Hexes and Hemlines (20 page)

“Was he a friendly guy? Chatty?”

“Nah, but it’s not like we had a lotta interaction. He basically stayed in his apartment; people brought him things.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Whatever he needed, I guess. Probably groceries and all, I never saw him go out for things and come back with bags, for instance. But the man had a lot of friends coming and going all times of the day and night.”

“Did you recognize any of them?”

He leaned forward as though to speak in confidence. “Some of ’em were pretty big names.”

“Really? Like who?”

“Garrett Jones, the mayor himself. And Mike Perkins, the antiaging guy? I think I saw Paris Hilton once, too, but that mighta been the light. Hard to say. A lot of’em wore sunglasses and hats, too, like they didn’t want to be recognized. Hey,” he said, his soft hazel eyes lighting up for a moment. “One time I seen that girl from the vampire movie, that Nichol Reiss gal?”

“Do you know anything about the Serpentarian Society?”

“The what’s-it?”

“The Serpentarian Society? Zazi held a dinner every month?”

“Oh, right. The dinners. Sure. I’m usually on during the day, though. The night guy would mostly see them, unless I was here late. That’s when he had those dinners, for some reason. I was here late on Saturday, though.”

“You were? So on Saturday, all the dinner participants left on time? No one lagged behind?”

“Some left earlier, some later. I already told the police. One of ’em came real late.”

“Which one?”

“Hard to say. A man. But they were all wearing hats and things, like they didn’t want to be recognized. Like it’s a secret society. Like Malachi always did.”

“You didn’t talk to him or anything? So you wouldn’t be able to say who it was?”

He shook his head.

“Anything else odd or out of the ordinary?”

“Only other strange thing is, I could have sworn I saw him today.”

“Saw who?”

“Mr. Zazi.”

“Today?”

The doorman nodded. “I mean, I know it couldn’t’ve been him. But it sure looked like him. Wearing sunglasses, all wrapped up the way he did, even though it’s a nice day outside.”

“He came in here?”

“Sort of hovered at the front door for a while. Like he wanted to come in but couldn’t make up his mind or something. I was on the phone with Ms. Franklin, up in 5C, and by the time I got to the door to talk to him, he was gone.”

I tried and failed to ignore the chill that ran up my spine.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. “My friend and I are going to go up and take a look at the apartment, if that’s all right?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Police won’t allow it.”

I fixed him with my gaze and concentrated.

“But it will be all right just this once, won’t it?”

“It’ll be all right, just this once.”

“Thanks.”

“Thanks,” he repeated.

The elevator was an old-fashioned one, open to the stairwell that wound around it. Sailor pulled the grate closed behind us and pushed the button for the penthouse.

“Was he telling the truth?” I asked Sailor.

“I would imagine so. I didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. He responded to your ‘power-diluting’ charm.” He chuckled at his own joke.

As the elevator clanked slowly upward, I closed my eyes halfway and forced myself to put Aidan and Sailor out of my mind, concentrating instead on the vibrations, the wisps of energy humans had left within these walls through the years. I may not be any good at meditating over a black mirror, but I could subsume myself to historical sensations like a pro.

The sixth floor held a humming of strife and intimate violence. Domestic abuse, several years old.

There had been a suicide, I would guess, on the seventh.

Sailor met my eyes. He could feel these things as well as I could. Again, there was that sense of kinship. It was nice to have someone by my side, feeling what I felt. Made me feel like less of a freak.

I sensed something as I passed the tenth floor as well; something had happened in the stairwell: a fight of some kind. And a natural death or two.

But again, in historic buildings there were always ghosts in the walls. Spirits afloat. They didn’t frighten me; very rarely were they malevolent, or even active. Usually they were just energy traces, the echoes of human life and energy left behind in the structures we inhabit.

Most of what I felt within these walls was positive: the vibrations of everyday life, of hopes and dreams and strivings. The rich, dense velvet of human life as it plays out, moment by moment, upon the earth. I had always found these feelings comforting; they allowed me to connect with humanity even when I was living in my self-imposed exile, without friends or family.

