Hopefully, I only needed to keep this up for another minute or so and it would all be moot. Once he was gone I was certain the surge of negative emotions would subside. I waited, focusing on my breathing as I listened for the door. The rattle of the bell finally hit my ears just as I was letting a slow stream of air out between my lips. I was actually beginning to think I might make it through this without incident. Of course, it was at right about that moment when I was blindsided.
I really should have felt him standing behind me. Any other time I’m sure I would have, but I suppose I was too busy concentrating on not flying off the stool and attempting to actually land the punch he’d avoided earlier in the day.
Either way, I knew my luck was depleted the moment I heard his voice coming at me from just over my right shoulder.
“What’re ya’ doin’ down here, white man?” Ben asked, a jumbled mix of concern, remorse, and even trepidation wrapped tightly about the words.
“Waiting,” I returned without looking up. I held my voice even, but there was no mistaking the disdain in my tone.
“Mind if I sit here for a minute?”
“Free country.” I took a sip of my coffee and struggled to contain myself as I felt my face flush with heated anger.
There was a thick tension between us as he placed the sack onto the counter then dropped his frame onto the stool and leaned forward on crossed arms. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and the growing thump reverberated in my ears amidst the rush of blood. I actually started counting the beats as we sat there, making it almost to fifty before he elected to speak again.
“You really shoulda stayed at home, Row,” he offered.
While my brain was debating whether or not to reply, my mouth disassociated itself from the process and ran off on its own. “Your guys didn’t exactly leave me much of a place to stay.”
“Yeah…” he grunted then paused a moment. “I heard a rumor. Sorry. They don’t usually do that.”
“Yeah, I know. Been there, got a t-shirt. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“So I guess I just get to be the lucky one then, huh?”
“I have a feelin’ it was a request from on high.”
“I pretty much figured that out too. Perfect opportunity to screw with the Witch, huh?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“Seems like a pretty popular pastime for you cops today.”
He purposely avoided replying to the jibe, asking instead, “You need a hand cleanin’ up?”
“If you’re the one offering, then no.”
“Actually, I can’t…But, maybe I could get…”
I interrupted him. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Seems you can’t do much of anything these days.”
He sighed. “I’m not happy ‘bout this, Row.”
“Funny. Doesn’t seem to have affected your appetite.”
“Stop bein’ such an asshole, Rowan,” he returned. “It just so happens the Rueben’s for Firehair, an’ the chicken salad’s for your mouthpiece. And they ain’t on the department’s dime either.”
“Am I supposed to say thank you or something?” I made a show of reaching for my wallet. “Or do you just want the cash?”
“No. An’ put your fuckin’ wallet away…I just thought ya’ should know I’m tryin’ ta’ take care of Firehair best I can.”
“Like when you cuffed her?”
“I can’t have this conversation with ya’ right now.”
“Big surprise.”
He huffed out a heavy sigh and then paused for a moment before shifting in the seat and picking up the bag. “I better get these back over there before they get cold.”
“You do that,” I chided, and as usual I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I quickly added, “When you placed the order, I sure hope you remembered to ask for plenty of arsenic. You wouldn’t want to miss a chance to poison her too.”
“All right! Fuckit!” Ben spat, dropping the sandwiches and slamming his fist down hard on the counter.
Pushing back, he stood up quickly. I looked over out of reflex and saw him reach to his belt. With a tug he pulled his gold shield from it and then slapped it onto the counter next to the sack of food. In another quick motion, he shoved his hand beneath the folds of his jacket. I heard a quick snap, and a moment later he laid his Beretta alongside the badge and sandwiches.
He was attracting attention from plenty of others, and I started mutely chastising myself for allowing my mouth to countermand my brain.
Ben shot a quick glance to the side and shoved the items toward another cop as he barked, “Watch these for me, willya, Anderson?”
“There a problem?” the uniformed officer asked, starting up from his seat, as were several of the others who were within earshot.
“No,” Ben snapped loudly enough for all to hear as he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me backwards from the stool, causing me to spill coffee across the counter. “I just gotta go finish somethin’.”
“Hey!” I yelped. “What the hell are…”
“Shut up!” he ordered, whipping me around like I was nothing then shoving me toward the door.
“Yo, Storm, don’t kill ‘im,” one of the cops shouted across the diner, punctuating the comment with a laugh. “Way too much paperwork.”
“Hey,” another added. “At least the meat house is right across the street. Won’t have far to go to drop ‘im off.”
I knew from personal experience, the “meat house” he was referring to was the medical examiner’s office that sat immediately next door to police headquarters.
“You want me to call the paramedics for him?” yet another officer quipped.
“Everybody just stay put,” he ordered again. “This’s personal.”
“Goddammit, Ben!” I was growling as I continued my futile attempt to twist out of his grasp.
“I said shut up!” he shot back, shoving me through the now open door and out onto the sidewalk.
With a rough yank he guided me around the side of the building, pushing me along as we went.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I demanded, but my words seemed to fall on purposely-deaf ears.
