by India Ink
As I turned onto Island Drive, I saw that the power was back on for everybody in the downtown area. The oak had been cleared out of the way. I parked in front of Venus Envy and strode into the bakery. Barbara was slipping a tray of crullers into the display case. I pointed to the maple bars, holding up two fingers.
“Elliot showed up at the house this morning. I need two of those, stat!”
She laughed. “Oh great, what did his jerkiness want?”
“To rail against what a bitch I am, what else?” I muttered. “Anyway, so when can you leave today? I was thinking if we headed over to Seattle early enough, we could check out the Radiance Cosmetics Boutique. I think there’s one downtown in Pioneer Square.”
Barbara grimaced. “Dorian wasn’t all that thrilled when I told him I was going to a nightclub with you, but he finally relented. I’m tied up until noon, though. Will that be okay?”
I nodded. “Noon is fine. We’ll have time to dress, catch the ferry, and hit Seattle by three o’clock. Do you know what you’re going to wear?”
She snorted. “I have a little outfit that I think will knock your socks off.”
I was banking on a pair of tight black jeans, a Lycra halter top, a pair of spikes, and my leather jacket for myself. I just hoped Barb wasn’t planning on a retro job. I vaguely remembered seeing her dressed for a date when I was twelve. She had stopped to say hi and had been dressed in a tight Spandex miniskirt and a glitter headband.
“As soon as you can get away, come over and get me.” I snagged up my maple bars, tossed two dollars on the counter, and returned to Venus Envy, where Tawny was trying to cope with a distraught customer. I deposited my pastries and purse at my station and hurried over to help.
The customer had a bitter, pinched look on her face and Tawny looked about ready to blow a gasket. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Mrs. Winters has a complaint. She found . . .” She paused, then winced as she said, “She found dried blood on her bottle of bath salts.”
Oh, good Lord! I gingerly took the bag that the red-faced woman handed me and peeked inside. Lemon Verbena salts. They’d been on the shelf next to where Lydia had been killed. I slid the bottle out of the bag and sure enough, the back and bottom edge were speckled with blood. Aunt Florence and I had fallen down on the job. Wincing, I forced a smile and cleared my throat.
“I am so sorry. I have no idea how this happened. I can assure you that we cleaned up everything here after . . .” I stopped. There was nothing I could say that would make it any better, and most likely, I’d just make it worse. “Would you like a refund or an exchange?”
She let out a loud sigh to let me know how exasperated she was. “Well, I’ve never had problems here before. I suppose an exchange.”
Quickly, I sized up the situation. She wanted to be compensated for her shock and a simple tit-for-tat wasn’t going to cut it. “Tawny, please get Mrs. Winters two Lemon Verbena bath salts from the back, along with a matching bottle of body lotion. Then go over that shelf with a magnifying glass.”
Tawny nodded and I escorted the woman over to one of the benches lining the wall and poured her a mug of orange-zest tea. She gave me a guarded smile and said, “You know, I love this shop and I was so surprised yesterday when I got home and found the blood.”
“It should never have happened,” I said. “And I apologize again. I don’t know why we didn’t notice it before you left the store with your purchase.”
She gave me a broad smile. We’d been forgiven. “Well, I was in here yesterday, right when the oak tree came crashing down. With the power out and so much confusion, it probably escaped Tawny’s notice. No harm done. Well, I won’t keep you, dear. I’ll be fine.”
I stood up and gave her a gracious nod. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, just let me know.”
As I passed Tawny on her way out of the back, I whispered, “Make certain that all the other bottles are clean. In fact, if you find any with blood or other questionable material on them, take them in the back and put them in a basket with a note. Auntie and I were sure we found everything but you never know—we were both in shock at the time.”
By the time I’d settled in at my station and wolfed down the maple bars, my 10:30 appointment had arrived. Juanita Lopez was one of our regulars. She came in like clockwork every week for a facial, and she must have owned every product we had on the shelves. Sometimes I wondered where she stored them all.
Juanita was short and plump, with a gleaming black braid that hung down her back to the small of her waist. She had clear skin and incredibly warm eyes, and was altogether charming, if a little lacking in self-esteem. This morning, however, something seemed off kilter.
I motioned her to sit on the bench opposite my table. “Hey lady, how you doing?”
She shrugged instead of giving me her usual dizzyingly brilliant smile. “I need one of your potions, Persia. A strong one.”
I glanced up. Her voice was guarded and I tried to read her eyes. “Tell me about it.”
Juanita stared at her hands for a moment. The nails were short, her hands worn rough through years of hard work. They had character, those hands, as much as the woman herself.
“I think my husband is having an affair. I want something to remind him that I’m the one who’s stuck by him all these years. Something that makes me smell beautiful and young.” I started to speak but she stopped me. “No, don’t say it. You always tell me I’m beautiful but I don’t believe it. I can’t. Not with this figure, not with these wrinkles on my face. I know I’m beginning to show my age, but I can’t afford Botox or a plastic surgeon.”
