Tony Marcella 07 - Call of the Witch

by Dana E. Donovan

  “So after she does the wash, you go and steal the kid’s underwear?”

  He looked away then, unable to maintain eye contact with Carlos. I could tell that Carlos did not yet get it. I cleared my throat, and when he looked at me, I shook my head and said, “He doesn’t take the clean ones.”

  Carlos seemed confused at first, then surprised, and repulsed. “That’s sick!”

  Martinez said, “Might be sick, but it ain’t illegal.”

  “Technically it is,” I said. “It’s stealing.”

  “So sue me.”

  Carlos said, “We went to your house you know, and we talked to your mother.”

  “What, did she tell you I steal girls’ panties?”

  “No, she told us you steal her money.”

  “No she didn’t. She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Because she knows I’d––”

  “You’d what?” said Carlos. He tightened his grip on Martinez’s collar and gave it a twist, choking off the last bit of air he was able to squander.

  “Carlos!” I reached over and tugged on his sleeve. “Let him go. He’s not worth it.”

  I could see that Carlos wanted to hurt the man. Martinez’s face had begun to turn blue. I grabbed Carlos by the wrist and tried pulling it away.

  “Carlos, stop it! Let him go!”

  In all the years I have known Carlos, I’ve never known him to lose his cool with a suspect. Sure, he’s had to get rough with a few, even had to shoot a man dead once. But he’s never inflected police brutality on anyone, not like he was doing then. I grabbed his hand with both of mine and yanked as hard as I could.

  “Carlos! LET. HIM. GO!”

  I like to think I saved the man’s life. Truth be told though, Carlos is incredibly strong. His love for Snickers Bars and greasy foods notwithstanding, he keeps himself remarkably fit, especially for his age. If he wanted to, he could have killed Raul Martinez with his bare hands. Shy of shooting Carlos, I could do nothing to stop him.

  When he finally let go, Martinez slumped to the ground like a ragdoll. I looked at Carlos. He seemed bewildered, perhaps surprised at himself for what he had nearly done. I said to him in a hush, “What was all that about?”

  He shook his head lightly. “I don’t know, Tony. I wanted to kill the bastard.”

  I looked back at Martinez. He was coming around, but slowly. “You damn near did,” I said. “Damn near did.”

  It was obvious after that little incident that we weren’t going to get any useful information out of Raul Martinez. So with great reluctance, and no probable cause to haul him in, we had no other option but to let him go.

  It was seven-thirty when we left Mike’s Pub and headed out to Danvers to see Dmitry Kovalchuk, Kelly’s dance instructor and owner of Swan Lake Dance Studio. I offered to drive, thinking Carlos needed some time to pull himself together after the episode with Raul Martinez. But he wouldn’t have it. Said that driving would calm his nerves more than sitting idle in the passenger seat would. I asked if he wanted to talk about it. He said no. A few miles later, he broke a stretch of silence and said, “Jose.”

  I had been daydreaming out the window, thinking about Karina Martinez and something she said. When asked about Kelly’s manner of dress, she told us that Lionel Brewbaker was strict, but that Mrs. Brewbaker liked to spoil Kelly, let her wear whatever she wanted to wear on weekends. How would she know that, I thought, if she didn’t work for the Brewbakers on weekends?

  Carlos came back, “Did you hear me?”

  I turned to him. “What?”

  “I said Jose.”

  “Jose who?”

  “My brother.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “Well I don’t now. He’s dead.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not.”

  “Okay, then why bring him up?”

  “You asked me if I wanted to talk about it.”

  “I asked you if you wanted to talk about your dead brother, Jose?”

  “No! You asked me if I wanted to talk about what happened back there. At Mike’s Pub.”

  “Oh, that. Sure. All right, so what’s Jose got to do with it.”

  “Raul Martinez reminds me of him.”

  “What? He looks like your brother?”

  “Not so much, but he’s just like him––like he was.”

  “Oh?”

