The Witch's Key (24 page)

Carlos answered, “No. Wilson from homicide took
`em.”

“Are
they
in on this now?”

“Homicide? No. They are starting to look into it,
though. Seems that ten suicides in three weeks is even too
coincidental for them. Dominic and I told Wilson about the
eyewitness who identified Lilith from the photo. We asked him to
tail her last night and this is what he came up with.”

“You
asked him to tail her?”

“It wasn’t Carlos,” said Spinelli. “Don’t blame him.
It was my idea. If you’re going to get angry, take it out on
me.”

Carlos chirped in, “The idea was both of ours, and
you would have agreed, too, if you weren’t so close to this
case.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I know so. It’s a legitimate
lead.”

I turned to Spinelli. “You agree?”

He nodded. “I do,” then added almost as a postscript,
“Sir.”

I took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.
Finally, I thought, the investigation could continue on a track
guided by levelheaded thinkers. I was afraid that my bias had
already compromised the case and that both Carlos and Spinelli
respected me too much to say so. Now, at least, though I might not
like the outcome, I could let it go where it needed without beating
myself up over it. I turned back to the photos and began thumbing
through them. “All right, so tell me what you found.”

The two exchanged glances as if having just dodged
the same bullet. Carlos came to the table first and pointed to the
picture of Lilith leaving the apartment. “You can just make out her
face in this one,” he said. “The rest are difficult, but you can
tell from the clothes that it’s her.”

“Yeah, and this one….” said Spinelli, singling out a
photo of Lilith squeezing behind a locked gate at Minor’s Point.
“Here you see where she’s holding something in her hand. If you
look closely, it looks like a witch’s key.”

“Is this about where you found the latest victim?” I
asked.

“Not but a hundred yards from there. Problem is, this
is where she gave Wilson the slip.” He pointed to the lock and
chain on the gate. “You know Wilson, don’t you?”

I smiled at his inference. “Yeah, big guy, `bout two
fifty?”

He smiled back. “Try two eighty.”

“Guess
you
should have gone, Dominic.”

We all laughed at that, but inside we were thinking
the same thing. Maybe he should have.

Dominic looked down at my hand and pointed. “What do
you have there?”

“Oh, this?” I handed him the picture that Gwendolyn
had given me. “I got this at Gitana Freight. Recognize anyone?”

He studied the photo for barely a second. “That’s
Lilith!”

Carlos came around and peered at the photo over his
shoulder. “Who’s that with her?”

“That’s Pops,” I said. “And the woman is Gypsy.”

They both stared at the picture again, their heads
shaking in disbelief. Dominic said, “Man, if that’s not Lilith then
it’s an uncanny resemblance, right down to the locket.”

“What?”

He turned the photo around and pointed to Gypsy’s
necklace. “Sure, look there, on the chain around her neck. That
looks like our locket.”

Though it was difficult to tell in black and white,
and the focus was not great, a closer look convinced me that the
oval-shaped object around her neck did appear similar to the locket
he and Carlos found at Dell’s crime scene.

“That’s amazing!” I said. “I can’t believe I didn’t
notice that before. Nice work.”

He took the compliment graciously enough, telling me,
“Thanks, but I’m sure you’d have noticed it soon enough.” I had not
the heart to tell him I doubted it. In Gwendolyn’s office, I had
studied the photo so long that my eyes nearly dropped out of my
head. If I had not noticed Gypsy’s locket then, I likely never
would have. As Carlos took the photo in hand for another look, I
turned to Dominic and challenged him on the DNA results from the
hair.

“What can I say? It’s true,” he said. “Like I told
you over the phone.” He handed me the locket and the lab report.
“They found enough DNA markers in sequence with yours to conclude
that scarcely one in ten million people could possibly have donated
that hair sample.”

“One in ten million?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. So, with nearly six billion people on
the planet, that narrows the list of potentials down to about
600.”

“I suppose, that is unless you have an identical
twin. Then the odds are more realistic in your favor.”

“How about a cousin?”

“How about just admitting that it’s your hair?” said
Carlos. “Considering your proximity to this case, you can’t
reasonably expect that it’s someone else’s.”

