A Haunting Is Brewing

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Perhaps we could change that.”

  “Yeah, about that: The whole project sounds like nothing but trouble to me.”

  “Mel, look at the big picture: Elrich is willing to spend a lot of money on this project. How often does a job of this scope and complexity come along that will implement cutting-edge green building techniques?”

  “Not often,” I conceded. And it was true that Turner Construction needed work. The high-end historic home renovation business in the San Francisco Bay Area had taken a nosedive in the past few months, and while I had so far managed to keep my workers gainfully employed finishing up some residential projects, the principals of Turner Construction—my dad, our friend and office manager, Stan, and I—had been forced to skip a few paychecks.

  We were in dire need of a new client. An important client. The deeper the pockets, the better. But still . . . I’d already faced enough ill omens for one lifetime. I had been hoping to find a nice, quiet, non-ghost-laden building somewhere to renovate.

  “And you’re the only builder I know with ghost experience,” Graham continued.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. The builders who ran screaming from this jobsite experienced some ghosts. They just didn’t want to admit it.”

  While we were talking, workmen had started trickling onto the jobsite, arriving in beat-up Jeeps, muddy Toyotas, and full-sized Ford pickups, a few with grinning dogs in the passenger’s seat. Many were Latino, some of whom, I imagined, spoke little English. The rest were a mix of whites, blacks, and a few Asians. They toted lunchboxes, big thermoses of coffee or tea, and carried hard hats tucked under brawny arms. I admired these men—like my dad, they showed up every day, worked an honest eight hours, and built our homes and communities.

  One man in jeans, boots, and a plaid jacket made a beeline for us.

  “Here’s Pete now. He’s been running the job,” Graham said.

  Dog let out a welcoming “woof,” wagged his tail, and presented himself for a petting.

  “Pete, I’d like you to meet Mel Turner, the general director of Turner Construction.”

  Pete had the ropy muscles common to those who spent their lives on jobsites, but his slightly batty, wide-open eyes and blond hair, worn long and frizzy, lent him a crazy-professor vibe. A knowledgeable foreman was worth his weight in gold and was allowed to push the conventions a little. Construction tended to attract offbeat personalities—like me. It was one of the reasons I liked the business so much: I met a lot of real characters.

  On the other hand, construction also attracted a lot of people with criminal records. Perhaps that was no coincidence.

  “Heck of a nice thing to meet you, Mel,” Pete said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You’re the ghost gal, right?”

  “I’m . . . uh . . . Sure. Yep,” I stumbled. “That’s what they call me, the ‘ghost gal.’”

  Graham winced.

  “Here’s the situation,” said Pete with a nod. “A lot of folks in this business, well, I don’t gotta tell you that they don’t care much for woo-woo talk. And I don’t either, to tell the truth. But what can I say? I can’t deny something’s going on, and it’s interfering with getting this building done.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “There’s a . . . a something. An apparition, I guess it’s called. At the back of the sacristy. He’s got a, uh, what’s that really big sword called? Real broad?”

  “A broadsword?”

  “That’s right! He’s chased out more than one crew, swingin’ that thing. These are good men, Mel. They don’t scare easy. Also, the folks up at the house have seen lights on down here at night when there shouldn’t be, and sometimes there’s music.”

  “Speaking as a professional . . . ,” I said. “That sounds like ghostly behavior to me. It surely does.”

  Graham gave me a dirty look.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Well, there is that, uh, red thing.”

  “There’s something red?”

  “It’s . . . well . . .” Pete’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Some of the guys think they’ve heard a woman in there somewhere. They go in to look around, and . . . they end up staggering out of there, crying.”

  “Crying?”

  “I swear, they come out, sit down right on the ground, and sob like their dog died. I tell you what: That’s a little, whaddayacallit, disconcerting.”

  “How do they describe it?”

  “Like I said, it’s . . . red.”

  “What else?” I knew from experience that folks who’d had an encounter of the ghostly kind were often unwilling to relate all the details, for fear of sounding foolish. I had learned to be patient.

  Pete shrugged.

  “Just to clarify—they haven’t seen any fireballs, have they? I mean, we’re not talking dragons here, right?”

  I didn’t have to look to know they were both gaping at me. People come to me begging for help, but when I ask a few simple clarifying questions, they act like I’m making it all up.

  “Dragons are a stretch, it’s true, but you were talking about a man with a broadsword. According to ancient lore, that could be a knight out to slay a dragon. Dragons breathe red fire.” I shrugged. “Just a thought.”

  Read on for a preview of Juliet Blackwell’s next Witchcraft Mystery,

  SPELLCASTING IN SILK

  Available from Obsidian in July 2015.

  “Lily,” Inspector Carlos Romero said with a nod, “a moment in private?” His tone was curt, businesslike.

  “Sure.”

