The Witch's Key (21 page)

“What ever happened to her?” I asked.

Gwendolyn shook her head. “I don’t know. That was
before I came along. Mister Stevens doesn’t talk about her.”

“You say that’s him in the photo?”

She turned and looked up at the picture with me.
“Yes, that’s him. Handsome, isn’t he?”

“Sure,” I said, though frankly I didn’t see it. I
studied the photo again, this time concentrating more on Stevens.
“You know, he does look familiar. When was this picture taken?”

“1941,” she said, without hesitation. “Back then,
Jake was just a ramblin` Jersey boy without a care in the
world.”

I turned sharply, startling Gwendolyn almost out of
her seat. “What did you say?”

She palmed her chest above her heart. “Mister
Spinelli, my goodness, you scared me.”

“I’m sorry, but did you say his name is Jake?”

“Yes, Jacob P. Stevens. We call him J.P. or Jake.
Why?”

“And he’s from New Jersey?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever heard him called, Jersey Jake?”

She eased back in her chair, smiling through a wave
of nostalgia sweeping over her. “Ho, boy, Jersey Jake. I haven’t
heard that moniker in a long time. He hasn’t been called that
since…my, since his days on the rails.”

I turned back to study the picture. It seemed so
obvious to me now. The reason I thought he looked familiar was
because I knew him. In hindsight, I realized how he had changed so
little. Six and a half decades may weather a man’s face beyond the
pale margins of his youth, but cannot change his eyes, his jaw line
or the cleft in his chin. The years had taken their toll on old
Jersey Jake, but not so much that I could not recognize him as the
man at the hospice care, waiting on death’s doorstep to catch out
one final time.

“Gwendolyn,” I said, my voice softer, not wanting to
pull her away from her memories entirely. “Jake’s not coming back,
is he?”

She looked up at me and shook her head slowly. Her
eyes were welling, but not yet wetting her cheeks. I lifted the
picture off the wall and held it to my chest. “Would you mind
awfully if I kept this?”

“No,” she said. She reached out and patted my arm.
“You can have it. To tell you the truth, I was going to burn it
soon anyway.”

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks,
Gwen.” I slipped back around the counter and headed for the door,
but stopped before opening it to give her one last look. She
smiled, as if anticipating something memorable. I just smiled back
and waved. Funny how that memory will now be mine.

I tore out of Gitana Freight Lines’ parking lot and
headed back to New Castle in a fog, my deluged mind inciting a riot
of emotions that drove me to the brink of tears. I had no idea what
to do next. On the one hand I had Lilith, and a mounting pile of
circumstantial evidence pointing to her culpability in a string of
contentious deaths. Add to that my blinding affections for her that
had likely already tainted my ability to remain objective regarding
serious demonstrative arguments against her.

On the other hand, I had Pops. First, I believed he
was my father, but later I learned he was not. Now, having gone
full circle, I find that Pops not only could be my father, but is
also the owner of Gitana Freight Lines. The very man at the heart
of the mystery has been right under our noses from the
beginning.

I was barely aware that I had just passed my exit
when Spinelli called me on my cell. He sounded excited, but then
that was not anything new. Sometimes just getting through to me is
enough to charge Spinelli’s batteries.

“Tony, you’re not going to believe it! This is wild.
I don’t know what made us think of it, but we did…well, Carlos did,
but then I went along with it just to see—”

“Whoa! Dominic, slow down.” I put my directional on
to exit the next ramp for a U-turn. “Take a breath and start
over.”

I heard a heavy inhale and quick exhale in the mere
span it took between two clicks of my blinkers. For Dominic, that
was about all I could expect. “All right now. What won’t I believe?
Did you and Carlos find another witch’s key at the suicide
site?”

“No, I mean yes, but that’s not it. We got back the
lab results from the DNA tests.”

“What, from the witch’s key?”

“No, from the hair sample inside that locket we
found. And guess what. We have a positive match.”

“Great. So, what’s the verdict? Is it Lilith’s?”

“No.”

