Call Of The Witch (12 page)

She threw her glance away, regrouped and
fired back. “No, I forgot, but don’t change the subject.” She
pointed a rigid finger and poked me in the chest with it. “Ursula
told me the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Aren’t you
a man?”

“
Ursula? You’re taking man
advice from Ursula?”

“
Why not? She got Dominic
to consummate their marriage on their first night together. She
must know something about men.”

“
Yes. She knows enough to
marry a virgin. Besides, we consummated on the first
night.”

“
No. We fucked on the
first night. Then we fucked on the second night, the third, fourth,
fifth and nearly every night since. But we did not perform the
ritual.”

“
We don’t need to perform
a ritual, Lilith. You know I love you. I know you love me. It’s all
good.”

“
All good? Let’s see how
good it is when you’re making love to yourself.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
It means that THIS,” she
reached up and ripped her blouse open, sending buttons flying
across the room in a blur, “is off limits. You and little Tony
don’t get to touch any of it until the ritual is
complete”

I stood there staring at her breasts,
speechless, wide-eyed and openmouthed. “Lilith, you don’t mean
that.”

She pulled her blouse closed. “Don’t I?” And
she marched off down the hall, shaking her ass in an exaggerated
way designed to burn a lasting image in my mind. Even now I can see
it, the imprint so strong I could almost swear she used witchcraft
to put it there.

I grabbed the phone charger and went back
outside. Carlos was still in the Vette, waiting; the radio on, his
eyes closed, hands drumming on the wheel, again. I rapped on the
window loud enough to get his attention before opening the door and
waited for him to turn the volume down before getting in.

“
Got it?” he
said.

“
Yup.”

“
Where’s my
drink?”

“
What?”

“
You said you’d get me a
cold drink.”

“
Carlos, please, I have
bigger things to worry about.”

“
Lilith?”

“
She cut me
off.”

“
You mean sex?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Geeze, Tony, I thought
you just went in to get the charger. You didn’t tell me you wanted
to shag her.”

“
I didn’t. She’s the one
that wanted it.”

“
Then why did she cut you
off?”

“
Because it wasn’t just
sex. She wanted us to perform that damn consummation ritual. Now
she’s saying that until we do, she’s cutting me off from sex
completely.”

“
Then why don’t you do it?
Make her happy.”

“
Carlos, I don’t think you
understand. Do you know what’ll happen if we perform that
ritual?”

“
Sure, you’ll have the
wildest sex of your life with the most beautiful woman in the
world. Gee, I can see why you might hate that. Must be
awful.”

He started the car and we headed out.

“
It’s not about the sex,”
I said.

“
Then what?”

“
She wants a
baby.”

“
Lilith? No
way.”

“
Yes way. That’s what the
ritual’s about. Don’t you see? Dominic and Ursula preformed it on
their wedding night, and right away Ursula got
pregnant.”

“
Yeah, but Ursula wanted
to get pregnant. Lilith doesn’t. She hates kids.”

“
I think she did hate
kids, but that was before Ursula got pregnant, just like she didn’t
want to get married until Ursula went and got married.”

“
What, you think she’s
jealous of Ursula?”

“
No, I don’t think so.
She’s not the jealous type. It might just be that she’s
reevaluating her life now that Ursula is here. She’s getting older
and maybe seeing Ursula go through the motions of the traditional
housewife, she’s feeling a void in her life that she never
expected.”

“
I don’t know,” said
Carlos, making a tisk sound through his teeth and shaking his head.
“You’re painting Lilith in a light I’ve never seen her in, implying
she’s vulnerable. That’s not Lilith. I think if Lilith wanted to
get pregnant, she would simply go off the pill.”

“
She’s not on the
pill.”

“
So you use
protection?”

“
No.”

“
Then how is it
she––”

“
Doesn’t get
pregnant?”

“
Yeah.”

“
I don’t know. It’s a
witch thing. We’ve had sex a thousand times and she’s always told
me not to worry about it. And now I know why.”

“
Why?”

“
I’ll tell you. I’ve been
looking through the grimoire. It’s hard to decipher without the
witch’s key, but there’s a reference there connecting the
consummation ritual with having babies. I think that maybe a witch
can’t get pregnant without performing the ritual, at least for the
first time.”

“
Wow.” I saw Carlos’
expression melt into something of disbelief as he grasped the
gravity of my situation.

“
Wow is right,” I said.
“What am I going to do?”

“
What can you do? If you
ever want sex with Lilith again, you’re gonna have to perform the
ritual with her.”

“
But I’m not ready for
kids. Look at me. I’ve been given a second chance for a full life.
There are a million things I want to do before I settle down and
raise a family.”

“
Yeah, well I hope one of
them isn’t having sex again, because that ship has
sailed.”

“
Gee thanks, Carlos.
You’re a big help.”

He nodded approvingly. “No problem.” I think
he thought I meant it. “You’re welcome.”

Dominic met us at the elevator as we were
stepping out on the second floor of the Justice Center. He had
gotten himself a cup of coffee from the detective’s lounge. Looked
like he needed it, too. His eyes were bloodshot, and the bags under
them were twice as big as they were the day before.

“
Dominic,” I said. “Are
you leaving?”

He looked at me strangely. “No. I was going
back to my desk.”

I pointed down the hall. “But…. your desk is
that way.”

He turned his head in that direction and I
could tell he was just getting it. “Oh, right.” He smiled thinly.
“I knew that.”

“
Are you okay?”

“
Sure. Hey, I have some
info for you.”

He started down the hall. I looked at Carlos.
He shrugged lightly. “He has info,” he said.

“
He has insomnia,” I
replied.