  “My father died when I was just a boy. Jose was supposed to look after my mother and me. He made that promise to my father on his deathbed. But he was just like Raul. He stole whatever money my mother made and spent it on women, booze and gambling. I can’t tell you how many nights we went to bed hungry because of him. When I turned thirteen, I went to work in the sugar fields. I earned two pesos a day, not bad seeing that back then a peso was worth one American dollar. Even with the foreman skimming fifty centavos off the top it was pretty good pay for a kid. I told my mother I was saving up so that one day we could both move to the United States.”

  “Is that how you got here?” I asked.

  “No. My mother never made it. After two years of working in the sugar fields, I had saved up over four-hundred dollars. By then, revolution was in the air. I told my mother we needed to leave before Castro reached Havana.”

  Carlos shook his head. I could see his eyes were on the road, but his mind was thousands of miles and decades away.

  “My mother didn’t want to go without Jose,” he continued. “She told him about our plans and about my money. Naturally, Jose couldn’t resist. He took the money. My mother tried to stop him. He knocked her down; split her head open on a wrought iron table. Then he just left her there. I came home and found her dead. She’d bled to death. That night I stowed away on a freighter bound for Miami. From there I thumbed all the way to Massachusetts. One day Lionel Brewbaker found me picking through garbage behind his store and he gave me a job, just like he gave Karina Martinez a job.”

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to look at me, and long enough for me to see the tears he tried not to show. I reached over and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Your mother would be proud of you, Carlos.”

  He nodded, thinned his lips and returned his eyes to the road. We didn’t speak again for another ten miles. By then, I had decided to call Spinelli and have him see what he could dig up on Raul Martinez. I pulled my phone out and noticed the battery was dead. I asked Carlos for his phone. He obliged, handing it to me without a second thought. After going through his list of contacts and not finding Spinelli, I said, “I don’t see him. You don’t have him in here?”

  “Yeah I do.” He glanced only briefly at me to make sure I knew what I was doing.

  I toggled through the list again, starting with D for Dominic and ending in S for Spinelli. “I don’t see him.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Look under N.”

  “N? For Spinelli?”

  “No, for New Guy.”

  “You have Dominic listed on your phone as New Guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “`Cause that’s what I put him under when he first came to work with me. You know, Spinelli’s a strange name. Hard to remember.”

  “What about Dominic?”

  He shook his head. “Couldn’t remember that either. Kept wanting to call him Damian. Used to piss him off.”

  “What, and calling him New Guy didn’t?”

  He laughed at that, even snorted a little. “I didn’t call him New Guy. I’d just say stuff like, ‘Hey, you got them reports done yet?’ Or, ‘Thanks for the coffee, Man. My treat next time.’”

  “How long did that go on?”

  “I don’t know. `bout a year.”

  “A year? You worked with the man for a year before you learned his name?”

  “No, I knew it. I just had trouble remembering.”

  “You know it now, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

/>   “So why do you still have him listed as New Guy?”

  He looked at me as though I had just told him I could fly. “Because that’s how I know where to find him.”

  I knew better than to go any further. I left it at that and continued toggling through the list to the N`s. Before getting there, though I slowed down around the letter L, thinking I might find his girlfriend, Lauri Shullit listed there. When that didn’t pan out, I looked through the S`s once more and again came up empty. I was about to riffle through the G`s, thinking he might have listed her there generically as Girlfriend, when he turned to me, suspicious I think.

  “Still can’t find it?”

  I toggled up quickly to the N`s. “Uh, I found it. Here he is. New Guy.” I hit send. Dominic answered on the second ring.

  “Carlos, what’s up?”

  “Dominic. It’s me.”

  “Tony? Where’s Carlos. Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. Listen. I want you to see what you can find on Karina Martinez’s son, Raul.”

  “Same last name?”

  “Yes, same last name. Check for priors, anything outstanding. The usual. If this guy has so much as a delinquent parking ticket, I want to know.”

