Dressed in an immaculate white satin caftanlike gown, Katherine had blond, carefully streaked and styled hair. She had to be in her fifties, so I was sure she had some help from the salon; she had a well-preserved look about her. But what struck me most was her almost total lack of affect. Overuse of Botox, perhaps?
Without saying a word, Katherine gestured for us to take our seats in the matching love seat across a low glass-and-chrome coffee table.
“Hello, Katherine. I’m Lily Ivory, and this is Maya Jackson,” I said. “Maya knew your mother as well, and wanted to pay her respects.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Maya said.
Katherine’s light brown eyes looked me up and down before shifting over to assess Maya. Then she rose from the sofa and glided over to a small wet bar. Her movements were smooth, practiced. I had the oddest sensation that we had just stepped into a performance art piece. The only problem was, I didn’t know what role Maya and I were supposed to be playing.
“Vodka tonic?” Katherine asked us over one satin-clad shoulder.
“No, no, thank you. I’m fine,” I said.
“Me neither, thank you,” said Maya.
We perched on the love seat and watched as Katherine placed ice cubes in a highball glass, poured it about half-full with premium vodka, and then added a splash of diet tonic water and a squeeze of lime. She took a generous pull on her concoction before turning back to us and walking toward the couch.
“So . . . I’ve been dying of anticipation,” Katherine said with an amused smile that did not reach her eyes. She arranged herself on the sofa, lying back and putting her feet up. The dog came to sit on the floor next to the couch, resting his great head on her ankles. “Do tell, Lily, darling. How did you manage to get Frances to leave everything to you?”
“I don’t understand it, either. I barely knew your mother.”
“You act as though I care,” Katherine said with a dramatic flourish of her left hand, as though waving off my concern. “As you can see, I have no need of her money. That place is yours—enjoy. It’s a house of horrors as far as I’m concerned.”
“A house of horrors?”
“The place is a rattrap. You saw it. It’s in a crappy part of town, surrounded by crappy neighbors. You would do the world a service by burning the place down. I’m just glad I don’t have to think about it.”
“But I don’t want it. I plan to renounce the inheritance. It’s not in great shape but it’s still worth something. You have children; surely they could—”
“Leave them out of this,” she snapped.
“I just mean it rightfully belongs to y’all.”
“ ‘ Y’all’?” She smiled her tight smile again. “Where are you from?”
“Texas.”
“My mother was from New Orleans.” For the first time I noted a faraway look in her eyes, as though she were thinking of her loss.
“Yes, she told me.”
There was a long silence, only the tinkling of the ice cubes in Katherine’s glass breaking the quiet. I noticed the drink was nearly gone already.
“I understand you were the one who found your mother’s body.”
She nodded.
“Could you . . . I don’t suppose you could tell me anything about the scene?”
“The scene? You mean the fact that she was lying in a pool of her own vomit, on the floor, in a pentagram drawn of blood?”
I opened my mouth, but found it hard to know what to say. I glanced over at Maya, who looked ashen.
“I’d rather not think about it,” Katherine added, smiling again.
“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions about your sister’s disappearance?”
“What does that have to do with anything? That was a lifetime ago.”
“I know that. But there might be some connection between—”
“My sister,” she hissed, her voice dripping with loathing. “Everything has been about her, and her disappearance, since I was a kid.”
Katherine leaned over to put her empty glass on the coffee table. As she moved I noticed a medallion fall out of the neck of the caftan. She grabbed it, slipping it back under the cloth before I could see what it was, exactly—a protective amulet?
Our eyes held for a moment.
“My sister wasn’t the only one, you know,” Katherine said. “There was nothing special about Elisabeth’s disappearance. It was a tragedy, just like the tragedies that befall people every day all over the world. There are some things we should just accept and move on.”
“I understand it was a very long time ago. But something’s happened that might, possibly, be connected to that.”
The dog sat up and started a rumble deep and low in his broad chest. I imagined he was picking up on his human’s stress. He gazed across the room at me. Again, I got the sense that he was smarter than most of his breed.
“I don’t want to talk about Elisabeth’s disappearance. If you don’t want the house, give it away,” said Katherine as she rose and looked out the huge pane of glass to the street below. “I don’t care about any of it.”
“What about the pictures, the personal items?” Maya asked. “I was collecting some stories—”
“Especially those. My mother and I did not have a particularly close relationship, as you apparently are unaware.” She studied her French-manicured nails for a moment before continuing. “Do you know that she has never, not once, acknowledged her grandchildren? I have a boy and a girl, both teenagers, and neither has ever even met their grandmother. She has plenty of time for the neighborhood children, none for them. She never wanted any of us in her house. So don’t expect me to mourn for her, or for some long-dead sister.”
“I don’t—”
“You know what my mother did after my sister disappeared? She couldn’t move on, couldn’t deal with it, so essentially she abandoned me. Went back to her precious New Orleans for months at a time. My father had a fit.”
“It wasn’t a happy marriage, then?”
She looked at me in disbelief and let out a scoffing breath. “No, not precisely.”
“I . . . Could I ask how your father died?”
