“Fek,” she muttered the colloquial Irish profanity.
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed.
“How do you do it?” she asked then moaned, still not opening her eyes.
“I wish I could answer that,” I replied. “I just do. If it’s any consolation, I’d rather not.”
“Aspirin,” she murmured.
“Let me see if I can get you some,” I told her as I started up from my seat.
“Purse. Side. Tin,” she told me, exaggerated economy in her selection of verbiage.
I pulled her purse across the table and rummaged about in the side pocket. Under any other circumstances I wouldn’t have dreamed of sticking my hand into the carryall. As I had told my wife countless times before, a woman’s handbag seemed to me to be a kind of tame black hole: a place where an impossible number of items disappeared and could only be found by the woman who owned the receptacle in the first place. At the moment, hers was definitely living up to that assessment.
“Left. Bottom. Yellow tin.” She offered another set of terse instructions.
I pushed my hand deeper into the pocket and finally managed to withdraw the sought after container of aspirin. I sat it on the table and pushed it over to her then started sliding out of the booth as she slitted her eyes and reached for the tin.
“I’ll go get you some water,” I told her.
“Black Bush,” she asserted.
“No whisky with aspirin,” I replied. “Water.”
“Black Bush,” she repeated.
“Water.”
She tossed the tin in front of her and it bounced across the table, tablets noisily rattling around inside. Then it slid off the edge and clattered to the floor.
“Black Bush.” This time it was a demand.
I knew exactly where she was coming from, and I didn’t fault her a bit. The truth was that the aspirin really wouldn’t do much good for the kind of headache she had anyway. Not that booze was any better remedy, but it would help take the edge off.
“Shot or rocks,” I conceded with a soft sigh.
“Bottle,” she replied.
* * * * *
“Slow down,” I said to my wife as she drained the tumbler and clacked it back onto the wooden table with a heavy thunk. “That’s your second double.”
Her hand was still wrapped around the glass, and her head was tilted back, face pointing upward to the ceiling. She drew in a deep breath and then exhaled heavily, puffing out her cheeks as she did so.
“Aye, but I said bottle, not double,” she stated as she lowered her gaze down to meet mine.
“Give those a chance to work,” I told her. “They aren’t even in your bloodstream yet.”
She frowned back at me but didn’t argue. She slouched down in her seat, and a moment later I felt her sneaker-clad feet slide up onto the bench next to me. She reached up and pressed her palms against either side of her head as if she were trying to squeeze it back into shape.
“This sucks,” she moaned.
“I know,” I replied.
I was fully aware that the words were of little consolation, but they were the best I had to offer at the moment. I wanted desperately to ask her about the experience. But, she needed some time to come to terms with what had happened, so I didn’t broach the subject.
Usually such an ethereal event came with some manner of built-in, albeit obscure, reference to something in the here and now—although, admittedly, mine from earlier this day had held no such prize. Neither had the similar ones I’d suffered through at the beginning of the year.
Patrons were starting to fill the establishment as round one of the dinner rush came upon us. It hadn’t reached the point of obnoxious as yet, but the noise level was rapidly approaching that of annoying static. It didn’t seem to be bothering Felicity, though.
“You look like shit.” Ben’s voice cut through the hum of the growing crowd.
I looked up to see him standing over my shoulder, his gaze locked on my wife.
“But you’re still a hell of a lot prettier than paleface over here.” He jerked a thumb at me as he added the comment.
A waitress sidled up to the table and shot me a questioning look. “Do you folks need anything?”
“I’m good,” I replied.
“Black Bush, neat, double,” Felicity chimed in.
“Felicity…” I admonished.
“All right then.” She cut me off with an annoyed tone lacing her words. “Jamieson, neat, double.”
I shook my head and waved my hand in surrender as I looked up at the waitress. “Give her whatever she wants.”
“Black Bush,” my wife chirped.
The waitress craned her neck and looked up at Ben. “How about you?”
“Beer,” Ben told her.
“We have Guinness on tap,” she offered.
“No honey.” Ben shook his head. “Beer isn’t s’posed to be black. Bring me somethin’ in a mug that’s cold, fizzy, and beer-colored.”
“Whatever you say.” She shook her head back at him then before she turned and walked away, she added rhetorically, “Do you want me to bring you a straw with that?”
“Friendly place you picked here.” Ben made the sarcastic comment as he slid into the booth next to Felicity.
“Aye, you’re in a pub, Ben,” my wife informed him, still lounging in her seat. “Quit bein’ a Colleen.”
“She’s doin’ the accent,” he remarked as he looked over at me. “The Twilight Zone thing do that to her?”
“Leave me alone,” Felicity muttered.
“I’m sure it wore her out, but I think the two double Irish whisky’s are to blame,” I replied.
“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, glancing over at her then back to me. “She’s not gonna start talkin’ that gibberish is she?”
“Duairc,” Felicity chimed.
“That answer your question?” I asked.
“She just called me a name, didn’t she?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“I said you’re a rude man,” she offered.
