But something goes wrong and Ilona's dead. And try as he might, Stuart can't find The Book of Moons or a clue to its whereabouts anywhere in Lx)thlorien.
He could still have saved himself if he'd called the police then. Who knew?—if he'd called an ambulance immediately, Ilona Saunders might be alive today.
But he doesn't. Stuart Hepburn, murderer, leaves Ilona dead and goes looking for an alibi, for information—maybe even looking for Ned. Ned was Ilona's clerk. He was the next likely person to question.
And there was one thing I would bank on, the more I thought it over: Stuart did get to the picnic in time to hear Ned announce to everybody in earshot that he, Ned Skelton, had the grimore of Mary, Queen of Scots—Ilona's Book of Moons.
Did he mark Ned down for death then? Or was it later? Was he the burglar of Ned's apartment as well as the murderer? And why did Stuart kill again without proof that the book that was his ostensible goal could be gained by his actions?
I'd never know. But there was one thing I knew now: Stuart Hepburn did not act in good faith, not from the first moment I saw him. He mingled at the picnic, pumping all of us for information we didn't know we were giving. looking for Ilona's book, for information about Ilona's book, for places such books could be found.
Maybe even trying to find out how seriously we Witches took Ned's claim, and if we would pay money for Ilona's treasure.
And presented himself as a seeker, without any of the round-
254 Bell, Book, and Murder
eyed wonder exhibited by new seekers who find the Craft. Stuart was determined to be unflappable, no matter how strange we were, because he wanted in . . .
That was the not-quite-rightness that had bothered me about him from the first. We are not mainstream, we of the Community, and you either love our weirdness or hate it. You do not ignore it as if it does not exist, not unless the stakes are very high indeed.
It took Stuart until Monday night to find out where Ned lived, or else to catch Ned's apartment empty. Assuming he was the burglar, he broke in looking for the book—only the book wasn't there either. I already had it. He came up dry.
So then he had to talk to Ned Tuesday night. Ned was frightened on Monday when he found out about Ilona, but he wasn't on Tuesday when he asked me to bless his apartment. Had he talked to Stuart in the meantime? Did Stuart convince him that he had nothing to fear? Stuart could be plausible; 1 was living proof of that.
So Stuart caime to see Ned Tuesday night. And kill Ned Tuesday night. Frustration, or fear, or just covering his tracks; had Ned taunted him with the fact that The Book of Moons was beyond Stuart's reach?
But Stuart, for whatever reason, killed Ned without either getting what he had come for or even finding out where it was. And I was pretty sure that was what had happened, because that same night Weiser's, the Snake, and Mirror Mirror were broken into by someone who cleaned out their weird rare book sections.
Stuart.
Looking for The Book of Moons in the only other place he could think of. Finding nothing.
And then —and this new intuition made me slightly ill —coming back to his one inside informant on the witchcrEift scene. Me. To dine and dazzle, looking for new leads.
Was the killer really Stuart? Who else could it be? There were too many indicators pointing in his direction.
Granted, llona's death could be the result of a random robbery that went wrong. But Ned was—what was Glitter's word for it? — professionally "whacked" within a ninety-minute early-evening window a full twenty-four hours after his apartment had been burgled.
Call that coincidence, too, if you're Belle. But answer a few questions first.
What was Ned's motive for leaving the package filled with Books of Shadows with me? For safekeeping? Why didn't he think his apartment was safe? How did he decide it wasn't safe before it was burgled? Did he know someone was going to break in?
And if he left the Books of Shadows with me so that I could return them, why include The Book of Moons, when he knew llona was dead? Who was 1 supposed to return it to? I certainly couldn't return it to the woman who had written it. Who was alleged to have written it. To Mary, doomed, manipulated Mary, thrown out of her French coven to die in a foreign homeland she could not remake in her own image.
And, if not Stuart Hepburn, then who found it necessary, the same night Ned was murdered to break into not one, but three occult bookstores? Had Ned told Stuart the book was in a safe place? Had Stuart killed him before finding out anything more?
