Mariah grimaced at her still-swollen knee and called over to Kurt. “The lodge unhaunted for the moment? I don’t think I can reach my nets.” She kept the resort’s ghostcatchers clear of wriggling ectoplasm, which reduced their poltergeist disturbances to a sustainable level—not that Kurt believed that she was doing anything except taking his cash.
Instead of making fun of her nets, Kurt shrugged. “I’ll just move people to a different room if the ghosts start howling. We have space.”
Which meant business was still down. She almost felt sorry for the Null and his brother, the mayor, but not sorry enough to bicycle up there and clean out her nets if it wasn’t necessary.
She turned back to Sam. “If you can ferry me up to Cass’s, I’ll go with you. What about Val? She has to be lost.”
“She’s staying with Cass for now. It’s hard to tell what my aunt is thinking.”
Since Valdis was Sam’s maternal aunt, and Cass her paternal great-aunt, Sam could have been talking about either. Her family communicated, but not necessarily in a fashion meant to be understood. The psychically gifted tended to be almost autistic in their need to shield themselves from forces the rest of the world didn’t understand.
Sam reached through the delivery window to take the order Dinah passed through.
“Spam and eggs!” Mariah crowed as Sam set the dish in front of Keegan. “Our prescient cook has done it again. Junk food for the Brit.”
Keegan didn’t look puzzled at her outburst or perturbed by his lunch. He forked the boiled tomato and kale that accompanied the eggs onto his meat and munched contentedly. “This almost reminds me of haggis. Dinah, you are very good,” he shouted at the kitchen.
A dark hand waved through the window.
“Don’t taunt the paying customers,” Sam warned, before rushing off to take another order and clear a table—jobs Mariah should have been helping with.
Keegan pointed his toast at the mural behind the coffee counter. “Has Dinah hired anyone to clean and repair that piece yet?”
“We’re waiting for Sam’s mother to arrive. She cleaned it last time.” And then Susannah had run away from Hillvale and given up Sam for adoption—not precisely a reliable sort. “I wonder if she knew Daisy?”
“Susannah and Valerie were both good bow hunters at one time.” Xavier, the Kennedys’ recovering drug-addict lawyer, wiped his mouth on a napkin and stood. “Quite a few of the commune members hunted. It was their main source of protein in the early days.”
Heads around the room swiveled to stare at Xavier. He looked bewildered at the attention.
“Xavier has memory issues,” Mariah whispered at Keegan. “He’s an unreliable witness, but if we could pry more names from him. . .”
Keegan took the hint. His pretty face hid a few brains—always a dangerous combination, but Mariah didn’t mind putting them to good use. He stood and guided the muddled older man back to his stool. Kurt Kennedy seemed prepared to come to the lawyer’s defense, but Teddy clasped his arm and shook her head silently at him.
Mariah reached for the coffee carafe and poured Xavier another cup. “Do you think you can remember the names of any other bow hunters who might still be around?”
He looked confused, but he screwed up his forehead in thought. “I was only a college frat boy when I was introduced to the commune, and most of the members had already left. The Ingerssons were still there. Lars was the one who taught his daughters to use the bow. I know they had competitions. But most of the women hated hunting. They complained about killing Bambi and Thumper. The girls mostly used targets.”
“What about my parents and their families?” Teddy asked when Xavier seemed to go blank.
“I don’t remember them,” he admitted. “I only went for the drugs and psychedelics. I just remember the target practice mostly. Susannah should know more.”
Mariah filed Sam’s mother under her suspect list. Would anyone even recognize her now? Val was Susannah’s sister, but under no circumstances could she imagine the death goddess killing Daisy, her only friend.
Outside the big front window a procession of county cars cruised down the main drag. Walker’s official SUV pulled out of the parade and into the parking lot. The sheriff’s car and the coroner’s van traveled on down the county road out of town—taking Daisy away forever.
“We’ll need to plan a funeral,” Mariah said, pulling off her apron and throwing the ice bag at the sink, keeping her grief hidden behind action. “We need to see Cass.”
