Call Of The Witch

by Dana Donovan

  “And real, Tony. You didn’t say real.”

  “Yes, of course. And real. But you say you’ve been seeing her for the last three months and no one at the station has ever seen her.”

  “Oh! So just because you haven’t seen her, she can’t be real? Is that it?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that you usually bring your dates around to meet everyone, whether at the Perc, the bar or over to the house.”

  “Yeah, well maybe Lauri doesn’t like bars or the Perc or…houses.”

  “She doesn’t like houses?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You’re right. I know. Like I said, forget I said anything. When and if you’re ready to introduce us to Lauri, then that’s when we’ll meet her.”

  “You’re damn right that’s when you’ll meet her.”

  “Great. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “You should. She’s very pretty.”

  “Good.”

  “And smart.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “And sexy.”

  “I’m sure she is.”

  “You know it’s not just you and Dominic who can get the young sexy women.”

  “Oh, so she’s young, too?”

  “Yes. I said that, didn’t I?”

  “No.”

  He drove a block or so, perhaps wondering if he hadn’t divulged that information somewhere along the lines of our conversation already. “Well she is,” he said, when he was sure he hadn’t, adding, “damn young.”

  Now he had me wondering. “How young?”

  He cast a careless shrug. “Don’t know exactly.”

  “Carlos. She is legal, isn’t she?”

  He laughed at that, again with a snort. “Yes. She’s legal.” I settled back into my seat, deciding to leave it at that. I did have to bite my tongue, though, when I heard him say softly, “Pretty sure.”

  Karina Martinez was a woman of modest means. Her house in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood looked like most on the block, a single-story clapboard A-frame with a pocket-sized front yard encircled by a four-foot high chain-linked fence. The house facade sported two small mullioned windows, bookending a front entry caged in wrought iron screen work. There was a mailbox fastened to the upright post supporting a flat roof over the phone booth-sized porch. No room for a chair, but a milk crate turned upside-down seemed intended for that purpose. A straggly patch of flowers struggled to grow in a tiny garden, carved out under one of the windows below a centuries-old Red Oak. Weeds had moved in. I imagined the struggle would soon be over.

  Carlos knocked on the door. A gentle-looking, middle-aged woman answered, her hair naturally grey, her eyes soft but weary. She backed up slightly at the sight of us, but held fast to the handle on the screen door. I could see her thumb poised on the lock and wondered why she had not already tripped it.

  “Señora Martinez,” said Carlos. He displayed his badge and ID. I did the same. “Soy el Detective Carlos Rodriquez, y es Detective Anthony Marcella, NCPD. Tiene un momento, por favor?”

  “Sí.”

  “Habla Inglés?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, good. Please, may we come in?”

  She opened the door and invited us in. “Is this about my son?”

  “Your son, ma'am?”

  “Raul. He is always getting in trouble. I tell him all the time to get a job and straighten up his life before he finds himself––”

  “Ma'am, this isn’t about your son.”

  Karina Martinez seemed surprised. “No?”

  “Please. We just have a few questions to ask you. May we sit down?” Carlos motioned toward a sofa and a chair in the living room, which also happened to be the dining room, and from the looks of things her bedroom, too. I took the chair. Carlos and Martinez took the couch. They sat so close their knees nearly touched. Carlos pointed to the phone on the wall by the kitchen. “Señora, is your telephone working?”

  She glanced at it only briefly. “Sí, when I used it last time it worked okay.”

  “Mr. Brewbaker tells us he tried calling you several times this afternoon. He said he got no answer.”

  Her expression remained unchanged.

  “Were you out?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear the phone ring?”

  She shook her head.

  “You were home all afternoon, but you did not hear it ring?”

  “Yes, I have been here since noon when I returned from the bank.”

  Carlos looked at me and gestured toward the phone. I went to it, picked up the receiver and listened. A dial tone told me it was working, but I noticed the ringer was turned all the way down. “The ringer’s off,” I said.

