A Vision in Velvet: A Witchcraft Mystery (18 page)

“I’d say your plan worked brilliantly,” I said. “Hey, since you’re the experts, could I ask you a question? I notice the mushrooms in the frog display. Why are toadstools associated with frogs?”

Kai shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I think it’s just folklore. Though some mushrooms, like some frogs, have
hallucinogenic properties. Maybe that’s why. In fact I wondered . . . When Lance and I came across that poor man under the tree, that was the first thing I thought of, that maybe he had ingested some mushrooms and was either high or had poisoned himself. Or both. Until I noticed the, um . . .”

“Bullet holes,” said Lance helpfully.

And with that our conversation stumbled to a halt. It occurred to me that Maya, Kai, Lance, and I might have been the least socially adept social group imaginable. Maya was capable of being charming and breezy around those with whom she was comfortable, but with men in general, it was a different story. And the two scientists were probably happier looking through a microscope than making small talk with strangers.

The four of us were gazing awkwardly about in silence when Bronwyn breezed up, balancing cocktails in both hands. Duke and Conrad trailed behind her, also carrying drinks.

“Order up!” Bronwyn announced, and after handing out the drinks, immediately started chatting up the scientists, putting everyone at ease. “I remember coming to the old Natural Sciences Museum with my daughter; we used to get lost on the way to the restroom every time.”

“The new building is much better,” said Lance earnestly. “People rarely get lost. Though sometimes down in the basement . . .”

“It’s a real rabbit’s warren down there,” affirmed Kai. “Our director disappeared for a few days before we realized he was gone.”

Kai looked so serious I wasn’t sure if he was joking.

“Oh, look, Nina’s here,” said Lance.

I followed his gaze to see Hannah Woolsey, Bart’s niece. She was standing with the tall, pale woman I had seen at the tree—Nina, I presumed. And with them was the professor, Will Chambers.

“Hey!”
yelled Lance suddenly. Gone was the hapless, bumbling scientist. He looked outraged. “Don’t touch those frogs!”

“Dude,” said Conrad, holding his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Sign says right here you can touch these little dudes, just not the other ones.”

As Lance marched over to the display, I noticed that the back of his lab coat was stained worse than the front. What on earth did he do in his lab?

Lance yanked the sign down. “I don’t know who put this up. This is
not
a petting zoo.”

“Sorry, dude,” Conrad said.

An awkward silence descended on our group.

“Um . . . I’m going to talk with Nina and Hannah,” I said.

Bronwyn, Duke, Maya, and Conrad went to investigate the tree frog exhibit while I made my way across the crowded floor to the Woolsey sisters and the professor.

Hannah’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Hey! You made it. How are you?”

“I’m okay. Thanks. How are you?”

“Great. Hey, you know Will, don’t you?”

“Of course. Nice to see you here.”

“Exciting, isn’t it?” said Will. He was clutching a martini, and I realized that he and Hannah, both singles of a certain age, fit right in here at Cocktails and Frogs. It was like a slightly nerdy dating service.

“And this is my sister, Nina.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, noting that despite her pallid complexion, Nina was as tall and fit-looking as her sister. They were like Amazonian stock. I stood up straighter, feeling gremlinlike standing beside them. “Great exhibit.”

“Thanks,” Nina replied. “I didn’t really have anything to do with it.”

I looked around for their uncle. “Is Bart here?”

“What, and take part in the real world?” said Nina in a snide tone of voice.

“Nina . . .” Hannah warned. “Be nice.”

Nina rolled her eyes.

“I tried to get him to come,” said Will.

“Uncle Bart doesn’t get out a lot,” explained Hannah with a shake of her head. “Though he told me he stopped by your shop. Could have knocked me over with a feather. He’s never come to see me at the Vivarium.”

“Probably ’cause it’s creepy,” said Nina.

“No creepier than all these amphibians,” said Hannah. “After all, frogs are slimy and even poisonous sometimes. People think snakes are slimy, but they really aren’t.”

“Frogs are cute,” Nina said. “Snakes aren’t cute.”

“
I
think they’re cute,” Hannah insisted.

“I’m not surprised,” Nina said.

Will met my eyes, and we shared a look. I had always wanted a sister, but occasionally witnessing these relationships gave me pause.

“Lance mentioned that you’re an arboreal specialist,” I said to Nina.

“That’s overstating the case. I actually work more with algae, but I’m a botanist, so I agreed to go out and look at that oak tree with Lance. For some reason he feels the need to save it.”

