She wordlessly appraised Frank and her witness. She didn't even have a glance for her ex-husband. Hernandez fidgeted, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Frank endured a silent appraisal, thinking Marguerite James looked like a woman who knew secrets and wouldn't tell you what they were. Frank had a dozen questions she probably wouldn't ask Darcy until she knew him a hell of a lot better. Marguerite studied her a lot longer than Frank thought necessary, seeing as Hernandez was the client.
"Follow me," she commanded, leading them through a living room decorated with carvings and sequined flags. In the rear of the apartment she let them into a windowless room. It was empty but for a large table with two chairs opposite a flowery altar. She told Frank and Hernandez to sit.
"Tell me about this woman who's cursed you," she demanded of Hernandez. He glanced at Frank and she jerked her head in assent. He nervously told Marguerite about Danny and the hexing of his yard and Echevarria's, and the identical tongue he'd gotten but thrown away. He said he'd been going to Mass twice a day but didn't know if a Christian god could fight these older gods.
Marguerite smiled for the first time. She asked for more details about the hexes. Hernandez was vague and Frank filled in what she could.
"Do you know this woman?" she asked, her blunt gaze on Frank.
"Not well."
"But you've met her?"
"Yeah."
"Describe her for me."
When she'd talked to her on the phone, Marguerite had indicated she knew Mother Love. Reputations evidently spread among the Afro-Caribbean religions like AIDS in shooting galleries. Anyone evincing talent as a priest or priestess didn't remain a secret for long.
"I thought you said you knew her," Frank asked back.
"I know of her," Marguerite snapped. "But we don't travel in the same circles. Tell me your perspective."
Frank shrugged, starting with a physical description, but Marguerite interrupted, "No, no, no. What's she like? Her personality."
"Like I said, she's not very big, but she's . . . forceful. She seems larger than she is. She's proud. Arrogant. Been used to having things her way for a long time."
"How does she dress?" Marguerite asked. "Tell me about her appearance."
"She's flamboyant. She's got a big personality and she dresses big. She had on a red blouse, silk I think. And big hoop earrings. Lots of bracelets. Very—"
"Does she wear beads?"
Frank peered into her memory.
"Yeah. I thin—"
"What color?" Marguerite barked.
Frank closed her eyes, unprepared for the interrogation.
"I want to say glass. Red. Maybe white."
Marguerite's unexpected smile was as powerful as a searchlight. Turning to Darcy, she asked, "How well do you remember your orishas?"
"Not very well."
Marguerite rolled her eyes.
"Which one would be associated with red and white?"
Darcy had to think a minute but his answer was apparently satisfactory, for Marguerite said, "There. You're not as stupid as you think."
"I'm not the one who thinks I'm stupid," Darcy bickered back.
She flipped her hand at him.
"You two leave," she told the detectives. "I will take care of Mr. Hernandez. What I'm going to do," she told him carefully, "is rid you of the spells this woman's put on you. I'm going to give you protection too, like an invisible shield, so that whatever she tries to put on you will bounce right off of you and back to her."
Marguerite took one of Hernandez's hands in both her own. She leaned into his face and asked, "Do you believe I can do that?"
Hernandez glanced at Frank again, then back at the woman holding his hand. They waited for his answer. Finally it came in a timorous nod. Marguerite tilted an eyebrow at Frank and Darcy. They returned to the living room where Frank studied Marguerite's art collection. She couldn't vouch for its quality but the quantity was impressive enough. Running her good hand over a beaded fetish, Frank asked, "What was she giving me the third degree for?"
"I don't know." Darcy sulked. He'd been morose all day and Frank had to prod him for answers.
"How long's this going to take?"
"About an hour."
"What's she going to do?"
Pressing his thumbnail into the caulking of the windowsill, he shrugged. "I suspect she'll cleanse him—rub oils on him and smudge him—then she'll invoke an orisha. My guess is she'll call upon Shango. That seems to be Mother Love's god. Plus, he's the god who protects against evil. She'll have to set an altar to attract him. The gods are like six-year-olds. They're easily bribed. She'll pray over Hernandez and probably make him a mojo that'll make him feel safe. But like I said, it all depends on how much faith Hernandez has in her."
"What's an orisha?"
"One of the African gods. There's a whole pantheon with a specific hierarchy, much like the Greek pantheon. Each god has dominion over a specific natural phenomenon. They each have their own attributes and personalities. It's pretty involved."
Frank nodded at a tall carving of a bent old man.
"She do any of these?"
"No, she just collects them. She's a physics professor."
"No kidding?"
When Darcy didn't respond, she asked, "Where at?"
"UC Irvine. She's a bigwig in plasma physics."
"Plasma physics," Frank repeated. She was thinking Marguerite was as impressive as her ex when a door banged.
"Where's your daughter?"
"She's spending the night at a friend's. I wanted to see her but Marguerite doesn't like the schedule disrupted. She can be a regular bitch."
Frank examined a row of book spines.
"That why you left her?" she ventured.
"It was the other way around." Darcy grunted, then volunteered, "I used to have a pretty bad temper. I came home drunk one night, I don't even remember it, but I guess I hit her. I woke up in the tank and by the time they let me out she'd changed the locks. She packed my things in a couple of boxes and brought them outside for me. Her brothers were with her. She had a big gash on her cheekbone and her right eye was swollen. She told me to expect the divorce papers within a week and that I'd never see Gabby—my daughter— again."
Darcy went Code 2 again and Frank said to the books, "I thought you had custody every other weekend."
"Yeah, we're working it out. It's not as much time as I want with her, but it's better than what it used to be. She wouldn't even let me see her in the beginning, or call her. She had a restraining order. Plus those brothers. But it's getting better. I've just got to be patient and not lose my temper. That only sets me back."
The conversation died in uncomplaining silence. Darcy went outside to spit tobacco and Frank wished she'd brought some work to do. She pulled a book from the shelf, a doctoral thesis on African religious art.
She found Shango in the index but it directed her to Xango. She browsed the indicated entries, discovering he was the god of pride, arrogance, and warfare. He loved all physical sports, often carried an ax or a club, usually made of copper, and his favorite colors were red and white.
As Darcy said, he was associated with all natural phenomena, ruling over lightning and fire. That reminded frank of Jill's informant, who claimed to have seen lightning over the Slauson house.
Even as Frank rationalized that the CI had seen a spotlight or some explicable weather event, her lower brain whispered, not a coincidence.