Eye of the Witch (13 page)

“
Lilith, I told you. I don’t have it. Otherwise I would give it to you. Trust me.”

“
Detective, normally I would trust you. You’ve never lied to me, yet. But I know you have it. Leona swears she left it on the nightstand next to the bed. You were the lead detective in the case. None of your people would have touched it without you knowing.”

I slapped my hand on the table, not hard, but enough to make Spinelli jump. Lilith’s eyes only blinked and her stone-faced expression helped me reel my frustrations back into check right away. I took a deep breath, folded my hands neatly before me, and exhaled slowly.

“
Look, Lilith. I’m sorry about the outburst. I’m trying to get to the bottom of something. If you knew Karen Webber as well as you say, then you should know that Carlos, Spinelli and I believe the cause of her death wasn’t suicide.”

Her expression softened at once. “But the papers said—”

“
The papers don’t know everything, neither do the cops. Both see things only in black and white. There’s enough circumstantial evidence to tie a string of events together, and I believe you can help us tie that string into a knot.”

“
Interesting choice of words, Detective.”

By that, I knew she was referring to the ladder: a string of forty knots, just enough to hang myself with. I suspect my subconscious knowingly played a part in that betrayal. I ignored her comment, though, knowing she knew she got me. “Lilith, tell me how you knew Karen Webber, if not through her brother, Travis.”

She took a sip of tea and gazed across the table at Spinelli. “Are you really that frightened of me, Detective Spinelli?” she asked.

He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “I’m not af…fraid of you, Miss Adams.”

She thinned her lips. “So, why are you counting the steps to the front door?”

He turned to me, his eyes wide and white. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” I said. “Lilith reads minds. Your best bet is to think of a song and keep it in your head.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, and if you picture her in those tight blue jeans she wore yesterday, she’ll know.”

“
Too late,” said Lilith. “He’s already gone there, and then some.”

I saw him look to Lilith, then to me, to Lilith and back again. She sipped her tea slowly, her ebony eyes peering over the top of her cup in tiny slits. I remembered how uncomfortable I felt the first time I learned that she could read my mind, and how relieved I was when she divulged the secret of how to prevent it. I was about to share that knowledge with Spinelli, when he excused himself from the table and headed for the door. I called to him and asked where he was going. His reply: “Out for a smoke.”

After the door shut, I turned to Lilith and said, “Did you chase him out of here on purpose?”

She scoffed. “Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
Yes you do. I know you better than that.”

“
What? The boy said he wanted to go out and have a smoke. What’s the big deal?”

“
Well, first of all he doesn’t smoke.”

She set her tea down and leaned in towards me on her elbows. I felt her warm breath on my lips, and the thought of licking them wet made me feel just a little dirty. “Detective,” she said, “there’s something about that guy.”

I gave in to the urge, smacked my lips and swallowed. “What?”

“
That’s just it. I don’t know, and I’m a pretty good judge of character. That one is hiding something. Trust me.”

“
Lilith.” Our eyes locked, but for the tic-tocking pupil-to-pupil. “Spinelli’s a good cop. I trust you with matters of witchcraft. I trust him with my life.”

I thought she might come back with some clever off-the-cuff remark, maybe about him being so young, like who’s going to watch your back while he’s taking his nap? Or won’t his mommy get upset if you keep him out after dark? But she didn’t. Instead, she eased back in her chair, tossed her hair back off her shoulder and settled in with arms crossed at her chest.

“
You want to know how I knew Karen Webber?” she said. “I’ll tell you. Karen and I met in one of the early paranormal workshops.”

“
Wait a minute. Karen was in a psychic workshop with you?”

“
That’s right.”

“
And Travis, too?”

“
No. This was before Travis. This was in one of Doctor Lowell’s studies.”

“
I thought the workshops were Doctor Lieberman’s projects.”

“
Uh-uh. They were strictly Doctor Lowell’s brainchild. This was before he turned the project over to Doctor Lieberman. In the early days, the studies were informal, casual really. Those of us that attended had answered an ad in the newspaper. Me being into to witchcraft and all, well, naturally I was interested. Doctor Lowell, it turned out, couldn’t care less about my interests in witchcraft, but he did recognize that I had a propensity for clairvoyance. What he didn’t know, and what Doctor Lieberman later found out, was that witchcraft proved an invaluable tool in developing my skills as a psychic.

“
I tell you this, because Karen Webber showed an early interest in witchery and magic, but no real traits of ESP. It was that interest in witchcraft that got us talking, and eventually we became friends. But Karen’s heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t care to fully immerse herself into the craft, and Doctor Lowell soon realized he couldn’t validate her claim of paranormal attributes. So, before long, she left the program and we quickly lost touch with each other.”

“
Except when her brother joined the group.”

“
Yeah, but even then we didn’t keep in touch so much. Soon after Travis joined us, Karen moved to Ipswich and became a cop. I suppose I saw her maybe two or three times after that.”

“
How about a guy named Benjamin Rivera? Did you know him?”

“
Little Benny, yeah, a bit slow, and not much of a conversationalist, if you know what I m..m.mean.”

“
That’s not funny.”

“
I know. I’m sorry, but I never had the patience for such things. I’m sure Benny’s a nice guy and all, but I’m not going to make excuses. I can’t deal with….”

“
People not as smart as you?”

“
I didn’t say that. There’s plenty of smart people I can’t tolerate. Sometimes, Detective, you’re one of them.”

I smiled at that. “Well, thank you for tolerating me today.”

“
You’re welcome. More tea?” She poured us another round and we both helped ourselves to the sugar with our fingers. “Why do you ask about Benny Rivera, Detective? Is he tangled up in your little mystery?”

