Call Of The Witch Read online

  “So, Mrs. Brewbaker, you haven’t seen your daughter since last weekend then?”

  “That’s what I said, Detective.”

  “What time did you arrive here this morning?”

  “I didn’t. I got here around three-forty-five this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?” Carlos looked at his watch. “It’s nearly five now. Exactly how long has Kelly been missing?”

  Again, the two Brewbakers exchanged glances. Both seemed to be accusing the other with their glares. Lionel said, “That’s just it. We don’t know. It could have been as early as this morning.”

  I piped in. “Do you mean to tell us your daughter has been missing since eight this morning and you’re just now realizing it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t know. I left the house around eight. I was in a hurry, late for a meeting. I expected Mandy here at any minute. Besides, Kelly wasn’t alone when I left her. Karina was with her.”

  “Karina?”

  “Karina Martinez, our maid…my maid.”

  “Where’s Ms. Martinez now?”

  “Home I suppose. She’s off weekends.”

  “But she was here this morning.”

  “She came by to pick up her check. I asked her if she would stay with Kelly until Mandy arrived, and she said she would.”

  “But she obviously didn’t.”

  “I don’t know how long she stayed.” Brewbaker glared at his wife disapprovingly. “If I know my Kelly, though, she probably told Karina to go on home because her mother would be along shortly.”

  Amanda Brewbaker charged back, “So, you’re blaming me for this, Lionel. Is that it?”

  “Mandy, if you were on time this morning when you were supposed to be, instead of partying with––”

  “Please,” I said. I shook my finger at both. “You can go at each other’s throats later. In the meantime, we all need to concentrate on the facts so we can find your daughter. The first forty-eight hours are crucial.”

  “What does that mean? Carlos, what does he mean by that? Why is forty-eight hours crucial?”

  Carlos set his hand on Brewbaker’s shoulder. “Lionel, you have to work with us. Now, listen to what Detective Marcella says.”

  Brewbaker returned his attention to me. “All right, listen,” I said. “Have you called Ms. Martinez and asked her about Kelly?”

  “I tried, of course.”

  “And?”

  “I couldn’t reach her. She doesn’t have a cell, just a home phone. I called her house five times already. Got no answer and no machine.”

  “Do you think Kelly could be with her? Maybe they’re just out.”

  “No. They would have left us a note, I’m sure, or at the very least, Kelly would have called me. She’s a responsible kid.”

  “Then you believe Ms. Martinez left Kelly home alone sometime this morning.”

  “I do.”

  “That’s irresponsible.”

  “Detective, Kelly’s an exceptionally bright child. She doesn’t require much supervision.”

  “Mrs. Brewbaker,” said Carlos. “Why were you so late getting here today?”

  She cast a dismissive shrug as she drew on her cigarette. “I overslept.”

  He looked at his watch. “By eight hours?”

  She turned her head, and blew a smoke trail into the ceiling fan and watched it swirl until it dissipated completely. “Ours is not a rigorous schedule, Detective, despite what Mr. Brewbaker tells you. He doesn’t always work on Saturdays. I show up when I show up. I had no way of knowing he wouldn’t be home this morning.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “We can point fingers later. Right now we have to move. We may have lost very valuable time already. Mr. Brewbaker, where have you looked for Kelly so far?”

  “Everywhere. The entire house; top-to-bottom, basement, attic. You name it.”

  “Did you check the neighborhood?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. We checked the back yard, the garage, her playhouse…the entire neighborhood.”

  “Does she have any friends? Maybe she’s at someone’s house waiting for you to come home.”

  Brewbaker shook his head. “Kelly has no friends. She’s a bit shy, really.”

  “Is she?”

  “Yes. Oh, but she’s by no means an introvert. She likes to do things. She enjoys horseback riding. She takes dance lessons, enjoys going to the opera with me. I guess she gets along better with adults than she does with children her own age.”

  “All right then.” I looked at Carlos. The concern on my face had him reaching for his phone even before I said anything.

  “DACAO?” he said.

  I nodded. “I think we better. We could be dealing with a predatory abduction.”

  “What’s DACAO?” Brewbaker asked.

  “The District Attorney’s Child Abduction Office.”

  “We don’t know if she’s been abducted.”

  “You told us you didn’t think she ran away.”

  “No, but I…. Wait. That’s my phone.” Lionel Brewbaker removed his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. “It’s her! It’s Kelly!”

  “Put her on speaker,” I said.

  He answered. “Kelly! Where are you, Peanut? Your mom and dad have been so worr––”

  “Shut up!” said the caller. It sounded like a man’s voice, only it came across garbled, as though scrambled through an electronic voice modulation device. “I have your daughter. If you want to see her alive again, you’ll listen up.”

  My blood ran cold. The four of us huddled around Lionel Brewbaker. His hands were trembling. I reached for the phone and took it from him.

  “I’m listening,” said Brewbaker.

  “Be prepared to put together a ransom. I will call with further instructions within the next six hours.”

  “A ransom? But the banks have closed for the weekend. How will I––”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  “All right. H…how much do you want?”

  “Instructions will come later. In the meantime, do not try to contact the police or your daughter dies.”

