Waking the Witch

thirty-two

After we left, I said, “Were you serious about that dream crap?”

Adam shrugged. “It makes sense. Her psyche can’t deal with the guilt, so it displaces it with a dream about the death of someone else’s daughter.”

“It’s not just her psyche that can’t deal. Carol Degas is a human ostrich. And that dream? I think it’s bullshit.”

“Well, one thing I’m ninety-nine percent sure on is that Brandi wasn’t a witch. Nor did Carol somehow find out that Tiffany Radu was one and kill her, thinking she was following a Christian precept. Seeing all the religious stuff in her house made me think we might be onto something, but there’s no witch-hunter—” He stopped, frowning.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing. Just ...” He shook his head. “Nothing. Anyway, back to the dream, I’m wondering if it’s more than a garden-variety guilty conscience. ”

“You think she had something to do with her daughter’s death?”

“Not overtly, but maybe there’s something she’s not telling us. Or something she isn’t really aware of herself.”

“If she does remember something, we’d better hope it comes in another dream, because short of hypnosis, that woman isn’t going to ...”

When I trailed off, it was his turn to look over and say, “What?”

“I need to trace a call,” I said.

I CONNECTED TO the office database and dug up the number of a half-demon phone company exec who helped us whenever she could, repayment for Paige getting her out of a Cabal commitment uglier than any cell phone contract.

“Lina,” I said when she answered. “It’s Savannah Levine. Can you check a phone record for me?”

“Absolutely. Do you have the number?”

I gave it to her, then said, “I need to know if any calls were placed from that number on the night of November 18 last year.”

“There’s one.” She rattled it off. “Do you want me to check the source?”

“No, I recognize it. Any other calls after that?”

“No.” Keyboard tapping chattered across the line. “But there is one from the second number, made just over an hour later to a cell phone.” She gave me the number. “Do you want me to check with the cell company for the registered owner?”

“Maybe not. Hold on.” I pulled up my contact list and entered the number. “No, seems I already know it.”

I thanked her, then signed off and told Adam what I’d found.

“Shit,” he said.

“Do you remember what caliber of gun was used in the murders? Thirty-eight, wasn’t it?”

“Right.”

“The kind of gun a guy in Columbus might keep under his mattress, wave around when he’s drunk, get confiscated if it’s not properly registered ...”

He frowned, but didn’t ask, just drove as I explained my theory.

PAULA AND KAYLA were at home, Paula clearing away the breakfast dishes as Kayla got out her books for the first lesson of the day. I introduced Adam. Kayla sized him up.

“You’re a private eye?” she asked.

“I don’t look like one?” he said.

“No.”

He laughed. “How about Savannah? Does she?”

“More than you.”

“It’s all about the edge,” I said. “I have one. You don’t.”

“All right,” Adam said to Kayla. “Forget the lock-picking lesson, then.”

“Lock-picking?” she said.

He took a lock-pick gun from his pocket and her eyes rounded.

“I was going to give you a lesson while Savannah talks to your grandma,” he said. “But if I’m not proper PI material, then I wouldn’t be a proper teacher ...”

“What’s this?” Paula said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

I introduced Adam as my coworker and friend, then said, “I need to talk to you alone, Paula. Is it okay if Adam takes Kayla outside, shows her how to use the lock pick?”

She looked at Adam. “I don’t think—”

“Please, Grandma?”

“They’ll be right at the front door,” I said. “If we sit in the living room, you can see them through the window.”

“I suppose so ...”

They left. We went into the living room, and Paula positioned her chair where she could see the front steps as they worked on the lock.

“There’s been a major development in the investigation,” I said. “I wanted you to be the first to hear it. As you know, the gun used to kill Ginny and Brandi was never found.”

“Has it been?”

“No, but it’s been identified as a gun that was stolen from the police station’s evidence locker a few years ago.”

Paula glanced at me and I kept my eyes as wide as possible, giving no sign I was bullshitting her. I was good at that.

I continued, “That’s when you worked at the station. Do you remember it?”

“Vaguely,” she said. “It wasn’t in the evidence locker, though. Just in the office. Confiscated from Bill Martin—a local no-good. They figured he’d broken in and gotten his gun back.”

