Tony Marcella 07 - Call of the Witch

by Dana E. Donovan

  “Which brings up a good point,” said Carlos.

  “What’s that?”

  “The caller said the new drop instructions are forthcoming.”

  “Yes?”

  “Karina Martinez doesn’t talk like that, and neither does Raul Martinez for that matter.”

  “Then who does?”

  “Someone with a better education.”

  “Amanda,” said Brewbaker.

  “Sir?”

  “Detective, you can’t tell me you don’t think my wife’s behavior is strange.”

  “I didn’t say that, Mr. Brewbaker. The truth is I don’t think anything about your wife’s behavior is consistent under the circumstances.”

  “Then you mustn’t rule her out as a suspect in my daughter’s kidnapping.”

  “Who says I am?”

  “I just thought that since you––”

  “Mr. Brewbaker, I haven’t ruled out anyone. And so you know, that includes you, too.”

  “Me?” Brewbaker straightened his stance, puffed his chest out and stiffened his chin. “How could I be her kidnapper? I couldn’t very well make those phone calls to myself, now could I?”

  “No, but you could have an accomplice.”

  “An accomplice? Sir, I’ll have you know I––”

  “Gentlemen, please.” Carlos inserted himself between Brewbaker and me and nudged us back. “Come on, Tony. We should take a ride.”

  “You’re right. Dominic, do you mind staying here with Mr. Brewbaker?”

  “No, of course not, but where are you going?”

  I looked at Carlos. His arched brow told me the choice was mine, though I knew he wanted to go back to see Karina Martinez. “We have a few places we need to go to, but I suppose we can make a slight detour to see Ms. Martinez first. If that’s all right with you, Carlos?”

  “Sure, if you think we need to.”

  “I think we better.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  On the way back to Martinez’s place, Carlos asked me what that was all about.

  “What was what all about?”

  “Back there. You put Lionel on the hot seat, told him he was a suspect in his own daughter’s kidnapping.”

  “I didn’t say that exactly.”

  “Sure you did. You accused him of having an accomplice.”

  “I was speaking hypothetically.”

  “Tony, I know Lionel. He loves Kelly. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, not for the world.”

  “I didn’t say he would hurt her. I simply said I hadn’t ruled him out. He does have a motive you know.”

  “Does he? What?”

  “Custody.”

  “He has custody.”

  “I’m talking permanent. Remember he’s negotiating a buy out for his share of the Brewbaker and Massy Department stores.”

  “So?”

  “So once he does that, he’ll have millions of dollars and no reason to stay here worrying if his wife will sue him for half his money and custody of Kelly.”

  “You’re suggesting he’d fake his own daughter’s kidnapping just so he can skip town with her and the money?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

  Carlos dismissed my theory with a shake of his head. “Then you don’t know Lionel Brewbaker.”

  “And maybe you don’t know Lionel Brewbaker.”

  We let it go at that. The rest of the ride out to Karina Martinez’s was quiet, save for the chatter over the police radio that sounded like white noise to both of us. As we pulled up to the house, I said to Carlos, “If we see Raul, I want you to behave.”

  He took that with offense. “Meaning?”

  “It means we don’t need him filing a police brutality complaint against us. He already has diamond impressions from a chain-link fence stamped into his cheek. He doesn’t need more.”

  Carlos thought that was funny. “If you ask me it’s an improvement.”

  “Come on.”

  Karina Martinez seemed uneasy about seeing us at her door again. She opened it and invited us in, all the while wringing her hands nervously.

  “Señores, is everything all right? Did you find Kelly?”

  “No ma'am, we didn’t,” said Carlos. “We came back to ask you some more questions. Is that okay?”

  “Sí, you may ask.”

  “Mr. Brewbaker tells me that you have a key. Is that so?”

  “Aquí?”

  “No. A key. La llave.”

  “Ah, la llave, sí, por la casa.”

  “Yes. Do you have it here now?”

  “Of course. Come. I will get it for you.”

  We followed Karina to her kitchen where she opened the top drawer of a base cabinet and began rummaging through it. “That is strange,” she said. “I always keep it in here.” She opened a second drawer and began riffling through it.

  “When did you have it last?” asked Carlos.

  She closed the drawer and turned her gaze down at the floor. “Friday,” she said after thinking for only a moment. “I had it Friday.”

  “Do you suppose Raul might have it?”

  She looked up at Carlos curiously. “My son?”

  “Yes. Do you think he has it?”

  We watched her eyes run a bead to cellar door. “I do not know why he would, but I can ask him.”

  “Wait,” I said, touching her forearm to stop her. “We’ll ask, if you don’t mind.”

  She offered no opposition. Carlos and I walked to the cellar door, opened it and started down the steps. I took the lead, waiting until I was sure that Carlos was blocking Karina’s view of me before drawing my weapon.

  “Raul Martinez,” I said. “This is Detectives Marcella and Rodriquez. We’re coming down.”

  The light on the staircase was out when we first opened the door, but several others were on downstairs. I could also see the flickering strobe of a TV screen bouncing off the walls, the sound apparently turned off though.

