Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  “What’s wrong with MX Two’s?”

  “Too strong, white man,” he told me.

  “Hey, I like what I like.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he tugged open the door to the glass enclosure and motioned for me to go through. “I just wish you’d like somethin’ else.”

  I shook my head as I entered the somewhat air-conditioned waiting area. “What does it matter?”

  His matter-of-fact reply came as he followed me through the door. “‘Cause I don’t like ‘em.”

  “So?” I queried, stabbing the call button for the elevator then looking at him with a puzzled expression. “You aren’t the one smoking them.”

  “Exactly,” he replied. “So if you don’t smoke the ones that I like, then it makes it kinda hard for me to bum them off ya’ now doesn’t it?”

  “Ohhh, now I get it.” I nodded slowly. “You want me to smoke something you like so you don’t have to buy any.”

  “Damn straight,” he chuckled. “Cigars are expensive.”

  “So quit.”

  My friend looked back at me like I had suddenly grown an extra head. “Yeah, right. I already told ya’ once today ta’ quit yankin’ my chain.”

  A sickly electromechanical ding announced the arrival of the elevator car. The signal was followed by the scrape and groan of the doors parting down the center with a moment’s hesitation then sliding laboriously open. Looking through the widening gap, we could see the car still in motion as it rose the last few inches and then halted with a clunk and a shudder.

  “Oh yeah,” Ben announced. “This looks real safe.”

  “You want to take the stairs?” I queried.

  “I’m thinkin’ maybe yeah,” he replied.

  “The stairs are outside.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  I held my arms out and glance around. “Hot out there, cool in here. Well, cooler anyway.”

  “Lemme see… Hot or splattered? Hot or splattered?” He motioned with his hands as if he were physically weighing the two options. “Considering the conversation we just had, I’m not all about splattered if ya’ know what I mean. Elevator or not.”

  “I’m with you on that one.”

  He stepped back toward the glass door of the waiting area and tugged it open. At that moment, as if cued by some unseen director, our ears were met with what had to be the single most panicked scream I had ever heard in my life to date.

  CHAPTER 4:

  Training and experience instantly became the primary driving forces behind my friend. With a quick jerk, he flung the door wide and propelled himself through the opening, each of his motions deliberate and purposeful. His head twisted from side to side as he scanned the area. His right hand shifted immediately to his hip and rested on the grip of his nine-millimeter sidearm.

  In the few seconds that followed the initial cry, time seemed to expand. Adrenalin injected into my system, this time for reasons wholly unrelated to heights, and in that instant, I experienced a complete lack of coordination. My brain began issuing commands that my body wasn’t ready to accept but was forced to execute anyway. In a series of half-stumbling steps I twisted away from the elevator, aiming myself toward the exit. I reached for the door just as it was swinging shut, only to completely miss it with my hand and drive my shoulder against the metal frame instead. Before I could elicit my own surprised yelp of pain, a second scream echoed through the parking structure.

  I had believed that the first wail was the most panicked I had ever heard. Without a doubt, the second one made that assessment null and void.

  “Gotta be down!” Ben declared, bolting for the stairs at the opposite end of the elevator enclosure.

  I ignored the stab of pain in my shoulder and ran after my friend. I apparently hadn’t struck the doorframe hard enough to do any actual damage to myself, so it was really nothing more than an annoyance anyway. Ben was already rounding the first landing and taking the stairs in fours by the time I arrived at the top of the flight.

  I was coming down from the initial adrenalin rush, and my coordination, while far from perfect, was returning. Still, not being possessed of the expanded stride of the giant Indian in front of me, I grabbed the rail and took the stairs in a more manageable two-at-once pace. I heard him come to a stop below as I quickly rounded the landing and shot down the second flight, hitting the bottom just as a third, more muffled scream sounded.

  “Goddammit!” Ben exclaimed. “With the fuckin’ echo, I can’t tell for sure where it’s comin’ from!”

  Again, a tortured voice cried out, this time with distinguishable words appended to the dire scream. “HELP! Somebody help me, please!”

  Ben immediately cocked his head to the side then whipped around and flew by me, shouting, “Next level!”

  I stepped back onto the lowest step for a split second to allow him past and then threw myself forward while keeping a firm grip on the handrail, using the momentum to swing me around to the next set of stairs.

  Our frantic footsteps were thumping in the stairwell, inciting a disjointed rhythm that resounded through the concrete parking structure. Ben was well ahead of me, and I heard him hit the next level before I even reached the landing. I could hear him shuffling around as he searched for the source of the commotion. A pair of seconds later I bounded off the stairs just in time to see my friend wrapping his large fist around the grip of his pistol and sliding it out of the belt rig.

  “Nine-one-one, Row.” He called to me over his shoulder as he started across the yellow-striped concrete. “Tell ‘em officer needs assistance, code one.”

  By the time he got the second sentence out of his mouth, he had broken into a dead run.

  I pulled my cell phone from my belt and thumbed off the key lock then stabbed in the emergency number. I could hear an immediate click from the device as I placed it to my ear.

  “Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?” came a tinny, female voice.

