Witch House

by Dana Donovan

  “He’s clean,” he said.

  I stepped in, snagged our suspect by the collar and ushered him into the light. “Okay, let’s just see who we have here. I’m betting it’s—”

  “DeAngelo!” said Dominic, which impressed me, as he had only seen the man’s picture once. He looked at Carlos and then at me, his grin bigger than his now inflated ego. “Look, Tony, it’s the warden.”

  “Yes, Dominic, I see that.”

  “You were right about him. He killed René Landau.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” DeAngelo insisted. “I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Oh?” Carlos crowded DeAngelo back against the car’s fender. “You saying you didn’t come here to steal the handgun?”

  “No! I mean, yes.” DeAngelo tried sidestepping out from Carlos’ shadow, but Carlos would not have it. “I mean that is not why I wanted the gun. I swear. See, I saw Detective Spinelli’s interview on the six o’clock news and I thought—”

  “No, let me guess. You thought you could come here tonight to steal the gun so that you can give it to the real killer. Is that it?”

  “Yes, exactly!”

  “A likely story, but we’ve heard that one twice already tonight.”

  “It’s true, I swear!”

  I stepped in and eased Carlos off DeAngelo with a gentle push. “All right then,” I said, “tell us who you think killed René Landau?”

  He dropped his head and shook it. “I can’t say.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Sure it matters. If you can’t, it’s because you’re afraid for your life. That means you’re trying to help someone like Chief Running Bear or maybe Sergeant Powell. If you won’t, then that almost certainly means you’re afraid you’ll implicate someone you love, like Stephanie Stiles.”

  “No!” he said, but in his voice I heard, yes. “I came here on my own account. I wasn’t helping anybody, so you might as well arrest me now.”

  “It’s Stiles,” Dominic said, pointing an accusing finger. “You can see it on his face. He’s in love with her. He wants to get the gun back to save her ass, hoping that she’ll dump Tarkowski and take him back.”

  “And she would have!” DeAngelo spat, “if you hadn’t gotten in my way.”

  “Save it.” I gestured toward the approaching squad car rolling up to the curb. “You can call your lawyer from downtown and talk all you want from there.”

  I handed the prisoner off to the arriving officer, instructing him to read DeAngelo his rights before booking him on charges similar to those leveled against Powell and Kemper. I did not suppose any of them would be there in the morning after posting bail on what amounted to relatively minor charges. Burglarizing an unoccupied vehicle typically carries a bail of five to ten thousand dollars. Ten percent of that is an easy check for any of them to write to a bondsman.

  As I watched the cruiser pull away with DeAngelo in the back seat, I heard Carlos say, “Ho, boy, what are the odds? Three suspects come here to steal a gun to save three other suspects from prosecution.”

  I shook my head and laughed at our pitiful luck. “That is if we can believe any of them. You have to remember that everyone who came here tonight had motive, means and opportunity to kill Landau, and all of them know that we are looking at everyone else just as closely as we were looking at them. If I were in their shoes, I would say the same things that we heard here tonight to save my skin.”

  “Where does this leave us?” Carlos asked.

  “Right where we started,” Dominic answered, “with a boatload of suspects and no real evidence. Guess this gun in the trunk idea of mine was no help.”

  “Not necessarily.” I put my foot up on the bumper of the car and glanced into the trunk. “We may not know who pulled the trigger on Landau, but we know that not everyone pulled the trigger. That is to say, three people came here tonight and told us that someone else killed Landau. At least two of them were telling the truth.”

  “And possibly all three.”

  “That’s right, possibly all three. So, how do we narrow it down?”

  Dominic said, “We give them a lie detector test.”

  “No, we can’t make them do that.”

  “We can make them want to,” said Carlos.

  “How do you mean?”

  “We tell each of them that the person they were trying to protect has implicated him as the killer. Whoever is innocent will want to take a polygraph to prove it.”

  “I like it, but you know what that means, don’t you?”

