Witch House

by Dana Donovan

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity, and after neither of them looked into the hole, I began to suspect the worst, that perhaps the shootout had produced another unforeseen outcome. Perhaps both Carlos and Adam were dead!

  I stood up and stretched my neck to see above the hole, only to find Carlos standing there, waiting for me to poke my head out like some goddamn hedgehog. He smiled upon seeing me and joked, “You done playing in there yet?”

  I noticed a tear in his jacket just above the right shoulder where one of Adam’s bullets had grazed him. “Did he hurt you?” I asked.

  “Nah.” He shook his head and then reached his hand out to help me out of the hole. “Not as much as I hurt him, I’m sorry to say.” After climbing out, I saw what Carlos meant. He had cut Adam down with a single gunshot wound to the chest, striking him square in the heart. As we stood over Adam’s body, I heard Carlos say softly, “It’s my first time, Tony.”

  I put my arm around his shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. “I know it is, pal, but you had to do it. He gave you no choice.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and nothing more. We stood in silent reflection, with only the downpour to drown our thoughts. I did not care, though, the mud, the lingering smell of gun smoke; it meant nothing. I would have waited all night in the cold rain if Carlos needed that much time to absorb the gravity of the situation. In any case, I never imagined that he was waiting on me to call an end to the moment. When he finally realized that the ball was in his court, he said to me, “Tony?”

  I took a deep breath and let it out with a tired sigh. “Yes?” I said, in the most somber tone I could muster. “What is it, buddy?”

  He rolled his shoulder to shed my hand. “You think you can lay off me now? My shoulder hurts like hell.”

  I looked at him and laughed. “Come on.” We started walking. Across the lake, the call of distant sirens rolled through the hills in faint echoes. “That’s Spinelli,” I said. “I hope he brought an ambulance.”

  “Ambulance? Ha!” Carlos pulled his collar to the rain and chill. “What I need now is a Snickers Bar.” You know if I had one, it would have been my honor to give it to him.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The following morning, I invited Carlos, Dominic and the girls to The Percolator for brunch on me. We arrived at that sweet hour between the breakfast and lunch crowds, guaranteeing us seats in the corner booth by the window. Carlos, having been at the hospital the night before to treat his bullet wound, was playing up the sympathy card big time, insisting he sit in the middle of the booth, sandwiched between the two girls. It did not help matters that the captain put him on desk duty, which is standard procedure after discharging a firearm resulting in a death. Carlos considered that validation and a mandate that we treat him extra special. I wanted to point out to him that the bullet barely cut into his skin, but I held my tongue. I figured if it did not bother Dominic, who nearly died from his gunshot wound, then what voice did I have in the matter?

  We were finishing our omelets, waffles and pancakes, exhausting all manner of idle chitchat before the conversation took its inevitable turn toward the events of the day before. Dominic broke the ice, saying, “Tony, explain something to me. Was Johnny Buck in on the scheme to hide the money in Davis’ casket or not?”

  “I think so,” I told him. “Knowing what we know now, it is likely that René and Johnny Buck were the best of friends, down to the end. I think they both broke into the funeral home and made the switch: the money for the body. That explains how René and Johnny Buck were at the cabin with only the one vehicle. Now, what got them arguing, we may never know. Suffice to say, the argument must have been heated enough for young Adam to think his dad’s life was in danger; otherwise, he would never have shot Johnny in the back. I think that is why René left the clues in his letters to Adam as to where he buried Johnny Buck. He wanted someone to find him and give him a proper burial. He probably figured he would be long gone with the money by then.”

  “Wow, and see I would have missed that. I had my bets squarely on Powell. I honestly thought he was our man.”

  “Not me,” said Carlos. “I figured Stephanie Stiles, the jaded lover conspiring with the warden and the parole officer. The three of them are just plain shifty, if you ask me.”

  I started to comment on that, when Ursula chimed in. “Nay, `tis that scoundrel Indian what bested my guess,” she said. “They are naught but the devil’s varlets, you know, such knave vermin.”

  “Now wait a minute, Ursula.” I reached across the table and patted her hand reassuringly. “Chief Running Bear may be a crooked, untrustworthy individual, but we do not look upon all Indians that way. I know that in your time, you considered Indians evil savages, and you had good cause to fear them. You must remember, however, the White man invaded their country, not the other way around, and they brought with them disease and pestilence on a scale the Indians had never known before. How would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot?”

  “I would feel as thou, when that foot hast kicked thy butt and hard.”

  “It is not that way now.”

  She straightened up in her seat and turned a smug cheek, something I would have expected of Lilith. “`Tis my thought, is all,” she said, and I let it go at that.

  “What’s to become of the girl, Trish,” Lilith asked.

  “Oh, we let her go,” said Spinelli.

  “Why?”

  “Had to; we didn’t have anything on her.”

  “That’s the trouble with this case,” I said to her. “With regards to the money, none of our suspects can claim a clear conscience, yet for dirt, nothing will stick to them.” To Spinelli I said, “You thought Sergeant Powell’s hands were dirty? If you ask me, I think he played an integral part in the initial armored car robbery. I just cannot prove it.” I turned to Ursula. “The same goes for Daniel Mochohyett, your Indian friend. I smell his stinking paws all over this thing. Still, I can’t prove anything.”

  “And Stiles?” said Carlos. “Where does she fit in?”

