From Herring to Eternity Page 4

  “Don’t you have enough on your plate?”

  I shrugged. “My great-uncle Oskar used to say that aggravation kept him from worrying about his health, which is how he lived to be ninety-three. Maybe I’ll make it to one hundred.”

  Grant’s mouth twisted. “I’m not sure about that reasoning, either.”

  “Why? What did ‘peace in our time’ get Neville Chamberlain except the Blitz?”

  “So we have to stay in shape for war, is that what you’re saying? Happiness isn’t a better goal?”

  “I’m a Jewish woman,” I told him. “Even when the wine glass is full, we’re afraid someone’s going to knock it over.”

  “So you do it yourself, just in case.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But I’ve seen you happy,” he said. “When you’re busy in the deli—”

  “That’s just being distracted,” I said.

  “—or when you were trying to figure out what happened to Hoppy Hopewell and Joe Silvio.”

  I finished my coffee and looked at him. “Yeah. That was fun. It was challenging.”

  “So it’s possible,” he said. “Without a blitz happening.”

  I shrugged.

  He pointed at my cup with his thumb. “Or without spilling a drop.”

  “A miracle,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to work.” He looked behind him to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Then he stepped closer. “Yeah, Nash. Someone clocked Lippy. And he did hit his head on the sidewalk. But I saw the scalp wound. It wasn’t a killer. I think something else happened to him.”

  “What?”

  “That’s for the medical examiner to determine,” he said. “But A.J. said he came here three times a week, sometimes more. If you can think of anything else, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For trusting me with that.”

  “I still think highly of you. Wait, scratch that—it sounded more formal than I meant—”

  “I know what you meant,” I said. “And I appreciate it.”

  I gave him a little smile as he left. I wish I could have thought of something else to say, but I didn’t want to invite any kind of reboot of the relationship. Because I thought about him, too—and what I thought about him was why I had to move on.

  Making sure I hadn’t splashed any coffee on myself—he was right about that, dammit, upsetting my imperfectly reasoned justification for pessimism—I went back to help get ready for lunch . . .

  . . . slipping on the cornhusk and dropping the mug, causing it to shatter.

  Chapter 4

  My wristwatch was like a talisman—bewitched, bothered, and tick-tick-ticking.

  All through lunch and our rush-hour dinnertime I felt it calling me, half daring and half urging. I can’t say I was or ever had been curious about witchery, but then I had never met anyone who practiced it. At least, not that I was aware of. There was something irresistible about the simple conviction of those two women. I wondered if there were other Wiccans in their coven or circle or whatever they called it.

  I also wondered—and this part of it frightened me a little—if the women could or would say words or burn leaves or roll bones to help me against the archaeological dig. I didn’t have strong religious convictions and I wasn’t convinced I had a soul, as such, but I knew I wouldn’t feel good celebrating Lucifer or some druidic moss-tree god. I didn’t even feel right skipping my semiannual trips to temple on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s called “fear of God” for a reason.

  And yet . . .

  I was looking forward to calling. I was feeling beaten by Sterne, irresolute in my handling of Grant—I was still letting him in, emotionally, when, aside from the detective part, I didn’t really want him around—and weak because of my strange desire for Hatfield, who I was still thinking about after just one brief-and-only meeting. The map of Gwen Katz was one of lots of pathetically unempowered troughs and few peaks.

  Maybe Grant was right about that part, I thought. I keep waiting for next shoes to drop, collecting and comparing them, instead of getting out of the shoe store. I suspected the Wiccans were in a very different place than that.

  We closed at seven and I waited in the dining room, eating a small green salad, drinking coffee. I kept the lights off so passersby wouldn’t notice me and wave. I wanted to be by myself, but, again, not in my office. I hadn’t been back there, in fact, since the talk with Dr. Dig-Dug.

  So, of course, who should come to the door but the doctor himself.

