Page 7 of The Bane Witch

7

Reyes

Women don’t go missing from houses like this. Investigator Reyes put the patrol car in park and studied the house, his partner still on a call. A new colonial designed to look old—white siding and black shutters bathed in the late afternoon sun, a wide front porch with rattan ceiling fans and topiaries flanking the leaded glass door, a sculpted lawn bordered by trees. This had to be over an acre of land. The property oozed charm and money. There wasn’t a leaf or splinter out of place. They were deep in the suburbs here, almost out of them entirely, but the idea of Charleston clung like an old perfume. They had brought the city with them.

A black Jaguar sat in the drive. It looked expensive, the spare tire installed on the front driver’s side sticking out like a sore thumb.

His partner hung up. “This the place?”

“Looks like it,” Reyes said.

He glanced at his partner. Will was old South Carolina stock, born and raised the same way his parents and their parents were. But he was a solid partner, a family man with a nose for the job and the loyalty of a spaniel. Reyes, on the other hand, was a transplant, the only son of a single mother from California who landed here after fleeing a bad relationship. He was younger than Will but he’d seen a thing or two growing up. He’d learned to keep his eyes open. And he was naturally suspicious. He balanced out his partner’s tendency to draw the most obvious conclusions, and Will kept him from diving down every dead-end rabbit hole. They’d been together two years now, and Reyes valued Will’s input. Their partnership had gotten off to a rocky start, Will deeming his need to question everything as obsessive and Reyes believing his partner’s laid-back approach was lazy, but that had changed when a routine traffic stop turned out to be drug-related. Reyes had sensed the driver’s hostility, somehow knowing a gun was there before they got a visual; his suspicion saved Will’s life. But it was Will who’d talked the man down, making it possible for Reyes to overpower him and make the arrest. Will was the true hero.

Since then, Will Poole had become the big brother Reyes longed for growing up, an older male influence he could actually trust. The men Reyes had known as a boy were far from trustworthy; they were downright dangerous. And he’d been gifted with an older sister instead of a brother. He loved Lucia, thanked God she was alive and well every day, but she’d put them through hell for a time, following in their mother’s early footsteps despite the pain it had caused. Their mother had been desperate when she’d moved in with the tall man, caring for two young children on her own. Reyes could forgive her for not knowing what he was until it was too late. But Lucia should have known better. Instead of schooling her, it had twisted her idea of love, leaving her vulnerable to a man like Jace, a man who had nearly killed her.

Will pulled a face. “Ten bucks says she left him for her trainer and is halfway to Acapulco.”

Reyes grinned. “Let’s hear him out just the same.”

“What is it you always say, Emil? A call is a call is a call?” Will asked with a good-natured laugh before swinging open the car door.

Reyes hung back, staring up at the house. The windows were so clean they practically disappeared. The whole place gave him an uncomfortable feeling, like it was smiling with a bullet behind its teeth. He had a hunch this one wouldn’t be as cut-and-dried as his partner thought. His mother had always attributed these hunches to God. Sussuros del cielo, she called them— whispers from heaven. After the things he’d seen, the things his family had endured, Reyes wasn’t sure he believed in God, not the way his mother and sister did. But he believed in something, and right now that something was warning him to be on his guard.

At the front door, he stared up into the shiny dome lens of the camera as Will knocked. Everyone had their own surveillance nowadays. Maybe it would prove useful.

A white male opened the door. Late forties. Thinning, longish hair. He was tall, with lean muscles knotting him together. His face was red, as if he’d been exerting himself, but he was wearing a crisp white shirt and an expensive suit the color of sharkskin. His glasses sat squarely on his nose, eyes pale and sharp. Something about him struck Reyes, persisted in a recessed corner of his mind like the buzzing of a gnat.

“You Mr. Davenport?” Will asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” the man intoned. “Henry Excelsior Walden Davenport.”

“You called about a missing woman?” Will continued.

“Yes.” The man held the door open. “My wife. Come in.”

Reyes followed his partner inside. They were greeted by an elegant foyer and an expansive den. Wide plank floors ran throughout. The navy sofas had that down cushioning that made them look so inviting. The coffee table appeared to be teak. And there was a hint of something citrus in the air. But the furnishings were decidedly masculine, the colors academic. You’d almost assume a woman didn’t live here at all. He closed the door behind them.

