Another problem with an elderly population? Call me ageist, but after seventy, they all start to look alike. If I wanted decent tips, I needed to be able to put names to faces … and remember “the usual” for each. I made notes like “Bob Masters: bad dentures, black coffee, blueberry pie” and “Sue Masters: hairy moles, Earl Grey with milk, tea biscuit with honey.” I kept the notes in my deepest pocket and prayed I never dropped them.
I wasn’t a good server. I wasn’t even an adequate one. But I tried my damnedest, and I did get tips, though I suspect they were more like doggy biscuits for the obedience class dropout—gentle encouragement that would lead to better performance in the future.
——
On my way back to the apartment for the night I turned onto the walkway to the park and heard a whoosh-whoosh ahead. I stopped. The sound came again. The beating of large wings. I hurried around a bush and saw a huge bird ripping apart something on the ground.
I ran and realized it was two huge birds. They dropped their prey and soared away, as silent as wraiths. When I saw the black bundle on the ground, my gut twisted. The cat.
I hurried forward, then slowed. The bloody mess of red and black looked … wrong. The fur was … Not fur. Feathers.
It was the raven. Dead. Ripped apart so badly it was only a bloody mess of feathers and entrails.
I glanced up just as a massive brown form alighted on a gatepost. The owl stared at me, unblinking. Then it settled in, talons gripping the stone, leaving bloody claw marks.
The second owl landed on the opposite gatepost.
Two huge owls perched like live gargoyles. Waiting for me to go away. To leave their prey.
I took a step back. One started unfolding its wings and then stopped. I moved back again as they watched. The other one spread its wings and hopped from the post, sailing down gracefully, grabbing the raven in both claws. With a flap of its wings, it took off.
The second owl stayed for another moment, round eyes fixed on mine. Then it followed the other in silent flight.
“Mrrow?”
I spun. The black cat leapt onto the gatepost vacated by the owl. It arched up, purring. I petted it and checked its back. I saw dried blood, but the punctures had already sealed and weren’t tender enough for it to complain when I prodded.
I stepped back to get a better look at the cat. It leapt to the ground, strolled over to the bloody spot on the cobblestones, and began licking it.
“Getting rid of the evidence,” I murmured. “Good idea.”
I returned to the diner, hoping Larry was still there so I could grab a bucket of water and clean the bloody stones before any kids came to play the next day. When I got back with the bucket, the cat was gone. I cleaned up the blood as best I could.
I opened my apartment door to see yet another business card waiting for me.
ROSALYN Z. RAZVAN, AAP
Professional Prognostication
By Appointment Only
Take Charge of Your Future
The address was for the house across the road.
I flipped over the card. In precise handwriting, she’d written: We must speak. You need my help.
“For a hundred bucks a session, I’m sure.” I tossed it into the trash, the same place I’d thrown her nephew’s card two days ago. This one would stay put. I needed his services; I certainly didn’t need hers.
The next morning, I made my daily call to Howard before heading out for a much-needed walk. His voice mail picked up right way, and I wondered if he was just hitting ignore when he saw my new number. No matter. I’d keep making these calls and he’d keep passing on the messages to James and my mother. My family paid him too much not to.
On my way past the library, I popped in to check the bulletin board. If I planned to stay in Cainsville for a while, I should get more involved. I could join the knitting circle. Or the book club. Or, if I waited a few weeks, lawn bowling season would start.
I skimmed to karate lessons. Join anytime. Weekly at the community center. Five dollars per session.
That I could afford and self-defense lessons wouldn’t be a bad idea. I jotted down the particulars.
It wasn’t yet ten when I got back to my apartment, but Gabriel’s Jag was already out front, and the man himself was on the stoop, talking to Grace.
“Let me grab my notebook,” I said, by way of greeting.
“I brought the file.” He lifted it.
“Which is good, considering that’s what I’m paying you for.”
I started to walk past him.
“I meant that we don’t need to go anywhere,” he said. “If you’re uncomfortable having me in your apartment, we can leave the door open.”
“Um, no, I know how to scream. And I’m sure Grace would call the cops for me. Otherwise she’d lose the rental.”
Grace nodded, not the least offended.
“I’m suggesting we don’t do this inside because my apartment stinks,” I said. “Despite hours of cleaning.”
“Buy an air freshener,” Grace said.
“I did. A lovely peach-scented one. Now my apartment smells like rotten peaches. I’m going to paint the place next week.”
“Wash the walls first,” Gabriel said.
I looked up at him.
“You need to use a bleach solution on the walls, or you’ll only temporarily cover the stench.”
Obviously someone who had experience with cheap apartments. I struggled to picture it—the guy looked like he wouldn’t be caught dead outside the penthouse.
“And buy good paint,” Grace said.
“Will that help?”
“No, but if you buy cheap-ass crap and it peels, I’ll—”
I cut her off with a wave and headed inside. Gabriel followed.
When I opened my apartment door, he took one sniff and said, “You’re right.”
“Checking my alibi, counselor?” I said. “If I wasn’t comfortable being alone with you, I’d say so.”
