KISS THE WITCH (9 page)

“
Sure,” I said, slapping
him on the back. “This time you play good cop?”

“
What?” He picked up and
followed me out. “But I am always the good cop.”

J.P. Ferguson met us in the lobby of the
Biocrynetix Laboratories building, but not before keeping us
waiting there a full twenty minutes. He stepped out of the
elevator, accompanied by two men in dark suits and sunglasses, and
saw the men to the door. Carlos elbowed me in the side as they
walked by. He leaned in tight and whispered, “They have guns.”

I whispered back, “What?”

“
Those men, they have side
arms holstered under their jackets. You see the bulge?”

“
Now that you mention it.
Yes. What do you think, F.B.I.?”

He scoffed. “In $2000 Armani’s? I think
not.”

“
How do you know they are
wearing Armani’s?”

“
Oh, wait. You’re right.
They’re not.”

“
Ah-huh. I knew it. They
are F.B.I.”

“
No. They are wearing
$4000 Caraceni’s”

“
How do you know
that?”

“
I almost bought one. Wish
I did. Bought a Holland & Sherry instead. It’s nice. Vicuna
wool.”

“
What?”

“
Yeah it’s nice
stuff.”

“
What did you pay for
it?”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to
know.”

Ferguson finished showing the men out and
then returned to greet us. “Detectives Rodriquez and Marcella, what
a surprise to see you again so soon. Do you have news for me?”

I shook his hand first. “Actually, we were
hoping you might have something new to tell us.”

His expression fell into a practiced blank.
“Oh?”

“
Mister Ferguson, we know
about QE647. It is not a corn syrup substitute. Now how `bout you
tell us what we are really investigating?”

“
Please,” he said. “Can we
go up to my office?”

I looked to Carlos. He gestured with a sweep
of his hand toward the elevators. “After you.”

Back in his office, Ferguson seemed much
more nervous about things than he was the first time we met. He
invited us to sit, which we did, although he remained standing, his
pacing nearly wearing a rut in the floor.

“
If you don’t mind me
saying, Mister Ferguson, you seem mighty uneasy about
something.”

He looked at me, started to speak and then
returned to pacing.

“
Are you all right? Who
were those men downstairs, the ones you walked out?”

He stopped at the window, pulled back the
blinds and peered out nervously. He let the blinds go with a snap,
turned to me and said, “They are watching, Detective. They are
always watching.”

“
Who?”

“
Those men and the rest of
them.”

“
Are they organized crime?
Are you in trouble?”

“
Oh, if you only
knew.”

“
Tell us. That’s why we’re
here.”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you. I’m
sorry.”

“
Okay, then tell us about
QE647. As I said downstairs, we know what it is.”

“
Then what more can I tell
you?”

“
You can tell us if it’s
true. Have you succeeded in creating a viable quasi essence
compound, the essence of life?”

“
Detective, I signed a
confidentiality clause, a contract of secrecy. All I can tell you
is that QE647 is a super sweetener. That’s it.”

“
You’re sticking to that,
are you?”

Carlos laughed. “Ha, good one, Tony.
Sticking to that. Funny.”

“
Mister Ferguson. You
signed a contract. Did that contract include murder?”

“
Excuse me?”

“
Murder. Of your
employees, Gerardi, Brookfield, Williams, Delaney and your own
secretary, Julie McSweeney?”

“
Those were accidents,
every one of them.”

“
Or made to look like
accidents.”

“
I don’t know anything
about that.”

“
Come now, Mister
Ferguson. You are either very stupid or very loyal. I don’t know
which.”

“
I think stupid,” said
Carlos. “Who would be so loyal as to put their head on the chopping
block to take a murder rap?”

“
Good point.”

“
What do you mean? I
didn’t kill anyone.”

“
Maybe not, but so far the
case is leading us down a road mired in murder, and all the road
signs point to you. So, what do you say? Do you want to tell us
what we’re up against?”

“
What you are up against?
You are up against a robber who stole company materials and company
secrets. Is it asking too much of you to do your job and get it
back for me?”

“
Why didn’t you call the
FBI or the State Police?”

“
I told you. This case
does not warrant a federal investigation, and it is out of the
jurisdiction of the State Police.”

“
That may be true, but
still you didn’t call them.”

“
Detective, involving
those branches of law enforcement would have resulted in bad press.
Do you know how quickly a story like this can go viral on the
internet? My investors would not like that one bit, believe
me.”

“
Those suits downstairs,
are they your investors?”

He hesitated, but gave it to me. “They
represent my investors.”

“
So they know.”

“
About the theft. Yes,
they know. Of course, they know. They know everything.”

“
Except who stole your
compound,” said Carlos.

Ferguson turned his head away. I stood and
brushed the creases from my lap. “Mister Ferguson. Something tells
me you got yourself in a whole lot of trouble. If it is not of your
doing, we want to help you. If you are hiding your culpability,
however, we will figure it out. Either way, you need to come clean
eventually.”

“
I think we are done here,
Detective.”

“
All right then, thank you
for your time. We’ll see ourselves out.”

On the ride back to the office, I asked
Carlos what he thought about Ferguson’s demeanor.

“
He’s scared,” he said,
and I agreed. I told him I got the impression Ferguson wanted to
tell us more, but could not. Carlos suggested it was because his
office was bugged.

“
Makes sense,” I said.
“Think they threatened him?”

“
The suits? Oh sure, no
doubt. In fact, it won’t surprise me one bit if we wake up tomorrow
to find that Ferguson had himself an accident.” He let go of the
wheel and made quotation signs in the air with his
fingers.

I nodded. “Yeah, me neither. You know I only
wish we had a reason to bring him in for questioning, maybe keep
him overnight. At least that way we would know he’s safe.”

