Perfect Trust argi-3

by M. R. Sellars

  Having dispensed with my confusion over the immediacy of the situation, I moved on to the next point that needed clarification for me. “So how did you make this connection to begin with?”

  “Don’t you watch the news, Row? Old dude out pickin’ up aluminum cans stumbled across a body wrapped up in a plastic drop cloth this morning,” he explained. “What was left of a body anyway-she’d been there for a while. M.E. says a couple of months probably.

  “She was stuffed back up in the brush on a kinda isolated section of Three Sixty-Seven on the way ta’ the Clark Bridge. Best guess is that’s why she didn’t get found until now.”

  Disgusting visions of a corpse left unattended for the better part of two months flitted through my head. Having never witnessed such a thing before in real life, the mental picture was an imagining based on remembrances of Hollywood special effects. The image was more than enough to turn my stomach, and I was afraid that the real thing might be far worse than anything I could conjure in my head.

  I blinked back the imagining and willed away the sudden churning in my gut. “If she’d been out there that long, how’d you identify her so quickly?”

  “We had our suspicions based on size, clothing, all that,” he explained, “but positive ID came this afternoon from matching dental records. They were already on hand at the coroner’s office from a check on another Jane Doe, so there was no waitin’.”

  “Okay, but all this still doesn’t answer my first question. How did you make the connection with the handwriting?”

  “Once this case went from a missin’ person to a homicide and got turned over to the MCS, the investigation went in an entirely different direction.

  “The real deal is that most of the time the victim knows the killer. It’s standard procedure to look for anything in the personal effects that could give us a handle on who might’ve done it. So we spent part of the afternoon back at her parents’ house goin’ over everything in ‘er bedroom. The minute I looked in ‘er notebooks and saw that curly-q thing on ‘er I’s, I knew. I had the graphologist in the crime lab verify it, but Jeezus, I friggin’ already knew.”

  “Did you find anything else worthwhile?” I asked solemnly.

  “Not really. We got a coupl’a leads ta’ run down, but I don’t think they’ll go anywhere.”

  “So if you’re pulling me in on this, why are we going to your house instead of the morgue or a crime scene or something?”

  “Because right now I just wanna keep ya’ out of the spotlight while I figure out what ta’ do,” Ben answered. “Not to mention gettin’ Firehair on board before I go any further with this.”

  “Have you figured out how you’re going to do that yet?”

  “I was thinkin’ I might start with beggin’ ‘er not ta’ kill me.”

  *****

  “What happened to the promise you made me, then?” Felicity asked in a carefully measured cadence that audibly displayed the weakening foundation of her composure. Her outrage was more than palpable; it was literally filling the room with tension, and at the moment, she was ground zero to what I’m certain was soon to be a catastrophic explosion of anger.

  The three of us were seated around a small dining table that occupied one wall of Ben’s kitchen at the rear of his house. Felicity was directly across from Ben, and I had taken up residence next to her.

  My friend had at least been farsighted enough to send his wife and young son out to a local pizza parlor before my wife had arrived. He was expecting the worst, and it was looking very much like he was going to get it.

  What had been a guarded smile on my wife’s lips when she first walked in had morphed instantaneously into a thin-lipped frown the moment Ben outlined the reason for her being here. That frown had grown thinner and more severe with every word that came out of his mouth. The current set of her jaw was visible evidence of her tightly clenched teeth.

  “I’m sorry, Felicity.” He shook his head.

  “You’re sorry?” she spat incredulously. “You’re sorry? Is that the best you can come up with?”

  “Whaddaya want me ta’ say?” He held his hands out, palms upward as he shrugged surrender.

  “Aye, for starters I want you to tell me this is all some sort of sick joke, then,” she hissed.

  “I wish I could, but…” He allowed his voice to trail off without completing the sentence.

  “Then why don’t you tell me you aren’t really dragging him into another murder investigation.”

  “Me draggin’ ‘im in? I don’t suppose ya’ noticed that he’s not exactly kickin’ and screamin’ here.”

