Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (48 page)

 
          
And
so as it had been, it must be now.

 
          
Colin
walked slowly back to his van. His first stratagem had been blocked; there was
no point in approaching Mansell now. He would try another approach.

 
          
Preoccupied
with his thoughts
—
any day which included Alan Daggonet, Father Godwin, and
Toller Hasloch had to be considered an exceptionally full one
—
Colin nearly forgot that
there was one last task for him to perform.

 
          
"Claire?
It's Colin. I'm sorry it's late, but I just got in. Did you manage to track
down that hunch of yours? No? Well, then, there's a doctor's office on Park in
the Eighties that I think might be the place you're looking for. Maybe you
should see if they need a temp. ..."

 
          
Friday,
December 23, was cold and bright. Colin's destination was
One
Police
Plaza
, where Lieutenant Martin
Becket and the Occult Crimes Unit had a small office tucked away in a corner of
the sprawling maze of police headquarters.

 
          
The
building was located near city hall in what had been, almost a century before,
the heart of
Manhattan
. In the years since, the
city had spread, its center moving uptown with the skyscrapers that lined
Madison, Fifth, and Sixth, and with the great public spaces such as Rockefeller
Center that had been created half a hundred blocks north. Downtown
—
its concrete canyons in
shadow on even the brightest summer day
—
had been left to the wizards
of Wall Street and to various municipal offices, such as the one its inmates
called, with varying degrees of affection, the Puzzle Palace.

 
          
A
uniformed policewoman ushered Colin to Becket's door and tapped on the glass.
Becket looked up, waved at Colin through the glass, and the woman withdrew.

 
          
Colin
opened the door and went in.

 
          
Detective
Lieutenant Martin Becket, like most of his real-life brethren, was a
middle-aged sedentary man with a receding hairline and a chainsmoking habit he
tried intermittently to break. He had a wife, three kids, and a house in
Queens
. Only the .38 revolver in
the black shoulder holster that he wore
—
visible, as his blue plaid
sport coat was hung on the coat tree that teetered in the corner of the office
—
and the gold shield clipped
to his belt distinguished him from thousands of other office workers in a
thousand anonymous office buildings all over Manhattan.

 
          
"Merry
Christmas, Colin! Nice of you to drop by," he said, waving Colin to a
chair. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that you've come to crack my
big case?"

 
          
"Sorry,"
Colin said, moving a pile of reports off the chair and seating himself in
it.   .

 
          
Becket
fired up another Camel and offered Colin the pack. Colin waved it aside; he'd
managed to wean himself down to an occasional pipe, and lately he was starting
to think he should give even that up.

 
          
"So.
You didn't come in just to pass the time of day," Becket said.
"There's a limit to how long I'm going to be able to sit on this Jacquet
thing
—
though
the holiday helps
—
and if the ME's office ever lets some of the details slip
to the press, I'd better be ready with the perp's head on a platter or the
mayor's office is going to be asking for mine."

 
          
The
Occult Crimes Unit was only a small part of Becket's workload. It was primarily
for information sharing and resource development, and the possibility for
negative publicity ensured that it kept a very low profile. The Sandra Jacquet
murder, however, might just be the one that blew the lid off the unit once and
for all, and Becket was justifiably worried about the repercussions.

 
          
"Then
I've got some good news and some bad news for you, Marty," Colin said.
"The good news is, I've got a pretty good idea of who killed her
—
it's a group
—
and I've got the name and
address of one of them. The bad news is, I haven't got a blessed shred of
proof. One of the people who could make the connection died two days ago of
allegedly natural causes, and I don't think Lucille Thibodeaux will
testify."

 
          
"Neither
do I," Becket said dryly. "They fished her out of the river this
morning
—
suicide,
the coroner's office says. I'd flagged her file, so they gave me a call."

 
          
"Poor
soul," Colin said softly.

 
          
"You
said you had a name for me?" Becket asked.

 
          
"Walter
Mansell, currently living in Flatbush. He's in the phone book, but I'll give
you his address. He's a defrocked Catholic priest. I checked with a friend of
mine in the diocese: he was also excommunicated for heresy."

 
          
"Sounds
like a model citizen so far. Not many people go to the trouble of getting
themselves excommunicated these days," Becket commented. "So how do
you connect him up with Jacquet?"

 
          
"John
Cannon mentioned the name in a phone call to me the night before he died,"
Colin said. "According to Lucille, she was pretty forthcoming with Cannon
when he interviewed her, and passed on names that Sandra had given her. Cannon
said that Mansell had tried to recruit him for the group when he got in touch
with them."

 
          
"So
Thibodeaux
—
who's dead
—
dropped the dime on Mansell to Cannon
—
who's also dead. Nice. But
it isn't," Becket sighed, "anything we can go within twenty blocks of
the DA with. Still, it's always good to make new friends. I'll keep an eye out
for our friend Walter."

 
          
"While
you're opening new dossiers, try this: before he died, Cannon turned in his
finished book about Satanism in
New York
to his editor, Jamie
Melford of Blackcock Books. When I spoke to Cannon, he implied that he was
receiving threats and pressure to withdraw the book. Melford's office was
broken into and vandalized after Cannon's death and his copy of the manuscript
stolen. It looks like Melford's starting to get the same treatment that Cannon
got."

