Eye of the Witch
Smashwords Edition
Author's notes: This book is based entirely on fiction and its story line derived solely from the imagination of its author. No characters, places or incidents in this book are real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be copied or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author or author’s agent.
Eye of the Witch © Dana E. Donovan 2006
Cover design by Vickie Donovan © 2012
Books in this series include:
The Witch’s Ladder
Eye of the Witch
The Witch’s Key
Bones of a Witch
Witch House
Kiss the Witch
Call of the Witch
Gone is the Witch (late 2012)
Other books by this author:
Abandoned
Death & Other Little Inconveniences
Resurrection
Skinny
Follow Dana E. Donovan on Facebook
One
I had that dream again, the one where Doctor Lowell has me tied to a tree and is coming at me with a knife. Only in my dream I’m younger, much younger, like maybe by forty years. Lilith is there, too, but she isn’t tied to the tree with me this time. I can see her standing on the sideline with Carlos, talking and laughing and playing with that confounded witch’s ladder. I try screaming for one of them to untie a knot on the ladder. They pay no attention. They can’t hear me. My screams are only in my head. Carlos leans in and kisses Lilith. She pulls back and giggles. I think to myself, that’s so unlike her. I’ve never seen her giggle before. Then the two of them look back at me and wave before the mad doctor plunges his knife into my chest.
That’s when I wake up, dripping in sweat, my heart pounding harder than a sixty-four-year-old heart had a right to. In the old days I could shrug something like that off, grab a cigarette and a shot of whiskey and then go back to bed. But my days of smoke and whiskey seem more distant than that young detective I left tied to the tree in my dreams. Best I can do nowadays is to get up and fix myself a grapefruit and guava smoothie, and so that’s what I did.
As I sat drinking my concoction, thumbing through that silly string of beads I brought down from New Castle, the phone rang. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost midnight. I knew right away who it was.
“Hello, Carlos,” I said after answering. “What do you want?”
“Tony. How did you know it was me?”
“I could tell from the ring.”
“Really?”
“No, but what do you want?”
“Jeez, Ton, can’t I call an old pal to say hi? I didn’t wake you, did I? I mean I know how you like to stay up late watching old westerns and…. You were up, right?”
“I was up, yes, but it’s nearly midnight. I know you didn’t call just to say hi. Is everything all right up there?”
He grew silent. My experience told me that he had a whole ice-breaking spiel ready for me, but I derailed his train of thought. It was selfish of me, really. I guess I owed him that much. We hadn’t talked for a while, not since I moved away. It all came to a head after our last case together. I just sort of lost it. I grew despondent and my carelessness nearly got us both killed in a car wreck. That’s when I knew I had to retire. I had been thinking about it anyway. My captain recommended the condominiums at Del Rio Vista. Said his mother lived there and loved it. He said it was a great place to launch the exciting second half of my life.
What he meant was it’s a great place to go and die. Just look at his mother. For years he sent her checks every month for room and board, and a card on Mother’s Day that said, Thinking of you, Mom, on your special day. Last month she slipped into a coma and passed. It took four days before anyone noticed. I suppose living at Del Rio Vista was just too much excitement for the old girl. In the back of my mind, I believe the captain found some relief in the news. He had to know that his mother was fading like old denim.
But Carlos never expected I would hate it in Florida. I’m sure he hated to see me leave New Castle, but he believed it was for the best. He promised he would come down a couple of times a year to do some fishing with me. He hasn’t yet. I don’t blame him, though. Detective work is all-consuming. It’s the reason he’s still single, the reason I never married. I let him stew in silence awhile longer before finally letting him off the hook.
“Carlos, it’s okay that you haven’t called me before now. I know you’re busy.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. I’ve been busy, too.”
“You have?”
“You kidding? Man, what with all the biking, swimming, canoeing, golfing, shuffleboard, bingo, cocktail parties and socializing, I don’t know if I’d have had the time to talk anyway.”
All right, so I lied to him. Truth was that I hadn’t done half those things in years. The other half I had never done at all.
“Really?” he said.
“Yeah, but I have time for you now. So tell me. How have you been? You make captain yet?”
“Me? Come on, Tony. That’s not my gig. I’m a field guy. You know that. The minute they promote me to captain, I’m taking that retirement train straight down to Florida where I can start really enjoying life—like you.”
“Right, like me. Well, all in good time. Don’t rush things, my friend. So tell me. You keeping busy up there?”
I said that and he went quiet again. It’s funny how two friends can sense when something is not quite right. I thought for a moment he had detected the discontent in my voice, but I wasn’t sure. Carlos Rodriquez and I had worked together for nearly thirty years, and in that time we both learned more about the other than either intentionally divulged. I assumed he was simply feeling the void in my words, but as soon as he spoke again I realized it was his misapprehensions I felt, not he feeling mine.
“Carlos? Is something wrong?”
“Tony, I probably shouldn’t have called you tonight. You have your life there now. It’s late. I didn’t realize. How `bout I call you back another time and we’ll—”
“Carlos, no! Look. I’m up. You called me. There’s something going on that you thought I should know. What is it?”
He hesitated. “I don’t….”
“Caaaaarlos.”
“All right. You sure? I mean, I don’t want to burden you. It’s just that….”
“Damn it, Carlos. Spill it!”
I heard him take a deep breath and snort it out like a bull. “Okay, I’m just looking for advice, though, that’s all.”
“Fine. That’s all you’ll get.”
“I have this case I’ve sort of been working on.”
“I figured that.”
“Yeah, but it’s not just any case. It’s a real conundrum, and if you’re not looking at it just right, it appears not much of a case at all.”
“Maybe it’s not,” I said. “Sometimes things are what they seem.”
“Yes, but if there’s one thing I learned working with you, it’s that you’ve got to trust your instincts, and my gut instincts tells me there’s something going on here. Something big.”
