A Vision in Velvet: A Witchcraft Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “They keep your apartment locked down.”

  “Take those and distribute them around the shop’s front and rear doors. And keep an eye out for anything, or anyone, unusual. Just be on guard.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s probably nothing to do with us. But the man who sold me that trunk has been . . . killed.”

  “Lily . . .”

  “I’m with the police right now. It probably . . . probably has nothing to do with us,” I repeated. “I just want you to keep an eye out.”

  “All right. Anything else?”

  I glanced at Carlos, standing just a few feet away, and lowered my voice. “When the officers get there . . . don’t mention that other item I tried on earlier, okay?”

  “Understood,” Bronwyn said. “Will you be back soon, do you think?”

  “I hope so,” I said, and thanked her before hanging up. I walked over to the inspector and handed him his cell phone. “Carlos, what happened to Sebastian . . . it probably has nothing to do with that trunk, but—”

  “Probably not. But I still need to look through it. Standard procedure.”

  “Of course, that’s fine. What I was going to say is that if Sebastian was killed because of that trunk and someone tracked it to Aunt Cora’s Closet . . .”

  “That crossed my mind as well. I’ll send a car by, have them keep an eye on the place. And you might want to do . . . whatever it is you do in these sorts of situations.”

  I nodded.

  “So let’s summarize,” Carlos said. “You meet the victim, Sebastian Crowley, at ten this morning at his antiques store in Jackson Square, where you buy a trunk of worthless old clothes. You then return to your shop with the trunk and said worthless clothes, then decide to take a walk in Golden Gate Park, where you stumble across the antiques dealer’s body at the base of a tree.”

  “Then I called the police.”

  Carlos pressed his lips together for a long moment while he studied me.

  “Why’d you buy the trunk if you thought it was”—he glanced at his notes—“‘kind of old and smelly’?”

  “I’m not always a shrewd businesswoman.”

  He raised one eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “Crowley was going to throw it out, and I . . . I felt sorry for it.”

  “What, are you saying this trunk talks to you? You communicate with furniture now?”

  “Of course not.” The cape, on the other hand . . . maybe. “But Sebastian said it came across the prairie with the pioneers, and . . . I don’t know, I couldn’t bear to think of it sitting out on the curb waiting for garbage day. So I gave him sixty bucks for it. I thought maybe I’d find something inside, and Maya was going to see if a museum might want it. It’s a tax write-off.”

  Carlos smiled. “Remind me to sell you the contents of the back of my closet sometime.”

  “Now, that would be interesting.”

  “And you came here to this tree, why? Because of the protestors?”

  “Yes. My friend Conrad told me about trying to save the tree, so I thought I’d come take a look. It was that simple.”

  “It’s hard to believe anything’s simple where you’re concerned, Lily. It’s awfully coincidental that both you and Sebastian Crowley would end up here after meeting earlier in the day, don’t you think?”

  “Not in the cosmic sense. All sorts of strange things happen every day.”

  Carlos looked cosmically unconvinced.

  I tried again. “Maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe Sebastian was a tree lover, and he heard about Ms. Quercus being condemned and came to take a look. Just like I did.”

  “Ms. Who?”

  “The tree. Conrad calls it Ms. Quercus.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “I think it has to do with the kind of tree it is—its Latin name, I guess?”

  “I never would have pegged Conrad as an arborist. He know a lot of Latin?”

  “I think he got it from a woman who came to assess the tree. Does it matter?”

  “You know me. I’m a curious guy. So, tell me more about this Conrad fellow. I’ve seen him at your store. He tells me he’s been sleeping here under this tree lately. What’s his connection to the victim?”

  “He doesn’t have one, at least not that I’m aware of.” There was a harsh glint in Carlos’s dark eyes. Realization dawned. “I’m sure he’s not involved in this, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “Because . . . because it’s Conrad.” I would no sooner accuse Conrad of shooting someone than I would myself.