  I gestured to Bronwyn and Maya that I was taking a break and led Carlos through a deep red brocade curtain, which separated Aunt Cora’s Closet’s shop floor from the work area. Here, a jumbo washer and dryer for laundering inventory sat to one side, while a galley kitchen with a dorm-sized fridge, a microwave, and an electric teakettle lined the opposite wall. A pile of black Hefty bags and a couple of blue plastic storage boxes held clothing to be sorted, repaired, and cleaned. In the center of the room was a 1960s dinette set, the table topped with jade green Formica. The set was a replica of the one in my childhood home in the little town of Jarod, West Texas.

  Carlos took his usual seat at the table.

  “May I get you anything?” I asked, mostly out of habit because Carlos never accepted my offers of refreshments. “How about a cup of tea? Bronwyn has a new blend of carob, orange peel, and rose hips, which, I guarantee you, tastes a dang sight better than it sounds. It’s all the rage.”

  “No, thanks,” he said with a quick shake of his head.

  I sat in the chair opposite him and waited. He said nothing.

  “One day,” I said.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I would like one day. Just one. When I wasn’t thinking about a suspicious death.”

  Carlos gazed at me for another long moment. He wasn’t much of a talker under the best of circumstances, and in his line of work, the long pauses surely served a purpose. More than a few cagey suspects and reluctant witnesses had no doubt blurted out something incriminating simply to break the oppressive silence. But this time was different: Carlos appeared to be choosing his words with care. And that probably meant he was here because he had come across something he couldn’t explain, something that fell far outside the purview of a routine police investigation.

  That was where I came in: Lily Ivory, unofficial witchy consultant to the SFPD.

  “Today’s not that day,” he finally replied.

  “Yeah, that was my point. I was feeling so happy right before you came in.”

  One corner of his mouth kicked up in a reluctant smile. “That’s me, all right. The bringer of bad tidings. So I ruined your day, huh?”

  “Not yet you haven’t. But something tells me you’re about to . . .”

  “I need to talk to you about a curandera’s sho
p gone haywire, a suspicious suicide, and a missing kid.”

  “. . . aaaand there it is.”

  “I’ll start at the beginning; shall I?”

  I sat back in my chair. “Fire away.”

  “Last week a thirty-seven-year-old woman named Nicky Utley jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “That’s terrible. But . . . where does a witch come in?”

  “She was into a bunch of weird stuff.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “Her husband showed us talismans and pentacles, books on everything from Catholic saints to candle magic, medicinal herbs, and such. Things more . . . overtly religious than your stuff.”

  “But how is any of that related to her death?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. According to her family and friends, the woman had been consulting with a curandera named Ursula Moreno, who owns a shop called El Pajarito on Mission. What can you tell me about her?”

  “Nothing. I’ve never heard of her.”

  Carlos looked surprised. “I assumed all of your ilk knew one another.”

  “My ilk?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. But I’m still fairly new in town, remember?” And though I wasn’t going to volunteer this to a member of the SFPD—friend or no—I kept my distance from curanderas. They were about as mixed a bag as the one I wore at my waist. Some were talented folk healers, others wise elders, a rare few were natural-born witches like me. Still others—the vast majority—dabbled in herbs and prayers and rituals, and enjoyed importing and creating talismans and amulets and good-luck charms.

  And a few were out-and-out charlatans.

  In the course of my life, I have learned a lot of things, not the least of which is that—witchy intuition aside—I am a wretched judge of character. So I tried to steer clear of such shops and their proprietors. Besides, it was cheaper by far to purchase my supplies at small apothecaries in Chinatown or local farmers markets . . . or even the ethnic food aisle of a large grocery store. For the more esoteric witchy items, Maya had introduced me to the wonder of the Internet. A few clicks of a mouse and a package of freeze-dried bats would appear on my doorstep in just a few days. As if by magic.

  “Anyway,” Carlos continued, “It looks like the herbs and instructions and whatnot she got from the curandera may have aggravated an underlying condition, which led to her suicide.”

  My stomach clenched. One of my biggest fears was that those who neither understood magical systems, nor gave them the proper respect, would end up hurting themselves or others. Amateurs experimenting with magic were like toddlers playing with matches—initially they may cause no harm, but sooner or later someone got hurt.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. As I’m sure you know, curandera means ‘curer’ or ‘healer.’ The herbs and ‘whatnot’, as you call it, are meant to help. But you have to know what you’re doing.”

  Carlos nodded.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. We have a couple of witnesses to the jump, but. . . .”

  “But you think there’s more to it.”

  He shrugged. “Possibly. And the Mayor’s been on a tear lately, going after folks bilking the public with phony love spells, palm readings, fraudulent psychics, that sort of thing. This fits right in with his cleanup campaign.”

  “I thought fortune-telling was covered by free speech? After all, who’s to say they aren’t seeing the future, or working magic for a fee?”

  Carlos’s lips pressed together. “I’m not interested in discussing the ins and outs of the possible. But there’s a fine line between spewing predictions and conning people. Most of the time we’re looking at charges of grand larceny and fraud, but in the case of Nicky Utley . . . well, her husband’s pushing hard to make something stick. The DA is considering filing charges of gross negligence and practicing medicine without a license, in addition to fraud.”

