Secondhand Spirits (30 page)

The SFPD inspectors came out of Sandra's room. Romero's dark eyes looked me over and he nodded in greeting.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

“Hello, Inspector Romero, Inspector Nordstrom. How's Sandra doing?”

“Better now. She says you saved her life.”

“I . . . uh . . .” Had Sandra told him about my going to Frances's house to find the poppet? Did they now suspect me of arson on top of everything else?

“She says you found her and called an ambulance.”

“Oh! Right. I guess I was in the right place at the right time.” Something occurred to me. “But why are you here? I thought you were homicide?”

“Sandra was able to tell us a few things pertinent to the Frances Potts case.”

Best to deal with this up front.

“Look, Inspector, I know the whole inheritance thing looks bad, but I think you should know I'm renouncing it. I don't want it.”

“Inheritance?” Romero glanced over at Nordstrom, who shrugged.

“From Frances Potts.”

Still no recognition.

“Her lawyer came to see me and told me Mrs. Potts rewrote her will the night she died. I assumed you knew.” By the look of surprise on both the inspectors' faces, I now guessed not.

“It just happened. You probably haven't heard yet.” I felt kind of bad for them. It must be a professional slap in the face to have your murder suspect feeding you important pieces of evidence. “You would have turned it up soon enough, I'm sure. The pertinent point here is that I'm renouncing the inheritance, so it's not a real motive, per se.”

Romero shook his head and blew out a breath. “Relax. The death has been ruled a suicide.”

“Frances killed herself?”

He nodded. “She used some poisonous plants she was growing in the garden. Seemed to know what she was doing, according to the toxicologist. But it was clear from the evidence that she processed the stuff herself, and then prepared the meal. Her lawyer was sickened as well.”

“But she seemed all right when I saw her that night . . .” I protested, thinking back on the last time I had seen Frances. She had been moaning slightly, and holding her arms over her stomach. But I had no idea she had been dying, slain by her own hand.

“Like I said, the toxicologist said she seemed to know what she was doing, and came up with a slow-acting cocktail of poisons, which she used to spike the meat.”

“Oh.”

“We're less clear on who laid her out in the pentagram, and why. I don't suppose anything's occurred to you . . . ?”

I shook my head.

“Miss?” I looked up to see the nurse I had spoken to earlier. “If you want some time with your sister, you should see her now, before the doctors come by on their rounds.”

“Thank you,” I said. She hurried off.

“Your sister?” Romero queried.

“I asked her about Sandra's prognosis. If you don't say you're a relative, they won't tell you anything.”

“It makes me nervous that you lie so easily.”

“I don't actually. I'm terrible at lying about anything important. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

He chuckled. “Well then, best to tell the truth, I guess. Talk to you soon, Ms. Ivory.”

“Inspector Romero . . .”

He turned back to me.

“Never mind. Bye.” It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask him about the process tonight. Presuming we found Jessica, did we bring her to the police or straight to her family? For that matter, how would we explain her rescue? But like my mother used to say,
Don't borrow trouble
. We would figure that part out when, and if, I had the little girl safe in my arms.

“Lily? Is that you?”

I went into the room. Sandra was sitting up in bed, her gaze darting around as usual, like a nervous bird. It was good to see her back to her old self.

“I tried to stop Frances,” she said in a fierce whisper. “I think she was an evil witch.”

“She wasn't a witch, exactly . . .” I began, though Sandra wasn't listening.

“Those poor kids. Even after Frances died, they still weren't safe. None of us are safe. . . . I figured it out as I got to know her, spent time in that house. I found some of her witch's paraphernalia. Then I read the
Malleus Maleficarum
. I've been studying, you know. I thought I could stop her myself with the help of that sculpture from the auction, and then the dresses.”

“That was brave of you, Sandra. She was very powerful.”

