Wisdom's Grave 01 - Sworn to the Night

by Craig Schaefer

  “So that’s why you keep winning.” Janine waggled her fingers at her. “Go on, open it!”

  The paper peeled away in long, winding strips. Marie opened the cardboard box inside. A baton, like an umbrella handle with a sleek black finish, dropped into her hand. Marie blinked at it. Then she flicked her wrist. The inner core of the baton snapped out, expanding and locking in place.

  The tactical baton—two feet long now, with a steel-headed tip—slashed through the air in Marie’s grip.

  “Janine…this is an ASP.”

  “Yeah,” she said, beaming. “I mean, they took your gun away, and I know you don’t like being unarmed, so I figured it was a fun and practical gift.”

  “No, I mean, you’re a civilian. Civilians can’t own tactical batons in New York. It’s kind of the law.”

  Janine held up her open hands. “I don’t own it. You do. So we’re all good.”

  Marie stood, bracing the steel baton in both hands, then took another practice swing. She’d trained with an ASP back in her uniformed days, learning how to restrain or disable a suspect with pinpoint strikes, and the muscle memory came back fast.

  “Seriously,” she said, “where did you get this?”

  “From the guy who sold me my stun gun, on Canal Street. Same guy I get my fake handbags from.”

  “Janine.”

  “What?” She shrugged. “You know I can’t afford real Coach.”

  “Stun gun. Also illegal for a civilian to own.”

  “I’m a naughty librarian.”

  Marie’s phone lit up. Tony calling in.

  “I have to take this,” she said. “But our discussion is not over.”

  “I’ll be in my bedroom,” Janine said, sauntering off. “Doing crimes. Crime stuff, Marie.”

  “We have to meet,” Tony said before Marie could get a word out.

  “That’s a bad idea. Tony, IAB is all over me right now, and I don’t want any of this stink rubbing off on you.”

  “It’s not really an option.” She heard the sounds of traffic in the background. “Come over to that coffee shop on Broome.”

  “In Nolita? That’s nowhere near the precinct.”

  “Exactly,” Tony said. “I’m on the move. See you there.”

  * * *

  Marie sat across from Tony in a hipster coffee joint just north of Little Italy. They advertised authentic Greek yogurt made from the milk of grass-fed cows. Marie ordered a small coffee and kept it black. Tony sat behind a folded-up page of the Times, in a spot far from the windows.

  “What’s with the cloak and dagger?” she asked, lowering her voice as she eased her chair closer.

  “Because it’s not just me you’re meeting with. Captain Traynor is here in spirit. He wanted me to pass on a message.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “To me? Nothing directly.” Tony set down his newspaper, glancing around to make sure nobody was in earshot. “It’s what he didn’t say. He called me into his office, pulled an email up on his computer, and said he had to go answer a personal phone call. He told me he’d be back in exactly two minutes, get me?”

  “Deniability,” Marie said.

  Tony nodded. His eyes were grave.

  “Marie, the DA was giving him a heads-up. Nothing’s been handed down yet, but…they’re considering an indictment. They’re talking about charging you with Richard Roth’s murder.”

  Marie’s shoulders clenched. The white walls of the coffee shop closed in around her, claustrophobic, penning her in.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong! He had a gun—”

  Tony cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I know. I know, all right? But look how it plays. Vanessa Roth stands to inherit millions off his death. They subpoenaed your logs from the phone company, Marie. They know you were in communication with her. Witnesses put you two together at her college. Then you just happened to be in the exact right place at the exact right time to blow her husband away? We’ve sent people to prison on less evidence than that.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “I don’t know. A day, a month, a year? I just know Richard’s old man is pushing hard and he’s got serious political reach. He wants Vanessa locked up, and you—going by his theory—were her hired gun.”

  “If she’s in prison,” Marie said, “he can contest Richard’s will.”

  “That’s my theory. Only thing I don’t have is the truth.” He stared into her eyes. “Marie, we’ve been partners for years. I have always had your back. You’ve always had mine. Off the record, you and me, tell me what’s really going on here.”

