Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  The gashes were fairly deep and somewhat ragged, as she had made them with the sharp edge of a broken drinking glass. Even though I still felt that she should see a doctor, I had to admit that the cuts didn’t look nearly as bad as they had before they were cleaned up.

  We were in the kitchen where we could both have a seat, and more importantly, I could spread out the first aid kit on the table. At the moment, I was snipping off strips of white tape from a metal spindle.

  Ben was behind me, seated in the dining room and comparing a sketch of Felicity’s bloody rendering to a road atlas. Unfortunately, the image on the mirror, while obvious in its intent, was a smeary conglomeration of thick lines and devoid of any text labels, save for the ‘FIND ME’. Because of that, it was somewhat of a puzzle in and of itself.

  Before getting started, he had called Agent Mandalay, catching her just as she was pulling into her driveway. She never even shut off her engine and now, was on her way back here.

  “Aye,” Felicity returned, her voice surprisingly calm. “Maybe so, but I broke it.”

  I nodded. “True. But it obviously wasn’t a clean break.”

  I cut a final strip of the surgical tape and stuck it to the edge of the table then snapped the spindle back into its cover. I tossed it back into the box with a slight clatter. Then I reached deeper into the first aid kit and pulled out a small, brown jar then twisted off the lid. I dipped a cotton swab into the homemade comfrey and menthol salve and twirled it for a moment.

  Felicity let out a short laugh that came as an abbreviated ‘hmph’, and then she said, “I wasn’t really sure that the spell would work at all if you want to know the truth.”

  “It didn’t, really,” I offered. “All it did was suck you into all of this mess.”

  “Aye, but you were free of the visions for a short time.”

  “I’m surprised it did that much.” I shook my head. “Nothing should have happened at all.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because, I’d already tried it.”

  “You did?” There was a note of surprise in her voice. “When?”

  “Awhile back.” I shrugged. “I even tried a banishing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

  “But if you don’t believe in the magick, Rowan, then it can’t work. You know that.”

  “I know,” I told her. “But you just told me that you had your own doubts.”

  “Aye.” She nodded. “I did at that. But still… You tried to do a banishing?”

  “Don’t act so surprised. It’s not like I want this to keep happening to me you know.”

  “That’s not true.”

  I stopped twirling the swab. “Excuse me?”

  “You see it as a gift as well as a curse.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do,” she replied. “I can feel it. You certainly don’t revel in it, but you see it as your destiny. If it were to stop, you would feel as though you had failed.”

  She was touching on insights I had thought were completely hidden from view. Of course, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised by that. I really knew better than to think I could keep anything from her.

  “Pretty amazing,” I offered with a sigh, returning to the original subject and hoping she would follow. “A spell that shouldn’t have worked to begin with, doomed to certain failure by your own disbelief, and yet you still managed to make magick happen anyway. Lucky you.”

  I took her hand and blotted the oozing gashes once more.

  “Why do you think that is, then?” she asked.

  “The Ancients like your accent maybe?” I replied.

  “What?” She shot me a puzzled look. “Oh, no, seriously. Why do you think it worked at all?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe there’s something bigger going on here. We both know I’m probably the last guy to be able to answer that.” I pulled her hand closer and retrieved the cotton swab from the ointment. “This is probably going to sting.”

  The word ‘probably’ morphed instantly into ‘absolutely’ as I touched the healing salve to the gashes. She sucked in a startled breath as her face twisted into a grimace. At the same moment, her hand jerked out of reflex, trying to pull away from the sudden burn, but I held it fast.

  “I really wish you’d reconsider the stitches.”

  “No,” she forced out between clenched teeth.

  I continued gently dabbing the wounds until they were covered, then tossed the swab into the small trashcan next to me.

  “There, that should be the worst of it,” I said as I started wrapping her fingers with sterile gauze.

  I glanced up and saw that her grimace had melted into a thoughtful stare. She was absently chewing at her lower lip, something she tended to do when she was preoccupied. I stopped wrapping for a moment and asked, “You okay? This too tight?”

  She snapped out of the shallow trance and looked at me. “What? Oh, no, it’s fine. I… Ummm… I was just thinking about earlier.”

  I went back to wrapping the gauze then glanced up as I said, “Earlier? You mean the hypnosis?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Before that. Before I left this evening.”

  “What about it?”

  “What I said about you feeling sorry for yourself,” she said hesitantly. “I’m sorry.”

  I gave my head a slight shake. “Don’t be. You were right. I have been feeling sorry for myself.”

  “No, Rowan…”

  “Yes,” I interrupted her objection. “I have. Don’t get me wrong, honey, it hurt when you said it, but all you did was point out the obvious. I should actually thank you.”

  “Aye, but I shouldn’t have been so mean.”

  “You weren’t really.” I grinned. “No meaner than usual, anyway.”

  She gave her head a dismissive shake, but the corners of her mouth curled into a slight grin.

  “Of course,” I added as I started applying the tape, “I’m not suddenly all better now just because of what you said. That only happens in the movies. But, I recognize that my own self-pity is a part of the larger problem, so maybe I’m on the right path to do something about it.”

