A Cast-Off Coven (16 page)

“You were doing
what
?” Max demanded.

“It’s an ancient bonding ritual,” I said, annoyed with both men. What, were they thirteen years old? “Invoked to ward off childish displays of sibling rivalry. Obviously, it didn’t work.”

Bronwyn laughed, and Luc smiled a crooked, sexy smile. “I, for one, was letting my imagination run free.”

“Run amok, more like,” Max grumbled.

“Stop it, both of you,” I said. “Luc, you’re deliberately provoking your brother. And Max, it would help if you didn’t rise to the bait.”

Max glowered. Luc grinned.

“I brought you coffee,” said Luc, handing me a paper cup.

“Thank you—how kind. What can I do for you?” I asked. Luc looked around the shop floor, but his gaze seemed to settle on Bronwyn’s herbal stand and the painted sign with the amiable slogan from the Wiccan Rede: AN IT HARM NONE, DO WHAT YE WILL.

“I was hoping to talk to you about something . . . odd.”

Max snorted, arms crossed over his chest.

Luc’s happy-go-lucky visage hardened. “You can leave now, Max. I came to talk with Lily, not you.”

“I was here first. Anything you have to say to her you can say in front of me.”

I was hoping I wasn’t about to be treated to a Carmichael family smack-down.

“Oooo, this is so exciting. So manly,” Bronwyn sang out above her energetic rinsing of the clothes. “I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

The tension in the room eased a bit.

Luc shrugged. “Here’s the deal. I think I’m . . . That is, I’m afraid I might be”—he took a deep breath and blew it out—“possessed.”

I choked on my coffee.

“Possessed,” I repeated.

“Possessed?” Bronwyn asked.

“Possessed,” Luc confirmed.

“Give me a break,” Max scoffed. He leaned back against a jewelry display case, the picture of world-weary cynicism.

“Max, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an open mind,” Luc said, and I noted his vibrations shimmering with anger—and fear. “Just because you had a bad experience doesn’t mean everyone who believes in these things is nuts.”

“Sure, little bro, whatever you say.”

“Max, please,” I said. “Luc, what makes you think such a thing?”

“I’ve been blacking out, losing time. It’s happened a few times now.”

“When?”

“Last night, after you left. I’ve got a half-finished sculpture, but the thing is . . . I don’t remember doing it.”

“Did you . . . hurt anyone?”

He shook his head.

“Tell me exactly what happened. What’s your last recollection?”

“I remember I was working in my office, but I went back into the closet because that damned music box we found kept on playing.”

“The music box? You’re sure?”

“Positive. I saw something in the mirror, something indistinct, kind of like mist. And that’s the last thing I remember.” He paused. “But there’s something worse.”

Max sighed, and I glared at him.

“Go on,” I said.

“Now I’m afraid I may have killed Jerry Becker.”

Max gave a loud, dismissive snort.

“Max,” I said, “feel free to leave, if you’d rather.”

Arms crossed over his chest, Max looked as though he was here to stay.

“What happened, Luc?”

“That night, I remember being at the café. I remember seeing Becker there, and you, and walking back up the bell tower stairs toward my office. But that’s it. When I came to, I was sitting in the third-floor hallway.”

“So why would you think you killed Jerry Becker?”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s as though I felt a sense of blind rage, like in a nightmare.”

Luc might have been sensing the fury of the demon, I thought . . . but would he have acted on that rage?

“And,” Luc continued, “I lied to you yesterday about what Becker and I were arguing about. He actually accused me . . . of sending him a blackmail note.”

“A blackmail note? About what?”

“I don’t know; we didn’t get that far. That’s what he was coming up to talk to me about.”

“But you didn’t send anything?”

“I don’t think so, but like I say, I haven’t exactly been in complete control of all my actions lately. I can’t imagine what I would be blackmailing him over, though, since I don’t know anything about him, except that he’s a cold-hearted jerk, and the whole world knew that. Anyway,” Luc said, downing the last of his coffee and tossing the paper cup into the trash basket by the register, “I’ve got to go. I’m already late for an appointment down the street. This stuff has just been preying on my mind, and after I saw you in action yesterday, then happened to pass by your store, I thought I should get your opinion.”