“I became worried when I texted my wife after lunch and she didn’t respond,” the man told them, his face grim. “I rushed home and found this on our bed.” He held out a sheet of linen stationery. It was covered in dark pink script. “Her car is still in the garage.”

“Set it there, please,” Will told the man, indicating a large kitchen island that overlooked the den.

Stepping up to the marble counter, Reyes studied the letter. It was brief, full of agonizing apologies and a hopeless perspective. She was saying goodbye, telling her husband she wished she could have made him happy, apologizing for letting him down, explaining that by the time he found the note it would be too late, she intended to jump, and not to look for her.

Reyes had seen a number of suicide notes in his time as an investigator, but this one stood out. Less from what it said than what it didn’t. In every note he’d read before, the person professed their love for those they were leaving behind. They knew they were hurting someone by making this choice, and that’s the only thing that had made them hold out for as long as they did. But this woman never said I love you or I’ll miss you. She didn’t even sign the letter with her full name. Just a splash of whatever strange ink she’d used and a large letter P.

“What is this?” Will asked the man. “This substance? She have a special pen or something? Was this her favorite color?”

The man shook his head. “I’ve no idea,” he stated plainly. His lips turned down at the corners. “My wife was an interior designer,” he said by way of explanation. “She has a flair for the dramatic.”

“Did you search the house?” Reyes asked him. “Look for her?”

“Of course,” the man snapped.

“I mean, really search it?” Reyes reiterated. “I don’t mean to be morbid but sometimes people will find a hidden place within the home to take their life, one that feels safe but might seem unexpected. You went through closets? The attic?” As he spoke, Will began bagging the letter.

The man pinched the bridge of his nose, more irritated than upset. “Yes, yes. I looked everywhere. What are you doing?” he asked Investigator Poole. “That’s my letter.”

“We should get this analyzed,” the detective said. “See if we can identify what the substance is.”

Reyes nodded in support. “We’ll do our best to confirm a suicide,” he told the man. “But in the absence of a body, a case will need to be opened, an investigation carried out.”

“An investigation?” the man questioned. “Are you implying someone took her?”

“No, sir,” Reyes told him. “Just following procedure. This will likely be over very soon. Do you mind if I take a brief look around? Confirm that your wife isn’t in the house?”

The man agreed, but his lips were tight against the ridges of his teeth.

Reyes wandered through the house. Now that it had been mentioned, he could see the wife’s designer influence throughout the flow of rooms, a quirky, almost unsettling touch that made them stand out, yet was immaculate in its execution—an oddly shaped mirror or an unexpected color of curtain. Things the average person wouldn’t gravitate toward, or even know how to find. The element of surprise. It reminded him of the note. But in stark contrast to her obvious presence in the design, she was strikingly absent everywhere else. No framed pictures of her. Nothing personal or with her name on it. Not even a bit of jewelry or pair of shoes lying around.

Whenever he came to a door, he opened it and checked inside. But nothing appeared out of place. When he reached the master bedroom however, the bedsheets and blankets had been torn from the mattress and strewn across the floor. The doors to large his and hers walk-in closets were hanging open. His was impeccably organized, arranged by color and season, outfitted with cherrywood drawers and racks. Hers had likely been the same, but the clothes were now torn from their hangers, the drawers spilled open onto the carpet. He turned and found the man watching him from the doorway, eyes narrow and cold. He never heard him approach.

“Is it always like this?” he asked, watching the man’s jaw tighten.

“Most certainly not,” he answered quietly. “I found it this way when I arrived.”

“This could indicate a struggle,” Reyes told him. “It could shift the focus of the investigation.”

The man shrugged coolly. “A tantrum more like,” he said. “My wife is prone to fits.”

“Fits?” Reyes asked.

The man smiled stiffly. “She was unwell. Emotionally unstable. We moved out here to protect her reputation, give her privacy,” he said as he entered the room. He bent down and picked up a green sweater with little white flowers on it. His knuckles whitened around the knit. “I thought it would help. She had a large circle of friends and clients in Charleston who didn’t understand. She was embarrassed.”

Reyes nodded. “Can you provide evidence of her mental condition? A number for a psychiatrist or a prescription?”

