The Witch's Key (20 page)

“Hello,” I said. “You’re up early.”

She smiled nervously. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

“I didn’t hear you come in last night. It’s funny, if
I didn’t know any better I’d think you were just getting in
now.”

She grabbed the knot in her towel and cinched it
tighter between her breasts. “Yeah, that is funny. If you’ll excuse
me?”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Oh, I guess. You?”

“Yes. Like a baby.”

“That’s nice,” she said, and tried sidestepping
around me. “Well, the bathroom’s all yours.”

“Wait!” I tugged on her towel to stop her. “You know
I meant to ask you.”

She turned abruptly, and when she did, her wet hair
whipped me across the face. “What?”

“Can I use your car this morning? I have an errand to
run.”

I could see her thinking about it. If she had left
anything in it that might incriminate her, then the answer would be
no. Otherwise, the car was mine. After careful consideration, she
must have determined that she covered her tracks sufficiently.
“Sure,” she shrugged. “The keys are on the table.”

She turned and started away, and for just a moment,
the urge to step on the tail of her towel left dragging on the
floor seemed too irresistible to let pass. But then I remembered
her threat the night before to turn me into something slimy. I did
not know if a harmless prank like stripping off her towel would
warrant such harsh retaliation, but I decided to err on the side of
caution. “Thanks!” I said, as her bedroom door shut in my face.

Forty-five minutes later, I was dressed and driving
down I-95 towards Quincy to meet with anyone at Gitana Freight
Lines who would talk to me. I had just started across the Tobin
Memorial Bridge when Spinelli called.

“Hey, what are you doing right now?” he asked.

“Crossing the Mystic River,” I said.

“So, you’re sitting down?”

“Dominic, I’m not swimming it.”

“Yeah, right. Well, listen to this.”

“What?”

“I’ve been running E.I.N.I. all morning and—”

“Wait. You’ve been running what?”

“E.I.N.I. the Electronic Intelligence Network
Interface here at the office.”

“Oh, that on-line database thing?”

“Yes. E.I.N.I.”

“Whatever. Continue.”

“Like I was saying, I’m cross-checking all the names
of the victims with that of Anthony Marcella Senior, and guess what
I find.”

“I don’t know, a connection maybe.”

“No. There are no connections at all.”

“Wow, great work Dom. Glad to see that all the money
the county spent on that computer didn’t go to waste.”

“No, Tony, you don’t understand. I didn’t find a
connection, but I did learn something very interesting.”

“What, that you can save a lot on your insurance by
switching to the lizard?”

“Huh? No. Listen, I learned that Anthony Marcella
Senior went off to fight in Europe in early 1942, but that he never
returned.”

“What?”

“He’s listed as killed in action.”

I turned the wheel sharply to avoid rear-ending the
guy in front of me. After swallowing my heart back into my chest
and picking my cell phone up off the floorboard, I asked Spinelli,
“You still there?”

He seemed genuinely worried. “What happened?”

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Dominic, are you
certain about Marcella?”

I could hear him sigh. “Yes, I have a photocopy of
the official document from the DOD, listing his disposition. He
parachuted into occupied France on September late 42 with fourteen
other GIs. None of them made it back alive.”

I do not know why I felt such a crush of
disappointment from the news. I mean, I knew that Anthony Marcella
was not my real father. But I had carried his name for so long that
I felt a kinship to him that was hard to explain. I gripped the
steering wheel and wrung my fingers around it until my knuckles
turned white. I thought of Lilith and what she might do upon
hearing the news. That alone could provide the answers I needed
from her. A long, reflective silence might indicate that she knew
him all those years ago. She need not say a word and I would know
it. On the other hand, a shrug of indifference might suggest that
she had never heard of him before, and her care-less attitude might
lead me to conclude that she and Gypsy are as individual as night
and day. I could have gone on speculating for hours if not for
Spinelli pulling me back into the fold with his yelling.

“I said, are you still there!”

“Yes, Dominic. I’m still here.”

“Oh, thank God. I thought I lost you again.”

