Call Of The Witch (24 page)

“
Oh, right. Well, you know
how we’ve been unable to trace any of the kidnappers’ calls because
they don’t stay on the line long enough?”

“
Yes.”

“
And we can’t track the
phone’s location because they pull the battery from the phone after
every call.”

“
I know that, so what are
you saying?”

“
I’m saying we haven’t
been able to trace the calls, but we’re able to determine what cell
towers handled the calls from the initial relays.”

“
What do you mean towers?
There’s more than one?”

“
There’re lots of them.
Including the ones we missed, the kidnappers have placed ten calls
from Kelly’s phone. Each one was picked up by whatever tower was
closest to the phone and relayed from there. So far we had ten
calls originating from nine unique towers.”

“
Nine?”

“
Yes, and they’re all over
the place, Tony. The first call pinged off a cell tower in Peabody,
the next in Marlborough, and then Andover, Waltham and…. Well you
get the picture.”

“
Yes, and all points
in-between. You’re telling me that the kidnappers are
mobile.”

“
I’m telling you they’re
smart. They know that pulling the battery out of the phone isn’t
enough. In a densely populated area, you could have cell phone
antennas spaced just blocks from one another. If they made every
call from the same place, we could possibly narrow their location
down to within a few hundred yards. Instead we’re looking at an
area encompassing the entire eastern half of the state.”

I looked at Carlos and shook my head. He
could tell that what I was hearing was not good news. “Look,” I
said to Dominic, “all that running around the kidnappers are doing
might work to our advantage. Assuming they’re still in a van, and
assuming Kelly’s with them, then all we need to do is expand the
BOLO state-wide for a van possibly traveling with a nine-year-old
girl fitting Kelly’s description.”

“
That’s a lot of
assuming,” said Dominic.

“
It is. When you have a
better plan let me know.” I hung up and stashed the phone in my
pocket.

“
What’s this about running
around?” Carlos asked.

I took a sip of iced tea and set the glass
aside for a refill. “Dominic says the kidnappers are making sure
their calls ping off cell towers all over the state. They could be
holding Kelly anywhere.”

“
Oh, that poor
kid.”

“
Carlos, do you think
there’s any chance at all that you could persuade Lionel Brewbaker
to let us call in the FBI? They’ve got so many more resources at
their disposal than––”

“
Tony, no! I know Lionel.
He won’t have it. If we try to force it on him, he’ll push back.
He’ll want to do it his way. The kidnappers know that you and I are
working the case. They seem willing to tolerate that. I don’t know
why, maybe they think they’re smarter than we are, and that’s a
good thing if they think that. The fact they outwitted us at the
park this morning could work to our advantage. But I’m telling you;
if we call in the FBI, I think we’ll lose Lionel’s trust, not to
mention the kidnappers’ sense of superiority.”

Our server came back to our table and
refilled both our glasses of iced tea. I waited for her to leave
before responding to Carlos. “I don’t know. I hope you’re right,”
is all I said.

I took another sip of tea. Carlos sipped his,
and for a moment, we both just sat there, tight-lipped, staring at
one another. It was Carlos who broke eye contact first. His gaze
fell to a spot on the tablecloth. He moved his finger over it and
spread it out some. It was tartar sauce. He wiped his finger clean
with a paper napkin and then tossed the napkin onto his plate. He
looked up at me again.

“
Me too,” he
said.

I called for the check.

We had just got back into town and were
pulling into the parking lot at the Justice Center when Spinelli
called again. He sounded excited, but then he sounds that way a
lot, often for no reason. This time, however, he did have reason. A
good one.

“
Tony, we got him.” I put
him on speaker so that Carlos could hear, too.

“
Got who?” I
asked.

“
Raul’s friend,
Hector.”

“
Santana?”

“
Yes, we have him in
custody. Can you believe it? Powell, of all people, brought him in
a few minutes ago.”

“
Great. We’re just outside
the building now. We’ll be right up.”

“
Okay, but listen. We’re
not upstairs. We’re down here on the first floor in Interrogation
Room One.”

“
Got it. Thanks.” I turned
to Carlos. “Let’s hope he doesn’t plead the Fifth.”

Carlos came back, “I hope he’s nothing like
Raul or he’ll be pleading for mercy.”

I didn’t answer, but I hoped he was
kidding.

We met up with Dominic in the hall outside I.
R. 1 on the first floor. He filled us in on what he found, which
was considerable, considering what little we had up until then.

“
Like I told you over the
phone,” he began, “Sergeant Powell brought Hector in a few minutes
ago. In the meantime, we established that the van we towed in
belongs to Hector. We’ve been going over it with a fine-tooth comb.
So far, we found a house key and confirmed that it’s Brewbaker’s.
That could explain how someone got in the house this morning
through the back door.”

“
How did you confirm
it?”

“
I scanned the key and
uploaded an image of it to Detective Olson via email. She simply
held Lionel’s key up to the screen and the two keys
matched.”

“
Nice work. What else you
got?”

“
A sock.”

“
A sock?”

“
Yeah, a child’s sock.” I
could see Dominic’s expression harden as he said that. “A little
kid’s sock,” he repeated. “Can you believe it? I sent a picture of
it over to Brittany. She showed it to Lionel and he identified it
positively as Kelly’s. He did it, Tony. That scumbag in there
kidnapped Kelly.”

“
Maybe,” I said, and I
could tell my lack of conviction didn’t set well with
him.

“
What do you mean, maybe?
Tony, we got the man dead to rights.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a
squeeze. “All right then. We’ll see. Don’t worry. We’re not going
to let him just walk away. We got enough to hold him.” I looked to
Carlos, who had remained tight-lipped himself. “You ready to go
talk to him?”