The man strode into the attached bathroom and back out, handing Reyes a bottle of pills. Much of the label had been obscured by a water stain, the print blurry and faded, but he could clearly make out Davenport and Paxil. “She also took Ritalin. Had since she was a child. But she must have stopped taking these in the last year. They haven’t been refilled in over six months.”

Reyes tucked the bottle into a pocket. A sudden cessation of psychotropic medications was known to cause emotional unrest, severe and even fatal in some cases. Whatever his reservations about the letter, this would appear to support a suicide. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.” He headed back downstairs.

“I’ll write a report,” Will told him as he entered the room. “Submit this for analysis, prints, etc.” He lifted the bag with the note inside.

Reyes turned to the man, Henry. “Did you locate any of her personal effects? Purse? Wallet? Phone? That sort of thing.”

He gestured toward the kitchen, where a satchel-style bag in milky leather rested on a stool. “Everything is there. Even her phone. But it’s useless. I checked it already.”

“You have the code?” Reyes asked.

Henry’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Of course.”

Reyes walked over and lifted the purse with a sigh. It didn’t bode well, her leaving behind the intimate, necessary things. “We’ll take this as well, go through the contents, have anything of interest evaluated.”

“If you must,” the husband replied.

“I noticed a camera out front,” Reyes told him. “We’ll need access to that footage. What time did you leave?”

“Early,” the man told them. “Like I always do for work. There’s nothing on the footage. I checked it already.”

“Still,” Reyes replied, “we’ll need to verify that, clock your departure. Where do you work?”

“Why?” the husband asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“We’ll need to confirm your whereabouts.” Will stepped in.

“An alibi?” he questioned warily.

“Not exactly, Mr. Davenport. Just procedure.” Will met his eye but kept his tone soft.

“I assure you I had nothing to do with this,” the man responded flatly, but the corner of his eye twitched.

Reyes felt invisible hackles rise along his neck and shoulders. “Which the camera footage and your work will surely confirm,” he reminded him.

Reaching inside his coat pocket, the man slid a matte black business card from a gold money clip and passed it to them. “You may speak with my administrative assistant, Johanna. She can confirm my arrival,” he stated.

Reyes nodded as he took the card, and the man walked them to the door.

“We’ll be in touch,” Will said.

The man nodded. “As soon as possible, please.”

Reyes held out his hand, and the man’s handshake was firm, tactical. As he pulled back, the detective couldn’t help but notice the dot of pink staining the cuff of the man’s sleeve. “What’s that?” he asked.

He looked confused.

“Your sleeve,” Reyes told him, rippling with alarm. “That stain is the same color as the ink on the letter.”

Even Will’s face scrunched with curiosity.

“I’ve been handling it since I arrived,” the man said. “It must have come from that.” For a second, the placid exterior seemed to slip, and his face lit with genuine wonder and something else… fear.

Reyes nodded, watching him. “Must have.”

They walked away without looking back.

In the car, Reyes turned to his partner. “Did something about that guy strike you as off? He’s rigid. Almost unaffected for a man who may have just lost his wife to suicide.”

Will puffed out his lower lip. “He’s not my cup of tea, but his story makes sense enough. You contact the secretary. See if it checks out.”

“I will.” Reyes eyed the house as they backed out of the drive. “I don’t know what it is,” he said, “but there’s something he’s not saying.”

“ W HAT A RE WE doing here?” Will asked.

The bridge stretched before them like a silver expressway. “This is it,” Reyes told him. “The bridge she names in the letter. I thought we should walk it. Maybe she’s still here, contemplating. Or maybe she left something on the walkway. If we can confirm the jump…”

“Then we know where to look for the body,” Will finished, glancing at the river. “Let’s go.”

They took their time scanning the pavement, the water below them, looking for anything that might indicate she was there.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” he asked Will, pondering the note.

“What is?” Will was focused on the ground, looking for something of use.

Reyes squinted. “That she would name the specific bridge after she told him not to look for her. If you didn’t want someone to look, wouldn’t you leave that out?”

Will shrugged. “The bridge is kind of a given. She probably knew that and figured it didn’t matter. Or maybe deep down she did want him to come after her.”

He nodded. Will’s explanation was plausible, but it still didn’t sit right. Nothing about this did. He’d felt a nagging, uncomfortable recognition of that man, though he was sure he’d never met him before.

