“There’s a dead bird on your stoop.”
“It’s a nuisance, nothing more. Most occultists are more addle-brained than menacing. I think of them as sweet little puppies — the lap dogs of the mysterious, if you like. Or if you prefer a human metaphor, they’re wedded to silly ideas. Only a small percentage of us are doing the real work.”
“And what is the real work?”
“The search for the deeper synergies. I translate obscure works from obscure languages, looking for implicit and explicit relationships. I do not live on a mountaintop, smiting flying reptiles with my wand. This work requires a honed intellect, not super-human skills. As Marion Zimmer Bradley once said, ‘I’m not a medium, I’m a large.’ Though truthfully, I do own several wands just to keep up appearances, you understand,” he added, with a hint of impishness.
“With all due respect, there are more conventional ways to understand the world. The sciences. Mathematics.”
“Those are very important pursuits; but did you know that up to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the great scientists were often also occultists? Brahe, Galileo and Kepler studied astrology, for example. Alchemy is what Isaac Newton did — the rest was a hobby. I think such men had a unified approach in their search for the divine plan. Subsequently, for good and ill, the scientific method triumphed, and today we think with bifurcated minds. Very few of us think holistically, and even fewer have a strong intuitive awareness. Those who don’t, which is just about everyone, think the occult is at best a waste of time.
“I like to remind the arrogant rational — that’s how I refer to such people — that the trouble in the world does not result from the pursuit of the irrational but from certainty. Would you like a few examples of the influence of certainty? The Khmer Rouge, Stalinists, the English Civil War, Pamela, the Inquisition, slavery, the conquest of the Americas, the defenestration of Prague, Pilgrim’s Progress, holy wars, Wall Street bankers, Valley of the Dolls, orthodox American psychoanalysts, twelve-tone music, pesticides, every puerile brush stroke of Jacques Louis-David and any number of ferries whose captains let on too many people and tipped the boats.”
“Let’s talk about the Mathers Society. Can you tell me anything that might prove useful in understanding Surendra’s death?”
“I’m afraid the answer is no. I have not observed anything that suggests her death was more than odd, though I must say also that I’m doubtful about spontaneous human combustion. I haven’t studied it in depth, but I’m not aware of any cases in which natural causes have been conclusively ruled out.”
“How do you think Surendra caught on fire?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think someone in Mathers might have some reason to kill her?”
“As I said, I’ve observed nothing suspicious.”
“I understand you and Surendra had an argument.”
“My argument was with Therese, which is her real name, not her Mathers persona.”
“What did you disagree about?”
“Therese was in the public relations business. One of her clients was a hotel chain. Her assistant arranged for them to feature my honey in their Midwestern locations — sell it at the front desk, feature it in the breakfast buffet, that sort of thing. But for no apparent reason, Therese quashed the plan. As you might imagine, I was quite angry.”
“How angry were you?”
“Mister Wanamaker, I am not the sort of man who suffers fools gladly, but that doesn’t mean that I am inclined to murder them.”
“One last thing. Beeswax is highly flammable, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Cummings walked up the stairs to the apartment of Lolita and Rothwell, more commonly known as Mary and Glen. Mary opened their door, which was beige. Her hair, which was pink at the Mathers meeting, had been redyed a shade of turquoise. She was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt screened with an Anime unicorn.
Like Crandall and Winky’s flat, this apartment was also large, dark and oaken. It was sparsely furnished. A few pieces of 1950s furniture were placed haphazardly around the living room. In the dining room Cummings could see a long table with five-gallon carboys and, in one corner, a replica suit of armor. The room was also dotted with assorted pieces of lumber, woodworking tools and pieces of scrap metal.
“Do you like to be called Mary or Lolita?” Cummings asked.
“Mary’s my everyday name.”
“Thanks for seeing me, Mary. I’ve been asked to investigate Therese’s death.”
“Are you a detective?”
“Something like that,” Cummings replied, “but my inquiry is entirely informal. Will Glen be joining us?”
“He’s in the bedroom, doing school work.”
“School work?”
“He’s finishing his master’s degree. I’ll get him. Sit down anywhere you like.”
Cummings sat on a beat-up Mies van der Rohe knockoff. Mary returned with Glen, also in jeans and wearing an unadorned black T-shirt. He shook Cummings’s hand; then he and Mary sat on floor pillows opposite Cummings.
“Let’s start with some basics,” Cummings began. “How do you happen to be living in the same building as Crandall and Winky?”
“We needed a place, and they told us this apartment was vacant,” Mary answered.
“We’ve been here three years,” Glen added.
“Almost four,” Mary corrected.
“What do you do, Mary?”
“I’m a tattoo artist. I work at Guns and Leather Tattoo. I also moonlight, doing small stuff like temporary tattoos, just to get my name out there. My long-term plan is to open my own tattoo shop.”
“She’s going to do the tattoos, and I’m going to run the business,” Glen contributed.
“And what do you do, Glen?”
“I’m an accountant. I’m finishing my master’s in taxation.”
“I would guess there aren’t too many accountants in the Mathers Society.”