  “You got it, Tony. Is that it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” I paused and came back. “Hey, how’s Ursula?”

  “Oh, she’s okay.” I could hear the surprise in his voice. “Thanks for asking.”

  “If you want to go home after you look up––”

  “No. That’s all right. She called me a little while ago, said she was fine. She felt the baby move.”

  “Really? The kid moved, huh?”

  “Yeah. She said it scared her at first, until she realized what it was.”

  “All right then. Well, if you’re sure you don’t need to go home.”

  “Tony, I’m good. You know we all have work to do. When Kelly’s home where she belongs, then that’s when I’ll go home.”

  “Okay.” I took a breath, not certain how to respond to that. “Let us know if something interesting comes up.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up, feeling uneasy about something, but not entirely sure what. Carlos saw it on my face as I handed him his phone. He tucked it back into his pocket, his attention focused back and forth between the road and me.

  “What’s wrong,” he asked, after realizing I had nothing to volunteer.

  “I don’t know. Tired, I guess.”

  “So, Ursula felt the baby move?”

  I smiled at that. “Yeah. I suppose that means her blood pressure is starting to tic up a bit.”

  “That’s good then.”

  I shrugged lightly. “I guess.” We drove a little further. “Hey, you don’t think it’s too early for Ursula to be feeling the baby move, do you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Three months? She’s a small woman. If she swallowed a Mexican jumping bean I suspect she’d feel it thumping around in her belly until it came out the other end.”

  I laughed. “I suppose you’re right. Listen; speaking of that, we haven’t eaten all day. What do you say we swing by a drive-thru somewhere and grab a quick bite?”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” he said, and before I knew it, we were speeding down Route 1 in Danvers, eating take-out chicken from a bucket and sipping milkshakes through straws as thick as rigatonis. Carlos was in his element, one greasy hand on the steering wheel, another holding a greasy chicken thigh and a milkshake between his legs. I cinched my seatbelt tighter, tucked a napkin into my collar and settled back to enjoy the ride.

  Dmitry Kovalchuk owned the Swan Lake Dance Studio on Route 1 in Danvers. The studio operated out of an old two-story brick and mortar built in the twenties. Three smaller shops facing the street occupied the first floor. Dmitry’s studio, windowless in the front, encompassed the entire second.

  We entered through a side door and climbed a flight of wooden steps that delivered us to the back of a wide-open dance floor. We spotted Dmitry across the room working with several young girls in tight leotards. The girls appeared to be warming up for dance, stretching and working a ballet barre mounted against a twelve-foot mirrored wall. We observed Dmitry touching all the girls, but his paws seemed especially fond of one in particular. He caressed her forearm and shoulder, swept her hair off the back of her neck and then ran his hand down the small of her back and over her bottom. He then whispered something in her ear before laughing and patting her ass. The girl was not amused.

  Carlos poked me with his elbow and said, “Did you see that?”

  I acknowledged I did.

  “That’s totally inappropriate, if not illegal.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go talk to him.”

  We stepped from the shadows and started across the dance floor where the lights were much brighter. Dmitry saw us approaching in the mirror. He straightened up, put his hands to his side and met us half-way.

  “Da. How I can help you?” he asked. He seemed more bothered than afraid, as I expected he should have been after seeing our badges and IDs`.

  “I’m Detective Anthony Marcella,” I said, “NCPD, and this is Detective Rodriquez. We’d like to talk to you.”

  Dmitry glanced back over his shoulder, perhaps to make sure the girls were far enough away so as not to hear our conversation. Four of them were still working the ballet barre; one had dropped to her knee to address her slipper. Another had just arrived and was putting hers on.

  “But of course, Detective.” His accent was thick with Russian charm. “What do you wish we talk about?”

  “Kelly Brewbaker. When did you see her last?”

  “Kelly?” His eyes fell away. His brows lifted. I could see him thinking about it, if only for a moment. His answer came with a passive shrug. “I see Kelly Thursday night.”

