I was in the process of giving Renny a slightly more detailed account of myself starting at around noon yesterday when Sergeant Pascoe showed up. She had a carton of coffee in each hand.
"Don't say I never gave you aii5^hing," she told Renny, setting one down at his elbow. "And how are you?" she said to me.
As well as can be expected considering my sex life, I thought of saying. "Okay," I said instead. Cautiously.
"I asked Sam about you. He says you're a reasonable person." She pulled the lid off her cup and slugged the coffee back, letting the remark she'd just made lie there.
"I try to be," I said. "We don't want any trouble here." Platitudes "R" Us.
"Maybe you could fill in a little background for us, then. Bat wants to know. Tony," she amplified, seeing my face. "Lieutenant Wayne."
I suppose if your name were Wayne and you lived in Gotham County and were a cop your nickname would almost have to end up being "Bat." Geography is destiny.
"Okay," I said, still cautious.
"You done with her, Rennj^ Why don't we go for a walk?" Fayrene said.
Fayrene and I went for a walk.
"I thought maybe we could take a run down to the diner," she said. We were heading for the parking lot. "It's about the closest place around here to get coffee."
It was after noon; I realized that a cup of coffee at Mrs. Cooper's four hours earlier was no substitute for breakfast and lunch.
334 Bell, Book, and Murder
"Fine." And then whatever she wanted to say—or have me do — could take place in decent privacy. "You wouldn't know any place around here that does Chinese?"
She didn't. We ended up at a place called Mom's, a diner just up County 6 that was a retro vision in brushed aluminum and gold-flecked white Formica. I ordered coflee, lots of coffee, and the double bacon cheeseburger platter deluxe, figuring dinner was only a remote possibility.
"Now, Sergeant Pascoe, what is it I can do for you?" I asked, taking the war to the enemy, as the saying goes.
"You might as well call me Fayrene," she said. 'There isn't enough space in the office I've got for my name aind a title, too. And you go by Bast?"
"Most of the time." Ray at my workplace, Houston Graphics, calls me Kitty—either because it's short for "Miss Kitty" (Ray's a fan of TV Westerns) or because Bast is the Egyptian goddess of cats—but that's about it for theme and variations.
"Well, Bast, first of all you can convince your friend in the orange dress" —that was Maidjene —"to find her records of who's supposed to be camiping at Paradise Lake this weekend, because if we don't get them, we just might have to decide to hold her as a material witness." Fayrene frowned at me.
A material witness, in case you didn't know, is just like a criminal, except with fewer civil rights —like arraignment, representation, and the chance of seeing the outside of the local jail before Hell freezes rock-solid.
"Uh-huh," I said. "What are you going to do with them? Are you going to make them public?"
"Now why should we do that?" Fayrene said back.
I hadn't the faintest idea. "It's just that people get jumpy, having information about them turned over to government agencies." Considering what a lot of it ends up getting used for. I wondered what the grounds for Maidjene and Larry's divorce were, and which of them was officially bringing suit, and whose files that information would sit in until the end of time. "If you could tell me what you want it for ..."
"We want it to catch whoever stuck Hellfire — if that's all right with you," Fayrene said, starting to sound annoyed.
"But it won't," I said. "Not if you think it's going to tell you who's at the festival or when they got here."
I launched into Basic Explanation #71, about how anyone can call himself a Pagan —or a Witch—without reference to any accrediting agency whatsoever, and about how the forms the registrants send into HallowFest every year are generally for entertainment purposes only.
"Some people got here yesterday and went to the site—and of those, some told Maidjene they were here, and some haven't gotten around to it yet. Some got as far as the area last night and checked into a local hotel instead of going to the site." There are some around here, unlikely as that seems. "Some aire getting here today. Some even live around here—well, sort of—and usually they put some people up, if they're coming from a long way away. But you can't tell from the forms. Some people just show up, because they've come every year."
