THE WITCH'S LADDER (Detective Marcella Witch's Series) Read online

  The footsteps grew louder as he approached the vehicle, stopping with a scuff on the pavement as he reached the driver’s side door. The car door opened. Doctor Lieberman turned his back to the trees and to the two boys crouched below his line of sight. He extended his right leg over the threshold and proceeded into the Mercedes as he had done hundreds of times before. Three more seconds would have done it. Three more seconds, and he would have found the comfort, warmth and security of a precision-made luxury European automobile. But three more seconds were not afforded Doctor Lieberman that night.

  On cue, Michael and Gordon sprang from behind the car and descended on the doctor like birds of prey, taking him by complete surprise. Michael reached him first. He grabbed Lieberman by the arm as he reached over to shut the door and dragged him out onto the cold, wet pavement, headfirst and facedown. The assault proved quick, precise and devastating. Before Lieberman’s keys hit the mat, Michael had him sprawled out flat with the hefty Gordon leaping unmercifully onto his back. Grunts of pain and snapping bones punctuated each body slam Gordon delivered. On the third jump, blood discharged from the doctor’s mouth; on the fourth, something resembling stringy hamburger discharged from his nostrils. The doctor struggled to catch his breath, coughing and choking laboriously, but the thick, dampened air smothered the mayhem in a cloak of muffled groans.

  Except for the scuffling feet and tortured moans, the assault came off effectively stealthy. From the other end of the parking lot, Valerie and Jean heard nothing but their own rapid heartbeats and heavy breathing. They watched the attack as it unfolded with a sense of surrealism, accepting their involvement in the operation as an undesired necessity—foot soldiers in the greater war against evil.

  With adrenaline soaring, Gordon and Michael continued pummeling their victim. They shouted for the girls to come help, fearing the larger and stronger Doctor Lieberman might eventually break free. But the reality proved less threatening, as the fight had long gone out of the old man. The once-feared and dreaded Surgeon Stalker could offer no substantial resistance.

  Doctor Lieberman had by then figured out the identities of his assailants. He even called one of them by name between pleas of mercy. But no mercy came, just as no mercy came for Travis or Chris, as each gazed in horror into the eyes of evil with their entrails spilled out before them; or for Barbara, as she watched the mysterious dark figure through her rearview mirror. It sprang to life and pulled her back over the car seat, twisting her head until severing every connecting fiber to her brain. That, Michael and Gordon were determined, was the same mercy Doctor Lieberman would know that night.

  Lilith and the twins hurried from the shadows and surrounded the doctor. At that moment, Lieberman caught some of his breath, and in his agony began calling for help. Even Valerie and Jean heard his cries. They ran to the scene, anxious and panting, and alerted the others that they could hear everything all the way across the parking lot.

  “You’ve got to shut him up,” Valerie warned. “Someone will hear us.”

  Again, Lieberman wailed, this time louder, perhaps sensing his last chance.

  “Do it. Do it now,” she cried. “Finish him!”

  In a take-charge stroke of leadership, Shekina grabbed the tire iron from Akasha and wedged herself between Gordon and Michael. Then with shocking precision, she delivered several powerful blows in rapid succession to Doctor Lieberman’s skull, the whirling tire iron narrowly missing both boys by only inches each time she drew back her arm. In a matter of seconds, it was over. Doctor Lieberman lay motionless, face down on the pavement; only a sickening gurgling sound escaped through the corner of his mouth in a mixture of frothing blood and spit.

  “He’s still breathing,” Michael revealed, after leaning in closer to Lieberman’s face for examination.

  “Good,” said Shekina. She seemed pleased. She stood back and held the bloodstained tire iron up to the light for inspection. “It’s better this way.” She looked around briefly before spotting just the right tree limb on a huge oak several yards away. “There,” she said, pointing the tip of the tire iron. “That one is perfect. Take him over there.”