  “Unless I miss my guess, he lives on the street and he uses. Maybe he, or one of his friends, they get feeling jumpy, and they see a guy walking by, nicely dressed, demand his wallet, things get out of hand . . .”

  “No,” I said.

  Carlos shrugged.

  “Carlos, seriously: no. You should look at me as a suspect long before Conrad. He wouldn’t hurt a fly—literally. I’ve seen him carefully shoo insects out of the store to escape Maya’s wrath.”

  Our eyes held for a long moment. He blew a long, noisy breath through his nose.

  “Why would Crowley have your business card in his pocket?”

  “As I said, I gave it to him this morning. . . .”

  “At his shop.”

  “Right.”

  He nodded and consulted his notebook, then went over my timeline once more. There were about three hours between the time I left Sebastian’s shop and when Conrad found him. Three hours in which he came—or was brought—to Golden Gate Park and was shot under the outstretched arms of Ms. Quercus, condemned oak tree.

  I felt as jumpy as spit on a hot skillet, but I tried to clamp down on my impatience as I watched Carlos ponder his notes. Among other things, I was itching to wash up and to cast a protection spell over Aunt Cora’s Closet. Unless I missed my guess, that extraordinary garment might have something to do with all of this. It was too much of a coincidence to find Sebastian shot to death right after experiencing the strange visions from a cloak he had sold me earlier in the day.

  I reached up to fiddle with my ponytail and realized with a sickening jolt that my hands were still stained with Sebastian’s blood. As were Conrad’s . . . Surely Carlos didn’t truly suspect him. Did he?

  “We’ll keep an eye on Aunt Cora’s Closet for the next couple of days,” said Carlos. “Until we figure out the connection between you, the trunk, and the victim. If there is one. It could just have been a random attack. Patrol went by the victim’s store and says the door was unlocked and the register had been emptied out. Place was such a mess it was hard to tell if anything else had been taken.”

  “But why would someone rob Sebastian at his shop, then bring him here just to . . . kill him?”

  Carlos’s dark eyes rested on mine for a long moment. “An excellent question.”

  Not that I was the best judge, but I didn’t believe robbery had been the motive for Sebastian’s murder. Not only would a robber not march Sebastian all the way out here, but he’d have to be pretty desperate to target Sebastian’s Antiques in the first place. The Jackson Square neighborhood was full of high-end antiques stores, the kind that sold vast dining room tables for tens of thousands of dollars and petite pencil cups for several hundred. Why would a criminal rob the one shop on the lane that looked as though it had been abandoned for years? Especially if that criminal was hard-core enough to kill?

  “Anything else you might be ‘forgetting’ to mention? Now’s the time,” Carlos said. Although the inspector and I were on good terms and had worked well together in the past, we’d also worked at cross-purposes on occasion. Carlos was a professional and held himself apart. We were alike that way.

  I shook my head.

  “How about the guy who
helped you with Crowley?”

  “Lance?”

  “You know him?”

  “No. We just met over . . . over Sebastian.”

  “Yet you’re on a first-name basis?”

  “We introduced ourselves.”

  “When was this?”

  “While we were waiting for help to arrive. I was trying to calm him down, so I chatted with him. He looked a bit beside himself.”

  “Never met him before?”

  I shook my head.

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’m sure I would have remembered meeting him before. He’s . . . a little unusual-looking.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “He was with a couple of coworkers, um . . . Nina and Kai were their names.” I tried to remember what they looked like, but all that came to mind were a couple of very pale visages in lab coats, the woman tall, the man in heavy glasses. “Lance told me they all work at the Cal Academy of Sciences. They were coming to check on the tree. Apparently, it’s supposed to be cut down.”

  “A dying tree. A death tree.”

  Every once in a while Carlos broke out of restrained cop mode and got poetic. I found it a little bit charming and a whole lot disconcerting.

  “Were they on the scene when you arrived?” he continued.