A sinking feeling surging in the pit of my stomach, I understood what she was asking from me. A love potion. Something to make her look and feel radiant again. I knew I could create something that would help shift her mood. And, if she felt differently about herself, others would probably react differently to her, but it wouldn’t be a magic potion to change her husband’s mind if he had found comfort elsewhere. As gently as I could, I explained this to her.
She shook her head. “I know you aren’t really a bruja, I know you can’t work miracles. But you can have a way with herbs and plants and perfumes, Persia. I’ve seen it in you. Your clerk could sit here and blend up a fragrance using the same recipe you created, and it wouldn’t smell the same. You put passion into your work, and I need that.”
Her voice was raw, her nerves frayed. Tension rolled off her like waves of heat on a summer afternoon. Well, hell. She really believed I could help, and maybe that alone would be enough. Maybe whatever I created would inspire enough self-confidence in her that she’d go home and confront her husband, or show him what he’d be missing if he left.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get started.”
I asked her to wash her hands and, while she was gone, I leafed through one of the reference works I kept on a shelf behind my station. Herbs and fragrances had personalities, energies inherent to their nature, according to modern witches. Having worked with plants a good share of my life, I believed them.
Skimming through the index, I came to a listing of traits. Herbs to Inspire Love and Passion. Let’s see. Orange and rose, and—of course—amber and musk. I was already building the scent in my mind. Narcissus would act as the base—a fragrance as intense as its name. Oh yeah, we’d make her husband sit up and take notice, and if this turned out as delicious as I thought it was going to smell, I might have to make some for Barbara. Get Dorian sparking again. By the time Juanita had returned, I’d jotted down a page of notes.
Starting with a base of almond oil, I added the foundation note of narcissus to cement the perfume. Then, a few drops of musk, a hint of amber, and a highlight of rose, swirling gently after each addition to blend but not bruise the scent. I added a top note of orange, then a few chips of garnet and rose quartz and a shredded rose petal. As I closed my eyes and brought the bottle to my nose, I thought I was going to faint. Heady and intoxicating, the scent made me wa
nt to roll in it. I dabbed a few drops of the oil onto Juanita’s wrists and told her to walk around the store for a moment. While she was gone, I went over to our bulk herb section and filled a sachet with lemon balm, damiana, angelica, dill weed, and some powdered dragon’s blood resin. I tied it up with a pretty bow as Juanita returned.
“What do you think?” I asked.
She sniffed her wrists and her face crinkled into a smile. “I love it! It’s perfect. If that doesn’t catch his notice, nothing will. Thank you so much!”
“Don’t thank me for something that hasn’t happened yet. I’m just glad you like the scent and I hope everything works out. Here.” I handed her the sachet. “These herbs are supposed to promote devotion and love. I don’t know if it will do any good, but it smells nice and you can tuck it in your lingerie drawer.”
Juanita clutched the little velveteen pouch, her eyes misting over. “Thank you, Persia. I appreciate what you’ve done.”
Unable to handle her joy—if her husband was cheating I couldn’t understand why she’d want him back—I pulled out my invoice pad and asked, “Do you want this in a cologne base, or just as the oil itself?”
“The oil is fine,” she said. “I prefer it to cologne.”
I wrote up the order and handed her the invoice. “The sachet is on me. Good luck, and I hope . . .” What could I say? I hope your husband quits cheating on you? I hope you’re mistaken? But she just gave me a quick nod and took the receipt up to the counter to pay. As I watched her walk away, I had the feeling that it was already too late. No perfume—magical or otherwise—would help her if her husband had found somebody else. Had I given her false hope? Perhaps, I argued with myself, but at least I’d been up front about it. With a sigh, I tucked away my oils and glanced at the clock. Quarter to eleven.
I really didn’t feel like working. Storms always made me restless. My moods shifted with the wind, and right now they were hungry for the open road, for something—anything—to take out the tension that had been building ever since I’d found Lydia’s body. At least tomorrow was my date with Bran. Climbing the rock wall in the gym would help, but even that paled in comparison to what I really wanted—a good hard hike under the open sky, smelling the dirt and the grass and the ocean, feeling the wind rush through my hair.
I glanced around the shop, looking for something to occupy my thoughts, when the phone rang and Tawny motioned to me. It was Andy Andrews.
“Andy? I’m Persia Vanderbilt and I’m working with Winthrop Winchester on the Wang case. Thanks for calling back. I was wondering if I could drop over and ask you a couple questions?”
He cleared his throat. “You a cop?”
“No, I’m not—”
“ ’K. Say, how old are you? You don’t sound very old to me.”
I rolled my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Andy was beginning to sound pretty young to me, too, but then I’d been forewarned by his answering machine. “I’m under fifty, okay? Now, may I come over?”
What sounded suspiciously like a beer burp deafened me. “Sure dude, come on over then.”
Already regretting my trip into Beavis-and-Butthead land, I grabbed my shawl, told Tawny I’d be back in about forty-five minutes, and hit the road.
Chapter Fifteen
Andy must have been waiting near the door. I’d barely knocked when it flew open and he looked me up and down. His eyes lingering on my breasts, he beckoned me in with a lazy smile.
