“Yeah, we should all feel real sorry for the fuckhead,” Ben spat.
“On the one hand, this could give us some breathing room,” Agent Mandalay ventured. “If he really is broken up over this or whatever, then maybe he will shut down for a while. Decompress. Stop killing.”
“Uh-huh,” Ben grunted in agreement. “I’m all for anything that’ll stop the body count from risin’, but it’s gonna make the prick a helluva lot harder to find if he just withdraws.”
“He will withdraw for a while, I’m sure. How long is anyone’s guess,” I offered. “The feelings of sadness I’m picking up are far too intense for him to keep going without first coming to terms with this. But something tells me that he’ll cycle through it. He’s not finished with what he set out to do.”
“Of course not,” Ben expressed. “We could never be that friggin’ lucky.”
“Another thing,” I said. “I don’t think that killing the husband was his only mistake. Something just doesn’t click with this scene.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Take a look around. No books on WitchCraft or Wicca in the house. No pentacles or other symbols. No trappings of the religion anywhere in here that I’ve seen.”
“So maybe she kept all her stuff hidden or somethin’.” Ben shrugged. “Like ta’ keep friends or relatives from knowin’. What’s it I’ve heard ya’ say… ‘Hidin’ in the broom closet’ or somethin’ like that.”
“Yeah, that’s the colloquialism. And, maybe she was, but I don’t think so. Not this time. There’s something else too... Like I said before, he passes judgment on his victims. It’s very formal and strict. Even more so than pronouncing sentence in a court of law. It’s important to him that the accused be fully aware that WitchCraft is considered an unforgivable crime.”
“Yeah, so? I’m not sure I’m followin’ you.”
“Do you get the feeling that he didn’t do that this time or something, Rowan?” Mandalay asked.
“Oh no, he pronounced sentence all right.” I shook my head. “But what I picked up when they were recovering her body was that she didn’t understand. The fact that he accused her of being a Witch made absolutely no sense to her. It was an unfathomable concept in her mind.”
“So that’s why you don’t think she was a Witch?” she pressed.
“That’s why I’m almost positive she wasn’t.”
“Then she doesn’t fit the victimology any more than the husband,” Ben expressed. “What would have prompted ‘im to pick her?”
“I wish I knew.”
Further musings were cut short, and our small cluster grew larger by one when Carl Deckert trundled through the doorway from the living room. He had been out leading the door-to-door interviews and from the look of his face had only just now come inside.
“Okay, here’s the run down,” his voice issued as he sidled up next to us. “We got nuthin’ in the way of witnesses.”
Out of habit he removed his fedora and smoothed back his disheveled, greying hair then perched the hat back atop his crown and tilted the brim upward out of his face. His fleshy cheeks were flushed bright red, and he was visibly winded. A cloud of coldness still seeped from the fabric of his coat to noticeably chill the air around us.
“Looks like almost everyone was at a meeting of the condo association when all this apparently went down,” Deckert explained. “Nobody saw or heard a thing till the security guard found the pool gate open.”
“Nobody normal ever goes ta’ those things,” Ben stated incredulously. “What’s up with that?”
“I always go to mine,” Constance confessed. “Second Friday of every month.”
Ben stared back at her briefly, “No offense, Mandalay, but you might want ta’ get a life.”
“Well, I am on the board,” she admitted.
“Correction,” Ben chided. “Change might want to desperately need.”
“Yeah, well how’s this for a kick in the teeth,” Deckert remarked dismally before she could retort. “They were listenin’ to one of the local department’s finest talk about settin’ up a neighborhood watch program to supplement the hired security.”
* * * * *
“How’s that arm?” Ben asked me as he guided the van onto the exit ramp from Highway 40.
“Sore,” I answered flatly. “Still throbbing a little, but it’ll be okay.”
We were both exhausted, and there was no doubt in my mind that we were operating on automatic pilot. I wasn’t entirely sure what was keeping my friend going at this point. I knew for a fact that for every ounce of energy I had lost through the painful physical manifestations of my unknown ethereal guide, Ben had expended more than double that amount in worrying about me. Personally, I felt like I could sleep for a week, and my mind was all but completely numb. How he was even managing to stay awake was beyond me.
