Perfect Trust argi-3

by M. R. Sellars

  “That’s a cluster.” He shook his head. “Left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doin’. Locals thought the Feebs were on tonight, Feebs thought the locals were on, and…and well…there’s just no way ta’ sugar coat it, Row. Somebody fucked up, and there hasn’t been anyone watchin’ the house since about three this afternoon.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. I wanted to explode, but logically I knew that doing so wouldn’t help. Still, just how much longer I was going to stay on the side of rationality remained to be seen.

  “That doesn’t sound at all like Constance,” I said. “She’s meticulous.”

  “That’s ‘zactly why it’s a cluster. Mandalay had ta’ go back down ta’ the scene in Cape, so she wasn’t even in Saint Louis.” Ben’s disdain for the FBI was almost legendary. Constance Mandalay was the only agent he trusted, and the events of this evening added just that much more evidence to his personal case file against the agency. “But let’s not go there, ‘cause it ain’t gonna get us anywhere with this. Now, movin’ on,” he continued. “The front door was unlocked. Did you do that?”

  “No,” I shook my head vigorously. “They’ve already asked me that.”

  “I’m just double checkin’,” he told me. “Since you two normally come in the back, that’d mean Felicity had ta’ have opened it since there was no sign of a forced entry.”

  “The mail,” I offered.

  “What?”

  “The mail was on the dining room table,” I explained. “She probably got the mail.”

  “Yeah, makes sense, but she left the door unlocked. Okay, what about the back? Was it open when ya’ got here?”

  “Closed but unlocked. Although, the inner door was ajar.”

  “What about the lights? Were any on?”

  “I’ve been over this twice now!” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “What does it matter?”

  “Calm down,” Ben appealed. “I’m just tryin’ ta’ get a handle on this.”

  “Get a handle on what, Ben?! My wife is missing!”

  “Listen ta’ me for a minute,” he ordered. “We’re talkin’ about Felicity here, she…”

  “No shit!” I spat. “Did they give you your badge as a reward for recognizing the obvious?!”

  His voice raised a notch. “Shut the fuck up and listen ta’ me goddammit!”

  “Benjamin!” Helen admonished, breaking her self-imposed silence.

  “Stay out of it, Helen!” he barked.

  “Why don’t you quit screwing around and tell me something I don’t already know!” I almost screamed at him.

  Without warning he lashed out. I flinched, fully expecting his fist to connect with my jaw. In retrospect, I certainly would have deserved it if it had. Instead, I felt his large hand twist into the collar of my shirt at the back of my neck, and I instantly felt myself being propelled forward. Less than a minute later I had been forced up the stairs, through the atrium, then the kitchen, and finally into the dining room.

  The crime scene technicians had all but vacated the premises and were finishing up in front of the house. Helen had followed after Ben, and the three of us now stood before the spectacle that had so thoroughly thrust me into despair.

  “Look at the scene, Rowan!” he demanded. “Stop actin’ like an asshole for just one goddamned second and take a good look at it!”

  The bright incandescence of the artificial lighting cast a stark picture before me as my eyes fought to adjust. Just as it had been earlier, the dining room table was canted at an angle, pushed a few degrees from its original position in the room. The chairs were in minor disarray from the movement, and as before, one was on its side. The mail we’d just discussed was spread out toward one end, with a trio of #10 envelopes and a medium-sized box resting haphazardly on the floor below.

  The Bible still stared back from dead center as if mocking me.

  The only thing that had really changed was that a patina of graphite and lycopodium powders now enhanced the latent fingerprints throughout.

  “Whaddaya see?” my friend asked, his voice stern but slightly calmer.

  “I don’t know,” I shot back. “My dining room? A mess? What am I supposed to see?”

  He let go of my collar and I immediately wheeled about to face him.

  He thrust a finger at me. “Like I said, we’re talkin’ about Felicity here. This is a woman who once tackled a mugger an’ sat on ‘im ‘till a squad car arrived. Now take another look. Does this room really look like she put up a fight?”

