Witch House (36 page)

“What?” I said, reaching for the cup and
taking it from Lilith. “What do you see?” I looked inside, only to
find a scattering of tea grinds stuck to the bottom in random
patterns. “Is that Johnny Buck? Do you see him in there?”

“Nay,” said Ursula, and she and Lilith began
fighting back a powerful urge to laugh. “`Tis my swain’s puppy that
I fear hast but sadly waned.”

“What?”

Lilith grabbed the cup back and stirred the
grinds up with her finger. “Now, now, Ursula. There is nothing
wrong with Dominic’s puppy. I am sure it is perfectly normal. Not
every dog can bark like Tony.”

That made Ursula smile. “Come what come may,
you say?”

Lilith reached across my chest and brushed
Ursula on the arm. “Come any way you can,” she said, and the two
broke out in an uncontrollable fit.

I got up from the table, grabbed my coat and
headed out the door. I could still hear them laughing through the
screened window, as I hopped into the car, started the motor and
drove away. As far as I know, they were still laughing when I got
to the Justice Center, parked the car and walked upstairs. I had
just stepped onto the Detective’s floor when I heard Spinelli
calling from across the room.

“Tony! Tony, we got it!” I spotted him by the
elevators, waving what I supposed was a warrant for the exhumation
of John Davis’ grave.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, after
meeting him half way.

“It is, and we already have a backhoe setting
up at the cemetery. They’re just waiting to see the paperwork for
themselves.”

“Great. Where’s Carlos?”

“Carlos went to the, ahem….” He hiked his
thumb up over his shoulder.

“The shitter?”

“Yeah, and he took a magazine with him.”

“Which one?”

“Field and Stream.”

“Ho boy. This could take a while.”

“I know.”

“You up for a cup of coffee?”

“Sure, why not?”

We headed down to the cafeteria, certain that
Carlos would know where to find us. I was glad for the opportunity,
too. The one-on-one time it gave me with Dominic helped me to
understand where his head and heart was these days. It was
something I had wanted to do for some time, but never did. After
paying for two coffees and a couple of muffins, I motioned that we
should sit by the window overlooking the courtyard. It gave us a
quiet spot to speak candidly.

Soon, we were talking about his brush with
death last year when he took a bullet for Lilith and Ursula back in
Salem. The bullet had punched a hole in his chest the size of a
quarter, and another in his back as big as a baseball when it
exited. Doctors deemed it a miracle that he survived at all.
Personally, I think it was Ursula. If not her magic, then surely
her love for him and his for her had something to do with it.

“So, what do you think?” I asked. “Is your
physical therapy coming along okay?”

He raised his wounded shoulder and dropped it
lightly. “I guess. I’ve got almost full movement of my arm and
shoulder again.” He demonstrated by moving his arm in windmill
fashion, but the look on his face told me it was not easy.

“Good, that’s good. You still have a lot of
pain, though, don’t you?”

“Some.” He turned his gaze down into his cup
and began stirring his coffee with a stir stick. “I have good days
and bad. You know.”

“Sure, and I suppose the meds can only help
so much, huh?”

He said nothing.

“Have you talked to your doctor about maybe
getting you on some different pain medications?”

“No.” He stopped stirring and watched the
swirls melt into soft spirals like a phonograph winding down after
the record is over. “I don’t want to get hooked on something
else.”

“You think you’re hooked on the Oxy?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Do you think you have a problem with
it?”

“No, I think I am in a lot of pain without
it.”

“I see.”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure.” I took a bite of muffin and a sip of
coffee. “I saw Lilith and Ursula this morning. Your name came
up.”

That brought his attention back to me. “Yeah?
What did she say?”

I smiled. “Ursula? She called you her
swain.”

“Swain?”

“Her beau.”

He smiled back. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What else did she say?”

I laughed faintly. What could I tell him,
that Ursula was mildly disappointed after seeing his penis in a
scattering of tea grinds on the bottom of a teacup? I took some
liberty in my answer and said to him, “She just mentioned some
things that told me she was thinking about you.”