“She asked me about you, you know. But her daughter Elisabeth—she's the one who did this—tried to shut me up.” Her voice dropped and she leaned toward me. “I think she still lives.”

A chill coursed through me, running up my extremities and settling in my core. My mind flitted back to the invisible presence that challenged me while I cast my useless spell of protection over Frances. I was almost sure now it had been Elisabeth herself.

“Sandra, who is she? Do you know who Elisabeth has become?”

She shook her head. “But I know what she isn't. She isn't human.”

 

An hour later I had opened the shop, turned it over to Bronwyn's care, and headed to Frances's funeral. Maya was conducting an interview in Piedmont in the morning and said she'd meet us at the cemetery, so I drove over alone with Oscar. I made it across the Bay Bridge with no problem, but then I started to get nervous—each time I exit the freeway in Oakland, I get lost. Apparently they don't have much of a budget for street signs. Though Oakland is a smaller city than San Francisco, population-wise, it covers a vast amount of acreage. There are plenty of beautiful, historic, and quaint neighborhoods of Oakland, but I had wandered around the sordid underbelly enough to know that there are sections where it is best not to leave the freeway. Particularly in a bright red vintage Mustang convertible.

Today was no exception. I clamped down on my frustration and tried to reframe the whole thing as an educational experience: For instance, I learned that goblins can't read road maps. Oscar tried his best, I'll give him that, but he wound up wrapping himself up in the unfolded map and screeching. By the time we circled downtown for the third time the map was a torn, wadded up ball on the floor of the Mustang.

We wandered past humble apartment buildings and elegant mansions, skirted the charming Lake Merritt, and finally pulled over in Chinatown at a little factory store that advertised custom-made fortune cookies. I had a pleasant chat with a kind man of very limited English skills who showed me the way to the cemetery on a map pinned to the wall, handed me a brochure, and gave me a small sample sack of adult-themed fortune cookies just for stopping by.

Back in the car Oscar nabbed the cookies and crunched loudly, reading me a few choice fortunes as I turned around and headed northeast on Broadway. I turned right at Pleasant Valley and then hung a left onto Piedmont Avenue. At long last I spotted the formal wrought-iron gates of Mountain View Cemetery straight ahead.

Some of the fortunes Oscar was reading were pretty funny, but it felt somehow unseemly to be hearing dirty jokes from a goblin as we drove through a cemetery. I told him to transform into his piggy mode—that way no one would see his natural appearance, and I was spared his running commentary. Pigs can't talk.

The main cemetery drive was newly paved, almost stark, and wound in a circle around a simple, gushing fountain. But in contrast to the newness of the pavement, the historic roots of the park were evident in the gothic revivalist architecture of the main buildings and the fascinating, lichen-encrusted hodgepodge of headstones, markers, and crypts. To the left I noticed a large plot of land with all the markers huddled to one side, and a new irrigation pipe running across the recently turned earth. I considered stopping to gather some dirt for my mandragora, but then realized this was a very old plot. It would be better to find fresher dirt. Each monument was tagged with blue tape indicating a number, and I found myself hoping they had a workable system. I couldn't even keep my invoices straight at the store. If it were up to me, I would mix things up and wind up returning half the headstones to the wrong graves.

Mountain View had clearly been the place to be buried back in the day. Elaborate crypts marched up the hill and looked out over a multimillion-dollar view of Oakland, the bay, and San Francisco beyond. Adorning these were ornate carved marble and granite sculptures, bronze plaques, stained-glass windows, and colorful mosaics. The grounds were landscaped in a crazy medley that reminded me of California itself: Towering palm trees stood shoulder-to-shoulder with grand redwoods, magnolias edged out pines and oak, and wisteria fought with English ivy.

I like cemeteries. The vibrations of grief can be overwhelming at the new burial sites, but otherwise there is a calm solemnity and acceptance tinged with sadness that can be strangely comforting. Yes, it is sad when people pass on. Their loved ones mourn them. But mourning indicates that there was once love, and that's a good thing.

