Eye of the Witch (Paranormal Detective Mystery series, book 2) Page 3

I used the key Carlos gave me to get into Karen Webber’s apartment. No one had been there since he and I stopped by the day before, but already I thought the place was beginning to get that rummaged through look.

  The first thing I did after gaining entrance was walk out onto the balcony and look over the railing. Four stories up seems a lot higher when you imagine yourself falling from such a height.

  I saw that down below in the street some young boys had gathered. It was getting dark, but the net they set up under the streetlight made me think they intended on playing street hockey there all night. One of the boys spotted me and hollered up that he would give me a dollar if I jumped. I swung my leg over the railing and they all began howling like Indians. So much for sensitivity, I thought.

  I went back into the apartment and started really looking around. I didn’t know what I was looking for, other than another possible way in or out. I guess I hoped to find something that might support Greg Piakowski’s claim that he and Karen were dating. I wanted to believe he started on a path of straight and narrow, but that was getting more doubtful by the minute.

  I think if Karen knew of his past, she would have had to believe he rehabilitated. On the other hand, finding anything to support Piakowski’s innocence meant I was barking up the wrong tree and that perhaps Karen did commit suicide after all, something I don’t think I could ever have come to grips with.

  Off in the corner, opposite the kitchen, was a sofa with a pull out bed. Being that there were no other rooms in the apartment, I assumed that’s where Karen slept.

  I pulled the bed out and right away noticed something odd. All the corners of the spread were neatly tucked in, but for one. I pulled back the spread and the sheet and found a portable USB storage device.

  A quick look around confirmed that Karen had no computer in her apartment. Of course, she did have access to several at work. It seemed reasonable to assume that if she’d been working on an unassigned case, she would only want to store documents, pictures or whatever on a removable drive that no one at work could access.

  I pocketed the device and continued looking around.

  When Carlos and I were there the day before, I noticed a small closet by the front door. Neither of us bothered to look inside it, if for no other reason than because we expected the investigating officers already did so. Still, what they were looking for then, differed from what I hoped to find now. I opened the closet door and stuck my head inside.

  The first thing I noticed was the smell: nice, I mean. Karen owned some very fine leather jackets and a pair of leather cowboy boots that would have kicked up a storm on a rowdy night of line dancing.

  I thumbed through the pockets of her jackets, shook out her boots and felt along the top shelf above the hangers. Nothing seemed out of place or unusual.

  I almost closed it up again when something caught my eye. Above all the boxes piled high on the shelf, was an access panel of sorts, I guessed to an attic. Pushing up on it revealed a crawlspace among the ceiling trusses.

  I phoned Carlos at once. He was working Anna Davalos’ apartment and told me that he was about to give up hope of finding anything significant.

  “You found nothing at all?” I said.

  “Nothing that’s not already in the report. It’s an old tenement, Tony, with no fire escape and no other way in or out except through the front door. Place is a deathtrap.”

  “Listen to me, Carlos. Is Anna’s apartment on the top floor of her building?”

  “Yeah, but it’s only three flights up.”

  “That’s not the point. Do you see anything on the ceilings that looks like an access panel to an attic?”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “Look! Walk around. Check in the closets.”

  I heard the phone go static a few times as he walked the apartment, reporting his negative findings room-by-room until finally, “Hey, wait! What’s this?”

  “Do you see a panel?”

  “Yes, in the bedroom up in the corner. It looks like an access panel.”

  Great!” I said, pumping my fist in the air. “Can you lift up on it and see where it goes?”

  “Yes, wait. Let me find something. Here’s a broomstick. Just let me…. That’s it! Yes, it’s quite large up there, plenty of room for someone to move about.”

  “Can you get your head up there to look around?”

  “It’ll take a minute. I’ll have to stack some furniture or something. Let me get back with you.”

  “All right, do that. I’ll wait for your call.”

  After hanging up, I called Spinelli. I hadn’t expected him to have near as much luck as Carlos and me, but I wanted to keep him in the loop.

  “Detective Marcella,” he said. “Glad you called. I was just about to phone you.”

  “Why, are you having some luck?”

  “Maybe. I’m here talking with Jake. He’s the security guru here at HP&P. This guy knows the security equipment here like the back of his hand.”

  “So, what can he tell you?”

  I heard a little side talk and then Spinelli came back to the phone. “Right. Jake tells me that if someone knew what he was doing, then he could easily change the time and date stamp on a video.”

  “How could someone do that? Isn’t it electronically stamped onto the image?”

  “It works a little different with digital, Detective. But with the proper access, the easiest thing one might do is reset the time and date on the equipment before taping a new sequence of video. That way if anyone looked to see if the video had been tampered with, it would appear as though it wasn’t.”

  “Amazing,” I said, partly because the concept intrigued me, and partly because I actually understood what he said. “Spinelli, listen. If someone provided the police with new video shot after Bridget Dean’s death, then that means the original recordings might still exist somewhere. See if Jake can find it. In the meantime, Carlos and I are working another lead. I want you to drop what you’re doing and meet me here at Karen Webber’s place right away. Oh, and bring a flashlight.”

  “Got it,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I hung up the phone and almost immediately Carlos called back.

  “Tony. I’m up in the attic now. It’s plenty large enough for a grown man to move around up here. I see more access panels leading to other apartments on the third floor. Anyone could easily come up through one of them to gain entry into Anna’s apartment, and then slipped out the same way.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I’m thinking might have happened here, too. I’ve got Spinelli coming over now. I’ll have him scoot up there and check it out.”

  “Do you want me to look around some more while I’m here?”

  “No. I think we need to send forensics up there to look for evidence linking Piakowski to the scene. The less hair, prints and fibers you leave behind, the better. Why don’t you come meet me here at Karen’s? I have a feeling we’re going to Rivera’s together after this.”

  “Got it, Tony. On my way.”

  Spinelli arrived at Karen Webber’s place about ten minutes after I hung up with Carlos. I gave him a ten-finger boost up into the attic and then tossed him the flashlight.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “Someone’s been here. There’s fresh cigarette butts crushed out on the planks.”

  “What brand?”

  “Marlboros.”

  That set off bells in my head. “Hey, isn’t that the brand—”

  “Piakowski smokes? Yes.”

  “Nice. Do you see another way in or out?”

  “Wait a minute, yes, I think I see a small door. Let me check it out.”

  I stood outside the closet with my head craned through the doorway looking up toward the hole. After a while of not hearing from Spinelli, I began to wonder what he was doing up there. I called his name repeatedly, but he wouldn’t answer. Worried, I took my phone out and dialed his number. He answered on the second ring.

&n
bsp; “Spinelli! Where the hell are you? I’ve been calling your name. What did you do, fall through the ceiling into another apartment?”

  “No, I’m right here.” I turned around and there he was, standing right behind me. “I found a door,” he said. “It leads out onto a fire escape and to an unlocked window down the hall.”

  “Nice work.” I patted him on the shoulder. “This changes everything. Now we have a means for the killer to have gained access into the apartment. I talked to Carlos a few minutes ago, and he’s found a similar way in and out of Anna’s place, as well.”

  “So, what does this prove?”

  “By itself, not a lot. But it shows that Piakowski could have gained access to Karen Webber and Anna Davalo’s apartment right up to the times of their deaths.”

  “And to Bridget Dean, too, if someone with a key to the building let him in.”

  “Someone like Ricardo Rivera?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “We don’t do anything,” I said. “Carlos—”

  “Someone call?”

  Carlos poked his head through the door, smelling suspiciously of burger and fries.

  I looked at my watch. “Where were you? You should have been here ten minutes ago.”

  “I stopped for gas.”

  “Gas?”

  His eyes darted between Spinelli’s and mine. “Yeah.”

  I decided not to call him on it. Besides, I’ve ridden with him after he’s had a burger and fries from one of those quickie McDrive-thrus. He wasn’t lying. It does give him gas.

  “Carlos and I are going to pay a little visit to Ricardo Rivera,” I told Spinelli. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find Piakowski there. In the meantime...” I dug into my pocket and handed him the flash drive I found tucked among Karen’s bed sheets. “Take this.”

  He took the device and examined it closely. “It’s an eight-gig flash drive. Where did you get it?”

  “That’s not important. Take it back to the box and see what you can learn. I suspect it holds all of Karen’s notes and maybe some more pictures. Give me a call if you find something.” Spinelli pocketed the device and headed out. I turned to Carlos. “You ready?”

  “Sure, let’s hit it.”

  “You want to stop on the way and get a bite to eat somewhere?”

  I saw his eyes bulge, as though an eruption deep inside his belly had swelled to the top of his throat and then settled back down. “Ah, no, I’m good,” he said, thumping his chest with his fist. “Maybe later.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, “that’s what I thought.”

  On the way to Rivera’s, I asked Carlos if he could take a little detour first so that I could get something off my chest.

  “No problem,” he said. “Where to?”

  “Just drive. I’ll give you directions.”

