Witch House

by Dana Donovan

  “A lot of people had motive,” I said.

  “Not me.”

  “No? So why try to get the gun back for Mochohyett? Do you work for him? Are you on the take?”

  “You know he is,” said Carlos. “Aren’t you, Powell? You’re as crooked as a….” He turned to Spinelli. “What’s crooked, Dom?”

  “I don’t know; a country road?”

  “Yes, a country road. That is what you are, crooked as a…. No, wait.” He referred to Spinelli again. “That sounds too nice. I like a crooked country road. Give me something else.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “So, what is it, Powell. Are you into the casino for more money? Were you hoping if you got the gun back to Mochohyett that he’d forgive your gambling debts?”

  Powell nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Bullshit!” This from Spinelli, who seldom surprises me with such language. “You’re into this thing up to your ass, Powell. We know you were in on the armored car robbery. You are the reason the robbers got away, and that makes you an accessory. You are as responsible for John Davis’ murder as Landau and Allis. Admit it, you’re just another one of Mochohyett’s thugs and you pulled the trigger on René Landau.”

  “Fuck you!” said Powell, charging Spinelli head-on, though with his hands cuffed behind his back he could do nothing more than butt him with his bellowed chest. “You don’t know anything, you little paper-pushing twerp. If you keep digging into this mess, you’re the one who might show up dead in some back alley somewhere.”

  “You threatening me, Powell, you son of a bitch?” Spinelli reached out, grabbed a fistful of Powell’s shirt below the collar and twisted it in a knot. I quickly wedged myself between them, while Carlos came up behind Dominic and pulled him back.

  “Enough!” I said, “break it up now!” We got them separated beyond arm’s length, just as Officer Waterman from our back up patrol arrived. “Now, everybody simmer down.” I pointed to the front of the car. “Dominic, go stand over there.”

  Powell gestured toward the arriving officer. “Sure, you stop the brutality when one of my boys shows up.”

  “Save it for the judge,” I said, and I handed him off to Waterman. “Take him in, read him his rights and process him, but keep him segregated. I doubt if he has any more friends in jail than out.”

  “What are we charging him with?”

  I looked to Carlos. “What will stick?”

  He puckered his cheeks and blew. “Wow, I don’t know, attempted breaking and entering of an unoccupied vehicle?”

  “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “How `bout interference in an active police investigation?”

  “Sure, and attempted assault on a police officer?”

  “That might stick.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “He’s going to get off, isn’t he?”

  Carlos made a tick sound through his teeth. “Yup, like a sailor in a whorehouse.”

  I turned to Waterman. “Start with those. We’ll be in later to finish the paperwork.”

  Carlos and I watched him seat Powell in the back of the patrol car and drive off. We then joined Spinelli at the front of the car. Dominic began saying something in apologetic fashion about his behavior, but I stopped him. “It’s over,” I said. “Forget it.” He started to turn away. I bumped his chin lightly with my knuckles. “Come on, tell me your thoughts.”

  “`Bout what?”

  “Powell. Are you buying his story?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it could be the truth.”

  “Uh-uh, I don’t buy it,” said Carlos. “I think if Mochohyett wanted that gun, he would have sent one of his home boys for it, not Powell.”

  “He didn’t,” I said. “Powell said it was his idea. He wanted to get the gun and give to Mochohyett.”

  Spinelli asked, “Does that mean Mochohyett killed Landau?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. A cop like Powell really has his ear to the pavement. If he says the word on the street is that Mochohyett killed Landau, then we need to seriously consider the source.”

  “What if he’s wrong?”

  “If he’s wrong,” said Carlos, “then we still might see someone come looking for the gun tonight?”

  Dominic and I shared surprised looks. “Indeed we might,” I said. I checked my watch before gesturing toward the van. “The night is still young. Perhaps we should camp out a bit longer and see what gels.”

  Carlos said, “I call shotgun!”

  “You always call shotgun,” Dominic argued.

  “I do not.”

  “Yes you do, every time.”

  “Well, it’s not my fault you don’t think of calling it.”

