Tarnished and Torn (9 page)

The pan was heated and ready. I arranged the pieces of bread, placed the cheese on them, and added slices of ripe red tomatoes grown in my garden, reveling in their rich scent. I would sprinkle Parmesan and a little garlic salt on the outside of the bread so it browned on the iron skillet. A gourmet grilled cheese.

My movements were rote, familiar, and evocative of another time in my life. I remembered my mother’s kitchen was fragrant with the spices used in recipes handed down through her mother and grandmother. Most of their Cajun customs had been lost after the family relocated from New Orleans to west Texas, but tradition lived on through the food: gumbo and dirty rice, jambalaya and salmon croquettes, red velvet cake and peach cobbler and apple brown Betty. I had a strained relationship with my mother and was rarely nostalgic for her company, but the act of cooking—even something as simple as a grilled-cheese sandwich—bound me to her nonetheless.

As the sandwiches browned, I pondered. It had been months since I’d dealt with a demon, and weeks since I’d been embroiled in a murder investigation. I had been fostering a tiny flame of hope that things might have settled down in this beautiful city by the bay, but the longer I lived in San Francisco the more I realized my decision to move here may not have been entirely my own. It seemed I was needed here. There were crimes in these parts that only a powerful, hereditary witch like me had the skills to address.

After we polished off dinner—I was still full of pad Thai, so I gave Oscar most of my sandwich and made him another after he claimed he was still peckish, despite consuming a large glass of sweet tea, two Pink Lady apples, and three chocolate chip cookies—my familiar groused about helping me wash up, then curled up in his nest of blankets on top of the refrigerator. He was snoring in three seconds flat.

I poured myself a glass of nice Bordeaux and stepped out onto the terrace to enjoy a warm San Francisco night. Unlike in West Texas, where the temperature on a “warm night” might not dip below ninety-five and the humidity remained in the high double digits, here in the city by the bay a tropical evening meant the marine layer remained at sea rather than blanketing the city with nature’s version of air-conditioning. It had been unusually hot lately, the temperature hovering in the eighties for days on end. The locals were wilting, accustomed as they were to the traditional foggy San Francisco summer.

But I thought the evening perfect.

And the plants loved it. The flowers and herbs I grew were useful and often essential to my spells: witch’s thimbles—also known as foxglove—could be mixed with devil’s nettle, yarrow, and fool’s parsley to create a potent poultice; cumin and verbena might be ground together for use in love potions; the spiky purple blooms of monkshood were brewed with cinquefoil and belladonna and water parsnips for a concoction that helped to open oneself to the spirits on the other side.

The garden, the cooking, spending time with new friends and old clothes . . . all of these things brought comfort to my life. But tonight I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had seen today.

Poor Griselda. Pressed, then stabbed.

The
Malleus Malificarum
, the handbook for European witch hunters, outlined the method of pressing a witch. Maybe I should look it up, just in case . . . but I refused to keep a copy of the vile tome in my apartment. My neighbor Sandra had one; I could ask to borrow it. But if I did that, she would have lots of questions, and I didn’t want to have to deal with her. Then I reminded myself that I lived in the twenty-first century. A copy of the
Malleus
would no doubt be available online. I would look it up tomorrow, surrounded by the vibrant shop activity. It would be too much for me tonight, alone.

I picked up my gardening shears and started deadheading roses, then pruned the dwarf cherry. Next were the small containers of herbs and flowers, one for each astrological sign: chrysanthemums, heather, and pink rose thorns gave a person temporary influence over a Scorpio. Historically a lot of folks believed that a witch’s “influence” insinuated an evil plan, but it was often a method used to cure someone. If an Aquarius took ill, a brew including foxglove and snowdrops could be especially effective. And the judicious use of henbane helped with afflictions common to Pisces—though poisonous in large doses, tiny amounts of henbane used to be added in the brewing of many traditional German beers.

Germany
. I hadn’t been lying when I told Lloyd I had family there—as far as I knew, my father still resided in the remote Bavarian village where I had tracked him down when I was seventeen. Could there be a connection between my estranged father and Griselda? Possible, but it wasn’t as though all the magical folk in Germany knew one another, any more than we do here. Still, an old friend had called the shop a few weeks ago to tell me my father might be coming to town. For a while I had been on guard, but when nothing came of it I figured she had been mistaken. But maybe there was more to it then I’d thought.

If someone believed Griselda possessed something valuable, ransacked her room, and killed her, but still hadn’t found it . . . it seemed to me there were a finite number of places it could have ended up. Either I had that something among the things she had sold me, or it was still with her things from the show, or she had gotten it to someone else or put it into a secret hiding place.

