Tarnished and Torn (6 page)

“Oh . . . you wouldn’t be the one with the pig, by any chance?”

“Excuse me?”

“You have a vintage store down the street? And a pig?”

“Um . . .”

He nodded. “Griselda mentioned your store, said she was a friend of the family. Do you know where she’s gotten to? She said she’d be back around lunchtime to settle her bill, but I haven’t seen her.”

“I, uh . . .” I was digging myself in deeper all the time. “You’re saying she’s a friend of my family?”

Lloyd looked confused, not that I blamed him. After all, I’d just told him Griselda was a friend, and now I was acting as though I didn’t know her.

“I mean, we’re not that close . . . I have family in Germany.”

He nodded. “That’s right. She mentioned that.”

“So she was asking about me?”

“I told her where your store was, and she said she would stop by tonight after the jewelry show.”

“When was this?”

“This morning, over breakfast.” That was long before I’d met Griselda. Was that why she was so intrigued by my business card? Had she been looking for me? But if so, why hadn’t she said something when we met?

His eyes fell to my chest. “Pretty necklace.”

I was still wearing the worked silver and opal medallion Griselda had sold me along with the box of junk jewelry.

“Thank you, it’s new. By any chance, did Griselda leave anything for me?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Was she supposed to?”

“I think . . . she might have had something for me.” I held his gaze and concentrated. “Might I take a quick look in her room?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . .” Lloyd shook his head, and started snipping absentmindedly at the thorns on the roses he was arranging in an antique pewter pitcher. “That doesn’t seem right . . .”

“I promise I won’t touch anything.” I was taking a risk, but I wanted to see if there were any other obvious antiwitch signs, things the police would overlook. Or maybe something Griselda had planned to give to me when she came to see me at the shop. I would come up with a way to explain my visit, if and when the authorities found out. “Perhaps you could accompany me to make sure. I just want to check in case she left me a letter, something like that. Out in plain sight?”

After a long beat, he gave a nod.

“I suppose that would be all right.” He picked up the pitcher of roses and led the way up the broad porch steps. Lloyd opened the heavy wooden front door, which had a panel of frosted glass etched with a design of the sun rising over the mountains. A symbol of the dawn. Then again, it could also be interpreted as the sun setting over the mountains, a symbol of sunset.

Inside I noted no protective charms other than the salt. The foyer had tall ceilings and red-stained wooden moldings, and the ceiling was decorated with intricate multicolored patterned wallpapers and borders. A faded oriental rug adorned the inlaid wood floor, and a thick red runner marched up the curved stairway. A carved mahogany credenza sat along one wall, and a period bench and hat stand adorned another. I noted an elaborate cuckoo clock, much fancier than one I owned, but with similar overwrought cut-wood details. Painted borders represented traditional California motifs, such as oak leaves and acorns. The only thing that didn’t appear historically accurate was the bank of tourist brochures common to hostelries of all types.

“This is stunning,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

“My great-grandfather built this place. It was once quite fine . . . back when you could have a whole staff taking care of it, it must have really shone.” Lloyd made a
tsk-tsk
sound. “You should have seen it when I inherited it! It was in bad shape. I’ve been working on bringing it back to its glory days, but it’s mighty slow going, let me tell you.”

“It’s lovely,” I said, and meant it. Morning House was a throwback to a genteel time in San Francisco. It was a bit messier than I expected for a nice bed-and-breakfast, with windows in need of a good scrubbing and cobwebs in the corners, but if Lloyd was running the place by himself I reckoned he didn’t have time to get to all the details. “I’m glad to know you’re here. I’d be happy to recommend it.”

I spoke as though I had scads of friends visiting from out of town. The truth was that I was still relatively new to the city, and before landing here I didn’t have any friends. Bronwyn and Maya and a few others in the neighborhood were my first experience with developing sustained relationships.

But if I
were
to need an inn to recommend to out-of-town visitors, this would be the place. One doorway led to what appeared to be an extensive library, complete with a huge globe on a stand; another to a sitting room that featured a fireplace, velvet love seats, and a number of antiques that were so perfect for the space that I thought Lloyd might well have inherited the furniture along with the house.

