The Witches Ladder

by Wendy Wang

  Jen shifted her feet and glanced over his shoulder. “So how long are you in town for?”

  “Awhile, I think. I'm actually looking for a place,” he said and took another bite of his sandwich. He crunched on the freshly made potato chips, dipping them into the little bits of cheese that had spilled on the plate.

  “Really? Well, if you want something in town I know there are some new apartments down by the river.” She grabbed a damp cloth and started wiping down the counter. He was one of her last lunch customers. The only folks left were sitting at the tables sipping cold coffee, taking advantage of the free wi-fi.

  “Sounds expensive,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Mmm -- maybe. I don't know what they're asking but you could check with Fibber's Realty down the street. They also do property management. They might have something they could show you.”

  “Thanks. I'll do that.” He smiled his wide charming smile again. His bright blue eyes crinkled at the edges and her breath caught in her throat. Why on earth had she just thought him cute? He was downright handsome. “That's kind of an unfortunate name, isn't it? Fibber. Especially if you're trying to sell something.”

  She laughed and it sounded too shrill in her ears. “Yeah, I guess. It's just everybody knows him, so --”

  “So he's not a teller of fibs?” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

  “No.” She shook her head and rubbed her hand across her watch. “He plays it straight as an arrow.” She grinned and shook her head, thinking of Ronny Fibber. He'd taken her to a seventh grade dance a hundred years ago and had kissed her chastely on the cheek at the end of the date. She looked down at the large silver watch-face. 3 p.m. “Crap!”

  He straightened up, mild surprise lining his face, “Something wrong?”

  “I've gotta go,” she said. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “No, I'm good.” He put up his hand and shook his head.

  “Great. You can pay Dottie when you're ready.” She jerked her thumb toward the older woman refilling sugar containers at the end of the counter. “You have a great day.”

  “Yeah, you too,” he smiled. “Maybe I'll see you around sometime.”

  “Maybe,” Jen giggled and was immediately disgusted with herself for turning into a fourteen-year-old girl. She slung her messenger bag across her body and headed out. When she glanced back over her shoulder at him he smiled and gave her a wave. Of course, he probably wouldn't be so eager to flirt if he knew she had a six-year-old kid and shared a house with her father.

  As Jen swerved her ancient Ford F150, into the parking lot of Palmetto Point Elementary she caught site of herself in the rear-view mirror.

  “Oh, brother,” she muttered, finger-combing her dark, pixie-cut hair into something less bed-head and more responsible mother. Lilac shadows under her large blue eyes were not helping her cause and she wished for just a second that she was one of those perfectly coiffed moms that came into the cafe mid-morning with their friends to talk about the latest book they'd read.

  Most of the traffic had cleared out by the time she pulled up in front of the school. Not a good sign. She scanned the covered walkway for her daughter and saw her standing next to an adult. She sighed. Melinda Helms. Jen put the truck in park, got out to retrieve her daughter.

  “Hi, Melinda.” Jen raised her hand to wave. Melinda bent down close to Ruby, whispering something into her ear. Ruby came running.

  “Mommy! Where were you?” Ruby sounded panicked. Jen had been late before. What on earth had Melinda said to her daughter to get her all riled.

  “I'm sorry, baby.” Jen bent down and enveloped Ruby in her arms. “I had a customer at the last minute.”

  “That's okay, Mama. Camille and her mama stayed with me.” Ruby pulled out of her mother's arms and gazed up at her. Jen ran the back of her knuckles across her daughter's round cheek. Sometimes it was like looking at a photograph of herself when she was that age. Ruby let out an audible sigh. “The chickens died.”

  “I know. We're gonna have a long talk about it on the way home, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Hi.” Melinda practically sung the announcement of her arrival. “Little Ruby was just waiting here all by herself, so Camille and I decided that it would be best to wait with her till her mommy came. Bless her heart, she was so scared that you weren't gonna come.”

  “Is that true? You were scared?” Jen asked.

  Ruby's eyes flitted to Melinda and back to Jen. Her little voice shook as she whispered, “No.”

