Witch House

by Dana Donovan

  “Am I the boss?”

  “Yes, spirit, you are the boss.”

  “Look!” said Dominic. “The windows are icing over.”

  Carlos got up and walked to the window with one of the candles, holding the flame to the ice. Within a minute, he had melted a hole through it the size of a grapefruit. He turned and said over his shoulder, “It’s four inches thick. At this rate, the entire room will be one big ice block within the hour.”

  “Sit down and relax,” said Lilith. “Your paranoia plays right into his hand. Tony, tell him.”

  “Lilith is right,” I said, though I could only hope so. The truth was I did not know. I knew she had warned us that spontaneous metaphysical disturbances might occur, but disappearing doors and sub-arctic temperatures had me second guessing everything. All I wanted to do was get on with it. I said to Lilith, “Can we get this show on the road? We are all freezing our asses off.”

  She turned to Ursula. “Spirit, you proved your point. Put the door back now and warm the room up or I will do it for you.”

  Ursula scowled at that. “Will you now?”

  Carlos, Dominic and I pushed back from the table. Lilith stood and reached for two of the candles, pinching the flames from each and balling it into one. She then began working the ball, massaging it within her hands, growing the flames ever larger with no apparent means of fuel to feed it. She stepped back and released the ball. It sank only a few inches before rising again, floating over the table on a thermal wave. “Do it,” she said, looking at Ursula. “I mean it.”

  “Lilith!” I kicked my chair out from under myself and stood. “This is a mistake. Stop it now.”

  “Spirit?” she motioned by clasping her hands together and then pulling them apart quickly. With that, the ball of fire doubled in size. “I’ll do it. I will burn your house down.”

  “Lilith, stop it!”

  Carlos and Dominic were standing now. Ursula remained seated, her face red from the heat of the flames. Lilith clapped her hands together a final time and warned, “Last chance.”

  “All right!” he said. “Here’s your damn door.”

  I looked. The door was back. I grabbed my chair and slid it over the threshold, straddling it between the two rooms. I do not know why I thought that would prevent our spirit from removing the door again, and perhaps I only encouraged him to do what he did next, just to show me that he was still boss in his house. I had turned to face Lilith in time to see her snap her fingers and return the nervous flickers of candle fire to their wicks, when she motioned for me to look back. I did, and what I saw chilled me to the bone. The spirit had removed the door again, or more accurately, moved the door to the other end of the room, leaving my chair imbedded in the wall, half inside the room and half out. I looked once more at Lilith. She seemed amused. “Are you done playing?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t playing,” I said. “I thought I could—”

  “Look!” Spinelli pointed to the windows. “It’s melting.”

  It was. The ice over the windows was melting at an unnatural rate, dissolving into a standing puddle of water on the floor several inches deep. “This is not right,” I said. “This is too much water for the amount of ice we had.” Ursula laughed. I pointed at her. “He’s doing this.”

  “Of course he is,” said Lilith. “He’s fucking with us. Don’t give in to his scare tactics.”

  Carlos said, “It’s rising. The water is still rising. It’s going to swamp us.”

  His observations were not understated. Already, the water had crept past my ankles and soaked half way up my shins. “Lilith,” I reached out for her and pulled at her shirtsleeve. “Do something.”

  “What do you want?” she said, I thought to me, but when I looked, I saw that she was talking to Ursula. “Why are you so damn angry?”

  Ursula slammed her fists down on the table. “I didn’t do anything to him,” she said. “Why did he shoot me?”

  “Who? René?”

  “Lilith?” I splashed my hands in the water, which was now waist deep and rising. “Don’t piss him off. He’ll close the door on us again.”

  “He’s right,” said Dominic. “This water isn’t stopping, and I don’t think Ursula can swim.”

  Carlos agreed. “We need to go, Lilith. We can come back later if we need to.”

  “No!” she persisted. “Give us a name, spirit. Tell us who killed you.”

