St. Clair Ch. 02: Witch

He'd taken her at her word and scrupulously avoided anyone under eighteen. And avoided her, "that fucking Terminator Bitch," as much as possible.

Shannon, well aware of Crowder's aversion to her, had always taken her with him whenever he checked on Crowder.

Just "friendly visits," of course. To remind him of his civic responsibilities.

Problem was, nobody was going to be talking to Crowder anymore. He'd finally OD'd on his own product just a few months ago in his camping trailer near the river. He had enough meth and especially Ketamine in his system to kill a dozen men.

Don had found a surprisingly large amount of cocaine, meth, and Oxycotin - "hillbilly heroin" - at the scene. Crowder must have been making a move up the ladder.

Shannon made a couple more notes.

"The search will take a few days to coordinate. So be ready to get called in to assist. We'll probably all need to be in on the ground on this one."

TJ walked out, trying to figure out how the hell she could be so wrong about Jenny.

***

Tammi sighed and pulled off her shirt as TJ stood blocking the door with a grin.

"Good enough?" Even though she knew it wasn't.

"Nope, go ahead and strip down, babe. No way in hell you're bringing those clothes into our house."

The corners of Tammi's mouth twitched up at the "our house" part. "I won't get it on anything and you can just bring me a garbage bag in the bathroom."

TJ shook with soundless laughter for a second. "Oh no, you set the precedent. I'm just following your rules. Toss it all on the porch swing. Every stitch."

Tammi made a mock-scowl. "You're enjoying this."

"Oh yeah. Do you need some music? Maybe 'Somethin to Talk About'?"

Tammi snorted. "Now you're just being an ass."

TJ gingerly accepted Tammi's Rayon gunbelt.

"So, somewhere in all that Ecology stuff, didn't they ever tell you to stay clear of the black kitty cats with big white stripes down their back?"

"It was trapped in a drain. And it was a spotted skunk, and they're declining, so I had to get it out."

Tammi finally finished. "There, naked as the day I was born. Happy?"

TJ examined her with deliberate slowness. "Not really. Always happy to see you naked, but you smell too bad to touch right now."

"Then let me in and go get the cans of tomato juice out of the trunk. It isn't quite warm enough for this right now. My nipples are going to fall off."

TJ stood aside and let her in, then brought bag after bag of tomato juice into the bathroom where Tammi began opening them and dumping them into the tub.

"Sixteen cans of tomato juice. You wipe the store out?"

"Not quite. And I wasn't the first and won't be the last to need a skunk bath. They've seen it before. But it was funny as hell to watch Cindy try to hold her breath and not be obvious about it the whole time she was ringing up the sale."

TJ let Tammi finish pouring her bath while she dumped the uniform into a plastic 5 gallon bucket and dumped dish soap, vinegar and water in with it to soak it before washing. She gingerly stripped the gun belt and dropped it in too.

She walked back in to find Tammi adding hot water to the tub. "Damn juice is cooler than it should be."

TJ sat on the edge of the tub. "We're gonna be searching along the Bramble for Tony."

"Shannon called. I have a bunch of maps in the back seat for you to take in. Everybody better move fast, it's supposed to start raining hard tomorrow and maybe a week or more after that, we may be looking at a foot of rain. That leveler at the dam is working fine but the Bramble is going to rise no matter what."

"It's going to be slow going, but with all the rock around here we're going to concentrate on the places where the softer silt is. Still a lot to search and most of it's all along the riverbed, where it's harder to get to. Ray doesn't think anyone would drag a body too far from a vehicle so he's going to use your maps to figure out the best places for boat access and road access."

"You think this is about Jenny?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's just a bunch of coincidences. But we need to be sure."

"I just can't see it."

"Neither do I, but if there's one thing I learned in Iraq, it's that people will do some insane things for their religion."

They talked over the case for a few minutes - with the DNR involved in the case, and Tammi a full-fledged (probationary) park ranger, they could actually talk about the details for a change.

Eventually though, TJ let Tammi get on with a long, hot shower to get the tomato juice off, while she went and got her something for Tammi to wear.

When Tammi walked out, she headed straight for the bedroom, where TJ sat grinning on the edge of the bed.

"So your idea of 'something to wear' is coconut oil and high heels?"

"Just following your rules."

