1 Lost Under a Ladder

by Linda O. Johnston

  When I finally got inside, I figured the theater must have been remodeled recently, since the seats didn’t look as old as the exterior and there were even places for the handicapped. Songs like “Superstition” and “Knock on Wood” played in the background.

  I saw a wheelchair near the front with a woman seated in it with familiar gray hair. But the show was about to start so I took the nearest seat—in the middle of a row near the back, after excusing my way there. If that was Martha, I’d say hi later.

  The lights were dimmed and the silky red and gold stage curtain opened. Unsurprisingly, Mayor Bevin Dermot walked out. What was surprising to me was that he actually wore a green sport jacket over his plaid pants. Did he know how much he resembled the leprechaun pin I’d seen him wearing and exploit it? Probably.

  “Hello, everyone,” he said into the microphone he held as he strutted along the stage in front of a platform raised behind him. “Welcome to the very special town of Destiny, California. As you all know, Destiny is the capital of all superstitions.”

  He proceeded to tell the history. Then he said, “I’d like to introduce you to the world’s foremost expert on superstitions, Mr. Kenneth Tarzal. He even wrote the best book ever published on the subject that is so near and dear to our hearts. Tarzal?”

  Tarzal entered from stage left. He wore a black suit with a white shirt. From here he looked serious and carried nothing until the mayor handed him the microphone. “It’s all yours,” he said. “And may all your luck be good.”

  Tarzal smiled, then made a gesture as if knocking on his own head—knocking on wood? “Hello, everyone.” He gestured grandly to include the entire audience. “Welcome to Destiny, California, which could be the luckiest place on earth … if you obey our superstitions, of course.” He pivoted to stare down toward the front of the audience on one side, then the other. He must have seen Martha since he tipped an imaginary hat in that direction. “But do you believe in superstitions? I mean—well, let’s check. Please raise your hand if you have ever knocked on wood the way I just did to increase your luck.”

  Almost everyone in the audience raised their hands.

  He nodded, then asked similar questions about crossing fingers, picking up found pennies, and other common superstitions.

  “Okay, then. If you’ve ever forgotten to do any of the things I just mentioned, did your luck turn bad? I mean, did you get hit by a car or lose your job or anything else that upset you? Some of you are nodding, but most are shaking your heads.” I’d looked around, and he was right. “Now, Destiny is my favorite place on earth, mostly because I want you all to have heard of me and come to my bookstore. Buy my book. Maybe I should curse any of you who don’t to have seven years of bad luck. My bookstore is called the Broken Mirror, so that would be appropriate, don’t you think?”

  Before anyone could say anything, he turned and climbed the steps on the stage to the top of the platform that was raised about two feet.

  “Some superstitions started out as attempts to cause bad luck to other people, like the ‘evil eye’ way back when. So let me see how else I can curse you.” He named a few other omens of bad luck, including the standard black cat crossing a person’s path.

  This seemed like a strange kind of talk, and I had a sense it wasn’t his usual one since the mayor kept edging out onto the side of the stage where he’d exited. But Tarzal kept going—until the mayor walked up the steps onto the platform.

  Tarzal didn’t relinquish the microphone to him, though. Instead, he walked toward the opposite set of stairs from the platform and onto the rest of the stage.

  Only, after he’d gone down only two of the three steps, he fell. He landed on the stage, but his right arm seemed to crack against the steps.

  “Damn it!” he shouted. I wasn’t sure where the microphone was, but I’d no doubt that everyone could hear him. He managed to push himself up with his left arm until he knelt on the stage.

  “Are you okay, Kenneth?” Mayor Dermot approached him while still on the platform.

  “I’m fine,” Tarzal said, more softly but somehow the microphone, wherever it was, picked up his voice. “I will be, at least—when I find the imbecile who dared to spill milk where I was likely to fall in it.”

  eight

  “Does that mean you’ll have seven days’ bad luck?” I could see the horror on the mayor’s face.

  Obviously he, at least, was superstitious. Was Tarzal superstitious enough to buy into that kind of curse even though it was a lot more lenient than the seven years’ bad luck for breaking a mirror?

  If Tarzal was rattled, he didn’t admit it in front of this crowd. “Not I,” he said calmly. He’d pulled himself back to a standing position on the stage and was so tall that the top of his head reached the same altitude as that of Mayor Dermot, who still stood on the platform. “Whoever tried to curse me that way—well, I hereby state that, like I suggested before, I, the expert on superstitions, now turn that around so that whoever did it will be the one who experiences bad luck.”

  I heard a lot of muttering in the audience, then someone—a man I hadn’t noticed previously—stood and said, “Can you do that? I’ve never heard of anyone turning a superstition already in play on someone else, either good luck or bad.”

  “This show is over,” Tarzal said, without responding directly. “Remember, this is Destiny. My town. My superstitions. Things happen as I say. Now, everyone leave.”

  I noticed that Preston had come onto the stage, at its edge. As Tarzal began to limp off, Preston hurried toward him, arms out as if ready to steady his partner. I couldn’t hear what Tarzal said since he didn’t project or speak into the microphone, but Preston backed off.

