One Book in the Grave (16 page)

So every once in a while, for no apparent reason, one of my parents would suddenly tell us to
assume the position
. Being obedient children, we would.

Some of us would go with Mom’s position and stand facing the wall. But some—usually my two brothers—would go with Dad’s choice. Mom and Dad would howl with laughter and we would all make faces and roll our eyes at them. My parents were a couple of cards. No wonder we didn’t do drugs; things were zany enough around our house without the added buzz.

Mom placed three small dishes on the table, filled with rosemary, sage, and dried lotus petals to represent memory, concentration, and truth.

“Here, sweetie,” she said, handing me one of the thick sticks of sage she used to cleanse, purify, and eliminate negativity. “You light the sage.”

“Okay.” I took a deep whiff of the sage before I flicked Mom’s lighter on and held it to the top leaves. They began to smoke, then burn. I let the fire spread across the top of the stick before blowing it out. The strong aromatic smoke filled the room.

“I’m lighting the copal, too,” she said, holding another, more bristly looking herbal smudge stick. Copal was a type of tree resin with a mild pine scent that was often used in incense. Mom used it sparingly with other herbs when she needed an extra boost to attract good spirits.

Seeing the copal made me realize she was even more antsy than she was willing to admit. I guess I was, too.

I waved the sage bundle around, making sure the smoke wafted over us both, up and down and around our bodies and over our heads, while she did the same with the copal stick. We probably looked like idiots, and maybe we were, but I usually found Mom’s rituals oddly comforting.

She rested the copal stick in a small pot she’d filled with sand. As she plucked up bits of herbs and petals and sprinkled them in two circles on a piece of white cloth, she chanted,

Mom waved the smoldering copal stick over the herb circles and tapped a tiny bit of ash onto each of them. Then she buried the burnt end of the stick in the bowl of sand and did the same with the sage bundle.

With scissors, she carefully cut the cloth in half and gathered each of the corners together around the little piles of herbs and ash. After tying each of the bundles
with a short raffia string to make two small sachets, she handed one to me.

“Hold this close and I’ll do the same. It’ll keep our minds open and our thoughts pure. That way, we’ll recognize the truth when we hear it.”

“Cool.” I slipped my sachet into the pocket of my jeans.

Mom pressed her hands together, closed her eyes, and breathed slowly in and out. After a minute, she opened her eyes and blinked at me. “The spirits believe you will succeed, Brooklyn.”

“They do?” I nodded, not quite sure of the proper response. “That’s great. Thanks, spirits.”

“The spirits say, ‘No problemo.’” She grinned. “Let’s boogie.”

As we walked down the Lane toward Warped, my sister China’s yarn and weaving shop, Mom leaned close. “Tell me more about the people we’re looking to get intel on.”

Intel?
Seriously? But I relented and gave her some of the history of Solomon and Angelica, explained Max’s desperation and his reasons for staging his own death. Mom had tears in her eyes and I wondered if I’d said too much. But I figured if Max ever needed help in the future, Mom would know why and would be there for him. She was easily the most empathetic person I knew.

Mom stopped me a half block up from Warped and stared right into my eyes. “Can you honestly see either of these odd people getting in a car and following all of you to Marin, then taking out a long-range rifle, aiming at you, and pulling the trigger?”

Now that she put it like that, all black and white and out in the open, I really had to think about it. Frankly, I had a hard time picturing anyone in the world doing something so horrible. I didn’t see evil in the world like Derek or Gabriel saw it. It always caught me by surprise.

Finally I admitted, “Solomon was a creep, but I don’t see him as a murderer.”

“What about the woman?”

I sighed. “Maybe my memory of her is a little distorted because she was cruel to me, but she seems fully capable of pulling the trigger. On the other hand, around the campus she passed herself off as the artistic earth-goddess type in bare feet who loved all creatures and wouldn’t be caught dead with a gun in her hand. I didn’t buy her act for a minute, but a lot of people seemed to believe it.”

