EYE OF THE WITCH (Detective Marcella Witch's Series)

by Dana Donovan

  Eye of the Witch

  Dana E. Donovan

  Author's notes: This book is based entirely on fiction and its story line derived solely from the imagination of its author. No characters, places or incidents in this book are real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be copied or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy or otherwise, without the expressed written permission of the author or author’s agent.

  Eye of the Witch © Dana E. Donovan 2006, 2011

  This is book two of a series.

  Other books in this series include:

  The Witch’s Ladder

  The witch’s Key

  Bones of a Witch

  Witch House

  Kiss the Witch

  Call of the Witch

  One

  I had that dream again, the one where Doctor Lowell tied me to that damn tree and came at me with a knife. Only in my dream I was younger, much younger, like maybe by forty years. Lilith was there, too, but she wasn’t tied to the tree with me like she was then. She was standing on the sideline with Carlos. They were talking and laughing and playing with that confounded witch’s ladder. I screamed for one of them to untie a knot on the ladder. They paid no attention. They couldn’t hear me. My screams were only in my head. Carlos leaned in and kissed Lilith. She pulled back and giggled. I thought to myself, that’s so unlike her. I had never seen her giggle before. Then the two of them looked back at me and waved before the mad doctor plunged his knife into my chest.

  I woke up dripping in sweat, my heart pounding harder than a sixty-four-year-old heart had a right to. In the old days I would have shrugged it off, grabbed a cigarette and a shot of whiskey and then maybe gone back to bed. But my days of smoke and whiskey seem more distant than that young detective I left tied to the tree in my dreams.

  I got up and fixed myself a grapefruit and guava smoothie. As I sat drinking it, thumbing through that silly string of beads I brought down from New Castle, the phone rang. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost midnight. I knew right away who it was.

  “Hello, Carlos,” I said. “What do you want?”

  “Tony. How did you know it was me?”

  “I could tell from the ring.”

  “Really?”

  “No, but what do you want?”

  “Jeez, Ton, can’t I call an old pal to say hi? I didn’t wake you, did I? I mean I know how you like to stay up late watching old westerns and…. You were up, right?”

  “I was up, yes, but it’s nearly midnight. I know you didn’t call just to say hi. Is everything all right up there?”

  He grew silent. My experience told me that he had a whole ice-breaking spiel ready for me, but I derailed his train of thought. It was selfish of me, really. I guess I owed him that much. We hadn’t talked for a while, not since I moved away. It all came to a head after our last case together. I just sort of lost it. I grew despondent and my carelessness nearly got us both killed in a car wreck. That’s when I knew I had to retire. I had been thinking about it anyway. My captain recommended the condominiums at Del Rio Vista. Said his mother lived there and loved it. He said it was a great place to launch the exciting second half of my life. What he meant was it’s a great place to go and die. Just look at his mother. For years he had sent her checks every month for room and board, and a card on Mother’s Day that said, Thinking of you, Mom, on your special day. Last month she slipped into a coma and passed. It took four days before anyone noticed. I suppose living at Del Rio Vista was just too much excitement for the old girl. In the back of my mind, I believe the captain found some relief in the news. He had to know that his mother was fading like old denim.

  But Carlos never expected I would hate it in Florida. I’m sure he hated to see me leave New Castle, but he believed it was for the best. He promised he would come down a couple of times a year to do some fishing with me. He hasn’t yet. I don’t blame him, though. Detective work is all-consuming. It’s the reason he’s still single, the reason I never married. I let him stew in silence awhile longer before finally letting him off the hook.

  “Carlos, it’s okay that you haven’t called me before now. I know you’re busy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. I’ve been busy, too.”

  “You have?”

  “You kidding? Man, what with all the biking, swimming, canoeing, golfing, shuffleboard, bingo, cocktail parties and socializing, I don’t know if I’d have had the time to talk anyway.” All right, so I lied to him. Truth was that I hadn’t done half those things in years. The other half I had never done at all.

  “Really?” he said, relieved.

  “Yeah, but I have time for you now. So tell me. How have you been? You make captain yet?”

  “Me? Come on, Tony. That’s not my gig. I’m a field guy. You know that. The minute they promote me to captain I’m taking that retirement train straight down to Florida where I can start really enjoying life—like you.”

  “Right, like me. Well, all in good time. Don’t rush things, my friend. So tell me. You keeping busy up there?”

  I said that and he went quiet again. It’s funny how two friends can sense when something is not quite right between them. I thought for a moment he had detected the discontent in my voice, but I wasn’t sure. Carlos Rodriquez and I had worked together for nearly thirty years, and in that time we both learned more about the other than either intentionally divulged. I assumed he was simply feeling the void in my words, but as soon as he spoke again I realized it was his misapprehensions I felt, not he feeling mine.

  “Carlos? Is something wrong?”

  “Tony, I probably shouldn’t have called you tonight. You have your life there now. It’s late. I didn’t realize. How `bout I call you back another time and we’ll—”

  “Carlos, no! Look. I’m up. You called me. There’s something going on that you thought I should know. What is it?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t….”

