Welcome to Witchlandia

by Steven Popkes

  I knew exactly who he meant and voiced the name: “Eli Boor.”

  Dooley’s cell went off as we got up. He pulled it out, glanced at it and put it back.

  I stopped and looked at him.

  He nodded. “Hoffman. Trying to find me. We don’t have a lot of time before things hit the fan.”

  oOo

  We stepped outside into the afternoon sun.

  “Hey, coppers!” came from overhead.

  I looked up and Katelin was hovering maybe fifty feet up.

  Dooley pulled out his gun and aimed it.

  Katelin laughed. “Are you going to shoot me now, Dooley? Shoot your old friend and compadre? This is how you treat your brother officer?”

  “Just come on down, Loquess,” Dooley called up to her.

  I could tell it wasn’t Katelin. It had been years since I’d heard Misty, and then it was always in my own mind. But now, even with Katelin’s voice and in the broad outdoors, I could still tell it was Misty talking down to us.

  “Fat chance,” called Misty. “So long, fuckers!”

  She spun a vertical one-eighty and tore off up Broadway faster than I’d ever seen Katelin go.

  Dooley slowly lowered his gun. “She knew I wouldn’t shoot.”

  “Yeah. Misty’s a smart… something.”

  “Should we follow her?”

  I watched as Katelin reached the McGrath highway and ripped out a right turn. She didn’t ascend over the buildings. “I think that’s what Misty wants us to do. It’s probably a trap.”

  “Why would she trap us?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out why she let you go. She killed everybody else.”

  Dooley got in the car. “I know the answer to that one,” he said as we strapped in.

  “What?”

  “She wanted me to tell you what happened.” We pulled out. Dooley put on the siren and we raced up Broadway after her. “Now, why would she want me to tell you?” He glanced at me. “What do you have that she wants?”

  “Back in? Whatever that means.”

  “Maybe.”

  We turned right and went up the McGrath. Sure enough, Katelin was hovering over I-93, waiting for us. She streaked over the interstate and we followed underneath into Medford. Over the Mystic and then after her up Route 16.

  “Then, why would she want us both?” Dooley asked.

  I shook my head, not understanding. Suddenly, Katelin appeared in front, flying directly at us. She had something in her hands. She let it go and went vertical.

  “Shit!” Dooley swerved and skidded. The cinder block caught the window post of the car, bent it and broke the windshield, then rolled off onto the road.

  The car skidded back and forth. It spun and slammed into the bridge railing. Cars honked and barely missed us.

  We stared out the broken windshield, then looked at each other.

  An old man in an ancient Camaro crept past us. “Drunken assholes!” he cried and shook his fist at us. Then, he was gone.

  “Okay,” Dooley reasonably. “I think that answers my question. She doesn’t want both of us. She only wants you.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “That cinder block was aimed at me.”

  “Pretty damned close one to call.”

  Dooley shook his head. “Give the girl a break. She’s new at this.”

  oOo

  The car was totaled. The engine wouldn’t turn over and even if it had the right front wheel was bent out at a right angle.

  “We get taken in, we won’t get out again in a hurry,” Dooley said. He kicked the tire. He looked around. “I don’t even know where we could go. I live up on Winter Hill, but Loquess knows that.” He kicked the tire again, savagely. “Shit. I’ve got a sweet car at home I’ve been restoring—1978 Lotus Europa. But we can’t use it: it stands out. Even if Loquess didn’t know about it, the car is registered to me. Car like that would get pulled over in an hour.”

  I looked around and saw the Orange Line. I couldn’t see a train coming but I could hear it.

  “Come on,” I said, and we ran down the highway and then up the parking ramp. I managed to get out my card but Dooley just jumped over the turnstile. In the distance we could hear approaching sirens.

  The train pulled into the station—inbound, exactly what I’d hoped. A little luck was with us. The train pulled out and as it left the station I could see blue lights converge on the wreck. Then, it was gone as the train pulled into a tunnel. We sat down. This car was mostly empty.

  “Think Katelin saw us board the train?” I asked.

