‘Keisha Ceylon. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’
Before she could sit down, she had to move a ball of green wool that was speared through with two blue, foot-long knitting needles. She tucked the bundle over to the edge of the chair.
‘I … I can’t say that I have. What is it that you do? I mean, what’s the nature of your consulting?’
‘As I said, I offer my services to people when they’re dealing with the kind of crisis that you’re currently going through.’
‘Missing wives?’
‘Well, any kind of missing person. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions first?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I know you and your daughter made yourself available to the media yesterday to outline your concerns about Mrs Garfield.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What sort of tips have the police received since then?’
Wendell shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
Keisha nodded in sympathy, as though this was about what she expected. ‘And what other efforts have the police been making in trying to find Mrs Garfield?’
‘Well, they’ve been trying to trace her movements since she left here Thursday night. That’s the night she does the grocery shopping, but she never went to the store.’
‘Yes, I knew that.’
‘And her credit cards haven’t been used. I know they’ve been showing her picture in all the places she usually goes, as well as talking to her friends and people she works with. All the things you might expect.’
Another sympathetic nod. ‘But so far, there are no leads. Is that what you’re telling me, Mr Garfield?’
‘It would seem so,’ he said.
Keisha Ceylon paused for what she thought was a suitably dramatic period of time, and then said, ‘I believe I can help you where the police cannot.’
‘How’s that?’
‘The police have employed all the typical methods that you would expect,’ she said. ‘They do what they do, but they are not trained to – what’s the phrase? To think outside the box. What I offer is something more out of the ordinary.’
‘And what is that, exactly?’
She looked him in the eye. ‘I see things, Mr Garfield.’
His mouth opened, but he was briefly at a loss for words. Finally, he said, ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I can see things,’ she repeated. ‘Let me make this as simple and as clear as I can. Mr Garfield, I have visions.’
A small laugh erupted from him. ‘Visions?’
Keisha was very careful to maintain her cool. Don’t get defensive. Don’t overplay your hand. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. She would play for time and make him ask the questions.
‘What, uh, what kind of visions?’
‘I’ve had this gift – if you can call it that, I’m not really sure – since I was a child, Mr Garfield. I have visions of people in distress.’
‘Distress,’ he said quietly. ‘Really.’
‘Yes,’ she said again.
‘And you’ve had a vision of my wife? In distress?’
She nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, I have.’
‘I see.’ A bemused smile crossed his lips. Keisha had expected this. ‘And you’ve decided to share this vision with me, and not the police.’
‘As I’m sure you can understand, Mr Garfield, the police are often not receptive to people with my talents. It’s not just that they’re sceptical. When I’m able to make progress where they have not, they feel it reflects badly on them. So I directly approach the family involved.’
‘Of course you do,’ he said. ‘And how is it you get these visions? Do you have, like, a TV aerial built into your head or something?’
She smiled. ‘I wish I could answer your question in a way that someone could understand. If I knew how these visions come to me, I might be able to find a way to turn them off.’
‘So it’s a curse as well as a blessing,’ he said.
Keisha ignored the sarcasm. ‘Yes, a bit like that. Let me tell you a story. One night, about three years ago, I was driving to the shopping mall. I was just minding my own business when this … image came into my head. All of a sudden I could barely see the road in front of me. It was as though the view before me had turned into a movie screen.
‘I saw this girl, who couldn’t have been more than five or six. She was in a bedroom, but it was not a little girl’s bedroom. There were no dolls or playhouses or anything like that. The room was decorated with sports memorabilia. There were trophies, posters of football players on the wall, a catcher’s mitt on the desk, and a baseball bat leaning against the wall in the corner. This little girl was crying, saying she wanted to go home, pleading to someone to let her leave. Then there was a man’s voice, and he was saying, not yet, you can’t go home yet, not until we get to know each other a little better.’