Chapter Seven

I had no choice but to leave a message on the answering machine of my occultist friend and prayed that I would hear back soon. I hated to leave phone messages—you always sounded so stupid talking to a machine. I rode with Hamilton into the station and went up the stairs into Homicide for a change. I had to admit, the digs were nicer than PCU’s. It was bigger, more officers, and despite the contradiction of it being Homicide, the department was quite a lively place. I got several long glances as I came in the door, but they quickly went away when Hamilton laid his hand at the small of my back. He led me through the desks to two interview rooms and directed me toward a small space in between them.

The room had a panel of one-way glass on either side. It was dark, and wooden blocks held microphones at either end of the glass.

In the room on the left sat the guard, Merrick Stone, from the prison. He was a big man, large shoulders, a hulk of muscle with bulging biceps and hands twice the size of mine. He had closely shaved hair, and his face was buried in his hands. He looked distraught, not how I imagined someone would after being caught. From Petrovich, I expect one of three emotions: anger at being stopped, embarrassment for being caught, or defiance.

Hamilton pulled open a drawer under the second microphone and plucked out a tiny beige earpiece. He held it up to me and let me look it over. It was a very intricate piece of technology.

“I’ll put this in my ear; you flip the switch by the second mike if you want to talk to me. I can’t let you in there with him, Cassandra. He’s a big bloke. If he got rough and got a hold of you...” I pulled a face; with my magic, I could better subdue that man than Hamilton and a couple of his squad could and with less damage to myself, but I just sighed and acknowledged what he’d said. He wiggled the earpiece into his right ear and shut the door behind him. I turned to face the glass and watched D.I. Hamilton as he entered the room. He had a very strong, tough persona when dealing with the criminal element. Merrick peered out at him through his fingers, which struck me as a very odd gesture to see from anyone other than a child or a woman.

“Please,” he said, “there’s been some sort of misunderstanding.”

“Has there?” Hamilton said with a deeply doubtful tone in his voice. “See, I know all about you, Petrovich.”

Big blue eyes blinked at Hamilton and looked like they were full of tears. Surely a big man like Petrovich wouldn’t cry under a little police pressure. Hamilton slapped his hands down on the table, and he jumped back. It was strange, a hulk of a man like Merrick Stone cowering against his seat. It didn’t fit.

“Please, will someone tell me what’s going on? What happened to me? I don’t feel right. What happened to my husband?”

Hamilton turned his eyes to the glass; he gave me a raised eyebrow, and I fumbled for the button next to the right mike. It clicked and I could hear it buzz.

“I don’t know what’s going on. He’s not acting like I imagined Petrovich would. Ask what happened; get him to open up so I can see him better.”

Hamilton gave me a surreptitious nod and pulled the chair out from the other side of the table. He took a deep breath and sat down, smiling. It was amazing to watch him switch from tough to charming like a car changing gears.

“I’m sorry, why don’t we start again? Can I get you something to drink?”

Merrick still looked nervous.

“I—I’d like some water, please?”

Hamilton nodded, walked out of the room and returned a minute later with a bottle of water; he tore off the cap and placed the bottle down before him. Merrick gripped the bottle and gulped the water like he was parched. As he put the bottle down, he stopped and stared at the back of his hands. He squealed.

“My God. What’s happened to me? I just had my nails done. These aren’t my nails. These aren’t my hands.”

How had she not looked in the mirror? I could only put it down to shock and being amazingly unobservant.

I jammed the button down again.

“Calm, calm him down. Get him to tell you what happened.”

Hamilton reached across the table and pulled Merrick’s hand down. To his credit, when the fingers of that hand fastened around his, he didn’t flinch or pull away. Merrick’s hand squeezed Hamilton’s, but not to hurt him—it looked like he needed support.

“Tell me what happened.”

Merrick threw his arms up in the air and dramatically out to either side. I got a good look at his chest. There was no pendant there, but it looked like he had a bruise on the side of his neck where one might have rubbed.

“This guy, big guy came by to see Tony. I was so stupid I let him in. He said he was a friend. Minute he saw Tony he punched him, punched him right in the face. I tried to stop him but he hit me hard, knocked the wind right out of me.”

“Then what happened?”

“He kept hitting Tony till he went down. He grabbed my hair and made me find something to tie my husband up. He tied him to the coffee table and kept slapping him till he was conscious again.” Those big blues darted to look at Hamilton’s face, Merrick’s legs crossed and his hands rested on his knees, his chest jutting forward.

“I know what you’re thinking—what is a girl like me doing with a guy like Tony? I don’t really know myself, but I love him and I wanted to help him, but I was just too scared. Once the man had him awake he grabbed hold of me, and I don’t know what happened after that.”

“Did he hit you? Knock you out?” Hamilton probed, but Merrick just shrugged.

“I don’t know. He started saying something, and then the next thing I know I’m being hauled out to a police car.”

Bloody hell! My mind rolled over and things clicked into place. I jammed my finger forcefully down on the button, sending static squealing into Hamilton’s ear; he winced and placed his hand over the receiver.

“Name? Ask her name,” I bellowed.

“Your name is...” Hamilton enquired softly.

Merrick looked at him with an expression that was purely feminine, matching the posture and placement of the hands.

“Chloe, Chloe Dietrich.”

The wife wasn’t missing; she had been switched. Hamilton turned to the glass, and I still had my finger on the button. I leaned down to the mike.

“I’m coming in.”

Hamilton shook his head, but I ignored him—as I had wanted to earlier—and was in the room before he could do anything to stop me. Chloe sized me up like any woman would, but it was Merrick’s eyes that looked me up and down, which gave the gesture a completely different vibe.

“Chloe, my name is Cassandra Farbanks.”

