by Anna Windsor
Alsace looked at Reese Patterson, who gave him a nod to continue.
“At first, yeah, that was it.” Alsace addressed his answer to Blackmore. “We hadn’t talked in about five years when my dad passed. I was living in San Francisco and working for the Climate Change Awareness Foundation—C-CAF.”
Blackmore rested one hand on his stack of folders. “But you came home for the funeral. Then you stayed because … ?”
Alsace put his own hands on the table, then stared at his fingers. “I stayed in New York City because Katrina told me she’d set up the trust fund and give me an allowance if I did, and if I went to church with her at least once a month.”
“You must have resented that,” Blackmore relaxed in his seat, seeming even more sympathetic. “I hated it when my mother made me go to Sunday school.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Alsace said. “I picked up lots of donors for C-CAF from her congregation, and the people were pretty nice. Katrina and I agreed on a year in the city, but I got used to the place. Even the church.” He glanced up at Blackmore, who reassured him with a calm smile. “There’s as much going on here as California, in my opinion—with the environmental movement, I mean. And here, I’m closer to D.C. to join marches and help with lobbying.”
Bela was still tracking Alsace’s reactions, and no elemental energy moved around him at all. She decided to try a question of her own, to see where it took them. “Is global warming your only cause?”
Alsace straightened up, happy to answer this one. “I’m a vegetarian, and I strongly advocate no meat or animal products or by-products. And I belong to two antiwar and disarmament groups.” He named them, and then Dio picked up the thread.
“Do you practice your magick alone, or do you belong to a coven?”
Both Duncan and Blackmore frowned at the words magick and coven, but Bela warned them off with a glare. Patterson, she noted, didn’t seem to have a problem with the terms.
“We have a little group,” Alsace said, “but it’s small. We get together every week or so.”
Blackmore acted surprised, or maybe it wasn’t an act. “Was Katrina aware of that?”
Alsace shook his head, and Bela saw shame and guilt etch into each line and shadow on his face. She suspected the emotions rose from lying to his sister and shutting her out of his life, not because he thought practicing his beliefs was wrong.
“It would have hurt her.” His gaze went back to his hands, which were still folded on the table. “She liked believing she’d brought me to the light, you know? To her faith.”
Duncan’s eyes shifted colors again, from black to gray. “Would she have cut you off financially if she found out?”
“Not possible,” Patterson cut in, managing to look at Duncan instead of Dio. “The trust was irrevocable.”
Alsace let out a breath. He sounded more sad than combative when he said, “I got my share, and it’s plenty. But I’d rather have my sister. She was—” He let out a breath. “Katrina was a good person.”
Bela’s senses registered his deep sadness, but nothing past that.
Duncan’s shoulders hitched backward, like he, too, might be battling some powerful emotion. Somehow the colors of his eyes were perfectly blended, gray at the center and black around the edges.
“Have you ever crossed into curses or negative spells?” Dio asked her question in the sweetest voice, but Alsace physically recoiled from her, obviously disgusted by what she implied.
“No. That’s against everything I believe.”
Bela thought about the humans in black sweatshirts who had helped the Rakshasa disrupt Duncan’s healing. “Do you know people who do believe in drawing power from perverted rituals?”
“Nobody.” Alsace sounded emphatic.
Bela glanced from Duncan to Blackjack, until she was sure they understood that Alsace didn’t seem to be hiding any secret store of elemental power. The answers he had given seemed straightforward and unrehearsed, and his clear disgust over the suggestion that he would violate the basic tenets of his Wiccan faith lent him credibility.
Blackmore took the finish, since he was the one who had established the best relationship. “Merin, if you and your group hear of a coven practicing perverted rituals, will you let us know? It could help us find your sister’s killer.”
“Yeah, absolutely.” Alsace took the card Blackmore offered him and tucked it into his jeans pocket. “And—thanks. For trying to hunt down who murdered Katrina. I wasn’t sure anybody still gave a shit.”