  “I don’t think of calling it because it’s childish.”

  “You saying I’m childish?”

  “I’m saying if the shoe fits.”

  “Oh, the shoe fits right up your—”

  “All right, enough! You,” I pointed to Carlos and then at the van. “You, take shotgun.”

  “All right. Ha!”

  To Dominic I said, “You take the driver’s seat.” I watched Carlos’ smile evaporate completely. Before he could utter a word, I said, “You got a problem with that?” He shook his head. “Dominic, how `bout you?”

  He grinned smugly. “Nope.”

  “Good, then let’s do this.”

  We piled into the van again, Dominic behind the wheel, Carlos holding down shotgun and me in the back, my legs stretched out across the bench seat and my feet propped up on the opposite armrest. I thought I might go back to sleep; heaven knows I needed it, but the bench seat paled, albeit mildly, to the sofa back at the apartment. It left me with a kink in my neck and time to dwell on my suspicions about Powell.

  I never cared much for Sergeant Powell. For as long as I have known him, he has always come across as arrogant, pompous and self-serving. That said, the one thing I did like about him was that I could always tell when he was lying, which was often. Under the streetlight, he told us that he wanted to get the gun and give it to Chief Mochohyett. As far as I could tell, he was not lying. Of course, that did not necessarily mean that Mochohyett killed René Landau. It simply meant that Powell believed he did, and if Powell believed that, then he could not have killed Landau himself. We may have been no closer to knowing who killed René Landau, but at least I felt as if we knew who did not.

  I had barely swallowed that bitter pill when I heard a whispered shout, “Look! Someone else is here.”

  I sat up quickly and looked out the front window. I saw a man in dark jeans and a dark hooded jacket, running from car to car in a stoop, stopping and ducking low at each one just long enough to blend into the shadows. As he moved toward Spinelli’s car, I saw that he carried with him a large pipe like a tire iron or a crowbar. I tapped Carlos on the shoulder and said, “Carlos, I want you to sneak up along the sidewalk and work your way behind him, but stay on this side of the street. I’ll slip out the back door and come at him from the other side.”

  “What about me,” Dominic asked.

  “You call for back up, wait about ten seconds, and then follow me out. Let’s do it just like before; catch him by surprise and take him down fast. Got it?”

  “Got it,” said Dominic, and Carlos echoed him.

  I waited for Carlos to exit the van, letting him get a head start up the sidewalk before I slipped out the back. I crossed the street, assumed a crouched position behind a pickup truck and waited for Dominic to catch up. I told him we should branch off and move in parallel forks along the row of parked cars lining the curb. He took the right side. I took the left. We advanced, holding just short of his car by about twenty feet. When I saw that Carlos had come around from behind and begun his drive, Dominic and I moved in.

  “POLICE!” I said, announcing myself as I moved into the glow of the streetlight on the sidewalk. “Drop it and turn around, now!”

  Dominic sidestepped into the center of the street, triangulating our setup. “Drop
it!” he ordered, his voice cracking with emotion. “Drop it and get`ja hands up where we can see`m!”

  Our suspect froze, but for a second. He flinched in our direction, thought twice, turned and then started away in a sprint. He took only a few steps before Carlos popped out from behind a tree, leveled his weapon in a shooters stance and hollered, “FREEZE!”

  Surrounded, the suspect dropped his crowbar, braided his fingers behind his head and spread his legs wide. Carlos moved in, his arms extended and locked, his weapon trained on our hooded suspect with laser-like precision. I motioned to Dominic to cuff the prisoner while I watched his back. Once that was done, we dragged him into the light, as we had with Powell, and pulled back his hood.

  “Kemper!” Carlos announced, perhaps more surprised than anyone.

  Dominic said, “Landau’s lawyer? Wow, he is a lot shorter than I thought.”

  I tagged Kemper on the arm. “So what is it, you killed Landau because he wouldn’t tell you where he hid the money?”

  “No,” he said, sounding offended. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Ha,” said Carlos. “Where have we heard that before? Oh, yeah, when Powell said it ten minutes ago.”