Her eyes blinked and she gasped, bouncing a little in the seat. Her reaction made me take a step back—I hadn’t ever had my name responded to like that. I didn’t know how to take it.

“I read about you in the paper—you saved all those children last year right before Christmas. You’re a witch, right? I think that is so fantastic. I read all about it but can’t do any of it, regrettably. What are you doing here?”

I blinked and found that she, Merrick, was leaning forward with interest.

“I’m helping to track the man who attacked you and your husband, and I need to do a little spell on you, just to make sure you are Chloe.”

She wrinkled Merrick’s nose and crossed her arms over her nonexistent breasts, looking a little huffy.

“Of course I’m me—who else would I be?”

“That’s the thing, Chloe—you’re not exactly yourself. But you’ve already noticed that, right?”

Her huffy stance slowly loosened, and her gaze became confused.

“Yes,” she said, slowly and unsure. “If I let you do this, you’ll explain what’s going on?” Hamilton darted me a look, but I ignored him again, I was getting pretty good at that.

“Yes, I’ll explain, I promise.”

Chloe agreed to the spell. I used the same salve as before and did the spell sitting across from her, opening up my senses by smearing the salve over my third eye. The person inside Merrick was indeed a woman. Short blonde hair, too much makeup, big hoop earrings and tight-fitting clothes—what she had last been wearing, no doubt. I pulled back and wiped the salve from my face, then looked at Hamilton.

“It’s not Petrovich in there—it’s the woman from the photo at the house.” Hamilton smacked the desk and stormed out into the main room, yelling orders at people. I stood to get up when Merrick’s large hand clamped on my arm.

“You promised, you’d explain.”

I patted the hand, then reached into my bag and pulled out a compact mirror I carried with me. I opened it and showed her her reflection. She screamed and then started crying. I patted her back quietly, explaining that she was under a spell and I would do what I could to get her back to normal. In the end the wailing became too much for me, and I had to leave her alone in the room to just cry it out. I couldn’t stand to be around people who were crying, just like I couldn’t stand for people to be around me when I did.

I looked around the room and grabbed the first officer who came within my reach.

“Can we have someone sit with Ms. Dietrich, please? And can you tell me where Hamilton is?”

The officer scratched his head, gave a little nod and pointed me over to an office on the other side of the room. The door was closed, so I knocked lightly before going in. Hamilton was on the phone.

“Anything else you can tell me? No, okay, thank you.” He hung up the receiver and looked up at me, signaling me to take a seat. He scratched his temples and leaned back in his chair.

“So Merrick isn’t Merrick and he isn’t Petrovich, he’s the dead guy’s wife. I don’t understand it. If you’re in a big guy like Merrick, why switch?”

I pulled my bag up into my lap as I sat down and crossed my legs. “Strangely enough, I think I understand. It’s been bothering me for a while that with him tied to the table like that, it would be difficult for a man the size of Merrick to straddle the guy. However, a woman would fit perfectly.”

“Okay, I’m with you so far,” Hamilton said, testing a cup of old coffee on his desk with his tongue and recoiling from it.

“He was trying to torture this guy—what better to up the torture than to take over his wife and have her be the one cutting him up.”

The whole thing dawned on Hamilton in a wave. “And he gets himself a new disguise. We think we have him, and he has time to escape while we’re chasing our tails.” He pounded his hand on the desk like they do in the movies, and it made me smile a little that he would stoop to such a cliché.

“You’ve got people looking for the wife, when you thought she might be another victim or run off scared.”

“Yes, but not enough. I’ve put more people into finding her now, but there’s no telling how long it will be, and if he can jump like this, he could be someone else before we know it.”

I nodded. I could tell from the sore line on Merrick’s neck that he’d been wearing the pendant at one point. Once Petrovich was in Chloe’s body, she’d most likely knocked Merrick out and snatched the necklace off him. But why had he gone to the Dietrichs’? I needed more information.

“What do we know about Tony Dietrich?”

Hamilton reached for a file on his desk, flipping it open on his lap. He flicked through a couple of sheets of paper.

“He’s got a rap sheet—racketeering, carrying a concealed weapon, GBH, suspected of having a hand in a murder or two, but there’s no proof. He’s a small fish, though; he works as part of a syndicate. We know of several of the small-time players, but we’ve never found out who Mr. Big is—the guy at the top.”

“Gangsters? Really?”

“Why not? This country has had some famous mobsters, like the Kray Twins.” I had to concede the point, as I had heard of the Kray twins, but when someone said “gangsters,” I automatically imagined scenes from The Godfather.

“But what would Petrovich want with them? He was ex-Russian mob, moved here a rich man and went legit.”

Hamilton closed the file and tossed it down on his desk. He swung his chair around, looking at me and leaning on the wood.

“Tell me about Petrovich. He was in prison because?”

“He and his young wife were burgled; the wife was abused and eventually topped herself. Petrovich tracked down the men responsible and killed the lot. Lawyers pleaded it down to manslaughter; don’t ask me how.”

Hamilton let out a whistle and swung back in his chair again. He placed his hands over his stomach and rocked with a look on his face that told me he was thinking.

“Maybe I should take a look at his file. I didn’t handle the case—it was before my time—but we’ve got to have his case file in records somewhere. I’ll send a request down and get everything sent over, see if I can find anything.”

“I’d also try to track down known associates for Tony Dietrich. He might be going after them next. I can’t say that for sure, but it’s a direction to go.”

Hamilton nodded, picking up the telephone. He leaned in like he was going to start dialing, but he rested the receiver against his shoulder and looked at me.

“What about you? What are you doing to do?” he asked as if he wasn’t sure whether I was or wasn’t going to dump him with all the chasing and research.

“I know he’s got a daughter and a granddaughter. If he’s out, he might have contacted them, or they might know where he’s heading and why.”