  I didn’t want to tell him where we were going, not right away. If I had, I knew he would want to know why. That would have been a tough one to answer because, frankly, I didn’t know myself. Carlos is funny sometimes, sharp about some things, a little dim about others. I couldn’t recall if I had ever taken him to Lilith’s with me before. My few visits there still spark memories too dramatic to include such details. Yet, I believe I shall never forget his reaction when we pulled up in front of her house this time. After pulling into the driveway, he took one look over the steering wheel and said to me, “Tony, that gnome behind the windmill, he just gave me the finger.”

  “So?” I said.

  He answered back seriously, “Tell Lilith to expect his resignation in the morning, because I’m going to kick his little green ass from here to Ipswich.”

  “Carlos.” I grabbed his wrist and squeezed it until I forced his eyes off it. “That gnome is smaller than you, but trust me, you don’t want to do it. Maybe you ought to wait out here for me. I’ll run in and have a chat with Lilith while you sit here and….”

  “Guard the car?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Keep an eye on the car. I’ll be right back.”

  I walked up the pathway to the front door, tripping over a stepping stone that maybe, just maybe, that rat bastard gnome had caused to lurch upward just as I approached it. For now, however, I’ll say that it was my fault.

  I knocked on the door, hesitantly, as I had never been to Lilith’s at night before. A full moon over my shoulder cast a shadow on the door, a shadow of me, though its moves seemed almost independent of my own. A faint light quivered through the window, which I recognized as candlelight. But for that dim luminance, no others shined within the house.

  Lilith opened the door, cloaked in a long black robe with cords of black beads draped loosely around her neck. She carried in her cupped hands a single candle. Its orange light danced like a gypsy ghost upon her face. Her eyes, sunken in artificial sockets cast by faltered shadows, gleamed with brilliance and beguiled my senses.

  “Lilith?”

  “Detective.”

  “What do you…have something going on here? Am I interrupting?”

  “If you must know, I’m conducting a ceremony.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes, alone. But if you’re here because you brought my witch’s ladder with you, that’s good. I can use it now.”

  “Oh, it’s a witchcraft thing. No, sorry. I don’t have it. What kind of ceremony are you conducting?”

  “Detective, I really could use that witch’s ladder.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m working on it. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that I am initiating a rite of passage, a sort of self-dedication thing. It’s very important and very personal. The ladder was supposed to be an integral constituent of the dedication. Unfortunately, this affair is time sensitive and I can’t put it off any longer. Thanks to you, I’ll have to conduct the ceremony without it.”

  “Why don’t you just make another one? Hell, a year ago you made so many, you have thought they grew on trees.”

  Sometimes you have to watch what you say to Lilith, and more importantly, how you say it. I’ve always found that to be a bit of a contradiction with her. For someone who lives by the sharpened tongue, she doesn’t take it as well as she dishes it out.

  I watched her eyes squint keenly, and I swear, for just a second I saw fire in them. Anyone else, I suppose, might have felt her wrath and found himself leaving her place on four legs with his tail pinched between them. But for our special kinship, or perhaps just because of my age, she spared me the sparks and spells and refrained from turning me into anything that could lick himself in places God never meant man to lick.

  “This is not about making witch’s ladders, Detective,” she said, coldly. “This dedication is something for which I’ve been preparing for years. It’s most serious I assure you. After tonight, I’ll have renewed myself, accepting the ways of witchcraft in the eyes of my ancestors and embracing the secrets they hold. To do this, I must atone and commit myself completely. That ladder, which regrettably connects me to Doctor Lowell through Leona, is the last relic associated with that dark part of my past. Tonight the stars align. It’s been a year and a day since I constructed that ladder, and in so doing, forever tied its energy to the circumstances surrounding the events of that unfortunate episode in my life.”

  “Unfortunate episode?”

  She shook her head. “Forget it. Listen. I really need to get started. So, if you don’t mind.”

  “Lilith, please. Before you shut me out, may I have just a minute more?”

  “A minute? Can you make it quicker?”

  “Oh, sure. I’ll make it quick.” I stole a peek over her shoulder and pointed inside. “Do you think we could, ahh….”

  She threw the door open the rest of the way. “Fine. Come in, but you’ve got one minute.”

  I followed her inside, where I noticed more candles burning than what I could see from out on her stoop. She didn’t offer to turn on the lights. I suppo
sed she wanted to stay in the mood for whatever voodoo thing she had planned.

  She pointed to the kitchen table and uttered, “Sit,” which I did. Then she pulled up a chair opposite me and said, “This has nothing to do with voodoo, Detective.”

  I remembered then, all the little secrets I lost to her in the past. “No, of course, not,” I said. “I know that witchcraft and voodoo are two separate things. I don’t want you to think for a minute that I—”

  “Spill it, Marcella. Why have you come?”

  “Fine.” I pulled the wrinkles from my jacket and folded my hands neatly on the table. “You told me earlier that you had a hard time reading Benjamin Rivera, that you felt like he was two different people.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you know he suffers from MPD?”

  “Multiple Personality Disorder?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t, but it makes sense now.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, a part of him believes he can bilocate. That’s the Benny side. Another part, a somewhat weaker though darker side, tells me he can’t. I guess the Benny side was in control when I read him. That’s why I told you he could. Why? Have you found out now that he cannot?”

  “No, that is to say I haven’t found out either way, although his subordinate, who may soon become the dominant personality, insists he can’t.”

  “Leo?”

  “He calls himself Le…. Hey how did you know that?”

  She reared a guilty grin. “Sorry.”

  I scolded her with a glare. “Yes, he calls himself, Leo, and unlike Benny, he doesn’t stutter. In fact, he’s as articulate as you or me. And nasty? Shoot, this guy’s a regular Attila the Hun.”

  “Leo is the sign of the lion.”

  “Yeah, go figure.”

  “So, what do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. After learning about Carol Kessler stepping in front of that train, I felt certain Benny was behind it. Then the other shoe hit the floor.”

  “Greg Piakowski.”

  “Gregory Pia…. Lilith! Stop that!”

  She covered her mouth, so that I might believe she merely slipped. But I knew then that she was really starting to enjoy it. “Forgive me,” she insisted. “Please, go on.”

  I no longer bothered to give her the scowling brow, figuring it would only encourage her further. “Yes, Piakowski. Not long ago we learned that he was at the train station when Carol stepped off the…well, when she stepped off.”

  “You think he did it.”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “Detective….”

  I leaned my head back in resignation and let it thump against the backrest of the chair. Shadows on the ceiling thrashed in twisted shades of black and gray, fleeting like the wind and as impossible to grasp as the doubts that fueled my indecisiveness.

  “Lilith,” I said, though I fear it came out more as a cry. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m filled with hostility and indecision. Everywhere I turn, I’m making mistakes.”

  “Welcome to the human side of life, Detective.”

  “No, it’s more than that. I mean it. I can’t seem to pull things together like I used to. I feel like…like my life has no meaning, no direction.”

  She reached across the table and patted my folded hands. “You’re adjusting to retirement. That’s all.”

  “No. It’s more. Ever since the Stalker case last year I….”

  As I spoke, a warm sensation radiated through my hands and up my arms. It startled me at first, but then it sort of melted into the rest of my body and dissipated like fog. I pulled my hands away gently and sat up straight in my chair.

  “Oh, hell, will you listen to me?” I said, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “I must sound like a silly old coot. I’m sorry I bothered you. I know you’re in the middle of something. I just wanted to ask you about Benjamin and his personality thing. I’ll let you get on with your…ceremony, or whatever.”

  “Wait,” she said, springing from her chair and hurrying across the room to one of the kitchen cupboards. Opening it, she reached up and removed a small wooden box from the top shelf. She set it on the counter, fingering through its contents briefly before returning to the table. I looked at her curiously, as she held out her hand and presented me with a dark colored diamond-shaped object.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s the eye of the witch,” she said. “It’s made of obsidian, but more important is the spell cast upon it. Simply by possessing this, one reaps the benefits of its incantation.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that merely by carrying it on your person you will master the insight and discretion of a witch much wiser than your years could otherwise allow.”

  “You want me to have it?”

  She smiled proudly. “You’ve earned it, Detective. I of course, don’t need it, therefore yes, I would like you to have it. Let it serve you well.”

  I took it from her, my hand trembling like a child’s. “Lilith, I don’t know what to say.”

  She folded her arms at her chest, and through the pleating in her robe I could see her weight shifting onto one hip. “You can start by saying good bye.”

  I stood, resisting the urge to hug the shit out of her. “No. I can start by thanking you, which I will. Thank you, Lilith. Thank you for everything.”

  I started for the door, clutching my newfound confidence with humility. I could feel her presence following me closely and stopping just a split second before I did. I turned to her and asked, “Do I have to do anything to make it work?”

  She laughed. “No, Detective. It works all by itself. You just slip it into your pocket and forget about it.”

  “Great. I can’t thank you enough.”

  She opened the door and showed me out. “Oh, you will,” she said, and before I could give that any thought, she shut the door on my heels.

