Bones of a Witch (10 page)

I remember thinking as he approached how much
larger he appeared than I expected: six-four easily, and well over
two hundred pounds. I’ve taken self-defense classes in the academy,
and for a little guy, I handle myself fairly well. But in a
one-on-one, hand-to-hand with this mug, I reckoned I’d certainly
have my hands full.

He came out of the last shadow and stepped into
my light where the intimacy of our encounter seemed all too
surreal. I kept my head down slightly, working the brim of my hat
as I had before to conceal the details of my face. But I could see
his face now, and see it well. He was older-looking and more
weathered than I imagined; bearded grey and drawn from age as if
time and gravity had conspired to pull him down but he would not
let it. Old? Yeah, but not just in years. Like Methuselah, this guy
had seen the gates of hell and snubbed its keeper.

“Wait for it,” said Tony, his voice more
conscience now than coach. I got the sinking feeling that he
somehow knew about my previous mishap with the .38.

The stranger slowed his pace by halve strides
as he neared. I could see him working hard to establish eye
contact, and when he came to a stop within arm’s reach I nearly
died.

“Ms. Adams,” he said, “a word of advice for
you.”

“Now,” said Tony. “Take him!”

I took a step back, leveled my weapon and
assumed a shooter’s stance. “Freeze, Mister! Hands up!
Police!”

He fell away slightly, but otherwise complied,
putting his hands up where I could see them and remaining
remarkably calm, a cue I could have taken from him if I weren’t
flying so high on pure adrenaline. “Don’t move!” I heard myself
shouting. “Don’t move a single muscle.”

Tony came up behind him then and slapped the
cuffs on his wrists. “It’s all right, Dominic. I’ve got him now.
Stand down. Good job. Good job.”

“We got him, Tony,” I said, my voice as giddy
as a schoolboy’s. “He thought I was Lilith. Didja hear him? Ja hear
him call me Ms. Adams?”

“I heard him. Dom.”

Carlos came running up behind us with two
uniforms and a K-9, their weapons drawn, and the dog charging
against his choker till his bark was hoarse.

I pointed the .38 at our prisoner. “We got him,
Carlos. We got Lemas Winterhutch. Didja hear what he called me? Ya
hear him call me Ms. Adams? He’s our killer all right.”

“Yes, Dominic, we heard him.” He holstered his
weapon and motioned for me to lower mine. “Tony’s got him now. You
did good, though. So put your gun away before someone gets
hurt.”

I could feel the stupid grin on my face melting
away as I looked down at my gun, realizing my finger was still on
the trigger and the hammer was still cocked. “Of course,” I said,
swinging the .38 out over the water and seating the hammer down. I
pulled my coat open and packed it away in its holster.

Meanwhile, Tony had finished cuffing and
patting down our prisoner. “He’s clean,” he said, motioning for the
K-9 handler to back off with the dog. He spun the prisoner around
so that he was facing us with his back against the railing. Carlos
stepped up to him and looked him square in the eye.

“What’s your name, and don’t give us Lemas
Winterhutch. We know that’s not it.”

“It’s not,” the man said. “Indeed, why would I
profess to be that heartless killer?”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Emanuel Hilton. I am the pastor of
Our Lady of Grace Church.”

“Bullshit. You’re no pastor.
You’re—”

“No, he is,” said Tony. We turned to Tony and
saw him thumbing through the man’s wallet. “He’s got all kinds of
ID here. Emanuel J. Hilton, pastor: Our Lady of Grace Church, Salem
Massachusetts.”

I could see Carlos’ brows crowding over his
eyes. “The pastor is a killer?”

The man laughed. “Oh, quite the contrary, my
dear Detective, I’ve come here to help you catch your
killer.”

Tony nudged in closer. “What do you know about
this case, and what business have you coming up here from
Salem?”

“What business have I? Detective Marcella, the
men of Ingersoll’s Witness have been my family’s business since
1692. I’ve made it my life’s pursuit to hunt these men down and
bring them to justice.”

