Barclay, Linwood Novel 08 - Never saw it coming

unlikely he’d have been in touch.”
    Gail pulled away from Keisha’s embrace. “Did I do that?”
    “You don’t remember?”
    Gail blinked a couple of times. “I don’t . . . I’m not sure.”
    “It was some time ago. You know that period where you believed you were channeling Amelia Earhart?”
    Gail nodded. “That was a couple of years ago.”
    “I think it was while you were talking as Amelia that you asked me for a card. You said you had someone you thought I could help.”
    Gail was still trying to recall. “That’s possible. I think I remember. Maybe I was thinking of giving it to Ellie. She probably wouldn’t have believed in what you do any more than Wendell, but at least she wasn’t totally closed-minded.”
    Keisha liked the way this was going. Gail, like so many of Keisha’s regulars, was very suggestible.
    “So you must have given it to your brother or your sister-in-law at some point, or else one of them saw the card at your place and helped themselves to it.” Keisha waved her hand as though it didn’t matter. “But what I need to know is, what can I do for you, right now? How can I help you through this?”
    “I knew you’d be here for me,” Gail said. “I tried Jerry’s phone after I tried calling you.” That must have been when the phone rang earlier, Keisha thought. “But his went to voicemail, and the truth is, I didn’t really want to talk to him anyway. He’s never been there for me the way you have.”
    For fifty dollars an hour.
    Keisha hugged her again. “I just want you to know that any time you need to come by and talk, it’s okay.”
    Gail smiled and dabbed her eyes again. “There is something. And I’d certainly be willing to pay you for your time, more than your usual rate.”
    Keisha said, hesitantly, “Well, Gail, like I said, any time you want to talk . . .”
    “No, I need you for more than that. You see, Keisha, the police don’t know what they’re doing. They have Melissa in custody for something she couldn’t possibly have done. And if they’ve got that all wrong, I know they’re going to get the investigation into my brother’s death all mixed up too.”
    “I don’t really know what I could—”
    “I want you to help me. I want you to help me find out who killed Wendell, and what really happened to Ellie.”
    “Gail, I’m not a detective,” Keisha protested.
    “I know!” she said. “That’s what makes you the perfect person to help. You see things no one else can. I’ll bet you—I’ll bet you if you came with me to my brother’s house, you could just
tell
what happened. Remember that story you told me, about the little girl who was abducted and was in the neighbor’s house, with all the sports trophies around her? You
solved
that! If you hadn’t had that vision, that girl would be dead now. You told me that yourself.”
    Keisha disentangled herself from Gail Beaudry and stood up. “I might have embellished that story just a little bit.”
    Gail slapped Keisha’s hand. “You’re just being modest. I know what you can do.”
    “But I really don’t think I could help you here. I mean, the police aren’t going to want me sticking my nose into this. They have a thing about mediums and psychics. They think we’re crazy.”
    Gail stood defiantly. “I don’t care what they say. If you’re working for me, there’s nothing they can do about it.”
    Keisha looked at Kirk. She couldn’t read what was on his face, which was still bloodied from when she scratched him. Maybe he was too stupefied to register anything.
    All Keisha knew was, she could not go back to that house.
    She believed she’d successfully planted the seed with Gail about her business card, and that when the police finally came around to ask about it, she had a plausible explanation for how it ended up in Wendell Garfield’s pocket without her ever being at his house. He’d come upon the card, maybe in a drawer, and hung onto it, thinking he might work up the nerve to call Keisha to help him find his wife.
    Except it was clear from what Gail had told her that Garfield knew what had happened to his wife. His daughter had killed her, and he’d helped her cover her tracks. So why would he need a psychic’s help?
    But he and Melissa had held a press conference seeking information from the public when they really didn’t need it. So wasn’t it plausible that Garfield might engage a medium to maintain the fiction that he didn’t know what had happened