Tammi smiled and walked toward her, still thinking the words "our house."

***

Afterwards they just lay next to each other staring up at the ceiling.

"That was intense. Maybe you should get sprayed by a skunk every week."

"I'll pass on that, but..." she paused. "You said 'our house'."

TJ looked at her quizzically. "It is our house."

Tammi rolled over on her side to face her. "I remember you saying you weren't sure you could do the long term stuff, and I've been worried about it ever since. But now I'm sure you're doing it. You didn't think about it when you answered me just now."

"I even got a little jealous the other day."

"What'd I do?"

"Nothing. I was just... This is stupid. Nevermind."

"Nope. You don't get to do that. What was it?"

"We never really talked about our previous relationships."

"That's not true, Tina - you know all about Andy and I know about that bitch Katie who dumped you before you went to Iraq."

"Yeah, but Swede mentioned that you and Angie have always been close and..." She ran down.

"... And you were wondering if Angie was my 'special friend' in high school."

TJ nodded.

"Nope. I really think she'd do anything for me, but she pretty much went boy crazy when she hit High School and stayed that way."

"It was just the way you two walked out of the department the other day."

"We've been friends forever, we hung out together pretty much since we could walk, but we really got close on one particular day. We were playing along the train tracks, searching the gravel bed for fossils. We were crossing a very small bridge over a culvert when Angie's foot slipped through and she got caught. We heard the Illinois Central coming around the bend as we tried to get her loose. She started screaming at me to run, but I couldn't leave her. "

Tammi looked back up at the ceiling. "We didn't make it."

"What happened?"

"The train was headed right into the setting sun, so nobody would have been able to see us, and if they had, they wouldn't have been able to stop anyway. At the last second I hugged her and we lay down as flat as we could while over a hundred cars of coal roared over us. We lay there afterward, holding each other, shaking in terror, laughing and crying all at once. I guess the vibration shook her loose, 'cause we just walked away after that. If she'd been here and really known what was happening with Andy, she'd have gone after him with a hammer. She'd have gone to prison for me with a smile on her face."

"Oh."

"But, yeah, she went boy crazy and she's kind of like a sister anyway. My secret girlfriend in High School was Ellie."

"Really? As in little-Ellie-from-the-diner-with-five-kids?"

"Yep. And don't you dare say anything, Tina James. Her nice church-going husband's got no idea of Ellie's 'sordid past' with me. It was all over long before he met her."

"I'll keep your terrible secret."

Tammi grinned. "But you really were jealous. And instead of stewing over it, you told me. I think we have a real relationship."

***

The rains came.

As Tammi had warned, the weather shifted - warmer, but with constant rain, drizzle to full on storms, over and over again.

The search dragged on for days.

The office was a little less lighthearted than usual, and a whole lot damper as deputies came in an out from search grids.

Ray scowled down at the map. "Most of the places we need to search are too risky to get to by boat."

TJ finished running a towel over her uniform to take the some of the water off. "Been thinking. If Jenny is telling the truth about the blackouts, about not remembering, maybe someone could take her around to the trailer or wherever and see if it sparks anything."

"Couldn't hurt." He checked the deputy schedule. "Looks like Swede comes on in the morning, I can have him round her up and try Tony's and Crowder's places. Unless you want to stay soggy and earn a bunch of comp time you'll never get a chance to use."

"No thanks, Swede can handle it. Tammi and I put together stew in the slow cooker last night, and I hear it calling my name."

Ray agreed.

She reached the cabin just after Tammi, who was also soaked to the bone from searching.

"Nothing."

"Same here. And I'm behind on the secondary water samples too."

By the time they ate, cleaned up, and crawled in bed, they were both falling asleep about as fast as they could settle in.

***

"You think I killed him, don't you?"

Swede shrugged. "We're just following leads here Jenny. You were here sometime around when he disappeared and with your, uh, memory problems, we thought taking you a few places might jog your memory."

Jenny grumbled, not convinced at all.

Tony's house was a bust - she remembered it alright, but Swede was convinced she was telling the truth when she said she didn't remember anything about the night Tony disappeared.

And when they arrived at Crowder's place, she was totally lost, until Swede explained who Crowder was.

"That asshole? I remember he had a hand up my skirt and was driving for home before I busted him over the head with a bottle. Never saw him before or after that. Jackass."