  “You know you have family who wants to help, then.” Her words were a comment as much as a question.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Hey you two,” Ben’s voice came from the doorway. “Come look at this for a second. I think I got somethin’”

  Felicity was already coming up out of the chair as he finished the sentence, and I had to rise in unison with her as I hastily finished looping the white tape around the gauze.

  “Whoa, honey, slow down,” I told her as she pulled away and stepped past me, but she wasn’t listening.

  I knew the sense of urgency she was exuding all too well. She was physically manifesting her desire to get this over with, to make it into a distant memory. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wouldn’t work. Nothing could make it play out any faster than had already been pre-ordained and that speed was something that we’d never be privy to before the fact.

  But, what pained me even more was the fact that while I knew the memories would fade somewhat, the distance would never be great enough for her to ever stop running from them.

  I pushed back the wave of sorrow brought on by the thought and followed her into the dining room.

  “Look at this,” Ben was already saying, running his finger along the contours of lines between the sketch and a page in the road atlas. “Right here, this could be the Mississippi River.” He drew his hand downward, first on one page then the other. He shot a quick glance at us and then proceeded to motion horizontally. “This here could be Two-Seventy, and this could be Riverview.”

  I stuck my hand in and traced the same lines. “Sure, but couldn’t this also be the Missouri River, this be Highway Seventy, and that be Fifth Street?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, swishing his fin
gertip around. “And it could also be the other end of Two-Seventy and this could be Two-Thirty-One. Or it could be Sixty-Four and Fifty-Five for all that matter. But bear with me. Just assume that this is the Mississippi and look here and here.” He pointed first to an extra line running perpendicular to the line he had identified as Highway Two-Seventy. “This could be the Chain of Rocks Canal on the Illinois side.” He moved his finger back and forth between the sketch and the road map and then dropped his finger onto a small spot on the drawing. “On the mirror, this is pretty much just a bloody fingerprint, so I really didn’t pay much attention to it at first, but look at this.” He pointed to an identical spot on the roadmap, and at the tip of his finger was a small triangle encompassed by a circle. “This is the tourist info center on the Missouri side.”

  I glanced back and forth between the two renditions, considering what he had said. The sketch was rough and in reality, just a simplified version of the smears that coated the bathroom mirror. Unfortunately, what we were looking at could be any one of a hundred intersections on the map, not to mention that we were looking only at Missouri. Still, if you did as he said and made certain assumptions, the details could be construed to support his conclusion.

  “Tamara Linwood was found in Rafferty Park, right?” I asked. “Near the Missouri River.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “And that is southwest. And, Sarah Hart was found in River’s Bend Park.”

  “Northwest,” I murmured. “Again, near the Missouri.”

  “I know, I know,” he replied. “You’re thinkin’ ‘So, why dump a body near the Mississippi now. It breaks the pattern.’ Well, believe me I’m thinkin’ the same thing, but it’s still near a river. And, just look at the map.”

  “But, why so close to the state line?” I mused aloud. “The plates on the car were Illinois, right? Wouldn’t that be too close to home?”

  “Yeah, the tags were Illinois, but the car was from Wisconsin. Remember, they were both hot, Row.”

  “I don’t know, Ben,” I replied. “I can see half a dozen spots on the map that look just like the drawing. What do you think, Felicity?”

  My wife had been completely mute through the entire explanation, and even now she didn’t reply. I looked over and found her motionless, staring down at the map-covered surface of the table. Her gaze was once again unfocused, and she looked dangerously like she was inches from slipping across the veil yet again.

  I reached out and gently placed my hand on her shoulder as I spoke, a thin note of concern underscoring my tone. “Felicity?”

  “That’s it,” she finally said in a soft monotone, her fixed stare still aimed at the table. She reached out and placed the tip of her finger against the map, southwest of the location Ben and I had been discussing. The words next to her lacquered nail read, Woodcrest State Park.

  “That’s it,” she repeated. “That’s where I am.”

  CHAPTER 22:

  “Woodcrest is gated,” Agent Mandalay said, looking at the map. Then she tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

  She had arrived almost immediately following Felicity’s announcement pinpointing what she believed to be the location of Brittany Larson’s remains. Ben had filled her in on the necessary details, including his pet theory about the rest area on Highway 270. Now, we were all huddled around the table staring at the maps once again.

  “Sorry about that,” she apologized before continuing. “Anyway, if I remember correctly, they open at seven A.M. like most of the other state parks.”

  “That’s almost three hours from now,” Felicity objected.

  “I’m sure I could get someone out there to unlock the gate,” Mandalay replied. “But I don’t think it would be a good idea. This is still just between us, and if you’re wrong, the whole thing could blow up in our faces.”

  “But I’m not wrong,” Felicity objected.

  “I believe you think that, Felicity,” she said. “But are you absolutely sure? You’ve been through a lot tonight. Both of you. How do you know you aren’t misreading it all? The map you drew doesn’t look anything like the park you are pointing at.”

  “I just know I’m not,” my wife returned.