  “Did you hear me?” I said. “We’re coming down.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Carlos. He took a cue from that and un-holstered his weapon as well. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we spread out. I took the left flank. Carlos took the right. We found a disgusting mess of supposed living quarters; dirty clothes strewn all over, empty pizza boxes, chicken buckets, beer bottles and smut magazines.

  The bed was a fold-out sofa type. A window curtain served as a bed sheet, a wadded up duffle bag as a pillow. We holstered our weapons after realizing Raul was not there, but curiosity kept us from leaving. I picked up a fly swatter and used it as a stick for poking, probing and flipping over repugnant items of interest. I’d have thought that nothing else there could repulse me more until I peeled back the blanket on the bed.

  “Dear God,” I said. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  Carlos turned and looked back over his shoulder. “What is it? Tony?”

  I pointed with the fly swatter. “Girls’ underwear. Must be a couple dozen pairs.” I scooped one of the daintier pairs up with the swatter and held it up. “Check it out. It’s got Winnie the Pooh on the butt. Looks like they’d fit a four-year-old.”

  “Jesus!” said Carlos.

  “I know, right?”

  “No, I mean, Jesus. Look at this.”

  I dropped the panties on the bed and walked over to where Carlos was standing. He pointed at a laptop computer screen. The image on it nearly floored me. He hit the arrow down key repeatedly, toggling one disgusting kiddy porn picture after the other.

  “These are in a folder marked, Lickable,” he said. I felt my stomach lurch. “There are over two hundred files in it. And that’s just the L folder. There’s a folder for every letter in the alphabet.”

  I shook my head. “Dominic isn’t going to like this.”

  “Who will?”

  “Give him a call. Have him send Olson out here to pick this up––and the underwear too. Then have him secure an arrest warrant for Raul Martinez.”
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  “What about Karina?”

  “I don’t want to arrest her.”

  “No, I mean how do we break this to her?”

  I put my hand on his shoulder, looked him square in the eye and said, “Gently, Carlos. Break it to her gently.”

  Detective Olson arrived with a couple of uniforms about ten minutes later. We showed them what we found and then headed out to our next stop.

  Lionel Brewbaker provided us with an address for his wife Amanda, calling it a nice little place up on Edgewater. I suppose compared to his house it was a nice little place. To the rest of us working stiffs, it was a six bedroom, seven bath, five-car garage get-a-way for the rich and famous.

  We pulled onto the pebble-lined circular driveway and stopped in front of the main entrance. I almost expected a valet to come out and chauffeur the car off to some underground parking facility. I even found myself reaching into my pocket for a couple of ones to tip the man before Carlos caught me and asked what I was doing.

  “Nothing,” I said, thinking fast on my feet. “Just seeing if I have enough for lunch.”

  “Lunch? It’s eleven o’clock.”

  I gave my watch a gratuitous glance. “So it is.”

  He slapped me on the back, angled me toward the door and nudged me forward. “Man, there may be hope for you yet. Marcella. I was thinking seafood. What about you?”

  The house reminded me a little of Valerie Spencer’s place, a woman we investigated in a murder case some years ago. It wasn’t as over-the-top, but it did reek of excessive indulgence with its marbled breezeway, bookend fountains and open courtyard. It even had a pair of gilded cherub statues flanking a double-door entry that was eight-feet wide and ten-feet high. I turned to Carlos and bumped him on the arm.

  “Remind you of anything?”

  “Spencer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t have a witch’s ladder, do you?”

  “Why, you think we’ll need one?”

  He shook his head. “Damn, I hope not.”

  We stopped at the door and prepared to knock when it opened suddenly. A young man in blue jeans, tie-die shirt and flip-flops, came bopping out with his head down; his fingers snapping to the music in his earphones. He literary walked right into us, bumped off Carlos’ chest and bounced back into the house. He looked up, more surprised than frightened, but that quickly changed when I showed him my badge and ID.

  “Going somewhere?”

  He pulled the plugs from his ears. “You cops?”

  “That’s what the badge says.”

  I could see him assessing his chances of escape, his eyes stealing glimpses between and around Carlos and me. We both instinctively closed ranks and crowded the doorway to keep that from happening.

  “What’s that?” said Carlos. He ran his finger along his own mustache and then pointed at the kid. “Under your nose. Is that cocaine?”

  I hadn’t noticed until then, but Carlos was right. The kid had a two or three-day old growth of facial hair going, and in the stubble of his upper lip was a light dusting of white powder. He reached up and brushed the area clean with his fingertips.

  “No,” he said, and he slipped out of his flip-flops.

  “He’s gonna––” Run, I started to say. I even reached for his arm, but the kid was quick. He turned, shoved the door closed and ricocheted through the foyer. Carlos jabbed his foot in the jamb to keep the door from shutting tight. I pushed on it hard. It swung open, slammed against the wall and bounced half way closed again.

  “Come on!”

  We followed the kid through the foyer, across the living room and into the kitchen. The whole time we were yelling for him to stop, he was yelling, “Cops!”