“Okay, not very helpful,” Mom said, nodding. “Let’s see what we can find out around town.” She wove her arm through mine and we continued walking. I gripped her arm, not sure why I was so nervous. We were just strolling along the lane, the same as we would do on any other day of the week. We were going to visit my sister China, then check in with my sister Savannah across the street at her new restaurant. It would be fun to see how well the restaurant was doing and find out how the critics had enjoyed their meals. After that we would stop at Anandalla, our friend Annie’s kitchen shop. Along the way, we would talk to friends, greet other people on the sidewalk, and try to find a killer. The usual.

“You should talk to Savannah if you want the scoop on Angelica,” China said after we told her what we were looking for. “She would know a lot more about those people than I would.”

“Why do you think so?” I asked.

China gazed at me as if I’d lost part of my brain. “You don’t remember that Savannah took her first cooking classes at the institute before going off to study in Paris?”

“Um, I know she did, but…so what?”

China shook her head. “She used to party with that whole crowd. Don’t you remember she called Angelica a bitch with attitude?”

“She should talk,” I muttered. Savannah could be prickly when she wanted to be.

“I know, right?” China glanced quickly at Mom, who was on the other side of the shop, comparing skeins of neon purple yarn. Only God knew what she planned to knit with that.

“I heard that,” Mom said mildly. “Be nice.”

China and I exchanged glances. Had we really thought we could get away with saying anything negative about our siblings? Mom had the ears of a desert fox.

I frowned at China. “How do you remember all that stuff about Savannah and Angelica?”

“I was younger than you two so I hung on your every
word.” She held up her hand instantly. “And no, I don’t do that anymore.”

“Too bad,” I said, grinning.

“Anyway, I remember everything Savannah used to say when she’d come home from the culinary school. I thought being a chef would be the most exciting thing ever. I mean, food everywhere, right? I was captivated by everything she told us about her training.”

“Huh. I just tried my best to ignore her.”

“Like we all do with London,” China whispered.

I snorted and we both whipped around to see if Mom had heard. She didn’t brook any disparaging words uttered about her youngest and most darling daughter, London. After all, our little sister led a charmed life in nearby Calistoga with her gorgeous, wealthy doctor-cum-oenologist husband and twin babies.

A bell tinkled prettily to alert China that the door to the shop had opened. We turned and saw Crystal and Melody Byers, two sisters who’d gone to high school with us.

“Yoo-hoo, China,” Crystal said, as she rushed over to hug my sister, then me. “Brooklyn, it’s so good to see you. We saw you coming in here and thought we’d stop in to say hello.”

“Hey, Crystal,” I said, smiling. “How are you?”

Mom walked over to greet the sisters, then said, “You girls look so cheery today. Melody, that color is perfect on you.”

Melody preened in her golden yellow jumpsuit. It was a good color for her blond hair and lightly tanned skin, but lately when I saw a jumpsuit, it reminded me of a prison uniform. If hers were slightly more orange, she would fit right in at the county jail.

Crystal was my age and we’d been in the same classes all through grammar and high school. Melody was a year younger. Both were pretty, blue-eyed blondes, tall and big-boned, who were strong from years of working in their parents’ orchards, where they grew olives, walnuts, and apples. Thanks to the two Byers sisters, our high
school women’s basketball and baseball teams had held the state championship for five years running. The sisters were popular with the girls at school, but most of the boys were afraid of them, probably because the two girls could beat them at almost any sport.

“What are you ladies up to today?” Mom asked with a smile. “Shopping?”

“We’re always up for shopping,” Melody said, and everybody laughed.

“We’re in town on business,” Crystal said, efficiently straightening the jacket of her perky blue seersucker suit. “Just stopped by the chamber of commerce to pick up our very own street-fair permit.”

I knew they both worked in their parents’ booth at all the different street fairs and farmers’ markets in the county. They sold their apples and olives and walnuts, along with all sorts of oils and soaps they made on their farm.

“Are you setting up shop on your own?” I asked.

“Yes.” Melody could barely contain her excitement. “We found this fabulous new line of fruit dehydrators we’ll be demonstrating and selling.”

“That’s wonderful,” Mom said. “Will you be selling the dried fruit, as well?”

“Oh, you mean to eat? That’s a great idea, Mrs. Wainwright,” Crystal said. She looked at Melody with her mouth wide-open. “OMG, why didn’t we think of that?”

