BONES OF A WITCH (Detective Marcella Witch's Series. Book 4) Page 9

  “Coward, Miss Adams? Me?”

  “What else would I call a man who only preys on young defenseless women?”

  “What does that say about you? Are you so frightened of me that you need your boyfriend and his homosexual cronies to dress in women’s clothing to try to trick me?”

  I saw Dominic start to rise in protest over that, but I waved him down with just a stare.

  “I’m afraid of no one,” said Lilith, “especially a pantywaist like you.”

  “Then prove it. If you’re such an independent woman, why don’t you come out and fight your own battles?”

  “Fine. Name the time and place, scumbag.”

  “No,” I mouthed under my breath. “Don’t agree to anything.”

  “This afternoon,” Putnam replied. “Go to Jefferson station and wait on the platform for the 5:15 southbound.”

  “You’re on,” said Lilith. “I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Come alone. If you fail to show, or if I see any cops, I will kill not just one innocent bystander this time, but I’ll find a woman and child and kill them both. That should raise some brows on your evening news channels, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry. I won’t need anyone’s help to kick your sorry ass, Putnam. And let me tell you; you have picked a fight with the wrong chick this time, buster.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is. So, let this serve as fair warning; I am going to the station where I will find you and kill you with my own bare hands. Have you got that?”

  “Indeed, Ms. Adams. “I do have that.”

  CLICK.

  As soon as she hung up, I put my foot down and told her that I would not allow the meeting at a train station to take place. “It’s too open and dangerous,” I said, “too many innocent bystanders in the way to effect adequate protection for everyone; too many escape routes, too few vantage points for observations, too little time to draft a back-up plan and too many other variables to even discuss in the short time remaining.”

  Of course that was all academic in Lilith’s eyes. She sat there politely, though, listening, pretending to weigh the validity of my argument. Even Carlos and Dominic nodded at all the right places, signaling agreement to the logic in my judgment. In the end, however, Lilith prevailed without firing a single shot. Somewhere between the definitely not and the well maybe, it was decided that she would go to Jefferson station and wait on the platform for the 5:15 southbound.

  “But you won’t be alone,” I insisted. “We’ll put a man on the platform with you. We’ll dress him up as a homeless guy with a bottle and have him camping out in a corner.” I looked to Spinelli. “The late afternoon trains usually pull four passenger cars. I want a man on each. Get some of the younger guys from traffic to dress up like hipsters or be-boppers or whatever you kids call them, but none older-looking than twenty. Also, I want some undercover females on board looking like average commuters heading home from work.”

  To Carlos I said, “The next station south is Lexington. Get a couple of plainclothes on the platform there and keep another couple of uniforms out of sight on the sidelines. And if you can, set a couple of marksmen up on the roofs of both stations.”

  Carlos nodded. “Got it, and where will you be?”

  “I’ll be riding up front with the engineer. I don’t want to take any chances with this thing.” I looked to Lilith. “Are you going to be comfortable enough with that?”

  “Pah-leez.” She flipped her hair off her shoulder with a dismissive hand. “Why all the fuss? A boy scout and a feisty Chihuahua could take this maggot down.”

  Immediately, Carlos and I turned to Dominic and cracked a contagious grin. His face grew flush as he sank sheepishly in his chair. “What?” He said, crossing his arms at his chest.

  Lilith leaned across the table and stared Spinelli down until she got into his head. I could see exactly the point where she began to read him. He swallowed hard. She leaned back slowly, folding her arms. “I don’t believe it. You named a dog that looks like a rat after me?”

  He winced as if it hurt. “If it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I found out it wasn’t a she. It’s a he. So I renamed it.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

  “Oh. Did I mention he ran away already?”

  And with that, the world was in balance once more. Spinelli was now on Lilith’s shit list and I was again top dog in the doghouse. I reached out and tapped Dominic on the arm. “What’s wrong there feller? Chihuahua got your tongue?” He shot me a sulking glare. Oh, the good life. Sometimes it gets no better than this.

