Itsy-Bitsy Spider

by Dale Mayer

She didn’t know what to think. She stood in the middle of her gloomy tent, watching as people came gushing through the amusement park. She knew a half dozen were heading her way. She didn’t need to know how she knew; she just knew it was a fact.

  She walked back to her table, pulled out a Kleenex from her little set of shelves and blotted her eyes. Stefan hadn’t said no, but he hadn’t said yes either.

  She closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, reached for her silly headdress and put it on her head. She walked around the table, covered it once again with the cloth and pulled out her crystal ball, putting it on the tabletop. Then she sat behind it with her empty money jar and waited for the crowd to rush in.

  She sent one last thought to Stefan. Please help me.

  Then she closed the door quietly this time, not slamming it shut but gently, and she didn’t lock it. If he wanted to come in, maybe he could knock, and she’d hear him. And, if not, well, she was a survivor. She’d always been a survivor. That wouldn’t change. But, with his help, maybe she could be so much more.

  *

  Kirk sat at his desk. It was hard to write these emails. He had basically nothing to say, and they were going into his draft folder anyway. They were more of a journaling form. They were notes regarding Queenie’s messages, her psychic insights. He had hundreds by now, just not any in the last few years.

  Before, she’d been able to give him a lot more information than a dead body in a lake floating just beneath the surface. What the hell did that mean? The woman could be two feet deep or twenty feet deep. It would be almost impossible to see her unless they went right over her. Was that a sign of Queenie’s abilities deteriorating, or was it the chaos in her own world?

  He hit Save on the draft email and let it slide into his Drafts folder. Other people laughed at such a system, but it worked for him.

  His mind glommed onto that damn spider thing again and the little boy. Of course it being a boy had triggered Queenie’s protective instincts. It wasn’t that Queenie was interested in spiders.

  But she’d now associate spiders with this little boy. Kirk had checked but found no active missing-boy cases in the area. Yet the little boy didn’t have to be missing to be in trouble.

  Still, why would Queenie pick a spider in this instance? That made no sense. He thought about the description she’d given of the man who’d come into the tent, then thought about her being caught by some other psychic force to view what the Watcher wanted her to see. “No way,” he said sourly. “My belief system will go only so far.”

  “If you’re muttering about Queenie again,” Peter said, “you know your belief system can go a hell of a long way.”

  Kirk groaned. “I’ve been to hell and back over Queenie and the stuff she tells me. I’m not going there anymore.”

  “Sounds like it’s too late already,” Peter joked.

  Kirk stood, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and said, “Damn well better not be.” He picked up his keys and his cell phone, slid them into his pockets and started to walk out of the office.

  “What are you doing?” Peter asked from the far side of the room. “Going to visit Queenie again?”

  He froze, turned to look at Peter and said, “What do you mean, again?”

  Peter chuckled. “Walking past the amusement park entrance a few days ago, I saw you leaving the park.”

  “Are you following me, Peter?” Kirk asked.

  Peter shrugged. “I figured Queenie had to be there.”

  “Why the hell would you think Queenie was there?” Kirk asked, his voice suspicious. He hadn’t warmed to Peter since the first day the guy had arrived. But five of them worked closely together, and, to work well, they had to get along. So he did, but it was harder with Peter than anyone else.

  Peter shrugged his shoulders. “I saw her on the amusement park website. Queenie’s Spooky Truths, ask the Queen Seer,” he said in a mocking voice. “Like, good God, how far has she fallen?”

  There was silence in the rest of the room as everybody else understood what was happening. Kirk shoved his fists into his pockets instead of Peter. “I don’t know. How far has she fallen? Seems like you know better than I do.”

  “Jesus, dude, you almost married that witch.”

  “Hardly a witch,” he said, his voice deceptively mild.

