Call Of The Witch (22 page)

“
Going
somewhere?”

He pulled the plugs from his ears. “You
cops?”

“
That’s what the badge
says.”

I could see him assessing his chances of
escape, his eyes stealing glimpses between and around Carlos and
me. We both instinctively closed ranks and crowded the doorway to
keep that from happening.

“
What’s that?” said
Carlos. He ran his finger along his own mustache and then pointed
at the kid. “Under your nose. Is that cocaine?”

I hadn’t noticed until then, but Carlos was
right. The kid had a two or three-day old growth of facial hair
going, and in the stubble of his upper lip was a light dusting of
white powder. He reached up and brushed the area clean with his
fingertips.

“
No,” he said, and he
slipped out of his flip-flops.

“
He’s gonna––” Run, I
started to say. I even reached for his arm, but the kid was quick.
He turned, shoved the door closed and ricocheted through the foyer.
Carlos jabbed his foot in the jamb to keep the door from shutting
tight. I pushed on it hard. It swung open, slammed against the wall
and bounced half way closed again.

“
Come on!”

We followed the kid through the foyer, across
the living room and into the kitchen. The whole time we were
yelling for him to stop, he was yelling, “Cops!”

In the kitchen, a group of three or four
other individuals, Amanda Brewbaker included, were already
scrambling. Chairs tipped over in the shuffle, bottles scattered
and glasses crashed to the floor. I saw a mirror on the table with
lines of cocaine laid out in neat little rows upon it. I pulled my
weapon and ordered everyone to freeze. No one listened. Carlos gave
chase to the kid from the front door. I went after another guy that
I thought was Raul Martinez, although I could only see the back of
his head, so I couldn’t be sure.

We pursued our suspects as far as we could
before losing sight of them. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that
it was only a few blocks.

“
Whew, they were too damn
fast,” said Carlos, still catching his breath after meeting up with
me in the back yard of the Brewbaker house. “Guess I’m not as young
as I used to be.”

“
Nonsense,” I said.
“They’re hyped up on cocaine. They could’ve outrun a cheetah in the
state they’re in.” I wanted to believe that, seeing that I was
thirty years younger than Carlos and breathing heavier than he was.
“Can you imagine? They didn’t stop even after I pulled my
gun.”

“
I know.” He put his arm
around my shoulder as we headed back to the house. “That’s the
trouble with youths today. They just don’t listen.”

We found Amanda Brewbaker inside, sitting at
the kitchen table. She had cleaned up the broken glass and disposed
of the cocaine, mirror, razor blades and straws. Her eyes were
bloodshot, her face pale and drawn.

“
How could you do this?” I
said. “Your daughter’s been kidnapped and you sit here snorting
drugs with thugs and junkies.”

“
They’re not thugs and
junkies. They’re my friends.”

I said to Carlos. “Check the house. Every
room.”

“
She’s not here,” said
Brewbaker. “Do you think I’d kidnap my own child?”

“
I certainly wouldn’t put
it past you.” I gave Carlos the nod to go ahead. “Who were those
people?”

“
I told you.” She lit up a
cigarette and blew the first puff in my face. “Friends.”

“
Do your friends have
names?”

“
That’s none of your
business.”

“
Are they from your
theater group?”

“
Do you have a warrant,
Detective?”

“
I don’t need one. One of
your guests answered the door sporting a cocaine mustache. That
gave us reasonable cause to believe a crime was being committed on
the premises.”

She cast an ambiguous shrug. “Whatever.” She
took another drag of her cigarette, this time blowing the smoke
toward an open window. “You won’t find any drugs in here now. And
you certainly won’t find my daughter here either.”

“
Mrs. Brewbaker, are you
concerned at all for your child’s welfare?”

“
Of course I am,
Detective, but what more can I do except get in the way? You seem
to have things under control.”

“
Are you aware we
attempted to make a ransom drop this morning to get Kelly
back?”

“
Attempted?”

“
That’s right. The drop
went sour. Now the kidnappers have increased their ransom demand.
They want three-hundred thousand dollars.”

“
Lionel can afford
it.”

“
What did you do with the
cocaine?”

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

“
Did you flush
it?”

“
I didn’t flush
anything.”

“
Cocaine addiction can be
expensive, can’t it?”

“
I don’t have an
addiction.”

“
Are you saying you don’t
do coke?”

“
I’m saying I don’t have
an addiction.”

“
Tell me about Hector
Santana.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know any
Hector.”

“
Don’t you? Dmitry
Kovalchuk told us you and he picked Kelly up from Dance earlier
this week.”

“
I’m sure he’s
mistaken.”

“
Is he also mistaken when
he says he saw you and Hector kiss?”

“
Dmitry Kovalchuk is a
pervert, a drunk and a liar, though not necessarily in that
order.”

“
You know, Mrs. Brewbaker,
I could haul you downtown and strap you to a polygraph. Maybe then
I’d get some straight answers out of you.”

“
You try it and my lawyers
will have me out of there so fast it’ll make your head
spin.”

Carlos came back into the kitchen shaking his
head. “She’s not here, Tony.”

“
Of course not,” said
Brewbaker. “I told you. Now why don’t you go out and find my
daughter, or have you nothing better to do than to harass a poor
distraught mother of a kidnapped child?”

“
Distraught?” I said, but
then left it at that.

Carlos hiked his thumb up over his shoulder.
“Did you notice the van parked on the side of the house?”

“
No.”

“
Could be
Hector’s.”

“
Is it black?”

“
Yeah, faded almost to
bark blue.”

“
Run the plates, and then
take a couple of pictures of it and send them to Dominic. Maybe
it’ll show up on one of the surveillance videos he’s
reviewing.”

“
You got it. You wanna tow
it in? Give it a good spin?”

