“Lucien has” — had, I thought, but decided not to stop — “a really successful practice as a spiritual adviser to a lot of Hollywood celebrities and other high-powered people. He’d been trying to get me to join his organization for almost two years.”
“You’re a spiritual adviser, too?” Calvin asked, now looking almost amused.
“I’m a witch,” I said simply. “I wouldn’t say that counseling people was all I did, but it was definitely part of it. I guess Lucien was angry that I left L.A. without consulting him. He was trying to talk me into going back.”
For a few seconds, Calvin was silent, appearing to digest what I’d told him. “You had a personal relationship?”
“No,” I replied at once, wanting to disabuse him of that particular disgusting notion as quickly as I could. Not for lack of trying, my brain told me, but I pushed the annoying inner voice aside. “It was just business…and barely that. Anyway, yes, we argued, but he left after agreeing to meet me for breakfast so we could talk once we’d had a chance to cool down a bit.” Another thought struck me, and I added, “If I’d gone off and murdered him, why would I be sitting at The Flatiron, waiting for him to show up?”
“To make it look as though you were innocent,” Calvin said in reasonable tones.
All right, he had me there. “Maybe,” I allowed. “But that’s not what happened. Anyway, let me show you my knives.”
Without waiting to see if he was following — I knew he would — I led him down the hall to my office. That was where I’d set up my altar, since I really didn’t have enough room in the master bedroom. The altar sat on a table opposite a computer desk, and was really just a green cloth embroidered with a tree and a border of leaves, my Tarot cards in their embroidered pouch, various crystals and vials of herbs, my leather-bound Book of Shadows, and a variety of bud vases filled with wildflowers I’d collected from various spots around town.
Off to one side lay the athame and the boline. I pointed at them, saying, “Those are my knives. They’re used for rituals, nothing else.”
Calvin approached the altar, dark eyes alight with curiosity. And although he leaned down to take a closer look, I noticed right away that he was careful not to touch anything. “It’s very nice,” he said, sounding almost surprised.
Stupidly, I had to fight to prevent a pleased smile from spreading across my lips. I’d worked very hard to assemble items that were both meaningful and beautiful, that fulfilled both form and function. That he’d noticed made an absurd sort of happiness spread through me.
But we were there on much darker business. “Do you need to take them into evidence?” I asked.
“I should,” he replied. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Well, it would, just because I needed those items for my rituals. But I had a feeling that protesting would only make me sound guilty, so I shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I can manage without them for a while.”
I almost added that I had several more athames and bolines down in the store and therefore could borrow some of them if push came to shove…then figured it was probably better for me to keep my mouth shut on that particular subject. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I had a whole shop full of murder weapons just waiting to be used.
“It shouldn’t be too long,” he told me as he extracted a pair of latex gloves and a clear plastic bag from his pocket. After sliding on the gloves, he picked the knives up one by one and deposited them in the baggie, then zipped it shut. “I just need the lab to go over them.”
Although having the knives spirited away for inspection would be an inconvenience, I wasn’t too worried about anything the lab would find. After all, I knew I hadn’t stabbed Lucien Dumond, and so the most incriminating evidence a crime lab might find on the blade would be paper fibers and maybe a bit of wax residue from spatter when I blew out the altar candles.
“Have you talked to Athene?” I asked next, thinking it couldn’t hurt to move suspicion to a more likely target.
“‘Athene’?” Calvin repeated with a frown as he pulled off the gloves and stowed them in a pocket of his trousers.
Of course, he wouldn’t have known about her. It wasn’t as if Lucien probably had anything on his person that connected him to the woman who helped with the day-to-day business of GLANG. In fact, Calvin probably didn’t know about the Airbnb, either. The gossip mill in Globe was pretty efficient, but I assumed even it had its limits…especially since the town’s biggest rumor-monger — i.e., Josie Woodrow — had probably been distracted by my store opening.
“She’s Lucien’s business partner,” I said. “He told me they’d come to town together.”
“Were they close?”
I had a feeling he’d asked that question because he wanted to know if there might have been some component of jealousy involved in Lucien’s murder. Maybe there was. Athene had seemed cool and in control the few times I’d met her, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Sometimes a cool exterior hid a raging volcano.
“Do you mean, were they romantically involved?”
He nodded. “Some might say there was sufficient motive if they had a relationship and he’d brought her with him to coax another woman back to Los Angeles.”
When you put it that way….
“I suppose so,” I allowed. “But honestly, I don’t know for sure. Lucien always had a lot of women around him.”
“Romantic partners?”
“I think using the term ‘romantic’ isn’t exactly accurate.” I paused then, wondering how much I should tell Calvin Standingbear. Then again, the more information I supplied that could point the finger of suspicion away from me, the better. Hands planted on my hips to give me some reassurance, I went on, “I guess a lot depends on how much you’re willing to believe.”
The straight, dark bars of his brows lifted slightly. “Believe about what?”
“About Lucien’s powers.”
“‘Powers,’” Calvin repeated.
I nodded, then waited. No point in me trying to convince him of something he didn’t want to accept as real. Some people were willing to have an open mind, and some weren’t.
After a brief pause, he said, “Let’s just say I’ve seen enough in this world to convince me there are some things that can’t be explained.”
If I’d been holding my breath, I would’ve let out in a relieved gust right then. As it was, I could only thank the universe that Calvin wasn’t close-minded the way so many other people were. And honestly, I got it. I’d had enough evidence early on to support the belief that the ordinary, day-to-day world most people lived was overlaid by a world of esoteric powers and forces, of entities that had nothing to do with our mundane lives.
Some people never pierced that veil, though, and so it was almost impossible to convince them of anything that wasn’t right in front of their eyes.
I uttered a silent thank-you to the universe that apparently Calvin Standingbear wasn’t one of them.
“Well, then,” I said. “I don’t know exactly how he did it, because I don’t mess around with those sorts of dark spells, but from what I could tell, he had the ability to draw energy from the people around him. Whatever gifts they possessed — and he always made sure to find people who had some form of psychic ability, even if it wasn’t very strong — he drew it out of them to power his enchantments. And one of the most efficient ways of drawing that power from them was through sex magic.”