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Michael’s eyes widened. He turned to Nina, who had grown almost translucent with fear.
“You want to talk to us, Nina?” Faith asked, her voice low and deadly. “Or should we take you somewhere and make you talk?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Now see, that’s a lie,” Faith replied.
Now that she knew who Nina was, she wasn’t afraid of her anymore. She might think herself a witch or a sorceress or a witch doctor, but all Faith saw was a murderer.
Nina’s eyelid twitched. “The powder is for an artwork.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of powder.”
“It’s a large artwork. I’ll show it to you. It’s in my garage.”
“And you just happened to need black, white, yellow and red?”
"Yes. It's an oil painting of the Magnum Opus, seven feet by six feet. Those are the primary colors of the Opus, so they must be well-represented."
“And the interest in alchemy? The belief that there are forces at work in the universe that science can’t understand?”
Nina blinked. “That’s not… I don’t mean to say I believe that I can kill people and obtain eternal life. I thought I said that. I just mean that there might be benefits to understanding ancient philosophy.”
“And you knew that the killer had completednigredo, albedoandcitrinitas,” Michael said. “I don’t buy that you just guessed that based on the limited information the news released.”
"Oh, for God's sake," Nina said brittlely. "If the news said that a man was found with a wooden bat and a small cork ball covered in white leather with red stitching, it wouldn't take much of a leap to assume that he was a baseball player."
“Baseball’s a bit more common of an interest than alchemy,” Michael pointed out.
“But I’m anexpertin alchemy! Of course, I'm going to be better equipped to identify alchemical rituals than the average person!"
“Exactly,” Faith said. “There’s not a lot of you around. And you have the same powders used on our victims.”
“Many people do! Mica powder is a base for pigments, dyes, even paints! Come! I’ll show you what I’ve used mine for!”
“I’ll accept that you’ve used some of your powder for art. But you used it for something else too, didn’t you?”
“No! For God’s… did you just come here to accuse me of murder?”
“We came here to understand our killer better,” Faith replied. “I think now we do.”
Nina began to tremble. “Listen,” she said, struggling for calm. “You’ve made a mistake. I am using mica powder for my artwork. I am studying alchemy to write a book. I am certainly not murdering women as part of some absurd quest for eternal life.”
“Why are you killing them?”
“I’m not killing them! You can’tpossiblybelievethat.”
“I believe I found some pretty damned compelling evidence.”
Nina’s eyes narrowed. She looked shrewdly between the two of them. “Then why haven’t you arrested me? If you’re so certain, why are you still talking to me?”
“I’m giving you a chance to prove that I’m wrong,” Faith said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t suspect you?”
"Because your only piece of evidence is that I have mica powder in my attic!"
“And you have a fascination with alchemy and a deep understanding of the Magnum Opus,” Faith added. “And you were very careful to point out that our killer was a she.”
“Almost as if you were offended that we would have thought such a brilliant work was completed by a man,” Matt added.
