Life to Life: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

by Don Pendleton

  Annie wore widow's black for precisely thirty days, then sold the house, collected the life insurance, and took a world tour. Carver dug up a guy who signed an affidavit to the effect that Ann Huntzerman paid his expenses to Paris and Rome then abandoned him without funds or a return ticket home. Another affidavit was signed by a mortician's assistant asserting that "it took all our skill" to properly prepare the deceased for burial services due to "numerous lesions about the throat and wrists. It looked like this man had been kept tied like a dog."

  For the record, Carver also had a statement from a nurse who provided live-in care for Huntzerman, to the effect that her patient "tended to claw at" the intravenous tubes which were attached at his arms throughout the final two months of life. "We had to tie his wrists to the bed," she stated.

  That is the whole file on Huntzerman, as provided by Paul Stewart.

  The next "victim" was Larry Preston, a forty-year-old dry cleaner with a chain of stores situated along the San Fernando Valley—mostly coin-operated but he also had a very modern plant in North Hollywood and one in Encino. According to David Carver's information, Ann Huntzerman was broke and looking for work when she met Preston. They were married ten days later and husband number three died almost exactly one year after that when his service truck blew up on the Ventura Freeway. The official investigation at the time blamed escaping naphtha from a damaged container in the rear of the truck. Dining his own investigation, Carver secured a statement from a man who had been employed by Preston denying that the container had been damaged. The employee stated that he had personally inspected the container and placed it in the truck shortly before it exploded.

  Again Annie came into a bit of money but she had to fight for it. An ex-wife raised a claim and it took two years to get the estate through probate.

  She was apparently broke again, though, when she married George Farrel, a respected cinematographer with a number of Oscar nominations in his list of credits. Again, he was considerably older but she was narrowing those gaps through her own maturation; Annie was now thirty-one, George was sixty-two. He retired several months after the marriage and they spent a year touring the West in a motor home. Then they took delivery on a new Mercedes in Europe and toured the Continent for another year. The third and final year of the marriage was spent in Southern California in George's home of thirty years, a modest house in a modest neighborhood in Van Nuys, and neighbors interviewed later by David Carver unanimously agreed that "something was wrong" during that entire period. Apparently Farrel had always been a gregarious and cheerful neighbor through the years; now he hardly ever showed himself outside the house except at night and would turn away without response when someone spotted and greeted him.

  One woman signed a lengthy and rambling affidavit stating that several times she had been turned away at the door by Ann Farrel, always with the excuse that "George isn't feeling well." Number Four died from a fall in his bathtub, near the end of that third year. According to the official record, Annie had maintained a constant vigil at his hospital bed night and day for three months then pulled the plug when her husband was certified brain dead. A statement from a hospital worker, elicited by Carver, claims that Annie exerted constant and extreme pressure upon the board of physicians to get that certification.

  Farrel's estate cleared out at just under $200,000. He had executed a new will earlier that year leaving all to his widow although he acknowledged an adult son born out of wedlock.

  That is the whole ball of wax, as revealed to me by Lt. Stewart. Is this a portrait of evil, or what?

  I did not know what the hell to think about it.

  But I have always been slow to move squarely onto a point of view without wondering how it would look from another angle. I wanted to hear Annie's own version of the Ann Farrel story, and I wanted to do some checking around on my own.

  I also wanted another talk with Bruce Janulski, Annie's personal secretary.

  Because Bruce, you see, the gentle Adonis, was George Farrel's illegitimate son. And that was a tie that Carver had apparently missed, or else he chose to ignore it. Either way, I wanted to know why.

  Chapter Ten: From the Shadows of the Mind

  I went looking for Janulski at church headquarters. It was very nice the way they'd taken a decaying little shopping mall and converted it into a spiritual center. Book and gift shops, classrooms, reading rooms, a lecture hall, the church itself which had previously served as a small supermarket, a chapel, personal quarters for Annie though she did not actually live there, and a surprisingly upscale suite of offices. Someone had also done some remarkable landscaping that did not seem typical of a retail trade center. A quick scan of the scheduled activities posted on a bulletin board out front indicated that The Spiritual Center of Light was a very busy place indeed, seven days a week, with fully a dozen or more consciousness-raising events every day—even to weekend musical concerts and "sings." My eyebrows rose at the scheduled performances for the upcoming weekend; she could have booked those shows into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or the Greek and made a bundle. Or maybe she made a bundle anyway, if these people performed for free.

  I found the gentle Adonis in the chapel fussing with a floral arrangement on the altar. He looked up with a shy smile that grew as he recognized me and came forward to greet me.

  "Mr. Ford, how wonderful," he said warmly.

  This guy was so sweet he might melt if he got wet. But it seemed genuine if nothing else and I could not help but respond to that. I took him by the arm and walked him toward the door as I asked him, "Have you heard from your boss today?"

  He replied, "Well no, I have not, but she told me last night—" his voice softened almost to a whisper "—that she might go into retreat for a few days. But if there is anything at all that I can do for you, I am certainly at your service."

  I matched his own quiet tone as I told him, "Me, you can't help, Bruce—her, maybe so. She needs all the help she can get right now."

