Clouded Vision (5 page)

Nine

Keisha

Garfield seemed to take a long time in the kitchen, but when he returned he had a cheque between his thumb and index finger. Keisha smiled as she took it from him, glanced down at it, and saw that it was for the right amount. She folded the cheque once and slipped it into her handbag.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Fine, fine,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t find a pen.’

‘You should have asked me. I have a couple in my bag here.’

‘I finally found one in the drawer.’

‘Well, that’s fine.’ She put her handbag down on the floor next to the chair. ‘Shall I continue?’

‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked.

‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’

‘I was actually just about to make a cup of tea when you knocked on the door. Would you prefer tea?’

‘No, thank you.’

Garfield sat down on the settee. ‘So, do you live around here?’

Keisha wondered what was going on. She’d brought Garfield right up to the edge of the cliff with that thing about his wife’s car not being on the road. She had him then. He was curious, there was no doubt about it.

It was the ideal moment to ask him for the money.

So he’d gone off to the kitchen to write the cheque. And now he was back, ready to continue, and yet he’s asking her if she wants coffee? Or tea? Why is he asking her where she lives?

She wondered if he was stalling for time. Had he called the police while he was out of her sight? Had he told them there was this crazy lady in his house, trying to exploit his situation for money?

Keisha didn’t think so. She’d have heard something if he’d tried that. He was no more than ten feet away the whole time, just on the other side of the wall. Moreover, the door between the living room and the kitchen was open the entire time.

‘I’m sorry, what was the question?’ she asked.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Not far from here,’ she said. ‘The other side of town.’

He nodded pleasantly. ‘Have you lived here long?’

‘I moved up here a couple of years ago.’

‘Where from?’

‘Connecticut. Near New Haven.’

‘Do you have a summer place?’

‘I’ve just got the one place, Mr Garfield, and I live in it all year long. Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not? I mean, you’ve paid me. I’m guessing you’d like to get your money’s worth.’

He gave her a go-ahead wave. ‘By all means.’

‘As I was saying, I’ve been seeing some kind of flashes of the car your wife was driving.’ Keisha still had her hands on the robe, occasionally kneading the fabric between her fingers. ‘The silver Nissan.’

‘You were saying that the car was not on the road. If it’s not on the road, where do you see it?’

Keisha closed her eyes again. ‘It’s not in a parking lot. I guess that would still count as being on the road, in a way. I’m not seeing it in a garage.’

‘What about water?’ Garfield asked. ‘Do you see any water?’

Curious, Keisha thought. He’s just asked if I have a summer place, and now he mentions water. She’d been thinking about Florida earlier. Maybe Garfield was thinking the missus had taken off for Miami. Then again, she’d already suggested that Ellie Garfield was very cold, so if she raised Florida as an option, she was going to get caught out because her story wouldn’t make any sense.

She decided to stick with cold. So if it’s cold, the water … could be frozen.

She opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again. ‘It’s funny that you should mention water. I was seeing something, something shimmery, that I thought might be water, but I was thinking maybe it was actually ice.’

‘Ice,’ Garfield said.

This time, she kept her eyes open. ‘Yes, ice. Ice in a glass? Ice at a skating rink? Ice, for example, on a lake? Does ice of any kind have any meaning to you? Does it have any significance as far as your wife is concerned?’

‘Why should it mean something to me?’ he said, a defensive tone edging into his voice.

‘You were the one who mentioned water.’

‘And then you mentioned ice. I didn’t mention ice.’

‘But it seems to have some meaning for you,’ Keisha said. ‘I could see it, in your expression.’

‘Why would you say ice on a lake?’

‘That was just
one
of the kinds of ice I mentioned. But I can tell there seems to be a connection there.’

Garfield stood up. He took a few steps to the right of the settee, then turned and paced in the other direction. He was stroking the end of his chin, pondering something.

‘What is it?’ Keisha asked.

He paced back and forth one more time and then stopped. He looked at Keisha, studied her for a moment, then pointed an accusing finger in her direction. ‘Maybe it’s time you were honest with me.’

‘About what?’

‘About what’s really going on here.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Garfield, but I’m not sure I understand.’

‘This whole psychic mumbo-jumbo act of yours is a load of rubbish, isn’t it?’

Keisha sighed. ‘I told you, if you want to call Nina’s father for a reference, I have no problem with that. I’m happy to give you the number.’