As we rounded the corner, he gave me a final hard shove, sending me stumbling into the side of a dumpster. Free of his grasp, I wheeled around to face him, rage continuing to surge through me.
“Take your coat off,” he ordered as he stripped out of his own and tossed it into a heap against the building.
“You’re kidding,” I snipped. “You’re not happy with just fucking my wife over. Now you want to kick my ass too?”
“Take your coat off,” he repeated, ignoring my question.
“What for?” I demanded.
“‘Cause, dumbass, you can swing harder if ya’ haven’t got your goddamn coat on, now take it off.”
I reluctantly shrugged off my coat and tossed it against the building as he had done with his. Why I bothered I really didn’t know. Whether I had the coat on or not, it wasn’t going to make any difference. He had height, weight, training, and even more importantly, first hand experience over me. There was no way I could come out of this without broken bones and blood loss at the minimum. At least it was cold outside, so I guessed when I folded, I could use the parking lot as an interim full-body ice pack until the ambulance arrived.
It’s not that I wasn’t going to defend myself, mind you, but I also wasn’t stupid. A no win situation is just that. Somebody isn’t going to win. And, I knew with absolute certainty that it was me who was in the “no” column when it came to a “win” in this instance.
I stood there, staring back at Ben, building as much hatred as I could in hopes that I would at least get in a shot or two before he clocked me and total darkness fell upon my world. Once again, I could feel my heart hammering in my chest as the glare locked between us.
Contrary to his instructions, not everyone had stayed inside, and there was now a small gathering of uniformed and plainclothes officers alike
forming behind Ben. He didn’t seem to have a problem with it, and truth is, he probably expected the audience. Train wrecks always attract spectators, and that was pretty much what was about to happen.
I couldn’t say for sure because I wasn’t paying very close attention to them, but something told me wagers were being made within the group. I didn’t imagine they were giving me very good odds.
“Well, what the hell are ya’ waitin’ for?” Ben finally said. “Come on. Let’s have it!”
“Have what?!” I snapped.
“Come on! Take your shot!”
“What?” I snarled. “You really expect me to throw the first punch right here in front of a bunch of cops?”
“Everybody heard me say this is personal, right?” he called over his shoulder.
A disjointed chorus of “yeah’s” and “whatever’s” issued from the handful of onlookers.
“So then I guess you want me to swing first just so you’ll have a clear conscience when you beat the shit out of me?”
“Wake up, Rowan. I’ve got no intention of hittin’ you, ya’ fuckin’ idiot! You’re the one that’s got the issues here! Now come on! You been wantin’ ta’ hit me all goddamned day, so just do it and get it over with!”
Incredulity flowed into my voice, unevenly mixing with the anger that had already claimed the space. “You’re going to let me hit you?”
“Ain’t that what I just said?”
“And you aren’t going to hit me back?”
“I am if ya’ don’t hurry the fuck up and do it!” he shot back. “Now come on!”
I didn’t wait for him to repeat the invitation again.
CHAPTER 11:
“Feel better now?” Ben asked, following the question with a hard groan.
“A little,” I said, inspecting the ends of my fingers where they protruded from beneath a stained cloth. “I don’t think it’s broken.”
We were currently parked in a booth back inside the diner, him positioned so that he was facing the door and me on the opposite side of the chipped and uneven table. The burgers from the sack were sitting before him, still folded neatly into their paper wrappers. He hadn’t touched them except to pull them from the bag before sending it across the street with one of the other officers.
At this point, I wasn’t entirely sure if he was going to eat them or just look at them longingly, as he was still holding an ice-filled dishcloth pressed against the side of his face. Of course, I wasn’t in much better shape considering that I had its frigid twin wrapped around my hand.
After a moment he grunted. “Yeah, well I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout your hand.”
“Oh, you mean…” I replied, pantomiming a right cross.
“Uh-huh.”
“Truth?”
“Yeah.”
“Right now I’m still thinking about it.”
“That’s fuckin’ great,” he huffed, voice brimming with sarcasm. “So much for takin’ one on the chin.”
“How about you?” I asked.
“Hey, I’m not the one with the issues.”
“Okay, but I meant your jaw.”
“Oh…hurts like a sonofabitch.”
While the crux of my own pain was localized dead center on the knuckles, it was still radiating up my forearm, past my elbow, and stabbing into my shoulder at odd intervals. Much to my surprise, the explosion of rage had somehow served to negate my inherent clumsiness; so, as it turned out, I couldn’t have landed a punch any squarer onto Ben’s jaw if I had mapped the angle and trajectory with precision instruments.
Of course, in addition to that, not really knowing for sure that he wasn’t going to retaliate once I struck, I had gone for broke with that first swing, putting everything I could muster behind it-hatred, anger, strength, and weight. The problem was, as much as it actually ended up hurting him, for me it had still been pretty much like I had slammed my fist into a brick wall. At least, that’s how it felt to my throbbing hand.
