KISS THE WITCH (14 page)

“
Wait. You oiled each
other up?”

“
Yes. Didn’t I say that
already?”

“
Why did you oil each
other up?”

“
I don’t know. It was part
of the whole cleansing ritual. She oiled Lilith. I oiled her and
then she oiled me.”

“
Sounds kinky.”

“
Leave it
alone.”

“
I’m just
saying.”

“
I know it. Anyway, she
starts oiling me up, you know, starting with my face, neck,
shoulders and so on. Next thing I know, she gets to
my….um-hmm.”

“
Your penis.”

“
Yes, and the rest of
it.”

“
That’s so bizarre. So,
what happened?”

“
What happened? What do
you think happened?”

“
You had some
movement?”

“
Some? Please.”

“
No, Tony. You
didn’t.”

“
I didn’t, but it
did.”

“
You got a,
um….”

“
Lilith called it a
spear.”

“
That’s wild.”

“
No, what’s wild is that
Ursula had never seen a…spear before. She thought it was magic. And
the more she worked it, the harder…you know.”

“
Get out. You’re making
this up.”

“
I wish.”

“
So what happened
then?”

“
I called Lilith over to
help and she put a stop to it. You should have seen her. It was
kind of funny, the look on her face.”

“
I bet. I can’t wait to
ask her––”

“
You can wait and you
will. Remember, you promised. Not a soul.”

“
Oh, right.”

“
I mean it.
Carlos.”

“
Okay. I know. It’s just
between us.”

“
Good.”

“
So, how did the rest of
the night go?”

“
The rest of the night,
believe it or not, was more fantastic than that.”

I started to tell him about the circle of
fire, the black mirror and the coven of witches in the field of
emptiness. Then Spinelli called. He was wondering where we were.
Carlos handled it in his usual not so subtle way.

“
Almost there,” he told
him. What else Spinelli asked him I can only guess. But from
Carlos’ end of the conversation, I imagined Spinelli was
questioning him about what if anything I told him concerning the
ceremony.

“
Nothing,” said Carlos.
Convincingly I thought. “No, Tony won’t tell me a thing.” Carlos
looked at me and winked. I nodded my approval, though I knew with a
little face-to-face prodding from Spinelli, Carlos would not be so
strong.

He ended the call about the time we were
swinging into parking lot of the Justice Center. As we got out of
the car, I shook my finger at him again and warned him. “Remember,
not a word.”

He dismissed me with a wave. “Tony, please.
I am a professional. I know how to play my cards close to my
vest.”

“
You better.”

We met Spinelli up on the third floor break
room. He was getting coffee from the vending machine. Even with his
back to us, however, I knew he could see our approach in the
reflection in the glass. He played it cool though.

“
There you are,” he
said.

“
Here we are,” said
Carlos. His smile was considerably larger than usual. I elbowed him
in the side and he wiped his face clean.

Spinelli turned and raised his coffee cup in
a sort of salute. “So, um…how did it go last night?”

“
Fine,” I said. “No big
deal.”

“
Oh? Did you all do that
ceremony thing you were talking about?”

“
We did.”

“
And?”

“
And it went
okay.”

I could see Carlos just itching to say
something.

“
Okay, that’s good,”
Spinelli said. “That’s good.”

“
Yeah, that’s good. So
tell me, anything new on our case?”

“
Ahm, yes. I found out.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Can I ask you first? Last night. Did
you see Ursula?”

“
Ursula? Yes. I saw
her.”

“
No, I mean did you see
her…. You know.”

“
Dominic, we don’t need to
go there. It was no big deal really.”

“
I’m sorry, Tony. I can’t
let this go.”

“
Look, it’s
no––”

“
Did you see her
naked?”

“
Dominic.”

“
Tony, just tell me. I can
take it. I want to know. That’s all.”

I stepped closer to him, feeling like I
wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, but I did not. Instead, I
looked him in the eye and said, “Yes, Dominic. I told you that was
going to happen, and it did. Now that it’s done, we can move past
it and get on with things.”

“
You said you wouldn’t
look at her.”

“
What?”

“
Yesterday. You said you
wouldn’t look at Ursula, You said you would walk into furniture and
bust a toe if you had to, but that you would not so much as look at
her.”

“
I said I would try not
looking at her. And I did. I tried.”

“
No. You
promised.”

“
Dominic, look. I’m sorry.
But you will be happy to know it was very dark. There were maybe
two candles burning all the way across the room. The entire
ceremony lasted only a minute. And Ursula stood behind me the whole
time. I barely caught a glimpse of her. In fact, I’m not even sure
it was her. I think it was Lilith. Like I said. It was very dark.
Now, can we talk about the case?”

He seemed to buy it. And that Carlos kept a
straight face certainly helped matters. Spinelli took another sip
of coffee, swallowed, nodded and shifted things into gear.

“
Okay. You’re right. The
case. Well, here’s the thing. I checked out a few leads and I found
out that QE647 might actually work. There is anecdotal evidence,
along with a ton of buzz in Biocrynetix chat sites, suggesting
Biocrynetix Laboratories tested it already on non-living organic
compounds and achieved astonishing results.”

“
That is
interesting.”

“
Yeah, so you have to ask
yourself. Is it worth killing for? I think it is.”

“
Yes, but we don’t want to
jump to conclusions.”

“
No? You might after you
hear this next tidbit.”

“
What’s that?”

“
This morning they ran the
cadaver dogs through Howard Snows house.”

“
Don’t tell me. No Howard
Snow.”