“Sorry.”

“So, did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you, yes.”

“What do you think?”

Good question. But what could I say? Even I was not
sure what I thought. My head was spinning faster than the wheels on
my car. “Dominic, this is all such a surprise. If Anthony Marcella
died in France, then who the hell is at the hospice care center,
dying of cancer?”

“I don’t know, maybe an imposter looking for the VA
to pick up the tab for his funeral.”

“No. The guy knows me,” I said. “Or, at least he knew
me as a child. He told me things that no one else would know.”

“Then, maybe he is Marcella.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying that maybe he never went in behind
enemy lines. A lot of guys go AWOL in the heat of battle. If one
disappears in the fog of war, then who’s to say that he didn’t get
killed?”

“You think Pops is who he says he is?”

“I don’t know, Tony. I’m just tossing it out
there.”

“Right.” I turned at the off ramp and signaled with
the merging traffic. “Listen, Dom. I’m gonna have to get back with
you on this later. In the meantime—”

“Wait, there’s something else,” he said, and I swear
I knew it was coming.

“What?”

“We have another body. This one’s in our
neighborhood.”

I found myself checking the odometer and doing a
quick calculation to determine how far Lilith might have driven the
night before. It didn’t seem like it could have been very far. I
asked Spinelli, “You and Carlos on it?”

He came back quickly. “We’re leaving now.”

“Keep me in the loop.”

I hung up thinking I should have told him what I
found in Lilith’s closet, but glad that I did not. I still needed
time to digest it all. I suppose you could say I was in denial. It
is what I would say if it were anyone else. And I am sure it is
what Spinelli would say.
You’re too close
, he would tell me,
scolding me in a way that even Carlos would not dare.
You live
with her. She has those witch’s keys
.
What more evidence do
you need?
Then he would throw out the most obvious and damning
prejudice.
You are in love with her, for God’s sake!
Man,
how I hate it when he’s right. I turned the radio on for the rest
of the ride to drown my thoughts. It did not work, but it kept me
from talking to myself, which was a good thing, because I really
did not think I would like what I had to say.

I am not sure what I expected to find when I pulled
into the parking lot of Gitana Freight Lines. I guess I thought
that all railroad companies were large corporations with megalithic
structures for office buildings. But if that were generally the
case, then Gitana was the exception. Their office building
resembled something more modest, larger than a gas station, but
smaller than a country barn. I found an empty parking spot out
front, next to a Cadillac setting in a space reserved for J. P.
Stevens. I did not know who that was, but I figured he must be
important. His reservation sign came complete with a warning to
visitors that violators will be towed at owner’s expense. Funny, I
thought, that they would tow the violator and not his car.

I stepped into the building and got the immediate
sense that I had walked into an old-fashioned train depot. The
smell of oiled timbers and defused lighting reminded me of the old
fish houses down at Suffolk’s Walk, but the décor was definitely
Victorian era railroad, complete with gas lanterns, track cogs,
signal switches and even a vintage turnstile. If you added a gift
shop and a ticket counter, you could call it a museum and charge
admissions for the tour.

I went up to the receptionist, a warm-hearted old
soul, soft-spoken, gentle and polite in a way that you do not see
any more in younger people. In a way, she reminded me of Pops. She
greeted me kindly and offered up some hot coffee even before asking
me my business. I told her thanks anyway, but truth was that I
could have used a cup badly.

“This is some office you have here,” I said. “It’s
kind of like a theme park, isn’t it?”

She smiled up at me. “Yes. The owner is a huge fan of
trains and railroads.”

“I see.” I flashed my badge. “Is the owner in now?
I’d like to ask him a few questions if you don’t mind, Miss….”

“Gwendolyn,” she said, “and no. Mister Stevens is not
in.”

“That’s his Cadillac out front, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“But—”

“But he’s not in.”

I leaned over the counter. “Do you know when he’ll
return?”

She reeled in her welcoming smile and let it fade
into something resembling remorse. “No, I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Mister Stevens has taken leave. His return is not
imminent. That’s all I can say.”