 
          
"Did
he swear out a complaint?" Becket asked, suddenly more alert.

 
          
"He
said the police were in about the break-in. I doubt he knows anything about
Mansell, unless Cannon used his name in the book." But if he had, Cannon
would know he'd be opening himself to an action for libel, and the old pro
would have been too cautious for that.

 
          
Unless,
of course, he'd named names as a form of
insurance,
expecting to be able
to go back and delete them later.

 
          
"I
hope you're going to tell me you've stayed away from Mansell," Becket
said, lighting another Camel from the stub of the first.

 
          
"I
haven't spoken to him," Colin said truthfully. He thought about Toller
Hasloch, but said nothing. He had no proof, other than Hasloch's own word, that
he was involved with the Satanists . . . and he would have to be far more
foolish than he was to trust Hasloch's word even for the fact that the sun
would rise tomorrow.

 
          
"Well,
it's a start, anyway. I'll shoot Mansell's name down to Files and see what
comes back. If he's got any priors
—
including littering
—
we can pull him in and see
what we get with a fishing expedition. It'd be nice if we had the contents of
Jacquet's apartment to work from, but somebody torched it the night she
disappeared. Arson."

 
          
Colin
sighed, getting to his feet. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help."

 
          
"Well,"
Becket said, "at least now we know all these folks are connected. If there
do have to be a bunch of kooks out there pretending they're witches, it helps
that they all know each other."

NEW YORK
,
DECEMBER
24,  1972

/
have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations
sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my
purer mind, With tranquil restoration:

—
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

 
          
CLAIRE 
MOFFAT  SAT  BEHIND  THE  RECEPTIONIST'S 
DESK  IN  DR
.  MARIAN Clinton's
office, as band-box perfect as the day she'd graduated from nursing school
—
which was more years ago
than a woman was supposed to like to remember, these days. She fanned herself
idly with an empty manila folder; Marian Clinton kept her office uncomfortably
warm, although Claire supposed that all the women who undressed in her
examining room throughout the day were grateful for the heat.

 
          
It
was too bad none of them were here to appreciate it
—
Dr. Clinton had been forced
to cancel her morning appointments when one of her patients had gone into labor
early, and Claire was alone in the office. She spared a moment's sympathy for
the new arrival, afflicted with a December 24 birthday. Oh, well. There were
worse fates than to be born happy, healthy, and wanted.

 
          
She
tried not to wonder what she was doing here. On the surface, the answer was
simple enough: the temporary agency she listed with had placed her here when
she'd called them yesterday and said she was available to work today. On
another level, Claire was here because Colin had called her last night and
asked her to find some way to be at this address today. There were times when
that RN came in very handy
—
a nursing degree was almost as good as a passport for
getting you into odd places at short notice.

 
          
And
on the deepest level of all, she was here because for years she had made
herself the hands of a Power that moved through the world, and done its bidding
without asking why. She did not know what happened to those whose lives she
touched, or why she was drawn to them and not to any of the others who suffered
daily in the world. She could not believe that some were more deserving of
succor than others. In Claire's belief, all who suffered were equally worthy of
aid
—
and
the question of why some received it and some did not had troubled her ever
since she had committed her heart to this path.

 
          
Why
should Peter have died and his killer lived on in jail? Why should her Gift not
have been able to save the man she'd loved so deeply? What Purpose directed her
Gift as it did, and to what end?

 
          
There
was no answer, nor did she expect one, but Claire was too much a child of her
generation to feel that blind submission and unquestioning acceptance could
ever be a virtue. She might never receive an answer to her questions, but she
certainly wasn't going to beat herself up over the fact that she asked them.

 
          
And
despite the fact that it had been Colin who had directed her here, Claire had
the odd sense that she would have been drawn here anyway, compelled here by
the cryptic force that so influenced her reality.

 
          
It
was early afternoon. Dr. Clinton had come back from the hospital, and Claire
had just ushered Dr. Clinton's
one o'clock
into the examining room
when Claire heard what sounded like heartbroken weeping coming from the hallway
outside the office. She was already heading for the door
—
propped open with a brick to
afford her some relief from the heat
—
when she realized that the
sound she heard so clearly was not audible to anyone else.

 
          
She
opened the door and saw a slender woman a few inches shorter than she was
standing in the hall, hesitating between the door to Dr. Clinton's office and
that of Alexander Wynitch across the way. The woman's dark hair was cut short
and topped with a snow-spangled tartan tam. She was wearing a Navy peacoat
barely shorter than her skirt and a pair of brown leather boots, and as Claire
watched, she took a hesitant step toward Wynitch's door.

 
          
Claire
wrinkled her nose: Wynitch was one of the pseudo-professionals who infested the
field of psychology, and Claire was willing to bet that any certification the
man possessed had come out of a box of Cracker Jack.

 
          
"Were
you looking for Dr. Clinton's office?" Claire asked hopefully.

 
          
The
woman spun around and stared at Claire with a wild expression on her face, and
Claire felt an uprush of instinctive sympathy. She did not know whether this
was the woman she had been sent to aid, but this was certainly a woman in need
of her help.

