KISS THE WITCH by Dana Donovan Page A

I asked Carlos to call
Spinelli and have him meet us at the Perc for lunch. I felt like I
owed Spinelli that much after getting him upset about the upcoming
cleansing ritual thing. Besides, I think we do our best work when
we all sit down together and discuss things openly.
    At the Perc, I waited until we placed our
orders and the beverages came before putting my thoughts out
there.
    “ This is looking like much
more than a simple case of robbery,” I said. “What do you two
think?”
    Spinelli said, “I agree. It smacks of
corporate espionage, conspiracy and cover-up.”
    “ Not to mention murder,”
said Carlos. “I don’t know about you, but with Howard Snow getting
blown up this morning, that makes six dead people from one company
in three weeks. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence.”
    “ All right then, so let us
pull together the big picture. Three people from Biocrynetix
Laboratories die in bizarre accidents in the three weeks leading up
to the break-in and robbery of a carefully guarded facility, in
which the item stolen is so secretive, the CEO doesn’t want the
crime reported to the press.”
    “ Right.” Spinelli said,
stacking three sugar packets on the tablecloth to one side of his
drink, and another three behind it. “Then the second three
employees die in equally bizarre accidents right after the robbery.
If I have to go by gut instincts alone, I would say that all six
were somehow involved in the robbery.”
    “ How do you
figure?”
    He pointed to the first three sugar packets.
“These three all worked outside the research labs at what I call
logistical vantage points.” He peeled the first packet from the
pile. “This one, we’ll call Jake Gerardi, the guy that drowned in
his swimming pool, he worked security. He could have made gate keys
for anyone, shared pass codes and issued ID badges to any number of
perpetrators. Once he did all that, he was no longer needed.”
    “ Wow,” said Carlos. “How
did you know that?”
    Spinelli came back a bit wounded for the
question. “What do you mean? Do you think I just sit around waiting
for you to call me when you two are out in the field? I do
things–lots of things.”
    “ I know you do.” I said.
“Carlos knows, too. Don’t you, Carlos?”
    “ Sure, I know you don’t
just sit around. You do stuff. I was just saying.”
    “ Go on, Dominic. What else
you got.”
    I watch his face wrinkle in an unflattering
way, perhaps not wanting to let it go at that. I suspected he was
still uneasy about my thing with Lilith and Ursula, and if I
thought I could take him along with me, I would. But that would
mean I would also have to take Carlos, and that was just not going
to happen.
    Dominic removed the second of the front
three sugar packs and placed it to the side.
    “ Melvin Brookfield, the
poor slob that broke his neck on the escalator; he was a paper
pusher. With his access to certain records, invoices, status
reports, etcetera, he could not only put a dollar value to the
project’s worth, but also anticipate the final run up to the first
production. With that knowledge, he could initiate a strike before
any real volume of the product was produced, alleviating the need
to carry it off with the rest of the secrets.”
    Carlos and I exchanged tantalizing glances.
The scenario Spinelli laid out seemed impeccably placed. “So you’re
saying these first three were used like, what, reconnaissance for
the actual heist?”
    “ In a way, yes. Expendable
though they were.”
    “ And McSweeney? What was
her unfortunate raison d'être?”
    “ Other than her need for
greed? Miss McSweeney’s only asset to the robbers may have been
what made her a liability to them, as well. She was J.P. Ferguson’s
secretary. She could not only advised the robbers when Ferguson was
out of town on business, but also make sure that those business
flights got booked on times and days of the robber’s
choosing.”
    “ That’s interesting,” I
said, as I pulled