Witch House (13 page)

“Cool your jets, cowboy. I didn’t buy
anything. I’m calling you now to tell you that Ursula and I went
back to the house and we conducted a séance.”

“How nice, Lilith. Listen, Carlos and I
are—”

“I am talking to you!”

I pulled the phone away from my ear. I know
Carlos heard her because of the look he gave me. I realized then
what he must have felt like back in Chief Running Bear’s office
after I stripped him of his dignity by diminishing his authority. I
knew that Lilith had a habit of doing it all the time, but I had
not realized that I was so capable of it, too. I put the phone back
to my ear. “I am sorry, Lilith, you were saying?”

“I was saying that Ursula and I conducted a
séance at the old house, but that we didn’t have a lot of
luck.”

“Oh?”

“He’s pissed, Tony.”

“Who is pissed?”

“The ghost! Jesus, are you even
listening?”

“I’m listening. I’m listening.”

“`Kay, then, this is what we have to do.”

“We?”

“Yes, we: you, me, Ursula and Fidel.”

“Carlos.”

“What?” This from Carlos.

I covered the phone. “Not you.” To Lilith I
said, “I don’t think you understand, Lilith, but Carlos and I are
in the middle of a homicide investigation. We can’t—”

“Excuse me. I wasn’t finished.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Carlos was laughing now, and I suppose he had earned that right.
After counting to ten and finding a glint of serenity in the
moment, I came back to Lilith. “All right, I am sorry. Please
finish what you were saying.”

“I was saying that we all have got to go back
to the house tonight, after dark, and conduct another séance.”

“What?”

“Tony, we have to. Ursula and I cannot do
this alone. We need at least three people to do it right, and four
is better still. I want to find out who this guy is and why he’s so
pissed.”

“But Lilith, I—”

“Tonight, Tony, unless you want to sleep on
the couch for the rest of your natural days. Is that what you
want?”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Well then?”

“All right, fine, but here’s the deal. Carlos
and I do this séance, but tonight I get to sleep with you.”

“Of course I’ll let you sleep with me. You
know I have no problem with that.”

“No, I mean sleep—all night, till the sun
comes up in the morning.”

“Oh, you mean you don’t want to….”

“Sure I want to; in fact that’s part of the
deal, too, but afterwards, I want to stay and sleep, and I don’t
want you kicking, or rolling over on top of me or anything else you
can think of to get me back on the couch. Is it a deal?”

She hesitated. I knew I was asking a lot of
her. Lilith is not exactly the cuddly-waddly type, but I simply
could not stand the thought of another night on that damn couch. So
I held my ground and my tongue until she came back with the only
answer she could.

“Fine, we have a deal, but you better be
good.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means if you’re going to sleep in my bed
all night, you better give yourself a reason to be tired.”

I smiled devilishly; Carlos did, too. “Then
it’s a deal. See you tonight,” and I hung up.

Carlos asked, “Did I hear her say something
about a séance?”

“Yeah,” I said, “don’t worry. You’re invited,
too.”

We arrived back at the Justice Center around
four o’clock. After stopping in the lobby so that Carlos could load
up on candy bars from the vending machine, we headed upstairs to
see Spinelli, hoping he had found out something interesting that we
did not already know. It turns out he did. He led us from the
detective’s floor to the conference room where case files, research
documents and photos littered the tabletop from one end to the
other. He even had an easel set up with a flip chart showing the
relationships of all the key players in the case.

“Look at this,” he said, seemingly more
excited than the occasion called for, then again, he was still
drinking coffee out of a forty-eight once Styrofoam cup. That and
the allergy meds he was taking had him strung out like a kite. I
had to cut him down just to understand his words. “This is a
picture of Sergeant Ron Powell,” he continued. “You know him?”

“Sure,” I said, “we know Powell. We saw him
this morning. He was one of the officers responding to the 10-54
outside Pete’s Place.”

“Yeah? He pointed to the chart. “Did you know
that eighteen years ago Powell was the first unit dispatched to the
211 on the armored car call that morning. Only, he never made it to
the scene, at least not until the driver was dead and the suspects
and money were gone.”