“Here,” I said, taking a small ball pendant from my display and crossing over to gather herbs from Bronwyn’s stand. The filigree ball opened to form a little pocket, in which I placed some black cohosh, eupatoriam, and Devil’s Pod. “Wear this. It’s a little stinky, but it will help. Is there any chance you could stay away from the school for a few days?”

“We’re in the middle of midterm projects. But I’ll be more careful; won’t hang out alone up on the third floor anymore.”

“Good idea,” I said.

With a pat for Oscar, a smile at me and Bronwyn, and a curt nod to his brother, Luc left the shop. The door had barely closed before Max started in.

“Don’t tell me you believe that cockamamie story?” Max demanded.

“I didn’t say I believed it. But I think he does.”

“And he’s virtually admitted killing Becker?”

“He did no such thing. He said he was
afraid
he might have but didn’t remember it.”

My mind was racing ahead: How in tarnation would a person explain that if Luc killed Jerry Becker, it wasn’t his fault? I was no lawyer, but I was pretty sure the state of California would not recognize a plea of innocent-by-reason-of-demon-possession. Back in the burning days, a person could claim that “the devil made me do it,” though all that ever accomplished was a conviction and execution for witchcraft rather than the original crime. Indeed, in past centuries, the mentally ill, or people suffering from occasional “fits” such as epileptics, were often branded as possessed by evil and subjected to torturous exorcisms. But today, the pendulum has swung the other way; those who might actually be demonized are given enough antipsychotic medication to turn them into walking zombies.

Just as the old exorcisms failed to help those with mental illnesses, modern pharmaceuticals were of no use to the demon-possessed.

By far the easiest way to go about this, I decided, was to first see if there was another explanation for Becker’s death. Still, I couldn’t help but ask myself whether, if I learned that Luc had indeed pushed the Big Cheese down the stairs to his death, would I inform the police?

“But you agree he’s possessed?” Max persisted.

“Not at the moment.”

“Lily, please. You’ve
got
to be kidding me.”

“ ’Fraid not. What did Luc mean about your having had a bad experience with the supernatural?”

Max shrugged and pressed his lips together. His hands rested on his hips. Tension and anxiety pulsed around him. “It wasn’t something supernatural, exactly.”

“What was it, exactly?”

“Bad experience with a so-called psychic.”

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter. What worries me at the moment is that you believe my brother when he says he’s been possessed. Call me a cynic, but I’m thinking you both need help.”

“You think he’s making it up? What reason would he have to do such a thing?”

“Luc’s always been a drama queen. He’s probably having trouble sleeping, just as I have been lately, and fell asleep at his desk. Or . . .” He trailed off.

“What?”

Max shrugged. “Luc’s had a drinking problem. He’s been sober for almost a year, but . . . it’s possible he relapsed and just blacked out.”

“Oh, I see. Still, I need to look into it, at the very least.”

“Why? Why are you mucking around over at the scene of a criminal investigation in the first place? It’s not your job. You’re not a cop, or a private investigator. Just walk away.”

“Whatever is going on at the School of Fine Arts is well outside the expertise of the SFPD.”

“And this requires your intervention why, exactly?”

I took a deep breath. “This is who I am, Max. If there’s some sort of spiritual entity terrorizing people, and I can help . . . well, I feel obligated to do what I can. Can you understand that?”

There was a long pause. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

That irked me. But at least it was honest. And what did I expect from a self-declared “mythbuster”? A proclamation of love and affection despite our diametrically opposed views of the natural—and supernatural—world?

“Well, then, I suggest you figure it out. Now, tell me, why were
you
looking into Jerry Becker’s death?”

“Checking out his finances, mostly. I heard about Becker when Luc took the position at the school, and got curious. His was one of those meteoric rags to riches tales that folks love to read about. It’s all laid out in the article. Unlike some people, I don’t keep secrets.”

