Tony Marcella 07 - Call of the Witch

by Dana E. Donovan

“Are you done?” she asked, her hand out to reclaim her phone.

  I made note of a third number, one she had called no less than eight times in the past three days. I punched the number up and hit send. It rang only once before a Hispanic male voice answered.

  “Hola, Mandy. Are they gone?”

  “Hector?” I said.

  There was a brief silence and then he hung up. I handed the phone back to Brewbaker. “He’s not much of a talker, is he?”

  She took the phone and threw it in her purse. “Talking is so over-rated, Detective. It leads to drama. I get enough of that in my theater group.”

  Carlos came back into the room moments later waving his phone. “Sent the pictures off to Dominic.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah and I got a black and white pulling up to the house now. They’ll keep an eye on the van until the tow truck arrives.”

  “Thank you, Carlos. Good work.” I looked at Amanda Brewbaker. She folded her arms across her chest and turned her head to break eye contact. “You know I could have a K-9 unit come here and sniff out the rest of your stash,” I said. “Then you can spend the afternoon sitting in a jail cell waiting on your lawyer to post your bail.”

  She turned her head back with a snap. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I might if you don’t go back to the house and wait this thing out with your husband.”

  “I know your game, Detective. You just want me there so you can keep an eye on me.”

  I smiled thinly. “Now you get it.” I turned to Carlos. “You ready to roll?”

  He pulled the keys from his pocket and gave them a jingle. “Ready when you are.”

  From there we headed out to Essex to call on Russell Haywood, Kelly’s riding coach. Spinelli told us Russell was a former equestrian gold medalist who now owned a riding academy. He also told us Haywood coached young boys and girls there and prepared them for competitions, including the Olympics. My initial fear after reading the private messages between Kelly and Haywood on Kelly’s computer was that she was going out to the stables on Saturday by herself to see him. But after checking bus routes, we learned that buses didn’t run out that way from the city. Still, the fact that she couldn’t get out to see him didn’t mean he couldn’t get out to see her.

  We followed Route 133 to Essex and turned off down a scenic road that meandered through several miles of the prettiest woodlands this side of the Blue Hills. The road dead-ended directly behind the larger of two barns on Haywood’s property. Both were relatively new structures, framed in steel I-beams, their walls and roof clad in metal sheathing and painted in traditional oxblood red. Because it was Sunday, the riding academy was closed, but we found Russell in the stables of the bigger barn, grooming one of his colts.

  “Mister Haywood,” I called.

  He turned back just long enough to catch a glimpse of us over his shoulder. “We’re closed,” he said, and continued raking the horse’s back with a wide-bodied scrub brush strapped to his right hand.

  “Yes, we know that.” Carlos and I came up on his left side, steering clear of the horse’s hind quarters. “I’m Detective Marcella. This is Detective Rodriquez.” I showed him my badge and ID. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  He paused briefly, just long enough to look me up and down as if gauging my age, perhaps wondering if I was old enough to be a Detective. Then he looked at Carlos, who gave him a subtle nod. He seemed to take that as verification, and went back to grooming the animal.

  “Am I in trouble or something?” he said, laughing a little to let us know he was joking.

  I had to take a really hard look at him. At first, I thought we might have had the wrong man. The Russell Haywood in the photo Spinelli showed us from Haywood’s Olympic days was a lean-looking, blond-hair athletic type with a Colgate smile and Hollywood eyes. Even his Facebook picture, probably taken ten years later, looked enough like him not to take a second guess. But the man we approached looked vastly different from the one in the pictures. Forget that he was bald. His Facebook picture hinted at that eventuality. He wore a comb-over then that stretched from the back of his head clear to his eyebrows. But this guy had also put on some serious weight, like maybe sixty pounds. His face looked dry and blotchy, tanned deep red in that way old southern farmers with pale skin tan after a full summer in the fields. His hands looked like dried leather, and like his face, were also blotted in blotchy brown and red spots that seemed to almost devour his skin.

  “No, sir, you’re not in any trouble,” I said. “You are Russell Haywood, aren’t you?”

  He stopped brushing the horse to answer. “That’s right. What can I do for you?”

  I saw him give Carlos a curious look after Carlos palmed the colt’s snout and began stroking it gently, following the grain of his coat from behind its nostrils to below its eyes. The colt seemed to like it, and so Haywood let it go.

  “Mister Haywood, have you seen Kelly Brewbaker in the last few days?”

  “Kelly? No. Why? Is everything all right?”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  His eyes drifted to the left briefly before returning to mine. “Guess it was Tuesday afternoon. Four o’clock. That’s her usual time.”

  “For riding?”

  “No, for clarinet lessons. Of course riding. Kelly’s an advanced beginner. Her specialty is the Hunt Seat discipline of riding. It’s her calves, you know.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Her legs, Detective. She’s a small girl, but she has marvelous calf muscles.”

  “Probably from dancing,” said Carlos.

  I looked at him and shook my head no. He crowded his brows at me. The horse reared its head and snorted. Carlos shushed him, stroked his snout gently and soothed him quiet.