“
Yes, do that. Make sure
it’s dusted inside and out. Bag and tag anything that looks like it
might yield a DNA sample: cigarette butts, beer bottles, chewing
gum, and of course the obvious, hair, blood…. You know the
drill.”

“
I’m on it.”

I said to Amanda Brewbaker, “Do you still
have the keys to the house on Madison?”

She regarded me suspiciously. “Of
course.”

“
To both doors, front and
back?”

“
Yes.”

“
Did you send someone to
the house this morning to get Kelly’s meds?”

“
No. Why would I do
that?”

“
Weren’t you worried that
Kelly didn’t have them? She needs them every day, doesn’t
she?”

“
Yes, but she’s skipped a
day here and there before. She is only nine, you know.”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe you’re not
worried.”

“
What do you mean? Of
course I’m worried. I’m worried sick.”

“
Yes, so sick you’re
getting high on coke just to forget about it. Nice.” I put my hand
out. “Do you have a cell phone, Mrs. Brewbaker?”

“
Of course.”

“
May I see it?”

She reached into her purse and handed me her
phone. I flipped through her recent calls log to see how many she
placed to Lionel Brewbaker’s phone. There were only two in the last
four days. I then checked to see how many she placed to Kelly’s
phone and found one in the last week.

“
Are you done?” she asked,
her hand out to reclaim her phone.

I made note of a third number, one she had
called no less than eight times in the past three days. I punched
the number up and hit send. It rang only once before a Hispanic
male voice answered.

“
Hola, Mandy. Are they
gone?”

“
Hector?” I
said.

There was a brief silence and then he hung
up. I handed the phone back to Brewbaker. “He’s not much of a
talker, is he?”

She took the phone and threw it in her purse.
“Talking is so over-rated, Detective. It leads to drama. I get
enough of that in my theater group.”

Carlos came back into the room moments later
waving his phone. “Sent the pictures off to Dominic.”

“
Good.”

“
Yeah and I got a black
and white pulling up to the house now. They’ll keep an eye on the
van until the tow truck arrives.”

“
Thank you, Carlos. Good
work.” I looked at Amanda Brewbaker. She folded her arms across her
chest and turned her head to break eye contact. “You know I could
have a K-9 unit come here and sniff out the rest of your stash,” I
said. “Then you can spend the afternoon sitting in a jail cell
waiting on your lawyer to post your bail.”

She turned her head back with a snap. “You
wouldn’t.”

“
I might if you don’t go
back to the house and wait this thing out with your
husband.”

“
I know your game,
Detective. You just want me there so you can keep an eye on
me.”

I smiled thinly. “Now you get it.” I turned
to Carlos. “You ready to roll?”

He pulled the keys from his pocket and gave
them a jingle. “Ready when you are.”

From there we headed out to Essex to call on
Russell Haywood, Kelly’s riding coach. Spinelli told us Russell was
a former equestrian gold medalist who now owned a riding academy.
He also told us Haywood coached young boys and girls there and
prepared them for competitions, including the Olympics. My initial
fear after reading the private messages between Kelly and Haywood
on Kelly’s computer was that she was going out to the stables on
Saturday by herself to see him. But after checking bus routes, we
learned that buses didn’t run out that way from the city. Still,
the fact that she couldn’t get out to see him didn’t mean he
couldn’t get out to see her.

We followed Route 133 to Essex and turned off
down a scenic road that meandered through several miles of the
prettiest woodlands this side of the Blue Hills. The road
dead-ended directly behind the larger of two barns on Haywood’s
property. Both were relatively new structures, framed in steel
I-beams, their walls and roof clad in metal sheathing and painted
in traditional oxblood red. Because it was Sunday, the riding
academy was closed, but we found Russell in the stables of the
bigger barn, grooming one of his colts.

“
Mister Haywood,” I
called.

He turned back just long enough to catch a
glimpse of us over his shoulder. “We’re closed,” he said, and
continued raking the horse’s back with a wide-bodied scrub brush
strapped to his right hand.

“
Yes, we know that.”
Carlos and I came up on his left side, steering clear of the
horse’s hind quarters. “I’m Detective Marcella. This is Detective
Rodriquez.” I showed him my badge and ID. “We’d like to ask you a
few questions.”

He paused briefly, just long enough to look
me up and down as if gauging my age, perhaps wondering if I was old
enough to be a Detective. Then he looked at Carlos, who gave him a
subtle nod. He seemed to take that as verification, and went back
to grooming the animal.

“
Am I in trouble or
something?” he said, laughing a little to let us know he was
joking.

I had to take a really hard look at him. At
first, I thought we might have had the wrong man. The Russell
Haywood in the photo Spinelli showed us from Haywood’s Olympic days
was a lean-looking, blond-hair athletic type with a Colgate smile
and Hollywood eyes. Even his Facebook picture, probably taken ten
years later, looked enough like him not to take a second guess. But
the man we approached looked vastly different from the one in the
pictures. Forget that he was bald. His Facebook picture hinted at
that eventuality. He wore a comb-over then that stretched from the
back of his head clear to his eyebrows. But this guy had also put
on some serious weight, like maybe sixty pounds. His face looked
dry and blotchy, tanned deep red in that way old southern farmers
with pale skin tan after a full summer in the fields. His hands
looked like dried leather, and like his face, were also blotted in
blotchy brown and red spots that seemed to almost devour his
skin.

“
No, sir, you’re not in
any trouble,” I said. “You are Russell Haywood, aren’t
you?”

He stopped brushing the horse to answer.
“That’s right. What can I do for you?”

I saw him give Carlos a curious look after
Carlos palmed the colt’s snout and began stroking it gently,
following the grain of his coat from behind its nostrils to below
its eyes. The colt seemed to like it, and so Haywood let it go.