Come Witch or High Water

by Constance Barker

  “At least the cops aren’t listening to all that nonsense.” My attempt to make her feel better. I was also happy that the cops seemed to dismiss the lake creature theory. It meant that while we had to race against Roger, we didn’t have to race against the cops.

  “They want to drag the lake though,” Judy said, holding back some tears. “They think she could have drowned while she was swimming. It’s not possible though, she’s been swimming her whole life. I’ve joked a million times that she is better at swimming than walking. Even I know that cops think it’s impossible to find a missing person after the first twenty-four hours.”

  “That can’t be true here,” I said quickly. “We’re so remote, and no one has left or really can leave town. Usually that’s because a kidnapper can bring their victim practically anywhere in twenty-four hours.”

  “Or because they’ve killed them,” Judy said coldly. “I can’t believe that though.”

  “Don’t,” I said taking Judy’s hand in mine. “Tracy is alive, I promise.”

  “How can you promise that?” She asked.

  “I just know it in my bones that she isn’t gone.” I didn’t know it, but it was what Judy needed to hear.

  “The cops are working through everyone in town,” Judy said it almost as a warning. “I’m sure they are going to question you at some point.”

  “I could only wish that we had something we could tell them,” Winnie said. I was glad for the warning. We hadn’t exactly kept our cabin clean, and there were more than just a few things that might make us look suspicious lying around.

  “I know you don’t,” Judy said. “The only person who knows anything is Billy Joe and he’s not talking.”

  We stuck around the bakery for a bit longer, but not so long that we over stayed our welcome. Eventually, we convinced Judy to go back home and take a nap. I don’t think that she had slept since Tracy went missing. I doubted that she would actually go to sleep, or that it would be restful, but even a minute of sleep was better than none.

  “Do you think the cops will come around?” Winnie asked me as we walked back to the cabin. It had quit raining, but the air remained thick with fog. Almost as though it was hiding Tracy from us. I wondered if the creature really did have powers to affect the weather. Perhaps our lore was incomplete.

  “I’m sure they will.” I nodded. “We’ve got to clean up our cabin, and we have to try something to get in touch with the lake creature.”

  “How?” I honestly didn’t know. Once we got to the cabin, I picked up all the stuff we’d left out. There were spell books, candles and some symbols that the normal realm might refer to as ‘occult’. A lot of stuff that the police might take as admission of a crime. If they couldn’t pin it on Billy Joe, they’d pin it on us for sure.

  “So you have no ideas?” She asked me while we were tidying up. There were only a few things left now. I didn’t know how we let the place to get in such a state.

  “I don’t know.” The dock was still barely usable, covered in an inch of water. That would have been the best place to perform any spells. I was also unconvinced that the spells wouldn’t get destroyed by the weather again. “We’ll have to think on it for a bit more time.”

  We finished cleaning up just in time. A rap on the door signaled to us that the police had arrived. I threw the last spell book under the couch cushion before opening up the door.

  “Hello, I’m Officer Berry,” a large man said as we opened the door. “This is my partner, Officer Owens.” He gestured to the short man beside him. They were perfect opposites, and neither of them looked suited for police work. Officer Berry was tall and overweight, a large beer gut hung over the edge of his pants. He had light blond hair and dark eyes. Officer Owens was almost as short as I was, definitely shorter than Winnie. He was slim with dark hair and light eyes. I couldn’t imagine either of them being intimidating.

  “Hello officers,” I said. “Would you like to come in?” They nodded and walked inside the cabin.

  “We’re going around the neighborhood and talking to everyone we can in order to find Tracy,” Berry said, his cheeks were red with effort from walking. “I’m assuming you’ve heard of her disappearance?”

  “Yes, we heard.” Winnie sat down at the table, and the officer’s followed suit. For some reason, there were only three chairs at the table. I stood awkwardly near them, Officer Owen’s looked like he was thinking about offering me a seat, but apparently decided against it. Chivalry is dead ladies.