  “She’s a good rider, is she?” I said to Haywood. “Do you ever spend any one-on-one time with her?”

  “One-on-one?”

  “Are you ever alone with her?”

  “Detective, what exactly are you getting at?”

  “I’m just trying to determine your relationship with Kelly.”

  “My relationship with Kelly, as with all my students, is strictly professional. Sure, she’s exceptional. She takes her lessons very seriously. You know she’s the only one in her age group with her own tack.”

  “Tack?”

  Carlos said, “Her saddle and bridle.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s because she’s dedicated,” Haywood added. “That’s hard to find in kids that age. Most of my younger students are spoiled little rich kids. Their parents just want them to learn a sport of the privileged so they can talk about them in their high-brow circles.” He shook his head. “But not Kelly. She’s smart. She knows how to train her thoughts and focus on the prize. We’re thinking next year we might enter her into an AHSA event for pre-teens.”

  “AHSA?”

  Again Carlos answered, “American Horse Shows Association.”

  “I see.”

  Haywood crossed his arms at his chest and threw his shoulders back. “Detective, would you mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “Mister Haywood. Kelly’s missing,” I said, and I waited to gauge his expression. Surprisingly, it didn’t change much.

  “Missing?”

  Carlos said, “Actually, she been––”

  I shut him down with a glare before he could say the word, kidnapped. “Been missing a couple of days now,” I finished.

  Haywood’s posture softened. “That’s terrible,” he said, but I sensed a lack of conviction in his voice.

  “Yes it is. We’re very worried. So you understand why we’re out talking to everyone she might have come in contact with over the last several days.”

  “Of course. But I don’t understand how I can help you. As I said, I haven’t seen Kelly since her riding lessons this past Tuesday.”

  “Mister Haywood, we noticed that you and Kelly are friends on Facebook.”

  I watched his e
xpression grow cold. “Is that a crime?”

  “No. I’m curious though if your friends include any of your other students.”

  “No, Detective, they don’t, though you’ll probably want to verify that yourself.”

  “Probably. I noticed also noticed that you and Kelly have done a fair amount of private messaging back and forth. Do you think that’s ethical?”

  “Ethical? I’m her riding coach, not her English teacher. I’m paid to work with her on a personal basis, sometimes that means communicating with her over the internet.”

  “But you don’t communicate over the internet with your other students.”

  He seemed to shrink from that. “As I said, Kelly is exceptional, as a student I mean.”

  “Of course. In your last message to Kelly you mentioned that you were looking forward to seeing her Saturday. Did you two have plans for getting together yesterday?”

  “No. I was talking about next Saturday. Kelly’s lesson for next Tuesday is canceled because I have to go out of town on business. Mr. Brewbaker arranged for her to do a makeup lesson this coming Saturday. You can verify that yourself, too, if you like.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that.”

  “Good.”

  “Tell me; aside from the other kids, did you ever see Kelly talking to anyone else, any adults?”

  “What do you mean like the other parents?”

  “I mean anyone.”

  He seemed to give it real consideration before coming back with a no. Still, I was beginning to believe him less and less.

  “Is there anything else, Detective?”

  “Yes, one more thing. Do you have any other hands working the ranch here during the week?”

  “Hands?”

  “Stable hands, maintenance workers, groundskeepers; anyone like that?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Detective, you’re looking at the stable hand, maintenance worker, groundskeeper, shoeshine boy and Indian chief. I’m it. I do everything that needs doing around here.”

  “That must keep you busy.”

  He shrugged lightly. “I got half a dozen horses, ten students and a love for the outdoors. Horse manure runs through my veins. What else do I need?”

  “Indeed,” I said. “What else is there?”

  “Exactly. Now if you don’t mind. Wearing all those hats keeps me mighty busy.”

  I gave him my card. “Call me if you hear anything, will you?”

  “Sure. You bet.”

  “We’ll see ourselves to the gate. Carlos?”

  Carlos gave the colt a pat on the neck and a nod goodbye to Haywood. On the way out of the barn, I gave Carlos a teasing nudge. “Hey, he seemed to like you. Didn’t he?”

  “Who, Haywood?”

  “No, the colt.”

  He laughed. “Oh, yeah, I guess he did.”

  “You know for a guy who thinks the Olympic Equestrian competitions are for girls and sissies, you sure seem to know a lot about horses, horse shows and things like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “What, because I know what a tack is, or what AHSA stands for?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, look,” he said, pointing at the second barn, and not so tactfully changing the subject. “We should check that out.”

  I let the first subject go and agreed with the second. Though smaller and older than the first, the second barn also had a concrete floor and metal walls. The picture the kidnappers sent us of Kelly showed her sitting on a wooden floor and leaning against a concrete-block wall. If the photo was taken in a barn, it certainly didn’t appear to be one of Haywood’s. Still, the photo showed Kelly sitting among a scattering of straw or hay. For that reason, it seemed only reasonable to investigate further.

  We entered through a side door and began looking around independently. There were no electric lights on, but none were needed. A row of four desk-sized skylights in the ceiling lit up the interior plenty enough to see by.