‘You’ve got somebody all set up to take the call, haven’t you? Is it someone who’ll tell me what I want to hear?’

Keisha shook her head and gave him a bruised look. She was trying to appear disappointed and hurt. But what she was thinking was,
At least I’ve got the money.
The smart thing to do would be to get to the bank when it opens tomorrow morning and cash the cheque, before Garfield had a chance to phone and stop payment on it.

‘I’m very sorry you’d think that of me, Mr Garfield. Just when I thought we were making some progress.’

‘Whatever you know, whatever you think you know, it’s got nothing to do with visions or communicating with the dead or reading tea leaves. Whatever you know, you found it out some other way.’

‘I assure you, I—’

‘Would you please hand me my wife’s robe? I don’t want you touching it any more.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ Keisha said. This really seemed to suggest that they were done.

‘Thank you,’ he said, gathering it up into a ball.

Keisha reached down for her handbag and set it into her lap. She made sure it was zipped tight at the top, and started to stand.

Garfield said, ‘No, don’t go yet.’

‘I can’t see what possible point there would be in staying any longer, Mr Garfield. It’s clear you think I’m some kind of con artist. I’ve been at this too long to take offence. Some people react like that, and think what I do is a sham. If that’s your conclusion, then I’m happy to be on my way.’

She was thinking,
Don’t ask me to give you back the money.

‘Did I offend you? I’m very sorry if I did that.’ He didn’t look at all sincere.

‘You just accused me of having someone standing by to – to
lie
to you about my successes. Wouldn’t you expect me to take offence at that?’

He was still pacing, still fondling the robe, doing something with it, as if it was a mound of clay that he was shaping into something. Keisha watched as he took a few steps one way, then the other. It struck her that this was how he formed his thoughts, by making these little journeys around the room.

‘You
are
very clever, I have to give you that,’ he said.

Keisha said nothing. She was starting to get an inkling of what was going on. She should have caught on a little sooner.

‘Very, very clever,’ he said, stepping over to the window, and pulling back the curtain to get a look at the street. This meant he was standing off to one side and slightly behind Keisha, and she had to twist around in her chair to see him. ‘I’d like to apologise. Forget what I just said. Why don’t you carry on, let me hear some more about your
vision.
’

‘Mr Garfield, I’m not sure—’

‘No, no, please, go on.’

Keisha put her bag back down on the carpet and rested her hands by her thighs on the seat cushion. ‘Would you like me to start again with the ice, or move on to something else?’

‘Why don’t you just say whatever comes into your head.’

Keisha had a bad feeling. She couldn’t recall dealing with anyone like this before, who’d seemingly lost interest in what she had to say, wanted her to leave, then had a change of heart. Judging by his tone now, she didn’t believe he was even interested in anything else she had to say.

He just didn’t want her to leave.

Something was very wrong here. Suddenly she thought she knew why.

It’s him. He did it.

It explained his strange behaviour. Keisha wanted to kick herself for not realising it sooner. She’d been at this long enough, of course, to know that when a wife was murdered – or missing – the husband was always a prime suspect. It wasn’t very often that people were killed by strangers. They were killed by people they knew. Wives were killed by husbands. Husbands were killed by wives.

The man had moved away from the window, and was taking a route behind Keisha’s chair. She was going to have to turn around to keep her eye on him.

‘On second thought, sure, tell me about the ice.’

The televised news conference had put her on the wrong track. She’d figured, first of all, that if the police had suspected strongly that Garfield had killed his wife, they’d have never let him go before the cameras. Would they? She had to admit, he was good. Those tears looked real. The way he took his pregnant daughter into his arms to comfort her, that was pretty convincing, too.

It had never occurred to Keisha before that the people she preyed upon could be anything other than innocent. Guilty people often made the best targets. They could be so eager to prove that they were as much in the dark as everyone else that they leaped at the chance to pay to hear what she had to say.

They would tell themselves,
I look so innocent. A real murderer would never do this, right?

Maybe that explained why, at first, Garfield had agreed to listen to her. But something had happened during their conversation. Things had shifted. He’d become anxious. Had she actually hit on something by accident?

Was it when she said his wife was cold? Or was it when she said something about the car being off the road? Had those comments been close enough to the truth to make Garfield think that she was on to something?