“
So, let’s go back and
arrest him.”

“
On what
charges?”

“
We’ll say he took a swing
at you.”

“
Lie?”

“
Yeah. Isn’t that a good
cop bad cop thing?”

“
No. That’s a bad cop bad
cop thing.”

He soured his face but kept his eyes on the
road ahead. It took another mile or so before he turned to me
again. “We could invite him.”

By then, my mind had drifted off into
what-ifs. What if we had stopped the two men accompanying Ferguson
to the door and asked to see their IDs? Better, if we asked them
for their weapons permits. At least we would have their names and
possibly the names of their employers. No telling what Spinelli
might have dug up then.

“
Did you hear me?” said
Carlos.

“
What?” I blinked and
found myself recalculating our location based on the scenery change
outside my window.

“
I said we could invite
him.”

“
Invite who?”

“
Ferguson. Invite him to
spend a night at the jail.”

“
Why would he do
that?”

“
Uh, hello. To keep from
getting killed?”

“
Oh. Yes, Carlos. You do
that.”

I’m not entirely certain, but I think that
later he did.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Carlos
and Spinelli going over the accident reports for Williams, Delaney,
Gerardi, Brookfield and McSweeney. We had no reports yet on our
latest victim, Howard Snow, as the house he was in when it blew up
was still too hot to bring in cadaver dogs. So technically, he was
not yet dead.

From the way the reports read, one would
have no sense of foul play regarding the deaths of the five. I
mean, you cannot read too much into a drowning, an electrocution, a
couple of deadly falls and a train wreck. As the old adage goes, if
it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then…. Well, you
know.

It was just getting dark when I thought I
had better start home to Lilith and Ursula. Though I promised both
I would take part in their witch’s coven ceremony, I have to admit
I was not looking forward to it. Exactly why, I cannot say. It was
not because I knew we would be getting naked together. Frankly, I
am not that shy, and having seen Lilith naked a thousand times, one
might argue I have seen Ursula naked a thousand times, as well.
Although I would not put it just that way to Spinelli. And that
Ursula had seen me in the buff on that stark occasion meant that we
all could accept that aspect of the evening as no big deal.

Boy was I wrong.

I entered the house on a thread of
trepidation. I suspect that happens when one comes home to a house
lit entirely by candlelight. The sweet smell of jasmine and
cinnamon hung in the air in thin wisps. In the background, a CD
playing nature sounds mingled like forest whispers with the
incense.

Naturally, I assumed I was late and that the
girls started without me. I expected at any moment I would hear
Lilith cracking the relative peace with a righteous volley of
pissing and moaning over my habitual tardiness. Instead, I heard a
voice like an angel’s, speaking so softly I thought it was only in
my head.

“
What?” I asked, needing
to be sure.

“
Come and be welcomed
worthy thane. Let our hearts be thy guide, our souls thy
light.”

“
Ursula?” I stepped
closer, and my eyes began adjusting to the dim light. I saw her
sitting on the floor Indian style, naked, her palms flat upon her
knees. But for her hair tied in a bun the way she likes to wear it,
I would have thought it was Lilith. To see her completely nude,
however, I could not be entirely sure it was not.

I eased my shoes off and kicked them to the
side. Her eyes followed them, first one shoe and then the other. I
have always realized the striking resemblances between her and
Lilith, yet I found myself utterly struck by the indistinguishable
similarities now.

Her skin, though blotched in shadows, found
a warmth of genuine luminescence all its own. I have seen that in
Lilith, but in Ursula, I had not the inkling before to notice it.
That and her face, chiseled sharply, yet softened like polished
ivory glowing in the light of candles as if sunlight fed their
flames.

I watch her eyes come to mine, and I let her
see the path they took. Down her neck and upon her breasts. In my
mind, again I contemplated the familiar. Surely, I had seen them
before; felt them as Lilith’s own hands guided mine over them,
across her nipples, soft yet firm. And with a teasing nip, did I
not steal her breath away? Did she not shudder at my touch? I know
she did. I felt her melting to the warmth of my lips upon her.

Was it real? No. I knew it was not. I told
myself to stop, to steer my thought and my eyes to the benign. This
was Ursula, or was it? I was not entirely sure.

A candle sputtered at her feet. Shadows of
her toes danced in silhouette against her belly. It caught my eyes
and I did not turn away. I looked lower still, where the difference
between Lilith and Ursula came down to a matter of natural
preference, down where her pudendal veil faded into a shadowy
nook.

“
You’re Ursula,” I
said.

A teasing smile thinned her lips, and if not
Ursula’s grin, my instincts might have misread it as an
invitation.

“
You’re late,” said a
voice behind me.

I turned abruptly. A mirror image of the
woman before me sat across the room in a halo of candlelight
inexplicably bright. “Lilith?” I said, not meaning it to sound like
a question. “I didn’t see you there.”

“
Apparently,” she said. I
knew that tone. She knew what I was thinking. Read my mind. I knew
it.

I crossed the floor to look at her. She sat
Indian style, like Ursula, naked, but for a charm around her neck,
which I recognized as her witch’s key. Her palms lay flat upon her
knees, her posture impeccably straight, her long black hair off her
shoulders, mimicking Ursula’s, gathered and tied in the back,
exposing her neck to the nervous flicker of candlelight at her
feet.

She inhaled deeply, and my eyes took in her
bare breasts. Firm and faultless they were, still she had nothing
over Ursula. Her skin, like her sister’s, glistened in the
highlights of her curves, mellowed like mocha in the shadows. Her
belly, flat and tight, tapered in soft departure to a sweet
retreat, clean, smooth and hairless.