We followed Dominic to the conference room.
On the table, he had laid out numerous photos and documents. Among
them were rap sheets and background checks on several persons of
interest in our case. The first name he brought up was a familiar
one, someone we had just talked to an hour earlier.

“
This is Dmitry
Kovalchuk,” he said, “age forty-two.” He slid a photo of Dmitry
across the table, more in front of Carlos than me. “I guess you
already met him. He owns the Swan Lake dance studio in
Danvers.”

Carlos pushed the photo over to me, fell back
in his chair, propped his feet up on the desk and laced his fingers
behind his head. “Yeah…. we met him. The pervert. You should have
seen him, hands all over his thirteen-year-old daughter, feeling
her ass.”

Spinelli cocked his head to one side.
“Dmitry?”

“
Yes. It was
disgusting.”

“
Dominic,” I said. “What’s
wrong?”

He shook his head doubtfully. “Dmitry doesn’t
have a daughter.”

“
What?” Carlos’ feet came
down hard on the floor. “Are you kidding me?”

“
No. I’m sure of it. He
was only married once, to a woman named Anastasia Popova of Lesnoy,
Russia. They had three boys, Alexander, Nikolay and Mikhail. In
1991, Dmitry was part of a Russian dance troupe touring the United
States. They let him come here with his family, but when the dance
troupe left for home six months later, the Kovalchuks stayed
behind.”

“
Defected?”

“
No, not defective. A
little dysfunctional, maybe.”

“
Dominic, I said defected.
Did they defect from Russia?”

“
Oh. Yes.”

“
And our government let
them?”

“
Sure. You see up until
1992, Lesnoy was a closed town, founded after World War II for the
sole purpose of producing highly enriched uranium for nuclear
weapons. They even assembled some nuclear bombs there.”

“
But Dmitry wasn’t a
nuclear scientist.”

“
Didn’t matter. The
possibility that he or his family might know anything about
Russia’s secret nuclear program made them prime candidates for free
tickets to the promise land.”

“
So no daughter,” said
Carlos, still not believing.

“
No daughter,” said
Dominic, more assertive this time. “Shorty after arriving in the
United States, the youngest one, Mikhail, died. A year later, the
older boy, Alexander, ran away. Then two years ago, Anastasia and
Nikolay, now grown, returned to Russia to be with her family.
That’s when Dmitry opened up his dance studio.”

Carlos, still unable to put the daughter
thing to rest asked, “Can we arrest him for that?”

“
For what?” I asked.
“Opening a dance studio?”

“
For groping that little
girl.”

I hesitated, not wanting to trivialize the
issue. “I don’t know, Carlos. Of course I don’t like what I saw any
more than you do, but I’m not sure if what we saw can be considered
groping. The man tapped the girl’s behind.”

“
Tony. He grabbed the
kid’s ass. The man’s a pedophile. I think we should get a search
warrant to check out his studio. He could have Kelly tied up there
somewhere.”

“
Carlos, patting a girl on
the behind doesn’t necessarily make him a pedophile.”

“
He could be,” said
Dominic.

“
What?”

“
Look at this.”

He shuffled through a loose pile of documents
on the table and came up with a copy of a police report with a
Danvers P.D. stamp of disposition on it. “Here.” He handed the
report to me. “Last year Dmitry Kovalchuk was arrested on child
molestation charges. Seems the mother of one of his students
accused him of fondling her daughter in a closed-door office at his
studio.”

“
What became of
it?”

“
The Danvers P.D. dropped
the charges before it reached the D.A.`s office.”

“
How come?”

“
Lack of evidence. Two
days after filing the complaint, mother and daughter disappeared.
Left the state, one neighbor said.”

Carlos commented, “That’s odd.”

“
Yes, especially since
they left behind their furniture…clothes….the kid’s bike, her
toys...even a bird.”

“
A bird?”

“
A Parakeet.”

“
No one knows what
happened to them?” I asked.

Dominic shook his head. “No, but no one
really looked for them either. No one ever filed a missing persons
report on them. The Danvers P.D. doesn’t have the resources to
expand an investigation like that.” He pointed at the document.
“That’s why the disposition stamped reads DEFERRED. The case file
will likely end up in a cold storage box somewhere until the
statute of limitations runs out.”

Carlos said, “That’s it, Tony. We need to go
there and tear that studio apart.”

I held my hand up. “Easy boy. One step at a
time.”

I said to Dominic, “Can we get a warrant to
search his studio?”

“
We can try, but Dmitry’s
not a registered pedophile. Without probable cause––and I might add
that a deferred complaint is not considered probable cause––then
it’s not likely you’ll get it.”

“
I don’t need probable,”
said Carlos. “I just need five minutes with him.”

“
Carlos.” I held my hand
up again and he settled back down. I gave Dominic the nod. “Try,” I
said.

“
I will.”

“
All right, what else you
got?”

He handed me a glossy eight-by-ten photo of a
five member equestrian team posing in riding gear on a coral-style
fence, behind them were two magnificent-looking horses. “That’s
Russell Haywood, age thirty-nine.”

“
Kelly’s riding
coach?”

“
Yup. If the face and name
seem familiar, it’s because he’s a former Olympic equestrian gold
medalist. I think from the ‘88’ summer games in Seoul.”

“
Name’s not familiar to
me,” I said.

Carlos took the photo and gave it a passing
glance. “Me neither. Only women and sissies watch the equestrian
competitions. That and synchronized swimming.” He turned to me and
laughed. “Am I right, Tony?”

Dominic’s face grew flustered. “Hey, I watch
equestrian competitions and synchronized swimming. Those are both
very demanding sports and worthy of Olympic status.”