by Dana Donovan
“Yes,” I said. “She is quite the catch.”
“How does your dad feel about the two of you?”
“My dad?” I don’t know why, but for a moment, I almost forgot I was supposed to be Tony Marcella junior, son of the man Brittany had known for over twenty five years. “Oh, he’s good with it,” I said.
“Really? Even though he tried to hang her on murder charges?”
“That was then. He doesn’t believe she had anything to do with those murders now, and neither do I.”
“No, of course not. I’m sure she didn’t.”
“Then why bring it up?”
Her answer came back after a brief pause. “You’re right. That was insensitive of me. So, how is he anyway? Your dad. Is he still down in Florida?”
“Yes, and he’s fine. We talk from time to time.”
“You know, for awhile we all thought he was dead.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“It’s just that when Lilith’s house blew away, your father’s car was in the driveway, but there was no sign of him or Lilith. Then three months later, she shows up. You show up, and Carlos tells everyone he heard from your father down in Florida. You have to admit it seemed a little bizarre.”
“I suppose. Is this going anywhere?”
“No, just making conversation.”
She drove on. I thought––hoped even––that we would arrive at Karina Martinez’s without further conversation. I didn’t know why she wanted to bring up the things she was bringing up, but I wished she’d hadn’t. We were just pulling up to Karina’s house when she said, “Do you ever dabble in magic, Tony?”
“Excuse me?” I can’t tell you how freaked out I was to hear her ask me that.
She pulled the car up to the curb and threw it in park. “It’s just that I’ve heard the guys talking.”
“The guys?”
“Carlos and Dominic.”
“What do they say?”
“Well, nothing to me directly. But I’ve overheard them a few times. Like once in the detective’s lounge I heard Carlos talking about you making something called a zip ball.”
“Carlos is a zip ball,” I said. “You shouldn’t listen to him. You especially shouldn’t eavesdrop on him. He probably knew you were listening in and was having some fun at your expense.”
“Hmm, maybe,” she said. She shut off the engine and opened the car door. “You know I should give your old man a call down there in Florida. See how he’s doing.”
“Yeah, you should do that,” I said, knowing that was impossible. “He’d like that, I’m sure.”
As we walked up to the house next door to Karina Martinez’s place, I asked Brittany if she knew the neighbor’s name.
“Didn’t get his last name,” she said, “but I heard Martinez call him Ricky.”
We stepped onto the tiny porch. I knocked on the door, and as we waited for someone to answer, I directed Brittany’s attention to the mailbox. Like Karina Martinez, Ricky had his mailbox fastened to one of two wooden posts supporting the roof. The name on the mailbox said, Lade. Brittany nodded. Seconds later, the door opened.
“Mister Lade?” she said, addressing the man who answered the door in a tie-dyed T-shirt and ripped denim jeans. He appeared to be about Brittany’s age, mid-to-late fifties, his long hair tied back off his face. Distinguished strands of grey flared in silver streaks from his temples back, disappearing in the gather of his braided ponytail. He was clean-shaven, but for a small soul patch on his chin, the kind only jazz musicians used to wear before the girlfriends of non-musicians realized what they were for.
“Yes?” he said, craning his neck to look past our shoulders after seeing our badges and IDs. He seemed relieved to see we had arrived in an unmarked car.
“I’m Detective Olson, NCPD. This is Detective Marcella.”
“Sure, I saw you next door earlier. Is everything all right?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”
He pushed the screen door open and stepped back. “Do you want to come in?”
I didn’t. And I knew Brittany didn’t either. But Ricky Lade wanted us to come in, probably because he didn’t want his neighbors seeing him talking to the police so soon after Martinez’s house had been busted.
The instant I stepped past the threshold, I could smell the pot. Brittany and I both looked around the room, but from where we stood, we could see that Ricky left nothing out in the open for us to find.
“Nice incense,” I said, smiling to let him know I knew.