“What about the pool water thing and all that? Are ya’ sure you don’t wanna see a doctor about it?” he pressed.
“I already did, Ben. Doctor Sanders, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, but...”
“I’ll be fine,” I interjected with a weary yawn. “Stop being such a mother hen.”
“Okay. Fine. I’m too goddammed beat to argue with ya’ about it anyway.”
“Good.”
He cautiously turned through the blinking yellow traffic signal at the intersection and continued down the salt-and-cinder-dulled asphalt strip. Streetlights cast yellowish glows at evenly spaced intervals along the roadway, forming harsh puddles of sickly light separated by thick, blue-black shadows.
“So you gonna be able to make it in the mornin’?” Ben finally asked, switching the subject to the hastily scheduled emergency meeting of the Major Case Squad, which was in reality only a few painfully short hours away.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Shit, I oughta just go on in now,” he lamented. “I’m barely gonna have enough time for my head ta’ hit the pillow as it is.”
“You should really go home,” I told him. “You need the rest as much as I do. Besides, I’m sure Allison would appreciate it.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “She sure as hell didn’t know what she was gettin’ into when she became a cop’s wife.”
“Have you heard her complain about it?” I asked.
“Nope. Not a word,” he replied. “She’s really great about that.”
“Then I would expect she probably knew what she was getting herself into. Give her a little credit, Tonto.”
“Yup. You’re right. I s’pose maybe she did.”
By now he had turned the Chevy down my street and was slowly pushing it the last few blocks toward my home. Leafless tree branches bowing under the weight of ice and snow hung low over the roadway, forming an eerie canopy. I was already starting to imagine that I could feel my bed.
“Oh, by the way,” Ben started as a thought was apparently remembered and brought to the forefront, “the Bible they found next ta’ the pool house was book-marked just like the other two. The same passage as from the Sheryl Keeven murder was highlighted. First Samuel, 15:23. Whaddaya make of that?”
“Off the top of my head, I don’t know,” I answered as he hooked the vehicle into my driveway and rolled it to a halt. “I’m sure he assigns a particular significance to each passage and applies it to the victim based on that.”
“Yeah. That’s what we were thinkin’ too.”
“We still need to figure out the why’s and wherefore’s behind how he picked his latest victim to start with.”
“I hear ya’... That’s kinda why I asked... So that passage doesn’t mean anything in particular to ya’?”
“Not in that respect, no. It fit Sheryl Keeven but not Christine Webster, so I don’t know what to say about the aberration. Sorry.”
“That’s okay white man, just thought I’d check.”
“I’ll sleep on it, and maybe it’ll make more sense in the morning,” I offered.
“Yeah, go get some rest,” he told me as I unla
tched my seat belt then popped the passenger door open.
As I climbed out I looked up at the thick comforter of grey clouds hanging low in the sky and could feel the utter stillness around me. The fatigue coursing through my body was so viscid that I felt enveloped in a total fog.
I just looked back to my friend and said, “Gonna snow.”
* * * * *
I could hear the dull, muffled bong of our antique clock announcing the hour as I twisted my key in the lock and pushed the front door open. The final measure of the tone sharpened for an instant then it faded away to silence on the cold breath of the night. I quietly pressed the door shut and latched the deadbolt before proceeding to unzip my coat. A tired glance at my watch told me the evaporated peal had been the last note in a trinity of chimes. It was three a.m.
“Canya’ tell me why you’re shuttin’ me out of this then?” Felicity’s somewhat slurred voice, brimming with a heavy Irish brogue, pierced the darkness as I turned.
I was startled enough to involuntarily flinch at the question and almost drop my keys. I had fully expected to be subject to the wet-nosed greetings and cursory inspections customarily doled out by the dogs. The throaty trilling and prancing rub of one or more of our three cats dancing around my ankles wouldn’t even have surprised me.
