Spellcasting in Silk: A Witchcraft Mystery Read online

  “That sounds challenging.”

  “You learned how to be the new kid in class—that’s for sure. I attended sixteen different schools before graduating high school. And friends were made and then left, no lasting relationships. My dad worked all the time. That sort of upbringing can leave a person sort of . . . disconnected. So Nicky and I were close—we were each other’s only constant in those years.”

  Silence reigned for a long moment. I imagined we were both thinking of Nicky—her loss must be felt even more acutely for her twin, and only childhood friend.

  “All those years, all I ever wanted was a nice, normal home, to go to one school and make friends like everybody else, to be part of a community.” Knox gestured to his messy, lived-in kitchen. “Someplace like this, nothing fancy. Now, my kids are always asking me about what it was like to serve and spend time in exotic-sounding places like Okinawa, so probably they’ll want to run off and join the military. Maybe it skips a generation.”

  “Do you know,” I said, “I’ve never seen a picture of your sister?”

  He got up and grabbed a couple of framed prints from a small, paper-strewn desk in the corner. “Here’s a photo of the two of us; I’d say we were about ten when this photo was taken. We were stationed in Germany. And here’s a wedding photo, with Gary.”

  Seeing Nicky’s smiling, open countenance—first as a girl in braids, then as a bride in a lacy white gown—made her death less abstract, and thus more heartbreaking.

  “She’s lovely.”

  Knox nodded, looked at the photos for a long moment, and then set them aside. “I was the firstborn, apparently—by only a few minutes, of course, but I took my role as older brother seriously. I tried to take care of her . . .” He cleared his throat and shook his head, as though to rid it of the memory.

  “Do you know why your sister was going to Ursula at El Pajarito?”

  “She wanted a child. She’d tried the usual ways, and nothing worked. So I guess a witch doctor was the final call.” His eyes flew to mine. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You’re a . . . ?”

  “Just a special consultant to the SFPD,” I said with a smile and a shrug. This was not the time and place to launch into a defense of witchcraft. “But wait—I thought Nicky and Gary had a daughter.”

  “Emma’s actually Gary’s biological daughter; his first wife passed away. Nicky doted on Emma, but wanted to experience pregnancy and biological motherhood and all it entailed. The physicality of giving birth was very important to her. But she was no kid, and with every year that passed, the likelihood went down. I tried to reason with her—what’s the difference between adopting and having a bio-child? It’s the raising of a child that makes a person a parent, not donating one’s genes.”

  As someone who had been rejected by her bio-parents, I had to agree.

  “But,” Knox continued, “Nicky told me that was easy for me to say, since I’m sitting here with four biological kids.”

  Two of those kids chose that moment to open the sliding glass door and run into the kitchen. They were red-faced and sweaty from their antics on the jungle gym.

  “Dad! Can we have lemonade?” asked a boy about six.

  “You’re interrupting, honey,” said Knox, his tone kind but firm. “What do you say when adults are talking?”

  “’Scuse me?”

  Knox smiled. “Yes, you may have some lemonade. Need some help?”

  “I can do it,” the boy insisted.

  “Use a plastic cup, and help your sister.”

  “’Kay. Come on,” he said to his younger sister. “I’ll help you.”

  The boy crossed over to the refrigerator, but the little girl lingered, staring at me. I smiled and winked at her. She flashed me a shy grin before hustling after her brother.

  “Sweethearts,” I whispered to Knox.

  Knox smiled as he watched them, his eyes shining with pride and love.

  “They’re the reason I tried not to judge Nicky, even though I couldn’t support what she was doing. I’d do anything for these little monkeys. Anything.”

  “And . . . I know this is probably hard to talk about, but what can you tell me about your mother?”

  He settled back against the bench. “Ah, yes, Betty.” The joy left his eyes. I could smell the turn of his mood: a slightly metallic, chalky scent, like gunpowder.