“Oh, it’s not incense,” Ricky said, dismissing my comment with a wave. “It’s marijuana.”
I looked at Brittany. I could tell she wanted to laugh, but she’s a professional. She kept a straight face and let me take it. “Marijuana?”
“Yeah, but it’s legit. It’s medical marijuana.”
“Massachusetts doesn’t allow medical marijuana.”
“I know. I get it in Vermont. It’s legal there.”
This time I did hear Brittany choke back a laugh. “Mister Lade. Just because you can get it in Vermont doesn’t mean you can smoke it in Massachusetts.”
He soured his face as though he didn’t much care. “So what now, you gonna arrest me?”
I shook my head. “That’s not why we’re here.”
“You want to know about Karina, don’t you?”
“Yes. Do you have any idea where she went?”
“I think she left the country.”
“Where did she go, Mexico?”
“No, I think maybe Russia.”
“Russia?” I crowded my brow and gave him the classic come again look. “Why Russia?”
“Because of that guy that came to pick her up. He spoke with a thick Russian accent.”
“Did you get his name?”
“Yeah, Karina introduced him to me as…Dean or Damian, or….”
“Dmitry?”
Ricky Lade snapped his finger and pointed at me. “That’s it! Dmitry. She said he was an old friend. He picked her up in a SUV.”
“Dark blue?”
“Yeah, I think. Maybe it was black.”
“Did he have luggage with him?”
“I didn’t see any. Karina asked me to check her mail and take in her trash can. I said I would. No big deal.”
“Did she say when she’d return?”
“Nope. Just asked me to check––”
“I know, check her mail and take in her trash can. Can you tell us anything else?”
“Like what?”
Brittany produced a color photo from an inside pocket of her jacket and showed it to Ricky. “Like have you ever seen this little girl before?”
He took the photo. “Sure, that’s Kelly. I’ve seen her before.”
“When?”
“A bunch of times. Karina works for her mom. She takes her home with her sometimes when she does their laundry. She’s a good kid.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
He gave us a shrug. “I don’t know. Yesterday?”
“You saw Kelly yesterday?”
“Yeah…I think. Yesterday was Friday, wasn’t it?”
“Yesterday was Saturday,” I said, feeling as though the wind had been knocked right out of me.
Ricky Lade began counting on his fingers and mouthing the days of the week to himself. “Oh yeah,” he said, ending his count with his index finger pressed to his thumb. “Yesterday was Saturday. I guess it was Friday then.”
I looked at Brittany and shook my head. She took the photo from Lade and tucked it back into her pocket. “Thanks for your help, Mister Lade.”
“Your welcome. Hey, is everything all right? I mean with Kelly and all. She okay?”
“Mister Lade.” I stepped back and pushed the screen door open. “You make sure you smoke that stuff in the house. You hear?”
Brittany added, “And I’d think about moving to Vermont if I were you. Some of the other cops in New Castle might
not be so understanding.”
She smiled at Ricky Lade and offered a parting handshake. I didn’t think much of that at first, until she did something a bit unusual. While their right hands were engaged, she reached up with her left and cupped his wrist so that her fingertips were pressed against his pulse point. It might have been nothing more than a simple reinforcement of trust, or heartfelt thanks for his cooperation. Being a new detective, I could imagine Brittany wanting to show her sincerity in that respect. But I also couldn’t help notice that her hands were keenly position to apply the witch’s pulse point spell on him, something I had just recently learned to do myself.
The two stood there for what seemed to me an unusually long time. Brittany’s back was towards me, but from the look on Lade’s face, I could tell their eyes were locked. She was reading him. I don’t know how, but I knew it, maybe sensed it. Heaven knows that Lilith had done it to me enough, held me in a trance while she probed my mind, my very thoughts both sacred and intimate. And as with any spell a witch performs, there’s an unsettled energy left behind, an aura of sorts that lingers in the spell’s wake. I thought I felt it then. I gave Brittany a little nudge on the elbow to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Hey, you coming?”