  Lilith Adams:

  I really don’t know why Tony thought all his precautions were so necessary. I keep telling him I can take care of myself just fine. But as a favor to Carlos, who asked me to humor the boy, I agreed to all the bullshit without pitchin` too big a fit.

  I showed up at the train station around 5:10, just minutes before the southbound to Boston was to roll in. Tony’s wino cop had already taken up a corner on the platform by the stairs, a smart move, I’ll admit, for covering an otherwise easy exit.

  Across the tracks and over the northbound platform, a department sniper lay perched on the rooftop overhang. His position, I felt, was not so well thought out, as the setting sun was shining directly into his eyes. If he had to take a shot I only hoped he would know what the hell he was aiming at.

  Besides the wino cop and me, there were only two other people on the platform. One was a middle-aged gentleman, tall, clean-shaven and smartly dressed, but wearing a seriously bad toupee; the other a woman, old and curvy in all the wrong places and clinging to her handbag with a paranoid eye toward the wino cop who, admittedly, did look scary.

  Exactly four minutes after I stepped onto the platform, a shimmering light from the headlamp of the 5:15 southbound began dancing on the horizon. An equal distance in the other direction, a similar glint from the 5:15 northbound also flirted upon the tracks. The man and the woman beside me inched closer to the yellow line marking the edge of the platform. Off in the corner, I spotted wino cop staging a phony stagger to his feet. I slipped my hands into my pockets, and as I did my phone rang, startling the old woman into clamping a bear hug onto her purse. I took the phone out and answered it.

  “You haven’t much time,” a man’s voice said, and I realized right away it was not Lemas Winterhutch, James Putnam or whatever the hell he called himself. I glanced over at wino cop. He didn’t seem alarmed by the call so I guessed for a moment it could have been one of Tony’s men.

  “Who is this?”

  The voice came back harshly, “Shut up and listen. When I say now, I want you to jump the tracks and cross over to the other platform.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Toe the edge of the platform and get ready to cross.”

  I looked again at wino cop. Clearly he had no clue as to what was going on. Across the tracks on the roof’s overhang, the sniper lay like a stone, his sights narrowed in on toupee man for all I knew. I had no way of letting him or any of Tony’s men know what was happening. I only imagined that with all of his precautions, Tony had not planned for this contingency. I took another look down the tracks in both directions. The trains were slowing, but nearing the station on equal terms.

  “What if I don’t?” I said. “Are you going to kill some mother and child?”

  “Better,” he answered. “I’m going to kill the two girls from your apartment building.”

  “What girls?”

  “Young Abigail and Anne: the children whose balloons you retrieved from the tree the other day.”

  “Snot-nose and whiny ass? Shit, smok`em. Ain’t no skin off my nose.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Try me.”

  “I will. You have roughly ten seconds left to cross the tracks and get to the other platform before the trains pull into the station. Fail and the children die.”

  He hung up before I could tell him wh
at a colossal dick he was for dragging a couple of snot-nose whiny ass kids into the equation.

  It’s not that I cared all that much about them, but I knew Tony would have gotten all bent out of shape if I didn’t do something to stop him. So I toed the yellow line like the man said and I jumped down onto the tracks. I could see wino cop from the corner of my eye snap to attention as if prodded with a sharp stick. Sniper man up on the roof swung his rifle toward the stairwell, perhaps anticipating a rush of bad guys from that direction.

  From down on the tracks the trains appeared much larger and closer than I first thought; maybe because they were. But I didn’t wait around to confirm my instincts. I launched into a sprint like a frightened gazelle, ignoring my cell phone, which started ringing the moment I started running. I imagined it was Tony, wondering what the hell I was doing. I also wondered why the hell he was calling me with two trains bearing down on my ass like streaking comets.

  They were nearly on top of me then, air horns blaring in stereo, drowning out the screams from old lumpy ass back on the southbound side of the tracks. She was still clutching her handbag for dear life, but it was nice to know that she cared enough for me to take her eyes off wino cop for all of seven seconds, which was all it took for me to reach the other platform, scale the wall and pucker my ass on the safe side of the yellow line.

