The Witch is Dead (30 page)

Christopher nodded.

Ethan joined me on the couch and withdrew a pad and a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket.

It gave Christopher another peek at his gun.

Ethan leaned forward and let his hands dangle loosely on his knees. “I’m here in an unofficial capacity, but I’ve volunteered to help Ms. Jensen find her daughter. As she told you, we believe Silas is implicated.”

Christopher regained some of his composure during Ethan’s explanation. “Of course, I’ll cooperate, but my name must be kept out of the media. I have my reputation to protect.”

Ethan tugged on his lower lip. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll pass your request on to Sheriff Wilson.” He flipped open his notebook. “About your business dealings with Silas? He’s required to provide you with copies of the death certificates for all those who donate tissue?”

“Yes.”

“Copies of the family consent forms?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever follow up with the families?”

Christopher looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Do you ever contact the families listed on those forms?”

“No, it’s not required.”

“It is required to provide blood samples from the tissue donors, isn’t it?”

Christopher’s gaze slid away from Ethan. “Yes.”

“Can you account for your time the night Raymond Buchanan died?”

“I was occupied.” Christopher squirmed uneasily in his chair.

Ethan scowled. “Can you be more specific?”

“Are you prepared to charge me with something?” Christopher sat forward. “Maybe I need my attorney present?”

“If you’d prefer, Dr. Mason. Right now this is just a friendly conversation, but wecould finish it at the courthouse,” Ethan countered as he tapped his pen on his knee. He pursed his lips. “But after the discovery we made this morning, the media is probably camped out on the steps by now.”

“Discovery?”

“Humph, maybe you haven’t heard the news reports.” He tapped his pen faster. “Silas got lazy and stopped cremating bodies. We found…” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I think last count was forty at one place and—”

“Oh, God.” Christopher covered his face with his hands. “That idiot,” he muttered.

Ethan fixed his gaze on Christopher. “Did you know about the bodies?”

“No, I swear.” Christopher lowered his hands. “I never went to the crematorium. Silas would deliver the tissue and the forms. I had no reason to suspect he was doing anything illegal.”

“Gee, Christopher,” I said, hooking an arm over the back of the couch. “I’d have thought the Wite-Out on the forms would have been a clue.”

Ethan touched my arm lightly to silence me. His sleet gray eyes drilled Christopher. “We have a young girl missing, a man’s dead, and I can assure you there’ll be a full investigation into both the crematorium and your biomedical supply business.”

Christopher passed a hand over his eyes. “I’m ruined.”

I watched him with disgust. Tink had been kidnapped,
Buchanan murdered, Silas had defiled bodies, and all he cared about was himself. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought him attractive.

Before I could express my thoughts, someone called from the other side of the room: “I’m innocent.”

I turned to see Mrs. Buchanan in the doorway. She stared at us with wild-eyed fear, her hand resting on the wall.

She crossed the room and pointed at Christopher. “I didn’t know what he was doing.”

A gold heart on a thin chain dangled from her wrist. Tink’s bracelet.

Ethan made a grab for me as I flew at her, but he missed. Clutching her shoulders, I shook her until her head bobbled like a rag doll’s.

“Where did you get that bracelet?” I snarled.

She slapped at me, but I didn’t feel the blows landing.

“Let go!” she screamed.

My fingers dug into her flesh and my hair flopped in my face as I jerked her back and forth.

“Ophelia!” Ethan’s voiced sounded through the haze of my rage.

An arm shot around my waist and hauled me off my feet. Spinning me, Ethan set me behind him and away from Mrs. Buchanan.

I shoved at his solid body as I stretched my arm past him to claw at the widow.

Christopher now stood next to her, and he threw a comforting arm over her shoulders, drawing her away. “Barbara—”

She moved away from him with a flounce. “This is all your fault.”

I tried to dodge Ethan, but he blocked me, then whirled on me and firmly gripped my upper arm. “Knock it off unless you want to face assault charges.”

With a shaking hand, I lifted the hair out of my face.

“She has Tink’s bracelet,” I said, my voice trembling.

“This?” she mocked, and held up her wrist. Ripping the bracelet off, she threw it on the coffee table. “Kevin gave it to me.”

Christopher looked stunned. “Barbara? Why would Kevin give—” The light of realization dawned in his eyes and he sank to the couch.

Ethan unclipped his cell phone and quickly pressed the buttons. “Bill, send a car to Dr. Christopher Mason’s house.”

He gave Bill the address.

“Mrs. Buchanan is here, too. I think you’ll want to talk to them.” He held the phone away from his ear as Bill shouted on the other end, then added, “And Bill? Pick up Kevin Roth.”

Thirty-Two

We waited until the patrol car arrived at Christopher’s.

Back in Ethan’s car, I buckled up and glanced at him.

“What was the deal with flashing your gun?”

“Achieved the desired effect, didn’t it?” He kept his focus on the patrol car ahead.

“Yes, but I thought you said you weren’t a cop today?”

“Honey, I’m always a cop. And you came this close…” He held up two fingers, an inch apart. “…to me arresting you.”

His eyes slid in my direction as he prepared to deliver his lecture concerning my behavior, but one look at my face stopped him.

He clamped his mouth shut with effort, and we followed the deputy to the courthouse in Aiken without speaking.

TV vans filled the street in front of the old limestone courthouse. In order to avoid them, we pulled into the parking lot behind the building and entered that way.

As we came in the back door, we saw Bill standing at the end of the long hallway. He noticed us, his feet set apart in a pugnacious stance, and bowed his head, giving it a long shake.