“What happened to him?”

“Car trouble, so he said.”

“All right, so he had some bad luck. What of
it?”

“Funny you should use the term bad luck. Did
you also know that Powell likes to gamble?”

“I had not heard that.”

“It’s true, and apparently he is not that
good at it. Here, look at these.” Spinelli slid a batch of black
and white photos across the table for Carlos and me to examine.
“Those are surveillance photos taken over a twenty-year period
showing Powell coming and going from the Wampanoag Indian Casino.
You will notice that in some, he is still in uniform.”

I glanced at the photos, still not impressed.
“I know about these. Internal Affairs interviewed me three times
over this and other matters concerning Powell. As far as I know, he
has always come out of it clean.”

Carlos said, “Yeah, but not guilty does not
always mean innocent.”

Spinelli weeded through the photos and
isolated several showing Ron Powell and Chief Running Bear
together, shaking hands and embracing. “I did some checking. I.A.D.
believes that Powell fell into heavy debt with the casino on a
number of occasions and that the casino forgave those debts.”

“Are you saying he’s on the take?”

“Could be, of course they could never
substantiate that. It is also interesting to point out that
Powell’s unit was first to respond to a shooting on the reservation
last year. In his report, he wrote that a security guard at the
casino shot two armed suspects after they tried breaking into the
vault on Christmas Eve.”

“But that’s not what happened, is it?”

“If it is, then they were a couple of
incredibly stupid robbers. First off, they supposedly broke into
the casino by way of the underground garage behind the locker rooms
belonging to the security squad. Then they managed to somehow get
their hands and feet bound up in duct tape before taking a bullet
to the back of their heads.”

“It was an execution,” said Carlos.

Spinelli agreed, adding, “It was more than
just an execution, it was a message.”

“To whom?”

“To the rivals within the tribe wanting to
take over casino operations. The two suspects were Chief Running
Bears’ own nephews who had contested his authority as chief. Their
father, Jonathan Mochohyett, a.k.a. Little Cloud, is Daniel
Mochohyett’s brother. These two brothers have been embroiled in a
power struggle since the government first granted permission to the
tribe to build the casino.”

I asked, “What does this all have to do with
Powell?”

“Powell,” Spinelli answered, “cleaned up the
crime scene and made it look like an attempted robbery. He is the
one who removed the duct tape from the victims’ hands and feet and
placed guns on their persons.”

“How do you know this?” asked Carlos.

Spinelli hesitated, uneasy about divulging
that information. I cleared my throat hoarsely and he spilled his
source. “I have friends in the tribe,” he said. “They are members
of Little Cloud’s circle, and they are scared to death of Running
Bear. If you ask them about it, they will deny knowing
anything.”

“You believe them, though?”

“I do. I think it is no coincidence that
Powell’s unit was closest to the casino when the call came in,
because he was already there. You see, a dealer at the casino swore
in his initial interview that he went out for a smoke break thirty
minutes before security raised the alarm, and he saw Powell’s
cruiser parked out by the back door. Later, when asked to sign an
official statement, he recanted and said he had made a
mistake.”

“You think someone threatened him into
changing his story?”

“I do.”

“That’s a strong charge, but you know we
can’t use any of that information in this Landau case, even if we
thought there was a tie to it.”

“Oh, there is a tie.” Spinelli opened a
folder sitting on the table and tossed out a statement dated
eighteen years previous. “Here is the arrest record on Landau.
N.C.P.D. picked him up at his lake cabin a few days after the
robbery. Care to guess who the arresting officer was?”

“Ooh, I know,” said Carlos, his hand in the
air, waving. “It was Powell.”

Spinelli pointed at him. “Bingo. Give that
man a cigar.”

“No, take it back,” I said to Spinelli. “You
already told him that over the phone this morning.”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Huh, I guess not.”

“Forget it. Listen, how did Powell know about
the lake house? Is that something the department had known
about?”

“No. They had not even identified Landau as a
suspect yet. That’s what makes it bizarre. Powell is intricately
entwined throughout this case, including now, having been one of
the first to show up at Pete’s Place where Landau turned up
dead.”