  Wisps of steam drifted from Marie’s coffee cup. She gently rapped her short-cropped nails against the porcelain. The truth felt like a maze of razor wire. The more she tried to untangle it, the more she bled.

  “I’m in love with her. The last time her husband was out of town, we…spent the night together.”

  “Damn it,” Tony sighed, slumping back in his chair. “You know how that’s going to play in front of a jury, right?”

  “Tony, I swear to you, I’m not lying. She called me. He was attacking her. I kicked the door in, he brought his gun up, and I was one second faster on the draw. I told the truth. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He took that in, silent for a moment as he weighed the evidence.

  “And I believe you, partner. But you’re in one hell of a mess. How are we going to get you out of it?”

  Marie stared into her coffee. Studying the amber depths, like a fortune-teller trying to read the future in a teacup.

  “It’s slim, but there’s one shot,” she said. “It all comes back to this ink cartel. Look, we’re in agreement that Richard had something to do with the drug trade.”

  “Sure, we just can’t prove it.”

  “And we know Baby Blue and the other victims were killed by these dealers. Some kind of ritual murder.”

  “I’m with you,” he said.

  “And we know there’s a rat in the house. Somebody leaked the details on the Bed-Stuy raid.”

  “Long list of unlikely suspects, and zero leads.”

  “You’re going to need the captain’s help,” she said, “and the medical examiner’s, but I think they’ll go for it. Remember that perfect bite mark on Baby Blue’s leg? You’ve got a match.”

  “We do?”

  “No. But you’re going to leak that you do. Make sure every single person on that list ‘accidentally’ overhears that the investigation just hit a breakthrough and that bite mark is the key piece of evidence that’s gonna crack the whole cartel open. Now, imagine you’re the rat, and you’re on these sick bastards’ payroll. What do you do?”

  Tony’s face broke into a smile. “I panic and try to destroy the evidence.”

  “Bingo. Watch the morgue. When they show up, take them down.”

  “But how does that help you?”

  Marie shrugged. “This rat’s responsible for nine dead cops. I’m guessing they’ll give up everyone and everything they know for the faintest whiff of a deal. If we can prove Richard Roth was part of the ink cartel and a serial killer? Well, it makes my version of events look a lot more reasonable, doesn’t it?”

  “This is a Hail Mary pass, you know that, right? You’re counting on a whole lot of maybes.”

  “You got a better idea?” she asked.

  “No.” His chair squeaked on the tiles as he pushed it back. “Okay, you need to stay out of sight. Go home and hunker down. And don’t go within ten miles of Vanessa Roth.”

  “Tony, I have to. If there’s an indictment in the works and Senator Roth is targeting her too, she needs to be ready for it.”

  He squinted at her. “I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?”

  “Nope.”

  “I didn’t tell you about the email from the DA,” Tony said. “I also didn’t tell you that there’s an unmarked prowl car parked outside Vanessa’s house around the clock. So if you do go to see her, which I don’t recommend, you sho
uld meet up elsewhere.”

  “You’re a good guy, you know that, Tony?”

  Tony shook his head as he stood to leave.

  “Just watch yourself out there. If I have to drive all the way to Westchester County to visit your incarcerated ass for the next twenty years, I’m gonna be a little salty about it.”

  Fifty-One

  Marie called. Nessa answered and summoned her to the edge of Broadway. Even the lights of Times Square, blazing a couple of blocks away, could barely stand against the storm clouds blanketing the city. They hung like a roiling, rumbling shroud of smoke, flickers of lightning in their depths. The air was bone-dry and crackling with static electricity. Pregnant with the promise of a downpour to come.

  Marie skirted the lobby of the Iroquois Hotel, making her way to a cocktail lounge in the back. Lantern’s Keep was small, elegant, dimly lit, and appointed with rich dark wood like a turn-of-the-century parlor. It’s very Nessa in here, she thought. Her lover was sitting at the six-seat bar, and she’d saved the stool on the end.

  Marie leaned in as if to kiss her, then paused and pulled away. Nessa did the same a second later. They shared an awkward glance.

