Charlaine Harris - Day Shift

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.”