  “Caaaaarlos.”

  “All right. You sure? I mean, I don’t want to burden you. It’s just that….”

  “Damn it, Carlos. Spill it!”

  I heard him take a deep breath and snort it out like a bull. “Okay, I’m just looking for advice, though, that’s all.”

  “Fine. That’s all you’ll get.”

  “I have this case I’ve sort of been working on.”

  “I figured that.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not just any case. It’s a real conundrum, and if you’re not looking at it just right, it appears not much of a case at all.”

  “Maybe it’s not,” I said. “Sometimes things are what they seem.”

  “Yes, but if there’s one thing I learned working with you, it’s that you’ve got to trust your instincts, and my gut instincts tells me there’s something going on here. Something big.”

  “All right, wait a minute.” I set the phone down on the kitchen table and poured another glass of grapefruit and guava. I took a sip, smacking my lips for the tartness before returning the pitcher to the fridge. As I put the phone back to my ear, I heard Carlos rambling on without pausing between breaths.

  “Carlos!” I said. I think I was laughing. “Carlos, slow down! I told you to wait a minute. I was getting something to drink. Start over.”

  “What? You didn’t hear what I said?”

  “Not a word. Now, start from the beginning, and slow down. I think half of what you said was in Spanish, anyway.”

  “Tony.” He sounded frustrated. “There’s been
a number of suicides in New Castle lately.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, and all very suspicious.”

  “You think they weren’t suicides?”

  “I can’t see it. Tony, the last suicide we had in New Castle was Gordon Walsh, who hung himself in our jail cell the night––”

  “Yes, Carlos, I remember Gordon Walsh. Damn it. How could I forget? I’m the reason he—”

  “Whoa, Tony, easy! I’m sorry. I didn’t…What I meant was, before Gordon the last suicide in New Castle was back in 1952. Now we have three in as many weeks, all seemingly unrelated.”

  “School kids?”

  “No, adults, all women.”

  “Are you thinking serial?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The first was a lawyer with Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli—a real sharp one, Tony, with the whole package, beautiful, bold and bodacious. She had just been named full partner in the firm.”

  “Sounds like she had everything to live for.”

  “Yeah, sounds like. I mean definitely not your typical Prozac type.”

  Typical? I tried to visualize what the typical suicidal type might look like, so that I might put a face to the person Carlos described. But I had to conclude there probably wasn’t any one image to attach to such a stereotype. What we see on the outside rarely mirrors the person we find on the inside after one has committed the ultimate act of self-persecution. I asked Carlos about the second girl, trying to keep an open mind on the kind of person I thought I might find behind his words.

  “She was pretty,” he said, “Cuban born, like me. But if not as successful as the lawyer chick, then at least she seemed well-liked.”

  “Well-liked?” That seemed unqualified. “Maybe not by all.”

  Carlos laughed faintly. “I suppose.”

  I asked him about the third woman. He got quiet again. I heard him take a short breath and then swallow. “Yeah, her.” he said. “You see, hers was the one that told me things were not what they seemed. She had plans that night, Tony. This woman had plans and they didn’t include killing herself.”

  “Maybe something came up at the last minute that changed her mind.”

  “No way.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes, I am. And Tony, this woman? There’s something else you need to know about her.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She was one of ours.”

  “A cop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “You remember Karen Webber?”

  “Webber. Yeah, Travis Webber’s sister, the cop from Ipswich. We met her at Travis’ funeral.”

  “Ah-huh. And you know she transferred to New Castle, Right?”

  “I heard.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s number three.”

  Now it was my turn to fall silent. I remembered Karen Webber well, a beautiful woman and a good cop. We met her at her brother’s funeral. She drove down from Ipswich to stand in uniform in the rain, unflinching as they buried Travis, still not knowing who killed him or why.

  The fog had not yet lifted the morning they found Travis slain on the front steps of the New England Institute for Research of Paranormal and Unexplained Phenomena. He participated in group studies there for years, he and others in his workshop, all equally gifted and proficient in the psychic academia of clairvoyance, mental telepathy, bilocation and telekinesis. It was Travis’ love and dedication for his gift that kept him at the institute that night, and his gift that ultimately got him killed.

  I remembered Karen telling me they had just promoted her to detective up in Ipswich the week before. Still, she came to the wake and subsequent funeral in full dress uniform. I don’t believe she ever really bought the final report that Carlos and I filed when we closed the case on his murder. I don’t suppose I could blame her, either. The wild and bizarre story that unfolded in the months following his murder still seems hard for me to believe. I imagined that’s the reason Karen Webber transferred to the New Castle police department after I retired. Perhaps she hoped to uncover further clues into her brother’s death that I could not. Heaven knows there were plenty of questions left unanswered in our final report.

