“Stress can do that,” she offered. “We subconsciously return to places or habits that once gave us comfort. I certainly hope my smoking in front of you yesterday had nothing to do with it.”
“No, it didn’t,” I reassured her. “Nothing for you to worry about there.”
“Do you remember when you first started smoking?”
“You mean before last night?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” I did a quick mental calculation, “sixteen, seventeen years ago.”
“And when did you quit?”
“Almost two years ago, except for a cigar now and then.”
“Do you remember why you originally started?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Something to do, I guess.”
“That is fairly thin reasoning, Rowan,” she said.
“Yes, it is.” I nodded.
“Had something particularly stressful happened to you around the time you started?”
“I don’t think so.” I shrugged again. “I don’t really recall.”
We both stood in silence for a long moment, alternately inhaling and exhaling clouds of smoke that dissipated on the cool breeze. The sky was an expanse of slate grey that stretched from jagged horizon to jagged horizon, even and unblemished. The temperature was hovering in the upper 40’s after having threatened to push fully into the low 50’s earlier in the day. It actually looked far colder than it really was, even with the breeze factored in.
“Rowan,” she finally began after flicking the ashes from her own smoke and gazing thoughtfully out at the skyline. “I realize we have only recently met but you truly do not strike me as the kind of person who is deliberately contrary. Am I correct in this assumption?”
I mulled over the comment, reading between the lines and deciphering the base meaning of her words.
“I’d like to think that I’m not a jackass, if that’s what you mean,” I answered.
“Touché,” she replied. “So much for tact.”
“Please,” I told her, “feel free to be tactful. It makes me feel appreciated. Anyway, you were saying?”
“My point was simply this: Why will you not tell me the reason you think you started smoking again,” she instructed. “Because I am going to go out on a limb here and say that you do not believe it is because of stress.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“Not really.” She shook her head and smiled. “I just have better sight than most.”
I gave the query some thought. Ben had already told her about some of the things he’d witnessed me do, and I’d spoken at length with her about it myself during our first session. I had nothing to lose by being honest.
“I think that I am physically manifesting the habit of a dead person.”
“Whom?” She asked the question without even blinking.
“A young woman named Debbie Schaeffer, or maybe another named Paige Lawson,” I told her. “Maybe even both. I don’t know.”
“Are you certain either of them were smokers?”
“I’m not actually sure. Ben is checking on it though.”
“Debbie Schaeffer is the murdered cheerleader to whose case Benjamin is assigned, correct?”
“That’s the one.”
“And Paige Lawson is?”
“Another case Ben is…was…is working,” I explained. “I’m not sure if it is still an open investigation or if they finally wrote it off as an accidental death. Something tells me it wasn’t an accident though.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Something just doesn’t feel right about it. I assumed Ben had told you about that particular incident.”
“By incident do you mean something involving you?”
“Exactly.”
“Ahhh, just a moment,” she nodded, “would this be the case where you recently showed up uninvited at the crime scene extremely disoriented and then passed out?”
“That would be the one.”
“Mmhmm, mmhmm.” She nodded again. “I do remember Benjamin telling me about that. I believe it is what actually triggered him calling me about you.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. Although I’ve recently been informed that he and Felicity had been discussing my mental state for some time now.”
“I believe you are correct,” she agreed. “So what about this incident with Miz Lawson. It seems to be weighing on you somewhat.”
“Well, the big problem for me is that I have no memory of going there…to the crime scene… Not until I snapped out of whatever trance I was in anyway. And by then I just found myself handcuffed and sitting in the back of a squad car.”
“PTSD can manifest in various ways, Rowan. Selective amnesia is not beyond the realm of possibility for someone who has been subjected to the severity of emotional and physical trauma you have faced.”
“But I had sex with my wife last night…”
I simply blurted out the comment, appending it to the conversation whether it appeared to fit or not. The resulting silence lasted for enough heartbeats to tell me that I’d even managed to stun Helen with the seemingly misplaced announcement.
I don’t know that I consciously realized what I was saying until the words were out there for us both to hear, and by then it was too late. I could still make no real sense of it all, but pieces were falling into place to form a fuzzy image. The very subject that had been my impetus for this unscheduled visit was now revealed. In the process a subdued feeling was re-awakened, and the unnamed fear that had earlier made itself comfortable within me stood up and engaged in a formal introduction.
“Okay,” Helen finally answered, scrutinizing my face with her eyes. “Has there been a problem with intimacy between the two of you?”
It took a moment to dawn on me that I’d only spoken aloud the first half of the thought that kept replaying in my head. “No, I’m sorry, you don’t understand…” I sputtered. “What I mean is I had sex with my wife last night but I don’t remember it.”
“At all?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Then how do you know that this happened?”
“I got the message loud and clear from Felicity when we got up this morning.”
“You are certain then?”
“Oh yeah,” I nodded as I spoke. “No doubt in my mind.”