“All right, wait a minute.” I set the phone down on the kitchen table and poured another glass of grapefruit and guava. I took a sip, smacking my lips from the tartness before returning the pitcher to the fridge. As I put the phone back to my ear, I heard Carlos rambling on without pausing between breaths.
“Carlos!” I said. I think I was laughing. “Carlos, slow down! I told you to wait a minute. I was getting something to drink. Start over.”
“What? You didn’t hear what I said?”
“Not a word. Now, start from the beginning, and slow down. I think half of what you said was in Spanish, anyway.”
“Tony.” He sounded frustrated. “There’s been a number of suicides in New Castle lately.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, and all very suspicious.”
“You think they weren’t suicides?”
“I can’t see it. Tony, the last suicide we had in New Castle was Gordon Walsh, who hung himself in our jail cell the night––”
“Yes, Carlos, I remember Gordon Walsh. Damn it. How could I forget? I’m the reason he—”
“Whoa, Tony, easy! I’m sorry. I didn’t…What I meant was, before Gordon the last suicide in New Castle was back in 1952. Now we have three in as many weeks, all seemingly unrelated.”
“School kids?”
“No. Adults. All women.”
“Are you thinking serial?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Who are they?”
“The first was a lawyer with Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli—a real sharp one, Tony, with the whole package, beautiful, bold and bodacious. She had just been named full partner in the firm.”
“Sounds like she had everything to live for.”
“Yeah, sounds like. I mean definitely not your typical Prozac type.”
Typical? I tried to visualize what the typical suicidal type might look like, so that I might put a face to the person Carlos described. But I had to conclude there probably wasn’t any one image to attach to such a stereotype. What we see on the outside rarely mirrors the person we find on the inside after one has committed the ultimate act of self-persecution. I asked Carlos about the second girl, trying to keep an open mind on the kind of person I thought I might find behind his words.
“She was pretty,” he said, “Cuban born, like me. But if not as successful as the lawyer chick, then at least she seemed well-liked.”
“Well-liked?” That seemed unqualified. “Maybe not by all.”
Carlos laughed faintly. “I suppose.”
I asked him about the third woman. He got quiet again. I heard him take a short breath and then swallow. “Yeah, her.” he said. “You see, hers was the one that told me things were not what they seemed. She had plans that night, Tony. This woman had plans and they didn’t include killing herself.”
“Maybe something came up at the last minute that changed her mind.”
“No way.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, I am. And Tony, this woman? There’s something else you need to know about her.”
“What’s that?”
“She was one of ours.”
“A cop?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone I know?”
“You remember Karen Webber?”
“Webber. Yeah, Travis Webber’s sister, the cop from Ipswich. We met her at Travis’ funeral.”
“Ah-huh. And you know she transferred to New Castle, right?”
“I heard.”
“Yeah, well, she’s number three.”
Now it was my turn to fall silent. I remembered Karen Webber well, a beautiful woman and a good cop. We met her at her brother’s funeral. She drove down from Ipswich to stand in uniform in the rain, unflinching as they buried Travis, still not knowing who killed him or why.
The fog had not yet lifted the morning they found Travis slain on the front steps of the New England Institute for Research of Paranormal and Unexplained Phenomena. He participated in group studies there for years, he and others in his workshop, all equally gifted and proficient in the psychic academia of clairvoyance, mental telepathy, bilocation and telekinesis. It was Travis’ love and dedication for his gift that kept him at the institute that night, and his gift that ultimately got him killed.
I remembered Karen telling me they had just promoted her to detective up in Ipswich the week before. Still, she came to the wake and subsequent funeral in full dress uniform. I don’t believe she ever really bought the final report that Carlos and I filed when we closed the case on his murder. I don’t suppose I could blame her, either. The wild and bizarre story that unfolded in the months following his murder still seems hard for me to believe. I imagined that’s the reason Karen Webber transferred to the New Castle police department after I retired. Perhaps she hoped to uncover further clues into her brother’s death that I could not. Heaven knows there were plenty of questions left unanswered in our final report.
So this was the Karen Webber I remembered, young, brave, spirited and dedicated–all the qualities that make for a good cop. And something else about Karen, like her brother Travis, she was no quitter. Carlos said he was sure Karen Webber didn’t commit suicide. In my heart, I agreed. That meant only one thing. Karen Webber, and possibly—probably the other two women were murdered.
Though my thoughts had drifted to a place I thought I would never revisit, I still had Carlos on the other end of the line to reel me in. I heard him clear his throat, this after what seemed like minutes. I blinked myself back to the room where the smell of grapefruit and guava now sicken me. All I could do was imagine a cold gray New England sky, the graffiti-riddled sidewalks and the pothole-filled streets of New Castle and wish I were there.
Carlos cleared his throat again. “Tony?”
“I’m here,” I told him. “Check the flights coming in tomorrow morning. I’ll need a ride.”
I hung up, though just long enough to get a dial tone. The airline had a flight leaving at seven in the morning, so I packed my bags and phoned a taxi. They say you should get to the airport a little early. I imagined six hours ought to do it. Besides, I suddenly craved a lousy cup of coffee to wash down the grapefruit and guava and figured where else was I going to find one?
TWO
Carlos met me at Boston’s Logan in the baggage claim area where we greeted each other with a hug—sort of. I mean it wasn’t really a hug. It was one of those things where two guys are happy to see each other but they don’t want to seem too friendly in public. We somehow managed to slap each other on the back a few times without our chests or bellies ever touching. It’s a practiced art.
I claimed my luggage and we headed out, walking the equivalent of four city blocks to get to the car. He had come in a company sedan, a typical unmarked jobber, which means that the vehicle stuck out like a sore thumb. Aside from the obvious government license plates, the vehicle sported two curly antennas sticking out the trunk lid, limo-tint side windows and of course, no hubcaps. To top it off, the little door over the gas cap was riveted shut, a telltale sign that the city finally converted their police cruisers to propane.
“Nice,” I said, nodding my approval. “They moved you into a Crown Vic.”
