I already knew my friend wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. His day off had ended the moment he heard the woman scream. As for me, even if I wanted to get myself a taxi home, I was a witness and I’d already been told that I would need to give a statement. I had thought I’d already done that when I told them what I saw the first six times, but apparently that was not official. When they would be getting around to me again was anyone’s guess.
“Hey, Row,” Ben greeted me sullenly as he drew himself up against the stairwell railing.
“Hey, Chief,” I returned, starting to pull myself to my feet. “You need to sit down?”
He motioned for me to stay seated. “Sit, sit. I’m good.”
“You sure?” I asked, stopping mid-rise. “It looked to me like you had a pretty serious limp there.”
“I’ll live.”
I lowered myself back to the step and regarded him for a moment. “The paramedic threatened you with a hypodermic, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” He let out something between a laugh and a sigh. “The words ‘tetanus booster’ got mentioned.”
“You probably need one.”
“We’ll see. Nothin’s broke.” He gave a slight nod as he spoke, but the expression on his face was saying ‘hell no.’
“So much for lunch, eh?” I offered after a moment.
My friend was looking out across the lot, massaging the back of his neck and lost in thought.
I spoke again, “Ben?”
He started and glanced over at me, “What? Oh, yeah. That’s a bust for sure. Maybe dinner depending on how this goes.”
He brought his hand up to smooth his hair then allowed it to fall back down to his side. He huffed out a heavy breath then addressed me with an added seriousness, “So listen, Row, the Major Case Squad is gonna be runnin’ this one.”
“Okay,” I acknowledged. “That’s not a big surprise.”
“What I’m tryin’ to tell ya’ is that Bee-Bee is on her way,” he emphasized. “Hell, she’s probably downstairs already.”
“Bee-Bee,” I repeated and rolled my eyes. “Just what I need.”
The moniker struck home. It was short for Bible Barb, which was probably the least offensive of the nicknames given to one Lieutenant Barbara Albright. She was a cop and a self-serving bureaucrat all rolled into one package, and she was in command of the MCS.
Like most of those her rank and above, she spent the majority of her time pushing a pencil. But that is where the similarity ended because unlike the others, she had a penchant for getting directly involved. Unfortunately, her involvement was not always a plus.
What had garnered her the various epithets was her self-righteous attitude. That, combined with the fact that she not only wore a badge but also a prominently displayed gold cross around her neck, had earned her the reputation of ‘God’s Personal Cop.’
She consciously built upon that distinction as well. She wore her badge like a shield and wielded the cross like a sword, using its symbolism like a heavy-handed weapon with which to mete out her own interpretation of justice. To Lieutenant Albright, the laws she was sworn to uphold were but secondary suggestions to the commandments held within the Holy Bible; and she was more than happy to tell you so in no uncertain terms.
While this didn’t necessarily make her popular among the ranks, she still had her supporters, and there were enough of them to make a difference. She managed to skirt around various departmental policies and flaunt her religion without reproach. Still, none of this would really matter at all were it not for one simple fact: she absolutely despised me.
While her initial hatred of me began simply because of my Pagan roots and religious practices, my being a Witch was not the only reason for her disdain. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to accept responsibility for a portion of it, as I had been partly responsible for sparking an Internal Affairs investigation of her.
Just a handful of months ago, I had been the object of a madman’s quest to eradicate WitchCraft from the face of the earth. Eldon Andrew Porter had taken the lives of several innocent people in the process, two of them my friends. Before all was said and done, I had come close to losing my own more than once.
During a single day that had been spawned by nothing less than hell itself, far too many things had gone horribly wrong. Information had been leaked; potentially dangerous mistakes had been made, and events that could have only been deliberate sabotage had occurred. All of these things had placed my life in jeopardy at every turn and had almost allowed Porter to escape. I, among a few others, believed that ‘Bible Barb’ had been responsible for it all.
While in the end she had admitted to using me as the bait to draw Eldon Porter out of hiding, she had been officially cleared of any other wrongdoing and was given nothing more than an administrative slap on the wrist. As for me, I was never fully convinced of her innocence and didn’t know that I ever would be.
At the same time, her own convoluted thinking made her believe that I was the root of the problem. She had even commented during a newspaper interview that had it not been for me, at least two of the victims would still be alive. I was already torturing myself over that very fact on a daily basis, and I sure as hell didn’t need her fueling the fire for me. I was doing a fine job of that all by myself.
“Look, Row, if it was up to me, I’d get you outta here right now before she gets here,” Ben offered. “But we both know that ain’t gonna happen.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s okay.”
“If it’s any consolation,” he added, “I ain’t exactly one of her favorite people either.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He wasn’t lying. He had gone toe to toe with her for the sole purpose of defending me and had done serious harm to his career in the process. While my friend was still a homicide detective, Albright had seen to it that he was no longer allowed to work as a member of the Major Case Squad as long as she was in command. That serious blow to his advancement was yet another thing I held myself responsible for, even if he didn’t.