  “But I need to know––”

  The phone went dead.

  I immediately hit the redial button. A recorded message advised me that the person I was trying to reach was unavailable or out of the service area.

  “He pulled the battery,” said Carlos.

  Brewbaker asked, “Why would he do that?”

  I handed the phone back to him. “So we can’t trace his call.”

  “Oh, God. They have my baby.”

  “Mr. Brewbaker, we have to call the FBI.”

  “No! Absolutely not. You heard him. If I call the FBI he’ll kill her. If I call anyone, he’ll kill her.”

  “I heard what he said. Kidnappers always say that. But you have to understand, Kelly is a victim of tender age. The FBI has people for this sort of thing. They have dedicated agents, limitless resources and vast experience in kidnappings of all kinds.”

  “No, Detective. I’m sorry, but I am not going to further jeopardize my daughter’s life by bringing in the FBI. I’ll do whatever the kidnapper says. I’ll pay the ransom and do anything else he wants, and by God’s will I’ll get my little girl back.”

  “Mr. Brewbaker. I strongly urge you to reconsider. The FBI––”

  “I said no, Detective. Carlos. Tell him.”

  Carlos grabbed hold of my shirtsleeve and pulled me aside. He lowered his voice to a hush, but that did not make what he had to say any more palatable. “Tony. Look. I know Lionel. He won’t cooperate with the FBI. Not now. I think we need to let him do this his way.”

  “But Carlos….”

  “No, listen. He trusts me. He’ll let us in on this. I know he will. Tony, we can help him. We have Dominic and E.I.N.I. and all the resources at the Justice Center, the labs, the computers. Everything we need.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. Trust me. If he goes this completely alo
ne, they’ll burn him, Tony. I know they will. He’ll lose Kelly. They’ll kill her. It’s easier for them that way. Lionel needs our guidance. We have to do this.” He squeezed my forearm tight enough to bulge the veins in my hand. “What do you say?”

  What could I say? He was right and he knew it. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have a choice. I pulled my arm from his grip and shook a stern finger at him. “Okay. No FBI, but listen. This is still our show. You have to let him know he needs to cooperate with us. He’s too emotional right now. We’ll keep a low profile as long as we dare.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I said I got it.”

  We broke from our huddle and approached the Brewbakers. Both were sitting on the couch, holding hands. Carlos said, “Lionel, we’re not going to call in the FBI, but we still need to establish certain protocols.”

  “Of course,” he said, and it came to him so easily that I wondered if he had not already reconsidered my initial plan.

  Carlos continued. “We don’t typically see a lot of kidnappings here in New Castle, but we’re not without precedents. Tony here has led a few investigations concerning similar crimes, and so I would like him to take the lead here, if you don’t object.”

  Lionel and Amanda Brewbaker shook their heads in unison. I stepped forward, pressed my palms together and steepled them under my chin. I wasn’t praying. I never do. Like Lilith I don’t subscribe to one Almighty deity, some enigmatic personification of spiritual divinity, a conception so divine in itself as to defy understanding, and therefore explain the unexplainable unquestionably. But that the Brewbakers thought I was praying certainly didn’t hurt my chances of winning their confidence. For if there was a Lord thy God, He knew I needed Him.

  “All right,” I said, after that moment of reflection. Here’s what we need to do. First off, we set up a command center. We can do that here in this living room. We’ll need to call in Spinelli and one other person to help us work in shifts. I’m thinking Detective Olson. Is that okay with you?”

  “Who are those other people?” Brewbaker asked.

  “Spinelli is Detective Dominic Spinelli with my department. He’s one of us.”

  “He’s good,” said Carlos, nodding.

  “Yes, and so is Detective Olson. She’s a long termer who just recently made detective. She’ll work well with us.”

  “Fine,” said Brewbaker, “But I don’t want to see any cop cars around here.”

  “You won’t. Both are plainclothes and both will commute in unmarked cars. And we’ll all use the back door when coming and going, just in case.”

  There were no objections. I turned to Carlos. “Why don’t you call Dominic now, see if he’s made it in yet. Get him up to speed and ask him to see if we can get Olson out here. Then have him start filling out a profile in the NCIC. Tell him we’ll have more info for him shortly.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, also have him contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Again, details to follow. Oh, and when he’s done with that, have him check the sex offenders registry database for all known offenders in the area. Tell him to print out a list with names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. OK?”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Excuse me?” Lionel Brewbaker stood and came to me. “That sounds like a lot of people getting involved.”

  “Yes, sir. I know it sounds like a lot. But these people will not actually be involved in the investigation, per se. The NCIC is the National Crime Information Computer. It allows––”

  “Detective, wait.” He ushered me into the adjacent room, away from Mrs. Brewbaker. “I’m fine with all that. I wanted to get you aside to tell you that I am worried about Mandy.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I understand. If she needs help coping with this, we have counselors down at––”

  “No. I don’t mean I’m worried for her mental well being. I mean I’m worried that she may know more than she’s letting on.”

  “Come again?”

  “I asked her why she was so late coming here to pick up Kelly today. She told me she was out last night with some friends from her troupe.”

