09 - Return Of The Witch (4 page)

“No
,” said Dominic, dropping his head. “I’m on desk duty until further notice.”

“How come?”

“I’m under investigation by Internal Affairs.”

“
Because of what happened at the research center?”

“
Yeah, they’re looking into my possible involvement in the case.”

“You
’ve denied everything, haven’t you?”

“Of course. It’s just that my association with
one of the workers at Williams and Sons, and the fact I was at the research center when it blew up, appears more than circumstantial to the boys at I.A.”

“I thought you told them you were investigating the theft of the dynamite and that the clues led you to the
research center.”

“We did tell them that.”

“But?”

Carlos answered, “But the explosion happened around nine o’clock and the dynamite wasn’t reported stolen until six the next morning.”

“Aw, geez Dominic. I hope you don’t get into any serious trouble over this.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, shrugging off the seriousness of the matter. “Carlos provided me with a rock solid alibi. I can’t go down unless he goes down, too.”

I looked at Carlos. His expression told me he had not even considered that possibility—until then.

Chapter 4

I drove home, thinking about what Carlos and Dominic told me. It’s not that I believed the missing women were witches, or even that they were missing. What bothered me was how Paige Turner knew about us going to the Eighth Sphere. It’s something only
four living souls knew about.

I felt certain that Carlos and Dominic hadn’t told anyone, and I knew I didn’t blab that information to the world. So, naturally, that left only one, maybe two other possibilities. Either Ursula couldn’t keep her big mouth shut, or the internet blogger, Ms. Paige Turner, really was a witch.

After pulling into my driveway, I walked down to the mailbox and collected four days worth of junk mail. I didn’t look at any of it until I got back into the house. In fact, my inclination was to pitch the postal rubbish onto the coffee table with the rest of the week’s stack of unopened mail.

Then something caught my eye.
Perhaps it was the handwriting, a scribbled monkey script I had seen before and would recognize anywhere. It was a letter, addressed to me, from Tony.

The damn fool had transposed the address, causing it to bounce back to the post office, where it
languished for over two weeks before landing in the ‘Return-to-Sender’ bin and eventually finding its way to me.

I freed the letter from the pile and tossed the
rest of the stack onto the table. My head began swimming. My knees grew weak. I pressed my calves to the sofa cushion and sat without looking. Butterflies in my stomach morphed into angry moths. I couldn’t believe it. My hands trembled. I felt my fingers tighten around the edges of the envelope, my thumbnails pressing permanent creases into the paper.

“
You sonofabitch,” I said, shaking my head. “I finally start the impossible task of accepting you’re gone, and then you barge back into my life in the form of a letter? What the hell?”

I tossed the letter onto the coffee table, picked it and
then tossed it down again.

“NO!” I cried
, as a rogue tear found its way down my cheek. “It’s not fair!” I slapped my hand on the table hard, squashing the letter like a bug. “How could you do this to me?”

I picked
it up again and brought it to my lips. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I whispered. “You’re not…. Damnit!”

I set the letter on my lap
and took a deep breath. When I looked down again, I saw that my teardrop had fallen onto the envelope, blurring the T in Tony’s name up in the top left corner. Once again, he was fading out of my life. I ran my thumb over it, smudging the ink and wishing I could tattoo the T over my thumbprint.

I sat there for a minute or two, wondering if I should read the letter. Obviously, Tony expected he’d be there when
it came, or at least that he’d be alive when I opened it. It seemed selfish of me that I might know his thoughts and not share mine with him after reading it. But then, being selfish is something I’ve been accused of before.

I tore the letter
open and read his words.

Lilith,

I’m sorry we argued last night. Sometimes I forget how much you mean to me and that arguing only robs u
s of the precious time we have together.

You left this morning before I could tell you that. I’m at work now and Carlos is complaining about the vending machine running out of Snickers. It seems so trivial to me, just as whatever it was we argued about last night seems trivial
; that and everything in my life that does not include you.

You’re everything to me, Lilith. My heart knows no pain like that when we’re apart. I need you to know that, to know how much I love you, and that I just could not live without you. It’s these words and more I feel, yet never say. I don’t know why. I only hope you know it.

My
love always, Tony.

I balled the letter up and flung it across the room. “Screw you, Tony!” I cried, my voice carrying through the house in a wounded scream. “Screw you! Did you think I could live without you?”

I fell back against the sofa and cried a thousand tears. I let it out in all its anguish, for all the times I wanted to cry and didn’t. I cried for me, for my loss, for Carlos and his, for Ursula and Dominic. I even cried for the
cutesy bimbo down at the Percolator who cried when she heard of Tony’s passing, the little tart.

Christ, I cried for th
at stupid stray dog that hung around the precinct because Tony used to give him dog biscuits every morning when he came in. Who was going to feed the stupid mutt his stupid biscuits now? Damnit!

After
I was done crying, swearing and feeling sorry for myself, I realized something. Though spent and exhausted, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It felt good that I had gotten so much of it out of my system.

So
, I thought.

When the doorbell rang, I assumed it was the paperboy
looking to get paid. I’d blown him off three times already that week and I knew he’d not take no for an answer.

I wiped the tearstains off my cheeks with my
shirtsleeves and went to the door. “Listen you little hustler,” I started, but then realized it wasn’t him. “Oh, it’s you.”

Detective Olsen
smiled politely. “Lilith, please. Call me Brittany.”

I smiled back. “Sure, Brit. What can I do for you?”

She was dressed in street clothes, which shouldn’t have surprised me. I knew she’d made detective some time ago, but I still wasn’t used to seeing her out of uniform.

She gestured a nod. “Can I come
in for a sec?”