  Michael and Gordon grabbed Lieberman by the feet and dragged him across the parking lot, caring not that his face peeled raw to the cheekbone on the course pavement. Reaching the tree, they tied the jumper cables around his ankles and hoisted him upside down from its branch until his head swung barely inches off the ground.

  “All right,” said Shekina, “someone cut him. Who has a knife?”

  Gordon answered, “A knife? No one thought of asking that before we started.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Michael. “We went through all this and nobody has a damn knife? What happens now, Shekina? Does it still work if he dies like this?”

  “No, Michael. Doctor Lieberman dies, but the evil does not. His blood must spill to release the evil.”

  Jean stepped forward. “My late husband’s carpentry tools are still in the back of my Plymouth. Maybe there’s something there.”

  An immediate search of the car turned up the basic carpentry tools: a hammer, level, an apron full of nails and a rusty handsaw.

  “We’ll have to use that,” Shekina said, pointing to the saw. “That will do the job.”

  “Fine,” said Michael, wanting just to get the operation done. He grabbed the saw and marched back to the tree where Doctor Lieberman hung stiffly by his ankles. “Hold him steady,” he ordered, and then placed the saw to the doctor’s neck and began cutting. Gordon, Shekina and Akasha worked to steady the body. The others watched in squeamish silence, knowing this would be the worst part of all.

  At first, the rusty saw only tugged on Lieberman’s leathery skin, but once it bit in, it sliced through meat, bone and cartilage with ease. The head swung down, hinged at the back of the neck, coming to a rest on the muddy ground with a sliver of skin holding it to the body.

  “That is far enough,” Shekina declared. “The blood will drain from the head better if left attached like that.”

  The others nodded as though knowing from experience that Shekina was right. “Yes. That will be better,” Akasha echoed. “We should leave him like that.”

  Michael looked down at his blood-soaked sneakers. “Look at this.” He shook his foot as if the blood might shake off. “I just bought these a week ago. Okay see, I expect all of you to chip in and help pay for a new pair cuz I just—” He looked up and froze. The others, noticing his reaction, turned immediately to see what had silenced him.

  They probably expected to see me and my posse coming to arrest them for the gruesome crime they had just committed. Instead, they saw something possibly more disturbing. Leona Diaz, or more accurately her apparition, stood before them, hovering barefoot some six inches off the ground.

  “Lord have mercy,” Michael cried. “Does everyone see that?” The night air had grown considerably calm, but Leona’s long black hair and sheer ankle-length gown seemed to blow freely in a phantom breeze.

  “She’s lighter than air,” said Jean. “She’s a ghost.”

  Valerie started toward her, but Leona’s apparition floated backwards on her approach. “What are you doing here, Leona? Has he hurt you?”

  Leona didn’t answer. She continued hovering, shaking her head. A single tear slipped down her cheek.

  “No, he didn’t hurt you?”

  The question elicited the same response. Leona shook her head only slightly, with more tears skirting the corners of her mouth. Neither Valerie nor the others had ever seen Leona in this way before. Her body appeared not quite solid, but not transparent either. Her usually dark skin seemed much lighter, almost translucent. They didn’t know if they were seeing her ghost, or her life form as it appeared when she bilocated, though Valerie suspected the latter.

  “I know you can hear me,” Valerie said. “I’ll try to ask you simple yes and no questions.” She attempted to move in closer, but again, with each step Leona moved back an equal distance. “Does Doctor Lieberm
an have you locked up somewhere?”

  No response.

  “Are you in hiding? Is that it? Are you hiding someplace?”

  Again, Leona did not, or could not respond.

  “Leona, please. I’m trying to help you.”

  A subtle breeze meandered in, and Leona’s image wavered like a reflection in a rippling pond. When the breeze settled, Leona reached into her pocket, which until then didn’t even exist on the gown she wore. From the pocket, she produced a string of beads, or rosaries, as Valerie later described them, and she held them out for inspection. Yet, as Valerie predicted, when she tried to approach to retrieve them, Leona glided backwards, maintaining a distance just out of reach.

