Bewitched and Betrothed

by Juliet Blackwell

  And down deep, we were all vulnerable in one way or another.

  I held the hat to my chest, but all I felt were positive, upbeat vibrations. Open and caring, easygoing. Like Elena herself, apparently. Or . . . perhaps this reflected the old her, before being exposed to temptation.

  I realized I was at the stage of the investigation where I suspected everyone, and not for the first time imagined how hard it must be to work in law enforcement and not become overwhelmed by fear and suspicion of everyone, always.

  “We’ll wait and see what Patience can read, if anything,” I muttered to myself as I put the hat aside.

  Next I flipped through the old photographs in the cardboard box. There were lots of snapshots that appeared to be from the ’50s and ’60s, and a handful of older, sepia-toned portraits.

  But at the bottom of the box was a bundle wrapped in a stained, light blue cloth, tied up with twine in a thick knot.

  As I tried to undo the knot, I felt something: the hum of magic. This was no simple tangle of strings.

  Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, I got up and drew a salt circle, placing protective stones at the five points of the pentacle and lighting candles on the four directional points. While doing so I chanted softly in a mixture of Spanish, Nahuatl, and English, as Graciela had taught me as a young girl:

  “Yehwah-tzin, I ask for protection, que me salvaguarde y me esconde, con vigilencia, en esto y siempre. In toptli, in petlacalli; in estli, in yollohtli. I light the candles, reconozco su poder, su potencia. Se les ruego. Así sea, y se hará, so mote it be.”

  Then I examined the knot more closely. It was clumsily tied, reminding me of the magical knots my mother was trying to make at Calypso’s house. These were unevenly spaced, and the power was muted. An amateur’s work.

  I chanted while I untied it, easily defeating the original spell. I laid the cloth open to reveal a stack of black-and-white photos of prisoners and prison guards, as well as photos of cellblocks and what looked like tunnels. These were similar to the archival pictures Maya had shown me on the Internet, chronicling life on Alcatraz. Why would they be hidden away and guarded by magic?

  Suddenly I realized what was bothering me wasn’t the knotted twine, but the cloth the photos had been wrapped in.

  Unless I missed my guess, the scrap of fabric was the heavy, blue chambray of an inmate’s shirt.

  And the dark stains?

  Blood.

  * * *

  • • •

  When I returned downstairs to the shop, I found Selena sitting cross-legged on the floor, shining coins and little milagros, Mexican charms of body parts that were used to ask for cures. She wore faded jeans, no makeup, and her black hair hung down her back in a long braid. The teenager had a special sort of metal magic, and as she polished metal, she infused the items with a tiny whisper of her magic. Lately the challenge had been to find enough for her to work on. I bought up old silverware at estate and garage sales whenever possible, but when Bronwyn remembered the old coins—pennies, francs, pesetas, and the like—that she’d been collecting in tall glass jars for years, it was a bonanza.

  “Hi, Selena,” I said. “Ready for a little vintage clothes therapy?”

  She didn’t look up.

  “Selena? I said hello.”

  “Hi, whatever,” she finally said, her voice sullen, and she refused to make eye contact. Selena was working on her social skills and rarely greeted anyone unprompted. Her attitude strained my patience, but I tried to remember how strange I had been at her age, as an awkward young witch with great power, and reached down deep for empathy.

  “Selena,” I tried again. “I wanted to ask you: Why have you been drawing these pictures?”

  I held out one of her calla lily drawings. She glanced up but did not respond, instead starting in on polishing a new batch of coins.

  “It looks like a calla lily sprouting from a seed,” I prompted.

  “That’s not a seed,” said Selena.

  “Sorry. What is it, then?”

  “An island.”

  “Which island?”

  She shook her head.

  “What made you think about drawing it?”

  “I draw what I see. It’s not weird. Maya says a lot of artists get images in their minds. I can’t help it.”

  “I understand, Selena. You’re not in any kind of trouble, I’m just trying to understand. I saw a calla lily in a . . . sort of a vision. And Sailor saw one, too. So I’m trying to figure out if it’s significant that you’re drawing these.”