His gaze drifted off to a spot out the window
where the shade from the building met the sun-splashed walkway
ringing the courtyard. It was only then, as I watched him squint
vaguely into the light, that I realized how much he reminded me of
me. I don’t mean the me I am today, but the me of yesteryear, when
I was new to the business like Dominic, married to my job and
restless to make a name for myself. I remembered this girl, this
young woman who might have loved me, and I never knew. My passion
for police work blinded me to her subtle overtures; her shy
attempts to woo me were no match for such a mistress of persuasion
as this. Steely was the grip of the force on me since my days in
the academy.

I followed Dominic’s gaze out the window. All
around were men and women walking the courtyard, enjoying the
sun-shiny day, normal by all observations, but for one. Virtually
all wore badges, gun, or both. Ours is a community of law
enforcement, and we make of it what we will. I embraced that life
for over forty years, a life I could have shared with those outside
who cannot fully understand it, but I did not. I put the force
before all else. Was it a mistake? I ask myself that every day. For
some it is not. For others, like Dominic, it could be. I reached
across the table and nudged his arm. “You all right?”

He turned with a snap, as if awaking from a
daydream. “Yeah, sure, I’m all right.”

“Ursula is a fine woman, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” His lips stretched thin and
tight, and his gaze again found the stir stick in his coffee. He
picked it up and began making slow but rhythmic swirls in elliptic
fashion. “Do you think she knows that I am still a….”

“A what?”

“You know.”

“No?”

“Let us just say that I am not that popular
with the girls, in case you hadn’t noticed. Most women find me a
bit nerdy.”

“Oh, I see. Well in case you hadn’t noticed,
Ursula is not like most women.”

He laughed. “I know that, but she is special.
She deserves a man who is more….”

“What?”

“I don’t know, worldly?”

I reached out and tapped his arm again to get
him to look up at me. When he did, I said, “Dominic, why don’t you
let her decide what kind of man she deserves. Give yourself some
credit. You’re special, too. You just need to work out a few
demons. Listen, what do you say we go out this weekend on a double
date, just you, me, Lilith and Ursula?”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.”

“What about Carlos?”

“What about him?”

“Yeah, what about me?” said Carlos. He had
come up on us seemingly from nowhere. “Are you making plans without
me?”

“Yes,” I said. “We were about to head on down
to the cemetery without you. What did you do, fall in?”

He drew back with a sour grimace. “No. You
know I can’t rush those things. I have a sensitive digestive
system.”

“Sensitive as a bear trap.”

“Do we have time for breakfast?”

“Breakfast? We ate breakfast already.”

“That was midnight breakfast. It’s daylight
now. I’m starving.”

“We’ll eat after the cemetery.” I turned to
Dominic. “You ready?”

“Ready when you are.”

“Hey.” Carlos pointed to the muffin that
Dominic had not yet touched. “You gonna eat that?”

Dominic slid out of his seat and grabbed his
jacket. “You can have it.” He started across the cafeteria for the
door.

Carlos asked, “What’s eating him?”

I grabbed my jacket and stood. “Love,” I
said. “It’s a many splendid thing, ain’t it?”

We arrived at the cemetery just in time to
get stuck behind a fifty-two car funeral procession. The police
escort held us up at the gate until the last car turned in. We fell
in behind them and followed the procession nearly to the end,
turning off at a section in the park called Shady Grove. There, as
Spinelli promised, sat a backhoe, awaiting our arrival. After
showing the groundskeeper the warrant for the exhumation, he gave
the signal, instructing the backhoe operator to dig. Inside of
fifteen minutes, we were watching the shovel on the big rig
hoisting John J. Davis’ casket up onto solid ground.

“You ready for this?” I asked of no one in
particular.

“Let’s do it,” Carlos answered, and with the
blessings of the groundskeeper, the two lifted the lid on the
casket.

“Holy shit!” I heard one of them say. I think
it was the groundskeeper. Spinelli and I stepped in for a closer
look.

“Wow! That’s not Johnny Buck.”