  I skimmed down her walkway on a strip of air, feeling suddenly invincible and ready to take on the world. Carlos had gotten out of the car to take up a defensive position against the enemy gnome, whom almost certainly had crafted an ingenious plan of attack and was about to launch it as I came out the door. I tapped Carlos on the shoulder and pointed to the car.

  “You getting in or should I ask the gnome to drive?” I saw him shake his fist at the little puck before climbing in behind the wheel.

  “So, how’s Lilith?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said, “up to her old witchcraft stuff.”

  “Oh?” He started the car and pulled out of the drive.

  “Yeah, she asked me for the witch’s ladder again. Said it’s been a year and a day since she made it, and now she needs it back for some rite of passage thing.”

  “A rite?”

  “Oh, she’s got candles and incenses burning all over the house for some big ceremonial shindig or something tonight.”

  “You mean, like a party?”

  I laughed. “Right, a party at Lilith’s. That’ll be the day.”

  “What? She seems like a fun girl. Maybe you just have to get to know her.”

  “Get to know Lilith? That’s an oxymoron. If you looked up enigmatic perplexity in the dictionary it would probably say, see Lilith.”

  “You’re being harsh.”

  “Am I? You think you know her better than I do?”

  “No, I’m only saying, I bet when she lets her hair down that she’s a real gas at parties.”

  I sat back and thought about it as he drove. I had seen Lilith smile once or twice—even laugh on an occasion, I think. But a real gas at parties? Maybe if she drank. Although it seemed to me that a drunken Lilith could pose some big problems if she ever got really pissed at a party. I looked to Carlos and asked him, “Would you ever go to a party with Lilith if she were drinking?”

  “Hell, yes!” he said, and the smile on his face told me he had thought about it before. “Are you kidding me?”

  I knew then exactly
what it was that set him and me apart. In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who take the bull by the horns and ride it wild, and those who stand on the sidelines and watch. All my life I thought that I was the bull rider, solving crimes, taking down felons and thugs and making the world a better place for everyone, street-by-street.

  But at that moment, I realized the truth: that I had spent my entire career in the shadows of the man I wished I was, and that I wasn’t some take-charge daredevil knight in shining armor. I had exhausted my potential, steering from the backseat of faded aspirations.

  It’s the reason I never became Captain. I realized then that I wasn’t the bull rider at all, and worse, that I had only lived my life vicariously through bull riders like Lilith and Carlos.

  I closed my eyes and a river of memories flooded my brain. I wondered, had I not reaped a lifetime of gratification from those memories regardless? That I had nothing more to show for my life’s work didn’t make it any less rewarding. Did it?

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and felt the obsidian. Upon its touch, I made a wish that I might start my life over, that I might know then what I know now. I prayed that the powers of witchcraft bestowed on the granitic glass through Lilith’s spell might somehow bend to my will if only I believed hard enough. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was still just an old man with a heavy heart, filled with the regrets of a bystander watching the bull riders take on the world.

  Ten

  The drive across town was, for the most part, a silent one. Carlos tried to pry some chitchat from me, but I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He probably assumed my thoughts were wrapped in contemplation. I get quiet sometimes when I’m working the details of a case out in my mind. His courtesy in that respect lent me time to shelve my self-pity, if only long enough to focus again on our business at hand.

  We headed for Rivera’s home by way of the HP&P building. I hoped to see the lights still burning up on the fourteenth floor. I thought if we could catch Ricardo working late at his office, then he’d have a harder time closing the door on our faces. Unfortunately, our luck ran sour and we saw only security and hallway lights keeping the place lit. I instructed Carlos to turn south on Lexington. That’s when Spinelli rang me.

  “Detective, I have good news and bad news,” he said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “You know that flash drive you found at Karen Webber’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s got tons of information stored on it.”

  “Okay. I’m guessing that’s the good news.”

  “It is.”

  “The bad news?”

  “The main file’s encrypted.”

  “Can you decode it?”

  He hesitated, which made me think I had asked a silly question. “Sir, the program uses an encryption key length of 128-bits. If I could decode it, do you think I would have any bad news?”

  Nice, I thought, I’m talking to a little Carlos Rodriquez now. “Spinelli, we have to know what’s on that flash drive. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Maybe,” he said, and I thought I heard a glimmer of hope in his voice. “Karen did use the encryption program here at the office. If you had any clue as to what password she might have used, then….”

  “What kind of password?”

  I could almost see him shrug. “I don’t know, anything: a series of numbers or letters or a combination of numbers and letters. It could even be a string of Wingdings.”

  Okay, now I thought he was putting me on. Carlos started mumbling something about the way the guy ahead of us was driving. I switched the phone to my left ear to block him out. That’s when I set my right hand down on my lap and felt the obsidian stone in my pocket. At once, the eye of the witch inspired me. “Spinelli,” I said. “Did you try any names?”

  “Names?” he said, and laughed lightly. “Names are too simple. Passwords need to be a least….”

  “Try Travis.”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me. I said try Travis.”

  “Emm..all right.” I heard the tapping of a keyboard and then, “That’s it! I’m in! Wow, look at all this stuff. Detective, this is going to take some time to sift through. How `bout I call you back when I find something worthwhile?”

  “You do that,” I said, and hung up. I turned to Carlos. “You know, that kid has promise.”

  Carlos smiled. “I did hand pick him.”

  “Oh?” I said, teasing. “That’s funny, because Spinelli told me he picked you.”

  He winced. “Same thing.”

  I laughed at that. He signaled right onto Roosevelt and settled into the left lane. I kept my hand over the obsidian in my pocket and gazed out the window, encouraged by our apparent turn of fortunes.

  We arrived at Rivera’s place twelve minutes later. Gone was the element of surprise when we realized that Rivera would have to buzz us in at the gate before we could drive up to the house.

  Assuming his involvement in the case extended beyond simple association, I expected him to turn us away without argument. However, by detaining his younger brother for questioning earlier, we had struck a custodial nerve in him, one he could not easily dismiss. So, not only did he buzz us in at the gate unchallenged, but he also came out and stood on the front steps with arms folded at his chest, waiting for us to roll up the drive.

  Carlos and I barely stepped out of the car when he started in about Benjamin, letting us have it with both barrels. I held my hand up and shut him down in mid-sentence.

  “We’ll get to your questions soon enough,” I told him, “but first we need a few answers of our own. Now, we can stand out here all night so your neighbors can hear all about it, or we can go inside and discuss this rationally.”

  Carlos nudged me with his elbow and threw a subtle gaze out over his shoulder. I knew he meant for me to see that Rivera had no neighbors, but by then Rivera had turned and started indoors. We followed without invitation.

  Inside, we passed through the formal foyer and beyond that, the grand staircase that led to the second floor by way of a mid-landing, which split off into two directions, one for each wing of the house. We gathered in the library, which featured a gothic-looking fireplace on one wall and three large mullioned framed windows overlooking a garden on the other. Rivera pointed to two of four leathered chairs grouped in a semi-circle by the fire.

  “Sit,” he said, and almost as an afterthought so that it didn’t sound like an order, he added, “Please.”

  We did, and as he joined us, I said, “Mister Rivera, where were you around four-thirty this afternoon?”

  “In my office, working,” he replied.

  “We phoned you on behalf of your brother from the police station. Your answering service took the call.”

  “So, I stepped out.”

  “I bet you did. You went to the train station to pick up Gregory Piakowski, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “I think you did. And may I remind you, as a lawyer I’m sure you’re aware that obstructing an active police investigation is a serious offense, punishable by law.”

  “You’re not an active duty police officer.”

  “But I am,” said Carlos. “And I’m just about a half-step away from hauling you in.”

  Rivera’s face remained unchanged. His courtroom expressions varied little from the moment he let us into his home until then. But I knew from the tiny beads of sweat forming over his upper lip that he was lying. I leaned forward in my chair, hands folded, elbows flat against my knees.

  “Mister Rivera. If you have something to hide, then I don’t blame you for lying, in fact, I would recommend that you ask us to leave your home this minute.”

  “What, you’re giving me legal advice now?”

  “Not at all. What I’m saying is that if you have nothing to hide and have broken no laws, then I suggest you tell us what we want to know. After all, I can only imagine how a prolonged, over-sensationalized murder tr
ial might play out in the press, and what that might do to your chances of making full partnership at the firm.”

  “Murder?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard that one before. “You just try and drag me through that fiasco, Detective. I’ll have the State Attorney’s office and Internal Affairs on your partner’s ass so fast he won’t be able to sit without first needing to fill out a request form and submitting it in triplicates.”

  “Is that right?” said Carlos, in a rare state of aggravation.

  “Believe me.”

  “Very well, then,” I said, standing and motioning for Carlos to do the same. “I guess we’ll get out of your hair now. When the DA’s office phones you….”

  “Wait,” he said, and I knew I had called his bluff. “Just a minute.” He pointed to the chairs. “Let’s start over. I have nothing to hide.”

  I looked at Carlos and gave him the nod. We reclaimed our seats. “All right, Mister Rivera. How about the truth, now?”