  “It’s true. I never hurt a soul in my life.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked. “Are you going to tell us that you weren’t trying to break into Spinelli’s trunk? We caught you red-handed.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand. It’s simple. You killed René Landau and you got rid of the gun, but when you saw the eleven o’clock news, you thought we had found it. That’s why you came here with a crowbar, isn’t it?”

  “But it’s not what you think. I saw the six o’clock news. They showed the gun. I saw that it looked like a police issued .38, the kind my nephew carries.”

  “Tarkowski?”

  Dominic said, “It’s starting to add up, isn’t it?”

  “Wait, you thought your nephew shot Landau?”

  “That’s right. Frank told me about the money. He said he knew that Landau stashed it somewhere and he thought he could get him to tell him where it was.”

  “But he didn’t, so Frank killed him. Is that it?”

  Kemper shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s what I thought. I mean I knew he was in a hurry to leave town.”

  “Did Frank say anything to you to make you think he killed Landau?”

  “Well, he didn’t exactly come out and admit it, but like I said, I know he wants to leave town in a hurry. I thought if I could do this for him that he might….”

  “What, share the loot with you? Listen, Kemper, this does not look good for you. If you think….”

  “Tony.” Carlos nudged me and gestured toward the street. I looked out in a frozen stare. The backup we called for had rolled to a stop next to Spinelli’s car. Officer Brittany Olson, one of the finest, most decent officers serving the Second Precinct, stepped out and made her way toward us. As she approached, I found myself slipping into a state of surreal retreat. I began thinking about a period in my life when I had come to question everything I thought I knew about my profession and myself. It was after an especially trying case, one involving a young kidnapped victim named Leona Diaz. It seemed that everything about that case had spiraled out of control. Suspects became victims. Victims became suspects. One man hanged himself in my jail cell. Calamity and chaos became synonymous with rise and shine. In the end, about the only ones left standing were Carlos, Lilith and me. We did eventually rescue Leona. For that, I was grateful, though I never fully accepted or came to terms with the untidy outcome of the case. The weeks and months following found me stressed and disoriented beyond explanation and eventually lead to my voluntary retirement from the force.

  That is when Brittany came into my life, providing me comfort and reassurance and keeping me from having a near fatal meltdown. The captain assigned her to watch over Leona, and by extension, I guess, over me, too. That is when things got interesting between us. Shortly afterward, I moved to Florida. I don’t know; I suppose I just needed to put everything behind me for a while. I know it was not fair to her or to Leona, but that was my choice at the time and I had not attempted to contact either of them the entire year I was gone. Of course, that was before my return to prime, and though I am with Lilith now, I sometimes think about what might have been. I smiled at Brittany and offered her my hand.

  “Officer Olson,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”

  She smiled and we shook, her thoughts threading the past as she tried recalling my name. “Have we met?”

  “Marcella,” I said, and my heart skipped a beat when I thought she recognized the old me behind the new face. I beamed a guilty grin, hoping to dilute her memory. “I’m Tony’s kid.”

  “Oh, sure, I see the resemblance.”

  “Yeah, my father talks about you all the time.”

  Her smile faded, and I guessed she abandoned her unlikely suspicions. “Does he?”

  “Yes, all the time.”

  She shook her head lightly, as if denying my ruse. “I’d have thought he forgot about me.”

  I felt her hand slip from mine, and with it the end of an era that I had never completely let go of. “Yes, well, maybe not so much these days, but….”

  And like that, we were strangers again, separated by generations, and worlds apart. She glanced passed my shoulder at Kemper. “What do we have?”

  “A killer,” said Carlos.

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” Kemper argued.

  “Save it,” I said, and I handed him off to Olson. “Take him downtown, read him his rights and book him on attempted burglary of an unoccupied vehicle.”

  “He’ll be out by morning,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know.” I looked to Carlos and Dominic. “This proves nothing, what are we doing out here?”

  Carlos said, “We’re stirring the waters.”