  Jen took a deep breath, and centered herself. She kissed Ruby on the cheek, forced a smile to stretch her lips and stood up. “Well, thank you so much, Melinda. Ruby knows that I would come and get her no matter what. I've never left her here before to fend for herself overnight or anything.”

  Melinda's tittering laugh was filled with contempt that only southern women seem to be able to have for each other. “We'll bless your heart, of course you haven't. It must be so hard taking care of this little girl all by yourself and run that diner. It makes me exhausted just thinking about it.”

  “I'm sure it does. How's Josh?” Jen said, glancing at Melinda's left hand. The ginormous diamond ring was missing, replaced by a simple pearl ring on a thin gold band.

  “Oh, he's fine.” Melinda's voice sounded as strained as the smile painted across her face. “Well, we should get going. Camille has ballet at four.” Melinda grabbed her daughter's hand and rushed off for the parking lot.

  Ruby looked up with her large blue eyes. “Camille's daddy moved out, Mommy.”

  “Uh huh, I figured,” Jen muttered, watching the Cadillac SUV pull away. “Fine my ass.”

  “Mommy,” Ruby scolded. “Don't you already owe the swear jar twenny dollars?”

  Jen sighed. “Well, now it looks like I owe it twenty-one. Come on let's get you home before your granddaddy thinks we've run away and joined the circus.”

  Ruby giggled. The pair climbed into Jen's old truck and headed to her father's house. Poor old Melinda. Bless her heart. It just reminded Jen that not everything was as it seemed. Even perfect facades could crack and often did when least expected.

  Chapter 3

  On Tuesday morning, Deputy Jason Tate sat at the counter in the Kitchen Witch Café sipping the best coffee he'd ever tasted. It was 6:45 AM and it had become his ritual to stop here on his way into the office to have a little breakfast. The café was a bustling place, full of people eating breakfast, ordering coffee, and muffins, and pancakes. He liked to sit at the end of the counter and just watch the people come and go. The energy of the sunny yellow walls and funky retro artwork calmed him in an unexpected way. He had become addicted to it.

  Jen Holloway stepped in front of him holding a steaming coffee carafe. The petite brunette smiled wide, her white teeth sparkling. “Well, good morning, Jason. More coffee?”

  “That would be great,” he said, pushing his half-empty cup across the counter. She tipped the carafe and the hot black liquid filled his cup.

  “Did you order breakfast?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I'm just getting a breakfast sandwich.” He glanced down the counter toward Dottie the waitress. The older woman had one hand perched on her ample hips and held a carafe of coffee in the other. Her pale red hair was streaked with blond and held off her face with a headscarf. She smiled as she talked to another patron, filling his coffee cup.

  “Okay I just wanted to make sure you were taken care of,” she said.

  “I appreciate that,” he said. It was one of the reasons why he loved this place -- they took such good care of him here and the food was always delicious no matter what dish he tried. There were of course favorites of his on the menu. He saved the sausage gravy and biscuits for mornings when he had time to just sit and enjoy his meal. On payday he would order the steak and eggs. And the muffins. The tender-crumbed muffins, well he loved those anytime. Both the traditional and non-traditional flavors -- blueberry streusel, cherry lime, lemon poppy-seed a
nd pumpkin pecan pie muffins -- all made his mouth water any time of the day. Strawberries N' Cream, in its pride of place at the top of the menu, was a particular favorite.

  He doctored his coffee with a splash of milk and a packet of sugar and thought about ordering some muffins to go.

  “So you think Charlie'll be in this morning?”

  “Um, I don't know.” Jen's lips twisted into a knowing smile and she shrugged. “She has Evan this week, so it's hard to say. Do you have a case you want her to look at? I'll see her at dinner for sure.”

  “That's all right.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I'll just text her later.”

  A shadow crossed Jen's wide blue eyes and all the good humor in her smile drained away as she scanned the room.

  A cold finger touched Jason's heart and he instinctively followed her gaze across the busy café. “Everything okay?”