Our old car was an Impala that could barely get out of its own way. A gondola on wheels, Carlos called it. The State Patrol drove Crown Vics. We used to hate them for it.
“Yeah,” said Carlos, “they weeded out the Chevys last year. I got one of the first delivered to the department.”
“You crash it yet?” I knew he had.
He dropped his head and opened the driver’s door. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said, and he got in without another word.
As we drove on to New Castle, I alternated stares out the side window and the windshield, noting how nothing had changed. I mentioned this to Carlos and he smiled. “You want change? Wait till you see the new box.”
He was talking about the police station. I knew they built a new one. Construction began a full year before I left the force—and none too soon, either. The old precinct building was in shambles, moldy, leaky and drafty. And that I nearly destroyed it with a mini tornado didn’t help matters much. But that’s another story.
“Did they do a good job?” I asked.
He just nodded and winked. “You’ll see.”
And I did see. They did a great job. It wasn’t just a police station. It was an ultra-modern criminal justice center, complete with jails, courtrooms, administration offices and a state-of-the-art crime lab. It had everything a small town cop could want. Hell, it had everything a big town cop could want, too. I told Carlos if he threw in a couple of suites, a swimming pool and valet parking, he’d have a five-star resort. He laughed, and later when he took me past the workout center complete with pool and sauna, I understood why.
“It’s really different here, Tony. This facility serves the entire county. We all share resources now. We’re connected to an interstate computer network linked to a national database in Washington D.C. From here we can pull up information on anything and anyone, from murderers and pedophiles to check forgers and deadbeat dads. And get this. Soon we’ll process for DNA matches right here. Can you believe it?”
“No,” I said. “I can hardly understand it all. Maybe it’s a good thing I got out when I did. I mean…” I shook my head, and my loss for words overwhelmed me. Carlos’ expression melted with concern. He came up and put his arm around me.
“You okay?”
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. “I don’t know, Carlos. Police work is a young man’s game these days. I don’t know why I came here. I must have been a fool to think I could help you. If you don’t mind, I should take a taxi back to the airport and—”
“No! Absolutely not. Tony, don’t let all the sparkle and glitter discourage you. These are only tools. They mean nothing if you don’t have the know-how to use them.”
“But that’s just it, Carlos. I don’t have the know-how to use them.”
“Yes, you do. You just don’t know it.”
“Come again?”
“You have it. You know what information you need and when you need it. All of this? It’s just a machine, a big calculator. I can run the calculator. All you need to know is what problems to ask it. I’ll feed them into the machine.”
“No, I think that’s nice of you, but—”
“Nice? Tony, this isn’t about being nice. Nice is having you up to my cottage in Rhode Island and taking you out for some of the best fishing this side of Narragansett Bay. Uh-uh, no, I’m talking about putting all of your forty-plus years of investigative experience to work behind some of twenty-first century’s finest technological advances to help solve a crime that no one here seems to even recognize has taken place.”
“You mean that?”
“Yes! This equipment is topnotch. Besides, I’ve already secured top-level clearance for you to work as a civilian consultant. You’re all ready to go.”
“No. I mean you really have a cottage in Rhode Island?”
He looked at me and winced. “Yeah, about that. It’s a shack, really. I was going to tell you about it.”
I plugged his arm with a stiff punch. “Forget it.” He fell back, but caught himself on replanted footing. “Listen. Do you really believe I can help you with your case?”
“Tony, listen,” he said, and I have never seen a more serious look on his face before. “You’re the best I know at this game. You’re old school, but your aptitude for understanding criminal behavior is uncanny, and your deductive talents are immeasurable. I think we owe it to Karen Webber and the other women to do this.”
“And to Travis,” I said. I put my hand out and we shook on it. “All right, then. Where do we start?”
“My office. This way.”
“You have an office?”
We started down a long hallway, past a checkpoint where they issued me a VIP pass and scanned me for weapons.
“It’s not really an office,” he said, as we single-filed through a door that required him sliding an ID card through a barcode reader before opening. “We call it a think tank, though I suppose that term really means something else. Anyway, you’ll see.”
We went through a door that opened into another hallway, this one wider and longer with a carpeted floor and acoustic-paneled ceiling that absorbed stray sounds like a recording studio. Along the walls were large plate glass windows etched with the emblems of the police departments working behind them. I noticed that the room designated for the New Castle PD was larger than the others. When asked why, Carlos explained that the other municipalities only share police resources at the justice center, whereas New Castle’s entire police force worked from that single location.
“So then this is the entire NCPD now?” I asked.
“Oh, this is only the detectives’ area,” he replied, smiling. “The uniforms still work downstairs where booking and processing takes place. There’s no need for them to go through the layers of security that we go through here. Come, I’ll show you my workstation.”
I followed Carlos behind the glass where he introduced me to the gang. Some I knew, old faces I had worked with for years. Others were not so familiar. We headed to the back of the room where the best desks sat situated by the outside windows overlooking the parking lot. It wasn’t the greatest view, but it was a view, and that’s more than what I had with my old desk for nearly forty years.
Carlos sat down and motioned for me to take a seat across from him. There were no cubicles or half-walls separating his workspace from those of his coworkers. But careful placement of potted trees and furniture-styled filing cabinets, along with cushioned chairs and muted-colored carpeting, gave the room warm character and an impression of personalized space. I kicked back in my chair and started to prop my feet up on the desk, when Carlos shot me a look as if I might burn the place down with just the thought of it. I apologized with a simple, “Sorry,” and he dismissed it with a wave.
A young man entered the office area. I say young because he looked like a kid to me, skinny, glasses, crew-cut hair and one of them pen protectors in his shirt pocket. Carlos acknowledged him with a nod and waved him over. The kid approached the desk and handed Carlos an envelope. He looked down at me and smiled politely. I smiled back. I noticed he wore an ID card on a chain around his neck and a detective’s badge on his belt. The ID card said his name was Spinelli, Dominic, Detective, Second Precinct, New Castle, Massachusetts. I’m sure it meant to read, Eagle Scout, 2nd class, Boy Scouts of America.