  Karina Martinez offered no explanation. Carlos said, “Ma'am, did you see Mr. Brewbaker this morning?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you see Kelly Brewbaker, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “What time was that?”

  I could see her eyes grow round with worry. “Is something the matter, Detective?”

  “Please, just answer the question. What time did you last see Kelly Brewbaker?”

  “Nine o’clock this morning.”

  “Nine o’clock? Are you sure?”

  “Sí.”

  Carlos and I exchanged glances. We now had a definite timeline for figuring a worst-case scenario. It had been nine hours and forty-five minutes since anyone had seen Kelly Brewbaker alive. Based on the mile-a-minute estimate, we imagined her nearly six hundred miles away already.

  “Señora.” Carlos took her hand and held it gently. “Kelly may be missing,” he said, deliberately omitting the fact we knew she had been kidnapped. “We’re trying to find her. Can you tell us what she was wearing this morning when you saw her?”

  I could see her hands trembling now. “Miss Kelly is missing?”

  “Please. Try to think. What was she wearing?”

  Her eyes drifted to a shadowy nook across the room where her last memories of Kelly came to life. “Her riding shirt,” she said. “She wore her favorite riding shirt today. A white pull-over with half sleeves and a horse stitched here.” She placed her hand over her heart to indicate the location of the embroidery.

  “Was she supposed to go riding today?”

  “No. Not today, but she loves that shirt.”

  “I see. What else?”

  “Blue jeans, the bleached-out kind with holes in the pockets and knees, like the teenagers wear.” Her eyes came back to Carlos with a quizzical look. “They buy them that way now. Can you believe it?”

  “It’s the fashion,” he said.

  Karina shook her head. “Good money for rags if you ask me. Mr. Brewbaker does not approve of them. But Kelly does what she wants to do when Mr. Brewbaker is not at home.”

  “Is Kelly rebellious?”

  She smiled thinly. “No, Detective. Kelly is a good girl. Mr. Brewbaker loves her, but he is strict, old fashioned. Mrs. Brewbaker is more understanding of such things. She likes to spoil Kelly and lets her wear whatever she wants to wear on weekends.”

  “Tell me about this morning. You went to the Brewbaker house. Why did you do that?”

  “To pick up my pay check.”

  “Did Mr. Brewbaker ask you to stay awhile so he could go to work?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you stayed.”

  “For a while.”

  “But then you left. You didn’t wait for Mrs. Brewbaker. Why?”

  “Detective, I could wait no longer. If I waited, I would have missed my bus and have to wait another two hours for the next one. By then the banks would have closed. I had to cash my check or my son would….” She trailed off without finishing.

  “Your son would what?”

  Her eyes fell away. “He takes my money and leaves me with none. I tell him to get a job, but he does not listen.”

  “Does your son lives here with you?”

  She cast he
r gaze to an open door off the kitchen. “He has a room in the basement.”

  Carlos gestured toward a framed picture on top of the TV console. “Is that him?”

  Karina’s eyes followed. “Sí.”

  “You said his name is Raul?”

  “It is.”

  “May we talk to him?”

  “No. He is not at home. He takes my money and he goes drinking.”

  “Where?”

  Her expression grew suspicious.

  “Señora, Martinez, where?”

  “Why do you want to know this?”

  “Please. Tell us where we can find him.”

  I could see she was obviously hesitant, but Carlos has a way with woman. Perhaps it’s those big brown Cuban eyes of his. He needs only to smile and his eyes twinkle like silver moon dust. Karina Martinez had no chance.

  “He drinks at a bar called Mike’s Pub,” she said. “Him and his friend, Hector.”

  “Mike’s Pub?” Carlos gave me a look. I returned it with a subtle nod. I knew exactly what he was thinking. To Karina he said, “Mrs. Martinez, does Raul own a black or blue van?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “This friend, Hector. Do you know his last name?”

  “No.”

  “I see.” Carlos was still holding her hand. He raised it to his lips and kissed it softly. “Señora. Garcias por su tiempo.”

