A Cast-Off Coven (8 page)

“How is Ginny holding up?”

“Actually, she’s over the moon. She was offered representation by a Union Square gallery.”

“Wow. That’s a real honor.”

“You’re telling me. She—”

The bell on the front door rang as Susan Rogers, fashion editor for the
San Francisco Chronicle
, swept into the shop. Susan wrote a glowing article about Aunt Cora’s Closet for the newspaper’s Style section after I outfitted her niece’s entire wedding party with vintage gowns. Since then she had become a semiregular client, stopping in whenever she happened to be in the neighborhood. An über-stylish trendsetter in her fifties, Susan leaned toward sleek, all-black ensembles, had a propensity for swooning over fashionable but virtually unwearable shoes, and was capable of waxing philosophical about “the ever-changing hemline.”

I, in contrast, knew a fair amount about the fashions of yore but next to nothing about current trends. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but respond to her ready smile and vivacious energy.

“Lily, thank goodness you’re here. I’m a wreck!” said Susan. “I’m in
desperate
need of your help to find a dress to wear to my niece’s wedding. I woke up at three this morning just thinking about it. I can’t believe I’ve let it go this long!”

I smiled. The wedding wasn’t for another six weeks. I was lucky if I knew what I was going to wear ten minutes before I left the house . . . but I do have an advantage, owning my own clothing store and all. Besides, until recently I had never been invited to any event for which clothes were something to fret about. Most supernatural affairs are “come as you are,” while some are even “clothing optional.” So when Susan invited me to her niece’s wedding—the first such invite I’d ever received—I was excited beyond all measure.

Susan started flicking through a rack of 1950s formal gowns, immediately exhibiting her fashionista training by studying the inside of the collar first. For the professional in the know, labels are more important than the cut or the fabric of a garment.

“So, what are we talking about?” Susan asked no one in particular.

Before I could stop her, Bronwyn dropped her voice to a loud whisper and said with great drama, “
A man was killed last night at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts!
”

“No!” Susan whipped around to face her.

“Yes! Maya and Lily were
there
!”

“Get
out
!”

A chorus of gasps filled the room. Although there was nothing funny about a man’s death, Maya met my eyes, and we shared a smile at the women’s over-the-top sense of drama.

“
Do
tell,” Susan said, turning to me.

“Unfortunately, it’s true,” I said. “Maya and I took a tour of the school last night and came across the body.”

Another gasp. “Who was he? How was he killed? Who did it?”

“Probably someone after an inheritance,” Maya mused.

“We don’t know. . . . His body was at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the bell tower. He must have fallen.”

“Who was it?” Susan repeated.

“A benefactor to the school, a man named Jerry Becker.”

“
The
Jerry Becker?”

“You know him?”

“I met him once, when he was in town for a symphony fund-raiser. He was going on and on about his daughter’s talent as an artist—
please
, like I haven’t heard that before—and, if I recall, made several
deliciously
inappropriate remarks to me. I was with my second husband, Bradley, at the time, so I merely enjoyed the flirtation. Anyway, anyone who’s anyone knows of Jerry Becker. He’s got scads of money.”

“
Had
scads of money,” Bronwyn noted. “Can’t take it with you.”

“He was found in the bell tower?” Susan repeated. She looked around at Maya, Bronwyn, then back at me. “I take it you’ve heard the ghost stories about that place?”

“Ghosts?” said Bronwyn. “My friend Charles is a ghost hunter! Would you like me to call him? Maybe he could help.”

“That’s okay,” I said. Charles Gosnold was precisely the kind of ludicrous, untalented ghost hunter I was making fun of just last night. “I think I can take care of it.”

“There are stories about a haunting . . .” Susan went on. “There was something else, too. . . . I can’t quite remember. It just so happens I’ve done some research on the school—for a while it was one of the most prestigious institutes for clothing and textile design on the West Coast.”

“I didn’t know that,” Maya said.