“Being an accountant is not who Glen really is,” Mary insisted.
“No way. It’s just a means to an end because I’m good with numbers,” Glen explained. “I’m really all about medieval history. I’m the Vice President of the Shire of the Mossy Turrets. We reenact medieval battles in dormant corn fields.”
“Trebuchets and all that?”
“Yeah, but we only hurl foam rubber rocks at plywood castles. We don’t want to get anybody killed.”
“Glen’s also an entrepreneur,” Mary said proudly.
“I have two side businesses,” Glen explained. “One is historical torture devices. Mostly the small stuff, thumb screws and like that. But I do larger custom items. Last month I made a rack for a couple in New Jersey. I’m going to have a booth at the Renaissance Faire next summer as a way to build word-of-mouth.”
“Does the other business involve brewing?” Cummings suggested.
“How did you know?”
“The carboys,” Cummings said, pointing to the dining room. “They’re used for fermentation.”
“I make mead. It comes in two flavors, Black Death and Pestilence. That’s orange and mint,” Glen continued. “I just make a little right now. The Illinois laws are designed to keep small businesses out of the liquor industry.”
“What can you tell me about Therese?”
“She was a very matter-of-fact sort of person,” Glen said.
“Not the kind of person who talked about herself,” Mary continued.
“We didn’t know her well,” Glen added.
“We didn’t like her much either,” Mary confided. “She lied to us.”
“About what?” Cummings asked.
“It’s a bit complicated. You see, we’re polyamorous,” Glen explained.
“What does that mean?”
“We’re open to outside loving relationships. We had threesomes with her.”
“Only a few times,” Mary said. “She told us her husband knew, but he didn’t. That’s Rutley Paik. I think that’s his
real name. They’re divorced, I think.”
“We don’t go in for deceit,” Glen commented.
“I see,” Cummings said. “Mary, could you tell me about the inks you use to do tattoos?”
“That’s an odd question,” Mary responded, seemingly a bit startled. “I use different inks for different purposes—you know, permanent inks, temporary inks, different colors and what not.”
“Don’t some tattoo inks contain phosphorous?”
“Some, I guess. Why is that important?”
“It’s highly flammable,” Cummings explained. “In fact, it’s used in matches.”
Chapter Ten
The next afternoon, Cummings visited Tom Daniels. Tom lived in a modest bungalow in Lincoln Park, one of Chicago’s most fashionable neighborhoods. The front yard was in disarray. The grass had not been mowed recently, and there were two chaotic perennial beds in desperate need of weeding.
Tom answered the door, wearing a Victorian dressing gown. He looked pallid.
Tom seated Cummings on a plush Victorian settee and offered him some ice tea. As he went to get it, Cummings looked at an array of objects on a tea table in front of the sofa. Some were small Steampunk-inspired objects, such as a dragon made of gears. There were also polished and unpolished stones of various sizes and types and an assortment of items with obscure signs and sigils that identified them as probable amulets and talismans.
After he set a tumbler of tea in front of Cummings, Tom coughed into the same lace handkerchief he’d used at Mathers.
“You must excuse me,” he apologized, “I’m just getting over a cold.”
“I understand,” Cummings responded. “I’m not sure how to address you. There appears to be a mistake on the Mathers contact list. You’re listed as Queen Victoria but with two real names, Jules Verne and Tom Daniels.”
“Actually my real name is Jules Verne. No one believes me, so I go by Tom Daniels.”
“Is that so? Are you a descendant of Jules Verne?”
“He was my great-great-great uncle.”
“These are interesting,” Cummings said, indicating the objects on the tea table.
“Oh, yes. I’ve collected them over the years. I started when I was an undergraduate. They help me in all manner of ways.”
“Do they? For example, what is this one?” Cummings asked, pointing at random to a sigil-covered object.
“That’s a Seal of Jupiter. It brings luck and opportunity.”
“And this one?” Cummings said, pointing to another.
“That is a bind rune. It’s Norse. Its purpose is to protect against enemies.”
“Do you have many enemies?”
“No more than most people.”
“Perhaps you can tell me something about the Craddock Brooch.”
“The what?”
“The piece of jewelry that Surendra was wearing when she died.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
A vacuum cleaner started in an adjacent room.
“I must apologize,” Tom continued. “My cleaning person, Glenda, is here. She always comes on Tuesdays. Usually I go out while she’s working, but I didn’t today because of this cold.”
“Have you been a member of Mathers long?” Cummings said, speaking over the noise.
“I’ve been in Mathers for a long time,” Tom said, also speaking louder. Cummings observed the veins bulging in Tom’s forehead as he did so. He seemed to be exerting himself even to engage in conversation.
“I’ve known Otto even longer,” Tom continued. “We met in college. He’s been a great friend. He’s helped me with my writing. Most people think I’m a trust fund dilettante, but he’s always taken me seriously.”
“What do you write?”
“I’m working on a serious historical novel, but I also write Christian erotica for pocket change.”
“Is that a literary genre?”
“Yes. There’s a formula: torrid sex followed by repentance, baptism and the Rapture. My publisher tells me the demographic is twenty-five- to thirty-five-year-old white, married, born again moms who live in trailer parks.”
