Ceremony In Death

"Yes. We probably won't hold any more outdoor ceremonies this year. Certainly not skyclad. But Mirium had her heart set on being initiated to first-degree witch before Samhain."

"Samhain."

"Halloween," he and Peabody said together. She shuffled her feet as he smiled at her. "Free-Ager," she muttered.

"Ah, there are some basic similarities." He finished off his coffee, stepped over to a recycling bin, and neatly slipped the cup in the slot. "You have a cold, Officer."

"Yes, sir." Peabody sniffled, determinedly blocked a sneeze.

"I have something that should ease that. One of our members recognized you. Lieutenant. She said she'd given you a reading lately. On the night, actually, that Alice died."

"That's right."

"Cassandra is very skilled and very sweet-natured," Chas began as he started up the steps. "She feels she should have been able to see more clearly, to tell you that Alice was in danger. She believes you are." He paused, looked back. "She hoped that you're still carrying the stone she gave you."

"It's around somewhere."

He let out a sound that might have been a sigh. "How's your neck?"

"Good as new."

"I see it's healed cleanly."

"Yeah, and quickly. What was in that stuff you put on it?"

Humor flickered in his eyes, surprising her. "Oh, just some tongue of bat, a little eye of newt." He opened the door to a musical chime of bells. "Please be comfortable. I'll get you some tea to warm you up since I kept you standing."

"You don't have to bother."

"It's no bother at all. Just be a moment."

He slipped through a doorway, and Eve took the time to study his living quarters.

She wouldn't call them simple. Obviously, a lot of the stock from the shelves downstairs made its way up here. Large, many-speared hunks of crystals decorated an oval table and circled a copper urn filled with fall flowers. An intricate tapestry hung on the wall over a curved, blue sofa. Men and women, suns and moons, a castle with flame spewing from the arrow slits.

"The major arcana," Peabody told her as Eve stepped up for a closer look. She sneezed once, violently, and dug out a tissue. "The Tarot. It looks old, hand-worked."

"Expensive," Eve decided. Art such as this didn't come cheaply.

There were statues in pewter and carved from smooth stone. Wizards and dragons, two-headed dogs, sinuous women with delicate wings. Another wall was covered with odd, attractive symbols in splashes of color.

"From the Book of Kells." Peabody lifted her shoulders at Eve's curious glance. "My mother likes to embroider the symbols, like on pillows and samplers. They look nice. It's a nice place." And it didn't give her the willies like the Cross apartment. "Eccentric, but nice."

"Business must be good for them to be able to afford the antiques, the metalwork, the art."

"The business does well enough," Chas said as he came back with a tray laden with a flower patterned ceramic pot and cups. "And I had some resources of my own before we opened."

"Inheritance?"

"No." He set the tray down on a circular coffee table. "Savings, investments. Chemical engineers are well paid."

"But you gave it all up to work retail."

"I gave it up," he said simply. "I was unhappy in my work. I was unhappy in my life."

"Therapy didn't help."

He met her eyes again, though it seemed to cost him. "It didn't hurt. Please sit down. I'll answer your questions."

"She can't make you go through this, Chas." Isis slipped into the room like smoke. Her gown was gray today, the color of storm clouds, and swirled around her ankles as she moved to him. "You're entitled to your privacy, under any law."

"I can insist that he answer my questions," Eve corrected. "I'm investigating murder here. He is, of course, entitled to counsel."

"It isn't a lawyer he needs, but peace." Isis whirled, her eyes alive with emotion, and Chas took her hands, lifted them to his lips, pressed his face to them.

"I have peace," he said quietly. "I have you. Don't worry so. You have to go down and open, and I have to do this."

"Let me stay."

He shook his head, and the look they exchanged had Eve staring in surprise. It was baffling enough to speculate on their physical relationship, but what she saw pass between them wasn't sex. It was love. It was devotion.

It should have been laughable, the way Isis had to lean down, bend that goddess body to reach his lips with hers. Instead, it was poignant.

"You have only to call," she told him. "Only to wish for me."

"I know." He gave her hand a quick, intimate pat to send her off. She shot Eve one last look of barely controlled rage and swept out.

"I doubt I would have survived without her," Chas said as he stared at the door. "You're a strong woman, Lieutenant. It would be difficult for you to understand that kind of need, that kind of dependence."

Once she would have agreed. Now she wasn't so sure. "I'd like to record this conversation, Mr. Forte."

"Yes, of course." He sat, and as Peabody engaged her recorder, mechanically poured the tea. He listened without glancing up as Eve recited the traditional caution.

"Do you understand your rights and obligations?"

"Yes. Would you care for sweetener?"

She looked down at her tea with some impatience. It smelled suspiciously like what Mira insisted on serving her. "No."

"I've added a bit of honey to yours, Officer." He sent Peabody a sweet smile. "And a bit of… something else. I think you'll find it soothing."

"Smells pretty good." Cautious, Peabody sipped, tasted home, and smiled back. "Thanks."

"When's the last time you saw your father?"

Caught off guard by the abruptness of Eve's question, Chas looked up quickly. The hand holding his cup shook once, violently. "The day he was sentenced. I went to the hearing and I watched them take him away. They kept him in full restraints and they closed and locked the door on his life."

"And how did you feel about that?"

"Ashamed. Relieved. Desperately unhappy. Or perhaps just desperate. He was my father." Chas took a deep gulp of tea, as some men might take a gulp of whiskey. "I hated him with all of my heart, all of my soul."

"Because he killed?"

"Because he was my father. I hurt my mother deeply by insisting on attending his trial. But she was too battered emotionally to stop me from doing as I chose. She could never stop him, either. Though she did leave him eventually. She took me and left him, which was, I think, a surprise to all of us."

He stared down into his cup, as if contemplating the pattern of the leaves skimming the bottom. "I hated her, too, for a very, very long time. Hate can define a person, can't it, Lieutenant? It can twist them into an ugly shape."

"Is that what happened to you?''

"Nearly. Ours was not a happy home. You wouldn't expect that it could be with a man like my father dominating it. You suspect I could be like him." Chas's sensual voice remained calm. But his eyes were swirling with emotions.

It was the eyes you watched during interview, Eve thought. The words often meant nothing. "Are you?"

" 'Blood will tell.' Is that Shakespeare?" He shook his head a little. "I'm not quite sure. But isn't that what all children live with, and fear no matter what their parents, that blood will tell?"

She lived with it, she feared it, but she couldn't allow herself to be swayed by it. "How strong an influence was he on your life?"

"There couldn't have been a stronger one. You're an efficient investigator, Lieutenant. I'm sure you've studied the records by now, run the discs, watched them. You would have seen a charismatic man, terrifyingly so. A man who considered himself above the law – any and all laws. That kind of steely arrogance is in itself compelling."

"Evil can be compelling to some."