“I see,” she posed thoughtfully. “Did you tell her you had no recollection of it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not yet. I may be disturbed but I’m not insane. At least, I don’t think I am… I’m already walking a thin line with Felicity as it is. If I tell her something like that, she’ll have me committed.”
“I seriously doubt that,” she said with a shake of her head. “You know, this is very likely all part of the same post trauma stress.”
“I don’t know, Helen. Do you remember me telling you about the sleepwalking I’ve been doing over the past few months?” I asked, the viscid fear now running rampant through my veins and forcing the words out of my mouth as a confession.
“Of course.”
“And how I don’t remember any of it?”
“Here again, that is not unusual in cases of somnambulism, Rowan,” she offered. “And these nocturnal episodes are most likely due to the stress.”
“But I’m afraid that maybe all of it is tied together somehow. The sleepwalking, the blackouts, even Paige Lawson…”
“I agree with you,” she nodded. “Like I said, these things could be manifestations of PTSD.”
“I wish it were that simple,” I told her. “But I’m terribly afraid that there’s a different connection.”
“And that would be?”
“I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m the one who killed Paige Lawson.”
CHAPTER 13
“You do not truly believe that now, do you, Rowan?” Helen asked me slowly and deliberately, but only after yet another long and uncomfortable pause.
“To be honest,
I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I answered her. “And that’s starting to really scare me.”
I was amazed at how calmly I spoke considering the rampant terror that was now racing around inside me. The sudden revelation that I myself could be the person responsible for Paige Lawson’s death was almost more than I could bear to imagine. But it was a fact I felt I had to face head on. The simple truths were that Debbie Schaeffer’s spirit was very intent on my contact with the corpse; I had arrived at the crime scene in a demented state; and I couldn’t remember anything at all about going there.
Who was to say that I hadn’t already been there a few short hours before?
“I honestly believe that you are leading yourself down the wrong path,” Doctor Storm said with a look of deep concentration creasing her forehead. “You should look carefully at the facts which are before you and refrain from wild conjecture.”
“I am,” I answered.
“No, Rowan,” she replied sternly. “You are not.”
“What am I missing then?”
“Evidence, for one; motive, for another. Think about it. Did you even know this Paige Lawson?”
“No.” I shook my head and inhaled deeply from the cigarette in my hand. “Never heard of her before that night.”
“Then what motive could you have possibly had for killing her?”
“Insane people don’t always have easily discernible motives,” I replied.
“True. But you are not insane.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Maybe I was wrong earlier.”
“I, however, am. You are not insane.”
“Well, at least that’s one of us.”
“And since I am the one with the degree in psychology, let us assume that I am also the one who is correct on this point. All right?” She cocked her head to the side and flashed a quick smile when she spoke.
“Okay,” I couldn’t help but return the smile. Simply listening to her speak was quickly dulling the edge on the blade of fear that had been ripping through my gut.
“From what you have said, the crime scene was apparently devoid of any evidence of foul play—least of all, evidence of your participation in such an act.”
“Maybe I was careful,” I objected. “I’ve been involved in enough murder investigations to know what to avoid.”
“While sleepwalking? I sincerely doubt it, Rowan.” She shook her head. “For the sake of argument, let us forget for a moment that this is an incredibly rare occurrence. There are actually a few cases—a very few, mind you—involving acts of violence committed by sleepwalkers, but this one simply does not fit the pattern.”
“How’s that?”
“The tragedies like this that have occurred during episodes of nocturnal automatism have been driven by emotion. Responses to stimuli the sleepwalker experienced during waking hours. Stress and emotional upset. And while there may be a triggering incident, in most cases the stimulus has been in place over a long period.”
“Well,” I said, “stress is apparently what brought me here to begin with, right?”
“Yes, but let me finish,” she urged. “The crimes committed by sleepwalkers are commonly very brutal and born out of passion. For instance, there was a man who repeatedly stabbed his mother-in-law with a hunting knife; another bludgeoned his mother-in-law to death with a tire iron. Still another repeatedly stabbed and then drowned his wife.
“There is a definite pattern established here with this type of crime. The attacker knows his or her victim intimately, and the evidence left behind is abundant. There is no conscious, calculated attempt to cover it up, so to speak.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” I continued my protest, though more as a devil’s advocate than anything else because I desperately wanted to believe her. “Maybe I’m an isolated case.”
She shrugged. “I suppose that is always a possibility, but I do not believe it for a minute. Neither should you.”
“Trust me. I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t, because you did not kill that woman.”
There was a brief lull as I pondered her comments. I wanted to believe what she said was true, and in reality she had made some very strong arguments. To the contrary, they were stronger than mine when you got right down to it. Still, I was at a loss to explain my presence at that crime scene, and it had become like a terrible itch that I couldn’t reach, no matter how hard I tried.