As if that were a signal, half the café’s customers stood to pay their bills.
Keegan rose, too, but he came around the counter to appropriate her place at the register. “Go, Chief Walker can assist you into his vehicle. I worked a store in my youth and can handle cash. I cannot say the same for serving dishes though.”
He began taking receipts and cash like a pro, taking only minutes to assess the machine and the scrawled prices on order tickets. Mariah wanted to protest, but Dinah came out, gauged the situation, and waved her on.
“I’ll fry his gizzard for lunch if he messes with me,” Dinah declared, pointing her wooden spoon like a gun at her new employee.
Keegan didn’t appear deterred. Given that he was twice Dinah’s diminutive stature but possessed half her fierceness, the contest was equal Mariah decided.
She really wanted her computer to track this man. Was this justification enough to break her vow to never touch a machine again?
She’d broken her vow for less, but she really didn’t need to invite more trouble to Hillvale—or she’d have nowhere left to go.
Three
July 8: Sunday, afternoon
With the lunch rush ended and the Lucys congregating at the mysterious Cass’s house, Dinah sent Keegan away from the empty cafe with enough leftover food to feed a few armies.
Tucking his glasses in his pocket and stepping outside, Keegan heard a deep voice speak in scorn. “The whole damned country’s going to pot if real men have to work with little faggots like that.”
Unaccustomed to hearing such talk in Hillvale’s diverse community, Keegan studied the overall-clad, checked-shirt stranger spitting at the street. The man was almost as tall as he was, but given to paunch more than muscle. Keegan figured he could walk on his face, but there was little satisfaction in clocking bigots.
“Are you talking to me?” he asked in an even tone concealing his disdain.
“She ain’t a she,” the man responded without answering the question. He nodded his head at the café where Dinah, wearing her red fifties-style shirt dress, was cleaning up the counter. “Them queers are ruining this town. Shouldn’t be allowed.”
Arguing with a narrow mind was futile. Keegan knew he should just walk away, but the clod seemed out of place. “Do you live here?”
The older man sneered. “Longer than a furriner like you. Maybe you’re one of them faggots too.”
“Perhaps you just stepped out of a time machine?” Keegan asked, unable to resist. “If so, you will find much changed since the 1950s. Perhaps you should learn more about your surroundings before you disparage the inhabitants of the modern world.”
The older man narrowed his eyes. “You makin’ fun of me? I could punch your lights out.”
Keegan was large—he always had been. He’d learned long ago that he didn’t need to test his strength on the feeble-minded, and fortunately, he was given to more intellectual pursuits than pugilism. The automatic childish taunt of you want to try still came to mind because it would be ever so pleasant watching the bully hit the dust.
A female voice called from down the street. “George, come help me with these packages, will ya? Don’t make me do all the work.”
George blinked and turned to answer. Keegan chose the high road and walked away. One shouldn’t taunt tourists, although Americans were a strange lot if the rich dressed like a character in The Grapes of Wrath.
He headed for Aaron’s Antiques at the end of town. Aaron Townsend had kn
own of Keegan’s expertise and asked him to examine the Hillvale pottery that had been recently unearthed from storage. Aaron had been a strange one when they’d met at Oxford and hadn’t changed much, except he was apparently wealthier. Surely there were other experts who lived closer, but Keegan suspected his school acquaintance had ulterior motives in bringing him here—just as he had ulterior motives in accepting the invitation.
Passing under one of Sam’s colorful flower baskets, Keegan entered the warehouse that was gradually morphing into a ceramics gallery. The goateed antique expert arranging pottery on shelves glanced up at Keegan’s entrance. “I smell Dinah’s Reuben sandwich.”
Keegan held out the bag. “Lunch leftovers. Help yourself. Has there been any decision on the best way to dispose of all these valuable pieces?” He gestured at the colorful display.
Aaron rummaged in the lunch bag. Attired in a black turtleneck, black jeans, and camel-colored blazer, Keegan’s landlord would look more at home in the great auction houses and galleries of London than in this dusty California town.