“What’s this?” Carlos asked.
“It just came up from evidence,” Spinelli replied. “I thought you’d want it.”
“It came up? Or…” Carlos made little quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “It came up.”
The kid smiled. Carlos pointed to me and then to the kid. “Tony. I want you to meet my partner, Detective, Dominic Spinelli. Dom, Detective Anthony Marcella.”
“Retired,” I said, reaching up to shake his hand.
His eyes lit up like a Jack-O-lantern. “Detective Marcella? Wow! What a pleasure to meet you, sir! You’re a legend around here!”
I turned to Carlos and laughed. “Nice. You put him up to that, didn’t you?”
“Not me, amigo. The kid read up on you. You’re like a second hobby for him.”
“Second? What’s the first?”
Carlos looked at Dominic and gave him a nod. I turned back to the young detective. “Well?”
He smiled bashfully. “Actually, my hobby is the occult. I study Neo-Pagan religions, customs and traditions.”
“Do you?”
“Yes sir. Oh, but I don’t practice none of that. I’m Catholic by heritage. I just think the off-religions are fascinating.”
I thought he was putting me on for a moment. I half-smiled to let him know the jig was up, but he didn’t break. And so I turned to Carlos and gave him the old highbrow. When that didn’t work, I decided to play along. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that case Carlos and I worked on last year, would it?”
“Would what have anything to do with it?”
“You know. You’re trying to get me to talk about the Surgeon Stalker case.”
“Tony,” said Carlos, bluntly. “Dominic knows all about the case. He’s read every report ever written by every cop, inspector, paramedic, detective, Indian chief and shoeshine boy. He’s combed over every newspaper article, watched every newsreel, talked to every witness and pored over every Internet site on the subject since the story first broke. He can probably fill you in on a few details.”
“Really?” I turned to Spinelli and saw panic fill his eyes.
“Oh, n…not that you need any details,” he stammered. “I’m sure you and Detective Rodriquez handled the case most expertly at the time.”
“At the time? So, what you’re saying is that you would conduct matters differently now.”
“No, not at all. I…I just…I mean….”
“Relax, Dom. Detective Marcella’s playing with you. Tell him, Tony.”
“He’s right,” I said, laughing a little. “Spinelli, tell me, son. How old are you?”
He straightened his shoulders back. “I’m twenty-six, sir.”
“Twenty-six, you still have time. Listen, kid, don’t make excuses. Learn to say what you mean and mean what you say. I know that sounds cliché, but it’s true. When did you make detective?”
“A month ago, sir.”
“A month ago?” I turned to Carlos. “And they partnered him with you?”
“I asked for him.”
“You did?”
“Sure. After all those years with an old fart like you, I figured I deserved a break.”
I picked the folder up off his desk and threw it at him. He blocked it with the reflexes of a cat. I heard Spinelli start to laugh at that, but a cutting glance from Carlos put an end to it quickly.
“All right,” I said. “Enough horseplay. What’s in the envelope?”
“Surveillance photos,” Spinelli replied. “Detective Webber tailed that suspect for weeks before she died. These are some of the photos she took.”
That seemed promising. I pointed at the package. “Let’s see them.”
Carlos opened the envelope and spilled the contents out onto the desk. There were six photos in all, two taken at night, but on different nights, and four in daylight. All were of the same man, dark-skinned—likely Hispanic, not too tall, good-looking, well-dressed, mid-to-late thirties and well built. The day shots showed the man coming and going from an office building, nothing unusual and always alone. The night shots, though grainy and distant, appeared to show the same man meeting someone at an outdoor café. Carlos gave the snapshots a gratuitous look before sliding them my way.
“You don’t want to see them more closely?” I asked.
“Don’t have to. I know who it is.”
“Oh?”
“That’s Ricardo Rivera. He’s a lawyer with Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli. I believe you know him, too.”
“Yes,” I answered, as I thumbed through the pictures. “I recognize him now. Wasn’t he a criminal defense attorney somewhere?”
“He was, and a damn good one before the firm recruited him.”
“So, how did he end up on the other end of Karen’s lens?”
“To answer that, we have to know what she was working on before she died.”
“And that was?”
“We don’t really know, but I can guess.”
“Yes?”
“Well, she was supposedly working a string of warehouse burglaries down by the docks, but anyone related to that case will tell you they hadn’t seen or heard from her in weeks.”
“So, what’s your theory?”
Carlos scooted forward in his chair and planted his elbows on the desk. Spinelli and I both leaned in closer, understanding that he didn’t want anyone nearby to hear. “Remember I told you over the phone that Karen’s suicide made three in as many weeks?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t suppose it’s any coincidence that the first suicide victim was Bridget Dean, a lawyer at Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli.”
“Where Ricardo Rivera works.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s right. You mentioned that. So then, Karen must have thought Rivera had something to do with Dean’s death.”
Carlos nodded. “Why else would she have him under surveillance?”
“But why wouldn’t she tell somebody what she was up to?”
Carlos eased back into his chair. “Because there wasn’t a case. The medical examiner ruled Bridget Dean’s death a suicide. If the captain knew she was spending department resources investigating a suicide when she should have been working the warehouse burglaries, he would have reprimanded her.”
“Interesting.” I picked up one of the night shots of Rivera and studied it more closely. “Hey, check it out. Is it me, or does that guy at the café with Rivera seem sorely out of place?”
“Carlos pulled up for another look. “What do you mean?”
“Well, look. Everyone else in the photo is wearing business attire and office dress. This man is sporting a sleeveless shirt, cutoffs and flip-flops.” I fanned the photo over the others before pitching it back onto the pile. “I’d sure like to know who he is. I mean he looks more like someone Rivera would defend, not socialize with.”
“Maybe he is,” said Spinelli.
Carlos and I both looked up. “Come again?”
“Maybe the guy’s a criminal, or should I say accomplice?”
