Cactus Waffle Murder

by Carolyn Q. Hunter

  “Are you sure you still want to do this?” Frank teased, nudging his wife.

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course. It’s one of the main reasons we came here, isn’t.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He motioned toward the small walkway leading to the ladder. “Ladies first.”

  “You’re on,” she said, moving forward and starting the first stretch. She felt more comfortable seeing that the ladders were secured to the cliff face with metal bolts going into the rock, meaning they couldn’t wobble or topple over.

  At first, it wasn’t so bad. However, the farther she got up, and seeing the drop off to one side, she had to concentrate on her footing. She didn’t want to get vertigo and accidentally lose her grip.

  Finishing the first ladder, she came to a series of stone steps, no wider than a foot at the most. A metal railing—also bolted into the rock—allowed her to hold on as she climbed up.

  Coming to the next ladder, she didn’t hesitate and went onward and upward, Frank behind her all the time. Reaching the top of that one, they came to an open flat space where you could rest and look over the railing to see how far you’d come. Warning signs said to not climb or lean on the railing.

  “Wow. It feels so much higher when you’re actually up here,” Frank said, coming up the ladder and finding Sonja at the lookout.

  “It does,” she agreed, looking down to see the ruins below as well as the little river that ran through the valley.

  “Come on, let’s keep going,” she said, going for the next ladder. This one was by far the most frightening. It was the longest of the ladders and had the sheerest drop. Keeping her eyes on the wooden rungs, she made the ascent and came to another short portion of stone steps.

  The final ladder was shorter than the rest and she mounted it easily.

  Entering the alcove, she breathed a sigh of relief to have made it.

  “We’re here,” Frank announced, entering the shadowy alcove.

  The inside of the alcove had carvings and holes that told of a time long past, of people who had once lived here. Most importantly, it told of holy men who would make the ascent on regular occasions—without bolted ladders and railing—to commune with a higher power.

  Looking around, she realized they were probably the first people to reach the top that day. Most of the other people they’d met on the trail were older and probably wouldn’t make the climb. Some might go halfway and then go back.

  She felt at peace, like an eagle surveying the wealth of earth below.

  “Look, a kiva,” Sonja pointed toward the large circular structure that was sticking out of the dirt in the center of the space. A square hole held a ladder to go down inside.

  “A kiva?” Frank asked.

  “It’s sort of like an underground house. They were used for religious ceremonies and meditation.”

  “That’s cool. Can we go inside?” he asked.

  “The brochure says we can,” she pointed out. Reaching the square hole in the top, she turned back toward Frank. “Is it okay if I go in alone first?”

  “Go right ahead.” He motioned to the opening.

  “Thanks,” she said, getting on the ladder and disappearing down into the darkness below. The air was instantly cooler—damper as well. Reaching the bottom, she stepped off into the large circular room, much bigger than she had first suspected.

  Standing in the center of the space, she slowly let her eyes flutter closed. Breathing deeply, she took in the aura of the place, the history of it. Due to her sixth sense, she could sometimes feel the spirits of the people who had once been there.

  She wanted to show respect and maybe even find a connection. She held out her hands, palms up.

  As she breathed in and out, slow and methodical, she felt like she could almost hear someone else breathing along with her. She imagined she could feel their breath on her skin. The touch of the earth.

  It was as she felt some sort of connection, a welling in her heart, that she let her eyes flutter open.

  Standing directly in front of her was a man with dark leathery skin. The fur of a wolf draped his shoulder and came up over his head, covering his eyes. His nostrils flared as the breath of the dead touched her skin, cold as ice.

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  More surprised by the man’s sudden appearance than his strange dress, Sonja cried out and stumbled back into the ladder.

  “Sonja, are you okay?” Frank asked from above, his head appearing in the square opening above her.

  Before she answered, Sonja looked at the ominous figure in the wolf skin headdress and realized he was pointing with one crooked finger at the far wall of the room. As soon as she’d seen the gesture, the man disappeared in a puff of otherworldly smoke that seemed to evaporate into nothing.

  “I’m fine, Frank. I just tripped is all,” she lied, not wanting to alert her husband to the possible presence of an ancient spirit or ghost. By her estimation, they’d already encountered enough hiccups in their honeymoon trip without there being a paranormal disturbance added on top of it.

  Frank had come to terms with the fact that his new wife could see and speak to the dead. However, Sonja could see in his eyes that the idea of ghosts still made him uncomfortable, even when he sometimes relied on her sixth sense during less than normal murder investigations in the past.

  “I’m coming down,” he said, not asking for permission.

  Most likely, he wanted to check and see that she hadn’t hurt herself when she tripped. Sonja was okay with that, letting her eyes fall onto the wall at the far side of the room where the ghost was pointing.

  “You okay?” Frank asked again, putting his hands on her shoulders from behind while she examined that spot.

  In the dirt, right up against the stone wall, was an imprint like someone had laid there—maybe even slept there. Meanwhile, two separate pairs of footprints appeared to surround the flat spot. One pair looked like work boots and the other more like loafers or dress shoes.

