Frank De Felitta - Audrey Rose

“Who are these people?” Bill interrupted.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The two psychics? What are their names?”

“I never knew the woman’s name. The man was Erik Lloyd.”

“Erik Lloyd?”

“Yes, he”—Hoover’s eyes lowered in respect—“died several years ago.”

“Uh-huh,” Bill commiserated. “That’s too bad.”

He could have predicted both answers. Hoover obviously thought he was dealing with novices.

“All right,” he continued, his eyes fastened on Hoover, “at that point, we’re talking about 1965 to ’6. You say that two people, psychics, told you your daughter was alive and living in New York and that her name was Ivy, is that correct?”

Janice thought Bill was overplaying it. Still, Hoover answered forthrightly and without seeming concern.

“Yes,” he replied. “That’s correct.”

“Well, why didn’t you come here then and claim her?”

“It was never my intention to claim her. Nor is it now.”

“Well, why didn’t you at least come and look us up, as you’re doing now? What took you, was it, seven years to decide whether or not she was really your child?”

“Mr. Templeton”—Hoover’s voice was soft with patience—“as I explained last night, my entire background, my religious upbringing, the sum and substance of all I was and believed in, were strongly opposed to such ideas. I was a scoffer and a disbeliever, as you are now.”

“So you went to India to discover the truth?”

“I went to many places, Mr. Templeton, met and stayed with many families, many teachers; learned of a way of life that was totally alien to mine; joined my life with theirs; embraced their customs; shared their poverty; partook of their beliefs and their philosophies; and, in time, with the help of God, and the wisdom of Siddhartha Guatama, their Buddha, came to know the reality of their religious convictions.”

Hoover turned to Janice.

“Might I please have a glass of water, Mrs. Templeton?” he asked.

As Janice rose and walked toward the kitchen, Bill’s next question faded off in the background.

“Understand, Mr. Hoover, when it comes to reincarnation and things like that, I’m at ground zero. Tell me. What are these religious convictions you’re talking about? And what convinces you that they’re right and that you are right in what you’re doing?”

Janice wondered if Hoover took ice in his water and decided finally to serve the ice separately. The thought of Russ, upstairs, listening to this strange conversation, brought a fleeting smile to her lips. Somehow Hoover didn’t seem so frightening tonight. He had no doubt been through a very bad experience and was a tortured man, willing to believe in anything. Janice almost felt sorry for him.

When she returned with the tray, Hoover was speaking in a voice charged with passion.

“The ego in man never dies. It keeps coming back over and over again, having gained in wisdom during each sojourn spent on other planes of being between the incarnations. Therefore, some souls are older in wisdom, have enjoyed more stages of spiritual and intellectual evolution, so that a great teacher may be an older soul than, say, a bricklayer or a savage.…”

“Ummmm, yeah …” Bill said as Janice put down the tray.

“I didn’t know if you wanted ice,” she said unsurely, placing the glass of cubes on the table next to Hoover.

“No, thanks,” he said with a quick smile. “I take it straight.”

“What did you do for money, Mr. Hoover,” Bill asked, “for sustenance during all this time? I mean, you quit working back in sixty-seven. How did you support yourself during all those years?”

Janice was sure this was one of Harold Yates’ questions.

Hoover finished drinking his water and answered simply. “A great deal of money came to me from the death of my wife and daughter. A double indemnity policy amounting to more than two hundred thousand dollars has more than provided for me during these years.”

Bill did a quick mental calculation: At eight and one-half percent interest, two hundred grand would net him seventeen thou per year, which, if true, was enough to support him on any number of truth searches.

“While the money, on the one hand, was abhorrent to me,” Hoover continued, “I did make positive use of some of it. There’s still a great deal left as my needs are very simple.”

“When did you come to New York?”

“This year, on the twelfth of July.”

“And you used a disguise?”

“Not until I was pretty sure I had … found the right people.”

“You mean us?”

“Yes.”

“How were you sure we were the right people?”

“A process of elimination. I had only three real clues: She lived in New York City; her hair was blond; her name was Ivy. That, plus the time of her birth, which had to be soon after Audrey Rose’s death. I went to the boards of health in all five boroughs and checked the birth records. I found six girls who were possible: two in Queens, one in the Bronx, one in Brooklyn, and two in Manhattan. All had been born within a year of Audrey Rose’s death. But only one was born at the moment of her death. Your daughter.”

His words settled deeply into the atoms of the room. Janice licked her lips, which had suddenly become parched. Bill cleared his throat.

“Isn’t that a little unusual,” he ventured, “a person coming back so quickly? I mean, I always heard it took … uh … a long time to come back. I mean, people who believe in it, always speak of having lived during the time of Caesar and Davy Crockett, you know? Isn’t it unusual for someone to die one second”—Bill snapped his fingers—“and be born the next second? I mean, you tell me—”

“In my experience, Mr. Templeton, I have found that those who die an early or violent death and are interrupted from experiencing the full opportunities of their mental, physical, and spiritual growth often return sooner than those who die in peace at a ripe old age. Oftentimes a soul may return at the instant of death. In Tibet each Dalai Lama is the immediate incarnation of his predecessor. When a Dalai Lama dies, Tibetan notables immediately begin a search for the new incarnation.”

“And they always find him?”

“For five centuries they have never failed.”

“How do they do it?”

“By interpreting certain portents. After the thirteenth Dalai Lama died, they placed his body on a throne, facing south. After several days, they found that his face had turned to the east, where curious cloud formations were also seen in the vicinity of Lhasa. High lamas and notables went to all parts of Lhasa in search of the newly born Dalai Lama.”

“And they found him?”

“Yes. In the village of Taktser, they found a boy of two, living in humble surroundings. When the leader of the party, Lama Kewtsang Rinpoche, entered the house, the little boy went to him immediately and sat on his lap. Around the lama’s neck was a rosary which had belonged to the thirteenth Dalai Lama. When the child saw it, he recognized it and wanted it. The lama promised to give it to him if he could guess who he was, and the boy said, Sera-aga, which means, ‘A lama of Sera.’”

Bill coughed.

“Okay, so you found your girl. Why the disguise? Why all that Secret Service stuff, following us around, scaring the hell out of us?”

“I apologize for that,” Hoover replied with a look of regret. “But I had to be sure you were the right people. That Ivy was the right child. The times of death and birth, although pretty remarkable, were still not convincing proof. It might still have been only a coincidence.…”

“And your research convinced you that we were the right people?”