“Keen observation, Dom,” said Carlos. “It’s probably why Karen took the picture. Maybe she had the same thought.”
“What about the other one?” I asked.
“What other one?”
“The other suicide victim. You said there were three. Did she also work for Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli?”
Carlos shook his head. “No, I believe she was a waitress somewhere.”
“But she did work in the same building.” Spinelli said.
Again Carlos and I looked up at him. “What?”
“Yeah. I read that in the papers. There’s this coffee shop in the Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli building, downstairs from the offices. The woman worked there as a waitress. I remember thinking that she had to know Bridget Dean, and how coincidental it seemed.”
“Maybe too coincidental,” I said. I turned to Carlos, who looked slightly embarrassed. “You didn’t know that, Carlos?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, almost stuttering. “Dominic, why didn’t you point this out to me before?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
For a while we all just stared down at the photos on the desk, scratching our heads, trying to make sense of it all. To believe that two women working in the same building committed suicide only weeks apart, but that there were no other connections between them seemed ludicrous. Unless someone had put something in the water there, our suspicions, like Karen Webber’s, drew a very different conclusion than that of the coroner’s. I tapped on the photo of Rivera and his café mate to get Carlos’ attention.
“Look, we need to know more about what Karen was working on,” I told him. “I know her surveillance of Rivera flew under the radar, but she had to have kept a record of her investigation if she ever thought it might come to prosecution. We need to see her files. She’s probably hidden clues among her caseload.”
Carlos shook his head. “Can’t. Her files aren’t ours. Karen worked out of the First Precinct. We have some of her people here in the satellite office down the hall, but they’ve been no help.”
“They won’t help you?”
“Not that they won’t. They can’t. Her death was ruled a suicide. They had no reason to sequester her files. Her supervisor divvied up her caseload and dispersed it throughout the entire department. I’m afraid we’re starting from scratch.”
I looked down at the photos again. At least we had those, so it wasn’t really like starting from scratch. But we did have a long uphill battle ahead of us. I turned to Carlos and then to Spinelli. Both seemed ready and eager, and probably both had more confidence in me than I deserved. But their confidence felt like a shot in the arm. I had flown back to New Castle with reservations about getting involved in another serious case. My dread of failing notwithstanding, the thought of letting Carlos down I feared would crush me. I gathered the photos and stacked them into a neat pile.
“That’s fine, then,” I said. “Starting from scratch might prove the best place to start anyway. Let’s take it from the end and work backward.”
“The end?” said Spinelli, almost to himself, “For Detective Webber, the end was the sidewalk outside her apartment building last Friday night.”
Carlos and I traded looks, undoubtedly thinking the same thing. Dominic Spinelli may have been one of the youngest detectives ever assigned to the Second Precinct, but he had an experienced sense of investigative direction. I stood up, pressed my hat to my chest and asked, “Do we have the address?”
Carlos answered, “We do.” He scooped the photos back into the envelope and handed it to Detective Spinelli. “Dom, will you do me a favor?”
Spinelli took the package and tucked it under his arm. “Sure.”
“Find out everything you can on this guy, Rivera. I mean it. I want to know where he lives, what he drives, who he sees, if he’s ever had run-ins with the law: EVERYTHING.”
“All right.”
“And see what you can dig up on that waitress, too. You got it?”
“Got it,” Spinelli answered, and he vanished down the hallway like a ghost.
Carlos turned to me and smiled proudly. “Huh? How’s that for diligence?”
“Nice.”
“Damn straight. Does he remind you of me when I was just starting out?”
“A little.”
“Yeah? Why, because of his tenacious thirst for knowledge?”
“No, because he’s just a tad clumsy.” I pointed down the hall at the trail of photos that spilled from the envelope Spinelli had carried away under his arm.
Carlos shrugged it off. “Yeah, well you should taste his lasagna. The kid’s got marinara running through his veins.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Oh, like that’ll come in handy in this profession.”
“It could,” he said, as we started down the hall, picking up photos of Ricardo Rivera along the way. “Especially on long stake-outs. Hey that reminds me. You hungry?”
Hungry? I considered it. I hadn’t eaten since the day before, and it was already pushing noon. But I didn’t feel hungry, only anxious. I attributed that to the thought of going back to work on a new case. It was bad enough that the last one still haunted me. The possibility of a new one ending poorly nearly frightened me to death. Eating anything just seemed like a bad idea. Nevertheless, I knew Carlos. The guy is always hungry. And unless we could close the case on Karen Webber by simply scooping up the photos of Ricardo Rivera, then I knew I would have to sit down and eat with the man sometime.
“Sure,” I said. “I could eat. What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking maybe The Percolator. They have some awesome lunch specials there.”
“The old Perk, huh?”
“Yeah, it’ll be like old times. What do you say?”
What could I say? The Percolator was like a second home to me for nearly forty years. I started going there when coffee was only a nickel. Of course that was the price for civilians. Cop coffee was always free. I started thinking that maybe Carlos was on to something. Still, I had to ease into the idea of putting solid food into my belly.
“I’ll tell you what, Carlos,” I said. “How `bout we go check out things at Karen’s apartment first, and then we’ll grab some grub?”
He soured his face at that. “I guess.” He sounded disappointed. “In that case….” By then we were back in the lobby. Carlos dug deep into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change. “Let me grab a Snickers.” He dropped some quarters into the vending machine and relieved it of its last Snickers bar. To see the look in his eyes, you would have thought he had rolled three cherries, only the pay out here was much more satisfying. I slapped him on the back as he joined up with me at the front door.
“That going to hold ya?” I asked. He smiled and held the candy bar to my face—minus one very large bite. I smiled back. “Nice. Maybe I should drive.”
THREE
We arrived at Detective Webber’s apartment building just as it started raining. A faint chalk line in the approximate shape of a human body was still visible on the sidewalk out front. I stood on the spot and looked straight up, blinking into the drizzle. One of the balconies four stories up still had crime scene tape flagging from its railings. I imagined that a fall from such a height would almost certainly kill a person instantly. For Detective Webber’s sake, I hoped that was the case. I looked at Carlos and found him assessing the situation similarly. He looked at me and we both looked down at the chalk line.
