Bones of a Witch (11 page)

“Yes, but where is it?”

“In the gutter out front of the novelty
shop.”

“And can you see into the window of the novelty
shop?”

Dominic snapped the picture up and studied it
closer. “There’s a camera.” He showed me the photo and pointed up
into the corner of it. “Look, Carlos, in the window, on the back
wall above the tee shirt racking. It’s a security
camera.”

“Right,” said Tony. “So, why don’t you get a
hold of the shop’s owner and see if he can tell us if it picked up
anything last night. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Got it.”

“Also, Dominic, get with the department sketch
artists and see if you can come up with a composite of what that
guy looked like: the one that passed by and tipped his hat to
you.”

“Why, you think that was Lemas?”

“Could have been. Looked about the right size.
Maybe he realized at the last second that you weren’t Lilith and so
he aborted his mission.”

“If that’s so, then it’s the reason he went and
killed that poor woman. Isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Dominic’s face grew flush. “God, I hope that
wasn’t him. I don’t think I could sleep nights knowing I had a
chance to take him out, but didn’t.”

“Now you know why I didn’t get any sleep last
night.”

“Tony.” I said. He turned to me, and I could
see the impatience in his eyes. I looked to Dominic and motioned a
lazy point toward the door. “Go on, Dom. See what you can find out
about that camera and get right back with us.” He nodded weakly and
backed out of the room with his eyes to the floor. I said to Tony,
“There. Are you happy?”

“What?”

I hate when he plays dumb. “You know what. It’s
not his fault what happened last night. He’s a good kid, and he did
a damn fine job last night.”

“Who said he didn’t?”

“Come on. You practically accused him of
slicing the woman’s throat open himself. He had no way of knowing
that was Lemas.”

“Well it was.”

“I know that, and he knows it too now. But none
of us knew last night when we let him walk on by.”

“I’m not saying anyone did.”

“Then why the hell are you making him feel so
guilty about it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I—”

“What? What do you guess you would have done so
differently?”

He didn’t answer that, and I realized then that
the argument had nothing do with Dominic and everything to do with
Lilith. I came around the table and sat on the edge of it next to
him. He seemed agitated, but he took my cue and sat on the edge of
the table beside me. For a long while we both just sat there, him
with his coffee mug clasped between cupped hands, and me picking at
imaginary lint on the knees of my trousers. I didn’t expect he’d
talk first, so I did.

“You know, you really do look like shit,
Tony.”

He laughed, and I laughed, and then for a
second, things got quiet again. This time I waited for him, and
soon he spoke.

“Carlos, we’ve been doing this for a lot of
years, haven’t we?”

“More than I can count; I like to
think.”

“Yeah, you could hardly speak English when we
met and now—”

“What? I could speak—”

“Nah, com`on, you know what I mean. Your
English was terrible, admit it. But that’s not the point. The point
is that your English was, let’s say, not so good. But look, after
thirty plus years you not only have almost lost your accent, but
now you know all the hip lingo that everyone uses these
days.”

“What?”

“You know, all the sayings and phrases that
young people use, you’re tuned into it.”

“Tony, I’m not as tuned in as you might
think.”

“Sure you are. Take Spinelli for instance: a
young guy, hip and knowledgeable about the mechanics of today’s
world. He knows computers: you know computers.”

“Tony, what are you getting at?”

“What I’m getting at is this.” He slid off the
table and stood facing me with arms spread out to his sides. “Look
at me. What do you see?”

I raked my eyes quickly up and down his frame.
“I see a dear old friend in the body of a handsome young
man.”

“Exactly. Only this old friend is still an old
man in the body of a young man. Don’t you get it? I’m a product of
the mid-twentieth century. I can’t compete with guys like Spinelli.
Oh, sure, maybe if I were you. You could go through the rite of
passage and come out young again, and you’d fit in nicely with this
generation…this, this new millennia.”

“Are you kidding?” I started laughing. Cruel, I
know, but I couldn’t help it. “Tony, you know what your problem
is?”

“My
problem?”

“Yes.
Your
problem. It’s that you are an
old fart. You’re an old stick in the mud. And the worst of it; you
can change it all with the wave of your hand and you don’t even
know it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You. I’m talking about you, man. Look at you.
You’re young. You have a new start at the job you’ve always loved,
you have a smoking` hot girlfriend who may not tell you or even
know it herself, but believe me when I say that she is in love with
you. And on top of all that, you’re a witch, Man. You have the
world by the balls and you don’t even see it.”

“Then why am I so damn paranoid?”

“Paranoid?”

“Yes, I’m telling you, I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of—Jesus, I don’t know. I’m afraid of young
guys like Spinelli who will most likely climb the proverbial ladder
of success, using my antiquated old ass for rungs all the way to
the top. I’m afraid I’ll let Lilith down when she realizes that
I’ll never be half the witch she is. And I’m afraid I’ll lose her,
either to hotshot young guns like Dominic who push all the right
sentimental buttons to make her love him, like naming some stupid
Chihuahua after her, or to some crack pot psycho witch hunter who
still thinks he’s living in a century where it’s okay to kill young
women for the sake of God and country. It’s crazy, Carlos. I mean
it. On the one hand, I feel invincible like I did when I was
twenty. On the other, I feel like I’m not prepared for today’s
world: its demands, its uncertainties. I feel
like…like….”

“Like you’re in love?”

“What?”