  “I’m getting her out,” Spinelli said, and he had to. Sitting down, the water was already up to Ursula’s neck. “Give me a hand, Tony, will you?”

  We both came up behind Ursula. I took her right arm. Dominic took her left. As we lifted her out of her seat, she said, “Leave her. This one is mine.”

  Dominic pulled her closer. “No, she is not. She’s mine. Leave her the hell alone.”

  “Look!” Carlos cried, pointing to where the door used to be. “It’s gone again!”

  “Lilith,” I said. “He is trying to prevent us from taking her. Do something.”

  “Ursula.” Lilith splashed her hands out of the water and up over her head. “Ursula, wake up!” She clapped twice and Ursula awoke, free of John, or Johnny Buck or whoever the hell our demented spirit host was.

  I waded to the window, and with Carlos steadying me, I kicked the glass out from its frame. Water began gushing out of the room as if I had yanked a plug from a tub drain. “This is our way out,” I said, and when the waterline dropped to just above sill height, I began helping the others out. Ursula went first, followed by Lilith, Dominic, Carlos and finally me. We gathered again out front of the house where I do not think that Dominic let go of Ursula’s hand for a second. When asked if she was all right, she simply blinked back in surprise.

  “Of course, I am fine,” she said. “I wanted our séance to work, is all. Be it not for my black out, we may have succeeded.”

  “Ah, but we did succeed,” Lilith returned. “Thanks to you.”

  “Nay, thanks be to you, sister, for if it worked, tis not mine but thine own talents what delivered.”

  “It was both of you,” I said. “It was all of us, although I do not know what good it did. We left the bank bag and money inside the house.”

  “No, we didn’t,” said Carlos. “He picked up a sack by his feet and held it up. On the side were the words: Wampanoag Indian Casino. “I went back in to get it after you came out.”

  “Carlos!” I walked up to him, pinched his cheeks and kissed him on the forehead. “You are amazing. How you keep your head under such calamity, I will never know. I cannot believe that after all that, you still remembered to give our case top priority.” I stepped back and watched his smile wane. “What? You did do it to further the case, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Oh sure, that’s why I did it.”

  I scowled disappointedly. “We can’t keep it.”

  He cradled the sack to his chest and pitched it at me. “Here,” he said. I believe he was pouting. “Take your old money. It’s probably haunted anyway.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Eight o’clock the next morning, Carlos, Spinelli and I were poring over a mountain of photos and documents pertaining to our case in hopes of hitting on something, anything that we might have overlooked earlier. It is a strange world we live in where almost anyone connected to René Landau could come under suspicion for his murder, yet none more than circumstantial enough to warrant a formal interrogation. My suspicions varied almost by the hour between individuals and entire parties, all of whom could have easily committed the crime and provid an alibi. On top of everything else, our latest séance the night before added still another twist to the case that could hardly fit in a proper police report. Although our feisty spirit friend did not actually come out and tell us his name was Johnny Buck Allis, the implications appeared undeniable. Spinelli said it best when he asked, “Who else named Allis would have a bank sack in his cellar with Wampanoag Indian Casino stenciled on the side?” The answer seemed obvious. Nobody.

  �
�This is making more sense to me all the time,” Carlos remarked. We had gathered around the conference table in the media room, Spinelli and I on one side, Carlos on the other. Most of the photos were facing him, as he had turned them around one after the other and arranged them in chronological order, presenting a temporal sequence of events starting with the armored car robbery and ending with the coroner’s photos of Landau on the examination table at the morgue. “I think that Landau tried to double-cross Johnny Buck by giving him a sack full of paper with a few real bills on top, but old Bucky figured it out before Landau could get out of town. That is when he went to the cabin hideout to confront Landau, only Landau got the jump on Johnny Buck and shot him first. Then, to cover his tracks, he torched the place, making it look accidental, and telling authorities that the money went up in smoke with his dead partner.”

