So, those were the comparisons I had in mind when I told Jerome he had nothing to fear by following Lilith through the black mirror. After sitting there for an hour and a half, waiting on his return, I began to second-guess my wisdom.
To pass the time, I flipped on the TV and settled into the soft cushions of the sofa, my feet up on the coffee table, my head back against a pillow.
I must have fallen asleep soon after, because the next thing I remembered, I was waking up to Carlos ringing me on the phone.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Still watching Allen Brinkman?”
“Yeah.” He sounded edgy. “There’s nothing happening now, but earlier I saw a little excitement.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lesley Swan stopped by to see him. They met downstairs in the cafeteria.”
“And?”
“Well, I couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were talking about, but I know it wasn’t a friendly conversation.”
“Were they arguing?”
“Quietly, but yes.”
“What then?”
“Nothing. Swan left. Brinkman went back upstairs and I’ve been stuck here twiddling my thumbs ever since. I’m calling to ask you if I can pull the plug on this stake out.”
I checked my watch. “Wow, is it really two o’clock?”
“Yes, and I’m starving.”
“Come on, Carlos.”
“What?”
“You were spying on Swan and Brinkman in the cafeteria and you expect me to believe you didn’t get anything to eat while you were there?”
“Oh, no. I got something to eat, but that was hours ago. I’m out in the parking lot now, watching the front door in case he leaves.”
“How’s Dominic doing? Have you talked to him?”
“And I ran out of Snickers over an hour ago.”
“Forget the Snickers. I asked you if you talked to Dominic?”
“I have. He said Rachel and Eric met this morning at the jewelry store around ten.”
“Are they open for business?”
“No. That’s the weird thing. He said it appeared they were packing stuff up.”
“Packing what stuff?”
“I don’t know. Stuff. You know, filling boxes and packing them in their cars.”
“Are they still at the store?”
“No. He’s been sitting in front of Marx’s house since noon.”
“All right, then, I think we need to reassess our situation. Call Dominic and tell him to meet us back at the office in fifteen minutes.”
“Finally,” he said. “Thank you. Hey, by the way, what’s the word on Jerome?”
I looked across the room at the mirror. The candles had all burned down and out. Lilith and Jerome were still on the other side. “I don’t know,” I told him. “Lilith’s working on something. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
Chapter 23
At two-thirty, the three of us took up chairs around my desk on the second floor of the Justice Center. There, Dominic confirmed what Carlos told me about Rachel Marx and Eric Feldon meeting at the jewelry store.
“They were all small,” he said of the boxes the two packed and stashed away in Feldon’s car, “about the size of shoe boxes.”
“Probably the rest of the store’s inventory,” I guessed. “Was Oscar Shaul there?”
“Negative.”
Carlos asked, “What do you make of it, Tony?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re planning on skipping town.”
“Can’t we stop them?”
“On what grounds? We haven’t got anything on them.”
He had no answer for that one.
“Dominic, did you…” I tapped the desk in front of him to get his attention. He’d been looking out the window at the spider web that earlier transported me back to a dark place in my mind that I cared not ever to revisit. I fought the urge to look at it myself and won. “Dominic?”
He snapped to and gave me his attention. “Sorry. What?”
“Did you get a chance to look into Cohen’s phone records, see who else he might have called last night?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He only made three calls from his home phone. The first was to Rachel Marx at four-thirty p.m., the second to Lesley Swan at four-fifty-five and the third to you about five minutes later.”
“Lesley Swan? Why would he call her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he planned on telling her the same thing he wanted to tell you.”
“Maybe, but if he invited her over, she never made it. I was there last night until after seven.”
“Perhaps she showed up after the place went into lockdown. That would explain how she knew what happened.”
“Possible, yes. The police were still there when I left, not to mention all the neighbors loitering about. She wouldn’t have had to ask twice to learn he was dead.”
“Do you suppose Cohen told her what he knew over the phone?”
“About who stole the diamonds?”
“Yeah.”
“I doubt it. When he called me, he said he didn’t want to discuss it over the phone.”
“Forget that,” said Carlos. “What I want to know is what she and Brinkman were talking about this morning. I mean it. Those two were into something heavy.”
“You know…” I began drumming my fingers on the desk while staring at the pencil tin in front of me. I imagined the pens and pencils were suspects in the burglary case and the tin was the common denominator holding them all together. “There are a lot of loose ends in this case that just aren’t adding up. I feel as though we’re missing a crucial thread here somewhere.”
“Like what?” asked Dominic.
“Yeah,” Carlos echoed. “Like what.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t have said it.”
“You want to arrest somebody?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Everybody.”
“All right then, let’s—”
“He’s kidding,” said Dominic, who then leaned across the desk and whispered, “You are kidding, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Dominic, I’m kidding, but not about the missing thread.” I looked up at him, harboring a curious thought. “Do you have the photos Bill Geist took at the store the morning after the burglary?”