  “Well, given the shit she was doing, I’d say witch is just about the right term.” Peter’s voice was getting obstinate. “Kirk, look at her. She’s reading crystal balls.” He shook his head and chuckled. “I suppose she’s got some of those little fancy tarot cards in there too. Does she tell you who to sleep with next?” There was a twitter of amusement running through the office.

  “No clue. But apparently you need to get a reading done,” Kirk said. “Your love life hasn’t been doing so well, has it?” On that parting shot, hearing the laughter explode behind him, he headed outside, mildly satisfied with the last part of their exchange.

  Something about that guy always got to him. The trouble was, the reason Peter upset him was because Kirk saw himself in Peter. Years ago, when he’d been with Queenie, it seemed like he was Peter—upwardly mobile, everybody loved him. Kirk was the topic of every conversation as he was the one closing the cases.

  Behind his back they all whispered about him sleeping with the psychic. But he didn’t care because he was bringing closure to so many people. His superiors loved him. As long as he didn’t broadcast where the information was coming from, everybody was happy. And then everything blew up. Nobody spoke Queenie’s name again.

  Until she was hospitalized, and several men told Kirk where she was.

  She’d been distraught, completely overwhelmed at the loss of her child. When a couple of the guys had questioned Kirk about whose child it was, he’d snapped back and said it was the wrong age. Eventually the talk had died down, but his suspicions hadn’t. He had always wondered in the back of his mind whose child she’d had. She had never said anything to him, and he’d always trusted her, but then they hadn’t left on the best of terms. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t want anything to do with a child of hers. He wasn’t sure if he was angrier at the thought she’d think that and then do what she did or if she’d gone and slept with somebody else and had another man’s child.

  If it had been his, he’d have wanted to be there, to help in some way. Back then he’d had several raises, several honors awarded. Queenie hadn’t been given anything. And now, when he considered that, he thought how damned unfair that was.

  When she walked through the office, people would always say hi and be friendly, but they wouldn’t want to be friends. They were afraid she could read their mind or she’d know something about what they were doing in their lives. At one point, after shaking one of her bosses’ hands, when Kirk and Queenie got home that night, she’d told him what she knew about that boss.

  “You know he’s got a mistress on the side, right?”

  He remembered saying, “Hell, no. He loves Helena. He’s been with her for like twenty years.”

  “No, he doesn’t love Helena. He loves Helena’s money. His mistress is Louisa. And Louisa has two of his children already.”

  Kirk had hated hearing that. It was none of his business. It wasn’t a criminal matter, but he did like Helena, and anything negative and upsetting, like this, that would affect Helena was just plain shitty. He had blamed Queenie because she’d brought up something he didn’t want to know, something that put him on the spot, something about somebody he admired, and he didn’t know what to do about it. So he did nothing.

  He wondered if he should tell Helena even now. If there was a way to get an anonymous message to her, he might have done it. But, if Kirk’s boss found out that the news came from Kirk, he’d be fired for sure, and that was unfair. But that was the way it was. He might not get fired today; he might not get fired this week, but it would be soon. And that wasn’t something he was ready for. He didn’t want to put his job in jeopardy because some man couldn’t keep his di
ck in his pants. But he no longer respected his boss because of it.

  Outside, he stopped and took several deep breaths. It seemed like life had slowed since he had separated from Queenie, but he wasn’t sure it was a good thing. He’d had several relationships—some weeks long, others months long—but out of loneliness, … not caring. Lorraine had been the longest, mostly due to her. He wasn’t sure he could care anymore. He’d loved Queenie completely. Living with her had been intense, her focus 100 percent, so his had been too. It was one thing when it was directed at him, but it was another when it was on some of the most gruesome murders in the world …

  Several deep breaths later, he hopped into his Acura and headed to the grocery store. For months after the breakup he did takeout, and then he decided that had been enough of that. He needed to settle down, learn to cook and eat a little better. Just as he eased back the crazy caseload at work, he tried to ease back the crazy stress on his system. He’d even taken up yoga. But that wasn’t easy. His body wasn’t meant to be compressed into the positions he asked of it. But he was getting better. He’d also taken up swimming.