And just where had Johannes gotten to?

I needed some help and advice. One person fit the bill: the local witchy godfather, Aidan Rhodes. I had been livid with Aidan since he banished my—what should I call him? “Boyfriend” sounded adolescent; “lover” seemed an overstatement, considering we’d spent a grand total of one night together. My . . .
friend
, Sailor.

I could also use Sailor right now, in more ways than one. I missed him with a wrenching sense of loss in my gut; his absence—and the lack of news from or about him—made me believe I was an abject failure at romance. But right now I needed him for more practical reasons. With his psychic abilities he would be able read the jewelry I’d acquired from Griselda, I felt sure. Perhaps he would be able to tell me if I had a prized piece, and maybe even figure out what was so special about it that people were willing to kill for it.

I glanced at the stars high overhead. It was late, but I couldn’t sleep. Instead I trekked downstairs to the shop to examine the loot from the Gem Faire once more. Perhaps alone at night, when the vibrations were calm, I could sense something.

Spreading all the jewelry we had gathered on the glass display counter, I prepared myself as though I were scrying in my crystal ball—which I still sucked at, despite all my efforts. But I forced such negativity from my mind. I stroked my medicine bag to center myself, blew out a long breath, mumbled an incantation, and slowly opened my eyes. I held my hands out over the mixed necklaces, brooches, and rings, and tried to open myself to any whisper of sensation.

Nothing. Not one darned pulse. No vibrations; no humming.

It was another exercise in frustration, not helped by the fact that I was tired. Feeling defeated, I shoved my hands in the deep pockets of my skirt—only to hit something small and solid.

The cuff link.
It was still in my pocket from earlier today.

I shouldn’t have left the crime scene; I should have stayed and spoken with the authorities when they arrived to investigate Griselda’s death. I had been afraid, though I didn’t know of what exactly. Now shame washed over me. How often had I heard Inspector Romero say,
“Tell me anything at all, even if it seems like it’s not important.”

I owed Carlos a phone call in the morning. I really didn’t know what I could offer, but it was only right to try.

Still, something was holding me back, and I knew what it was: Oscar’s words had not been reassuring. Before I talked to Carlos I wished I could be certain whether we were dealing with a demon, some sort of murderous witch, or simply a homicidal human. Though Carlos and I had a decent relationship, it was fragile.

And any murder involving demons—even tangentially—was guaranteed to get tricky fast.

•   •   •

Early the next morning, bleary with the lack of sleep, I grabbed my Brazilian shopping basket to head down Haight Street to Coffee to the People, my favorite neighborhood café. Even at this hour, the weather was warm and unusually muggy, reminding me of Texas.

On the curb outside my store sat a skinny, sleepy-looking young man. Conrad was one of the dozens of street kids who hung out on Haight Street, scrounging for spare change. He spent his nights in nearby Golden Gate Park, but spent most of his days outside my shop. Conrad and I had bonded not long after I opened Aunt Cora’s Closet; two social misfits who somehow fit together. He did the occasional odd job for me and watched over Aunt Cora’s Closet, and in return I did my best to make sure he had at least one decent meal each day.

“Yo, dudette! How’re things?”

I smiled at his use of the feminine form of his favorite word, “dude.”

“Hanging in there,” I answered, thinking how complicated an honest answer to that simple question would be. “How about you?”

His eyes narrowed. “Keepin’ an eye out for strangers.”

“I thought there were no strangers in the Haight, only friends you haven’t met yet.”

“Dude?” Conrad tried to focus, confusion in his red-rimmed eyes.

I longed for the day Conrad would take me up on my offer to help him get off whatever he was on. My concern for his well-being had been solidified not long ago when he’d risked his own safety to protect Aunt Cora’s Closet from intruders. He was a good guy, and I was certain he would have a lot to offer once he got himself together. I had been tempted, more than once, to use my powers to force him into rehab, but such a spell would never last. The human will was powerful indeed, capable at times of frustrating even powerful magic. For the transformation from addict to sobriety to last, the subject had to embrace it. Conrad was not there yet, and I could only hope I would be around when that day came.

“Never mind,” I said. “I was just joking. Are you worried about strangers?”

“Hey, did you hear about the fire dancing in the park?”

Conversations with Conrad were often a little disjointed. But he was my friend, so I played along. “Actually, I saw some posters about fire dancing just yesterday. And I think Maya mentioned something about dancing in the park. What is it, exactly?”