I thought of the book and its hunters: a mad, Maltese Falcon chase down through the centuries. And now the La Paloma had docked and I was the new stalking horse, just as soon as The Book of Moons could be tracked to me.
1 sat on the subway feeling spooked, but that was stupid. Knowing about Stuart did not change my life at all. We all live in cities full of murderers every day. It's just that we never look into their faces.
8
^'-i^ THURSDAY, MAY 5, 12:45 a.m. ^>-i^
I felt like mugging bait walking home from the subway stop. I wondered if there actually was something to Lace's "clothing as victimization" rap. Either way, I thought I was going to give this damn dress and all its accessories to The Cat.
It was a little after midnight. Since noon I'd had two ounces of Scotch and a lot of adrenaline. If there was anything compromised about my locks it didn't register. I walked inside and closed the door.
Stuart Hepburn was waiting for me inside my apartment.
Realization came in a jerky series of epiphanies. The dishevel-ment of the space where I lived. The books on the floor. The curls of brown paper where he'd unwrapped the two books I'd brought back here. The bathroom light on, but the main room light out so I'd come all the way in.
And Stuart sitting on my bed.
Oh, yes, of course, was my first thought, tainted by faint self-reproach: after four burglaries and two murders, would the Stuart of my creation have stopped there?
"My door looked fine," I said. It was an effort to talk; my tongue felt thick and unresponsive, as if I were drunk.
"Occasionally I can be subtle. Where is it? It wasn't at that pesthole where you work."
There was only one "it."
"I don't have it," I suggested. I'd left it at the studio when I'd
I
Book of Moons 257
gone out with all the other books. Why hadn't he found it there?
Stuart smiled. He was still dressed as he had been earlier in the evening, in the expensive, understated dark suit.
"If you don't have it, I'll kill you," he said, smiling, and I knew it for the simple truth. "You have it or you know where it is. The card you left with poor Neddie was enough reason to search your office, but when 1 didn't find it there, 1 wasn't sure about you. Until dinner. Why else would you have run out on me except to make sure it was still safe?"
The truth, they say, will set you free.
"Because I knew you'd killed Ilona—"
"Oh, don't give me any of that witchy claptrap," Stuart interrupted scornfully. "If you had any supernatural powers you'd hardly be here now, would you?"
He had a certain point. I wished I weren't here now. But I simply hadn't been paying attention, in a city where inattention is fatal.
Stuart got up and walked toweird me, aind only then did I realize that the shock and fright had kept me standing there when I might have run. He took out a tiny gun, silver and pearl-handled, barely as big as his hand but big enough to kill. A .22 or .25; I knew this from a book on self-defense the studio did once.
I wondered if it was the same one he'd used on Ned and felt a wave of nausea fill my mouth with thick sadiva. Stuart came and stood in front of me, pointing the gun.
"Ned had your card, darling, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why—but you Witches stick together, don't you?"
It was so far from true that it was funny. I shook my head. Stuart thought I was arguing with him. Everything I said seemed to make hi
m angry and I didn't know how to stop that.
"You have the book. Ned gave it to you. He didn't have it when we had our little chat, but he did have your card, right there by the phone. Who would he give it to, but you?"
Stuart's faith in me was nearly flattering.
"It's not here," I repeated, docile £ind truthful as a small child.
"I know that," said Stuart. "I've already looked. You're going to take me to it—I won't make the same mistake twice."
The little gun glittered in the overhead light. There was nothing I could do now. Magic could keep me from meeting the gunman. It could keep the gun from being drawn. But this was the real world, and no spell would stop a bullet.
258 Bell, Book, and Murder
"You thought you knew where it was before," I said, reasoning it out as if the right answers would save me. "That's why you killed Ned. You thought you had it, but you didn't."
"Bright girl," Stuart said approvingly. I shivered as if someone was pouring alcohol on my skin and might any moment set it alight.