  “Her troupe?”

  “Her theatrical troupe. She hooked up with them about a year ago. They’re performing at a dinner club downtown, doing some play called Valley of the Giants.” he shook his head in disgust. “They’re all a bunch of druggies and prostitutes. Every one of them. They go out after the show and they drink and party until dawn. Then they sleep all day, wake up in the evening and do it all again.”

  “And you’re saying Mrs. Brewbaker is doing that with them?”

  “Yes. That’s the reason we’re divorcing. The reason I have primary custody of Kelly. The only reason she has Kelly at all on the weekends is not that she wants her, but that her lawyer wants her to have her. They’re banking on a big alimony settlement and using Kelly as a bargaining chip.”

  “Mr. Brewbaker, I feel for you. I do. But just because your wife was out late partying last night––”

  “No, no. It’s not just that. It’s everything. Something’s not right.”

  “How so?”

  “Look at her.” We both turned surreptitiously and did just that. “Does that look like a woman whose child has just been abducted?”

  “Mr. Brewbaker, I am not about to make judgments strictly on a person’s behavior, however, I do plan to take full statements from you and her and everyone else within arm’s-length of your daughter. But first we have to collect as much information and evidence as we can.”

  “Tony!”

  I turned and looked to see Carlos standing by the front door next to a young boy of nine or ten years. He waved me over.

  “What’s going on?”

  “This is Brian Weismann. He lives a couple of streets over.”

  “Hello, Brian.” I offered my hand and he shook it. “Hey, nice grip you got there. I bet you play ball.”

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. I like that in a kid. You don’t hear kids today say yes sir and no sir. Only yeah and no or uh-huh and nuh-uh. I blame TV, that and the fall of the traditional family unit. But what do I know?

  “Brian came here to return some books he borrowed from Kelly,” said Carlos. “Look, they’re a couple of classics.”

  I took the books from Brian. “So they are. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Two of my personal favorites.” That’s another thing you don’t see kids doing today––reading. Between their cell phones, video games and shoot-em-up DVDs, it’s no wonder books like that don’t fade into obscurity altogether.

  Carlos said, “Brian was also telling me about a van that Kelly saw yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  Brian said, “Yes, sir. Kelly said one followed her home from school yesterday.”

  “Did she say what it looked like?”

  “Oh sure. She got a good look at it. She said it was blue, dark blue I think, with tinted windows. It was missing its hubcaps and had a broken side mirror on the driver’s side.”

  I looked at Carlos, thoroughly impressed with the descriptive detail captured by a nine-year-old girl, and nearly equally so with the recollection of the description by a nine-year-old boy. I said to Brian, “Did Kelly get a look at the driver or any of the passengers?”

  He nodded. “She told me she didn’t see any passengers on account of the tinted windows. But the driver’s window was down so she got a good look at him. He’s a white guy with dark skin or maybe a black guy with light skin.” He looked at Carlos and pointed. “Like him.”

  “Latino?”

  The boy shrugged. “He had an accent. The man called her by name.”

  “He knew her?”

  “Maybe, but she didn’t know him.”

  “Do you know what kind of accent he had? Spanish maybe?”

  The boy shook his head. “She didn’t say.”

  “Did she tell you anything else?”

&nbs
p; “Yes, she said he asked for directions.”

  “Directions? Do you know where?”

  “Uh-huh. Mike’s Pub.”

  “Mike’s Pub?” said Carlos. “I know that place. It’s a bar down on Jefferson.”

  “What did Kelly tell the man?”

  “Nothing,” said Brian. “Kelly knows better than to talk to strangers. As soon as he tried talking to her, she ducked into an alley and made a break for home.”

  “I see, and that was yesterday?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did she tell anyone else? An adult?”

  He lifted his shoulders and dropped them. “I don’t suppose so. There wasn’t much to it after that.”

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  “Me? Nu-uh.”

  Nu-uh? I thought. What happened to No sir? “Brian, thank you for telling us about that. You did the right thing. But the next time a stranger approaches you or someone you know on the street like that, promise me you’ll let an adult know right away. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good boy.”

  “Is Kelly in trouble?”

  “What? No. Kelly’s not in trouble.”

  “Can I see her? Is she upstairs?”

  I looked up at Carlos and gave him the high brow. He palmed the tops of the boy’s shoulders and gently turned him toward the door. “Maybe next time, kid. The adults have some work to do right now.”

  He escorted him out, shut the door, and rejoined us in the living room.”

  “That’s a big break,” I said. “Carlos, did you get a hold of Dominic?”

  “Yeah, he’s starting on the paperwork now.”

  “Call him back. Tell him to put a BOLO out on that van.”

  “Got it.”

  “A BOLO?” said Brewbaker.

  “Yes sir, that’s a be-on-the-look-out notice. In another minute or two, every cop car in the county will have that van’s description and will be looking out for it.”

  “No! I said no cops.”

  “Mr. Brewbaker, we have to do this. Getting a description on the van is a huge lead for us. We can’t ignore it.”

  “All right,” he said, reluctantly “Do it.”

  “Now let’s get back to Kelly. I thought you told me earlier she had no friends.”