“You know my name?”

“Detective Anthony Marcella? Of course, I know
all your names.” He looked at Carlos, “Detective Rodriquez,” then
me, “Spinelli,” and he gave me a wink. “Graduated top of your class
at the academy; congratulations.”

“No, I’m not buying it,” said Carlos. “How did
you know we would be here tonight? And how did you know that Lilith
was supposed to be waiting here?”

“I have friends, Detective, friends in
politics, the media and in your own department. As I’ve said, I
have made this pursuit my life’s work.”

“No, that’s too easy. If you knew we were going
to be here, then you would have known that Dominic was posing as
Lilith, yet you approached and called him Ms. Adams.”

“Please,” said Hilton, “I am a man of the
cross. Look.” He directed our attention to the crucifix around his
neck. Carlos reached up and took it in his hand. It was extremely
large, larger than any I’ve ever seen hanging around someone’s
neck. And more peculiar, the stem of the cross came to a point as
sharp as a dagger. “That cross has been in my family since the
Mayflower. I wear it to remind me of my roots in Christianity and
to whom I serve. That’s why I came here tonight; to warn Ms. Adams
of the danger she is in and to advise her not to take her nemesis
lightly.”

“He did begin with an offer of advice when he
approached me,” I said.

“No, I don’t trust him,” said Carlos. “It’s too
polished an answer. I think he’s the witch hunter.”

Tony spun him around and unlocked his
handcuffs. “Still, Carlos, we can’t hold him. He’s not armed. He
didn’t try to do anything to Dominic but talk to him. Besides….” he
turned Pastor Hilton back around after removing the cuffs, “he’s
too tall.”

“Too tall to hold?”

“Too tall to be our perp. Remember from the
video, our guy’s only five-five. The good Pastor here
is—what?”

“I’m six-four and a half,” Hilton
said.

Tony splayed his hand as if to
present a clear path of freedom. “There you have it then. Good
evening to you sir.” Hilton took a single step out of the circle
when Tony snagged his coattail and tweaked him back. “But let me
offer you my own words of advice, Pastor. The next time you meddle
in official police business I
will
throw you in jail.”

Hilton pulled his coattail straight and started
off into the night. I looked to Carlos. He seemed perplexed, but in
an angry way. Tony pulled his coat sleeve back and checked his
watch. “It’s past our meeting time now,” he said.

I checked mine too. “Ten minutes,” I said. “You
think Winterhutch has seen us out here with that guy?”

“Yeah, it’s almost certain he got here early
and did his own stake out before making his move. If he was here,
he’s gone now.”

Carlos asked, “What do we do next?”

Tony had no answer for that, but as he shook
his head, we heard a woman’s scream coming from the other end of
the pier. Carlos got on the radio and ordered all units to follow
us down the boardwalk. We ran, all of us, as fast as we could, but
were too late. In the gutter, outside a novelty shop where a neon
sign blinked the word CLOSED, there lay a young woman, thirtyish,
brown hair, blue jeans and jacket, her throat slit from ear to ear.
Nearby her Chihuahua cowered in an alleyway, afraid to emerge into
the glow of the sputtering neon.

We stood over the woman for a while after Tony
had checked and found no pulse. It seemed obvious we had screwed up
something awful, only none of us knew what we could have done
differently to prevent it. Carlos placed the call to the medical
examiner. Tony secured the immediate area and I secured the
Chihuahua. She shivered in my arms so hard I thought she might
break. When they finally covered the victim up and carried her off,
I thought the poor thing’s whimpers would break my heart. Fact is
it did.