  He took a deep breath and shook his head faintly as he exhaled. “It’s a simple thing, really. I don’t know why everything gets blown out of proportion so easily. So, okay, fine. I went to the train station to pick up Gregory. He called me in a panic, said he was standing next to some woman on the platform, just talking to her, and the next thing he knew, she stepped off the edge right into the path of the oncoming train.

  “The scene was horrific, as you might imagine, people screaming, running helter-skelter. A cop working the platform at the time moved in quickly and sealed off the stairwell to the street. Within minutes, more cops arrived and began taking statements. Greg was worried because he gave his real name. Naturally, the trains stopped running, so he called me and asked me to give him a ride to the bus station.”

  “Where did he go from there?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Mister Rivera….”

  “I swear he didn’t. I guess he figured it best if I didn’t know.”

  “But you figure he left town.”

  “Detective, he got on a bus. What do you think?”

  I looked at Carlos and delivered the old high brow. He smiled back, as if to say, he’s got you there. I said to Rivera, “You know, innocent men don’t run. At this point, things don’t look so good for your boy, Piakowski.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not, but Greg’s innocent. That woman at the train station, she killed herself. You have a dozen witnesses who will testify to that.”

  “Eleven,” I said, “without Piakowski here to tell his side.” I reached across the coffee table and picked up a pack of smokes lying there. “These yours?”

  He nodded. “Sure, help yourself.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t smoke.”

  He threw his hands up. “Then why’d you ask for one?”

  “I didn’t. I merely asked if they were yours. I see they’re Marlboros?”

  He reached over and took them from me. “Is that so strange?”

  “We found Marlboro butts up in the attic over Karen Webber’s apartment. It looked like someone had been hanging out up there for a while, and not so long ago.”

  He pulled a smoke from the pack and lit it with a cigarette lighter that looked so much like a real gun that Carlos went for his shoulder weapon. Rivera took a drag, coughed a little and then forced another to show that he could do it. A white-blue fog steamed through his nostrils like chimney smoke and hung in a cloud around his face before dissipating over his head.

  “I see,” he said, nearly choking. “So, because I smoke Marlboros, now I killed Karen Webber. Is that it?”

  “Did you?”

  “Detective, the last time we talked, you accused me of killing Bridget Dean and Anna Davalos. Did you find Marlboro butts in their attics, too?”

  “No, but we did learn that it’s possible those women were not alone when they died.”

  “Bridget Dean was alone. You’ve seen the video, no doubt.”

  “We saw a video, yes, but it still remains unproven whether or not the time and date stamp on it had been altered.”

  Rivera snuffed his smoke out in an ashtray before slanting against the back of his chair. “Help me understand something,” he said. “You came here this evening with questions about Greg Piakowski. I’m assuming it’s because you think he had something to do with that woman’s death at the train station. He told me how you harassed him at the cemetery and that you think he also played a role in Karen Webber’s death.”

  “We’re looking into all possibilities,” I said.

  “Yes, but now you’re insinuating I had a part in Webber’s death, as well. Do you think we both killed her?”

  “I think that’s possible.”

  “Do you?”

  “Mister Rivera, let me paint a picture for you that I believe a jury might find interesting.”

  He waved his hand graciously, as if presenting an open floor. “Please.”

  “The picture starts with you fuming over Bridget Dean’s promotion. You were resentful over her relationship with Mister Petruzelli, and maybe you were angry over other things as well, the likes of which my associate here suggested earlier in your office. It’s conceivable that any one or all of those things drove you to kill Bridget Dean.”

  “That is fanciful, Detective. Your imagination astounds me.”

  “Does it?”

  “Yes, because if you check the records, you’ll see that I was in Boston attending a conference with Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli at the time of Bridget Dean’s death. So, for me to have killed her would take the talents of a magician. Wouldn’t you think?”

  “Perhaps, or maybe just the help of an old friend.”

  “Ah, yes, Piakowski?”

  “Of course. If you wanted Bridget Dean dead, then Piakowski might offer his help only too gladly.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he owed you big for getting his life sentence in a murder conviction overturned.”

  Rivera laughed. “That’s rich, Detective. You should write a book.”

  “You know I might. And in it, I’ll tell how you were so proud of your accomplishment that you went and bragged about it to Courtney Lusk.”

  “A simple waitress?”

  “Waitress, lover, we won’t split hairs. Maybe you had a little too much to drink one night, got a bit too chatty during a pillow talk session. Maybe she even helped you set the thing up. It doesn’t matter, but it’s likely she knew. And, of course, Courtney is no slouch. She knows how to take advantage of life’s little opportunities when they come along. So what does she do?”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “Ms. Courtney, not being one for dealing lightly with her competition, blackmails you into killing her rival, Anna Davalos.”

  Rivera pressed forward in his chair. “That’s crazy. Why would I kill Anna? If Courtney held a secret like that over my head, then why wouldn’t I kill her, instead?”

  “Because she’s Piakowski’s sister?” I said. Rivera faded back into his seat like a shadow. “Right, you didn’t know I knew that. So, here’s where it gets interesting. While all of this is going on, Karen Webber begins investigating Bridget and Anna’s alleged suicides. She starts asking all the right questions, poking around in all the right places. You get a little nervous and so what do you do?”

  Rivera rolled his eyes with convincing disdain. “Let me guess. Kill her, too?”

  I pointed at him and smiled. “Hey, you’re getting good at this.”

  “It’s preposterous.”

  “Yeah, well, I think the D.A. might find it compelling.”

  “Sure, even though your own medical examiner ruled her death a suicide?”

  I pointed to the cigarettes. “The M.E. might change his mind once we present him with new evidence.”

  “What evidence, DNA? Detective, I can tell you with certainty that you won’t find my DNA on any cigarette butts you might have found in Webber’s apartment.”

  “Don’t have to be yours. W
e merely have to trace them back to you. You see, I believe that to get close enough to kill her, you had to bait her with a handsome love interest first. So, you introduced her to Gregory Piakowski.”

  “That was his idea. He only wanted to date her. That’s all.”

  I shrugged indifferently. “The jury won’t care. What they’ll care about are the cigarette butts we found in the crawlspace of her attic with his DNA on them. All we need to do is lean on him a little and he’ll throw you right under the bus. Once the MO is established, it’s a short step to explaining how Anna Davalos really died.”

  Rivera clapped his hands slowly in mock applause. “Wonderful, Detective, simply inspiring. You know, a closing argument like that could actually win a good prosecutor his case in court.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said.

  “Except that it would take one hell of a good prosecutor to convince a jury it happened that way when all he’s got for evidence is a few cigarette butts and…oh, wait. That’s right. That’s all he’s got is a few cigarette butts. You’ll need to do better than that.”

  “We only need to show reasonable guilt,” I said.

  “Not in a murder case, Colombo. With murder, the substantial burden is on you. To get an acquittal, all I need to show is reasonable doubt, and your medical examiner has already provided that.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Yes, we will,” he snipped. “But now let me ask you something.”

  I granted acceptance with a simple nod.

  “If you’re so hell bent of pinning these supposed murders on Greg and me, then why did you haul my little brother downtown and harass him like a common thug?”

  “We didn’t haul him down to harass him. We had a misunderstanding.”

  “What, his stuttering too difficult to decipher?”

  “No. One of our detectives interpreted a comment he made as a confession, which, under the circumstances, seemed justifiable.”

  “Under what circumstances, intimidation and hot lights? Did he have legal council present?”

  “He waived council.”

  “You should have assigned council for him. You knew of his special circumstances.”

  “Yes, which brings us to something else. Did you know that your brother suffers from MPD?”

  “No, he doesn’t. He might have an imaginary friend, but—”

  “We’ve seen it.” I turned to Carlos, who nodded in agreement. “He has a dual personality, an alter-ego named Leo.”

  “Leo?” Rivera laughed in that condescending way of his that I learned to hate. “Detective, Leo is Benny’s twin brother who passed away when they were just kids.”

  “Twin?”

  “Yes, identical. He died years ago. They were only boys when it happened.”

  “When what happened?”

  Rivera leaned back into the leather folds of his chair, crossing his legs and arms at the same time. I saw his eyes drift off into the corner of the room as he stroked the whiskered shadow below his chin.

  “We don’t know what happened, exactly,” he said. “I have to tell you first that Benny wasn’t always like he is now. He was born quite normal, in all respects a happy, healthy child. When he was about seven, though, he suffered a traumatic brain injury. His condition now is a result of that injury. Doctors call it Acquired Savant Syndrome. Though he obviously suffers developmental disabilities, he can do some pretty amazing things, as well, like complex mathematical calculations, or tell you the day of the week for any date, including those in the distant past or future.”

  “He’s a numbers genius,” I said.

  “Yeah, not just that. You should hear him on piano, and the kid never had a lesson in his life.”

  “Interesting. Now tell me about his brother.”