  He'd only known Jen a little less than a year and he'd learned the hard way that even though she wasn't psychic the way her cousin Charlie was, she sensed things about the world. Things he could never sense -- even with hyper-vigilance about his surroundings. He had come to trust her instinct, almost as much as he trusted Charlie's. Almost as much as he trusted his own.

  Jen blinked long and slow. She took a deep breath and when she looked into his face again, the tension in her heart-shaped face softened. She smiled but it seemed hollow and forced. “You're gonna want get your food to go.”

  He opened his mouth to ask what she meant. He had plenty of time before he started his shift, but his cell phone rang. A photo of his partner Marshal Beck flipping the bird at him popped up on the screen. He pressed the green answer icon on his phone and watched as Jen went to the pass through where the food from the kitchen waited to be delivered to the hungry customers by a server. She took the sausage, egg and cheese biscuit from the plate sitting on the metal ledge, wrapped it in white waxy paper and stuffed it into a brown paper bag with the Kitchen Witch logo printed on it.

  “Hey where are you?” Marshall Beck's voice filled his ear.

  “Getting my breakfast. Where are you?”

  “We got a situation. I need you to get out to Seward Nature Preserve.”

  “What kind of situation?” Dread, quiet and cold, slithered into his chest.

  “We got a body. And it's --” Marshall Beck paused and cleared his throat. Jason had never heard him sound so shaken in the three years that they had worked together. Beck had been a deputy for almost seventeen years and had done special investigations for ten of that. There wasn't much that got to him.

  “It's what?”

  “It's bad --” the pause stretched out and for a long second Jason thought the call had dropped. “It's the most gruesome thing I think I've ever seen.”

  “All right, I'm on my way,” Jason said firmly. Images of past crime scenes filtered through his head. How bad was bad? He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Jen placed a paper bag and a to-go cup of coffee down in front of him.

  “Put your wallet away. You know family doesn't pay here.” She pushed the coffee toward him. “Just a splash of milk and one sugar, right?”

  Jason looked up at her, his gaze meeting hers. For a brief second, looking into Jen's soft elfin face, the dark images fled his head, leaving behind only a sense of calm and purpose. How did she do that?

  “Right,” he croaked. He pulled three one-dollar bills from his wallet and put them under his cup. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” She gave him a solemn smile. “You're still wearing your pendant, right?”

  Jason's fingers twitched but he fought the urge to reach for the small silver pentacle hanging around his neck. He wore it every day, the same way he wore a bulletproof vest. The hair on the back of his neck stood at attention. Why would she ask that?

  “Good,” she said. “Call us if you need us. Okay?”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.” He offered up a smile, grabbed his coffee and bag of breakfast then headed out.

  By the time he pulled into the parking lot of the Seward Nature Preserve and Education Center, two other deputy cruisers and the coroner's van had arrived.

  The nature preserve was part of an old rice plantation. It was surrounded by water, wetlands and long abandoned rice fields. Walking trails and boardwalks crisscrossed the sixteen-acre property and it had become a prime spot for birdwatchers and nature lovers. Jason pulled his black Dodge Charger up next to Beck's cruiser and surveyed the situation.

  The windows of the small brick building looked dark. No doubt the education center was locked up tight. Anything a person wanted to learn about rice fields -- how they worked and the economy of the area when rice was still king of the cash crops -- this was the place. Sometimes on Saturdays he'd come out here and walk the trails. It was quiet and peaceful and on a good day he would see ospreys and even the occasional bald eagle.

  An older man with silver hair stood in front of Beck. He was tall and thin and wore cargo pants. An expensive looking pair of binoculars hung around his neck and his companion, an older woman in khaki long pants and a pink plaid shirt was holding an expensive DSLR with a long lens. They both looked pale and shaken as Beck questioned them.

  Jason took one last sip of his coffee and climbed out of his car to join his partner. He caught Beck's eye and gave him a nod. Then headed toward one of the deputies who was carrying a role of yellow police tape.

  “Hey, McCleary --” Jason said as he approached.

  The young deputy who could not have been more than twenty-two turned and faced him.

