Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
As she drove to Sigrid’s address in Salinas, Harper streamed Jenny and Blanca’s podcast about the grave-robbing Soren Perles.
It was surprisingly well researched and professionally presented.
Jenny described the history of Harvard Medical School and the tradition of medical students having to dig up bodies for their research; they were distinct from the so-called resurrectionists who found and sold bodies, some even resorting to murder in order to fill the demand for anatomical studies and experiments.
She then referred to the current manager of the Harvard Medical School having been accused of selling body parts online.
Blanca highlighted a couple who spent their time and money trying to recoup some of those bodies and even searching for their families. Showing respect to the physical bits and pieces of life that remain on earth once we humans had shaken off the mortal coil.
Wow. The fear of being buried alive at least made some kind of logical sense. This was just crass commercialism.
Salinas was about half an hour inland from Monterey via highway 68, which wound its way past Laguna Seca raceway and skirted the former Fort Ord.
The drive gave Harper a better sense of just how vast the military base had been back in the day.
Here and there were small housing developments, but most of the land had been established as a national monument area, so it was left wild, crisscrossed with hiking trails.
Once she crossed the Salinas River, the low hills gave way to a long, flat valley.
Harper passed vast expanses of farms and wineries, their crops laid out in long, regimented lines.
In the distance she saw groups of farmworkers bent over, doing the punishing work of handpicking produce in the hot sun.
The highway turned into Main Street as she approached town, and she passed a large center dedicated to Salinas’s renowned native son, John Steinbeck.
Steinbeck did not appear to have returned the town’s esteem, famously writing that Salinas was “never a pretty town” and that he felt woefully out of step with most of his neighbors.
Harper had read accounts of The Grapes of Wrath being banned or burned because, in highlighting the plight of migrant workers from Oklahoma, the book cast the area’s prosperous farmers and landowners in a negative light.
But in hindsight, through the prism of the intervening years, the townsfolk appeared to have forgiven Steinbeck. History had a way of transforming reputations.
A big arched sign announced her arrival to the old-fashioned downtown.
A historic Fox Theater promised an elaborate art deco interior and indicated that Salinas was once prosperous enough to support the ornate theater.
Old posters on signposts flapped in the wind, advertising a rodeo, long since passed.
Colorful Day of the Dead and Halloween decorations were displayed in shop windows.
A woman had a baby strapped to her back with a rebozo while tending a corner stand selling plastic cups full of cut-up fresh fruit.
Groups of young people loitered in front of bodegas and botanical shops, signs in Spanish hawking everything from liquor to herbs to burritos.
Harper made a mental note to herself: She needed to learn Spanish if she really was going to call California home. Latin, which she had learned for the sake of her historical research, wasn’t nearly as useful these days.
Following the directions on her phone, Harper found Sigrid’s address, pulled up to the curb, and parked.
Before she could get out of the car, Sigrid had already come out to greet her.
Today the kitchen witch was wearing a gauzy orange tunic printed with rune signs, her long dreads tied back with a matching satin ribbon.
Sigrid lived in a modest ranch-style tract house. When Sigrid had spoken of her extensive garden, Harper assumed she lived out in the country, not in this 1960s-era housing development. But when Sigrid led her around the side of the house and through a gate, she understood.
“This is amazing,” Harper said, taking in the large double lot with its carefully tended, lush garden plots. Plants of all shapes and varieties were thriving, some in the ground, some in pots, some climbing trellises, some in raised beds. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Sigrid smiled. “My neighbors aren’t into gardening, so they allowed me to take down the fence and combine our two yards.
In return, I share my produce with them.
The climate here is perfect for growing: hot summers, with lots of daily sunshine and damp evening fog.
You know what they say about Salinas: We’re the Salad Bowl of the World. ”
“I didn’t know that. I heard Gilroy calls itself the garlic capital.”
“It’s an ongoing feud. Salinas and Gilroy are both agricultural towns, though frankly Gilroy seems to be winning.
Not Salinas’s fault, it’s just that not a lot of people get excited about lettuce.
Garlic ice cream is much more titillating, I suppose.