  “I’m getting to that,” said Rivera. He uncrossed his legs and re-crossed them in the other direction. “After the initial injury and subsequent recovery, Benny did okay, his compromised facilities notwithstanding. And Leo was a good brother, looking out for Benny, helping him in situations where brothers can help, you know.”

  It was at this point that Rivera grew visibly touched. He squirmed about in his chair, unable to get comfortable, crossing and re-crossing his arms and legs before settling in with both feet on the floor and both hands on the armrests. “Excuse me,” he said after noticing us noticing him. He gathered his breath and continued.

  “Things began to change right about then. As if Benny wasn’t enough to worry about, Leo began misbehaving, becoming disorderly, over-rambunctious. I guess today you’d call it Attention Deficit Disorder. Only Leo had it bad, and you didn’t dope kids up for things like that back then. It seemed he loved to get into trouble, and worse, he loved getting Benny in trouble, too. He knew that Benny was slow and would do anything he told him to do. So, it came as no surprise one day when Leo decided that he and Benny should climb to the top of the water tower downtown and throw stones down onto parked cars.”

  “Wait. This happened when they were only seven?” I asked.

  “No, no. This occurred when they were nine. Leo had been bullying his brother for awhile by then.”

  “I see.”

  “So on that day, the two boys climbed the tower and began pitching stones over the side. What happened next is unclear. The only witness was a homeless man that lived in a cardboard box under the Lexington Street Bridge. He told police he saw the boys fighting on top of the tower, and that it looked like one of them tried to toss the other over the edge. Naturally, we figured they were foolishly engaged in horseplay. Either way, Benny would never speak of it, and in short time we decided it was best for his sake not to press him about it.”

  I edged up to the front of my seat, captivated by Rivera’s story. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Carlos on the edge of his seat, too, taking notes on his notepad. I said to Rivera, “You’re telling us that Leo went over the side of the tower?”

  “They were on top,” he said. “You have to picture it. The water tower is dome-shaped. When Leo fell, he didn’t just go sailing over the side. He fell and slid down the dome a ways until he snagged onto a rivet or something, which caught his fall. But he slipped far enough down the curvature of the dome that Benny couldn’t reach him.”

  “So, he was safe,” I said, “relatively speaking.”

  “If he held on, yes.”

  “He couldn’t?”

  “Couldn’t, or wouldn’t,” Rivera answered. “According to the homeless man, Benny got down on his belly and tried to pull Leo back up, but his reach wasn’t long enough. Then, and this is what the homeless man said, there’s no other account of it, something strange happened.”

  “What?” Carlos and I said at once.

  Rivera glanced alternately into Carlos’ eyes and mine. “Benny stood up, looked down at his brother and spread his arms wide. Then Leo raised his hand, pointed, and then shot Benny in the chest.”

  “With what?”

  “His finger.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “I know. It’s the account of a drunken homeless man. What do you want? But that’s what he said happened. He said Leo pointed his finger at Benny, and a white light shot out, hitting him in the chest. Benny fell back, landing on his butt and then Leo….” Rivera shook his head. “Leo just sort of slipped off the side of the tower, as though he had fallen asleep.”

  “You mean he gave up?”

  “I mean he simply eased off the side without a fight. He didn’t try grabbing at anything. He didn’t flag his arms, or scream on the way down. Nothing. He just slid off the tower like dead weight.”

  Carlos dropped his pen and notepad to the floor and uttered, “OBE.” The same thought crossed my mind, but I managed to suppress the urge to gasp it aloud.

  Rivera said to him, “Excuse me?”

  “What happened then?” I asked. “Did Benjamin start acting strange after that?”

  “Strange? Detective, the kid had just lost his brother right before his ey
es. What behavior do you consider strange after a thing like that?”

  I acknowledge the validity of his question with a nod. “Let me rephrase that. Did strange things begin happening after that?”

  “Do you mean is that when Ben starting talking to his imaginary friend?”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  “You know, in my mind, Benny has always been strange. When he was eleven, he told me he could tickle people from the inside. Now what the hell is that supposed to mean? Around that same time, my father brought him to an institute where they studied supposed paranormal attributes and other anomalies of the human psyche in people.”

  “Was that in Doctor Lowell’s studies?”

  “Yes. Do you believe it? They thought my brother was some kind of freak.”

  “Mister Rivera,” I said. “The participants in those studies were not freaks.”

  “I know one who was.”

  “Are you talking about Bridget Dean?”

  “No. Why? Was she in Benny’s group?”

  “Yes, and so was Ana Davalos and Karen Webber.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Really? It’s funny Benjamin never mentioned it. Kind of puts a whole new spin on things, doesn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Makes no difference to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just coincidence.”

  “Coincidence? Do you suppose it’s also a coincidence that the woman who stepped off the train platform today was also in Benjamin’s group?”

  Rivera’s face fell into a droop. It was difficult to tell if the look he gave us was genuine or not, but it was animated. He seemed truly surprised by the news and not just a little upset. But a good actor can pull that off, and I had seen my share of good actors in this business. I looked at Carlos to gauge his reaction to Rivera’s performance, and he, too, seemed nearly convinced. Rivera collected his thoughts and sorted them out before us, as methodically as anyone possibly could under the circumstances.

  “Detective Marcella,” he said, gripping the armrests hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “What you’re telling me doesn’t make sense. The implications here are more than suggestive. They’re downright overwhelming.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Come on! You haven’t a case against me, and you know it. The very fact that all four of those women were associated with Doctor Lowell’s studies casts not a reasonable doubt, but an overwhelming doubt that Piakowski or I had anything to do with their deaths at all.”

  “Not so,” I countered. “That they were all associated with the studies at one time doesn’t take away from the fact that you and Piakowski, together, had a motive, means and opportunity to kill three of the four women. And that Piakowski stood right next to the fourth victim when she died, regardless of her associations to the other three, makes him suspect by proximity. I trust that if I dig further I’ll find a valid connection between Carol Kessler and one or all three of the other women that does not concern Doctor Lowell’s institute.”

  “Do you want to bet?” he said, almost daring me.

  “I’m willing,” I replied, quickly. “Are you?”

  He stood up and settled a look upon me as though my welcome had worn thin. I reached over and tapped Carlos on the knee. We stood up and I extended my hand out of respect. Rivera shook it loosely. It felt cold and wet from perspiration. I saw Carlos began to reach as he rose, but seeing me wipe my hand discreetly on my trousers, he feathered the move to make it look like he lost his balance and was merely regaining his footing. Afterward, he preoccupied his hands by patting down his pockets in search of his car keys while finding just the right place to stash his notepad and pen. Rivera’s impatience quickly dismissed him. He turned and ushered us to the door on heavy heels.

  “I’m growing tired of your visits, Detective,” Rivera said, as we stepped outside. “Your manners of illations are crude and transparent. Should you feel it necessary to interrogate me again on this or any other matter, I suggest you stop by a judge’s chamber and secure a warrant for my arrest first.”

  I looked him in the eye and smiled coldly. “I can arrange that.”

  His smile came back, colder. “Do, and I’ll slap a lawsuit on you and this city so fast it will make your jaw drop.” He leaned around me to steal a glimpse at Carlos. “You got that shiny new justice center paid for yet, Rodriquez?”

  I looked over my shoulder at Carlos, knowing inside that all he could think about was the precinct’s budget for the DNA lab next year, and how a frivolous false-arrest lawsuit might jeopardize that. But Carlos maintained a level head. He stepped partially around me and kept his voice low and deliberate.

  “Don’t you worry about that, Rivera,” he said, jabbing his finger in the air to make a point. “When we come to get you, we won’t need a damn warrant, and you’ll see then how that new justice center will pay for its self.”

  “Yes,” Rivera replied, almost under his breath. “We’ll see.” He returned to the house with no valedictions. After the door shut, I tapped Carlos on the chest and grinned proudly.

  “Nice comeback with that justice center remark. Did you learn that from me?”

  “Nah, just the part where I said, damn.”

  “Damn?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All those years we worked together, and that’s all you learned from me?”

  “Ah-huh, that and how to eat on the fly because you never want to stop for a bite.”

  “You mean like that hamburger and fries you had earlier tonight?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Hey, how did you—”

  “Forget it. Look, why don’t we move the car over there, out of sight, and watch the house for a while?”

  “Watch for what?”

  “Piakowski. I think he’s still here.”

  “Because of the cigarettes?”

  “You noticed, too?”

  “That Rivera is obviously not a smoker? Yes.”

  “They’re Piakowski’s brand.”

  “They’re also Benjamin’s brand…or is it Leo’s?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Come on.”

  We moved the car around the bend in the driveway, which put it just out of sight from the house. Then we got out and took up crouched positions on the garden side of the house, outside the library’s three large windows. From there, we could see Rivera on the phone, having what looked like a heated discussion involving lots of hand gestures and arm waving. On occasions, both Carlos and I heard Greg’s name used, which we took to mean Piakowski, though whether talking to him or about him, we couldn’t say definitively.

  I tapped Carlos on the shoulder and said in a whisper, “What do you make of it?”