I opened the locket and examined the hair inside more
closely. “This is kind of strange.”

“You’re telling me?”

“No, Carlos. I don’t mean that. I mean, look at this
hair. Doesn’t it look a bit fine to you.”

He leaned in closer. “Yes, it’s a fine specimen.
Wouldn’t you agree, Dom?”

Spinelli joined the huddle. “I see what you
mean.”

“There you have it.”

“No, I mean, I see what Tony’s talking about. It is
very fine hair—like girl’s hair.”

“Or a baby’s,” I said.

“A baby girl?” asked Carlos.

“No!”

“Then where do you suppose Lilith got it?”

“We don’t know for sure that this was Lilith’s
locket.”

“Oh, boy, there he goes again.”

“What? I’m just saying, we don’t know.”

“Let’s say for now that it is,” said Spinelli. “Maybe
it’s possible that right after your return to prime your hair was
really baby-fine.”

“I don’t remember,” I said, subconsciously reaching
behind my head and stroking my hair. “I suppose it’s possible.”

“You think she clipped a sample back then?”

“I don’t know. She might have, but why?”

Carlos suggested that she needed it for some ritual,
to which Spinelli and I agreed. I reminded them about the scrying
exercise that Lilith asked me to participate in that involved a
snippet of hair. As I recalled, that sample and the one in the
locket seemed very similar.

“Enough that you believe it’s the same hair?” asked
Carlos.

“I can’t be sure.”

“Why don’t we move on?” said Spinelli. “We still have
a few things to discuss.”

“Yes, so do I. As a matter of fact, I probably should
have mentioned some of this sooner.”

“Oh?”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the
folded piece of paper. “Look at this.” I handed it to Carlos and
waited for him to read it. As he looked up from it I said, “I found
it in the back seat of Lilith’s car this morning.”

“What, just sitting there?”

“Yeah, under a Mackinaw blanket.”

“What is it,” asked Dominic.

Carlos handed him the paper. “It’s a spell she
downloaded off the Internet to make her invisible.”

“What!”

“Well, it won’t really make her invisible,” I
explained. “But if she can pull it off, the spell will make her
invisible to the person under its influence.”

Spinelli rolled his eyes back. “Wow! That’s
incredible. So, that’s how she does it.”

I snatched the paper out of his hand. “We don’t know
that.”

He snatched it back. “That’s evidence.”

“No it’s not.” I grabbed it from him again and
stuffed it back in my pocket. “First of all, I did not have a
warrant to search her car. Secondly, well, there is no secondly,
but maybe we do want to get a warrant to search the apartment after
I tell you what else I found.”

“Oh?”

I pulled out the witch’s key I retrieved from her
closet. “You see this?”

Spinelli nodded. “Nice. It looks like the ones we
found.”

“I found seven of these in her closet.”

“That
is
interesting.”

“I thought you’d like that.”

“Did you find anything else?”

“Like what?”

He pulled a small envelope from his pocket and held
it upside down over the table. My mouth dropped when I saw what
spilled from the envelope onto the pictures. “Find anything like
this?”

It was a ring, a silver ring with a medieval skull
embossed on the face that made it look like a devil. The eyes on it
burned crimson red, and two big horns protruded from its forehead.
I had seen the ring before, and the look on my face bore testimony
to it.

“You recognize it?” Spinelli asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it Lilith’s?”

I picked it up and examined it closer. “She’s got one
like it.”

“So, are you convinced now?”

I tossed the ring back onto the table. “It’s not up
to me anymore. Is it?”

“Say again?”

“You have your circumstantial. Bring her in.”

Spinelli gave Carlos a look like he might want him to
take over. I know Carlos, and the grimace on his face told me that
I was not going to like what I heard next. He cleared his throat
and placed himself between Spinelli and me.

“Listen, Tony.” He began fidgeting some. “About
that.”

“Yes?”

“You see, we already have Lilith in custody.”

“What!”

“We tried to tell you over the phone, but you turned
your phone off.”

“Where is she?”

