TWELVE
WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK
JANUARY 2014
ABBIE MILLS WAS finishing her third cup of coffee when she pulled into the parking garage that serviced the Westchester Supreme and County Court on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in White Plains. On the one hand, she resented that testifying in the Ippolito case was cutting into her ability to sleep in. The last forty-eight hours had included eight hours of driving, two crappy nights’ sleep, and yet another Crane crisis, complete with violence, magic, death, and history all rolled into one insane package. Worse, two of the deaths in question were Officers Drosopoulos and Han, two good people who deserved better than to be carved to bits by one of Serilda’s coven.
On the other hand, she really relished the idea of doing something so banal as testifying in a criminal trial. It reminded her of when she used to be a cop rather than a Witness.
Not that she wasn’t a cop, still, but she did so little casework lately, it was starting to frustrate her. Sure, there wasn’t much paperwork involved in helping Crane avert the apocalypse, but there also wasn’t much police work.
The Abbie Mills who arrested Johnny Ippolito eighteen months ago would have dreaded testifying in the resultant trial. However, the present-day Abbie Mills, who had spent the last several months being attacked by witches, golems, demons, animated trees, and one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, was seriously looking forward to the repetitive tedium of a cross-examination under oath.
When she went into the courthouse from the garage, she saw Phil Czierniewski waiting for her in the hallway. The tall, gangly lawyer was pacing like an expectant father, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his bald pate. As soon as he saw Abbie, he stopped, faced her, and clapped his hands the way he did.
Frowning, she asked, “Why aren’t you in the courtroom?”
“Judge Olesen had a family thing, so we’re not starting until noon.”
Abbie rolled her eyes. “Y’know, Phil, we have this amazing piece of technology called a cell phone. I know you know about it, ’cause you’ve been using it to crawl up my butt about this testimony for the last week.”
“I know, but—”
“Do you know how much I wanted to sleep in today?”
Phil waved his hands back and forth in front of his face. “If you’ll let me get a word in?”
Putting her hands on her hips, Abbie just stared at the prosecutor.
“I didn’t call you because Ippolito wants to make a deal.”
“You have got to be kidding me. Now he wants to make a deal?”
Phil pointed a bony finger at her. “Specifically, he wants to make a deal with you. Says he’s got something for one of your current cases.”
Abbie’s arms dropped to her sides. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what he said.” Phil shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”
“I’ve only got one case right now, and there’s no way Ippolito’s involved in it.” She shook her head. “Least I hope not. All right, where is he?”
“With his lawyer in one of the meeting rooms. Just waiting for you.” Phil turned and started to lope down the hallway.
“Hang on, I am not doing this without more coffee.” She went to the vending machine that was just down the hall and inserted a dollar bill, which provided her with a tiny cup filled with some of the worst coffee she’d ever had in her life.
Once the coffee was obtained and she’d sipped enough of the liquid cardboard that it wouldn’t spill as she endeavored to keep up with Phil’s longer gait, they soon reached their destination.
The meeting room was one of several set aside in the courthouse for occasions such as this: lawyer consultation, deal making, witness prep, and so on. A rectangular metal desk sat in the middle of the room, with six uncomfortable metal chairs around it, two on each long side and one each at the shorter sides. The walls were all industrial brickwork painted a sickly off-white.
Johnny Ippolito was in his prison oranges practically bouncing in his chair. Like Phil, he was bald, but unlike Phil—who’d shaved his monk’s fringe to go for the fully smooth-headed look—Ippolito had the lamest of lame comb-overs.
Next to him was his ambulance-chaser lawyer David Petersen, a short, mousy guy in an Armani suit. The only thing Abbie disliked about baseball season was seeing his mug on the cheesy ads that he ran on local stations like SNY, which broadcast Mets games.
“Good, good, good, y’here.” Ippolito indicated the chair opposite him. “Have a seat, Lieutenant, I got somethin’ for ya.”
Abbie sat in the indicated chair, trying not to squirm as it began to do its usual number on her back. She placed the coffee on the table. Phil took the seat next to her.