  “I’m not sure how we do this,” Marie said. “Are we the kind of couple that kisses hello? I mean, in public?”

  “I think the best thing about a new relationship is discovering what kind of couple we are. At any rate, we should probably be circumspect while you’re under investigation.” Nessa took her handbag from the empty stool and patted the cushion. “Sit.”

  Marie sat alongside her, casting a glance over her shoulder. The bartender came over and she ordered a Tom Collins. A little something to steady the nervous flutters in her stomach. Nessa lifted her cocktail glass, some kind of amber liqueur with a tiny black shadow at the bottom.

  “Bobby Burns,” she said. “Named for the poet. My signature drink. Scotch, vermouth, Benedictine, usually garnished with an orange peel, but I like mine with a cherry. That way you end the drink with a sweet little pop between your teeth.”

  “My partner, Tony, he—he heard something. Nessa, they might arrest us. For killing Richard.”

  Nessa’s expression was naturally dour, tinged with gloom even when she smiled. She pushed her owlish glasses a bit higher on the bridge of her nose. Thinking, as she took the news in.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You were supposed to have plausible deniability.”

  “Plausible…” Marie trailed off. A dark suspicion uncoiled in the knot of her stomach.

  Nessa met her gaze, silently waiting.

  “Nessa…is there something you want to tell me? About the night Richard died?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Richard was a serial killer. He murdered that girl, the one called Baby Blue. And others. He confessed to it, right before he died.”

  A cold chill rippled down Marie’s spine. I got him, she thought.

  “Can—can you prove it? I mean, that’s what me and Tony suspected, but if we can prove it—”

  “No,” Nessa’s fingers curled in frustration. “I can’t. I had hoped that once he was dead, once he couldn’t cover his tracks any longer, the evidence would naturally come to light. You weren’t supposed to get in any trouble. I wanted this to be good for you.”

  “Nessa…you’re saying this like you…like you arranged it. Like you planned for me to kill him.”

  Nessa weighed her words in silence for a moment.

  “The gun was real,” she said. “It was loaded. And if you hadn’t arrived when you did, he most certainly would have murdered me. Is there anything else you really want to know about that night? Ask me any question, and I’ll tell you, with absolute honesty.”

  Marie turned to the bar. She drank her Tom Collins.

  “No,” she said. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

  Nessa raised her glass. “Alton Roth’s hand is behind this. And his influence. Which makes me wonder…”

  She sipped her cocktail.

  “Nessa?”

  “If Alton is pushing for an indictment, maybe Alton needs to go away.”

  Marie knitted her brow. “Go…away?”

  “He’s trying to kill us, Marie.” She eyed her over her drink. The amber glinted in the circles of her glasses. “That would make it self-defense. Everyone has a right to self-defense.”

  “We can’t—” Marie shot another glance over her shoulder as she dropped her voice to a whisper. “We can’t murder him.”

  “And why not? You shot Richard. Do you feel bad about it?”

  “No.” Marie shrugged. “He was hurting you. He was a killer. He deserved it.”

  “You know my general opinion of the human race, Marie. A lot of people deserve to die, or at least don’t deserve to live. But let me put it another way. Are we in this together? You and me?”

  “Until the end,” Marie said.

  “Then do you plan to lie down and die? To wait until your former brothers-in-arms show up at your door with handcuffs, then let an unjust system railroad you into a prison cell? Or will you fight?”

  “Of course I’ll fight,” Marie said. “I’ll do anything I can. But…I’m a police officer. I promised to uphold the law.”

  “You promised to protect me.”

  Nessa tossed back the last of her drink, swallowed the cherry garnish, and set the empty glass on the bar.

  “Come with me. I’ve made my decision. It’s time.”

  “Time for what?” Marie asked. “And where are we going?”

  Nessa brandished a room key.

  “Upstairs,” she said. “Behind closed doors. It’s time to get your priorities straight.”

  * * *

  Nessa led Marie into a suite with a view. The lights of Times Square shoved back against the rumbling storm front overhead. An electrical war. Nessa pointed to the middle of the carpet, gold edged with crimson, and snapped her fingers.

