“They talk and I listen.”
Sadie couldn’t help but fidget in her seat. This kind of discussion unnerved her. She didn’t want to find out that her own abilities were being advertised on Maeva’s bulletin board or Yellow Pages ad.
“Nobody can know,” Sadie said, her voice pleading.
“Someone must already,” Maeva said. “I can’t imagine you’ve kept it totally hidden. Your sister hinted of something when she was here, but of course you cut her off.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Three people knew of her ability—Pam, Dawn, and, of course, Zack. Even they could barely conceal their desire to call her a weirdo. She was sure of it. Yet here she was, spilling her strangest secret to a woman who defined weird by vocation.
“I can keep a secret,” Maeva assured her. “But tell me, what do the dead talk about?”
“Sometimes they have a message. Other times they’re in denial about their own fate. I try to help them realize that they have to let go of their presence here and move on. Most of the time it helps, and they sort of glimmer, fade, and poof! they’re gone.”
“Poof?”
“Poof.”
Maeva threw back her head and laughed for a full minute. Sadie was fuming.
“What the hell’s your problem?”
“Nothing,” Maeva chuckled. “It’s just good to come across someone as strange as myself.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I bet you inherited your talent,” Maeva said.
“You’d lose that bet.” Sadie sniffed at the thought of her mother or father having any kind of super natural abilities.
“Hmm. Lots of times these kinds of things are inherited like brown eyes and blond hair. You must’ve been scared to death as a child when you first had some mutilated corpse show up to talk about the weather.”
“Nothing like that happened when I was a kid. This is all kind of a recent addition to my repertoire. It showed up after somebody in my family died.”
“I see.” Her eyebrows rose. “You’re not the first to become aware of a talent after a traumatic event. Go on.”
“Well, the first few times it happened, of course, I thought I was losing my mind.” She closed her eyes and blurted out, “So I went into therapy for a while.”
“Did it help?”
“Yeah, it helped convince me I was crazy and that if I continued to tell people that I saw dead people I’d be locked up.”
“So you ignored it.”
“I tried to, but it wouldn’t go away.” Sadie shook her head at the memory. “Eventually I found it was easier to help the dead than to run screaming in the other direction. It took a while to realize they wouldn’t hurt me and it scared the hell out of me. Still does sometimes,” she admitted. “But I guess I’ve gradually gotten more used to it, and I enjoy being able to help them.”
Maeva nodded knowingly. “You said the spirits fade most of the time, but what happens when they don’t choose to go poof?”
“I can’t force them to leave. I can only suggest it’s in their best interest. If they choose to remain here, I think they stay in a kind of limbo. Maybe they wander the earth haunting whoever or wherever.” Sadie chuckled and waved her hand. “Could we please talk about the real reason why I’m here?”
“No.” Maeva held up her hands in a halting motion. “You’ve already told me you’re looking for a guy who is a criminal of some kind. Like I told you and your sister, I prefer that the person I’m reading think and focus on their question, not tell me out loud. If I know everything in advance, then I get readings that involve your emotions, but nothing that’s necessarily true to the situation you’re concerned about.”
“Fine. I promise to think and focus.”
“Do you want the session taped?”
“Sure.”
Maeva took a new cassette out of its wrapper, slid it into the recorder, and pressed the RECORD button.
Sadie reached her hands across the desk, but Maeva shook her head.
“There’s no way on God’s green earth I’m touching you. We’re going to have to try things a little different. The message may not be as clear, but it’s the best I can do.”
She got up and closed the blinds on a small window, then turned off the overhead fluorescent lights, plunging them into semidarkness. Maeva took her seat and cleared a stack of papers from the center of her desk. She instructed Sadie to lean forward with her elbows on the desk and to put her hands up.
“Turn your palms toward me and I’ll do the same.”
There they sat, with their elbows on the desk and their palms facing each other in a ridiculous kind of suspended high five.
“My hands are going to be only about an inch away from yours, but I don’t want you to grab my fingers or touch me. Understand?” Maeva asked gruffly.
“Yes.”
Maeva shuffled her elbows across the desk until her palms were closer to Sadie’s, and then she began humming. Sure enough, it was that tune from The Wizard of Oz.
“Don’t you know any other songs?” Sadie quipped. “That one’s getting old.”
“Shut up,” Maeva sniped. She squeezed her eyes shut and resumed humming.
After three or four minutes Sadie began to feel something. Her hands were becoming warm and tingly. At first she thought it was from being in such an awkward position, so she shifted a little in her seat. Then her hands also began to vibrate. There was a strange tickling, as though her palms were against Maeva’s humming lips. Sadie blinked in surprise, because now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, she could actually see her fingers trembling, and hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to stop them.
“There are cleaning supplies,” Maeva murmured. “Buckets, mops, brushes, cleansers, and some kind of rolling cart.” She pursed her lips into a thoughtful frown and then resumed humming. “It’s raining hard and the roof is leaking. Not a lot, but there’s a bucket catching the drips. You hate skiing.”
Sadie harrumphed.
Maeva opened one eye and looked at Sadie. “Well, don’t think about skiing if you don’t want me to talk about it,” she chastised.