He gave Santana a piercing glance through the
two-way mirror. I could see that his disdain for the man already
equaled Dominic’s. The thought of allowing them both in the room
with me to question Santana worried me slightly, but I knew they
were both too emotionally involved in the case for me to say no. I
opened the door and walked in. Carlos and Dominic followed. We came
around the table where three chairs were pulled out opposite
Santana. I sat in the middle chair. Carlos sat on my right; Dominic
on my left. We each scooted our chairs in and folded our hands on
the table.

“
What do we have here,”
said Santana, his tone ripe with sarcasm, “the three
amigos?”

Dominic pointed at him and started to speak.
I put my hand up, ushered his arm back to the table and quieted him
with just a roll of my throat.

“
Hector Santana,” I said.
“Did Detective Spinelli read you your rights?”

“
I read them,” said
Dominic.

I raised my hand again. Dominic took my cue
this time with a little more heart. He flopped back in his chair
and folded his arms at his chest.

“
Yeah, he read `em,”
Santana answered. “And so did that pig, Powell, who by the way used
unnecessary force in bringing me in.” He turned his right cheek to
us to show the bruise he had suffered. It looked like someone
shoving his face into the ground, perhaps while cuffing him might
have caused it.

“
Do you want to talk to a
lawyer?” I asked.

“
Am I under
arrest?”

“
I don’t think so.” I
turned to Dominic. “Detective Spinelli, did you place Mister
Santana under arrest?”

“
No,” he said. “Just read
him his rights is all.”

“
Did Sergeant Powell
arrest him?”

“
No.”

I said to Hector, “You’re not under
arrest.”

“
So I can go then,
right?”

I shook my head. “No, we have probable cause
to hold you long enough to ask you some questions.”

“
If I answer your
questions, then can I go?”

“
That’ll depend on your
answers.”

“
You got nothing on me,
you know. I wasn’t even there this morning.”

“
Wasn’t where?”

“
At Amanda’s.”

“
Brewbaker’s?”

“
Yeah. I was nowhere near
there this morning.”

“
Who said you
were?”

“
Well, they tell me they
found my van there. You towed it in, didn’t you?”

“
You know we did!”
Spinelli said, his voice louder than necessary. Even Carlos jumped
a little in his seat. I turned to Dominic and drilled him with a
stare that, in the old days worked on Carlos all the time. It’s not
as effective as it used to be, not since my return to prime, but
having never needed to use it on Dominic; I thought it would work
wonders. Instead, it seemed to bounce off him and ricochet back to
me. I swear for a minute I actually felt a twinge of intimidation.
I think Dominic must have seen it because he suddenly blinked and
the look was gone. He settled back into his seat, crossed his arms
at his chest again, and melted into something resembling
submission.

I returned my attention to Santana. “This
isn’t about what happened over at Amanda Brewbaker’s. It’s about
what we found in your van.”

“
My van? What, did you
find drugs? They’re not mine. I swear. I don’t know how that stuff
got in there. Someone planted it. That fat pig, Sergeant Powell
must have planted it.”

“
I shook my head. “We
didn’t find drugs.”

“
You didn’t?”

Funny, but the look of relief on his face
made me think that was the only thing he was worried about. I gave
Carlos a curious glance and he returned the look. I know he was
thinking the same thing. I raised my hand and craned my neck to
look beyond Santana and into the mirror. Moments later, a fellow
officer came in and handed me two plastic evidence bags. I showed
the first one to Santana.

“
Do you know what this
is?”

He seemed surprisingly unconcerned. “A
sock?”

“
Just a sock?”

He offered a passive shrug. “A kid’s
sock?”

“
Do you know where we
found it?”

His condescending tone returned. “I bet
you’re gonna tell me you found it in my van.”

“
That’s right. We found it
in your van. You know who it belongs to?”

Again, in that condescending tone, “I don’t
know. I’m guessing some kid?”

I slammed my hand down on the table hard.
“You know it’s some kid’s and you know whose. A little girl was
kidnapped yesterday. We found her sock in your van and we want to
know what you did with her!”

“
Kidnapped?” He truly
looked surprised. “Hey, man. I don’t know nothin` `bout no
kidnapping. That ain’t my thing.”

“
No? Then how about this?”
I held up the second evidence bag containing Brewbaker’s house key.
“This is the girl’s house key. Are you going to tell me you have no
idea how it got in your van either?”

He pushed his chair back as far as the chains
holding it to the floor would allow. “Listen man, I’m telling you I
don’t know nothin` `bout no little girl. You got the wrong man.
Someone planted those things in my van.”

“
Are you saying you’ve
never heard of Kelly Brewbaker, Amanda’s daughter? Because we know
you and Amanda have been dating.”

“
Kelly Brew…. That’s
Kelly’s sock? Dude, listen, I don’t know what this is all about,
but you got this thing all wrong. You gotta believe me.”

“
You know nothing about
this sock or this key?”

“
That’s right. I
swear!”

“
But you admit that you
and Amanda Brewbaker have been dating each other?”

“
Yeah. So?”

“
So I think you and she
have concocted a plan to extort money from Lionel Brewbaker by
staging her daughter’s kidnapping.”

“
No!”

“
Where is she? Where’s
Kelly?”

“
I told you. I don’t
know.”

“
You used this key to get
into the Brewbaker mansion this morning.”

“
No I didn’t.”

“
You snuck in and got
Kelly’s medication.”

“
I did no such
thing.”

“
You arranged for us to
make a test drop of the ransom money in the park this
morning.”

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

“
Then how do you explain
this sock we found in your van; the one Kelly was wearing yesterday
when she disappeared?”