The last time I was in a cemetery was in rural France. I remembered watching the black-clad old women tending their family graves and wondering, Would anyone mourn me when I was gone? My mother, perhaps, and certainly my grandmother, but few else. I realized in that moment that I wanted to find a community, make a home, create a web of friends . . . and perhaps even start a family. It was this revelation that led me to settle down in the Bay Area. That and a crazy parrot in Hong Kong, what felt like a lifetime ago.

I kept driving until I found Frances's final resting spot. My unscheduled tour of downtown Oakland had made me fifteen minutes late, but it looked as though the minister was just beginning. A dozen folding chairs had been set out, but the few mourners present stood beside a single stand of flowers. Maya and Delores were standing next to each other, holding hands. I recognized a couple of faces from Frances's neighborhood. But the biggest surprise was seeing Tomás on the other side of the grave. I crossed over to him.

“I'm surprised to see you here,” I whispered.

“My family's at the cemetery to tend my cousin Juan's grave. That's what we do on the weekends. I saw the old lady was being buried, so I thought I'd come watch.”

“I wanted to thank you again for saving me the other night.”

He looked down at me, bitterness in his eyes. “No of fense, lady, but I don't got no business with
brujas
, good or bad. I'm only here 'cause I wanted to see this one go in the ground.”

What could I say to that?

As the preacher droned on, I looked out over the hill-side. This was a new section of the graveyard; here the headstones were flat rectangles of granite on the ground, horizontal rather than vertical. I supposed the riding lawn mowers could go right over the top of them, so they made sense for maintenance, but like so many modern concessions to convenience they lacked the drama and dignity of the historic stones.

My gaze landed on a figure dressed in white standing a good forty feet away amidst a small copse of eucalyptus trees. Katherine. As I watched, it seemed as though she was rhythmically rocking. . . . Was she mumbling something? An incantation? She had her big black Lab with her—he was sitting obediently at her feet. Could that dog be her familiar?

The preacher wound up his talk, and Katherine turned to leave. I trotted up beside her before she could run away.

“Katherine,” I called. “Wait, are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said, hiding her hands behind her back.

I looked at her for a long moment. If I could trust my instincts—which were in question lately, what with sweetness charms and false assumptions—what I sensed from Frances's daughter was fear and sadness, not evil.

“What do you have in your hands, Katherine? What are you hiding?” I held my hand out, palm up, as though I were a schoolmarm demanding a student turn over her gum.

To my surprise, Katherine complied. She brought her hands out from behind her back and placed a chain made of black beads and a cross in my hand. It was a beautiful carved-wood rosary.

“You were praying?”

Katherine nodded. She hadn't been casting a spell; she was reciting the rosary.

“I have to tell you—” Katherine began.

“Katherine!” yelled the young man we had met at her house. He stood some twenty feet away, beside a sleek champagne-colored Jaguar. Katherine looked over at him briefly, then back down to me.

“I see you burned the house. Thank you for that.”

“I didn't—”

“My sister . . .” She grabbed my hands. Her own were icy. “She's not dead.”

I nodded. “I know. Do you know what happened to her?”

“She's not . . . human.”

“I understand, but, Katherine, where is she?”

She began to say something, then swallowed the words. She was scared to death. She looked over to the car again, then back to the grave of her mother.

She shook her head. “I don't know. I have to go.”

“Listen, Katherine. You should know . . . what your mother did, how she sent you away, how she never saw your children—she was trying to protect you.”

She nodded, and the flatness of her countenance began to dissolve. A palpable wave of sadness enveloped her. She started to cry, and hugged me, taking me by surprise. Not knowing quite what to do in return, I hugged her back. I awkwardly patted her carefully coiffed blond hair, trying not to muss it.

The young man came up to us, nodded at me, wrapped his arm around her, and led her back to the luxury car. They drove slowly off down the twisting drive.