"We'll just have to do our best without crystal balls and Tarot cards," Fayrene said sardonically. "And with the membership list. Consider yourself deputized."
I wasn't sure whether she could do that or not—and if she could, I'd prefer that she do it to somebody a lot more trustworthy.
And if she did, I at least wanted to get a badge out of it.
"I'll talk to Maidjene," I said. I wondered if I was going to have either a reputation or a nervous system left by Monday. "Do you think you're going to catch . . . whoever it was?"
"Well, we like to think so. Body's down to the morgue; we should know more by Monday."
"Like how whoever it was got him to lie down and strip?" I asked, ever helpful.
The waitress arrived, bringing my hamburger platter and a piece of pie for Fayrene.
"Go on," Fayrene said neutrally.
I explained my guesses, in between bites of burger. I left Iron-shadow's help out of my story, but told Fayrene everything else, including things she probably already knew, like how strong the killer would have to be —and how lucl^. "So who got Harm to hold still?" I finished.
And, I suddenly wondered, what had both of them —Harm and the murderer—been doing up there in the first place?
" 'How' is what you ought to be asking," Fajo-ene corrected my "who." "And we won't know that until sometime next week."
By which time everyone on the site would be gone.
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"Anybody out there we should talk to?" she went on. "Maybe somebody with a really short temper? It can't be any secret to you folks that you weren't exactly Harm's favorite people."
"Nobody from HallowFest would do something like that," I said indignantly.
"Someone did," Fayrene said dryly, "or do you think our local boys light candles around people and slop them all over with perfume before they stab them?"
It took a moment for what she'd said to sink in. Then I closed my eyes and tried to keep my burger where it was.
"Hi, Mom," a gangling young local said.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 — 1:00 p.m.
Jeff said you'd 10-70'd in from here. Did you know that old Hell-fire got himself murdered up with the Witches? Mom, can I go on up there, and — "
"What are you doing out of school this time of day?" Fayrene demanded, then apparently gave up the question as a bad job and said, "Bast, I'd like you to meet my son Wyler."
Wyler Pascoe was sixteen years old, an only child (as I found out later), and blond like his mother. He seemed likeable enough, which was a good thing, as it had apparently never occurred to Wyler Pascoe in all his young life that anyone wouldn't want him around.
"We had a half day today; 1 got out at noon," Wyler protested, all hurt innocence. He stared at me.
"Hi, Wyler. My name is Bast."
He took this as an invitation to sit down without otherwise acknowledging my presence; I moved over to make room for him.
"Hi. Mom, can I go up there and see them? 1 don't have to be at the garage until 3;GO, and Felix doesn't like it if I show up early, and I did only have a half day, so I thought—"
I don't have much experience with teenagers, but my experience, they only talk that much and that fast when they are trying to put something over on their parents.
"No," said his mother. "Paradise Lake is private property."
"But Mrs. Cooper won't mind —she lets me go up there all the time, and — "
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"But the Witches would mind. Wouldn't you?" Fayrene sad
d to me.
Wyler seemed to really notice I was there for the first time. He stared at me, goggle-eyed and silent.
I welcomed the distraction from Fayrene's last bombshell, even if the list of things 1 was ignoring to concentrate on the present moment was starting to get ridiculously long.
"You're one of the Witches?" Wyler breathed in awe. "A real Witch?" He stopped, and 1 gave him points for not asking what usually turns out to be the next question, which is whether 1 can turn the speaker into a toad. My stock response is that 1 don't believe in improving upon Nature's handiwork.
'That's right," I said. "Wicca is a NeoPagan religion. There are a lot of different NeoPagan traditions represented at HallowFest this weekend." Belle would be proud of me. "And a lot of families bring their kids, too." Let's hear it for family values.
"So can 1 go?" Wyler demanded again. "1 won't be long."
Fayrene frowned. I thought it best to be diplomatic.