My steps faltered as I felt a little shudder go through me. Bill might have yelled at me in the past, but I had a feeling those exchanges would pale in comparison to what he’d say to me today.

I was wrong. His anger wasn’t focused on me, but on Ethan.

“I’d ask what in hell you thought you were doing taking her to Mason’s,” he said, “but I don’t have time now.” He raked Ethan up and down. “The media’s gathering like vultures, and I have to get control of the situation.”

“She would have gone with or without me,” Ethan replied in his defense.

Bill rubbed his head. “You think I don’t know that?” He shoved a finger in my direction. “With her, I expect trouble. But you’re a cop. You’re supposed to know how to handle people like her.”

Ethan snorted. “Yeah, right.”

I would have pointed out that I was standing right there and they didn’t need to talk about me as if I were invisible. But in this case, maybe invisible wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Did you pick up Kevin Roth?” Ethan asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah.”

“According to Mrs. Buchanan, he had Tink’s bracelet. Can you use that to get a search warrant for the funeral home, for his apartment?”

Bill held up a hand. “He claims Silas gave him the bracelet to pawn.”

“See,” I said, tugging on Ethan’s sleeve. “I told you Silas was involved in Tink’s disappearance.” I turned to Bill. “Have you found Silas yet?”

“No,” he said shortly.

“Can I come in for Kevin’s questioning?”

“No,” Bill and Ethan said at the same time.

“I’ve called Darci,” Bill said. “She’s on her way to pick you up. You’re going home, and you’re going to stay there.”

“But Bill—” I pleaded.

He cut me off. “You heard me.”

I jammed my hands on my hips. “I’m not leaving. This is a public place. I can be here if I want—”

Bill took a step toward me. “Ophelia,” he growled.

“Ethan? Please?”

“Ah, let her stay, Bill. Her daughter’s missing, and those three”—he motioned to the door behind him—“might be able to shed some light on the case.”

Bill eyed me with uncertainty.

“You won’t cause any trouble, will you, Ophelia?” Ethan asked, pressing the advantage.

“I swear.” I motioned to the bench opposite the door. “I’ll sit there, quiet as can be.”

“Humph.” Bill’s face softened. “If you so much as move—”

A deputy running down the hall interrupted him. “Bill, we’ve found a body at the crematorium.”

“Dumped?”

“No, this one’s in the oven Silas uses.”

Bill’s forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Maybe Silas was trying to catch up on his work.”

The deputy shrugged. “The M.E.’s on his way to Green’s to check it out.”

Bill gave him a curt nod and pointed to the door. “I’ll be in there. I want the reports as they come in.” He looked at me. “You plant your butt on that bench and don’t you dare move.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, and crossed to the bench.

Ethan and Bill disappeared into the room holding Kevin Roth.

The minutes ticked by as I stared at the closed door. How long did it take to sweat the information out of him? I had to fight the urge to bust into the room and demand what he knew about Tink, but I figured if I did, my next stop would be a cell.

The familiar click of heels on the linoleum floor had me turning my head.

Darci hurrying toward me. When she reached the bench, she slid down next to me. “Have they found Tink?”

“No.” I shook my head forlornly and proceeded to tell her the events of the day.

When I was finished, she sighed deeply. “What a mess…Mrs. Buchanan and both Dr. Mason and Kevin?” She rolled her eyes. “She was busy.”

“It would appear so. I guess Aunt Dot’s suspicions were correct. Christopher looked very surprised when he figured it out.”

“Do you think Kevin kidnapped Tink?”

“I don’t know. He was the one who gave the bracelet to Mrs. Buchanan, but he claims Silas was the one who gave it to him.” I drummed my fingers on my thighs. “They need to find Silas.”

Another deputy hurrying down the hall caught our attention. He rapped sharply on the door and stepped back when Bill opened it. Leaning close, he talked to Bill in a low voice.

I strained to hear what he said.

Bill shot a look in my direction and then nodded at the deputy. Taking a step back, he firmly shut the door.

“What was that about?” Darci wondered.

“I don’t know,” I said, jiggling my leg with nervousness. “Maybe they found Silas.”

Darci took my hand in hers. “Don’t worry. Bill will find her.”

“Whatis taking them so long?” I exclaimed.

Before Darci could reply, the door opened again and Ethan stepped into the hallway, a grim expression on his face. Crossing to us, he sat next to me and stared straight ahead, as if trying to marshal his thoughts.

“Ophelia—” he began.

“It’s not good, is it?” My stomach sank to my toes.

“They think they’ve found Silas—”

“‘Think?’”

“The ashes and bone fragments at the crematorium—”

I clutched Ethan’s leg. “Not Tink?” I asked, my voice laced with fear.

He shook his head. “The M.E. found a piece of melted plastic in with the fragments. He thinks it came from a knee replacement.”

I bowed my head in relief. Not Tink.

“They’ve also found traces of blood in Silas’s office.”

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Whose?”

“Silas. It’s his remains in the oven.”

My mind raced, trying to put what Ethan was saying together. “But how do you know? And if Silas is dead, then where’s Tink? Do you have any idea where he’s hid her?”

“Ophelia, Silas didn’t kidnap Tink,” he said softly.

“He had her bracelet—”

“According to Kevin, Silas found it at Roseman.”

My shoulders sagged as I remembered our campout. Tink had put the bracelet in her pocket after she caught it on the tent pole. It must’ve fallen out later that night. “So the bracelet wasn’t a clue,” I stated in a stunned voice.

“No.”

“But—”

Ethan laid a hand on my knee. “There’s more.”

“M-m-more?” I stuttered.

“Kevin Roth just confessed to killing both Raymond Buchanan and Silas Green,” he said simply.