“So, I don’t want to sound crass,” I said. “But what’s so important about this particular case that she feels like she needs to get her fingers in it?”
“Nice try,” he returned. “But it ain’t funny.”
I shook my head and looked back at him with a puzzled expression. “What are you talking about?”
“C’mon, Row,” he chided.
“No, really.”
He arched an eyebrow then cocked his head to the side, squinting while looking at me hard. “You aren’t friggin’ serious are you?”
“Serious about what?” An audible note of annoyance crept into my question.
“Do you have any clue at all what you just witnessed?” he asked.
“I’m guessing a kidnapping.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And what?” I asked, growing more impatient.
He shook his head and gave me an incredulous look. “Don’t you ever watch TV?”
“Sometimes. So what?”
“You watch the news, right?”
“Ben, will you just spit it out?” I demanded.
“You’re gonna sit there and tell me you didn’t recognize the woman who was grabbed?” he asked.
I flashed on a quick memory of the blonde victim and remembered having had a passing thought that I should know her.
I shook my head and shrugged. “Not really. She looked a little familiar, but other than that…”
“She’s all over the news,” my friend returned, shaking his head as well. “The Gateway Club Telethon, all kinds of charity events… You know, anything with a cause and a donation jar.”
“I’m sorry, Ben,” I barked the words. “But I still don’t know who she is. Now, would you please quit trying to make me feel stupid, and just clue me in?”
“Jeezus, Rowan,” he blurted, still shaking his head. “That was Brittany Larson.”
I looked back at him, stunned as the name sunk in, and m
y brain made the connection. “You mean…”
“Yeah, I mean Brittany freakin’ Larson,” he replied. “The goddammed mayor’s daughter.”
CHAPTER 6:
Ben was busy going over the turn of events with some other detectives when Lieutenant Barbara Albright arrived. She strode purposefully out of the elevator, headed straight for the door of the enclosure and whipped the door open with a swift yank.
Her low-heeled pumps were clacking out a determined cadence across the concrete decking of the parking lot as she started for the opposite end of the structure. I almost wish I’d had a camera on hand to catch the look on her face when she glanced to the side and saw me sitting on the stairs.
She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at me as her lips drew into a thin frown. After a brief pause, she unbuttoned her jacket and marched toward the stairs, coming to a halt in front of me and placing her hands on her hips.
“Would you mind explaining just exactly what it is that you are doing here, Gant?” She spat the words more as a demand than as a simple question.
She was slight but still altogether imposing just given her attitude. Her appearance placed her somewhere in her mid fifties even with her shoulder length hair having turned prematurely white. She was dressed in a dark grey pantsuit that looked like it came from an upscale department store. Felicity probably could have taken one look and spouted off the name of the designer, but as for me, well, all I knew was that it looked like money was involved.
Her hands, strategically placed to reveal more than just a glimpse of her sidearm, now pushed back the folds of the double-breasted jacket. I’m sure it was an intimidation tactic, probably something learned by all cops, but I had been around this sort of thing far too much. The sight of a gun on someone’s hip was old hat to me.
As in my past dealings with her, she was coming across as the mother that every kid on the block was afraid of, and she wasn’t planning to do anything to change that opinion. If nothing else, I would say that she was trying to bolster it.
As usual, the gold cross was suspended from a chain around her neck, obvious against the white background provided by her blouse. The breast pocket of her jacket held her badge case, shield flipped outward and prominently on display.
“It’s really a simple matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Lieutenant,” I answered with forced civility as I rose to my feet.
I was mutely beating back my desire to launch into a string of unpleasantries aimed directly at her. I knew such an act would bring me nothing but trouble, but I was having a hard time explaining that to my subconscious mind.
“Oh, I’m sure that it is,” she remarked sarcastically. “Go on. Tell me.”
“Lunch,” I replied.
“Lunch?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I returned, pointing over her shoulder at a group of officers near the actual scene of the abduction; in particular, at Ben’s back. “Feel free to ask Detective Storm over there. We were going to lunch and just happened to be waiting for the elevator when it all happened.”
“Storm is here, too?” she barked, turning to look in the direction I indicated.
“Yes, as a matter of fact…”
Her hand came up to cut me off as she spoke, “You wait right here.”
“Sure,” I answered. “I’ve got no place else to be.”
I don’t know if she heard me or not because she was already stalking away toward Ben. While I couldn’t see her face, I had the distinct impression she was no happier to see him than she had been me.
* * * * *
“That was pleasant,” Ben muttered the sarcastic remark as he cranked the steering wheel of his van and backed it out of the parking space.
I didn’t wait for the follow-up I knew he was going to utter, “Don’t say ‘like a root canal’, Ben.”
“How’d you know I was gonna say that?”