Blackmore shook Alsace’s hand, then turned his focus to making notes on a pad beside the stack of folders.
“We care,” Duncan told Alsace, breaking out of the hard-ass role. “And we’ll do whatever we can to get Ms. Drake some justice.”
He stood to see Patterson and Alsace out of the interrogation room, and Alsace shook Duncan’s hand before they left.
About ten seconds after they cleared the room’s door, Dio said, “I got nothing.”
“Me neither.” Bela leaned back in her chair. “If Merin Alsace has elemental talent, it’s buried under a shield so skillful even a Mother couldn’t detect it.”
Dio frowned. “Damn, that was a lot of preparation for ten minutes of talking and no real results.”
Blackmore didn’t look up from his notepad, but he gave a little chuckle. “Welcome to my world, Ms. Allard. And we aren’t even finished yet.”
According to Blackmore’s files, Jeremiah Drake had told the first officers who interviewed him that he and Katrina were divorcing because they’d “grown apart”—nothing more, nothing secret, nothing special.
Bela thought that was a cliché, but there was nothing on record to contradict him. The NYPD hadn’t turned up any domestic violence complaints or society newspaper columns whispering about public disagreements or dissention. Every photo the police provided showed two dignified people who appeared to get along peacefully if not well—and no suggestive pictures of either Katrina or Jeremiah with someone else.
When Jeremiah Drake arrived about an hour later, Bela noted the same dignity she had seen in the photos collected by the NYPD. He seemed as different from Merin Alsace as he was from Reese Patterson. Average height, fit, dark hair with gray streaks—older than Katrina by about fifteen years. His slacks and shirt were higher-end but not designer, and when he spoke, he sounded well educated without being conceited.
“You already know I didn’t profit from my wife’s death,” he said by way of introducing himself as he took the seat next to Dio, disregarding the digital tape recorder like he really didn’t care if it captured every word he said. He rested his hands beside it, easily avoiding the microphone area. “The NYPD has our financial records—most of what Katrina had went to her charitable foundation.”
Duncan opened the folder he had taken from Blackmore and placed on the table in front of him, and he glanced at the page on top. “In your first interview, you told the investigators that you and Mrs. Drake never mingled your finances.”
“That’s right.” Drake’s energy matched his words exactly, as far as Bela could tell, and like Alsace, he showed no evidence of elemental talent. “We kept our business interests separate from the outset, since we both came to the marriage with means.”
Blackmore took the hard-ass role this time, sounding gruff. “Bet you resented her routing her wealth to that foundation.”
“I expected her to do just that, Captain Blackmore.” Drake’s tone got chilly at the challenge. “We weren’t selfish robber barons. Katrina and I understood that we had enough money, and we agreed to give the rest back to society. My will is structured similarly, providing for my son, Walker, but splitting the bulk of the proceeds between my business and the United Way.”
Still no hint of elemental energy.
When Bela stole a glance at Duncan, she noticed that his eyes had gone black again, with gray at the centers.
Dio’s wind energy stirred the air in the room, and she asked, “Did you attend church wit
h your wife, Mr. Drake?”
Drake turned his focus to her, and his expression communicated both surprise and offense. “Excuse me?”
“Your religious preferences, sir.” Dio kept her tone respectful, but she pushed ahead. “Could you tell us about them?”
Drake gave Reese Patterson a look. The attorney scooted his fingers on the table in a go-ahead motion.
Drake sighed. “I’m not religious. That wasn’t something I shared with Katrina.”
Bela went after the bottom line. “Have you had any experience with the occult or people who claim to dabble in the supernatural?”
“No. I’m an accountant.” Drake looked at Bela like she’d lost her mind. “I put my trust in numbers, computers, and reality. What makes you think Katrina’s murder had anything to do with the occult?”
“What do you think motivated the killer?” Duncan asked.
Jeremiah Drake went pale, and his emotions surged across Bela’s earth-enhanced awareness. Normal human emotions, no elemental enhancements. “I have no idea what would drive a maniac to do—to do that to anyone, Detective.”