“Maybe, but that’s not what they think now. In fact, Chief Bruyn swears he knew who took it, he’s just not telling me.”

Paula swallowed.

“Of course, whoever took the gun isn’t necessarily Ginny’s killer,” I said.

Paula nodded.

“But the person who did take it should come forward before Bruyn comes knocking. I’m sure whoever took it had a good reason. But then, when it went missing, she couldn’t exactly report it, since it was stolen goods in the first place.” I caught and held Paula’s gaze. “That gun must have been taken by someone who had access at night. Someone like the cleaner.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t me. It ...” She hesitated, then said, “It was Ginny. She came to see me one night. Brought me coffee. I knew something was up, but I thought she just wanted money. Then, a week later, when Bill came back for his gun and it was gone, I knew what Ginny had come for. Everyone in town knew the gun was in that office. I confronted her and she admitted it. Said she’d run into some trouble with a dealer and she needed it to scare him off. She wouldn’t let me give it back, so I bought her a lockbox and made her keep it in that, away from Kayla.”

“And it never occurred to you she might use it on Kayla?”

She should have jumped at that, shocked. But she only shook her head, her gaze once again fixed on the girl outside the window.

“No,” she said, barely over a whisper. “It never did.”

“But that changed at 12:38 on November 18 last year, didn’t it?”

Now she glanced over sharply. “What?”

“November 18. The night Ginny and Brandi died. You got a call at 12:38 from Carol Degas.”

“Did I?” She shrugged. “I suppose I might have. Carol would sober up at all hours of the night and call me, suddenly concerned about where Brandi was.”

“Except that night she knew exactly where Brandi was. Going to Ginny’s apartment to take Kayla, already drugged, to an abandoned building where they planned to kill her and make it look like the work of a sexual predator.”

“N-no. Ginny—Ginny would never ...” Paula shook her head. “Kayla was her daughter.”

“Which makes it all the more reprehensible. Especially when her motive was to get back her abusive asshole boyfriend. Cody told Ginny he didn’t want her because she had a kid. She decided to remove that obstacle. Carol overheard and called you. She passed out while she was still on the phone, woke up the next day, and convinced herself it was all a dream because Kayla wasn’t dead, and Brandi and Ginny were.”

“Carol Degas is a drunk,” Paula said. “I don’t care if she’s cleaned up and found religion. She still has a brain like Swiss cheese. Have you talked to her? She can barely remember what day it is. Kayla is alive. So whatever Carol imagined never happened.”

“Because you stopped it. Carol called. You got hold of that gun and you tracked them to that abandoned building and you shot them—”

“No! It wasn’t like—” She stopped short and glanced at the phone. “I think I need to call my lawyer.”

“Sure. You do that and I’ll call the sheriff’s department and they can continue this conversation.”

Paula looked out the window. She crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. Glanced toward the phone. Then said, “Why isn’t Chief Bruyn or the sheriff’s department here?”

“Because I haven’t told them.”

She peered at me, trying to gauge my motives.

“It wasn’t like that,” she said finally. “Carol called to tell me what she’d heard. I didn’t believe her. Ginny would never do such a thing. Clearly Carol was dead drunk. I almost went back to bed.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I let the silence drag on for half a minute before saying, “You told yourself Ginny would never do it, but you couldn’t rest until you made ” sure.

Paula nodded. “I knew the building. When I got there and saw Brandi’s car out back—” She sucked in a deep breath. “I didn’t have the gun. Obviously Ginny was drunk or stoned and not thinking straight and all I had to do was snap her out of it.”

She stopped again. I waited her out.

“I found them in the basement. Kayla ...” Her voice cracked, gaze shooting back to the window. “Kayla was on the floor. They’d pulled off her pajama bottoms and her panties and ...”

She couldn’t finish. Couldn’t go on for another minute, then said, “They were fighting. Brandi thought they needed to make it look as if she’d been violated ...” Another crack in her voice. “That’s when Ginny started having second thoughts. But Brandi had the gun. Ginny’s gun. She turned it on Kayla, and I thought—I thought Ginny would stop her. This was her daughter. Kill her own child? For a man? How could I raise—?”