“It’s awesome, is what it is. It’s, like, people coming together as brothers and sisters to make
art
, dude. Like the fire is
alive
. Duuuude. You should check it out.”

“I will. Shall I get you the usual from the café?”

“Don’t look now, but those two guys in the old Ford Scout?” Conrad lifted his chin in the direction of the hat store across the street. “Those are the strangers I was talking about.”

I glanced over but saw nothing but a big, mint green truck.

“I said, ‘Don’t look’!” he whispered.

“Oka-a-ay.” I played along. “What about them?”

Conrad frowned.

Despite urging me toward subtlety, Conrad slewed his eyes across the street at the old truck again, and frowned.

“Been there since I arrived. I think those two dudes spent the night there.”

I nodded and waited. In this part of town—and given rents in San Francisco—spending the night in a vehicle wasn’t all that unusual. After all, Conrad and his friends slept wherever they could—in door fronts, nooks under stairs, or nearby Golden Gate Park.

“Want me to go talk to them?”

“
No
. Dude.”

“All righty, then,” I said, not sure what Conrad wanted from me. “I’m headed to the café. Unless you tell me different, I’ll bring you a bagel and a Flower Power.”

Flower Power was a drink that was a proprietary recipe at Coffee to the People and was an homage to the days when the flower children came to the Haight from all over with the dream of building a society of peace, love, and understanding. If only they had succeeded.

“Thanks. I’ll keep an eye on ’em. Want me to sweep the sidewalk? Make it less obvious I’m, you know, watchin’ ’em.”

“You’re a born covert operative, Conrad.”

“Duuude.”

I returned twenty minutes later with breakfast and hot drinks for both of us, plus a jalapeno-avocado-garlic bagel for Oscar.

But Conrad had disappeared, and so had the truck.

Unfortunately, in their place was an SFPD radio car. Double-parked, right in front of Aunt Cora’s Closet.

I didn’t need the gift of sight to know that this did not bode well.

In the past when I’d dealt with the San Francisco Police Department, it had been in the form of Inspector Carlos Romero, and he’d always come to interrogate me at my store. Such drop-by visits had seemed rather fraught, but now they seemed downright civilized in comparison.

It was decidedly less friendly to be brought down to the station by a uniformed cop I didn’t know. My heart pounded as I followed the young man through a maze of corridors and desks.

Sorry to say this wasn’t my first visit to a jailhouse. The first time was years ago, in my hometown of Jarod, where the two-room police department and jail were eerily similar to that of Sheriff Andy Taylor’s in the old television series
The Andy Griffith Show.
The second time was not long ago, when I’d been busted for trespassing in Oakland’s Paramount Theater. Oakland’s jail is the real deal, and I’d spent an unpleasant few hours in custody before Carlos pulled some strings and got me released. (The charges, I am happy to say, were dropped.) Apart from these two experiences, my understanding of the underbelly of law enforcement was based on snatches of TV shows and movies. So when the uniformed officer drove me to the station I rather expected to find myself chained to a table and interrogated in an isolated room outfitted with a two-way mirror.

Instead I had been escorted to a large room jammed with desks, many arranged in pairs facing one another. The desks were occupied by dozens of men—and a few women—dressed in neat pants and shirts, filling out paperwork, flipping through case files, or talking on the phone. The officer who had brought me in led me to one such desk, behind which sat a compact man, physically fit and clad in chinos and a black leather hip-length jacket. Homicide Inspector Carlos Romero, SFPD.

“Thank you for coming in,” he said, standing as I approached. Carlos had dramatic, dark features, a somber but intelligent air, and a way of carrying himself that radiated authority. Though he wasn’t a physically imposing man, Carlos had a way of making me feel safe, as though he had everything under control.

He waved me into the beige office chair facing his.

“Of course. What’s going on?”

He looked at me for a long moment before speaking. This wasn’t unusual for Carlos, who, I was almost sure, was more perceptive about people than was strictly normal. Loudly ringing telephones, the low murmur of cops chatting, and people coming and going created a wall of ambient noise that gave our conversation a semblance of privacy. Still, the setting wasn’t nearly as official as I had expected it to be.

“A woman was killed yesterday.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

I volunteered nothing further. I had intended to call Carlos today to tell him what little I knew about Griselda’s death, but the fact that he’d brought me down to the station was a sign that something big was afoot, and I should be careful what I said.

One of Carlos’s interrogation techniques was to make a statement, then fall silent, waiting for the other person to fill the void with whatever information he or she had. Even when you knew it was happening it was a surprisingly hard technique to resist. But resist I did.

