Eye of the Witch by Dana Donovan Page A

in her office. The camera angle, as was the case in Rivera’s office, appeared just above the door, facing her desk. The time and date stamp in the corner indicated April, 7 th 9: PM. No sound accompanied the video, but none was needed.
    “ Look at her,” said Carlos. “Nine o’clock on a Friday evening. What a workaholic.”
    “ The coroner’s report said she was working alone in the building that night,” Spinelli mentioned.
    “ Unless she’s writing a suicide note,” I said, “she doesn’t appear to me like a woman about to commit suicide.”
    Then a strange thing happened. The video image shuddered and went static, though it didn’t black out completely. It only lasted a couple of seconds, but at that instant Bridget Dean stopped and looked up from her work. She stared toward the door and appeared to mouth the words, ‘Who’s there?’ Carlos and I leaned in closer to the screen. Bridget put down her pen, opened a desk drawer and took out a gun. We watched, awestruck, as she came around the desk, the gun clearly pointing in front of her. She stepped hesitantly, almost tiptoeing. Before long, she had walked out of the camera’s view. Next, we saw a muzzle flash reflecting off the blackened window behind her desk, and then her body fell to the floor, just partially within camera view again.
    Spinelli let the video run another thirty seconds or so before shutting it off. “That’s it,” he said, leaving us both speechless and numb. “She lay there another five hours before a cleaning crew came in and found her.”
    “ There has to be more,” I said. “Bridget Dean definitely saw someone.”
    “ Maybe so,” Spinelli replied. “There are more videos. Investigators have pored over hours of tapes from dozens of cameras, including the ones out in the hall and the offices adjacent to hers. Bridget Dean was alone in that building up until the moment she died.”
    “ Damn it!” I said, almost without realizing it. I reeled around and punched a hole in the wall out of sheer frustration. Spinelli sprung back, shocked. Carlos hurried to me. He tried putting his arm around my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.
    “ Tony! What’s gotten into you?”
    Already, I had forced composure upon myself. “I’m fine,” I told him. “Leave me alone. I’ll pay to repair the hole in the wall.”
    “ But, I don’t get it.”
    “ What’s to get? I told you I’m fine.” I crossed the room, pulled up a chair in the corner and sat down with my head in my hands. Spinelli started to follow, but Carlos held his hand up to stop him. He gave me a minute, then came over and pulled a chair up next to me.
    “ You want to talk?”
    I didn’t look at him. I just shook my head and kept my eyes on the diamond patterns in the carpet. “No. I’m fine now. I lost my cool. I’m sorry.”
    “ You’re not fine, Tony. You’re like an old snapping turtle. You almost took Lilith’s head off at The Percolator today. That’s not like you.”
    “ She got on my nerves.”
    “ She gets on everyone’s nerves. She’s Lilith. But she’s never riled you like that before. So come on, we’re buddies. We’ve worked together for what, thirty years? Why don’t you tell me what’s up?”
    “ I can’t. I don’t know what’s up. That’s the problem. You remember how bad it got right after our last case.”
    I saw him nod through the corner of my eye. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”
    “ Not after we freed Leona, maybe. Hell, I was on such a high after that. But later, when I realized I had nothing on Lilith, and we failed to find Doctor Lowell’s remains.”
    “ But we know what happened to the doctor and Jean Bradford.”
    “ We couldn’t put it in the report. Gordon killed himself, so we couldn’t put him on trial for murdering Doctor Lieberman. Then there were Michael and Valerie’s mutilated bodies in the woods. They disappeared. None of that ever got resolved, on paper anyway. As far as the people of New Castle are