Bones of a Witch Read Free Page B

1692. It
turns out the old gal is a distant aunt of mine. Go figure,
huh?
    Right away, I picked up the phone and called
City Hall. After getting the proverbial run-around for twenty
minutes, someone finally put me in touch with the Deputy Mayor,
whose nose is so far up the mayor’s ass that the man can’t breathe
unless His Honor passes wind and flubs his butt cheeks into the
breeze.
    “Tomorrow,” I tell him. “I’ll be downtown first
thing in the morning to claim my aunt’s bones for a decent burial,
and I expect an apology from the city for getting her hanged and
then misplacing her for the last three hundred and eighteen
years.”
    “Of course, you realize we’re going to need
proof,” the little weasel starts in, giving me some shit about
following procedures and protocol before releasing her remains.
It’s all I can do at this point to keep from going straight down
there and opening up a can of whoop ass on him.
    “I’ll have your proof,” I told him. “You just
worry about having my aunt packed up nicely for a fitting
burial.”
    I hung up feeling proud of myself, though I
must say that once the high tension subsided, an unusually strong
sense of loss and remorse struck me. Tony, who is often more
sensitive than I give him credit for, picked up on it right away.
He came to me and folded his arms around me like a warm blanket. I
think he thought I was going to cry. Right, like I’d ever let him
see me do that.
     
     
     
    Harvey Goodman, Deputy Mayor of New Castle,
Massachusetts:
     
    It was the middle of the workweek, as I
recall. I had just gotten to my office and settled in with a
newspaper when Jenny, my office girl, buzzed me to let me know that
a Ms. Lilith Adams was waiting out in the lobby to see
me.
    “Does she have an appointment?” I
asked.
    Outside my door, I heard a woman pronounce
loudly, “APPOINTMENT? I’ll show him a fuck’n`
appointment!”
    Two seconds later my door blew open, which
seemed strange, as I’m sure I had locked it, a habit I had formed
early in my political career. You might be surprised to know that
when you work for the people, many of them believe they are
entitled some reasonable access to you. It’s a phenomenon I have
never understood.
    When the door blew, I sprang to my feet, jolted
by the sudden intrusion, expecting to find some behemoth woman
toting a baseball bat and looking to avenge the injustice caused
when the city condemned her home day-care business due to varmint
infestation. Instead, what I found was this hot little pistol with
jet black hair, blue denim curves that could charm a snake, and
eyes of fire sizzling like coals on autumn ice. I didn’t know
whether to run, hide or flick my wallet at her and beg for
mercy.
    “What is the meaning of this?” I said, sounding
as authoritative as one could with his balls fully retracted into
his body cavity. She marched up to my desk, sweeping the newspaper
onto the floor so that she could rest her hands upon it, palms
flat, her breasts leaning over my pencil cup with cleavage I dared
not look down, but could not ignore.
    “Where is my aunt?” She said, though admittedly
I really didn’t know what she was talking about.
    “Your aunt? Am I supposed to have
her?”
    “You better. You dug her up yesterday. Don’t
tell me you lost her again.”
    “Oh, yes, wait a minute, Lilith Adams. We
talked on the phone last night.”
    “I talked. You better have
listened.”
    “Please.” I pointed to the seat opposite my
desk. “Won’t you sit, Ms. Adams? I’m sure we can talk this out
rationally.”
    “I’m not sitting down,” she said, though she
did stand up straight and fold her arms at her chest, relieving me
of a temptation I would surely have regretted, had my eyes gone
down that slippery slope. “And as far as I’m concerned….” She
reached down for my nameplate, picked it up, read it and slapped it
back down. “Harvey, there is nothing to talk out, rationally or
otherwise. You have the