“Really. What happened with your wife, Max?”

The muscle in his jaw clenched.

“I’m going to run upstairs, find something for Oscar to eat. Don’t mind me,” Bronwyn said. At the sound of her voice, Max and I both jumped. We’d forgotten she was there.

“I’d best be going, anyway,” Max remarked. “Let you two get some work done. Besides, my attempt to apologize seems to be something of a bust.”

“Not entirely,” I said.

“I’ll call you later, if that’s all right.”

“Of course.”

The bell jingled as he left. My eyes followed his tall, broad-shouldered form as he made his way down the street. I hated to admit it, but maybe Aidan Rhodes was right: Max was my Darrin, and I was his Samantha . . . unfortunately, this
Bewitched
redux wasn’t very funny.

 

Bronwyn and I washed slips, bloomers, camisoles, skirts, and dresses until our shoulders ached. Two hours later, we both looked up at the door, grateful to see Susan Rogers.

“I brought you a copy of my book!”

I dried my hands and flipped through the large coffee-table book. It included fine-colored illustrations, historical photos, and pictures of the movers and shakers in Bay Area fashion design, past and present.

“I believe it sold at
least
fifty copies, probably forty-nine of those to my mother and her friends,” Susan said with a rueful smile. “But Booksmith still keeps a handful of copies on the shelf, since I’m local. They’re a great bookstore. Pages twenty-six and twenty-seven have the bit about the School of Fine Arts.”

I turned to the pages and noted an old photograph of the school, appearing essentially the same as it did now. There was also a reprint of a brochure with a description of the school from back in its designer days. And finally, there was an even earlier, sepia-toned image that chilled me: It showed a group of five young nuns.

The caption read,
Novices newly arrived in America from France, mere weeks before the 1906 earthquake
.

“Do you know anything more about this group of novices from France?” I asked.

Susan shook her head and looked over my shoulder at the photo. “I got that from the California Historical Society, down on Mission. It was the only photo I could find from the days when the school building was a nunnery. There’s very little information about what convent they came from in France. No one knew them, and they spoke no English when they arrived. The only interesting thing I remember reading about was that not long after they moved in to the convent, they were disciplined for ‘immodest behavior.’ ”

“What would qualify as immodest behavior for a nun back then?” Maybe they really
had
been performing in bawdy plays?

“I don’t know,” Susan said. “I suppose drinking, dancing, fraternizing with men . . . maybe worse. Those were quite the wild days in San Francisco history, you know. It was called the Barbary Coast for a reason: Barbarous amounts of drinking, gambling, and whoring went on.”

“You’re not suggesting the nuns ran a brothel out of the convent, are you?” Bronwyn asked.

“Of course not . . . All we know is that there were some scandals of untoward behavior. Then the whole group of them disappeared during the 1906 earthquake.”

“Disappeared?” I said.

“Like poof? Up in a cloud of smoke?” Bronwyn asked.

“Oh, they probably just left, moved someplace safer,” said Susan. “A lot of displaced San Franciscans made their way across the bay to Oakland. Nobody saw the nuns go, but it was a madhouse. Certainly no one was keeping records in the chaos after the quake, and worse, the fire.”

“Fire?” I asked.

Bronwyn nodded. “The earthquake was bad and destroyed a good many buildings. But the real devastation was caused by a massive fire that broke out afterward, when gas mains ruptured. The fire raged for days and wiped out huge portions of the city.”

“But not the convent?”

“No, it survived, but it was shut up for more than a decade, before it was renovated and turned into the school,” Susan said.

“Hmmm. Anything else odd about the building’s history?”

“A few decades ago,” Susan said, “a young man threw himself down the bell tower stairs. Suicide.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Susan extracted a lime green file from her satchel, from which she drew several photocopied articles. “I pulled these off the microfiche.” She spread the articles out on my sales counter, and we all perused them. “Looks as though the school tried to keep it quiet, but I found a mention of the death in the
Examiner
newspaper.”

“No photo of the deceased?”