The Witch's Ladder by Dana Donovan Page B

more than a dream, but deep down she knew the truth. It was not a dream, only another wicked night of bilocation. For reasons she did not understand, the forces that brought her to bear witness to bloodshed, also stopped her from changing the course of the events. As a spectator, she could do nothing—the outcome was always inevitable and predestined.
    Leona told me her first thought after waking was to call me, but she decided against it, unsure of what she might say. She knew I suspected her involvement somehow in the Suffolk’s Walk murders. I had been to her apartment twice already to talk about it, but missed her both times. How would she explain her knowledge of the latest murders to me? Bilocation? To the nonbeliever it would seem too fantastic, and knowing more about the killings than even the police could prove enough to persuade a skeptic of bilocation that she was either involved or responsible for the murders herself.
    At daybreak, her telephone rang.
    “ Hello, Leona. It’s Val. I’m sorry to call you so early. Did I wake you?”
    “ No, you did not wake me, Valerie. I was just about to make de cafe.”
    “ Okay. Listen. I’m afraid I have some bad news to tell you. It’s about Chris.”
    “ I know. He is dead.”
    “ Did you see it on the news this morning?”
    “ No.”
    “ Then how did you hear about it, on the radio?”
    Leona began rambling on about something in Spanish, though much too quickly for Valerie to catch it all.
    “ Whoa—whoa, slow down,” said Valerie. “Start from the beginning.”
    Leona took a deep breath and let it out with a quiver. “Valerie, I need to talk to you and the others, but I do not want to see Detective Marcella. I am afraid he will not understand.”
    “ Leona. Dear God, what is it? Are you all right?”
    Leona nodded.
    “ Are you all right, Leona?”
    Another nod.
    “ Geezus, girl. If you’re nodding your head, stop it. I may be clairvoyant, but the phone is still the best medium for cross-town conversations.”
    “ Yes, I am fine.” She laughed. “Can we meet tonight?”
    “ Sure. I’ll call Doctor Lieberman and the others, tell him we need to meet as a support group.” After a brief silence, she added, “You know Detective Marcella will want to be there, too. You may not be able to avoid him.”
    “ Yes, I know. Perhaps that is not so bad. Who knows, maybe….” She sighed. “We will see.”
    Later that night, the group filed somberly across the parking lot, skirting the perimeter of the crime scene masked off in yellow tape. The county medical examiner had removed the bodies, but one could still clearly see where the murders took place. A chalked outline of Chris’ body ringed the ground next to the parking spot where the patrol car sat. Small orange police cones marked the dried blood that trailed downhill through the lot into a drainage grate.
    Across the street, reporters and news crews trained their cameras on the bewildered faces of the arriving workshop members, their lights drawing the attention of both the curious and the morbid. The gathering crowd of onlookers lent a ghoulish sense of disorder to the picture, as the city gobbled up its live-at-five television report on the latest Surgeon Stalker killings.
    Inside the building, the group gathered in the room on the second floor at the top of the stairs, taking their seats around the big oak tables as usual. Down the hall, Doctor Lieberman discussed the future of the workshop with Doctor Lowell in his office. At one point, the group overheard Doctor Lowell demand that the workshop disband. Doctor Lieberman argued vehemently against it.
    “ This whole thing is just bad publicity for the Center,” Doctor Lowell complained. “We have people out there that think you’re running some kind of psycho-sorcery playhouse. Some say you’re toying with this Surgeon Stalker by enticing him with live human bait. My God. How else can the Center explain why three people from the same workshop