“Sula’s family was Chinese?”
Faith nodded. “You don’t hear much about ’em, but there were a handful of Chinese out here as workers when they were building up the railroads. Mostly they left afterward, but the Yus stayed. Dodged the Exclusion Act by keeping to themselves up on the mountain. Mostly quiet, law-abiding folks far as I can tell. Until this generation. Willow’s been in j-camp, and she’s run a little wild, but—except for shooting Scott—her worst crime appears to have been getting on the wrong side of Brett Ridenour.”
“I thought you liked him.”
“I like him well enough and I’ll give you that he’s dedicated to his job, but he’s bitter and he’s got an inflexible mind. As far as he’s concerned, there’s Ridenour’s way and there’s the wrong way.”
I considered that and I couldn’t disagree. I sighed. “If I can get Willow to talk to you, will you let us . . . borrow that rock?”
“No. But I might misplace it for a couple of days.”
I held out my hand. “I’ll let you know.”
Faith unfolded his arms and shook my hand. “Be careful, Ms. Blaine. You’re walking in some damned tricky territory.”
I just nodded, and Quinton and I left Faith to his desk and the box full of waterlogged evidence.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“What do you think?” I asked as we returned “ to the Rover.
“It’s piezoelectric—most quartz is—but it’s got some other electrical properties as well. It’s a big piece, so I’m not quite sure what the effect would be, but it kind of reminds me of old-fashioned radio crystals. . . .”
“It’s very high-pitched.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“I think it was a Grey sound. Faith didn’t hear it, either.”
“Huh . . . I wonder if it’s tuned in some way . . .” Quinton mused.
“Tuned?”
“Yeah. Well, quartz has some interesting properties. Aside from the piezoelectric effect—”
“What is that?”
“It produces electricity if you deform it—that’s how the pilotless ignition on your stove works—or, if you give it electricity, it deforms in response. It’s a useful effect for transducers and—”
I interrupted him. “I’m going to take your word on that. What else does it do?”
“I’m not sure. But given that it seems to be Grey, I’d make a rough guess that it influences the amplitude or direction of magic. When it’s in place. Tuned crystals, like the ones in rudimentary radio sets, resonate to a specific frequency. In this case, it might be a specific frequency in the Grey. I wish I had some of that crystal myself. It might overcome the problems with my Grey detectors. . . .”
His excitement made my own skin buzz, and I could almost see the calculations in Quinton’s eyes as he thought about it and made mental schematics for new devices to track ghosts.
I cleared my throat. “I was actually wondering what you think of Faith and his ideas.”
Quinton blinked. I rarely ask him his opinion of people I’m working with. “He seems . . . pretty reasonable. Which means he hasn’t any idea what’s going on.”
“What about you? I mean, you don’t see ghosts. . . .”
“Sweetheart, we were attacked by walking dead things last night. I may have never seen a ghost, but I’ve heard them and I have met vampires, zombies, witches, and two-headed sea monsters that turn into homicidal canoes. I think I’m allowed to draw some conclusions from that.”
We got into the truck and I started driving up the hill. I kept thinking about the complications around the Leung children and their homes. The Newmans’ house sat nearly on top of the power nexus under the lake. That and money explained why people jumped when Jewel said “frog,” but the big glass-and-wood house hadn’t existed as long as the smaller house at Lake Sutherland with its old, time-etched circle of power and its quiet, old family who kept to themselves, sitting as firmly as Mount Storm King on the deep blue torrent of the east/west leyline. . . .
“What do you think about the case?” I asked.
“Well . . . I haven’t met any of the suspects, so I can’t say for sure. Faith did seem pretty convinced that Willow’s not a killer. You seem to agree with him.”
“Not entirely—and that doesn’t mean she’s not a troublemaker, because she is. I know she shot Timothy Scott, but Faith may be right: It was an accident for which she still feels guilty. She told me someone had ‘stolen’ the magic circle beside the house after Jonah died. It was her mother’s circle when she was born and since Willow was her student as well as her child, it should have been her circle when Sula died—or at least after her half brother died. Maybe she mistook Scott for the thief, shot him, and then realized she’d made a mistake, but then it was too late.... She was still young then. She’s powerful, but she’s not well trained. She’d already been to juvie and she might not have known at the time that her records were sealed. She probably freaked, thinking they’d send her up as an adult with one strike. Plus her other crimes, she might have believed they’d put her away for life, so she came up with the rape story to buy some time and then she ran for the woods. She seems to have an extraordinary connection to nature here—right down to animals and the plants. Maybe that was why she went to the greenhouse.”
“Yeah, I don’t get that. Why did she rob the greenhouse of a plant that was growing on the ground outside it?”
“I think she needed to rip the plant apart, but since she’s connected to the power there, she didn’t want to hurt one that was growing in the living soil around the lake. I’ve only seen her take things that weren’t alive. She knows things she won’t tell me, and, as far as I can tell, she takes a positive delight in messing with Ridenour.”
“Sounds like mutual hate. It doesn’t seem like much of a reason to kill someone’s father, though.”
“I’m still not sure about Ridenour.”
“You kind of like him.”
“I do, but that’s not a factor in guilt. I’m sure the ley weaver didn’t kill Leung or Strother. It’s not interested in human problems and it doesn’t seem to move away from its . . . sculpture or whatever you’d call it. It wouldn’t have to wreck a car since it could just draw the energy out of someone like Leung, and there’d have been no ghost left to tell me a crime had been committed. I’m reasonably convinced Willow isn’t responsible, either. That leaves Jewel, Costigan, and Ridenour.”
“Unless there’s someone else.”
I heaved a sigh. “The mysterious Number Five. I just don’t know. But I can’t get that anchor stone back without solving the murders, and I must shut down the loose power around the lakes. It’s not safe as it is and I’m not sure it’ll be better back the way it was. Jewel’s not the weak and gracious grande dame she wants people to believe her to be. She’s greedy, and until she got sick, she was powerful and dangerous, and people are still scared of her. But I think she usurped the power when she built the house. I don’t think it’s really hers, which may be why she’s sick now.”
“So where are we going now?”
“To find out who knew we were at Leung’s place.”
Geoff Newman scowled at us when he opened the door, but he spoke in a low voice. “What do you want? And who’s this?”
I ignored the latter question. “I want to know who sent a shambling army of walking corpses to visit me last night at your father-in-law’s place.”
Newman’s mouth dropped open and his aura pulsed with alarm. “Who what?”
I pushed past him into the house. Tendrils of yellow and sickly green energy stroked at my legs, but nothing stopped me. Quinton came silently in my wake.