  He batted his eyes at me and said, "I certainly agree with that."

  I steered him to an invitingly shaded gazebo just outside the chapel and suggested that he sit down. He did so, crossed his ankles, placed both hands in his lap palms up, showed me a level stare. "You are preparing me for some awful news," he said quietly.

  "Yes," I said. "Annie's in jail. She's been charged with three counts of murder. But Francois Mirabel's attorneys are with her so I expect her to be released on bail very quickly."

  The blood drained from his face. He whispered, "Good lord!" and raised both hands to his cheeks.

  That told me what I really wanted to know, first off; namely that he genuinely cared for the lady. Otherwise I wanted to be his agent because a scene like that one was Oscar material. I began to think I was going to have to thump him on his back or something because all the breath had left him and none was coming back in for the longest time. Finally he caught it with a sob and tears began oozing from his eyes.

  I said, "Hey, it'll be okay."

  He grabbed a handkerchief and went after the tears while he told me, "I'm sure that it will be, Mr. Ford, thank you. It's just that I have been arrested too, and let me tell you it is not a pleasant experience. I cannot bear the thought of her being subjected to such indignities. Oh my God!"

  "What?"

  "The strip search! Did they do that to her?"

  I said, "I think it's one of the routines, Bruce."

  Funny thing, there. He didn't even want to know who'd been murdered or why Annie had been charged. He was just totally focused on...

  "They give that job to the perverts, you know. I suppose with a woman they even violate her vagina."

  I said, "I don't believe so. You're thinking of drug searches and—"

  "No, no, what do you think they're looking for in jail?"

  At least the tears had stopped flowing. I told him, "Whatever, Bruce, Annie can handle it. She is handling it. But we have to—"

  "I'll just confess to the murders mysel
f," he said, giving me an up-and-down look. "I won't let them drag her through that."

  I said, "If you're going to do that, don't you want to know who it is you killed?"

  "Do you detest me, Mr. Ford?"

  It was my turn to give him the up and down. Actually the question was from so far out in left field that it took me a moment to assimilate it. I replied to that, "Why the hell should I detest you? I barely know you."

  "Yes, but you knew immediately that I am gay, and don't deny it. I saw it in your face the other night. It was just as obvious to me, you know, that you are straight. But I don't detest you for that."

  I didn't know why he went for my throat that way and at that particular moment, but he'd caught me with my buried prejudices exposed and twisting slowly in the wind—and, yes, I was feeling just a tad defensive when I told him, "To each his own, pal, has always been my motto. I don't ask anybody what they do behind closed doors and furthermore I don't give a damn what they do."

  "Yes, but you still see gayness as a sexual perversion. Don't deny it."

  I told him, very patiently, "I do deny it—but I resent being called upon to do so. Actually I think that celibacy is the only perversion of the sexual instinct. To paraphrase a popular song of some years ago, the music goes round and round and it comes out wherever it can. So long as it comes out, okay. Okay?"

  I guess it was not okay.

  "You miss the entire point, Mr. Ford. Will you please look at me? Look at me! What you see is what I am. I am not having sex with anybody right now. As far as you know, I have never had sex and maybe I never will. So what are you looking at? What are you seeing?"

  I tried again. "Bruce, I see a very sweet guy who acts for all the world like a very-sweet girl. Maybe that puts me off just a bit. But I think none the less of you."

  "Oh really?" He was giving me the arched-eyebrow gaze. "Then why do you talk to me like I'm some kind of idiot? Why do you patronize me?"

  I said, "How do you know I don't treat everyone the same way?" Hell, maybe I did.

  He flexed those tremendous shoulders and told me, "I could break you in two if I wanted to."

  I mildly warned him, "Don't try. You could get surprised. Anyway, why would you want to? How have I hurt you?"

  "You haven't hurt me, Mr. Ford," he replied. "But you and I need some very serious conversation and I want to be sure that our minds are connecting when we do. I don't want you to think of me as an idiot and I do not want you patronizing me."

  I thought about that for several seconds then told him, "Okay, maybe you're right. I apologize if I've come at you that way. I would not consciously do that. So maybe there is something down in the subconscious that—"

  "There certainly is," he said, interrupting my apology with a solemn smile. "A moment ago you said that I act like a very sweet girl. That tells a lot about the way you've been conditioned to think about people like me. I am not a girl, you see, and I would not want to be a girl. Also, however, I am not a boy...and I would not want to be a boy. Your understanding of these distinctions could be crucial to your understanding of Reverend Annie's difficulties. Frankly I was very surprised when the guides recommended you. I mean, after I found out who you are, and all."

  I said, "Speaking of Reverend Annie..."

  He responded in that same solemn manner. "Oh, yes, I know, you think I'm being very silly carrying on this way at such a time. But you see I've been expecting just such a complication. It always works that way."

  “What do you mean? What always works which way?”

  He rearranged his legs, smoothed his trousers, said, "Well, that is precisely what we need to be talking about. And I just want to be sure that you will respect what I have to tell you."

