Witch House

by Dana Donovan

  The Metro Four news team was more than happy to meet us out at Pete’s Place to cover the story live on their six o’clock broadcast. Pete, on the other hand, seemed less than thrilled, worried about the bad press. I suppose all that changed when the crowd gathering out front to see what the commotion was about filed in for happy hour drinks and hors d'oeuvre. I guess it is true that no press is bad press.

  Dominic did a superb job with the media, walking them through the motions of the crime and pointing out the exact spot where Landau lay dying with a gunshot wound to the chest. The problem came when he produced the shoebox, informing the film crew that it held the .38, which killed René Landau. I wanted him to shake the box for effect, but he did more. At the insistence of the reporter, he opened it and showed them the gun. Naturally, the cameraman zoomed in on the piece, filling television screens all over Greater New England with a close up shot of a vintage department issued .38 Smith & Wesson five-shot revolver.

  As the camera panned out, he closed the lid, stowed the box in the trunk of his car and announced that he would file it into evidence down at the Justice Center in the morning. When the interview was over, I called him back to the cruiser. He wore his smile like a crown. I hated like hell to wipe it off his face the way I did.

  “Did you see me?” he said. He seemed about as excited as Carlos gets when two Snickers Bars drop from the vending machine at once. “Did you see me, Tony, huh? I was a natural, wasn’t I?”

  “Yeah, a natural ass!” I said, vaporizing his smile on impact. “What the hell do you think you were doing, showing everyone the gun?”

  “They…they asked to see it.”

  “Okay, and if they asked if we were bluffing about finding the murder weapon, would you have told them yes?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, that is what you just did.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, of course you don’t. Why don’t you head on home? Carlos and I will meet up with you there in an hour.”

  I opened the door and started into the cruiser, when Carlos said, “Ah, you know what, Tony? I think I am going to ride back with Dominic if you don’t mind. We’ll see you at the house?”

  I slighted them both with a dismissive wave and then drove off in chilled defiance of common civility. I know it was wrong of me to do that, and to jump all over Dominic as I did, especially after recognizing how vulnerable he must be feeling about now. But damn it, he took a conceivably great plan and sabotage it, albeit unwittingly. Carlos said on several occasions that without a murder weapon we had nothing. He was right. The high I felt only hours earlier had completely evaporated. Worse than having the case stall out on us was having the case blow up in our faces. This one, I feared, was about to do just that.

  I spent the next hour driving around town, trying to figure out what I was missing. Here we had a cast of characters straight out of an Agatha Christie tale: a crooked cop, a sleazy lawyer, a washed up chain-smoking debutante and a bona fide Indian Chief, just to name a few. Why I could not hang anything solid on any of them confounded me. I knew the possibility existed that it could have been a simple case of the wrong guy in the wrong place, maybe a botched back alley hold up by a couple of homeless winos. Old Pete sure thought that was possible. But the cop in me disagreed. René Landau still had his wallet in his back pocket. And a gun? Winos don’t carry guns. Even if one found a gun, he would hock it before day’s end and celebrate with a bottle for all his wino friends. No, I was missing something more basic. Money, I still believed that was the motivating factor behind Landau’s death. Find the money, find the killer. Could it be that simple?

  After an hour of aimless wandering, I finally turned the car onto Spinelli’s street and pulled it into his driveway. Carlos came out immediately, instructing me to continue around the house to hide the cruiser from the street. As I drove on, he followed me in a jog, staying with me until I rolled to a stop by the hurricane fence at the end of the property.

  “That was not cool,” he said, shoving me back against the car as I stepped out.

  I looked back at my tire tracks. “What, did I run over the cat or something?”

  “No, I mean back there at Pete’s Place. You know that Dominic had never spoken to the press before. The kid was nervous as hell.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes that. You made him feel like two cents.”

  “Carlos, what he did was—”

  “A mistake, I know, and he knows it too now, but cut him some slack. The kid idolized you for Christ’s sake. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  I shut the car door with my foot and folded my arms at my chest. “He probably ruined our chances for luring our suspect out into the open, you know.”

  “I explained that to him. He knows that by showing the gun on TV that he likely told our killer we were bluffing about having the murder weapon.”

  “Then what are we doing here? We should be back at the Justice Center figuring out what the hell we are going to tell the captain.”

  “We don’t have to tell him anything. He already knows.”

  “He knows?”

  “Yes. Dominic called him and explained everything himself. He took full blame for this fiasco.”

  “Fiasco?”

  “His words, not mine.”

  I softened my posture, slipping my hands into my pockets and leaning back against the car with my butt against the door. “I wouldn’t call it a fiasco exactly. It was just a mistake.”

  “That’s right, and he feels terrible enough about it. You can’t beat him up over it any more than he’s beaten himself up already.”

  “What about his drug problem?”

  “His drug problem? Is that what this is about? You think he messed up because he is on drugs?”

  “Well?”