  I shrugged faintly. “She may have perjured herself at Landau’s trial. Aside from that, I don’t see where she broke any laws. The same goes for Warden DeAngelo and Frank Tarkowski. A love triangle bent on squeezing secrets out of an ex-con hardly constitutes a felony. No, it looks like everyone knew more than he or she were letting on. Some, like Stiles, made out okay; others, like DeAngelo, paid big premiums and received zero dividends. In the end, the biggest losers were René and Adam Landau. If only they kept their sights on the real prize, they could have had what they wanted most.”

  “Each other?” Carlos guessed.

  “Yeah, each other.”

  “All right,” said Lilith. “Not to change the subject, but are we done eating?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I have a surprise for everyone.”

  “A surprise? Lilith, we don’t need any surprises today, not after—”

  “Quiet, killjoy. You’ll like this one. We are all going to look at another house that Ursula and I found the other day.”

  “Another haunted house?”

  “Haunted, no, not yet anyway. Come on, slide out. We’ll take you there.”

  “Does anyone have today’s paper?” Carlos asked. “I want to check my numbers.”

  “Oh, and my horoscope,” said Lilith. “I want to see if it’s my lucky day.”

  “It’s always your lucky day,” I said.

  “I know. I just want to see if they know it.”

  “Fine, I’ll pick one up at the counter. Why don’t you guys go on? I’ll meet you outside.”

  After paying the tab and leaving a tip, I picked up the newspaper and read the headlines. Mystery Solved, it said, explaining how the Feds had recovered the money from the armored car robbery from Davis’ grave. I had to dig all the way back into the local section for any mention of how Carlos, Spinelli and I solved the Landau murder case. Strangely, I felt remarkably satisfied with that.

  I hea
ded out to join the others, who had already piled into Dominic’s car for the ride across town. “Here,” I said, handing the paper to Carlos as I hopped in. “Read it and weep.”

  “Why would I weep?” he asked.

  “They spelled your name wrong. They said Detective Dominic Rodriquez took a bullet in a ferocious gun battle up at the cabin.”

  “Really? They said it was ferocious?”

  “Yes, but didn’t you hear me? They called you Dominic.”

  “Yeah, but they got my last name right.”

  “So, you are not upset?”

  “No, why should I be? It just means that tomorrow I will see my name in the paper again under the corrections column. That’s twice in one week. I don’t see them putting your name in the paper twice in one week, do I?”

  “No,” I said, “I guess you don’t. I suppose that means you win.”

  He sat back and smiled wide. “Yup, I win.”

  A few miles out of town, we turned off the main road onto a dirt drive just outside the Chapel Hill district, a neighborhood primarily sporting older Colonial style homes, complete with picket fences, black and white chimneys and real wooden shutters. It is the kind of neighborhood I would not expect to find Lilith sifting through while house hunting, however, I would expect that Ursula might find it comfortably familiar.

  The dirt road narrowed as it wound deeper into thickening stands of birch and pine, until finally emptying into a clearing upon a flat hilltop. And there sat Lilith’s house. That is not to say that I knew the house was Lilith’s. I mean that it was Lilith’s house, the same one destroyed in a cyclone during our return to prime ceremony nearly two years earlier. The pleasant little Cape Cod with shiny white vinyl siding, trimmed in warm hues of peach and gray, looked just as it had the day it blew away. On the front lawn, as I remembered, tacky garden gnomes peeped out mischievously from behind miniature plastic windmills. I turned to Lilith, my mouth unhinged in awe. “H…how did you do this?”

  “What, find a cute house in the country?”

  “No, I mean how did you do this? This is your house.”

  She laughed. “Well, not yet it isn’t. I just signed the contract yesterday. We won’t close for a few weeks still.”

  “So, we’re out of the apartment?” I grabbed Lilith around the waist, pulled her in tightly and gave her a huge hug. “I don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful!”

  “It is,” said Spinelli, “It’s just as I remembered.” He turned to Ursula. “Can you do that for us some day?”

  “For us?” She blushed into her dress sleeve. “Why, Master Spinelli, doth thee wish to propose before thy kindred fellows the bond of matrimony?”

  “Propose? I didn’t…I mean, we….”

  “Dominic Spinelli!” Lilith cried. “You sneaky little cheeky monkey. Of course, she’ll marry you! Won’t you Urs?”

  “Aye and yea twice over kind Sir! I shall carry thy name with pride and honor.”

  “Spinelli, you sly dog.” I pulled Dominic into my huddle with Lilith and patted him on the shoulder. “I had no idea! And you,” I pulled Ursula into the fold as well. “What a lucky girl. You’ll be getting your own place now. What a wonderful day indeed! What could possibly make it better?”

  “I won the lottery,” said Carlos.

  I laughed. “Yes, I suppose that would be better if you won the lottery.”

  Carlos held up the newspaper I had given him earlier. “No, I mean I won the lottery.”

  “What!”

  Dominic snatched the newspaper from him, along with the one-dollar lottery ticket that Carlos had purchased on our ride out to Walpole prison a few days before. “Oh, my God! He did win the lottery. Look.” He held the two articles out for our inspection. “The son of a bitch just won twelve million dollars!”

  “Carlos,” I said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  He looked at us, stupefied, as I was sure it had not yet sunk in. “Well,” he said, hesitating. “I guess dinner is on me tonight.”