Carlos Rodriquez:

Dominic and I were reviewing the files for the
Melissa Evans case, the young woman murdered on the boardwalk the
night before, when Tony walked in. He looked tired, unshaven and
possibly even dressed in the previous night’s clothes. I’ve seen
him like that before, in the old days, but not since he and Lilith
went through that rite of passage thing. During the Surgeon Stalker
case he came in the office looking similarly worn nearly every day.
Then again, that case dropped more dead bodies on our laps than New
Castle had seen in two hundred years. I wasn’t going to say
anything. I knew better, but Dominic’s still green in these
matters. I could see him getting ready to say something to Tony,
and well, frankly he’s never going to learn for himself if I keep
stopping him. I let his leash out and he damn near hung himself
with it.

“Geez, Tony, what gives with you, man? You look
like crap. Whatcha do, sleep in the gutter?”

I watched Tony’s eyes roll up from his coffee
mug and settle on Dom like lasers. “What gives?” Already Dominic
could sense the quicksand shifting beneath his feet. “We stood not
forty yards from where a woman was accosted and murdered last
night. Do you realize how close that is?”

Dominic swallowed and then croaked out a timid,
“Yes, sir.”

“That’s less than half the length of a football
field. On a clear night we would have seen it happen. If her dog
farted, we would have heard it. That woman needed only break away
for ten seconds and we would have been on that guy like greased
spit. Can you understand that, Spinelli?”

“Yes sir. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“What? What’s there to imply? I look like shit
because I sat up all night beating my head against a damn wall
wondering what I could have done differently. How about you? Did
you give it a second thought when you got home, or were you just so
glad that it wasn’t you who—”

“Tony.” I slid my chair out and snapped to my
feet. He looked at me angry-like at first, but reeled it in
quickly.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” He turned to Dominic
and gestured a toast of sorts with his coffee mug. “Dom, listen. I
didn’t….”

“It’s okay,” Dominic said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes really, it’s alright. I was out of line.
You’re under a lot of stress. We all are. And I imagine with Lilith
in the middle of it all you’re especially—”

“Don’t.” Tony put his hand up to stop him.
“First thing’s first. Let’s not automatically assume that last
night’s killing is the work of the witch hunter. It could be a
coincidence: a botched robbery, maybe.”

I pointed at the photos and reports sprawled
out on my desk. “Actually, Tony, we were just going over that.” I
turned a photocopy of a driver’s license towards him. “That’s our
girl, Melissa Evans, thirty four, single. She lived in an apartment
over the novelty shop.”

“She lived alone?”

“I guess just her and her dog.” I looked over
at Dominic. He smiled at Tony and shrugged.

“Yeah, I have the dog at my place,” he said.
“It’s a Chihuahua. They’re extremely smart, you know.”

Tony smiled thinly. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d keep her until someone
comes forward and claims her.”

“I see.”

“Hey Dominic,” I said, “tell Tony what you
named her.”

He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t
think—”

“Com`on, tell him. He’ll get a kick out of
it.”

“Yeah,” said Tony. “Tell me. I could use a good
kick about now.”

I could see the giddiness in him bubbling to
the surface. “Well, I don’t….”

“Go on.”

“All right.” He cleared his throat with a croak
and then swallowed. “It’s funny, `cause you see she seems to answer
nicely when I call her Lilith.”

Tony laughed. “Lilith?” He looked
at me. “What do
you
think about that?”

“I like the name,” I told him. “I think Lilith
will be flattered.”

“Carlos, it’s a Chihuahua.”

“Sure.” I winked at him when Dominic wasn’t
looking. “I know.”

He dropped his head and shook it lightly.
“You’re a sick, twisted old man, Rodriquez, you know
that?”

“Yeah,” I said, and we let it go at
that.

I gave Tony a moment to filter through the
other photos, as well as the follow-up reports from the evidence
collection team and the coroner’s office. It wasn’t much, but if we
had anything useful I knew he would find it. My validation came
when he turned one of the photos around and pushed it back to
me.

“What about this?”

Dominic and I both looked, but neither of us
noticed anything particularly special about it. I slid it back to
him. “It’s a picture of a dead body.”