Oh jeez, don’t even think it, I thought. Nope, not in a million years.
“So, you’re Persia. Nice to meet you. Very nice.” His gaze traveled up my body to my face where, seeing my expression, he coughed and forced a “ha-ha-just-joking” smile. This boy was hard up, and his clothes looked it.
Classic grunge, but with a faded look that was for real, not chic. Ground-in grass stains on the legs told me he was really too poor to afford anything better. His pants clung precariously from his hips, three sizes too big, showing off the top of his faded underpants. A camouflage tee shirt stretched tautly across his loosely muscled chest, and he wore a baseball cap turned backwards over long, dirty blond hair well on the road to dreadlocks. His sneakers weren’t tied, the tongue protruded, standing at attention. Yeah, he was with it, all right.
“Andrew Andrews,” he introduced himself, grimacing. I repressed an urge to smile. Parents could be cruel, very cruel. He thrust out his hand before I had a chance to extend my own and I gingerly took it.
I sucked in a quick breath and exhaled just as fast when the scent of stale beer and pot assaulted my nose. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I know you talked to the police, but I want to double-check on what you told them. It’s really important. Are you sure you don’t remember anything about that night? Anybody unusual?”
A look of disappointment played at his lips and he flopped down on one of the sofas and planted his feet on the coffee table, leaving me standing.
“I already talked to the cops,” he said. “I don’t remember nothing. Maybe there was somebody there. Maybe not. I dunno.”
Couldn’t get much vaguer than that. “Well, did you know Marta Mendoza? She lived in this building—”
Bingo! That got a rise. “Marta? Yeah, I know her. Why?”
I had the feeling he didn’t know she was dead. “She was murdered yesterday. In her apartment.”
He blanched, the first real sign I’d seen that he was capable of being interested in anything outside of himself. “Marta? Dead? Who’d want to kill her? She’s just a nice old lady.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together, staring at the coffee table. “She reminds me of my grandma.”
I shrugged. “Cops don’t know. What I’d like to find out is whether you remember Marta being at the aquarium that night? Did she come in to use the phone?” Maybe, just maybe, I could jangle his pot-addled memory.
Andy squinted. “Not that I know of. She usually showed up early in the evening, if at all, but she wasn’t there that night.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “But she could have come in while you weren’t looking?”
He shook his head. “Nah. That I’m pretty sure about. Marta only came in when she saw me there because I gave her quarters out of the till to use the phone. It’s like, fifty cents now, y’know? I’d tear up ticket receipts to match the amount so the management didn’t know. Marta was always broke. I did what I could to help.” He gave me a sullen look. “You going to report me?”
I flashed him a slow smile. Even slackers had their good sides. “No, Andy, I won’t report you. I just wanted to know if you’d seen her. Again, thank you for your time.” As I headed out of the apartment, I turned back. “Do you know what apartment she lived in?”
He nodded. “412B. Say, you sure you don’t want to hang out? We could have a beer. Maybe fool around a little?” He stared pointedly at my crotch. “You’re one hot-looking chick.”
Not even worth the energy to smack him. I snorted. “Thank you for the scintillating offer, but I think I’ll pass.” I took off for the stairs.
The fourth floor of the building looked much like the fifth. It occurred to me that if Mrs. Fairweather was on the opposite side of the hall, I might be able to drop in on her, but that thought went out the window when I noticed that Marta’s door was open. I peeked inside and came face to face with Kyle.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Oh no, don’t tell me you’re going to bother old Mrs. Fairweather? She’s blind and can’t see you coming. I forbid it, Persia.”
Nonplussed by how quickly he read my intentions, I snapped, “You can’t forbid me from talking to anybody I want to, but the fact of the matter is that I stopped in to see Andy Andrews.”
He let out a quick snicker, unable to keep a straight face. “Good old Andy, huh? He’s quite a prize. Smart kid, low ambition. Too lazy to even be a slacker. You thinking of dating him after you get done with Stanton?”
“Wipe that smirk off your face, Chief, or I’ll do it for you.”
I glanced around the room. “So, this is Marta’s apartment. Mind if I take a look?”
He frowned but nodded me in, closing the door behind me. “We finished here this morning. I was just picking up some things we left before we release the apartment to her daughter.”
The apartment was a haven to memory. Old linen tea towels covered the neatly polished surfaces of cheap furniture. Carefully knitted afghans were casually draped over a thrift-store sofa and rocking chair. As I gazed at one wall, which must have contained fifty framed photos, it occurred to me that I’d thought of her as the cleaning lady, but Marta was a human being, with a private life, and her job had reflected only one aspect of that life.
The photographs were old, some of them with an antiquated look. An old black-and-white picture appeared to have been taken in a small Mexican village and was of an older man and woman. The woman, dressed in a woven poncho over what looked like a flowered dress, looked very much like Marta and could have been her mother. But judging from the setting and look of the photo, I had the feeling the pair were probably her grandparents. Another was a picture of a lovely young woman and a baby.