  I knew him from his photo. He tried the handle, shielded his eyes on the side, and looked in. Still looking in, he knocked. He was not dressed as he was in the photo. He had on a denim shirt and jeans, not a tweedy blazer and turtleneck. He was taller than I expected, about six-three. He was wearing black Frye boots.

  “Aw, hell.”

  I got up, unlocked the door, and stepped back. He pulled it open.

  “Ms. Katz?”

  I nodded. My elbows were on the cash register counter behind me. In my head, my arms were crossed.

  “I’m Dr. Sterne,” he said, offering his hand. His move was accompanied by a whoosh of Aramis. “Look, I wanted to say I was sorry about before.”

  I accepted the hand but otherwise didn’t move.

  “I also wanted to say I’m used to telling students what to do. Sometimes I forget how to comport myself in the real world.”

  Comport? I don’t think I’d ever heard that word used in conversation.

  “I know this whole thing is a surprise and a terrible inconvenience,” he added, “and I should have been more sensitive to that.”

  “Well—thanks for all of that.”

  “Do you think you’ll have time over the next few days to talk about this, maybe figure out something that works for us both?”

  Us both? I felt bile rising again. This guy, who wanted to wreck my home and domestic life, should be finding a way to accommodate me. “When do you—” I weighed my next word as though my self-respect depended on it—hope? want? plan?

  “Intend to start?” he said.

  The bile had peaked and sat boiling in my throat. “Yeah. When do you intend to dig up my floor?” I was an idiot. Did I really expect him to be different than before? Once a schmuck, always a schmuck.

  He was caught totally off guard by my outburst. “We’re going to start in a week, when the grant money kicks in. Listen, I apparently don’t know the right things to say to you—”

  “I know. So don’t say anything. Do you have a key? Let me guess, Uncle Murray gave you one. Will you be bringing your own toilet paper—your own Porta Potty?”

  “Ms. Katz—”

  “Just go,” I said, walking toward him. “I have a Wiccan to call.”

  He braced his hands against the door jambs and stuck his foot forward as I went to close the door. “Mad Ozenne and her group?”

  I stopped myself from pushing him out. “Yes, why?” The curious taste of hope, strength, and “I Am Woman” came in one yummy bite, replacing the bile.

  “Are you affiliated with them?”

  “I’m catering a ritual,” I said.

  “Seriously?”

  “No.”

  “Be careful. They’re lunatics!” he half said, half laughed.

  “In what way?”

  “They’re trying to raise the spirits of the dead.”

  It was dark in the deli but not so dark that I couldn’t see his expression, his eyes. They had certainty, not curiosity. “How does that make them lunatics?”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Really,” I said. “The people whose campsite you want to dig up—how many of them believed in things like voodoo?”

  “It was called vodoun,” he said.

  If he corrects me one more time—“Just answer,” I said.

  “Well, they weren’t Christians. Slaves weren’t allowed to worship, officially, as Christians
—”

  “So the final Jeopardy answer is?”

  “A small percentage of American slaves were Muslims, but most followed—let me see—there were the Akan, Orisha, Las Reglas de Congo, Mami Wata, and other faiths.”

  “Any belief in zombies in there?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Snake worship?”

  “Some.”

  “Were those millions of souls lunatics?” I asked.

  “No, but we don’t take those beliefs seriously today!” he said.

  “You don’t, you mean. Some contemporary Africans do. Haitians? Creoles?”

  “A relative few,” he protested.

  “I don’t care if it’s one old lady in Lafayette, Louisiana,” I said. “I’m guessing you would show them more respect. A bunch of my Jewish friends back in New York are into Kabbalah, searching for a mystical connection between people and all of eternity. And don’t Christians believe the dead will rise on Judgment Day? Should they be treated frivolously?”