  He whispered back, “My gut says he’s talking to Piakowski.”

  “Yeah, mine, too.”

  “So, he lied to us.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said, and then ducked when I thought I saw Rivera look toward the window. “We asked him if he knew where Piakowski went, not if he knew how to get a hold of him.”

  Carlos shook his head. “Dirty stinking lawyers.”

  “Uh-uh, Carlos. Not all lawyers are bad.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Some are dead.”

  I ignored the comment, though I wanted to remind him that some of our best friends were lawyers. “Carlos, what do you think about the story Rivera told us?”

  “About Benjamin and his twin brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Freaky, ain’t it?”

  “I heard you say, OBE when you dropped your pen and notepad. Do you think that’s what happened?”

  He smiled slyly, as though I had asked him a trick question. “Think what happened?”

  “You know. Do you think—”

  We both flinched when my phone suddenly rang. I yanked it from my pocket on the second ring and answered it, thankful and amazed that Rivera had not heard it. Carlos blinked at me with owl’s eyes, too surprised t
o hit me for the oversight that would have undoubtedly cost him a shot to the arm if it had happened to him.

  “Yes,” I said, in a whisper. “What is it?”

  “Detective Marcella? Is that you? It’s Dominic.”

  “I know that, Spinelli. What do you have?”

  “Lots. It’s almost too much to sift through in one night. But I wanted to call you with what I found so far.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “First off, there are lots of pictures. Most of them of Rivera and Piakowski, but some here are of Benjamin and Courtney, too.”

  “You mean, together?”

  “Yes, together, and close.”

  “Romantically close?”

  “Yeah, if you call hugging and kissing with hands on each other’s rear ends close.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and whispered the details to Carlos. His jaw dropped like a trap door and stayed that way until I gave him his next update.

  “Nice work, Spinelli. What else you got?”

  “More pictures,” he said, “and you’ll never guess who.”

  I took a stab at it. “Lilith?”

  “No. Leona Diaz.”

  “Leona? Why her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is Benjamin in the photos with her?”

  “Some, all innocuous, though, and the rest are of her alone.”

  “Interesting,” I said, and with that, Carlos perked up, demanding to know what I heard. I pulled the phone from my ear and covered the mouthpiece again. “Spinelli’s got pictures of Leona and Benjamin making out in the coffee shop,” I told him, hoping the little white lie would quiet him for a while. It was all I could do not to laugh. He settled back with those owl’s eyes and gated mouth. I put the phone back to my ear and heard Spinelli rambling on about documents and research papers and whatnot. “Whoa, Spinelli. I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Carlos distracted me. Start over.”

  “The bulk of the documents,” he said, “are mostly research papers about out-of-body experiences and episodes of spontaneous bilocation. Some even suggest that high-functioning savants may possess the ability to control the metaphysical disposition of the soul at will.”

  I shook my head at that. “In English Spinelli. What does all that mean in English?”

  “It means that Karen Webber must have given real credence to the possibility that Bridget Dean and Ana Davalos met their deaths through supernatural manifestations.”

  “You’re saying she believed that a non-psychical entity directly influenced the actions of those women, forcing them to commit suicide?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “It certainly supports the idea we’ve been kicking around about OBE.”

  “Except that Karen’s surveillance pictures suggest she didn’t just focus her suspicions regarding OBE candidates down to just Benjamin. Because of Leona’s ability to bilocate, it earned her a spot on that list, as well.”

  “I know, but I don’t for a minute believe Leona had anything to do with it.”

  “Regardless, it’s a theory Karen considered strong enough to follow to the end.”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t rule out the more obvious explanations altogether. Karen had no other way of looking at it. She didn’t know about the attic access to Ana’s room, or the possible video tampering of the Dean tapes. She may have been looking at this case through only a peephole.”

  “Still,” said Spinelli, “it does make you think.”

  “Sure does. So, what else you got?”

  “That’s it for now, except that Karen did a ton of research on nearly everyone in the HP&P circle. I’ve already pored over documents that suggest the principals, Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli had no involvement in this mess whatsoever—if that helps.”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I said. “We already have so many players in this game, I need a scorecard to keep track.”

  “I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”

  “Wait, Spinelli, let me ask you something. You’re an expert in the supernatural, right?”

  “I wouldn’t say expert…aficionado maybe.”

  “Close enough. Look, have you ever heard of one person co-possessing the body of another?”

  He paused so long I thought I lost the phone connection. “Spinelli? You there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Excuse me, Detective, but I thought that’s the theory we were working on. Maybe I don’t understand your question.”

  “It’s not that far of a stretch. I mean, we’re working on a theory that someone momentarily influenced Karen and the others through a non-psychical state of being. But I’m talking about permanent cohabitation: two souls actively occupying and directing the actions of a single individual alternately.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “I suppose, if one believes in bilocation then, as you say, it’s not such a stretch from there to a permanent metaphysical co-possession.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Is this about Benjamin Rivera?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought he was suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.”

  “He may be, but I’m looking at it from another angle. Did you know that Benjamin had a twin brother who died when they were only nine?”

  “No.”

  “Neither did we until a few minutes ago. But Ricardo Rivera told us that Benjamin’s twin brother, Leo, died in a fall from a water tower. An eyewitness told police he saw something strange take place between Benjamin and Leo moments before the accident. What he described, in my mind, sounds like Leo’s spirit moving into his brother’s body. Only now that I’ve talked to you, I suspect the opposite is true. I think that Benjamin fell from the tower, but before going over, he hijacked Leo’s body through spontaneous bilocation.”

  “So, Benjamin is really Leo?”

  “No. Benjamin is Benjamin. He just shares Leo’s body.”

  “And what we saw today in the interrogation room, was that Leo trying to regain dominance over his own body?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  I heard him sigh. “That poor bastard.”

  “Hold your pity,” I told him. “From what I hear, if it’s Benjamin who’s killing these women, then it’s Leo telling him to do it.”

  “Wow. That’s heavy. Okay, I suppose I should get back on this computer and see what else I can find out for you.”

  “Please,” I said. “This case could use a break about now. Call me if you learn anything.”

  I terminated the call and pocketed the phone. Carlos already had me by the coat sleeve, eager for more details. I hated to burst his bubble, but for Leona’s good name, I had to tell him the truth.

  “Carlos, before you start, let me tell you that Spinelli doesn’t have pictures of Leona and Benjamin making out at the coffee shop.”

  He let go of my arm and pushed me away. I could see by the expression on his face that he wanted me to believe I insulted him, but I know Carlos, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t hide his disappointment from me.

  “That’s not what I was going to ask you,” he said.

  “But Spinelli did say the photos of Benjamin and Courtney making out were hot.”

  “Really?” His expression lightened considerably. “How hot?”

  “Scorching.”

  “Did he print them out?”

  “Carlos!”

  “For evidence, Tony, evidence.”

  “Sure.”

  “So, what did he say when you asked him about that two guys in a body thing?”

  “He calls it permanent metaphysical co-possession, and he believes it’s possible.”

  “Me, too. I think that’s what happened. The good twin took over the bad twin’s body, but now the bad twin is making the good twin do bad things. Right?”

  “You’re asking me?”


  “Well, you always have all the answers. That’s why I called you.”

  I reeled back in dismay. He did expect me to have all the answers. Only now it seemed like all I had was questions. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the obsidian charm. “Here.” I handed it to Carlos. “Tell me what you think.”

  He took it and held it to the dim light spilling through the library window. “What is it?”

  “It’s the eye of the witch. Lilith gave it to me. She promised it would provide me with the insight and discretion of a witch much wiser than my years.”

  “Does it work?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I’m getting mixed results. It helped me come up with a password for Spinelli to use on that flash drive, but as for the big question, I don’t know. One minute I feel certain that Rivera and Piakowski are responsible for the deaths of those women, and the next, I’m inclined to believe that Benjamin is the culprit.”

  “Don’t you mean, Benjamin and Leo?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Or Benjalo?”

  “Funny.”

  “Benlo.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Ben-a-le-o-le-o.”

  “Carlos!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Tell me what you think when you hold the charm and concentrate.”

  “On what?”

  “I don’t know, on anything. Open your mind.”

  He closed his eyes and clenched the obsidian tightly in his fist. At first, nothing much happened, but then he rocked his head back and began to sway from side-to-side. His nostrils flared and a slight hissing sound parted his lips.

  Nothing like that happened to me in the short time I possessed the charm, but then I hadn’t employed it in the same way Carlos did. I believed that whatever was happening to him could easily get out of hand, given where we were at the time. So, I resolved to slap him out of it if he went any further than simple swaying and hissing. About the time I really began to worry, however, Carlos snapped to and opened his eyes fully.

  “What?” I said, holding his arm steady. “What did you see?”

  He looked at me uncertain, and for a moment, I suspected he didn’t even know who I was. Then a breath of confidence washed over him and he smiled broadly. “Lilith,” he said.

  I shook him. “What about Lilith?”

  “That’s what I saw.”