She broke off the handshake and turned to me, smiling thinly as though she had found satisfaction in the moment. “Sure. Let’s go.”
Ricky followed us out the door and stood on the porch, watching as we got back into the car. He waved as we pulled away, and I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw him take a joint out of his pocket and light it up as we rounded the corner. I hadn’t planned to say anything to Brittany about the handshake. In the first few blocks we drove after leaving the house, I had convinced myself that any connection to witchcraft I thought I saw between the two of them was simply my imagination. Still, if not witchcraft, the exchange was unusual and I decided it warranted discussion. So I just came out and asked her.
“What was that back there?”
“What was what?”
She knew. “Back there with Lade. That was some handshake.”
“Oh, that. I was reading him.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t believe she admitted it.
“It’s a trick I learned.”
I knew it. I just knew it. “A trick, eh? What, like witchcraft?”
She smiled devilishly. “Witchcraft? Tony Marcella, don’t tell me you believe in that sort of thing.”
I noticed she didn’t answer my question. “Me? No, that’s crazy. It’s just that you mentioned witchcraft earlier. I thought you––”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.”
“No, you’re mistaken. I didn’t mention witchcraft. I mentioned magic.”
“Yes, but you meant witchcraft, didn’t you?”
“No, I meant trick magic. Like Houdini.”
“Right. That’s what I meant, too.”
“Tony, do you think I’m a witch?”
“A witch! Come on, Brit. I don’t….” But then I had to ask, “I don’t know. Are you?”
Her devilish smile returned, and for just a second I thought I saw the sparkle of witchcraft in her eyes. “Tony….” She shook her head and laughed the way Lilith does sometimes when I’ve asked a silly question to which I already knew the answer. “You’re funny. You know that?”
I laughed it off with her, and for a few more blocks, we refrained from talking. I was happy with that, and in fact preferred we didn’t talk again until we reached the justice Center. Our conversation had made me that uncomfortable. But what she said kept eating at me, and I couldn’t let it rest until I cleared the air about it.
I asked her, “Did you learn anything?”
She seemed to snap from a daze that made me wonder if she’d been concentrating on her driving. “What’s that?”
“I said did you learn anything; back there when you were reading Ricky Lade.”
“Reading him?”
“The handshake. You said you knew a trick.”
“Oh, that. Yes. No.”
“Yes, no, what?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t know anything.”
“How do you know?”
She took her eyes off the road long enough to look at me. Then she arched her brows high and fluttered her fingers about her face in a whimsical gesture. “It’s magic. Remember?”
“Brit. Seriously.”
She settled back into her seat. “It’s a knack I have, a gift if you will.”
“What is?”
“My ability to read people. All I need to do is look into their eyes and I can tell things.”
“What kind of things?”
“If they’re lying, for one.”
“Get out.”
“Hey. You asked.”
I let it go for a while, still uncertain if she was telling the truth, telling a half-truth or bullshitting me altogether. I considered the likelihood that what I saw when I thought she was performing a pulse point spell on Lade was a misinterpretation on my part. Had I not learned of the spell only recently, I might not have thought anything of it at all. Still, there was something about Brittany that I just couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I remembered the first time I saw her after my return to prime. She looked at me in that same way, deep into my eyes. I felt as though she were peering into my soul, figuring out who I really was. And she called me Tony. I didn’t realize until after she left that night that I hadn’t told her my first name. Somehow she just knew.
“So what could you tell?” I asked, unable to squelch my curiosity. “I mean about Ricky Lade.”
She laughed. “Nothing much. Only that he was thinking about that joint in his pocket and how he couldn’t wait to smoke it.”
“You read that from looking into his eyes?”
She shook her head. “No, I deduced that after seeing him light it up in my rear-view mirror.”
I settled back into my seat, crossed my arms at my chest and fixed my sights on the road ahead. Brittany was a good detective; no doubt about it. And I didn’t suppose it mattered whether or not it came to her naturally or by way of witchcraft. I only knew it was getting late, and if I had to spend time with a witch, I thought it best that it’d be with Lilith.