'The book is mine," Stuart said. "I want it back. That's all. Stealing is a sin, you know."
I wondered what Stuart's views were on murder.
My mind seemed to be racing, as if I had to do all the thinking for the rest of my life in the next few minutes. I thought about the fact that death is silence and the involuntary archaic smile, that people killing or thinking about killing do not exhibit Stuart's drawing-room glibness. I understood the reason why in an instant: Stuart was hiding past and future murders from himself and pretending this was common social bull3ang. Plus gun.
I felt a desperate need to help him, to make polite conversation and conceal horror beneath a shield of metaphor and analogy.
"Where is the book?" Stuart said with surprising patience, and the millrace of discourse opened again in my mind: he said he'd searched the studio and he hadn't found it. But the studio was where I'd left it, and if he already knew it wasn't here, what could I tell him that he'd believe when the truth wouldn't help me?
1 shook my head.
"1 am waiting," Stuart said. "Where is the book now?"
My skin was dry ice, gathering moisture from the air. My eyes burned as sweat trickled down my face, down my skin under the dress.
The book. Mary's Book of Moons. The Craft must ever survive; this is built into our mythology—the Burning Times; six centuries when our struggle was not to stay alive, but to pass our tradition beyond our deaths.
As this shadow-Mary, wavering indistinct between history and fabulation, had. Her book had survived her beheading, taken and hidden by conspirators loyal, if not to her, then to their Goddess. Taken and hidden. And hidden, hidden, hidden . . .
"Of course it's at the studio," 1 said coolly, as if 1 could buy into Stuart's sociable lie. "Did you look inside the stat camera?"
"You're bluffing. Why would you hide it? You couldn't know I'd be looking for it," Stuart said. The gun gestured: flick away. Flick back.
"Witches hide their books, Stuart, from cowans like you."
Like so mainy of our words, cowan is Scots, and, as we use it, simply means "non-Witch." Stuart, however, seemed to be impressed with being a cowan, because he relaxed just a little.
"All right, Witchie-poo. Let's go back to the studio—and you can show me where it is."
I felt the imimanence of violence retreat, enough to allow me anger.
"Afraid you'll shoot someone else too soon?" 1 said.
And Stuart hit me.
It was stunning; unexpected as a flash of lightning. It knocked me off those silly treacherous heels 1 was wearing. I fell to the floor, sliding on the linoleum. One of my big crescent moon earrings, torn off by the blow, slid across the floor and under the sink. I could hear the sound it made clearly. Then the pain rolled in, slow and heavy as thunder, while 1 lay on the floor in complete incomprehension of what had just happened to me.
"Get up," said Stuart, and understanding came. He'd hit me, maybe with the gun. 1 shook my head. Bright heat lightning danced over the surface of the pain-thunder, making me catch my breath in a jerky stutter. Blood eddied through my saliva, but there was no blood on the floor, only the cuts on the inside of my mouth that my teeth had made.
"Get up," Stuart said again.
I kicked my shoes the rest of the way off and got to my hands and knees. His shoes were very close to my face. 1 thought for a moment that he would kick me, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.
But he didn't. The relief made me almost grateful to him.
I got up and sat quickly down on my kitchen chair, shaking like an addict. I touched my face. It was hot and tender. My lip left smears of lipstick and blood on my fingers. Automatically I took out the remaining crescent earring. I could not look at Stuart.
"1 like a girl who knows how to behave herself," Stuart said affably. I didn't say anything. I'd learned better.
"Come on, Witchie. Upsie-daisy. That's a good girl," Stuart said.
My boots were under the kitchen table where I'd left them last. I bent forward carefully and pulled them toward me. In nylon stockings my feet slid into them easily.
"Very nice," Stuart said. He was relishing this as if in retalia-
260 Bell, Book, and Murder
tion for a lifetime's humiliation, but I could not imagine what I could have done to him that required this scale of vengeance. More than abandoning him during a date, surely? Who was 1 standing in for, in Stuart's mental landscape?