  I turned to face the southbound platform just as the northbound train came ripping into the station, the screech from its wheels tearing at my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. I strained to look through the passing windows to the other side and saw wino cop still on the platform. He had his radio out and was yelling into it, but for the noise I couldn’t hear a word.

  The northbound had nearly come to a full stop when the southbound rolled in alongside it. The squalls from its wheels were just as loud but the pitch less piercing to the ears. My phone began ringing again and so I answered it, hoping to give Tony the heads up on the change of plans. Only it wasn’t Tony; it was Dickweed.

  “Drop your phone and get on the train,” he said, though the door hadn’t even opened yet.

  “Can you see me?” I asked.

  He shouted back, “Do it!”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  The doors opened.

  “I said drop the phone and step aboard.”

  “Wrong. I’m only holding up one. It’s the middle finger. See?” I waved the bird over my head like a banner. “Ha, up yours, asshole!”

  “Do it, Adams. NOW!”

  “All right.”

  I stepped onto the train and rapped the phone against the wall, hoping the jolt would convince him that I had pitched it. But as I put it back up to my ear I heard his scratchy voice scream back. “Lose it.”

  I tossed it out the door just before it closed. A sudden jerk set the train car in motion and I was northbound, my senses heightened and wits abound, ready to bring it all on.

  I looked around the car and noticed it empty, save for a kindly-looking old gentleman sitting way in the back. He seemed only mildly interested in me, puzzled perhaps at my actions concerning the phone. He had been reading the paper when the train first stopped, and when he saw me looking at him he returned to the folds of the local section. I turned my eyes away, but kept tabs on him just the same by watching his reflection in the dirty windows.

  The next stop was Willow Junction, so named because of the street it was on and because it was indeed a true junction. At that stop, the northbound line ended. From there one can catch the southbound to Boston, the eastbound to Ipswich or the westbound to Lowell; all nice places, but nowhere I particularly wanted to go.

  Just three minutes after rolling out of Jefferson we squealed to a stop at Willow. There I was met by a stocky little runt in an overcoat and fedora, looking like a caricature straight out of a Mickey Spillane novel. I recognized his awkward walk and that stupid hat right away.

  “Lemas,” I said, “at last we meet. Third time’s a charm, isn’t it?”

  He pulled a revolver out from under his coat and pointed it at me. “Walk, Ms. Adams.” He motion towards the stairs with a nod.

  “What, you’re not going to kill me here?”

  This time he gestured with the gun, flicking the muzzle toward the stairwell twice before leveling it again at me. “Walk.”

  “All right, all right, I’m going. See?”

  I started toward the stairs, and could tell from the shadows that stretched ahead of us that he preferred maintaining a two to three foot distance behind me—this, I suppose, was so that I could not turn abruptly and drop a karate chop down on his gun hand; ridiculous I know. Who did he think I was, the Green Hornet? I gathered something more mysterious was brewing than what Lemas Peckerhutch was letting on, but I couldn’t figure it out. It puzzled me why he didn’t just shoot me on the platform. He seemed eager enough to kill on sight when he thought I was that poor woman in the parking garage. Still, it intrigued me. I know Tony wouldn’t have approved, and maybe that’s exactly why I did it, but I decided to let the sniveling twerp play his game just long enough to see what it was. They say that curiosity kills the cat; well, it almost did.

  Waiting for us at the bottom of the steps was a black limousine, long and sleek with dark tinted windows and coach lamps flanking the oversized back door. Putnam opened that door for me, flaring his hand with a bow as if presenting the open gates of Camelot. I smiled with anticipation, wondering when he would lower the boom on my head and stuff me in the trunk instead. I pulled back and offered the honor to him.