  “Maybe. But she took off without hanging around. She’s got something else in mind.”

  “She found you at your father’s bar.”

  Dooley nodded. “I’m unclear myself on that one.”

  “Maybe she followed you.”

  Dooley sighed. “She certainly could have. Loquess can do surveillance. I’ll give her that.”

  I looked out the window. “Maybe she went to get something to eat.”

  “Beg pardon.”

  “Did you see how she flew? She was fast. Fast as I’d ever seen her. Fast as I’ve ever seen any flyer—maybe faster. That takes energy. You don’t eat enough, you’ll starve to death.”

  Dooley leaned back, thinking. “Tim Rabbitt looked like he hadn’t eaten. Do you think Misty just didn’t feed him?”

  I shrugged. “Or maybe it takes a lot to support two people in one body.”

  “Or one Misty.”

  Dooley thought for a minute. “Let’s say Misty moves from person to person. Like a spirit or something.”

  “Okay.”

  “So she leaves you and enters Wallace. Wallace goes nuts and enters a mental hospital. A couple of years later he ends up in Boston. He looks fine. Anyway. She jumps to Oscar Plante and kills Wallace. The next day she jumps to Tim Rabbitt and kills Oscar Plante. Plante looks pretty rough but not terrible, but she was only in him a day. Rabbitt hides out for a week. Why?”

  I shrug. “I’m not the detective.”

  “Neither am I. Yet.” He stopped dead for a moment. “Oh, hell. There’s a money trail. Financial forensics traced out all the deposits we were looking at. Two and a half million dollars leads directly to Tim Rabbitt. We knew that, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So we know Rabbitt has money—that’s what detectives always look for. Follow the money. So if Rabbitt gets killed, it’s likely because of the money. Hoffman and Rush think I killed Gifford. Loquess got away.”

  “But it was Misty—”

  “Hoffman and Rush don’t know that! The only person who knows that for sure is Loquess and she’s Misty now. Hell, I fooled Hoffman and Rush when she was in me. Certainly, Misty can fool them.”

  “But you can tell them—”

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s objective evidence that I killed Gifford. I’ll bet you money Misty made sure to leave a lot of evidence, too—certainly she was none too clean with Gifford. It’s not such a stretch to think I killed Rabbitt, too, since I did. Then, she leads us on a chase and tries to stop me.”

  “Maybe they won’t believe her. They might believe you.”

  “Is there proof that she did it? No. Is there proof that I did it? Abso-fucking-lutely.” He rubbed the top of his head. “It’s brilliant. Diabolical. But brilliant. Welcome to Fucking Witchlandia,” he said bitterly. Dooley looked at me. “Hell, I bet you’ll be turning me in now.”

  I shook my head. “I believe you.”

  “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “I know what Misty sounds like. That might have looked like Katelin flying around, but it was Misty talking to us.”

  “That’s small comfort.” He looked around the car. “Christ. If she’s following us, they’ll come here—stop the train at the next stop and arrest us. Or they’ll come after Pop.” He stood up. “We have to leave now.” He sat down again heavily. “Where?”

  “How long do we have?”

  Dooley shr
ugged. “I have no idea. Minutes after Loquess talks to them. Might get a little time to manage the jurisdictional boundaries between Somerville and Boston but no more than that—scratch that.” He looked out the window. “We’re in Boston now. No jurisdictional boundaries at all. As soon as she reaches them, they’ll be after us.”

  “Maybe Eli can hide us.”

  “They’ll be staking him out, too. Loquess and I talked to him. Hoffman and Rush know that and Loquess will be sure to remind them.”

  “North Station. There’s a train north to Gloucester in twenty minutes. If we can be on it I think I know a place to hide.”

  “We’ll never make it.” Dooley looked gray.

  “If they catch us before we can figure this all out, it’s a different fight. Until then, let’s play the cards we’re dealt.”

  oOo

  The rest of the time on the train was just strange. Sitting there, nervous as hell, wondering if every T-cop was looking for us—it’s amazing how many T personnel you see when you don’t want them and how few there are when you actually need them.