“Is it salvageable?”

She shook her head. “It’s rotten on the inside.”

“I thought I saw new growth.”

“There’s some, yes, but not enough to save such a massive specimen.”

“I went up to the redwoods not long ago,” said Hannah, “and a lot of the biggest trees didn’t have anything at the core at all. They formed what looked like round rooms; only the bark was alive. You could even drive through some of them.”

Nina nodded. “Some trees can lose their entire core to fire or disease and still thrive, it’s true. The redwoods are famous for it. But not California live oaks. They’re a different species entirely.”

“So you recommended it be removed?” Will asked.

“It isn’t up to me. The Parks Department makes those decisions,” said Nina. “I’m just a lowly scientist here at the academy. Lance was worried, so I told him I’d take a look, that’s all. If they were taking down a healthy specimen, I might try to intervene, but as it is . . .” She trailed off with a shrug and took a sip of her manhattan.

“So . . . I saw you there, when Sebastian Crowley was found under the tree.”

“You knew the stiff?” asked Nina.

“Who’s this we’re talking about?” asked Will. “Or tell me if I’m doing that annoying thing now where I’m asking about someone everyone else knows. . . . I am, aren’t I? Never mind.”

“Sebastian Crowley was an antiques dealer. Hannah sold something to him for Bart, and later he was found shot in Golden Gate Park.”

“That’s awful,” said Will.

“Poor Sebastian,” said Hannah.

“Take a drink,” said Nina in a derisive tone. “You’ll get over it.”

“You didn’t even know him,” said Hannah, clearly shaken. “How can you be so mean all the time?”

“And you were, what, dating him?” said Nina. “That’ll be news to poor Will here.”

Hannah shook her head, pressed her lips together, and looked around at the crowd.

“Seriously, Hannah. It’s not like he was a good friend of yours. What was he, some lunatic friend of Uncle Bart’s? Did he promise to cure Bart’s love curse or something?”

“He said he might be able to do something for Uncle
Bart, yes,” said Hannah. “I know you don’t believe in it, and I don’t either, not really. But obviously Uncle Bart does, and I think people should stop being so nasty about it. I mean, some people believe in Santa Claus, but that doesn’t make them crazy.”

“It does if they’re over the age of five,” murmured Nina.

“
There
you are!” I heard Bronwyn’s voice and felt a wave of relief as the gang appeared: Bronwyn and Maya and Conrad and Duke. We might be a motley, quirky bunch, but at least we liked one another. I knew bickering did not necessarily mean the sisters didn’t love each other, but I found such exchanges exhausting.

“How were the tree frogs?” I asked.

“Lovely, really just splendid. Weren’t they, Maya?” Bronwyn said.

“They’re so sweet-looking, even the ones that can kill you.” Maya smiled. “It really is a great exhibit. I can’t believe I never come here. I’m gonna invite my cousins’ kids so I have an excuse to come back.”

“Kai would say you don’t need an excuse,” I said. “In fact, he might give you a private tour if you asked nicely.”

“Cute,” said Maya.

“You like Kai?” Nina said. “He’s single. Want me to set something up?”

“
No
. No, no, no. No, thank you,” said Maya, shaking her head. “She’s kidding.”

“Watch out, Nina,” said Hannah. “Someone might call you a romantic. And here I thought you didn’t believe in love.”

“I don’t believe in love
spells
, much less curses. Anyway, Kai’s a good guy. Eccentric, but then aren’t we all? Scientists are weird, no two ways about that. I’m sure not exempt from that. Hey, Kai!” Nina yelled, showing surprisingly good pipes, and waved with her free hand.

Maya looked daggers at me.

The two men came over, Kai eager and Lance hapless, as usual. Truth to tell, after Lance’s outburst a few minutes ago, I was rethinking my assessment of him. Might the bumbling scientist bit be an act? I had sensed something was off about him from the start, but whether it was due to his social awkwardness or to something more sinister was hard to know.

“Dudes, there they are,” said Conrad, slapping Lance on the back in a hearty hello. “That exhibit was really awesome, dude!”

Lance yanked back from Conrad’s overly familiar gesture.

“Dude, your lab coat’s all wet. You okay?”

“Of course,” said Lance, then walked away so quickly he knocked over a potted palm.

“That’s Lance for you,” Nina said with a sigh. “Mr. Charming. I tell you what, Kai. We are a pathetic bunch of losers when it comes to social interaction, aren’t we? We should form a club.”

