Джим Батчер - Weird Detectives - Recent Investigations

“And on the right?”

“Adam, Eve,” and then he came to the pole, “and Lilith.”

“Lilith?”

Dietterich sighed. “A myth. In Genesis, there is a curious section concerning creation. At the end of the first chapter, Hashem creates male and female. But, if you look at the second chapter, verse eighteen, Adam is alone again, and Eve is not created until verse twenty-two.”

“So who is that first woman?”

“Lilith. The Mystics called her the First Eve. You find her in Midrash, in legends. According to Midrash, Lilith refused Hashem’s injunction to submit to Adam. So she fled, using Hashem’s Ineffable Name: Y–H–W–H. Hashem sent these three angels—Sanvi, Sanasanvi, and Samnaglof—to bring her back, but Lilith refused. In the end they let her go, but only if she agreed to leave whenever their names or images were invoked.”

“Which is why they’re on the amulet. You draw the angels, and Lilith has to obey and go away.”

“Exactly. Anyway, Adam was lonely, and so Eve was created, and here is where things become very murky. According to some Midrash, Adam blamed Eve for the expulsion from Eden, and he reunited with Lilith. Some say he had relations with one of Lilith’s daughters, Piznai, and produced many demon-children called lutins. Others say Lilith was Adam’s consort, but then when Adam reconciled with Eve, Lilith vowed to take revenge by killing human children, primarily infant boys before their bris milah, their circumcision, on the eighth day after birth. The legends say that Hashem punishes Lilith by killing a hundred of her demon-children every day.”

“Sounds like a soap.”

“Yes,” said Dietterich, tugging at his beard. “Demons, demon-children. All nonsense.”

“But it’s in your rabbinic tradition.”

“No, it’s Midrash. They’re stories, not canonical.”

I decided not to press. “So how does this figure in?”

“The amulet is protective. The Hebrew text at the top names the Seventy Great Angels who would protect in a general way. Sanvi, Sanasanvi, and Samnaglof protect the mother and her child. The text below is an incantation designed to ward off Lilith.”

“How widespread was this practice?”

“Of the amulet? It varied. Eastern Europe, Germany. Jewish peasants had a custom called Watch Night, where women would stand guard over the baby the evening before his bris. ”

“And the drawing I showed you? It’s protective?”

“No,” he said, his tone almost fierce. He held up my notepad, shook it. “No, you see that’s why I’m telling you: no Jew did this.”

“But I thought you said—“

“It’s wrong, ” he said, thrusting the notepad toward me. “They got it wrong. The Magen David? The Hebrew? Usually, the Hebrew stands for angels. But here, the Hebrew stands for demons: Ashmedi, Samael, and Azazel.”

“Why would they be on the same amulet with Lilith?”

“Because whoever made this didn’t want to keep Lilith away, ” said Dietterich, his eyes drilling me in place. “He summoned her.”

My phone buzzed as I crossed the Roosevelt Bridge into DC. It was Kay. “Done,” she said.

“Good. And the cut?”

“A big zero.” She sounded tired. “Jason, that little boy . . . he just . . . died.”

Rollins met me as I came off the elevator. “You’re late. Gold’s here. I put her in Room Three.”

“Okay.” I walked to my desk and retrieved a tape recorder from the bottom drawer.

Rollins watched. “I ran the drawings. Nothing matches.”

I checked the batteries then tore the cellophane off two fresh ninety-minute cassettes. “Nothing’s going to.”

“You think Gold . . . ?”

I popped in a cassette. “I don’t know.”

“On the basis of?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem.”

“Yeah.” Rollins eyed the recorder. “Should we advise her of her rights?”

“No. We don’t have anything. For now, she’s a wit, and I just want to talk with her, get a formal statement drafted. Very low key. We talk about rights, and she’ll clam up.”

We went in together. Gold was waiting, a Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand. She was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved peasant blouse. I saw the key in the hollow of her throat. She didn’t smile.

“You’re looking better,” I said, scraping a chair back from the table. Rollins dropped into a chair on my left.

“A hot shower does wonders,” she said. “I had a heck of a time combing burrs out of Rugby’s fur, though.”

“Yeah, I’m still picking that stuff off my coat.” I watched her face as I squared the recorder on the table.

Her eyes flicked to the recorder and back. “You don’t use a court reporter?”

“No, that’s for depositions, legal stuff. This is just a statement. I’ll type it up later, and then you can sign it, okay? You want more coffee?”

She wrinkled her nose. “No. It’s pretty bad, actually.”

“It’s cop coffee.” I told her how we’d proceed then turned on the recorder. I recited my name, the date, our location, her name, and the purpose of the interview. Then I led her through her story again. She recited the same information, her voice a soft monotone. When she was done, I said, “I want to back up. You said you got ahead of the dog?”

“Yes. You know dogs.”

“Okay. Then you turned back.”

“Right. And that’s when I heard her barking, to the left, and then I saw her down the hill.”

“So you were on the path?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” I said, doing my best Columbo. I looked at Rollins. “You see the problem?”

Rollins shrugged. “There’s a problem?”

“Yeah, don’t you remember that hill? I couldn’t see a thing from the path. Hill’s too steep.”

“Really,” said Rollins, and I could tell he saw where I was going. He played it just right. “You couldn’t?”

“No,” I said, and looked back at Gold, whose face was stony. “I couldn’t, and I’m pretty tall. So how could you see the dog?”

A blotch of crimson stained Gold’s throat. “Maybe I left the path. I don’t remember.”

“That would explain it,” said Rollins.

“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” I said. “Because there’s no way to see down that hill. But then . . . ”

“Yes, Detective?” Gold’s tone was neutral.

“Your clothes. You didn’t have any burrs. I had burrs on my coat. The dog had burrs.”

“I had burrs,” said Rollins.

“You didn’t have any burrs,” I said to Gold. “But you should have. Your shoes weren’t even wet.”

Gold looked from me to Rollins and back again. “Are you accusing me of something, Detective? If you are, I should have a lawyer.”

“I’m just trying to clear up a discrepancy, Miss Gold.”

“No, you’re not.” She leaned forward, getting into my space, not intimidated in the slightest. “Listen to me. I did not kill that child. Now, I’m sorry if you and Detective Rollins can’t find anyone to blame . . . ”

“Hey,” said Rollins.

Her gaze didn’t waver, and I felt her take control. “But just because I may have made a mistake on where I was standing, or didn’t have garbage on my clothes, doesn’t mean I did anything wrong. Someone killed that little boy, and it wasn’t me.”

I tried to recoup. “You know who kills little babies, Miss Gold? It’s not only their daddy, or their mommy’s coked-up boyfriend, or some sick sex predator-creep. I’ll tell who kills little babies: mothers. Sometimes that mother is depressed and suicidal and wants to take her child to a better place. Sometimes that mother wants attention. So she makes her child sick, and then there are all those doctors, and she feels important. And then there are mothers who are simply evil.”