  Did anyone believe Tarzal—that he knew so much about superstitions, that he was so much in charge of them, that he could change existing scenarios, turn them against others?

  Surely no one who was a true believer would buy into that. And the rest of us agnostics—well, I didn’t accept what he’d said, either.

  I saw a woman at the side of the stage taking pictures with a tablet computer. She also typed something onto it, then made notes onto a real notebook, like a media person. I saw them often in L.A., but here? I guess they could be anywhere.

  Tarzal didn’t seem to notice. He edged past his partner, who just stood watching him. He made his way backstage, then, as the audience continued to file out of the auditorium, he appeared again on the same level as those in the front row.

  The front row. I thought I’d seen Martha there, in a wheelchair. Was Tarzal, or someone else, going to help her?

  I had to check on her.

  It wasn’t easy making my way to the front through the crowded aisle beside me. The rows of red plush seats were emptying fast as the chattering, determined audience headed for the side doors. I succeeded, though, and when I saw Martha just sitting there, pale but with an irritated expression on her face as most people hurried by her, I was glad I’d fought the hordes.

  By then, Tarzal stood near the base of the stage, waving a cell phone in one hand as he talked to Preston, the mayor, and others, and was among those ignoring Martha.

  “Rory!” she exclaimed, standing up. “I’m so glad to see you. I made a lot of noise to get released from the hospital late this afternoon and was able to convince one of the nurses to push me over here in this nasty contraption a while ago.” She waved one of her yellow sweater-covered arms toward the wheelchair. “I told her I’d call my nephew to push me home if I didn’t see someone else who’d do it. I’d figured Tarzal or Preston would, but they’re both preoccupied.” She nodded toward them.

  Everyone else had left the area where I now stood looking down at Martha. Despite her slight pallor, she appeared a lot better than when I’d visited her at the hospital.

  I’d also told her when we’d spoken that afternoon, after my call to Bev, that I could stay in Desti
ny for a while. She was aware that, at least for now, I would manage the Lucky Dog Boutique for her.

  She must have left the hospital a short while after we’d spoken, but she had sounded iffy to me about when she would be able to return to her home upstairs from the shop, let alone start running the place again.

  “I’ll be glad to push you back to your place,” I told her now, and she looked relieved and sat back down again.

  As I moved toward the back of her chair, I saw Police Chief Justin Halbertson arrive with some uniformed cops. They entered through one of the doors from which much of the audience had exited.

  He stopped beside Martha’s chair, and I saw surprise on his face as he looked from one of us to the other. “What are you two doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I said. “I’m a visitor and was told it would be good luck for me to see the Destiny Welcome show as soon as possible.”

  I was becoming familiar with his expression: a half smile, his dark, arched eyebrows raised over his blue eyes in a way that all but shouted skepticism. “And you believed in this potential good luck?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It was definitely a night of bad luck for one of the speakers, Kenneth Tarzal. He slipped coming down from the platform on the stage. Said some milk was spilled there.”

  “Yes, he called the station and asked for an investigator to come and check whether the situation was intentional.”

  “And that’s why you’re here.”

  He nodded. “My guys will look at the evidence, take pictures, bring in any milk containers they see, and check for fingerprints to try to figure out how the liquid got there.”

  I couldn’t help my amused smile. “So that’s what the police department of a specialty town like Destiny does? Investigate the origin of spilled milk?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Yes, that kind of thing has real meaning around here. I’d better go observe what my guys are doing. Will you be in town much longer?”

  “She’s decided to manage the Lucky Dog for me till I’m better,” Martha inserted.

  “That’s excellent news.” Justin did, in fact, look happy about it. His apparent pleasure made me feel all the better. And I felt sure Martha could have called on him to get her home if I hadn’t been there and willing to help her. “Then I’ll be seeing you around.”

  “That’ll be nice,” I said. “Now, Martha, let’s go back to your place.”

  _____

  On our walk back to the Lucky Dog Boutique, I asked Martha more about the Destiny Welcome show. “Do other townsfolk sometimes participate?”

  We strolled leisurely along the still crowded sidewalk, beneath the streetlamps in the shapes of old Gold Rush lanterns. Some restaurants and bars were open, but the stores we passed were all closed.

  Rather, I strolled, pushing Martha in her wheelchair. I couldn’t worry about the wheels touching the cracks in the sidewalk but I managed to avoid walking on them, just in case.

  “Sure.” She proceeded to fill me in on which town council members spoke, sometimes instead of the mayor. Shop owners and tour company managers sometimes got up on stage, too, to welcome visitors—and encourage them to frequent their businesses.

  “Have you ever done it?” I asked.

  “A few times, especially when there are a lot of folks in town with their pets.”

  I had to ask. “And Tarzal. I assume, considering his notoriety with respect to superstitions, that he’s pretty much always one of the main speakers?”

  “Oh, yes, but he’s been less welcome lately. He used to talk more about how real superstitions were. Lately, he’s been giving the kind of talk he did tonight more often. Like, his research has shown him that superstitions are wonderful things, but believing in them may be … let’s say, foolish. Everyone in town has been chewing him out about it, and he apparently promises each time that he’ll go back to his original kind of talk, but he obviously doesn’t always do that.”

