Day Shift

6

Manfred was deep into work mode, which meant he was visiting all his websites, taking phone calls, and churning out advice and predictions to all his followers. Not that Manfred habitually thought of them as followers — he called them clients. He never thought of himself as a confidence man, since he was the real deal. But his talent did not always manifest at the time he needed it to, so sometimes, naturally, he had to fill in.

That was the way he looked at it.

When the first knock came at the door, he raised his head, annoyed. Who could it be? Most of the people of Midnight knew his schedule, and they wouldn’t come visiting during his work hours. A bit irritated, he went to the door and opened it. The click of a picture being taken, which reminded him of a cricket’s chirp, sounded several times.

“Mr. Bernardo, is it true that Rachel Goldthorpe was in your room at Vespers when she died?”

Don’t ever look furtive, his grandmother had always told him.

Manfred managed to control his pulse and his face, though inside he was scared as hell. “Yes, absolutely true,” he said. “She was a longtime client of mine. I was shocked and saddened by her death.” What was this all about?

“A client? For what service?” The newswoman, a junior one you’d send out if the story wasn’t that important, looked righteous as she demanded an answer.

“I’m a psychic, as you know,” Manfred said, rolling a lot of patience into his voice. And he added nothing else.

“And did Mrs. Goldthorpe discuss her jewelry with you?”

“Discuss? No,” Manfred said. “She said she’d hidden it. That was all she said.”

“Did you know that Lewis Goldthorpe is alleging that you stole his mother’s jewelry?”

“I have no idea why he would say something like that,” Manfred said. Aside from the fact that he’s a mentally ill son of a bitch. He could see a couple of people getting out of cars in front of the pawnshop. And heading his way. “This is a complete surprise to me. If you’ll excuse me, I must call my lawyer.” With that, he shut the door smartly and locked it for good measure. And made for his cell phone. While he punched in a number, he closed all the curtains, providing a cheerful miscellany of colors. (He hadn’t realized that curtains were supposed to match.) Manfred hated the resultant gloom, but he also didn’t know how far newspeople would go to get a picture.

His landline rang. He picked it up and put it down to break the connection. Then he left it off the hook. Just at that moment, a cheerful voice answered the cell call. “Clearfork, Smith, and Barnwell! To whom may I direct your call?”

“Jess Barnwell, please,” Manfred said, struggling to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Whom shall I say is calling?”

“Manfred Bernardo.”

“Just one moment.”

It really was just one moment before she was back on the line. “Mr. Bernardo, Mr. Barnwell is in a meeting right now, but he’ll call you back the moment he’s out.”

Sounded like Jess had already heard some version of the news. “I’m relieved,” Manfred said sincerely. “I’ll be waiting. Please tell him there are news crews here.”

“I will.” The voice sounded sympathetic.

The knocking at the door was repeated. Manfred sat down at his computer console, but he had a hard time concentrating on his clients.

Finally the cell phone rang. Manfred snatched it up. “Jess?” he said.

“No, it’s Arthur Smith. I’m outside. Can I come in?”

The sheriff of Davy County, whose area included Midnight. Manfred had met Arthur Smith months before, and he’d liked the man. “Okay, I’m coming to the door, if you’re ready to jump inside,” Manfred said, walking to the door.

“I’ll knock two, rest, two,” Smith said, hanging up.

Manfred stood at the door waiting, and then heard two quick raps, followed by a pause, then two more. He opened the door and Arthur Smith stepped quickly into the room.

Smith was in his forties, with tightly curling pale hair so light that its graying was not immediately obvious. He had wide-set blue eyes and a steady stare that could be very disconcerting. Manfred remembered that Smith had always been direct and honest with the people of Midnight when the body of Bobo’s missing girlfriend had been discovered, and he was counting on that being Smith’s true nature. He stood aside to avoid being photographed and also to let the sheriff enter the room quickly.

“What the hell’s happened?” Manfred said. “What is this? Why are all these people here?” All his anger and fear came popping out in little explosions of words.

“I tried to get here first. But I was in court because my divorce was getting finalized, one of my deputies was working another convenience store stickup, and another one is out with a broken arm. Got thrown by his horse,” said Smith.

“Okay,” Manfred said. “That’s kind of an unusual reason for a lawman to miss work.”

“Not here, apparently,” Smith said. “Mind if we sit down?”

“No, and I’m sorry about the divorce. Do you know why these people showed up? What the hell is this all about?”

“Tell me what happened in Dallas, first. Give me your version. And can I have some tea or a glass of water while you do?”

