Silent Doll (24 page)

I told Trinket, “She played the guilt card on purpose. Did she also say that it was this or death for all of you?”

Trinket didn’t answer but I saw the tiniest of nods of her head. I looked at Rourke again. She gave a martyred sigh.

“I will agree that guilt and self-preservation are motive,” she said, “but I thought you said that’s not what this spell is designed for.”

I nodded my head and turned back to Trinket. “Trinket,” I said, “I think your mother lied to you and your sisters. If she’s as strong as I feel she must be to have achieved giving you life, then she expends only a fraction of her energy to maintain your bond. She would have had to use blood to create the bond, but human blood replenishes over time.”

“I don’t understand,” Trinket said. “Then why?”

“The spell is one of vanity. It’s a spell to bring youth to a coven. I’d have to check to see if it’s possible for one person to absorb the spell on their own.”

Trinket dropped her head and she made a racked choking sound, like she was trying to cry. She said, “Momma’s not been the same since Poppa died. Always concerned about her age.” Trinket raised her head. It looked like the side of one of her eyes had cracked, oil oozing from it like stilted black tears. “Why make us—do things—if it’s not our fault?”

“Deniability. No way to pin it to her. If I understand this correctly she can tell you not to say a word about her involvement. She could tell you to openly lie and you’d have to do it,” Rourke said, sympathy creeping around the edges of her face. “You’re expendable to her.” Rourke did have a heart, but she was so massive it was sometimes so hard to find something so small in such a big body.

“No, Momma loves us,” Trinket yelled. “She and Poppa couldn’t have babies, so he made us for her. She loves us.”

“People that love you don’t ask you to kill for them,” Rourke said flatly. “You must know that or you wouldn’t be here.”

Trinket fell silent. The entire room filled up with that silence. I placed my hand on top of hers.

“Trinket, go sit outside. You’ve done your best. We need to talk things over from here.”

Trinket nodded, got up and went through the door without so much as a backwards glance. I stood up and glared at Rourke.

“You really are a people person, aren’t you?” I spat. I regretted snapping a second later. Yelling at Rourke wasn’t going to help anything.

“She isn’t a person.”

“Jesus, Rourke; when are you going to learn that not human doesn’t necessarily mean not good?”

She chose to ignore me. “Can we use any of this?” she asked. “We can’t exactly put Raggedy Ann up on a witness stand.”

I growled under my breath, then I looked at Hamilton, to whom her question had been addressed. He hadn’t said two words during the whole interview and I was beginning to wonder on whose side of the fence he was going to fall.

“I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “Her testimony is sketchy but admissible, if we can keep her away from her mother. I’m assuming from your story about her running away that all commands have to be verbal?”

“I assume that’s the case.”

“Can you keep her safe?”he asked.

“My place is the safest we have at the moment. I’m sure I can keep a human out. Besides, if her mother really wants to find her, she can, no matter where we put her. My place is best, she’s comfortable there.”

Hamilton pressed his palms together. “Good, then that’s what we need from you. Rourke and I will need to find more evidence.”

“What about the red hairs?” I asked.

“All we can officially prove about that is that they came from a red wig. It’s not enough to get us a warrant against the red-headed sister to obtain a match, or access to the one you said had a slightly bloodstained bag that could have belonged to one of the victims. We need something conclusive to point us in their direction.”

“But we know it’s them.”

“We
suspect
it’s them. Without evidence it’s just a game of pointing the finger and saying ‘it was you, wasn’t it?’” Rourke said reasonably. I glared at her.

“There’s a certain finger I’d like to point at you right now. Can you guess which one it is?”

Hamilton pushed to his feet, slamming his hands down on his desk.

“Enough. We’ve all got work to do. Cassandra, take the girl back to your place, keep a watch on her. If we’ve got one under surveillance that means at least one murder won’t take place. Now, are we done?”

I took a deep breath and calmed down. I’d nearly forgotten that there was something else I needed to talk to him about.

“Actually, there is something else,” I said, giving Hamilton a pointed look. “I’d rather we talk alone.”

Rourke recrossed her arms defiantly. “You’re asking me to leave?” she huffed.

“Yeah, because I’m asking him for help, not you. I know better than to ask you for anything.”

Hamilton sat back down and said, “Give us a minute, Sam.”

Rourke growled and stomped out of his office, slamming his door as she went. We both winced as we listened to the glass rattle. Hamilton looked at me.

“I take it this isn’t case related?”

“No, it’s rather personal, actually.”

He nodded his head solemnly. I pulled the chair in close to his desk. Up close I saw the bags under his eyes and I wondered when he’d last gotten any sleep. Hamilton, like most really good cops, once on a case didn’t stop working until it was solved. It was something I admired about him.

“What’s up?”

I pulled out the cards. “I know this isn’t really going to be your area, but you’re the only guy whose opinion I feel I can ask. I received these cards over the last couple of days, each with a gift.” I laid the cards out in front of him. He looked at each one, then went back as if to read the whole thing as one message.

“Red roses first, then a potted African violet and then a box of chocolates, which seemed highly suspect.”

“Where are they?”

“With Ro. She said she’d look to see if there was anything in them.”

He looked up at me with concern. “What made you think that? I mean these are certainly creepy, but a big leap to poisoned confectionery.”

“The first two were left at my apartment door, the third was found inside my apartment. My
locked
apartment. They’d been left while I was sleeping. Trinket said she saw a man standing at the end of my bed.”

“It sounds like you have a stalker and a very serious one at that. We can file a report and I’ll make sure Ro’s finding go in with it, but that’s all I can do.”