  She smiled bashfully. “De nada, Detective.”

  I took my cue from Carlos, stood and offered my hand. “Yes, Ms. Martinez. Thank you for your time. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Back in the car, I asked Carlos what he thought about Raul Martinez. His answer came sharply. “He’s a prick.”

  “What?”

  “Well he is, Tony. The poor woman works her fingers to the bone all day scrubbing other people’s toilets, and this punk robs her of her hard-earned money and spends it on booze, drugs and whatever.”

  “I suppose, but I meant, what you thought about him being a regular at Mike’s Pub. Is that just a coincident?”

  “I don’t know. You heard the neighbor kid.”

  “Brian.”

  “He said the man in the van that stopped Kelly yesterday had an accent.”

  “He didn’t say it was a Spanish accent. Besides, Karina Martinez said her son doesn’t own a van.”

  “Maybe not, but I still want to talk to him.”

  “All right. You’re driving. Guess we have nothing to lose. You should get that?”

  “Get what?”

  “The phone. It’s Detective Olson.”

  “I didn’t hear––”

  Carlos’ phone rang, nearly scaring him out of his seat. I looked at him and smiled. “Told you.”

  He drew a bead on me and scowled. “I hate when you do that.”

  “Better get it quick. It’s important.”

  He answered after the third ring. I could tell from his side of the conversation that it was big. He didn’t repeat what he heard, but his questions were relevant to the case. He ended with, ‘thanks’, assuring the caller he would tell me. As he tucked the phone back into his pocket, he said, “You were right.”

  “Olson?”

  “She said the kidnapper called back with a ransom demand. You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?”

  “They only want ten thousand dollars. Brewbaker’s got that much in his safe at home.”

  “Did they say when they want to make the drop?”

  “No. Lionel told the caller he wanted to talk to Kelly first. Make sure she was all right. The caller got angry and hung up.”

  “Damnit! Was Dominic able to trace the call?”

  “Negative.”

  “Huh. Ten thousand dollars you say?”

  “Yup.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a lot of money for a ransom. I think we’re dealing with amateurs. Surely whoever it is must not know how much Lionel Brewbaker is worth.”

  “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money to a punk like Raul Martinez.”

  “It sure is.” I flipped my hand in a forward gesture. “Let’s go talk to him.”

  “All right then. To Mike’s Pub it is.”

  Some of the bars on the upper side of Jefferson Avenue are high-class, a few of them even ritzy, especially the lounge at the Debutante Hotel. Lower in the hood, however, the clubs get shabbier. Closer to the railroad tracks they become downright seedy. Mike’s Pub sits just south of the tracks next to an old textile warehouse. It sits back by the loading docks where addicts, alcoholics and derelicts congregate at night. Occasionally one of the hopped-up misguided fools falls asleep on the tracks. Carlos and I know this because we’ve investigated a number of train vs. pedestrian fatalities over the years. It’s never pretty and we never get used to it.

  I followed Carlos into the pub. Heads turned immediately. We were in street clothes, but everyone there knew we were cops. Some, perhaps with outstanding warrants, moved quickly to the back of the room. A few disappeared entirely. It took awhile for our vision to adjust to the cave-like atmosphere and the sharp spikes of neon stabbing at our eyes. The smell of stale beer and cigarettes hung in the air like carnival grease. A tattooed woman leaning over a pool table squealed after sinking an eight ball. I thought for a moment it was for some other reason. Maybe it was.

  Carlos spotted Raul first. He nudged me with his elbow and pointed him out. “That’s him,” he said. “I recognize him from his picture at Karina’s.”

  “All right then. Let’s go talk to him.”

  We split up and approached Raul from both flanks. The bar stool to his left was empty. I took a seat there, bumping into Raul on purpose to distract him. A bald biker-looking dude with a grizzled beard and heavily tattooed arms occupied the stool to Raul’s right. He was bigger than Carlos, but complied without protest when Carlos tapped his shoulder and motioned a nod for him to take a hike. Carlos straddled the stool, but did not sit.