“Phil tells me that you’ve got something relating to my current case?”
“That’s—”
Petersen put a hand on Ippolito’s shoulder. “Now hold on a moment, please, John. Lieutenant Mills, Mr. Czierniewski: you and I both know that my client won’t say a word until I have certain assurances.”
Rolling her eyes, Abbie said, “Oh, please.”
“That attitude, Lieutenant, will get you nowhere.”
“I can say the same to you, Mr. Petersen. We aren’t giving out assurances today. Best your client can hope for”—she turned her gaze upon Ippolito—“is a consideration.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but I believe you’re speaking out of turn.” The lawyer turned his bespectacled gaze upon Phil. “The assistant district attorney is the man empowered to speak here.”
Phil smiled. Abbie had never liked Phil’s smile, as it always looked like the expression a shark would get before it chowed down on a bunch of tiny, defenseless fish, but she had to admit that it worked nicely across this particular table.
“Mr. Petersen, the only reason we’re having this meeting is because Judge Olesen had an emergency. Lieutenant Mills is here to provide testimony that’s going to combine with the sworn statement made by the late Sheriff Corbin—a very beloved figure in the community who was tragically killed only a few short months ago—to put your client away for several years. You’ve had plenty of time to make a deal before this, and this eleventh-hour play isn’t impressing me. Also? Your client requested Lieutenant Mills by name. So I’m inclined to follow her lead on this.” He leaned back and gave Abbie a you’re on look.
Smiling sweetly, Abbie said, “Okay, Ippolito. Try to impress me.”
“All right, look, I know stuff, okay? I got people ’at talk t’me all’a time. I don’t even wanna know about half this crap, but they tell me anyhow. I mean, it’s a small community, y’know what I’m sayin’?”
Abbie started drumming her fingers on the metal table. It echoed off the walls. Reaching for the awful coffee, she said, “Ippolito, seriously, you are gonna come to the point before I take another sip of this sludge, or the rest of it goes down your jumpsuit.”
Ippolito held up both hands. “Okay, okay, okay, fine, the point.” He took a breath. “See, I heard some things ’bout a guy I know. He’s a guy who knows stuff about stuff, y’know?”
“What kind of stuff?” Abbie was now holding the coffee menacingly near her mouth.
“Security plans, okay? For museums, and stuff.”
Abbie put down the coffee. “Which museums?”
Petersen chose this moment to put himself back in the conversation. “Obviously, this does pertain to your current case, Lieutenant, so—”
While still looking at Ippolito, Abbie held up a finger in the direction of the lawyer. “Mr. Petersen, I can just as easily pour coffee down your shirt.”
Sputtering, Petersen said, “How dare you—”
“Oh, cut that out, David,” Phil said, “I know what your hourly rate is, you can afford a new suit.”
Abbie maintained her most intense don’t screw with me stare on Ippolito. “Which museums?”
“The Museum’a the City’a New York, the Cortlandt Museum, an’ the Whitcombe-Sears Library.”
Again
Abbie maintained her poker face, even though she was jumping cartwheels internally. “Yeah, and?”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘yeah, and’? This is good stuff!” Ippolito was now flailing about in his chair.
“Right now, it’s just you naming three museums and talking about some guy. None of this is helping me out much.”
“All right, all right, all right, all right.” Ippolito waved his hands back and forth at the wrist. “You want a name? I can give you a name.”
“Which name?”
Ippolito frowned. “Whaddaya mean which name?”
“I mean,” Abbie said, trying to keep her patience intact, “the name of the friend of yours or the name of the person who hired the friend of yours. And for the record? The second name would be a lot more useful to me.”
Before Ippolito could say anything, Petersen pounced. “How much more useful?”
Abbie threw a quick glance at Phil, who just shrugged. He’d already said he’d follow her lead.
“You give me the person who hired your friend, I think that ADA Czierniewski could be convinced to move for dismissal when Judge Olesen finally shows up.”
“Excellent.” Petersen turned to Ippolito. “Tell her.”