  “How can I describe Betty?” His eyes were still on his children, who were now heading outside, carrying orange plastic cups with exaggerated caution. Halfway to the door the boy stopped to take a large gulp of lemonade, and his little sister mimicked him. Then they passed through the sliding glass door and closed it after themselves. “Betty was glamorous. Beautiful. Classy, I guess you would say.”

  “I saw the portraits of her. She was lovely.”

  He laughed wryly. “I suppose you mean the topless pictures? Fred’s a trip.”

  “They’re not all topless, though,” I said with a smile. “Fred seems to have a knack for portraiture—there are some beautiful renderings.”

  “I suppose,” he said with a little sigh, sipping his tea.

  “I’m surprised you don’t want any of them.”

  “I just . . . I don’t really want Fred’s juju hanging on my walls. It was tough enough dealing with my mother—now, the memory of my mother—without having to think of her . . . that way.”

  I have a difficult relationship with my mother as well, and since I hadn’t been around her as an adult, I’d never really had to deal with the idea of her as a sexual being. I supposed she and my father had experienced passion; after all, she had been a beautiful young woman. And little else besides sheer animal attraction would explain how two such different personalities as she and my worldly, ambitious father had managed to get together. But the very thought of their sex life was enough to send the likes of me into a tizzy.

  “Was Betty in the military also?” I was trying to put this family portrait together in my mind; somehow the pieces just didn’t fit.

  “No, never, not at all. They didn’t see eye to eye on that, or on anything else. In fact, they never even married. The way I heard it, Betty and my dad got together only long enough to conceive us. As far as I know, that was about the extent of their interaction as a couple. When we were very young, hadn’t even started school yet, Dad came and packed our bags; and from then on we were living in military housing. I hardly ever saw Betty after that—maybe once or twice a year, tops.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think she was the maternal type. As an adult I can understand it: She was chic, sophisticated, a giver of cocktail parties. A couple of snotty, demanding kids didn’t really fit her image. She had us relatively late in life for the time—in her late thirties. Maybe she thought she wanted to change her life, but when the reality set in . . .”

  I nodded. “Reality can be a pail of cold water.”

  “That it can. I didn’t start having kids until I was a little older, myself, and while it was a good decision to wait, all things considered, I sure could use a little of the energy of youth.” He laughed, and I followed his gaze out the window, where the kids were running around and shrieking as they engaged in a pretend sword fight with long reeds from an overgrown water garden.

  “Do you know anything about Betty being interested in anything occult?”

  He shook his head. “No, nothing beyond tea. She was a fanatic for tea, so she used to get herbal concoctions from all over. But once Nicky said Betty told her not to go to El Pajarito for help, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Did she say why Betty warned her away?”

  “Not in particular—I think she just wanted her to stick to proven medical methods. But once Nicky became obsessed with the whole natural motherhood thing, she was willing to try anything, and seemed to lose interest in anything else. I wish . . . I just wish I had known, that I’d been closer to her when it happened. Maybe I could have intervened, somehow.”

  I reached acros
s the table and covered his hand with mine. His vibrations were brittle, humming at a high pitch at odds to his calm countenance. Parents were often like this, I’d found: outwardly serene, but inside on high alert, watching their kids and planning for dinner and worrying about paying the bills, all at the same time. A juggling act. But could there be something else there? Guilt?

  He squeezed my hand and smiled, then drew it away.

  “You don’t know anything about the girl named Selena, do you? She was a classmate of your niece, Emma.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been making a point to spend time with Emma ever since what happened. But they live in the city, so I don’t really know her school friends. You’d have to ask Gary about that. Or, better yet, Emma herself.”

  “Speaking of Gary, what do you think of him?”

  “Gary? He’s . . . he’s a great guy. Really.”

  I tilted my head. “The way you say it makes me wonder if you really mean it.”

  Knox laughed, though I heard little humor in it. He kept scratching the back of his hand absentmindedly while he looked out at the yard, watching his little bundles of energy jumping and running through the tall grass.

