Skin Trade

Phoebe looked from one to the other of us, then finally came back to Ted. “What do you want to know, Marshals?” There was the slightest of hesitation before she called us by our titles.

She poured tea into our cups. She put sugar in two, and left two plain. Then she handed them to Michael and directed where they should go.

Edward took his tea, as did the others. I got mine last. Neither she nor Michael got cups. I had absolutely no reason to mistrust Phoebe Billings, but unless she drank the tea, I wasn’t touching it. Just because you’re a witch doesn’t mean you’re a good witch.

She smiled at us all as we sat with our untouched cups, as if we’d done exactly what she’d known we would do. “Randy wouldn’t have taken the tea, either,” she said. “Police, you’re all so suspicious.” She dabbed at her eyes and gave a ladylike sniff.

“Then why did you give us the tea if you knew we wouldn’t drink it?” I said.

“Call it a test.”

“A test of what?” I asked, and I must have sounded a little more unfriendly than was called for, because Edward touched my leg, just a nudge to let me know to bring the tone down. Edward was one of the few people I’d take the hint from.

“Ask me again in a few days, and I’ll answer your question,” she said.

“You know, just because you’re Wiccan and psychic doesn’t mean you have to be mysterious,” I said.

“Ask me your questions,” she said, and her voice was sad and too somber to match the bright room we sat in, but then grief comes to every room, no matter what color its painted.

Edward sat back a little more on the couch, giving me the best view of her he could give without changing seats. It let me know he was letting me take the lead, like he’d said in the car. Fine.

“How good at magic was Randall, Randy, Sherman?”

“He was as competent at magic as he was at everything he did,” she said. A woman appeared from farther into the house. She carried a tray with another cup and saucer on it. She had the priestess’s long brown hair, but the body was slender and younger. I wasn’t surprised when Phoebe introduced her as her daughter, Kate.

“Then if Sherman started to say a spell in the middle of a firefight, he’d have a reason to think it would help?”

The woman poured tea for her mother from the pot and handed it to her. “Randy never wasted things, neither ammo, nor physical effort, nor a spell.”

She drank from the cup. Bernardo followed suit and did a pretty good job of not leering at the daughter as she walked back toward the kitchen with the empty tray. Edward sipped his tea, too.

Phoebe glanced from Olaf to me. “Still don’t trust me?”

“Sorry, but I’m a coffee drinker.”

“I do not like tea,” Olaf said.

“Kate could fix you some coffee.”

“I’d rather just ask our questions, if that’s all right.” I meant that, but it’s also been my experience that tea drinkers make bad coffee.

“Why do you think that Randy was saying a spell during a shooting?”

I glanced at Edward, and he took over. I just wasn’t sure how much to tell her. “We can’t really share too much information on an ongoing investigation, Phoebe. But we have good reason to think that Randy was saying a spell in the middle of a fight.”

“Saying?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Randy was very good; he could have simply thought a blessing in the middle of a fight.”

“What kind of spell would he have had to say out loud?” I asked.

She frowned. “Some witches need to speak aloud to help focus; Randy didn’t. So if he was chanting aloud, then it was something ritualistic and old. Something he’d memorized, like an old charm. I don’t know how much any of you know about our faith, but most ritual is created for the purpose of an individual event. It’s a very creative, and fluid, process. When you’re talking about set words, then it’s more ceremonial magicians then Wiccans.”

“But Randy was Wiccan, not a ceremonial magician,” I said.

“Correct.”

“What would he have known, or thought, to say in the middle of a fight? What would have prompted him to think of an old chant, a memorized piece?”

“If you have a recording of what he said, then I can help, or even some of the words, and I can give you some hint.”

I looked at Edward.

“We don’t have anything we can let you listen to, Phoebe; I’m sorry.” It was neatly done, not that we didn’t have a recording but that we couldn’t let her listen to it. I’d have just told her we didn’t have one, which is why I’d let Edward answer.

She looked away from all of us and spoke in a voice that was shaky. “Is it that awful?”

Shit. But Edward moved in smoothly, even touching her hand. “It’s not that, Phoebe. It’s just that it’s an ongoing investigation, and we have to be cautious what information we let out.”

She looked at him from inches away. “You think someone in my coven could be involved?”

“Do you?” he asked, in a voice that was not the least surprised, as if to say, yes, we had suspected it, but we’d let her tell us the truth. I’d have sounded surprised and spooked her.

She looked into his eyes from inches away, and his hand on hers was suddenly more important. I felt the prickle of energy, and knew it had nothing to do with wereanimals or vampires.

He smiled, and pulled back his hand. “Trying to psychically read a police officer without permission is illegal, Phoebe.”

“I need to know more than you’re telling me to answer your questions.”

“How can you be sure of that?” he asked, with a smile.

She smiled and put her teacup on the coffee table beside the rest. “I’m psychic, remember. I have information that you need, but I don’t know what it is. I only know that if you ask the right question, I’ll tell you something important.”

I jumped in, “You know psychically.”

“Yes.”

I turned to the men with me and tried to explain. “Most psychic ability is pretty vague. Phoebe knows she has information that will be important, but there’s a question we need to ask to spark that knowledge in her.”

“And she knows this, how?” Bernardo asked.

I shrugged. “She couldn’t tell you how, and I couldn’t either. I’ve just worked with enough psychics to know that this is as good as the explanation gets sometimes.”

Olaf scowled. “That is not an explanation.”

I shrugged again. “The best we’ve got.” I turned back to the priestess. “Let’s go back to Marshal Forrester’s question. Could anyone in your coven be involved?”

She shook her head. “No.” It was a very firm no.

I tried again. “Could anyone here in the magical community be involved?”

“How can I answer that? I don’t know what spells were used, or why you believe that Randy was trying to say something. Of course, there are bad people in every community, but without more information, I can’t tell you whose talents this could have been.” She sounded impatient, and I guess I couldn’t blame her.

I looked at Edward.

“Do you have a priest’s seal of the confessional?”

She smiled. “Yes, the Supreme Court upheld that we are truly priests, so what you tell me is covered under the law.”

He looked at Michael’s looming figure. “Is he a priest?”

“We are all priests and priestesses if we are called by Goddess,” she said. It was a very priestess answer.

I answered for her. “He’s her black dog.”

Both Phoebe and Michael looked at me, as if I’d done something interesting. “They come here pretending not to know anything about us, but they’ve checked us out. They’re lying.”

“Now, Michael, you should know not to jump to conclusions.” She turned those gentle brown eyes to me. “Have you checked us out?”

I shook my head. “I swear to you that other than finding out you are Randy Sherman’s priestess, no.”

“Then how did you know Michael was not my priest?”

I licked my lips and thought about it. How had I known? “There’s a bond between most of the priests and priestesses I’ve met. Either they are a couple, or the magical working as a team just forms a bond. There’s no feel of that between you and him. Also, he just screams muscle. The only job in a coven that is all about muscle, either spiritual or physical, is the black dog.”