“Experience,” I replied.
“Hmmph,” he grunted. “So what’d she say to you?”
“She demanded to know why I was here, so I referred her to you.”
“Thanks a lot,” he told me with no sincerity whatsoever.
“What about you?” I asked. “From where I was, it looked like she was having a meltdown.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” he answered. “She was just her normal pissy self up ‘til she found out I discharged a coupl’a rounds into the vehicle. That’s when she lost it.”
“What did she expect you to do?”
“Hell, I dunno.” He shrugged then cranked the steering wheel to guide us into the downward exit spiral. “Throw myself in front of the fuckin’ car I guess.”
“You pretty much did,” I observed.
“Yeah, well I guess I didn’t get run over enough for her liking.”
It was just before 2:30 in the afternoon, and the scene had officially been cleared. Skid marks had been measured, paint scrapings had been taken, and photographs snapped from every imaginable angle. None of it seemed to me like it would do any good, but there were procedures to be followed, and my opinion of them amounted to very little— in fact, nothing.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“You’re in for a treat,” he returned. “We get to go back to headquarters and tell our stories to some more coppers.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
The syncopated tone of a cell phone began its rising chirp. I didn’t recognize the tone, so I knew it wasn’t mine. Ben reached to his side and fumbled the warbling device from his belt, swallowing it in his large hand.
“Storm,” he huffed when he got it up to his ear.
As if the mood in the vehicle needed any further darkening, I felt it grow just that much colder in that very instant. A swirling turmoil of pain, anger, and confusion was emanating from my friend, and as I watched him listening to the cell, I saw his shoulders physically droop.
“I know, I know,” he finally said. “But have you noticed the news?”
He fell silent for a moment, and his tumultuous emotions became even more tangible.
“Listen, I can’t do this right now…” he said into the phone, voice rising slightly. “No… No, I’m not… Look, we’ll have to talk about this later… I can’t…”
He stopped mid-sentence, pulled the device away from his ear and regarded it with an angered glance. He stabbed the off button with his thumb then threw it into the console between us as he muttered, “Shit.”
We had just rounded the last turn of the spiral and now sped down the exit ramp, finally coming to a halt at the booth. Ben flashed his badge, and the attendant nodded as he waved us through.
Remnants of the splintered black-and-white-striped barrier gate were piled off to the side of the concrete island. The metal portion of the lift arm protruded as a twisted stub from the mechanism rendering it totally useless, all of it the visual evidence of the kidnapper’s hasty exit.
My friend edged the van forward and after a quick glance in either direction, pulled into the afternoon traffic. I had always made a rule of staying out of Ben’s business. If there were something going on in his life he wanted you to know about, he would tell you in his own due time. Asking him before he was ready only served to drive him away and make him bury the subject even deeper.
However, in extreme cases I was known to break my own rules, and this was one of them. I watched him in silence as we navigated the traffic to the corner and then stopped and waited for the traffic signal to turn.
“You okay?” I finally asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered tersely. “Why?”
“I really couldn’t help but overhear…” I let my voice trail off, leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken.
“Sorry about that,” he replied. “Forget about it. It’s nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing, Ben.”
“I said forget it,” he snarled.
We made the rest of the trip to police headquarters in complete silence.
<
br /> * * * * *
“Where are you?” My wife’s voice issued from the speaker on my cell phone.
It was rapidly approaching six P.M., and I was still downtown though fortunately, not sitting on the concrete stairs in the parking garage. I had finally lost count of how many times I had given my accounting of the events and to how many cops I had given it. They eventually concluded that with the exception of a few adjectives and conjunctions, the story was always the same. No more or less information than the previous recitation.
I don’t guess I could blame them for trying. I was as aware as anyone else of what can be seen but not consciously remembered.
“What, no hello?” I asked.
“I said hello when I answered the phone,” she replied. “Now, where are you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me” came her guarded response.
“Downtown with Ben.”
“Tell me you’re at a bar, Rowan,” she half asked, half instructed, but the tone of her voice told me that she knew that wasn’t true.
“Sure,” I answered. “It’s called Police Headquarters.”
“Oh Gods, Rowan,” she moaned, then asked, “The seizure?”
“No… Yes… Maybe… I don’t know yet” was my response, confusing as it was to us both. “Have you heard about Brittany Larson?”
“How could I not? It’s been all over…” she started then stopped herself mid-sentence. “Oh, Rowan, no… What? What happened?”
“Kidnapped as far as anyone can tell right now,” I answered. “Although I don’t think whoever did it has any qualms about hurting her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well… I kind of had the bad fortune of being a witness to the abduction, and it was a bit violent.”
“You what? How?”
I gave her a rundown of the day’s events since we had last spoken; all of which had finally culminated in me using my backside to warm a molded plastic chair next to Ben’s desk for the past few hours.
Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 5
