Eye of the Witch

by Dana Donovan

  “So, how’s Lilith?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said, “up to her old witchcraft stuff.”

  “Oh?” He started the car and pulled out of the drive.

  “Yeah, she asked me for the witch’s ladder again. Said it’s been a year and a day since she made it, and now she needs it back for some rite of passage thing.”

  “A rite who?”

  “Oh, she’s got candles and incenses burning all over the house for some big ceremonial shindig or something tonight.”

  “You mean, like a party?”

  I laughed. “Right, a party at Lilith’s. That’ll be the day.”

  “What? She seems like a fun girl. Maybe you just have to get to know her.”

  “Get to know Lilith? That’s an oxymoron. If you looked up enigmatic perplexity in the dictionary it would probably say, see Lilith.”

  “You’re being harsh.”

  “Am I? You think you know her better than I do?”

  “No, I’m only saying, I bet when she lets her hair down that she’s a real gas at parties.”

  I sat back and thought about it as he drove. I had seen Lilith smile once or twice—even laugh on an occasion, I think. But a real gas at parties? Maybe if she drank. Although it seemed to me that a drunken Lilith could pose some big problems if she ever got really pissed at a party. I looked to Carlos and asked him, “Would you ever go to a party with Lilith if she were drinking?”

  “Hell, yes!” he said, and the smile on his face told me he had thought about it before. “Are you kidding me?”

  I knew then exactly what it was that set him and me apart. In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who take the bull by the horns and ride it wild, and those who stand on the sidelines and watch. All my life I thought that I was the bull rider, solving crimes, taking down felons and thugs and making the world a better place for everyone, street-by-street. But at that moment, I realized the truth: that I had spent my entire career in the shadows of the man I wished I was, and that I wasn’t some take-charge daredevil knight in shining armor. That I exhausted my potential, steering from the backseat of faded aspirations. It’s the reason I never became Captain. I realized then that I wasn’t the bull rider at all, and worse, that I had only lived my life vicariously through bull riders like Lilith and Carlos.

  I closed my eyes and a river of memories flooded my brain. I wondered, had I not reaped a lifetime of gratification from those memories regardless? That I had nothing more to show for my life’s work didn’t make it any less rewarding. Did it? I slipped my hand into my pocket and felt the obsidian. Upon its touch, I made a wish that I might start my life over, that I might know then what I know now. I prayed that the powers of witchcraft bestowed on the granitic glass through Lilith’s spell might somehow bend to my will if only I believed hard enough. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was still just an old man with a heavy heart, only now filled with the regrets of a bystander watching the bull riders take on the world.

  Eleven

  The drive across town, for the most part, fell silent of words. Carlos tried to pry some chitchat from me, but I found it hard to acquiesce. He probably assumed my thoughts were wrapped in contemplation. I do get quiet sometimes when I’m working the details of a case out in my mind. His courtesy in that respect lent me time to shelf my self-pity, if only long enough to focus again on our business at hand.

  We headed for Rivera’s home by way of the HP&P building. I hoped to see the lights still burning up on the fourteenth floor. I thought if we could catch Ricardo working late at his office, then he’d have a harder time closing the door on our faces. Unfortunately, our luck ran sour and we saw only security and hallway lights keeping the place lit. I instructed Carlos to turn south on Lexington. That’s when Spinelli rang me on the cell.

  “Detective, I have good news and bad news,” he said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “This flash drive you found at Karen Webber’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s got tons of information stored on it.”

  “Okay. I’m guessing that’s the good news.”

  “It is.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “It’s all encrypted.”

  “Can you decode it?”

  He hesitated, which made me think I asked a silly question. “Sir, the program uses an encryption key length of 128-bits. If I could decode it, do you think I would have any bad news?”

  Nice, I thought, I’m talking to a little Carlos Rodriquez now. “Spinelli, we have to know what’s on that flash drive. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Maybe,” he said, and I thought I heard a glimmer of hope in his voice. “Karen did use the encryption program here at the office. If you had any clue as to what password she might have used, then….”

  “What kind of password?”

  I could almost see him shrug. “I don’t know, anything: a series of numbers or letters or a combination of numbers and letters. It could even be a string of Wingdings.”

  Okay, now I thought he was putting me on. Carlos started mumbling something about the way the guy ahead of us was driving. I switched the phone to my left ear to block him out. That’s when I set my right hand down on my lap and felt the obsidian stone in my pocket. At once, the eye of the witch inspired me. “Spinelli,” I said. “Can the password be someone’s name?”

  He answered, “Yes, but I already tried that. It’s not Karen or Webber or Karen Webber or….”

  “Did you try, Travis?”

  “No.”

  “Try it.”

  I heard the tapping of a keyboard and then a very surprised, “That’s it! I’m in! Wow, look at all this stuff. Detective, this is going to take some time to sift through. How `bout I call you back when I find something worthwhile?”

  “You do that,” I said, and I hung up. I turned to Carlos. “You know, that kid has promise.”

  Carlos smiled. “I did hand pick him.”

