Sara hadn’t intended to do that. It was the Witchblade.
Lupe crouched on her knees, hand to face, looking scared. Sara backed off, panting.
“Okay. Just so we know where we stand. I could bust you for attempted murder of a police officer. That’s a lifetime term, little lady. But if you help me, I may not have to do that.”
The girl stared at her with undisguised hatred.
“Is there a problem? You look like you hate my guts. What have I ever done to you?”
The girl’s face twisted in outrage. It made her look even younger. “You take my boyfriend away from me, and you ask me that?”
“Your boyfriend? Are you referring to Jorge?” Sara barked a rueful laugh. “I have nothing to do with him! I have a boyfriend. Girlfriend, you must be dreaming. Only reason I talk to Jorge is to get him to lay off the residents. So far, he’s risen to the task. He might be a lot better than you think.” Too good for you, she thought.
“So what? What you want with me?”
“Estrella told me that you sometimes see future events, that you have precognitive ability.”
Lupe drew herself up with newfound dignity. “I got the power, if that’s what you mean. Sometimes I can see things before they happen.”
“Do you know what a seance is?”
Lupe nodded.
“Have you ever conducted one?”
Lupe’s young face clouded with blood. “Once, I try to contact my brother Enrique, who was killed by some Jamaicans ’cause they wanted his comer. He tell me he in a strange place now, neither here nor there. It made me cold..The girl grabbed herself around the arms and squeezed, as if tiying to hold in heat. It was very warm in the bedroom.
Sara reached into her pocket and pulled out the troll. “My hair. It must have come from you. Where did you get it?”
Without looking at Sara, Lupe said, “The garbage chute.”
Sara held up the drawing of her surrounded by wolves. “And this?”
Lupe bit her lip, eyes wide, and nodded. “S’posed to make you scared.”
“I see that you’re an enterprising young lady. It’s too bad you haven’t found something constructive in to which you can channel your energies. But if you help me, and keep your nose clean, maybe I can help you.”
The girl said nothing. Simply stared at the floor and pouted.
“How old are you, Lupe?”
“Fifteen.”
“You go to school?”
Lupe shrugged. “Sometime. Malcolm Shabazz Middle School.”
“You gonna help me with this seance?”
At last the girl looked up. “Who are you trying to reach?”
“A Japanese samurai who was forced to commit suicide eight hundred years ago.”
“Close the door,” Lupe said.
Sara shut the door. “You going to help me?”
The girl nodded, swallowing. “You got something that belonged to this samurai?”
Sara produced the tsuba, black iron in the shape of a lotus blossom, and handed it to the girl. Lupe set it on the bed, went to the window and shut the blinds. “Works better if there’s less light.” She took a towel, wadded it up, and spread it at the base of the door.
“How often have you done this?” Sara asked.
“Twice. Once to find mi hermano. Once to talk to Selena.”
“How’d it go?”
“I tol’ you ’bout Enrique. I never could get in touch with Selena ’cause I don’t got nothin’ of hers. Maybe 1 buy something on eBay one of these days.”
Sara looked around. She hadn’t seen a computer. “How do you know about eBay?”
“I learn about it at school. They sellin’ all sorts of stuff used to belong to Selena. There’s this statue of her in a black leather jacket, but that wouldn’t help me get in touch with her. In order to reach someone who’s dead, you need to have something that used to belong to them.”
The tsuba had belonged to Muramasa, not Udo, or Shiegeyoshi. But if Udo had killed Muramasa, perhaps the
swordsmith’s ghost was in touch with that of the warrior. Perhaps they took tea together. Sara didn’t know what she expected, but she was out of leads on the earthly plane. Time to cross over. She tapped the disc on the bed.
The girl took it, held it up to the light, looked as if she were about to take a bite out of it. “What is this?”
“It’s a tsuba, the hilt from a samurai sword.”
“Who we reachin’ out to?”
Sara smiled. The girl had unconsciously invoked cop talk. “The sword’s builder, Muramasa. He lived in Japan in the thirteenth century.”