  “You’ve utterly bewildered the issue at hand,” Sterne said. “The Wiccans worship men made of twigs and mix crushed beetles and tree sap—”

  “Christians eat the body of Christ and revere a man made of plaster,” I said. “I serve kishkes, fowl intestines stuffed with onion and fat. The truth is, you uplift some folks out of one side of your mouth and condescend toward different people from the other. And why? Because you don’t personally approve?”

  “History has judged them, not me.”

  “History written by bigoted intellectuals like you,” I said. “Get out of here before I stab you with my receipt spike.”

  He snorted like a Great Dane, glared at me like I was a chew toy, and left.

  I closed the door very, very gently. Not because I was afraid I’d slam it, but because I had managed to burn off a lot of frustration in one brief exchange—and, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, let it fly at the person who actually deserved it.

  “Well, Gwen,” I said, looking at my watch, “now you’ve got a call to make.”

  Able to go into my office without fear of the face that I left on my computer screen, I prayed to God—and to any voodoo deities who happened to be listening—that I was right.

  That Mad wasn’t as crazy as he believed.

  Chapter 5

  It was the dial six syndrome.

  I sat in my office—having left Sterne up on the computer screen where it was easier to hate him—and quickly, easily punched in the first six numbers on the card I’d been given. Then I came to a hard stop.

  I didn’t hesitate because of anything Sterne had said about the whole witchery thing being baloney. I hesitated for the opposite reason. What if it wasn’t? Did I really want my worldview changed by people who had anatomical drawings on their faces?

  Do you want your worldview changed at all? I asked myself.

  Coming down here was a wrench and dealing with the odd collection of customers was a daily challenge. Those were all generally positive experiences. My father’s mistress, Grant, murders in my alley . . . not so much. Now there was the dig and I was about to play a scene from Macbeth. At what point did my head, too crowded with change, throw my usual sensible caution out the window of a speeding car?

  Now, if I made the call.

  But the archaeology project really bothered me and the witches really bothered Sterne. The enemy of my enemy— I punched the seventh number.

  “Hello, Ms. Katz,” the voice on the other end said.

  It didn’t sound like Mad or Ginnifer. “Hi,” I answered. “I was told to call this number—to whom am I speaking?”

  “Sally Biglake, priestess of the Nashville Coven. Thank you for phoning.”

  “A pleasure. What can I do for you, Priestess Biglake?” I asked.

  “Sally is fine,” she said, instantly placing her way above Dr. Sterne in my book. “Tell me,” she said, “have your dreams been troubled?”

  “By . . . ?”

  “Darkness,” she replied. “Spiritual darkness.”

  Just those words made the conversation seem—not quite scary, but a little nerve-rattling. I was tired, I was alone, and I was a little emotionally sapped. I felt as if talking to this woman put me one LinkedIn connection away from the dead. The clicks and groans of the pipes and equipment seemed a little louder than usual. How long would it be before I imagined I heard footsteps in the hallway, breathing nearby?

  “I haven’t had any unusual dreams lately,” I said. “None that I can even remember, in fact.”

  “I am glad, because I believe you are at a vortex of spectral activity.”

  I didn’t hear footsteps, but that sent a little tingle through my lower back. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “The energy around us is comprised of five elements,” she explained. “Air, water, fire, earth, and spirit. When I cast healing spells for my tribe and for my sisters, it is necessary that these five elements be in harmony. For the past week or so, the ritual has done nothing but pull my own spirit to the left-hand path from the right. The meditation that is a part of my workings leaves me feeling bleak and unhappy rather than fulfilled.”

  “So this means—?”

  “The spirit component of the pentangle, the five-sided star, is wandering, not at rest,” Sally said. “The earth has shaken the resting bones of those who are physically near to us.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” I asked.

  “I have gone around the city with one or more of my sisters, searching for the source of this disruption. We felt it coming strongly from the east when we did a tracking ritual at Radnor Lake. By circling the area in decreasing spirals, we believe we found the origin.”

  “My house,” I said. “The campsite of the dead Civil War workers.”