  “He said he has it under control. It is not up to us to decide whether or not he suffers from substance abuse.”

  “It is when we are on duty. We trust our lives to each other every day, Carlos. I don’t know about you, but I need to know that the cop who has my back is stone cold sober one hundred percent of the time, because if he isn’t, then he—”

  “He is going for help.”

  “What?”

  “We talked about it. He doesn’t think he has a problem, but he does acknowledge that maybe he should get a second opinion from another doctor. He is willing to make the effort, Tony, I think we should make the effort to support him on that.”

  I glanced past Carlos’ shoulder and spotted Dominic looking out the window. I suppos he knew we were talking about him, probably afraid we were discussing his future as a detective. Prescription substance abuse would not get him demoted, especially considering the reason he was on painkillers to begin with, but it could get him transferred to another precinct if I made a big enough stink about it. Of course, I would never do that. As I mentioned before, I value Dominic immensely. His contributions to the department, his profession and to Carlos and me personally, are immeasurable. I only hoped for his sake that he had not started down a path from which he might never return. I looked Carlos in the eye and said, “He is your boy, Carlos. You handpicked him. I know he looks up to me, but you’re his mentor.”

  “Me?” He seemed surprise at that. “No, Tony, I don’t think I’m anything special.”

  “You’re not, that’s the point. You’re unpretentious. He looks up to you for that, and for the way you do your job as though it were second nature to you. You don’t have an on-off switch. You live the values of a first rate detective every day.”

  “Wow, do you really think so?”

  “Of course, I do. You don’t see it, but you have already taken him under your wing. That’s the reason you are out here talking to me on his behalf. So now you need to nurture him, especially while he is at this crossroad in his career. If he lets this drug thing take hold of him, it could bring him down, and I would hate to see that, because he is a good cop.”

  �
��He is an exceptional cop.”

  “I know it, and that is why I want you to stick with him. Get him some counseling if that is what he needs to get off those pills. If he still needs pain management, talk to his doctor; see what he can do about reducing his dependency on such hardcore narcotics as Oxycontin.”

  “All right, Tony, I can do that.”

  “I know you can. Now tell me, what the hell are we doing here. Do you still think we can flush out our killer with a gun that any fifth-grader could tell was a decoy?”

  “I do, and so does Dominic. Listen, you know how he knows everybody, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well he called the TV station and talked to the news director about the piece. Obviously they can’t do anything about the segment they aired live at six o`clock, but he did convince them to edit the piece for their ten o`clock show and to cut out the part where he opened the box up for the camera. If our suspect didn’t see the original broadcast, but catches the later version, we may still have a chance to flush him out.”

  “He got them to do that?”

  “He did. Tony, I’m telling you, he feels awful about what happened, but look how he has taken charge. He called the captain and explained everything; he fixed things with the news station, and he is ready to apologize to you.”

  “Me?” I looked again over Carlos’ shoulder and saw the curtains drop on the kitchen window. “Huh, I think I am the one that should apologize, Carlos. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be green.” I offered up a handshake. “I was an ass, wasn’t I?”

  “Shah! A gigantic ass.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He laughed. “Fuck me? Fuck you!”

  Then I laughed, and we hugged in that brutal man sort of way where one guy nearly takes the other guy down.

  “Seriously, Tony,” he said, and he pointed toward the house. “The kid is in there waiting on pins and needles. Why don’t you go talk to him?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and we started walking. “Let’s go.” We were half way to the back door before I took my arm off his shoulder. “You know, Carlos, it is going to be a long night. We should order out. You hungry?”

  He laughed. “You kidding?”

  “How’s pizza sound.”

  “Depends. You buying?”

  “Of course.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “I thought you might say that.”

  I had started up the steps before realizing that Carlos had dropped back on me. Dominic met me at the top and held the door open. I crossed the threshold and put my arm around his shoulder to take him aside. I think he thought I was going to lecture him again. The expression on his face told me he expected nothing less. Instead, I gave him a hug and a slap on the back and said, “You did all right back there, kid. You made a mistake and then did everything you could to make it right. I can’t ask for anything more than that.”

  His stare slipped away to a spot on the floor by our feet. He shook his head. “I let you down.”

  “Yes, but you know what? There will be times when I let you down, too. The best we can do is not keep score. Does that sound all right to you?”

  I could see his lips stretching thin. He took a deep breath, and a wave of serenity seemed to find him. Then he looked at me and said simply, “Sure, that sounds good to me.”

  “Okay then.” I patted him on the shoulder and pushed him away. “I’m ordering pizza. Why don’t you put on a pot of coffee? It looks like it’s going to be a long night.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Over the years, I have sat in on countless stakeouts with Carlos, and always they have been adventures in and of themselves. Carlos treats a nighttime stakeout like a Boy Scout jamboree, complete with sandwiches, Twinkies and S`mores, the latter prepared with a Bic lighter substituting for a campfire.