  “It means that we have to do it tonight before they all throw bail.”

  I checked my watch. “It’s too soon to go now. We need to give it time to make it look like we had time to question Mochohyett, Tarkowski and Stiles.”

  Carlos smiled, clapped his hands clean and rubbed them along his belly. “Great!” he said. I knew what was coming next. “Let’s go to breakfast.”

  I looked at him in mild disbelief. “You just ate pizza like four hours ago.”

  “I know. I’m starving.”

  I took a breath and let it out with a sigh, wondering why I bother. “You buying?”

  His face grew tart. “No. It’s Dominic’s turn.”

  “Mine?” Dominic pointed at the busted lock on his trunk. “Who’s going to pay for this? You?”

  “Me? I don’t think so. It was your idea to plant a decoy in your trunk.”

  “Tony?”

  “Dominic, don’t worry. The department will cover that.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He turned his palms up empty. “I guess breakfast is on me then. Let me run in the house and get my wallet.”

  He sprinted off, and after he was gone, Carlos turned to me and asked, “Is the department really going to pay to repair his trunk lock?”

  I shook my head. “Probably not. You gonna tell him?”

  “Not before he pays for breakfast.”

  “All right then.” I plunged my hands into my coat pockets. It had grown considerably colder as the night drew on. A cup of coffee and a warm Danish was sounding mighty good about then. I smiled back at Carlos and said simply, “Bon appétit.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Dominic’s idea to polygraph the three suspects we busted in the stakeout was a good one. Unfortunately, all three were too smart to fall for it. By nine o’clock that morning, all had seen a judge and made bail for their freedom. Still, as we sat up in the detective’s break room, drinking coffee and reviewing where we stood in the case, we concluded that the night was not a total waste.

  We knew that all three of our suspects met with Landau at Pete’s Place on the night of his murder. That lent substantial weight in implicating their culpability. Two of them, Kemper and DeAngelo, admitted they had seen Spinelli on the six o’clock news that night. In that interview, the news footage showed the gun, which we claimed was used to kill René Landau. It seemed reasonable that Kemper or DeAngelo would have recognized that we did not possess the real murder weapon if either had committed the crime. Since they did not, we felt certain that neither killed Landau. For that reason, we took solace in knowing that our sleepless night had not passed in vain.

  “What I want to know,” Carlos asked, “is seeing how both Kemper and DeAngelo thought they were protecting Tarkowski and Stiles, does that make it more or less likely that Tarkowski or Stiles killed Landau?”

  Dominic said, “Seeing how Tarkowski and Stiles were about to leave town in a hurry yesterday, you can’t help wonder if both killed Landau. She could have lured him outside the bar into the alley and he could have whacked him.”

  Carlos countered, “What about Powell? Isn’t it possible he killed Landau, pitched the gun into a Dumpster or a sewer and then went back to work that night? If he believed that we found the gun, he would have come back for it like he did.”

  “No, not Powell,” I
said. “He’s a veteran. Two things strike an odd chord with me about that. First, if he used a gun that he intended to dispose of afterward, he would make certain it was untraceable and that his prints were not on it. Secondly, he knows how we work. He would not get rid of it at the crime scene. He might toss it off the Jefferson Street Bridge into the river, but nothing so sloppy as to trash it in a nearby dumpster or the sewer, not unless he wanted us to find it.”

  “Maybe he did want us to find it.”

  “But we didn’t find it.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know that.”

  “No, that makes no sense. If he wanted us to find it, why would he try to come back and get it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I see your point.”

  “And besides, if he hid it somewhere, don’t you think he would first go back to where he left it to look for it and make sure we found it before trucking off to Spinelli’s in the middle of the night?”

  “I said I see your point. So, you think he is telling the truth.”

  “I do. I believe he wanted to get the gun back for Mochohyett, maybe get some debts forgiven.”

