A Cast-Off Coven (11 page)

“Going on?”

“Weird noise-wise.”

“Ah. You’re a ghost hunter?” he asked, a gleam entering his eyes. “Do you use any of that high-tech equipment?”

“Not exactly. I’m just sensitive to such things, though to paraphrase a friend, you don’t have to be sensitive to hear what you and I experienced today.” I looked him up and down. “I have to say, Luc, you’re pretty nonchalant for someone who was just assailed by the unexplainable.”

“I lived in Europe for some time. In an old castle. You want to talk about spirits . . . Let’s just say I’ve seen enough to try to keep an open mind.”

That was refreshing.

“Just be more careful, okay?” I said. “If I hadn’t pulled you away earlier, you might have lost your eyesight. No joke.”

“I’ll be careful. Come to my office, and I’ll call down and see if Walker’s around. He set up shop in my studio. A pipe burst in his ground-floor space not long ago.”

Luc led me down the now-quiet hall to his small office. A number of scale models and small sculptures adorned simple wood shelves, and there were papers everywhere, not stacked but seemingly tossed willy- nilly. Lots of fine-point Sharpie pens and sketches in black ink on thick white paper, mostly nudes and details of the human body.

“I do my actual sculpting work in my studio. This space is just for the paperwork, and the thought. Two different processes. Thinking through one’s work, then bringing it to fruition.”

“I always thought artists came up with their ideas on the spot. You know, moved by the muse, that sort of thing.”

He shook his head. “If only. Sculpting stone involves taking away rather than building up, so a mistake can’t be undone. If you rush in and start carving, you’ll end up with nothing. A lot of consideration goes into it. It’s as though you’re freeing the very essence of the stone.”

“I think I heard someone quote you on that just last night. Is Ginny Mueller one of your students?

“She is.”

“I hear she was just offered gallery representation.”

“Ginny?”

“That’s what I hear. You’re surprised?”

“Frankly, yes. Her work shows a lot of promise, but her technique’s immature. Nothing time won’t solve, but she’s not there yet. Not by a long shot.”

“Maybe you’re a better teacher than you think.” He smiled. “Well, like I always say, it’s better than working for a living.”

Luc reached over to the beige institutional phone and dialed Walker Landau. They had a brief exchange, and Luc told him I was on my way down. He drew a little map on a pad of scratch paper.

“He’s just one floor down,” Luc said. “Feel free to leave your pig here with me if you’d like.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“After our little incident, I could use the company. It does get creepy up here occasionally.” He took a Pay-Day candy bar out of his desk drawer and gestured to Oscar. “Does he like peanuts?”

“As far as I can tell, he likes everything, with the possible exception of ham.” I watched as Oscar proved my point by sitting prettily for a portion of the candy bar. “Thank you so much.”

I patted Oscar and headed down the hall to the narrow stairs.

As I rounded the landing, I realized there was a subtle hint of scent on me—Luc’s scent. It was a heady aroma. He was charming. I didn’t trust him, but was that because of him or me? Partly he was too good- looking,
too
charming—I had the sense that he got whatever he wanted, not through magic as did Aidan, but as a favored heir to the throne. He had probably been voted Most Popular in high school.

I had not been exactly popular in high school, and had an innate distrust of those who were.

Down on the second floor, I found Walker Landau easily enough. The door was open and the light on, and he waved me in eagerly.

“Hello, hello, come on in,” he said. My second impression was the same as the first: He was almost cadaver-like in appearance; not ugly, just . . . odd. Still, he looked better in his paint-splattered smock than he had in last night’s ill-fitting jacket; more at home.

The studio was large and airy, with white dust covering much of the floor. There were sculptures in varying states, male and female nudes, some nearly finished, others barely more than blocks of marble with a few gouges in them. A few were covered with drop cloths, giving them humanoid, vaguely threatening shapes.

In the center of the room was a circle of easels ringed around a raised platform, ready for a painting seminar. Along one side of the room sat canvases of varying sizes featuring somber compositions of black and gray streaks on a white background, or white and black streaks on a gray background, or gray and white streaks on a black background. I was sensing a theme.