  Boston has two actual train stations: North Station and South Station, and never the twain shall meet. The timing was fortuitous for us. The Boston rail schedule is only set up to service going in and leaving Boston at rush hour. If you want to use the rail system for any other infernal purpose, the MBTA is just not there to help. Inefficiency, thy name is Boston.

  I had a pass but I bought a ticket for Dooley using cash. It had been about thirty minutes since Misty had tried to drop a brick on our heads. We kept glancing upwards—which, I’m sure, was suspicious of something when viewed by a policeman or on security footage. But apparently, it didn’t rise to the level of questioning us. We were able to get on the train successfully.

  “She must not have told them yet,” Dooley whispered to me after the conductor had taken his ticket.

  “Why would she wait?” I whispered back.

  “I have no idea. I can’t imagine Hoffman and Rush didn’t broadcast me.” He thought for a moment. “Or maybe Horn held them back. After all, the Plante murder was big news. I know Horn was trying to keep the connections out of the media. It’d be real bad publicity if the murderer turns out to be one of their own. They may want a chance to get to me before the news breaks.”

  Dooley slapped the seat in frustration. “This makes no sense.”

  “Do murders ever make sense?”

  “Sure. Method, motive and opportunity. Motive has to make sense. That’s what I can’t figure out: what does Misty want? To get back together with you? Are the murders going to help that? They sure as hell don’t make her more attractive. And if they make her stronger, why pick such public people? Why not just pick off homeless guys? I mean paranormals are somewhat rare but there are a few around—it’s like these are murders of opportunity. And the money. Does she want to retire to the Caribbean? Then, what’s she doing hanging around here?”

  “Welcome to Witchlandia.” I remembered Katelin saying it. A smile sometimes. A rueful grin. A bitter scowl.

  Dooley stared at me then looked away. He looked outside. The impossible blue of Spot Pond was on one side of the train. We could see seagulls and geese on the water. A steady wind blew tiny whitecaps on the water. He shook himself. “Yeah. Welcome to Witchlandia. So we get a brief reprieve. We have to go to ground and figure this out.” He turned to me. “Where are we going?”

  “My father’s old boat.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  I shook my head. “I know the owner.”

  I wondered if it would be like coming home.

  Chapter 3.2: Thursday Evening, October 28

  Katelin had never seen the Nonantum. Oh, she’d met Mom and Dad—not a very warm meeting but she’d been the dutiful girlfriend. But she’d only been to the house. The Nonantum was something different. It was like bringing someone home and entertaining downstairs but never bringing them upstairs to the bedrooms. Too intimate. Maybe if Katelin and I had stayed together, Dad might have shown her the boat. But Katelin wasn’t going to ask and Dad didn’t invite her and we broke up so there it was.

  But she had liked Gloucester and the sea and my mother. She loved to go fishing off the beach. The summer we moved back to Boston we took the family surf casting kit and came up to Plum Island on weekends. On the beach at dawn watching the sun come up. Katelin flew over the water looking for fish and I’d cast towards them. Or we’d cast at random and drink coffee. As the weather grew cold we’d huddle under a blanket if the air was too cold. If we were alone on the beach we’d do more than huddle.

  I broke off the memory. We were coming into Gloucester Station.

  The Nonantum was no longer Dad’s but it was in port—I was in the habit of checking these things. After all, it had been the center of my father’s life since before I was born. It had taken something as final and powerful as my mother’s death to pull him in from the sea. Without it he’d withered and died. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself when I was feeling romantic.

  We walked over the hill to the piers—this was a real danger, now. Gloucester was small and I was well known—local fisherman’s boy makes good sort of thing. But it was still fall and the spillover from Conclave had stuffed the town to the gills with a great bolus of tourists. There were enough crowds milling about that we were able to make our way to the docks more or less unnoticed. We didn’t blend, you understand. We were both too big, for one thing. But we didn’t stand out so much, if you take my meaning.

  Dad had rigged Nonantum as a long line boat. She wasn’t that big—barely a hundred tons—but Dad was a good enough fisherman to make up for the lack. He’d left me the house bought and paid for and left this world debt-free.