  I didn’t need to look again. He was correct. In reality, the disruption was minor in comparison to what it could have been. My wife was not one who would go quietly into the night without first extracting her own pound of flesh. She would have fought. She would have kicked. She would have screamed like a real Irish banshee. No matter how big or how strong her attacker, she would have wrecked the entire house trying to get away.

  Ben could see the light dawning in my face, and he knew that I was beginning to understand where he was headed, so he pressed forward. “In your statement ya’ said the dogs were shut up in the bedroom, right?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “They were.”

  “How would that’ve happened?”

  “Felicity would have had to put them there,” I murmured.

  “Why?” he kept going, forcing me to see what he had already surmised.

  My voice fell almost to a whisper. “That’s what we do if someone they aren’t used to is in the house and they are being bothersome.”

  “Exactly,” Ben nodded. “Whoever took Felicity is someone she knows, Kemosabe. Someone she was comfortable enough ta’ let into the house but unfamiliar enough that she had ta’ lock the dogs away. She wasn’t afraid, so he was able ta’ take ‘er down so unexpectedly that she didn’t even have a chance ta’ fight.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded by the realization that had overtaken my grey matter.

  “You gotta work with me on this, Row. We’re gonna find ‘er, but I’ve gotta have your help.”

  My mind was racing, applying a mental litmus test to a list of possible suspects I was compiling in my head. I couldn’t imagine anyone that we knew wanting to harm her. I was disregarding names as fast as they popped into my head, and soon, I found myself placing the yardstick up against the same people over and over again.

  “Rowan? Talk ta’ me,” Ben prodded.

  “I… It just doesn’t… I’m not…” I stammered. “I don’t know, Ben. I just can’t think of anyone we know who would do something like this.”

  “Okay, what about enemies? You two are pretty open about your religion,” he suggested. “Anyone you know that could maybe have gotten hooked up with a radical group or somethin’?”

  “You pretty much know who my enemies are.” I shook my head. “And to my knowledge Felicity doesn’t have any. And religious groups? I doubt it. Besides, I can’t imagine any going this far.”

  “Try tellin’ that ta’ the dead doctors that were killed by the anti-abortion wackos,” he harrumphed. “It takes all kinds, Row. Have ya’ pissed off anyone that ya’ know of?”

  “I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head.”

  “What about Firehair? She have any acquaintances you’re not familiar with? Someone who might be a bit hinky?”

  “Sure,” I shrugged. “I don’t know all of her business contacts, clients, or even members of her photography club. I suppose one of them could be off kilter.”

  “We’re already checkin’ out the folks she was with today,” he nodded. “She have a rolodex or somethin’ we can look at?”

  I glanced around for her purse and found that it was no longer on the side table in the living room where I’d last seen it. “Her purse,” I expressed. “It was on the table over there.”

  “It’s already been bagged,” Ben told me. “She have an address book in there?”

  “Her PDA,” I acknowledged. “She keeps everything in there. Contacts, appointments, every
thing.”

  “Okay, stay here,” he told me, punctuating the command with a quick gesture of his hand as he headed for the front door. “I’ll be right back.”

  Silence fell in behind him for a moment, and I turned my head to see Helen looking back at me with a studious expression.

  “How are you holding up,” she asked.

  “As good as can be expected, I suppose.”

  She nodded slightly and continued to watch me as she offered comment. “Benjamin can sometimes resemble a bull in a china shop with his methods.”

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged, “I’ve seen him be gentler.”

  “It is only because he is frightened, Rowan. He fears for your wife’s safety, and for your sanity. He considers you family, and you know his sense of duty.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  She pursed her lips and her brow furrowed deeply. Pressing her palms together she held her hands up and rested her chin on her steepled fingertips. We stood quietly for a moment, and it became my turn to watch her.

