KISS THE WITCH (4 page)

“
One of your
employees.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

I looked to Carlos. This no longer seemed
like such a difficult case. “You want this one?” I asked.

He gestured a wave as if offering the floor
to me. “It’s all yours.”

I returned to Ferguson. “Who in your employ
could have pulled this off?”

He held up three fingers. “If you asked me
yesterday, I would have told you that only three men, other than
myself, had access to the sample compound, the files and the
password to our security system’s mainframe needed to disable the
alarms, shut off the cameras and erase the surveillance tapes.”

“
What changed since
yesterday?”

“
Two of the three men died
yesterday.”

“
How’s that?”

“
Mark Williams, my
executive program coordinator fell off his balcony in a drunken
stupor.”

“
Oh my.”

“
Oh my is right. The
second man, Rick Delaney, my operations and logistics manager, died
last night after a freight train T-boned his car at a railroad
crossing.”

“
Yes. I heard about that
accident on the radio this morning.”

Carlos added, “That cannot be
coincidence.”

“
Hardly. Who else Mister
Ferguson?”

“
Detective?”

“
You said three men other
than yourself had access to the material, the data and security
system.”

“
Yes, of course. The third
man is Howard Snow. He’s the senior research
supervisor.”

“
Can we talk to
him?”

He shook his head. “Howard failed to show up
for work this morning. I had Personnel call. He does not answer his
phone.”

“
That’s your man,” said
Carlos.

“
If he’s not dead,” I
said. “Carlos, call Spinelli. Tell him to get a black and white
over to Snow’s house and have them bring Snow in for
questioning.”

“
Okay.”

“
And while you’re at it,
have him send someone here to dust.”

“
For prints?” said
Ferguson.

“
Yes, of
course.”

“
No. No
dusting.”

“
Why not?”

We have some very important investors
walking the facility later this morning. I don’t want them knowing
we were robbed.”

“
You are going to lie to
your investors?”

“
I am going to wait until
a more opportune moment to tell them.”

I looked to Carlos and gave him a nod.
“Okay, you heard the man. Go ahead and get Spinelli working on
bringing Snow in.”

“
Got it,” he said, and he
excused himself to make the call outside in the hall.

I said to Ferguson, “You know this is
beginning to smell a bit fishy. What are the odds two of your top
employees die the same night someone robs you? Have you called the
FBI in on this?”

“
I did.”

“
And?”

“
They told me it was not
an FBI case, that I have no evidence an interstate crime has taken
place. They told me to call the State Police, who in turn told me
to call you. Seems that because I suggested this was an inside job,
they consider it an internal problem and therefore a local
complaint.”

“
But this could be a lot
bigger than just some stolen sweetener.”

“
Thank you. It is good to
see you appreciate the gravity of my situation.”

I stood and offered my hand. “Mister
Ferguson, I promise I will leave no stone unturned.”

“
I know you won’t. Thank
you, and thank Detective Rodriquez for me, too.”

“
I will.”

I turned and headed for the door when
instincts stopped me and turned me around. Ferguson was just
sitting back down. He looked up at me. “Detective?”

“
One more thing,
sir.”

“
Certainly.”

“
You mentioned three men
other than yourself had access to the compound, the files and the
security mainframe.”

“
That’s right.”

“
Naturally, I have to ask
you.”

“
You want to know where I
was last night.”

“
I do.”

A smile came to him slowly. “Last night I
was in Toronto, Detective. I flew back early this morning on the
redeye. Would you like to see my ticket stub?”

I crossed the room and put my hand out. “If
you don’t mind.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his
suit jacket and produced a boarding pass for the Toronto to Boston
redeye run. I examined it briefly and returned it to him. “Thank
you.”

“
No. No.” He pressed it
back into my hand. “Keep it. I don’t want you second-guessing
anything.”

I stashed the ticket in my back pocket.
“Thank you again, Mister Ferguson.”

“
You’re welcome,
Detective.” He scoffed lightly. “You know it’s funny.”

“
What’s that?”

“
McSweeney, my secretary.”
He rolled his eyes before dropping a dead stare to the floor. “My
former secretary, I should say. The poor dear died recently.
Horrible accident at home. Anyway, she made those reservations for
me. You know she never used to book me on the red eye. Knew how
much I hate night travel. The one time she does and this happens.”
He looked up at me. His eyes were wet, but his cheeks were dry. “I
can’t even give her hell for it now. Can I?”

I shook my head. “No, sir. I guess you
can’t.”

Out in the hall, Carlos was just hanging up
with Spinelli. As we started for the elevator, I asked him,
“Spinelli sending a unit out to Snow’s house?”

“
It’s on its
way.”

“
Did you think of telling
him to check out Biocrynetix Laboratories, too?”

“
I did. I also asked him
to see what he can find out about Mark Williams and Rick
Delaney.”

“
Good.”

“
So, what do you
think?”

“
`Bout what?”

“
Ferguson. Is he telling
the truth? About the super sweetener, I mean.”

“
I don’t know. I suppose
so. You know something that sweet is worth stealing. Just about
every processed food these days uses high fructose corn sweetener.
If they invented something four-thousand times sweeter, it could
revolutionize the food processing industry.”

“
Yeah, but you see that’s
just it. I know it’s super sweet and all, but why produce only
800cc`s of it? That’s like this much.” He spread his thumb and
index finger to indicate a portioned amount in a lab beaker. “This
close to going public with it, I should thing they would have
produced gallons of the stuff in drums and tested it in hundreds of
food products already.”