  “You are right,” I said. “That does make sense. However, that does not bring us any closer to finding out who killed Landau.”

  Dominic said, “What if there was a third robber.”

  “You mean Powell?”

  “No, someone else, someone not yet on our radar. That would explain why they took a third bank sack even though it had no money in it. They knew they would need a third sack to split up the loot three ways.”

  “The police reports mention nothing about a third robber,” I said.

  “That is because there was only one witness, and look who she turned out to be.”

  “Stephanie Stiles. I see what you mean. What about the second armored car employee? He didn’t mention anything about a third robber.”

  Spinelli said, “Maybe he was the third robber.”

  “That might answer one troubling question. The police report said that the armored car driver opened his door and stepped out of the truck right after it stopped. That goes against all training and logic. Why would he get out of an armored truck where he is safe and step into the line of fire from a robber’s shotgun?”

  “He would not,” said Spinelli, “unless his partner ordered him out at gunpoint.”

  “Of course, that is how Johnny Buck and Landau were able to gain access to the money and make their escape so quickly.”

  “It was the perfect crime,” said Carlos.

  “It’s never perfect,” I said, “not when someone gets killed.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “It’s obvious. We need to interview the other armored car guard. What is his name?”

  “Nanchákey,” Spinelli replied.

  “What?”

  “Francis Nanchákey. He’s Indian.”

  “Wampanoag?”

  “You guessed it.”

  “How convenient. Let me guess again. He’s unavailable for comment.”

  “Yup. He disappeared shortly after the robbery.”

  “Did he? That should have been a red flag right there.”

  “So, is he our man?” asked Carlos. “Did he kill René Landau?”

  “I don’t know. He certainly is a person of interest at this point. If he was in on the robbery, and if Landau tried cheating him out of the money, too, then he definitely had motive.”

  “So, we are back to square one,” Spinelli remarked.

  “Not necessarily. We still have to see what the ballistics results tell us on those guns we subpoenaed.”

  “Oh, yeah, about that….”

  I watched Spinelli sort through the scattering of documents spread across the table, his fingers pushing several aside without really looking at them. “Did the ballistics come in?” I asked.

  He abandoned his lackluster search and returned his gaze to me. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “All negative. None of the guns we collected came up positive for a match to the bullet we dug out of Landau.”

  “All right then.” I pushed my chair from the table and steepled my hands below my chin. “I guess we are back to square one after all. We have nothing on any of our suspects, except that all could not care less that Landau is dead.”

  “Knock, knock.” It was Lilith. She and Ursula had let themselves into the media room after someone had let them upstairs unannounced. “Can we come in?”

  I stood up and met them half way to the door. “Lilith? What are you two doing here? How did you get past the desk downstairs?”

  She flipped her hair back off her shoulder. “Are you kidding? They all know us down there.”

  “`Tis true,” said Ursula, blushing some. “That we submit to search doth not mean we are looked upon unsavory.”

  “They searched you?”

  Lilith answered, “It was just a pat down—my idea, really.”

  Ursula added, “Aye, `twas a pat down is all.” She smiled giddily. “They were most gentle.”

  “They?” Dominic stood and nudged me aside. “How many guys patted you down?”

  She began counting on her fingers. Lilith stopped her before she reached ten. “Just the men now, Urs. He asked how many guys.”

  “Yes, of course.” She began recounting.”

  Dominic turned to me. “Tony?”

  “Lilith.”

  She and Ursula broke into laughter. I swear the way they play off each other is a sport unto them. I don’t know if it is a witch thing, a sister thing or simply a girl thing. I know it is nothing Lilith and I have, and even after all these years, something that Carlos and I share. I waited for the two to catch their breaths. Eventually, Lilith corralled her wit and pled mercy. “Okay, fine,” she said, not so convincingly, “shoot us, we’re sorry. We were kidding, Dominic. Nobody touched her.”

