“Storm!” she snarled.
Felicity’s angry voice pierced the atmosphere in the small corridor once again. “FEK TÙ! Póg mo thóin saigh!”
“Christ!” Albright exclaimed. “What is that gibberish anyway?”
I don’t think she really wanted an answer, but I gave her one anyway. “It’s not gibberish. It’s Gaelic.”
She barked at me. “You shut up, Gant.”
I really wanted to spout off a comeback, but I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be in my best interest. I quickly weighed my situation and, right or wrong, decided it probably couldn’t get any worse. However, just to be safe I kept my comment near the middle of the road. “You’re the one who asked.”
She was not amused. “Did I not just tell you to shut up?!”
“I must have missed that,” I returned with heavy sarcasm.
Albright took on a threatening tone. “All right, Gant, would you like to add resisting arrest to the charges?”
“Who’s resisting?”
“Speaking of charges, Lieutenant,” Mandalay started again. “Just exactly what would those be?”
“I can think of several,” Albright shot back.
“That’s interesting.” Mandalay spoke in a professional but condescending tone. “Because I can’t imagine a single one that would stick. However, I can think of several that Mister Gant can bring against you.”
Albright had completed handcuffing me but continued to hold me against the wall as if I were some danger to her and everyone around me. My arms were starting to cramp, and I had lost feeling in one side of my face where my cheek was pressed into the wall. I couldn’t see what was going on behind me, obviously, but it sounded as though Albright might have turned to face Constance before she spoke.
“I am not interested in your opinion,” she snarled.
“Well, I’m going to give it to you whether you want it or not,” Mandalay continued, unfazed by the older woman. “In short, that opinion would be that you are very close to violating Mister Gant’s civil rights.”
Albright let out a supercilious cackle that actually made me nauseous. “You Feds amaze me,” she asserted. “Every single one of you thinks you know more about the law than any other cop, no matter how much experience they have. Does the Bureau issue the attitude with the badge, or is it learned behavior?”
“Actually,” Mandalay said, not missing a beat, “I paid for mine.”
“Excuse me?” Albright retorted.
“Oh yes. I just paid it off last year as a matter of fact.” Mandalay adopted her own attitude in rebuttal. “Cornell Law, class of ninety-seven. Of course, you could be correct; I might not know what I’m talking about. I was only the salutatorian.”
Edgy silence filled in behind the explanation. Even Felicity had stopped struggling with Ben, and for the first time since the altercation started, she was mute.
“He threatened a police officer,” Albright finally declared, her voice filled with a tenuous confidence.
“I perceived no threat,” Constance offered. “How about you, Storm? Did you see Rowan threaten the lieutenant?”
“Threaten?” Ben asked with mock surprise as he turned toward them. “No, I musta missed that.”
“You’re walking a VERY thin line, Storm!” Albright said.
My friend shrugged. “Sorry, Lieutenant. I must’ve been pre-occupied or somethin’.”
Albright snarled. “You both know full well that it was a verbal threat.”
“Sticks and stones, Lieutenant,” Mandalay offered. “Sticks and stones.”
Albright expelled an angry breath but remained mute.
“Back to what I was saying, Lieutenant.” Mandalay began speaking again, completely in control of the situation. “You might want to re-think this action, and I’ll tell you why. Let us just forget the civil rights violations, the inevitable lawsuits, and the bad press for a moment. Instead, let’s look at some basic facts. One, you presently have Eldon Porter loose on the streets of Saint Louis. Two, Porter has abducted a woman with the intention of killing her. And most importantly, three, your one and only link to Porter is Rowan.
“Now, once again this is just my opinion.” Mandalay added an infusion of sarcasm to the comment. “But I think you would be better served by releasing Rowan, bidding a hasty retreat, and allowing Detective Storm to act as your liaison.”
Weighty tension flowed in to mix with the silence following Agent Mandalay’s carefully worded suggestion. I was still making an indelible impression of my face in the surface of the wall, not of my own choice of course. My earlier mental exercise had done wonders for my inner self, but it wasn’t accomplishing much regarding the physical aches and pains that were wracking my body. While I had somewhat welcomed them a few moments ago, I was more than ready for them to be gone.
The muscles in my arms were now approaching the full throes of cramping. If I was unable to change my position soon, the heightened discomfort I was currently battling was going to become searing agony. If that wasn’t enough, Albright had not bothered to set the stops on the handcuffs—purposely I’m betting—and the metal bracelets were cutting off the circulation to my hands. The first one she had slapped the restraint around had already gone numb, and the second was well on its way.
Topping it all off, I was still dealing with the complaining nerve endings that surrounded my various injuries of the day.
I heard Albright force out another angry breath although this one sounded as if it held a bit of resignation as well. A moment later, the pressure against my back released and the jangle of keys met my ears.
“This is not over by any means, Gant,” Albright warned as she unlocked the cuffs, taking little care as she did so.
First, one of my arms, then the other fell, coming down to my sides just as the initial wave of severe cramping was about to attack. I shook them loosely and then stretched.
“You had best hope that Porter does not harm that young woman.” Albright continued to lecture me.
