Eye of the Witch (14 page)

“
Crazy Eddy? I’m sorry I don’t remember his last name, but as the name implies, the guy was a real whacko. He wasn’t there long, but he made one hell of an impression on us.”

“
What happened to him?”

“
I don’t know. Some say he moved away. Others say he died. Wouldn’t surprise me. Between that workshop and Doctor Lieberman’s second phase workshops, nearly everybody’s dead now.”

“
And that doesn’t strike you as odd?”

“
Should it?”

“
Well, you know the reason I’m here asking all these questions is because in addition to Karen Webber’s death this month Bridget Dean and Anna Davalos also committed suicide.”

“
I know that. What a shame.”

“
You know that?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, what if I told you we suspect that Dean and Davalos were murdered, too?”

“
Then I’d say you have your hands full.”

“
But it doesn’t worry you?”

“
Again, should it?”

“
I think so. Don’t you see the relevance here? From what you’re telling me, the Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli connection is not the only thread tying these deaths together, but there’s also the Doctors Lowell and Lieberman psychic workshops connection.”

She drew her hand to her mouth in an exaggerated gasp. “Ooh! You mean someone is killing off members of the psychic workshop for no apparent reason?”

“
Exactly!”

“
Wow, Detective. I bet this is like deja vu for you, huh? How do you stand it?”

“
That’s it!” I threw my hands in the air, kicked my chair out and started for the door. “You know, Lilith, if ever I thought you could take anything serious, I must have been out of my mind.”

“
Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll let you know when that happens.”

I stormed out of her house and (I’m not proud of this) kicked the shit out of one of her stupid little gnomes peeking out from behind the windmill. He had it coming, though. I swear the little bastard gave me the finger.

Spinelli needed no invitation. He started the car and dropped it into gear even before I climbed in and shut the door. We left rubber halfway down the block and neither of us said a word until we made it back to the box.

Seven

Spinelli and I ran into Carlos in the lobby of the justice center. He had just raided the vending machine of newly stocked Snickers bars and was heading back to his workstation. I called to him to wait up, which he did, but only after stashing his booty of confection in his pockets. We filtered through the tiers of security and assembled around his desk.

“
So where did you go?” he asked, directing the question at Spinelli, probably assuming the field trip left him with goose bumps all over.

“
To Lilith’s,” I said, after realizing the cat had Spinelli’s tongue.

“
Lilith’s! What were you doing there?”

“
Getting a whole new perspective on the case. Did you know that Karen Webber once attended Doctor Lowell’s workshops?”

“
Sure.” He stuck his hands in his pockets to avoid fidgeting. He does that when he gets nervous. The fidgeting used to give him away. He still hasn’t figured out that putting his hands in his pockets does the same thing.

“
Really? And you didn’t think that was pertinent?”

“
To what?”

“
Geesus, Carlos! After what we went through last year, somebody from one of the workshops dies suspiciously, and you don’t think that’s pertinent to the case?”

“
No.”

I shook my head and uttered something totally unprofessional under my breath. I think Carlos and Spinelli heard it, but both knew better than to question it.

Carlos said, “Tony. Karen Webber hadn’t gone to one of those workshops since before Doctor Lieberman took over. I’m sorry, but I didn’t see the big deal.” He pulled his hands from his pockets as he spoke, and three Snickers bars jumped out. He gathered them off the floor and held one out for Spinelli and me. “Snickers?”

We each took one, much to his disappointment, I’m sure.

“
Carlos, under ordinary circumstances, I don’t suppose it would have been a big deal. But after what we dealt with last year, and seeing that Karen’s brother was one of the Stalker’s victims, you should have said something.”

“
I’m sorry.”

I peeled the wrapper off the candy bar and took a small bite. “You’re forgiven,” I said, suddenly realizing why Carlos kept buying so many of them. The damn things were good! I lifted it like a toast, and the three of us munched down.

“
So,” said Carlos, a small piece of nougat stuck to the side of his lip. “Really, what were you guys doing at Lilith’s?”

“
Praying she wouldn’t kill us.” Spinelli said.

“
Huh?”

“
Stop,” I told him. “We went there to check out a hunch.”

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What? That she wouldn’t turn you into an alley cat if you didn’t give her the witch’s ladder?”

“
Funny. No, I had a hunch about Benjamin Rivera.”

“
You thought he was faking his retardation.”

“
Close, but no. He’s not retarded. He’s what you call a high-functioning autistic savant. You remember he told us that he was like Leona Diaz. I suspected he meant that he had paranormal or supernatural attributes. Apparently someone else thought so, too, and enrolled him in one of Doctor Lowell’s workshops.”

Carlos popped the last of his candy bar into his mouth, and with his cheeks completely full, sputtered the word, “Interesting.” Only it came out, “Inawhusdin.”

“
Isn’t it?” I said. “But get this. That comment Benjamin made got me thinking, and I remembered something Spinelli said about Anna Davalos and Bridget Dean.”

“
Me?” Spinelli pointed to himself. “What did I tell you?”

“
Plenty. About Bridget Dean, you said her boss felt she had a sort of ‘sixth sense’ that won her cases in court. And in describing Anna Davalos, you said she had a knack for anticipating her customer’s needs, and that her coworkers thought it seemed uncanny how she could read them so boldly.”

“
I remember.”

“
That got me thinking. I asked Lilith about them and she told me that, indeed, Anna Davalos and Bridget Dean and Benjamin Rivera were all members of Doctor Lowell’s workgroup.”

“
Whaaa?”

“
Carlos. Swallow please.”

He hurried up chewing and swallowed hard. Spinelli and I waited patiently as we watched his tongue rake across his teeth behind closed mouth. He swallowed again, smacked his lips and took a shallow breath. He didn’t really need to say it again, but I wanted to hear it anyway.

