by Dana Donovan
“I don’t know, then. Maybe he meant that she was shy like him.”
I retreated in thought. Sometimes I read too much into things. It’s a curse when that happens. But other times I truly believe I hear things that people only subconsciously want me to hear. Otherwise, they would speak their minds more clearly. I let Benny’s words roll around in my head for a while, and by the time we filtered through security and met up with Spinelli at the workstation, I knew what I had to do.
“Carlos! Detective Marcella! Check this out.” Even for Spinelli, his demeanor seemed excited.
“What is it?” I asked.
He held up a piece of paper. “Look what I found in Karen’s desk.”
“You went through Karen’s desk?”
“Yes. I told her supervisor I was working on a theory that Karen was murdered, and asked if I could look through her things.”
“You shouldn’t have told him that.”
“You’re telling me? He asked what evidence I had. When I told him none, he chewed me out up one side and down the other. Said her death was a suicide, and if I wasted one more dollar of the city’s money chasing red herrings that he would bust me down to traffic so fast my head would spin.”
Carlos grabbed his sleeve and latched on like eagle’s talons. “Did you mention I was working with you?”
“`Course not.”
He let go and smiled. “That’s my boy.”
“Apparently he still let you look in her desk,” I said.
“Not because of that. After he shot me down, I told him I lent Karen a pen that my grandfather gave me. I said I never got it back.”
“So then he let you look.”
“Yup. Told me next time not to make up wild ass excuses. Just go with the truth.”
“Well,” said Carlos. “That’ll teach you. Always go with the truth that you think will work best the first time.”
I put my hand out. “So, whaddaya got?”
“It’s a list of names with notes beside each one. There’s Rivera, Dean, Piakowski, Davalos, Lusk, Edwards, and look, a new one, Carol Kessler.”
I took the paper. “Good work, Spinelli.” Carlos shot me a look that almost cut me. I shot one back that said Missed. But he really didn’t. I looked Spinelli in the eye and dropped him a wink. “I mean, Dominic.”
Carlos smiled. I saw Spinelli’s chest swell with pride. “Thanks,” he said, and then added hesitantly, “Tony.”
See! My next look told Carlos. That’s why I didn’t want to do that!
I reviewed the names and accompanying notes. For the most part, it read like a surveillance log. Her reasons for keeping it were not clear to me, but I suspect she thought it might come in handy under unthinkable circumstances. It documented the days and times that she watched Rivera, as well as Piakowski. The small notes next to the other names were mostly references to ages, occupations and relationships, RR’s girlfriend, for instance, noted next to Courtney’s name. Beside Anna Davalos’ name, Karen penciled in the number two, perhaps indicating second victim. And beside Carol Kessler’s, the number three with a question mark. Also beside Carol’s name was a time, like an appointment: 4:30 April 7, the afternoon of Karen’s death. I finished reading the page and handed it to Carlos. “Do we know anything about this Kessler?”
Spinelli replied, “Some. She’s a white woman, Karen’s age, thirty-four: brown hair and eyes, weight one-forty-five, height five-foot-six, last known address is on Lexington Avenue, the odd side of the street.”
“Good work,” I said. “Did you get all that off the Internet?”
“No. I pulled a copy of her driver’s license. By the way, she’s an organ donor.”
“Niiiice.”
After reading the paper, Carlos looked up and said, “How do you suppose Carol fits into all of this?”
“That’s what you’re going to find out,” I told him. “In the meantime, I have to go see somebody.” I grabbed my coat and started down the hall. About five steps in I turned and called back, “You coming, Spinelli?” He tore after me like a greyhound.
Spinelli drove, guided by my directions, never asking where we were going. He probably assumed I would tell him if I felt he needed to know. The truth was I kept expecting him to ask. Carlos would never have gotten out of the box without prying that information out of me first. I imagined the differences in both their styles would take them far together.