I worked my fingers in and out of my palms as I turned to her and then inspected my wrists. I stopped for a moment to rub the thick, red depressions that encircled them, biting my lip as feeling returned, taking the form of countless shards of broken glass and barbed hooks rattling about inside my digits.
“I doubt you’ll be able to find anyone who is hoping for her safety any more than me,” I echoed with as little anger in my voice as I could manage.
She simply glared at me, her jaw working as she clenched her teeth behind the thin gash formed by her intense frown.
“Storm,” she finally snapped, turning to him. “Mark my words, Detective. Your days are numbered.”
“Yeah.” Ben half nodded. “I’ll be sure to put it on my calendar.”
Albright snorted haughtily then turned on her heel and stalked toward the front of the apartment. When she reached the door, she rested her hand on the knob and hesitated. After a brief moment, she turned to glare at the four of us.
“Yes, Lieutenant?” I asked, not sure what else to do.
“Just exactly what were you saying earlier, Miz O’Brien?” she queried in a demanding tone. “You kept repeating something.”
Felicity glowered at the lieutenant as she crossed her arms beneath her breast. I could tell by looking at her that it was taking an immense amount of effort on her part to remain calm. My wife arched one eyebrow and spoke, her accent and brogue heavier than usual from the anger, “Aye, Fek tù saigh, maybe?”
“Yes,” Albright snipped. “I suppose that is one of your Witch curses.”
“Oh, nothing so eloquent as that, then,” Felicity answered. “But, aye, it was a curse all right.”
“What then?” Albright pressed.
I couldn’t help but notice that she reached up and began fingering the small cross hanging around her neck. Unless I was misreading her, there was actually a small swath of fear in her face.
“Are you certain that you are wanting to know that, then?�
�
“I ASKED, did I not?” Albright barked.
Her voice cracked when she spoke, revealing for a fact what I had suspected. For all her verbal bravado, she actually harbored a fear of WitchCraft.
Felicity drew in a deep breath, cocked her head to the side, and then translated the phrase into carefully measured English. “Fuck. You. Bitch.”
Indignation filled the lieutenant’s face, but not before a barely noticeable wave of relief washed over it. If I hadn’t been watching as close as I was, I never would have seen it. Nevertheless, I did, and I logged it away for the future.
She said nothing in return, but upon her exit, I would almost have to say that Lieutenant Albright gave my wife a run for her money in the door-slamming department.
CHAPTER 27:
“Damn,” I muttered in the wake of the door’s echo. “She’s getting just as melodramatic about this as Porter.”
“Yeah,” Ben acknowledged with a heavy sigh. “She’s got a real bug up her ass when it comes to you.”
“You mean she’s always like this?” Mandalay asked. “How does she keep her job?”
“Well, she was a lot worse just now than I’ve ever seen,” Ben told her. “Usually she’s just a Bible thumpin’… How’d you say that, Felicity? ‘Sigh’?”
“Aye,” she nodded. “Saigh.”
“Yeah, one of those,” he continued. “But tonight, this was… Hell, I dunno what this was.”
She looked at him and shook her head in disbelief. “Storm, you absolutely have to go to Internal Affairs about this woman. I hate to sound cliché, but she’s a loose cannon.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed. “I’m tight with a copper that moved over to IAD a couple years back. Maybe I’ll drop in on ‘im tomorrow if I have a few minutes.”
“I think it would be advisable,” Mandalay replied.
“Well,” I spoke up. “I appreciate both of you coming to the rescue. Thanks.”
Ben grunted, “Uh-huh. I’ll prob’ly regret it. I’m bettin’ I shoulda let her arrest ya’ anyway.”
“What for?”
My friend turned his gaze on Felicity. “Did you talk him outta puttin’ his ass on the line?”
“No,” she returned with a shake of her head. Her voice was still covered with a frost of anger.
Ben swung his head back to me and then jerked his thumb toward Felicity. “That for.”
I expelled an annoyed breath, frowned at him, and then said, “We aren’t going to go down this road again, are we?”
“Somebody’s gotta chase after ya’,” he replied.
“Look,” Mandalay interjected. “Before you two start arguing, let’s just see what happens.” She rolled her arm up then pushed back her cuff to glance at her watch. You could almost see the quick mental calculation going on behind her eyes as she spoke. “It’s just past seven. The last call from Porter was a little less than forty-five minutes ago, and they had pegged a grid location on him. We haven’t heard a peep out of him since.
“We’ve all been a little preoccupied, especially with Lieutenant Albright. For all we know, this just might be a moot point by now.”
“Yeah.” Ben nodded in agreement with what she was implying. “The S.O.B might be cornered somewhere right now. Or, if we’re really lucky, maybe they’re stuffin’ his ass in a body bag. I’ll check with one of the coppers that I know who is on tonight. Mandalay, why don’t you call the Feeb house and see if they have anything.”
Constance gave her head an annoyed shake. “Field office, Storm. Can’t you just say field office? You should know we aren’t exactly fond of the nickname ‘Feeb.’”
He returned an innocent, questioning stare. “What? I didn’t call YOU a Feeb. I LIKE you.”
She rolled her eyes at him in answer then reached into her pocket and extracted a cell phone. She flipped the cover on the device open with a quick snap.