  “We were out there looking for her and have been with Judy all morning,” I explained. My heart was beating a little bit fast from the officer’s arriving and so close to finishing up cleaning. It was smart for Winnie to bring them to the dining table, so they might not sit on the couch and find the spell book inside the cushion.

  “It’s just terrible, terrible business,” Officer Owens said with a shake of his head.

  “Can I get you some water?” I offered. It sounded like they were here more out of duty than any actual interest in what we had to say. They were taking a moment to relax in our kitchen. Probably because as far as they were concerned, Billy Joe was guilty. I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for him, considering how he treated Tracy, but it wasn’t fair for him to be convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.

  “That would be great, thanks,” Officer Berry nodded. “You aren’t from around here? Just visiting?”

  “Yep, we’re on a hiking trip,” I answered filling up cups at the sink. The officer’s gulped down the water greedily as soon as I handed them the glasses. “We’re just passing through, but I think our trip will be extended until we can find Tracy.”

  “I don’t know if I’d wait that long,” Owens said...he was now breathing heavily as well from drinking so quickly. “We’re not entirely convinced that this girl is missing.”

  “You think she’s dead?” I asked, remembering my promise to Judy. It was an empty promise, but I’d still feel guilty if I was so off base. I hoped that the officers weren’t aware of something that we didn’t know. That they were just speculating like the rest of us.

  “Possibly,” Berry shrugged. “She might be, if that Billy Joe kid did take her, he might have killed her. She could have drowned in the lake, her mother seems to think it’s impossible, but nothing’s impossible. I think it’s likely that the girl just ran away.”

  “Ran away?” Winnie had an eyebrow raised. We had both been concerned when we heard the cops had showed up. Our job would have been more difficult had they been competent at theirs. There would be no way that they’d seriously consider a lake monster as their culprit, but we’d have to move faster to find Tracy and make sure no one was imprisoned for something they didn’t do. Winnie seemed fine with that possibility, but I wasn’t sure I could be so cavalier about it. Even if that person was someone as seemingly awful as Billy Joe. That didn’t seem like it was going to be a concern. These cops weren’t seriously considering anything, only trying to find an answer that made their lives easier.

  “It seems likely, she was looking to leave.” Owens had passed me his empty cup to refill and Berry had done the same, but only after I had already filled Owens’ cup again. I was starting to get annoyed with these men.

  “But. she had a scholarship and a plan to have her mother bring her to school when the time came.” Judy had told us that she was going to rent a car once they got off the charter boat and were going to drive all the way there together. “Why would she leave now?” I asked, shoving the cup back into Berry’s hands.

  “Our job isn’t to know why she did what she did, it’s just to prove that she did it,” Berry said gruffly, clearly not appreciative of my questioning their investigation. I couldn’t help it...they were bad detectives and while I don’t like to brag, but I’m a very good detective. “I think Billy Joe is the likely suspect, but we have to look at all the possibilities. We’re going to sweep the lake, and hopefully nothing turns up. We’re going to search Billy Joe’s property agai
n and find out how true his alibi is. If we can’t find anything on him, then it is possible that she just left. I still think it’s that kid though, got a feeling.” He patted his large gut as if to illustrate where his feeling came from.

  They had no questions for us and left after eating a full sleeve of biscuits and three more glasses of water each. I didn’t have faith in either of them being able to do anything to solve this case and find Tracy. Winnie, Alan and I were pretty convinced it was the lake creature, but with bumbling idiots for cops, I thought it might be worth it to make sure. We were going to do a little questioning of our own.

  Chapter Six

  We thought we might give Billy Joe the opportunity to tell his side of the story. The cops had questioned him, and then questioned him again. He had a weak alibi, and they were hunting down people who could either corroborate that story or prove it to be false. I thought we might attempt to talk to him as well and get his story. Everyone seemed so sure that he had done something to Tracy, we were starting to believe it ourselves. If that was the case, then we could go back to our normal search for the lake creature and get out of town a lot quicker than we could if the lake creature did take Tracy.