Ippolito, though, now looked like he’d swallowed something that made him nauseous. “That’s kinda gonna be a little teeny-tiny bit of a problem.”
Abbie just stared at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, I hate when you look at me like that.” Ippolito turned away, started staring at the ceiling. “Look, I ain’t got that name. I just got the name of the guy I know. Him I can give you, no problem. But I dunno who hired him.”
Turning to Phil, Abbie said, “That’s not really worth a dismissal, is it?”
Phil shook his head. “No, but I’d be willing to cut a deal for time served in exchange for that name—assuming it’s actually useful to Lieutenant Mills.” He added that last with a conciliatory gesture to Abbie.
The fact was, it would be useful to Abbie no matter what, as the person who checked security for these robberies was the first real lead they had on who did this, beyond “members of Serilda’s coven,” which wasn’t something she could enter into the database at headquarters.
But if she had someone to lean on? That was something she could work with—a thread she could pull.
“So to be clear,” Petersen said, one arm on Ippolito’s shoulder as if trying to hold him down in case he flew off, “if my client provides you with this intelligence, you promise to ask the judge for time served in exchange for a guilty plea?”
Phil nodded. “I can have it written up for you by the time Judge Olesen finally makes it in.”
Petersen leaned back. “Then sit tight, because we’re not giving up anything until I see that document.”
Phil unfolded himself into an upright position and pulled out his phone. “I’ll make the call now.”
For several seconds, Abbie stared at Ippolito, who fidgeted in his chair. “Can I ask you something?” she finally asked.
“Knock yourself out.”
“You’ve been sitting in lockup for eighteen months. Corbin and I offered you a plea deal way back when. You could’ve plead guilty to trespassing, and you’d have already served your time.”
“Nah. Nah, nah, nah.” Ippolito shook his head so fast Abbie feared it would start spinning around. “Can’t do that. I didn’t trespass, I broke an’ I entered. If my record—if the official record of the United States says that I’m guilty’a somethin’, then dammit, it’s gonna say that I’m guilty’a somethin’ I actually did. None’a this trespassin’ crap. I got scruples, y’know.”
Abbie rolled her eyes. “Ippolito, you can’t even spell scruples.”
“Sure I can! S-K-R-U—”
“I rest my case.”
Now Ippolito was frowning. “Wait—is it S-K-R-O-O—”
“So if you didn’t want to plead down, why didn’t you give me something like this sooner?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t have nothin’ till today from somebody who was talkin’ inside. Like I said, scruples. However the hell you spell it.”
WITHIN AN HOUR, Phil had a plea agreement, which Ippolito signed, and then Abbie had a name, Carl Polchinski, and three addresses, none of which were actually his.
“Y’see,” Ippolito had said, “Polchinski is a couch surfer. Sometimes with his mom, sometimes with his girlfriend, sometimes with his sister. Basically, whichever one’s the least pissed-off at him, that’s who he’s stayin’ with.”
She called Crane’s cell first. “Good morning, Lieutenant. Is your testimony complete?”
“Not exactly. Ippolito gave me the name of someone who was hired to check the security for all three local places that had Independence Crosses taken.”
Crane said, “But Lieutenant—four locations were burglarized. Besides the museum in Tarrytown and the library here in Sleepy Hollow, there were two museums within the city of New York that were burglarized.”
Abbie frowned. She had forgotten about the Metropolitan Museum, which had started this whole ball rolling, along with Crane’s vision. “Well, I’m gonna have this guy picked up and see what he says.”
“Excellent. I’d offer to join you, but I’m currently struggling with the grimoire that the late Mr. Whitcombe-Sears provided.”
Not liking the sound of that, Abbie asked, “Struggling why?”
“He informed me before he expired that there was a spell to thwart the resurrection of Serilda this night in this grimoire. However, he neglected to inform me which of the two hundred pages of faded Latin text contains the spell.”
“Lucky you. Well, you stick with that, then. I’ll keep you posted.”
