Across the squad room the glass-paned door swung open, and a young, uniformed officer poked his head through. “Excuse me, Detective Storm?”
“Yeah, whatcha’ need?” Ben looked up and across at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he proceeded, “but a unit just came in with an old bum they popped for an assault, and, well... I think you should come down and have a look.”
“What for?” Ben shot him an impatient frown.
“Well, when they searched him they found a Bible in his pocket with a passage highlighted.”
“What was the passage?” I asked.
“Exodus, twenty-two-eighteen.”
Stunned silence layered itself across the room in an almost stifling fog. Colors bloomed and flashed in a sparkling fireworks display that rained outward in slow motion. A distant ethereal scream shattered my ears.
Liquid fire rushes down my throat.
I cannot scream.
The pain is piercing my very soul.
Why doesn’t someone help me?
The colors had begun to spiral back into themselves, and the imagined silence breaking shriek was fading steadily. I clung to the vision a moment longer, fearing it intensely, yet knowing that it had been triggered for a reason.
I’m floating.
Flames lick at me from below.
I cannot feel them.
I CAN feel them.
I still cannot scream.
Something... Someone... A movement in the darkness.
An old man.
Stumbling.
Sudden horror in his eyes
Flames lick at me from below.
Chroma, hue and sound completed their sudden wild pinwheel through the fold of the room and settled back to an even tone. The bloom faded and normalcy once again prevailed. The jangle of ringing phones filtered into my ears as if they had never been absent. I knew my brief excursion into another realm had been just that. Brief. I doubted anyone noticed other than myself.
“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live,” I recited aloud then glanced back at Ben. “I knew there should have been a Bible at the second scene... That has to be it... He was there...”
“Jeezus,” Ben muttered under his breath.
“Son of a bitch,” Deckert echoed behind him.
“And by the way, Mister Gant,” the uniformed officer added. “There’s a woman downstairs asking for you. Pretty redhead about so tall.” He held his hand up to illustrate. “Say’s she’s your wife. Seems she’s the one who tackled the guy and sat on him until the squad car arrived.”
CHAPTER 16
“So you picked this guy up on an assault?” Ben asked the arresting officers.
He, a pair of uniformed patrolmen, and I were making our way to the lower level of the station via seemingly endless flights of stairs. Detective Deckert and Agent Mandalay had remained behind with the rest of the Major Case Squad to go over the facts of the cases so far and see if they could brainstorm any fresh ideas.
“Yeah,” one of the uniformed men returned. He was among a small number of individuals I had met in my lifetime who was tall enough to look Ben straight in the eyes. “You know Tracy Watson? The meteorologist over at Channel Five with the big...” He made an exaggerated cupping motion at his chest with his large hands.
“Yeah,” Ben chuckled lightly. “The big ratings boosters for the male demographic ages thirteen to still breathin’. She the one makin’ the complaint?”
“Yeah,” the officer returned. “Seems this old dude just ran up to her as she was coming out of a coffee house. He started screaming ‘Tracy I love you’ and then grabbed himself a couple of handfuls.”
“You mean?...” Ben pawed at the empty space in front of him and allowed the question to hang in the air.
The younger, shorter cop nodded, “Yeah. Guess he wanted to find out if they were real. Lucky bastard.”
“Looks like he got more than he bargained for though,” the tall officer snickered. “Ended up with a nice, hot double latté in his face and a psychotic little redhead with her knee in his back. I mean to tell you, she’s a smokin’ little number herself, but I feel sorry for the asshole that’s married to that one if he ever pisses her off.”
The young cop’s face spread into a wicked grin. As he shot a glance back over his shoulder, he began fervently nodding. “Yeah, but you know what they say about redheads. If she’s got that kind of energy in the bedroom then I wouldn’t mind getting some time with her. Know what I mean? I’ll bet she could...”
“Fortunately,” I interjected before he could continue to dig the hole any deeper, “it’s been my experience that she doesn’t get quite that pissed off very easily...but I do try to avoid doing it anyway.”