  Typically, we set up for the night in a car or van, watch an apartment or maybe a warehouse and wait for someone to come or go. Often, we will sit for hours and nothing will move. It is for that reason Carlos has taken to bringing snacks and puzzle games with him to help pass the time. It used to bother me back in the old days. Now it does not. His fussing and fidgeting offers just enough distraction to keep things interesting, yet is not so disruptive that it gives us away. This night was no different. We set up in an unmarked van across the street and half a block down from Spinelli’s. I commanded the driver’s seat, Carlos took shotgun and Dominic sat behind him. We left Dominic’s car just out of reach of the streetlight in front of his house, a tempting target for anyone thinking of breaking into the trunk. I turned to Carlos to remind him that we needed to have the van back at the auto pool by the morning’s shift change, when I saw him lining a row of peanut butter crackers up along the dashboard.

  “Carlos,” I laid my hand out over his masterpiece, “what are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” he answered, and began dusting them with a fistful of crushed potato chips crumbs.

  “You’re making a mess with those. Is that absolutely necessary?”

  “Tony, the crumbs will stick to the peanut butter. You don’t have to worry.”

  “What about the crumbs that miss the crackers? What are you going to do with those?”

  He looked at the crumbs, and then at me, his face wrinkled with question marks. “What do you mean? I’m going to sweep them into the trash vents.”

  “What trash vents?”

  He pointed to the vents in the dashboard. “There.”

  “Carlos, those aren’t trash vents.”

  “What?” He smiled as though I were trying to pull one over on him. “Sure they are.”

  I turned around in my seat. Dominic looked at me, shook his head and mouthed, “Don’t go there.” He was right. Carlos would have only accused us of ganging up on him. I expected a long night. The last thing I needed was to have him sulking over a few crumbs. I returned forward, reclined the backrest as far as it would go and laced my fingers over my chest. “Wake me if anything stirs,” I said.

  That was at eight-thirty. At twelve-fifteen, I felt a nudge. “Tony.” It was Carlos and his peanut butter breath. “Tony, wake up. Something’s happening.”

  I lifted my head and shook the sleep from my bones. “What is it?”

  “Someone’s there.” He pointed out the window at Spinelli’s car. “See. He just walked out of the shadows, no car or nothin` man.”

  I turned around. Spinelli was gone. “Where’s Dominic?”

  “He went out the rear doors. He’s gonna sneak up on him from behind.”

  “Did you call for back up?”

  “Got a black and white on the way, told him to run lights only.”

  “All right then.” I patted my weapon. “Let’s move out.”

  We had disabled the dome light on the van so that slipping out would not arouse detection. I motioned by hand signal for Carlos to cross the street and start moving toward our suspect while I advanced in a crouch behind a line of parked cars along the curb. We had progressed barely twenty feet when I heard Spinelli shout, “Police. FREEZE!”

  I popped up from behind the row of cars and called to Carlos, “He’s not waiting. Move it. Move it!”

  We descended upon our suspect in a three-pronged cobra strike, taking him down without incident. Dominic, still technically on light duty, stood over the suspect, holding him at gunpoint while Carlos kneeled on the back of the man’s neck, pinning his face to the grass. I had the easy part cuffing him. After standing him up, we dragged him into the glow of the streetlight and turned him around.

  “You!” I said, surprised it was not Tarkowski. “I don’t believe it. You know, I told Carlos that I thought you had more sense, but here you are.”

  “I knew it all along,” said Carlos.

  Dominic laughed. “You did not.”

  “Did too, said it right from the get go; Powell is our man. He killed Landau.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” said Powell. “I swear.”

  “Then what are you doing bre
aking into Spinelli’s trunk?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you were looking for a spare tire.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “That’s right. You were looking for your gun.”

  “All right, I admit it. I saw the eleven o’clock news talking about how you found the gun. I thought I would get it, but not because it’s mine or because I killed Landau. I thought someone else killed him, and I wanted to get the gun back to him.”

  “Who, Tarkowski?”

  “Frank? No. I wouldn’t help that slug. I’m talking `bout….” He shook his head. “No, forget it. Take me in if you have to.”

  “No, why don’t you tell us? We’ll figure it out anyway.”

  He rocked his head back and leveled his sights at me in a squint. For a moment, I thought he recognized me from the old days. At the least that he recognized that look; the same one Lilith gives me when she searches my soul for secrets I have buried, or thought I had buried. I know that when she gives me that look I can hide nothing from her. Perhaps Powell sensed the same thing; and though I do not like using witchcraft in my job, I suspect that sometimes it will come into play whether I like it or not. This time I liked it.

  “It’s Mochohyett,” I said, “isn’t it? Did he kill Landau?”

  “Of course he did.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Powell turned his face toward the ground to break eye contact. “I can’t say for certain, but I think so.”

  Spinelli asked, “What makes you think so?”

  He looked at Spinelli, less intimidated by his gaze. “That’s the word on the street. You can’t say he didn’t have motive.”