“That’s for sure,” I said.

“How much you think is there?”

I took a deep breath, puckered and blew.
“Well, more or less, I’d have to say about six million.”

“Dollars?” said the groundskeeper.

“Yup, dollars.”

Carlos said, “Do you suppose anyone is still
looking for it?”

“Forget it, Carlos, It’s going back where it
came from.”

A string of disappointing sighs made the
rounds through the ranks all the way to the backhoe operator. I
would like to think that my guys were sighing because they were
disappointed we did not find Johnny Buck’s remains inside the
casket. For the sake of argument, we will say that is the case.

We spent the rest of the morning in the
company of auditors, agents and representatives from Massachusetts
Department of Law Enforcement, the F.B.I., the I.R.S., the U.S.
Attorneys’ office, the U.S. Marshalls, Attorneys general, Secret
Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, all wanting a piece of
the action, and by action I mean money. Personally, I did not care
who got it, just so long as Powell, Tarkowski and the rest of my
laundry list of suspects did not get their hands on it. After
signing custody of the money over to the Feds, Carlos, Spinelli and
I headed for the Perc. It had been nearly twelve hours since we had
eaten anything substantial, and for Carlos, that is monumental. And
since, as Carlos pointed out, it was my fault we did not stop for
breakfast, I offered to buy. Thinking back now, maybe it would not
have been such a bad idea to pocket some of that money. I mean, it
is not as if we did not work for it.

We arrived at The Percolator at the height of
the lunch rush, and consequently were unable to secure our usual
booth in the corner by the window. We settled instead for a table
that had just opened up by the kitchen door—great if you want to
view all the dishes coming out to the floor, bad if do not like
excessive noise, grill smoke or heavy foot traffic. I believe I can
say with confidence that over the years I sat in virtually every
seat in the house and sampled everything on the menu. The trick is
to know what to order for the seat you are in. For instance, never
get the fish when you are sitting by the restrooms. I will spare
you the details, but trust me on that one. Another useful tidbit,
when seated by the kitchen door, such as we were then, never order
the soup of the day. It is like eating in a bumper car. You will
get more on you than in you. I suppose when Spinelli ordered the
soup, I could have told him that, and I may have if Carlos had not
cleared his throat to stop me just as I was about to say something.
Because it was my fault we were so late, I let Carlos have that
one. He was not disappointed.

“All right,” I said, after our server took
our orders and brought us our drinks. “Do either of you have any
idea where the hell we are in this investigation? I’m getting so
confused I need a score card to keep track.”

“Well, score one up for Johnny Buck Allis,”
said Dominic. “He sure pulled one over on us convincing everyone he
was dead.”

Carlos agreed, adding, “He even fooled his
own mother.”

“But he was not smart enough,” I said. “Was
he?”

“How do you mean?”

“He never found the money.”

Dominic said, “That seals it then, doesn’t
it? The pieces fit now. The way I see it, Johnny Buck waited in
hiding all these years for Landau to get out of prison so that they
could finally split the loot. Fast forward to Monday night. The two
meet up at Pete’s Place, by chance or by prearrangement, whichever,
it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Landau changed his mind.
Maybe he felt that since he did the time, he deserved all the
money. He tells Johnny Buck he’s cutting him out of the deal, but
Johnny doesn’t take it so well and so he kills his old pal. With no
lead on the money, he is left with only one option, and that is to
slip out of town like the ghost people think he is.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why didn’t he know
where the money was? The two were partners in crime.”

“Yes,” said Carlos, “But remember there is no
honor among thieves. I think it’s more likely that right from the
get-go, Landau planned to cut old Johnny out of his share of the
loot. That could explain the bank sack in the cellar, the one with
real bills on top of a pile of worthless paper. Landau probably
gave him that to buy him time to formulate his plan. The poor boy
was just too stupid to look in the sack closely enough to see what
was in it.”

“No, I don’t buy it. Maybe the sack was not
full of money, but there was some real money on top. Why didn’t
Johnny Buck spend some of it?”