As I grabbed my notebook and pen, he stepped in. His gaze went to the wastepaper basket and I remembered the card in there.
“Not yours,” I said. “Seems pushing business cards under doors runs in your family. Your aunt wants a consultation. Or, I suspect, she wants me to buy one from her.”
“I presume you aren’t interested.”
“You presume correctly.”
“Good. I’ll speak to her. She won’t bother you again.”
So he didn’t want me talking to his aunt? Interesting.
I fished the card out of the trash. “Maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty.”
He plucked the card from my fingers. “My aunt sells superstition, Olivia. While you may be at a point in your life where you wouldn’t mind some guidance, I’d suggest you spend your money on decent paint instead. It will brighten your future far more than any psychic reading.”
Was he worried his aunt might warn me against him? Or was he merely pretending he didn’t want me to visit her, because I’d already shown signs that I was a contrary bitch?
Damn.
I let him keep the card and locked the door behind us.
As we walked out of the building, Gabriel began listing places we could talk—the library, the coffee shop. I vetoed them all and instead steered him down the alley to the park.
We arrived just as the only occupants—a woman with two preschoolers—were heading home. I held the gate for her. As we walked through, Gabriel rubbed the head of a chimera griffin.
“For luck?” I said.
“No. For…” He paused. “Protection.”
“Protection? Against what?”
“Bogeymen and goblins and fairies and everything else that might threaten the life of an innocent child.”
I studied his face. “You’re serious.”
“Serious in the sense that it’s what I was told, growing up. As for whether they still tell children that…?” He shrugged. “My aunt is far from the only superstitious soul in this town.”
�
��And those?” I pointed at the gargoyles on the bank. “Protection against flying monkeys?”
“Plague.”
I shot another look his way.
“That’s what I heard. When the plague struck Chicago, the townspeople here erected the gargoyles, and nary a soul was lost to the Black Death.”
“The bubonic plague predates Chicago by about five hundred years.”
He lowered himself to the bench. “I know. I was very disappointed when I found out. Almost as bad as when I learned there were no fairies. The world is much more interesting with goblins and plagues.”
“Unless you catch the plague.”
“It’s a risk. But imagine the market for quack cures. One could make a fortune.” He gazed up at the gargoyles. “I suppose there’s a more prosaic explanation. Someone puts up a gargoyle. His neighbor puts up two. Before you know”—he swept a hand across the vista—“monsters everywhere.”
“Speaking of monsters…” I pointed at the file.
“That’s an awkward segue,” he said. “You can do better.”
“Lawyers bill in fifteen-minute increments. Stop stalling and give me the damn file.”
He handed it over.
Old Blood
Patrick closed his laptop and waved to Susie that he was leaving it behind. She didn’t meet his eyes as she nodded. She hadn’t met his gaze since the day he’d gone for a walk and come back to find she’d moved his laptop behind the counter. Patrick hadn’t complained. He’d simply mentioned it to Larry, and said he’d appreciate it if that didn’t happen again.
He had no idea what Larry told the girl. Patrick had never been anything but respectful and friendly to him. But like most boinne-fala with a hint of old blood, Larry had an innate sense that Patrick was not someone to be trifled with.
The new girl recognized it, too, yet her respect wasn’t mingled with fear. She was cautious but curious. A different type of old blood; a different type of reaction. He preferred hers. While there was a sweetness to fear, it was a closed door. Curiosity cracked that door open.
As he turned toward the park, he saw it was already occupied. Not with children, thankfully. He wasn’t fond of children. They were too easily manipulated. It lacked challenge.
No, it was the new girl. Olivia. She was sitting with…
He smiled. Olivia was sitting with Gabriel. Well, now, that was interesting.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
“Whatever you’re thinking, bòcan, you can stop right now. This doesn’t concern you. They don’t concern you.”
He turned. Ida and Walter. Of course.
“Gabriel always concerns me.”
“He’s not yours,” Ida said.
Patrick tilted his head. “Technically, yes. He is.”
“No. You know the rules. You have no claim to him. You will not interfere with him.”
“Or with her,” Walter added.
“Mmm.” Patrick eyed Olivia. “I’m surprised you let her stay. I hear the ravens have already come.”
“That’s no concern of yours, bòcan,” Walter said.
Ida fixed her faded eyes on his. “If you wish to be concerned, I’d suggest you take a more active role in the community, instead of wasting your days tapping away on your computer.”
“The only way I’m going to another town meeting is if I start suffering from insomnia.”
“Then that is your choice. Remember it. And don’t interfere.”
Which was, they all realized, like asking the sun not to rise. But he had been warned, and they seemed satisfied, hobbling off to rest their old bones in the diner.
Chapter Twenty-six
In that file were all the details of how the Larsens killed four couples. I know my phrasing would not please Pamela. I should say it contained the evidence used to convict the Larsens of killing four couples. I might be her last hope, and even my language choices refused to give her the benefit of the doubt.