It was time for Keisha to leave. Maybe – and she couldn’t believe she was even thinking of this – she should even give him back his money. Perhaps she should say something like, ‘You know what? Whatever vision I may have had, it’s gone. I’m not picking up anything. The signals have faded. The flashes, they’re over. So I think the best thing to do would be for me to return your money and I’ll just be on my—’

But just then, there was a flash of pink before her eyes. It was not a vision this time, though. It was the sash, from the robe.

And now Garfield was looping it around her neck and drawing it tight.

Ten

Melissa

Before Melissa would tell her story to the detective, whose name was Marshall – which struck her as funny, a policeman named Marshall – she wanted assurances that the police would go easy on her father.

‘There are reasons that might explain why he did what he did?’

Marshall, seated across the table from her in the interview room, said, ‘It’s hard for us to make promises where your dad is concerned when we don’t know exactly what it is that he’s done.’

‘I don’t want to get him in trouble,’ Melissa said. ‘Even though I know that’s probably what’s going to happen.’

‘But he knows something about what really happened to your mother,’ he said. ‘That is why you’re here.’

‘In a way,’ Melissa said. ‘You know what? I know I only just sat down, but I really have to pee.’

‘Sure, OK,’ Marshall said. ‘Let me show you where to go.’

Melissa went to the bathroom and a couple of minutes later the two of them were back sitting across from each other. Melissa had one hand on the table and the other on her belly.

‘I really love my dad,’ she said. ‘I really do.’

‘Of course. And I bet you love your mom, too.’

Melissa looked down.

‘Melissa,’ Detective Marshall said gently. ‘Can you tell me … is your mother still alive?’ She mumbled something so softly that he couldn’t hear what she’d said. ‘What was that?’

‘No.’

‘No, she’s not alive?’

‘That’s right. But if I tell you everything, you have to promise to be nice to Dad. Because he’s a good man, really.’

‘As I said, Melissa, without knowing the facts—’

‘I don’t want to get him into trouble. He’s already going to be really mad at me.’

‘We can make sure he doesn’t hurt you.’

‘He wouldn’t hurt me, but he’s going to be pissed off.’

‘I can certainly understand that,’ the detective said. ‘But I’m guessing you’re thinking that, sometimes, you have to do what’s right.’

‘Yeah, I’ve kind of been thinking that too.’

‘And you want to do right by your mother.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking that, too.’

‘Why don’t we start with you telling me where your mother is.’

‘She’s in the car.’

The detective nodded. ‘This would be your mother’s car. The Nissan.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And where’s the car, Melissa?’

‘It’s at the bottom of the lake.’

The detective nodded again. ‘OK. What lake would that be?’

‘I don’t know the name of it, but I think I could show you how to get there. It’s about an hour’s drive, I think. Although, even if I take you there, I don’t know where exactly it is in the lake. And the ice has probably already frozen over. It’s been cold. I just know she’s in the lake. In the car.’

‘OK, that’s OK, we have divers for that kind of thing.’

Melissa looked surprised. ‘They can go in the water even when it’s super cold?’

‘Oh yeah, they’ve got these special wetsuits that help keep them warm.’

‘I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t swim in freezing-cold water. I can’t even go in a pool unless it’s heated to eighty-five or ninety degrees.’

Marshall gave her a warm smile. ‘That’s like my wife. It’s got to be almost as hot as a sauna before she’ll get in. So, Melissa, your father, he put the car in the water?’

‘Yep. He drove the car out on to the lake, where the ice was thin. Then he waited for the car to go through.’ She started to weep. ‘And then it did.’

‘How do you know this, Melissa? Did your father tell you what he did?’

‘I saw it. I saw the car go through the ice.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was on the shore, watching.’ A solitary tear ran down her cheek. She bit her lip, trying to hold herself together. ‘I feel really bad, but I also feel a bit better, you know? Coming here and telling you what happened has helped.’

‘Of course it has.’

‘It’s not the kind of secret I could keep.’

‘Melissa, you must realise we’re going to have to go out to his house and talk to your father. First, I need to ask you, does he keep any guns in the house?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He’s never been interested in guns.’

‘We just don’t want to have to hurt him, you know? When we go out there, we want to be able to bring him in peacefully. Do you think he’s dangerous?’

She was puzzled by the question and shook her head. ‘He’s not dangerous. I mean, it’s not like he’s ever killed anybody or anything.’

‘You mean, before your mother.’

‘Oh, he didn’t kill my mother. Is that what you were thinking? I guess I should start at the beginning.’