“Oh? Then who is running the business in his
absence?”

“I am.”

“You?”

She frowned lightly. “Yes. Do you find that
surprising?”

“No!” I backed off the counter. “I’m sorry. I guess I
imagined that Mister Stevens had a partner or something. I’m sure
you can run the business just fine.”

“Mister…?”

“Spinelli,” I said. “Detective Spinelli.”

“Detective Spinelli, I have worked for Mister Stevens
for over forty years. There is nothing about running a rail freight
service that I don’t understand.”

“I’m sure. Honest, I meant no disrespect.”

Her expression softened to something akin to
Lilith’s,
you are forgiven, but let us not let it happen
again
, look. Still, that did not stop her from setting the
record straight.

“You know, Detective, it has been my experience over
the years that men, especially in this business, regard women as
incapable of understanding the mechanical nature of heavy machinery
or the fundamental impact that mechanized commerce has had on the
economics of a post modern industrial age. If not for rail freight,
our industrial revolution may have stalled on the heels of emerging
superpowers eager to exploit the vulnerabilities of a young and
still susceptible nation.”

“Wow!” I said, dumbfounded, and at loss for a more
philosophical reply. “You don’t say?”

“You’ll forgive me. I grew up riding freight
trains.”

“You?”

She seemed to blush at that. “Yes, of course that was
a long time ago. Back in the depression it was not unheard of to
see a girl catching out on a rattler with her bindlesquire.”

“Her what?”

“Oh, come now. It was no different in those days from
now. People just didn’t talk about it then, or if they did, they
referred to such girls as tramps or gypsies.”

“Or Gitanas.”

She laughed. “I suppose.”

I leaned in over the counter again and asked her,
“Did anyone ever call you Gitana?”

She turned away bashfully. “Mister Stevens may
have.”

“Oh?”

I watched her eyes drift off, perhaps to another time
when the world was much simpler. “I don’t know why I’m telling you
this,” she said confidentially, “but Mister Stevens and I were once
an item.”

“You loved him?”

“Sure. Still do. But I realized that the rails were
his second love and that he really had no room in his heart for a
third. So, I let him go.” She let her eyes wander off again. “You
know they say if you let someone go and they come back to you, then
it’s true love.”

“I’ve heard that.”

She sighed. “Yes, well don’t believe it.”

I looked at her curiously, suspecting for a moment
that she was pulling my leg. But I could see her distant stare
cutting through a fog of faded memories, and her only consolation
may have been the years spent in the shadows of a man she loved but
could not have. I wondered if my eyes would look the same when time
caught up with me once more and I realized after years upon years
that Lilith also had no room in her heart for me. I reached out
instinctively to Gwendolyn and cupped her wrist gently. “What was
his first?” I asked.

She blinked out of the fog and looked at me with
renewed focus. “Excuse me?”

“Mister Stevens. You said the rails were his second
love. What was his first?”

“Why…Gypsy,” she said, “of course.”

I pulled back. “What?”

“Sure. He named the company after her.”

“Gwendolyn, who is Gypsy?”

She turned and pointed to a photograph on the wall
behind her. “That’s her with Mister Stephens. How do you like that?
For more than forty years I’ve had that sassy little tramp looking
down over my shoulder.”

I angled over the counter again and craned to view
the faded black and white. In it, a beautiful, young woman in
grease-stained jeans and a summer tee sat crossed-legged on the
deck of a flatcar with a very young J.P. Stevens. He had his arm
around Gypsy’s waist and she her hand on his lap. She squinted
lightly, the same sun in her eyes also casting shadows on J.P. that
made him look gaunt and just a little scared.

With Gwendolyn’s permission, I came around the
counter for a closer look. I saw that Gypsy’s hair was long, dark
and pulled in a ponytail, not unlike the way Lilith pulls her hair
back on days when she cannot wash it. I leaned in closer still and
saw how her smile gleamed, almost teasing the camera in that edgy
way that Lilith smiles teasingly at me.