“We already have,” said Kai with a shy smile. “We’re the nerdy scientists, remember?”

“Oh, right,” said Nina.

I noticed Kai’s eyes slewed over toward Maya, who returned his smile.

“Hey, I’m single,” said Will. “D’ya suppose the nerdy academics could join this club, too?”

“Sure,” said Nina. “The more the merrier.”

“Dudette,” Conrad whispered to me in a loud stage whisper. “Like, do men get hot flashes?”

“Hot flashes?”

“You know, the way women do when they’re, like, going through the ‘change’? My mom totally had that and now . . .”

“Conrad, I’m not sure now’s the time to talk about—”

“Dude . . . I feel sort of . . . funky.”

Conrad crumpled and fell to the floor.

His head knocked against the stone floor with a dull thud.

“Conrad!” I cried, kneeling beside him. “Conrad? What’s wrong?”

He opened his eyes, his gaze unfocused. I put one hand on his forehead: His skin was wet and clammy.

“Duuuude . . .” He groaned. Then he closed his eyes and his head fell back.

Maya was already dialing 911 on her cell phone, and Bronwyn and Duke immediately departed to find whatever in-house first aid the academy might have to offer.

“Is there a doctor in the house?” I called out.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Nina as she knelt on Conrad’s other side.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He was talking, then just collapsed midsentence.”

She lifted his eyelids, first the right, then the left.

“Pupils dilated,” she muttered, then held his wrist, timing his pulse with her watch. “Heartbeat rapid . . . Could he be on something? Drugs of some kind?”

“I . . . don’t think so.” I knew perfectly well that
Conrad imbibed mind-altering substances. But he had never done so around me and had had only one beer this evening.

Conrad mumbled something, then giggled.

“The paramedics shouldn’t take long,” Nina said. “There’s usually a crew stationed in the amphitheater out front during special events.”

Sure enough, there was a commotion at the front door, and I gratefully ceded my place to the paramedics.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the emergency room, and I was asked the same question over and over: “Is he on anything? Did he take anything? Anything at all?”

I wasn’t able to answer them any better than when Nina had asked. I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t say so for sure.

I joined Bronwyn, Maya, and Duke in the waiting room, where we sat in glum silence. Maya was looking things up on her smartphone, Duke was gently stroking Bronwyn’s hand. All I could think about was whether I had, once again, exposed my friends to danger. Conrad had been hurt because of me once before. Enough was enough.

After what seemed like hours, a doctor, middle-aged, bespectacled, and balding, emerged from the double doors. We all sprang from our seats.

“His tox screen came back with an interesting finding,” said Dr. Burke. “He appears to have been exposed to a toxin that causes hallucinations.”

“What kind of toxin? He didn’t eat or drink anything unusual,” I said, thinking back. The only thing Conrad drank was that one beer. That couldn’t have been the cause, unless the bartender had somehow dropped a roofie in it, which seemed far-fetched. “Could it have been something he ingested hours ago?”

Dr. Burke shook his head. “It’s a fast-acting toxin
that’s absorbed through the skin. It’s called
bufotoxin
. Has he been around frogs, by any chance?”

Uh-oh. “As a matter of fact, we were at the Academy of Sciences when this happened. They have a frog exhibit.”

“Any chance he touched one?”

“Excuse me?”

“I noticed . . . I thought perhaps the young man was a drug user. Some people lick them for their psychedelic properties.”

“Conrad did not lick the frogs. Land’s sakes. He touched a few, but those were in the children’s petting section. Surely they weren’t dangerous.” I looked at Bronwyn, Duke, and Maya. “Did he lick any frogs while he was with y’all?”

They shook their heads.

Dr. Burke smiled. “I’m not the frog police, folks. I’m only asking because the more I know what happened the better able I am to help your friend. Okay. Well, we’ll have to keep him here overnight for observation. He also has a minor concussion, no doubt received when he fell.”

“Could I speak with him?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You may peek in on him if you like, but he’s not awake. The dose of toxin he received was very nearly fatal, and there could be more complications. But I’m confident he’ll be all right.”

We found Conrad in a hospital bed, hooked up to a dripping IV and several monitors. Someone had pulled the hair away from his face, and he suddenly looked very young.

“Conrad’s an addict, Lily,” said Bronwyn gently. “Isn’t it possible he . . . ?”