  “Not just a campsite,” Sally said. “Human remains must be in danger for the earth to send them forth.”

  “Oh, great. My house was built on an ancient burial ground?”

  “Cemeteries are consecrated,” she said. “The souls cannot escape.”

  “Even better,” I said. “My house was built on a mass grave.”

  “Again, no,” she said. “The spiritual activity suggests that no prayers were ever uttered, that murders were committed and bodies disposed of without ceremony. Something has caused those souls to stir.”

  “Why now? Why not when the house was built?”

  “That did not intrude,” she said. “Something has communicated evil purpose to the earth.”

  “Like digging there?” I said.

  “That is what we believe,” Sally said. “Madge heard your conversation with the attorney. She believes that irreparable harm will come from disinterring any artifacts.”

  “Good luck with stopping it,” I said. “Tell me, Sally. You said this has been going on for a week or so. How did the earth know before I did?”

  “Scientists say that all living things have racial memory, but it is not purely genetic,” Sally said. “Objects that were once alive, like the leather binding of a book or journal, retain the spiritual imprint of any life that has come into contact with it. It is like—I guess you could call it an alarm clock. Something like that has been much in use.”

  “There was a diary discovered in 2003,” I said.

  “That could very well be the conduit,” Sally told me.

  Remarkably, it never occurred to me that this was a put-on. It wasn’t just because the woman sounded sincere. Crazy people could do that. It was what Thom had told me earlier: “That stuff has some potent qualities.” It didn’t mean I believed that my house was hosting a for-real Halloween. But when two very different people say the same thing, attention should be paid. It was like Murray once said about having a colonoscopy before he was fifty: “What could it hurt?” Besides, I had an idea.

  “Sally, are you saying you want access to my property?”

  “I think it is essential that we hold a Sabbat on the site.”

  “Is that like a Sabba
th service in temple? Not that you would necessarily know—”

  “Though the prayers I would imagine are different, our word comes from your Hebrew shabbth,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said proudly. My people had contributed something important to another reviled minority. “Would it be necessary for you to sanctify the ground in some way to perform this service?”

  “Very necessary,” Sally said.

  “In that case, we are in business,” I told her, thinking back to what Robert Barron had said about witchcraft being a religion. “What do I have to do?”

  “Will you be home tomorrow night?”

  “What time?”

  “Midnight,” she said.

  “I don’t expect I’ll have a conflict.”

  “It is the first night of the new moon,” she said. “That is the best time to communicate with the spirits.”

  “Is there anything I need to do before then?”

  “No,” she said. “Just don’t let anyone further desecrate the grounds before then.”

  “You can be sure of that,” I promised. “One more question, Sally—why did Ginnifer want me to call from my office?”

  “The spirits may have interfered with your cell phone reception,” she said. “They are energy. They do that without meaning to.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Is that the worst they can do?”

  “Yes,” Sally said, adding ominously, “as long as their remains are not disturbed.”

  Chapter 6

  Despite my chat with Sally and some trepidation before I got into bed, I slept soundly.

  My cats, however, did not.

  Southpaw and Mr. Wiggles had moved with me from New York. My steadfast companions after the divorce, they were named, nostalgically, for two of the happier times I remembered in my life: making it onto a formerly all-boys Little League team as a pitcher when I was eight; and getting an A+ on a sixth-grade science project that was a triumph of will over disgust—getting worms to reproduce.

  The cats had been a little skittish for weeks after the move. That was not exactly a surprise; the sounds of Bonerwood Drive in Nashville were very different from the sounds of New York City. Which is not a knock against my hometown; Nashville has fewer sirens, car alarms, and low-flying helicopters, but my borderline-rustic neighborhood has chainsaws, cars being repaired to the sound of vintage boom boxes, and the occasional what-the-hell discharge of a firearm. The cats also didn’t seem to like southern litter so much at first, preferring the Japanese rock garden that was a going away present from one of my coworkers.