  He’d rather swim in a lake or a river or any natural body of water. He hated the chlorinated water, but the pool was the only thing available to him.

  His phone rang as he walked to the car. He stared down at the number and frowned. He didn’t recognize it. He lifted his phone to his ear and said, “Hello?”

  “Hi, you don’t know me,” a woman said. “My name is Erin. Erin Callahan. But I wanted to thank you for getting my husband in to see Maddy on Maddy’s Floor.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t have a clue who you’re talking about.”

  “Queenie said you’d say that. Anyway she said I should call you and say thank-you. I just wanted to let you know that, no matter what happens, I’m grateful.” And Erin hung up.

  Kirk stared down at the number in surprise. He’d shot off an email to Drew but hadn’t heard back. It didn’t make any sense. Inside his car, he checked his recent calls, found Queenie’s number and called her. “I just got a weird call from some woman who said she got her husband in to see Maddy on Maddy’s Floor.”

  “Oh, good. I’m glad she called.”

  “She said you told her to send her thanks to me.”

  “Well, I don’t need thanks. You know that. But it looked like you were suffering, so I told her to send it to you. Maybe the good vibes would help you out.”

  He stared out the window. “You’re weird sometimes. You know that?”

  She chuckled. “Always weird. Remember that.” And she hung up.

  He was grinning now as he tossed the phone on the seat beside him.

  At the grocery store he picked up the phone again, pocketed it and headed inside. He grabbed a cart as he went in. He picked up a few apples, some fresh grapes and then headed to the veggies. By the time he had four days’ worth of meals and had picked up some granola for breakfast, he was ready to pay. He got through and headed back out.

  As soon as he reached his car, his phone buzzed again. He looked at the number, not recognizing this one either. “Hello? … Hello?” A weird crackling noise filled the phone, and then it went dead. Shrugging, he pocketed his cell, got in the car and drove home.

  While putting away the groceries, setting up to make himself a large salad for dinner, marinating a steak to barbecue, his phone rang again. This time he jotted down the number and answered. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  Frowning, he shut off the call and hit Redial. It rang and rang, but nobody picked up. He put his phone on the counter beside him and seasoned his salad. And his phone rang again. Getting pissed, he looked at it again. Same number. He clicked on Talk and said, “Hello?”

  A weird static filled the air, but nobody was there.

  He disconnected the call and laid it back down again, went out and lit the barbecue. When it was the perfect temperature, he tossed on the steak and set the timer. He liked his steak medium rare, and it was too damn easy to overcook it and not have any pink left in the center. He waited beside the barbecue until it was ready, then brought it back in, slapped it onto a plate and filled the other half with fresh salad.

  He walked back outside with a steak knife and a fork, his plate full, and a cold beer to drink. He sat down on his chair. He thought he’d have owned his own house by now, but he was still renting. Mostly because he didn’t want to deal with the problem of finding a new place. It seemed stupid to buy a whole house just for him, although he knew lots of people who did. He’d thought about it when he was with Queenie. He had been so sure that’s what they would be doing at this stage of life, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

  He attacked his steak and carved up several good-size bites. With the first bite popped into his mouth, he sat back and relaxed, chewing happily. The steak was cooked perfectly. He washed it down with a slug of beer and kept eating.

  Sure enough his phone rang again. He looked at the number, shrugged and set it down without answering it. But it kept ringing. He frowned. His voice mail didn’t even pick up. Finally he hit Talk. “Who is this?”

  Instead of a voice, instead of the same crackle, a weird mocking laughter came from the other end.

  “Hey,” he snapped. “Who is this? What do you want?”

  And again more laughter. And then the call ended.

  He stared at his phone uneasily and set it off at the far corner of the table. He continued to eat, but he kept glancing at it. His phone’s voice mail should’ve kicked in after eight rings, and it had rung fourteen times, and still voice mail hadn’t taken over. He would have to check it. But he knew, in his heart of hearts, nothing was wrong with his phone. The voice mail worked just fine. This call had all the earmarks of more woo-woo stuff.