  I assured him, "I am not trying to amuse myself with meaningless games, Bruce. So let me level with you first. It appears that I have been drawn into this thing without my conscious knowledge or consent. I have been pushed one way and pulled another to the point that I'm a bit confused as to where the flow is even coming from."

  Janulski nodded quiet agreement, whispered, "Yes, that's the way it works."

  "To the point that I am not sure that your Reverend Annie is deserving of help, especially my help. I am sensitive to unseen forces, however, and I am aware that events in this world are sometimes no more than a shadow play of events in another."

  "Oh exactly, exactly."

  "I won't guarantee you that I will remain sympathetic to Annie's problems once I understand them. But I do want to understand them. And I will want lo help if I feel the cause is right."

  "It is, believe me."

  "On the other hand," I warned him, "if it turns the other way, it's possible that I would want to help the other side."

  Janulski laughed prettily. "Believe me," he said, "you wouldn't like it over there."

  We decided to move to Annie's office to continue the discussion. He offered refreshments as we passed through the reception area. I wanted coffee; he opted for tea and passed the request along to one of the women.

  As we entered Annie's sanctum, Janulski lightly touched my shoulder and told me, "I have a delightful surprise for you."

  I really did not want to know but I asked anyway, "What is that?"

  He sat down behind the desk, put his hands together, and told me, "We are really not supposed to divulge information of this nature but it is just too perfect, so I've received special permission to tell you about it."

  I took a chair at the opposite side of the desk and said, "Okay."

  "Well, this is going to thrill you. One of my guides was your father in a previous life."

  I did not feel especially thrilled. A bit creepy, maybe, but...I had no memory whatever of any father at any time. I said drily to Janulski, "Well, then, you must introduce us."

  His eyes were twinkling as he replied, "I just might be able to do that."

  Well, hell, that more or less set the tone for what was to follow. I give that to you, below, exactly as it developed.

  You tell me what it was all about.

  Chapter Eleven: From the Mouths of Angels

  "If you are not a boy and not a girl, then what are you?"

  "There, you see? You are right at the crux. There has never been any really original thought about this. In this world there are precisely two sexes and we all must fit into one or the other. May I tell you a secret? There are many more worlds than this one, and there are more sexes than two."

  "Maybe so, but we all now have to deal with this world. So don't you have to declare yourself as one or the other, male or female?"

  "Declaring doesn't make it so and certainly doesn't make it easier for those of us who are neither. All that does is satisfy a classification system designed for animals. Good heavens! Can't these twentieth-century minds understand that the human race has left the animal kingdom behind?"

  "Not entirely behind. That body of yours, pal, which you say is neither boy nor girl, was created by an animalistic act that produces nothing but boys and girls."

  "Oh, well, if you're talking about bodies...! Bodies...! good lord!... that's like saying there's nothing but fucking and sucking and no such thing as making love! I can fuck or suck anybody—understand? Anybody, boy or girl makes no difference, if you just want fucked or sucked. But if you want love from me, pure romantic love, then you have to be one of my own kind. You could fuck a cow, Mr. Ford. But could you fall in love with one?"

  "Not sure I could fuck one, Bruce. But I guess I see what you mean. You couldn't fall in love with me?"

  "Sony, no, I could not. Oh, I can love you. I do love you. But not...no, sorry."

  "Don't feel bad. Just wanted to be sure I'm getting you. You are saying, like, you could not fall in love with Annie or—"

  "Good heavens no!"

  "—or with anyone else who is not one of these uh, this third sex or whatever—"

  "Third sex, no, that's not accurate. It's like ummm, there's an island where people from all over the world vacation.
They all seem very much alike but ummm, people from Europe are attracted to others from Europe, those from Asia go with Asians, and those from Africa go for Africans."

  "Yes?"

  "Well, ummm, I'm from Africa and I am nearly crazy looking for other Africans."

  "You are telling me, Bruce...”

  "Yes, I am telling you that we are different souls—a different order of souls trying to fit ourselves into this crazy world. Aliens, if you will, aliens...trying our best to find a fit where no fit is possible. Not possible, that is, the way the rules of the game have been rigged against us. It's like decreeing that no Africans may fall in love."

  "That's an interesting concept."

  "It's much more than a concept, I'm afraid. Luckily I have found the truth for myself. But for each one like me, there are thousands like poor Herman."

  "You knew Herman, then? We're talking Herman Milhaul? Somehow I got the impression that you hadn't—when I mentioned his name the other night you acted dumb."

  "I knew him vaguely. The name didn't ring a bell right away. I'd heard—but I could not help him. He was too lost, too confused, poor soul. Well, he's getting the dickens for it right now."

  "Where uh, where is he getting that?"

  "Another realm. He'll be given time to straighten it out, then he'll have to try again."

  "He'll be born again?"

  "Yes."

  "Same as before?"

  "Considering the record this last time, yes, I'm sure of it."

  "You're saying he has no sexual choice."

  "At this stage of his evolution, none whatever. He's been through all the rest and mastered it. Now he must master this."

  "You mean that he has evolved into a gay soul?"

  "That is an amusing idea. But it's not too far from the truth, at that. For want of a better name here on earth, yes; I suppose you could think of him as a gay soul."