“LOL, I don’t know,” Melody said, laughing at their silliness. She gazed back at us. “Crystal uses the dried fruit to make jewelry. She’s a genius. Show them.”

Crystal pulled back her hair and flicked her earring, a shiny, round red disk hanging from a silver post. “Don’t you love it?”

Curious, I looked closer at the glittering red circle. China leaned in next to me. “What is that?”

“It’s a strawberry slice,” Crystal said gaily. “I dry them and shellac them and turn them into earrings.”

China and I exchanged glances. “Wow.”

“Aren’t they chic?” Melody said as Crystal beamed.
“Wait till you see her dried-apple necklaces. They’re true art. If you’re around tomorrow, stop by our booth.”

China raised her hand. “I’ll be there.”

“We’ll be selling our other products, too,” Crystal added.

“I’ll come by, too,” I said. I wanted to pick up more of the olive oil–based cuticle cream they sold. The stuff was golden, especially for me and my propensity for paper cuts. Seriously, if they sold this cream at Bloomie’s, the Byers sisters would be millionaires in a few months.

“Girls, I wonder if you could help me,” Mom said, glancing from one Byers sister to the other.

“We’ll try,” Crystal said, and Melody nodded with enthusiasm.

“I’m looking for someone in the area who reloads their own ammunition cartridges.” Mom leaned in to add confidentially, “I’d like to learn how to do it and maybe cut a little something off our annual hunting budget.”

“I didn’t know you hunted, Mrs. Wainwright,” Melody said.

“Oh yes,” Mom said, waving in an offhand way. “Well, not around here, of course. Jim and I take a trip up toward Yuba City every year and do a little dove hunting.”

“Oh, I love dove,” Crystal said, then blinked and turned to Melody. “Love. Dove. Get it?”

“You’re a poet and didn’t know it, LOL,” Melody said, slapping Crystal’s arm.

“LOL,” Crystal agreed, giggling.

“Girls?” Mom said softly.

“Oh,” Melody said, shaking her head to get back on track. “Sure, we know lots of people. Most of the men in our church have reloading presses. The Ogunites go through a lot of ammo every year. It just makes good sense to load your own.”

I’d forgotten that Melody and Crystal were members of the Church of the True Blood of Ogun, a local church whose members believed in honoring the creative spirit of the earth. That was their story, anyway. Most of the
members tended to be shameless proselytizers with borderline survivalist mentalities.

A few of Guru Bob’s fellowship members referred to the Ogunite church as a cult because some of its teachings were downright bizarre, but I figured the Ogunites probably felt the same way about Guru Bob’s followers. People tend to mistrust anything they don’t understand.

Years ago, my mother had taken us to the small Ogunite church, a charming wood and adobe structure the followers had built themselves from material found in the canyons and valleys of Sonoma. It was part of their teaching that their place of worship reflected the earth on which it stood. They’d fashioned the stained-glass windows from smooth chunks of glass and minerals they’d found in the Russian River nearby. I was young enough at the time of our visit that I held up my hand, thinking I could catch the rainbow of colors streaming through the windows.

Melody and Crystal had never been blatant about trying to convert any of us, so my sisters and I had always been friendly with them.

“Doesn’t Bennie have a new Lock-N-Load?” Melody asked her sister.

“He’s got everything.” Crystal turned to Mom. “He might be willing to teach you, Mrs. Wainwright.”

“Bennie?” Mom said. “I’m not sure I know a Bennie.”

“You know him, Mom,” China said. “He went to school with London.”

“Bennie.” She thought about it. “Benjamin Styles?”

“Yes, that’s him,” Melody said. “He and his friend Stefan have a place halfway up Moon Valley Ridge Road.”

“Stefan’s cute,” Crystal said, and winked at me.

“
Really
cute,” Melody said, nodding emphatically.

“Moon Valley Ridge isn’t too far,” Mom said. “I could drive over to see him.”

Moon Valley Ridge Road skirted a wide, rocky canyon that some of the locals referred to as the Hollow. A number of the Ogunites had built homes in the area. There was a fast-moving stream running through the
canyon that provided plenty of fish and attracted a lot of wildlife, so many of the Hollow residents prided themselves on living off the land. Me, I liked my Frappuccinos.