  “Maybe, but I . . .” I paused and searched my memory. “There were a few people here before me, but I was focused on Sebastian. Now that I think about it, the killer could have been standing right there with a smoking gun and I wouldn’t have noticed. I’m sorry. I guess I wouldn’t make a very good cop. It was all a little . . . shocking.”

  “Huh.”

  “Is Lance a suspect?” I thought back to the stricken look on the man’s face. I hadn’t seen anything to suggest Lance and his colleagues were anything other than hapless passersby. And what was the likelihood a trio of scientists from the Cal Academy would be walking through the park armed and bent on murder? I hated to deal in stereotypes, but how often do scientists form street gangs?

  Carlos shrugged. “You know my motto: Until I find the killer, my own grandmother is a suspect.”

  “I’d really like to meet this nefarious grandmother of yours someday,” I teased in a weak attempt to cut the tension. “She sounds like a fascinating woman. Maybe I could riffle through the contents of her closet.”

  Carlos gave me a tiny half smile and returned to the crime scene. I had been dismissed.

  Chapter 4

  I had hoped to see Conrad when I returned to the shop, but he wasn’t in his customary spot on the curb. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for hours, or even several days at a time; still, I wished I could speak with him further about what had happened. I had the sense that the police in general—Carlos in particular—weren’t finished with him yet.

  After explaining everything to Bronwyn and Maya, we closed the shop for the day. I locked up behind them and cast a special spell of protection over the store. Unfortunately, though my witchy charms were strong, they weren’t foolproof. I couldn’t lock down Aunt Cora’s Closet completely because it was, after all, a retail establishment. If I cast too strong a spell no one but an equally powerful practitioner would be able to enter. That would wreak havoc with customers searching for 1950s cocktail dresses.

  I knew that if someone wanted to get in badly enough, they could find a way. It had happened a few months ago, and I still felt vulnerable. It was not a nice feeling. But it was one I had to deal with.

  After casting, I crossed the shop into the back room and climbed the stairs to my small apartment over the store.

  “Mistress!” Oscar greeted me as I walked in the door. “Where have you been? I’m starving!”

  My familiar was a gobgoyle—half goblin, half gargoyle—who appeared as a pig when in public. At home he was his natural scaly gray-green self. He had been given to me as a witch’s familiar, but he wasn’t an ordinary familiar. He wasn’t my ambassador to the world beyond or the embodied extension of me and my powers. Instead he was just . . . Oscar.

  At the moment said pseudo familiar was staggering about as if on the verge of fainting from hunger.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, Oscar,” I said. “Didn’t you eat the snack I left for you?”

  “You mean the apple? You call that a snack?”

  “Apples are good for you.”

  Oscar made a very rude noise, but when I glared at him he grimaced, which was his gobgoyle version of a smile.

  “It’s your turn to make dinner, mistress. I would have cooked something, but you said you wanted to.”

  He’s right, I thought guiltily as I headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get right on it. How’s roasted chicken sound?”

  “With cheese and potatoes?”

  “How about a salad?”

  Oscar sighed.

  “I’ll let you grate the cheese for it,” I said, and he sprang onto the kitchen counter.

  I’ve never had a pet, so when Oscar first came to live with me, I forgot to feed him once or twice—what with running around town after suspicious spirits and all, it plumb escaped my mind. So I set about teaching my familiar how to cook a few things for himself, and though he was an enthusiastic chef, his specialties consisted exclusively of some form of carbohydrates combined with cheese: grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, potatoes au gratin, cheesy baked potatoes. In an effort to inject a few vegetables into our bodies—Oscar claimed his kind didn’t need anything green and leafy, though I wasn’t buying it—I had called dibs on making dinner tonight.

  So although I was anxious to learn more about the velvet cape, I decided to put it off until after dinner. A hungry gobgoyle was not a happy gobgoyle. Besides, after what Conrad and I had found in the park . . . well, a little time to regroup would help calm and center me and restore my energy.