  It occurred to me that at this point that I wasn’t exactly sure what the emergency was. I looked up and in the direction Ben had run, looking for whatever he had spied. My friend had covered a fair amount of distance in the few seconds that had passed and was still barreling full tilt up the inclined parking lot. Well beyond him, near the opposite corner, I could see an intense struggle going on between a young blonde woman and an individual who was bear hugging her from behind. They were positioned near the back of a vehicle that was parked in the traffic lane with the trunk lid and driver-side door wide open.

  They spun in a circle as the attacker slammed the woman against the side of the car, slipping slightly out of view, so I bobbed and shifted to see around the support pylons. The aggressor in the altercation was nondescript enough to defy identification, but based on stature and what few details I could make out, such as hair length, I assumed the person to at least be male.

  They made a half-spin outward then back, bouncing against the rear quarter of the sedan. As they turned, I caught a quick glimpse of the woman’s face. For some reason, she looked familiar to me, but at this distance that didn’t really mean anything.

  “Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?” the woman at the other end repeated, capturing my attention.

  “I’m… I’m not sure,” I stuttered and then began spilling the information as quickly as I could. “I’m calling for Detective Benjamin Storm with the city homicide division. He said to tell you ‘officer needs assistance, code 1’.”

  “What is your location, sir?”

  The old adage about not being able to look away from a train wreck passed through my mind as I continued staring, frozen in place and mesmerized by the crime playing out in front of me. I forced myself to quickly shift my glance to my friend, checking his progress, and then leveled my gaze back on the fight.

  Due to the design of the structure, a low wall and cable barrier separated Ben from them. He was still running up the incline and would need to hook around the end before he would be with
in close enough proximity to confront the situation. He still had several feet to go before he could even make that turn.

  My mind raced as I wondered whether or not we should have come at this from the next level up, but it was too late for that now.

  “Sir, your location?” the voice barked from the phone.

  “I’m sorry… The old Peerless-Cross department store parking garage, orange level,” I replied.

  “Is the detective injured?” she asked.

  “No. He’s trying to stop a carjacking, or a mugging or something, I’m not…”

  I was interrupted by yet another scream that sounded vaguely like ‘help’, and I watched as the young woman broke partially free and suddenly lurched forward. Her attacker managed to maintain a grip on her arm and yanked it hard, knocking her off balance. She fell backward against the car, and as she came to rest against the fender, the man swung around in front of her. Without hesitation, he drew his arm back and landed a fist square into the young woman’s face. Her head snapped back, and even at this distance, I could see crimson blood running from her nose.

  “Damn!” I exclaimed and then remembering that the phone was still to my ear added, “He just hit her in the face!”

  He drew back and hit her a second time then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the back of the vehicle. In a rough motion he rolled her into the trunk then slammed the lid shut and raced back to the open driver-side door.

  “Sir, can you tell me what is happening?” the operator asked.

  The audible thunk was still fading as Ben’s authoritative voice boomed outward, ricocheting from the angular surfaces of the garage. “POLICE! STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE NOW!” He was just reaching the corner and beginning to make the turn as he shouted, running with his weapon hand extended and trying to draw a bead on the man next to the vehicle.

  “Sir, are you still there?”

  “Gods! I think it’s a kidnapping!” I exclaimed aloud, making the statement to myself as much as to the 9-1-1 operator.

  The attacker had been pre-occupied with the struggling woman and only now noticed Ben barreling around the corner. He ducked quickly into the driver’s seat, audibly wrenching the vehicle into gear and gunning the engine even before closing the door.

  Tires squealed as the car sped forward, climbing up the incline toward the level above us. Ben slipped out of view behind a support pylon then reappeared on the opposite side, pistol stiff-armed before him and taking aim at the vehicle. I saw him snap his head in disgust as he realized it was too dangerous to take a shot with the victim in the trunk. He followed the tail of the car with his eyes as it screeched into the turn then whipped his gaze around and darted to his right toward the downward corkscrew of the exit lane on the corner of the building.

  “Sir?!” I heard the faint but frantic voice issue from the cell phone and realized that I had allowed my hand to drop away from my ear.

  I brought the device back up and began speaking, “He just shoved her into the trunk and sped off. Ben is chasing after them.”

  “Are you still in the parking garage, sir?”

  “Yeah,” I responded, realizing suddenly that I had to be her eyes. “Yeah, he was heading up, so Ben took off for the exit spiral. He’s on foot.”

  “Sir, we are on the line with dispatch, and they have units responding to your location. I need you to stay with me.”

  I could hear the roar of the vehicle crossing above me on the next level, revving up then fading as it passed. My view of Ben was obscured by a row of cars occupying the spaces near the center of the level, so I began running up the incline. I was moving slowly at first then began increasing my pace as I tried to get in a better position to see the exit ramp. There was a squeal, another roar, and then the crunch of metal against concrete. Following that, there was nothing.

  I broke past the line of cars and stumbled to a halt, directing my gaze through an empty parking space. In the distance, I could see Ben’s form in a three-quarter silhouette as he stood at that level’s opening to the exit, weapon at the ready.

