The man glanced at Edward’s ID, then looked past him at us. “Who are they?”
I held up my badge on its lanyard so it was even more visible. “Marshal Anita Blake; I did call and talk to Ms. Billings.”
Bernardo said, in a voice as cheerful and well meaning as Ted’s, “U.S. Marshal Bernardo Spotted Horse.”
Olaf sort of growled behind us all. “Otto Jeffries, U.S. Marshal.” He held up his badge so the man could see it over everyone’s shoulders. Bernardo did the same.
A woman’s voice called from deeper in the house, “Michael, let them in.”
The man, Michael presumably, scowled at us but unlatched the screen door. But before he let us cross the threshold, he spoke in a low voice. “Don’t upset her.”
“We’ll do our best not to, sir,” Edward said in his Ted voice. We went in through the door, but there was something about Michael at my back that made me turn so I could keep him in my peripheral vision. With everyone inside, I could put him at a little over six feet, which put him taller than Bernardo but shorter than Olaf. I had a moment as we all bunched into the foyer to see just how much smaller Edward was than the other men. It was always hard to remember that Edward wasn’t that tall, at five foot eight. He was just one of those people who seemed taller than he was; sometimes physical height isn’t what tall is about.
The living room was probably as big a disappointment to Bernardo as the outside had been because it was a typical room. It had a couch and a couple of chairs and was painted in a light and cheerful blue, with hints of a pinkish orange in the cushions and some of the knickknacks. There was tea set out on the long coffee table, with enough cups for everyone. I hadn’t told her how many of us were coming, but there they sat, four cups. Psychics, ya gotta love ’em.
Phoebe Billings sat there, her eyes a little red from crying, but her smile serene and sort of knowing. My mentor Marianne had a smile like that. It meant she knew something I needed to know, or was watching me work through a lesson that I needed to learn very badly, but I was being stubborn. Witches who are also counselors are very big on you coming to your realizations in your own time, just in case rushing you would somehow damage your karmic lesson. Yes, Marianne drove me nuts sometimes with the lack of direction, but since one of the things she thought I needed to work on was patience, it was all good for me. Irritating, but good, so she said. I found it mostly irritating.
“Won’t you sit down. The tea is hot.”
Edward sat down on the couch beside her, still smiling his Ted smile, but it was more sympathetic now. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Billings.”
“Phoebe, please.”
“Phoebe, and I’m Ted; this is Anita, Bernardo, and Otto.”
Michael had taken up a post near her, one hand on the other wrist. I knew a bodyguard pose when I saw it. He was either her priest or her black dog-though most covens didn’t have one of the latter anymore. The covens that still had it as an office usually had two. They were bodyguards and did protection detail magically when the coven did work. Most of their work was of a spiritually protective nature, but once upon a time, the black dogs had hunted bogeys that were more flesh and less spirit. Michael had the feel of someone who could do both.
Phoebe looked from one to the other of us, then finally came back to Ted. “What do you want to know, Marshals?” There was the slightest of hesitation before she called us by our titles.
She poured tea into our cups. She put sugar in two, and left two plain. Then she handed them to Michael and directed where they should go.
Edward took his tea, as did the others. I got mine last. Neither she nor Michael got cups. I had absolutely no reason to mistrust Phoebe Billings, but unless she drank the tea, I wasn’t touching it. Just because you’re a witch doesn’t mean you’re a good witch.
She smiled at us all as we sat with our untouched cups, as if we’d done exactly what she’d known we would do. “Randy wouldn’t have taken the tea, either,” she said. “Police, you’re all so suspicious.” She dabbed at her eyes and gave a ladylike sniff.
“Then why did you give us the tea if you knew we wouldn’t drink it?” I said.
“Call it a test.”
“A test of what?” I asked, and I must have sounded a little more unfriendly than was called for, because Edward touched my leg, just a nudge to let me know to bring the tone down. Edward was one of the few people I’d take the hint from.
“Ask me again in a few days, and I’ll answer your question,” she said.
“You know, just because you’re Wiccan and psychic doesn’t mean you have to be mysterious,” I said.
“Ask me your questions,” she said, and her voice was sad and too somber to match the bright room we sat in, but then grief comes to every room, no matter what color its painted.
Edward sat back a little more on the couch, giving me the best view of her he could give without changing seats. It let me know he was letting me take the lead, like he’d said in the car. Fine.
“How good at magic was Randall, Randy, Sherman?”
“He was as competent at magic as he was at everything he did,” she said. A woman appeared from farther into the house. She carried a tray with another cup and saucer on it. She had the priestess’s long brown hair, but the body was slender and younger. I wasn’t surprised when Phoebe introduced her as her daughter, Kate.
“Then if Sherman started to say a spell in the middle of a firefight, he’d have a reason to think it would help?”
The woman poured tea for her mother from the pot and handed it to her. “Randy never wasted things, neither ammo, nor physical effort, nor a spell.”
She drank from the cup. Bernardo followed suit and did a pretty good job of not leering at the daughter as she walked back toward the kitchen with the empty tray. Edward sipped his tea, too.
Phoebe glanced from Olaf to me. “Still don’t trust me?”
“Sorry, but I’m a coffee drinker.”
“I do not like tea,” Olaf said.
“Kate could fix you some coffee.”
“I’d rather just ask our questions, if that’s all right.” I meant that, but it’s also been my experience that tea drinkers make bad coffee.
“Why do you think that Randy was saying a spell during a shooting?”
I glanced at Edward, and he took over. I just wasn’t sure how much to tell her. “We can’t really share too much information on an ongoing investigation, Phoebe. But we have good reason to think that Randy was saying a spell in the middle of a fight.”
“Saying?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Randy was very good; he could have simply thought a blessing in the middle of a fight.”
“What kind of spell would he have had to say out loud?” I asked.
She frowned. “Some witches need to speak aloud to help focus; Randy didn’t. So if he was chanting aloud, then it was something ritualistic and old. Something he’d memorized, like an old charm. I don’t know how much any of you know about our faith, but most ritual is created for the purpose of an individual event. It’s a very creative, and fluid, process. When you’re talking about set words, then it’s more ceremonial magicians then Wiccans.”
“But Randy was Wiccan, not a ceremonial magician,” I said.
“Correct.”
“What would he have known, or thought, to say in the middle of a fight? What would have prompted him to think of an old chant, a memorized piece?”