  “Didn’t Selena draw lilies when she first got to know you, Lily?” asked Bronwyn. “Perhaps it’s as simple as that.”

  Selena remained on the floor, carefully attending to one coin after the other. She used ketchup as a nontoxic tarnish remover, and her white cotton rag was stained a bright red.

  Blood sacrifice.

  The way Carlos had described the homicide scene on Alcatraz, it sounded like the elderly victim might well have been used—or possibly even volunteered—as a blood sacrifice. Blood sacrifice was often connected to demonic conjuring. . . . But who would have done such a thing, and why?

  I felt a slight rumble underfoot and heard a crack and groan as the building’s old timbers settled.

  “Whoops, another temblor!” sang Bronwyn. “What do you think, two-point-eight?”

  “More like a three, or three-point-two,” said Maya, already tapping on the computer to look up the seismic count of this latest tremor.

  “I cannot get used to y’all being so infuriatingly calm about the earth moving under your feet,” I said, my heart pounding. “Doesn’t that freak you out?”

  “The big ones are scary,” Bronwyn conceded.

  “You can say that again,” said Maya. “But I grew up with tremors, Lily, so I guess they don’t faze me much. Especially the soft, rolling ones. I don’t like the ones that slam you with a sudden jolt.”

  “It seems unnatural to me,” I muttered. “Anyway, Maya, while you’ve got the computer open, could you look up Ned Przybyszewski?”

  “The guy who used to own Mrs. Archer’s house? Spell it for me?”

  I did, and she tapped it in.

  “Let’s see. . . . Interesting.”

  “What?”

  “That name’s not as rare as one might imagine. Przybyszewski is one of the most common Polish names. Who knew?”

  “Do you see anyone by that name connected with Alcatraz?”

  She nodded. “According to this website, a Ned Przybyszewski was a prison guard there from 1935 to ’63. Almost thirty years.”

  “Is there a photo?”

  “Nothing posted online. But I’ll bet one of the docents at Alcatraz would be able to find one. Want me to call Forrest Caruthers?”

  “No, no thank you. They’ve got enough on their hands at the moment.” I realized I hadn’t shared the news of Cole Albright’s murder with my friends. In part it was my habit to keep things to myself, but I also didn’t want to further worry Maya about what might have happened to Elena. Because if Albright had been butchered . . .

  “How about a photo of Ray Perry?”

  “Yeah,” said Maya. “I remember seeing his mug shot when I was doing research. I’ll find it. . . .”

  “Thanks. And the Albright brothers as well, if you can.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Bronwyn said, busily mixing custom concoctions behind the counter of her herbal stand. “I have serious issues with the entire penal system.”

  “But you told me you signed up to go on Charles Gosnold’s ghost hunt during the Festival of Felons,” said Maya.

  “Yes, well, that’s different. That’s about spirits, not the penal system.”

  Maya chuckled.

  “Bronwyn, I wish you wouldn’t go,” I said. Presuming Cheney’s festival was
still going on as planned, I didn’t want my friends on that cursed rock. I didn’t want anyone out there, but especially my loved ones. “Surely there are nicer ghosts you could visit here on the mainland?”

  “But I’ve already paid for it. And I’ll be with Charles! What could go wrong?”

  I opened my mouth to tell her about what had happened to Albright last night, but hesitated. Carlos had told me about the crime only because of the occult connection. If it wasn’t in the news yet . . .

  “Here he is,” said Maya, interrupting my thoughts. She turned the computer so I could look at the screen. “Raymond—Ray—Perry’s mug shot.”

  Ray Perry had heavy-lidded, rather romantic eyes, full lips, and held his chin high at a stubborn angle. No doubt about it. This was the man I had seen in Emmy Lou Archer’s attic.

  Chapter 14

  “He looks so young,” I said.

