A Magical Match

by Juliet Blackwell

  “No, Carlos, I can’t believe this. What can I do to prove Sailor’s innocent?”

  “Find the killer.”

  “I . . . um, okay.”

  “Keep in mind that if Sailor didn’t do it, then the person who did looks a whole lot like him.”

  Suddenly I recalled Maya’s story about seeing someone who looked just like Sailor in the herbal store; could that have been the person who killed Tristan Dupree? And if so, why? And . . . who was he?

  “Need a refill?” Carlos asked. “It might just cure your cold.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Okay, tell me everything you know about Tristan Dupree.”

  “I don’t know much. I met him fifteen years ago or so, in Germany.”

  Carlos nodded. “He’s a Swiss citizen, here on a standard tourist visa. We’ve made inquiries about him in Europe. How did you meet him?”

  I thought back to the visions I’d had with Aidan. He was right. It was time to remember. Sailor’s life might depend upon it.

  “He worked with my father.”

  “That sounds like trouble.”

  “You’re telling me.” Carlos had once arrested my father for a crime he didn’t commit, either . . . but still, he could tell good old Dad was bad news.

  “Really, Carlos, I’ve been racking my brain ever since Dupree came to Aunt Cora’s Closet, but I barely knew him.”

  “And yet he arrived on the Lufthansa flight into SFO yesterday morning, dropped his bags at the hotel, and then headed to your shop to demand you return something you’d stolen from him fifteen years ago?”

  “Are you sure he came directly to Aunt Cora’s Closet?”

  “We’re working on the timeline. The hotel says he left about forty minutes before I saw him at your place, so it’s possible he stopped somewhere else. I’m not sure how much it matters. Have you figured out what he wanted from you?”

  “Not yet.” I thought I heard the box thump next to me. The bar was noisy, though, so it was probably my imagination.

  I played with the ring on my finger. The crystals sparkled in the dim light of the bar, casting minuscule rainbows about us. Comforting me.

  What bēag had Tristan been after—and what was its significance?

  “Nice ring,” said Carlos. “Unusual.”

  “It’s called a druzy. Sailor gave it to me for . . .” My voice caught. I cleared my throat. “It’s our engagement ring.”

  He nodded slowly, holding my gaze. “I heard about that through the grapevine. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” I was embarrassed that I hadn’t reached out to tell Carlos that Sailor and I had gotten engaged. But it had felt awkward to pick up the phone and call him to deliver the news out of the blue. After all, usually I called him about murder. Although I liked to think of Carlos as a friend, the truth was that ours was not a typical friendship. Also, although their relationship had progressed a little, he still wasn’t wild about Sailor. “I guess it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

  He nodded.

  “Speaking of engagements,” I continued, “my grandmother and her friends are set to arrive any day now. I’m not sure how long they’ll stay, so we’ve sort of moved up the wedding timetable. We’re having a handfasting in two weeks, in Bolinas.”

  “What’s a handfasting?”

  “It’s a traditional witchy wedding, usually held outside, in a natural setting. We’re not certain if Bronwyn will get her certification to officiate in time, so we might have to do the legal ceremony later. But the handfasting will be the real ceremony, the one that counts. I would love it if you would join us.”

  His mouth kicked up on one side. I imagined he was thinking, What if Sailor is still in jail? I decided to cross that bridge if and when we came to it.

  “I would be honored, Lily,” said Carlos. But there was something else in his eyes, something I couldn’t put my finger on. Sailor always insisted that reading minds wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but I thought it would make my life a lot easier if I could do it.

  “All right.” Carlos finished off his Irish coffee and wiped a little cream from his lips with a cocktail napkin. “So, a man you haven’t seen or heard from in fifteen years, whom you barely knew in the first place, arrived in town yesterday, stopped by your shop and threatened you, then got dead at the hands of someone who looks like your fiancé, walks like your fiancé, and talks like your fiancé but who is not, in fact, your fiancé. Is that about the size of it?”

  I nodded.

  “You know, Lily, if anyone else told me this story, I’d say they were full of it.”

  “But you believe me?”

  “I don’t not believe you. Did Dupree have any enemies in town that you know about?”

  “I have no idea. But I’m going to find out, sure as shootin’.”

  If only I knew how to get started.

  Chapter 7

  First things first: I wanted to see Sailor. I pleaded with Carlos. Cajoled. Threatened, even—politely, of course.

  Carlos was unmoved. “Do you know what time it is? Visiting hours are over, Lily. You can see him in the morning, and that’s final. I’m sure you remember the basic rules: no head coverings, bare midriff, miniskirts, gang-related clothing, orange clothing that resembles inmate clothing, or anything that reveals undergarments.”

  “You don’t know the regulations for visitation by heart?”

  “I didn’t want to show off,” he said with a smile. “And by the way, if I hear there’s been any funny stuff happening there, I’m going to be most displeased.”

  “Funny stuff?”