  “You saw Lilith?”

  “Yup.”

  “What was she doing?”

  His expression fell into one of deep concentration. “You know, I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Think! What was she doing?”

  His expression deepened. I could tell he was trying. God love him for that, but he just couldn’t plug the lamp into the socket. He looked at me sheepishly, his big brown eyes hooded below anguished brows. “I’m Sorry, Tony,” and I believed he was. “That’s all I got.”

  I grabbed his wrist and snatched the obsidian from his hand. “Forget it. You tried.” I pointed up at the window. Rivera left the room sometime during our conversation. Not that it mattered anymore. We only hung around in hopes of catching Piakowski there. If Rivera had been talking to Piakowski on the phone, then it seemed safe to say that our stakeout was pointless. “We’re wasting our time here,” I told him. “What do you say we get rolling?”

  Eleven

  We left Rivera’s place and were heading back to the justice center when my phone rang again.

  “Spinelli,” I said. “Tell me you have something.”

  He answered, “I might. How does this fit into your facts-for-fun book?”

  “Wait a minute. Let me put you on speaker.” I held the phone up to the map light and pressed the speaker button so that Carlos could listen, too. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

  We heard nothing.

  “Spinelli? You there? Spin—”

  The phone rang again. I pushed the answer button and heard Spinelli say, “Don’t hang up.”

  “I didn’t hang up on you. You hung up on me.”

  I looked at Carlos, who tried hard not to laugh at something that obviously wasn’t funny. “Just say you did,” he told Spinelli. “Remember what we talked about.”

  “What?” I asked. “What did you two talk about?”

  Spinelli came back. “Sorry `bout that, Detective. I must have hit the wrong button.”

  “Are you patronizing me?”

  “Dominic,” said Carlos. “What have you got?”

  I thought I heard Spinelli chuckling, but I couldn’t be sure. It took him a few seconds to come back with a voice that sounded suspiciously tweaked. “Right. I have an interesting tidbit. It seems that Karen made notes regarding the exact ages of the victims at the time of their deaths. For instance, she noted that Bridget Dean died exactly four months and a day from her last birthday. Ana Davalos, three months and a day.”

  “Coincidence,” I said.

  “Is it? Well, how about this? Carol Kessler died today at the train station exactly one month and a day from her last birthday.”

  “Probably another coincidence. Four, three and one month plus a day. The chain is broken. Now, if you were to tell me that Karen Webber’s death fell two months and a day past her birthday, then I might––”

  “She did,” he said.

  I looked over at Carlos, as ice ran through my veins. I held the phone closer. “What did you say?”

  Spinelli’s voice returned on a somber thread. “There’s a definite pattern here, Detective. And the scary thing is that Karen saw it, too, but she didn’t seek anyone’s help.”

  “Who would have listened? Before her death, there were only two others, by themselves, not very coincidental. Take Thomas Jefferson and John Adams for instance: two former presidents, both died on July 4th 1826, exactly fifty years to the day after both signed The Declaration of Independence.”

  “Yes, but at least there weren’t two more dead presidents only a week after those two croaked.”

  “Still, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” I said. “Not unless the numbers add up funny for anyone else.”

  “You mean, like Leona?”

  “What about Leona?”

  “Leona’s birthday was yesterday.”

  I dropped the phone on my lap, inadvertently hanging up on Spinelli. I tried dialing him back, but gave up when I realized my fingers were trembling too badly to hit just one number at a time. Carlos noticed me fumbling with the phone and reached across the seat to stop me.

  “Tony. Dom will call back.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “Yes, he said Leona’s birthday was yesterday.”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “I know what you’re thinking it means. Bridget died four months and a day after her birthday, Davalos, three and one: Webber, two and one, and Kessler one and one. Based on that pattern, Leona has none plus one, and then she’s dead.”

  “Right, and none plus one is today!”

  Carlos shook his head no. “But Leona didn’t attend the workshops with those other women. There’s no reason to believe she’s on that list.”

  “Can you say that for sure?”

  “No. I can’t even say for sure that there is a list. And if there is, who’s to say the list isn’t hers?”

  “Leona’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. It’s not hers!”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  Of course, I didn’t, but I wanted to believe I did. I knew that if bilocation was a factor in the deaths of those women, then hardly anyone other than Leona or Benjamin could have committed the crimes. The problem was that I still hadn’t convinced myself that bilocation was a factor.

  I looked at Carlos. His eyes gleamed with sharp focus on the road. He didn’t know Leona as I knew her: soft, shy and timid. He knew her only as another student of the vilified Lieberman workshop. Her ability to bilocate made her a suspect in the murders we investigated then. That abi
lity, at least in his mind, cast shadows of suspicion on her still.

  “Carlos, let me ask you. Given this new information, who do you think killed those women?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “If we’re going to rule out multiple suicides—”

  “Which we are,” I said, “for now.”

  “Well then, for now I’d have to say I think Benja-Leo did it.” He gave a little pause. “And You?”

  I shook my head. “Well, you know me. I usually go with my gut feelings.”

  “But you’re not feeling it with the Rivera kid, are you?”

  “No, not Benjamin. I don’t know why. I know we’ve both seen enough of the paranormal and supernatural to make the connection when we see it, but I keep finding myself coming back to Rivera and Piakowski on this one.”

  Carlos gestured a nod, but kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Ah-huh, and why do you suppose that?”

  “Motive,” I said, almost without thinking. “Rivera had it. Benjamin didn’t.”

  “Not that you know.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Come on, think about it, Tony. Benny’s got a connection with the women going back almost ten years. There’s no telling what might have taken place back then that could have set him off. Maybe he hasn’t had the ability to do anything about it until now.”

  I found myself surprisingly persuaded by his argument, and once again doubting my own instincts. “You know,” I said, “you may have something. Ordinarily, I would have to agree that if Rivera killed the women for reasons we discussed earlier, then the staggered timing of their deaths in relation to their birthdays would seem merely coincidental, at best. However, if you add the paranormal element into the mix, then perhaps you do introduce an entirely plausible scenario that I shouldn’t so easily overlook.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. But now, are you ready for my other theory?”

  “You have another?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay, so I’m thinking about the time element, and how the decrements diminish not just by one month at a time, rather by a month and a day?”

  “Yeah, I got that part,” I said.”

  “And you remember from the Surgeon Stalker case that the murders relating to the law of contagion occurred on predetermined intervals.”

  “Sure, based on lunar cycles, I know. But what do you base the unusual timing on now?”

  He looked at me with obvious apprehension. “You’re not going to like this.”

  “What’s to like about any of this? Go on. Let’s hear it.”

  He gripped the steering wheel and wrung his hands around it tightly. “Earlier at Lilith’s…what did she say to you about her ceremony tonight?”

  “She said that it was some sort of self-dedication thing, a rite of passage, she called it.”

  “No. I mean, about the witch’s ladder specifically. You told me she needed it for her ceremony because she made it…when?”

  All at once it hit me. “She said she made it exactly a year and a day ago!”

  He nodded. “Ah-huh, and so it’s probably no coincidence that witch’s ladder once belonged to Leona, whose birthday was also a year and a day ago.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “I hadn’t made that connection.”

  He said, “I don’t know what a rite of passage ceremony entails, but I’m thinking that whatever it is, it’s really all about Leona.”

  There have been times in prior investigations when I believed I had delineated my case accurately, only to discover later that I had seriously misjudged the scope and intricacies of its details. With Carlos’ words, I staggered in the horror of realizing I had, possibly, not only underestimated the perimeters of the case, but also the bedrock on which the case stood.

  “Carlos!” I said, balling my fists in frustration. “Why did you have to go and complicate matters like that? I barely had my mind wrapped around things as it was, and now you go and drag Lilith into it.”

  “Drag Lilith?” he said, his voice pitched high. “Tony, if this is about Lilith, it’s not because I dragged her into it. If anything, she dragged us into it.”

  He looked at me, and I could see his concern for my disposition outlined on his face. I took a deep breath and relaxed my clenched fists, only then realizing how hard I had pierced the skin of my palms. “I know that,” I said, apologetically. “I don’t mean to sound angry with you. I’m angry with myself for not putting the pieces together.”

  I rubbed my hand on my knee and over the obsidian stone, wondering why that damned eye of the witch wasn’t working for me, why it hadn’t let me see things as clearly as Carlos had obviously seen them. That’s when it occurred to me. Maybe Lilith’s eye of the witch was working exactly as she intended it to work: to confuse me and throw me off track. I looked out the window and noticed us heading toward town.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Back to the box. Why?”

  I shook my head. “No. Take us back to Lilith’s. We’re not done with her yet.”

  He hit the brakes and swung the car around. Inside of fifteen minutes we were back in front of Lilith’s house, only this time parked at the curb. When asked why he didn’t pull up to the house, Carlos explained, “The car has a slight oil leak. I don’t want to make a mess on her driveway.”

  I hooked my brow in doubt. “How considerate.” As I opened the door and got out, I added, “I’m sure that old gnome will appreciate it, too.”

