Kiss The Witch Part 14

"I called Lilith over to help and she put a stop to it. You should have seen her. It was kind of funny, the look on her face."

"I bet. I can't wait to ask her"

"You can wait and you will. Remember, you promised. Not a soul."

"Oh, right."

"I mean it. Carlos."

"Okay. I know. It's just between us."

"Good."

"So, how did the rest of the night go?"

"The rest of the night, believe it or not, was more fantastic than that."

I started to tell him about the circle of fire, the black mirror and the coven of witches in the field of emptiness. Then Spinelli called. He was wondering where we were. Carlos handled it in his usual not so subtle way.

"Almost there," he told him. What else Spinelli asked him I can only guess. But from Carlos' end of the conversation, I imagined Spinelli was questioning him about what if anything I told him concerning the ceremony.

"Nothing," said Carlos. Convincingly I thought. "No, Tony won't tell me a thing." Carlos looked at me and winked. I nodded my approval, though I knew with a little face-to-face prodding from Spinelli, Carlos would not be so strong.

He ended the call about the time we were swinging into parking lot of the Justice Center. As we got out of the car, I shook my finger at him again and warned him. "Remember, not a word."

He dismissed me with a wave. "Tony, please. I am a professional. I know how to play my cards close to my vest."

"You better."

We met Spinelli up on the third floor break room. He was getting coffee from the vending machine. Even with his back to us, however, I knew he could see our approach in the reflection in the gla.s.s. He played it cool though.

"There you are," he said.

"Here we are," said Carlos. His smile was considerably larger than usual. I elbowed him in the side and he wiped his face clean.

Spinelli turned and raised his coffee cup in a sort of salute. "So, um...how did it go last night?"

"Fine," I said. "No big deal."

"Oh? Did you all do that ceremony thing you were talking about?"

"We did."

"And?"

"And it went okay."

I could see Carlos just itching to say something.

"Okay, that's good," Spinelli said. "That's good."

"Yeah, that's good. So tell me, anything new on our case?"

"Ahm, yes. I found out." He took a sip of his coffee. "Can I ask you first? Last night. Did you see Ursula?"

"Ursula? Yes. I saw her."

"No, I mean did you see her.... You know."

"Dominic, we don't need to go there. It was no big deal really."

"I'm sorry, Tony. I can't let this go."

"Look, it's no"

"Did you see her naked?"

"Dominic."

"Tony, just tell me. I can take it. I want to know. That's all."

I stepped closer to him, feeling like I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, but I did not. Instead, I looked him in the eye and said, "Yes, Dominic. I told you that was going to happen, and it did. Now that it's done, we can move past it and get on with things."

"You said you wouldn't look at her."

"What?"

"Yesterday. You said you wouldn't look at Ursula, You said you would walk into furniture and bust a toe if you had to, but that you would not so much as look at her."

"I said I would try not looking at her. And I did. I tried."

"No. You promised."

"Dominic, look. I'm sorry. But you will be happy to know it was very dark. There were maybe two candles burning all the way across the room. The entire ceremony lasted only a minute. And Ursula stood behind me the whole time. I barely caught a glimpse of her. In fact, I'm not even sure it was her. I think it was Lilith. Like I said. It was very dark. Now, can we talk about the case?"

He seemed to buy it. And that Carlos kept a straight face certainly helped matters. Spinelli took another sip of coffee, swallowed, nodded and shifted things into gear.

"Okay. You're right. The case. Well, here's the thing. I checked out a few leads and I found out that QE647 might actually work. There is anecdotal evidence, along with a ton of buzz in Biocrynetix chat sites, suggesting Biocrynetix Laboratories tested it already on non-living organic compounds and achieved astonishing results."

"That is interesting."

"Yeah, so you have to ask yourself. Is it worth killing for? I think it is."

"Yes, but we don't want to jump to conclusions."

"No? You might after you hear this next tidbit."

"What's that?"

"This morning they ran the cadaver dogs through Howard Snows house."

"Don't tell me. No Howard Snow."

"That's right, and I ran a registration check on vehicles registered to Snow. I came up with two: the one we towed in after the blast, which was his wife's, and his, a big gray Hummer."

"That's good work. Why don't we put out"

"A bulletin? Already did."

"All right. Great. What else do you have?"

"Just this." He handed me a slip of paper with a name and address written on it. "This guy. He's a friend of Snow's. An old college roommate. He lives here in town. Might be worth checking out."

I took the slip of paper. "Okay. Nice work, Dominic. I think we will go pay him a visit now. Carlos, you ready?"

"Sure. Let's roll."

On the elevator ride down to the lobby, I thanked Carlos for keeping his mouth shut about Ursula. He shrugged it off as no big deal, but I knew it must have been killing him not to say something.

"No, seriously," I said. "You saw how freaked out he was about me just seeing Ursula naked. Can you imagine if he knew...." I let it go at that.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Tony. I think a lot of it is that he's just nervous about the wedding. He is in love with Ursula and the fact that she is, what's the word? Unspoiled? I think he wants their first time together to be a completely new experience."

"It will be. Besides, it is not as if he didn't see her naked first. He was there when Lilith reconst.i.tuted her from a pile of bones."

"Give him time. He'll chill."

"Yes, well I hope he chills before he gets a chance to ask Ursula about last night. I mean, you know the girl cannot lie. She'll probably tell him everything."

Carlos smiled at that. I know he was thinking how much he would love to be there when that happened. Me? I hoped I would be out of the country.

The skies were blackening as we pulled up to the curb across the street from the residence on Monroe Street. We saw no sign of Snow's Hummer, but through an upstairs window, we could see someone was home. Carlos shut the motor off and we settled in for the wait.

Normally, when we go on a stakeout Carlos takes along a supply of snacks to help pa.s.s the time. Though we did not expect our hunt for Howard Snow to turn into a stakeout, Carlos came prepared just the same. He reached over my lap and popped open the glove box. Out spilled a cache of Snickers, Twinkies and Three Musketeers bars.

I pointed at the Three Musketeers. "Those are new."

"Yeah, I started getting into them after the McMurray stake out."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Right, see that's the difference between you and me. You don't pay attention to the little things."

"Oh? And you do?"

"Yes."

"In what ways?"

"Well, let's take you for instance."

"Me?"

"Yeah." He pointed at my feet. "You're wearing two different colored socks today, one black, one navy."

"What?" I looked down, pulled my pant cuffs up and noticed he was right. "I was running late this morning. Must have grabbed the wrong mate."

"Of course you were. That explains why you forgot to shave, too."

I reached up and stroked my chin whiskers. Once again, he was right. "Hardly a keen observation."

"Okay. How about your watch?"

"What about my watch?"

He pointed at it. "It stopped last night at 9:05."

I looked. "No it didn't. It's right on time."

He shook his head and gestured at the clock on his dash. "Tony. It's 8:54."

I tapped my watch crystal. "I'm running fast."

"Are you?"

A closer look and I could see he was right. The second hand had stopped moving. "Oh."

"Yes, oh."

"All right, smarta.s.s. What else you got?"

"Oh, nothing, only that I know you and Lilith did it last night."

"What?"

"Or should I say Lilith did it. You just laid back and enjoyed the ride."

I looked at him in absolute wonder. "No. No way. I don't believe it. You could not possibly know that."

"It's true, though, isn't it?"

"It is, but how...how did you know?"

"I told you. It's the little things I notice."

"The little things."

"Yup."