“He was with us the whole time,” I said.

“Not the
whole
time,” Maya said. “He was with us at the exhibit, then left to help Bronwyn and Duke with the drinks.”

“Yes, but he came right back with them—there wouldn’t have been enough time, would there?” I asked.

“It was a bit of a mob scene,” pointed out Bronwyn. “If he’d wanted to slip away for a few seconds, he could have managed it.”

I shook my head. “Conrad wouldn’t do that. Not while we were there. Someone did this to him.”

“But why would someone target Conrad?” Duke asked.

I didn’t know, and I certainly couldn’t explain how this might be connected to a haunted, hateful tree under which a man was killed—a tree that might also have swallowed Oscar. Exasperated and afraid, I reminded myself to breathe in and out deeply and slowly.

Might Conrad have seen something I hadn’t noticed at the crime scene? Or perhaps Conrad had seen something earlier, one night when he was sleeping there? Was someone was trying to silence him, afraid of what he might know?

Lance had been in Golden Gate Park when Conrad and I found Sebastian. Lance, the bumbling scientist who had shown a different side of himself tonight.

Then again, Kai had been there, too. And Nina showed up after we had gathered, and she’d been to the tree previously and knew Conrad. They all had been at the academy tonight before Conrad had fallen ill.

Outside, the evening was chilly. The marine layer—as the ocean fog is called—had settled over the city like a cool, sea-scented shroud. Maya handed me my keys—she had driven the Mustang while I rode in the ambulance with Conrad—and Bronwyn and Duke offered to drop Maya at her apartment. We said our good-byes in the parking garage.

I pulled Nina’s card out of my bag. I imagined the cocktail party was still hopping, but I thought I should let her know what had happened with Conrad. I went back into the hospital and found a pay phone.

“Nina, I wanted to let you know that it looks like Conrad is going to be okay. And I was wondering whether I could talk to you about something.”

“Now?”

“If you have time.”

“Um, okay . . . shoot.”

“I’d rather speak in person.”

I heard her chuckle. “What is this, like in a mystery novel? ‘Meet me at midnight down by the pier’?”

She was more right than she knew. “I’m just . . . not fond of talking on the phone.”

I loathed phones because they didn’t allow me to sense a person’s energy. I was much less easily fooled when I could sense someone’s vibrations.

“Okay, I guess. The party’s still in full swing, but I was about to get back to work. I’m finishing up a report for Monday. Just call me from your cell when you get here, and I’ll meet you at the employees’ entrance.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

There was a pause. “What?”

I rolled my eyes. Surely I wasn’t the only person in California who didn’t have one. “I said, I don’t have a cell phone.”

“Did you drop it? I dropped mine on the BART tracks once. Boy, was that a drag.”

“No, I just don’t own one.”

“Oh my God, are you serious?” Nina seemed more shocked by this news than she had when Conrad passed out at the cocktail party.

I sighed inwardly. Eventually, I supposed, I was going to have to give in to the inevitable and start carrying a phone, strange electronic vibrations or no.

“I’m afraid so.” I glanced at the clock. Eight thirty-five. “I can be there in twenty minutes. . . . Could we meet at nine o’clock at the employees’ entrance?”

“Okay, sure,” she said. “See you then.”

I thought about calling Sailor, but decided against it. We didn’t have to be attached at the hip, after all. And though I hated to admit it, I feared I didn’t pick up on things as well with him at my side. Though he made me feel safe, sometimes safe is not all it’s cracked up to be. And it wasn’t as though I was meeting a stranger at the end of a dark pier, as Nina had suggested. I was going back to a museum full of visitors and staff.

On the drive, I made a point to pass by Ms. Quercus. You could barely see her from the road, but the upper branches extended high in their malevolent embrace, looking black against the moonlit sky. Nighttime in Golden Gate Park would lend itself to nightmares, I decided, trying to shake the sensation that I was being watched. Perhaps it was just the ghostly police officer. What had the poor fellow done in life to merit condemnation to forever issuing traffic tickets?

True to her word, Nina was waiting for me at the rear employees’ entrance. The door was propped open, the light from within making it a bright rectangle in the otherwise dark stretch at the back of the building. She wore her lab coat and glasses; only faint remnants of her red lipstick remained. The cocktail party do had fallen, the locks now limp from their earlier curl. I could relate.

“Thank you for meeting me.”