  In the kitchen, a group of three or four other individuals, Amanda Brewbaker included, were already scrambling. Chairs tipped over in the shuffle, bottles scattered and glasses crashed to the floor. I saw a mirror on the table with lines of cocaine laid out in neat little rows upon it. I pulled my weapon and ordered everyone to freeze. No one listened. Carlos gave chase to the kid from the front door. I went after another guy that I thought was Raul Martinez, although I could only see the back of his head, so I couldn’t be sure.

  We pursued our suspects as far as we could before losing sight of them. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that it was only a few blocks.

  “Whew, they were too damn fast,” said Carlos, still catching his breath after meeting up with me in the back yard of the Brewbaker house. “Guess I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “They’re hyped up on cocaine. They could’ve outrun a cheetah in the state they’re in.” I wanted to believe that, seeing that I was thirty years younger than Carlos and breathing heavier than he was. “Can you imagine? They didn’t stop even after I pulled my gun.”

  “I know.” He put his arm around my shoulder as we headed back to the house. “That’s the trouble with youths today. They just don’t listen.”

  We found Amanda Brewbaker inside, sitting at the kitchen table. She had cleaned up the broken glass and disposed of the cocaine, mirror, razor blades and straws. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face pale and drawn.

  “How could you do this?” I said. “Your daughter’s been kidnapped and you sit here snorting drugs with thugs and junkies.”

  “They’re not thugs and junkies. They’re my friends.”

  I said to Carlos. “Check the house. Every room.”

  “She’s not here,” said Brewbaker. “Do you think I’d kidnap my own child?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t put it past you.” I gave Carlos the nod to go ahead. “Who were those people?”

  “I told you.” She lit up a cigarette and blew the first puff in my face. “Friends.”

  “Do your friends have names?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Are they from your theater group?”

  “Do you have a warrant, Detective?”

  “I don’t need one. One of your guests answered the door sporting a cocaine mustache. That gave us reasonable cause to believe a crime was being committed on the premises.”

  She cast an ambiguous shrug. “Whatever.” She took another drag of her cigarette, this time blowing the smoke toward an open window. “You won’t find any drugs in here now. And you certainly won’t find my daughter here either.”

  “Mrs. Brewbaker, are you concerned at all for your child’s welfare?”

  “Of course I am, Detective, but what more can I do except get in the way? You seem to have things under control.”

  “Are you aware we attempted to make a ransom drop this morning to get Kelly back?”

  “Attempted?”

  “That’s right. The drop went sour. Now the kidnappers have increased their ransom demand. They want three-hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Lionel can afford it.”

  “What did you do with the cocaine?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Did you flush it?”

  “I didn’t flush anything.”

  “Cocaine addiction can be expensive, can’t it?”

  “I don’t have an addiction.”

  “Are you saying you don’t do coke?”

  “I’m saying I don’t have an addiction.”

  “Tell me about Hector Santana.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know any Hector.”

  “Don’t you? Dmitry Kovalchuk told us you and he picked Kelly up from Dance earlier this week.”

  “I’m sure he’s mistaken.”

  “Is he also mistaken when he says he saw you and Hector kiss?”

  “Dmitry Kovalchuk is a pervert, a drunk and a liar, though not necessarily in that order.”

  “You know, Mrs. Brewbaker, I could haul you downtown and strap you to a polygraph. Maybe then I’d get some straight answers out of you.”

  “You try it and my lawyers will have me out of there so fast it’ll make your head spin.”


  Carlos came back into the kitchen shaking his head. “She’s not here, Tony.”

  “Of course not,” said Brewbaker. “I told you. Now why don’t you go out and find my daughter, or have you nothing better to do than to harass a poor distraught mother of a kidnapped child?”

  “Distraught?” I said, but then left it at that.

  Carlos hiked his thumb up over his shoulder. “Did you notice the van parked on the side of the house?”

  “No.”

  “Could be Hector’s.”

  “Is it black?”

  “Yeah, faded almost to bark blue.”

  “Run the plates, and then take a couple of pictures of it and send them to Dominic. Maybe it’ll show up on one of the surveillance videos he’s reviewing.”

  “You got it. You wanna tow it in? Give it a good spin?”

  “Yes, do that. Make sure it’s dusted inside and out. Bag and tag anything that looks like it might yield a DNA sample: cigarette butts, beer bottles, chewing gum, and of course the obvious, hair, blood…. You know the drill.”

  “I’m on it.”

  I said to Amanda Brewbaker, “Do you still have the keys to the house on Madison?”

  She regarded me suspiciously. “Of course.”

  “To both doors, front and back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you send someone to the house this morning to get Kelly’s meds?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “Weren’t you worried that Kelly didn’t have them? She needs them every day, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, but she’s skipped a day here and there before. She is only nine, you know.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe you’re not worried.”

  “What do you mean? Of course I’m worried. I’m worried sick.”

  “Yes, so sick you’re getting high on coke just to forget about it. Nice.” I put my hand out. “Do you have a cell phone, Mrs. Brewbaker?”

  “Of course.”

  “May I see it?”

  She reached into her purse and handed me her phone. I flipped through her recent calls log to see how many she placed to Lionel Brewbaker’s phone. There were only two in the last four days. I then checked to see how many she placed to Kelly’s phone and found one in the last week.