“
I don’t know yet. At the very least, I fear he’s in danger.”

“
Sorry to hear that. He really wasn’t such a bad kid, and I do mean kid. I never thought Doctor Lowell should have let someone so young into the studies. You put a boy into a group of adults like that and you’re bound to have problems.”

“
How so?”

“
Well, forget about the rumors of little Benny being someone’s boy toy, but just the way everyone teased him about his stuttering.”

“
You mean like you?”

“
Please, Detective, give me a little more credit than that. I say what’s on my mind at the expense of grown-ups, but I respect the little people. No, I’m talking about most everyone else. Poor Benny got an earful from people that should have known better. And I include Karen Webber among them.”

“
She teased Benny, too?”

“
She was the worst. I suppose it was the boredom, really. People think we were rewriting the laws of physics in those early studies. Most of the time we just sat around for hours, as Doctor Lowell worked one-on-one with someone trying to move a pencil across the table with just thought waves. If not that, then we spent days watching someone else sit, guessing what shape ink spot lay on a card face down in a pile of other ink-spotted cards.”

“
Sounds exciting.”

“
To some, maybe, but I can see how the boredom might lead others into mischief. All that aside, how did you know Benny and me were in Doctor Lowell’s workshop together?”

“
Didn’t really. It’s something he said to me. We were talking. Leona’s name came up, and he said he was like her.”

“
You mean he likes her.”

“
No. That’s what I thought I heard, too. He said that he was like Leona.”

“
Benny—like Leona? I don’t see how. The two are about as far apart as fire and water.”

“
When he said that, I assumed he meant that he was special like her, and that maybe they met in the workshops. That’s when I thought of coming to you.”

Lilith shook her head. “No, that’s impossible. Benny went to those workshops like eight or nine years ago. Leona came much later. Back then, she was still just a young girl in Honduras or Nicaragua, or whatever the hell banana republic she’s from.”

“
So, Benny didn’t attend the workshops for very long?”

“
Maybe a month or two. I don’t know how he got into the studies to begin with, but it didn’t take Doctor Lowell long to figure out he wasn’t psychic, just a high-functioning autistic savant with a stuttering problem.”

“
He’s not retarded?”

“
Please, Detective, tomato—to`mato, I’m not going to split hairs.”

“
Your sensitivity slays me, Lilith.”

“
Yeah, but you agree. Deep down you know you do. That’s the only reason we connect. The difference is that I don’t try to hide it.”

I wanted to disagree with her, and fundamentally I did. But what she said about me connecting with her rang bits of truth. In another time and in another world, perhaps, and if decades did not so obviously define our age, then she and I might have found common grounds for more than a platonic relationship. “Lilith,” I said, “let me run another couple of names by you and tell me what you think.”

She sipped her tea and readied herself by pulling her foot up on her chair and sitting on her ankle. “Okay. Shoot.”

“
I’ll start in no particular order of importance: Anna Davalos, Ricardo Rivera, Gregory Piakowski, Bridget Dean, Mallory Edwards, Courtney Lusk. Do these names mean anything to you?”

“
Some. Why do you ask?”

“
These people all worked for or have a connection to the Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli firm downtown.”

“
Is that where Benny Rivera works?”

“
Yes.”

“
Okay, that figures then. That’s how Benny knows Leona, isn’t it?”

“
Why do you say that?”

“
Because Leona knew Bridget Dean through Karen Webber. Bridget took Leona under her wing after that whole Surgeon Stalker thing. That’s something you would have known had you followed up on the girl’s welfare a little after the headlines died down.”

“
Hey, my life didn’t revolve strictly around that case. I had other priorities once it concluded.”

“
So good for you. Only it hasn’t really concluded, has it?”

“
What’s that supposed—”

“
You know what it means.”

I caught her gaze and held it like a viper’s grip. Of course, I knew what it meant. And I knew she had been in there again, fishing around in my mind, trolling my thoughts like a Great White in search of gobbet and chum. She had gotten better at it, so much so that I couldn’t know for sure if she were not in there all along. I blinked, and the connection between us broke, or she let go, I don’t know which. I sat back and felt a sense of calm, and I realized then that she owned me since the moment that thin chill ran up my spine outside in the car.

“
Are you done?” I asked.

I thought now she would ask me what that was supposed to mean, but she didn’t. She turned her head and wet her lips before taking a shallow sip of tea. Then she set her cup down on the table and folded her hands with interlocking fingers as if peace had found her, too. “Yes,” she answered. “I’m done.”

“
Then may I ask you?”

“
The other names? Of course. I know Bridget Dean the same way Karen Webber knew Bridget Dean, which is also how we both knew Anna Davalos, Benny Rivera and Carol Kessler. We all attended early versions of Doctor Lowell’s paranormal workshops.”

“
I never asked you about Carol Kessler.”

“
Come, Detective. Would you rather I hold out until you ask? We could be here all day.”

“
Fine. You’ve been in my head. Tell me what else I want to know. Tell me what I want to know even if I don’t know yet that I want to know it. Who don’t I know about that I should? Anyone else from those early workshops I failed to ask about?”

“
I don’t know. Let’s see. I remember Stinky Pete something or another. He dropped out after the first week. I don’t think I need to tell you why. Then we had Lucky Lenny from Southie. He had that name even before he won the lottery—three times. Ha, and Doctor L didn’t think he had any psychic abilities.”

“
Maybe he was just lucky like his nickname suggests.”

“
Yeah, Detective, I’m sure that’s it. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.”

“
Anyone else?”

“
Well, we can’t forget about Crazy Eddy, now can we?”

“
Who’s he?”