  “Leona, honey, I can’t get them. Can you drop them on the ground? I’ll pick them up after you back away.”

  At first, Leona didn’t seem to comprehend. Valerie held her hands out and turned her palms down until Leona understood and did the same. She turned her outstretched hand upside down, allowing the beads to spill out. Instead of falling to the pavement, however, the beads fell to her feet and levitated with Leona only inches from the ground.

  Valerie attempted to approach again to retrieve them, and once more, as Leona floated backwards and away from her advance, so did the beads. Then, as mysteriously as it appeared, Leona’s apparition faded. Valerie inspected the spot where Leona tried dropping the beads, only to find the pavement bare.

  “What the hell just happened?” Gordon asked. “Why was she trying to give you those beads?”

  Valerie shook her head. “I don’t know. But they must mean something.”

  “I know what it means,” said Akasha, offering her dismal view of the circumstance. “She wanted you to pray for her soul with them, as I am sure Doctor Lieberman has already killed her.”

  “No. I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s dead. I think we just saw her bilocating.”

  “Bilocating or not,” said Lilith. “Whatever you think, one thing is for sure. Leona knows what we’ve done to Doctor Lieberman, and if we don’t all get the hell out of here soon, Detective Marcella and the rest of the world will know it, too.”

  “Lilith is right,” said Akasha. “We need to go, but first everyone needs an alibi in case Detective Marcella asks questions. It doesn’t matter what anyone tells him, just so long as the stories match if we are going to use one another for collaboration.”

  The group listened as Akasha recited the instructions carefully. Somehow, amid all the insanity, she had emerged as the brains of the operation, maintaining her composure and revealing her true potential for cunning and deception. Gordon, in particular, gave silent praise to Akasha for how calm and levelheaded she remained during the entire operation. He admired her ability to remain focused, even as Doctor Lieberman pleaded for mercy and the others worried that someone would hear him. Even with all that, Akasha carried on as if it were just another experiment.

  “Shekina and I will think up our own alibis,” she continued. “If the rest of you want to partner up with someone to back your story, then remember to leave us out of it. Also, I want you all to get rid of every stitch of clothing you are wearing: shirts, pants, and blouses, whatever.” She looked down at Michael’s feet. “And of course, shoes. We’re probably leaving more evidence behind than all the other murders put together. Detective Marcella is going to have a field day. We don’t need him matching any of the footprints we leave here tonight with our shoes tomorrow.”

  As Akasha spoke, she noticed that everyone, including Jean, looked to the ground at the seemingly hundreds of footprints in the mud around the tree and on the pavement leading from Doctor Lieberman’s Mercedes.

  “If you can burn everything,” Akasha went on, “then do it. Otherwise, dispose of your stuff in plastic bags and throw them in a Dumpster somewhere.” After a pause, she added with great emphasis, “And not in your own trash cans at home.”

  “Why are you looking at me when you say that?” asked Gordon.

  “I didn’t look at you.”

  “Yes you did. You looked right at me.”

  “Okay. I looked at you.”

  “You think I’m sloppy?”

  “No. I think you’re lazy.”

  “I’m not lazy.”

  She looked up at the jumper cables used to suspend Doctor Lieberman from the tree limb. “We’ll have to leave those. Can they be traced back to you?”

  Gordon shrugged. “They can’t lift prints off them, can they?”

  “Probably not, but you’ll have to take that chance.”

  Akasha finished by stating that she and Shekina would dispose of the tire iron and the bloody handsaw. Then she advised her co-conspirators on one final precaution. “When you go back to your cars, after you sit down, but before you swing your feet in, I want you to kick off your shoes. Take your shirt, jacket or whatever, and wrap your shoes up with it. Be careful not to dislodge mud onto the floorboards or seats. There is likely a lot of blood mixed in with the mud and that could place you at the scene of the crime. Again, remember to make sure you get rid of everything as soon as you get home. Does everyone understand?”