The elevator finally stopped at the penthouse level: the thirteenth floor . . . which wasn’t called the thirteenth floor.

The crime scene tape sealing the door was already torn.

“Somehow I don’t think we were the first ones here.”

“I think you’re right about that.”

He tried the knob. “They locked it back up, though.”

“Can’t you open it?”

“I’m a psychic, not a wizard.”

“Seriously? You can’t, you know, jimmy the lock or something?”

“I’m no locksmith.”

“I know, but you seem . . . I don’t know, rather criminally inclined. I thought you’d be able to break into a simple lock. There’s not even a bolt on it.”

“‘Criminally inclined’?” He smiled and shook his head. “Want to go back down and ask your buddy the doorman for the key?”

“I don’t think so. He wasn’t all that cooperative, when it came down to it.”

“You’re the damned witch. Can’t you do something to open it?”

“I could, but it would take a while. I’ve got some stuff in here.” I realized I should have brought the Hand of Glory, a rather gruesome souvenir from an earlier supernatural case I had gotten involved in. The Hand allowed the carrier to enter locked doors, and even lit up the dark. It was disgusting, but awfully helpful. Kneeling, I pawed through my bag and laid out a piece of stiff wire, a thin flat piece of metal, a screwdriver, and a wrench.

“That bag of yours reminds me of Mary Poppins’s bottomless carpetbag. Remember when she pulls out an entire lamp?”

“I never saw that movie.”

“You never saw
Mary Poppins
when you were a kid?”

“No. Was it good?”

“You never saw
Mary Poppins
.” This time it wasn’t a question, but a statement. A statement that said much more than five simple words.

I shook my head. I could feel him staring at me but refused to meet his eyes. I’d had just about enough of his incredulous expression for the day.

“Were your folks Holy Rollers or something?”

“Something. Let’s get to work, shall we?” I said in my sweetest voice, the one that meant I was on the verge of losing my temper. A voice that wouldn’t melt butter, as my grandmother would say.

Ten minutes later Sailor finally managed to get the door open. I acted as lookout, but since Malachi’s apartment was the only one on the floor, no one intruded.

“I wouldn’t suggest breaking and entering as your next career move,” I said.

“Cute.”

“I take it your trouble with the police was over something else entirely?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. But if that charm has worn off your buddy the doorman, we might not have much time. I am not talking to the police about this, you get me?”

“Got it. Let’s go.”

We entered slowly, wary. As before, the ladder was set up in front of the door. I squeezed past it, in order not to walk under it. Sailor did the same.

The space felt different now, without the frenetic energy of emergency personnel bouncing off the walls, quite literally making my teeth hurt. Now there were only muted sensations, primarily attached to the earlier workers.

But the apartment was superheated. Had someone accidentally left the heater on? Within minutes I felt a bead of sweat roll down my back, and saw the sheen on Sailor’s forehead as well.

“This is pretty bizarre,” said Sailor, taking in the broken mirror, open umbrella, and upside-down horseshoes.

I stood in the center of the room and concentrated. Sailor did the same.

“Anything?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not right off the bat. It feels as though someone performed a cleansing.”

“Why would they bother?” I asked. “It’s not as though the average homicide investigator can feel such things. How could they have known a witch like me would be involved in the investigation?”

A horseshoe, hung upside down over the front door, fell. It clanged against the aluminum ladder as it went down.

I jumped, letting out a squeak.

“Don’t faint, Lily,” said Sailor. “It’s a stupid horseshoe. It doesn’t mean anything.”

I swallowed hard, and nodded. He was right. I was jumpy, on edge.

I went into the kitchen and looked through the cupboards and refrigerator. There was nothing, no food at all. That last Serpentarian supper must have been catered. Would the police have cleaned things out for some reason, or did Malachi simply not eat? In the closet, I found a whole collection of sunglasses, and lots of wide-brimmed hats. Did the man really have a sun allergy? Was that why all the windows were closed, and so thoroughly?

