by Dana Donovan
“Yes, Lilith.”
“She was bleeding.”
“What do you mean? Did she hit her head?”
“No, down there.”
“Down….” I knew what she meant.
She folded into me on a heavy breath, her cheek against my chest, her arms locked around my waist, squeezing me tighter than I’d have thought she possibly could. Carlos and Brittany were watching us; Brit with her fingers to her mouth, biting her nails; Carlos with his head down, looking past his bushy brows. I waved them over and the four of us knitted ourselves into a huddle as tight as a witch’s knot, my arms around Lilith; hers around me. Brittany hugging the two of us, and Carlos’ big monkey arms around us all.
I don’t know how long we stood there, but it was awhile. Time just seemed to stand still. People moved about all around us, passed us, hell maybe even through us. The cacophony of hospital buzz droned all around us, but none of that mattered, nothing so incidental as Kelly Brewbaker’s bogus kidnapping; Raul Martinez and his damn kiddy porn or Hector Santana and whatever bullshit he was into that we never knew. Nothing. Only Ursula, Dominic and their baby mattered now.
My eyes were still closed when someone came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. I opened them and initiated the huddle break up. It was Dominic. His tears had dried, leaving salty tiger stripes stains trailing down his cheeks. We gathered around him. His arms hung limp at his sides. His shoulders drooped forward in a slight stoop. He looked drained, small and helpless. I tried to say something, but my voice got stuck and nothing came out. I sniffed. Swallowed. Cleared my throat and tried again.
“Is Ursula all right?”
His eyes began pooling. I could see his facial muscles tightening. Lilith reached out and touched his arm.
“She’s going to be fine,” he said, and that gave life to his tears.
We all gave a collective sigh.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “The baby?”
I watched his chest rise and fall on a stuttered breath. He was steadying himself, but losing the battle. His lips quivered. His eyes blinked in rapid secession, so much so they were closed more than opened. I knew he could find no words. He didn’t need them. He simply shook his head no.
I heard Brittany gasp. She fell into Carlos’ arms and began to sob.
Lilith tried to say something. At least I think she did. I heard her squeak. That was before she and Dominic fell into an embrace that caused more silent tears to fall.
I took a deep breath, turned and walked away. I don’t remember my feet moving, or people looking at me as I passed through the hallways. I had no peripheral view. My eyes could only see forward, a tunnel vision so narrow I could have been looking through a straw. But I wasn’t looking for a way out. I don’t think I was looking for anything, except maybe an answer––an answer I knew didn’t exist.
I followed a particularly dark hallway to the end. It was closed to the public, but I didn’t care. I went through a door that led me to a back alley behind the hospital. A loading zone. No one was there. It looked like a good place for a man to go if he wanted to be alone. To sit. To think. To cry.
I did.
CONSUMMATION
Later that night, I took Dominic to Lenny’s Bistro. He had been at Ursula’s side all afternoon, and when the doctors gave her a sedative to make her sleep, I figured it was a good time to take him out for a beer. Maybe it would help take his mind off Ursula.
Silvia Belmonte was tending bar again. She seemed surprised to see me back there so soon. I waved at her from the door and gestured toward the dining room that we intended to eat. She gave a chin-up nod, indicating she understood. That wasn’t necessarily my intentions, though. The truth was I intended to drink first, maybe get drunk and get Spinelli drunk, too. I thought if I could dull his pain for just one night it would be worth it. We’d drink, get drunk, call for a taxi ride home, and then worry about everything else in the morning.
We waited for the hostess, who soon greeted us and sat us in the same booth that Carlos and Lauri sat in two nights earlier. Then we ordered some beers, and only because Dominic was hungry, a couple of appetizers, too. As soon as our server left, I said to him, “You know we brought Kelly in.”
“Did you?” He seemed only mildly interested.
“Yes, we took her down to Juvenile Hall and questioned her on tape.”
“And?”
“And then we let her go.”
“How come?”
I shook my head. “We have nothing on her. We didn’t find the money. She ditched her cell phone.”
“We have video of her at the bus stop.”
“Yeah, well her story there is that she ran away from home because of the dysfunctional nature of her family life. She claims she’s been riding around the state for the last three days looking for adventure.”
“What about her statements to us? She told us at the hospital she was kidnapped, taken and held for ransom.”
“She recanted her statement.”
“You’re kidding!”
“It doesn’t matter, it wasn’t on tape anyway. It’s her word against ours.”
“The DA would believe us.”
“Maybe, or he may believe that her story was the product of a young girl’s over-stimulated imagination, seeded by questions from a couple of cops that went rogue in procedural law and operational protocol. Face it, Dominic. You know the kid’s a genius. She’s figured out all the angles.”
“There are still the phone calls we recorded. They prove that somebody extorted money from the Brewbakers.”
“Yes, of course. No one’s denying a crime took place. Anyone can argue that the perpetrators of the extortion somehow learned that Kelly ran away from home, saw an opportunity to fake a kidnapping and schemed a way to extort three-hundred-thousand dollars from the Brewbakers.”