  “That’s not good enough,” Constance told her. “You have to remember what, and most especially who, we are dealing with here. My influence with the Major Case Squad is tenuous at best. If we attract attention from the wrong parties, then this could go very sour. Especially if this turns out to be a wild goose chase.”

  “Besides, Felicity,” Ben interjected. “Even if ya’ Twilight Zone in on the right spot, it’s still gonna be dark for a coupl’a hours yet.”

  She gave him an animated raise of her eyebrows. “So?”

  “So, I don’t think it’d be a good idea for us to go knockin’ around in the woods with flashlights,” he returned.

  “But we have more than flashlights,” Felicity countered. “We have me.”

  Mandalay forced back another yawn with the back of her hand and then shook her head at my wife. “You’re beginning to sound like Rowan.”

  “Aye, and you’re sounding like Ben used to,” Felicity replied.

  “Just trying to play it safe, Felicity,” she told her. “You know how touchy all of this is.”

  Ben spoke up again. “Like I said, Felicity, even if you go la-la and give us an exact location, we can’t see in the dark. The point is, if we go screwin’ around out there, we might accidentally fuck up the crime scene and lose a crucial piece of evidence without even knowin’ it. It’d be better if we do this at first light.”

  “He’s right,” I said.

  “I know he is,” she replied, resigned frustration seasoning her words as she made nervous motions with her hands. “But, I… I just… I don’t know… I just feel like I have to do something.”

  “I know, honey,” I replied. “I’ve been there, remember?”

  “So why don’t we look at a map of the park, then?” she proposed. “Maybe the one I drew is on a smaller scale, then.”

  “That’s true, it could be. It would be a starting point at least,” Constance agreed. “Do you have one?”

  “No,” she replied in a dejected tone, then let out a heavy breath as her shoulders drooped noticeably. She turned her back to the table and silently walked into the kitchen.

  “I can probably download one from the State Parks or Conservation Department website,” I offered, speaking loud enough that I hoped she could hear as well.

  “Okay, let’s do that,” Mandalay gave a nod as she spoke.

  “Let’s back up for a second. We can go at this from a different angle too,” Ben offered. “Row, you got a phone book handy?”

  “Sure,” I replied, starting toward the bookshelves in the living room. “What for?”

  “Woodcrest Park is named after the muni it borders,” he told me. “So I’m gonna call Woodcrest PD and see if there’s been anything suspicious happen around there in the last day or so.”

  “Good idea, Storm,” Mandalay said.

  “Yeah, I have ‘em on occasion,” he replied with a slight sardonic note.

  I returned quickly with the phone book. He flipped it open as he took it from me and then began thumbing his way toward the government office ‘blue pages’. “Can I use your phone?” he asked as he searched the hefty book.

  “Sure. I’ll get it,” I replied and then stepped into the kitchen to retrieve the handset. When I came around the corner, Felicity was standing with her arms crossed and leaning back against the counter. She was staring at the floor, her chin against her chest, and she was nibbling at her lower lip once again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Aye.” She gave a small nod. “I’m fine.”

  “Ben is going to call the Woodcrest Police Department,” I offered.

  “I heard.”

  “You know, we can probably get a map of the park off the Internet.”

  “Aye, I heard that too.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay
?”

  She looked up and gave me a weak smile. “I’m fine, Row. Just very, very tired, that’s all.”

  “Here it is,” Ben announced behind me. “Row. Phone.”

  I glanced over my shoulder then back to her. “It’s going to be okay,” I said as I started backing out of the doorway. “I promise.”

  “I know,” she answered with a nod. “I’ll be sure of that.”

  Ben took the phone from my hand as I turned, and then he began stabbing the number into the handset. A moment later, he tucked it up to his ear and waited expectantly.

  “Yeah, good morning,” he said suddenly. “My name’s Ben Storm, I’m a detective with St. Louis City Homicide. I need to speak with your watch commander… Yeah… Great, what’s his name? Okay, what’s her name? Sergeant Michelle Marshall… Great… Thanks… Yeah, it’s Detective Ben Storm… Yeah, that’s right, City Homicide. Yeah, I’ll hold. Thanks.”

  Ben twisted the handset away from his mouth and reached up with his free hand to massage his neck. After a moment, he canted the receiver back up to his mouth and began speaking again. “Yeah, Sergeant Marshall. Detective Storm. Yeah… I know… Yeah, tell me about it, I’m runnin’ on about four hours outta the last twenty-four… Yeah, kinda… So listen, I’m wantin’ ta’ check if you’ve had any reports of vandalism or trespassing over at Woodcrest Park the past couple of days?… Really?… When was that?… No kidding… You find anything?… Okay… Yeah… Yeah… No, just a theory I’m workin’ on, nothing for sure… No, pretty minor case, nothin’ too serious… Yeah… Uh-huh… Yeah…” He looked over at me and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s me… Thanks, I think…” He let out a forced chuckle. “Yeah… Well I appreciate it… Sure, if it pans out we’ll be sure to let ya’ know… Yeah… Thanks… Bye.”

  He pulled the handset away and pressed his thumb against the off-hook switch.