“Tell me again. Everything you saw at the party.”
She repeated what she’d told him: the masked costume ball; the Wicked Queen, who’d given her a whiff of a green drink that smelled like licorice; how mad Olivia had been at the woman. She told him how Leah had come in, angry and ranting, how Callie had followed her upstairs to the bedroom. “She was screaming at them, saying they betrayed her.”
“With the man on the bed,” Rafferty said.
“Yes.”
“Someone they were sexually involved with.”
“Yes.” Callie was struggling with the image. “I remember it now. I remember when it happened. I went up the stairs, and I heard them yelling at each other.”
“Sounds like this Leah character should be your main suspect,” Ann said to Rafferty.
“I didn’t know what they were doing with him or why the man was naked.”
“You never saw them doing that kind of thing before?” Rafferty said.
“Then you’d be one of the only ones in town who didn’t,” Ann said.
Rafferty shot her a look.
Ann shrugged. “It was common knowledge,” she said again.
“She was five,” Rafferty retorted. “Your mother and the others…” Rafferty said, as gently as he could, not knowing how much she’d heard of the rumors. “The Goddesses had a reputation for being”—he searched for a word—“seductive.”
“Very seductive,” Ann added. “They made a sport of it. Sometimes a competitive sport.”
“I’ve heard some of this. But a competition…” Callie stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
Rafferty nodded. “That’s the way people remember it.”
Callie looked to Ann for verification.
“Hey, no judgment here. I thought they were cool.” Ann smiled sweetly.
Callie wanted to smack her.
Rafferty’s phone rang. “Let’s take a five-minute break,” he said, walking outside.
Callie looked around Ann’s office and at the shop behind: Labeled spells in little envelopes lined the walls, one for lost love, another for wealth, one that treated male impotency. Beyond the packaged spells were canisters of dried herbs, with labels that sounded witchy: wolfbane, eye of newt. Potions obviously designed to relieve the tourists of their dollars, Callie thought. Crystal wands were in a display case and handcrafted witch’s brooms hung from the ceiling. And then there was the lace, all kinds of lace: dream catchers, doilies, random pieces of half-finished work. Callie watched a young woman seated in the hallway dressed in black holding a piece of lace up in front of a customer, gazing into it the way she’d seen wizards in old movies gaze into crystal balls. The girl looked as if she could read the lace. Callie squinted at it, trying to see what the girl was looking at.
When they reconvened, Callie told Rafferty about the portrait painted on the wall, the one Rose hated. How Callie had been to the house to see if it was still there, but it had been painted over.
She told him again about the argument at the party that night, how Leah had come in looking for the others and had followed them upstairs and argued with them, how, in Callie’s vision, there was blood running down the walls.
Then she remembered something else about the dream. She turned to Ann. “Do you think they were witches?”
“Who?” Ann asked.
“The Goddesses,” Callie said.
“Why would you ask that?” Ann asked.
“One of them was trying to do something in my dream. Drawing a circle on the floor of the bedroom,” Callie answered. “She said something about binding.”
“A binding spell?” Ann asked.
“Like you did on me,” Callie said.
Ann considered.
“It was for protection, though,” Callie said.
Ann shrugged. “Binding spells are usually for protection.”
“Were they witches, do you think?” Callie asked again.
“Were they?” Rafferty asked Ann.
She shrugged again. “I’ve heard they thought their Salem ancestors were ‘real’ witches. Not just victims of hysteria, but practicing witches. Which was a dangerous and, frankly, silly thing to believe. There were rumors that one of them was a frequent visitor to the Left Hand Path.”
Rafferty knew that the Left Hand Path was a shop the city had been trying to shut down at the time. The owner had been a vocal practitioner of black magic, the kind of stuff Hollywood loves. But the other witches in town had lobbied to get the place closed down after it was rumored that the owner had been sacrificing animals and using their body parts in her rituals. Witches had been relatively new to Salem when Rafferty first arrived, and if they were going to make a permanent home and be welcomed by the community, they felt it was important to keep their reputation clean. Even Ann, with her practice of grey magic, had toned things down in an effort to be embraced by Salem. She’d even started a foundation: an antidefamation league that helped educate the public about the witches’ harmless religious practices.
“I never knew if the rumors were true.” Ann shook her head. “Everyone was doing a little magic back then, reading the tarot or using a love potion. But even if they were doing an occasional spell, the Goddesses weren’t real witches by anyone’s standards.”
“Why not?” Rafferty asked.
“Well, they obviously weren’t solitaries, and they weren’t in any coven. And they weren’t very good at it, were they?” She turned to Callie. “That spell, if it even was a spell, didn’t protect anyone, did it?”
Callie bristled. The remark was true, but coldhearted.
Rafferty said, “I read the files. There was another argument that night, a bad one between Rose and the girls. Rose followed them to their car; there was a lot of yelling in the street. A neighbor called the police. Callie, do you remember why they were fighting?”
“I think so. It came back to me at Rose’s house. She had learned something really bad about them. They were mad at someone for telling her. In the car, they talked about getting revenge. Whatever it was Rose had been told, it caused the worst argument I can remember. But I told you, the neighbors were always calling the police,” Callie continued. “The police were always coming to the house for one thing or another.” She thought for a minute. “They searched that house, right?”
“After the murders? Of course,” Rafferty said, watching Callie carefully. He had seen the report: they hadn’t found anything worth noting. But with one box of evidence still missing, he really couldn’t be certain. He didn’t elaborate; it wasn’t something she needed to know right now. His cop’s instincts were telling him there was something she wasn’t saying, something she was holding back.
“What about the blood? You said there was blood running down the walls,” Rafferty said.
“That was part of the dream,” Callie answered. “Not a real image.”