Mind to Mind: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (15 page)

She sent me along a side
street and directed me down a drive through a grove of trees,
through an arched gateway. A rather modest white frame house sat at
the end of that drive. There was a graveled parking area to
accommodate eight or ten cars.

Aside from the directions, Alison had given
me not a word. I parked beside a beat-up van camper and asked her,
"What is this place?"

"That's right," she said, nurturing her
delicious secret with a mysterious smile.

I asked, "What is right?"

"That's what it's called: The Place in the
Oaks."

We got out and I cased the joint from ground
level. Very pretty. Nicely manicured lawn, bunch of oaks, some
fruit trees, flower beds scattered about, couple of flowing
fountains. A guy ambling across the far side of the lawn looked
like an Indian to me. An Indian brave. Wore something that looked
like a loincloth, not another damned thing.

I said, "Okay."

Alison took me by the arm
and walked me to the house. The front door was standing open. She
rapped on the screen door.

This Indian maiden
appeared immediately, materializing from the gloom inside to smile
at Alison from behind the screen. "Oh, good," she said in a
throaty, seductive voice, "you've come back."

Someone had "come back" for damned sure.

I felt that I had been there myself. I
mentioned earlier the feeling that I had been out-of-body during
the night. My hackles were raised now with that eerie feeling that
it had all happened before. Minnehaha wore a buckskin miniskirt and
vest. The vest was laced up the front with about a three-inch gap
along the center, revealing shiny mounds in peek-a-boo relief and
just the hint of areola to either side. Only one thing marred that
lovely display: a ring of little circular tattoo marks barely
visible along the breastline.

Whatever, however, whoever; one thing was
unmistakably clear.

Except for the long black braided hair and
sexy voice, this fetching "Indian maiden" was our Jane Doe.

Chapter Twenty: So-Hay
Oh-Hi

She told us that her name was
Oom-ray-key-too. That's a phonetic spelling, accent on the second
syllable. I made a point to ask her how it is spelled, and she
replied that it is "written as it is heard," so you've got it as I
got it.

The Chamber of Commerce
literature mentioned the Chumash Indians as ancient settlers, circa
1000
b.c.,
and
went on to say that they "still exist in mixed blood to the
present, some within the Ojai." But Oom-ray-key-too did not claim
descent from the Chumash. She went a bit beyond that, claiming that
her people had been "on the land" since "the raising of the sacred
mountains." I'm no geologist, but I'd been under the impression
that all the mountains of California had "raised" in some
geological era predating the first men, so I decided not to take
her literally in the matter, assuming that she spoke
metaphorically.

She would not let me do
that, though, hastening to correct and assure me that the
So-hay-bi-hee-jee had been "soul-walkers" on the earth for at least
the past "two million earth years."

So I said okay and
followed her to a solarium room at the rear where she seated us
among towering potted plants and instructed us to "commune with the
great earth mother" while she whomped up some herbal
tea.

I hate herbal tea, but I have to admit that
I was fascinated by those soul-walkers so I just sat there and
tried to collect my ricocheting mind. Alison leaned toward me and
whispered, "They give readings here. I told her I wanted one, but
I had to meet my boy friend first."

"What kind of readings?" I whispered back,
though I really did not need to ask.

She shook her head, replied: "The lady who
sent me here just said they give spiritual readings. Maybe it's
past lives! I hope so!"

I just hoped that Alison would keep her
objectivity. After all, we were here to...

I'm going to call her Oom for short;
obviously she kept a ready kettle because she was back already with
steaming cups of something that smelled like incense. I hate
incense, too, but I politely tasted the stuff and quickly resolved
not to do so again.

Alison, though, made a big deal of it,
umming and aahing and wanting to know what it was. In what I soon
learned was her usual mysterious manner, Oom confided: "It is the
sacred blend."

I didn't know about that,
but I sure wanted to know if Oom had been in Los Angeles recently.
I told her, "You look very familiar. Have we met?"

She smiled mysteriously and said, "Perhaps
in our dreams."

I said, "No, I think it was more substantial
than that. Weren't you in Studio City last night?"

She laughed throatily,
cast a sidewise glance at Alison while telling her, "Watch him;
your man works fast." She then got right down to brass tacks. "The
standard donation is fifty dollars. But if you both desire
consultation, you may donate thirty-five each."

I was trying to be funny when I inquired,
"Do you accept Visa?"

She replied, "Of course, or any major
card."

I handed her a fifty
instead, said, “I’ll pass. Just do Alison.”

"Very well," Oom murmured, eyes cast down in
a quick inspection of the bill. She could probably spot a phony
just by the feel of it in her hand.

I was losing objectivity
myself. I was forgetting that this woman was a double for Jane Doe,
that the L.A. cops were probably even then filing an APB on me; I
was reacting to the old Gypsy fortune-teller routine and dealing
with the situation on that level instead of trying to apprehend
the real mystery.

But, after all, I admit it, my mind was
reeling. I sat there and watched Oom escort Alison beyond a beaded
curtain and into an inner sanctum somewhere, inwardly fuming over
the bald fakery of this "earth mother," older-than-mankind
bullshit.

Oom was no Indian of any
breed. Her genes hailed from Europe, not from any sacred mountain
in a land first settled by Paleolithic hunters coming across the
ancient land bridge of the Bering Strait from Siberia. And it
always pissed me to find the fakers and charlatans who always, it
seems, infiltrate the serious metaphysical centers, because these
are the ones who seem to attract the greatest visibility and who
therefore become the standard by which all are publicly judged. I
have nothing against fortune-tellers. I won't bother them if they
won't bother me. And I'd never contest anyone's right to play with
these people, if that's what they want. To each his own, that's my
motto. But I do hate to see them moving in on the real stuff. Of
course...who am I to say what is real and what is not?