  “You knock,” I said to Winnie as we got closer to the door. Despite her eye patch, she seemed to be less off putting than I was. Her charm made it so that even the worst kind of person could look past her eye patch and see how beautiful she was and not in spite of it, because of it. I was not so lucky. The scar that stretched across my cheek was an angry reminder of something that had happened in my past. I couldn’t remember what, but it was all that people saw when they first looked at me. I could see when I spoke to them and their eye line kept slipping back to the scar. Typically, I used that to my advantage. It put people off and made them even scared of me, which worked in my favor from time to time. But I had a feeling Billy Joe would respond better to a pretty face.

  “What do you want?” Billy Joe shouted from somewhere inside his tiny hovel of a home. His name made it sound as though he were from the south, but he didn’t have the accent.

  “We just want to talk,” Winnie said with a coy smile. “We’ve heard what the cops have to say, what Judy has to say and what Roger has to say, but we’re interested in what you have to say, Billy Joe.” As she spoke, he walked closer to the door. He was standing behind the screen door looking at us with suspicion.

  “Who are you?” He asked with narrowed eyes. The only expectation of his looks that he filled was the fact he was wearing plaid. With a name like Billy Joe and a house like his, and after hearing about his drinking, I had expected someone unkempt with long, greasy hair, and a beer gut. Billy Joe was actually handsome, and I hated to admit that since he was such a terrible guy. He had thick light brown hair and clearly took care of himself.

  “We’re staying in the cabin right by the lake,” I explained. “I’m Vana, this is Winnie.” Alan was still out in search of Tracy. I doubted we would have taken him with us on this outing had he been back.

  “And you want to hear what I have to say?” He asked.

  “We don’t think you did it,” Winnie said sweetly, she batted her lashes at him with her good eye....well, her only eye. That was all he needed to open the door for us. If he had been our target, he’d have made our job very easy.

  “I didn’t do anything to Tracy,” he said as soon as we walked inside.

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened, then,” Winnie said after making introductions. I had decided to stay a bit quiet on this one. Winnie would be able to get all the information we needed out of him. We just needed to know if he was guilty or not. We’d been operating under the assumption that he wasn’t, and if he was, we would have to change our tactics. The lake creature could have gone even deeper in hiding after realizing that some people in town were after him. If we knew for sure that he was innocent, then we might be able to use that to our advantage.

  “The other day,” Billy Joe started. True to form, he was slurring his words a bit and had a beer in one hand. I guessed that there wasn’t much for young people to do up here besides drink. “Tracy told me that she was leaving.”

  “She broke up with you?” Winnie asked.

  “Tracy doesn’t get to break up with me,” Billy Joe said with venom. “She told me she was leaving, not just me, but Charybdis. She said she was getting away from me and never coming back. She got into some college on the east coast, wanted to get as far from here as possible.”

  “Did that make you angry?” Billy Joe glowered at Winnie after she asked the question. Winnie glowered right back. I was ready if he was going to try anything.

  “It did make me angry, as a matter of fact.” He stood up from his chair at the kitchen table, almost knocking it over in the process. “We were supposed to get married. She had agreed to be my wife that meant she had agreed to stay by my side. Her mother turned her against me though.” Or the way he treated her did, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. “I might have gotten mad, yelled at her a bit. I didn’t put a hand on her though. I never put a hand on her.”

  “We believe you,” Winnie said. I could tell by the strain in her voice that she was having a hard time being nice to the guy. She pulled it off better than I could have, though. “Judy thought that she had gone swimming, why did she lie?”

  “She didn’t,” Billy Joe shrugged. “I would meet her by the water when she swam. Ever since my pals and I saw that thing in the water, I didn’t like her swimming in the lake at all. She insisted it was fine though. I wasn’t going to take that chance though, so I watched her when she went swimming to make sure nothing happened to her.” It was a sweet gesture, or a controlling one depending on how you looked at it. “I left her there by the water after she told me, and we got into our fight. I shouldn’t have just left her there alone. I should have known that she would have gotten into the lake and the creature would have grabbed her.” His concern almost sounded genuine.