I noticed
her carrying a brown paper bag and assumed by the way she held it, that it contained a covered dish of some sort. I only hoped she didn’t want to stay long enough for me to serve it up.

I stepped
away from the door and presented a clear path inside. “Of course.”

I followed her into the living room and was surprised when she didn’t take me all the way to the kitchen. When she reached the coffee table, she stopped and turned around.

“Lilith.” Her voice was lower now, softer. It was her condolence voice. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Tony. We knew each other for a lot of years, he and I.”

“I know,” I said. “He thought highly of you. Told me he thought you’d make a great detective.”

“Did he?”

He hadn’t, but I thought it sounded good. “Sure. He used to tell me that all the time.”

She smiled thinly. “Okay, now I know you’re lying. But thanks.”

I smiled back. “You’re welcome.”

“So, look, we amm…we all missed you at the memorial yesterday.”

“Yeah, about that, listen, I just couldn’t—”

“No, please. There’s no need to explain.” She held the package out, presenting it to me with gentle reverence. “I wanted to give this to you then, but…. Here.”

“What is it?”

She nodded at the package. “Take it.”

I took the bag, realizing immediately it wasn’t a pie or a plate of leftover lasagna.

“Lilith Adams.” She stood at attention and saluted me. “On behalf of the men and women of the Second Precinct and the grateful citizens of New Castle, please accept this flag as a token of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.”

She
broke the salute with a snap.

I
opened the bag and removed a triangular folded American flag. At once, the heavy load that had lifted from my shoulders earlier, returned, only now it was weighing on my heart. I looked up at Brittany. Her lips were drawn thin, her chin tight and wrinkled. Her eyes pooled but had not shed. Her respect for Tony would allow that only after she left.

“Brit
. I don’t….”

“That’s all right.”
She touched my forearm gently. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“Thank you,” I said,
or maybe I only mouthed it. I cradled the flag to my chest and dropped my cheek upon it.

After a timely moment of silence, Brittany said, “You know, Lilith. I don’t pretend to know the ways of things that move our world.
Yet it seems to me that what happens in a temporal sense need not define our limits.”

I regarded her strangely. “What do you mean?”

She smiled. “You have friends, don’t you? Special friends. Mothers?” She winked.

“Mothers?”

She removed her hand from my forearm. “Where do you go for strength and resolution?”

I shook my head, not wanting to believe that she might be suggesti
ng what I thought she was suggesting. “I don’t know. The gym?”

She laughed
lightly. “Only when you’ve tried everything will you know that no matter what the outcome, it’s all okay.”

With that, she turned for the door and saw herself out. As I stood there, holding the flag to my chest, my jaw slack, my eyes blinking in disbelief,
I asked myself two questions. What the hell was she talking about, and when, pray tell, would this feeling of emptiness in my heart ever go away?

I
walked the flag down the hall to the bedroom closet and set it up on the shelf. As I backed away to shut the door, I noticed a small metal box tucked away up in the corner. I pulled it down and brought it to the bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, I opened it.

I
nside the box, was Tony’s gun, a .38 Colt Detective Special. I remembered Tony telling me he used to carry it as his backup piece before Carlos bought him a new one.

‘If that snubbie could talk’, he used to
say, referring to the gun, not Carlos. Of course, I knew that old snub-nose wouldn’t say much if it could. To the best of my knowledge, Tony had never shot anyone with it before packing the thing away.

I removed
the revolver from the metal box and opened the cylinder, exposing the butt ends of six high-velocity .38 Special rounds. The brass had tarnished some, but I imagined they were still operational. I closed the cylinder and weighed the gun in my hand.

Suddenly, it all seemed so simple
. The end of all my suffering was right there in the palm of my hand. Such an easy way out, I thought, and why not? Hadn’t I already lived twice as long as most people?

I pointed the gun at my face and squint
ed into the barrel, knowing that just three inches away, the darkened breech chamber held the answer I’d been looking for.

So simple
. So simple.

B
ut stupid. I lowered the gun and put it back in the box. As I was stowing it away up on the shelf, my phone rang. It was Ursula. I knew it even before looking.

“Hello
, Urs.”

“Sister! Thanks be the stars! Thou art all right?”

“Of course, I’m fine.”

“
As I hear thee I am sure, but what a fright I did have just the same.”

“Oh?”

“I had but a feeling is all that harm did find thee. Art thou sure thy health is none the worse this day’s morn?”

What could I tell her? I didn’t want to make a big deal of the matter, but I knew what her problem was.
Because of the witch’s light, she had intuitively sensed my distress as I contemplated my options with Tony’s gun. I decided to throw her a bone and make her think she had saved me from a near fatal miscalculation.

“You know
, Urs, I’m glad you called. See I was just about to toss the last ingredient into a witch’s brew I was making on the stove, when the phone rang.”

“Aye?”

“Yeah, but because of the phone ringing, I set the jar down on the counter and realized it was the wrong stuff.”

“
Do say?”

“
Had I added that last ingredient, I might have blown this house sky high.”

“Mercy
stars! `Tis a thing of good I called then, aye?”

“Yes it was, so, thanks, but I have to
go now. How `bout I call you later?”

“Sister, wait! I have told thee not
of my big surprise.”

“
What surprise?”

“`
Tis a trick so wonderful it doth make me twitter.”

“Oh,
a little trick is it? Listen, Urs, about that. I’m sure it’s cute and all. Carlos told me how excided you were when Dominic showed it to you, but I honestly don’t think I’m interested. I have bigger issues to deal with right now.”

“Aye, Sister, but this trick—”

“Ursula. I don’t care. It’s not something you learned in the Grimoire, is it?”

“
Nay.”

“Does it involve a spell?”

“Not a one.”

“Does it involve any witchcraft
whatsoever?”

“None methinks
, for aught I know.”