I had Spinelli pull up to the last house on the block, a pleasant little Cape Cod with shiny white vinyl siding, pleasingly trimmed in warm hues of peach and gray pastels. On the front lawn, just as I remembered, tacky little garden gnomes peeped out mischievously from behind miniature plastic windmills placed strategically along the walkway. A thin chill ran up my spine and sent goose bumps sliding down my arms.
Spinelli, witnessing the spontaneous shudder, craned curiously out the window and asked, “Where are we?”
“Hell,” I said, without thinking, then added, “I mean, hell if I know. Let’s go check it out?”
“Wait. Is this Lilith’s place?”
I smiled at his perceptiveness. “How did you know?”
He pointed to a car in the driveway sporting a bumper sticker that read:
FIRES DON’T BURN WITCHES, PEOPLE DO
I laughed at that. “Yeah, she’s got an offbeat sense of humor, doesn’t she? Remember not to say anything about that wart on her nose.”
I started out of the car, when Spinelli stopped me. “I didn’t notice a wart on her nose yesterday.”
“No, of course, not. Yesterday she came to us as a mortal.” I gave him a classic double take. “I thought you studied the occult.”
I stepped out and started up the walk, feeling just a little ashamed for pulling his leg like that. I used to pull Carlos’ leg all the time, too. But he got wise to me after a while. It’s harder now to pull one over on the old Cuban. However, Spinelli is new blood and you have to take advantage of something like that while you can.
About halfway to the door I noticed Spinelli still sitting behind the wheel of the car. “Hey!” I called. “You coming or what?” He got out of the car and met me at the door. I looked at him and frowned. “Man, what took you?”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I thought maybe you’d want me to wait for you with the motor running.”
I rubbed the top of his head. “Nice try. Now, ring the bell.”
He reached for the doorbell, as he did I noticed his hand start to tremble. Incredibly, instead of ringing it for him, I found myself fighting an almost uncontrollable urge to poke him in the sides and scream, Gotcha! If he were Carlos, I probably would have. But a fright like that for a rookie can result in gunfire, and frankly I believed we were woefully outgunned already. Spinelli’s finger pushed the buzzer and a pleasant little chime spilled from a carillon box on the other side of the door. I resolved to stand my ground no matter how unpleasant Lilith got, and if necessary, to throw my body in front of Spinelli’s to protect him from harm (real or imaginary).
The door opened. I smiled, bowed my head respectfully and said, “Hello, Lilith. May we come in?” She rolled her eyes, swung the door open and trotted off. I turned to Spinelli and gestured, “After you.”
He shook his head, took a step back and presented an unobstructed path. “Oh, no, I insist.”
Now I am not one to pull rank, and I certainly wouldn’t ask a fellow officer to go where I dared not. But in my day, when a senior officer indicated a preference, extended an opportunity or simply invoked the potential of an aspiring colleague, then one did not decline gratuitously. I pushed past Spinelli, knocking him off balance but not off his feet (I am a professional after all), and uttered, “Chicken.”
Spinelli followed.
Lilith’s house is small. There’s no upstairs and just a couple of bedrooms down the hall. For living space, you pretty much just have the kitchen, a dinette area and a tiny living room. We found Lilith in the kitchen, working at the stove.
“
I’m making herbal tea, gentlemen. Would you like some?”
“Ah, Lilith” I said, “ever the consummate hostess. We’d love some, thank you.”
“Take a seat at the table then. I’ll have it served up in a sec.”
I looked around, noticing how the place had changed little since my last visit there. “You know, Lilith, you served me herbal tea the last time I was here.”
“Oh? And you’re still alive?”
I saw Spinelli swallow hard at that comment.
“I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“I’ve done nothing, Detective.”
“You moved some mirrors around.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You painted.”
“Uh-uh.”
“New drapes?”
She turned from the stove and brought three herbal teas to the table. “Detective, I’ve changed nothing. Except that I’ve put the place back together after blowing the windows out, thanks to that tantrum you set me on.”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it! Nice job.”