In another corner of the room were canvases of a completely different style. These were figurative, full of rich oil colors that reminded me of the Pre-Raphaelites. These paintings were in varying states of completion with a single unifying theme: A spiral staircase of stone steps led into a tormented sea, and a naked young woman who looked a lot like Andromeda stood bound on the bottom stair, menaced at the water’s edge.

I stopped and studied one particularly large canvas on the wall. It was Andromeda, all right, right down to the hint of a dimple on one cheek. Her face showed the anxiety of the waiting, the horror of knowing that your father has willingly sacrificed you to the monster.

“Do you like it?” asked Walker from right behind me.

“I . . . um . . .” I’m not great at lying, even little white social lies. “It’s well done, but it’s a bit . . .”

“Disturbing? It’s supposed to be.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Art isn’t only about beauty, you know. It’s about making people see what they can’t necessarily see with their own eyes.”

He was right about one thing: The painting made me feel something more than just a simple response to a fabricated scene.

“Is that your work as well?” I asked, pointing toward the black, gray, and white canvases.

“My old stuff. But it seems so tedious now. I’ve been working like crazy lately, going in a whole new direction,” Walker said, a feverish look in his eye. “It’s so exciting; it feels like a blur when I paint it. I’m so absorbed in the work, I hardly notice the time going by.”

“What does Andromeda think of it?”

“Andi? She poses for me when she can. Her story—actually the story of her name—inspires me. Do you know the myth?”

“I do, yes.” I nodded, turning away from the disturbing paintings. I wasn’t sure I was up for a long monologue about Walker Landau’s artistic process. “Andromeda seems to be a popular model. Luc mentioned using her for a sculpture, as well.”

“Who are you, again?” Walker asked.

“I’m Lily Ivory,” I said, realizing I hadn’t introduced myself. I held out my hand to shake, but he held up his paint-spattered one and declined. “I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about Jerry Becker. Did you know him well?”

“As well as anyone, I guess,” Landau said as he began cleaning his brushes in mineral spirits, then wiping them with a rag that used to be a white T-shirt. “He wasn’t the kind to let people get close. But when his daughter enrolled here, he started coming around more often. He was very supportive of my painting.”

As Landau spoke, I concentrated, not so much on his words as on his aura. His vibrations were sincere, but confused. My mind flashed on those sociopaths who can fool lie detectors because they genuinely don’t feel guilt, or shame, or other emotions that make us healthy human beings. But Landau was no sociopath; just a nerdy artist wrapped up in himself and his art.

“Yes, I was with Jerry right before . . . before he was killed, but so were a lot of other people.” A petulant note crept into Landau’s voice. “And there must have been two dozen people who heard that fight between Jerry and Luc last night. Why aren’t they going after
him
?”

“I think the police are talking to a lot of people,” I said. “It’s standard to speak to anyone who might have been with the victim in the time before death.”

“They’ve got it in for me.”

“Have they said anything to make you think you’re a person of interest?”

“Not in so many words. But I can tell by the way they look at me. You know, I’ve always been socially awkward, an outcast. Sometimes my reactions . . . well, they’re misunderstood.”

My heart went out to him. True, there was something off-putting about Walker Landau, but I of all people understood what it meant to be an outsider. It became a Catch-22: The more you tried to fit in, the more awkward everything became. Social misfits were doomed before the first school bell rang in the morning.

“Walker, why were you asking Susan Rogers about the bell tower?”

“I found her book, and I thought she might be able to cast some light on the history of the building. This is going to sound crazy, but there’s something inspirational about the bell tower. Whenever I get stuck, I go climb those stairs—it’s also part of the new get-fit program Todd’s been helping me with.”

It was beyond me why anyone would climb indoors when San Francisco’s famous hills—not to mention the steep, scenic stairs to Coit Tower—beckoned right outside the school’s doors.

“That explains the pull-up bar,” I said, gesturing to the chrome bar suspended in an archway.