Still, this area provides a significant amount of produce for markets all over California, and beyond. ”
“And not just plants,” Harper said, spotting a chicken coop, a rabbit hutch, and a dovecote. “Sigrid, this is amazing. A beautiful garden.”
Sigrid nodded. “Delilah loved it here. She liked to sit on that bench over there and just commune with nature. Her yard was too shady for a decent garden, and nothing grew under that damned cypress tree.”
“The Witch Tree.”
“That’s what the ignorant call it, yes.”
“Guess that includes me?”
“If the shoe fits,” Sigrid said snippily.
Harper had to smile. Points for honesty, at least.
“What was Delilah like?” Harper asked. “I mean, as a person. I’ve seen some of her art, and read a few articles, but I don’t have a sense of who she really was.”
“Delilah was…” Sigrid trailed off as she meandered through the garden, searching for the right words.
“I’d describe Delilah as ‘multifaceted.’ She said what she meant and meant what she said, and did not suffer fools gladly.
That directness upset a lot of people. When a man says exactly what he wants and needs and believes, society calls him a stand-up guy.
When a woman does the same, she’s labeled a bitch, or worse. ”
“Could she have made someone angry enough to murder her?”
“I suppose she must have. I mean…why else? Murders are prompted by jealousy, or anger, or revenge, or greed, right?” She ticked the motives off on her fingers as she spoke.
“Or to cover something up. Could Delilah have known something she shouldn’t have?”
Sigrid let out a mirthless chuckle. “Very likely. In many ways Monterey’s a small town, and small towns are rife with rumor and innuendo.
She’s lived in the area her whole life; I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew where some bodies are buried, to borrow a phrase.
But Delilah was also brilliant. Truly larger than life. ”
“I’ve heard that phrase used to describe her before.”
“For good reason. She was…” Sigrid’s voice caught in her throat. “She was more than a friend. There were times I didn’t like her much, myself, but I got over it. Because she was a sister.”
“What did you think of her art?”
“I thought it was extraordinary. Especially her recent work. She promised me one of her paintings, you know. The one with the mirror over the fireplace.”
“A lot of them seem to showcase that mirror.” What had she seen in that looking glass yesterday? Had Delilah seen a similar apparition and felt compelled to include it in her paintings?
“This one had vines all over it, and a murder of crows. She painted it here, in my garden, en plein air. That’s why she promised it to me.”
“I know that one—unfinished, right? I saw it on an easel in the mansion. I imagine you’ll have to speak with her brother about it, though. As her only living relative, he’ll inherit her estate unless she left a will and bequeathed it to you.”
“She said she was going to, but I don’t know if she ever did,” Sigrid said, her tone wistful. “I barely know her brother. We’ve met a few times, but I don’t think he cares much for me. He’s said some awfully nasty things about witches and witchcraft.”
“I’ve heard he can be difficult.”
“As can we all.” She hesitated. “The truth is, in the last few months, Delilah had been acting oddly, increasingly erratic. She would stand in that mirror room of hers for hours sometimes, just looking out the window, staring into the branches of that cypress tree. It was like she was…possessed.”
“That room made me uncomfortable, myself.”
“You were in it?”
“Yes…the detective looking into her murder asked me to accompany him. Speaking of which, you don’t know of any groups that would break into the mansion and hold a séance in that room, do you?”
Sigrid fixed Harper with a look of disdain mixed with anger. “You’re not suggesting that my coven—”
“No, no, not at all,” Harper hastened to assure her. “But some people were there yesterday, doing some kind of ritual.”
“In Delilah’s Reflection room?”
Harper nodded.
Sigrid blew out a harsh breath. “That’s the last thing we need around here. A bunch of fruitcakes who don’t understand what they’re dealing with. Probably just a bunch of stupid kids.”
“I think you’re right.” Jenny and Blanca qualified as such, in this matter, at least.
“It’s partly the fascination with Halloween these days.”
“You don’t celebrate Samhain?” Harper knew that most self-proclaimed witches kept to the pagan calendar.
“Of course I do. And I have no problem with children—or even adults—dressing up and enjoying themselves. The problem for me is that people tend to trivialize it, and when untrained people start fooling around with the occult, it can lead to all sorts of bad things. Anyway, come, let me show you around my garden.”