  Interesting, I thought.

  I also wondered if he genuinely believed that, thanks to slipping in milk, he would now experience more bad luck.

  I didn’t wish that on him, of course, but I’d have to pop over to his store soon and ask if there’d been any consequences. Or anything in his life that, if he were superstitious, he would consider to be bad luck.

  I did wonder, though, about how the milk had been spilled. Whoever had done it must have entered the stage area behind the curtain before the show began. But how had they known where to put it? And when had they had the chance to do it without being seen? Maybe it had been an accident. Or not.

  And Tarzal wasn’t the only possible target of the milk, was he? Anyone present at the theater that night could have gone that direction and spilled it. The fact that some people in town didn’t like some of his current presentations probably had nothing to do with what had happened.

  Unless …

  “When the show is given that way, is Tarzal the only one who goes up onto the platform on the stage?”

  “Pretty much,” Martha said. “Most people just stand at the front with the microphone and interact more with the audience. He seems to want to get away from them a bit and pace up on the platform.”

  So maybe he had in fact been the milk’s intended target.

  And the possible impending bad luck it brought?

  Well, we’d just have to see.

  We soon reached the sidewalk nearest the Lucky Dog Boutique as well as the Broken Mirror Bookstore, which was also closed. I’d seen no indication that either Tarzal or Preston lived there, though there were a couple of floors above the store.

  Martha directed me to the rear of the Lucky Dog and used a key to open the back door. The place was becoming more familiar to me, but I was glad to be entering the storeroom with a healthier Martha rather than worrying about finding her here again, ill.

  She directed me to push her wheelchair among the stacks of items stored there until we reached a door along the wall near the one that separated this room from the rest of the store. She used a different key to unlock it, then kicked the footrests on the wheelchair out of her way and stood on the floor.

  “Be careful,” I told her.

  “Of course. And I will need your help to get upstairs.”

  She flicked on a light, and I saw the stairway that must lead up to her apartment. It was narrow, but wide enough for me to stay at her side while she proceeded slowly upward, holding onto the handrail while I kept an arm around her to help keep her steady and moving.

  She did really well on the stairs, and it didn’t take us long to reach the next floor. She flicked on more lights and I was delighted to see how cute her apartment was, with well-maintained living room furnishings that must have come from the time even before Martha was a child, ornate, plushy antique chairs and a sofa, as well as wooden end tables and a coffee table—and a modern, though not huge, TV.

  Fortunately, her small bedroom was on that floor. She offered me a drink of water from her kitchen, which I declined, as we passed it on the way down the hall. She took a bottle of water for herself from the fridge, though, and carried it with her. She needed even less help here than on the stairs. Then, though she didn’t seem pleased about it, she allowed me to help her maneuver her slight, aged body out of her clothes and into a robe.

  “I’ll be just fine now.” She showed me that her bathroom was right next door. “The nurses gave me a sponge bath at the hospital so I won’t have to shower, at least not till tomorrow.” She was leaning against the wall, but stood up straighter. “I want to thank you, Rory. For everything. For staying here to help with the store as well as for helping me get home and upstairs tonight.”

  “You’ll be all right here?” I asked. “I’ll come in early to help you with breakfast. And I assume you’ll just stay upstairs here until you’re all better, right?”

  “I
’ve got some help coming tomorrow that the hospital scheduled for me. They’ll check on me, bring me food if I need it, that kind of thing.” She didn’t sound thrilled, but what she said made me feel a lot better.

  “I’m glad,” I said. “And while I’m around, you can call on me, too, to help out if you need it.”

  “Like I said, I want to thank you.” She moved a bit and gave me a brief hug. “Now go on back to your B&B. I know you’ve got a wonderful little lucky dog there waiting for you. Goodnight, Rory. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I hesitated only a minute. “You have your phone with you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And its charger. I’ll be able to call for help if I need it—which I won’t. But thanks again, for worrying about me this time.”

  I laughed.

  And then I left.

  _____

  Martha was right. Pluckie was waiting up for me to return to the Rainbow B&B. So was Serina. She was in a room just off the lobby, in the other direction from the dining area, watching TV while sitting on the sofa. I gathered that Pluckie had been on it with her, too.

  When I used my key to enter the lobby from the outside, I noticed right away that the lights were still on there and in the room next door. I popped my head in and saw Pluckie pulling at her leash.

  I was glad she was restrained like that, much better for keeping her safe as well as away from annoying anyone coming in late with her effusive greeting.

  “Hi,” Serina said, standing up. At this hour, she wasn’t in her usual Gold Rush-era outfit, but instead wore modern two-piece pajamas in a print with horseshoes on it. Her light brown hair was loose now about her shoulders. “How did you enjoy the Destiny Welcome?”

  “Well, I’m not sure the show was a harbinger of good luck.” I told her about the incident with Tarzal and the milk. “But I did find it interesting—and definitely welcoming to outsiders.” I also mentioned walking Martha and her wheelchair home. “Now, come on, Pluckie. Let’s go for our last walk of the night. Thanks for watching her for me, Serina. Was she a good girl?”