I checked my watch. It was pushing six o’clock. “Listen,” I said. “If you’re going back to Brewbakers, maybe you can drop me off at my house. It’s on the way.”
“Sure.”
“In the meantime, I’ll call Spinelli and have him pick up Martinez and Kovalchuk on a non-arrest custody notice.”
“You can’t. You sent Dominic home.”
“I did. Didn’t I? I’ll call Carlos then, ask him––”
“Carlos went to see his accountant.”
“Hmm, that’s right. I guess that leaves you.”
“You guess?”
“All right. That does leave you.”
“Tony, why am I always your third choice?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you got this good-ol` boy’s club going with Spinelli and Rodriquez. In case you haven’t noticed, I made detective six months ago.”
“I know that.”
“Then why am I the one still fetching coffee and babysitting the Brewbakers while you three are out conquering the world?”
“Brit, there’s a pecking order to these things. Carlos and I are first grade detectives. Spinelli’s second grade and you’re third grade.”
“But I was a Corporal when I entered the detective’s pool.”
“Then take it up with the Lieutenant. What can I tell you?”
“You can tell me you’ll start tossing me a bone once in a while. I’m good at what I do, Detective.”
“Fine, I’ll toss you a bone.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“Good. Now please take me home and get an NA custody notice sent out on Karina Martinez and Dmitry Kovalchuk…Detective.”
If I wanted peac
e and quiet for the rest of the ride, I sure got it. The only thing Brittany said to me after that was, “See you in the morning.” And that was when she let me out at the curb in front of my house.
I closed the car door and mouth the word, “Yeah,” to her through the glass. And I waved. She drove off about as pissed as I’ve ever seen her. I started up the walkway toward the house, hoping Lilith was in a better mood than she was.
“Lilith! I’m home,” I hollered, after wiping my feet at the door. The lights in the living room were off, as were most all the other lights in the house. But the sun had not yet set, and even with the blinds pulled, I could see into the kitchen where Lilith had left a note for me on the table. I picked it up and read it aloud.
“Gone to sit with Ursula. Dinner’s in the fridge. Enjoy. Lilith.”
I opened the fridge and found a pizza box from Pizza King sitting on the middle shelf, the same box I put there two nights earlier. I lifted the lid. The three leftover slices of extra cheese with mushrooms had shriveled to two-thirds their original size. My stomach lurched at the sight of them. Still, I was hungry, and I’ve eaten Lilith’s cooking before. I figured I could do worse. I grabbed two slices, ate them, watched TV until midnight and then went to bed.
I arrived back at the office the next morning around seven o’clock. Spinelli was there, going over last minute details of the drop with Brittany Olson.
“Morning,” I said, nodding at the two of them, but making sure I made eye contact with Brittany. She smiled up at me and gestured a similar nod. As I came around the table, I gave Spinelli a tap on the shoulder. “How’s Ursula. She doing all right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine,” he said, leaning over the big photographic map that Brittany had brought to the Brewbaker’s the day before. I saw that he was marking out locations around Garfield Creek for the surveillance teams. Without looking up from his work, he added, “She and Lilith were up most of the night, gabbing.”
“How about you? Did you get any sleep?”
He shook his head. “Not much.”
“Do you want to go home now? You can catch a couple hours shut-eye before we have to do this thing.”
“Tony….” He tossed the grease pencil down on the table, straightened his back and shoulders and pointed at me as if I had accused him of something unforgivable. I could see how red and puffy his eyes were, and I knew that lack of sleep was not the only thing wearing him down. “…I don’t know if you can appreciate what that poor little girl is going through, but she’s out there, cold, scared and all alone. She has nobody. Do you understand that? You might be able to go home and sleep, but I for one refuse to give up on her. And I’m not going to rest until she’s home safe and sound.”