Using a tiny set of prongs, Lilith plucked a sugar cube from a candy dish and dropped it into her tea. She passed the prongs over to me next. I helped myself to two cubes, but when I handed the tongs to Spinelli, his eyes lit up as though I had just proposed he drink a cup of Jonestown Cool-aid. Lilith, observing his reaction, offered me this: “Have you received the package of dried batwings I sent you, Detective?”
“Yes,” I told her. “They cleared up my lumbago just as you said it would.”
“How nice.”
“Oh, and those newt eggs, I dropped them into my tea just like you said.”
“And?”
“No more Erectile dysfunction.”
“Good, then maybe we can pick up where we left off.”
In a calamity of misfortune, Spinelli dropped the sugar prongs by his feet, hit his head on the table when he bent over to retrieve them, and then fell completely out of his chair onto the floor. I scooted my chair back in haste and inadvertently set the chair leg on top of his hand. He cried out in pain. Lilith stood up quickly, bumping the table, spilling the hot tea, which then dripped off the table onto Spinelli’s head. He screamed again. I screamed. Lilith screamed. Any neighbor walking by the house would have thought a mass murder was in progress. Spinelli, likely, wasn’t so sure there wasn’t.
Eventually, we rescued Spinelli, iced his hand and toweled his head. We were happy to evaluate his psychical wounds were purely superficial. His emotional wounds, however, we feared were probably going to scar him for life. After cleaning him up, we got him back to the table. I apologized for crushing his hand and Lilith for scalding his head. He said he didn’t blame us, that it was his own clumsy fault, and to keep him happy with that Lilith and I resolved never to tell him we were only kidding about the batwings and newt eyes. It just seemed better that way.
I sipped my tea and Lilith hers, and when our eyes met again, I knew she expected me to get down to business. So before she could say another word, I said, “Look. Here’s the thing. I know you know Karen Webber. You guys met at Travis’ funeral. I want to run a few other names by you and see what you can tell me about them. Is that okay?”
She looked at me through slotted eyes. “Actually, Detective, I met Karen Webber long before that.”
“Yes, I suppose you would have. You and Travis were…fairly close, being that you and he were in Doctor Lieberman’s workshop the longest.”
“No, you suppose wrong. I knew Karen even before that. But before I give you something, I still want you to give me something.”
“The ladder.”
“Of course.”
“Lilith, I told you. I don’t have it. Otherwise I would give it to you. Trust me.”
“Detective, normally I would trust you. You’ve never lied to me, yet. But I know you have it. Leona swears she left it on the nightstand next to the bed. You were the lead detective in the case. None of your people would have touched it without you knowing.”
I slapped my hand on the table, not hard, but enough to make Spinelli jump. Lilith’s eyes only blinked and her stone-faced expression helped me reel my frustrations back into check right away. I took a deep breath, folded my hands neatly before me, and exhaled slowly.
“Look, Lilith. I’m sorry about the outburst. I’m trying to get to the bottom of something. If you knew Karen Webber as well as you say, then you should know that Carlos, Spinelli and I believe the cause of her death wasn’t suicide.”
Her expression softened at once. “But the papers said—”
“The papers don’t know everything, neither do the cops. Both see things only in black and white. There’s enough circumstantial evidence to tie a string of events together, and I believe you can help us tie that string into a knot.”
“Interesting choice of words, Detective.”
By that, I knew she was referring to the ladder: a string of forty knots, just enough to hang myself with. I suspect my subconscious knowingly played a part in that betrayal. I ignored her comment, though, knowing she knew she got me. “Lilith, tell me how you knew Karen Webber, if not through her brother, Travis.”
She took a sip of tea and gazed across the table at Spinelli. “Are you really that frightened of me, Detective Spinelli?” she asked.
He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “I’m not af…fraid of you, Miss Adams.”
She thinned her lips. “So, why are you counting the steps to the front door?”