  “After you,” I said. “It is your car after all.” He pulled the hammer back on his gun, allowing the multiple clicks of the revolving chambers to decline the offer for him. “No?” I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” I started into the limo, paused and then backed out again. “You know, on second thought,” I pointed at the barrel of his gun and brushed it aside with a wave. “Shoot yourself.”

  He probably dropped a duce in his pants when the gun inexplicably went off, blowing a .38 millimeter hole into the limo’s rear quarter panel. But hey, at least he didn’t actually shoot himself. He could have, and I think he knew it. I gave him a look to let him know that next time I wouldn’t be so generous.

  I climbed into the limo and the door shut behind me. Putnam came around to the other side and got in behind the wheel. I remember laughing out loud thinking of all the fun I was going to have screwing with his head the rest of the night. But then the door suddenly opened again. A hand reached inside. It came at me so quickly I hadn’t time to react. Then everything went black on me.

  Dominic Spinelli:

  You can’t imagine Tony’s reaction when he saw Lilith jump down onto the tracks and hop up onto the other platform at Jefferson station. Of course we were all surprised. None of us saw it coming. We had Officer Burke on the platform; four of my buds from traffic on the southbound, a marksman up on the roof, Tony in the engineer’s booth and Carlos and me staked out at the turnstile. Nine cops all covering one woman, and Putnam gets her to give us the slip. When the northbound rolled out of the station, Tony jumped out of the engineer’s cabin and started chasing the damn thing on foot. You should have seen him, man, running and hollering at the train to wait up, and shouting for Lilith to come back. It was classic—sad, but classic.

  Carlos and I ran after him as far as we could. For Carlos it was to the end of the platform; for me a bit further: about a hundred yards. I think Tony would have kept going all the way to Willow Junction, but thankfully (for me, not him) he stopped to answer my phone call.

  “Tony,” I said, “stop running.” I was seriously out of breath and hoping he’d not make me repeat myself. “We can drive to Willow.”

  “No, meet me there,” he said, amazingly not so out of breath. Even on foot I think he might have beaten us. “I can’t let him take her, Dominic. I can’t lose her.”

  If only for sympathy I would have continued running after Tony. Illogical, I know, but he means that much to me. Yet
I’m here to tell you that camaraderie trumps the sympathetic impulse in ways that logic can appreciate. Never so true, I observed, than when Carlos pulled the car alongside the fence running parallel to the tracks and told me to hop in. I did, and we drove on to pick up Tony, who reluctantly agreed to ride with us.

  We arrived at Willow Junction with sirens wailing and lights flashing. Of course we were too late. The train was gone, and so was Lilith—the problem now was where.

  “Should have had him hold up just short of the station,” I said.

  Tony looked at me funny. “What do you mean?”

  “I looked up at him. “What?”

  “I said, what do you mean, hold up?”

  “The train, we should have had the engineer of the southbound radio the northbound and tell him to hold up for us.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ooh, if looks could kill.

  I shrank back sheepishly and swallowed hard. “Sure, it seems obvious now, but it’s not like I thought of it before and didn’t say anything.”

  He looked at Carlos, who simply shrugged his ignorance away. “Is this what you’re teaching the kid, Carlos?”

  “Me? I’m not teaching him nothing. But hey, better he thinks of it now than not at all.”

  “What?”

  “Sure.”

  “How the hell is that better?”

  “So we’ll know next time.”

  “No, no next time, Carlos. There is never going to be a next time, because if we ever—”

  “Stop.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry I said anything. You know everything happened so fast. You jumped from the train and took off down the tracks, and we started after you and—”

  “Fuck it,” said Tony. “It’s fucked. You fucked up, Spinelli. Forget it. It’s done. Look, let’s just focus on what we need to do now. Do either of you have any ideas?”

  I hate when he asks us that, because usually if he doesn’t have any ideas, then we sure don’t either. So we stood on the platform scratching our heads and feeling like complete buffoons for letting Putnam get the better of us; Tony, especially. I could see it in his eyes: the pain, the hurt; and if he weren’t so damn pissed at me, the embarrassment, too.