  “Lieutenant,” McCleary said. “

  “What's going on? Where's the body?”

  McCleary pointed toward the boardwalk that headed off into a cypress bog. “Couple birdwatchers found him this morning.”

  “Take me to him,” Jason said.

  “Sure thing,” the deputy said. They headed off down the path to the boardwalk that wound through the cypress bog over the black water.

  “Do we know what happened?”

  “Something pretty fucked up, sir,” Deputy McCleary said.

  “What do you mean?” Jason asked, but before McCleary could answer they had already arrived at the spot where two deputies were pulling on waterproof rubber chest waders. Another two other deputies nearby were loading hunting rifles. A low growl resonated across the shallow water. Jason stopped in his tracks when he saw the body suspended from a branch of a cypress tree. The man hung upside-down in midair with his arms stretched out toward the water and it was apparent that the gator had already taken a swipe at him. Part of one of the man's arms were gone leaving behind only ragged flesh. A large gash across his forehead dripped blood into the black water below. A dinner bell for just about every gator in the park.

  The water couldn't have been more than a few feet deep, but an alligator had parked himself underneath the body ready to defend his perceived catch. The gator looked to be at least twelve feet long and his dark, beady eyes watched the men, safe, out of his reach. Jason scanned the swamp, surprised there weren't more gators. They're there, you just can't see them. Every hair on the back of his neck stood up at that thought.

  Sheriff Rex T. Bedford stood talking to the coroner. He had his hands on his hips and a grim look on his thin leathery face. The two men kept pointing to the gator.

  “Good morning, sirs,” Jason said as he approached.

  “Deputy Tate,” the sheriff said.

  “Any idea how this happened?”

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes and scowled at Jason. Not a good sign this early in the morning. “Well from the looks of it, this fool was trying to bait gators. Your partner thinks the fool tied the rope to the tree and tossed it over that branch. See the rope wrapped around his foot?” The Sherriff pointed to body. “There's also a big old hook buried deep in his calf. Beck thinks he got his foot tangled in the rope and somehow put the boat in gear and hit his head and ended up swinging above the water.”

  “How exactly did he end up hanging upside
down like that?” Jason asked.

  “No idea other than being a damn fool. We'll have to wait for more forensics to come up with a theory,” the Sherriff said.

  “Yes sir. Did we find the boat?” Jason scanned the immediate area.

  “Yep, 'bout a hundred yards that way.” The sheriff pointed deeper into the swamp. “Also found a cooler full of beer and four whole chickens.”

  “Kinda brave to gator hunt in a nature preserve.”

  “That's one word for it,” the sheriff said dryly.

  “Is there a plan in place yet for getting the body down?”

  “Yep. Very cautiously.” The sheriff put his hands on his hips just below his apparent love handles.

  “Yes, sir,” Jason said. “We gonna kill the gator?”

  “Maybe,” the sheriff said. “I have no love for the damned things, but some of my tree-hugging, love-all-the-animals constituents do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jason nodded. “The media may not be kind, especially since this gator's in his own habitat and not swimming in someone's pool.”

  The coroner smirked. “And next year's an election year, isn't that right, Rex?”

  The sheriff cast a dirty look at the coroner, but the man didn't seem to care.

  “Maybe we could scare him off with a couple of boats and enough noise,” Jason offered. He hated to see any animal die unnecessarily, especially when it was just doing what animals do. The humans were the invaders here, not the other way around. But he couldn't say that out loud to his boss.

  “Or we could just shoot the damned thing,” Beck said as he approached them. “Who's gonna tell the media? I'm not. None of these guys are.” He gestured to the other deputies.

  The sheriff scowled, and his thin lips disappeared beneath the silver hair of his mustache.

  Jason threw a dirty look at his partner and knelt at the edge of the boardwalk. He looked into the animal's black eyes. Go on now fella, you're not gonna get any breakfast here. The animal emitted a low growl and Jason could almost feel the vibration in his bones. Come on now. Get out of here. Before somebody takes a gun to you. The twelve-footer's tail swished, splashing the water around him and suddenly he submerged beneath the dark water.