Maeva hummed again, louder this time, and the vibration in Sadie’s hands grew more intense. It became a struggle to prevent her hands from touching Maeva’s because they seemed to be drawn together by some invisible magnet. Sadie noticed that Maeva’s fingers were trembling as well. The psychic looked as though she was in pain, and she had a fine mist of perspiration on her upper lip.
“I don’t know why he did it,” Maeva suddenly gasped. She moaned softly, then blew the next words out as if it was a huge effort. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”
She yanked her hands away abruptly, and it was as though invisible strings broke from Sadie’s fingertips. Her hands dropped to the desk.
“That’s all I’ve got,” Maeva announced.
She stood, opened the blinds, and turned on the light.
“Well, that wasn’t very helpful,” Sadie remarked sulkily.
She folded her arms and tucked her fingers under her arms. She was extremely grateful that the tremor in her hands had stopped, but they still tingled.
“I can only tell you what I see,” Maeva said. Snagging a tissue from a box on the corner of her desk, she dabbed the sweat from her face.
“But you didn’t see anything,” Sadie protested. “All those supplies are the things I use to clean trauma scenes, and a rolling cart could be the dolly that I use for the heavy bins. I wasn’t even thinking about my work. I was only focusing on a guy who might be a murderer. I came here to get answers about him.”
Maeva merely shrugged. Then she dug in her desk drawer for a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out for herself, and offered one to Sadie, who declined. Maeva lit her smoke and looked thoughtful.
“I don’t know what to say. You of all people should know this kind of thing isn’t scientific. All I can tell you is I gave you the information that I received, and the response felt right when I g
ave it.”
“You said you don’t know why he did it, but I wasn’t even focusing on why Kent did it. I’m not even sure I care. I just really need to find him and clear my name about the diamond brooch and put him in jail for murder!”
“Who’s Kent?” Maeva asked, taking a hard pull on her cigarette and blowing the smoke out in a long stream.
“The man I came to ask about! The one I focused on!” Sadie shouted. With exasperation she got to her feet. “This was a complete waste of time.”
“Wait a second,” Maeva said. “I don’t know about this Kent guy. When I said I don’t know why he did it, I was picking up on someone else. Another person and question you were focused on.”
“Who? What question?”
“You were wondering why Brian did it—why your brother killed himself.”
Maeva pressed EJECT on the recorder and handed the tape to Sadie.
Sadie stood there looking like a deer caught in the headlights. She swallowed thickly and said, “I’ve got to go.”
Sadie’s fingers still tingled when she started her car. She drove around aimlessly as she mulled over what Maeva had said. Her directionless driving landed her parked once again on the street in front of Kent Lasko’s house. There was still no sign of life.
She dug out the cassette tape of Madame Maeva’s psychic reading from her pocket and slipped it into her car system. Maeva’s smoker’s voice filled the car with her annoying humming. The entire session was less than five minutes, and Sadie punched the OFF button when it ended. Her stomach roiled with apprehension and the hairs on her arms stood up when Maeva mentioned Brian’s name.
She used her cell to dial Dawn’s number and didn’t bother with a friendly greeting.
“Did you tell Maeva about Brian?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Did you tell that crazy psychic about our brother killing himself?”
“Of course not! Why would I say anything to Madame Maeva about Brian?”
“Then it must’ve been Chloe.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Check. Call her right now and see if she said something about Brian when she got you that gift certificate for the Psychic Café.”
“What’s going on, Sadie?”
“Just call her and then call me back on my cell.”
Sadie pulled away from Kent’s street and drove to a small convenience store. She went inside and bought a Diet Coke and a chocolate bar.
Dawn called back while she was munching the candy. “Chloe never said anything to Maeva about Brian. She arranged the appointment with the girl up front and gave only our first names for the appointment. That’s it.”
“Do you believe her?” Sadie asked.
“Of course I believe her! Now what the hell is this all about?”
“Later. I’ve got to go.”
She took a bite of the sweet chocolate, and as she chewed she listened to the tape one more time. She stopped it when Maeva said, You were wondering why Brian did it—why your brother killed himself.
Had she really been thinking about Brian? As she washed a mouthful of chocolate down with soda, she had to admit that a part of her was always thinking about Brian and asking that question. Five years had passed and she was no closer to an answer.
By the time she had finished her Diet Coke, she was willing to admit that Maeva had something. What she had, Sadie wasn’t sure. Sadie was annoyed that she’d expected Maeva to offer up help. She doubted the psychic could use psychic powers to locate Kent Lasko. Turned out it had been asking too much.
Sadie put her car in gear and drove back over to Lasko’s house. She’d been sitting in her car scowling at the house for about ten minutes when she noticed the elderly next-door neighbor, Captain of the Neighborhood Watch, giving her the hairy eyeball from his living room window. Figuring that he might follow through on his earlier threat to call the cops on her, Sadie started her car. She was just about to drive away when an older-model Sunbird whipped into the Lasko driveway and Christian Lasko hopped out.
Quick as a bunny, Sadie cranked the wheel of her car and parked directly behind the Sunbird. She jumped out of her car and jogged up to greet Christian, who dropped his keys in surprise when he spied her approaching.