“He hanged himself. Couldn’t deal. Apparently I wasn’t enough without his precious Elisabeth.”
“I’m so sorry.” I knew how it felt to grow up without a father. His absence was a void, a dull ache throughout my life. Not intolerable, but undeniable. It left a scar. But at least I hadn’t known him. . . . I couldn’t imagine losing a loving father to suicide.
She shrugged and with a slight inclination of her head sent the dog out of the room.
“And your father’s parents?”
“They died not long after my sister disappeared. Then Mother sent me off to boarding school so she wouldn’t have to deal with me. All told, it was a fabulous adolescence.”
“But you made it through,” I pointed out. “You have a lovely home, children. . . .”
“I found my own way. Let’s leave it at that.”
Since we arrived I had been trying to sense Katherine’s vibrations, but she had been difficult to read. She didn’t shake hands, so I couldn’t rely on the more evocative skin-to-skin contact. But now she was emitting plenty; unfortunately, scared and angry vibrations feel very nearly the same, as they are two sides of the same coin. Her facial expression was so flat that it was hard to figure out which of the two emotions she was experiencing. Or could it be both?
I looked up to see that the young man had arrived again. Was he the modern equivalent of a houseboy? A boyfriend? He hadn’t introduced himself, and there was no obvious husband-wife interaction, so we were left to speculate.
My gaze shifted back to Katherine. Overall, hers seemed a sad, sterile, bitter life . . . but who was I to say? Perhaps she was a relaxed laugh riot when not speaking of death and childhood trauma. Maybe she kept the Pacific Heights ladies-who-lunch rolling in the aisles with her clever quips.
“Please see these two out,” Katheri
ne said to the man. He nodded and gestured that we should start down the stairs.
“Thank you for speaking with us, Katherine,” I said as Maya and I stood. “I really am sorry about your mother. I didn’t know her well, but she was very kind to me. You . . . Your eyes are very much like hers.”
“My condolences,” said Maya quietly.
Katherine remained mute.
Maya and I crossed the room, headed down the narrow staircase, and let ourselves out the heavy wood-and-bronze door.
We both paused outside on the sidewalk, breathing deeply of the fresh air. Maya lifted her face to the last rays of the sun; after dawning overcast, the day had turned warm and sunny, but now there was a thick fog rolling in.
The construction workers across the street were still making a racket, their Bobcats disappearing into the garage. We both watched the lurching, noisy movement for a moment.
Finally, our eyes met.
“That was truly bizarre,” said Maya.
“Good, it wasn’t just me,” I said, relieved to know my judgment was sound. “I think we need hot chocolate.”
“With marshmallows.”
“Lots of marshmallows.”
“A shot of rum in it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, for that matter.” Maya smiled.
“You missed your chance with that vodka tonic upstairs.”
“Emphasis on the vodka.”
We laughed and started across the quiet residential street. I began to dig around in my backpack for the car keys.
To our right, I noticed a red sedan coming down the steep hill. It seemed to be picking up speed, so I hurried a bit to get across the street and urged Maya to do the same.
The car sped up.
We increased our pace and reached the curb on the other side.
Suddenly the vehicle swerved toward us.
Chapter 14
I grasped Maya by the arm to get her attention. We broke into a run and leaped over the sidewalk.
The car was still headed straight toward us.
Racing up the short driveway, we ducked into the small alley between the house and its neighbor. A barred metal security gate kept us from going back farther than a few feet. Maya and I plastered ourselves to the wall, huddling in the farthest corner.
The car careened into the metal garbage cans, sending the heavy missiles sailing toward us.
A fraction of a second later we heard the terrible screech of steel on concrete as the car itself crashed into the buildings. The force of the impact shook the ground. Part of the nose of the car jutted through the opening between the two houses, coming to a stop a mere two feet from us.
Everything seemed to freeze for a moment. Even the Bobcats had stopped their roar. All I could hear was my own ragged breathing, and that of Maya. We were clutching each other, squeezing our eyes shut.
Finally we looked up. The grille of the car was close to us, far too close, trapping us between the walls of the houses and the metal gate at our backs.
We stood, still shaky, to peer inside the car.
There was no driver. No one in the car at all.
I turned back to Maya. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“Just bruised, I think. But you’re bleeding.”
I looked down to see a gash on my knee bleeding profusely. What a day to wear a wiggle dress.
A small crowd gathered, a few neighboring house-keepers and the men from the bulldozers. One of them handed me a clean handkerchief for my knee. Another helped Maya and me over the wrecked hood of the car to stand on the driveway.
“It must have been a runaway,” said a rather ashen-faced man in an orange and black Giants baseball cap. “Sometimes people forget to curb their wheels.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” I said with a nod. It was the logical explanation, except for the fact that the car steered straight toward us.
“Lily, look,” said Maya, and I followed her gaze up to the sheer glass wall of Katherine’s house across the street. She stood at the window, her big black dog at her side.
Katherine looked neither shocked nor pleased, simply . . . unmoved.
As I looked closer, her lips seemed to be moving, as though she were invoking a charm.