“Down in holding.”

“Where in holding?”

Carlos gave Spinelli the look, but Spinelli would not
have it.

“Carlos, where in holding?”

“We got her in eight.”

“The padded room?”

“Yeah.”

I staggered back against the table and nearly fell to
the floor. Probably would have if Carlos had not caught me. I
grabbed him by the forearms and shook him hard. “Tell me you didn’t
put her in the jacket.”

I watched that grimace cross his face again.

“Carlos!”

“Tony, she put up such a fight. It took five guys to
restrain her.”

“Oh, dear God!” I let go of Carlos and rocketed down
the hall like buckshot. I remember hearing Carlos and Spinelli
calling for me to wait up, but my feet were moving so fast my body
would have snapped in two for trying. I got as far as the
downstairs visitor’s corridor when a locked door prevented me from
charging further.

“Tried to tell you,” said Carlos, waving his keycard
after catching up with me. “You’ll need this.”

I snatched the card away and swiped it through the
reader. “You better hope she’s calmed down by now,” I told him.
“You know hell hath no fury—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, like a woman scorned.”

I heard the lock mechanism unlatch and I pushed the
door open. “I was going to say like a pissed off witch.”

We quick-stepped down the hall, counting off odd
numbered doors on the left and even ones on the right. When we got
to number eight I put my hand up to Carlos to stop him before
either of us could see her through the little window in the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You scared?”

“Me? Oh no. You’re the one that should be afraid. I
was just going to ask you if you’d like to be buried in your dress
blues or in a suit.”

He ran his hand down his chest and belly and made a
face like he just drank sour milk. “Tony,” he made a tisk sound
through his teeth. “You know my blues don’t fit me anymore.”

“I know. I just thought you might want to look as
stupid in death as you will in about two seconds.”

I swiped the keycard and then Carlos and I entered
the room shoulder-to-shoulder. We expected to find Lilith
restrained, but anticipated a feisty reception nonetheless. The
straightjacket, I assumed, would merely even-up the odds. To our
surprise, though admittedly I should not have been, we found Lilith
setting in the lotus position meditating and humming like a
Buddhist monk. I turned to Carlos, uneasy about what I saw. “I
thought you put her in a jacket?”

If he had seen a ghost, he couldn’t have looked any
whiter. “We did.”

“What happened to it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Ask her.”

I looked at Lilith. She had stopped humming but
remained seated, her hands resting upon her lap with palms splayed
up and opened. I saw her peering through the corner of one eye,
watching Carlos and me like a charmed cobra. What happen next, I
can only describe in simplified terms, as I am still not entirely
sure what took place. I felt Carlos nudge me into the room, when
suddenly both her eyes sprang opened wide, her fish-hooked brows
arching high as if making room for a grand awakening. I fell back,
grabbing Carlos’ arm and squeezing it to keep from falling again.
He propped me up, but I heard him gasp, and for a moment thought he
might fall, as well.

On many occasions, I have likened Lilith’s eyes to
objects of mystery and beauty. They have held me spellbound and
left me subordinate to their bewitching charm. I have described
them as black jewels and ebony pearls, and sometimes as the ardent
matter of a midnight sky. But the demon-spun eyes that held us now
flickered like fire and hissed like angry steam. They followed us
as we started away, a pair of molten red orbs distorted by drafts
of thermal waves. We watched them simmer before fading back into
her head and giving way to glacier whites. With that, the room grew
colder. The lights dimmed low before blinking out entirely and
returning in a monochromatic blue.

Behind the whites of Lilith’s eyes, rolled the
familiar sable-brushed spheres that I had come to know so well.
They fell upon us for only a moment before slowly drifting skyward.
Carlos and I followed her gaze, up past the padded walls and the
cobalt lights. It seemed impossible at first, until I reminded
myself whom I was dealing with. But clinging to the ceiling, arms
splayed wide in welcoming gesture, we saw the straightjacket that
Lilith had somehow managed to shed. Carlos pointed to it and began
uttering something befitting his bemusement. At that instant, the
jacket vanished, appearing again only seconds later, this time on
him!