She shook her head and took another deep breath. “I thought she’d do something, but when Brandi pointed that gun at Kayla’s head, Ginny stopped arguing and closed her eyes. Just closed her eyes. I screamed. I ran forward and there was a shot. It went past me. I hit Brandi. She fell and I jumped on her to get the gun and we were struggling and I saw Ginny standing there over us.

“I got hold of the gun, but Brandi wouldn’t let go. It fired. I don’t know who pulled the trigger. I yanked the gun away and I got up, and Brandi was lying there, dead, blood pumping out. I heard this sound and I thought it was Kaylawaking up and I turned and there was Ginny, bent over, hands to her chest, blood running through her fingers. The bullet had gone right through Brandi and into her.

“Ginny was still alive. I told her I was going to get help, that she’d be okay, but she started crying, saying she was sorry, it was Brandi’s idea, she begged me not to leave her. I tried to calm her down so I could get help, but she kept crying and then ...” Paula looked away and brushed a hand over her eyes. “And then she was gone.”

“So you called the only person you thought you could count on. Ginny’s father.”

She looked up sharply.

“Phone records,” I said. “One of the girls at the house saw him coming in late that night. He’d gotten a call on his cell from you.”

“Alastair’s a smart man,” she said. “I thought he’d know what to do. He knew Ginny was his daughter—he’d already figured it out and we’d agreed to keep it a secret. But for this ...”

“He owed you.”

She nodded. “I wanted to turn myself in. It was an accident. But Alastair said I’d lose custody of Kayla. I couldn’t bear that. So we left Ginny and Brandi there and he helped me take Kayla home. I hated doing that—leaving her in that apartment alone—but Alastair said I had to. We put her to bed and locked the doors. Alastair took the gun and my clothes. He said he’d burn the clothing and get rid of the gun. Then I sat up all night and waited for Kayla to call me when she woke up and her mom wasn’t there.”

“And then you sat back and watched as Bruyn zeroed in on an innocent man.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “Innocent? That’s one word I wouldn’t use to describe Cody. Do you want me to say I felt bad about that?”

“You decided he deserved it. He gave Ginny the ultimatum that started everything.”

“No. Cody didn’t expect her to do that. He wanted to get rid of her, so he said the problem was the one thing she couldn’t change. Or so he thought. But would I feel guilty if he went to jail? Not for a minute. Did I push Chief Bruyn in his direction?” She met my gaze. “I did not. You know that as well as anyone. I told you the truth about Cody and how he treated my daughter. That’s it.”

“But then Claire found out the truth. You had to kill her, and when her brother got too close—”

“No. Absolutely not.” Paula’s eyes blazed. “I had nothing to do with that young woman’s death or her brother’s. The night Claire Kennedy died, I was at a friend’s in Portland. I had a job interview the next morning. Kayla was with me. And the night Detective Kennedy died, I was right here, playing bridge with my sister, Dorothy, and Lorraine from the diner. We heard the sirens when the police went by.”

I pressed her, but I knew she was telling the truth. It would be too easy to check her alibis. Besides, I’d never seriously thought she was responsible for Claire’s and Michael’s deaths. Even intentionally killing Ginny and Brandi to save Kayla had been a stretch.

“Alastair says whoever killed Claire Kennedy staged it to look like Ginny and Brandi’s deaths,” she said. “They wanted it to seem like we had a serial killer. Probably hoped Cody would be charged with Ginny and Brandi so they could pin her death on him, too.”

“Then it has to be someone who knew that Alastair planted that occult stuff at the original site. That was never released to the media.”

“Occult?” Paula looked genuinely confused.

I took the photos from my bag and pointed out the ritual circle and other signs. “Alastair must have done that after you left.”

“No, those things weren’t there.”

“You must not have noticed them. They’re too subtle—”

“No, I would have seen them. When I went to confront Chief Bruyn about his grandson showing those photos to Kayla, he tried to say they’d been in his desk all along. He shoved them in my face, the bastard. Made me take a good look at them, too. Those things weren’t there.”