* * *
“My cousin doesn’t live very far,” said Maya after the bystanders helped to extricate us from the wreckage. “He works at home—I’ll call him and see if we can clean up there, gather our wits.”
She must have noticed my shaking hands. It took all my concentration to steer us the two miles to the marina. It took us only five minutes to drive there, but another ten to find a parking place—I didn’t want to use my special parking charm in front of Maya. She’d had enough surprises for one day.
Maya’s cousin Russell had decorated his 1920s town house in early English gentleman: There was plenty of cherry furniture, and Ralph Lauren prints everywhere. Russell was on the small side, and the family resemblance was plain. He and Maya shared similarly delicate features, and a serious, calm nature.
He had already put on a kettle for tea, and fussed over us. We used the medicine cabinet in his well-appointed bathroom, got cleaned up, and applied a bandage to my knee. I would put a healing poultice on it when I got home, but right now it stung and made me clumsy.
Maya brewed us a pot of soothing chamomile tea and Russell brought out a box of chocolates and a platter of homemade oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies. Normally I was a great believer in the healing magic of chocolate, but at the moment I was feeling beyond redemption.
I couldn’t believe that I had invited Maya along on this trip, putting her in the path of danger. She could easily have been seriously hurt or killed. I changed my mind about the buddy system; I should go back to my solo ways. It seemed anyone around me lately was bound to be hurt.
Sitting on his couch, Russell and Maya chatted about family members while I tried to distract myself by picking up today’s newspaper lying on the coffee table. I found the article about Jessica that I had read earlier this morning. It made my heart hurt. Her grinning face, the horror of the whole thing. How many parents would have to know the kind of tragedy that had befallen these families? Frances and her husband, Felipa Rodriguez . . . How many others in between? Katherine said her sister wasn’t the only one; the article had noted that, too. Numerous children had been disappearing from the neighborhood over the years.
I wasn’t the only one with missing children on her mind. I overheard Maya telling Russell about what happened with Jessica’s disappearance and our visit to Mrs. Potts the night before she died.They started to talk about the neighborhood redevelopment plan, putting me in mind of Sandra Schmidt. I used to think I could recognize fellow witches, but could I have been fooled in Sandra’s case? Could there be more than met the eye, with her interest in the Malleus Maleficarum, her purchase of the stone statue at the auction, and her fervent desire to see Frances’s clothes? And what about Katherine Airey, chanting while watching us nearly get run over by a driverless car?
La Llorona wasn’t responsible for trying to run us down, any more than she had killed Frances. It wasn’t her style. She pulled people into the water with her, reeling them into her watery grave to join her. Llorona’s violence arose from gut-wrenching guilt and anguish, not from the desire to see a particular person dead . . . or silenced.
No, trying to run us down with a driverless car was the trick of a witch.
Now I just had to figure out which witch.
I used Russell’s telephone to call Bronwyn and make sure she was okay alone at the store for the rest of the afternoon; then I called the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle. I didn’t quite know what to say—I wasn’t a detective or a private eye, not a member of any of the affected families. But when Nigel Thorne’s gruff voice came on the phone he didn’t ask why I was interested in the subject, but simply invited me to stop by his office.
Maya decided to stay and have dinner with Russell, so I made my way alone to busy Van Ness Avenue and drove past
a number of car dealerships, the opera house, the San Francisco Symphony building, and the grand domed City Hall. I enjoyed the sightseeing, but as I sat at yet another interminable stoplight I realized that Van Ness was the sort of clogged, stoplight-infested city thoroughfare that no native would ever use. Clearly I needed to make some time to get to know how to drive in San Francisco—the urban center is geographically compact, but unlike many other major cities there are so few taxis that everyone seems committed to driving. Even the public transportation is limited—when I first arrived I made the outsider’s mistake of thinking people actually used cable cars to get to and from work, but the quaint historic trams are almost exclusively for the tourist trade these days. The bus system is complicated, and the subway serves only one narrow corridor of the city, though it stretches from the Peninsula to the far reaches of the East Bay.
Twenty minutes later, after missing a few turns, I arrived at the intersection of Mission and Fifth, right downtown. The Chronicle building boasted so much intricate plasterwork that it looked akin to a tiered wedding cake. I left my car in the underground garage, but hesitated as I was climbing out. Didn’t Inspector Romero mention that Max Carmichael worked for the Chronicle ? I frustrated myself by stopping to make sure my hair was smooth, applied a little lipstick, and even refreshed my mascara.
Pathetic. A witch in search of love. Sounded like the sort of self-help book Sandra would carry in her store.
The elevator was slow. While I waited I perused the bronze plaque on the wall, learning that two teenage brothers, Charles and Michael de Young, borrowed twenty dollars from their landlord to begin their rag in 1865 as “a daily record of affairs—local, critical, and theatrical.” San Francisco was a relatively new city at that point—in 1848, before the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, the population was listed at a mere eight hundred and fifty souls. One year later that number ballooned to twenty-five thousand, and it would continue to double for the next several decades. By 1868 the de Youngs’ paper was renamed the Morning Chronicle and moved into its current building.
Secondhand Spirits Page 17