See...that was my state of
mind while I was sitting there amidst the potted plants, smelling
the nauseating herbal tea, absently watching the "Indian brave" in
a loincloth mowing the lawn with an electric mower, eyeing the
"Thank You for Not Smoking" obscenity glaring at me from the wall.
Mind you, I am not that addicted to nicotine, but the desire always
seems the strongest when it is being prohibited. I know it was
dumb. Maybe my left brain was rebelling, refusing to process any
more of this stuff. I just know that I was sitting there thinking
dumb and feeling dumb when another Jane Doe walked into the
room.

This was Jane Doe, Senior.
About fifty. Still very pretty. Dressed almost the same as Oom
except that the buckskins were not quite so revealing. Graceful,
even dignified, saintly smile.

She sat down across from me and invaded my
head.

It's okay to smoke if you want to, if you
feel that you really need to.

That is a rather loose translation. Didn't
come in words. But it came before she produced an ashtray and
handed it to me.

I said, "Okay," and lit up.

She smiled serenely.

I thought, okay, let's play, and I wished
like hell I had something to drink other than the damned herbs.

She went to the kitchen. I heard ice
clinking against glass. She came back with a cola. I smiled at her,
and she smiled at me as she whisked away the offending tea.

She did not come back. I got up and wandered
around. The house was not that large, but I could not find her.

Come back
tonight
, came from somewhere beyond
space-time.

I desperately need to
speak with you
, I sent back.

Tonight!

So much for my tirade on
"fortune-tellers." I want to say this for the record. I had never
before experienced such pure communication, as from mind to mind
with nothing between.

Alison and Oom reappeared a few minutes
later. Alison seemed almost dazed, bemused.

I commented, "That was quick."

“
Truth is always quick,”
intoned Oom. She was looking at my cola, the ashtray with the
stubbed-out cigarette resting in it.

I told her, "Your mother said it was
okay."

She said, "My mother says nothing."

I insisted, "She said to me something."

Oom said, "Then you are very special. Come
tonight."

I asked her, "What is special about
tonight?"

"New moon."

"Yes?"

"Yes. The earth mother smiles when her
consort reappears."

I guessed, "We want to catch her smile."

"If we find favor," Oom replied, as though
stating the obvious.

I scratched my nose and asked, "How much of
a donation does the earth mother require?"

"Five hundred per couple is standard," she
replied quietly.

"How much for just one?"

"One is imbalance. It is not allowed. Two
must come, male and female must come."

I said, “Okay. What
time?”

"Moonrise."

I asked, "What time is that?"

Oom said, "Over the sacred mountain."

"Yeah, but what time is that?"

She replied, with a trace of irritation,
"You demand an earth time?"

I admitted, "That would be handy, yeah."

Hiawatha came in from the
yard via the kitchen at that moment. He'd apparently snared a
bottle of ice water from the refrigerator on his way through; he
entered guzzling, head tilted back, paused at that long enough to
tell me, "Try ten o'clock, citizen. That'd give you time for the
orientation."

I said, "Which orientation is that?"

This guy was about forty but had the body of
an eighteen-year-old, hard and bulging all over but from physical
culture, not practical exertion. The eyes were blue and steely,
that magnificent body bronzed and sleek—glistening now with
perspiration—and the voice was pure James Garner. He said, "You
gotta have the orientation," and returned to the kitchen.

I told Oom, "Okay, we'll see you at ten. Is
a personal check okay?"

She replied, "That will be fine."

I took Alison by the hand
and led her away. She had uttered not a word since her "reading." I
put her in the car and stood there at the open doorway for a
moment, gazing back at the house. "How'd it go?" I asked
her.

Her mouth opened and stayed that way for a
couple of seconds before the awed words came: "Simply amazing."

I asked her, "How amazing is that?"

"She knew all about me.
Where I was born. What my parents were like. All about my
schooling, my decision to switch from med school."

"What about your future?"

"She wouldn't tell me."

"Why not? If she told you everything
else..."

"She said it's cloaked."

"What's cloaked?"

"My future is cloaked."

I said, "Okay," and went around to my side
and got in the car, cranked it, pulled out of there.

As we hit the street I
asked Alison, "What'd you think of Hiawatha?"

"Who?"

"The guy in the loincloth."

"He seemed very nice. I—I guess I really
didn't notice."

I told her, "You should have noticed.
Remember how the nurse described the assailant at the hospital? She
said he was very strong."

"Yes, I..."

"Did you notice Hiawatha's moccasins?" I
asked her.

"No, I..."

I noticed them. Didn't really go well with
the loincloth. Were not moccasins at all. Running shoes, Keds or
something. White. With blue trim.

I could hardly wait for "new moon."

While I was waiting for
that, though, I decided it might be wise to have a telephonic
tête-à-tête with Captain Valdiva.

And that, as it turned out, was the wisest
thing I'd done all week.

Chapter Twenty-One: Probable
Cause

"Valdiva, hi, this is Ford."

"Where are you, Ford?"

"Trying to run this case down. Have you
found the murder weapon yet?"

"Where'd you say you are?"

"Try the water gardens or the swimming pool.
I feel it would be somewhere obvious. I believe you'll find that it
is a Walther PPK." I rattled off the serial number from memory.
"Nine-millimeter short. Mother-of-pearl grips."

"Did you get that in a vision?"

"No, I pulled it straight from memory. It's
my gun. And it's missing."

"When did you discover that?"

"Shortly after I left you last night. I went
out to my car to get it and turn it over. Wasn't there. It was no
casual theft, Valdiva. I kept the piece in a hidden compartment in
the floorboard."

"Who knew about that?"

The trick compartment? Damned few...uh,
dammit, Captain, Jim knew about it."