Call Of The Witch (26 page)

Martinez leaned forward and gave the photo a
fleeting glance before settling back in his chair again. “Beats
me.”

Carlos smiled. “Interesting choice of
words.”

“
Carrrlooos,” I said, and
I let it go at that.

Next, he showed Martinez the two evidence
bags containing the house key and sock. “Recognize these?”

Again Martinez gave the items nothing more
than a quick glance. “Nope. Never seen `em before.”

“
We found them in Hector
Santana’s van.”

“
So then why not ask
Hector?”

“
We did. He said you had
his van yesterday, the entire day. We confirmed that when we found
your fingerprints on the dash, the steering wheel and on the
driver’s side door.”

“
So, I drove his van.
That’s not a crime. Besides, what’s that got to do with charging me
with kiddy porn?”

“
We’re not charging you
with kiddy porn. We’re going to let the Feds do that. You see, they
don’t take too kindly to Interstate file swapping of child
pornography.”

“
I don’t get
it.”

“
Tell us what you know
about Kelly Brewbaker’s kidnapping.”

“
I told you already. I
don’t know anything.”

“
With Hector’s testimony
and your fingerprints in the van, we have enough to hang you on
it.”

“
You ain’t got shit,
Sherlock. Hector lets me drive his van whenever I want. That’s all
the reason I need to explain why my fingerprints are all over
it.”

“
But that you had it
yesterday is what’s important.”

“
Then I deny
it.”

“
We have Hector’s
testimony.”

“
You have nothing, `cept
the accusations of a convicted felon. And I can tell you from
experience that won’t carry much weight with a jury of my
peers.”

“
What about this?” Carlos
pointed at the evidence bags with the key and sock in
them.

Raul scoffed. “Ha! What about them? Kelly’s
been in that van before. She could have lost those things at any
time.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I mean Hector and Amanda
Brewbaker are screwing each other. They’ve picked Kelly up dozens
of times from Kelly’s riding classes, her dance lessons, her
school. Hell, you can’t pin that shit on me, especially without
DNA.”

“
Who said we don’t have
DNA?”

“
Yeah right. If you had
DNA evidence incriminating me, you would have started with that.
This ain’t my first rodeo, chumps.”

Carlos leaned in across the table and got
right in to Raul’s face. “You know,” his voice remained hushed so
that the camera’s mic wouldn’t pick him up. “I don’t give a shit
about fingerprints, DNA or the testimony of a felon. If anything
happens to that little girl and I find out that you were in any way
involved, I will kill you.”

“
There!” Raul said. He
pointed at Carlos, but he was looking at me. “Did you hear that? He
just threatened my life. I don’t have to take that. I want to talk
to a lawyer. This is bullshit. I’m taking my case to the A.C.L.U. I
know my rights!”

I reached for Carlos’ shirttail and gave it a
tug. He eased back, offering no resistance. Raul’s fists were
clenched now, but resting on the table ready to take a swipe at
Carlos if he dropped in that close again. I looked up at the
camera. The red light was on; still recording. I knew that even if
Raul confessed, a good lawyer could get the confession thrown out
on coercion charges. I tugged again on Carlos’ sleeve. He stepped
away from the table, folded his arms at his chest and backed
himself into a corner. I could tell he was steaming mad, but was
glad to see him control it as well as he did.

I came back to Raul, and in a voice loud
enough for the mic to hear, I said, “No one’s threatening you,
Martinez. Carlos was simply asking you if you would like a drink of
water.”

“
Bullshit! I demand to see
a lawyer. Now!”

I turned around to look at Carlos. He
shrugged apologetically. I shrugged back, turned to Martinez again
and told him, “Sure. No problem. We’ll get you a lawyer.” I
gestured toward the two-way mirror and waved Officer Burke into the
room.

“
Bruce, take Mister
Martinez here downstairs and place him in holding until we can get
him a lawyer. Make sure you keep him away from Santana. We don’t
need the two comparing notes for their alibis.”

“
You got it,
Detective.”

Burke escorted Martinez out of the room,
leaving Carlos and me alone to digest our thoughts. I sat down at
the table in the seat vacated by Martinez. Carlos took a seat
across from me.

“
Tony,” he said. “I’m
sorry I lost my temper.”

I shook my head. “No harm done. Martinez is a
cool cookie. We weren’t going to get anything out of him. Like he
said, this ain’t his first rodeo.”

“
So what do you make of
it? Is he in it or what?”

“
I don’t know. He’s right
about the evidence trail, though. It points more at Hector than it
does to him.”

“
So you don’t think he did
it?”

“
No, I’m not saying that.
It’s just that if he did, he was smart enough to use Hector’s van
to throw suspicion the other way.”

“
You’re saying he planted
Kelly’s sock and the house key in the van?”

I smiled at that and bobbed my head as I
recollected a detail from the photo of Kelly that the kidnappers
sent us. “That picture,” I said. “The one of Kelly tied up and
duct-tapped?”

“
Yes?”

“
Do you remember how we
were looking at her shoes, trying to use them to gauge the width of
the planks on the floor?”

He slapped his hand down on the table hard.
“Yes! Of course. She was wearing her sneakers in the photo. She had
both of them on and was wearing socks on both feet!”

“
That means she couldn’t
have lost a sock yesterday when she was kidnapped.”

“
So someone did plant the
sock.”

“
Possibly.”

“
Martinez?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Maybe he planted it to
incriminate Santana?”

“
Like I said, that’s
possible.”

“
Or maybe it’s the other
way around. Santana planted it to incriminate Martinez?”

“
That’s possible,
too.”

“
Or, maybe someone else
planted it to incriminate both Santana and Martinez.”

“
That’s a lot of
maybes.”

