“Yeah, why, I got bad breath?”
“No, because I need a cigarette.”
I hadn’t really given much thought to the comment, any at all, really. It just came tumbling out of my mouth in place of something far more caustic. Still, all I could manage to do was give an internal shrug when it dawned on me what I had just said.
As we headed for the door, the officer pulled a pack from his pocket then tapped it across his index finger before holding it out toward me.
Whether it was out of reflex or because I truly did feel like I needed one, I don’t know, but I reached over and pulled the proffered smoke from the pack and stuck it between my lips.
“You want to grab a jacket?” the officer asked.
A sarcastic quip escaped before I could subdue it. “Why would I want to do that? I’m supposed to be cooling off, right?”
“Yeah. Right,” he returned.
Without another word I pushed the door open and headed through with him on my heels. As I’d suspected, neighbors had positioned themselves to watch the show. Since it was still early enough in the afternoon, there weren’t as many peeking from behind curtains or lethargically walking dogs as there could have been. But, it was a good bet that phones were buzzing with news of yet another incident involving the police at “the Witch’s house”. I’m sure my ears should have been burning.
It was only a few moments later that a van emblazoned with the logo of a local television station pulled up and parked on the opposite side of the street. As usual, I wasn’t going to be immune from the jaundiced spotlight of the media either.
“Damn TV people,” the cop muttered and then offered, “We can go out back or sit in the car if you want.”
“That’s okay,” I replied with a slight shake of my head. “It’s not the first time they’ve pointed their cameras at me, and I doubt it will be the last.”
“Guess the neighbors are having a field day,” he grunted.
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed. “You’d think they’d be used to it by now.”
I didn’t expand on the history of flashing lights and news vans that had been positioned in front of my house over the years, and he didn’t ask. He probably already knew all about it anyway. In fact, it was entirely possible he had been one of the many cops to have graced my doorstep in the past. After a quiet moment I pulled the cigarette from my mouth and inspected the still pristine paper and tobacco on its end.
“Got a light?” I asked before tucking it back between my lips.
He dug in his pocket then withdrew a disposable lighter and handed it to me. I gave it a quick flick with my thumb and touched the flame to the business end of the smoke then handed the stubby metal and plastic device back to him.
As we stood on the porch, and I took the first drag on the nicotine and menthol laden tobacco, I simply yielded to the idea that I was once again re-adding an old vice to my list.
If circumstances were different, given my earlier jibe, I suspect Helen would have found it thoroughly amusing.
CHAPTER 7:
The crime scene unit had been gone for something on the order of fifteen minutes now, and I was still trying to figure out how they could possibly manage to lay waste to someone’s home as quickly as they had in this case. All in all, it had taken them just under two hours to accomplish what I can only imagine would have taken a busload of sugared up toddlers an entire day to do.
The emotional response to the specter of the destruction even seemed to transcend the boundary between human and house pet, as evidenced by our cats-Dickens, Emily, and Salinger. At the moment, they were sitting in a loose semicircle on the coffee table, perusing the mess. Earlier, they had found places to hide away, as they always did whenever we had unfamiliar visitors, and had only ventured back out now that the commotion was done and gone. Watching them from across the room, it looked for all the world like they were having an impromptu emergency meeting. It was as if they were trying to come to some conclusion about the scene before them that would make sense to their feline brains. Every now and then they would look at one another then at me, nervously twitch their tails or ears, and then go back to swiveling their heads around the room, yellow-green eyes open wide with a glaze of curiosity and perhaps even fear.
I couldn’t blame them. Our house was, in a word, trashed. The only way I can explain the spectacle that greeted me upon re-entering my home was that it looked as though everything had been the victim of a very strong, but somewhat considerate earthquake. I say considerate because nothing appeared to have been broken, at least not that I could see. However, no matter where I looked, there was obvious visual evidence of the search.
Furniture had been moved out from walls and instead of being put back was simply left sticking out at odd angles. Books were piled on the floor instead of resting in their rightful places on shelves. Even DVD and videocassette cases created a haphazard mound on a chair after having been opened, inspected and discarded.
That disaster was merely the living room, and I knew for a fact that they hadn’t contained themselves there.
Now I was getting angry all over again. Although standing on the front porch with the Briarwood officer had calmed me considerably, I couldn’t quell the renewed surge of rage as I looked at the mess and realized that not only had the books been pulled from the bookcases but so had all the items we kept on the shelf we used as our altar. I tried to keep telling myself that they most likely had no idea that they were desecrating objects of religious significance-literally violating what was deemed by our faith a sacred space. But, no matter how many times I repeated it to myself, it wasn’t an easy sell, mostly because I had recognized a couple of their faces. They were people I had worked with at crime scenes before. People, who knew who I was, knew that I was a Witch, and had heard me speak about such things before.
And, even if that wasn’t enough, I knew for certain that one of them had attended a class I had taught for the police department on recognizing the difference between religious activity and cult coercion. A portion of that workshop had specifically addressed altars and their importance to practitioners of alternative religions. At the very least, he should have known better.
Of course, if I were the paranoid type, I would bet that Albright had something to do with that as well. The fact is, whether my suspicion was born of paranoia or not, she probably did.
When I finally managed to dampen my newly inflamed rage, I left the cats to their huddle and moved toward the back of the house to continue my own assessment of the chaos. In retrospect, I probably should have waited a little longer because what I found only served to ignite my smoldering temper once again.
My heart all but skipped a beat, and I felt a hot rush of blood fill my face the moment I saw our bedroom. If the front of the house had been the victim of an earthquake, this room had been pummeled by its big brother as well as every other disaster imaginable. The contents of the dresser and chest of drawers now resided in a scattered heap on top of our bed, and along with that was anything that might have been stored away in the matching nightstands. While the majority was carelessly piled, a small portion of it actually sat in something remotely resembling stacks. I had a feeling these existed only because it had been easier for them to take those particular items out of the drawers that way.
The clothing that had once occupied the walk-in closet was tossed in crumpled heaps across the footboard of the waterbed. Garments that had once been methodically arranged by Felicity according to color, length, and a number of other factors that fit her personal system of organization, were now nothing short of a giant pile of laundry.
Everything else from the closet looked as if it had been vomited out across the floor. This included every pair of shoes my wife owned, and trust me there were more of them than I wanted to count. Those, along with several rectangular boxes where some of them had once made their homes, formed a colorful debris field expanding out from the mirrored doors which were themselves hanging wide open. It looked much like a disastrous accident had