  “Rowan, your wife is going to be fine,” she finally told me.

  “Is this the coddling I was asking for earlier?” I questioned with a flat tone to my words.

  “No. It is merely an observation.”

  “Do you know something that the rest of us don’t?”

  “I simply know what it is that I feel,” she answered as she canted her head to the side and blinked. “You of all people should understand that.”

  I allowed her words to comfort me, though the solace was brief. “Thanks, Helen. I hope you’re right.”

  “This thing what you’re talkin’ about?” Ben interrupted as he entered and thrust a thin, silver case at me.

  “Yes,” I nodded as I took it from him and opened the cover to reveal the electronic device within.

  I activated the PDA and withdrew the stylus from its recessed holder then began systematically tapping it against the touch sensitive screen. “Here.” I offered the device back to him. “This is her address book.”

  “You go through it,” he told me. “See if anyone rings a bell. Someone she might’ve mentioned havin’ a disagreement with. Anything like that.”

  I turned the small LCD display back toward myself and proceeded to page through the listings, one entry at a time. She had combined our home address book with her own, so various bits of data stood out as familiar while others did not. Before long, however, they all began to look like just so many letters and numbers jumbled together.

  I stopped and removed my glasses then rubbed my eyes.

  “Somethin’ wrong?” Ben queried.

  “Not really,” I answered as I slipped my glasses back on to my face. “It just seems like I’ve been staring at small print all day.”

  “Ya’ pretty much have. So, ya’ recognize anything?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “But nothing that leaps out at me as particularly suspicious.”

  “So, what are ya’ doin’ now?” he asked as he nodded in the direction of the device.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what are ya’ doin’?” he reiterated, raising an eyebrow. “You aren’t even lookin’ at the damn thing.”

  The sound of the stylus clacking against the touch sensitive plate reached my ears, and I realized my hand was moving completely of its own accord. As I rotated my head and looked down at the PDA in my hand, the out of phase tones of a voice echoed quietly in the back of my head.

  “There. Is this better?”

  Unconsciously, I had switched the handheld computer into a notepad mode and even traded it off to my right hand. My left was now rapidly scratching the stylus against the surface of the screen.

  A quick glance at the LCD showed a digitized string of handwriting that repeatedly scrawled, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM…

  “Dammit!” I exclaimed as I immediately forced my hand to stop moving. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!”

  “Whoa,” Ben raised his voice to compete with mine. “What the hell?”

  “Schaeffer!” I exclaimed, dropping the PDA and stylus onto the table then shaking my hands as if trying to rid them of something disgusting. “She won’t leave me alone!”

  “What? Like she’s here now?”

  “Yes, dammit!” I was angry, and I spun in place looking for any indication of the girl’s spirit around me. “Go away, Debbie! I can’t help you right now!”

  In my head I could hear her chanting at an ever-quickening pace, “DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAM…”

  I seized on the welling anger within me and thrust it outward in a violent rush, attempting to sweep away anything ethereal in my path. The energy exploded outward, only to reach unanticipated limits and return in force. A shockwave of pain backlashed through my head as the energy ricocheted around the room. I saw Helen turn her head then squint, which told me that she had felt it as well, a fact that for some reason I didn’t find all that surprising. Fortunately for her, she was only a spectator; I was the target.

  A pinpoint of agony drilled into my skull directly between my eyes and sent me physically staggering backward. I felt my heel thump against something, and I started to fall, then a tight grip latched on to my arm as someone guided me into a chair.

  “Rowan? Rowan?” Ben’s words were thick as they flowed into my ears. “Are ya’ okay? What’s goin’ on? Answer me.”

  I leaned forward in the seat, dropping my face into my hands, and heaved hard against the pain. I’m sure that to him it looked like I was having a seizure.

  “ROWAN?!” he demanded again, his voice loud.