What I hadn’t been prepared for at all was my wife curled lazily in a chair, camouflaged by a crocheted afghan of dark, muted blues, still awake and palpably angry. My eyes were fairly well adjusted to the dark, and I could just make out our black cat, Dickens, huddled in her lap, soaking up the attention her fingers were absently paying a spot just behind his ears.
From her slurred speech and the shape on the marble end table that looked suspiciously like a bottle of Bushmills, I had to assume she was somewhat marinated. It was readily apparent that I had arrived just in time for the umbraged portion of her emotional thrill ride. From what I could make out of the tousled look of her auburn locks combined with random sniffling, I suspected I had only recently missed the segments consisting of mild panic and heartfelt sobbing.
Felicity was never able to hide it from me when she had been crying, no matter how much she sought to cover the evidence with makeup or shadows. It was very obvious that she had done her share of it tonight, but right now she was in no condition to try concealing the fact even if she wanted to. I got the impression however, that in this particular case, she didn’t.
“Shutting you out of what?” I asked.
“Aye, you know essactly what I’m talking about,” she parried then swilled down the remains of the whiskey from a hi-ball glass in her dainty hand and set it aside with an uncoordinated motion that attested to her impaired depth perception. Fortunately, the crystal tumbler didn’t break, but the loud clatter of its base against the marble end table sent Dickens flying from her lap to scurry into the shadows. “Surely now, you weren’t thinkin’ ya’woodn’t be missed at the party, then.”
“Of course I knew I would be missed... But it’s not like I snuck out or anything. So just how much have you had to drink?”
“Don’t chainch the zubject.” She mumbled the command through an alcoholic stupor that was creeping up on her much quicker than I think she realized. “You left wiffout me.”
“I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter, Felicity,” I answered her calmly as I finished shrugging off my coat and tugged open the closet. “You had just started dancing, two detectives were in the lobby of the hotel waiting for me, and it was your family reunion. Just what did you expect me to do?”
“Donchu unnerstan how worried I was?” she demanded as she attempted to wrestle herself from the folds of the afghan. Had the situation been different, her inebriated bumbling would have been almost comical. As she fought to disentangle the fabric, she continued to mutter, “I know what those things you do to…to do…do…Oh, cac! They do you to you do…to…Fek! Oh, you know whad I mean... I feel them too.”
“I know you do, honey,” I soothed as I hung up my coat then pressed the closet door shut. “Austin and Shamus knew I was leaving. They were supposed to let you know what was up.”
I still wasn’t entirely clear on what she was driving at, or just as important, why she was sitting in the dark, bombed out of her gourd. Felicity wasn’t really much of a drinker under normal circumstances. She would have a glass of wine now and then or sometimes a mixed drink at a party, but Irish whiskey straight up? I’d seen her drink it that way but not often. Even considering her heritage, this was something generally unheard of for her. I had only seen her drunk once before in the dozen years I’d known her, and that time she had only qualified as slightly tipsy.
“Thaz nod da’ point,” she mumbled then started and immediately aborted an attempt to stand up. “Aye, don’chu know everyone was watchin’ you then.”
“Excuse me? Watching me what?”
“Well dey have televisions in the hotel, don’chu know.”
The much touted and endlessly replayed film of Ben, Constance, and I on the balcony of Sheryl Keeven’s apartment streamed through my mind in a painfully colorful burst. “So you mean everyone was watching the news?”
“Onna news,” she repeated matter-of-factly and bobbed her head then rocked herself up to her feet where she stood precariously wobbling. “Oh Felicee, your husband is zo brave. Oh Felicimmy,... Oh Felimiccy... FEK! Oh me.” She thumped herself in the chest with a flaccid hand. “Me…I should be so proud of Roman... Rolan….” She staggered a moment. “Of YOU… Aye, bud da’ bartenner was laughin’ an’ then dey took Aussin to jail.”
She swept her arm out in an all-encompassing gesture and on the back swing began to lose her balance. I took a pair of quick strides across the room and hooked my arm around her waist as she began to fall.