Her next call was to headquarters. Detective Jones answered, and she gave him the name, the connection to the break-ins and murders at the Cortlandt Museum and the Whitcombe-Sears Library, and the three addresses Ippolito had provided.
“Uhm,” Jones said, “I can send uniforms to the two places here in town, but the mother’s place is in Tarrytown.”
Abbie winced. Technically, the Cortlandt Museum thing was Detective Costa’s case. “You take care of those two, I’ll call Costa in Tarrytown.”
Jones snorted. “Better you than me.”
After ending the call with Jones, Abbie dialed the main number for Tarrytown PD. Costa wasn’t at her desk, but she was home, and the sergeant gave her the detective’s cell phone number
She answered on the first ring. “What do you want, Mills?”
“Good to hear your voice, Costa. I got a break in a case we share.”
“Since when do we share a case?”
Abbie ground her teeth at Costa’s acerbic tone. “Since about five minutes ago. You know that fire at the Whitcombe-Sears Library?”
Costa’s tone, to Abbie’s relief, softened. “I heard about that. Sorry about Han and Drosopoulos.”
“Thanks.” Abbie blew out a breath. “I just got a tip from a CI who’s very much in the B-and-E community that a guy was hired to learn about the security of both the Cortlandt and Whitcombe-Sears—as well as the Museum of the City of New York.”
“Didn’t they get hit with a B-and-E/murder combo, too?”
Even though it was lost over the phone, Abbie nodded. “Yeah, and a couple cops got killed there, too.”
“So who’s your guy?”
“His name’s Carl Polchinski. He’s got three addresses, and one of ’em’s in Tarrytown.”
“Give me the address, I’ll pick this cop-killer’s ass up right away.”
Abbie hesitated. “If you give me a bit, I can—”
“I told you before, Mills, this is my case. I’ll pick Polchinski up—give me the address.”
Reluctantly, Abbie gave it over. “Hell, that’s a block from my house. I’ll be there in five. Text you when it’s done.”
Abbie sighed as she ended the call. Maybe she’d be lucky and Polchinski would be in one of the two Sleepy Hollow addresses.
&nb
sp; By the time she drove back home from White Plains, the text messages she got from Jones revealed that she wasn’t particularly lucky, as Polchinski was nowhere to be found at either his sister’s or his girlfriend’s.
She then texted Costa to see if she’d had better luck.
Moments after the text, she got a call from Irving’s cell phone. “Lieutenant, we’ve got a problem. I’m at the home of Maryann Polchinski in Tarrytown—there’s been an officer-involved shooting. Detective Lisa-Anne Costa just shot a man named Carl Polchinski.”
Abbie just stared ahead for several seconds before finally managing to gather up the wherewithal to say, “You have got to be kidding me!”
THIRTEEN
SLEEPY HOLLOW, NEW YORK
JANUARY 2014
AS SOON AS Jenny saw the look on her older sister’s face, she knew that something really horrible had happened. Abbie was spitting nails and looking like she was about to rip someone’s face off.
“What happened?” Jenny was sitting in a corner, working on her laptop while Crane was off in another corner reading through Whitcombe-Sears’s grimoire. Jenny’s own Latin wasn’t anywhere near good enough to be of use to Crane’s search, so she was poring over the Internet, trying to find something useful about the type of magic that Mercier used on the crosses.
“We finally get a damn lead on this whole thing, someone connected to three of the break-ins. But before we can question him, Costa goes and shoots him.”
Aghast, Jenny asked, “Why’d she do that?”
“I didn’t get to ask her, but Irving was on the scene to deal with it. He said it looked like a clean shoot. Costa said Polchinski took a shot at her, and Polchinski did have a recently fired .45 in his hands.” Abbie shook her head. “That’s also all he had on him. No cell phone, nothing else. According to Irving, his mother saw him for the first time in three weeks this morning, and all he had with him when he showed up at her doorstep at five in the morning was the .45. And according to Jones, the girlfriend and the sister also hadn’t seen him in three weeks. So we’re back to square one thanks to Costa’s itchy trigger finger.”
Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution Page 14