“I do. Why? You have an idea about something?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll go get them.”
As Dominic got up to get the photos, Carlos asked, “What are you thinking, Tony?”
“It’s crazy, grant it, but you know how arsonists sometimes return to a blazing fire to watch the results of their handiwork?”
“Yeah.”
“What if our burglar did the same thing?”
“You mean started a fire?”
“No! I mean came back to watch.”
“Oh.” Carlos eased back in his chair and crossed his arms to his chest. “I don’t know. This is hardly the same thing. I can’t imagine a professional jewel thief returning to the scene of the crime just to watch a bunch of cops take pictures and lift prints. I mean it’s hardly the same spectacle.”
“I know. You’re right about that, but Bill did take plenty of photos both inside and outside the store.”
To that, all Carlos could do was offer a shrug. It held me over until Dominic returned with a stack of eight-by-ten glossies and dumped them on the desk.
“There you go, all one hundred and fifteen of them.”
I immediately began separating the photos into five piles, designating the first for those taken out front of the jewelry store, the second for the ones taken in the alley, the third, fourth and fifth for the back room, showroom and office, respectively.
“What are we looking for?” Dominic asked.
Carlos said, “Arsonists.”
“What?”
“Nooo.” I gave Carlos a slap on the forearm.
“We’re not looking for arsonists. We’re just looking.”
Dominic could see what I was doing in regard to separating the photos, but without knowing why, he could hardly offer any more help than what Carlos offered, which was none.
After a few minutes of examining and reexamining what I thought were the most promising photos, I tossed a handful onto the desk and fell back in my seat, exasperated.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought I’d get lucky.”
“Hi fellas!”
I looked up and saw Lilith sashaying across the room and turning every head in the joint. Two-thirds of the men in the detectives’ room waved to her. The other third whistled. She took it all in with equal gratitude. Only when she reached my desk, did I realize her initial greeting wasn’t meant for us. For me, Carlos and Dominic, she offered a casual, “Hey guys.”
“Lilith,” I said, my greeting mixed with Carlos’ hi and Dominic’s hey. I admit I was surprised, but happy to see her. She looked good, and by that, I mean beautiful and carefree, which made me think that things went well with Jerome. I stood and came around the desk to give her a kiss on the cheek. Carlos and Dominic, apparently assuming that was protocol, did the same. Dominic, of course, went one better and offered her his chair.
She declined, saying, “I can’t stay. I just wanted to drop by and say hello.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but you could have just called. I waited around the house for hours today. Did everything go okay?”
“Yes, everything went wonderfully.”
“And Jerome, is he all right?”
“Jerome’s fine. He had fun.”
“So, what? All his powers are gone now?”
“Oh, no,” she said, carving horizontal slices of air across the desk with her hands. “They took back the prime essentials and gave them to the four guardians, so naturally, he couldn’t give away the quintessential.”
“I don’t understand. What is he going to do with it now?”
“What do you mean what’s he going to do with it? He’s going to take it back to the Eighth Sphere where it belongs.”
“But…isn’t that dangerous?”
“For who?”
“For him.”
“Tony, as long as Jerome has the power of the quintessential here on earth, nobody’s safe. At least back there, he can use it to protect himself. Besides, that’s where it belongs. It’s where it came from. That’s where it needs to go back.”
“Okay.” I came back around the desk and reclaimed my seat. “So, where is he now? You didn’t leave him alone at the house, did you?”
“No, he wanted to go back to the woods, so I took him. That’s why I’m here. It was on my way home.”
“I see.” She caught my gaze and held it, as if waiting for me to say something else. So I did. “You know, Jerome and I know where the portal is. It’s in the woods. He’s got a campsite there.”
She nodded. “I know. He told me.”
“He did?”
“Come on, Tony. Give me a little more credit than that. The only reason I didn’t ask you before is because I figured you’d tell me in your own time.”
“Did you have to ask Jerome?”
“No. He just came out and told me.”
“Oh?” I felt my heart skip a beat, thump a few times and then start up again in a full gallop. I hadn’t figured on Jerome simply coming out and volunteering that information to her. I wondered what else he might have told her. Had he said anything of our little deal about me going back with him? I looked away until guilt drew my eyes back to hers. She seemed to be waiting on me to fill in the gap. I cleared my throat and swallowed down the lump that had built up like a bubble, threatening to steal my voice completely. “Did he…say anything else?”
“Like what?”
Damn her poker face.
“I don’t know. Anything.”
She knew. Her eyes told me as much. I stole a glance at Carlos and Dominic. Both seemed keenly aware that something was happening between us.
“No,” she said, convincingly.
“Okay then. I guess we’re good. Thanks for stopping by to let me know things worked out.”
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to him?”
“What?”
“I said aren’t you going to say goodbye to Jerome? You know he needs to go back as soon as possible so that we can close that portal.”
