Callie stared at the paper filled with girlish writing, titled “The Goddess Rules.” “No,” she said, softly.
“As I told you, Leah was pregnant,” he said. “So we know for certain she broke at least one of these rules. I have a feeling that the man you saw in your dream, the blue-eyed man in bed, the one they were fighting about—I think he might have been the father.”
Callie said nothing.
“There’s one more question I need to ask. You mentioned in your memory—dream—at Hammond Castle that the woman in red gave you a drink to sniff. This drink, tell me again what it smelled like.”
“Licorice,” she said. “She said it had fairies in it.”
“Could it have been absinthe?”
“It might have been,” Callie said. “If one whiff a long time ago can be any judge. Where are you going with this?”
“Nowhere special,” he lied. “Probably just another dead end.”
“Absinthe.” Callie thought about it for a moment. “But Finn’s eyes are brown, not blue,” she said, feeling a chill pass through her.
“That’s true,” he said. “And there are a number of places to get absinthe besides the Whiting family, or someone could have procured it from them for the costume party. After all, the Whitings were in the business of selling alcohol.”
“Very true,” she said, touching the rosary to get her bearings.
“Thanks for coming down.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
As soon as Callie left his office Rafferty went online and pulled up the results of a search he’d done right after Emily died so suddenly. Because it was well known that she’d had cancer, no autopsy had been performed, as was often true in such cases. He’d called her pharmacist, a guy he knew from the program. Rafferty had asked for records of all the Whitings’ prescriptions. He’d spent a few days researching each drug. Emily had been looking like a woman in remission up until the day she died, and Rafferty didn’t have to be a genius to know there were ways to hasten a cancer patient’s demise, if you were so inclined. He’d talked to an ER doctor he’d known in New York, who told him opiates would be the obvious choice, that they would likely have been prescribed to Emily as a treatment for her pain. But the list he’d gotten back from the pharmacist showed no sign of opiates—no sign of painkillers at all. Odd, he thought—especially if her cancer was progressing fast enough to kill her.
But something else he’d discovered was even stranger.
Among Finn’s medications were two different treatments for glaucoma. The first drug was latanoprost, which had, in the past several years, become the default treatment for the condition. The second, bimatoprost, had been prescribed initially and did roughly the same thing, but was slightly less effective. So why was Finn still taking it? Rafferty wondered. Then, digging deeper, he read about an odd side effect common to both drugs but a bit more significant in the earlier one, something that made the drug popular for an off-brand reason, so popular it was now endorsed by movie stars and marketed under the brand name Latisse: It made the user’s eyelashes lengthen and thicken. Finn Whiting was nothing if not vain. He had long lashes, and stopping the drug would halt the effect, which, Rafferty had concluded, must have been why he continued taking it.
But now something else clicked. He scrolled through the list of side effects again. Taking bimatoprost could change the color of your eyes, darkening the irises, effectively turning one’s eyes from blue to brown.
He pulled out the drawing of the rose and inked a name he’d penciled in and erased several times before. Then he picked up the phone and called Mickey. “How long do you think it would take to trace the ancestry of Finn Whiting?”
“You’re in luck,” Mickey said. “I’m already working on it. Though it probably won’t be done in time for the reception, I’m giving them their combined family trees as a wedding present.”
On January 15, 1697, Salem held a day of fasting in honor of the victims, known as the Day of Official Humiliation.
—ROSE WHELAN, The Witches of Salem
Rafferty and Towner took their seats; Marta had seated Ann and Mickey with them, along with Zee and her boyfriend, Hawk, a rigger on the Friendship. The group sat one table over from the main table, which was set near the edge of the cliffs, twenty yards from the main house. They were enjoying a clear view of the border islands and Salem Sound.
“Isn’t this the perfect day for a celebration?” Towner said to Ann.
At eighty degrees and sunny without a visible cloud, it was as if Finn and Marta had ordered the humidity that plagued New England summers removed for the occasion. They’d had drinks and appetizers served in the orangerie, then moved the guests outside for the luncheon. Ann nodded.
“How’s old Finch doing, Zee?” Mickey asked. Mickey was seldom seen anywhere out of his pirate costume. Today, he looked handsome in a suit.
“Pretty much the same,” Zee said. Her father suffered from Parkinson’s. “Which is the best we can expect.” She looked around. “Does anyone else think this whole thing is kind of weird?” She tilted her head at Finn, Marta, Paul, and Callie, sitting at the main table. Finn and Marta looked extremely happy. Paul and Callie seemed miserable.
“Lots of gossip about their hasty marriage around town,” Mickey said, as Ann tried to shush him. “I heard one of our staunchest Puritan naysayers, Helen Barnes, say, ‘Well, it is very European, isn’t it?’?”
Fortunately, Helen Barnes was seated at a table on the other side of Finn and Marta, and not within earshot.
“You two are next to tie the knot,” Mickey said to Zee.
Hawk smiled. “You don’t have to convince me.”
“Callie and Paul are next. Didn’t you see the ring on her finger?” Zee asked Mickey.
“Seriously, when am I going to see a ring on your finger?” Mickey asked.
“You’re such a rude man, even for a pirate.” Zee laughed.
“As your uncle, I’m simply looking out for your best interests.”
Rafferty said, “Mickey, I have a question for you.”
Zee shot Rafferty a grateful look.
“Whatever you’re going to ask, I plead the Fifth,” Mickey said.
“Relax. I’m not working today. I’m just curious,” Rafferty said, looking at Pride’s Heart. “You’ve been sailing the seas a long time. With the family living right here, how did you and your motley crew smuggle anything into the basement? I took a tour of the wine cellar on Thanksgiving, but I didn’t see an entrance to the caves below the house.”
“You want me to give away trade secrets?” Mickey asked.
“I promise I’ll let you turn state’s evidence if I have to arrest you.”
“I know my rights. There’s a statute of limitations on this stuff.”