"You'd have to have bought a membership several months ago —they don't sell them at the door." Which is different from paying at the door for something you reserved several months ago, and whoever was running it each year tried not to do that either. Besides that, we don't sell memberships to anyone under eighteen unless their parents are attending too, but there wasn't any point in mentioning that.
"Oh." There was a pause while Wyler digested these facts and Fayrene relaxed. "Can I have your french fries if you don't want them?"
I didn't want the french fries, I didn't want to be here, and most of all 1 didn't want to be the Sheriffs Office liaison to HallowFest. It didn't look like 1 was going to get what I wanted, except maybe with regard to the fries.
"Wyler, leave the lady alone," Fayrene said.
"Have them," I said, pushing my plate toward him.
"Is she the one that whacked him?" Wyler said, around a mouthful of fries. Fayrene snorted.
"Who would want to see Jackson Harm dead?" 1 asked, trying to ask detective-questions in the best amateur tradition.
"Other than everybody?" Fayrene said.
There was a pause while Wyler finished my fries, remembered somewhere else he had to be, and left. 1 drank coffee and tried not
to panic. John Law thought Harm's was a ritual murder on a site full of ritualists.
"You knew, didn't you?" Fayrene said, when we were alone again.
"1 saw the wax on the pine needles, and I knew there was anointing oil on the body," I admitted. I saw Fayrene's eyes flash and hurried on. "But I'm not a cop —a sheriffs deputy, I mean— and I didn't want to jump to any conclusions and tell you your job."
"You were just going to keep quiet and hope we'd miss it?" she said. Cops have this trick they do with their voices; the words sound like they're just making conversation, but the inflection they give things makes them sound as if they can meain anything at all. Or nothing.
I took a deep breath.
"1 wasn't going to mention it because 1 couldn't see how my guesses could do you any good. And because I could be wrong. And because if there were really something to see, you'd spot it." And because I'd been praying I was wrong, but I didn't say that. I didn't have to.
"Well, suppose you start guessing now," Fayrene said, not letting me off the hook.
"About who killed Jackson Harm?" I asked, barely keeping the outrage out of my voice. "I don't even know for sure how he was killed —or when."
"Cautious type, aren't you?" she said, scowling. "Welladay, let's see. Unless he was poisoned, that pop through the heart was how he got it. As for when, I'm not the coroner, but rigor had passed off by the time we got to him, and the night was cold—which would delay both onset and release — so say somewhere between midnight and four a.m. Maybe as late as five, though —bodies are funny that way."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked mournfully.
"Because you want to help us," Fayrene said, grinning with a shark-mouth full of teeth.
I supposed I did, once you defined enlightened self-interest loosely enough. I got back to the site about an hour later, armed with a mandate from the Sheriffs Office to do what I could to help—which boiled down to acting as a translator, mostly.
And to get Maidjene to turn loose of the Festival records.
1 didn't see the Warwagon when I got back to the bam, so it
340 Bell, Book, and Murder
looked as if Lany'd followed Ironshadow's, um, advice. There was a copy of the HallowFest schedule written out large and posted on the bulletin board on the side of the bam. Right now I had a choice between Woman's Herbalism of the Northeast (outside), Introduction to the Lesser Banishing Ritual (bam, upstairs, at the opposite end from the merchants), and Mediation for Coven Leaders (bam, downstairs). The herbalism workshop noted that its location had been changed from the Bardic Circle to the Lake Meadow. I noted the times for the Opening Ritual and Bardic Circle this evening.
There was a sign saying that Hoodoo Lunchbox would be playing at the Circle, and I was glad to see that Xharina had decided to make it up here. Then I thought things over and decided I actually wouldn't really wish this weekend on anyone I liked.
I tracked down Maidjene at the herbalism workshop after drawing a blank at both of the others. It was being held in an open space on the tenting field on the far side of the lake. The women were gathered in a circle around a gray-haired woman in her sixties who was wearing a crown of autumn leaves on her head. Fortunately, Maidjene was on the outer edge. I knelt down beside her.
