She took a breath. Garfield was trying to look neutral, but Keisha could tell she had him hooked.
‘Well, I nearly drove off the road. I slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the hard shoulder. By then, this vision, these images, had vanished, like smoke that had been blown away. However, I knew what I’d seen. I’d seen a little girl in trouble, a little girl who was being held against her will.
‘So, in this particular situation, because I did not know who the actual people involved were, I made a decision to go to the police. I called them and said, ‘‘Are you working on a missing girl case? Is there perhaps something you haven’t yet made a statement about?’’ Well, they were quite taken aback. They said they really couldn’t give out that kind of information. And I said, ‘‘Is the girl about six years old? And was she last seen wearing a shirt with a Sesame Street character on it?’’ Well, now I had their attention.
‘They sent out a detective to talk to me, and he didn’t believe in visions any more than I would imagine you do. I think maybe they were thinking I might have actually had something to do with this girl’s disappearance, because how else could I know those kinds of details? But I said to him, talk to the family, find out who they know who’s really into sports, who’s won lots of trophies, particularly football trophies, maybe even baseball.
‘The detective said, yeah, sure, we’ll get right on that, as if he was humouring me. Then he left and made some calls. Within the hour, the police had gone to the home of a neighbour who fitted that description, and they rescued that little girl. They got to her just in time.’ Keisha paused. ‘Her name was Nina. And last week she celebrated her ninth birthday. She was alive, and well.’
Total bullshit.
Keisha clasped her hands together and rested them in her lap, never taking her eyes off Wendell.
‘Would you like to call Nina’s father?’ she asked. ‘I think I could arrange that.’
Keisha didn’t think he’d take her up on the offer, but if he did, she had Larson, her boyfriend, on standby to take the call.
‘No, no, that’s OK,’ Garfield said. ‘That’s quite a tale.’
Keisha looked away and down at her hands, trying to be modest.
‘But I totally understand,’ she said, ‘if you’d like me to leave. Perhaps you think I am a con artist. There are plenty out there, believe me. I don’t know whether you’ve been contacted by a Winona Simpson, but she’s definitely one to watch out for. If you don’t want me to share my vision with you, I’ll leave right now and you won’t hear from me again. I just want to say, I hope the police find your wife soon, Mr Garfield, so that you and your daughter can get your lives back to normal.’
She stood up. Garfield was on his feet, too, and when Keisha extended her hand once again he took it right away.
‘Thank you for your time, and I’m so sorry to have troubled you.’
‘What will you do?’ he said. ‘I mean, if you’ve had this so-called vision, and I’m not the kind of person who believes in that sort of thing, what will you do now?’
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and tell the police what I know, and see if there’s anyone there who cares. Sometimes, though, that has a way of backfiring. It doesn’t always work out the way it did with Nina. I’ve found that the police have a tendency to be hostile, and the tips you give them will end up being the last one they follow. I hope, for your wife’s sake, that they don’t take that attitude.’
‘So you’re going to the police,’ he said, more to himself than to Keisha.
‘Again, thank you for—’
‘Sit down. You might as well tell me how this works.’
Five
Wendell
Wendell Garfield didn’t know what the hell to make of this woman. Did Keisha Ceylon really have visions? The story about that little girl was pretty convincing, but it wasn’t enough to persuade him Keisha was genuine. There was something about her, though, that was hard to dismiss.
His mind raced through the possibilities. The woman was trying to get money out of him, plain and simple. He had a feeling that, even though they hadn’t gotten around to the topic of money, it was coming. What better target than a husband desperate to find out what had happened to his missing wife?
Perhaps plenty of people in his position would be willing to engage a psychic, a medium – whatever this woman wanted to call herself. This might be so even if they believed, at best, that there was only a one in a million chance that she really knew anything. Isn’t that what someone who truly loved his wife would do?