You cannot imagine the sense of relief that that
brought me. For the first time in the investigation I had a thread
of hope to cling to that Lilith was not our only suspect. I
finished banking a U-turn and merged with the flow of traffic
heading back toward the New Castle exit.

“All right, Dom, then whose hair is it?”

“Tony.” He sounded much less excited now. “It’s
yours.”

“What!”

“The hair in the locket. It’s a definite match to
your DNA.”

“It can’t be.”

“It is. I’m sorry, but there’s no doubt about
it.”

He must have thought that my phone went dead. It took
me that long to say anything more. But I finally came back.
“Dominic. Tell me how that could happen. How could my hair
contaminate the sample in that locket?” Another long silence
carried me nearly to my exit. “Dom? I’m waiting.”

“Tony. There’s been no cross-contamination. You have
to allow for the possibility that Lilith put your hair clippings
into that locket and that she is the one that dropped it where we
found it.”

“It’s a joke.”

“Come again?”

“She’s playing a joke on us. Don’t you see? She
planted that locket as a prank for us to find.”

Another stretch of silence filled the quarter-mile.
“You know, Tony, maybe we can talk about this when you get back to
the office?”

I wanted to tell him no, that there was nothing more
to talk about. But inside, I knew we would have to, just as soon as
I accepted the cogency of deductive reasoning. I know it sounds
cliché, but as Carlos likes to say—if it walks like a duck and
quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. In the meantime, I
had some serious pride to swallow and a boatload of denial to
reconcile. I came back on the line and told Dominic not to do
anything with the DNA results until I returned. “Other than that,
is there anything else I need to know?”

“Yes, but nothing that can’t wait. How long before
you’re back here?”

I watched the exit sign sail past the passenger side
window again. At the rate things were going I supposed I would not
see Carlos and Spinelli much before nightfall. “I don’t know,” I
said, sure that any guess at my arrival would be premature. “But if
you’re hungry for lunch, don’t wait up.”

Spinelli’s reply seemed to come on the heels of a
short discussion he had with Carlos. His answer damn well confirmed
it. “All right, if you insist. We’ll see you after lunch.”

“Roger that, Dom.” I knew this next part would kill
them. “Tell Carlos I’m sorry to miss it. I was going to buy.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

A measured pause followed. “Wait. Carlos wants to
talk to you.”

“Goodbye,” I said, and hung up. When the phone rang
again just moments later, I turned it off. Sometimes, it’s the
little things that bring a smile to my face.

My desire to know once and for all about Lilith’s
possible involvement in the deaths of ten transients burned like
fire in the pit of my stomach. Burning greater in my heart, was the
need to know the absolute truth about Pops, AKA Jersey Jake—my
dad.

The hospice care center was practically on my drive
back to the justice building, but even if it were not, divine
intervention could hardly have kept me from stopping there to see
him again. Rain began falling through broken clouds just as I
arrived. I was not terribly worried about it, but with the wind
picking up and the distant sky looking more ominous, I suspected
things might get worse by the time I left. So, after parking the
car, I turned around and began fishing through the clutter on the
back seat for an umbrella. I needed only to move an old Mackinaw
blanket to find it, and with it, the surprise of a lifetime.

Melissa greeted me kindly enough when I walked in,
but her guarded demeanor left little doubt about her reservations
for letting me in beyond the lobby.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Lilith isn’t with me.”

“She isn’t?” Her smile brightened by degrees.

“Uh-uh. So, is it all right if I go up and see Mister
Marcella?”

“Oh, I don’t see why not.” She picked up the phone
and dialed a three-number extension. “Let me just clear it with
India, okay?”

I gave up a thin smile and a nod. “Sure.”

“India?” she said. “Detective Spitelli is here to see
Mister Marcella. Is it okay to send him up?”

I could not hear the other side of the conversation,
but I could guess with reasonable certainty how it went. After
Melissa told her I was there, India came back with, “Is he
alone?”

To which Melissa answered simply, “A-huh.”

“Does he have anything with him?”

“Just an umbrella.”

“No flowers or anything like that?”

Melissa craned her neck slightly to peer up over the
top of the counter. “No.”

