Sins of Omission by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-07-06T21:14:47+00:00

9

THE WOMAN BESIDE VERONICA Beaufort was of medium height, middle-aged, stout, dressed with quiet, military neatness in a dark green suit, wore glasses that almost hid the glint in her greenish eyes. She carried an attaché case on a shoulder strap that, from time to time, made a sound that suggested it was filled with something other than paper. She looked like a case worker or an attorney. She was a witch.

Giles encountered them on the sidewalk as he crossed Parnassus toward the hospital. “This is Alice Hartwell,” Veronica said with a wicked grin. “You remember, you were the one who suggested that I ask Hugh to find me a shaman. He came up with Alice. She’s been working on Mr. Limmer.”

“Any success?” Giles asked as he fumbled in his pockets for the new house key he had made that morning.

“It’s hard to tell,” Alice Hartwell said in a pleasant voice that had a lingering trace of a Virginia accent. “I think that he’s been fooling around with one of those groups that call themselves covens and are out for a few thrills. Cocks’ blood, mild drugs, indiscriminate sex, that type of thing. There are quite a few covens of that sort in the Bay Area.”

The light changed and they crossed the street together. “Are you working on him today?” Giles asked.

“No, I’m here to show Dr. Beaufort a few tricks that ought to keep Limmer in line.” From the way she said it, Giles felt certain Limmer would improve if he knew what was good for him. He nodded, saying, “I would have thought, given the number of universities in the area, and the high level of education, that there wouldn’t be much of that sort of thing.”

“Not at all,” Alice Hartwell objected politely, and rose to the bait. “Wherever you gather together inquiring minds, some of them are bound to go into less accepted areas of research. That’s the source of progress, eventually. It wasn’t so long ago, Dr. Todd, that chemistry was considered a Black Art and the practitioner could be burned for his science just as easily as an herb woman could be burned for giving digitalis, as foxglove, to a peasant with heart trouble. Though when you tally up the burnings, more of the herb women died than the chemists.” She smiled suddenly and her plain, monkey face was transformed. “Don’t let me get onto my hobbyhorse, please. I’ve been known to go on for hours.”

Giles had opened the doors for the women to enter the hospital, following them into the building. “You express yourself very well.”

“I hope so,” she said in mock dismay. “I do enough lecturing.”

“Lecturing?” Giles said with a hint of disbelief.

“Yes. At those universities you just mentioned.” The sharpness disappeared from her voice. “I always seem to be on the defensive around you professional-scientist types. You have some very distorted impressions of what I do.”

Veronica came to her rescue. “It was quite fascinating to watch her,” she said with genuine respect.

Alice Hartwell dismissed this.

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