“Oh yes, ask me anything,” Susan said. “I literally wrote the book on the local fashion history a few years ago, did you know? I’m sure Booksmith has a copy; I’ll sign one for you. Of course, the ‘real’ fashion design industry is in New York City, but San Francisco did its part. Then someone at the school decided that fashion design wasn’t ‘fine’ enough for the School of Fine Arts, and they phased it out in favor of painting and sculpture.”

“Maybe that’s why the provost is giving me some vintage clothing from the school’s collection,” I said. “I’m picking it up this afternoon.”

Susan’s gaze, eager and just this side of greedy, fixed on me. “What kind of items?”

“I’m not sure yet, but the provost said she thought they were from the late Victorian era.”

“Hmm . . . Too early for the school’s textile program,” Susan commented. “They must date back to the convent days. When are you getting them?”

“Later this afternoon.”

“Ooooh, could I come by tomorrow and check them out? I would
love
to wear the perfect Victorian gown to the wedding—can you imagine? My sister would simply die of envy.”

“Sure. We’re closed on Mondays, but I’m usually here washing and prepping inventory, anyway. Why don’t you come by around noon and I’ll show you what I have?”

“Don’t forget, I’ll be here, too,” Bronwyn put in. “I want to learn your trade secrets.”

I laughed. “As if I would turn down anyone who
wants
to help with the wash.”

Susan’s brow furrowed as she began to rifle through a stand of 1940s-style dress suits. “It really is interesting, your finding a body—of Jerry Becker, no less—at the bottom of the bell tower stairs. You know, a professor from the school came to see me about a month ago, asking questions. He had seen my book.”

“What professor?” Maya asked.

“A rather diffident, odd fellow . . . Walter, maybe?”

“Could it have been Walker? Walker Landau?” I asked.

“That sounds right.”

“What was he asking about?”

“If I knew about a death that occurred on the bell tower stairs, way back when.”

 

“Awesome! Students!” said Oscar as I stood in my kitchen an hour later, preparing to go to the School of Fine Arts. “I
love
students. I’ll come with you.”

“You most certainly will not.”

“I thought you said there was something fishy going on?”

“There is.”

“How ya gonna know what spirits are in the building without a familiar?”

I paused from packing an assortment of charms and talismans into my satchel. It was still light out, but given what had happened yesterday, I wanted to be prepared. I had another charm bag, more talismans, a jar of special salts, and even a small bag of dust swept from the threshold of a New Orleans prison that a recent acquaintance, Hervé LaMansec, a vodou priest, had given me.

“You can detect spirits?” I asked.

Oscar crossed his arms over his scrawny chest and rolled his eyes.

“Why do you think people bring a cat to check out a house before they buy it?” Oscar asked.

“A cat?”

“Cats and guys like me, we’re sensitive to such things.”

“Who brings a cat to a house before they buy it?”

“Everyone.”

“I know of no one who does that.”

“You don’t?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I’ll be doggoned.” His little brow wrinkled; he looked truly bemused. “I always wondered how people wound up living in haunted houses. Like that
Amityville Horror
—you ever see that movie? I guess those poor folks didn’t know enough to bring a cat. Huh. Ya live, ya learn, eh?”

“You sense spirits? Can you communicate with them?”

“Nah, I can’t talk to ’em, exactly.”

“Then you won’t be much good to me, will you?”

“But mistress! I can sense enough about them to tell what you’re up against.”

I hesitated. Having Oscar along might take some of the guesswork out of what I had planned. Still . . .

“Please?”

“And you’ll stay in pig form?”

“Yes, mistress,” he said with a sigh.

I picked up the protective amulet I had made for him two weeks before and draped it around his neck.

 

Oscar and I arrived at the school just after five. Oscar was in his porcine guise, whereas I was in an old pair of jeans and an even older sweater—not vintage, mind you, just old. I’d spent enough time in long-sealed, mildewy closets to know not to wear anything I cared to keep when rummaging through piles of old textiles.

