Witch House (22 page)

“I don’t know whose idea it was, probably
Powell’s, but someone put a lot of thought into it. It probably did
not come together fully until the trial had already gotten
underway. That is when the list of players and their connections to
one another began coming to light for Powell. It started with Paul
Kemper, Landau’s lawyer. Kemper, it turns out, had an old
acquaintance from college who at the time was Deputy Superintendent
of Operations at Walpole State. His name was Bill DeAngelo. Later,
DeAngelo became Superintendent of Operations, but I am getting
ahead of myself, aren’t I?”

“It’s your story,” said Stiles. “Tell it as
you wish.”

I smiled politely. “Of course. As Deputy
Superintendent, DeAngelo would find himself in the perfect position
to lean on Landau until he found out what happened to the money,
and with his brother-in-law, Judge Cardell, handing out the
sentencing, that arrangement seemed all but assured.”

Carlos, who had maintained silence until
then, said to Stiles, “That is where you came in.”

“Is it?” she said.

“You know it.”

“Yes,” I said, “you see, for the plan to
work, the court had to find Landau guilty. Even with Kemper’s
amateur performance as Landau’s council, without an eyewitness, he
might still have gone free. Enter the mystery witness. Ron Powell
calls you up, maybe takes you out for a drink and presents you with
a million dollar proposal. All you had to do was perjure yourself,
say that you saw Landau driving the get-a-way car and assure his
guilty verdict. By providing closed-door depositions to the
prosecution and to Kemper without Landau in the room, you could
maintain anonymity. That way you were able to meet Landau in prison
later under your maiden name, work your way into his life and make
him fall in love with you. With luck, you could extract information
about the money’s whereabouts from him and you all would run away
laughing. I am sure it sounded simple enough at the time, didn’t
it?”

I could see the questions on Stile’s face,
wondering how I had put together the details of a scheme that
should have made everyone involved rich. But she would not give me
more than that. If I had hit the nail on the head, I had not driven
it home. She leaned over the coffee table and flicked her cigarette
into the ashtray. She then picked up one of the mixed drinks,
swished the ice cubes around and drank it until the cubes slid down
the glass and against her teeth. I thought she might respond after
setting the glass down, but she did not. She merely sat back in her
chair, hit on her smoke, crossed her legs and waited for me to
continue. I did.

“I am guessing that René Landau was not the
pushover everyone thought he was,” I told her. “It is obvious he
fell smitten with you. He received you eagerly on visitation days.
However, he never gave you the clues as to the location of the
money. Maybe he knew that DeAngelo recorded your conversations.
Maybe he did not quite trust you. What happened then? Did weeks
become months, months became years? I know that DeAngelo eventually
became Superintendent of Operations. That is when he began allowing
you two conjugal visits, isn’t it? Still, that did not provide
results. I imagine that in time you grew tired with the scheme.
Here you were, putting forth all the effort while the men were
sitting back waiting for the big payout. You decided to renegotiate
your end of the deal. If they were going to have you continue
seeing Landau, then they would have to put you up in this
apartment, pay your bills and keep you in cigarettes and alcohol.
How did they decide whose checks they would use? Let see, the
casino’s books are subject to review by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, as well as the State’s Gaming Commission, so that would
not do. Kemper certainly could not afford to risk his name coming
up in connection with payouts to a witness for the prosecution.
Powell was only a street officer at the time. His bank account
could hardly conceal the flow of money coming in from the others
and then out to you. I guess that left DeAngelo. Have I missed
anything?”

“Only your calling,” said Stiles, “because I
think you make a better story teller than you do a cop.”

“Is that right?”

“It is.”

“Tell me then how the story ends. What
happened next? René Landau gets out of prison, and what happens?
Does he find out about you and DeAngelo? Maybe his kid tells him
about you and Powell. You have already admitted that you and he
argued over you seeing another man. Did he tell you he was leaving
town? I imagine that must have forced some hands. I can imagine a
scurry of activity behind the scenes; Chief Running Bear getting
nervous about the money, Powell afraid he might lose you, DeAngelo
and Kemper watching eighteen years of nest sitting about to hatch a
dud. Which one panicked and pulled the trigger? You all saw him
after he got out. Was it you?”