  “Are you two going to spend the whole night talking about me like I’m not even sitting here?” I interjected with a perturbed edge to my voice.

  “You stay out of this,” my wife commanded as she flashed an angry glance my way.

  “Why would I stay out of it?” I shot back. “I’m the one who’s being talked about here.”

  She ignored me and turned back to Ben. “You know how he is. But you’re still bringing him into this even after everything that’s happened.”

  “Well, if ya want the truth, he pretty much brought ‘imself into it.”

  “He’s right.” I nodded in agreement.

  “And how would that be?”

  “Well you were there when he handed me that writin’ sample,” he answered.

  “So?” she shot back. “You didn’t have to take it.”

  “I didn’t see you do anything ta’ discourage it,” he returned. “So you’re just as much at fault as me.”

  “Go n-ithe an cat thu is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat!” Felicity snarled.

  “Excuse me?” Ben’s face was washed over with abject confusion as he cast his questioning glance from me to my wife and then back again. “What the hell was that?”

  “It’s Gaelic,” I told him, having heard the Celtic epithet from her before. “She just said something on the order of ‘May the cat eat you, and may the cat be eaten by the devil.’”

  “Do what?”

  I glanced at my wife and she was still seething, so I continued with the explanation. “It’s a traditional Irish curse. One that she’s particularly fond of using when she’s angry.”

  “Fuckin’ great,” he huffed. “Now I got a curse on me?”

  “Not exactly…” I answered. “Besides, it was pretty mild. You don’t really need to worry until she starts tossing in the Gaelic profanity.”

  “Damnu, I told you to stay out of it then!” she ordered, shooting her glare my way as she rejoined the conversation.

  “Like now,” I said to Ben before casting my own stern look at Felicity and adding, “And I told you, I don’t think so. I’m not some little kid who can’t make decisions for himself you know.”

  “Aye, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Look what you’ve done to yourself so far.”

  “You know as well as I do that I haven’t got any control over this.”

  “Damn your eyes, but you do!” she snapped. “You didn’t have to run off chasing a maniac in the middle of the night!”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “But it’s what I’m talking about, then! If I let Ben drag you into this you’ll just do something stupid again.”

  “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell ya, Felicity,” Ben interjected. “I’m not gonna let it get that far.”

  “Like you think you can stop it, then?” she chided before mumbling, “ Ta tu glan as do mheabhair.”

  “What?”

  “You’re crazy,” my wife spat the general translation.

  “Maybe so, but what makes ya’ think I can’t stop it?” he shook his head. “Look, Felicity, I wish it wasn’t this…”

  “Don’t you ‘look Felicity’ me!” She cut him off. “We had an agreement!”

  “I know,” he pleaded. “But…”

  “But what?!” she demanded. “It wasn’t convenient for you, then? Fekking breugadair.”

  “Je
ezus, speak English will’ya’… And, no, it’s just that…”

  “Aye, what then? Your career is suddenly more important than your best friend’s sanity?”

  “Now dammit, you know better’n that.”

  “I’m not so sure I do.”

  “Oh come on, Felicity…” I tried to wedge myself back into the dispute.

  “No, Rowan.” Ben held up his hand and sharply cut me off. “Stay out of it. This is between me and her.”

  “Excuse me?!” I rejoined. “Hello? Do you hear what you’re saying? What the hell has gotten into you two? You’re arguing about me here, so I think I have a right to voice my opinion.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. With each word, their voices had grown louder and even more strained. Ben’s heretofore-defensive posture was starting to lean further and further toward the offensive. I could tell by the look on his face that there was next to nothing holding him back. My wife’s hammering staccato of interruptions were taking a toll on his patience as the escalation of tempers progressed.

  “So just what the hell are ya’ tryin’ ta’ say here, Felicity?” Ben demanded.

  “What is it you think I’m sayin’, then?” she spat.