She shook her head as they walked through Crowder's house. "I've never been here before. Nothing looks familiar."

"Look carefully. The bedroom's over there."

Jenny shot a glare at him. "I wouldn't have touched him on my drunkest day. Even if I'd gone home with him that drunk - which I wouldn't - I'd have woke up sober and I damn sure would have remembered that."

Swede shrugged. "Just look around."

Jenny wandered without any purpose, poking into things for no particular reason. She glanced up at the magazines stacked on a built-in bookshelf and pulled a small stack out. Girlie magazines. Penthouse was one of the milder ones.

Suddenly struck with the idea of what Crowder would be doing while looking though the magazines, she thrust them back on the shelves. "Eeewww."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just..." she stopped. "Hey did you guys ever search this house?"

"No reason to, he overdosed in his trailer down by the river. Couldn't get a warrant for this place. Since it's now foul play, we got the go ahead."

"Was he a carpenter or something?"

"Hardly, he was in my Industrial Arts woodworking class. The only reason he passed was so the teacher wouldn't have to look at him for a third year."

"So why would he have five copies of the 'New Yankee Workshop'?"

Swede stared, puzzled.

"It's a woodworking show. On PBS."

"PBS?"

"I can't afford cable."

Swede walked over, sighed and pulled a copy down and started to flip through it. Three glassine envelopes of white powder fluttered down to the floor.

"Damn it."

"So can we leave now?"

"Uh, no. Actually we're going to be here a while. I have to call Ray and get the crime scene tech here."

"Oh"

It was almost three hours before the lab tech had logged everything in chain of custody, and the scene was cleared.

Three hours that Jenny sat in the cruiser bored out of her mind.

By the time Swede came out she was clearly starting to drift off.

"Jenny?"

She blinked twice, shaking off the sleep. "What?"

"You hungry?"

"I guess."

"The department will treat you at the diner for being a good sport about this."

"What can I get?"

"Anything but catfish."

"Don't care much for catfish anyway. Ate too damn much of it growing up."

"I've got to swing past the house I'm rebuilding to check on it. It's been two weeks since I checked on it. You okay with that?"

"Sure."

She carefully listened in as Swede called his route on the radio. Just to be sure. Swede always seemed nice, but she'd learned caution the hard way where guys were concerned.

"It's the old Holloway place. Use to sneak over here with girls when I was in high school. Bought it when my place washed out. Its taking longer than expected to clean it up and rebuild, but I'll get there."

Jenny got out to look at the house while he walked up and unlocked it.

She could see a half-fallen barn back behind the house, but a half rotten, strangely-shaped black oak caught her attention and she walked around it, nearly tripping over a thick, deformed looking root.

Swede walked up. "What's wrong."

"I don't know. Just looks strange."

"That's supposed to be the Hanging Tree."

"Hanging Tree?"

"Supposedly, about a hundred years ago, the man that lived here hanged himself over a lost love or something like that."

"That's just lovely."

"Probably bullshit though. Tammi told me a hundred years ago you couldn't hang yourself from that tree, it wouldn't be big enough. Just a spooky story kids tell to freak each other out."

"That makes me feel a little better. But it still feels wrong."

Swede squinted up at the tree. "I may cut down out later, looks like the center is rotting out."

Jenny glanced back at the dark twisted tree as they got back in Swede's cruiser.

Even later, after she was back at her place, Jenny's thoughts kept drifting back to the dark tree.

The snake coiled through her, she could feel it sliding through her veins, feel the hunger growing. She unwrapped her precious knife. The need for it, the desire was starting to grow irresistible.

***

"253 253 this is Dispatch"

"This is 253 Go Dispatch"

"Report of vehicle stranded at low water crossing at intersection of Highway W and County Road 567"

"Roger Dispatch Highway W and County Road 567"

TJ pushed the Beast on; the rain had been coming for over a week. She'd personally closed off at least three major intersections, staying until the Highway Patrol set up signs and barricades to ward off the unwary.

As she pulled up, a familiar figure stood forlornly on the side of the road looking at a small red coupe sitting in the middle of the intersection with water lapping over the bottom edges of the doors.

TJ backed up to the rear of the little car and hopped out, splashing in cool water. Angie walked over with a pitiful expression.

"Hey Angie."

"Sorry, I thought if I went real fast, I'd make it."