“What can you tell me about Surendra that might be helpful?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid. I barely knew her. She wasn’t very friendly. I always thought she was shy.”
“Did you notice that she had any particular conflicts with anyone in the Mathers group?”
“No.”
“All right then. Thank you for your time.”
“That’s all?”
“I believe so,” Cummings said, getting up and heading for the door. As he did so, he noticed two white paper bags from a chain drug store lying stapled shut on a side table. He wasn’t able to read the labels.
Anunciación Hollingberry lived on Lake Shore Drive, known affectionately by the locals as LSD, where the availability of street parking was scarce, and the cost of garage parking was titanic. Reflecting on his tenuous economic circumstances, Cummings made sure to get a receipt from the garage so he could bill the expense back to Otto.
Anunciación’s apartment was gargantuan; one practically needed binoculars to see the far wall from the main entrance. The flat was on a high floor with many windows framing an expansive view of Lake Michigan and was furnished primarily with eighteenth-century American furniture.
“Windsor chairs, aren’t they?” Cummings said, pointing to a pair.
“How do you know that?”
“I lived in Maine for a few years.”
“They’re reproductions, but no one in the Midwest knows the difference, don’t you know. Chicagoans appreciate only two types of décor, Arts and Crafts and Mid-Century. Honestly, they can’t tell a Queen Anne settee from Marie Antoinette’s bed pan.”
Aesthetics, and the cultural history and dictates that went along with it, was not an area in which Cummings had any particular passion or knowledge. Still he nodded, not wishing to appear stupid.
“Would you like a sherry?” she continued. “It’s Portuguese and very dry, as arid as the great dunes of the Sahara, don’t you know.”
“When we met at Mathers, you were telling me about your mother,” Cummings said after Anunciación had delivered his drink.
“Yes. She was a ballerina with a passion for stalactites.”
“Were you raised in Europe?”
“Only for a time. Mother married an American military officer, and we went to live in Manhattan. Mother used to say that if he were a cocktail, he’d be one part gin, two parts money and three parts bastard.
“It was during this time that I discovered Mister Balogh, a lovely Hungarian gentleman who taught astrology classes in Greenwich Village. This infuriated my stepfather. Then dear mama was run over by a taxi outside of Bendel’s, and my stepfather sent me to a convent school in the Dakotas. That didn’t last long. I was expelled for fortune telling. Shortly thereafter, my stepfather died of apoplexy. I arranged a lovely funeral mass for him. I asked the stone mason to carve a wisp of poison ivy on his headstone. I wanted to be absolutely sure that God would recognize the son-of-a-bitch. Then I moved to Chicago, where a few months later I met my late husband, Alfred, who died when I was only twenty-seven. He was a drunk, but at least he left me a few dollars. Did you ask me a question?”
“About Surendra,” Cummings interjected.
“Surendra. Yes. She was a very private person. I barely knew her, but I adored her. It’s my sweet nature, don’t you know.”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill her?”
“Kill her? You don’t think she was murdered?”
“Yes, I do. So do the police.”
“But she burst into flames!”
“Spontaneous combustion is unproven. I know it’s difficult to imagine someone committing such a horrible murder, but it appears someone did.”
A few minutes later Cummings made his excuses and moved on to his next appointment. This was with Mandrake Kinnaird.
“How well did yo
u know Surendra Hickok?”
“I be standin’ me ben at the Mathers fuid queue, and she be ahin me and we begin aschmoozing ‘bout me Toby jugs.”
“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that, please?”
Eventually, through a process similar to the parlor game Charades, Cummings came to understand that: (1) Mandrake had met Surendra in the buffet line at a Mathers meeting, (2) they did not know each other well, (3) they had a brief conversation about Toby jugs, whatever they were, which (4) Mandrake collected. Later Cummings looked up Toby jugs on the Internet and discovered that these were pottery objects, often in the shape of heads, first made in England in the eighteenth century.
“I was never actually a member of the Mathers Society, though I’m sure many of the regulars thought I was,” Rutley Paik told Cummings when he visited him. “I attended a lot when I was married to Therese because she wanted to go, although sometimes I couldn’t make it because I was working. I’m a fireman. I went to this last meeting only because she invited me.”
“But you knew she was a member?”
“Yes.”
“Did she speak to you about her Mathers activities?”
“Do you mean while we were married? Some, but she didn’t say anything deep—I mean, anything worth repeating now that might explain ...” He paused for a moment, emotion making it difficult to finish the sentence, then continued. “... help explain what happened to her.”
“What about after your divorce?”
“We were friendly, but we went our separate ways. We weren’t that close when we were married. That’s why we ended it.”
“I understand she was unfaithful to you.”
“I’m not the jealous type. There were real problems. We weren’t good for each other.”
“In what way?”
“Neither of us was much of a talker. You put two people together who don’t know how to say what they need to say, you’ve got yourself a real problem.”
“Can you tell me anything about the Craddock Brooch?”
“What about it?”
“What exactly was it?”
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