The Inheritor by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley [Bradley, Marion Zimmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic, Occult & Supernatural, Usernet, C429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 0312859961
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1984-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

“I thought I’d report the woman to the bunco squad, at least.”

“Of course you must. But I can hardly believe it—that old trick had whiskers when Alison was a girl, I remember her telling me about that, and some other dodges that fake mediums do. And it’s been written up dozens of times— Gresham exposed it in his novel Nightmare Alley. I simply find it hard to imagine that anyone would still fall for it in I983! What was it—was it P.T. Barnum said? There’s a sucker born every minute—”

“My Dad used to say, A sucker born every minute and two to skin him,” Leslie said.

Simon nodded. “I think it was William Randolph Hearst who said nobody ever went broke underestimating human intelligence.”

That struck her unpleasantly as something Joel might have said. “This shouldn’t take long, but of course I don’t know—” and let him escort her in.

At least, if she was now able to criticize, even if only in her mind, what she heard Simon say, then at least she was no longer bewitched or besotted. Or was she now moving to the other extreme, hypercritical of the man she professed to love? Either idea dismayed her.

Patricia Ballantine, the young officer to whom she had talked that afternoon, found her a comfortable chair and pulled out a file. Before putting it into her hands, she said, “If it will be easier to go over to his apartment—we can run you over there.”

“Let’s see what happens with the pictures first,” Leslie suggested. She had never had to have close contact; with Phyllis Anne Chapman she had actually picked it up from the mother’s voice on the telephone. Officer Ballantine held out a photograph, and Leslie passed her hands over it.

She turned the photograph in her hand, feeling confused, with no clear sense of anything wrong. She said, “I don’t know what you mean. This man is home with his—his grandmother.” She had not known what she was going to say till she heard herself saying it.

“What did I tell you, Pat?” It was the burly officer Schafardi. “I said she’d know. Pardon me, Dr. Barnes, just a little test, kind of like a lineup. That picture in your hand is one of our young plainclothes detectives. There’s psychics and psychics, and I get a lot of grief from the guys in the squadroom for listening to any of them. So I figured, if you were on the level, you wouldn’t mind a little test. Miss Margrave was on the level, and I figured you must be too.”

“Thank you—I think,” Leslie said dryly.

Patricia Ballantine handed her another folder. “This is the file we have on Gus Hansen—that’s the missing kid.”

Leslie had confused impressions, an apartment with plastered walls, a poster of some rock singer, a crumpled mattress, a young man’s face, hiking boots, an orange backpack—she said, hesitating, “Did they find his backpack?”

“Pat, did anyone say anything about a backpack?” Schafardi asked, and Patricia Ballantine shook her head.

“I—don’t get the feeling he’s dead.

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