“So Mandalay,” Ben said as he fumbled his own cell from his belt with his wounded fingers. “Thanks for the backup with Albright.”
She continued looking at her cell phone as she keyed in a number. “No problem, Storm. Even with all your faults and overabundance of testosterone, I like you too.”
“I think I might have just been insulted,” Ben quipped.
“Give me a break,” she returned. “Just take it in the spirit it was intended.”
“So lemme ask you somethin’.”
“What’s that?”
“You really salutatorian of your class at Cornell?”
“Actually no,” she replied as she hovered her thumb over the send button and glanced up. “I was valedictorian. I just didn’t want to sound too pretentious.”
“Jeezus, Mandalay.”
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“WHAT, Storm?”
“Well, it’s just that you’re a pretty good copper.” He gave her an embarrassed glance and half shrugged as he spoke. “And, sometimes, like when you fix yourself up… Well, you’re kinda hot.”
She squinted one eye and shook her head at him. “Storm, are you hitting on me? Because if you…”
“Hell no!” He scrunched his face and gave her a dismissive wave as he rushed to cut her off. “I’m just kinda surprised to find out you’re a nerd too.”
Mandalay rolled her eyes then turned her back to him as she dropped her thumb on the keypad and headed out into the living room.
“I’m going to check the television,” I announced as Ben began fat-fingering his own cell phone.
“Yeah,” he called over his shoulder absently. “Friggin’ media is prob’ly interviewin’ the bastard on every channel as we speak.”
I gave Felicity a nod, and we skirted around the massive Native American obstacle. He sidestepped as I gently nudged him, moving against the wall and allowing us to pass. We rounded the corner at the mouth of the small corridor and moved into the edge of the living room.
An earlier thought pushed itself up into view from the swirling tumult of my overtaxed brain, and I faltered for a moment before coming to a halt.
“Caorthann?” Felicity called my name in Gaelic, her voice threaded with mild concern. This was a pet name she’d had for me back before we were married, and I hadn’t heard it in a long while. “Are you okay, then?”
“I’m fine, honey.” I reached over and gently took hold of her arm. “What does the Queen of Swords mean?”
“The tarot card?” she answered. “I’m not sure. Mourning isn’t it? Feminine sadness? The tarot is really not my strong point, but that’s what I seem to recall from the little white book.”
The little white book; I hadn’t heard that one in a while. It was an affectionate nickname given to the booklet of definitions provided with what had to be one of the most widely known decks on the market—the Rider-Waite tarot.
“I know, mine either,” I told her as I felt my brow crease with concentration. “I think you’re correct, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“Aye, where did you see this card?”
“When Albright had me up against the wall,” I explained. “When she was touching me, I saw a vision of the card.”
“Aye, you’re sure it was the Queen of Swords, then?”
“Pretty sure,” I nodded to her as I answered. “I had to really concentrate on it since it was upside down.”
“Upside down?” she echoed. “Inverted, then. That would change the meaning, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re right,” I said.
“I still can’t be sure, but I think that reversed it means something like malice.”
I reached up, pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, and let out a sigh. I was still grounded, but something out there was knocking at the ethereal door leading into my brain, and it was being very insistent. I had a feeling that it was going to call for reinforcements soon.
“You’re sure that you’re okay?” Felicity asked again.
“Yeah,” I looked back at her with a slight smile
. “Just tired.”
“Aye,” she returned. “I’ll be right back.”
She turned to the side and started away from me with a determined stride.
“What…” I began.
“The door,” she answered without waiting for the rest of the question. “It needs to be locked.”
I personally didn’t feel that the task was an imperative with both Ben and Constance here, but I didn’t disagree with her. If the simple act of setting the deadbolt would make her feel better, I was all for it. Besides, it was easily possible that she was picking up on things that I wasn’t. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I glanced around and saw that Mandalay had paced her way into the dining area, so I headed directly for the coffee table and scooped up the remote. Aiming the controller at the corner, I pressed the power button. The screen on the television flickered to life, and I immediately thumbed the volume down a few notches just in case.
I brought my gaze up and saw that Felicity had one hand on the knob for the deadbolt and one on the swing bar, pressing it tight against the door. Her head was down, and her shoulders relaxed noticeably. Apparently, that small measure of security had meant more to her than I realized.
Looking back to the television, I saw a tight aerial shot of what appeared to be an old multiple-story, warehouse-and-office type of structure. The front side of the building filled the screen, but any details that might have been present were all but faded into the background.
The scene was dark, but emergency lights were painting predictable swaths of red and white as they flickered from the tops of squad cars. I watched intently as they strobed, revealing a level of decay that told me the building was probably abandoned, or at the very least, had been vacant for quite some time. The setting was generic enough that I couldn’t place exactly where it was, but it did appear to be somewhere near the riverfront.
The vehicles in the foreground were angled haphazardly across the partially cleared street, nosed into piles of snow along the curb. The tableau looked, at first, like toys left in disarray by a child in the midst of an imaginary game. Closer inspection showed that there was some amount of method to the madness, in that they formed a rough, staggered barrier.
The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 22