“Most of the guest rooms are on the second floor,” Lloyd said. “This way.”

He started up the wainscoted staircase, pointing out the stained-glass windows that bowed along with the curve of the wall and the original Tiffany lampshades on the pendant lamps.

“Just about everything here is antique, most original to the house.”

“I love your cuckoo clock,” I said as it chimed, the little wooden bird emerging from a tiny hinged door.

“Okay, I have to admit the clock’s not all that old—I brought it back from Europe a few years ago. Just couldn’t resist. Still, it looks antique, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve got a similar one. Same story: saw it in a shop in Germany and had to have it.”

“Must be nice to have family there. So fun to visit a place when you have a connection to the locals.”

“Mmm,” I said, not wanting to go into my reasons for being in Germany at that time. In the broadest sense it was true I had been there to visit with family . . . but the reunion with my father hadn’t exactly been fun.

“On the third floor are seven rooms, originally the servants’ quarters,” continued Lloyd. “Can you imagine what this place must have been like back in the day, with a staff of seven working full time? Now it’s just me and a part-time assistant.”

“You seem to be doing well.”

Lloyd beamed. “I do all right, not to toot my own horn.”

The old wooden floors creaked slightly under our feet, the sound muted by the plush scarlet runner. Lloyd rapped on a door marked 3, then used a master key to open it.

He gasped as the door swung open. “What the . . . ?”

I stood on my tiptoes and tried to peek over his shoulder. “What is it?”

He huffed again, clapping his hand over his mouth.

I braced myself for something really bad—I half expected another dead body—but when he finally stepped aside to let me see, I felt a wave of relief. Still, it was disconcerting to realize my life had become one in which I was relieved
not
to be confronted with a dead body. When things calmed down a bit, I might want to ponder that.

At least there was no blood.

Nothing gruesome at all, in fact, but the room was in shambles. The doors of a gleaming walnut armoire gaped open, and clothes and shoes had been tossed on the floor. The linens had been stripped from the bed and piled on the mattress in a heap. Cushions from the brocade love seat stood upended, and papers and personal items were strewn everywhere. A small pull-out sofa bed was partially open. Even the ornate brass heating grate had been pulled up and lay on its side on the Turkish carpet.

“This is unacceptable,” Lloyd fumed from the doorway. “Unacceptable!”

“Who was in the room?” I asked.

“Just Griselda and her son.”

“What son?” The moment it slipped out I realized my error.

“I thought you said she was a family friend?”

“I meant,
which
son. She has four,” I fibbed.

“Oh. Well. Johannes.” Lloyd was staring at the mess and shaking his head. “Are they drinkers? Looks like they had quite the party in here.”

“Lloyd, I don’t think this is the result of someone having too much fun. I’m afraid the room looks like it’s been ransacked, as if somebody was searching for something.”

But what? For the same thing they wanted to interrogate Griselda about? Was someone trying to force her to tell them something? And if so, why didn’t she just tell them what they wanted to know? What kind of secret was worth dying for?

“Are you suggesting someone broke in?” Lloyd asked, aghast. “Not possible. Someone is here at all times. Whole place is locked up, tight as a drum, every night. We’ve never had a problem, not once in ten years. . . .”

“I know it’s unpleasant to think about,” I said. “But you should really call the police. You may need a police report to file an insurance claim, should something turn up missing.”

“But . . . maybe we should wait until Griselda and Johannes get back and ask them what happened.” Lloyd’s anger seemed to be receding, replaced by fear that his reputation—and that of Morning House—might be compromised. “Maybe there’s another explanation. A mother-son spat, perhaps. I’ll tell you what: If I had to share a room with my mother—even for a few days—I would probably start throwing things myself.”

The police will be knocking on the door of the rising sun soon enough,
I thought,
as they investigate Griselda’s murder.
Whoever tossed this room had likely killed her—or knew who had.

I really shouldn’t have come, as I had now implicated myself one way or the other. But since I was already here . . . In for a penny, in for a pound, as my grandmother used to say.

I edged past Lloyd into the room and placed my hands on the piled bedsheets.

