grinned at that, and then stood and leaned over her shoulder to look at the file with her.
“Anyway,” she continued, “the M.E. checked her over and we ruled it a death by natural causes.”
“I see,” Richie murmured as he skimmed through the paperwork.
She found his nearness unsettling, and scooted to one side. “I have a couple of contacts in the LAPD, and I’ll see if they saw anything at all questionable about the deaths of Betty Faroni and her friend. They might even have something on Geller.” She shut the file, and he straightened. “Time to go.”
Richie drove her back to her apartment, and then walked her to the door by the garage that led to the breezeway. There, he stopped.
“Good-night, Rebecca,” he said. “Thanks for looking into all this.”
She nodded. “No problem. You’re being a good son, looking out for your mother’s friend.”
“I look out, as much as I can, for everyone I care about,” he said, his voice and eyes soft.
She quickly unlocked the door, and then stepped into the breezeway before she faced him again. “Good-night. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”
She shut the door and waited until she heard the Porsche’s engine start, and then, with a sigh, she headed for her apartment.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, Ric
hie picked up his phone to call his friend Shay, aka Henry Ian Tate III, aka HIT-man, with information about Neda Fourman: age, address, and date of death. He’d gotten the data as he leaned over Rebecca in Homicide last night. Thinking about being that close to her, alone, the lights dim … it had been all he could do not to pick up where they’d left off some months ago in his living room, the first and only time he’d ever seriously kissed her. He might have given her a peck on the cheek in greeting or whatever from time to time, but that day, in his living room, now that was a kiss.
Hell. Who knew he’d have such thoughts while in a Homicide bureau? His friends would snicker.
He had realized back then that he was starting to fall for her and broke it off. She was the type of woman a guy could get serious about, which made her the last type he wanted in his life.
And since she’d made it clear she didn’t care to ever get serious about him, things were cool between them. Cool in the good sense.
That was why he was able to ask her to help him find out about this modern day Harry Houdini. They were simply friends and this was strictly business, quiet nights in Homicide notwithstanding.
He made the call. Shay picked up, and Richie gave him the information. He didn’t even need to say what he wanted done with it. Shay would know. Talk about psychic—the guy was spooky, and it wasn’t because of any mind-reading ability.
Shay liked to say the moniker “HIT-man” referred to his prowess as a computer hacker, but he was also a deadly shot, military-sniper level, and he owned a battery of fire arms. Rumor had it he had an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. But then, there were a lot of rumors about Shay, including that he’d been in the CIA. Richie was one of the few people who knew the truth—he and Shay had been friends for years—but at times Shay’s eyes held such icy coldness that even Richie wondered if there weren’t parts of the story he didn’t know.
The one thing Richie was certain of, was that Shay was too damned smart to be doing hacking, or worse, for a living.