  “No,” said Dominic, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. Mochohyett’s boys are professionals. They know better than to pitch a gun just any old where after a hit. Powell knows that, too. He wasn’t looking to get it for Mochohyett. I think he saw the eleven o’clock news, maybe even heard that the gun was a police special .38, the kind he used to kill Landau, and that’s why he tried to get it back.”

  I acknowledged his theory respectfully. It was, after all, as good a guess as any to explain why Powell wanted to get the gun back. Frankly, my suspicions ran stronger toward placing Tarkowski and Stiles within our sights. In any case, it seemed clear that everyone, including our suspects, had an opinion, if not a stake in the matter.

  My frustrations were beginning to peak, when one of the lab technicians from downstairs showed up with a small manila envelope for Dominic. As Carlos and I looked on, Dominic took the envelope, tapped its contents down to one end and tore open the other. After reading what was inside, he put it down and said, “It’s the DNA report on the bones we found in Johnny Buck’s grave.”

  “And?”

  He smiled. “They’re a match for John Davis.”

  “I knew it!” said Carlos. “I knew it! Johnny Buck is still alive. It explains everything.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “It could have been a mix up at the funeral home. Davis died from a shotgun blast to the face. Both his and Johnny Buck’s funeral would have been closed casket. Maybe the funeral director got the caskets mixed up. I mean, who would have known?”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We get another warrant,” said Dominic. “And this time we don’t need Mrs. Davis’ permission to find out who is in John Davis’ grave.”

  “Then do it,” I said, delivering a congratulatory slap on his back. “Let us know when you have it.”

  “Wait a minute. What are you guys going to do?”

  I looked at Dominic, and then at Carlos, before lifting my arm, putting my nose to my shoulder and taking a whiff. “I don’t know about you two.” I dropped my arm and wrinkled my nose. “I’m going home to shower. One of us smells just a bit ripe. It wouldn’t be fair to open Davis’ coffin and find out that he smells better than we do.”

  As I turned to walk away, I saw Carlos and Dominic’s reflection in the glass door. Both were lifting their arms and checking their funk. I turned around again to wave goodbye. They dropped their arms quickly and smiled guilty grins. I smiled back, knowing that their hygienic failings would feed a self-conscious paranoia and lead them to the showers downstairs. At the very least, I hoped that Carlos would brush his teeth and wash the Peanut butter and coffee from his breath.

  Back at the apartment, I caught the girls setting up for an unusual early morning ritual. They were collecting candles from around the house and arranging them in a pyramid of sorts in the center of the room. The idea is to light them in ascending order from bottom to top using just one match, all the while evoking the spirits of witches past to guide them in their daily tasks. Apparently, this morning they were running late, as Ursula was still in her nightgown and Lilith in her black panties and bra. I said hello on my way through the living room, and again on my trek from the bedroom to the bathroom after gathering up a change of clothes. Neither acknowledged me.

  I turned the shower on in the bath and let the water run hot while I stripped down to my birthday suit. That is when I noticed the candle on the back of the toilet tank. I glanced up at the doorknob, then to the candle and back at the knob. It was unlocked. I reached for it, but too late. Ursula pushed the door open and gasped upon seeing me standing there, exposed and, well—hanging freely. I froze in mid-reach of the candle, and for a moment so did she, her startled gaze ricocheting from my face to my drafty parts and back again; stalling, it seemed, for much longer intervals on the areas lower than my bellybutton.

  “Master Tony,” she said, her voice nervously high and pitchy. “Thou art home. `Tis with stealth and sly that you gained entrance before us.”

  “No,” I said. “I walked right by you twice and said hello. You didn’t see me?”

  “Methinks not.” She put her hand to her lips and giggled. “But surely I see thee now.”

  “What’s going on?” This from Lilith, checking Ursula to one side and inserting herself into the doorway. “Tony, you’re naked!”

  “I know that, Lilith. Now would you two please get lost and let me shower in peace?”

  She elbowed Ursula in the side and pointed at my privates. “See what I mean, Urs? I told you. That’s what you’ve been missing.”