  The boat was shaped somewhat like a scaled up lobster boat: lifted cabin and bow with a dropped flat stern. The long line equipment had been mounted over the flat stern with both lower holds and additional lockers bolted to the deck.

  Now, the Nonantum looked naked. All long line reels and additional cranes were gone. Even the lockers were missing though the deck was clearly marked where the equipment had been fastened down. And the boat had been scrubbed with strong soap—I could still smell it. I had never seen the Nonantum so clean. I wondered what Joey was doing with my father’s boat.

  The cabin was locked but I had kept a copy of Dad’s key and the locks hadn’t been changed. We slipped aboard and made our way down to the galley.

  Dooley followed me down the stairs and through the corridor, carefully keeping his head down. The Nonantum didn’t have an abundance of head room. He sat at the galley table. “Who owns this boat now?”

  “Joey Cabrelli,” I said as I rummaged in the cabinets. “First mate for my father. Dad sold him the boat when he retired. ‘Fisher’, we called him.”

  “Because he was a fisherman?”

  I laughed briefly. “Short for Fishercat. Joey is as thin and mean as a weasel. Damn fine fisherman, though. Dad thought the world of him. He took my place on the boat when it was clear I’d never make a living on the water.” I found what I was looking for. “Coffee?” I asked. “We have instant.”

  Dooley shuddered. “No thanks. Soda?”

  “Coffee doesn’t have to taste good. It just has to work.” I looked in the fridge and tossed him a diet Coke. Then, I put the tea kettle on the range. The gas wasn’t turned off. That meant Joey was sleeping on the boat and would be back before long.

  “Isn’t Mr. Cabrelli going to be a wee bit bothered at two strangers on his boat?”

  “I’m not a stranger,” I said. The water was hot and I poured myself half a cup of unpalatable caffeine and leavened it with milk. “It’ll be fine.”

  “What about Loquess? Didn’t she know where your boat is?”

  I shook my head and sat down. The resulting coffee was off-gray and bitter. “She never saw the boat to my knowledge. Katelin didn’t get along with my Dad. He seemed to think me not being a fisherman was somehow her fault, though it hap
pened long before we met.”

  “Not his most brilliant moment, I take it.”

  “People thinking with their emotions don’t usually come off as geniuses. He was a pretty bright guy. Hell of a fisherman and that’s not stupid. Anyway, when Katelin and I split up it was a great excuse for them to never see each other again.”

  “Don’t underestimate her.” Dooley tapped the table for emphasis. “I’ve never seen anybody execute stealth surveillance like Loquess. She loads up with fifty pounds of observation equipment and disappears into the sky. Two hours later she comes back with every minute of the subject’s life down to how long he took to shake it in the john. She could be out there right now and we’d never know it until Hoffman and Rush came down the stairs.”

  “Then there’s no point in me not drinking my coffee, is there?”

  “I guess.” He finished his Coke. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Is hiding a plan?”

  “No.”

  “Then I got nothing.”

  Dooley rolled the can with his fingers. “I’m beat. Apparently, being possessed by the devil takes it out of you. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. Can I take a nap?”

  I nodded towards the bow. “Bunks up that way. Pick one that doesn’t have anything on it. I don’t know if the crew has signed on but I don’t want to screw it up for Joey if I don’t have to.”

  “Too late,” came from the doorway. Joey was watching us.

  oOo

  Joey hadn’t changed since I’d last seen him at Dad’s funeral. He was still a small, rat-faced man with a continuous and unslaked hunger written on his face.

  “Hey, Joey,” I said mildly.

  “What the hell are you doing on my boat?”

  “Hiding,” I said equably. “This is Abraham Dooley.”

  Dooley nodded.

  Joey’s gaze darted from one of us to the other. “Who are you hiding from?”

  “That’s not important,” said Dooley. He pulled out his badge.

  “You have a warrant?”

  I interrupted. “I let him in.”

  “Isn’t that criminal trespass?” Joey pursed his lips. “Get off my boat.”

  “Mr. Cabrelli—” started Dooley.