  The last thing she spotted was something black and shiny, sticking partway out of the earth.

  “Sonja, did you hear me? Are you okay?” Frank asked, giving her shoulders a squeeze.

  “What’s that?” she wondered out loud without answering him.

  “What?”

  Stepping near the wall and squatting down, Sonja picked up the small black flashlight from the dirt. It was no bigger than the palm of her hand.

  “Did you find something?” Frank asked, standing over her.

  “Yeah, a flashlight.”

  “Someone must have dropped it here. I guess it’s yours now,” he joked.

  “I guess so,” she agreed, standing up and pocketing the item. She had no idea if it was important, or if it even was the thing that the ghost was pointing to, but she was going to hold on to it either way.

  If there was one thing Sonja had learned over the past few years since her supernatural awareness had awakened, it was to never ignore a ghostly visitation or premonition.

  Sometimes they proved to be nothing, but most of the time a ghost only appeared to Sonja if there was something big going on that they needed her help with. The exception to this rule was Sonja’s pet cat, Misty, who was also a ghost.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Frank reiterated his earlier question, looking Sonja in the eye.

  “Yeah, I didn’t even fall on the ground, just stumbled into the ladder.”

  “Okay, good,” he agreed, starting his ascent to the top of the kiva. Sonja quickly followed, popping out the top and feeling the cool spring wind on her cheeks. Down below in the valley, she could see some younger hikers who were beginning the climb up to the alcove.

  “Are you ready to head back down?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah. I think so,” she said, still feeling the flashlight in her pocket. Her eyes passed over the dirt of the alcove itself, seeing trails of the same two sets of footprints. “Hold on a minute,” she requested, following the prints.

 
; “What is it? Did you see something?”

  “I’m just noticing these footprints,” she said honestly.

  “What about them? Other people come up here.”

  “But look,” she indicated, pointing at their own prints coming into the alcove. “The only other prints besides these ones are ours.”

  “So, someone came up before us early this morning, probably.”

  As the footprints neared the edge of the alcove, where the steepest drop off was and a clear sign instructed hikers to stay back, she shrugged. “You’re probably right,” she said.

  “Hey, be careful, Sonj’. The sign says not to get too close to the edge there.”

  “I know. I saw it,” she told him.

  The shoe marks in the dirt seemed to slide around at this point, and Sonja began to get a tightness in her chest. It wasn’t from being so high up. It was the fact that these shoe imprints looked as if someone had been struggling here.

  “Sonja, what is it?” Frank asked, reading his wife’s pale expression.

  “Look at this. Do these prints look odd to you?”

  “How so?” he asked, walking over to where she stood near the edge and looking down at them. He’d learned to listen to Sonja when she had something on her mind. Instantly, he saw it, too. “Huh. These do look like someone was fighting up here,” he admitted, his professionally trained eye recognizing the patterns. They were like things he’d seen at crime scenes he’d worked in the past.

  Sonja, her heart beating up into her throat, leaned just enough to see over the edge.

  “Careful,” Frank cautioned quietly, worried to see his wife leaning out over the perilous drop.

  “Oh. Oh, no,” Sonja whispered.

  “Please don’t tell me—” Frank trailed off, knowing where this was already going.

  Sonja took a step back and looked her husband in the eye. “There is a body down there, Frank.”

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  “It’s a good thing you noticed those footprints, ma’am, otherwise we might not have found the body for days or weeks even,” the first responding state police officer said to her as they stood in the alcove.

  Thankfully, being as high up as they were gave them some semblance of cellphone service and they were able to call out to emergency services. Park rangers arrived first, sending hikers back to the welcome center waiting for the state police and emergency rescue services to arrive.

  Frank, being a lawman himself, hadn’t wanted to head down the cliffside until the local authorities arrived, just to keep other hikers from coming up into the area where the body was—and the possible crime scene it prevented if this turned out to be more than an accident.

  They’d both gone down to the halfway point, where the lookout was, to turn hikers back down until the officer had arrived. The officer, who had been just outside the entrance to the park, had gotten the call first. He had requested they go back up to the alcove. Standing at the top of the last ladder—but not going near the footprints or the spot where the person fell—they visually pointed him in the right direction, showing how they’d been able to discover the body.

  Sonja also suspected that the officer didn’t want to try and talk while standing in the small lookout space where Sonja and Frank had waited for him.

  “Surely someone would have found him if we didn’t,” Sonja said.

  “I doubt it. I come to the alcove on my days off a lot of the time. That spot where he fell is right between two big ol’ boulders. You can’t see that spot from the trail and you wouldn’t have been able to see it unless you leaned out over the edge the way you did.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “Not the smartest thing concerning the warning signs, but I’m glad you did.”

  “Thanks,” Sonja replied.

  “Any idea who the fella is?”

  “We have no idea,” Frank answered.

  “Well, he is wearing a suit, I think,” Sonja noted, trying to remember the image of the body, despite how far down it was.

