Call Of The Witch (13 page)

“
Sure, right up there with
curling,” I said. “What’s next, Olympic shuffleboard?”

“
How about Olympic chess?”
Carlos joked. “I can see it now, Stephen Hawking vs. Boris Spassky.
What a heart-pumping adrenaline-packed match that would
be.”

“
Spassky?” I said. “Isn’t
he dead?”

Dominic snatched the photo from Carlos’
hands. “Spassky’s not dead.” He sounded pissed. “Bobby Fischer is
dead.”

“
Fisher?” said Carlos. “Is
he the guy with all those kids’ games.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s
Fisher-Price.”

“
Please,” said Dominic.
“Can we continue?”

“
Sure.” I motioned a
rolling hand gesture to move it along. “By all means….
continue.”

He tossed the photo onto the pile of
documents on the table and referred to a small spiral-bound notepad
he kept in his shirt pocket. “Russell Haywood owns and operates
Bridle Bit Stables in Essex on Rt. 133. He coaches young boys and
girls who want to enter competitions and aspire to someday make the
Olympic Equestrian team.”

Carlos said, “Don’t you mean young girls and
sissies?”

“
Carlos.” I gave him the
look, hoping to shut him down. It used to be more effective in the
days before my return to prime. My brows were bushier then, my
scowl more intimidating. Nowadays it’s more a look of mild
displeasure, bordering on annoyance. Still, it usually gets the job
done.

Dominic thanked me with a nod. “I really
don’t have anything on Haywood, except maybe a late-paid parking
ticket or two. His stables are only a mile from one of the
Brewbaker and Massy department stores. Lionel Brewbaker drops her
off there once a week when he visits that store.”

“
Does Haywood have any
money problems?”

“
Not that I’m aware
of.”

“
Any history with the
law?”

“
None.”

I checked my watch. It was already past 9 PM.
I said to Carlos. “We should still talk to him. Put him on your
list of people to see tomorrow.”

“
Got it,” he
said.

I turned back to Dominic. “Did you find out
anything on Raul Martinez?”

“
Martinez,” said Carlos,
his voice low and gravely with a tone reserved for only the
despicable.

Spinelli gave him a fleeting glance but
dismissed it quickly. “Raul Martinez,” he said, “twenty-seven,
unemployed, arrested numerous times for assault and battery, drunk
and disorderly, domestic violence, misdemeanor possession; small
stuff like that. He has a driver’s license, but doesn’t own a
vehicle and never owned a van.”

“
That domestic,” said
Carlos. “Was that on his mother?”

“
No, it was on his
wife––well—ex-wife now.”

“
Good for her,” I
said.

“
Yes, but Karina Martinez
did call the police on him a few times. And although responding
officers believed her son had hit her, Ms. Martinez refused to
press charges.”

I could see Carlos’ face getting redder by
the minute. Still he maintained composure and I found no need to
push the matter. I said to Dominic, “What about known associates?
Got anything on a guy named Hector?”

“
No, but I’m working on
it. You still don’t have a last name, do you?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“
That’s all right. I’ll
dig up something.”

“
Is that it
then?”

“
Yes. No! Wait…. I also
have this.” He handed me an NCPD rap sheet on Amanda Brewbaker. It
was small, four arrests, all on drug possessions resulting in two
dismissed charges, one settled and one pending prosecution. “I
thought you’d find this interesting.”

“
I do,” I said, and handed
it to Carlos after looking it over briefly. “This could be damaging
for Amanda in her divorce case, especially if she presses for child
custody.”

“
Damning is more like it,”
said Carlos.

Dominic agreed. “That’s why I brought it up.
Losing custody, even shared custody, could result in a huge
financial setback for her in a settlement. Maybe enough to provide
a motive for kidnapping.”

I shook my head. “Makes no sense. We already
know the kidnappers demand is for only ten thousand dollars. Amanda
Brewbaker stands to receive at least that much every month even
without custody.”