  I desperately wanted to defuse the situation, but I had no real clue how I was going to do it. My temper was flaring just as much as theirs were, and that wasn’t going to do any good. Thus far, every time I opened my mouth I only seemed to stoke the fire burning beneath them, and that blaze was starting to grow rapidly. In a very short time they’d reached a level where I wasn’t entirely sure that they were even acknowledging my presence in the room any longer.

  It had now become plain to see that the issue was one that was most definitely between the two of them. It was also clear that it had festered for several months, and recent events were simply bringing it to a head.

  “Goddammit, dontcha’ think I have enough guilt over what happened on that bridge?”

  “Well if you do, then maybe you should think about all this a bit harder then!”

  The sharpness in their voices had intensified several-fold. I had no choice but to resign myself to the fact that we wouldn’t get anywhere until this was played out to conclusion. Since they had drawn a bead on one another, for all intents and purposes ignoring me, I could only watch.

  “What? Ya’ think I haven’t?!”

  “You’re askin’ to bring him into another investigation, aren’t you?!”

  As angry as I was at being treated like a fifth wheel, I fought to stifle it. “Fine,” I finally muttered, though I sincerely doubted either of them heard me. “Go ahead and kill each other. Give me a call when you’re finished.”

  With that, I pushed my chair back from the table, placing some small, symbolic amount of distance between them and me. Hard as it was to stay out of it, I made a half-hearted attempt to distract myself by leafing through a cookbook that had been holding down a sheaf of papers on one corner of the table. However, just as I was afraid it would, the growing conflagration won out over recipes for such things as Beef Wellington and Broccoli-Onion-Cheese Casserole. Like a horrific train wreck that you just can’t stop staring at, I again returned my attention to the duel between my best friend and my soul mate.

  “Felicity, will you…”

  “Will I what?! Stand by quietly and let you get my husband killed?!”

  “C’mon,” he shot back. “You know that’s not gonna happen!”

  “Aye, do I?!” She widened her eyes and shook her head. “And just what have we been discussing for the past several months then?”

  “I know exactly what we’ve been talkin’ about, and ya’ know I’m not gonna let anything happen to ‘im.”

  “Just like you didn’t let anything happen to him the last time?!”

  “Dammit, you know I already blame myself for that!”

  “As well you should!”

  “Screw you!”

  “Like I’d give you the pleasure!”

  A brief lull insinuated itself into the argument, brought on I can only assume by the intensely personal level of the attacks. But though it slipped suddenly in like the eye of a hurricane, its tenure was far shorter.

  “Felicity, come on,” Ben pleaded, once again making an attempt at reasoning with her. “Rowan is my best friend.”

  She wasn’t having any of it. “You’ve an odd way of showin’ it.”

  “Listen, do you really think…”

  “What I really think is that you’ve lost your mind!”

  “You know as well as I do…”

  “What?! What do I know as well as you do?!”

  “I’m tryin’ to tell you…”

  “Come on, then! Tell me! What is it?!”

  Her relentless attacks finally brought the roiling argument beyond the red zone it had consistently occupied. What had started as a simmer, then progressed into a rapid boil, now erupted like steam from a burst pipe.

  “JEEZUS FUCKIN’ CHRIST, FELICITY!” Ben shouted in exasperation. “Will’ya’ just shut up for a minute and lemme finish?!”

  At that moment, for lack of a better description, my wife “pulled her face off.” Her tight frown and locked jaw opened wide into what could be metaphorically pictured as a fanged maw, allowing her own anger to explode outward.

  “FINISH WHAT?! FINISH KILLING MY HUSBAND?!” she screamed as she physically rose from her chair. “DAMMIT, BEN, YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T DO THIS!”

  “SO I BROKE THE FUCKIN’ PROMISE! DEAL WITH IT!” he returned in the same demonstrative tone, rising from his seat as well.

  Even with the table between them, he towered over my petite wife. They locked spiteful gazes with one another and a tense silence slid smoothly in as if to underscore their words.