She nodded. “Hesh up now, I got to concentrate.”
The girl set four large candles around the room, at the four comers, and lit them. They sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each other, with the black metal disc between them. Lupe instructed Sara to rest her fingertips gently on the edge of the tsuba; Lupe did likewise. Outside, they could hear traffic swooshing by a block away on Atlantic Avenue. The sound seemed to recede as Lupe bent forward and began to speak in a low voice.
“Muramasa, great swordmaker, you who wander in the void unsatisfied, unrequited, without rest, hear us. Speak to us. Tell us what you seek.”
Nothing. Nothing save the distant swoosh of traffic, like an angiy sea, the hiss of water moving through the pipes, the muted glee of the Powerpuff Girls from the television in the living room.
They sat awkwardly for five minutes. Lupe looked up from beneath her black bangs. “Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes the spirits are busy.”
“How often have you done this?”
“Twice, I told you. Hesh up. I got to concentrate.”
The girl dropped her voice an octave as if speaking in a patently fake tone would convince the spirits of her sincerity. “Muramasa, great swordmaker...”
Sara’s hand began to tingle, an instant before the gauntlet arrived with a clank. A cold wind blasted through the room, making the blinds buzz and blowing out the candles. The room grew dark, as if someone had set a bell cover over the entire building, blocking out the sun. The Witchblade yanked her hand outward and held it there, as if to ward off a blow.
The voice emanated outward, in ripples, from somewhere within Lupe, but did not issue from her mouth. Her lips moved, but the sound came from everywhere and nowhere. It was a man’s voice, harsh and guttural. It spat forth the words, Washi no katana, kaese! in a dialect that hadn’t been heard in seven hundred years.
A tendril of burning chemical fiber wound through Sara’s sinuses like a bramble. She looked down. The tsuba was glowing red hot, igniting the cheap bed cover. Instinctively, the Witchblade swooped down, picked up the glowing disc and tossed it in the girl’s metal wastebasket. The trashcan was empty. The tsuba glowed dull and began to fade. Lupe’s eyes rolled up into the top of her head and she collapsed sideways on the bed.
Sara looked down. The Witchblade was gone, replaced by the costume bracelet. Her palm tingled, from the heat of the disc. Leaning over, she straightened the girl out, thumbed open her lids, looked at her eyes, felt her pulse. Sara let herself out of the bedroom, down the short hall to the tiny bathroom, where she found a clean washrag and soaked it in cold water. At the end of the hall, the younger sister remained sprawled on a cushion watching the Cartoon Network.
Lupe opened her eyes as Sara applied the cold cloth to her forehead. She blinked a couple of times. “Wow. I guess we made contact, huh?”
Sara had been repeating the strange words over and over in her head until she found the mnemonic key, which she used to lock the memoiy. “Are you all right? Wait, don’t tiy to sit up yet. Tell me what happened.” “You know what happened, lady. I made contact. I wasn’t there. I got displaced. Only you saw and know what happened.”
“You don’t remember the words?”
“No. What’s that smell? Is something burning?”
“The artifact I brought became red hot and set the bedclothes on fire. Don’t worry. It’s out.
There’s no danger.” Lupe sat up. “Wow. Did that really happen?” She stared at the charred disc in the middle of her bedspread.
“Why are you surprised? You believe in witchcraft, don’t you?”
The girl nodded.
“You have extraordinary abilities. How are you doing in school?”
The girl drew her knees up beneath her chin. Suddenly, she looked twelve years old. “You ain’t my mother.” “That’s right, I’m not. When someone expresses interest in you, the least you can do is be polite. Let me guess. You don’t attend regularly. Can you read and write?”
“Of course I can read and write. I’m not stupid.” Sara just stared at her with limpid green eyes. Lupe squirmed. “Okay. I’m sorry. Maybe I made a mistake ’bout choo. Maybe you ain’t evil. But you a witch, I seen that for myself!”
Sara winked. “Takes one to know one.”