  The bobbing heads told Akasha they did, and all were thankful for her advice, though silently they may have wondered how she became such an expert on crime-scene cleanup. But that was not important then. What was important was that Doctor Lieberman continued hanging from the tree until every drop of blood drained from his body, and that they all left the crime scene completely evidence-free.

  Nine

  It was at this point in our investigation that I was able to show just cause to convince a judge to let me tap a few phones. I remember one call in particular, which Carlos and I listened in on, that raised some eyebrows. It wasn’t enough to generate an arrest warrant, but it certainly fueled suspicions enough to cause alarm. It was a call Gordon made to Michael at ten past twelve the day after Lieberman’s murder.

  “Hello?”

  “Michael. It’s me.”

  “Gordy, am I glad it’s you? I meant to come see you and—”

  “Are you watching the news?”

  “What?”

  “The news, are you watching it?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Turn it on, now. Channel five. They’re doing a remote down at the Center. Something really strange is going on down there.”

  “Like what?”

  “Michael, just do it.”

  “All right. Give me a second.”

  A brief pause followed, in which one could hear the television click on and the station change to a local news program. Michael returned, “Yeah, all right, Gordon. It’s a live remote from the institute. Of course they’re going to make a big deal about it. Doctor Lieberman was the program coordinator of a workshop that’s already seen four other murders.”

  “Michael, you don’t understand. You didn’t see the rest of the coverage.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “The body, Man. You missed how they found the body.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They found him on the ground.”

  “So? There’s probably a logical explanation.”

  “No, you don’t understand. They found him on the ground—and get this. His liver was cut out.”

  “What?”

  “Someone took it! Do you realize what this means?”

  “Gordon. Don’t say anything else over the phone.”

  “We shouldn’t have listened to Lilith, her and that ridiculous story about contagious blood.”

  “No, Gordy. It’s the twins.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t explain it now. I have to talk to Valerie first. I’m going to drive out to see her. I’ll come by later to see you. In the meantime, stay off the phone. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “We’re going to put this thing to bed tonight once and for all.”

  “All right. I’ll wait for you here.”

  “Okay. Bye.” />
  Ten

  At exactly eight o’clock, Gordon emerged from the tall pines encircling the lakeshore gazebo behind the research center. Michael, Lilith and Jean were already there. What happened next was conveyed to me by a witness I shall reveal to you later. Suffice it to say, I believe the information is as reliable as it gets.

  “Surprised to see her here.”

  “Who, Jean?” Michael tossed Gordon a heavy piece of nylon rope. “She’s a player now. We need her if we’re going to pull this off. Besides, she feels bad for what we did to Lieberman. Thanks to those evil little bitches, the poor woman is beside herself.” He put his arm around Jean’s shoulder. “And as it so happens, our sweet Ms. Bradford here has quite the vengeful streak in her. Don’t you, Jeannie?”

  Jean shrugged off the unwanted attention and turned away without comment.

  Gordon asked, “So, what’s with the leash?”

  “You still remember how to make a noose, don’t you?”

  He inspected the rope carefully, weighing it in his hands as if judging its suitability for such a cause. “Hangman’s noose?”

  Michael held up two fingers. “We need two. Make’em good. We don’t want them to fail.”

  The request seemed unimaginably bizarre. Gordon glanced uneasily at Lilith and Jean. Both remained tight-lipped and turned away as soon as he made eye contact.

  “Gordon, we have to do this,” said Michael, noticing the awkward exchange of glances. “We’ve already discussed it. We need to do this for our own survival. You have to believe that.”

  “I understand. Just tell me how this is supposed to go down?”

  Michael started across the gazebo floor, careful not to trip over the line stretched between him and Gordon. “Okay, it’s like this. After we talked, I went to see Valerie and together we went to see Jean. We had her call the twins because we knew they would believe her. She told them she overheard me and Valerie talking about a witch’s Ladder of Death that Lilith made for them.”