  He opened his mouth but hesitated another moment before speaking. “I knew Gary before he and Nicky married. Heck, I was the one who introduced them. He and I worked at a movie theater in college. He really is a great guy. But . . .” He blew out a long breath, and ran a hand through his hair. “I feel disloyal no matter which side of this I come down on. Here’s the truth: Gary had an affair. There’s no excuse for it, I know that. And I was furious with him on behalf of my sister. It’s just that . . . Nicky really was acting nuts for the last year or so. What can I say? Maybe it’s different for men than for women, I don’t know. I love my children so much, I can’t imagine life without them. If I didn’t have them, perhaps I’d be as crazy as Nicky got in the pursuit of motherhood. So this isn’t an excuse, but I guess part of me understands why Gary would turn to someone else.”

  I followed his lead and watched the children play for a few minutes, wondering whether Carlos knew about Gary’s affair. The inspector was the one who always told me, after all, that the husband is the first suspect in any suspicious death. It was enough to make even a romantic soul cynical about relationships of the heart.

  Gary had an alibi, but alibis were sometimes fabricated.

  “If you want to know the truth,” Knox continued, “I think Gary’s guilt over the affair is part of the reason he’s been having such a hard time dealing with Nicky’s death. In fact, knowing Gary, I doubt he will ever forgive himself for it.”

  “Is he still seeing the other woman?” I knew the minute I said it my question was too nosy. But Knox seemed to be in the zone, that mood some people get into when they start talking and don’t stop. It might have had to do with me—as a witch I seem able to cast a spell of comfort and trust that encourages people to speak. Or maybe as a househusband he was simply starved for grown-up company.

  Knox looked surprised. “No, no. It wasn’t really even an affair, really, more like something that got out of control. You know how it is: You’ve been drinking, you’re coping with heightened emotions, you’re with someone attractive and . . . boom.”

  I didn’t know how it was. My relationship with Sailor was my longest romantic attachment, by far. I wondered what it would be like to be married for many years, long enough for the passion to wear off, the initial attraction replaced by a deeper love, with luck. But if that love was tested . . . Under the circumstances, perhaps Knox was right, perhaps anyone would be tempted.

  “Did you have any indication Nicky was suicidal?”

  “Not at all. She wanted to get pregnant, so I imagine she was distraught when she lost the baby.”

  “She lost a baby?”

  “That’s what she told me. A miscarriage, early on.”

  The sort of thing that can be caused by the wrong dose of the wrong sorts of herbs, I thought to myself. Maybe the police were aware of this and were using it to build their case against Ursula.

  I glanced at the clock over the refrigerator, a cheap reproduction of a Parisian bistro clock, with big hands made of metal scrollwork.

  “Could I ask you one more thing? Are you the one handling Betty’s estate sale? Have you been going over to the house at all?”

  He shook his head. “There’s a professional estate liquidator taking care of all of that. Frankly, I don’t want to deal with it. Like I said, I wasn’t close with my mother. Barely knew her, actually. And as you can see, I’ve got my hands full here.”

  “So, you didn’t arrange to have a limpia done on the place?”

  “A limpia? Is that . . . you don’t mean Filipino spring rolls, do you?”

  I smiled, “No, that’s lumpia, I think. A limpia is a sort of spiritual cleansing of a house.”

  He shook his head, a frown of incomprehension on his brow. “Should I have? No offense, but I’m not really into that sort of thing.”

  “No, I just wondered. Okay, well, thank you for your time and for sharing so much with me, Knox. I should let you get back to your kids, and I’ll get back to work.”

  As we were getting up, we heard someone come in through the front door. A moment later Gary walked into the kitchen with a young teenager.

  Chapter 13

  “Gary, Emma,” Knox said. “We were just talking about you.”