  “So you left her, and then the creature grabbed her,” Winnie was mulling over the facts. “What did you do after you left her?”

  “You mean what’s my alibi?” He retorted. “I went on a bit of a bender. I was a little upset, you know?” He asked rhetorically. “My neighbors can attest to this. They were home the whole time I was and even came by asking me to turn down my music.” I could imagine how cordial that exchange was.

  “But the cops still don’t believe you,” Winnie said. I, unfortunately, did believe him. Which meant it was likely that the lake creature had taken Tracy. Perhaps the boy, Jerry, had really seen what he claimed to have.

  “They won’t,” he shook his head. “I’m the easy pin.” He had a point there. It was always easy to point the finger at the significant other. In a relationship like Tracy and Billy Joe’s, it was even easier. They were tumultuous partners at best, and according to many people he was at the very least mean to her and possibly even abusive.

  “Roger believes you though.” Billy Joe laughed at this.

  “That nut job might believe me, but that doesn’t help my case at all,” he said bitterly. “Though if he and my friends are able to find the creature and Tracy, then maybe that will help. But nothing less than that will clear my name.” It was probably true too.

  “Why aren’t you out there helping then?” It was a fair question. If he wanted to play the part of concerned boyfriend, or I guess fiancé if we were to take his word for it, then he should be leading the search parties. At the very least he could be working with Roger to find the creature.

  “I’ve been advised by the cops not to leave my house,” Billy Joe said with a laugh. “But it feels like it’s time you do.” With that he herded us towards the door. We had gotten what we needed anyhow. Billy Joe was innocent, which meant that the lake creature was not.

  “So, he’s a jerk, but he’s innocent in this I guess,” Winnie said definitively once we got back to our cabin. We had to sneak around so no one would see us leave Billy Joe’s, not wanting to give anyon
e extra reason to pay attention to us.

  “You’re right on both accounts,” I agreed. “I hope Alan is okay.”

  “Can’t you tell if he’s in trouble with your bond?” Winnie looked at me exasperated. Alan was my companion animal, and in the witch world that meant we shared a bond. I could sense when he was in trouble and he could do the same for me.

  “Yes.” I replied. “That doesn’t mean I can’t worry though.”

  “I know that you think this creature is violent, and I understand why, but I just don’t get that vibe,” Winnie shook her head. She was having trouble finding the words to explain why she wasn’t concerned. Sometimes we had instincts that were more than just regular instincts, they were magical ones. “I think that he’s in love with Tracy.”

  “In love? Maybe the way that Billy Joe is in love with her,” I scoffed at her suggestion. “Which is to say, loves the idea of her, but not actually her.”

  “I know it sounds crazy but hear me out.” Winnie stood with her arms crossed. She was stubborn, but not quite as stubborn as I could be. “I think that the lake creature is in love with her, I just have a gut feeling. Tracy swims in that lake almost every day during the warmer months. She believes that the creature is in there but isn’t scared of it. Maybe that’s because deep down, she can feel that it cares about her.” I was about to protest, but Winnie continued, cutting me off. “She was taken after she got into a loud argument with Billy Joe, who has been watching her swim every day for the past few weeks. As soon as he left, the creature took her. In his way, he might think that he's protecting her.”

  “Even if all that is true, we need to find both of them and soon. We’re going to be cutting it close regardless. I don’t want to miss this full moon and be stuck here for another month. If the creature is in love with Tracy, if he’s not, it makes no difference. We need to find him and bring him back to Nikatomia.” My voice was getting louder as I spoke. I didn’t really care what the creature’s motives were. Our job wasn’t to psychoanalyze him, it was to bring him back. He had terrorized the town, whether he meant to or not.