  I was off in a corner checking out one of the horse stalls when Carlos called to me.

  “Yo, look at this.” He had wandered to the back of the barn where a wrought iron staircase spiraled up to a loft overlooking three other stalls. I joined him at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at the wooden plank-and-joist floor above.

  “Interesting,” I said, and I presented a path up with a sweep of my hand. “After you.”

  He started up the stairs. I followed a few steps behind him. What we found at the top was not exactly a smoking gun, but something close.

  “The floor looks the same,” he said, referring to the photo of Kelly the kidnappers had emailed us.

  “Yeah, kind of,” I answered, though not entirely convinced. We found straw on the floor, remnants I imagined, from bails of hay that were probably stored up there through the winter. I pointed at the walls. “These aren’t the same.”

  “It could have been a staged photo.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmm, maybe. Get some pictures. We’ll shoot them off to Dominic. See what he thinks.”

  Carlos took out his phone and snapped a few photos, some with flash and some without. As he did that, I gathered up some loose straw from the floor and stashed it in my pocket. In doing that, I noticed something interesting.

  “Carlos. This doesn’t look right to me.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “This straw. Does it look unnatural to you?”

  “What, you think it’s artificial?”

  “No. I mean the way it’s laid out. It’s too even.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” He came up and shadowed me as I paced the floor looking down for signs of foot traffic. “I see what you mean. It’s like someone scattered the hay about in an even carpet to cover something up.”

  “But what?”

  “Maybe a body dragged across the floor.”

  Downstairs, a voice hollered up, “Excuse me!”

  Carlos and I moved to the edge of the platform and looked over. Russell Haywood looked pissed. Carlos called down, “Yes?”

  “What the hell are you two doing up there?”

  “Just looking around.”

  “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome. I’d appreciate it if you left now.”

  I looked to Carlos. “Have you seen enough?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. You?”

  “For now I guess.”

  “How `bout lunch?”

  I checked my watch. It was almost one. “Know of any good places around here?”

  “Sure. You like seafood?”

  “You know I do.”

  “The Blue Marlin’s a little ways up the road.”

  “You been there before?”

  “Yeah. It’s a nice place.”

  “All right then. Let’s do it.”

  On the ride to the Blue Marlin, I asked Carlos what he thought about Russell Haywood.

  “It’s funny,” he said. “Haywood didn’t seem as concerned as I thought he’d be.”

  “Yeah, I got the same impression. It sounded as though she were his favorite student. If he was so fond of her, I’d have expected more concern from him as well.”

  “And I don’t like the way he ran us off after he found us up in the loft.”

  “He’s hiding something. Isn’t he?”

  “You sense it too, eh?”

  “Hell, Carlos, you know me. I think everyone’s hiding something.”

  “Why didn’t you want him to know Kelly was kidnapped?”

  “He didn’t need to know that. Besides, it’s not public information yet. If he’s not a suspect, then the last thing we need is for him to go to the press with that information.”

  “You don’t think he’s a suspect?”

  “No, I said if he’s not a suspect, which reminds me. Did you send the photos you took up in the loft to Dominic yet?”

  “Fired them off as soon as I took them.”

&nb
sp; “Good. We’ll call him from the restaurant to see what he thinks about them.”

  The Blue Marlin Grill that Carlos suggested was exactly as I pictured, a quaint little structure modeled in the Old-Gloucester style tradition. The inside décor was simple nautical; light oak tables and chairs and booth seating with the usual ship’s wheel, trophy fish and sea charts mounted on the walls. And as Carlos promised when we got there, the fried clams and calamari were out of this world.

  Half-way through lunch I put my iced tea down, held my finger up to Carlos and told him, “I’ll get that.”

  “Get what?” he said, and then my phone rang.

  “That’ll be Spinelli.” I answered it. “Dominic?”

  “Tony, it’s…. Oh, yeah it’s me.”

  “What’s up? Did the kidnappers call?”

  “Not yet, but I do have a couple of things.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “First, I want to tell you that I looked at the photos Carlos sent me, the ones he took at Haywood’s?”

  “In the loft. Yes.”

  “It’s not the same, the floor I mean. The planking is staggered in Carlos’ photos. The ones in the picture the kidnappers sent are lineal, probably taken in a smaller room where the boards stretch wall-to-wall.”

  “I thought something didn’t look right,” I said. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, though. Nice work. What’s the second thing?”

  “The second thing?”

  “You said you had a couple?”

  “Oh, right. Well, you know how we’ve been unable to trace any of the kidnappers’ calls because they don’t stay on the line long enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we can’t track the phone’s location because they pull the battery from the phone after every call.”

  “I know that, so what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we haven’t been able to trace the calls, but we’re able to determine what cell towers handled the calls from the initial relays.”

  “What do you mean towers? There’s more than one?”

  “There’re lots of them. Including the ones we missed, the kidnappers have placed ten calls from Kelly’s phone. Each one was picked up by whatever tower was closest to the phone and relayed from there. So far we had ten calls originating from nine unique towers.”