“What?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“Look, it’s not like this is some kind of hot clue you’re handin’ me here. It’s a piece of paper that says someone is dead and ain’t happy about it. News flash, Kemosabe, we already knew the first part… The second part’s just kinda obvious, don’t ya’ think?”
“But…”
“But nothin’, Row.” He cut me off before I could even form the objection and then ran his hand up to smooth his hair. “Look, here’s the real deal, between you and me. It’s lookin’ like this might not even be a murder. We’re still waitin’ on the autopsy, but there were no signs of a struggle. No forced entry. The place wasn’t trashed. She wasn’t shot, stabbed, or beaten. The only thing out of place is a small welt on the side of her neck…”
“Which side?” I interrupted quickly.
“Left, I think. Why?”
“Because I had a burning sensation on my neck last night.” I indicated the area with my hand. “It was on the left side too.”
“Okay,” he shrugged, “but if you’d let me finish what I was sayin’, you’d know that didn’t kill ‘er. It could be from a thousand different things, so even though we haven’t discounted it, it’s prob’ly nothing. The preliminary report I got from the coroner says she has a blunt force trauma to the side of her head that could be consistent with the corner of the end table just inside ‘er doorway. It looks like she prob’ly just slipped, fell, an’ clocked ‘erself. Damn shame for a young, good lookin’ woman like her, but it happens.”
“But why was I there, Ben?” I implored. “What made me show up at the scene like that?”
“You tell me,” he stated with a frown. “‘Cause I’ll be honest, it’s got me a little worried.”
“So you mean you think I’m right and it might not have been just an accident?” I latched on to the glint of hope in his words.
“No,” he shook his head vigorously and turned the glimmer to worthless pyrite. “I’m worried about you. I think what happened out on that bridge earlier this year has still got you fucked up.”
“That’s not it, Ben, and you know it.”
“Felicity? A little help.” Ben appealed as he looked over at her.
“I have to agree with him, Row,” she stated, voice even. “You haven’t been yourself lately at all.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered, more than just a hint of incredulity in my tone. “You’re on Ben’s side with this? Come on, Felicity, last time I checked you were just as open minded about this kind of thing as me. You’ve seen the things that have happened. You’ve even experienced them first hand.”
“Yes, I have,” she agreed. “But I was never in as deep as you have been. This is different somehow. Ever since you got involved in that investigation last February, you’ve seemed disconnected. Ungrounded. You even admitted it then.”
“Yes I did, but that was months ago. I’m well over that.”
“No, you’re not,” she replied. “In some ways you’re even worse than you were then. You’ve seemed almost out of control at times.”
“Out of control how?”
“Like tonight,” she asserted. “Disoriented. Not knowing who or where you are.”
“But this was an isolated incident.” I spoke the lie and didn’t look back. I figured I’d be caught in it eventually, but I thought I’d at least have some time to prove I was on to something important. I definitely wasn’t expecting my capture to be so immediate.
“Rowan, you’ve been sleepwalking for almost two months now.” My wife offered the truth back to me without judgment or anger—just a simple recitation of cold fact. “And the night terrors came like clockwork before that. I know you thought you’d kept them hidden from me, but you didn’t.”
We were fortunate, for the sake of my ego anyway, that the homicide division was less than fully staffed at the moment. There was no one close by enough to overhear the embarrassing revelations that were being put forth. I looked over at my friend’s somber face as he nodded and stared at me from behind his desk.
“I’ve known for a while too, white man. Felicity called me. Why do you think she was so mad at me earlier when she thought I might have brought you in on this? I gotta admit though, I was pretty surprised to have you turn up at an active crime scene like that.”
I sat there completely mute. I wanted to be angry with them both, and in a sense, I was. I wanted to lash out at them for engaging in these clandestine discussions behind my back. I wanted to admonish them for their conspiring to betray me. But I was still rational enough to realize that I was dealing with my wife and my best friend, and that they were obviously worried about me. The growing conflagration that was my ire was quickly reduced to a smolder when I asked myself simply, what if the two of them were correct? What if I was, in point of fact, out of control? What if I was so completely disconnected and ungrounded that I was starting to channel anything and everything without discrimination. The prospect brought a completely new and totally real fear into the fold.
“Listen, Row…” Ben now had a business card in his hand and was fiddling with it aimlessly. “Remember I told ya’ my sister had moved inta town?”
“Yeah,” I answered absently as I contemplated what my situation might possibly have now become.
“Well, here’s the deal,” he continued. “She’s a shrink…a good one. Hell, I’ve called ‘er a coupl’a times for advice myself. She’s even helped me with some of the shit I deal with on the job, and you know how I feel about shrinks.” Ben paused and brought a hand up to massage his neck then held the card out to me. “Anyway, Felicity and I have discussed it, and we both think it might be a good idea for ya’ ta’ talk to ‘er.”
“So now I’m crazy,” I said.
“No, Rowan, that’s not what we’re saying at all,” Felicity interjected.