Lupe gaped. A guffaw escaped her reluctant lips. “Okay. We just a couple a witches havin’ a coven.”
There was noise outside the room. A moment later, the door swung inward, revealing a rail-thin Latino woman, her long black hair streaked with gray and fixed atop her head in a bun, wearing a coral-colored waitress uniform. “I thought I heard voices. Who is your friend?”
Sara stood. “Sara Pezzini, Mrs. Guttierez. I live on the fourth floor.”
“You’re the policewoman.” She offered her thin, strong hand, quizzical expression on her face. “Is Lupe in trouble?”
Conspiracy, incitement to riot, illegal possession of a firearm, driving without a license. “No, ma’am. Not at all. We just discovered we have a few things in common.”
More quizzical.
“We both have precognitive abilities, Mama,” the girl said.
Mrs. Guttierez nodded, smiled. “Would you like some coffee, Miss Pezzini?”
“No thank you, ma’am. I have to be going. But if there’s anything you need, that I can help, here’s my card.”
She scooped up the nine on her way out the door, gave mamacita a smile. “It’s mine. I just set it down for a minute.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Sara had three hours before she was to meet David for the mayor’s reception. Ralph Munster was not in the Manhattan phone directory, but Sharpe had written Munster’s home and cell phone numbers on the back of the card. She tried the cell phone first.
“Munster,” he answered quickly with a hint of impatience.
“Mr. Munster, this is Detective Sara Pezzini, of the Eleventh Precinct. I wonder if I could see you for a few minutes this afternoon.”
“What’s this about?”
“Homicide investigation.”
Beat. “I’m golfing.”
“I won’t take more than a few minutes. I can come out to where you’re playing, if you like.”
“No.” Sigh of exasperation. Hand over the receiver while he explained to his foursome, “I can meet you briefly at three-thirty.”
“Where?”
He named a tavern called J. Pierpont’s on Route 29, near Danbuiy.
She carefully packed her bike with all necessary items. It was a tight fit, enough to make a girl wish for saddlebags. She’d been thinking of investing in a pair of Corbin Beetle Bags, but they weren't much larger than her compact, and cost eight hundred bucks. Between her tank bag and the strap-on ovemighter, she got it all in: the dress, the shoes, the makeup, even the hair dryer.
It took her just over an hour to make the run up to Danbury, dicing with semis and brain-dead hausfraus in SUVs. She found J. Pierpont’s on a frontage road between Schulman’s Wholesale Furniture and Curtis Chrysler/Dodge. It was one of those faux folksy fern bars with a polished brass rail and an eight-page menu, from Mexican to Thai. She made a bet with herself that the BMW 5-series with the WALL ST license was Munster’s.
He was in a window booth, scowling at a copy of Barron’s, iced latte at hand. He had the lean, tanned good looks of a surfer or professional politician, wore a coarse-weave ecru cotton jacket over a white golf shirt, looked surprised when she slid in across from him. Surprised at her. He wasn’t expecting this.
“How do you know me?” he asked at once.
She slid the card she’d taken from Sharpe’s place across the table. He picked it up, examined it, put it back down. “Where’d you get it?”
“Never mind where I got it. Nobody knows that I have it except you. Nobody has to know. I’m in the middle of a homicide investigation and I need answers fast. It’s possible the killer will strike again.”
“What’s this got to do with me?”
“You’re a close personal friend of Derek Sharpe, aren’t you?”
The waitress came. Sara ordered an iced tea.
“This is about those damned swords, isn’t it?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Derek. Thinks he’s the reincarnation of Toshiro Mifune.”
“Toshiro Mifune has only been dead a short time. Does Derek really believe he’s a reincarnated samurai?”
Munster offered a wry grin. “I was speaking figuratively. He is a great admirer of their culture, history, and tradition. He speaks Japanese, you know.”
“I didn’t know. Look, it’s none of my business, but are you Derek’s... gentleman friend?”