“Probably quick,” he said.
I nodded. “Yup.”
We took the elevator to the fourth floor and found the sounds of life abuzz within the building. A television set in one unit drowned out a baby’s wail in another. Down the hall, a woman hollered at her husband to get out and find a job. He hollered back that there weren’t any because the Mexicans had moved into town and taken them all. Carlos found that exchange particularly amusing, since the debate had been argued in Spanish. On the other side of a door, marked STAIRWELL, the steady thumping of a boom box pulsed like the heartbeat of the building. A small dog, probably a terrier, yelped upon our approach from behind another closed door. I imagined it trotting off in triumph back to his doggy bed after hearing us move on without breaking into his castle.
We found Karen Webber’s apartment at the end of the hall, next to the Spanish couple’s unit. Carlos had secured a door key from the building super earlier, exercising the rule of domain jurisdiction for tactical investigative purposes.
“For what?” I asked him, after learning of the excuse he gave. “The rule of….”
“Domain jurisdiction for tactical investigative purposes. You’ve heard of it?”
“I didn’t,” I said, “because you just made it up!”
He pressed his finger to his lips. “No. I didn’t just make it up. I made it up this morning. But the super doesn’t need to know that.”
He unlocked the door and I pushed him into the room when it opened. The apartment seemed a lot smaller than I expected, barely a studio, really. But then, Karen lived alone and hardly needed anything larger. And considering the atmosphere of the rest of the building, she had managed to transform the place into quite a cozy little flat. The furnishings, a little too French Provincial for my taste, were neat, pictures on the walls tasteful and aesthetic. As a trained eye, I saw where police investigators had turned a few things over and poked at some of Karen’s belongings, but otherwise I imagined the apartment appeared just as she left it. On the dinette table, a place setting for two remained untouched. Two empty wineglasses sat by a bottle of Bordeaux wadding in a water-filled ice bucket. A three-day-old pan of cooked lasagna sat on the stovetop growing brown and fuzzy. I turned to Carlos and found him thumbing through a stack of CDs by the stereo.
“Carlos, run it by me again,” I said. “What’s the going theory about what happened here?”
He pulled a CD from the stack and held it up, smiling. “Ooh, I love this one. Have you heard this girl yet? She kicks at old school.”
I shook my head. “No. What is it, that Rap crap Hip-Hop?”
He laughed. “Yeah, Tony, that’s it. Rap crap Hip-Hop. That’s the kind of music I like.”
“Well I don’t know, Carlos. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”
“Don’t you?”
“No. I’m more into Classical: Beethoven, Mozart, that kind of stuff.”
“I know. You’re stuck in a time warp. You should broaden your horizons. Think more contemporary.”
“I do think contemporary. I listen to Goodman, Miller, Artie Shaw…guys like that.”
“Ooh, real hip.”
“Hey, songs like Moonglow and Stardust, they don’t ever go out of style.”
He looked at me with creased brows. “Yeah, like your trench coat?”
I splayed my arms and looked down at my attire. “What?”
“Tony, detectives haven’t worn trench coats since the days of Sam Spade, Dick Tracy and Inspector Clouseau.”
“So? Those men were all fine detectives.”
“They were all fictional!”
I looked down at my coat again and pulled on the creases. “Can we get back to what happened here?”
He tossed the CD on top of the stack. “There’s the balcony,” he said, pointing across the room. “She jumped from there.”
I looked back at it. “Any witnesses?”
“Four: teenage boys hanging out on the street corner. They all saw the same thing. Karen Webber stepped out onto the balcony, alone, hiked her dress up above her knees, climbed up over the railing and fell forward.”
“And they saw no one else?”
“Not until the police busted into her apartment ten minutes later.” He turned and pointed to the door. A security chain, still attached to its latch, dangled from a piece of wood on a splintered jamb.
“The door was locked from the inside?” I started looking around for other points of entry, when Carlos stopped me.
“Save it, Tony. There are no other windows or doors. There’s only one way in and two ways out.”
“Two?”
He pointed across the room again.
I looked back over my shoulder at the balcony. “Oh, right.” I walked to the dinette table and refocused my attention on the place settings. “She was expecting company.”
“Yup.”
“A dinner date?”
“I guess.”
“Did he ever show?”
“Not while the investigation was going on.”
“Don’t you think that’s strange?”
He crowded his brows and thinned his lips. “I don’t know.” Then he perked up. “Maybe that’s why she jumped.”
“Because she got stood up?”
“Possibly.”
“I thought you thought she didn’t jump.”
“Right. I don’t. I’m just looking at it from all angles.”
“Keeping an open mind, eh?”
“Yeah.”
I took the conversation to the sliders overlooking the balcony. “I see black powder here on the glass and handle. They must have dusted for prints.”
“They did,” said Carlos. He pointed to several other places around the apartment where prints had been lifted. “I think they got about a half-dozen really good ones. Unfortunately, they all belonged to Karen. Hey, do you suppose the killer wiped the place down?”
“That thought crossed my mind, but if there was a killer, it’s more likely he wore gloves.”
I watched a whisk of disappointment blow across his face. “If? So, you think she committed suicide.”
“Like you said, we have to keep that door open, which leads me back to this dinner date of hers. Has anyone checked her phone records to see if she received any calls before she…went over? Maybe her date phoned in a cancellation.”
Carlos took a small notepad from his pocket and started writing. “No, but that’s good. It might help us. I’ll get Dominic on it right away.”
“While you’re at it, have him ask around the station and—”
“The box.”
“What?”
“That’s what we call the justice center, Tony. We don’t call it the station.”
“How come?”
His eyes looked down briefly and then up, empty. “I don’t know.”