“It’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Row,” my friend offered. “We see it here all the friggin’ time. I’m not sayin’ I’m qualified ta’ diagnose it, but if anyone’s a prime candidate, Bubba, it’s you.”
He had a point. It was even a valid one. Still, a painful depression was starting to set in. I’d fought harder than I’d ever thought I could just to get Ben to accept the things I was telling him at times—things where I had no tangible proof of their validity. I’d eventually won. I’d managed to convince him and others that I wasn’t a raving lunatic, and he had for a time accepted my word on an almost blind faith.
Now, I was right back where I started—maybe even a step or two to the negative—and it was very possible that this time I wasn’t the one controlling the dice.
“Just what do you think she’s going to do when I tell her I’m a Witch?” I tried to play the only card I had left.
“Not much, Kemosabe,” my friend replied. “She’s quite a bit more open than most folks. Hell, we’re fuckin’ Indians, think about it.”
“Yeah, and you’re the biggest skeptic I know. So what’s your excuse?”
“You don’t wanna know,” he grumbled then shifted back to the original focus. “Besides, doesn’t matter. She already knows about it. I’ve told her about the two of ya’.”
Felicity had taken the business card from Ben as I sat there in silence, mulling over exactly how much I despised being backed into a corner. I felt a small spark of defiance deep inside, but I was going down fast. I still desperately needed something to cling to—some kind of life preserver that would keep me afloat long enough to give me a fighting chance.
I allowed my stare to fall on the surface of the desk before me and the answer became instantly clear. Deliberately, I reached across and picked up the notepad, which had been the center of our earlier discussion. Slowly, I peeled off a pair of the pages and tossed them back on the blotter in front of Ben.
“Now, here’s my deal,” I submitted carefully. “I go talk to your sister, and you have the crime lab compare the handwriting on those papers with Paige Lawson’s.”
&
nbsp; “Row…” He began shaking his head as a furrow formed across his brow.
“I’m not asking much, Ben.” I held fast. “Just find out if it’s her handwriting and let me know one way or the other. That’s it.”
“Okay.” He finally nodded but still kept a frown plastered to his face. “Okay, but I don’t know what it’s gonna get ya’.”
“A place to start” was all I said.
* * * * *
“So are you mad at me?” Felicity asked, her voice somber as she guided her Jeep down an exit ramp and off the highway.
Our trip from police headquarters thus far had been made in almost total silence. The reason was not so much because either of us were angry, but because there was simply too much to think about. The extent of our conversation to this point had been my asking whether we should swing by to pick up my truck. In truth, I actually had no idea where I’d left it, plus all I really wanted to do right now was sleep. I wasn’t disappointed in the least when she told me that task had already been handled.
It was approaching mid-day, and the sky was still heavily overcast with a flat-bottomed stratum of grey clouds. A misty rain had begun to fall at some point while I was still being held captive by the hospital, and it hadn’t yet subsided. Winter’s chill was sharp in the air, even with the official start of the season still a few days away. The temperature was staying a few steps ahead of the magical point where precipitation solidifies, effectively making the difference between the landscape being a “winter wonderland” and “wintry blah.” Depending on your tastes, it was the kind of day that either made you feel great to be alive or depressed you into a mood that begged to be slept off like a bad drunk. Since I was already lacking in the sleep department, I was being pushed toward the latter with hardly any resistance.
“Not really,” I replied. “Although, I wish you’d said something about all this earlier. Then maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so much energy trying to keep you from finding out.”
“Why didn’t you want me to know anyway?”
“It wasn’t something you needed to worry about,” I answered. “You have enough to do without taking on my problems.”
“Row,” she admonished, “we’ve had this talk before.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “but you get a little overprotective at times.”
“Aye, and just what is it you’d call what you’re doing then?” A slight hint of her normally veiled Irish brogue seeped into the question, audibly announcing her growing fatigue.
“Yes… I’m being overprotective too,” I returned. “But that’s nothing new.”
“And it’s something new from me then?”
“I didn’t say that.”
We were only a few blocks from home when she gave a quick downshift and turned the Jeep into a parking lot of what appeared to have once been a multi-tenant strip mall but was now occupied by only a single business. Hooking past a light standard, she serpentined through the lot then pulled into a space before the entrance of Arch Color Labs. She shifted into neutral then set the parking brake before switching off the engine.
“What are you saying then?” she asked as she peered at me, her green eyes searching for a hidden answer. “Are you saying it’s okay for you but not for me?”
“Like you said,” I sighed. “We’ve had this talk before, and obviously we’ve never resolved it, or we wouldn’t be having it again now. We’re both just too stubborn, I suppose.”
“Aye,” she agreed softly, “I suppose we are.”
We regarded each other quietly for a moment, neither of us certain where to take the conversation next. I finally motioned at the storefront and broke the lull.
“This doesn’t look much like our house.”
“Sorry, I forgot to tell you.” She gave her head a quick shake. “I need to drop off a batch job for a client.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” I shook my head as the realization overtook me. I hadn’t really thought about how my escapades might have affected her, and this detour drove the point home. “You’d probably already have this done if it weren’t for me throwing you off schedule.”