He frowned. “I’m his lover, okay? I’m not butch, and I’m not a drag queen. My partners know I’m gay, but they don’t mind because I don’t mince around in a pink tutu demanding money for AIDS research. Derek’s situation is somewhat different.”
“That’s why I’m being discreet.”
“I appreciate it. Not that he makes a secret of it.”
“I’m actually surprised he was hired.”
Munster shrugged.
“Mr. Munster, is Derek the samurai killer?”
“How would I know?”
“I figure if anyone would, you would.”
“Well, I don’t. We have a complicated relationship. He’s a very private person. So am I. I do know he went native in a big way, and now he’s back. Certainly he’s physically capable of these deeds, but not mentally, or spiritually. Derek is a very spiritual person. I just can’t see him murdering anyone.”
“He’s a former SEAL.”
“He’s changed.”
“Has he ever experienced blackouts?”
“What do you mean?”
“Periods of time for which he can’t account.”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Sara handed Munster her card. “If you think of anything, please call me.”
Munster tapped the card against the tabletop. “There is one thing...”
Sara leaned forward. “Oh?”
“He did tell me, he’d gone on a joint operation with Japanese special police after some terrorist, one of those charismatic monks in a mountain stronghold in Hokkaido. Something happened, something that frightened him badly. He cut himself...”
“Cut himself how?”
“On a sword. That’s all I know. He won’t talk about it.” “Do you know what happened to the sword?”
“No. But he worries... that he’s been infected. Some poison.”
“Has he had himself tested?”
“Everything. He gets a clean bill of health. I asked him what made him think so. He said, ‘I just don’t feel like myself.’”
“That’s it?”
Munster shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ll call me if you think of anything.”
“Sure.”
She arrived at the precinct house at ten of five. Hers was the only bike. She sat at her desk and wrote out the phonetic statement she’d heard, as accurately as possible.
WASHI NO KATANA, KAESE!
She knew enough about Japanese to recognize the word for “sword.” She phoned the Asian Languages Department at Columbia and got a recording. It was, after all, Saturday afternoon. She couldn’t hope to connect with any scholars. She searched the central roster for Japanese-American cops, came up with
a couple, tried reaching out to them. Nada. She ended up e-mailing the phonetic phrase to the foreign language departments at Columbia, CCNY, SUNY, and the Japanese Consulate. Any luck, she’d find an answer waiting Monday morning.
Who had spoken through Lupe? Muramasa? Oji? Shigeyoshi? She knew so little about any of them, she felt lost. The tsuba's maker was not necessarily the speaker. Any powerful spirit would seize on the opportunity Sara and Lupe had provided. Sara was convinced that whoever had spoken, it was the driving force behind the murders. Forget the ex-wives. Forget the business rivals. It was another monster chase.
“Lord,” she said to herself, “couldn’t you send me a nice, simple, live human suspect? Just one.”
Her phone rang.
“Pezzini.”
“Detective, it’s Norm Hansen with Panther Security.”
Sara’s heart did a one-and-a-half gainer. “Yes, Mr. Hansen. It’s about a device I found across the street from Bachman.” She described the device, and how she had traced it back to Panther.
“I don’t know about that, and I should. We were all shocked at Mr. Chalmers’ death. I knew him-not a close friend, but we were friendly. Let me look into this and get back to you.”
“I’ll e-mail you the serial number.”
“That would be helpful.”
At 5:30, she packed it in and headed downtown to change at Dave’s place. She could have used the women’s room at the station house, but she preferred David’s commodious bathroom. It was more private. She’d phoned David ahead of time so that he was standing by the open door in the alley when she arrived. He wore a pair of loose-fitting heavy black cotton pants with elastics at the waist and ankles, Chinese kung fu slippers, and a gray T-shirt that said FOURTH ANNUAL PRIDE CLASSIC. He was dripping with sweat.
“Hi! I was just working. Make yourself at home while I take a quick shower. Won’t be more than ten minutes.” “Just a minute,” she said, grabbing him before he bolted. She drew him close and kissed him on the mouth. “Okay. You may go.”
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