  I held up a hand as a signal to him as I grimaced through the onslaught of agony. I’d brought this upon myself. My own anger was bouncing around inside the ethereal barriers Felicity and I had placed around the house, and it now came back to me threefold if not more. I was simply paying for my own lack of control.

  While my presence within had acted as a doorway for Debbie Schaeffer to enter, it hadn’t been terribly effective as an exit for the burst of energy. On top of that, I hadn’t been the least bit grounded when it returned.

  I mutely cursed myself for the stupidity of the action as the pain slowly began to subside. After a moment, misery faded into something resembling a severe sinus headache, and I sighed heavily.

  I remained motionless as I opened my eyes and allowed them to focus on the object I’d tripped over.

  There on the floor was a sealed cardboard box, roughly eight-by-ten by maybe twelve inches tall. I stared at it as the image clarified, then slowly allowed my eyes to come to rest on the label. It was upside down from my point of view, but I could still read it without difficulty.

  It was addressed to Felicity O’Brien and Emerald Photographic Services, which was her company name. What really drew my attention, however, was the return address: Arch Color Labs, 3754 Ash Bend Avenue.

  CHAPTER 28

  There is an old adage that most everyone has heard, about snakes, nearness to them, and getting bit by same because of said close proximity. This is where I now found myself, and the fangs of this particular serpent were, to say the least, firmly embedded in my carotid artery, and the venom was now reaching my brain.

  Bits and pieces of information, snippets of conversations, and channeled vices began coalescing in my frontal lobes to form a mental picture that should have been crystal clear all along. How I’d managed to avoid putting this all together, I had no idea, but there was no stopping it now. Whatever mental block had been shielding the overtly obvious from my sight had now been obliterated, and it was all making sense.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered just loud enough to be heard.

  “Do what?” Ben asked. “Rowan, what’s goin’ on? What the hell was that all about?”

  “Harold,” I said a bit louder. “It’s Harold.”

  “Harold who?”

  “Harold…th
e sorry sonofabitch that owns Arch Color Labs,” I announced, ignoring the throb in my skull and looking up at my friend. “That’s Harold who.”

  “You’re gonna hafta elaborate, Row.”

  “This box,” I explained as I pointed to the offending container. “It wasn’t here when I left this morning.”

  “Yeah, so maybe it got delivered while you were with me and Chuck. Ya’ haven’t been home all day ya’know.”

  “No. Wouldn’t happen. Arch is less than a mile from here. He never ships orders to Felicity. She picks them up.”

  “Okay, so just playin’ devil’s advocate here…are you sure she didn’t?” he asked.

  “She didn’t have time. Not today of all days. And before you ask, he’s closed on weekends so it wasn’t riding around in her Jeep for the past few days either.”

  “Okay, good, we’re maybe onta’ somethin’ here. So what makes ya’ think it’s this Harold guy and not an employee?”

  “Because it’s a one man operation. Besides, he smokes like a fiend and that’s why he’s been dressing them up.”

  “He dresses ‘em up ‘cause he smokes? What?”

  “No!” I snapped. “Listen to me. The bastard smokes! And Felicity is why he’s dressing them up!”

  “Whoa, back up,” my friend said. “Which case are we talkin’ about here?”

  “All of it, Ben,” I said in exasperation. “All of it. He’s the one who killed Debbie Schaeffer and Paige Lawson. He’s the one who’s been raping all these women, and he’s the one who took Felicity. Now can we go?”

  “Whoa, slow down, white man,” he instructed. “I think maybe you’re gettin’ some stuff crossed up here.”

  “No, no I’m not.” I shook my head, incredulous that he wasn’t understanding, and then I realized that he had no reason to. Thus far I’d told him next to nothing by way of the facts as I saw them. I was simply spouting random observations and my own fevered conclusions.

  I forced myself to stay in my seat and tried to explain what I was talking about. “Okay, here it is. Did you by any chance notice the resemblance between Felicity and Heather Burke?”

  “Heather Burke is a blue-eyed blonde, Row.”