“Sweetheart, you aren’t making a lot of sense at the moment. What are you talking about? Who took Austin to jail and for what? Is he okay?”
“Becawsh the bartenner has a brokem nodze,” she giggled.
“A what? A broken nose? Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Austin hit the bartender?”
“Aye, ‘e thrashed ‘im good for you too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Becawsh, ah’m still mad atch’you then. Aye, there I am.”
The alcohol had immediately overtaken her the moment she came upright. Not that she was making much sense before she was standing, but she was only a hair this side of coherent at this point. The look in her eyes was a good indicator that she was now riding a brakeless train toward unconsciousness, and the engineer called whiskey had the throttle open full.
“Felicity, honey, try to stay with me here.” Supporting her almost dead weight, I eased her back down into the chair and knelt in front of her. Cupping one hand beneath her smooth chin and brushing a tangle of fiery red curls from her eyes with the other, I continued. “Why did Austin hit the bartender?”
“Aye, are you listenin’ toomee then? Waz for laughin’ of coarsh.”
“There has to be a better reason than that, sweetheart. Your brother wouldn’t just hit someone for laughing.”
“Aye, buddee wood.” She thrust her chin upward and blindly poked me in the chest with her limp index finger. “If the laughin’ they’re doin’ is at his fammy an’ thiz bashtard was doin’ ‘is laughin’ atchyu, ‘e wuz. Callin’ you the good witsh of the easht an’ such.”
“Felicity,” I sighed. “Why didn’t you just ignore it? You know people are like that sometimes.”
“Oh I did... I did, I did, I did... But Aussin dinnit. No, he dinnit.” She closed her eyes and shook her head animatedly then fluttered them back open wide. “Oooohh, don’ do that. It maygz the schair move, thin.”
She was almost gone. Any moment she was going to pass out right where she sat.
“Okay, okay. Is Austin all right?” I pressed her.
“Wy wunnit ‘e be?”
“The fight, Felicity.”
“Aye, ef coarshee iz. Auzzin won.”
&
nbsp; “No, Felicity. Is he in jail right now? Do I need to go bail him out or something?”
“Oh I alrenny…no…allll-reddddy did’dat,” she told me then pitched forward and grasped my collar in her hand. “Aye, Caorthann…” she said, her voice becoming momentarily clear as she used the Gaelic version of my name. “Aussin…Heesh very prowd of you, ya’know…he iz.. Bud I’m shtill man at’chu.”
“Okay, honey, I give up. Why are you mad at me?”
She let go of my collar and fell back in the chair then looked back at me very seriously, widening her eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to remain awake. Her eyelids were already closing, and her body was quickly sinking deeper into the chair. She barely managed to mutter the soft, slurred answer before slipping into the arms of sleep, “Beecawwsh... you were downing an’ you woonen’t lemme help.”
So intent had I been on the events unfolding around me throughout the evening that it hadn’t even dawned on me that Felicity might remotely feel the same pains I was experiencing first hand; or even that she may have been reaching out to me across the ethereal plane. She had done it before, and I should have realized that it was likely to happen again. Especially when considering both the intensity of the experiences on an emotional level and our deep connection to one another.
I carefully slipped my arms around my unconscious wife then gently lifted her from the chair and carried her into the bedroom. She was still dressed in her traditional Celtic garb from the party, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes to undo the various laces and wrestle her limp body out of the clothing. I wasn’t overly worried about waking her, for I expected that at this stage of the game that task would be nearly impossible.
After finally getting her tucked into the bed, I debated making a few calls to check on Austin and then decided against it. If I understood her correctly, she had already bailed him out of jail, and even if she hadn’t, I was certain his parents would be seeing to it. If not, it could wait a few hours. I wasn’t going to be much good at doing anything about it as I was barely able to keep my own eyes open. I needed to be at the Major Case Squad command post by ten in the morning, and it was already coming up on three-thirty. After subtracting time for a shower and travel, that left me with only about four hours to get some sleep.
Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 19