  The officer hummed thoughtfully. “It is odd, I have to say that much. I don’t see why anyone would make this hike in a suit.”

  “I have a theory,” Sonja said, lifting one finger to emphasize her idea.

  “I’m all ears ma’am,” the officer said.

  “Do you know who Savile Denningsworth is?”

  The officer’s eyes widened. “Sure do. He’s that big shot businessman who is always buying up land for development. You think it’s him down there?”

  “Sonja, we can’t know that,” Frank told her.

  “We were at the gift shop earlier.”

  “The one just outside the state park?” the officer asked.

  “Yes. Savile’s lawyer came in and was questioning the shop owner . . . Abook is his name I think.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hayden, that’s the lawyer, claimed that Mr. Denningsworth was missing.”

  “Don’t forget. Abook’s employee was randomly missing as well,” Frank pointed out.

  “In any case, I thought that perhaps our dead body is Mr. Denningsworth.”

  “That’s an interesting theory, to be sure, but we’ll know soon. It looks like the emergency rescue helicopter and climbing teams are here,” he said. Sure enough, the sound of propeller blades filled the air. Down in the valley, uniformed medics and emergency personnel dressed in climbing gear were already headed for the scene.

  “You two better head back down now while I finish securing this area up here. This was probably just an accident, but you can never be too careful. If we need you again, we’ll give you a call on your cell phones.”

  “And you have our hotel information,” Frank added, pointing at the pad the officer was using to take preliminary notes.

  “That I do.”

  Sonja shoved her hands in her pockets and suddenly remembered the flashlight was there. “Oh, I nearly forgot. I found this inside the kiva,” she told the officer, handing the small item over to him. “I thought maybe it could help in the investigation.”

  “She found it and picked it up before we realized there was a body,” Frank pointed out, not wanting his girlfriend to be accused of tampering with evidence.

  Taking a plastic glove out of one of his belt pouches, he took the item and examined it for a moment. “I’m not sure how much help it will be, especially if you guys picked it up and handled it.”

  “What about the brand or style?” Sonja asked, hoping she hadn’t ruined the piece of evidence for good.

  “Unfortunately, they sell these little doohickeys by the dozen at every souvenir shop and gas stop in the region.” With that, he wrapped the glove around it to save it for the investigating officers who were already on their way up the ladders.

  * * *

  By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain, having to wait for slews of officers and other personnel to come up the ladders, the whole valley was swarming with people trying to figure out what exactly had happened.

  Sonja wondered if this was the first time someone had fallen—or been pushed—off the alcove to their death. Somehow, the efficient way everyone went about their jobs spoke volumes for the state police, the rescuers, and the park rangers.

  “Well, I guess it wouldn’t be our honeymoon unless there was a body,” Frank complained as they started along the trail back to the welcome center.

  “Oh, cheer up,” she said, smiling and wrapping her hands around his thick arm. “It’s not your jurisdiction, so you don’t even have to worry about it. Besides, it’s not like we really knew the victim here.”

  “That hasn’t stopped you before,” Frank pointed out, raising an eyebrow at his wife.

  “I know, I know, but I have a strong sense of justice when it comes to these matters.”

  “No kidding,” he laughed, giving her hand a squeeze. “Just promise me that we will enjoy the rest of our honeymoon without getting mixed up in this mess any more than we already have been, okay?
”

  “But the officer said it was probably just an accident. What is there to be mixed up in?”

  “You just never know,” he reminded her. There had been many times where a simple accident turned out to be murder.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  “And no ghosts either, preferably,” he added with a quiet chuckle.

  At this comment, Sonja grew silent, wanting to avoid the subject. She looked off into the woods around her, spotting a chipmunk running among some low brush.

  “Sonja?” Frank said, drawing out her name as if scolding her.

  “What?” she asked, putting on as innocent a tone as she could muster.

  “No ghosts, right?”

  Sonja bit her lower lip and Frank paused. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You saw a ghost in the kiva, didn’t you?” he accused.

  Sonja, feeling put upon, gave a half smile of apology. “I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it didn’t mean anything.”

  “Obviously, it does,” Frank insisted, motioning back toward the workers and officers.

  “It looked like a very old spirit, one of the men who might have used the kiva hundreds of years ago.”

  Sighing and shaking his head, he put his hands on his hips. “I suppose he feels his sacred place has been disrupted because of this death.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s why I said it. It’s like having someone killed in a church or temple.” Taking her hand in his, they continued walking. “I don’t blame you at all. I just wish you’d told me right away.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t want to disrupt our honeymoon any more than it already has been.”

  “Well, in the future when you see any kind of ghosts or visions, please tell me right away. I’m your husband now and I’m as much a part of this whole paranormal world as you are. I don’t want to be left in the dark.”

  “I promise,” she confirmed, squeezing his hand and smiling at him.

  “So, what did the ghost say? Anything?” Frank asked after a moment of silence.

  “He pointed toward the far wall where I found the flashlight.”