“
Hmm, I see your point,
Carlos. You know that often big product rollouts are impossible for
companies to keep completely under wraps this close to launch date.
I wonder if Spinelli can find something about QE647 on the
Internet. Why don’t you call him back and ask him if––”

“
Already did.”

“
You already asked him to
check it out?”

“
Yup.”

“
Okay. That’s
good.”

A slick grin creased his face. “I’m getting
good at this, aren’t I?”

I doubled-tapped him on the cheek and his
grin fell away. “After thirty years, my friend, I should hope
so.”

We hopped into the car and headed back out.
“Spinelli was right,” he said. I think he was sulking.

“
What do you
mean?”

“
You don’t give me enough
credit.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
You don’t. You don’t give
either of us credit.”

“
I most certainly do.
Didn’t I just say you did a good job?”

“
No. You said Okay. That’s
good, but you didn’t say good job, Carlos.”

“
What? Do you really need
affirmation from me for a job well done?”

He tilted his head and offered a half shrug.
“Be nice.”

“
All right then, job well
done. Nice work.”

He scoffed at that. “Oh, like it means
anything now that I had to pry it out of you.”

I felt my jaw slacken. I was speechless. I
never heard Carlos complain about my treatment of him before. He
certainly set me straight a time or two in the past about Spinelli,
reminding me to call him Dominic and to treat him like the equal he
is. After all, the man went through so much, getting shot in the
line of duty, then hooked on pain pills and completing rehab for
his addiction. I suppose I owed him that much. But to hear Carlos
tell me I do not give him enough credit made me think. Perhaps he
was right. Was it a consequence of my return to prime? Being young
again, filled once more with all the spit and vinegar that I had
lost as an older man; had it eroded my patience, my sense of
compassion, my civility? I looked at Carlos. His hands remained on
the wheel at the ten-to-two position, his eyes unflinching on the
road ahead.

“
Have I changed?” I asked
him. “Am I that different now?”

He shook his head, still unwilling to take
his eyes off the road. “No,” he said, flatly. “You’ve always been
an ass.”

“
What?”

He broke up laughing, which started me
laughing. I felt instantly better, and thoroughly expected him to
tell me at any moment he was kidding. He is such a goof like that
sometimes, his sense of humor oddly refreshing. Surprisingly
though, he did not do that. He simply kept his focus on his
driving, and as his laugh wound down to a dull smile, we settled
into an uncomfortable silence.

A mile or two down the road, I broke that
silence. “Spinelli said that?”

Still not looking at me, he said, “Dominic.
Yes, he said that. He told me to watch for it, that you are quick
to razz me for slipping up, but slow to compliment me when I do
well.”

“
But you know I think the
world of you, Carlos.”

“
That’s what I told
Dominic.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Yes, but the truth
remains. You suck at handing out compliments.”

“
Wow, what can I say? I’m
sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. You can’t help
who you are. I just thought you should know.”

That shut me up for another six blocks. At
the turn off on Lexington, I asked Carlos if he would not mind
swinging by the house. “I want to run in and get that promise stone
for Spin…. I mean Dominic.”

He looked at me and smiled. “Sure. No
problem.”

As we pulled up to the house, I felt a
strange compulsion to invite Carlos in to say hi to the girls. I
thought he would decline, knowing Spinelli would have Howard Snow
back at the precinct ready for questioning. I was wrong. Perhaps he
knew I expected him to say no.

“
I’d love to say hello to
the girls,” he said. The wise-ass smirk he gave me proved I was
right.

“
We’ll have to make it
quick,” I told him, keying the lock in the door. “I want to make
sure we have time later to visit both the Williams house and the
site of Delaney’s wreck.”

I pushed the door open and stumbled blindly
into a darkened room, illuminated only by the daylight pouring in
from behind me. Carlos followed unusually close with his hand on
the back of my shoulder. “Did you forget to pay the electric bill,”
he asked.

“
No,” I answered, brushing
his paw off my shoulder. “Back up, will you?”

“
Close the door!” Lilith
shouted, her voice rolling down the hall like distant
thunder.

“
Lilith. What the hell are
you doing? Why are the lights out?”

“
Forget it, Ursula.” Again
Lilith’s voice, only now she was walking it towards me. “Turn the
lights on. Killjoy is home.”

The hall light came on just as Lilith
brushed passed me. She headed straight for the front windows and
zipped the blinds open.

“
Lilith.” I followed her
around as she continued opening blinds and flooding the room with
sunlight. “What are you doing? Why are you and Ursula running
around in the dark?”

She turned sharply on her heels to face me
and I nearly mowed her down trying to stop. “Once again, Tony, we
were doing something you should do more often yourself, but
don’t.”

“
Practicing
witchcraft?”

She batted her eyes at me, clearly trying to
be cute. All I could see, though, was blatant mockery. Ursula
emerged from the hallway carrying what looked like a dagger, its
blade, long, narrow and waved like a crumpled fender. It took me
for a start; I will tell you that much. It had a hilt carved of
bone, notched for each finger and topped with a pommel of polished
teak.

“
`Tis dark sight is all,
Master Tony,” she said, waving the dagger like a wand. “When
shadows lurk in shadows, one can see but naught. `Tis only light by
dark sight doth shadows grow and thus we see.”

“
What?”

“
It’s called dark sight,
basic level one shit,” said Lilith. “You gather energy from around
you and use it to see in pitch darkness.”

“
Does it work?”

“
Aye,” said Ursula. “What
light doth come in wake of morrow lingers still yet night doth
borrow.”