“Tony, what you’re feeling is normal—well, as
normal as can be for an old guy that’s suddenly young again. Look,
as I see it, it’s like this. When was the last time you were in
love?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. How long has it been?”

I slid over and let him reclaim his seat on the
edge of the table as he thought about it. I thought I knew the
answer myself, having been his partner for more than thirty years,
but I was honestly surprised to see how long it took him to figure
it out. After what seemed like the longest time he answered,
“1976.”

“Really?” I said. “What about in ‘03’, that
girl Melanie?”

“The waitress? No.”

“Barbara Fields? You dated her through most of
the nineties.”

“Nah-uh.”

“Gina Roselle, ‘82’ through ‘87’?”

“And again in ‘88’ and ‘89’,” he
said.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“How `bout Gloria what’s her name?”

He nodded. “Wickman.”

“That’s her. She was cute.”

“Yes, and nuts, too. Definitely
not.”

“All right, so who was it in ‘76’?”

A smile inched across his face like a sunrise.
“Janine Rossini.”

“Ah, yes.” I smiled along with him. “I remember
Janine. Yes, you were quite smitten with her, weren’t
you?”

“Smitten?”

I rocked into him and jabbed his shoulder
lightly. “Come on, spill it.”

He shook his head as if giving up without a
fight. “What’s to spill? We dated for about a year; things were
going really well, and one day she just….” He trailed off and shook
his head.

“Yes?”

I watched him take a deep breath and let it out
in a sigh so great his entire body seemed to deflate. “I asked her
to marry me. She said yes, but under one condition: I had to quit
the force.”

“I never knew that.”

“Of course, I never told you. But yes, she
insisted I quit, said she couldn’t live her life never knowing
whether or not I’d come home to her safely at the end of the day. I
told her I couldn’t quit and she told me make a choice. I went to
work that next Monday and when I came home she was gone. I think
she went to live with her mother up in Ipswich or
somewhere.”

“And you never heard from her
again?”

“Oh, eventually I heard from her: got an
invitation in the mail to her wedding. Can you believe
that?”

“No.”

“I did. Anyway, that was the last
time I was
really
in love. After her, I never let myself get that close to
falling in love again.”

“Until now,” I said.

He nodded faintly. “Yeah, guess you’re right.
It’s got my head spinning. I don’t know myself anymore. I want to
do well in my job, but I don’t want to screw things up with
Lilith.

“And that’s what I’m talking about. Your head’s
in a fog because you love her, but you’re conflicted because you
don’t want to lose control of your own situation. You don’t want to
lose her, you don’t want to fail at your job, and you don’t want to
fail at being a witch.”

“Yes. That’s it. So what do I do?”

“Easy. You just keep doing what you do best;
only live a little.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Lilith is a powder
keg; a live wire, a Roman candle in a fireworks factory. But you
know what? She digs you. So grab hold of her shirttail and hang on,
man. You’ve been given a second chance in life with the most
exciting woman on the planet and she wants to take you on a magic
carpet ride. You don’t have to worry about losing her—you have to
worry about her losing
you
, to self-doubt and
indecision.”

“You think?” He looked at me as though I had
just explained the secrets of cold fusion. There have only been a
handful of moments like that in our long careers together, and
usually it’s good for at least a free lunch or dinner. But seeing
that it was still too early for either, I tried my luck at
breakfast.

“Hey, I know what you need,” I said, slapping
his knee as I jumped to my feet. “I bet you haven’t eaten since
last night. Why don’t we go down to the Percolator for some omelets
and coffee? That’ll cheer you up.”

I saw the light of acceptance twinkle in his
eye. Then he did just as I expected; he checked his watch,
considered the prospect and then hopped off the table’s edge,
patting me on the back with a satisfied smile. “Carlos,” he
said—here it comes. Wait for it; wait for it. “That sounds like a
really good idea. And I’ll tell you what. I’m buying.”

“Really? Tony, you don’t have to do
that.”

“No, no, I insist. My treat. C`mon, let’s
go.”

And we walked out, he with his satisfied smile
and me with mine. Yes. Life is GOOD.

Tony Marcella:

Carlos and I got back to headquarters just as
Spinelli was also returning. He hadn’t had any luck with the camera
at the novelty shop, but that didn’t stop him from going one better
anyway. That’s the thing about Spinelli, the thing I suppose
threatens me more than everything else. Deep down I believe he’s a
better cop than I am. All he needs is a few more years to prove me
right, and by then he’ll have my job.

“Turns out the camera was just for show,” he
told Carlos and me. “The owner had it installed to fool would-be
robbers. Apparently it works, too. Since putting it in he says
there hasn’t been a robbery attempt in six years.”

“Impressive,” I said, “but I guess that leaves
us out of luck.”

“Not entirely. Look.” He opened up a manila
envelope he was carrying and spilled its contents out onto the
table. They looked like mug shots, a dozen maybe, all men varying
in ages from mid-twenties to late-seventies.

“These are police photos,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Where did you get them?”

He smiled coyly. “I put a call in
to a buddy down at the Chelsea P.D. who made a call to his
brother-in-law at Salem’s 1
^st
precinct. Asked him if he
had any info on the secret society known as Ingersoll’s Witness,
and it seems that the society is not so secret after all. These are
photos of all its known members.”

“You mean all the known male
members.”

He shook his head. “There are no females in the
society. They’ve been banned since its conception in 1692. They’re
old school about things like that.”