  I rubbed an organic free-range chicken with olive oil, garlic, and fresh herbs from my terrace garden, then popped it in my old Wedgewood oven. Afterward I started pulling together the ingredients to make a Caesar salad—one of the few leafy dishes Oscar would eat, as long as I put enough parmesan cheese on it. I handed him a head of romaine, which he dutifully washed and put in the salad spinner as I’d taught him; then he tore the crunchy lettuce leaves and tossed them into a huge hand-thrown blue ceramic salad bowl.

  “How do you know how to make that dressing?” Oscar asked as I started mixing lemon juice, a raw egg, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies in a large glass measuring cup.

  “My grandmother taught me. She claimed that Caesar salad had been invented in Mexico. One of the northern resort towns—Tijuana or Rosarito, if I remember correctly.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted with a chuckle as I measured out a cup of green-gold extra-virgin olive oil. “Apparently, a lot of people claim to have invented Caesar salad. Graciela also said Thomas Alva Edison was Mexican—that’s why his middle name is Alva. I think it’s best not to fact-check one’s grandmother.”

  Oscar smiled his ugly gobgoyle smile. “Oh, mistress, I forgot to tell you! I bought you a present.”

  “A present, for me? That’s so sweet, Oscar. I’m . . . I’m so surprised. What’s the special occasion?”

  “It’s my birthday.”

  “What?” I stopped chopping garlic and stared at him. It had never occurred to me that my familiar had a birthday. Though of course he did. He had a mother, after all. “It’s your birthday, Oscar? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We don’t do that.”

  “How old are you?”

  “We don’t talk about that.”

  “Okay, little guy, if you say so.” I laughed and let it go. As someone with my own share of secrets, I like to respect others’ privacy.

  Oscar retrieved the present from his cubby over the fridge. It was wr
apped in a surprisingly sleek way, in fuchsia-colored tissue paper with a raffia bow, sprigs of rosemary and rue crossed atop it. Really lovely.

  “Thank you, Oscar. But if it’s your birthday, shouldn’t I be giving you a present?”

  “You humans! I’ll never figure all y’all out.” Oscar had recently taken to mimicking my accent and was developing a pretty authentic Texas-style twang.

  “Your kind don’t get presents for their birthday?”

  He waved his hand and cackled. “’Course not. We give presents on our birthday. Makes much more sense.”

  “Well, I surely do appreciate it. Thank you so much.”

  “Rip it open!” My familiar urged me on impatiently, but I opened the package with care. When I was growing up, my mother had insisted I open gifts painstakingly so she could reuse the wrapping, and it had been a struggle to restrain my enthusiasm to rip into the brightly colored paper. As an adult I found myself sympathizing with my mother. In her honor, I peeled back first one side of the paper, then the other, taking care not to tear the pretty tissue.

  Inside was a manila envelope addressed to Oscar.

  I paused and looked at my familiar, wondering what on earth it contained.

  “Open it!” he repeated eagerly, his big glass-green eyes fixed on the present.

  Peeking inside the envelope, I saw what looked like small squares of cloth. Patches to repair rents in my vintage clothing? I tipped them out onto the kitchen table.

  “Labels?” I asked, examining them. One was marked “Valentino,” another “Versace,” another “Balmain.” There were dozens. “Couture labels?”

  Oscar nodded. “Aren’t they awesome? Got ’em off the Internet, real cheap.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand.”

  “You sew ’em into any old dress, and then people think they’re designer dresses and pay you gobs of money for ’em. Guy sold ’em to me says an Estevez dress can go for six hundred and fifty dollars. Not sure who Estevez is, but apparently the man can make one heck of a dress.”

  “Oscar, this is very sweet of you, but . . . that’s fraud.”

  “Come again?” He tossed the last of the torn romaine into the bowl. As was usually the case when Oscar and I cooked together, we had enough salad to feed an army, and there was half a head of lettuce littering the floor as well.