“Hmm, that sounds about right. Anyway, have Dominic ask around. See if anyone knows who Karen may have been dating.” I pointed to the broken chain on the door. “And what about that? Do we know for sure the cops broke the chain busting into the apartment?”
“I suppose.”
“Suppose isn’t certain.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that you know me better. You tell me?”
He turned and gave the door a good hard look. I could see his thought process at work, churning out ideas that he had not previously considered. He touched his chin whiskers and stroked them absentmindedly. Then his eyes moved down to the doorknob, and I imagined a light bulb in his head turning on at that moment. He spun about on his heel and pointed at me, excitedly.
“They didn’t bust in, did they? If the cops busted through the door, then the jamb along the doorknob would also have splintered! Karen opened the door with the chain still latched, right?”
“Possibly.”
“Yeah. I bet she answered the door for someone she knew, and then had second thoughts about letting him in.”
“You’re working it now.”
“So, Karen tried to shut the door, but whoever it was pushed it open, breaking the chain in the process. Then at gunpoint, forced Karen to the balcony and made her jump. He probably stood back far enough from the window so that no one in the street could see him. Right?”
I smiled proudly, rewarded by the enthusiasm of his spirit. It reminded me of all the years we worked together, and of his total willingness to embrace new possibilities. “Honestly,” I told him, “I don’t know. But if the investigators believed that the first responders broke the door in, then they would have no reason to suspect that Karen wasn’t here alone.”
“Makes sense.”
“Let’s follow up on that. And I don’t just mean reading the responding officer’s report. Maybe the medical examiner took the wording too literally. If it said, ‘We broke in…’ and he assumed the broken chain meant by force, then we could have a serious misinterpretation on our hands.”
Carlos made another notation in his little book. “Got it,” he said, punching a period at the end of his note. “I’ll get with Dom, find out who the officer was and we’ll go straight to the horse’s mouth.” He looked up from his notepad. “Now, there’s just one more thing.”
I checked my watch. It was twelve-thirty. “You want to go eat now.”
He pulled the car keys from his pocket and jingled them in front of me. “It’s Monday.”
I admit that I shrugged at the significance of that. “What’s so special about Mondays?”
He looked at me as if I had just stepped off the short bus. “Tony! Monday is meatball madness day at the Perk. Twice the meatballs for half the price.”
“You’re a meatball,” I said, and I snatched the keys from his hand. “I’ll drive. I don’t want you getting us killed over mashed meat.”
We shut the apartment door and locked up behind us. The rain had stopped while we were inside, but that didn’t make me want to give the keys back to Carlos. The truth was I didn’t want to get to The Percolator too quickly. The thought of meatballs smothered with grated Parmesan made me want to hurl. I hoped we would spot another restaurant that I might talk him into going to, instead. Almost anything else would do. But Carlos had his heart set on meatballs. He’s like a kid that way. And me, I’m just a big softy with kids. Ten minutes later, I pulled the car into the parking lot of The Percolator. We spotted another unmarked cruiser there, though not a Crown Vic. Carlos informed me it was Dominic Spinelli’s ride.
“What, you all get a car?” I asked.
He laughed. “Sure, since you retired we can afford it now.”
I jabbed him in the arm. “Smart ass.” I knew it was someone else’s ride, but I let him believe he got me. “Just for that,” I told him. He should have seen it coming. “You can buy.”
He grumbled his acceptance.
The Percolator had not changed much in the months since I last visited it. But then months in the life of the Perk were like minutes in history. They still brewed coffee from a vintage brewer, circa 1940, and I swear the grease on the griddle is left over from the hash browns I ordered on my first day on the beat. In a way it was sort of like coming home again. It gave me a warm feeling and a sense of nostalgia that made me long for the old days. It’s funny how the simple things in life can sometimes stick with you the longest.
Carlos and I got lucky and found a booth in the corner that had just opened up. We no sooner sat down, when Carlos asked if I remembered an incident that happened there, involving a coffee spill and a certain waitress who tried to dry the spill from his lap. I told him I did, and that he should still feel embarrassed about it.
“I do,” he replied, and then pointed across the room at a young blond-haired beauty working the lunch counter. “But you know after that little misunderstanding we became good friends. Her name is Natalie, and she hears all the dope on everything going on around town, both from the cops here and her regulars. Maybe she heard some scuttlebutt about Karen Webber or Bridget Dean.”
I picked up a menu and began leafing through it, hoping to spot something lighter than the usual grease plates that I might manage to hold down. The entire time I could see Carlos leaning forward on his elbows, straining to peer over the menu to hold my attention.
“So, what do you think?” he said, and he actually put his finger on the top of the menu and bent it down an inch. “You think I should go over there and ask her?”
He seemed eager for me to say yes. I could not tell if it was because of his drive to solve the case, or his desire to show me how well he connected with young women. And since he doesn’t connect well with young women, I suspected that was it. I snapped the fold back into the menu and pulled it from his reach.
“I don’t know, Carlos,” I told him. “Maybe later. She looks busy now. Besides, I’d rather not everyone within earshot know our business.”
He settled back into his seat, a little deflated. I knew that would only last a minute before he perked up with another bright idea. He hadn’t even opened his menu when it hit him.
“I know!” he sounded more excited than the idea warranted. “I could leave her a note; ask her to call me on her break.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea.” I rolled my eyes, expecting he’d pick up on the sarcasm. “Why don’t you do that, Carlos?”
I didn’t have the heart to stop him after he pulled his notepad from his pocket and started writing. Besides, it bought me a little peace and quiet for the moment, long enough to decide what I wanted for lunch. When our waitress came by, I ordered up toast and coffee. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that. Carlos didn’t need to look at the menu. He ordered a meatball sub with extra meatballs. I thought he might even ask for a meatball shake to wash it all down. If I gave him the idea, he probably would have. Instead, he went with a more reasonable choice: Coke. I can’t tell you how glad I was for that.
