Witch of Tahquitz

WHEN I WAS young, my mother told me a ghost story to scare me home before dark. It was about a witch-shadow in Tahquitz canyon that would swoop down on bad children, taking them away from their parents, never to be seen again. I thought it just a campfire tale used by adults to scare kids - at least, I thought so until Papa passed away. Papa (pronounced Powpow), my great-grandfather, died in 1992. In his Last Will and Testament he left me a tattered old leather saddlebag containing four items: an old Rochester camera, some undeveloped slide plates, a relic of a flintlock pistol which still functions, and his Constables log. In the log, he revealed a secret history of my family kept from me my whole life. He was the second constable in the Village of Palm Springs. The following story was the greatest case he ever cracked.