“Maybe it’s coincidence. This is a small
town. There are only so many cops on the force.”

“Coincidence?” Spinelli tipped his coffee
back and finished off the cup before tossing it into the trashcan
behind him. “If so, then this case is swimming in coincidences.” He
pulled a Sharpie from his shirt pocket and pointed at the chart
again. “This guy?” He took his marker and circled the name, Paul J.
Kemper. “I know you know him.”

“That’s Landau’s lawyer,” I said. “We talked
to him this morning. He had nothing to offer us.”

“No?” From Kemper’s name, he drew a line down
to another and circled it. “He didn’t tell you that he and this
man, William DeAngelo, were old college mates, that they studied
criminal law together, and even belonged to a secret society there
known as Dragon’s Gate, a sort of Skull & Bones club like at
Yale?”

“No, he did not,” I said. “Why, who is
William DeAngelo?”

“DeAngelo is the warden at the Massachusetts
Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction.”

“Walpole?” said Carlos. “That’s were Landau
did his seventeen years.”

“That’s right.”

“Whoa, that is a coincidence.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

Spinelli agreed, drawing our attention to a
fourth name on the chart. “It hardly seems a coincidence when you
factor in this guy, Judge Thomas H. Cardell, the presiding judge at
Landau’s sentencing.” He circled Judge Cardell’s name and connected
it to DeAngelo’s with another line. “Because it so happens that
Judge Cardell is Warden DeAngelo’s brother-in-law.”

I shook my head. “Unbelievable. It’s no
wonder you made a flow chart. You practically need a program to
keep track of who’s who.”

Carlos put his finger up. “I have a
question.” Spinelli and I turned to him. “Why is this all beginning
to sound like a conspiracy to me?”

“That’s because it probably is,” I said. “You
know, it has never set right with me that the judge sent Landau to
a level six maximum security prison for the robbery. Kemper seems
like a smart enough lawyer not to let that happen, even if Landau
wanted to go there, like Kemper said. Now, with these new
revelations, I have to think that Walpole was not Landau’s idea,
but the conspired efforts of Kemper, DeAngelo and Cardell.”

“Yes, but why?”

“For the money,” said Carlos, and I knew he
had hit the nail square on the head. “No one believed that the
money burned up at the cabin. This was their way of keeping Landau
under their thumbs so that they might learn where he hid it.”

“Yes, but does that give any of them a motive
for murder?” I asked.

“Hell yes!”

“And Powell’s involvement?” I pointed to the
photo of him and Running Bear outside the casino. “Where does he
fit in? Is he a good cop or bad?”

That question none of us could answer.
Spinelli circled another name on the chart. “What about her?”

“Stephanie Stiles?” I gave Carlos first stab.
“Any ideas?”

He made a face as if something came up
stinking. “I don’t trust her. We need to tail her and find out who
she is seeing.”

“You mean our mystery wristwatch owner.”

“Yes. If it is not Kemper, then maybe we have
another name to worry about.”

“Good point.” I motioned to Spinelli.
“Dominic, see if we can spare a couple of guys to rotate shifts
outside Stiles’ apartment. Let’s find out who this guy is. While
you are at it, see what she does for a living besides chain smoke
and binge drink. I want to know how she pays her bills.”

“You got it.”

“And do some more digging on Powell. Get me
his schedule for the last few days and copies of all the reports he
has filed since then, especially today’s. Oh, and see if you can
get me photos of Kemper, DeAngelo and Cardell. Together with these
of Powell and Chief Mochohyett, I hope that Pete down at the bar
can identify just who the hell Landau met with last night.”

“Kemper and DeAngelo will be easy,” Spinelli
replied, “but I doubt you will need one of Cardell.”

“Why is that?”

“He’s dead—passed away six years ago.”

“Oh, then I guess we won’t need his.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind. Would you call the
prison and see if you can get Carlos and me in to see Warden
DeAngelo in the morning? Tell him if he cannot see us there, then
we will gladly have him come downtown for an interview.”