  I started to wonder if the vehicle above had crashed into one of the dividing walls, but then the relative silence was punctuated by the protests of its overtaxed engine as it started down the spiraling ramp.

  The car suddenly came into view at the opening, and the tortured wail of scraping metal filled my ears. A pair of bursts from Ben’s pistol abruptly punctuated the grating noise as he fired into the windshield of the vehicle.

  I watched in horror as the front fender clipped my friend and sent him flying backward. The scrape of sheet metal against concrete began to fade as the vehicle continued down the ramp.

  “He’s been hit!” I shouted into the cell phone as I began moving once again, breaking into a run toward my downed friend. “Ben’s been hit!”

  I knew the operator was asking me something because I heard her voice issuing from the speaker, but I no longer had the device to my ear. I pumped my legs and arms as hard as I could, pushing myself up the incline and hooked around the parked vehicles at the end of the row. I had a lot of distance to cover, and I wasn’t going to be setting any records for sprinting. By the time I was within forty or so feet of the arc, the exit came once again into view.

  Not knowing how hard he had been struck or the extent of his injuries, I was fully expecting to see my friend in a crumpled heap. Instead, I was greeted by the sight of him on his feet, fully upright and very pissed off.

  “Fuck ME!” he shouted across the lot as he limped forward. “Sonofabitch!”

  “Ben!?” I barely managed to call out against my rapidly shortening breath.

  He looked up and saw me running toward him. “Backup, Row. Fuckin’ tell me I’ve got backup comin’!”

  I waved the cell phone in the air then sucked in a quick breath and called out to my friend as I continued toward him. “The operator said units have been dispatched.”

  Below us, the fading sound of the scraping metal had now transformed into the clamor of squealing tires, and out on the streets, angry horns were beginning to blare.

  The wail of emergency sirens in the distance was so faint they may as well have been a lifetime away.

  CHAPTER 5:

  “No, I don’t wanna go to the freakin’ hospital,” Ben’s voice carried across the lot as he shouted. He continued walking away from the paramedic but looked back, pointing his finger as he added, “How many times do I hafta tell ya? Now leave me alone and let me do my job.”

  My friend was disheveled and still moving about with a limp, but other than that, he didn’t appear to be seriously injured. But then, this was Ben Storm we were talking about. I’d seen him lie through his teeth to avoid going to a hospital, all because he had a phobia about needles, go figure.

  Even though he had relayed a description of the vehicle to the 9-1-1 operator, it had all come down to placement and timing, neither of which factored in our favor. The car was gone before the first police cruiser even arrived on the scene. Between Ben, the parking attendant from the booth downstairs, and me, we had been able to provide miscellaneous details about the sedan as well as a license plate number. Since the car had Illinois tags, officials from that state’s patrol division were already in the loop.

  I was keeping my ears open for lack of anything else to do. Thus far, from what I had been able to pick up from the various conversations I overheard, there was presently an alert out on both sides of the river but still no sign of the vehicle.

  I felt like I should be doing something. I’m not sure what, but that wasn’t the point. I hated the idea of being useless with regard to everything that had transpired. But, I suppose being ordered to ‘wait over there until we need you’ can tend to do that to a person. All in all, I was starting to feel like an extra in a B-movie but without the paycheck or catered buffet lunch.

  At the moment, I was watching from the stairwell, sitting on the third step up from the bottom and trying my best to stay out of the way. So far, I had b
een managing to do so but not without some shifting and shuffling to allow the occasional cop to pass. From what I could see going on in front of me, this was probably the only spot where I was going to have any success whatsoever in the endeavor.

  I looked away from the scene long enough to glance at my watch. Somewhere around an hour and a half had slipped past us since this all began: ninety minutes disappearing into history only to be relived by eyewitness accounts, repeated over and over to the point of tediousness. And then repeated again.

  Still, even though I had only been asked to tell my accounting a half-dozen times so far, it felt as if I had been in this parking garage just shy of forever. On the other hand, it seemed like the span of interconnected moments had gone by in a sudden blur. I suppose it was yet another of those peculiar stress-induced dichotomies that blindsides you following an unexpected adrenalin rush.

  As I watched, I took particular note of the fact that the number of warm bodies occupying the parking garage had increased several fold over what it had been just thirty minutes ago. Now, while I was no expert, unfortunately, I was also not a stranger to crime scenes. The ratio of cops to the singularity of the crime seemed to me like it was already moving beyond overkill. On top of that, something told me there would be even more by the time it was all said and done. There was something more to this than met the eye; even the eye of a witness, or so it seemed.

  For the time being, it looked like I was stuck here. Ben was still limping around angrily, but now he was heading in my direction. He had been barking at anyone in a uniform and even some who weren’t. This was far from the first time I had ever seen him agitated, but there was something different this go around. It wasn’t that this scene felt any more tense than any other I’d been on, just different. There was an overtone of urgency that went beyond any I’d felt before. To me at least, there was even a palpable sense of personal fear coming from the cops on the scene. Not just for the victim but for themselves as well. That was something I had never before experienced at a crime scene, and it bothered me.