  I shut the door, and as the dome light blinked out, I heard him declare, “He don’t scare me!”

  The walk up to Lilith’s door dogged me like a Trojan mile. I couldn’t accept the thought of her culpability in the murders of Karen and the others, but I could not let Carlos’ theory go unchallenged. If he was right, and a small part of me deep inside suspected he might be, then Leona had maybe just a few hours left to live.

  I planted my heels in front of the door, rolled up my sleeve and gave it a knock. It took Lilith a bit longer to answer this time. I thought perhaps that I had interrupted her in meditation. She was dressed still in the robe she wore earlier, only now she seemed more relaxed, almost detached in spirit from the Lilith I spoke with barely an hour before. She stared at me blankly, as wax from her candle dripped freely down the back of her hand.

  “Lilith,” I said, “it’s me, Detective Marcella.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I swear I saw the light of presence fill them like a phantom breeze. A wave of dread struck me nearly off my feet. I staggered back, grabbing onto the doorjamb, praying I hadn’t arrived too late to save Leona.

  “I know it’s you,” she snapped, in that usual sarcastic tone. “You think I didn’t see your gumshoe partner pull up in front of my house?”

  “We weren’t trying to sneak up on you or anything. Detective Rodriquez felt —”

  “Afraid?”

  “No. He felt that you wouldn’t appreciate it if he dripped oil on your driveway.”

  She cast a serpent’s grin behind me. “Tell him not to worry. He doesn’t bite.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder. “Who?”

  She pointed her candle at the gnome out on the front lawn. “Jerome.”

  “Oh,” I said, and thought I best leave it at that. “Look, Lilith, do you mind if I have another word with you?”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed audibly. “Detective, I’ve already told you that tonight is not a good night for—”

  “I’ll make it quick. I promise. Please. It’s very important.”

  Judging from her expression, I expected she would slam the door in my face without further discussion. Instead, she inhaled deeply, and I saw her lips clearly counting to three as she slowly exhaled, though she did not speak the words. When she finished counting, her expression softened considerably. She opened the door fully and stepped aside.

  “Come in.”

  Knowing the procedure, I walked str
aight to the kitchen table and sat down. She closed the door and followed, taking a seat directly across from me. I watched as she tilted a candle, permitting a small puddle of wax to collect on the tabletop. She then planted the butt end of the candle into the wax, allowing it to stand upright on its own.

  “Okay, Detective, what is it that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the obsidian charm. “First off, let me give this back to you, because it either doesn’t work, or it works too well. And secondly, I need to ask you this straight out: is there anything you’re not telling me about Karen Webber or the other three women whose deaths I’m investigating?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry, Lilith, but I have to know.”

  “All right. I see where you’re coming from. Frankly, Detective, I thought we moved past our mistrust issues a long time ago. Apparently, I was wrong.” She reached across the table and snatched the obsidian from my hand. “So, you want the truth?”

  “Lilith, don’t play it like that.”

  “I’m not playing anything. You asked for it.”

  “I asked because I need to know.”

  “And you shall.” She got up from the table and walked to the kitchen sink. Above it, a strange looking pincushion doll dangled from a string. I had seen it there before, though with all the unusual knick-knacks laying around the house, I hardly paid it any notice. Appropriate for Lilith, I suppose, the doll looked like your stereotypical old hag witch, sporting a pointy black hat, a long crooked nose and riding a straggly-ended broomstick. She grabbed the witch, snapped it off its string with a clean jerk and presented it to me by thrusting it nearly in my face.

  “Thisss,” she said, over-accentuating the word so that it sounded like a hissing snake, “is my kitchen witch. And thisss,” she held the obsidian stone up, “is the eye of the witch.” She planted the stone on the witch’s face where its eye should have been, but wasn’t. “It’s her eye.”

  “I see that,” I said.

  “It fell off one day. I kept meaning to glue it back on, but I just never got around to it.”

  “So, what? You cast a spell on it and stuck it in a box for a rainy day?”

  “No. I just stuck it in a box.”

  I laughed, partly at the insanity of the charade and partly because…well, because I really did find it funny. “You set me up. Was that to throw me off track?”

  “What? No! I gave you the obsidian because I wanted you to go away, number one, and because I believed it might really help you.”

  “How so, if you never cast a spell on it?”

  She pitched the kitchen witch over her shoulder and into the sink without looking. “Detective, you of all people should know the power that the mind commands if one simply believes. You came to me because you lacked confidence. You let your self-doubt stand in the way of sound decision-making. All I did was try to un-cloud your mind so that you could make reasonable judgments. And from what I saw, it was working when you left here. What happened?”

  “Spinelli happened,” I said, “and then Carlos added to it by suggesting that you might have had something to do with the timing of Karen’s death, and of the other women, and that since the ladder you seek belonged to Leona, that she––”

  “Is next on the list?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. Carlos and Spinelli?” She reclaimed her seat across from me at the table. “My, my,” she said softly, and I suddenly felt very small. “Man, you’ve got it bad. I never thought I would see the day when the likes of Havana Joe and little Opie Taylor….” She shook her head again and trailed off without finishing the thought.

  “Lilith, it’s not like that. They’re not leading me through this investigation. Based on the information that has presented itself, I would have come here regardless.”

  “And what, accuse me of murder? I told you this evening how I planned to atone for my past misdeeds. What would I gain from killing little Miss Guatemala?”

  “She’s Honduran, and I don’t know what you or anyone else might gain from killing her. But I have four dead women on my hands and the timing of their deaths suggests that not only might Leona die next, but that her death will likely happen sometime before this night is through.”

  She slammed her hand down on the table. “Then why are you wasting your time here with me?”

  I slammed my hand down next to hers, only much harder, causing the candle to sputter hot wax onto both of us. “Because of what you told me!” I shouted. “Why tonight, Lilith?”

  “Why what?”

  “This!” I swung my arm in a broad sweep across the room. “These candles, your robe, that bizarre incense you’re burning, why? You told me you wanted that witch’s ladder because you created it a year and a day ago.”

  “Yes, so?”

  “So, why a day? Why not a year and two days ago, or a year and a week or a month?”

  “I don’t know!” Now she was yelling, too. “I don’t make the rules! I only follow them. The coven decrees it and tradition demands it! I have but one opportunity in this cycle to declare myself in the eyes of the ancestral assembly, and tonight, a year and a day from the spell on that witch’s ladder, with or without it, I shall atone, submit and accept the covenants of the order.”

  “And you don’t see it. Do you?”

  “See what?”

  “An hour in a room with all the parties concerned, that’s it, just one hour, and you might tell me what I need to know. But will you? Noooo. Your self-dedication is testimony to your selfishness. You profess your religion as holistic with nature and free of ambivalence, one omni-dimensional spiritless bounty of returning energy entwined in the subconscious, beckoning the will to release it. But you know what, Lilith? We don’t all subscribe to that theology. For some of us, it’s important, regardless of eventuality, to believe in some sort of continuance when we die, and not just that our energy will evaporate into a collective reservoir of kinetic athleticism awaiting recycle in the vacuum of space.”

  She leveled her eyes at me, coldly. “Are you done, Detective?”

  “No!” I leaned back in my chair, determined to add just one more point, but the momentum escaped me. “Yes. I’m done.”

  “Very well.”

  She stood, and for a moment I thought she might let me have it, a fork-tongued caustic rebuttal complete with sparks and smoke and maybe even some ground tremors thrown in for good show. She had done that before. Only this time, her response seemed more carefully measured. I suspect it’s because of all the lit candles in the house. A nasty three-alarm fire would have probably put the squelch on any ceremony she planned.

  Instead, she carried herself to the door on a thread of air, opened it on a wish and pointed the way so that I might not get lost while leaving.

  I got up from my seat, thrilled that I still had two human legs on which to stand, skirted past her, smiling all the while, and tip-toed out onto the steps. I turned to say goodbye, when the door slammed on my face, the doorknocker bouncing up and hitting my nose for added insult.

  As I hoofed it back to the car, minding Jerome from the corner of my eye, Spinelli rang me. Carlos also heard the ring, as well as my side of the brief conversation.

  “Yeah, Spinelli, what have you got? Really? Ah-huh. Interesting. Nice work, kid. Thanks.”

  I climbed into the car to find Carlos practically in my face. “What did he say? Did he find something else? What’s so interesting?”

  “Easy now,” I said, pushing against his chest until he settled back in behind the wheel. “Yes, he found something all right: on that flash drive. And you’re not going to believe it, but I think Karen was just hours away from busting this case wide open herself.”

  “What did he find?”

  “A list of names identifying all of the attendees from Doctor Lowell’s workshop that first year.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “It is.�
��

  “Why?”

  “Because, on that list is the last name of someone we have been unable to pin down since this investigation began.”

  “Stinky Pete?”

  “No. Crazy Eddy.”

  “We know his real name now?”

  I smiled at him teasingly. “You’re not going to believe this. His real name’s Ed Mallory.”