  “Stand there.”

  Uncertain, Marie moved to the spot while Nessa shut the door and flipped the deadbolt. She left the lights off.

  “You have every right to be angry,” Nessa said. “You should be angry.”

  “About?”

  Nessa flung her hand toward the window, taking in the world. Thunder rippled in the starless dark.

  “Everything. We live inside a narrative. A series of carefully constructed boxes engineered to keep us in line. From birth, we’re taught the rules of being a woman. Smile. Be quiet. Be pretty. Smile more.”

  She circled Marie slowly, a shark in black waters.

  “Men play their stupid games, and what are we meant to be, hmm? Prizes. Trophies. And you see what happens to any woman who wants more than that. They tear us down. We’re even taught to tear each other down. The entire system is rigged. Constructed to keep us in chains from the cradle to the grave, and make us forget that we have the power to change the world.”

  She stopped, standing in front of Marie, eye to eye with her.

  “Look out the window,” Nessa said. “Turn on a television. This is the world they’ve built for us. There is no justice. The wealthy, venal, and stupid are rewarded. The powerful are never held to account. Men like Richard, men like Alton Roth—they plunder, and they steal, and they are celebrated for it. It’s funny. I think back to what I taught my students, and I’m not sure I fully understood it at the time.”

  “What’s that?” Marie asked.

  “To be a witch,” Nessa said, “is to be an outlaw. Humanity has spent centuries trying to impose order upon the wild. To pave over the forests with cities, to replace nature in all of its beautiful chaos with rules and regulations that serve only the powerful and keep everyone else in chains. But a witch cares nothing for the authority of men. We undermine. We poison. We bring change. And that is why they hate us.”

  Marie saw her own shadowed image reflected in Nessa’s glasses. Nessa moved closer, close enough for Marie to feel hot breath on her cheek.

  “They used to fear us, too, but they’ve f
orgotten what fear feels like. I think it’s time to remind them. I squandered so many years of my life, Marie. Being meek, being afraid. I was wrong. I didn’t know my own power. And now I embrace it. All of it. Senator Roth, and all of his kind…they’re the ones who should be afraid. Because the Owl is here. When my work is done, they’ll call me a villain. But that’s all right. I don’t mind. Women who refuse to submit have always been called that and worse.”

  Her lips brushed Marie’s cheek. Then her earlobe.

  “If the only way to rise up in this world is to be a villain,” Nessa whispered in her ear, “then I will be a villain. And I will have my way.”

  The storm broke. A torrent of water lashed the window as the rain roared down, drenching the city streets. Lightning flickered like a sea of flashbulbs. In the sudden roar, Marie could barely hear her own voice.

  “Nessa…what are you going to do?”

  She stepped back and flashed a toothy smile.

  “Terrible things. But let’s talk about you, Marie. Let’s talk about you. You’re standing at a crossroads. You dedicated yourself to the law. And how was your loyalty repaid? They want to lock you in a cage, like an animal, for the rest of your life. Even if you don’t go to prison, they’ll never give your badge back. Is that right? Is that how things should be?”

  “No,” Marie said. Her hands clenched at her sides. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You must be thinking that your storybooks lied to you. They told you that you could be a knight. A champion of the right and the just. And look what happened when you tried to live like your imaginary heroes.”

  Marie closed her eyes. Her jaw tightened.

  “Don’t mock me,” she said.

  Nessa’s hand touched her cheek. “I’m not mocking you. Open your eyes and look at me.”

  Nessa’s fingernails dug into Marie’s cheek, light pressure becoming sudden sharp pain, until her eyelids flicked open. Nessa stared at her, fervent.

  “The stories didn’t lie. You just misunderstood.”

  “What?” Marie shook her head. “What didn’t I understand?”

  “I know what I want. And I know what you need.” Nessa prowled around her again, watching her as Marie stood petrified. “I want you at my side. I want you at my feet. I want your love. I want your obedience. I want you to adore me, fear me, fight for me. I want you to carry a torch in the heart of my darkness. Give yourself to me, utterly—and I will break the world for you. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Marie?”