  “Some member of the jail staff suddenly deciding to allow an after-hours visit between you and Sailor, for example. If I catch a whiff of you pulling some sort of magical shenanigans, I’m gonna be pissed. I’m your friend, but I’m also a cop. I’ll do what I can to help, but don’t push me.”

  “No shenanigans, magical or otherwise, I promise. Could you at least check on Sailor, make sure he’s okay?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Maybe give him a message?”

  “That much I can do.”

  I wrote a note and cast a quick comforting spell over it. Folded it, and sealed it with a kiss.

  “I said no magic stuff.”

  “It’s just a kiss, Carlos. It doesn’t actually do anything.”

  “All right, then. You can see him at nine in the morning. I’ll leave word.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Lily.” Carlos hesitated. “I assume you’re going to try to find out what’s going on.”

  “Yes. Please don’t try to talk me out of it, because it won’t work.”

  “I wasn’t going to. Something weird is happening here, and you’re probably the only person who has the skills to find out what that is. But be careful. It’s a safe bet that whoever killed Tristan Dupree and framed Sailor for the crime has targeted you as well.”

  After declining Carlos’s offer of an escort home, I waved good-bye to him and lingered outside the Buena Vista, gazing out at the dark bay waters and trying to decide what to do next.

  Where in the world should I start?

  A group of young people jostled along the sidewalk, stumbling toward the Buena Vista for a final nightcap before it closed. This area of the waterfront wasn’t as mobbed with tourists as Pier 39, a few blocks away, but it enjoyed its fair share of visitors, due to the terminus of the Powell-Hyde cable car line. Couples walked arm in arm, peeking into art gallery windows that displayed watercolors and limited-edition silk screens of the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, and other iconic scenes of San Francisco. Nearby stood the Cannery and the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, relics of a time when there was actual manufacturing in this part of town. The old redbrick buildings had long since been renovated and turned into boutiques, resta
urants, and bars that teemed with people having a good time.

  I wasn’t one of them.

  The thought of Sailor sitting in jail—facing murder charges, no less—clawed at my belly with a mixture of dread and fear and anxiety about the future. He hadn’t done it, had he? Surely not. If Dupree had been immediately threatening to me, I could imagine Sailor being capable of violence. But beating a man to death with his bare hands, then calmly heading out of the building while casually checking his watch? No. That was not Sailor.

  For want of any other bright ideas, I borrowed a cell phone from the bartender who stood on the sidewalk taking a smoke break. I called a friend, then headed over to the Hotel Marais, on Bush Street.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sailor was the best necromancer I knew. Second best was Hervé Le Mansec, a voodoo priest who owns a nifty little magical-supply shop on Valencia. I didn’t know much about voodoo, but Hervé was a powerful practitioner; in a city full of charlatans, Hervé was the real deal. Also, he had become a good friend—the kind I could call and ask to meet me in the middle of the night.

  “What’s up?” Hervé asked when we met on Bush Street, just down the block from the Chinatown gates. He looked relaxed and wide-awake, despite the hour. Luckily a lot of us magical folk are night owls.

  “A man was killed here earlier in the evening,” I said. “I’m hoping you might be able to communicate with him.”

  Hervé looked skeptical. “You know it hardly ever works that way, right? Even if I am able to make contact, trauma victims rarely remember what happened just prior to death.”

  “I know. But he might be able to tell you if someone had been threatening him, or what he was after. He came to see me, searching for something he thought I’d stolen from him.”

  “What was it?”

  “That’s one of the very many things I don’t know. Just . . . Really, I’d rather not say too much ahead of time. But if you can make contact and get any information at all from him, I’ll be better off than I am right now.”

  He inclined his head. Hervé wasn’t particularly tall, but he was powerfully built, with the thick physique of a rugby player. In his public role as a voodoo priest, he spoke with a lilting Jamaican accent, but in actuality he hailed from Los Angeles and had been raised Catholic.

  “I appreciate your meeting me here at this hour. Please apologize to your wife for me. Again.”

  Hervé’s wife, Caterina, was yet another person who didn’t like me, though in this case it was probably for good reason. This wasn’t the first time I’d asked Hervé for help after hours. Well after hours.

  “I see you brought supplies,” he said, nodding to the shoe box under my arm and the backpack slung over my shoulder.

  “A few. Salts and a basic brew, a few crystals. Just the usual; I try to keep the backpack ready to go.”

  “In case you need to cast in a hurry?”

  “I’m sure you can imagine. With the way life is unfolding lately . . .” I trailed off with a shrug.

  He grinned. “Let’s give it a go. You really think they’ll let us in?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Always, my friend. But just to be sure, why don’t I wait out of sight while you ring the bell?”

  I saw his point. I wasn’t all that intimidating in my floral cotton dress—better suited to a summer picnic than a midnight assignation—tangerine cardigan, turquoise Keds, and ponytail. Hervé was another matter altogether.

  The Hotel Marais was a tall, thin Victorian-era building, squashed in between a large residential building and a small theater advertising a midnight all-nude male revue. Along the facade, several flags wafted lazily in the night breeze: those of France, the United States, and California with its iconic grizzly bear, and a blue one with stars that I didn’t recognize.