Duncan paused for a moment, then went back to the file he had opened. “You told the initial investigators that Katrina didn’t mention feeling threatened or concerned about her safety. You said you didn’t know she had hired a professional bodyguard to look after her.”
“John Cole. That was his name, right?” Drake raised his fingers to his chest in a quick, almost unconscious movement before putting his hand back on the table. “The man who wore the gold coin around his neck. He was killed in DUMBO the same night Katrina died.”
Duncan gave no response except to keep looking at Drake, encouraging him by not interrupting him. Bela’s eyes rested on Duncan’s shirt, where she could see the outline of the dinar underneath it, but Drake didn’t seem to notice.
“I met John Cole once,” Drake said, “but I thought he was just looking after her at the event she was chairing that night, because of the neighborhood. Do you think he was pursuing the killers?”
“We’re pretty sure of that, yes.” Blackmore was looking at Duncan’s shirt, too, but he seemed to realize that and he stopped.
“Poor man.” Drake sounded like he meant it. “I don’t know why Katrina didn’t tell me she thought she was in danger. We were divorcing, but we were still friends. I would have stayed with her. I would have helped her.”
Duncan closed his folder. “Any idea what would scare a woman with firm Christian beliefs badly enough to answer an ad for a bodyguard who specialized in paranormal threats?”
“Paranormal—that’s what Cole was advertising?” Genuine surprise from Drake. Still no elemental energy. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I know you’ve been asked this question before,” Blackmore said, “but Mr. Drake, can you think of anyone who had a grudge against Katrina? Anyone who would benefit from her death?”
At this, Drake’s demeanor changed again.
It was subtle, but enough to make Bela’s instincts jangle like Sibyl wind chimes. Dio lifted her chin, obviously picking up the same abnormal tension Bela sensed.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.” Drake’s hands almost curled into fists on the table, but he relaxed them just as fast. “My wife had no enemies.”
Lie, Bela thought, her pulse picking up.
Jeremiah Drake did know someone who might have wanted to hurt Katrina, but he clearly didn’t want to share that information.
Why?
Duncan chased around the financial issues and divorce proceedings for another half hour, but they didn’t make much progress. Drake didn’t have any more strong reactions, and he never showed a flicker of elemental power.
This time, when Duncan saw Drake and Reese Patterson out of the Police Annex, Dio cut loose with a yawn. “I’m so glad we don’t have to do this for a living.”
Blackmore packed up his folders and digital recorder without responding to her offhand insult, and Bela decided to make her exit. If the two of them decided to spar, she didn’t want to get caught in all the yelling and tornados.
When Bela came out of the interrogation room, Jeremiah Drake was standing next to a teenage boy, talking on a cell phone about a stock transaction. He had a finger in his free ear and a tense expression. The boy, who looked to be sixteen or seventeen, seemed unfazed by Drake’s mounting tension, and Bela assumed this would be Walker Drake, Jeremiah’s son by a previous marriage. The stepson who’d made Katrina’s life miserable.
Walker looked like a younger version of his father—same dark hair and handsome features, but without the calm, dignified bearing. The kid’s face was a study in barely controlled insolence. The navy jacket, striped tie, and khaki slacks he was wearing suggested one of Manhattan’s higher-end private academies, and the golden emblem stitched across the jacket pocket confirmed this. Walker was wearing his collar open, and the tie had been loosened to hang low on his chest. The look and sarcastic smile he gave Bela made her want to slap him hard enough to spin his head around—and cover up her boobs.
Little shit.
She gave Walker a quick once-over with her elemental power, and as John Cole had insisted in his conversation through Camille, the boy had no traces of elemental energy or power. The OCU could jump through all the hoops required to get permission to question a minor—if they could pull it off, given that medical reports confirmed that Walker and his girlfriend had been basically unconscious from a long night and day of partying when Katrina was killed—but it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort. The OCU’s forensic accountants had already confirmed that Walker didn’t have large sums of money available to hire the Rakshasa, and he hadn’t made anything other than penny-ante transactions leading up to the killing, or after.