Though my powers were muted due to the rowan hoops, Griselda’s vibrations remained strong. I could feel she had been scared. Scared but determined. I felt guardian energy—she was entrusted with something. And she was on a mission.

I cast my eyes around the room again, but saw nothing obvious. No hateful declarations or other obvious antiwitch charms, which might have been present had this been a simple witch hunt. The only thing out of the ordinary was a small ziplock bag on the floor near the vanity that contained snippets of yellow hair. That was a witch move: making sure to dispose of one’s hair properly, so that another practitioner could not use it to spell cast. Unless it was someone else’s hair, which Griselda had planned to use in a hex. The only jewelry in the room was a pile of gold chains and a single pair of cheap crystal earrings, but there was no way of knowing if other items had been taken.

The lack of jewelry made me wonder: Had Griselda’s body been stripped of the pieces I had noticed her wearing when we met? That was something to ask Carlos Romero, if and when I had the opportunity.

Papers were scattered around a small writing desk under the window. It looked as though Griselda was a committed correspondent; there were pages of handwritten notes and letters on thin airmail paper and stationery with hotel logos. A lot of witches are old-fashioned that way; I still wrote on paper to my mother and Graciela, sealing the envelopes with wax and tucking in little items—a dried leaf, a newspaper article, a pressed flower.

I craned my neck to read one of the letters that was partially visible on the table, but it was in German. The last line, however, was written in English:
have a Pleasant Day!
I wondered if Griselda had taken on a typical California send-off as she wrote to folks back home. Somehow the sweet, rather bland phrase made me feel even worse. Had Griselda been composing such a letter this morning, blissfully unaware of the fate about to befall her? Might she have had some glimmer of a premonition were it not for the rowan loops? Or did she even possess such powers?

“What are you
doing
?” demanded Lloyd, still standing in the doorway and now literally wringing his hands.

I shook my head. “Just . . . pondering.”

“Let’s ponder downstairs. I think we should leave,” he said, closing and locking the door behind me. “I’ll . . . I’ll ask my assistant if he saw anyone this morning when I was at the farmers’ market. It doesn’t seem like Griselda left anything for you, at least nothing out in the open. Unless someone
was
in here and already took it.”

Indeed.

We walked silently down the stairs, through the main door, and out to the front porch. The heat of the day hit us as we stepped outside, heavy and redolent of honeysuckle and pink jasmine.

“Lovely gardens,” I said.

“Why, thank you.” Lloyd brightened a little. “I do enjoy flowers. Don’t you?”

“Yes, very much. What are the hoops for?”

“Hoops?”

“The little circles hanging on the fence.”

Lloyd looked puzzled. “They’re pretty, aren’t they? I noticed them earlier today—there was also one on the front doorknob and another on the porch railing.”

“You didn’t make them?”

“No, and I’m not sure who did. Maybe someone’s just . . . beautifying the city. Like those guerilla knitters? The ones who knitted pretty little cozies and decorated the poles of stop signs and whatnot?”

“I wondered about those. What was that about?”

He smiled and shrugged. “This is San Francisco. People do things like that. Sometimes there’s a political cause, but a lot of times it’s just to improve the world. Cute, huh?”

The knitted cozies on the city’s parking meters and stop signs had indeed been very cute.

The loops of rowan? Not so much. Not to someone of my ilk.

“Thank you for showing me your beautiful home,” I said, as if this had been a casual social call.

“You’re welcome,” Lloyd replied. “Do keep us in mind for all your hospitality needs.”

As I strolled back to Aunt Cora’s Closet, I went over what I knew: Griselda had intended to meet me, yet she hadn’t felt free to talk to me when I showed up at her booth at the Gem Faire. Had she been trying to tell me something with all the significant glances? I hadn’t picked up any feelings of power from her, yet she was killed in a death specific to witches, and it appeared as though someone had put up hoops of rowan to quell a witch’s power at the Morning House B and B. And someone had tossed Griselda’s room, looking for . . . what?

I put my hand over the opal medallion on my chest. Was there something extraordinary about this necklace? If so, I still couldn’t sense a darned thing. And then I remembered that Griselda had first tried to sell it to the teenage girls. So much for that theory.