He turned to me, his eyes wide and white. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” I said. “Lilith reads minds. Your best bet is to think of a song and keep it in your head.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and if you picture her in those tight blue jeans she wore yesterday, she’ll know.”
“Too late,” said Lilith. “He’s already gone there, and then some.”
I saw him look to Lilith, then to me, to Lilith and back again. She sipped her tea slowly, her ebony eyes peering over the top of her cup in tiny slits. I remembered how uncomfortable I felt the first time I learned that she could read my mind, and how relieved I was when she divulged the secret of how to prevent it. I was about to share that knowledge with Spinelli, when he excused himself from the table and headed for the door. I called to him and asked where he was going. His reply: “Out for a smoke.”
After the door shut, I turned to Lilith and said, “Did you chase him out of here on purpose?”
She scoffed. “Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. I know you better than that.”
“What? The boy said he wanted to go out and have a smoke. What’s the big deal?”
“Well, first of all he doesn’t smoke.”
She set her tea down and leaned in towards me on her elbows. I felt her warm breath on my lips, and the thought of licking them wet made me feel just a little dirty. “Detective,” she said, “there’s something about that guy.”
I gave in to the urge, smacked my lips and swallowed. “What?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know, and I’m a pretty good judge of character. That one is hiding something. Trust me.”
“Lilith.” Our eyes locked, but for the tic-tocking pupil-to-pupil. “Spinelli’s a good cop. I trust you with matters of witchcraft. I trust him with my life.”
I thought she might come back with some clever off-the-cuff remark, maybe about him being so young, like who’s going to watch your back while he’s taking his nap? Or won’t his mommy get upset if you keep him out after dark? But she didn’t. Instead, she eased back in her chair, tossed her hair back off her shoulder and settled in with arms crossed at her chest.
“You want to know how I knew Karen Webber?” she said. “I’ll tell you. Karen and I met in one of the early paranormal workshops.”
“Wait a minute. Karen was in a psychic workshop with you?”
“That’s right.”
“And Travis, too?”
�
�No. This was before Travis. This was in one of Doctor Lowell’s studies.”
“I thought the workshops were Doctor Lieberman’s projects.”
“Uh-uh. They were strictly Doctor Lowell’s brainchild. This was before he turned the project over to Doctor Lieberman. In the early days, the studies were informal, casual really. Those of us that attended had answered an ad in the newspaper. Me being into to witchcraft and all, well, naturally I was interested. Doctor Lowell, it turned out, couldn’t care less about my interests in witchcraft, but he did recognize that I had a propensity for clairvoyance. What he didn’t know, and what Doctor Lieberman later found out, was that witchcraft proved an invaluable tool in developing my skills as a psychic.
“I tell you this, because Karen Webber showed an early interest in witchery and magic, but no real traits of ESP. It was that interest in witchcraft that got us talking, and eventually we became friends. But Karen’s heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t care to fully immerse herself into the craft, and Doctor Lowell soon realized he couldn’t validate her claim of paranormal attributes. So, before long, she left the program and we quickly lost touch with each other.”
“Except when her brother joined the group.”
“Yeah, but even then we didn’t keep in touch so much. Soon after Travis joined us, Karen moved to Ipswich and became a cop. I suppose I saw her maybe two or three times after that.”
“How about a guy named Benjamin Rivera? Did you know him?”
“Little Benny, yeah, a bit slow, and not much of a conversationalist, if you know what I m..m.mean.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I know. I’m sorry, but I never had the patience for such things. I’m sure Benny’s a nice guy and all, but I’m not going to make excuses. I can’t deal with….”
“People not as smart as you?”
“I didn’t say that. There’s plenty of smart people I can’t tolerate. Sometimes, Detective, you’re one of them.”
I smiled at that. “Well, thank you for tolerating me today.”
“You’re welcome. More tea?” She poured us another round and we both helped ourselves to the sugar with our fingers. “Why do you ask about Benny Rivera, Detective? Is he tangled up in your little mystery?”