“
I know. I’m just saying.
Remember her alibi is paper thin.”

“
Okay, point taken. What
else?”

“
That’s it. Oh, and so you
know, I did review a few videos from this afternoon.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Got them from a 7-11, a
Tasty Treat and a Gas-N-Go in the neighborhood around the
Brewbaker’s.”

“
And?”

“
No van matching the
description you gave me and no obvious child abduction.”

Carlos stood up and clapped his hands clean.
“All right then. On that note, I think––”

“
Wait,” said Dominic. “I
still have this list of sex offenders. It’s broken down by
preferences: boys, girls, teens, adolescents and tots.”

“
Tots?” Carlos shook his
head in disgust. “Go over it with Tony. I’m going to take a
leak.”

I waited until he left the room before saying
to Dominic, “Have you noticed him acting funny lately?”

“
Carlos?”

“
Yeah.”

“
How so?”

“
I don’t know, more easily
irritated I guess.”

He shook his head. “No. More arrogant
maybe.”

“
You think it’s his new
girlfriend?”

He laughed. “You kidding me?”

“
What?”

He scooted past the corner of the table and
pulled a chair up close to mine. “Tony, what do you know about his
new girlfriend?”

“
Not much. I’ve never met
her.”

“
Exactly. It’s been three
months since they supposedly started dating and still we’ve never
seen her.”

“
You think she doesn’t
like cops?”

“
I think she doesn’t
exist.”

“
Huh?”

“
Think about it. He told
us her name is Lauri Shullit.”

“
That’s right, Lauri
without the E.” Spinelli eyed me with anticipation. I eyed him
back. “What?”

“
Lauri?” he said,
apparently leading me.

“
Yes.”

“
Shullit?”

I still didn’t get it. “Yes?”

“
It’s an
acronym.”

“
What is?”

“
Her name.”

“
I’m sorry. Spell it out
for me.”

“
Lauri Shullit. You take
the letters, rearrange them, and you get the names Lilith and
Ursula.”

“
Nooo.”

“
Yes! Look!” He turned
over one of the papers on the table and wrote Lilith and Ursula’s
name on the back. Then he wrote down Lauri Shullit’s name below,
circled each letter and drew a connecting line to the corresponding
letters above.

I fell back in my chair, speechless, my eyes
blinking in disbelief. Spinelli smiled, perhaps for the first time
in a week. “That’s amazing,” I said, after finally finding my
voice. “How did you figure that out?”

“
It was easy. Carlos first
mentioned this girl right about the time we both got married.
Remember how he went on and on about how beautiful she was, how
funny and clever she was?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, I know Carlos. If
he hooked a girl like that, he’d bring her around to show her off
like a trophy.”

“
You bet he
would.”

“
So, naturally I checked
her out.”

“
And?”

“
She doesn’t exist. She’s
not in the DMV register. She doesn’t pay a utility bill. I even
Googled her. There’s no such person. The name comes up blank. Lauri
without the E is more uncommon than the name Rumpelstiltskin.
Besides that, without the E the name is usually spelled L-O-R-I.
And Google doesn’t pull up a single entry for the last name,
Shullit. Once I figured out she was made up, it only took a minute
to guess where he got the name from.”

“
He’s jealous,” I
said.

“
Big time.”

“
But that’s sad; I mean to
think he’d have to make something like that up. Carlos has never
had a problem meeting women.”

“
True, but then he’s never
met anyone as perfect as Ursula.”

“
You mean perfect as
Lilith.”

“
Ursula.”

“
Lilith.”

“
Urs––”

“
Hey guys!” Carlos came
back into the room in a hurry. “I just got off the phone with Brit.
The kidnappers sent Lionel a photo of Kelly. She’s sending it to me
now.”

“
It’s the proof of life
photo,” Spinelli said. “Watch. It’ll have today’s newspaper or some
other means of conveying that it’s recent.”

