The Witch's Ladder (5 page)

One by one, the others came around. It was Gordon first, then Michael and Chris, and finally Leona.

“
Okay. It’s unanimous,” said Doctor Lieberman. “I think as a precaution, however, you should all take Detective Marcella’s advice and buddy up with a partner when you return. I trust he means what he says when he promises to beef up security around the building. Does anyone have any questions?”

“
I do,” said Michael Dietrich.

“
Yes?”

“
Excuse me for saying this, but is anyone really buying this crap about human sacrifice and fanatic cults that Marcella is cramming down our throats?”

“
Yeah,” said Gordon. “The whole thing seems ridiculous to me, too. I mean, who ever heard of pagan sacrifices happening in this country? Besides, I thought pagan cults only sacrificed dogs and cats and chickens and things.”

“
I don’t know `bout that, Gordon,” Chris added, “but I saw a special on the Sci-Fi channel where this pagan cult sacrificed young virgins on a bloody altar after forcing them to have sex with a snake.”

“
A snake?”

“
Yeah, the thing was this long. First they built a fire and then they—”

“
Pah-leaseeee,” said Lilith. “Stow it. Will you?” She rolled the knotted piece of rope up and slipped it into her pocket. “All right. I know what you’re all thinking. First of all, let me tell you that no, pagans don’t practice human sacrifice in this day and age. Nor do they sacrifice cats and dogs for that matter. You might find a few voodoo worshipers offering up a few chickens or goats in some third-world countries, but human livers are definitely not on the menu. And Chris,” she wagged an accusing finger at him, “if you think the Sci-Fi channel reflects real life in the slightest, well then I’d say you really need to get a life. Honestly, just how the hell does one have sex with a snake?”

“
I was telling you. First they—”

“
Forget it. Listen, there’s something else going on here.”

“
What?” Valerie asked. “Is this guy some modern-day Jack the Ripper?”

“
Hardly, Val. Jack the Ripper only killed women. So unless Travis left this building wearing high heels and a slip, I’d have to say that the killer had another agenda.”

“
What agenda would have someone cutting people open in the middle of the night for no reason?”

“
Yes,” said one of the twins, and then several in the group moved in on Lilith. “Tell us. What agenda might someone have for ripping out someone’s liver if not for ritualistic sacrifice?”

The rest of the group immediately picked up on the inference that Lilith knew more than she was letting on. They closed in on her. She backed away, taking several steps until she found herself flat against the filing cabinet. Gordon’s chubby face came close enough to Lilith’s to feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. She put her hands to his chest and pushed him back, uttering something in rhyme. The others quickly fell back.

“
It’ a spell,” Gordon cried, “She cast a spell on me. She’s cast—”

“
Cool it, turd.” Lilith creased her collar and pulled on her shirttail to evict the wrinkles from her blouse. “And don’t ever get that close to me again, dog breath. You hear?”

Gordon nodded.

“
Okay, folks, let’s get something straight. Everyone knows I dabble in witchcraft. Fine, but it’s something I do on my own time in the privacy of my own home. I don’t hang around with gnomes and goblins or cast spells on little children, though I do disdain the noisome little varmints—the children, I mean, not the gnomes. My interest in witchcraft stems from my psychic abilities and helps me to exercise my powers and explore my psychic potential. What I do on my own time is nothing different from what the rest of you do here at the workshop every week, which incidentally, three hundred years ago would have gotten us all burned at the stake. Psychics, Clairvoyants,” she turned and cast an implicating eye toward Leona. “And yes, even masters of bilocation. People would have looked at all of us as witches. Contrary to what Detective Marcella thinks, I’m here to tell you that neo-pagans do not run around cutting out people’s body parts for offerings to Pagan Gods.”

Michael said, “Lilith, no one’s saying you had anything to do with this. I personally don’t believe the occult, pagan or otherwise, is responsible for these murders. But even if it’s so, it doesn’t mean any of us suspect your involvement just because you’re a witch.”

She settled back. Her posture softened, but her eyes continued to pan the room with distrust, searching for those who agreed with Michael and those who did not.

Doctor Lieberman, perhaps fearful of the escalating tensions, intervened. “All right, people, enough. I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if we call it a night. Okay, everybody has agreed to continue the workshops; however, I believe we should still take a few weeks off before we meet again so that we might collect our thoughts and our nerves. These have been difficult times for all. We should comfort, not turn against one another.”

The collective bobbing of heads told Doctor Lieberman that someone had finally said something in which they all could agree. With no further discussions, they packed up their belongings, said goodbye and made their way home.

Four

In the following weeks, two more murders occurred on the south side of town in the industrial district of Suffolk’s Walk. The papers reported the murders with as much sensation as the two at the research center. In the new cases, the attacker surprised the victims from behind, striking one over the head with a baseball bat and stabbing the other in the back with a large knife. The obvious differences between the two latest killings and the ones at the Center were the victims themselves. The latest were homeless men, winos, with livers probably already scarred with end-stage cirrhosis. However, that didn’t stop the killer from meticulously cutting the livers out of their bodies. Only this time he didn’t take them.

The press declared it official. The town had a bona fide serial killer in its midst. They dubbed him the Surgeon Stalker. An unofficial statement released by a department insider warned everyone to stay inside at night and to lock all doors and windows. Fanatic cult or not, the statement read, it appears no one is immune from attacks now. I’m still trying to find the source of that release.