  “He was younger than I am now,” said Maya. “Perry was only twenty-four when he disappeared, so he must have been convicted in his early twenties. It says here he lived a life of crime: He shot an officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he was just fourteen, and stabbed a cellmate to death in what he claimed was self-defense. He was an escape artist who freed himself from manacles and sawed through bars. A reporter at the time called him an ‘eellike little man’ who escaped once in a laundry bag, was sent to prison for kidnapping a businessman, and tried to escape in a trash can.”

  “I suppose that’s why he was sent to Alcatraz,” I said. “So he couldn’t escape.”

  “Sounds like a punk to me,” said Maya. “You know what they say: If you want to put an end to about ninety percent of crime, lock up all the men from the ages of fifteen to forty.”

  Bronwyn gaped at her, “Maya! You sound so . . . punitive.”

  Maya smiled and continued typing on the keyboard. “I’m not saying we should do it. I’m simply saying it would solve a lot of problems. Oh, Lily, here are mug shots of the Albright brothers.”

  “I’ve got to say that Cole Albright is rather nice-looking,” said Bronwyn, whose curiosity had overcome her scruples. She had joined us at the computer.

  “He was a brutal criminal, Bronwyn,” said Maya.

  “I don’t know the man, but according to that photo, he’s a historical hottie.”

  Maya smiled. “And here are photos of the fake heads the Albrights put in their beds when they escaped.”

  The papier-mâché heads were painted on only one side—presumably the unpainted side was hidden by the pillow—and had human hair glued to their crowns.

  “They look sort of macabre, don’t they?” I asked.

  “Maybe they haven’t aged well,” Bronwyn said with a chuckle. “Or maybe they were bewitched to seem alive.”

  “You’re right, the only way those heads would fool anyone is if the guards didn’t look too closely,” said Maya. “Which they probably didn’t. No one would have been looking for fake heads. And then the men slipped out of their cells through the entrance to the ventilation shaft, which they had been widening bit by bit, probably for years.”

  “How did they manage that?” asked Bronwyn.

  “They say that’s one of the problems with Alcatraz: Over time the fog and salt from the bay rusts the iron rebar and crumbles the concrete. Anyway, the prisoners had been planning the escape for a year or more, leaving their cells at night to work on a raft made out of rubber raincoats. On the night of their escape they inflated it with a concertina, an accordionlike instrument.”

  “Gutsy,” I said. “I’ll give them that.”

  Maya nodded. “And amazingly smart. Someone had given them the tidal charts so they would know when to leave and minimize their chances of being swept out to sea. An oar and the flotilla made of raincoats was found near Angel Island, which is why some people believe they made it to shore.”

  “Imagine what they could have amounted to if they’d applied that sort of initiative and determination outside of prison, in the civilian world,” Bronwyn said, shaking her head. “It was a brilliant plan of escape; what a waste.”

  “Maybe they did survive and went on to lead exemplary lives,” said Maya with a smile. “You never know.”

  “So Przybyszewski”—I stumbled over his name—“was a guard when both Ray Perry and the Albright brothers escaped?”

  “Yeah, I guess the dates would fit,” said Maya. “Whether he was on duty both times, I can’t say from this. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Just trying to find connections.”

  The bell over the door rang and Patience strode in, a small rolling suitcase trailing along behind her.

  “Greetings, all and . . .” She glanced around the store. “Sundry.”

  “Hi, Patience,” I said, then turned to Maya, Bronwyn, and Selena. “I forgot to tell you: Our wedding party has been expanded by one. Patience is going to be my third bridesmaid.”

  “Cool,” said Selena in a shy voice.

  “Super,” Maya said dryly.

  “Oh! Isn’t that just lovely!” gushed Bronwyn. “Have you picked out a dress yet, dear?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” said Patience. “And after, we can do that reading for you, Lily. I’ve got my stuff with me. Selena, be a sport and put this in the back for me, will you?”

  Selena jumped up and hurried to do Patience’s bidding, sullenness gone.

  It figures, I thought, rather sullen myself.

  “I haven’t found the perfect outfit yet, either,” said Bronwyn, excited as a schoolgirl. “Let’s shop together!”

