Double Take

Dix said, “Did you ever speak to my wife other than the time she complimented you after a recital?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. I went into Maestro to buy stuff, like every other student. She’d be around. I remember I saw her once with you. She kissed you and pushed you into the sheriff’s office. I remember she was laughing. She was real pretty.”

Dix studied his face. Caldicott seemed too young, yet he wasn’t more than three or four years younger than Dix himself. He seemed immature somehow, not yet fully adult. Who knew the roads he’d trekked, where they’d led him? He was a musician, evidently a very good one. Maybe that was it. Why not spend the night, go listen to him play? It would give Dix more time to think of another way to approach him.

“The symphony is playing tonight?”

“Yes.” He beamed. “I’m playing Rachmaninoff’s 1890 Romance for Violin and Piano.”

“We would like to hear you perform.”

“Oh man, that’d be great. Please do. I really don’t have anything else to tell you guys. I hardly ever speak to Charlotte, only the occasional e-mail, and never to Mr. Pallack. Please, I need to go find Whitney before she turns me into a eunuch.”

Dix shook his hand. Ruth nodded at him, smiled. “We might be seeing you this evening, Mr. Caldicott.”

Damned if his eyes didn’t light up. Dix saw the first hint of resemblance between him and Charlotte and between him and Christie. It was the tilt of his eyes, how his smile widened and lightened them.

When Dix pulled out of the Caldicott driveway in the rented Taurus, Ruth said, “I’d wager my knickers he’s lying. I just don’t know about what and why.”

“I don’t know,” Dix said. “I simply don’t know.” Dix and Ruth didn’t get to hear David Caldicott play Rachmaninoff’s 1890 Romance for Violin and Piano that night. At six o’clock, they got a call from Savich.

CHAPTER 23

SAN FRANCISCO

Monday

It took Cheney twenty minutes to realize that the SFPD believed the two attempts on Julia Ransom’s life were evidence of a falling-out between her and her partner in the murder of her husband. He’d talked to the inspectors, read the files Frank had given him early that morning at headquarters. The investigation hadn’t been superficial, exactly, but neither had he seen any sign of real dogged grit—the kind of persistence that should have been there in the case of a murdered celebrity. The initial focus was on the widow, and it never wavered. There were several references to an “accomplice,” since the cops didn’t believe she’d done it herself. Nope, she must have had a man do the deed, though they never found one. They still believed it, only they were smart enough not to come right out and say it to her face. Or to his face.

Cheney knew Julia hadn’t killed her husband, hadn’t had a partner, it was as simple as that. So while the police were trying to find the man they believed was her cohort and now her enemy, he had to start at the beginning to solve the murder of her husband.

He looked up when she came into August’s study, where Cheney was seated at the desk, reviewing copies of the files. “Why were the cops so convinced you killed your husband?”

“Oh, they still are, you know that as well as I do.”

“Okay, yes. Why?”

“Because they believed—believe—I was tired of being tied to an old man, yes, a very rich old man, they thought, no matter his fame or the esteem in which he was held. And I wanted his money. There were rumors about a lover, of course, but I’m not telling you anything new, am I? You’re reading all about that, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea where those particular rumors came from, who started them, or why.” She splayed her fingers in front of her. “The tabloids even tossed out names, one of them poor Zion Leftwitz, August’s civil attorney, a very unassuming man who starts at his own shadow. And, naturally, most of the psychics in the area—Wallace Tammerlane, Bevlin Wagner, and Soldan Meissen. They didn’t mention Kathryn Golden, I suppose because they didn’t want to reach that far, and besides, she probably didn’t have the strength needed to kill August. For a while they leaned toward Bevlin Wagner simply because in the entire lot of psychics in August’s circle, he’s the one closest to my age. I have to tell you, Bevlin was bewildered.” She actually laughed, hiccupped, and said, “Sorry.”

“Bewildered? He wasn’t flattered?”

“Oh no. He worshipped August. He would have cut off his hands for August. He looked at me but didn’t really see me, all he saw was his god. Well, not until after. As I told you, Bevlin proposed to me. I’m not sure if it was because of a newly discovered passion for me, or whether he wanted to protect August’s widow, but I was as nice as could be when I turned him down. I’m glad the police didn’t find out about the marriage proposal, otherwise they would probably have homed in on poor Bevlin again.”