And so we sat in silence. After several minutes, Carlos apparently realized I was not falling for his trick.

“It’s not even my case,” he said. “But I felt like I should talk to you about it.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“The way the woman died is unusual.”

He was trying again to get me talking, but I still wasn’t falling for it. I would answer his questions—as fully and honestly as I could—but I would not take the lead.

“I remembered reading something about the method used to kill her. So I looked it up.” He leaned across his desk, pulled a library book from beneath a stack of papers, opened it to a marked page, and read:

“Throughout the witch hunts various methods were used with particular success by the church-led inquisitors: there was the
strapatto
, in which the accused’s hands were tied behind her back and then lifted into the air, resulting in the dislocation of the shoulders; and the
indicium aquae
, or ordeal of swimming, in which drowning constituted innocence; as well as pressing, in which the accused was sandwiched between two boards and slowly crushed by the weight of stone upon stone.”

Again with the staring. I was sure I looked white as a sheet. Even hearing the descriptions of those torments made me sick to my stomach. I caressed my medicine bag. Some things chill me to the core, which I can only assume are primordial memories or fears passed down from my witch ancestors, across the generations and through time.

“The woman who was killed yesterday,” Carlos continued, “appears to have been murdered by what’s called pressing, a traditional way of killing a witch.”

“Actually, pressing was a method of
torturing
a witch in hope of forcing a confession. Death was a bonus, I guess.”

“You want to tell me what you know about this case?”

There weren’t a lot of police officers who understood, much less believed in, my powers. Carlos and I had gotten off to a somewhat rocky start, but now we were friends. Of a sort. Now that he was no longer playing games with me, I was ready to tell him what little I knew.

“I assume we’re talking about the woman at the Gem Faire?”

“You were there?”

“Yes. I met the uh . . . victim, Griselda, at her stand there. We had a brief discussion about opals, and. . . .” I trailed off, deciding not to tell him about the jewelry. He would come to the store and confiscate it for evidence, and I wasn’t ready to let it go; if there was anything there, I had to find it. If I turned it over to the police they would just pack it up in whatever warehouse was used to house such evidence, where it would languish alongside evidence bags containing murder weapons and bloody clothing.

“And . . . ?”

“And nothing. That was about it, as far as our interaction went.”

Carlos stared at me. He knew I was lying.

I could sense his disappointment, and it pained me. I could feel our relationship shift, from wary but friendly mutual respect, back to police versus possible suspect.

“Whatever you say,” he said with a shake of his head, making a note in his ever-present notebook. “You don’t seem all that surprised to hear she was killed.”

“I saw her body.”

“You
saw
her? When was this?”

“Yesterday, when fires started in the main exhibit hall, the sprinklers were on, everyone was running . . . I saw her there. Under the board . . . the security guards were waiting for the emergency vehicles, so I . . . left.”

“You just turned and left. You didn’t think maybe someone might want to talk with you?”

“I didn’t
see
anything, Carlos. I don’t know what happened. I happened upon her body after she’d already been discovered, and had nothing to add. It seemed . . . ghoulish to hang around and gawk. Disrespectful, especially given how she suffered. I was going to call you today to tell you I was there, just in case, but you beat me to it.”

He let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. How well did you know Griselda?”

“I told you, I’d never met her before yesterday. I didn’t know her at all.”

“Did you see anything suspicious, anything at all? Did she say anything odd? Give any sort of warning or indication that she was worried about something?”

“Not really. But we didn’t talk long.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Opals, mostly.”

“How did that subject come up?”

“She was selling jewelry with opals. There were two young women at the booth looking at some pieces, and one said opals are bad luck.”

“And are they?”

“It depends on who’s wearing the gem and how they treat it. Opals are made up partly of water, so they can shatter easily if not cared for properly. And because water is elemental, it can carry part of our warmth. Our energy. A bit of our soul, if you like.”

“They’re not particularly valuable, are they?”

“Not especially, no. Not like diamonds or rubies. But if they’re passed down, they often hold sentimental value. It’s hard to imagine someone would commit murder to retrieve something with purely sentimental value, though.”

“You’d be surprised,” Carlos said. “People kill for all kinds of reasons. Usually those reasons don’t make much sense.”

I thought of how much craziness and cruelty Carlos must have seen in his long career as an urban cop, and marveled at his ability to still care about each case.

“You meet anyone else at the victim’s stand?” he asked.

“There was a young man working with Griselda—maybe her son? She called him Johannes.”

“Last name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You say he’s her son?”