“Lilith, the other end of that portal is in a place so remote, so secluded that no one could ever find it.”
“You found it.”
“I stumbled upon it.”
“What if someone else stumbles upon it? What if another Doctor Lowell finds it?”
“Doctor Lowell is dead.”
“I mean some other evil entity, or worse. What if a tribe of malodytes finds it, or an angry troop of drigets? Can you imagine them falling to earth like some alien invaders?”
Could I? I thought. Ha, she didn’t know the half of it. “Lilith, I can tell you with confidence there are no malodytes or drigets in that entire valley. It’s perfectly safe. It’s the reason Jerome and I were there.”
“Tony.” She pointed her finger at me as if it were loaded. “That portal needs to close. I’m not going to give you a deadline, but I’m telling you that it needs to happen soon. You catch my drift?”
“All right,” I said, and I think the tone of my voice suggested unconditional surrender. “I’ll get out and say goodbye to Jerome as soon as I can.”
“Thank you.”
She turned and started to walk away, but then turned abruptly and closed in on one of the photos on the desk. “Who’s that?”
I gave the photo a gratuitous glance. That’s Oscar Shaul, one of the owners of the jewelry store.”
“Not him.” She tapped her finger on the woman in the photo. “Her”
“Oh, that’s Lesley Swan. She works for the insurance company that’s going to have to pay out a small fortune to settle the claim on this case.”
“Huh.” She curled her lip the way women do sometimes when they think another woman looks like a skank.
“Huh, what?”
“Oh, nothing, it’s just that she looks a little slutty for an insurance agent.”
I knew it. “Why do you say that? Too much lipstick?”
“No, I say that because she shows up at a crime scene with her tits half hanging out. Who’s she trying to impress? You?”
“What? Her tits aren’t hanging out.”
She leaned over the photo and granted it a second look. “Yeah, maybe not. I guess she couldn’t help it, missing a button like that on her blouse. Anyway,” she turned and headed out. “I’ll see you at home.”
The three of us waited until she turned the corner before practically throwing ourselves on the desk to inspect the photo.
“Her tits aren’t hanging out,” said Carlos, though it came out more as a complaint.
“Of course not,” I said. “Lilith was exaggerating, referring to the low cut opening in her blouse as not being very businesslike.”
Dominic said, “To be fair, we hadn’t found the button at that point. I thought she was just trying to be sexy.”
“She succeeded,” said Carlos.
“It’s a guy thing,” I said. “Don’t kill yourselves over it.” I opened the top drawer of the desk and got out a magnifying glass. “Look at this, Dominic. Do the buttons on her blouse look like the one Rick found in the alley?”
He centered the glass over the photo and scrutinized it for a moment. “It sure looks it. You want to know something else?”
“What?”
“Look at the car out front at the curb. You can see it through the store’s picture window.”
“The SUV?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Swan’s BMW. I recognize it from when she met me at the bar the other night.”
He handed the magnifying glass back to me. “Look at the back bumper. It’s dented, isn’t it?”
I squ
inted through the glass, and though I supposed it could have been a shadow, it certainly did look like a dent. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” I handed the glass to Carlos next. “What do you think?”
He looked at the photo with nearly the same intensity that Dominic and I looked at it, maybe harder. “Yup.” He looked up and surrendered the glass to Dominic. “If she bent over far enough, I think her tits would have spilled out.”
“Carlos!”
Dominic said, “Tony, do you know what this means?”
“Sure. It means things are starting to make sense now. I told you that Lesley Swan smoked Melrose Lights, that Rachel Marx turned her on to them.”
“I remember.”
“Well, it seems to me that if the button Rick found in the alley is Swan’s, then that cigarette butt was probably hers as well.”
“That explains why Rachel didn’t claim it.”
“And that Melrose Light in Allen Brinkman’s ashtray?”
“Lesley’s,” said Carlos. “I bet she used her seductive persuasions to gain Brinkman’s confidence and then stole the key and combination from his filing cabinet when he wasn’t looking.”
“Or when he was looking,” said Dominic. “It’s possible the two of them are in on it together.”
“You think?”
“Sure. You don’t suppose she could have pulled off a heist like that without an accomplice, do you?”
“Why not?” I said. “She had intimate knowledge of the store’s layout, its security system, where the alarm’s control panel and the DVD recorder were kept. She also knew how old and vulnerable the motion sensor was. Not to mention, she’s the one who failed to have a third-party evaluation performed on the security system.”
“And she knew the contents of the safe,” Carlos added.
“Which brings us to Dan Cohen. Lesley was the last person he talked to before he called me.”
Dominic said, “Do you suppose he confronted her over the phone with his suspicions that she stole the diamonds?”
“I do now. I think that’s the reason he wanted me to hurry over there. Damn that Jefferson Street Bridge traffic.”
BURY THE WITCH: Book 10 (Detective Marcella Witch's Series) Page 24