“We’re waiting for approval of a plan to set up an educational non-profit for artists in Hillvale. In the meantime, I’ve sent out feelers to several museums that still have a budget for ceramics. We probably should decide what pieces ought to stay in Hillvale, though. Tourists bring money into town. Starving artists don’t.”
Keegan circled the structure, looking for the pieces that intrigued him most. He settled on a mottled red and green dragon with an expectant gleam in its crystal eyes, lifting it from the shelf to examine it again. “Some of these pieces are worth fortunes. You need more security.”
“We would have to sell them to afford security,” Aaron reminded him. “I’ve set up some basic precautions, but I don’t think we’re a target of thieves yet.”
“Just killers?” Keegan asked casually.
Aaron finished chewing before responding. “If any killers have come to town, they’re archers, like you and me. But to pull a bow that forcefully, they’d have to have the right equipment. I can think of a dozen easier ways to get rid of a frail old lady besides an arrow. Admittedly, I’m eager to see what she concealed in the bunker, but killing her for that reason was unnecessary.”
Keegan nodded. “That’s my assessment. She owned nothing. She must have known something that the killer did not want revealed. I’ve not lived here long enough to know the inhabitants. Is there an element of. . .” He hesitated, looking for an inoffensive description, but how did one describe bigots without offense? “An element of narrow-mindedness that might not appreciate the value of a homeless, half-mad old lady?”
Aaron considered this. “Not just the narrow minded, although we have a few of those. But that land is valuable. We’ve already had one developer kill to keep it. If someone saw Daisy as a deterrent to the Ingerssons selling it. . .”
“That’s foolish if she didn’t actually own it.” Keegan knew he shouldn’t become involved in the local troubles. He had a purpose here, and while book thieves were his target, so far, they hadn’t killed anyone. Still, because of the book contents, he was as interested in that land as any developer.
“As long as Daisy was guarding her treasure trove, Val and Sam weren’t likely to sell,” Aaron admitted. “Watch. Now that Daisy isn’t stopping them, the Lucys will start pillaging the bunker, looking for the source of evil, for villains, for who-knows-what. Even I am eager to see what she concealed. But once we’ve done that, it’s just a rocky hillside developers covet.”
“What about protecting the vortex?” Keegan suggested, since he’d heard Mariah mention it.
“Cass owns the vortex. That’s her excuse to keep out developers. The younger generation is less likely to accept it in the name of progress.” Aaron swigged from a bottle of water and eyed the inventory with appreciation. “I like it up here. With the internet, I have the world at my fingertips. Outside my door, I have an eccentric community that accepts me as I am.”
“If Hillvale becomes a ski resort and another Vail?” Keegan asked, returning the dragon to its place.
“Like the other Lucys, I may have to leave,” Aaron said in regret. “Does your snowy mountain town need an antique dealer?”
They’d only been casual acquaintances at school, but Aaron knew who he was. Keegan shrugged. “Eccentricity is my family. You’d feel right at home, except it’s colder.”
“But the British Isles have so many antiques, that it would be hard for me to make a living there. It took a lot of research to find this place. I’d rather not leave.”
“I have a crumbling castle full of aging journals written by my witchy ancestors. The village is full of our descendants. Eccentricity, as we call it, abounds. The same cannot be said of most places. Like seeks like.” Which left him wondering about Aaron, but he was too polite to ask Which kind of weird are you?
“Will you be going back to your castle after you leave here?” Aaron returned to his inventory labeling.
“I was hoping you would lease out your small room a little longer. I am intrigued by the notion of crystals in a ground that shouldn’t bear them. The dragon here—” Keegan stroked the ceramic piece, “—contains a diorite found only in India. Yet I’ve been told the commune used all natural materials found on the farm.”
“I would take that with a large dose of salt. The Ingerssons used any substance they could lay their hands on. If they found a pirate’s treasure buried in a cave, they would consider that all natural. They tried making their own paints but ended up buying much of what they needed. Do you think Daisy hid the secrets of those crystals?”