Reyes was beginning to doubt they’d find anything when the stain came into view, near the pinnacle of the bridge. “You see what I see?” he asked his partner as they approached the maroon splat dried out against the bleached concrete.

Will frowned. “Such a weird color.”

“What is this?” Reyes asked. “Some kind of juice?”

“Vomit,” Will answered him, pointing to some pulpy bits. “She was sick here.”

“Scared?” Reyes asked.

“Maybe,” Will said. He looked over the edge into the water. “Wouldn’t you be?” He glanced upward at a nearby camera. “We’ll need that CCTV footage to confirm if we don’t find a body.”

“We might need it anyway,” Reyes said, still staring at the colorful stain. “We should get a sample of this.”

“Really?” Will asked with a raised brow.

“Make sure it matches the substance on the letter. What if it’s something she ate? Something… I don’t know. Toxic? A kind of safety net.”

Will looked unconvinced. “A safety net for a suicide? She wanted to die, Emil. What would she need a safety net for?”

“That’s what I mean,” Reyes said, scratching a bit of the pulp up with his pen, depositing it into another bag. “In case the fall didn’t kill her, or she chickened out. Something to make sure she died no matter what.”

“Like an overdose of sleeping pills or something,” Will said, catching on. “You seen a medication this color?”

“Besides cough syrup?” Reyes gave his partner a quizzical look. “No. I doubt it’s medicine.”

“What then?” Will asked.

Reyes shrugged. “Something else. Some kind of plant maybe?”

“Looks like fruit punch,” Will told him. “I’ll never drink Minute Maid again.”

Reyes laughed. His partner had an unusual sense of humor that kicked in at the oddest times, a side effect of the job. Processing the things that they had to led to some uncommon coping mechanisms. “That’s it,” he said, handing him the bag. “You’re a genius, man. It’s probably a berry of some kind.”

“A berry?” Will didn’t follow.

“Something wild,” Reyes told him. “Something deadly. And a lot of it.”

Will stared over the railing at the Cooper River, eyes bugging at the water. “Jesus. What was this woman trying to escape that she effectively killed herself twice?”

The smooth, red face of her husband, Henry Davenport, flashed through Reyes’s mind. He’d known men like Henry before. Well, not exactly like Henry, but close enough. His mother’s boyfriend when he was young—the tall man—could put her in the fetal position with just a look. And his sister… With his help, Lucia had managed to free herself, start over, stay safe. But her scars weren’t the kind that just etched the heart. In her last run-in with her fiancé, he’d carved her face open with a broken beer bottle, beaten her to within an inch of her life, and left her for dead in a motel room off the I-20. By some miracle, she’d regained consciousness and managed to call her brother. Reyes drove more than seven hours to collect her and take her to the nearest hospital. It was there they first learned she was pregnant. After that, Lucia came to live with him until the baby was born and they were certain Jace wouldn’t come back to finish what he’d started. Years later—Mia was fast approaching six years old—Reyes still panicked whenever his sister didn’t immediately answer the phone. He winced thinking how easily Lucia could have ended up like this woman. What was she escaping indeed.

On the walk back to the car, he wrestled with the surname, the hard, pale exterior of the man, Henry, and the large, looping P from the suicide note, each insignificant on its own, but together they weighed on him with familiarity and dread. Heaven, it seemed, had gone from whispering to screaming. He glanced at Will. “What was her name again?”

Will looked at him sidelong. “Davenport. Why? You’re getting that constipated look on your face, Emil.”

Reyes ignored him. “Her full name.”

Will glanced at the mobile computer. “Piers Davenport. No middle name.”

A wave of heat flushed across Reyes’s chest, and his throat tightened around an imaginary blockage, the old sensation still living in his cells when he couldn’t draw a breath, the day he nearly died. “Do we have a picture?” he asked hoarsely.

Will quickly pulled one up from the internet. “We do now.”

Reyes stared into the burning green eyes he remembered so well, though they were softer here, on-screen, than they had been in person that day. He felt his heart and his stomach meet somewhere inside his abdomen, everything shifting with the force.

“Jesus, Emil. You okay? You look like someone gut punched you,” his partner said.

“I know her,” Reyes let out slowly, the steady squeeze of her arms around his ribs like an ache now. She was a part of him. That’s how it was when someone stood between you and death. They stayed with you, like a scar next to the heart. “She saved my life.”