  So this was the Karen Webber I remembered, young, brave, spirited and dedicated–all the qualities that make for a good cop. And something else about Karen, like her brother Travis, she was no quitter. Carlos said he was sure Karen Webber didn’t commit suicide. In my heart, I agreed. That meant only one thing. Karen Webber, and possibly—probably the other two women were murdered.

  Though my thoughts had drifted to a place I thought I would never revisit, I still had Carlos on the other end of the line to reel me in. I heard him clear his throat, this after what seemed like minutes. I blinked myself back to the room where the smell of grapefruit and guava now sicken me. All I could do was imagine a cold gray New England sky, the graffiti-riddled sidewalks and the pothole-filled streets of New Castle and wish I were there. Carlos cleared his throat again. “Tony?”

  “I’m here,” I told him. “Check the flights coming in tomorrow morning. I’ll need a ride.”

  I hung up, though just long enough to get a dial tone. The airline had a flight leaving at seven in the morning, so I packed my bags and phoned a taxi. They say you should get to the airport a little early. I imagined six hours ought to do it. Besides, I suddenly craved a lousy cup of coffee to wash down the grapefruit and guava and figured where else was I going to find one?

  TWO

  Carlos met me at Boston’s Logan in the baggage claim area where we greeted each other with a hug—sort of. I mean it wasn’t really a hug. It was one of those things where two guys are happy to see each other but they don’t want to seem too friendly in public. We somehow managed to slap each other on the back a few times without our chests or bellies ever touching. It’s a practiced art.

  I claimed my luggage and we headed out, walking the equivalent of four city blocks to get to the car. He came in a company sedan, a typical unmarked jobber, which means that the vehicle stuck out like a sore thumb. Aside from the obvious government license plates, the vehicle sported two curly antennas sticking out the trunk lid, limo-tint side windows and of course, no hubcaps. To top it off, the little door over the gas cap was riveted shut, a telltale sign that the city finally converted their police cruisers to propane.

  “Nice,” I said, nodding my approval. “They moved you into a Crown Vic.” Our old car was an Impala that could barely get out of its own way. A gondola on wheels, Carlos called it. The State Patrol drove Crown Vics. We used to hate them for it.

  “Yeah,” said Carlos, “they weeding out the Chevys last year. I got one of the first delivered to the department.”

  “You crash it yet?” I knew he had.

  He dropped his head and opened the driver’s door. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said, and he got in without another word.

  As we drove on to New Castle, I alternated stares out the side window and the windshield, noting how nothing had changed. I mentioned this to Carlos and he smiled. “You want change? Wait till you see the new box.”

  He was talking about the police station. I knew they built a new one. Construction began a full year before I left the force—and none too soon, either. The old precinct building was in shambles, moldy, leaky and drafty. And that I nearly destroyed it with a mini tornado didn’t help matters much. But that’s another story.

  “Did they do a good job?” I asked.

  He just nodded and winked. “You’ll see.”

  And I did see. They did a great job. It wasn’t just a police station. It was an ultra-modern criminal justice center, complete with jails, courtrooms, administration offices and a state-of-the-art crime lab. It had everything a small town cop could want. Hell, it had everything a big town cop could want, too. I told Carlos if he threw in a couple of suites, a swimming pool and valet parking, he’d have a five-star res
ort. He laughed, and when he took me past the workout center complete with pool and sauna, I understood why.

  “It’s really different here, Tony. This facility serves the entire county. We all share resources now. We’re connected to an interstate computer network linked to a national database in Washington DC. From here we can pull up information on anything and anyone, from murderers and pedophiles to check forgers and deadbeat dads. And get this. Soon we’ll process for DNA matches right here! Can you believe it?”

  “No,” I said. We parked the car, got out and started for the building. “I can hardly understand it all. Maybe it’s a good thing I got out when I did. I mean…” I shook my head, and my loss for words overwhelmed me. Carlos’ expression melted with concern. He came up and put his arm around me.

  “You okay?”

  I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. “I don’t know, Carlos. Police work is a young man’s game these days. I don’t know why I came here. I must have been a fool to think I could help you. If you don’t mind, I should take a taxi back to the airport and—”

  “No! Absolutely not. Tony, don’t let all the sparkle and glitter discourage you. These are only tools. They mean nothing if you don’t have the know-how to use them.”

  “But that’s just it, Carlos. I don’t. I don’t have the know-how to use them.”

  “Yes, you do. You just don’t know it.”

  “Come again?”

  “You have the know-how. You know what information you need and when you need it. All of this? It’s just a machine, a big calculator. I can run the calculator. All you need to know is what problems to ask it. I’ll feed them into the machine.”

  “No, I think that’s nice of you, but—”

  “Nice? Tony, this isn’t about being nice. Nice is having you up to my cottage in Rhode Island and taking you out for some of the best fishing this side of Narragansett Bay. Uh-uh, no, I’m talking about putting all of your forty-plus years of investigative experience to work behind some of twenty-first century’s finest technological advances to help solve a crime that no one here seems to even recognize has taken place.”