“I have no idea. I know these ceramics are laced with ingredients not encountered in normal clay. I am inclined to accidently break a few of the fraudulent pieces and analyze them.” He’d already identified the fake pieces fired in imitation of the more valuable ones. Visually, the clay was similar, as was the glaze, but the crystalline structure was different—which was why he’d been hunting clay deposits.
Aaron picked up an ugly green frog and flung it in Keegan’s direction. Frogs couldn’t fly. It landed on the wood floor and broke a ceramic limb. “Oops.”
“That was a particularly amateurish fake,” Keegan said, stooping to pick up the pieces. “Not one of the pieces I need to study. Still we require a base to work from. I need my equipment. I could send part of this back to my lab, but I’d like to look for someplace more local that might be faster. Have I permission to use your internet?”
Besides, he could no longer trust his family’s lab or personnel.
Aaron waved his hand. “Go for it. Our cable is reasonably reliable, unlike cell phones. But keep Mariah out of your laptop.”
Keegan raised his eyebrows. “May I ask why?”
Aaron shrugged. “Just passing on the mayor’s warning. You’ll have to ask him.”
“And you’ve never investigated this curiosity?” Keegan was ready to hit the keyboard as soon as he could reach it.
Aaron snorted. “You really think her name is Mariah?”
July 8: Sunday afternoon
“Daisy’s spirit was Ohlone,” Mariah explained, remembering with tears the day Daisy had gone into one of her trances and spoken of ancient tribal rituals. Outsiders thought her crazy—but Daisy’s was an ancient spirit. The killer had truly ripped a hole in the universe. Mariah wiped angrily at her eyes. “We would need to gather all her belongings, wrap her in feathers and beads, and say farewell to her body on a funeral pyre. I doubt the county will approve.”
Mariah sat on Cass’s front porch stairs, letting others choose Daisy’s funeral. Ceremonies were for the living—except ritual didn’t work for her.
She needed action to ease her pain and helplessness. If she didn’t have Daisy to talk her down—Her fingers itched for her keyboard.
The last time she’d acted in rage and grief, she’d unleashed a media holocaust and a personal catastrophe that had ended life as she knew it. A second episode like that would land her in ja
il.
If Daisy didn’t need her anymore. . . What difference would it make if her prison was here or behind bars?
Well, she liked it here better than behind bars.
Teddy sat down next to her. Although the jeweler’s parents were from Hillvale, Teddy was essentially a newcomer and not part of Cass’s inner circle. Like Sam, Teddy had a more prosaic businesswoman’s outlook.
“What do you know about the crystals Daisy used in her stone sculptures?” Teddy asked. “And do you know if she had any family? I think I can sell those statues and earn enough to pay for the cremation and more. But I hate letting those crystals loose in the world without knowing more about them.”
Recalling the effort Daisy had made to give everyone she knew an object of beauty, love, and protection, Mariah answered that with assurance. “Daisy only used what she called safe crystals. The ones she made for us personally might vary in power, but the ones on the foundation were basic guardian stones. If she had access to evil ones, I never heard about it. It would be against her nature to deal with evil.”
Samantha joined them, taking a seat on a higher step so she could stretch her long legs. “Daisy acquainted greed with evil. She created art for beauty, not money, which was why she was essentially homeless.”
“And why she buried the art she considered evil,” Mariah added.
Teddy drew lines in the dust with her toe. “Many of her guardians used black tourmaline and smoky quartz. Both have strong grounding elements to repel negative energy. But I’m still learning about crystal energies and don’t feel comfortable being a judge of what’s safe and what isn’t. I wish Daisy had kept a book.”
“She might have,” Mariah said. Recalling Daisy and her secretive ways held her friend closer and offset her helpless rage. “No one has ever inventoried the bunker. And we know from your cousin’s notes that Lucinda Malcolm left a crystal compendium. Is there any chance that Daisy may have stolen the book the way she did the art?”
Crystal Vision Page 3