"I need to talk to you," I said, keeping my voice down.
"Now?" Maidjene said.
"Now would be good," I said back.
The workshop leader was explaining that pennyroyal was no substitute for legal and political control of our reproductive rights —among other things, pennyroyal is an abortifacient, and damned dangerous when used for that purpose —and passing out flyers with addresses of various national politicos. Maidjene and I both took one, and then she stood up. I followed her.
She headed back in the direction of the cabins, but stopped on the bridge and stared down into the brack.
"You've got to give the police those records," I said. There was no point in being subtle.
"I don't have them," Maidjene said. She couldn't quite keep the smugness out of her voice.
"Find them. Look, Maidjene, they don't care about us. All they want is their killer."
"And they want to look for their suspect in the HallowFest registration forms. Forget it. Niceness Rules. I talked to Belle. I'll get a lawyer."
"You'll lose."
'Thank you very niceness much for the vote of confidence, Bast."
'They will arrest your niceness tuchis, Maidjene."
"I don't care. They're picking on us because we're different, Bast, and because we make good scapegoats."
'They'd ask anybody for this stuff!" I pointed out, getting exasperated. 'The New Baptist Republicans, even."
"Sure." Maidjene looked tired. "But the New Baptist Republicans wouldn't get harassed out of their job once it got back that they'd spent the weekend having hot sex and Satanic drug orgies in Upstate New York." Her shoulders sagged. She looked every year of her age plus ten or so more.
"You should get out of your ivory tower more. Bast. It isn't like it was in the sixties," Maidjene—who was my age and thus too young to really remember them—said. "It isn't even like it was in the eighties. The hammer's coming down. And if you aren't right in the mainstream, you're going to get smashed. It's already starting: conform, don't make trouble, don't need anything—do you know what they're doing to the entitlement programs in Congress? I can't give the police those records. Not because of what they'll do with them now; but what about five years from now? What about then?"
Like many of us, Maidjene has slightly left-leaning views: most members of a racial/religious/sexual/political minority get radicalized early and often. I wanted to tell her she was crazy, but lying well is not one of my strong suits.
"Sergeant Pascoe said
they'd keep it quiet," I offered feebly. 'They only want to catch the killer."
" 'Lx)ve work, hate mastery, and seek no friendships among the ruling class,'" Maidjene said, misquoting Hillel ben Shahar slightly.
"Maidjene, have you really thought this through?"
"If they ask me, I'm going to have to tell them I don't have the records," she repeated stubbornly.
If she were actually telling the truth, HallowFest would be wiped out financially—next year's organizers wouldn't be able to tell who'd paid, or who to send registration forms to. Not to mention that we were probably going to lose this site anyway, records or no.
But if Maidjene were telling the literal truth, as elves and Witches often do, someone else might have the information the Sheriffs Office wanted.
'Try to see your way clear to helping them," I said. "Or else who-
342 Bell, Book, and Murder
ever's trying to make trouble for us gets what he wanted." I barely remembered in time that she didn't know that Harm had been anointed before he was stabbed, or about the candles. And I didn't see any reason to share that information, now or ever.
"You don't understand. Bast," Maidjene said. 'This isn't just something I do on weekends. This is my life. I'm not going to say 'Oh, it just doesn't matter' any time it's more convenient to cooperate. I don't have a right to give up that list, even if somebody else in my situation was to feel differently."
Wicca wasn't a weekend thing for me any more than it was for Maidjene, and sometimes it was hard to count the friends and potential friends I'd lost to the choices I'd made. I thought she was wrong, but I didn't think I could change her mind. The martyr's crown bespells those of us who aren't Christians, too.
"Okay," I said, backing off. "I just thought I'd tell you."
"Sure." Maidjene smiled wanly. "May the Nice Be With You. And if ainybody shows up waving a bloody knife, I'll point him in your direction."
"^Do that," I said. She went back to the workshop. I crossed the bridge in the direction of the bam.
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