"You're lucky it's just standing water, if it was moving you'd have been in a lot of trouble."

"I know."

TJ pulled a tow cable out and began attaching it to Angie's car. "I'll pull your car out, and get it to the side of the road, but I don't know if it will start."

Angie shrugged. "You need it in neutral?"

TJ nodded and Angie popped the door open and popped the shifter over.

She grimaced. "Dome light didn't come on."

"We'll get it up out of the way and I'll give you a lift to town."

It was a matter of just minutes for the Beast to pull the little car up on to a turn-around area.

Angie grabbed her purse and a small backpack from the back seat and hopped up into the Beast.

"Can you just drop me at the Sheriff's? Swede gets off shift in an hour and all the roads to my place are cut off anyway. I'll just stay with him."

"Sure. Gonna drop off my log book and change out of this uniform and into some dry clothes before I head home. What are you doing out here anyway?"

"Had to drop off some Stress-Aid, all this rain is stressing everyone's cattle out. Farmers are losing cows."

TJ pointed the Beast back toward town. "Swede may be running behind, the search team's moving over to the Holloway property, near Swede's project house. They want to cover that silt bank along the south side of the Bramble there before the water gets too high. Swede's going to help them get set up down there."

"I'll wait. It'll give me time to drip dry."

"We have some jail suits, but I don't think you'd want that."

Angie grinned. "I actually look damn good in orange. I'm sure if you talked to them, a couple of my ex-boyfriends would probably love to see me in a jail jumpsuit."

TJ laughed quietly.

Angie detailed some of her more outrageous California boyfriends as they wound through backroads to town.

By the time they walked into the department, she'd catalogued her conquests of a tattoo artist and body piercer, a street pantomime performer, a Hatha yoga instructor and a half dozen would-be actors, who mostly waited tables. She was just finishing up her tales of relationship breakdowns as Ray watched them come in.

"... so most of the time I ended it when I realized we weren't going anywhere and I decided I'd be better off with a new boyfriend. Except the mime and the yoga instructor."

"What happened with them?"

"The yoga instructor apparently decided we weren't going anywhere and decided he'd be better off with a new boyfriend."

"Been there, done that. What about the mime?"

Angie smirked with an arched eyebrow. "Turns out mimes are mostly assholes. It just takes a lot longer to find out because they don't talk much."

Ray shook his head chuckling. He turned and yelled over toward the cells. "Kathy! Bring out some towels, got two drowned rats out here."

As they were drying off, Melanie came of the comms office striding toward the search map set up on the wall of the main office, soberly looking down at her notepad.

"Looks like they might have found Tony. They found something anyway. Graves on the bank near the Holloway place. They think they've found what could be at least three graves there. They already have the coroner's team and the crime scene tech on the way."

TJ sighed. "Do I need to head back out there?"

Ray shook his head. "Shannon is already with that team. As late as it is, they're just going to do the initial survey and lock the scene down."

Melanie shifted uncomfortably. "They said there are rocks laid out in some kind of symbol on top of the graves. Like a face or something."

"Jenny." Ray pushed a piece of paper idly across his desk.

"I don't know, I've been looking into voodoo. The real thing doesn't use faces much, it uses all kinds of weird lines and symbols, but not faces. Wannabes use that kind of stuff, but Jenny knows the real thing."

"We'll look in on her tomorrow, we haven't checked on her since they found all that meth over at Crowder's place."

After talking through the plan for the next day, TJ stepped out and headed for her Ranger - the Beast had to have its quarterly maintenance check, so she and Tammi had had to juggle vehicles before the start of her shift.

She slid into the seat, laying her soaked clothes and gun belt on the passenger side floorboard.

Heading for home, TJ stopped to grab take-out hot sandwiches from the diner. She thought she detected a sly smile on Ellie's face when she handed over the sandwiches.

But she couldn't be sure.

***

TJ carried the sandwiches and drinks up to the house, juggling them carefully. Tammi met her at the door, looking a little ragged, handheld radio in hand. "You mind if I take your Ranger up to pick up the water sample kit? One of the volunteers left it up at one of the test sites on the bramble access road. She couldn't even remember which site. If I don't pick it up, we could lose it all and have to re-sample about 40 sites. I'd take my car, but the roads are mush and I might need the four wheel drive."