I got the boots on and stood up. The side of my face that he'd hit felt sunburned, and the ear was beginning to sting. My mind was rehearsing the possibility of future pain.
At the door I got my jacket, because shock, the body's instinctive response to threat, was freezing me to death.
I took the wad of keys off the shelf beside the door and stuck them in the jacket pocket. I picked up my hat and put that on, too, trying to convince some part of myself that everything was all right. Then 1 stepped out into the hall and Stuart followed me.
Stuart put the gun away, but not far away. He didn't let me lock the door when we left. It was foolish of him to give me such proof when I could still withhold what he wanted. But it was proof I didn't need. I already knew that, as far as Stuart was concerned, I would never come back here again.
The subway doesn't go there, Stuart had no car, and there were no taxis anywhere at this hour of the morning. We walked to Houston Graphics. Stuart held me by the scruff of my jacket and twisted it every time I moved my arms. The gun was in his pocket, handy to hand. This was New York. He could shoot me on this midnight street in perfect safety. No one would come if they heard a gunshot. No one would come if I screamed. No one would even call the police.
Life was composed of odd disjointed sensations. The wind, cold and fresh in the early morning. Distant sirens. Indignation, that I wasn't dressed right for a crisis. The pain in my face as I licked my bleeding lip. The knowledge that my boots were rubbing a blister into my right heel. Grateful relief, because now Stuart was behaving candidly—no more acts, no more deception.
As we walked he chatted companionably, as if he were not suspended between killings over the abyss in which lives the knowledge that there is no more external reason either to act or to refrain. I forgot each word as he spoke it. Incipient mortality scoured me into a desolation beyond ego.
We arrived.
Houston Graphics is not located in a neighborhood I would choose to frequent at this hour—as individual neighborhoods have gotten glossier, the whole fabric of New York life has rotted as if
t±iere were some metaphysical constant of niceness, and the concentration of it in some places has left others vulnerable to some existential plague.
There was traffic on Broadway, even now. While we waited for the light, a gust down the concrete canyon whisked my hat off. I grabbed for it reflexively, but Stuart yanked me off balance and I watched it vanish under the wheels of a cab.
"You won't be needing that, pet
," Stuart said. My hat made a popping sound as it was flattened: echo of a gunshot.
Stuart hummed to himself. We crossed like law-abiding out-of-towners and Stuart led me to the doorway of Houston's building.
Where the door was covered with a steel shutter that I did not have the keys to open.
There was no way for Stuart to prove or disprove my story tonight. I felt a giddy wash of relief.
I was feeling safe when Stuart's hidden hand came out of the pocket with a wad of keys. He shoved them at me.
"One of these should fit. Don't gawp at me, poppet—our Neddie's been far more useful in death than he ever was in life."
I looked down at what I held in my hand — Ned Skelton's ring of master keys. Stuart's entree to my apartment—and to Houston Graphics, earlier this evening.
I felt a dangerous and proprietary anger fill me, as if Ned were still alive to be hurt. But I held it down, concentrating on finding the key that would bypass the padlock, just as the padlock on the Snake's outer shutters had been bypassed Tuesday night.
The fifth one fit. I unlocked the padlock and loosened the chain and ran the steel shutter up, baring the door. Maybe its being open at this hour would look odd enough to stop a prowl car, but Stuart wasn't from New York; it didn't bother him.
I used my own keys for the rest. I thought I'd have trouble with the locks, but my hands had trembled far worse for much less than my approaching death. 1 opened the street door (two keys), then the lobby inner door that's supposed to be a security measure (one key). They're both glass. The outer door has a spring lock and dead bolt. It snapped shut behind me, but the crash bar would open it from the inside.
Of course, none of these measures would have been in place earlier this evening when Stuart had searched Houston Graphics. He'd done it while I was waiting for him at Top of the Sixes —that was the only time he could be sure I wouldn't be there. Ned's keys had gotten him into the studio, and I hoped for the sake of my fel-
Bell, book, and murder Page 29