He squinted back at me with one eye, reaching up and working his jaw with his right hand while still keeping the ice pack pressed against it with his left.
“Jeezus, white man…” he half-groaned. “Where the hell’d ya’ learn ta’ punch like that anyway?”
“You, as I recall.”
“Oh yeah…” he muttered.
We sat in silence for a short span then I asked, “So what do we do now?”
“That’s up ta’ you, Row,” he answered with a sigh. “I’ve given ya’ all I got. If you wanna keep hatin’ me then there’s nothin’ more I can do about it.”
“It’s not that I want to, Ben,” I offered.
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Look…My head’s not in a very good place right now. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I can tell. You talk ta’ Helen?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “She told me you thought you were doing us a favor.”
He gave his head a shake. “I did, but I’m not talkin’ bout that. I wanna know have ya’ talked to ‘er about you? About what’s goin’ on inside your head.”
“A little.”
“A little ain’t enough, Row.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “But there will be time for that once I clear Felicity.”
“How’re you gonna do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, I gotta tell ya’, Kemosabe. I don’t either, ‘cause no matter how ya’ slice it, it don’t look good.”
“Uh-huh. That’s all I seem to be hearing from you, my attorney, and everyone else.”
“Sorry. Just bein’ honest.”
“Are you telling me that even you think she’s guilty?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head, waiting a measured beat before answering. “I don’t want to, but…”
I waited for him to finish the sentence, however, he simply allowed his voice to trail off.
“But what, Ben?” I finally asked. “Can you honestly say that you think Felicity is a killer?”
“Under different circumstances, no.”
“So what’s so different about the circumstances now?”
“The cards just ain’t fallin’ in her favor, Row.”
“Last I recall you had nothing other than circumstantial evidence at best.”
“I’m afraid it’s gotten a little more complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“I can’t really get into it, Row.”
“Damn you, Ben,” I spat in a low voice. “Don’t keep doing this. You can’t dangle that shit in front of me then clam up all over again. Tell me what’s going on.”
He looked at me with a pained expression that definitely wasn’t a by-product of the ache in his jaw and then reached up with his free hand to rub his neck.
“What the hell,” he muttered. “They’ve prob’ly hit ‘er with it by now anyway. The hair samples from the scenes matched with…”
I immediately cut him off, countering what he was going to say. “…I already told you there’s a logical explanation for that.”
“Let me finish…” he held out his hand to stop me. “They didn’t just match the samples from the two scenes here. They also measured up with hairs lifted from a homicide in Myrtle Beach that happened around a year ago.”
Now I knew what the evidence was Jackie had mentioned earlier.
I offered a cold rebuttal. “A couple of hairs aren’t conclusive, Ben. Even I know that. So does your crime lab. That’s thin and they know it.”
“You’re right, they aren’t,” he agreed. “As far as just comparison goes. But when ya’ combine ‘em with a DNA match, they suddenly take on a lot more weight.”
“So, you’re telling me Felicity’s DNA matches to evidence found at a crime scene in South Carolina?”
“And the two homicides here. Yeah, I’m afraid so. That’s the word anyway.”
“That’s ludicrous.”
“Maybe so, but from what I’m hearin’ it’s still a fact.”
>
I shook my head and stated flatly, “Well, there’s a simple explanation for that too. It’s a mistake.”
“I wish it was, Row. But, I asked around. After they ran the two here, they sent samples to Washington. What I got told was the Feebs ran ‘em three times. Plus, they got the sample direct from Myrtle Beach and ran that comparison, not us.”
“I don’t care,” I spat. “They’re still wrong.”
“Look, Rowan, I don’t wanna believe it either.”
“Then don’t.”
He sighed and cleared his throat then sat back against the seat in the booth, regarding me silently. He tossed the ice pack onto the table then gingerly pressed his fingers along his jaw line, wincing slightly but remaining silent.
“She didn’t do it, Ben,” I appealed once more.
“Okay, Row,” he spread his hands out in front of him in mock surrender. “Who did then?”
“I don’t know, but I’m damn sure going to find out.”
“How?”
“To start with, I’m going to track down a Lwa.”
“Row…” he shook his head. “Listen, I know you’re convinced this evil spirit Voodoo thing has got somethin’ to do with this…”
“And you aren’t?”
“I dunno. Not quite like you are, I don’t think.”
“Well, were there signs of a Voodoo ritual at the crime scene in Myrtle Beach?” I demanded.
Based on my earlier conversation with the young woman at the university in Louisiana, I knew it was a safe bet his answer would be yes. Still, I didn’t want to show my hand just yet. I needed for him to tell me himself.
“That’s not the point, Row…”
“There were, weren’t there?”
“Yeah, there was, but so what? They’re just gonna say that connects it with the Hobbes murder here. And that’s not ta’ mention the fact that there was plenty of evidence that the whole kinky sex thing was involved.”
“It does connect them, Ben,” I replied. “But, you’ve still got the wrong woman. I don’t know how many times I have to say it-Felicity did NOT do this.”
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