  I think that normally I would have thought her jest all in good fun, but almost anyone else would have realized that the séance the night before had seriously compromised Dominic’s sense of guardianship. To suggest that officers downstairs had dishonored Ursula by stripping her of her dignity was a cruel and misguided ploy. That Ursula, unaware of the violation perpetrated against her during the séance, played along, only made the joke more callous.

  “Lilith, why are you here? Can’t you see we have work to do?”

  “Oh, well nice to see you, too.” She came around the table and gave Carlos a big hug, uncharacteristic, I know, but I saw it for what it was: a snub at me for not waking her with a kiss on my way out of the apartment that morning. “We came here to see if you guys wanted to go have breakfast with us.”

  “Sure,” said Carlos. “I can eat.”

  “You can always eat,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t mind some toast and coffee,” Spinelli remarked. He popped the lid on his bottle of allergy medicine and swallowed down a pill dry. “These meds tear up my gut if I don’t eat.”

  Ursula moved closer to him, enough so that their shadows from the light directly above married into one. “Hast thou eaten naught since last we met?”

  He put his hand to her cheek and brushed it softly across her lips. “I think not of eating when thou art so tender on my mind.”

  “Her lips quivered at his touch. “Thou must keep thy strength as thy mettle, bold and fearless.” She fell against him, her breasts pushing lightly against his chest, their noses almost meeting.

  Carlos said, “Did he just speak old English to her?”

  “Yes,” Lilith answered. “It’s sickening, isn’t it? He is all she talks about, and now I see that Spinelli has it just as bad.” She tapped Ursula on the shoulder. “Get a room, you two.”

  Ursula stepped back and Dominic turned away, both turning red with embarrassment. I said to Lilith, “Thanks for the offer, but we really need to get some work done here.” I motioned with a broad sweep of my hand over the table. “We need to find a way to make sense of all this before our case grows too cold.”

  “What is this?”

  “It’s our case,” said Carlos, “from the robbery nearly eighteen years ago to Landau’s death this week.”

  She picked up a black and white photo of Johnny Buck’s charred bones among the burned out ruins of the cabin. “Who is this
poor bustard?”

  “That’s your friend from last night,” I said. “Johnny Buck Allis, meet Lilith Adams.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” she said, and she tossed the photo back onto the table. “But that’s not Johnny Buck.” She gave Ursula the nod. “Come on, Urs. We’ll see if a couple of the boys from traffic want to come with us. We’ll tell them they can pat us down for real if they run the siren the whole way.”

  “Wait!” I picked up the photo and walked it to her. “What makes you think this is not Johnny Buck Allis?”

  She looked at me as if I had just asked her how she knew her own name. “Are you kidding?”

  “No. Tell me.”

  She pointed at the photo, her index finger directly over the charred skull. “This guy here?”

  “Yes?”

  “You told me Johnny Buck got his nickname because of his bucked teeth.”

  “I didn’t. Carlos did, but anyway.”

  “Yeah well anyway this guy has perfectly straight teeth.” She looked back at Ursula. “Come on, hun. Let’s roll.”

  The girls left, leaving Carlos, Spinelli and me standing shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at a photo we all had seen a dozen times before, only now it was as if we were seeing it for the first time. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “How could we have missed it?”

  “Not only us,” said Dominic, “Everyone; the police, F.B.I., U.S. Marshalls’ office, Secret Service and the damn Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

  Carlos said, “And it took just one look from an unconcerned civilian to figure it out.”

  “It just goes to prove what I keep telling you two all the time.” I tossed the photo back onto the table. “Things are not always what they seem. If ten people are told what it is they are looking at, then nine of them are going to believe it.”

  Spinelli said, “We need to re-examine everything we looked at since this case began, starting with Johnny Buck.”

  “You’re right. If the bones in this picture are not Johnny Buck’s, then we need to find out who or what is buried in his grave. Dominic?”

  “Yes, I know. Get a warrant to exhume Mister Allis’ grave and then meet you at the cemetery as soon as possible.”