  A period of time that felt to be the greater portion of a quarter hour, but that in reality was surely less than a single minute, oozed by as I watched them. Even with the quiet permeating the room, I didn’t know if the conflict was fully over. I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be to my advantage to make another try at interjecting my opinion-or if it would even be heard if I did.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t by my own choice that I interrupted the terse mood that was now blanketing the scene. In fact, I didn’t even realize I had done so until Ben and Felicity turned their stares away from one another and sighted them in on me.

  The first sound I noticed came as a thin, rapid scratching that held an even and almost hypnotic rhythm.

  The second sound came as the first abruptly ended then was replaced by a rustling of paper-like the sound of a page being flipped.

  The third sound announced its presence as a recurrence of the first, matching rhythm perfectly with the point where it had suddenly ended.

  I didn’t want to look. I already knew what I was going to see, but I also knew that ignoring it wouldn’t make it go away. I followed their gazes down to the tabletop and joined them in watching as my left hand methodically defaced the pages of the comb-bound cookbook-scribbling quickly and evenly across the paper, moving of its own accord.

  With a little concentration, focusing on the fluid scribbling and ignoring of the preprinted words that made up the recipes, one could make out the repetitious couplets.

  Hey, hey, hey, whaddaya say!

  Don’t ya know I’m dead today!

  Hey everyone, I’m here to say!

  I’m dead today! I’m dead today!

  Gotta let Rowan come out and play!

  Gotta let him do it ‘cause I’m dead today!

  I looked back up as Ben huffed out a haggard breath and turned his gaze back to Felicity. My hand continued to move, though it now seemed to be slowing and had begun to falter at the end of each line. An effect, I assume, of the fact that I was now fully aware of its activity.

  In a calm voice my friend finally asked, “So, ya’ wanna keep arguin’ about this, or do ya’ wanna help me keep ‘im from doin’ somethin’ stupid?”

  My wife kept her eyes locked with mine and l
et out her own resigned sigh. “Aye…it looks like I don’t really have a choice, then.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The hands of the clock were firmly pressed up against midnight when we arrived at the Saint Louis City Morgue. Situated on Clark Avenue, the building was flanked by police headquarters on one side, an on-ramp to Highway 40 on the other, and across the street from the rear entrance of city hall. All in all, the structure was less than obtrusive in appearance-simple brick and mortar construction with nothing that would make it stand out, architecturally at least-against the rest of the buildings in the area. In reality, there would be nothing outwardly distinctive about it at all if it weren’t for the small, black-on-white, block lettered sign above the main entrance that stated simply, MEDICAL EXAMINER.

  Even though it was clearly marked, it was easily possible for someone to drive past the building on an almost daily basis and not even realize just exactly what it was. It looked like nothing more than just another office building, and even the sign above the door didn’t truly betray the fact that inside was the final stop for those departed from this world under suspicious circumstances. In fact, it was more than likely that the majority of the civilian population of Saint Louis didn’t even know that this was more that just a business office, it was the place where bodies were dissected in search of hidden answers.

  But, unlike the majority, I knew those details all too well.

  I’d been here more than once, and each time when I had taken my leave, I’d been completely devoid of any desire to ever return. Still, it seemed that I always ended up back here whether I truly wanted to be or not. Even worse, it was sometimes at my own behest.

  Like right now.

  It had taken a good while to talk Ben and Felicity into allowing me to come here and view the remains of Debbie Schaeffer. Neither of them was particularly keen on the concept, least of all my wife, so she had taken the most convincing by far. If that weren’t bad enough, my friend was absolutely no help. I had been completely on my own in accomplishing the task.

  I suppose in some ways it was understandable. For one thing, Ben was already treading on thin ice with her, and both their tempers were only now beginning to cool as it was. Add to that the fact that my coming into direct contact with the young woman’s remains didn’t exactly fit with his concept of keeping me as far removed from the investigation as possible, and there you had it. The combination was easily more than enough to make him unwilling to help me plead my case.