“Sure thing,” she said as she led the way into the building. The door slammed behind us with a loud bang. “You have to sign in,” she said as we walked past a desk space staffed by a huge, bored-looking security guard. His badge read:
HI, MY NAME IS BUZZ.

I signed my name, clipped a temporary visitor’s badge to the neckline of my dress, and followed Nina through the inner door to a long, featureless hallway.

“How’s your friend?” she asked as we descended the stairs to the basement level.

“It looks like he’ll be okay.”

“Was it just too much to drink?”

“I don’t think so—that’s one reason I asked to speak with you.” I glanced around, trying to feel or notice if anyone was present and could overhear. “Maybe we could wait until we get into your office?”

She looked back at me, a curious expression on her face. “Sure.”

I smiled lamely, hoping she’d just assume I was quirky.

The lower level included a number of underwater exhibits, which cast everything in a bluish, ghostly glow. Fish, turtles, and jellyfish swam around lazily. Party sounds still emanated from the upper level.

“You got tired of the party?”

“I can socialize only so much. I’m happier in the lab. We have overnights here sometimes; people come with their kids. It’s really fun, but by dawn I’m ready for solitary confinement. Speaking of which . . . here’s my office.”

Nina’s office did have a lot in common with a prison cell: It was a windowless box. But the stacks of files and newspapers and reports reminded me more of her uncle Bart’s apartment. The desktop was a jumble of pens, graph paper, forms, correspondence, and an old-fashioned letter opener. I wondered if she and Bart had more in common than she’d like to admit. On the other hand, a lot of creative types tended to live messy—or at least that’s what I told myself when Aunt Cora’s Closet threatened to get out of hand.

She had to clear a short stack of papers from a chair in order to offer me a seat.

“So,” Nina said as she sat behind the utilitarian beige office desk. “What’s up? Please tell me this isn’t about my uncle. I really don’t know—”

I cut her off. “Only tangentially. I really wanted to ask you about what happened to my friend Conrad tonight. At the hospital they said he was poisoned by bufotoxin.”

Nina blinked. Stared. And blinked again.

“Was he licking the frogs?”

“No.”

“Bufotoxin is secreted from some of the poisonous frogs. I mean, I’m not a herpetologist, but I know it’s used by the frogs to paralyze animals that try to prey on them. But some people actually expose themselves to it on purpose, to enjoy the high. You don’t actually have to lick the powerful ones—touching them can be enough to get you high.”

“I’m aware of that. But Conrad was with me the whole night. Do you know if Lance . . .”

“
Damn
, if they trace it back to the expo . . . they’ll be closing this whole thing down.” Nina leaped out of her seat. “This is terrible. I’ve got to notify the director before it makes the news.”

She rushed out of the room.

I remained seated, unsure of what to do. A long moment passed. I stuck my head out the door, but saw nothing more than a metal cart full of boxes in the long, empty hallway.

“Nina?”

I returned to my chair. Surely she would be right back. After a minute, the lights in the corridor flickered off.

I rose and faced the door, wondering whether the tingling at the base of my neck was a premonition or just the perfectly normal awareness that I was in the basement of a huge building, didn’t know my way around, and the lights had just gone out.

I could still hear the party upstairs. The constant murmur of voices, background music, and the tinkling of glassware were reassuring. Maybe I should go up and join the crowd and deal with this another time. With Sailor by my side.

Just in case, I grabbed the letter opener from Nina’s
desktop, stepped to the doorway, and peered down the darkened hallway again. Had I been set up? Was Nina somehow in on whatever was going on? Or was I grasping at straws now?

Probably the lights were on a timer, or a motion sensor, as an energy-saving device. That’s all. These Californians and their environmental awareness . . .

Stroking my medicine bag for strength and protection, I stepped into the hallway and did a couple of jumping jacks, flinging my arms over my head, hoping a sensor would pick up on my movements and turn the lights back on.

It remained dark. Even the exit signs were extinguished. And now I heard a sound. Faint, barely there, just the whispering of cloth. But I heard it.

I started moving down the hall in the opposite direction of the noise. This was the way I came with Nina, so if I could just retrace our steps . . . Unfortunately, I couldn’t see a danged thing. There was no natural light, and without so much as a glowing exit sign . . .

The elevator pinged. Its doors opened and light flooded out. No one was on it, but I ran toward it, glancing behind me in the hopes of glimpsing whether someone really was behind me.

The elevator doors closed right before I reached them.

Damm it!
I slapped the call button repeatedly, but it was already gone.