has an urgent message.”
Arthur Smith stared at Manfred, his hard blue eyes unblinking. It didn’t take a psychic to see that he was having a hard time keeping his expression open and nonjudgmental. “All right,” he said, finally. “So you’re holding hands with Rachel Goldthorpe. Her purse is where?”
“I’m trying to remember. I guess,” he said slowly, “that she had it on the floor by her chair. I know sometimes women will hang them on the back of the chair, if the bag has a shoulder strap. But Rachel’s purse didn’t.” He could see her carrying it into the room. It had been a beige bag, soft leather, the squashy kind. It had had the short straps. He heard again her labored breathing, saw the pallor of her face. “She didn’t set it on the table. So it must have been on the floor.”
“Did anyone else come into the room during your session with Mrs. Goldthorpe?”
“Oh, no. I usually offer clients a drink from the minibar, but she didn’t want anything. She had the bottle of water with her.”
“She what?”
“She had a bottle of water. Not Evian or anything. A black sports bottle, with butterflies on it. Her granddaughter had decorated it for her or given it to her or something.”
“What did she do with it?”
“She put it on the table. She took a big drink after she sat down. It helped relieve her cough.”
“She was coughing.”
“Sure. And breathing heavy. She told me she was recovering from pneumonia.”
“What happened to the water?”
“I have no idea. It was sitting there when the EMTs came into the room, and after that, it kind of vanished. I was moved from that room as soon as they’d had a good look at it; I only went back in to check that they’d gotten all my stuff out, and then I was in the room next door.”
“Were you by yourself in your original room, after they’d taken Mrs. Goldthorpe’s body out?”
“No, the bellman was with me.”
“Every second?”
“Yes,” Manfred said. “They’d told him to get me out of the room. In fact, I hurried more than I wanted to because he hovered around so much.”
“What had you so flustered?”
“The whole experience,” Manfred said frankly. “I was so shaken up. I got obsessed with making sure I had all my power cords. Last time I stayed somewhere, I left my phone charger in the hotel room. It’s inconvenient to have to get another one. Another time, I left my favorite tarot deck.” He spread his hands.
“Did you look in the trash can?” Smith was leaning forward intently, his pale eyes fixed on Manfred’s face. Manfred felt an absurd urge to feel all the rings in his eyebrow, make sure none of them were dangling.
“The trash? No. There was some stuff in the trash left over from the EMTs. But I didn’t look through it.”
“You didn’t see the water bottle?”
“No. Since it was black, I guess it could have rolled somewhere, if the police didn’t get it. If it was under something, I might not have noticed it.”
“See the purse?”
“That I would have definitely noticed. I would have insisted the hotel staff hold it for a member of the family. So I guess the EMTs or the police had it. I’m really careful about stuff like that. Especially when someone as crazy as Lewis Goldthorpe is involved.”
“Now that you’ve mentioned Lewis . . . Had you ever met him before?”
“Yes,” Manfred said, with distaste. “I’d heard a lot about him from his mother. He was a source of a lot of pain and concern to her. The last time Rachel met me for a session, he followed her and began pounding on the door while I was with her. He accused me of sleeping with his mom, in really graphic terms, and that was the mildest thing he said.”
“I’m a little surprised she wanted to have a session with you after that,” Smith said.
“I was, too, frankly. She told me he’d been giving her a lot more trouble. Her two daughters seem so nice. I can’t understand how she could have such an asshole for a son.”
“You liked her?”
“Sure.” Manfred felt, all over again, the outgoing flow of her spirit, the terror he’d felt when he understood what that meant. Would she have died if he hadn’t contacted her husband? Had Morton come to fetch her because Manfred had called him? Or would he have been there no matter when she had died? I wonder, Manfred thought, if