  “This past Thursday? Two nights ago and you had to think about it.”

  “What, I am busy man. Have much to think about.”

  “I’m sure. You’re certain it was Thursday.”

  “Da, certain. I know this because Thursday is for girls six-to-nine years. Kelly, she has nine years. Friday is girls ten-to-twelve; Saturday, girls thirteen and more years.”

  Carlos gestured a nod at the girls working the ballet barre. “So then some of those girls over there are only thirteen?”

  “Some.” Dmitry answered. “Some older.”

  “That one.” He pointed. “In pink leotards. Is she thirteen?”

  Dmitry knew without looking who he meant. “Da, thirteen. Fourteen next month.”

  “You had your hands all over her. You palmed her ass. Do you think that’s appropriate?”

  “What? Dat girl?” Dmitry laughed, and I thought I might have another Raul Martinez incident on my hands again. But before Carlos could grab Dmitry by the neck and choke the living daylights out of him, Dmitry said, “Dat is Natasha. She is daughter. I would not touch ass of student who is not mine.”

  That hardly seemed enough for Carlos. “I don’t see how that matters. Natasha is a young woman. She’s developing in places not even a father should touch. So I’m telling you now, lay your hands on her like that again and I’ll––”

  “Carlos.” I pulled him back by the sleeve. “I think he gets the point.”

  “Right,” he said, and he backed down easier than I thought he might.

  I turned back to Dmitry. “Mister Kovalchuk, you say you saw Kelly Thursday night. Can you tell me how she got here?”

  He shrugged. “What do I know? Same as always. Da? Mr. Brewbaker drops her off, comes back in one hour. I see her next week. Is dat simple.”

  “Is that what happened? He dropped her off and came back later for her.”

  “Da, he dropped…. Nyet. Wait.” Dmitry pressed his finger to his chin, pondered a second and then pointed at me. “You know….” He shook that finger lightly. “Now I think, he did not pick up his Kelly.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mrs. Brewba
ker come––pick her up.”

  “Amanda Brewbaker?”

  “Da.”

  “Why did she come for her?”

  “Why I should know, you tell me. He did not come. She come. Makes no difference to me.”

  “Was Mrs. Brewbaker alone?”

  “Alone? Nyet. She had friend.”

  “A gentleman friend?”

  He dismissed that suggestion with a wave. “A gentleman? Please. Even in my country dis man would be what you say here, scum.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Da, he is scum man. Greasy hair. Tattoos like Russian sailor. Not for little girl to see. But, she is mother of little girl. Is not my business. I say goodbye, give Kelly pat on bum and….”

  “You what?” said Carlos.

  Dmitry fell back a step, splayed his hands in front of his face and assumed a defensive posture. “No, is joke, Detective. What, like saying bye-bye. Yes? I did not pat bum. Is funny, da?”

  “Carlos,” I said, and all I had to do when he looked at me was shake my head. I said to Dmitry, “Did this man have a name?”

  “Everyone have name.”

  “Did you catch his?”

  “We did not introduce, but I hear Mrs. Brewbaker call him Hector.”

  “Hector? Are you sure?”

  “Da, sure as sure, Detective. This I remember because she called him Hector and they kiss on lips.” He touched his mouth with his fingertips. “Scum. Eck!”

  At the mirrored wall, six young ladies stood patiently waiting, watching. Finished with their warm up, they had assembled in lined formation along the ballet barre from shortest to tallest. One of the girls, the one in pink leotards, called out, “Mister Kovalchuk? We’re ready.”

  “Mister Kovalchuk?” said Carlos. The inference needed no explanation.

  “We’re done here,” I said, hoping to avoid a scene in front of the young audience.

  Carlos saw the need to clarify my meaning by adding, “For now.”

  I thanked Dmitry Kovalchuk for his time and we left it at that.

  Back in the car, Carlos commented on the connection Dmitry made between Amanda Brewbaker and the man named Hector, whose name seemed to be coming up a lot lately in our investigation.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked.