EYE OF THE WITCH (Detective Marcella Witch's Series)

by Dana Donovan

  “Hello!” said this jaunty young woman, spirited as a puppy and damn near as cute. “I’m Courtney. I’ll be your server today. Can I start you two gentlemen off with something to drink?”

  She reminded me a bit of Natalie down at the Percolator, only Natalie’s hair is blond (natural), and this girl’s was more auburn. I pinned her age at around nineteen, twenty max, single (no ring) and probably no kids either, not with the body of a cheerleader and breasts like perky little plumbs.

  “Hi, Courtney,” I said. “I’ll have an iced tea please, sweetened.”

  “And I’ll have the tuna melt,” said Carlos. “With chips and a Coke, thank you.”

  “Would you like fries with that?” Courtney asked.

  I could tell Carlos was disappointed that the fries didn’t already come with it. He looked over at me to gauge my reaction. What could I do? I gave him a smirk and shook my head as though to say, I don’t know about you, Carlos. It’s your heart attack. He rolled his eyes up at Courtney, “Nah, I better not. I gotta watch the old figure. I’ve been working out, you know?”

  She smiled like a veteran politician. “Yeah, it shows,” she schmoozed. “You looked pumped.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah, totally.”

  Carlos straightened up like a cobra. “Why, thank you.”

  “Sure. You bet, hon. I’ll go get those orders in now and have your drinks here in a jiff.”

  As she walked away, I reached across the table and slapped Carlos on the arm. “You’ve been working out?”

  He puffed out his chest. “I used to. I mean, I still do once in a while.”

  “Com`on, give it a rest. She’s obviously sucking up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s playing you for a bigger tip. How does she know your workouts are showing? She’s never seen you before.”

  “People can tell.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, aside from her barely legal ass, did you notice anything else about Courtney?”

  “You mean her—”

  “Nothing about her body.”

  “Oh. Well, then no.”

  “You didn’t see that necklace?”

  “What necklace?”

  “The one with the pendant.”

  “Pennant?”

  “No! Pendant! Carlos, for crying out loud. I’d expect this from Spinelli. I’m talking about that little gold pendant hanging from the end of her necklace. It’s a broken heart, the opposite of the one on Rivera’s pinky ring.”

  “Oh, yeah I saw that. Hey did you see his diamond tie clip? Man, I bet you can—”

  “Carlos. Concentrate!”

  “All right, I’m concentrating.” He sat back and made a face like someone trying to divide one hundred and seventeen by sixteen and three-quarters.

  “Carlos, it’s obvious. Ricardo Rivera comes down to this coffee shop all the time. He’s admitted he had a relationship with Anna Davalos, who just happened to waitress here. What do you suppose are the chances that he’s also seeing Courtney?”

  Now the light bulb went off in his head. “Right. I see. He’s got a ring with a broken heart on it, and she’s got the other half on a chain.”

  “Now you get it.”

  “Do you want me to ask her about Rivera?”

  “No. Better let me do it. You follow my lead.”

  Courtney returned to the table with our drinks and delivered them with a practiced smile. As she turned to leave, I called her back.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No. Everything’s fine,” I said. “But I was wondering. My associate and I came here to talk to a lawyer about a case we’re working on.”

  “Oh, are you lawyers, too?”

  “Not exactly. We sort of work with lawyers in our line of business. Now, if we were to go upstairs and ask for the best lawyer in the company, who would we ask for?”

  “Well, that depends,” she said, without hesitation. “Is money an issue?”

  “No.” I looked at Carlos. “Money is no issue. Is it, Mister Rodriquez?”

  He waved his hands with fluttering fingers, as if dismissing the question as ridiculous. “Sir, you embarrass me. Do I look like money is an issue to me?”

  I thinned my lips and shot him a look to tone it down. If the girl had any maturity behind her fluttering eyes, she would have known that Carlos bought his suits off the rack at Penny’s. I turned to Courtney and rigged my thinning lips into a smile. “Money,” I said, “is not an issue for my associate or me. We would like to know who you consider the best lawyer in the building, regardless of fee.”

  “Then that’s easy. You want one of the partners.”

  Her answer nearly floored me. “You mean Hartman, Pierce or Petruzelli?”

  “Heavens no. I mean the other partner, Mister Rivera.”

  “Rivera, Rivera, I don’t recall his name outside on the building.”

  “Oh, but it’s not,” she explained.

  “But you said—”

  “Not yet anyway, but soon. Mister Rivera is expecting an offer for partnership any day now.”

  “Is that right? Well, good for him. But you know I thought someone else was getting the job.” I looked at Carlos with a modified frown. “Mister Rodriquez, didn’t we read somewhere that the firm planned on offering a partnership to a woman?”

  “I think we did,” he said.

  “What was her name? Do you remember?”

  “Yes, it was Dell, or Devons, or something like that.”

  “You mean, Dean?” Courtney offered. “Bridget Dean?”

  “Dean! Yes, I do believe that’s it.”

  “Yes, well forget about her,” she said coldly. “Dean is out of the way now. Ricardo’s getting the partnership.”

  “Ricardo?”

  “I mean, Mister Rivera.”

  “I see. I suppose he’s equally qualified.”

  “More!” she said, just a little insulted. “Mister Rivera is the smartest, most talented Lawyer this town has ever seen.”

  “Is he? So, you like him?”

  She reeled back with a smitten look, her fingers teasing the dimpled cleft in her chin. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean like that, of course. I mean, as lawyers go, you favor him above the others.”

  Her expression softened, and both Carlos and I watched her petite chest rise and fall with her sigh. “Yes, I do. Now, if there isn’t anything else, gentlemen, I have to go look after your order?”

  “Oh, just one more thing,” I said. She had already started away. When she turned around I could see she had rolled her eyes up at the ceiling, only they hadn’t fully dropped forward in time for us not to notice. I smiled at that, and she grimaced at the little faux pas.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll make this one quick. My associate and I came here a few weeks ago, and a lovely young woman waited on us. I believe her name was Anna. Is she here now?”

  “Anna?”

  “Yes. We believe that’s her name. You see, we forgot to leave her a tip, and so now we want to make it right.”

  “Anna is…. She’s not here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, she moved away, I think.”

  “You think she moved?”

  “Yes. She moved.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “Alabama. Back to her family.”

  “Really? How strange, I never noticed she had a southern accent.”

  “Oh, did I say Alabama? I meant…Alaska, yes, but she left no forwarding address.”

  “Hmm, that’s too bad. All right. Thank you for your time, Courtney.”

  She turned and hurried off into the kitchen. Moments later, another waitress emerged with Carlos’ sandwich and brought it to our table. This girl looked even younger than Courtney. I looked for any jewelry sporting half a broken heart and felt a sense of relief to find none.

  “What happened to Courtney?” I
asked.

  “She went home,” the girl replied.

  “Not feeling well?”

  She shook her head. “No, I feel fine. But thanks for asking.”

  I let it go at that.

  Five

  I let Carlos drive us back to the justice center after the iced tea I had failed to deliver the jolt I so sorely needed to keep from falling asleep behind the wheel. I’d been up since midnight the night before, and although that’s not an unusually long time for me to stay awake, it came on the heels of four particularly sleepless nights earlier in the week.

  “We have a room back at the box with sleeping cots,” Carlos said, after assessing my lack of energy. “You’re welcome to grab a few winks when we get back.”

  “Forget it,” I told him. “You know me. I’ll get my second wind soon. In the meantime, let’s review what we know so far. What do you make of Ricardo Rivera?”

  Carlos began tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel. To me, that meant one of two things. Either he couldn’t make heads or tails of Rivera, or he was afraid his assessment would differ from mine. As it turned out, it was a little of both.

  “You know, Tony, I don’t know what to think of Rivera. Either he’s a perfect liar, or he’s perfectly innocent.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes, and let me tell you why. First off, he admits to not liking Bridget Dean. Now, if I killed someone, I wouldn’t want you to know that I didn’t like the person.”

  “Ah, but he also said that everyone disliked Dean.”

  “That’s my point. If everyone disliked her, than anyone could have killed her.”

  “Okay, point taken. What else?”

  “How `bout that he told us he once dated her even before I asked him?”

  “He’s a lawyer, Carlos. He saw the question coming.”

  “But he didn’t have to volunteer the information. He could have lied about that. If I killed someone, I wouldn’t want you to know we once dated. You might think I was a begrudged lover.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  “Then he would have lied about it.”

  “All right, what about the obvious?”

  “The promotion to full partnership?”

  “It’s the six hundred pound gorilla in the room.”

  “Well, that was no surprise to him. You heard him say that Bridget Dean was sleeping with Petruzelli. He couldn’t have felt suddenly slighted by her promotion.”

  “All valid arguments,” I said, handing him credit where credit was due. “However, the examples you present to exonerate him provide equal grounds to incriminate him, as well. Case in point, their past relationship. You mentioned a begrudged lover. Imagine his rage when he learns that she only used their relationship to further her career within the firm. Compound that anger with the real possibility that she aborted his child.”

  “He never said that.”

  “No, but you saw his reaction when you asked him.” I leaned over and tapped his arm. “By the way, that was a real gamble.”

  “Asking him that?”

  “Yeah, real ballsy.”

  “Thanks. I did hit a nerve, didn’t I?”

  “Yes you did. So, add that to the equation. Then ball it all up and take it downstairs to our little miss homemaker, Courtney. Did you catch what she said about Rivera getting the promotion?”

  “What?”

  “When speaking of Bridget Dean, she said, ‘…She’s out of the way now. Ricardo’s getting the partnership’. She didn’t say that she was dead or that she killed herself. She said, ‘out of the way’. That’s what you say when you’ve taken care of a problem. If you ask me, everything about this case revolves around Ricardo Rivera. And Miss Courtney? She’s in this thing up to her tight little ass—literally.”

  “What about Piakowski?”

  “What about him?”

  “Rivera admitted they were friends. If he hired Piakowski to kill Dean, wouldn’t he deny knowing him?”

  I shook my head. “He’s smarter than that. Rivera would know how easily we could tie the two together. His defense of Piakowski in his appeal is a matter of public record. He can’t bury that.”

  “Then it’s all too obvious, isn’t it? There’s just one big problem.”

  “I know. Why does Dean’s death look like suicide?”

  “And Karen’s, too.”

  “And Anna Davalos. What’s her story?”

  The answer to question number three awaited us back at the justice center. Questions one and two would have to wait a little longer.

  Carlos and I ran into Spinelli out in the parking lot the moment we pulled in. I say that barely figuratively, as Carlos almost hit Spinelli’s car angling for the same parking space. We all walked back to Carlos’ workstation together, Spinelli, catching us up on Anna Davalos as we wound our way down the halls past the layers of security.

  “Her name was Anna Marie Davalos,” Spinelli said, reading off a multi-colored sheet of paper with a thumbnail picture of Anna on the top. “Twenty-eight-years old, born in Cuba, became an American citizen at age eighteen. Occupation: waitress. Hobbies: reading, biking, morning jogs and romantic comedies. Turn-ons: men in business suits, fast cars and slow dancing. Turn-offs: bitchy co-workers, hip-hop, and men who drink. Strong points: smart, bi-lingual and thrifty. Weak points: rude, hot-tempered, sassy and insensitive.”

  He finished up with ‘sassy and insensitive’ just as we reached Carlos’ workstation. It didn’t seem right to sit down, and yet a round of applause didn’t quite cut it, either. I looked at Carlos and asked, “Does he do this all the time?”

  He smiled smugly. “He is amazing, isn’t he?”

  “Spinelli, where did you get all that information?”

  He turned the paper over and showed us. “She has a page on Blog-Hog.”

  “She posted that information about herself?”

  “Yeah, well, the personal stuff about where she came from: occupation, hobbies, turn-ons and turn-offs. The stuff about her being rude, sassy and insensitive, I got from interviewing her friends at work.”

  “Her friends said those things?”

  “Go figure. You know, she really wasn’t that well liked. Her boss had good things to say about her, though. She was punctual, good-natured to customers, especially to the big tippers. She seemed to know who they were and always anticipated their needs. And her ability to read her co-workers proved uncanny. That’s the reason everyone else hated her. Despite what they said to her face, she always knew what they really thought about her.”

  Carlos and I sat down. “Speaking of co-workers, you didn’t happen to talk to Courtney, did you?”

  “Courtney Lusk?”

  “Is there another Courtney there?”

  “No.”

  “Then yes.”

  He snapped his head back and smiled suspiciously. “How do you know her?”

  “We talked to her,” said Carlos. “Only she wasn’t’ so forthcoming with information about Anna with us. Did you tell her who you were?”

  “No, I told her Anna owed me money. She couldn’t wait to tell me she was dead.”

  I turned to Carlos. “Were we talking to the same girl?”

  “It’s the generation gap,” he said. “Kids today, they’re on the same skiff.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  Spinelli rolled his eyes. “Ho, boy, plenty. She told me she was dating Ricardo.”

  “Courtney or Anna?”

  “Both. Apparently that’s the major rivalry between the two girls. Rivera’s been dating Courtney and Anna on and off for as long as the two have been working there. He gets with one, grows tired of her after a while and then goes back to the other. In-between, he works on the rest of the girls in the waitress pool. He’s got them lined up like a softball roster.”

  “What a player,” I said. “I don’t believe the guy. What does he do when he reaches the bottom of the batting order, start at the top again?”

  “Not if Courtney get
s things her way. That girl has her sites locked in tight. She told me she fully expects to get back with Rivera for good now that Anna is out of the way.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Yup.”

  “And she used the phrase, ‘Out of the way’? Carlos, are you listening to this?”

  “I told you, Tony, it’s the generation thing. Young people tell other young people everything.”

  I laughed. “Well, if that’s the case then why don’t older folks tell other old folks everything?”

  “Experience.”

  “Experience? Or paranoia?”

  He threw his hands up. “Pick your poison.”

  I turned to Spinelli. “What did you find out about her suicide?”

  “The medical examiner hasn’t filed his final report yet, but I know a girl in his office: Theresa. What she said and what I confirmed independently is that Anna went to work the day of her suicide, but only worked a half-shift. Co-workers tell me she was very excited about going straight to the car dealership to put a down payment on a new car, which she did. I verified that at the dealer’s. Later that afternoon, she confirmed an appointment with her dentist, picked up her dry-cleaning and stopped at the ATM for some cash. There’s a few hours where I couldn’t verify her activities, but––and this is from the coroner’s upcoming report––around eight o’clock that evening, she prepared a hot bath, climbed into it, still in her nightgown, and then slit her wrists. She bled to death within minutes.”

  I looked at Carlos. His face drew long and blank. “What do you make of that?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Sounds to me like up to eight o’clock this was definitely not a girl planning on killing herself.”

  “I agree.”

  “Was there no signs of foul play?”

  Spinelli pulled a small notepad from his shirt pocket. I noticed it looked identical to the one Carlos carried. He flipped the first page open and read the name, “Ida Reynolds.”

  “Ida who?”

  “That’s who noticed it.”

  “Noticed what?”