“Me? You are joking. I am the grieving
fiancée, remember?”

“Grieving like a black widow.”

“Oh, Detective, I am hurt.”

“Not now, but this case will prove me
right.”

“No, you have nothing. It seems to me that
you are trying to solve a closed case. The court found a suspect
guilty of a crime, and that suspect has finished out his sentence.
Is this what we pay our civil servants for now, to work old cases
that have already been solved?”

“Ms. Stiles, the armored car robbery case may
be closed, but the money from that robbery is not up for grabs.
Besides, it is precisely the details surrounding that robbery that
lead to a motive in the killing of René Landau.”

“All you have is theories, Detective,
theories and no evidence. Except for a corpse and an overactive
imagination, you have nothing. Now then, please get out of my
apartment before I lodge a complaint against you for police
harassment. We are through here.”

“We will get out, however, we are not
through. If we feel the need, we will return.”

“Then you better have a warrant, Detective,
because I have said all I have to say.”

Carlos and I got up and headed for the door.
We were almost there when I stopped and turned back. She had
followed us only half way and was waiting by the bedroom door for
us to leave. “May I ask one more question, Ms. Stiles?”

She stole a drag of her cigarette, and I
swear the smoke never left her when she spoke. “What is it?”

“Do you own a gun?”

“A gun?”

“Yes, you know,” I pointed as though I were
holding a revolver, “a gun.”

“No, I do not, Detective. Now will you
leave?”

I tipped an imaginary hat, said goodbye and
we left. Outside, Carlos was ready to throw me under a bus. “What
the hell was that?”

“What?”

“That, in there.” He threw his glance at the
apartment as if flicking bangs from his eyes. “Why did you tell her
all that? You laid out our entire case. Now she knows
everything.”

“Carlos, if we are right, then she already
knew everything anyway.”

“Yes, but now she knows that we know.”

“So?”

“So…where is the element of surprise?”

I nudged him on toward the car. “There is no
surprise. She is right about the robbery case. It is a closed
matter.”

“What about her perjuring herself?”

“Too late, the statute of limitations for
perjury expired fifteen years ago. If we cannot connect her to René
Landau’s murder, then we have nothing on her.”

“Then what did you have to gain by telling
her all that?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something. Look, if we
can spook her or DeAngelo or anyone else involved, then perhaps it
will jolt one of them off kilter, force someone to make a
mistake.”

“Are we going to wait out here to see who
comes out of her apartment?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She knows we are here. I am not going to sit
out front of her apartment all evening playing a waiting game just
to see who she is shagging now.”

Carlos laughed. “Shagging, Tony?”

“Yeah, it means—”

“I know what it means, or what it meant in
1966. Man, you look twenty-something now. You should act it.”

“What? I have to change my vocabulary just
because I am forty years younger now?”

“Sure, why not? Lilith does it.”

I pushed him away in jest. “Lilith is Lilith.
She has been doing it longer.”

“Lilith is a contemporary. She moves with the
times. You can learn from her.”

“What you mean is Lilith is a witch.”

“You’re a witch, too. Maybe you should start
acting like one.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean use it or lose it. Take this case for
instance. Why don’t you cast a spell or something and make everyone
tell us exactly what they know? We can have this case solved in no
time.”

“No, I will not do that. You hear me all the
time getting on Lilith’s case about using magic for everything. I
have seen her use suggestion spells on people just to get ahead of
the line at the grocery store. One moment some little old woman is
counting out pennies to pay for a bunch of bananas, and the next
she is stepping out of line to run down a bottle of Geratol.”

“So….” Carlos crowded the lines on his
forehead. “If she is old, maybe she needs the Geratol.”