“
But someone could
have.”

“
Who? Amanda?”

“
Of course. Who
else?”

“
Karina Martinez had
access to Kelly’s laundry.”

“
No. I say it wasn’t
her.”

“
So you’re sticking with
Amanda. She did it?”

“
Sure. Why else would she
date a low-life scumbag like Santana? I bet she had this whole
thing cooked up for months.”

“
You’re suggesting she
hatched a scheme to recruit both Santana and Martinez, have them
kidnap her daughter, and after collecting a ransom, she would plant
enough evidence to throw them both under the bus.”

“
That would explain a
lot.”

“
Yes, but what if Kelly’s
been in the van before, as Martinez suggests, and she simply lost
the sock one day under completely innocuous conditions.”

“
That wouldn’t explain the
house key.”

“
She could have lost the
key the same way.”

“
But Santana claims he
cleaned and vacuumed the van out on Friday. Surely he’d have found
one or both of those items.”

“
If he vacuumed out the
van like he said.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
You saw it over at
Amanda’s house this morning. Did it look freshly vacuumed to
you?”

He shook his head at that. “No, now that you
mention it. I saw all kinds of crap in it: beer bottles, food
wrappers, trash...even some theater costumes.”

“
There you have it
then.”

“
Have what?”

“
We’ve come full
circle.”

“
I give up then,” he said,
and he flopped back in his chair with a thud. “We’re no closer now
to knowing who kidnapped Kelly than we were yesterday when Lionel
first called.”

Something about Carlos’ statement made me
think. I hated to say it to him, but I had to ask. “Carlos, what
are the chances Lionel Brewbaker is behind the kidnapping.”

“
Lionel?”

“
Yes.”

“
No way, Tony. I know
Lionel. I’ve known him nearly forty years.”

“
I understand that, but
hear me out. Today when Dominic sent a picture of that sock we
found in Santana’s van over to Lionel, he didn’t hesitate. He
positively identified it as one of the socks Kelly was wearing
yesterday when she was kidnapped. But by his own admission, he said
he last saw Kelly dressed in PJs.”

“
What’s your
point?”

“
My point is that he was
obviously mistaken, seeing that Kelly was still wearing socks in
the photo the kidnappers sent us.”

“
Then you said it. He was
mistaken.”

“
Carlos, listen to me. You
have to remain objective and ask yourself why is it that Lionel
insists we don’t call in the FBI?”

“
You know why, Tony,
because the kidnappers said if he does then they’ll kill his
daughter.”

“
Is that why? Or is it
because he doesn’t want to see the kidnappers caught and he’s
hoping we’re too stupid to solve this case?”

“
Are you saying Lionel
thinks I’m stupid?”

“
No, I’m
suggest––”

“
I know what you’re
suggesting. You’re suggesting that the man who once treated me like
a brother, kidnapped his only child and thinks I’m so stupid that
I’ll botch the case, and then he’ll get away with…what? His own
money? He’s going to pay himself a ransom and somehow that makes
sense to you?”

“
Maybe he’s insured for
something like that.”

“
Tony, he’s about to make
millions from the sale of his department stores. What does he need
insurance money for?”

“
Because maybe he isn’t
about to make millions. Maybe his stores are broke and near
bankruptcy.”

“
Yeah, and like you told
me a minute ago, that’s a lot of maybes.”

“
Still, I think we should
look into it.”

“
No. You should look into
it. But leave me out of it. And leave Dominic out of it,
too.”

He got up and stormed out of the room.
“Carlos!” I started to follow, but his pace to the elevator was
quicker than mine. By the time I got there, I barely caught a
glimpse of the scorn on his face through the closing doors. I
decided then it was probably best to let him cool down some. So I
turned and made my way to the cafeteria for a hot cup of coffee.
One that I hoped had as much steam as Carlos did.

The cafeteria at the Justice Center is a
sometimes-noisy place; sometimes overcrowded, hot, dirty and
generally just not a good place for one to simply sit and
think.

Sometimes.

Other times, say around four in the
afternoon, three hours before shift change and five hours after the
start of the first lunch rush, it can be a haven of sorts for
exactly that purpose. Often, in the lull between organized chaos
and managed bedlam, one can sit by the window overlooking the
courtyard and muse over all things inspirational and
incidental.

That’s what I was doing while sipping my
third cup of coffee, nearly forty-five minutes after watching
Carlos bug out of the room on me in a heated fit. Only, I wasn’t
thinking about the case, about the little kidnapped girl who
deserved my undivided attention more so now than ever. I wasn’t
thinking about her parents, Lionel and Amanda Brewbaker, who may or
may not have been complicit in their own daughter’s kidnapping,
either jointly or separately. Nor was I thinking of the handful of
other possible suspects; a pedophilic dance instructor who fondles
prepubescent girls, an aging equestrian gold medalist that caters
to rich kids whose parents just want bragging rights in uptown
circles. I wasn’t even thinking about the ex-con cokehead, Hector
Santana, or his perverted underwear-sniffing friend, Raul Martinez,
who robs his mother of her hard-earned money while trafficking in
internet kiddy porn down in the poor woman’s basement.

Instead, I was thinking about Lilith. It
wasn’t surprising, as I think about her often. I used to believe
that she held a spell over me, one that caused me to think about
her all the time. It seemed unnatural to me that any man could walk
around with his head in a cloud, thinking of one woman so
incessantly that he sometimes even forgot to eat. I finally
mentioned it to Carlos one day. He laughed and punched me on the
arm, making me feel uncomfortably inferior. He told me what my
problem was, and to this day I can’t believe I didn’t realize it
first myself.

“
You’re in love!” he said.
I remember his silly grin and how at that moment he seemed so much
older and wiser than me.