  “Oh, goody,” Patience said. No one but me—and perhaps Maya—seemed to detect the sarcasm dripping from her words, so I bit my tongue.

  The next half hour was pure bliss. Maya cranked up a playlist of 1920s music, and she, Bronwyn, and Patience started trying on the outfits I picked out for them, and Selena ran back and forth with the garments, fully embracing this most feminine of pastimes.

  Everything Patience tried on looked fabulous on her, and if I had been in a pettier frame of mind I would have assumed she was doing it just to make me feel bad. Which was silly, of course, because she was a natural beauty. Her womanly curves were especially stunning in the formfitting cocktail dresses from the late ’30s and early ’40s, a fashion era in which an hourglass figure was especially sought after.

  Carlos walked in just as Patience flung the dressing room curtain open between fittings and emerged clad only in a corset and a slip.

  He froze. Their gaze met and held. Patience thrust one hip out, put a hand on her waist, and raised one eyebrow.

  Carlos cleared his throat. “Sorry to intrude,” he said after a beat. “Should I come back another time . . . ?”

  “No, no, of course not,” I said, coming around from behind the horseshoe counter and standing in front of Patience, trying to wave her back into the dressing room. “We were just trying on dresses. Aunt Cora’s Closet can feel a bit like being at home, hanging out with friends, walking around in one’s altogethers, you know how it is. . . .”

  Patience let out a peal of laughter and, at long last, stepped back into the dressing nook and drew the curtain closed.

  “Try this one, Patience,” said Selena, cradling an emerald green floor-length 1930s gown and ducking into the dressing nook.

  “So what can I do for you, Carlos? Patience hasn’t been able to read for me yet . . .” I said, suddenly embarrassed that he should find us trying on dresses instead of searching for clues to Elena’s whereabouts. Carlos looked tired, with dark bags under his eyes. I imagined he hadn’t slept much.

  “It’s not a problem,” said Carlos. “I wanted to talk to you about the crime scene on Alcatraz.”

  “Crime scene?” Maya asked, ashen. “Tell me it’s not Elena.”

  “No, sorry. I thought Lily might have mentioned it. The victim was an elderly Caucasian mal
e.”

  Patience stepped out of the dressing room, this time wearing the green dress Selena had selected.

  Silence descended. Patience had gathered her usually wild black hair into a smooth twist at the back of her neck, and in the elegant gown looked as if she were one of the brighter stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The dress was sleeveless and mostly backless, exposing as much skin as possible without, somehow, looking risqué. The silky emerald green fabric alternately hugged her body and flowed, reminiscent of a Grecian goddess. The gown’s deep V neck featured scrolled beading that evoked a butterfly in both pattern and shape on the bodice, before wending its way down and around the mesh overlay.

  “Oh, my,” murmured Bronwyn, placing the tunic she’d been considering back on the rack. “I guess I’d better step it up.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Maya, who had tried on a crushed velvet tea-length dress that looked cute, but nothing in Patience’s league. “Wow.”

  Carlos said: “Nice outfit. So, is it Halloween every day around here?”

  “Well, now, that depends,” Patience drawled, and I wondered if she was imitating my accent. “If I knocked on your door, big guy, would there be candy?”

  Carlos was hard to read—he had that carefully bland expression common to experienced cops—but I was pretty sure he was shocked, and intrigued. Perhaps not in that order.

  “I, um,” I stammered. “I can’t remember, have you two met?”

  “We have now,” Carlos said.

  “Carlos, this is Patience Blix, Sailor’s cousin. Patience, this is Homicide Inspector Carlos Romero of the San Francisco Police Department.” It’s possible I placed a little extra emphasis on the “Police Department.”

  “Charmed, Inspector.”

  “Ms. Blix.”

  They stared at each other, their gazes locked.

  Finally, Carlos turned to me. “Hate to ruin your afternoon of dress-up, Lily, but I need you to come out to the island with me to check out the scene, let us know if any of your acquaintances or colleagues might have been involved.”