 
          
Speaking
soothingly, she got the stranger to come into Dr. Clinton's waiting room and
drink a cup of water from the cooler. It took all her professional composure
not to react when the woman introduced herself: Barbara Melford.

 
          
And
Colin told me that Cannon's editor was named Jamie Melford! This
can't
be
a coincidence.

 
          
Because
there were no coincidences
—
Colin had told her that, often enough. Those were words he
lived by
—
no coincidences, only a Pattern too vast for them to see,
whose weave they could make or mar of their own will.

 
          
Under
a little gentle coaxing, Barbara Melford told Claire a confused story of
fighting with her mother-in-law, of doing things she could not account for, of
feeling that she was losing her mind, that made Claire's heart ache with
informed sympathy. Barbara's mother-in-law was set on having her see Mr.
Wynitch, and Claire was equally set that she should not.

 
          
She
did not want to say anything that would make her sound eccentric
—
by the look of her, Barbara
Melford had just about had her fill of strangeness. She did not know precisely
what she said, only that she convinced Barbara to see Dr. Clinton before she
did anything else.

 
          
And
then, using all her guile, Claire extracted a promise from Barbara to come with
her to see Colin after Dr. Clinton's office closed for the day.

 
          
She
was glad that she had when Barbara came walking out of Dr. Clinton's consulting
room a few minutes later, as stiff-legged and glassy-eyed as if she'd just been
given a death sentence. Claire called out to her as she passed, but Barbara
didn't really seem to hear her.

 
          
Don't
push.
An inner urging kept Claire seated as Barbara mechanically collected
her coat and hat and sleepwalked out of the office. After working so hard to
get the job, Claire couldn't simply walk
—
or run
—
out in the middle of it.

 
          
She's
agreed to meet me in front of Lord & Taylor's at three
—
/
hope she remembers,
Claire
fretted. But that matter had been taken out of her hands.

 
          
Barbara
had
remembered
—
or at least, some good angel had brought her to their
rendezvous at the appointed time. The sidewalk was choked with tourists come to
view Lord & Taylor's famous Christmas windows, but Barbara stood staring
out into the street, looking like a lost child.

 
          
With
the firm decisiveness learned from years of nursing, Claire took charge of
Barbara Melford and got them both into a cab. Barbara sat silent throughout the
short cab ride downtown, as if she were hoarding her strength for one last
effort soon to come.

 
          
When
the two women arrived at Colin's apartment, Claire discovered that things stood
much as she'd guessed they did. Barbara Melford was the wife of Cannon's editor
and suffering persecution of her own to bring pressure on her husband. As
Claire brewed tea and sliced the fruitcake she had brought over only a few days
ago
—
Colin
had a pernicious sweet tooth, and she was glad to see that there was some of it
left
—
Barbara
explained everything that had begun when Cannon had brought the manuscript to
Jamie, including the fact that Dr. Clinton had told her that she was being
poisoned with ergot
—
probably by someone very close to her.

 
          
Claire
felt herself recoil in revulsion. Ever since she'd fallen victim to that cup of
spiked punch at Toller Hasloch's party, the thought of someone being drugged
against their knowledge or will had held a special terror for her.

 
          
Colin,
bless him, took everything in his stride, and even managed to work a little
old-fashioned charm on Barbara, though the indications that she had been a
victim of the black coven for months
—
even years
—
were dark indeed.

           
But that means they can't be
after Barbara because she's Jamie Me/ford's wife
—
or does it? Could they have
targeted Barbara for some other reason that has nothing to do with the
manuscript? How could they have known that Melford would be the book's
publisher
—
or even that Cannon planned to write it? Either way, it's
horrible
—
horrible! That poor woman . . .

 
          
"Jamie!"
Barbara gasped, wild-eyed. "Could they be doing anything to Jamie?"

 
          
Claire
simply stared at her. From what Colin had told her last night, the fact that
Jamie Melford was already the black coven's target was so obvious that
Barbara's cry could only have been a rhetorical question.

 
          
Colin
gestured her toward the phone. Barbara clutched at it as if it were a lifeline,
her hands shaking as she dialed. Claire set down her teacup and got to her
feet, ready to do what she could to help Barbara. No useful purpose would be
served by a fit of hysterics, but frightened, endangered people rarely thought
that clearly.

 
          
But
Barbara Melford did not have hysterics. Whatever she heard at the other end of
the line caused the heavy receiver to fall from her nerveless fingers as she
simply stood there, numb and white with shock.

 
          
The
three of them reached the Melfords' apartment less than twenty minutes later
—
armed, Claire thought to
herself, for bear. Jamie Melford was not there
—
and worse, it was clear that
wherever he was, he was in the hands of the black coven.

 
          
The
malice
—
no,
the
evil
—
that Claire felt radiating from the very walls nearly did
her in. It was as though something foul were being forced down her throat, and
her stomach revolted spectacularly, leaving her nauseated and shaking.

 
          
But
the empty rooms yielded nothing
—
nothing, that was, except proof that Melfords own mother
was a member of the black coven, and had been for years.