  Gary did not look pleased to see me. Emma, for her part, looked curious but blank. She was tall and pretty, wearing makeup and a short skirt, her feet shod in platform sandals. She looked awkward in the too-mature getup. I couldn’t help but think of a little girl playing dress-up in her mama’s closet.

  “Hello, Gary,” I said. “And, Emma, nice to meet you. My name’s Lily.”

  She mumbled a hello and looked at her pink nails.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Gary.

  “She’s just . . .” Knox looked at me, a question in his eyes, as though he had only at this moment realized it was odd that I was here, asking about their family.

  “I’m trying to find Selena,” I said. “No one seems to know where she is; we’re worried about her.”

  “You mean that charlatan’s granddaughter? She’s an aberration, that one.”

  “Gary,” Knox admonished. “She’s a child.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck as he blew out a long breath. He glanced at Emma. “I know she’s just a girl, but she was the one who told Nicky about El Pajarito in the first place. And that girl seems to know things she shouldn’t.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “She and her sweet little old grandma were geniuses at cold reading. You know what that is? Fortune-tellers use it to scam people, make them think they’re reading their minds. I wish . . . I just wish we had never met Ursula or Selena.”

  “Emma, do you have any idea where Selena might be?”

  She shook her head. I sensed she had more to say, and wished I could think of an excuse to speak to her alone. But looking into the angry, grief-stricken, and possibly—given what Knox had told me—guilty countenance of her father, I doubted he would permit it.

  I studied Gary for a moment. It didn’t take a witch to sense the anger that emanated from his well-padded frame. But was there more going on here? Was I picking up on guilt that went beyond that of a man who’d had an affair and whose distraught wife had killed herself?

  Knox escorted me to the back door, and I waved good-bye to the kids. They seem overjoyed to see their cousin Emma, whose attempt at teenage nonchalance fell away as she kicked off her heels and ran to join them.

  As I was making my way around the side of the house to the street, I heard a burst of clapping and yelling.

  I turned around to see the kids egging their father onto a small trampoline.

  Gary stood to one side, unsmiling, watching me leave.

  * * *

  As I drove back across the Bay
Bridge to San Francisco, I couldn’t stop thinking about Selena.

  Aidan mentioned Patience Blix was skilled in reading the crystal ball and might be able to envision Selena’s whereabouts. Would she do it? Was it worth a shot?

  If only I had something that belonged to the girl. I should have thought to take something when I was in El Pajarito . . . clothes would be best for the likes of me, but for someone like Patience something metal would be better: a necklace, perhaps. Something Selena had worn close to her body. Most intuitives who were skilled in psychometry were able to pick up vibrations from metal jewelry.

  I made a mental note to ask Carlos about going back to the store and picking something up.

  But in the meantime, I happened to be driving right by Patience Blix’s neighborhood. If she was as skilled as Sailor and Aidan kept insisting, what with being the head of the Fortune-Tellers Association and what-all, she should be able to look into her crystal ball and give me something to go on.

  Even as I thought this, I knew it wasn’t true. Magic didn’t work that way. If it were that simple, murderers and ne’er-do-wells wouldn’t get away with a darned thing. But still . . . I was right here, and I was burning with curiosity about this particular clairvoyant.

  I drove around the block four times, debating whether or not to knock on Patience’s door. On the one hand, I should have come prepared. On the other, I might well chicken out if I gave myself too much time to think about it.

  What was I afraid of? This was Sailor’s cousin, the woman who was training him to become stronger, and better. Surely I wasn’t threatened by that, was I? So she was beautiful, what was the big deal?

  While these thoughts were crowding my head, a Camry pulled out of the parking spot less than half a block from Patience’s fortune-telling sign. I pulled in. Enough with the indecision, Lily. This isn’t about you, and it’s not about you and Sailor. It’s about Selena, a fourteen-year-old girl who needs help.

  I got out of the car and climbed the wooden steps to the front door, painted a deep blue. The sisal doormat was decorated with a huge eye.