Gregory said he thought he saw Malachi walking around, as though risen from the dead. And now the doorman. The very idea was ridiculous . . . but then again, what did I know? I hadn’t gotten to the “vampire” section of Aidan’s library.

“Sailor, you don’t believe in . . . in vampires, do you?”

“Is this a joke of some sort?”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized how ridiculous they sounded.

I shook my head. “Sorry. Never mind.”

A door led off the back of the kitchen. I unlocked it, then eased it open.

It led to a back utility stairwell. The little landing held a mop, a broom, a bucket. Wooden stairs led both down . . . and up. I peered into the darkness above.

“Go on up,” said Sailor from right behind me.

I startled again. “Stop
scaring
me.”

“So stop being so jumpy. Some witch you are. C’mon, let’s check out the roof.”

“Do you sense something?”

“Not particularly. But it’s suffocating in here, and I like rooftops, ever since I was a kid.” He glanced down at me. “I’ll bet you’re going to tell me you never snuck up to a roof and drank cheap wine from the bottle when you were a teenager.”

I shrugged. He shook his head.

“Your folks have a lot to answer for.”

“Don’t I know it.”

He led the way up the dark stairs to the door at the top. Light came through the bottom crack in a bright beam. When he opened the door, light streamed in to show the stairs were just what they were supposed to be, nothing sinister about them at all. A cobweb-strewn access route to the roof.

The flat roof was made of tar and gravel, with a series of air vents and aluminum pipes sticking out, seemingly willy-nilly. One huge old antenna, a holdover from the days of broadcast TV, lay on its side in one corner. The building was asymmetrical, the roof shape irregular. A few beer cans in one corner gave silent testimony to an earlier party, like one of Sailor’s younger trespasses, no doubt. Other than being litterbugs, I could hardly blame them—if I were Malachi Zazi, I would have spent a lot of time up on this roof.

And not just for the incredible view. But the gargoyles.

They were perched at the corners, and upon approaching the edge you could see several more, marching down the odd roof angles. Approaching one from the rear, I could have sworn it shifted a little to look back at me. I paused, then continued toward it, reaching out—

“Check this out,” said Sailor.

I looked around. In an opposite corner, there was a small planter box filled with flowering shrubs and surrounded by a bench. And smack-dab in the center, as though in the place of honor, was a large stone sculpture of a man wrestling with a giant snake.

“Why would someone with a supposed sun allergy set up a little outdoor garden?”

“Maybe it was some other tenant’s weekend project.”

“I doubt it. That sculpture is Serpentarius. Malachi named his whole dinner society after him.”

“I take it he’s a snake guy?”

“He’s
the
snake guy.”

“I don’t like snakes.”

“I don’t mind them.”

“It figures. You’re an odd one—you know that?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know that. Anyway, Malachi Zazi clearly had a little Serpentarius fetish. So here’s the question: Did this statue give him the idea, or did he put up the statue himself?”

“Looks like it’s been here a while.”

“So has—had—Malachi. It’s tough to tell with stone.” True, there was dirt in the carved recesses, and signs of weather. But I imagined that San Francisco’s climate, subject as it was to salt air off the ocean and bay, fog, and temperature swings, could be hard on a hunk of stone.

“Why would anyone develop a fetish for a Roman god?”

“Not sure. But he’s not all that obscure—the American Medical Association uses him as their symbol.”

“What’s the association with snakes?”

“I think it’s that they shed their skin and are reborn. As though they are eternally young, never to die.”

“But they do die.”

“We all do.”

“Except for vampires.”

“Very funny.” I looked back at the gargoyle, the one I could have sworn shifted just a little. It now sat, glowering and unmoving, watching over the city. Backlit by the harsh afternoon sun, its silhouette was dark and hulking. “What do you know about gargoyles?”

“True gargoyles are just downspouts.”