“Well, at least this time you got the gender right.” He shook his head and looked back to me. “So explain it to me. What’s up with the squaw doin’ the la-la land thing? I thought that was your gig.”
“Me too,” I answered with a nod. “I’m not sure what’s going on there myself.”
“Will you quit talking about me like I’m not here, then,” Felicity insisted.
“Okay. Chill.” Ben jumped the tracks and boarded another train of thought. “So what about this mornin’? What’s up with that?”
“Again, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “The episode was almost exactly like the ones I had back in January.”
“You mean when you were floppin’ around like a fish outta water when Porter was…” his voice trailed off at the mention of the name.
“Yeah,” I acknowledged and finished the sentence for him. “When Porter was trying to kill me.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to dredge that up.”
“No problem. It’s not something I’ve managed to forget yet anyhow.”
“So I thought those stopped after he was locked up?”
“They did. Until today that is.”
Ben frowned hard and stared back at me. Without a word, he reached to his belt and pulled out his cell phone. After an aborted attempt, he managed to key in a number with his thick finger and tucked the device up to his ear. I had a feeling that I knew what he was getting ready to do, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer he was seeking.
“Yeah, Roy?” he said after a moment. “Yeah, it’s Ben Storm. Not much, you?… Yeah, so listen, I need a favor. Can you check somethin’ for me? Yeah, I need status on an inmate… No, don’t have his number, but you’ll probably remember ‘im. Uh-huh… Name’s Eldon Andrew Porter… Yeah, thought you would… Yeah. Not a problem. Yeah, on my cell. Great. Bye.”
As Ben ended the call, the waitress came toward the table, expertl
y maneuvering through the crowd with a drink-burdened serving tray held above her shoulder. In a practiced motion, she swooped it down and plucked a tumbler full of whisky from it then slid the glass in front of Felicity. Next, she placed a pint glass of beer in front of Ben. In a reverse motion, she hefted the platter back up to her shoulder and regarded my friend.
“Cold, fizzy, and well, yellow-colored,” she said, reaching with her free hand into the change pouch around her waist and withdrawing a straw. She tossed it in front of Ben and shot him a smile as she walked off. “Enjoy.”
“Jeez…” he muttered, shaking his head at me.
“So you don’t really think Porter has escaped or something do you?” I asked abruptly, the edginess in my voice was obvious even to me.
“Don’t know,” he replied. “But we’ll know shortly. Roy’s an old friend of mine, and he works for the Missouri Department of Corrections.”
“But wouldn’t there have been some kind of bulletin or alert or something if he’d escaped?” I pressed.
“Depends, Row.”
“That doesn’t make me feel very secure, Ben.”
“Listen, Kemosabe, don’t get all worked up,” he told me. “I’m just checkin’ to be sure. C-Y-A and all that shit.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I knew that my tone was less than convincing. My friend shook his head then brushed the straw out of the way and lifted the pint of beer. After a long swallow, he rested it back on the coaster and watched it intently as he slowly spun the glass.
“So you said on the phone that you were movin’ when Felicity went all la-la,” he finally said, bludgeoning the stalled conversation in a new direction with a blunt segue.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Kind of. When she seized, her foot slipped off the brake, and we started into the intersection.”
“Not too fast then?”
“Not really I don’t guess.” I shrugged. “But I still probably didn’t do the transmission any favors.”
“How so?”
“When I popped it into gear.”
“I don’t follow.”
“To stop the Jeep,” I explained. “I switched off the key and then popped it into gear. Kind of an abrupt stop, but it worked.”
“I thought you said you weren’t movin’ too fast?”
“We weren’t really. Just rolling more or less.”
“Just rollin’?”
“Yeah, why?”
He creased his forehead. “Then why didn’t ya’ just pull the emergency brake?”
I closed my eyes and hung my head in sudden embarrassment as the mental picture of the Jeep’s center console painted itself in my brain.
Ben looked back at me, his face spread into a grin, and I could tell that he was already formulating a wisecrack. Fortunately for me, his cell phone began its low warble, cutting him off before he could utter the taunt. He motioned me to wait and answered it. “Storm. Yeah. That was fast. Yeah. Yeah… You’re sure? Okay, thanks, Roy. I owe you one… Uh-yeah,” my friend hesitated for a moment before continuing, “Yeah, I’ll tell ‘er. Bye.”
A slightly pained look crept in to replace his grin, and I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, I could tell that it came from something other than the query about Eldon Porter.
I raised an eyebrow and dipped my head at him. “All good?”
“Yeah,” he replied as he fumbled to put the cell phone back on his belt, finally giving up and dropping it on the table in front of him. “Porter is locked away safe and sound, preaching to all the other wingnuts in the population.”
“Great.” I frowned.
“Hey, a coupl’a minutes ago you were getting’ ready to panic on me,” he observed. “What’s up?”
“No I wasn’t.”
“Yeah, right. What’s the deal?”
“Okay, maybe I was,” I admitted. “A little. But I guess maybe I was still just hoping for an easy explanation to all of this.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Woulda been nice, but look at it this way; at least he’s not on the street.”