After taking our orders, our waitress accepted the note from Carlos intended for Natalie. He instructed her not to let anyone else read it. “It’s police business,” he whispered, his hand to the side of his mouth. Then he gave her a wink and shooed her away. He looked at me after she left, smiling at his own cleverness. I shook my head and made a tisk-tisk sound through my teeth.
“What?” he said. I watched his smile fade.
“Do you think that was wise?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?”
“That note. You don’t really think she’ll give it to Natalie without reading it. Do you?” I almost started laughing.
“Yeah, why?”
“You told her it was police business. Curiosity will surely get the better of her. She’ll read it and think you’ll want to ask questions about her. Natalie will never get it now.”
“You think?”
“Sure.” The urge to really let it out nearly overtook me. But you learn to keep a poker face when you’re a cop, especially when playing a joke on a fellow officer. And the longer you can keep it up, the greater the reward. I kept a straight face and dismissed it like it meant nothing. “You know what, Carlos?” I waved my hand in a flutter. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to talk to her some other time.”
I probably shouldn’t have done it to him. Carlos worried so much about Natalie getting his note, that he barely touched his extra meatballs. All during lunch I caught him looking over his shoulder at the lunch counter to see if she would notice him. Each time he saw her eyes drifting toward our booth, he would try nodding or waving to get her attention. Despite his efforts, or in spite of them, she failed to acknowledge his existence.
We were about to ask for our tab and leave, when I heard the little bell chiming up over the door. At once, nearly every head in the place turned, including Carlos’. In all my years, I only knew one individual who could command that kind of presence when entering a room. I turned to the door, and her name spilled from my lips like a song.
“Lilith Adams.”
She appeared more stunning than I remembered. Perhaps because the last time we met, I was actively engaged in an investigation to nail her for murder. You tend to see through a person’s beauty when you factor a homicide into the equation. With the fog of nadir lifted, I could now fully appreciate the utter brilliance of her beauty. Her skin, the color of cappuccino even in the perpetual gloom of New England’s April rains, seemed to radiate a luminescence unequaled in nature. Her long black hair flowed in silky threads like smoke on glass. She stood against the open door, one hand on her hip, one knee bent, her blue jeans tighter than cellophane, her buttoned shirt half-opened down the front but tucked in along the back.
It’s not to say that I had forgotten Lilith Adams altogether, though hard I tried. Visions of her all but consumed me the first few weeks I was away from New Castle. Shades of Lilith filled my sleepless nights. I could not shake the insult of her sassy attitude, snide remarks and daring laugh. Her cocky posture burned in silhouette deep within the crevices of my mind. A man my age can only hope to forget such things in a woman, especially one so much younger and vivacious. But there is one thing a man can never forget, something I will never forget: her eyes, her wildly captivating, hopelessly hypnotic, fathomless, flirtatious, blazing and beguiling ebony eyes. They shall haunt me in my dreams for as long as I live. I’ve looked into those eyes and seen the fervency of hell, yet I hold that somewhere in her soul she knows of it only from a distance.
Lilith patrolled the diner with sweeping glances, starting at the front by the lunch counter and working back. Those who recognized her scooted their chairs away from the door. Those that didn’t, followed suit just the same. When the mine sweep crossed our booth, our eyes locked. I heard Carlos swallow back the lump in his throat. I reached across the table without looking and patted his hand to hush him.
“Easy, boy,” I said. “She’s not going to bite.”
His whispered reply I could hardly hear, but I believe he said, “Are you sure?”
She let the door go, and as it hit her ass, she started walking. She headed straight for our booth with a whip in her strut. I saw Carlos’ hand slip behind his jacket on his holster side. He could have pulled his gun and shot her, and I suppose it would have all been worth it, except for some paperwork. But I slapped the hand that he still had on the table and I made him stop reaching. Lilith clicked her heels at the foot of our table and folded her arms tightly below her breasts.
“Detective Marcella,” she said, and it didn’t sound very cordial. “I heard you were in town.”
I smiled up at her, pleasantly as I could. “Lilith, what a coincidence. I heard you were in town, too.”
“No coincidence. I live here. But you know that.”
“You’re right. I also know you didn’t come here for the food. Please, have a seat anyway.”
I scooted over enough to let Lilith slide in next to me. She smiled pretentiously, and instead slapped Carlos on the shoulder.
“Move it, Fidel!” she barked, and then crowded him into the corner where the rips in the imitation leather seats jabbed at his butt. I tried not to laugh, but the look of absolute violation on his face seemed priceless. It didn’t help matters when she nudged the plate of extra meatballs in front of him with a fork like it was nuclear waste. Carlos relocated the plate to a section of table less offensive.
“Do you mind?” he said, wiping his fingers clean of sauce with a paper napkin. “Really. What is your problem?”
“My problem,” she said, and this she directed at me, “is that I’ve been trying to find a way to reach you for nearly a year.”
“Me?” I pointed to myself.
“Yes. Nobody in your stinking precinct would tell me where you went or what happened to you.”
“Lilith, I’m touched. I didn’t know you cared so much.”
She made a face as if a sour nut had just come up her throat. “You have something I want.”
I straightened up in my seat and pulled the kink from my tie. “Do I? Frankly, I didn’t think I was your type.”
“Pah—leeease, Detective. I’d sooner sleep with Fidel, over here.” She jabbed her thumb into Carlos’ side, hitting his holstered gun. They turned and looked at each other, equally surprised. “Yeah, you,” she said. “You can just forget about it, my little Copacabana boy. You’re already about as close to me as you’re ever going to get. So, take a deep breath and savor it.”
“Lilith!” I said, no longer amused. “You’re getting a little mean-spirited in your old age, aren’t you? Whatever happened to graciousness and courtesy?”
“They’re dead, Detective, along with my friends from the research center.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Not mine!” she snapped, loud enough for heads in the diner to turn again. “If that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Oh, no?”
“Certainly not.”
“Right, I forgot. I guess Shekina and Akasha Kayo weren’t friends of yours. So, killing them doesn’t count.”
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