A few moments later, Walker followed his father out of the annex, and Bela wasn’t sorry to see him go.
As the double doors to the annex closed, Bela turned her attention to Duncan, who was speaking to Reese Patterson in low tones a few feet away from the entrance. The lawyer appeared to be trying to convince Duncan of something, but Duncan wasn’t buying it.
When Patterson saw Bela coming, he gave up his campaign and offered Bela his hand. She shook it as he asked, “Will I be seeing you again?”
“Probably.” She smiled at him. He really was likeable, his fetish for Dio and hot blondes aside.
“I’ll look forward to it.” Patterson grinned, then made his way through the doors.
Bela watched him go.
When the doors closed and caught, she took Duncan’s hand, way past needing a little contact with him. “What did Patterson want from you?”
Duncan kissed her wrist, then picked up her other hand and did the same. He lowered his arms, keeping a firm grip on her fingers. “He wants me to go see John’s will, even though he doesn’t think it’ll help the case.”
Bela glanced toward the closed doors, where Patterson had been. “That’s … strange. What does John want you to do? What’s he saying?”
“Not a damned thing. He ran his mouth the entire time we were in session, telling me that Alsace and Drake are a total waste of time, and we were screwing up by pursuing either of them.” Duncan let go of her hands. “But about the will, I’ve got nothing. Just silence. I think maybe he’s embarrassed, but I don’t know why.”
Dio came out of the interrogation room just ahead of Blackmore. She held him up by stretching, then headed to Bela and Duncan, a few paces ahead of Blackmore. “Drake got bothered when we asked him about Katrina’s enemies. What do you think that was about, Sharp?”
Blackmore was the one who answered when he joined them, carrying a battered leather briefcase. “No idea, unless he was thinking about how his brat kid fought with her. It’s not enough to go on to poke around any deeper, at least on an official level.”
His look was meaningful, but Bela and Dio were way ahead of him.
Bela already had the annex doors open, and they headed out with Duncan in tow, rea
dy to do some more investigating—Sibyl style.
(25)
Exhausted and disappointed.
That about summed up the look on Bela’s face when they got back to the brownstone around three that afternoon. Duncan hated seeing that, but all he could do was hold her hand as Dio unlocked the front door, used her wind to blow it open, and stalked inside.
Duncan followed, keeping them a few paces back in case Dio blew over anything important. Andy and Camille were sitting on the couch, and Andy was touching up a big bloody cut on Camille’s right cheek.
“Beaker shrapnel,” Andy said before Duncan could ask. “It’ll be fine by morning. Sibyls heal fast—when they’re not working with poisonous gases and radioactive isotopes.”
When Bela didn’t react, Duncan decided it probably wasn’t necessary to bail out the front door and take cover.
“We didn’t find shit.” Dio dropped into the chair closest to the couch. “We went by Merin Alsace’s apartment building, Jeremiah Drake’s penthouse, Katrina Drake’s main charity office—shit. We even went by where Reese Patterson lives and scared the hell out of two raccoons while we were sneaking around through the dumpsters. Not a shred of elemental energy in any of those places, other than ours.”
“No shields, no remnants, nothing.” Bela looked so tired that Duncan wanted to pick her up and carry her straight to bed. Because of patrols, Sibyls often slept during the afternoon, and she seemed to be used to that schedule. “The only thing I can think of is to find out where Merin Alsace’s coven meets and check those locations, but his aversion to perverted magick seemed pretty real to me.”
Dio shook her head, and little gusts of wind made chimes jingle across the living room. “This comes back to Jeremiah Drake. I know it does. He really didn’t like the question about Katrina having enemies. I’m going upstairs to see what I can find in newspaper and television archives.”
She pushed herself out of the seat and took off, leaving a rush of moving air in her wake.
“She’s cranked up,” Andy said as Duncan stared after Dio, confused.