“True. So since we’ve ruled that out, maybe it is the Brittany Larson thing after all,” I offered with a shake of my head, not really believing it myself. “But that wouldn’t explain why I was having the seizures in January.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he agreed.
I picked up my pint of Stout and took a sip then set it back on the table. The murmur of the crowd was ramping up to a dull roar now, and I looked out of the booth, glancing around at the milling bodies.
Across the way, the bar itself was stacked two deep with people waiting for drinks or simply inhabiting their claimed bit of real estate at the polished, wooden counter. I knew it should be approaching eight, and the band would be playing soon. At that point, we would be unable to carry on any kind of worthwhile conversation, not to mention the fact that I was in no mood for singing along with drinking songs. I suspected that Felicity no longer was either.
I scanned the wall, looking for a clock, and my eyes came to rest on the television set perched on a shelf above the rows of liquor bottles. I watched as a news update filled the screen, absently taking note of the ever-changing price of gasoline.
When the tube flickered and displayed the picture of a twenty-something young woman inset over the shoulder of the anchor, my heart skipped a beat. Beneath the photo was the caption, Tamara Linwood.
Neurons fired in rapid succession, flooding my brain with a not-so-distant memory as I stared at the picture.
Gruesome discovery.
Badly decomposed human arm.
Shallow grave.
Body may be that of Tamara Linwood, the grade school teacher who disappeared from the parking lot of Westview Shopping Mall back in January…
The memory of the phantom metallic tang tickled the back of my tongue, and I closed my eyes. I definitely wasn’t going to call it easy, but there it was— the explanation for at least a part of my day.
And, I was absolutely certain that I didn’t like it.
CHAPTER 9:
“Tamara Linwood,” I said aloud, turning my attention back to Ben.
“Do what?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“Tamara Linwood,” I repeated, pointing at the screen across the room. “On the TV.”
He twisted in his seat and shot a quick glance over his shoulder. The news anchor had already moved on to the next story, but my friend managed to pick up on what I’d meant anyway. “What? You mean the missing teacher?” he asked. “So, what about ‘er?”
“That’s why the seizures. She’s got to be what this is all about.”
“How do you figure?”
“It adds up,” I offered. “She went missing in January, right?”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
I continued. “And they found her remains this morning.”
“That hasn’t been confirmed.”
“I’m confirming it for you, Ben. Those are Tamara Linwood’s remains.”
“You sure?”
“They’ve got to be.”
“Listen, Row.” He held up his hand and nodded quickly. “I know better than to not believe what you’re sayin’, but we’ve been down this road before. I can’t just march into my lieutenant’s office and announce something based on one of your feelings. Besides, that case belongs to the MCS… And well… you know that situation.”
I gave him a frustrated nod. “I know, but they ARE her remains. I’m sure of it.”
“How?” he asked.
“I just told you,” I replied. “The timing of the seizures. It makes sense.”
“To you.”
“I thought you believed me?”
“I do, white man,” he appealed. “Kinda. I mean I know you’re makin’ a connection with somethin’… or someone… or whatever the hell, but how do ya’ know it’s actually her? How do you know it’s not someone else who got murdered in January? I hate to say it, but we had a few cases runnin’ then besides hers.”
“It
’s a gut feeling, Ben.”
“And I can respect that, believe me, but you still don’t have any proof. Listen, since we’re talkin’ about a schoolteacher, look at it this way. It’s just like homework from eighth grade math class. Just havin’ the answer ain’t good enough. You gotta show the work that gave ya’ the answer.”
“With the ethereal, that is easier said than done,” I replied.
“Yeah, I know. But lemme ask you this: So what? So what if they are her remains?”
“Then maybe we can figure out who killed her.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the plan whether that’s what’s left of her or not.”
“You know what I mean, Ben. Maybe I can help.”
“How? I thought you said your little trips into the Twilight Zone hadn’t been real informative.”
“They haven’t,” I agreed and then added, “Yet.”
“Yeah, and there’s the catch. Yet may never happen.”
“Come on, Ben. You know how quickly these things can turn.”
“Yeah, I do, but which way is it gonna turn? This whole thing might just go away like it did back in January.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he had a valid point. Still, for me, there was an overwhelming imperative. The psychic episodes were happening to Felicity now. I simply wasn’t willing to stand by and allow that to continue, be it a half dozen more times, or only one. Something had to be done.
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. This feels different,” I appealed.
“Hate to say it, Row, but…”
“…I’ve got to give you more than that,” I completed the sentence before he could. It was a lament that I’d heard from him more than once, so the lyrics were all too familiar. “Well then,” I switched tactics, “How long before they know for sure about the identity?”
“Not my department.” He shrugged. “Could be tomorrow, could be next week. Could be never, I guess. Dunno.”
“Rowan?” Felicity interjected.
“What’s up, honey?” I turned to her. “You okay?”
My wife was still lounged in her seat, arms folded across her chest. Her head was tilted back, and her eyes were closed. She actually looked relaxed for the first time in the past couple of hours.
Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 7