  They gazed with guilty smirks. “Yes, sister,” said Ursula. “`Tis true your words, and I imagined nothing less. What doth come thy way doth come by blessings, does it not?”

  “Oh, I’ll tell you how it comes, girl.”

  “What say you, sister, may I touch it?”

  “Sure, go ahead. It won’t bite.”

  “No, you will not touch it!” I said, grabbing a towel off the hook and holding it against me. “You will get your damn candle and get the hell out of here, now!”

  Lilith stepped forward and snatched the candle off the back of the toilet. “Come, Urs. I’ll tell you what guys do with that thing when they think no one’s watching.”

  “Oh, splendid, sister, and do tell if ye thinks Master Dominic hast by chance what Master Tony doth by mine own sight.”

  “Dominic? No, sorry girl. Methinks you should set your expectations a wee bit lower for that puppy.”

  “Puppy?”

  “We’ll talk.”

  I shut the door and locked it, but that did not stop one of the pranksters from slipping back into the bathroom while I was in the shower. I saw it after I got out, the words, Nice Puppy, written in the steam on the mirror. The funny thing was that the letters were in Old English. If I needed another reason for wanting a bigger house with another bathroom, I could not think of one.

  After my shower, I dressed and met up with the girls out in the kitchen. They had completed their ritual with the candles, and that the smoke from them did not set off the fire alarm amazed me. Lilith was dressed now in blue jeans, button down shirt opened to her navel and casual heels. Ursula, perhaps taking her cue from Lilith on modern day fashion, dressed similarly, except that for her, button down meant buttoned up all the way to the collar. They gave each other a coy look at my expense the moment I walked into the room, but I am used to that by now. I ignored them, made my way to the coffee maker and poured myself a cup.

  “Lilith?” I said, returning to the table with my coffee and sitting down between them. “Let me ask you something. The other night at the séance, did you get the feeling that that spirit was someone other than Johnny Buck?”

  She sipped her tea before setting the cup down thoughtfully. “How do you mean?”

  “I mean did you get the feeling it was someone else and not Johnny B
uck?”

  She shook her head. “No, but that does not mean it wasn’t. Spirits are clever little hoaxers. They thrill in screwing with the minds of mortals.”

  “It is possible that Johnny Buck is still alive somewhere?”

  “Sure, he’s probably hanging out with Elvis, Marilyn and Kurt Cobain.”

  “Who?”

  “Forget it. What’s this about, anyway?”

  “We exhumed Johnny Buck’s grave yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, he wasn’t in it.”

  Ursula asked, “Who was, pray tell?”

  “A guy named Davis,” I said. “He drove the armored truck that Buck and Landau robbed. Johnny Buck shot him in the face.”

  “`Tis why he won’t show it, this spirit ghost.”

  Lilith said, “You may be right, Urs. Spirits that want you to know who they are usually find a way to show themselves.”

  “Then you think it wasn’t Johnny Buck that we saw at the séance?”

  Lilith picked up her tea, drank it down in a single gulp, swished the sediments around at the bottom of the cup and studied them closely. “Yes. I see it now,” she said, handing the cup over to Ursula. “You see that, Urs?”

  Ursula examined the contents lying at the bottom and nodded in concurrence. “Yes Sister, I see it now.” She handed the cup back to Lilith. “`Tis with disappointment that I must accept what my heart doth know.”

  “What?” I said, reaching for the cup and taking it from Lilith. “What do you see?” I looked inside, only to find a scattering of tea grinds stuck to the bottom in random patterns. “Is that Johnny Buck? Do you see him in there?”

  “Nay,” said Ursula, and she and Lilith began fighting back a powerful urge to laugh. “`Tis my swain’s puppy that I fear hast but sadly waned.”

  “What?”

  Lilith grabbed the cup back and stirred the grinds up with her finger. “Now, now, Ursula. There is nothing wrong with Dominic’s puppy. I am sure it is perfectly normal. Not every dog can bark like Tony.”