  “What was the curandera’s name, again?”

  “Ursula Moreno. Her botanica’s called El Pajarito. You sure you don’t know it?”

  I shook my head again. From the other side of the brocade curtain, sounds drifted in: the cheerful buzz of customers trying on different personas as they tried on a new style of dress or hat. The chiming of the old-fashioned brass cash register. A young woman cooing over Oscar, whom I imagined was preening, batting his sleepy eyes up at her as he stretched lazily on his bed. The bell on the front door ringing as another shopper arrived, and someone laughing in high, melodic tones.

  They were comforting sounds, and I felt a fierce desire to tune out what Carlos was telling me. But I did not have that luxury. There aren’t a lot of folks who know enough, or have the requisite skills, to assist the police in supernatural crimes. Carlos was here because he needed my special brand of help. Such, it seemed, was my fate.

  “There’s more,” said Carlos.

  “Oh, goodie.”

  “Something’s happened, something odd.” His finger traced an invisible pattern on the green Formica table top.

  “Odder than occult-inspired suicide?”

  “Moreno’s store. It’s . . . acting up.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “After Moreno was arrested yesterday, the forensics team went to her shop to gather evidence.”

  I waited, but he said nothing.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “The place went haywire. According to the chief forensics tech, stuff was flying off the shelves, the lights kept flickering on and off, a statue tossed a lit cigarette at one of the guys, and a bird skeleton seemed to come alive. It started . . . flying.”

  “Flying? That’s unusual behavior for a skeleton. Are you sure someone’s not pulling your leg?”

  “I know these guys well, Lily. They’re pros who deal with serious crime scenes every day. Chief forensic tech’s been on the job for years—it takes a lot to throw him off his game. But this time, he and his crew beat it out of the shop in a hurry and are refusing to go back. This is . . . unusual.”

  Indeed. “And you’d like me to take a look.”

  Carlos nodded. “Shouldn’t take too long. See what you see, feel what you feel. Try to figure out what’s going on there, and if it’s connected in any way to what happened to Nicky Utley.”

  “All righty.”

  Carlos gave me a suspicious look, and cocked his head in question.

  “That’s it? You’re not going to try to get out of it?”

  I shrugged. “You’ve worn me down, Inspector. Guess I’m the SFPD’s go-to witch. Right?”

  He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile in return. The thing about Carlos was that every smile felt hard-won, and therefore more worth earning.

  “Besides,” I continued, “this sounds like a job for an expert. If something ‘untoward’ really is happening at the shop, somebody’s bound to get hurt.”

  Carlos nodded and started to rise.

  “I do have one question, though,” I said, and Carlos sat back down. “You’re one of homicide’s star investigators, aren’t you?”

  Carlos shrugged and nodded.

  “So why is the department asking its big gun to work on a case of possible fortune-teller fraud?”

  “I requested it.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “First, because of the strange behavior at the store. I believe I’ve told you, I’ve become the station’s woo woo guy. But, in the interest of full disclosure, it’s also true that I knew the deceased, Nicky Utley, and her husband, Gary, though not well.”

  “Friends of yours?”

  “Acquaintances more than friends. They went to my church, St. Olaf’s.”

  “This would be a . . . Catholic church?” I had met many Catholics in my life—including Carlos— and had disco
vered they were good people who lived according to a creed of kindness and respect. Still, organized religions made me nervous, what with the witch hunts and the pogroms and the Inquisition and all.

  He nodded.

  “If Nicky Utley was a practicing Catholic,” I said, “why would she turn to a curandera for help?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, of course the two don’t preclude each other . . .” I said, thinking aloud. “Where I’m from, it isn’t unusual for churchgoers to turn to my grandmother for herbs and charms. I just haven’t run into this sort of overlap here in San Francisco.”

  Carlos stood. “People are people, Lily. They’re not all that different, no matter where they live. Listen, I have a quick errand to run. Why don’t I pick you up in, say, half an hour?”

  “I could meet you at the shop, if that’s easier.”

  “That would be better. Thanks. El Pajarito on Mission near Twenty-second.” He checked his wristwatch, a sporty model with lots of knobs. “Let’s make it an hour, to be on the safe side. And, Lily, if you get there first, don’t go in without me.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I can tell. I won’t go in without you.”

  He gave me another suspicious look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “All this easy cooperation is making me nervous. Tell me you’re not blowin’ smoke up my caboose.”

  “I’m not even sure how to do such a thing,” I laughed. “I told you: I’m resigned to my fate. But I do have one last question. . . .”

  “What’s that?”

  “Since I’m the SFPD’s official paranormal consultant, do I get dental coverage?”

  Carlos flashed me a bright white smile. “You’re official only in my book. If the department knew I was bringing in a witch to consult on this case . . . well, let’s just say I put up with enough ribbing from my colleagues as it is.”

  Carlos drew aside the curtain. Folks were milling about, crowding the aisles, inspecting long peasant skirts, faded bell-bottoms, and fringed leather vests.