“
What?”

I smiled, such sweet victory. “Now you know why I got so upset not knowing about Karen Webber’s involvement in Doctor Lowell’s studies. We have a new pattern here, Gentlemen. Karen Webber, Bridget Dean and Anna Davalos were all members of the workshop, and now they’re all dead.”

“
It’s coincidence,” Spinelli suggested.

“
Really? What about Carol Kessler, the fifth Beatle? Is it a coincidence that she also attended Doctor Lowell’s workshop with Karen, Bridget, Anna and Benjamin, and now she shows up as a player in our little mystery tour.”

Spinelli shook his head clear. “Come again?”

“
It’s a 60’s reference,” said Carlos. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

I said to Spinelli, “I suppose it’s also a coincidence that Karen had an appointment to meet with Kessler on the day she died.”

He raised his shoulders and dropped them without debate. I just kept rolling over him. “Coincidence, no I don’t think any of this is coincidence. I think Karen believed Carol was in immediate danger and wanted to get her out of town.”

Carlos pointed to me. “You might have something there, Tony. While you were gone, I followed up on Kessler. I don’t know where she is, but I know she got there in a hurry. Her coworkers tell me she left work Friday afternoon around one. Kessler’s neighbors reported seeing her at her house shortly thereafter. She packed her car up with some clothes and a few other things and then tore out of there quickly.”

“
Sounds like she’s not buying into the idea of coincidences either.”

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Maybe no one mentioned it to her.”

“
Speaking of mentioning, have I mentioned the names Stinky Pete, Lucky Lenny and Crazy Eddy?”

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Who?”

“
They may be the other players in this game. Lilith told me about them. They’re all former members of Doctor Lowell’s first workshop. If any one of them is involved in this, then boy, have we got troubles.”

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So where does that leave us?” Carlos asked. “Do we have another serial killer targeting former members of Doctor Lowell’s workshop?”

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Or,” said Spinelli, “did Rivera kill these people, not knowing about the connection they all had to one another.”

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Maybe it’s exactly what it looks like to everyone else but us,” I said, “and it’s simply a case of three suicides in three weeks.”

Carlos, “So, what can we do?”

Spinelli, “We can haul Ricardo Rivera in for more questioning.”

I shook my head. “Not without cause.”

“
How `bout we find one of them guys Lilith told you about and question him?”

“
No good. Lilith couldn’t remember any last names. We can’t very well go to E.I.N.I. and type in Stinky Pete, Lucky Lenny or Crazy Eddy.”

“
Can we bring Piakowski in?” this from Spinelli. “Chances are we’ll find him in violation of some parole stip or another.”

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Probably would,” I said. “If only we knew where to look. The guy’s a chameleon.”

Carlos, “So, where does one look for a chameleon?”

“
Right under one’s nose,” Spinelli joked.

We all laughed at that. I said, “Yeah, you can probably bury that idea. Piakowski is the kind of guy you don’t find if he doesn’t want you to.”

“
My, God!” cried Carlos.

“
What?”

“
You said, bury.”

“
Yes.”

“
Karen’s funeral is this morning!” He looked at his watch. “We have to leave now!”

Spinelli and I checked the clock on the wall. I don’t know why. We could have bet on Carlos’ punctuality. There are just two things in life that he never misses: meals and funerals. We grabbed our coats and scuttled for the door.

There’s a small cemetery just outside the city, founded back in the days of the American Revolution. New Castle was barely a township when they lay the first soul to rest there: a Mister J. Quincy Stone, of Boston proper. It’s a nice place where the hills roll gently from a high point overlooking the Church steeple and beyond, halfway to Gloucester, down to the creek that feeds the old textile mill and empties into the marsh behind the Minute Man motel. There are many trees there, too, deciduous mostly: maple, elm, ash and hickory, a lot of them planted by mourners as everlasting tributes to their departed.

There is also a stone wall around two-thirds of the cemetery, knee-high and loosely stacked. The remaining third came down in the 20’s to allow expansion for growing demand. Carlos likes to point out that the cemetery is so popular that people are just dying to get in. I ask him not to tell that old joke at funerals, but inevitably, he does. It’s in that expanded part of the cemetery where we found the Webber party. Is that what you call it? The word party seems too celebratory if you ask me, although I don’t suppose the Donnor party had much to celebrate either. God, I hate funerals.

When she buried Travis a nearly a year ago, Karen reserved a plot right next to him for her own eventual interment. I’m sure she never expected to join him so soon. Had she known, she might have told them just to dig one large hole and wait for her before filling it in. I know that sounds sick, but trust me. I wasn’t the only one there thinking that. Cops can get cynical sometimes, especially at funerals. And there were a lot of cops at Karen’s.

Carlos, Spinelli and I stood back a ways, under a large elm for shade, the same tree Carlos and I stood beneath to get out of the rain last year. Back then, we kept our distance because the attendees were mostly participants in Doctor Lieberman’s workshop. This time we held back to let the men and women of the First Precinct have front row to honor their own. It’s not that Karen wasn’t one of us, or we one of them. But cops are like family, and as with all families, you have your pecking order.

The service was just winding down, the American flag already folded and presented to Karen’s kin, when Spinelli tapped me on the shoulder.

“
What is it?” I asked. His face looked pale white.

“
Over there,” he said, pointing.

I looked out at a sea of police uniforms with black suits and dresses peppered within. “Where?”

“
There!” he said again, pointing harder, straighter, as though he might reach all the way to his target. The guy wearing the dark sunglasses.”

“
Everybody’s wearing dark sunglasses,” I said.

“
Yeah, but I’m talking about the guy with the short sleeve shirt and tattoos. Isn’t that Piakowski?”