M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

For a double beat of foggy consideration, I pondered taking my dirty dishes down to the kitchen and at least putting them in the sink. The tug of war over what to do ended as soon as my muddy brain centered on the fact that the kitchen was farther from my present location than the bedroom. That question answered, I left the bowl for the cats to fight over.

As I started out the door, I realized that I was unconsciously carrying the copy of the Malleus Maleficarum that had been in front of me. I didn’t even remember why I had picked it up. I started to toss it back onto the desk and noticed my finger was thrust between the pages, physically marking the place I had apparently left off.

Curiosity momentarily interrupted the desire for sleep, so I flipped the book open and gave the text before me the once over. The marked pages screamed back in crisp black and white, starkly announcing the thirteenth method of arriving at a definite sentence when a person is accused of heresy.

Question number thirty-two. The method to be put to one who is convicted but who hath fled or who Contumaciously Absents himself.

As I read the words that followed, I imagined for a moment that there was always the possibility that the lack of sleep combined with re-heated Dublin Coddle could be responsible for my most recent night terror. Unfortunately, there was no denying that they couldn’t have been a factor the night before.

I carefully tucked a scrap of notepaper into the binding and closed the cover before laying the volume back on the desk. Now, I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to go back to sleep.

I had to resign myself to the fact that I was no longer just another Witch among the myriad of Pagans-closeted or otherwise-that lived in this city. The fact that I was the official Witch of the Major Case Squad wasn’t what now set me apart either.

I had already been tried, convicted and sentenced in the deranged court of a serial killer.

I was on the list.

“Keep goin’ at this rate and we’re just gonna need ta’ get ya’ a shield,” Ben mused as I clipped a laminated visitors pass to my shirt. “You’d be the bad guys worst nightmare-a Witch with a badge.”

“Yeah, don’t do me any favors,” I retorted. “Remember, I know the kind of hours you work.”

“Wuss,” my friend chuckled.

My ideas about getting caught up with the workload from my custom software consulting business had been declared null and void the moment Ben had called. At least he hadn’t gotten me out of bed. My wife had seen to that herself.

Felicity was into the second day of shooting with her client and had left the house well before dawn-but not before prodding me awake on her way out and instructing me to clean up the broken soup bowl on the office floor.

I had wanted to talk to her about my late night revelation but was denied the opportunity by the obligations of normal daily life. In some ways it was a minor relief because I wasn’t entirely certain how to approach what I wanted to say. If I was correct in my assessment, and I was on the killer’s list, then at some point he would be coming for me. When he did, I wanted Felicity as far away from ground zero as possible. Since I was ground zero that meant getting her far away from me. In her mind that would mean I was shutting her out once again.

It was no stretch at all to imagine-in my mind’s eye I could easily see her adamant glare and steadfast posture when she cocked her head and explained to me in her own patented fashion that she would be doing no such thing.

With that portion of my day’s agenda being forcibly rescheduled for a later time, I planned to bury myself in maintaining code for my client base. After cleaning up the mess the cats had made of my laziness and treating myself to an extra long hot shower, I settled in to do just that.

Following the trend that had already been set, I had barely gotten started on replies to my e-mail when the phone pealed out its annoying demand.

“Well, I appreciate ya’ comin’ down, white man,” he continued. “I know ya’ had work ta’ do and all.”

“That’s okay,” I offered as I followed him. “I was planning to call you later anyway.”

“Yeah, I figured ya’ would,” he remarked. “The answer is yes. I called Mandalay, and she filled me in on what happened to ‘er brother. Everything’s fine.”

“That’s great, Ben,” I told him in an absent tone that bespoke of my diverted attention. “That wasn’t actually why I was planning to call you though.”

Ben stopped mid-stride and turned to face me. “Somethin’ wrong, Row?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I admitted, shifting to the side to allow a secretary who was quite obviously on a mission to pass by. “If you’ve got time after we’re through talking to the old man, I’d really like to bounce it off you.”

“Hey, we can talk about it right now if ya’ want.”

I considered his offer and weighed the urgency of my request. Standing in the middle of police headquarters I was fairly certain that I was safe for the time being. “After the interview is fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” I finally acknowledge as I nodded. “Yeah, it can wait.”

“Okay, it’s up ta’ you,” he told me as we continued on our way through the Monday morning flood of uniformed cops and civilians alike. “By the way, I’ve got some paperwork in my desk for ya’ ta’ sign off on. We can do that after the interview too.”

“Paperwork?” I repeated the word with a puzzled tone. “Paperwork for what?”

“For the consulting fees I put ya’ in for,” he answered. “Won’t be much, but if we’re gonna keep draggin’ ya’ away from your real job ya’ oughta get somethin’.”

“You know that’s not necessary, Ben.”

“So donate it ta’ charity or whatever.” He shrugged to punctuate his reply. “I already got it approved, so ya’ might as well just sign the papers and take the check.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

“Not a problem, man. So anyway, like I was sayin’ on the phone, I got a wake up call at about half past still dark tellin’ me that Tracy Watson was droppin’ all the charges against the old guy. She even came down here this mornin’ ta’ see ‘im.”

“Sounds like she must have had a change of heart, then,” I said.

“It’s more likely that the station was lookin’ ta’ get some good spin on it,” he grunted. “She showed up with a couple of suits that breezed through here like they owned the place. She was all dolled up with a stack of publicity photos under her arm and had a cameraman surgically attached to ‘er ass.”

“Bet that was a circus.”

“Put it this way, between the coppers that were droolin’ all over themselves and the ones that couldn’t get up from their desks for ten minutes, it would’ve been the perfect time ta’ rob a bank.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Can’t blame ‘em really. You’d have to check with Vice to be sure, but I’m bettin’ there’s at the very least one or two city ordinance violations for what she was doin’ ta’ that sweater with those things.”

“How about the old guy?”

“Starstruck, I guess,” he ventured. “Or boob struck. Pretty much just sat there starin’ at ‘er chest. When he did talk he just babbled somethin’ about a truck.”

“A truck?”

“Yeah. Who knows? Maybe he wants ‘er ta’ buy ‘im a truck. Nobody could make any sense of it.”

“So have you talked to him yourself yet?” I queried while following my friend down a flight of stairs.

“For a coupl’a minutes. He’s sober, but he still ain’t all there,” he acknowledged. “Only name we can get out of ‘im is Bob, and that damn near took an act of Congress. Still not sure if it’s for real or not. He’s got no priors, so ‘is prints didn’t help us at all. He’s just another discarded human being. We see ‘em every day.”