I parked my purple van alongside the school’s back loading dock. The graphics on the side of the van read:

It was Sunday evening, and though there were students milling about, the school was quiet. Belatedly it dawned on me that I should have called ahead to see if Provost Marlene Mueller would be here. But I’m not at my best on the telephone. I don’t yet trust my ability to judge people, so I still rely on sensing auras and vibrations, which don’t convey through electronics and telephone wires. I was probably the last person in America under the age of eighty who didn’t have a cell phone.

Besides, Ginny had invited me. Oscar and I set out to find her. We first peeked into the café, where a group of young men were shouting at one another about the birth of modernism, and then stuck our heads into a few of the artists’ studios, where we interrupted a couple in the middle of a loud breakup—but no one had seen Ginny. Walking down the hall, we passed a cluster of young women bickering over the relative merits of oil sticks versus traditional chalk pastels.

Artists made for a volatile student body.

Wherever we went, Oscar caused a sensation. He preened and snorted, lapping up the attention. Not for the first time I wondered, given that Oscar could choose to transform into anything he wanted, why he had chosen to be a pig. I’m allergic to cats, but I quite like dogs. Having a dog as a familiar would have made my life a lot simpler. Then again, I reminded myself, Oscar’s duty was to make my spell casting, not my life, easier.

As we passed the administration offices, I noticed a light was on. A large oak door sported a sign, MARLENE MUELLER, PROVOST.

“Wait here. Do not move,” I told Oscar, and knocked.

There was a long pause and then scuffling sounds before a woman’s voice beckoned me to enter. When I did, I felt as though I had interrupted something. Marlene Mueller sat behind her desk, her face flushed, and a young man stood near her chair.

“Lily, what are you doing here?” Marlene asked.

“I hope it’s all right,” I said. “I never got a chance to look at the clothes last night.”

“Oh . . . I see.” She glanced up at the young man standing beside her. He was lanky and blond, good-looking in a sort of surfer-dude-meets-boy-band way. He appeared to be in his early twenties, around Ginny’s age. Did Marlene have a son?

“Well, since the incident . . . That is, I don’t think . . .” Marlene trailed off.

“I won’t disturb the crime scene,” I said.

“Still . . .” She trailed off once more, her light eyes again searching out the young man. Marlene was not nearly the lithe pixie her daughter, Ginny, was, but she had a delicate manner that suggested she might faint at the sight of blood. She wore her golden brown hair in a romantic upsweep, with artful curls framing her fine-boned face. An asymmetrical, rainbow-patchwork jacket and lots of chunky handmade jewelry made her look artistic and businesslike at the same time, but tonight she seemed pale and pinched.

Having one’s school associated with the suspicious death of its most generous benefactor must be a potent double whammy for someone in her position.

“It can’t hurt if she gathers the clothes, Marley,” the young man told her, his voice soft but sure.

“We haven’t met,” I said, and held out my hand. “I’m Lily Ivory.”

“Todd Jacobs. Nice to meet you.” He shook my hand. His blue-eyed gaze met mine, and I could see he had a certain charm about him, to be sure, but his vibrations were careful, standoffish, as though he were assessing me just as I was him. I also detected a surprising sense of control, rare for one so young.

“Oh, I’m sorry, where is my head?” Still seated, Marlene reached up and took Todd’s hand, leaned in to him, and beamed. “This is my husband, Todd.”

“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is, to have someone by your side when going through an ordeal like this,” Marlene said. “Do you know, one of our very own faculty members has been accused of this hideous crime.”

“That Luc fellow?” I asked.

“No, of course not. Why would Luc be involved? I was thinking of poor Walker—Walker Landau. Do you happen to know him?”

“I don’t really know anybody . . .” I began.

“Poor Walker—”

“Walker wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Todd interrupted. “This whole thing is ridiculous. Fact is, everyone wanted that man dead.”

“Wanted Walker dead?”

“No, Jerry Becker,” Todd said.

Marlene’s face had gone pale and drawn, and she averted her eyes. She looked suddenly older. I felt waves of sadness and . . . was it embarrassment? I caught the scent of something akin to must, dank and closed off: shame.