“How’s he dressed?”

“Excuse me?”

“Jeans or dress slacks?”

This time she had to stand, but I give her credit for
making it look like she was only stretching. “The first one.”

“Did he ask to see me first, or did he want to go
right up to the room?”

“The second one.”

“Oh, come now,” I said, not knowing how long that
game might have gone on before she would finally give me permission
to go upstairs. But at the risk of blowing it, I leaned out over
the counter and shouted, “India, please. I’ll do anything.”

I could only imagine the surprised look on her face
then. I watched Melissa cup the phone’s mouthpiece and turn a high
shoulder to me. After a brief whisper session, she hung up and
said, “If you have a moment, Detective, India will be down
shortly.”

I took a seat in the lobby and waited. I suspect
India must have gone to the little girl’s room to freshen up before
seeing me. It had taken her more than fifteen minutes to come
downstairs, but when she finally showed up, she did look amazing.
She had somehow managed to transform her usual neoconservative work
clothes into something I could only describe as postmodern chic
essential. Though the prerequisite of her dress might technically
have conformed to a code befitting the nature of her workplace, she
had taken considerable liberties to stretch the boundaries that
defined those conditions.

Her blouse, likely buttoned up to her neck when she
came to work that morning, now splayed open enough for me to see
the lace along the top of her brassiere. And her skirt, which I
guessed like Melissa’s, should have hung somewhere below the knees,
rode easily midway between her kneecaps and hips. Her hair,
normally pulled back or gathered in a bun, fell in layered waves,
parted evenly so that it blanketed both the front and backside of
her shoulders.

I stood and offered my hand as she approached.

“India, thank you for your understanding. I’m awfully
sorry about the last time—”

“Say no more, Detective. It’s water under the bridge.
So, you would like to see Mister Marcella again?”

“If that’s all right. Is he up?”

“Are you kidding? He’s been up since sunrise.” She
checked her watch. “Let’s see, it’s just now noon.”

“Lunch,” I said.

She smiled out of surprise. “Well, what a splendid
idea. Thank you.”

“No, I mean, I was speculating that maybe I’ve come
in the middle of his lunchtime. If so, I could come back
later.”

Her smile evaporated. “I see. Of course, you are
busy. I shouldn’t have presumed....”

“Oh, it’s okay. We can do lunch another time, maybe.
I’d love that.”

“Yes. Another time.” She faded back a step, probably
unaware that she was buttoning her blouse as she spoke. “I’ll check
my calendar.” I watched her toss her hair off her shoulders with
twin flips. “Maybe if you leave your number with Melissa—”

“I will. I promise. So, you think I wouldn’t be
intruding on Mister Marcella’s lunch hour if I went up now?”

She cast an empty gaze to the floor, but then
returned it to me in solemn order. “Actually, Detective—”

“Please. Call me, Dominic.”

Her cheeks dimpled. “Okay, Dominic. You see, Mister
Marcella hasn’t been eating much lately.”

“He hasn’t?”

“No, in fact he’s stopped eating all-together.”

“
Why? Is it because of that episode yesterday?
I can talk to him about that. I’m sure—”

“Dominic.” She reached out and grabbed my arm. “It’s
not that. He hasn’t eaten anything in over a week.”

“What?” I blinked back in confusion, daft to the
subtle inclination of her meaning. After a dull stutter and false
start, my obvious inability to articulate an understanding
eventually triggered the need for her to spell it out.

“You know he’s dying, don’t you?”

More blinking. “Of course.”

“Then you must know that it’s not unusual for people
to stop eating towards….” She paused, and I got the feeling for a
moment that she could see it in my eyes, the true kinship Pops and
I shared. I broke the hold she held on me, or perhaps I held on
her, by shifting my eyes away for only a second and then back
again. “…When the time gets very near,” she finished.

“Is it?” I said. “The time, is it very near?”

“It’s getting closer.”

“How long does he….”

“That’s hard to say. Every day he grows weaker,
naturally, but he is taking in fluids fortified with things like
vitamins, potassium and sodium. It’s really all we can do now.”