“It’s no problem,” she returned.
“Maybe not,” I echoed, “but I still feel bad about it.”
“You do? Good, then my mission is accomplished,” she told me with a sly grin.
“I just walked right into a waiting guilt trip, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded as she rummaged behind my seat and withdrew a heavy-gauge envelope. “You can wait here if you want. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“You sure?” I asked. “I know how long your ‘few minutes’ can be sometimes.”
“I’m sure. I just need to drop this off.”
“Okay.”
True to her word, Felicity was in and out in less than five minutes but then spent another ten beneath the awning in front of the lobby chatting with a wiry young man. I couldn’t blame her for the delay though because he had followed her out the door, talking nonstop except for quick lulls to light a cigarette. He’d been through two already and was heading quickly toward finishing off a third.
It was almost amusing to watch my wife as she maintained a constant distance between herself and the rambling chain smoker. What wasn’t amusing was the fact that every time he took a puff, I had to stop myself from getting out of the vehicle and bumming one from him. It did, however, serve as a reminder as to just how much she despised smoking, and that helped steel my resolve to fight the craving.
She finally managed to get away and flashed him a smile and a quick wave as she climbed into the Jeep.
“Friend of yours?” I asked as she buckled herself in.
“Oh, that’s just Harold. Nice enough guy but Gods! He smokes like a fiend.”
“I noticed.” I nodded, trying not to let on that I was within inches of joining him in the act, then cryptically changed the subject by asking, “So how about you?”
“How about me, what?” She furrowed her eyebrows as she shook her head in confusion. “I don’t smoke.”
“What? Oh, no, not that,” I replied. “Sorry, I meant what we were talking about earlier. Are you mad at me?”
“Oh, that.” She nodded as she cast a glance back over her shoulder then backed the Jeep out of the parking space. “I was,” she answered, chewing at her lower lip, “but I’m getting over it.”
“How long before you think you’ll be completely over it?” I asked.
“Aye, that’s going to depend on you.”
* * * * *
My truck was parked nose first beyond the gated fence that hemmed in our back yard. Felicity pulled her vehicle up to the chain-link barrier and popped the stick into neutral.
We sat in silence for a long moment, simply listening to the world continuing about its business around us. The Doppler-affected sound of tires against wet pavement grew in the distance, achieved its peak as they made their way past us, and then faded into oblivion on the opposite side. The Jeep’s engine idled softly in the background. The on-again, off-again mechanical whirr of the windshield wipers kept time in a widely spaced rhythm, setting a languid tempo that kept you waiting expectantly for the next beat. In a half bare tree next to us, a raven punctuated all of it with a trio of forlorn caws, leaving the moment to hang in the moist air before falling silent once again.
Even with the heater running, the damp chill was working its way into my bones. On top of that, I was still dying for a cigarette and didn’t have any of the nicotine gum with me that had thus far been my only barrier between abstinence and re-kindling the habit.
“So you think maybe we should go inside?” I asked.
“I’d love to, but I have a shoot to do and I’ve already rescheduled it once,” my wife told me. “I’d rather not lose the account.”
“Supermodels?” I asked jokingly.
“Sure,” she replied, her own tenor lightened somewhat. “Super new models of anodized cookware for a catalog. Want to come along?”
“I think I’ll pass.” I gave her a weak grin.
“I thought you might.”
“Actually, I could really use some sleep.”
“That makes the two of us,” she returned. “But I’ll have to wait for mine.”
“Sorry,” I apologized for something I could do nothing about.
“Maybe yours should too, then…” she added, voice trailing off at the end.
“Why? Jealous?”
“No.” She shook her head to punctuate the reply. “I just don’t want you wandering again. And since I won’t be here…”
“I see.” I nodded. “I’ll try to stay in one place until you get back. Deal?”
“Aye.”
“Okay. Since I don’t have my keys, any chance you could unlock the house for me before you go?”
“Oh,” she replied, “Ben said he’d have them put your keys in the mailbox.”
“Good enough.” I leaned over and gave her a kiss then unlatched my door.
“Row,” Felicity called after me as I climbed out. “Speaking of deals…”
I turned back to see there was still a hint of concern in her eyes. Her hand was extended toward me, and in it was the business card Ben had given her.
“Promise me you’ll call for an appointment.” She made the statement more as a gentle command than a request.
I’d almost escaped, for another few hours at least. I should have known better though, as this was something she perceived as far too important to wait. I sighed heavily and nodded as I reached back in and took the card from her. She was correct, I’d made a deal with both of them, and my own principles wouldn’t allow me to back out.
“Promise,” she softly demanded again.
“I promise,” I told her.
I stood in the driveway and watched her back out then followed with my eyes as she headed off down the street in the direction of Highway 40. When she was no longer in sight, I made my way along the flagstone walkway and then climbed the stairs to our front porch.
Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 7