“Sure,” Manfred said. He felt much calmer since the sheriff was doing his best to be low-key. He took a few deep breaths, poured Arthur Smith a glass of iced tea with a teaspoon of sugar, and settled him on the old couch in the former dining room, now Manfred’s television room. It contained the couch, an armchair, and a flat-screen television set on an old credenza.

“Antiques, huh?” Smith said. He settled himself carefully on the couch.

“Just old stuff my grandmother had,” Manfred said. “Not good old stuff. Just old stuff.” It didn’t make any difference to Manfred. As long as he was comfortable, he was happy. He said, “This is what happened in Dallas.” And he told Arthur Smith exactly what had happened, with one omission — his speculations about Olivia. It helped that Smith was much more interested in the minutiae of his encounter with Rachel Goldthorpe.

“How often had you seen her before?” Smith asked.

Manfred had looked up the details soon after he’d gotten back to Midnight. Now he went to fetch the printout and handed it to his guest. “Those were the times I saw her in person,” he said. “I talked to her a few times on the phone, too, but she really liked the in-person conferences.”

“So what do you do at one of these conferences?” Smith leaned back with the air of someone who had all the time in the world to listen.

Manfred sighed. “The client has paid a deposit to reserve a time slot, of course.”

“Of course,” the sheriff said, a bit dryly.

“So when he or she gets to my hotel room, we’re ready to go. I always get a suite, so the bedroom isn’t visible, to keep it professional. Besides, there’s almost always some kind of dining table in a suite. On that table I place several means of foreseeing the future of the client, or looking into any question he or she brings me.”

Smith got out his notepad. “Like what means are those?” He was serious. Manfred was relieved. This was hard enough without dealing with the usual attitude the law showed psychics.

“Like… a set of tarot cards, a sort of crystal ball…”

“You have got to be shitting me.” Now Smith gave him an exasperated look.

“Nope.” Manfred gave him a tight smile. “Of course, I don’t claim to look into it and see the future. But it is a helpful focus object. I can use my gift more easily if I have it in front of me.”

“Your gift.”

“I’m not a fraud all the time, Arthur.” Manfred was nettled enough to use Smith’s first name. “I’m the real deal.”

“Right. Well, go on with your story.”

Manfred told Smith everything in meticulous detail. He had a good memory, which was helpful in his job, and he remembered almost everything Rachel had said.

“She had a big handbag with her?”

“Yes, she did.”

“What size would you say?”

Manfred shrugged and held up his hands, defining a space approximately fourteen inches by twelve inches, and four to five inches wide. “I guess around that big? It was full of stuff. She’d been sick, she told me. Pneumonia. I think she had to dig around in the purse to find her little package of tissues.”

“Did she always carry a bag that large?”

Manfred tried to remember. Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t notice purses, I guess.”

“When she came for previous sessions with you, did she open and close her purse a lot?”

Manfred stared at him blankly for a few seconds while he plumbed his memories. “She didn’t need to,” he said slowly. “She got out pictures of her family the first time, I remember. A picture of her deceased husband. Morton. But she hadn’t only prepaid her reservation fee, she’d prepaid in full, so she didn’t need to write a check. She didn’t ever ask me to do the touch psychometry. She liked the classic séance.”

“Which would be what?”

Manfred sighed, but he tried to keep it quiet. He didn’t like explaining himself, and he hated the incredulous looks he got from nonbelievers. But he couldn’t afford to be too righteous about it; he often made up findings that were not the result of any affinity for the world of the dead but the product of astute observation of the living. He believed that painters didn’t always have the inspiration for painting, writers wrote whole passages that were not muse-inspired, and that therefore it was natural that he, Manfred, didn’t achieve a connection with the supernatural every time he was asked to do so. But without a product, he didn’t get paid. So he did the best he could, and he always left the door open for genuine revelations. Manfred was pretty sure the sheriff wouldn’t see this in the same tolerant light that another practitioner would. With an inward shrug, he began his canned explanation.

“Normally, I hold hands with the person for whom I’m doing the reading,” Manfred said. “And they ask to speak to someone who’s gone over. I summon that person. It’s like flipping a switch to start a beacon flashing. Then I wait to see who comes. It’s not always the right person. Sometimes that person isn’t there. Sometimes there’s someone else who has an urgent message.”

Arthur Smith stared at Manfred, his hard blue eyes unblinking. It didn’t take a psychic to see that he was having a hard time keeping his expression open and nonjudgmental. “All right,” he said, finally. “So you’re holding hands with Rachel Goldthorpe. Her purse is where?”