  “Did you?” I said, teasing. “That’s funny, because Spinelli told me he picked you.”

  He winced. “Same thing.”

  I laughed at that. He signaled right onto Roosevelt and settled into the left lane. I kept my hand over the obsidian in my pocket and gazed out the window, encouraged by our apparent turn of fortunes.

  We arrived at Rivera’s place about fifteen minutes later. Gone was the element of surprise when we realized that Rivera would have to buzz us in at the gate before we could drive up to the house. Assuming his involvement in the case extended beyond simple association, I expected him to turn us away without argument. However, by detaining his younger brother for questioning earlier, we had struck a custodial nerve in him, one he could not easily dismiss. So, not only did he buzz us in at the gate unchallenged, but he also came out and stood on the front steps with arms folded at his chest, waiting for us to roll up the drive. We barely stepped out of the car when he started in about Benjamin, letting us have it with both barrels. I held my hand up and shut him down in mid-sentence.

  “We’ll get to your questions soon enough,” I told him, “but first we need a few answers of our own. Now, we can stand out here all night so your neighbors can hear all about it, or we can go inside and discuss this rationally.”

  Carlos nudged me with his elbow and threw a subtle gaze out over our shoulders. I knew he meant for me to see that Rivera had no neighbors, but by then Rivera had turned and started indoors. We followed without invitation. Inside, we passed through the formal foyer and beyond that, the grand staircase that lead to the second floor by way of a mid-landing, which split off into two directions, one for each wing of the house. We gathered in the library, which featured a gothic-looking fireplace on one wall and three large mullioned framed windows overlooking a garden on the other. Rivera pointed to two of four leathered chairs grouped in a semi-circle by the fire. “Sit,” he said, and almost as an afterthought so that it didn’t sound like an order, he added, “Please?”

/>   We did, and as he joined us I asked him, “Where were you, Mister Rivera, around four-thirty this afternoon?”

  “In my office, working,” he replied.

  “Your brother called you from the police station. Your answering service took the call.”

  “So, I stepped out.”

  “I bet you did. You went to the train station to pick up Gregory Piakowski, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “I think you did. And may I remind you, as a lawyer I’m sure you’re aware that obstructing an active police investigation is a serious offence, punishable by law.”

  “You’re not an active duty police officer.”

  “But I am,” said Carlos. “And I’m just about a half-step away from hauling you in.”

  Rivera’s face remained unchanged. His courtroom expressions varied little from the moment he let us into his home till then. But I knew he was lying from the tiny beads of sweat forming over his upper lip. I leaned forward in my chair, hands folded, elbows flat against my knees. “Mister Rivera. If you have something to hide, then I don’t blame you for lying, in fact, I would recommend that you ask us to leave your home this minute.”

  “What, you’re giving me legal advice now?”

  “Not at all. What I’m saying is that if you have nothing to hide and have broken no laws, then I suggest you tell us what we want to know. After all, I can only imagine how a prolonged, over-sensationalized murder trial might play out in the press, and what that might do to your chances of making full partnership at the firm.”

  “Murder?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard that one before. “You just try and drag me through that dog and pony show, Detective. I’ll have the State Attorney’s office and Internal Affairs on your ass so fast you won’t be able to sit without first needing to fill out a request form and submitting it in triplicates.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Believe me.”

  “Very well, then.” I stood up and motioned for Carlos to do the same. “I guess we’ll get out of your hair now. When the DA’s office phones you….”

  “Wait,” he said, and I knew I had called his bluff. “Just a minute.” He pointed to the chairs. “Let’s start over. I have nothing to hide.”

  I looked at Carlos and gave him the nod. We reclaimed our seats. “Mister Rivera. How `bout the truth, now?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out skyward. “Yes. It’s simple, really. I don’t know why everything gets blown out of proportion so easily. So, okay, fine. I went to the train station to pick up Gregory. He called me in a panic, said he was standing next to some woman on the platform, talking to her, and the next thing he knew, she stepped off the edge right into the path of the oncoming train. The scene was horrific, as you might imagine, people screaming, running helter-skelter. A cop working the platform at the time moved in quickly and sealed off the stairwell to the street. Within minutes, more cops arrived and began taking statements. Greg was worried because he gave his real name. Naturally, the trains stopped running, so he called me and asked me to give him a ride to the bus station.”

  “Where did he go from there?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Mister Rivera….”

  “I swear he didn’t. I guess he figured it best if I didn’t know.”

  “But you figure he left town.”

  “Detective, he did get on a bus. What do you think?”

  I looked at Carlos and delivered the old high brow. He smiled back, as if to say, he’s got you there. I said to Rivera, “You know, innocent men don’t run. At this point, things don’t look so good for your boy, Piakowski.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not, but Greg is innocent. This woman at the train station, she killed herself. You have fifty people who will testify to that.”

  “Forty-nine,” I said, “without Piakowski here to tell his side.” I reached across the coffee table and picked up a pack of smokes lying there. “These yours?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “You smoke Marlboros?”