“
There, I got it,” said
Carlos. “He stared at the picture on his phone for ten seconds
before handing it to me. “ It’s her. No doubt.”

I took the phone. Spinelli came up behind me
and peered over my shoulder. In the picture, we saw a frightened
nine-year-old girl with bloodshot eyes, her mouth gagged, her hands
and feet bound with duct tape. She was sitting in a corner on a
bare wooden floor, her knees to her chest. Her hair mussed, her
face dirty. Dried tear tracks cut vertical trails down the sides of
her cheeks. As Spinelli predicted, a folded newspaper resting
against her shins displayed the evening’s headlines. It was a
frightening sight, and it made my heart stammer.

Spinelli took it harder though. I felt his
hand slip off my shoulder as he backed away, his gaze lost in the
vacuum of the moment. He eased himself into a chair. His lips
thinned. His eyes pooled. I came around to his left; Carlos to his
right.

“
Dominic? Are you all
right?”

He shook his head faintly, his gaze lost in a
distant corner of the room. “She looks so scared, Tony.”

“
But she’s alive,” I said.
“That’s something.”

He looked up at me, crowded his brows and
gave life to his tears. “She’s just a baby.”

Carlos put his hand on his shoulder and said,
“Dominic, I know Kelly. She’s a strong girl. She’s smart and I know
she’s keeping her wits about her. She knows we’ll save her.”

“
Excuse me,” said Dominic,
getting up and pushing his way past us to get to the door. Carlos
reached out to stop him, but I grabbed his hand and pulled it
back.

“
Let him go.” I waited
until Dominic was out of the room before adding, “He’ll be all
right.”

“
Is he always going to be
like this now, Tony?”

“
No,” I said, though I
couldn’t be entirely sure about it. “Look, he’s going to be a new
dad. He’s feeling a lot of different emotions right now. It’ll get
better once we get Kelly home safe and sound.”

“
You think?”

“
Yeah, I
think.”

“
So what do we do
now?”

“
We have proof of life
now, we have to verify it.”

“
What’s to verify? It’s
Kelly. I recognize her.”

“
Yes, but is that
newspaper resting against her legs actually this evening’s
paper?”

We looked at the photo again. The headline
was clear, but the date was too small to read. Carlos increased the
picture, expanding it to the largest size possible. “It’s a low-res
photo,” he said. “Probably taken with another cell.” He squinted
tightly. “But it looks like today’s date.”

“
How `bout the headline?
Does it make sense?”

He read it aloud. “Senate at odds with House
over budget.” We both laughed at that. “Could be a headline from
any paper on any day over the past two hundred years.”

“
I’ll run downstairs and
buy a paper from the machine in the lobby,” I said. “You see
if––”

“
Don’t bother,” said
Dominic. “I have one.”

We both turned toward the door. Spinelli was
standing there holding up a copy of the Boston Press evening
edition, its headline reading the same as that in the picture. He
came in and dropped the paper down on the table. “Sorry about
losing it like that earlier,” he said. “I don’t know what came over
me.”

“
Don’t worry about it,” I
said. “We understand.”

“
Yeah,” said Carlos. He
came up to Dominic and put his arm around his shoulder. “We
understand. I told Tony it’s because you’re going to be a new dad
and all. You got a lot of emotional things going on inside you
right now. Doesn’t he, Tony?”

I swallowed that pill with a heavy gulp.
“Yes, Carlos. I suppose he does.” I put my hand out. “Can I see
your phone?”

Carlos gave me his phone. I punched in
Brittany Olson’s number and hit send.

“
Tony?”

“
No it’s…. I mean yes.
It’s me. How did you know?”

“
I figured you’d call.
Carlos told me your phone was dead. Did you get the
picture?”

“
Yes. We got it. Did the
Brewbakers see it?”

“
Mr. Brewbaker did. The
Mrs. isn’t here.”