Read Online The Witch's Key by Dana Donovan - Free Book Online

do about dad was not a simple matter, but neither
was doing nothing.
    “I know what you meant, Dominic,” I said. “And I know
you both mean well, but this is something I must deal with on my
own.”
    “So, you’re not angry with him,” asked Carlos. “About
leaving you, I mean.”
    “No. He had his reasons. I guess my mother was a real
whack job. She left him little choice.”
    “Was she?”
    “Yeah, shame, too. He really loved her. They were
both hobos, riding the freights together, living under the stars.
He said he compared their adventures to those of Gary Cooper and
Ingrid Bergman in the movie, To Whom the Bell Tolls . But
then when I came along, she sort of wigged out on him. She just got
up and walked out, leaving him holding the bag, or should I say,
the little bundle of joy?”
    Carlos shook his head. “That’s terrible.”
    “I know. What is a hobo to do, right? But old dad did
his best. He raised me to age five, but with the war overseas
raging, he was eventually called to go fight in it. That’s when he
left me with the orphanage.”
    “Man, that makes me want to cry,” said Carlos. “He’s
really an upstanding guy, your dad. Isn’t he?”
    “I think so.”
    It is funny. I am usually better with details than
most. It is a gift, something I have honed through years of police
work, gathering clues and conducting interviews. So it took me by
surprise a bit when Spinelli was able to jump on a few of the
obvious inconstancies in my story that I totally missed.
    “It was ‘43’,” he said, almost inaudibly. Carlos and
I looked at him strangely.
    “What’s that?”
    “The movie, To Whom the Bell Tolls . It came
out in ‘43’.”
    “So?”
    “You were born in 42, weren’t you?”
    “I’m not following.”
    “You said that your mom and dad related their
adventures to Bergman and Cooper, but that’s impossible. If she
left him after you were born, then they couldn’t have known about
the movie because it wasn’t out yet.”
    I agreed, explaining the mix-up as an oversight. “So,
dad was confused. He’s an old man. Maybe he meant another
movie.”
    “What about the war?”
    “What about it?”
    “You said he left you to go fight in Europe. By the
time you were five, World War II had been over nearly two years. I
don’t suppose the Axis took to kindly to that.”
    “No,” I said, retreating in a shell of denial. “I
don’t suppose they did. Maybe my dad’s medications had him confused
about some things.”
    “Yeah, I bet that’s it,” said Carlos, and when he
shot his young partner the look , Spinelli hopped aboard.
    “Of course, that’s probably it. An old man on
morphine will ramble on if you let him.”
    Left with that, I could have let myself off the hook
and not heard another word about it. But Carlos knew me better, and
I suppose Spinelli did, too. As much as I wanted to believe the
crap about the drugs, I could not. Pops was lucid and direct the
entire time we spoke. He didn’t mix words about his past, and his
memories, though distant, were not forged in morphine. I smiled up
at Spinelli and Carlos and thanked them for their support. “You
guys are all right,” I said, adding, “but you suck at being
detectives.”
    “What do mean?” Carlos asked. “You’re the one that
missed all the obvious flaws in Pops’ story.”
    “Yes, and you were willing to overlook them just to
spare my feelings. You can’t do that.”
    “Fine. We’ll go down to the hospice center right now
and bring that old coot in for questioning. How’s that?”
    “No, Carlos. You can’t do that, either.”
    He turned to Spinelli for backup, but the rookie
detective waved him off with a subtle headshake. It made me glad to
think that Carlos would be the next one retiring.
    “So what would you have us do?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “Look, even if Pops knows
something, he’s obviously not the killer. He’s been in bed for
weeks. Why don’t we work on finding your mystery witness?