The police had only found the Larsens because they were tipped off by an anonymous source—which formed the basis of every “wrongly accused” conspiracy theory to follow. They’d received the tip after the third set of murders. But they’d taken one look at the Larsens—the quiet carpenter husband, the sweet former-teacher wife, the adorable toddler daughter—and tossed the lead aside.
Then, after Jan Gunderson and Peter Evans were killed, someone running through the files had found an eyewitness account of a young couple seen hurrying from the vicinity of the first crime scene. A man and a woman. Midtwenties. Handsome couple. He had shaggy blond hair. She had long dark hair. Wait a minute … Didn’t that sound like the couple they’d received the tip about?
The year was 1990. A newfangled piece of crime scene technology was just starting to be used. Something called DNA analysis. The crime scenes had been almost pristine—generic footprints, no hair, no fibers, no fingerprints. The fact that the bodies were left outdoors made the technicians’ work even more difficult. But there had been a few drops of blood found on a rock by the second set of victims. The police speculated that the killer had nicked himself. He’d pulled back his hand in surprise. The first drops spattered on the rock. He bound the hand and didn’t realize he’d left something of himself behind.
Only it wasn’t a him. The DNA matched Pamela Larsen’s.
The eyewitness from the first scene picked the couple out of a lineup. A local sporting goods store clerk ID’d Todd Larsen as a man who’d liked hunting knives. He’d bought four, all in the year of the killings. Three of the four murders had taken place on Fridays. That was the Larsens’ “date night” when they left little Eden at Grandma’s house.
Then there was the witchcraft.
Investigators had discovered a cache of occult material in the Larsen home. A locked cedar chest filled with candles and dried herbs, a silver dagger and chalice.
That box sealed the Larsens’ fate.
“That was the evidence I used to argue for an appeal,” Gabriel said. “The box of witchcraft supplies. Pamela Larsen had admitted to being a practicing Wiccan and everything in the box supported her claim. Simple paganism. Burning incense and making herbal teas, not sacrificing cats in the basement. The jury had failed to understand the distinction. I hoped things would have changed.”
“They hadn’t?”
He paused. Stretched his legs. Considered the question. “Yes, they had,” he said, as if reluctantly admitting to a failure. “The overall distinction was recognized by the appellate court. The average Wiccan is extremely unlikely to commit ritual human sacrifice. However, the key words there are average and unlikely. Just because the tenets of a religion prohibit something does not mean none of its adherents ever break that prohibition. It didn’t help that Pamela was a solo practitioner, with no coven to support her claim to be a Wiccan.”
“What rituals did they think were being performed with the murders?”
“No two experts could agree. In the end, they decided they were chasing a classification where none existed. If you read the accounts of so-called occult murders, you’ll find that in most cases, the killers were following no recognized branch of anything. They pulled in aspects from old books and modern movies and everything in between.”
“In other words, they made it up.”
“Exactly.”
“So that was the basis of your appeal attempt? That a jury of that time was likely to be prejudiced against Wiccans? That’s flimsy.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t need to be a lawyer to know it was flimsy. Pamela didn’t like it, either. She thought there were better grounds.”
“She did.”
“What were they?”
“You can’t tell? Clearly she expected the answer to leap from the file.”
I flipped through it again. “She said it was about the fourth pair of murders—Jan Gunderson and Peter Evans—that there was a reason Pamela and Todd couldn’t have committed them. There’s no alibi, which would be the obvious answer. A
ll of the elements of the fourth pair were found in at least one of the previous ones.”
“So what is different?”
“Only the day of the week. This couple wasn’t murdered on a Friday.”
“Exactly.”
He settled back.
“Um, okay … It’s a minor deviation, sure, but hardly grounds for an appeal.”
“I said the same thing. If you asked Pamela, she would be shocked—appalled even—that you didn’t immediately see the problem. Why did the prosecution believe the others were committed on Fridays?”
“Because it was their date night. Their daughter—” I stopped. Cleared my throat. “Me, I mean. Obviously.”
Obviously.
Except it hadn’t been so obvious. While I knew I was the child in the file, I’d disconnected from that.
The adorable toddler the police met when they first questioned the Larsens? That was me. The child who’d stayed overnight at her grandmother’s while Mommy and Daddy butchered eight people? That was me. The girl described during the arrest, screaming for her mother, biting the social worker, howling and sobbing uncontrollably for hours?
That was me.
“I was at their—I mean, my grandmother’s that night.” I paused. “Is she—?” I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“Your grandmother passed away years ago.”
“Right. Okay.” I wanted to ask about other family, but Gabriel wasn’t the person to answer that.
“Take a moment.”
As at the prison, he said it with a veneer of empathy, yet he couldn’t mask a note of impatience.
“I’m fine,” I said. “So where was Eden—I mean, where was I on the night of the last murders?”
“No one knows. That is the crux of Pamela’s argument.”
A shadow passed overhead. I looked up. Just a sparrow.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Your grandmother was the only person your parents entrusted with your care, and she was out of town. Therefore, your parents could not have killed anyone that night.”
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