“It’s not just old women, Carlos. I mean it.
Lilith never stands in line for anything longer than a minute. It
never fails. You should see the way people part before her like the
Red Sea. I find myself doing it, too. Like yesterday, I was in the
bathroom, stripped down to nothing but a smile, ready to hop into
the shower, and the next thing I know, I am stepping aside to let
her get in before me.”

He laughed. “That just means you are a
gentleman.”

“No it doesn’t. I did not want her to cut in.
I was running late for work as it was.”

“So, why didn’t you get in there and shower
with her?”

I gave him the hooked brow look. “Carlos,
have you any idea what Lilith is like in the shower?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and he smiled
devilishly, his eyes sliding into a dreamy stare that lulled him
miles from where we stood. “
Have
I thought about Lilith in
the shower, emm-hmm.”

I slapped him on the head and woke him. “Not
what she looks like, you perv, what she is like. She’s a hog in the
shower. She takes up all the room. I mean the way she lathers up
her hair and whips it around like a rodeo rope, and how she reaches
behind her head with both hands to wash that impossible spot
between her shoulder blades, her elbows skyward, her spine arched
unnaturally like a contortionist. Then she makes me wash the rest
of her back, and complains if the sponge isn’t soapy enough. Truly,
the suds have to stay foamy and bubbly. Like pearly beads, they
drizzle down her body; splitting paths that snake around her curves
and down her legs. Oh, and God forbid if you miss a spot, or she
will…. Carlos!” I swear, the man jerked as though I had zapped him
with Spinelli’s stun gun. “Are you daydreaming?” He blinked in
rapid succession, inhaled as though he had just surfaced from a
deep sea dive, and then smiled, satisfied, I think. “Jesus, Carlos,
would you like a cigarette?”

“No,” he said. “You know I don’t smoke.”

I opened the car door and nudged him in.
“I’ll drive. You get on the phone to Spinelli. Let him know we are
coming back. Tell him to have the ballistics report from Powell’s
service revolver ready when we get there. Oh, and remind him about
the séance tonight. We don’t want to be late.”

I started the car and we headed out. We spent
the first part of the ride not talking, mostly because I was still
filing the events of our visit with Stephanie Stiles away in my
mind. I do that often, and as Carlos knows me so well, he usually
affords me the first few minutes of the ride after an interview to
do that. By the second half of the ride, however, I noticed that
Carlos had something on his mind, too. He appeared locked in
concentration, as he peered out the side window, his nose to the
glass, fogging a nickel-sized knot on the glass that reminded me of
snow. Against my better judgment, I reached over and tapped him on
his arm. “Penny for your thoughts.”

He looked over at me, a curious smile pulling
at the corner of his mouth. “Hey, you know how Ursula looks just
like Lilith?”

She does, I think to most people, but not to
me. I guess twins get that a lot, also. Except for the people
closest to them, many distinct differences make them forget they
look so much alike. I did not go into all that with Carlos.
Instead, I said, “Yeah?”

His smile grew by degrees. “You should tell
Dominic that story.”

I shook my head and smiled back suspiciously.
“What story?”

His teeth were impossibly large now. “The one
about Lilith in the shower. I think he would like that. It will
drive him crazy.”

“Carlos, that…. I was telling you about—”

“`Bout Lilith, I know, but it works for
Ursula, too.”

“Forget it.”

“Tony, come on.”

“I said no!”

“I will be fun. You know it.”

I turned the car onto Main. After a minute of
silence, Carlos folded his arms to his chest and sank into his
seat. I do not want to say that he was pouting, but it was close.
As we pulled into the parking garage at the Justice Center, I
looked to him and said, “It would be funny, wouldn’t it?”

His lips stretched to a thin white line, his
side-glance checking me out covertly. “That’s the Tony I know,” he
said, and getting out of the car, added, “Tell him tonight on the
way to the séance, and throw in something about how she likes you
to wash her feet for her.”

“Who, Lilith?”

“Yes.”

“But she doesn’t.”

“That’s all right. Tell him anyway.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

“Are you saying Dominic has a foot
fetish?”

“Ha, you don’t know?”