“I thought you were out of town,” Sadie called out as she quick-stepped up behind him.
“Out of town? Why did you think that?” He offered a tense smile over his shoulder while he snatched up his keys and jammed one into the lock.
Sadie just laughed loudly and maniacally. This caused Christian to look extremely anxious.
“Kent’s not home,” he said over his shoulder.
He stepped inside and tried to shut the door, but she put her hand up to stop it.
“I’ll leave him a message that you dropped by. He’ll call you when he gets back,” Christian said.
“When he gets back from hiding?”
“No, when he gets back from Tahoe.” He looked at her strangely. “His buddy has a place there. He called last night and asked Kent to come up, so Kent booked himself the first flight out. He’d live on skis if he could. I drove him to the airport when I got back from my night shift.”
“You know what I think?” Sadie asked, not giving a damn if he wanted to hear her opinion or not. “I think Kent took off to avoid dealing with me and the police. He left town because he knew I’d be hunting him down and wanting to kill him for what he did.”
Christian’s eyes got big, and then they got angry. “Get out of here.”
He tried to close the door, but Sadie held it firm.
“I want that emerald pendant,” she said. “The one Kent took from Trudy’s house. I’m going to give it to Mrs. Toth. He had no right to take it, and I’m not taking any chances that he might try and plant it on me to make the police think that I was the one who stole it! Hand it over.”
“You’re crazy,” Christian said. He opened the door wide, throwing Sadie off balance, then thrust the palm of his hand out, pushed her back a step, and forcefully slammed the door shut with a loud bang. She heard the dead bolt slide into place as he shouted, “Leave, or I’ll call the cops!”
That hadn’t gone nearly as well as she had planned. As she walked back toward her car, she noticed the elderly neighbor giving her a surly look between his drapes. Sadie was tempted to show him her middle finger. Instead, she went grocery shopping for more junk food and then straight home.
She didn’t sleep well that night—and it wasn’t just because she’d consumed a lot of Cheetos. Ever since Brian had decided to eat his gun, she’d had a recurrent dream that she was running to his house to try and stop his impending suicide, but she was always too late. She woke from the dream panting and exhausted, as if she’d run a marathon. She hadn’t had the dream in months, but Maeva’s comments and the horrible events of the last few days had stirred her thoughts to go to that dark place.
When the morning dawned and Seattle’s mountain view was once again blocked by gray and gloom, it matched Sadie’s mood perfectly. She dragged her ass to her van with a travel mug of scalding coffee and wound her car down the I-5 to the Yenkows’ house. Zack was already there, busy setting up the ionizer to deodorize the place.
“If I’d realized you were going to be such a go-getter today, we could’ve driven in together,” she said.
“I tried to call, but I only got your voice mail,” he explained. “I figured you were already here.”
“Damn. It’s my new cell phone. I seem to accidentally shut it off when I don’t even realize it.” She looked around the room. “After you’re finished with the ionizer, you can take the rest of the day for yourself. There’s not much left to do, and I can finish up.”
“That’s your way of saying you don’t want me around,” Zack replied. When she started to protest, he held up a hand. “That’s okay. You’ve been going through a lot. I don’t blame you for wanting some time alone. As a matter of fact, maybe you should take the day off. You look like sh
it.”
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically.
Sadie sat down on a nearby sofa and scrubbed her hands through her hair thoughtfully.
“He did it, Zack. Kent killed them and made it look like a murder-suicide. I’ve been racking my brain and trying out different scenarios, but I just can’t figure out how he did it.”
Zack pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. The lines around his eyes deepened, and he looked older than his forty years.
“Sadie, I’ll say it again: If all the evidence points to a murder-suicide, then that’s exactly what it was. Stop looking for more. This guy Kent probably has his own agenda that’s all about making sure you don’t broadcast his affair.”
Sadie got to her feet and began walking around the living room, looking at it with fresh eyes to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
“Okay, if he didn’t kill Trudy or Grant, why would he steal that diamond brooch and put it in my coat?”
“People are generally crazy,” he said, joining her in squinting at the floor from different angles. “Stop looking for an explanation. The guy might have taken the pin as some kind of souvenir of their affair, or maybe he thought he could pawn it for cash. Hell, he could be a kleptomaniac who panicked when he realized that what he had was worth real money.” He shrugged. “This is not your problem. Stay out of it.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she rubbed them away. Zack came closer and wrapped his arms around her. For a second, she allowed herself to feel warm and secure in his embrace. Then she pulled roughly away.
“Thanks for listening to me go on about this,” she said quickly when she saw his hurt look. “You’re a good friend.”
“Right,” he said abruptly.
They dusted off the near emotional upset and went to work to set up the rest of the deodorizing equipment. Then they removed the bins, which would go into locked storage until waste pickup.
This time Sadie felt the drive back to Seattle was almost cathartic. The traffic on the I-5 was uncharacteristically easygoing—nobody cut her off or hugged her bumper. By the time she got home, she felt relatively relaxed. She powered up her computer and tackled the paperwork that had been begging for attention for weeks.
The Remains of the Dead Page 13