  He reached over and took them from me. “Is that so strange?”

  “We found Marlboro butts up in the attic over Karen Webber’s apartment. It looked like someone had been hanging out up there for a while, and not so long ago.”

  He pulled a smoke from the pack and lit it with a cigarette lighter that looked so much like a real gun that Carlos flinched for his shoulder weapon. Rivera took a drag, coughed a little and then forced another to show that he could do it. A white-blue fog steamed through his nostrils like chimney smoke and hung in a cloud around his face before dissipating thinly above his head.

  “I see,” he said, nearly choking. “So, because I smoke Marlboros, now I killed Karen Webber. Is that it?”

  “Did you?”

  “Detective, the last time we talked, you accused me of killing Bridget Dean and Anna Davalos. Did you find Marlboro butts in their attics, too?”

  I laughed. “No, but we did learn that it’s possible those women were not alone when they died.”

  “Bridget Dean was alone. You’ve seen the video, no doubt.”

  “We saw a video, yes, but it still remains unproven whether or not the time and date stamp on it had been altered.”

  Rivera snuffed his smoke out in an ashtray before slanting against the back of his chair. “Detective, help me understand something. You came here this evening with questions about Greg Piakowski, I’m assuming it’s because you think he had something to do with that woman’s death at the train station. He told me how you harassed him at the cemetery and that you think he also played a role in Karen Webber’s death.”

  “We’re looking into all possibilities,” I said.

  “Yes, but now you’re insinuating I had a part in Karen Webber’s death, as well. Do you think we both killed her?”

  “I think that’s possible.”

  “Do you?”

  “Mister Rivera, let me paint a picture for you that I believe a jury might find interesting.”

  He waved his hand graciously, as if presenting an open floor. “Please.”

  “The picture starts with you fuming over Bridget Dean’s promotion. You were resentful over her relationship with Mister Petruzelli, and maybe you were angry over other things as well, the likes of which my associate here suggested earlier in your office. It’s conceivable that any one or all of those things drove you to kill Bridget Dean.”

  “That is fanciful, Detective. Your imagination astounds me.”

  “Does it?”

  “Yes, because if you check the records, you’ll see that I was in Boston attending a conference with Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli at the time of Bridget Dean’s death. So, for me to have killed her would take the talents of a magician. Would it not?”

  “Perhaps, or maybe just the help of an old friend.”

  “Piakowski?”

  “Of course. If you wanted Bridget Dean dead, then Piakowski might offer his help only too gladly.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he owed you big for getting his life sentence in a murder conviction overturned.”

  Rivera laughed. “That’s rich, Detective. You should write a book.”

  “You know I might. And in it, I’ll tell how you were so proud of your accomplishment that you went and bragged about it to Courtney Lusk.”

  “A simple waitress?”

  “Waitress, lover, we won’t split hairs. Maybe you had a little too much to drink one night, got a bit too chatty during a pillow talk session. Maybe she even helped you set the thing up. It doesn’t matter, but it’s likely that she knew. And, of course, Courtney is no slouch. She knows how to take advantage of life’s little opportunities when they come along. So what does she do?”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “Ms. Courtney, not being one for dealing lightly with her competition, blackmails you into killing her rival, Anna Davalos.”

  Rivera pressed forward in his chair. “That’s crazy. Wh
y would I kill Anna? If Courtney held a secret like that over my head, then why wouldn’t I kill her, instead?”

  “Because she’s Piakowski’s sister?” I said. Rivera faded back into his seat like a shadow. “Right, you didn’t know I knew that. So, here’s where it gets interesting. While all of this is going on, Karen Webber begins investigating Bridget’s and Anna’s alleged suicides. She starts asking all the right questions and poking around in all the right places. So, what’s a hot-shot lawyer do about that?”

  Rivera rolled his eyes with convincing disdain. “Let me guess. Kill her?”

  I pointed at him and smiled. “Hey, you’re getting good at this. But to get close enough to kill her, you had to bait her with a handsome love interest first. So, you introduce her to Gregory Piakowski.”

  “That was his idea,” Rivera insisted. “He only wanted to date her. That’s all.”

  I shrugged indifferently. “The jury won’t care. What they will care about are the cigarette butts we found in the crawlspace of her attic with his DNA on them.” I pointed to the pack of smokes on the coffee table. “Or your DNA, either way, once the method is established, it’s a short step to explaining how Anna Davalos really died.”

  Rivera clapped his hands slowly in mock applause. “Wonderful, Detective, simply inspiring. You know, a closing argument like that could actually win a good prosecutor his case in court.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said.

  “Except that it would take one hell of a good prosecutor to convince a jury it happened that way when all he’s got for evidence is a few cigarette butts and…oh, wait. That’s right. That’s all he’s got is a few cigarette butts. You’ll need to do better than that.”

  “We only need to show reasonable guilt,” I said.

  “Not in a murder case, Colombo. With murder, the substantial burden is on you. To get an acquittal, all I need to show is reasonable doubt, and your medical examiner has already provided that.”