“
That’s right, and I ran a
registration check on vehicles registered to Snow. I came up with
two: the one we towed in after the blast, which was his wife’s, and
his, a big gray Hummer.”

“
That’s good work. Why
don’t we put out––”

“
A bulletin? Already
did.”

“
All right. Great. What
else do you have?”

“
Just this.” He handed me
a slip of paper with a name and address written on it. “This guy.
He’s a friend of Snow’s. An old college roommate. He lives here in
town. Might be worth checking out.”

I took the slip of paper. “Okay. Nice work,
Dominic. I think we will go pay him a visit now. Carlos, you
ready?”

“
Sure. Let’s
roll.”

On the elevator ride down to the lobby, I
thanked Carlos for keeping his mouth shut about Ursula. He shrugged
it off as no big deal, but I knew it must have been killing him not
to say something.

“
No, seriously,” I said.
“You saw how freaked out he was about me just seeing Ursula naked.
Can you imagine if he knew….” I let it go at that.

“
I wouldn’t worry about
it, Tony. I think a lot of it is that he’s just nervous about the
wedding. He is in love with Ursula and the fact that she is, what’s
the word? Unspoiled? I think he wants their first time together to
be a completely new experience.”

“
It will be. Besides, it
is not as if he didn’t see her naked first. He was there when
Lilith reconstituted her from a pile of bones.”

“
Give him time. He’ll
chill.”

“
Yes, well I hope he
chills before he gets a chance to ask Ursula about last night. I
mean, you know the girl cannot lie. She’ll probably tell him
everything.”

Carlos smiled at that. I know he was
thinking how much he would love to be there when that happened. Me?
I hoped I would be out of the country.

The skies were blackening as we pulled up to
the curb across the street from the residence on Monroe Street. We
saw no sign of Snow’s Hummer, but through an upstairs window, we
could see someone was home. Carlos shut the motor off and we
settled in for the wait.

Normally, when we go on a stakeout Carlos
takes along a supply of snacks to help pass the time. Though we did
not expect our hunt for Howard Snow to turn into a stakeout, Carlos
came prepared just the same. He reached over my lap and popped open
the glove box. Out spilled a cache of Snickers, Twinkies and Three
Musketeers bars.

I pointed at the Three Musketeers. “Those
are new.”

“
Yeah, I started getting
into them after the McMurray stake out.”

“
Really? I hadn’t
noticed.”

“
Right, see that’s the
difference between you and me. You don’t pay attention to the
little things.”

“
Oh? And you
do?”

“
Yes.”

“
In what ways?”

“
Well, let’s take you for
instance.”

“
Me?”

“
Yeah.” He pointed at my
feet. “You’re wearing two different colored socks today, one black,
one navy.”

“
What?” I looked down,
pulled my pant cuffs up and noticed he was right. “I was running
late this morning. Must have grabbed the wrong mate.”

“
Of course you were. That
explains why you forgot to shave, too.”

I reached up and stroked my chin whiskers.
Once again, he was right. “Hardly a keen observation.”

“
Okay. How about your
watch?”

“
What about my
watch?”

He pointed at it. “It stopped last night at
9:05.”

I looked. “No it didn’t. It’s right on
time.”

He shook his head and gestured at the clock
on his dash. “Tony. It’s 8:54.”

I tapped my watch crystal. “I’m running
fast.”

“
Are you?”

A closer look and I could see he was right.
The second hand had stopped moving. “Oh.”

“
Yes, oh.”

“
All right, smartass. What
else you got?”

“
Oh, nothing, only that I
know you and Lilith did it last night.”

“
What?”

“
Or should I say Lilith
did it. You just laid back and enjoyed the ride.”

I looked at him in absolute wonder. “No. No
way. I don’t believe it. You could not possibly know that.”

“
It’s true, though, isn’t
it?”

“
It is, but how…how did
you know?”

“
I told you. It’s the
little things I notice.”

“
The little
things.”

“
Yup.”

“
Hmm, well that’s all well
and fine, but the little things don’t mean shit if you don’t notice
the big things, too.”

“
Like what?”

I pointed out the rain-spotted window at the
gray Hummer in front of the house. “Like Howard Snow showing up
right under your nose.”

“
I would have noticed
that.”

“
Come on. Let’s
go.”

We hopped out of the car and hurried across
the street. Fortunately, Snow was wearing a rain jacket with the
hood pulled over his head, acting as blinders. That allowed us to
come around him undetected from both sides.

“
Mister Snow,” I said,
flashing my badge and ID. He looked frightened at first, but after
seeing my badge, his expression changed to one of relief. “Mister
Snow, can we talk to you?”

He shut the car door and that is when he
noticed Carlos. He put his hands up in surrender. “Please,” he
said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“
That’s all right.” I
returned my badge and ID to my pocket. “You can put your hands
down. We only what to ask you some questions.”

He glanced over his shoulder, up one end of
the street and down the other. “How did you find me?”

“
We’re Big Brother,” said
Carlos. “We find everyone.”

“
Carlos, please. Mister
Snow, what are you afraid of? Why do you keep looking over your
shoulder?”

“
What does he mean, you’re
Big Brother?”

“
He means nothing. We are
not the Feds. We’re cops from the Second Precinct. We only want to
ask you a few questions. Is that all right?”

He dropped his hands slowly. “Okay.”

“
Do you have any weapons
on you Mister Snow?”

“
No.”

“
Mind if we
check?”

He shook his head. I gave Carlos a nod and
he pat him down quickly.