“I’m trying to remember. I guess,” he said slowly, “that she had it on the floor by her chair. I know sometimes women will hang them on the back of the chair, if the bag has a shoulder strap. But Rachel’s purse didn’t.” He could see her carrying it into the room. It had been a beige bag, soft leather, the squashy kind. It had had the short straps. He heard again her labored breathing, saw the pallor of her face. “She didn’t set it on the table. So it must have been on the floor.”

“Did anyone else come into the room during your session with Mrs. Goldthorpe?”

“Oh, no. I usually offer clients a drink from the minibar, but she didn’t want anything. She had the bottle of water with her.”

“She what?”

“She had a bottle of water. Not Evian or anything. A black sports bottle, with butterflies on it. Her granddaughter had decorated it for her or given it to her or something.”

“What did she do with it?”

“She put it on the table. She took a big drink after she sat down. It helped relieve her cough.”

“She was coughing.”

“Sure. And breathing heavy. She told me she was recovering from pneumonia.”

“What happened to the water?”

“I have no idea. It was sitting there when the EMTs came into the room, and after that, it kind of vanished. I was moved from that room as soon as they’d had a good look at it; I only went back in to check that they’d gotten all my stuff out, and then I was in the room next door.”

“Were you by yourself in your original room, after they’d taken Mrs. Goldthorpe’s body out?”

“No, the bellman was with me.”

“Every second?”

“Yes,” Manfred said. “They’d told him to get me out of the room. In fact, I hurried more than I wanted to because he hovered around so much.”

“What had you so flustered?”

“The whole experience,” Manfred said frankly. “I was so shaken up. I got obsessed with making sure I had all my power cords. Last time I stayed somewhere, I left my phone charger in the hotel room. It’s inconvenient to have to get another one. Another time, I left my favorite tarot deck.” He spread his hands.

“Did you look in the trash can?” Smith was leaning forward intently, his pale eyes fixed on Manfred’s face. Manfred felt an absurd urge to feel all the rings in his eyebrow, make sure none of them were dangling.

“The trash? No. There was some stuff in the trash left over from the EMTs. But I didn’t look through it.”

“You didn’t see the water bottle?”

“No. Since it was black, I guess it could have rolled somewhere, if the police didn’t get it. If it was under something, I might not have noticed it.”

“See the purse?”

“That I would have definitely noticed. I would have insisted the hotel staff hold it for a member of the family. So I guess the EMTs or the police had it. I’m really careful about stuff like that. Especially when someone as crazy as Lewis Goldthorpe is involved.”

“Now that you’ve mentioned Lewis… Had you ever met him before?”

“Yes,” Manfred said, with distaste. “I’d heard a lot about him from his mother. He was a source of a lot of pain and concern to her. The last time Rachel met me for a session, he followed her and began pounding on the door while I was with her. He accused me of sleeping with his mom, in really graphic terms, and that was the mildest thing he said.”

“I’m a little surprised she wanted to have a session with you after that,” Smith said.

“I was, too, frankly. She told me he’d been giving her a lot more trouble. Her two daughters seem so nice. I can’t understand how she could have such an asshole for a son.”

“You liked her?”

“Sure.” Manfred felt, all over again, the outgoing flow of her spirit, the terror he’d felt when he understood what that meant. Would she have died if he hadn’t contacted her husband? Had Morton come to fetch her because Manfred had called him? Or would he have been there no matter when she had died? I wonder, Manfred thought, if she’d been at home in bed, would she have died at the same moment?

“Manfred?”

“What?” His head jerked up, and he saw that Smith was looking at him with some concern. “Sorry, I was just… I feel bad. She was a nice lady, and I wish she were still here. I don’t get to pick, though.”

“You think her time had come? The wheel spun around and stopped on her name?” Arthur Smith seemed genuinely curious.

That was so close to what Manfred believed that he was startled. “Yes, that’s what I think. I hope the exertion of getting out to see me wasn’t too much of a strain on her. This sounds bad, but I hope if she’d been anywhere else — the doctor’s office, watching a soap opera in bed, getting orange juice at the grocery store — she would have passed away at the same moment. I can’t really know the answer to that. What did her autopsy say?”

“That she was an overweight and sedentary woman past her prime who’d had a bad case of pneumonia. But the tox screen isn’t back yet.”

“Do you think there was something in that water bottle?”

“I’m not saying anything right now, because the results haven’t come back yet,” Smith said firmly.

“So what is all this about?” Manfred pointed at his front door as if he could still see the media people outside.