  I laughed. “Muddying the waters is more like it.” I waved vaguely to dismiss Kemper. “Go on, get him out of here.”

  Olson began leading Kemper off by the arm. I called back to her to wait up. She turned around, and in the glow of the streetlight, I thought she had never looked more beautiful. “Yes?” she said, holding her head high.

  I stepped out into the street, meeting her halfway between Spinelli’s car and hers. With Dominic and Carlos looking on, I leaned in close and whispered to her, “I’m sorry, Britt. Forgive me?”

  She pulled back and smiled warmly, as if reconciling her previous suspicions. Then, brushing my cheek with the back of her hand before slapping it gently, she whispered back, “Of course, Tony.”

  I stood silent, awash in the amber streetlight, feeling the old man within me watching through a young man’s eyes. She loaded her prisoner into the back of her cruiser, boarded without looking back and then drove away. Only then did I realize that I had not told her my first name, yet she called me Tony. Behind me, Carlos and Dominic chattered like hens, no doubt the former advising the latter about my personal carnival of relationship disasters preceding my near emotional meltdown. They stopped only after I turned back to face them. Both straightened up and found focus elsewhere. I strolled to the curb and stepped up on the sidewalk.

  “Are we done here?” I asked.

  Spinelli said, “I don’t know. We seem to be getting our share of nibbles tonight. Maybe we should stay out some.”

  Carlos shook his head. “No one else will show. We’re done here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “No reason. I just have that feeling.”

  “Huh, you’re out of snacks, aren’t you?”

  “No.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Snickers Bar. “I still have this.”

  “Good. That should hold you a while. Let’s stick it out for a couple more hours.”

  “I’ll do fifteen minutes,” he countered. “That’s twice what it takes to eat a Snickers.

  “An hour.”

  “A half-hour,
and we count the five minutes that we’ve been out here arguing about it.”

  “We’ll give it forty-five minutes,” I said, “and then we will all go home and get some sleep. How’s that?”

  “Forty-five,” said Spinelli. “Fine.”

  Carlos agreed grudgingly.

  We piled into the van once again, and this time Spinelli called shotgun, sticking Carlos in the back of the van with his wounded pride and injured spirits. I thought his sulking might continue for the duration of the stakeout, but after only ten minutes, I spotted another mysterious figure moving toward Spinelli’s car. “Holy shit, I don’t believe it.” I pointed out the window. “We have another one!”

  “I told you,” Spinelli said in a hushed shout. “They’re coming out of the woodwork.”

  “All right, guys, it’s showtime again.” I tagged Dominic on the arm without looking. Listen, why don’t you sneak around the back like you did before and come up from behind him? We’ll give you a fifteen seconds head start while we call for back up.” To Carlos I said, “You take the left flank again; I’ll take the right. Close in on him at will and take him down.”

  “What if it’s a woman?”

  “What?”

  “You said close in on him and take him down. What if it’s not a he? What if it’s a she?”

  “You mean what if it’s Stiles?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  I gave Spinelli a push. “Go on, Dominic. Carlos, let’s just play it by ear, shall we?”

  As Dominic slipped out the door, I keyed the radio and called for another unit to roll in silent. Then Carlos and I eased out, melting into the shadows and moving with stealth toward our target. From half a block away, I could tell that our suspect was not Stephanie Stiles. Indeed, from a stature standpoint I knew we were closing in on a man, six foot four or five, two-sixty or better and armed with a dent puller. Our suspect used the device to pop the lock on Dominic’s trunk, and while hunched over and sifting through its contents, the three of us moved in.

  “FREEZE!” we hollered, our voices overlapping in staggered echoes. “POLICE! Drop it! Drop it!”

  We closed in with weapons leveled, exacting perfect extensions of our arms. Our suspect dropped the dent puller into the trunk and raised his hands over his head. Spinelli came around the car on the driver’s side, closing off any escape route along the sidewalk. I crossed the street opposite him, completing the squeeze play, while Carlos closed in from behind. He holstered his weapon and cuffed the man before patting him down.