“She didn’t say he was; I just assumed . . .” It dawned on me that Lloyd, the owner of the Morning House, had told me Johannes was Griselda’s son. I didn’t want to mention that little excursion to Carlos, at least not at this moment. I thought he might take it the wrong way. “He could have been her assistant. All I really know is he’s young, blond, and German. Blue eyes. He was moving some boxes for her.”

“Heavy boxes? Full of jewelry?”

I nodded. When I saw him running from the Cow Palace he had seemed so frightened, so intent on escaping . . . what, exactly? He mentioned
Hexen
, but had he been running away from a witch, or simply referring to Griselda being killed like one? I just couldn’t imagine him somehow taking part in such a heinous crime. As if I knew what lurked in the hearts of men.

“He say anything?”

“Something in German. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Who else?”

“Just the pair of teenagers looking at the jewelry, but they wandered off before I did and didn’t seem to know Griselda. If you need to get a hold of them, I’ve got their number—they came by Aunt Cora’s Closet afterward, looking for
quinceañera
stuff.”

“Oh yeah? My niece’s fifteenth is coming up this year. Costs a fortune.”

I was glad to get our discussion back on friendlier ground. “Tell her parents to bring her by the store. I’ve got plenty of beautiful, pastel-colored flounces, and for much less than bridal or dress shops charge.”

“I might just do that.” He sucked on his front teeth, not meeting my eyes, and made another note on his pad. “Anyone else hanging around, seeming like they didn’t fit in?”

I shook my head again. And then I thought about the man at the refreshment counter. The man in the suit, Gene, who had looked so out of place. There was something about him that seemed a little odd, but surely it wasn’t worth mentioning. After all, wearing different clothes and hairstyle didn’t make someone guilty of murder. The man hadn’t done anything particularly suspicious. . . .

“Lily?” I looked up to find the inspector’s dark eyes on me. “You sure?”

“It was probably nothing.”

“What do I always say? ‘Tell me everything, no matter how insignificant.’ Let me be the judge of whether it’s nothing or something.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Okay, but you asked for it. There was a man at the refreshment counter who seemed . . . out of place.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing, he was wearing a suit. And he sort of stood out—a man in the Cow Palace full of mostly women.”

“Man in a suit. Wool or gabardine?”

“Sharkskin, actually.”

“Yikes. No wonder he stood out. Did you speak with him?”

“A little.”

“About what?”

“He offered me some candy, asked how I liked the show.”

“Candy. What kind?”

“Jelly beans.”

“So let me sum up: a well-dressed man strikes up a conversation and offers you some of his jelly beans. Sounds to me like he was trying to pick you up.”

“You said you wanted to know everything. So now you know.”

“He threaten you in any way?”

“No. He really didn’t do anything untoward. I think he just struck me as odd because he was dressed so differently. Like he just flew in from Jersey for a business meeting, but wound up at the Cow Palace refreshment stand by accident. Oh, and he said his name was Gene.”

“Jersey Gene with the Jelly Beans, huh?”

“I’m getting the feeling you’re not taking this seriously.”

“On the contrary, I take you very seriously.”

As Carlos scribbled some more, I glanced around the large room full of detectives. A trio of men stood by the water cooler, talking about a contestant on
American Idol
. It struck me that while my coming here to the police station was a big deal, to these folks it was just another day at the office. Police officers were just people, like any others. Important to keep in mind.

“Tell me more about this witch-killing method.”

“There’s not that much to tell beyond what I’m sure you read in that book. Pressing wasn’t meant to kill but to extract information. It was a kind of slow torture.”

“Not all that slow in this case.”

My heart lurched, my mind returning, unbidden, to the vision of Griselda dead beneath that board. . . .

“Take a look at this,” he said, showing me a photograph on his iPhone. “Recognize it?”

“It’s an athame. I saw it earlier at Griselda’s stand. It’s a ceremonial knife.”

“Witches use it?”

“Along with many others. It’s used for rituals, but not all worshippers are witches.”

“The lab’s testing it for fingerprints and DNA. I know you don’t have fingerprints. Is that common among your kind?”

“Not that I know of. I told you before, I have a recognized medical condition, dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis. It’s a quirk of genetics, unrelated to my other quirks.”

He nodded as a man came up and dropped off a file. Carlos looked casual, sitting back in the chair, one arm hanging over the back while his other hand played with a paper clip on the desk. But, as always, when he fixed me with a look it was challenging, intense, demanding.

I continued. “I find it hard to believe a witch would kill another witch with such a precious knife, much less by pressing her. Most of us are cognizant of the historical meaning of such things. It would be a major faux pas
in the witchcraft community, to say the least.”