Walker curled one arm as though to show me his biceps, an amusing but unfortunate gesture that reminded me of the old cartoon about a ninety-eight-pound weakling . . . in this case writ very tall.

“Anyway, the kids say the bell tower’s haunted,” Walker said. “That’s crazy, isn’t it? But I started hearing things myself, and wondered. Besides, I wanted to know the story; thought it might inspire my work even more. So I looked into it.”

“And do you think the stairs are haunted?”

He shrugged. “They’ve brought me nothing but luck, personally.”

“Luck with your painting?”

“That and . . . other things as well.”

“Walker, is it true that Jerry Becker wanted you and Andromeda to get together?”

He blushed. “Yes, you see, that’s another point in my favor. Unlike a lot of people, I
wanted
him to live—he was in favor of my marrying Andromeda.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but ... why would he want you to marry his daughter, in particular?”

“Why not?” he asked, sounding defensive.

“I don’t mean to suggest she shouldn’t. But were you two . . . involved?”

He blushed again. “Not really.”

“This is the modern world, Walker. Fathers don’t arrange their daughters’ marriages anymore.”

“Jerry wasn’t your average father. He knew what was best for him, and for his daughter. And if you don’t believe me, talk to Andromeda yourself.”

He ripped a corner off a sketch and wrote down a number and address. “She lives on Russian Hill, not far away. Ask her. She’ll back me up on this.”

By the time I left Landau’s studio, I was feeling a lot like Alice down the rabbit hole. What did a group of turn-of-the-last-century nuns—and the supernatural assault on the closet upstairs—have to do with a suicidal ghost on the bell tower stairs? And should I presume said ghost killed Jerry Becker, who was trying to force his talented and pretty young daughter to marry a not particularly successful artist fifteen years her senior?

Maybe Andromeda was right—a situation this convoluted sounded as if it grew out of some kind of ancient-cemetery curse. It was enough to make a witch consider recommending razing this historic building and starting from scratch.

Snap out of it
, I scolded myself. If
I
was ready to run away, imagine how everyone else must feel.

After all, there was a death to consider. If an evil spirit had pushed Becker to his death, and the students were bickering and hearing noises . . . could things be ratcheting up to an all-out slaughter of innocents?

One thing was sure: However talented and wise SFPD Inspectors Romero and Nordstrom might be, they weren’t half ready for something like that.

Despite my pledge to steer clear of the murder scene, I wanted to take another look at the bell tower stairs. I descended to the main floor and made my way down the corridor, turning right at the T where our ghost-hunting quartet had encountered Andromeda last night. I felt mounting trepidation as I approached, but that was normal. Scenes of trauma are difficult for anyone, normal or witchy.

Another right turn, then straight ahead.

A line of A-frame signs, meant to signal the presence of a wet floor, formed a symbolic barrier, their black silhouettes of a person falling making subtle parody of last night’s tragedy. Bright yellow crime scene tape also cordoned off the scene. I ducked under the police tape, crouched, and laid my hand on the stone within the chalk outline, trying to feel something more than I had last night.

I heard a noise and swung around.

Todd Jacobs was leaning up against the stone wall, hands deep in his pockets, looking at the same time younger than, yet older than his twentysomething years. In the dim amber light, framed by the medieval- inspired architecture, he looked like a tortured, romantic version of a surfer-dude boy toy.

“Needed another look?” Todd asked.

I nodded.

“Even though I didn’t like the guy, it’s still a tragedy,” Todd continued. “It’s been pretty traumatic for everyone, Marlene especially. And Ginny.”

“Ginny?” I hadn’t seen her since she was taken aside for an interview by the police last night. She had been pretty upset at the sight of the body, but I didn’t have the impression she would care much about Becker.

“She’s been beside herself.”

“I thought she had some good news about her art.”

“Yes, she called earlier. It’s a great opportunity. But last night her mother had to put her to bed with chamomile tea and a sleeping pill, she was so upset. She was still asleep when we left about noon.”