“But that’s not what happened. You know that Kelly pulled this whole thing off herself––her and Brian. And what about the fact the phone calls came from Kelly’s phone?”
“She claims she left her phone in Hector Santana’s van on Friday afternoon.”
“Oh, right,” he scoffed, “like she left her sock and her house key in the van, too. How convenient.”
“Hey, she had to throw suspicion somewhere.”
“Seems like she threw it just about everywhere, what with the bogus photo showing the hay on the floor to make us suspect her riding instructor; the giant shoes to make us think someone from the theater group did it. She’s guilty as hell, Tony. You know it.”
“Yes, I know it, and you know it, and the DA probably knows it too, but our hands are tied. Incidentally, the DA’s mighty pissed at us for not calling in the Feds.”
“Screw the Feds.”
“We pretty much have. He’s gone ahead and passed the case on over to them. Kelly Brewbaker is their problem now.”
“Good riddance I say.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
We saluted a healthy goodbye to the Brewbaker case and moved on to less emotional conversation.
“What do you think of Carlos giving away all his money?” I asked.
He laughed at that. “Couldn’t he have just told her he gave it all away, instead of actually doing it?”
“Yeah, I suppose. But you know Carlos. He doesn’t always think things through all the way.”
“He doesn’t always think, period.”
“What about Brittany?”
“What about her?”
“What do you think about her making detective?”
“I think she should have stayed in blue.”
“How come?”
“Look, she was a corporal. With this last promotion, she could have made sergeant. Another couple of years she could have been a captain. Now where is she?” He took a sip of beer and shrugged pathetically. “She’s a detective. That’s the end of the road, isn’t it?”
“You’re a detective.”
“It’s what I do, Tony. It’s what I l
ove. I don’t want to be anything else. I never wanted to be anything else…except maybe a dad.”
Oh boy, I thought. Here we go. I knew we couldn’t avoid the subject for long, not that I wanted to. Getting him to talk about it was the whole point of going out for drinks. I suppose I was lucky that he brought it up first. That way he couldn’t accuse me of prying open fresh wounds.
“Dominic, listen. About that. I wanted to––”
“Tony.” He put his hand up to stop me. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I know. Ursula and I both know and we want to thank you and Lilith for…well, for everything. For always being there.”
“Oh, hey, you know you and Ursula mean the world to us.”
“You mean that?”
“I do.”
We both gestured another toast across the table to that and drank some more beer. It seemed strange to me then. I remembered having mixed feelings about Spinelli when I first met him. I thought he was bright, confident and ambitious, but it took me a long time to accept him as an equal. I remembered how Carlos kept badgering me to call him Dominic when speaking directly to him. But I couldn’t. I didn’t think he earned it. In my efforts to accept him, calling him Dominic was the hardest thing of all for me to do. But sitting there across from him, thinking of all the things he’d done for Carlos and me, for the force, for Lilith and especially for Ursula; for everything he’d been through, I realized that he absolutely had earned it, and more. I realized he was not just a fellow cop, not just a friend. Like Carlos, he was my brother. His pain was my pain. His triumphs, my triumphs.
I set my beer down and leaned in over the table. “You’re going to try again,” I said. “Right?”
His brows gathered in a determined bunch. “As soon as she’s ready.”
I eased back in my seat, nodding confidently. “It’ll work out. I know it.”
“Yeah,” he gazed into his beer, watching the tiny bubbles break loose from the bottom of the mug and wiggle to the surface. “Me, too.”
“Lilith wants to have a baby, you know.”
He looked up from his mug. “Get out!”
“No, really. That’s what the consummation ritual is all about.”
“It is?”
“Yes, oh, but it’s not necessary every time she wants to get pregnant. It’s only for the first time.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, well Lilith doesn’t think I know it either. But you know, I’ve been thinking lately.”
“`Bout what?”
“About how maybe––”
“Hey guys!”
Dominic and I turned to see Carlos standing there in the aisle by our table, his arm slung loosely around Brittany Olsen’s shoulder.
“Carlos? Brittany? What are you doing here?”
“Sylvia at the bar told us you were back here. Slide over. Let us sit down. I have some news for you.”
I got out of the booth and slid in next to Dominic, allowing Brittany and Carlos to have seats side-by-side across from us.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” I said.
“You think this is a surprise?” He waved to get our server’s attention. When she came over, he ordered up another pitcher of beer and a couple of mugs. “I’ve got a real surprise for you.”
“Don’t tell me. You and Brit are dating now.”
“We are,” she said.
The two looked at each other and kissed. She smiled. He smiled, and I could tell then that they already had a better connection than Carlos and Lauri ever had.
“We’re dating, yes,” he said. “And although that is big news, it shouldn’t be a big surprise to you.”
“It is,” I said, “unless you have bigger news.”
“I do.”
“Well?”
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a multi-page fold of documents. “You see this?”
