“Oh shit, yes!” he snapped out of his contemplative state. “I am supposed to find out if they have witchdoctors.”
“What?” she asked.
“This man wished me to believe that a well-known and respected psychiatrist or psychologist,” he waved away the confusion of the terms, “from Sagunto has been turning his sister into a witch. He says that he thinks this doctor was inducing trances in his sister by hypnosis and allowing spirits to possess her. Ghastly, don’t you think?”
She looked taken aback where she stood. “It is ghastly! My God, are such things still the norm these days? Scary to think that they still try that stuff here and now.”
“That is what I thought,” he replied, feeling way too relaxed to care that he was slurring his words a bit. “But you know, darling, you know… I don’t know why, because it doesn’t make sense, but I almost believe this young man. Something in my gut says that he is onto something.”
“Well, keep looking,” she suggested. “Truth be told, I’m curious myself now.”
He entered more keywords in the search bar, trying to type soberly. “And stop drinking so much!” she hollered from the kitchen, as if she could read his mind. He was about to give her a dismissive wave in the solitude of the living room, when he stumbled across a page that offered Santería terminology. The neat columns compelled him to scan the alien looking words and odd spellings for something useful. Suddenly his eyes grew wide. His discovery was so spot-on that he almost smashed the foot of the glass when he slammed it down.
“Caballo? Cab-ba-cabballo? Caballo!” he stammered. “Lira! Lira! I found something that could stretch to Javier’s claim!” he exclaimed as she rushed in. He held up a hand to announce what he was reading. “They call them caballo!”
“Horse?” she asked, looking perplexed. “Why horse?”
“Listen, listen,” he said, “During a trance, people are possessed by these Orichá, to communicate, they say.” He looked up suspiciously. “But possession is not always for words, hey? Sometimes they are…”
“For deeds,” she completed his theory. “So you think this could be true?”
“I do now. Look, I think this type of mumbo-jumbo is all horseshit, excuse the pun. But this, if he could induce trances in this woman, she could very well have been controlled and forced to commit that murder,” he declared.
“Alright, I get what you’re saying, Pedro, but how do you prove that in a court of law? And how do you think it will look if a renowned police captain comes out with witchcraft as a motive for the murder?” his wife reminded him carefully. “You will lose your goddamn job if you say things like that in your report, not to mention what the public and the media will do with your reputation.”
“I know, I know,” he moaned, grabbing at the empty glass with a look of abject defeat. “Unless I get proof from the horse’s mouth,” he said mysteriously.
“Darling, seriously, enough with the wordplay now,” she said. “You can’t get proof of witchcraft from a medical professional, and if it’s true that he can do these things, what if he gets to you?”
“He will not,” the well-quenched Sanchez professed. “I won’t let him know that I’m onto him. As head investigator and agent of the law, he is obligated to give me all records pertaining to his treatment of Madalina Mantara, Lira. And I will have another psychologist have a look at the hypnosis sessions so that they can tell me if anything was done unethically.”
“Just be careful,” she warned. “Witchcraft is just nefarious psycho-sex, and very easy to fall prey to without even knowing it.”
“Psycho-sex?” he asked, amused. His educated wife lifted her eyebrow, cradled his face snugly in her palms, and whispered, “The mindfuck.”
10
Bad News
Dr. Nina Gould felt her chest burn, but she did not relent. The torment was almost unbearable and her lungs begged for respite by the time she reached Taylor’s Brae, but she couldn’t stop now. They were almost on her heel and she could never allow them to get to her, even if it killed her. Nina’s dark tresses rebelled against their elastic restraints and jabbed at her brow as perspiration inflamed her eyes. The inclines impaired her speed greatly, but she persisted on will alone for fear of their attack.
“Oh my God,” she huffed so heavily that she thought her heart would burst. “Why did I leave my house tonight? Why the hell didn’t I listen to my gut feeling?” Finally Nina turned the corner, opting to take the way past Argyll Square to get into Albany Street.
She could hear their voices now, taunting her, catching up quicker than she could flee. In the distance a glimmer of hope presented itself. The sight of the police station gave her renewed strength to make it there before disaster struck. Nina moaned out loud with every step she took to get away, but her knees were buckling dangerously.
Don’t fall! her inner voice wailed in panic. Don’t fall, or you will rue it! Don’t let these ingrates get you! Think of Sam. Think of Purdue and Paddy. They will have to hear about what happened to you through some hospital or worse, morgue!
“Get her!” a man shouted from behind Nina, a few feet from gaining on her. She kept her eye on the nearing sanctuary of the police station, but her lungs could not take another breath.
So, were all those those Marlboro’s worth it? that bitchy voice of reason hounded her. Not now. Really, she countered, sucking up air like a drowning cat. How do you get yourself into these situations?
Her muscular shape evaded the pack behind her as she found her second wind, psychologically forcing herself to sprint it out to make it to the cop shop before they could get to her. Nina’s eyes stung, blurring her vision, but a tall shape appeared and descended from the front steps onto the pavement where she was running for her life.
“Mayor Tomlin!” she mouthed, but breath eluded her. Behind her the men cussed and slowed down as the mayor received the petite historian into his grasp. Nina went limp as he put the towel around her, but she stayed on her feet. One by one, the rest of the pack caught up to her, each getting a towel from the other officials.
“Jaysus, Nina,” panted the man who chased her, “did you have jet fuel in your oatmeal this morning?” The sixty-four-year-old barrister bent over next to her. Nina smiled, but she couldn’t speak yet. She’d been smoking for too many years to recover quickly from something this strenuous. All around her the runners of the informal monthly Snail Trail race, promoted by the local Frail Care Society and St. Ignatius Council for the Elderly, gathered. They looked like heaving towel pimples on the straight, even road.
“Well done, Dr. Gould,” Mavis huffed. She was a seventy-year-old retired schoolteacher, living in Oban since 1984, who enjoyed Nina’s adventures on historical excursions that she read about in high profile newspapers every now and then. “You bested us this time.”
“Thanks Mavis,” Nina answered happily, feeling a charge of laughter build up. They treated her like a champion for outrunning them, people just about twice her age! But she enjoyed the company of the elderly, and the after parties at the pub were always a great night out. The historian accepted a few more pats on the back from the very people who should be proud of themselves for even keeping up to her instead.
“H-hey, hey, Nina? Got a fag?” Harry, a sixty-nine-year-old smoker like herself, asked.
“No, Harry,” she frowned. “Christ, give your lungs time to un-implode, will ya?”
“I know,” he shrugged, “but I would kill for one right now.”