By some convoluted reasoning it seemed almost logical that I might have murdered someone. The only thing that kept me from going over the edge was the fact that the reasoning was just exactly that—convoluted.
“I wonder if this whole idea crossed Ben’s mind at all?” I speculated aloud.
“Possibly,” Helen allowed. “Quite probably, in fact. But you can be certain he dismissed it fairly quickly.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If Benjamin had any inkling that you were responsible for the murder, you would be under the microscope at this very moment.” She made the matter-of-fact statement as she stared out at the muted sky, then turned she back to face me. “Had he any evidence to support such an idea, you would already have been arrested.”
“Do you think so? I mean, we’ve been friends a long time. You don’t think he’d hold back a bit?”
“Not if he had any evidence, most definitely. Not even if he had an intuition that you had committed a murder. As his friend you must certainly know that the only loyalty he holds in higher stead than to his friends and family is loyalty to his job as a police officer. No, Rowan. If he thought you did it, you would be in custody. Friend or not.”
“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “Ben Storm, supercop.”
“It is a large part of who he is,” she explained. “We all draw our identities from different sources. For Benjamin, it is his work. He is at his most comfortable as he is defined by his job. In a way, you could say that it is his destiny.”
“Which would make mine to be what? The flaky, new-age sidekick?” I mused.
“Your life is not defined by his, Rowan. It is defined by you and your choices.”
“Maybe, but it seems that my choices over the past couple of years have put me smack in the middle of his world.”
“Yes, they have,” she conceded. “But in doing so you have been instrumental in bringing down two serial killers. Is that such a bad thing?”
“At what cost to me though?” I said. “I’ve got no idea which end is up anymore.”
“I will admit that the cost to you on an emotional level has been substantial,” she replied. “But that cost is not a permanent deficit. That is why you are here talking with me.”
“You really think I’m going to come out of this okay?”
“Of course you are, Rowan. You are far stronger than you give yourself credit.”
“I wish I’d never gotten involved in that first case to begin with,” I sighed heavily.
“You know you do not mean that,” she rebutted. “Be honest with yourself. If you were in that same situation again, you would make exactly the same decision you did then.”
“Yeah, probably,” I admitted. “So I guess that makes me a bit of a masochist.”
“It makes you exactly what your name purports you to be. A person of strength; a protector.”
Had it been anyone else, I believe I would have been taken aback by the explanation. There aren’t many people who know the inherent meaning of the name Rowan right off the top of their heads, and those who do are usually Pagan. It seems we Pagans have a penchant for knowing the significance behind our appellations. For some reason, however, it came as no surprise to me that Helen Storm would know this, and I took great comfort in it.
Thick silence cloaked us once again as she allowed me to continue mulling over her well thought out rebuttal to my hasty revelation. The fear had not yet vacated the premises, but it had at least settled into dormancy for the time being.
“Just as long as I don’t have to wear tights,�
�� I finally said.
“I’m sorry? I am not sure I understand.”
“If I’m going to be Ben’s sidekick,” I explained. “I can’t wear tights. I just don’t have the legs for them.”
* * * * *
What had been an emergency hour of psychotherapy had turned into almost two hours of deeply thoughtful banter. I was feeling better than I had when I arrived, but I was by no means out of the woods. While I no longer harbored any serious suspicions about being guilty of murder, I couldn’t shake the sense that I was somehow involved more deeply than it appeared on the surface. Whether directly or indirectly, I just knew there was something about Paige Lawson’s death that connected solidly with me. I also had no doubt whatsoever that she was the victim of more than a random accident. I just had no way to prove it…yet.
As I strode down the corridor toward the elevators, I was repeatedly turning the plague of confusing thoughts over in my head—inspecting each, moving on to the next, and starting the cycle anew when I reached what I believed to be the last one. Here and there along the hall, some of the doors were open. To my left, the happy, synthesized chords of Mannheim Steamroller’s rendition of “Deck the Halls” issued from the interior of an office; through another doorway to my right, the angst-ridden voice of Ozzy Osbourne was heading for derailment on his “Crazy Train.” The two songs met in the middle, intertwined, separated, and then competed for my attention, neither of them ever actually winning the contest. Although, I did have to admit that the helpless anguish being described by the heavy metal lyrics on my right came closest to describing my mood.
When I reached the end of the hallway, I punched the recessed call button and waited before the polished metal doors of the elevator. Eventually an electromechanical ding announced the arrival of the car, and the doors slid open with a slight rumble to reveal the empty interior. A heavily syncopated version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” filtered outward from an overhead speaker to join the struggle begun by the other two songs. I stepped in and double tapped the button labeled with an L.
The even mechanical rumble began again as the two halves of the door began their journeys toward the middle. They would have met had it not been for a feminine hand thrusting quickly between them and engaging the safety. The split doors immediately reversed direction and slid back into their pockets as a harried, young blonde, balancing a stack of files in one arm, rushed through the opening.
Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 17