“I have to take all the legal measures I can, right?”

“Yes, but I would make sure that you don’t sleep alone in case he makes good on this,” he said, tapping the last card. “If you’d like I could…”

“I’m going to stop you there. Trinket’s going to be there, so I won’t be on my own.”

Hamilton gave me a brief, “aww shucks” smile and rose to show me out. His desk phone began to ring. He looked at it as though longing for it to disappear; instead he picked up the receiver and brought it to his ear.

“Homicide. Hamilton.”

I continued walking toward the door.

“Cassandra, hang on a minute, please–” Then, returning to his conversation, “Yes, thank you. We’ll head right out there now. Goodbye.” He let the phone drop back into the cradle. “It looks like Summer’s done as mother asked. I think you should come with me to the scene.”

I nodded and reached for the door. Trinket saw me coming out and stood to greet me. Hamilton emerged from the office on my heels.

“Give me five and I’ll meet you out front,” I told him. Hamilton nodded and started gathering up men to go out to the scene with him.

“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

“We think number six…” I didn’t finish the sentence. She clapped her hands to her mouth; I knew she understood. She was the only one of her sisters now that hadn’t killed someone. I put my hands on her shoulders and made her focus on me.

“Hamilton wants me to go with him, so I need you to go back to my place, okay?” I placed my hand on her cloak and muttered the quickest “don’t look” spell I could muster. It wouldn’t make her invisible as such, but it would make her less noticeable. “Tell Incarra I am putting her in charge, and that neither of you are to open the door to anyone at all. Put your hood up, be quick, be quiet and try not to be seen.”

She nodded obediently, and I went out to see yet another body.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hamilton drove a midnight blue Toyota sedan, the interior of which was decked out to the nines. I had the feeling that he came from money—besides, his parents had named him Paris, as in the Prince of Troy. Just as I was named after a princess of the same city.

The original Cassandra and Paris had been brother and sister. I wonder if, like the current Paris and myself, they had been friends. It was hard to know; according to legend, their father, King Priam, had fifty sons and twenty daughters. I laughed out loud, thinking about how knackered his poor wife had to have been.

Hamilton glanced over at me, smiling. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just having a random thought about family and about how comfortable I am with you.”

“What brought that on?”

“The car. I mean, it’s fancy on your salary, unless your dad is secret royalty or something.”

He smirked. “Or something.”

“Y’know, I’ve never asked you about your family before. You have one, I assume.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Did your mother pick Paris as a name, or your dad?”

“Actually, neither did. My mother died giving birth to me. It was my step-mother who named me Paris.”

“Step-mother. Your father remarried really quickly!”

“Some might see it that way, but I adored my step-mother. She was very beautiful, very soft and very kind. You sort of remind me of her sometimes. I haven’t seen her since I left home. Dad and I don’t get on.” He got this crease between his brows as though he disliked thinking about his father. He shook his head and shot me a look. “What about you?”

Quid pro quo, I supposed. He deserved to know about me. “Mom’s gone, step-father too, actual father…” I made a line with my finger in the air. “Fill in the blank.”

“That’s got to be tough at your age.”

I gave a noncommittal shrug. That was as far as I was prepared to talk about my family.

“As far as money is concerned,” Hamilton said, accepting the hint to change the subject, “it’s all my own. I’ve not always been a cop. I did some male modeling once.”

“I can believe it.”

“Yet you’re the only woman I know who hasn’t agreed to go to dinner with me at least once.”

I smiled at him broadly. “I’m just contrary that way.”

In an ideal world, Hamilton might have been a good guy for me. He was handsome, had his own job, wasn’t clingy—although with him, that sadly meant he had commitment issues—and there was a certain something about him. Unfortunately, in reality he was a notorious Romeo, and I just didn’t find that attractive.

The smile vanished as we turned onto a side road that ran around the back of a bowling alley and met the yellow tape. We both got serious in a hurry. The crime scene unit van pulled in next to us. Ro got out the passenger side; she and the driver went around to the back of the van to get suited up with the help of a third technician, who was already in his shiny suit. I never saw the two techs in her lab—I didn’t even know their names. Both were men; I decided on the spot to call them Potato Suit Bob and Potato Suit Bob Two. Hamilton and I ducked under the tape, closer in but still a fair distance from the body—and when I saw it, I didn’t really want to get any closer.

The girl was sitting against the bottom of the wall between two green dumpsters piled with black sacks, beer bottles and empty pizza boxes. Her legs were sprawled at an abnormal angle, as though she’d scrambled back from her attacker until the wall had prevented her from going any further. Her arm lay down at her sides, palms up, and her head lolled to the left. She looked like a marionette who’d had its strings cut. A silent doll, who was done dancing. Her eyes were wide, mascara smeared into black lines like spider legs. Potato Suit Bob Two, a member of the forensics team who doubled as a photographer, took a photo, then tried to put her head straight. Blood spat across his legs from a wound that had been pressurized by the angle. I held one arm across my belly as my stomach roiled.

“I think I might toss my cookies,” Hamilton said, “which is ironic as that’s the last thing I ate.”

“Please don’t,” I said. “I’m not sure I could take it.” I took deep breaths. We hadn’t even gotten to the most horrible part, the hole in her chest. Hamilton scanned the ground on either side of the body.

“I can’t see a purse again. What is it with these girls and the purses?”

“Either they’re robbing their victims too, or they’re making a bad attempt to make it look like a robbery gone wrong—which is dumb, considering the whacking great hole they leave. Like that could be done by accident.”

“Yup, which leads me back to my original question—where’s the purse?”