Double Take - Catherine Coulter [56]
Wallace shook off Julia’s hand, shoved away from the mantelpiece. “I won’t listen to this. Julia, how could you?”
“I’m sorry, Wallace. Agent Stone, surely you’re not being fair.”
Cheney shrugged, looked down at his fingernails.
Wallace shouted, “That’s it! I want you to leave now, Agent Stone. Julia, you can stay, but not him. I’m going to call my lawyer, and you can talk to him from now on.”
Cheney said, “Tell me, Mr. Tammerlane. As a renowned psychic medium, do you ever speak to your dead wife?”
CHAPTER 27
Wallace Tammerlane was breathing hard and fast; anger reddened his cheeks, nearly reached his eyes. Cheney waited patiently.
Finally, Wallace drew in a deep breath. He got himself together. Julia held her breath, watching the man she’d always liked, a man she knew liked her and had honestly admired her husband. She’d never been certain if he was a legitimate psychic or simply a great showman, if he was also a legitimate medium or one of those despicable individuals who claimed to speak to your dead father and tore out your heart. When she’d asked August, he’d evaded her, said only that belief in someone was based on indefinable things, that we each had to decide for ourselves, which meant nothing. She touched his arm again.
Wallace said finally, calmer now, at least on the surface, “No, I do not speak to my wife. I have never tried to speak to Beatrice. She killed herself, that is all. She was an unstable woman, on medications, which she many times forgot to take. Her suicide was the result. It was a horribly painful time for me, Agent Stone.”
Cheney nodded. “Your real name is Actis Hollyrod?”
“Yes. My parents were sadistic and insane to name me that. I had my name legally changed when I turned eighteen. I changed it to something more suited to my actual self.”
“You knew your actual self at eighteen?”
“Naturally. I knew I had a precious gift from the time I was seven years old, a gift that demanded I use it to help others, to provide healing and comfort to those in grief. I try to provide counsel and hope that will also assist me along my own path to spiritual awareness.”
“Mr. Tammerlane, you’re speaking of The Bliss?”
“No. One must strive for spiritual awareness during the few years allowed us on this earth. The Bliss is what is after you pass from this world. I do not use that term. The Bliss is one that August adopted many years ago, and many younger mediums have embraced it. I think it sounds pretentious, rather too much like a bit of New Age feel-good nonsense. Sorry, Julia. However, August felt comfortable with it, as do others.”
“What do you call it, Mr. Tammerlane?”
“I call it simply The After.”
“What exactly is The After?”
“Simply stated, Agent Stone, it is the continuation of man’s after-death destiny, our immersion into the ultimate loving beneficence of a serene and infinite eternity. The After is the embodiment of perfection that we will dwell within, Agent Stone.”
Simply stated?
Wallace pulled a lovely gold pocket watch out of his white vest, consulted it, tried to keep Cheney from seeing that his hand was shaking. “My client is due in three and a half minutes. My clients are never late.”
“Why are your clients never late?”
“Why, Agent Stone? I charge them, naturally. My time is far more valuable than any of theirs, or yours, a common policeman for the federal government. I have a mission in this life and you are interfering with it, for no reason I can ascertain. You come into my house and insult me. You make insinuations about my poor dead Beatrice. I want you to leave.”
“Wallace, don’t be so angry at Agent Stone. Like you, his mission is to help people.”
“You’ve disappointed me, Julia, disappointed me gravely. I dislike seeing you with him.”
“I’m sorry, Wallace,” Julia said. “But I’m concerned that the third time this man tries to kill me he just might succeed. And I must find out who killed August.”
Cheney said, “I watched several of Dr. Ransom’s videos. He said in one of them that