“A lot of Mrs. Goldthorpe’s jewelry is missing,” Arthur Smith said. “The police got the list from her insurance agency. After her son accused you of stealing it from her purse.”

Manfred could feel his mouth fall open. “You mean he was serious?” he said incredulously. “His mom just died and he’s worried about her jewelry?”

“That’s what he says.”

“She said he’d planned to take it.” Manfred couldn’t help sounding bitter.

“What did she say? Exactly?” This was clearly the question Smith had come to ask.

“She told me that she had had to hide her jewelry from Lewis. She was angry, and she was hurt, too. She said that Lewis had told her she was senile, that he needed to keep her jewelry for her own good.”

“What did you say in response?”

With a certain grimness, Manfred said, “I didn’t say anything. But I thought that before she left, I would be sure to tell her to share the hiding place with her daughters. Or to rent a safe-deposit box and give a power of attorney to Annelle or Roseanna.”

“It’s really bad luck for you that she didn’t get that advice from someone else before she saw you,” Smith said. “Did she ask you to see Lewis’s future?”

“I’d never try to see the future of anyone who wasn’t a client,” Manfred said, rather shocked. “She wanted to talk to Morton first, and he… took her with him.”

It was Smith’s turn to look incredulous. “You’re saying a dead man killed his own wife.”

“No!” Manfred could feel his cheeks redden. “I’m not saying that at all.” He took a deep breath. “When I called Morton, he was there in a flash. I was… startled, really. I was actually feeling kind of proud, thinking it was my great psychic prowess that drew him with so much speed. Now, I think he was just waiting for the call. I think he knew his wife was failing, and he wanted to be with her for the transition so she wouldn’t be frightened.”

Manfred had the familiar experience of watching a rational man try to cope with something he believed was irrational and incredible.

“Do you…” Arthur Smith stopped. He took a deep breath, then cocked his head from one side to another as if he were adjusting his neck bones. “Do you think Mrs. Goldthorpe knew she was dying?”

“No,” Manfred said. He didn’t have to think twice about it. “She did not. She was still really engaged with life. She knew she wasn’t well, but she had no idea that something was happening in her body, something so drastic that it would kill her.”

“You sound real certain.”

“I am real certain. By the way, I’ve called Jess Barnwell in Fort Worth. He’s represented me before.”

“Good,” Arthur said. “You need a lawyer. I’ve heard good things about Jess Barnwell. If something about Barnwell doesn’t work out, you can try Magdalena Orta Powell in Davy.”

“Lot of name,” Manfred said, smiling.

“Lot of lawyer.”

They both stood up. “Can you get rid of these people?” Manfred asked, his head jerking to the door.

“I can try,” Arthur said, without much optimism. “I’ll tell them they have to stay out of the yard.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Manfred said, and opened the door just enough for the sheriff to exit, his hat firmly in place on his head. Manfred tried not to listen to the questions the reporters were shouting.

Lucky I work at home, he thought. He glanced at his cell phone, which had not rung yet. He was uneasy. He’d expected to hear from Barnwell before now. He called the law office again. This time the secretary told him, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bernardo, but Mr. Barnwell says you need to seek other representation. He has done work for the Goldthorpe family before, and late yesterday he was engaged by Mr. Goldthorpe.”

“But Morton Goldthorpe is dead.”

“Mr. Lewis Goldthorpe.” The voice was carefully neutral. Then she said, “I really am sorry,” and hung up.

The next phone call Manfred made was to Magdalena Orta Powell. He was beginning to feel like a rabbit trying to find a safe place to hide from the crazy fox.

He spent a certain amount of time talking to her assistant, a man named Phil Van Zandt… not a name you’d soon forget. From Van Zandt’s voice, Manfred believed he was talking to a man in his early twenties like Manfred himself, a man who was not from “these parts.”

“Could you be here tomorrow at four, Mr. Bernardo?” Van Zandt asked, in the abstracted tone of someone looking at a schedule book and a computer screen. “She should be out of court by then.”

“Phil, here’s my situation. I live in Midnight, and I’ve got reporters camped outside my door. I can’t get out of my house without running the gauntlet. If I have to, I have to, but I really don’t want to do that. Is there any way Ms. Powell can come to my place?”

“I can just catch her. Hold on.” There was an electronic buzz. Then some music kicked on. It didn’t suck.

Phil was back in less than two minutes. “She can come to you on Monday at eleven,” he said. “Before you get all excited, let me tell you her fee.”

After a very practical discussion, finally Manfred understood his compulsion to work hard and save money, a compulsion that had driven him for the past few months.

It was so he could pay Magdalena Orta Powell.