  Thankfully the phone didn’t ring again for the rest of his meal. When he was done with the dishes, he picked up a second beer and walked back out on the deck. He had the whole evening to himself, and yet he was out of sorts. He couldn’t get Queenie off his mind—or Peter’s comments for that matter.

  Kirk walked inside to grab his laptop and returned to the deck. He logged onto the police database to see what cases had drownings. There was a chance Lee-Anne Jenkins’s mother, Bonnie Jenkins, had been found. Just because Queenie said Bonnie was in the lake didn’t mean she was there today. There had been other cases where Queenie’s timeline had been off. And it added to the confusion and undermined her validity with her information. But eventually they’d sorted it out.

  At the time, she had shrugged her shoulders and said, “There’s only so much I can be accurate about. It’s not like I have a full and complete timeline. I get what information comes to me in bits and pieces.”

  He hadn’t understood that. He still didn’t understand that.

  As he meandered through the cases, looking for drowning victims, he thought about Lee-Anne who had come in wanting help looking for her mother. He’d sent an email to the sheriff’s office, asking if somebody would go to the property to check but hadn’t heard back. He looked up their office number, grabbed his phone and called the sheriff. Of course the sheriff wouldn’t be there at this hour, but a deputy should still be on duty, depending on how big the office was. It could be just a dispatcher. But then it wasn’t all that late.

  By chance the sheriff answered the phone. He sounded frazzled.

  “Sorry to bother you, Sheriff. This is Detective Kirk Sanders,” he identified himself. “I sent a request to have Bonnie Jenkins’s property checked to see if she was in residence. Have you had a chance to do that?”

  “Two of my boys went out there today,” the sheriff said. “We didn’t see any sign of her. Bonnie is a bit of a loner. But the couple times we’ve been by and stopped in to see her, she’s been home. This time they got no answer, and the door was slightly ajar, so they walked through. Found no sign anybody’s been there for at least a couple days.”

  “What do you mean ajar? What did your men find?”

>   “The door was slightly open. Dishes on the counter with food dried or baked on them, milk going sour in the fridge. Opened package of cinnamon buns left on the counter that were hard as a rock.”

  “So potentially she could have been missing for at least a week.”

  “Honestly it could’ve been longer. The milk was dated four days ago, according to my boys.”

  “So it could have been ten days before that too.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did they walk the property?”

  “They did. They went down to the lake, walked along the shore, crisscrossed, calling out, but found no sign of her.”

  “She had dogs, didn’t she?”

  “She did, and again we found no sign of them. Her vehicle wasn’t there either.”

  “So what’s your take on it?” Kirk leaned forward. This could be Queenie’s drowning victim.

  “If it wasn’t for the food sitting on the table, I’d have said she had gone off for a few days. But, because the milk was going bad, and food was on the counter, I’m not sure what to think.”

  “She wasn’t the kind to leave food around?” Kirk asked. He knew from the daughter that the mother didn’t have any money, so wasting food was generally not something people did who were broke.

  “No. She was always very generous with tea and cookies, or some treat, if she had them the couple times I’ve been there. But I also know she doesn’t have much in the way of income, and the place is in poor repair. I don’t think she ever had much. So to waste food like that is not really in keeping with who she was.”

  “What about the neighbors?”

  “The boys knocked on a couple doors but didn’t get anybody at home. They’re up there again right now.”

  “Good. Thank you very much for checking, Sheriff. Her daughter is looking for her, and there hasn’t been any contact now in a few weeks.”

  “That’s not good. It’s possible she went for a walk with the dogs and had an accident. I’ve certainly seen dogs sit down and die beside their owner in some cases.”

  Kirk winced at the thought. “Let’s hope that’s not what this is about. How many dogs were there, and what breeds were they?”