  I climbed a short set of stone steps and rang the after-hours bell.

  As a child who was shunned by the larger community of Jarod, Texas, I had developed a bit of a complex about having doors slammed in my face. But since moving to San Francisco, I had been so embraced by my friends that I had started to relax. Right now, though, the old feelings of rejection came rushing back, and I was grateful to have a friend like Hervé by my side. Hidden and crouching, but by my side nonetheless.

  A thin man peered through the glass door. Young, probably a college student working a second job. He was dressed in dark slacks and a plaid shirt, but his brown hair was tousled and his eyes puffy, as though he’d been asleep.

  “May I help you?” he said through the locked doors. He wore a name tag: Shawn.

  “Could you open the door, Shawn?”

  He sized me up, then buzzed the door open. Shawn’s eyes widened in alarm when Hervé joined me at the top of the stairs. Shawn was forced to step back as the three of us crowded into the small foyer.

  “Are you . . . I’m sorry. Are you guests?” Shawn asked nervously.

  “No, we—”

  “Sorry, but we don’t have any rooms to let.”

  “We’d like to see room two seventeen, please,” I said, stroking my medicine bag and focusing my intent.

  “That’s a . . . That room’s not available.”

  “I understand. We just want to take a quick look.”

  “There’s crime scene tape up.”

  I took his hand in mine, gazed into his eyes, and concentrated. I wasn’t always able to influence others, but in general I had good luck with people in the hospitality business, probably because their job was to accommodate their patrons.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Shawn. I’m sorry to have awakened you so late. We’ll only need a few minutes. Why don’t you give me the key to room two seventeen, and then you can go back to sleep? I’ll leave the key at the desk on my way out. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  Shawn relaxed. “Um . . . okay, I guess it’d be all right.”

  The foyer led into a narrow hall; to the right was a cozy parlor, and to the left a small chamber filled with tiny café tables; a coffee machine, a stack of newspapers, and a platter of cookies rested on a counter. Beyond that was an office crammed with two desks topped by computers.

  A statue of Joan of Arc in full armor stood at the end of the hallway; another flag and several maps of France added to the Gallic flavor of the boutique hotel. But what really caught my eye were the delicate, colorful paintings of mythological creatures along the tops of the walls, on the door panels, and winding up the columns. There were allegorical and humorous figures and animals, along with a framework of garlands, borders, fans, piers, and cartouches with landscapes or narrative scenes. Unless I missed my guess, these were copies of the ceiling frescoes from the Uffizi museum in Florence.

  “Grottesche,” I said. Hervé raised an eyebrow, and I nodded at the paintings.

  “Yeah,” Shawn said. “They’re kind of cool, right? The hotel’s former owner was enthralled with these things. When his wife died, he started painting, and didn’t stop until he’d painted just about every flat surface he could find.”

  “They’re beautiful. Oh, one more thing,” I said to Shawn as something occurred to me. “Did you meet the victim?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did he say anything, do anything odd?”

  “He didn’t say much. He came down to the office at one point and said he wasn’t feeling well, asked for the name of a pharmacy.”

  “Where did you send him?”

  “To the drugstore around the corner. But he said he preferred natural remedies, so I told him to talk to Quan.”

  “And who is Quan?”

  “The day manager. I don’t know much about Chinese medicine, but Quan swears by it. She says it’s the only thing that really works.”

  “And was she able to help him?”

  “She told him about an herb store, the Lucky something, on Sacra
mento.”

  “The Lucky Moon?” I suggested. That was Sailor’s favorite apothecary, the one Maya had “seen” him in. It was a popular shop, not far from the hotel, so perhaps it was simply a coincidence.

  Shawn nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “Did he go, do you know? Any idea what he bought there?”

  Shawn shrugged. “Said he felt sick to his stomach and stuff. Gotta say, he looked kind of pale.”

  “And what about the man”—my voice wavered, as though railing against the idea of Sailor standing accused of murder—“the man people saw leave the scene?”

  “He’s on our security tapes,” said Shawn.

  “So I hear.”

  “I told everything to the police. No one saw him come in, but a bunch of people saw him leave. It was hard not to notice.”

  “Anything strike you as odd?”

  “Besides the fact that he had blood all over him?”

  My stomach quailed.

  “Yes, besides that.”

  Shawn shrugged. “People were freaking out at the sight of him, but he was totally calm. He stopped and looked at an old-fashioned pocket watch, and then kept on going. Weird, right?”

  “Yep, weird. Okay, thanks. The room key?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Shawn said, foraging behind the desk and handing me the key. “The forensics people left about an hour ago. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  I thanked Shawn again, encouraged him to go back to sleep; then Hervé and I hurried toward the narrow circular stairs that wound around the elevator.

  “Does the pocket watch have any significance to you?” I asked Hervé.

  “Maybe he was late for a very important date?” Hervé suggested. “Seriously, the only thing it brings up for me is the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.”

  Well, that seemed apt. I felt a lot like I’d fallen down a rabbit hole lately.