In the meantime, I had grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of physical evidence at the crime scenes. With few exceptions, I had little to go on. I found some fortune in the case of the first homeless victim where the murder weapon, a thirty-two-ounce Louisville Slugger, turned up within yards of the body. Unfortunately, we found no fingerprints on the bat. Other potentially interesting informational tidbits came to me in the form of eyewitness accounts who described seeing a young woman; attractive, dark-skinned (probably Hispanic), with long black hair, stalking Suffolk’s Walk prior to each murder. Several witnesses placed her there at about the right time, and all were consistent in their general description of her. Coincidentally or not, the description perfectly fit a young woman I had met only a few weeks earlier, Leona Diaz, the shy one in Doctor Lieberman’s psychic workshop.

Several nights after the second murder at Suffolk’s Walk, the workshop reconvened and the immediate topic of conversation, naturally, centered on the two killings. The group was still debating the relevance of the homicides to the murders of Travis and Barbara when I walked in. Their conversations surrendered to an immediate hush. Doctor Lieberman greeted me with a handshake.

“
Good evening, Detective. Come in. Join us. Make yourself comfortable. We have fresh coffee over there on the table if you’d like to help yourself.”

“
And a good evening to you all,” I said. I offered a fleeting wave to the group and made my way to the coffee and donuts. “Please don’t let me stop you, people. Go on and continue with whatever you were talking about. Pretend I’m not here.”

“
Actually, Detective, we were discussing the murders at Suffolk’s Walk,” said Valerie.

“
Yes. I’m not surprised. I can hardly expect you to discuss anything else, now can I?”

“
Hardly,” someone replied from the far corner of the room. Lilith Adams sat perched atop a three-drawer filing cabinet, kicking her legs out alternately and allowing her heels to smack against the drawer fronts. She held in her hand another piece of rope, into which she had tied several flawlessly spaced square knots. “You know, Detective,” her sarcasm rang like nails on a chalkboard, “as much as we all enjoy your company, this is a workshop for members only. If you have questions, I’d suggest you ask them and get back to your business of solving homicides, because you won’t find what you’re looking for in a plate of donuts.”

My back still faced the room, but Lilith saw me hesitate, as if acknowledging the nuisance but not giving recognition to its source. I set my coffee down on the table, turned around and trooped up to her, stopping inches from the filing cabinet where she sat.

“
Ms. Adams,” I said, my teeth gritting. “Normally, I’m a patient man, but my patience is beginning to wear thin. So why don’t you tell me what you think I’m looking for here?”

“
Well, Detective, I guess you’re looking for a killer. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Or are you just here for the free hand outs?”

Someone in the group giggled—one of the twins I supposed—but my irritation remained fixed on Lilith. I smiled thinly, sighed and then turned toward the window. I gazed at the blackness in the night sky. In the reflection on the glass, I saw all the members of the workshop watching me. “Yes, Ms. Adams,” I said, still concentrating on the reflection. “That is what I do. I look for killers wherever I can find them. However, that’s not all I do. I also look for information, and I observe. In fact, that’s what a good detective does mostly, you know. He observes things and people, places and dates…that sort of thing.”

“
Yes, I suppose that’s all very interesting. So tell me. What are you observing now? Is there anything outside of interest to you?”

“
No, Ms. Adams. There isn’t. Actually, what’s inside is what interests me most. I’m observing your colleagues behind me through the reflection in the window. That I find interesting. Don’t you think? I mean the fact I can stand here and observe two worlds at the same time, the world outside the window and the one behind me in this room. Surely, you must know what that’s like, Ms. Adams, what with you being a psychic and all. That must come in handy for you at times.”

Lilith set her sights on the window. She too could see the faces of her classmates in its reflection. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “I suppose you’re right. Sometimes it comes in handy.”

“
Of course it does. But you see I can’t always look at reflections in order to see two worlds. I have to rely on information I gather before I can see the whole picture. Not being psychic, I can’t just put myself into the killer’s mind to see where he is, go there and arrest him. Does that make sense to you at all?”

“
I guess what you’re saying is that you wish you were psychic like us, so that you could do your job much easier. You could be a super dick, like Batman or something.”

I laughed. “No, no chance of that. Please, I have enough crosses to bear, thank you. Hell, I know you all consider your psychic abilities a gift, just as I consider my detective skills a gift. But I wouldn’t trade one for the other in a million years. All I’m saying is that I need to gather information, plain and simple. I need to be free to pick and sift through whatever debris blows my way. That’s why I’m here tonight. All I ask is that you indulge me so that I might ask a few questions and observe a few moments here with your distinguished group. Then, having filled my little notebook with notes and observations, I can leave you in peace, return to my bat cave, if you will, and try to sort it all out.”

Lilith turned from the window and found my eyes locked on to hers with desperate intensity. She smiled, and I could feel her reeling me in on a thread of mistrust. “You know, Detective. You can ask all the questions you want. But trust me. If any of us knew anything about who killed our friends, we would have told you by now. Don’t you think?”

“
Yes, perhaps. I suppose you would. That’s if any of you knew that you knew something.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
Tell me, Ms. Adams. Are you familiar with the term divination?”

The question hit her like a slap on the cheek. She pitched back on her perch and I could tell that her heart skipped a measured beat. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “Sure,” she said confidently, and I knew that the others had not detected her initial misstep. “Of course I know the meaning of divination. I’m a witch, you know. And in case you’re wondering, I do practice the art.”

I thanked her for answering truthfully, and then looked around the room, imagining that some in the group had no idea what we were talking about. Michael took the opportunity to interpret the silent survey as an invitation to ask.