“Yes.”
He held the documents over the table and proceeded to shred them into tiny strips. “This was my money going bye-bye.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I just came back from my accountant’s. He called me in this afternoon to sign them.”
“What are they?”
“They’re the documents that would have finalized all my donations and left me broke. I didn’t realize when we drew them up last night that they had to be notarized.”
“So you mean you’re not broke?”
“Nope.”
“You still have your millions?”
“Yup.”
“That’s wonderful! Congratulations!”
“Yeah, congratulations,” said Dominic. “Does Lauri Shullit know yet?”
“No. That’s the reason I wanted to find you two. I wanted you to be with me when I made the call.”
“What call?”
He held his finger up, took his phone out and said, “This one.”
He hit speed dial, tapped the speaker button and set the phone down in the center of the table. A woman’s voice answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Lauri, hi. It’s Carlos.”
“Carlos?”
“Yeah, babe. How you doing?”
“Carlos, why are you calling me? I told you to lose my number.”
“I will, but I wanted to call you one last time.”
“Why?”
“To tell you I missed you. You know you really broke my heart.” Carlos was having a hard time holding in his laugh at that point. I think Lauri could hear it in his voice.
“Are you crying?”
“No, I’m not crying. Lauri, tell me what happened? I thought we were good together.”
“We weren’t good together, Carlos. We were never good together and we never will be good together. I don’t want you calling me again.”
“Okay, if that’s how you want it.”
“That’s how I want it.”
“I guess this is good bye then.”
“I guess it is.”
“All right, I’ll…. Oh I almost forgot to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“I just came back from my accountant’s. Seems I forgot to sign some papers.”
“Of course you did. You’re an idiot. What did you forget to sign?”
“I forgot to sign the papers authorizing the distribution of all my money to charity.”
“What?”
“Yeah, and since you dumped me, I decided not to sign them after all. I tore`em up.”
“You still have money?”
“Yeah, millions. Crazy, huh?”
“Carlos, you know I might have been a bit hasty.”
“No, Lauri, you weren’t hasty. You were nasty.”
“Maybe we can––”
“Good-bye, Lauri.”
He hung up the phone and we all had a good laugh over the call. Even Dominic laughed, which was good to see. It made me realize what was truly important in life: being with people you love and care for. Then it hit me, as much fun as I was having, I needed to be somewhere else. I slid out of the booth and began shaking hands.
“Everyone, it’s been fun, but I have to go.”
“Where to?” Dominic asked.
I thought about it, smiled lightly and said, “There’s something I have to do.”
When I got home, I could see right away that the lights were off inside, but through the window I detected the flicker of candlelight tripping off the walls and ceiling. Lilith was expecting me.
I walked through the door and found her standing in the middle of the room, her long black hair cascading around her shoulders, her flowing see-through nightgown skimming the floor where candles burned in a circle around her just out of its reach.
She smiled at me, and the candlelight dancing off her face sparkled like diamonds in her eyes. She extended her arms towards me, I thought to offer a hug, but then she spread them wide, tipped her head back and rocked up on tiptoes. I watched her arch her back and raise her hands abov
e her head as if reaching for the stars.
“Mothers of the Coven,” she said, “I bare to thee mine, as thy wish, if thou wilt bear witness too.”
With that, the eight candles at her feet flared to life, spewing flames six feet high and returning again to their wicks in sputtering thumbnail flickers too nervous to settle.
“So say the Coven,” Lilith remarked. She returned her footing flat to the floor, lowered her arms and said, “You’ve come to do the ritual?”
“I have.”
“You come of your free will and sound mind.”
“Well, I had a little beer, but––”
“Tony.”
“Yes. I come of free will and sound mind.”
She gestured a nod toward the bathroom. “Take a shower and meet me in the bedroom.”
“Right.” I pointed down the hall. “The bedroom.”
“Now! Tony.”
I hurried past her, stripped my clothes off and hopped into the shower. I remembered the Coven ceremony that I went through awhile back with Lilith and Ursula, and how I had to shower before that ritual as well. Lilith made me rinse off in ice-cold water when I was done. At the time, she said it was to close my pores to keep my skin pure and free of contaminates. But after what happened between me and Ursula, I figured she was hoping to numb the parts of my body that were likely to enjoy the ceremony more than other parts of my body.
It didn’t work.
This time she made no mention of rinsing off in cold water. Not surprising, considering the nature of the ritual I was about to partake in. I supposed the hotter the water the better.
After my shower, I made my way to the bedroom, soaking wet and free of towels and clothing. The bedroom door was closed, as was expected. The consummation ceremony is all about symbolisms, perhaps more so than any other ritual known to witchcraft. Even though I studied up on the peculiar rite, I didn’t honestly expect I would need to know it. I was glad then that I did.
As I mentioned, the door was shut. That represented Lilith’s autonomy and independence. I knocked five times to represent the four essentials elements, (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) and the fifth or quintessential element, Love.