  “Raul Martinez?” he said.

  Raul had been looking at me, sizing me up. Perhaps he had already figured me out as a cop. I saw him reach for his beer bottle just as Carlos called his name. I clamped my hand down on his wrist, pinning it to the bar. He attempted to stand, planting his feet firmly on the floor. Carlos palmed his chest and pushed him back, knocking him off balance. He grabbed the bar rail to keep from falling. His stool went over. A patron carrying a full tray of freshly poured beers tripped over it. Glasses and bottles shattered. Chairs scattered, and a ten-foot circle opened up around us. I twisted Raul’s arm behind his back and spun him around. Carlos grabbed Raul’s right arm, forced it across his neck and held him there in a choke hold.

  “You want to try something, Martinez?”

  The jukebox fell silent. The front door opened and several patrons rushed out single file. Another three or four slipped out through the side exit. Someone behind me cleared his throat, and I heard the clicking of a shotgun’s hammer pulling back. I looked over my shoulder. The bartender and his sawed-off twelve-gauge had a bead on the three of us. I reached into my pocket slowly, showed him my badge and identified myself. Carlos didn’t seem the least bit interested. He kept his own bead on Martinez, leaning into him so hard the man could barely breathe. The barkeep lowered his weapon. I returned my badge to my pocket; and said to Carlos, “We should take this outside.”

  The barkeep agreed.

  We ushered Martinez out the back door and across the parking lot. He offered no resistance, but Carlos still found it necessary to press Martinez’s face against a chain-link fence so hard it imprinted a patchwork of diamonds into his cheek. I mentioned something about going easy on him. He said he was going easy. I guessed it was all just a matter of interpretation.

  “Spread`em,” I said, directing Martinez into the frisk position while Carlos patted him down. I think Carlos was hoping to find something incriminating: drugs, weapons, anything that would give us a reason to haul him in.

  “Whaddya got scumbag?” Carlos’
voice sounded short and breathless, as if spitting the words through gritted teeth. He pulled a cell phone from Martinez’s front pocket. “Is this yours?”

  Martinez remained his usual cordial self. “Fuck you!”

  “Yeah, I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  He tossed the phone to me. I flipped through the contact numbers and determined it was not Kelly Brewbaker’s. Carlos continued his pat down.

  Martinez said, “Why are you arresting me?”

  “We’re not,” he answered. “Not yet anyway.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You attempted to strike an officer.”

  “No I didn’t.”

  “Yeah ya did. My partner here will attest to that.”

  Martinez looked over his shoulder at me. I gave him a friendly smile and a nod.

  “You’re all the same, you stinkin` cops.”

  “What’s this?” said Carlos. He removed what looked like a pair of lady’s underpants from Martinez’s back pocket. He unfurled them and held them up for me to see. They looked extremely small. “Get this, Tony. Girls’ panties. The pervert’s carrying around little girls’ underwear.”

  “Whose are they?” I asked.

  Carlos wadded them up, spun Martinez around and shoved the panties in his face. “Yeah, scum. Whose are these? You hitting on little girls?”

  Martinez seemed unapologetic. “Fuck you. Ain’t no law against carrying women’s panties.”

  “They’re not women’s. They’re girls’.”

  “So? Ain’t no crime in carrying girls’ panties.”

  Carlos tossed the underwear to me. He grabbed Raul at the collar and rammed his fist up under his chin, knocking his head back into the fence. “It is if the girl who owns them has been kidnapped.”

  “Hey man, I don’t know nothing `bout no kidnapping. So fuck off.”

  “Then whose are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Carlos drove his fist further into Martinez’s neck. Martinez gasped, but found no relief in his struggle. “Whose are they?”

  “I don’t know,” he snarled. He was breathing through his nose, but even that was difficult for him. “My mother’s a maid. She does laundry for some rich white folks, the Brewbakers I think. Sometimes she takes it home to wash so she can watch her soaps on TV.”