All forward motion abruptly ceased and both of the uniformed men swiveled their heads back to look at me. The stairwell fell silent except for the fading echoes of our footsteps.
“That’s right.” I bobbed my head. “I’m the ‘asshole’ that’s married to her.”
The cop who had been about to regale us with his lurid fantasy about my wife flushed through varying shades of red, ending at a particularly bright crimson. Slowly, his jaw began working up and down, and he started to stammer, “Well... I, ummm... I... Well... I didn’t mean any offense, Mister Gant…”
“None taken at this point, but it wouldn’t bother me if we changed the subject slightly.” I smiled back. “But regarding that ‘getting her pissed off’ thing—I’d advise against letting her hear your thoughts about what you want to do with her in the bedroom. I’ve never been on the receiving end, but based on what I’ve witnessed I happen to know she has a pretty quick knee.”
Ben grinned at the stuttering cop and clapped him on the shoulder with a massive hand as we started downward once again. “Open mouth, insert foot, huh, Carter?”
* * * * *
“Taking out a few aggressions, sweetheart?” I asked as I planted a light kiss on Felicity’s forehead and gave her a quick hug. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She returned the squeeze. “Still a bit of adrenalin jitters, but I’m okay. Surely I feel like I could do with a shower. That old man was pretty rank.” She released her grip on me and then leaned back. Out of habit, she reached over and straightened my visitors badge while she spoke, “I wasn’t exactly expecting this much excitement today. I suppose that will teach me not to be going out for coffee when we break then.”
“Wrong place, wrong time, eh?”
“Aye, depends. I suppose Ms. Watson would consider it fortunate I was badly in need of a caffeine fix.”
I leaned in again and made a show of sniffing her hair. She hadn’t really picked up too much of the old man’s malodorous bouquet, and what she had was primarily on her jacket, but I played along anyway. “Yeah, I think you’re right about the shower. A date with some soap and water probably wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Aye, and you’re askin’ for it today, aren’t you then, Mister Gant?”
My petite wife’s voice still held a definite Irish lilt, obvious and musical, though not entirely as strong as it had been the night before. Her speech pattern was woven of a rich tapestry of Celtic design and probably would be for the week to come—the audible results of an evening with her family and her encounter with the whiskey.
Her hair was pulled back in a loose French braid that poured down her back in an auburn stream, and she was casually dressed in a pair of jeans and a denim shirt. Her waist length leather jacket was hanging open, and her matching gloves peeked out of a pocket in the insulated lining. She looked up at me with tired green eyes as she brushed a fugitive strand of her fiery mane from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Even slightly disheveled she was absolutely gorgeous.
“I’m only kidding and you know it.” I grinned. “I don’t think much rubbed off on you, although you’ll probably want to get your jacket cleaned.”
She nodded in agreement. “Aye, I was thinkin’ just that.”
“
How’s the hangover?” I questioned.
“Gone for the moment. Well not so much gone but at least forgotten. I still surely feel like I need some real sleep then,” she expressed and absently began to chew at her lower lip. “Row, about last night...”
“Forget it,” I told her before she could continue. “You were upset and rightfully so... I should have realized you would be feeling what I was going through, especially considering that it has happened before... I just wasn’t thinking.”
She stared past me into the distance for a moment, continuing to gnaw at her lip, then returned her gaze to mine. “I just don’t want you to shut me out then. Even if you think you’re protecting me. We both know that won’t work, and it will just cause problems for us in the long run. Better you let me face it with you... Still, I shouldn’t have been such a mess when you arrived home.” She sighed heavily. “Not exactly very supportive of me now, was it then? And if you had actually ended up going to a hospital or something...”
I detected a slight catch in her voice as it trailed off, and I knew she was choking back a tear. As my lovely wife would tend to do, I knew that inside she was unnecessarily beating herself up over something she couldn’t change.
I reassured her with another tight squeeze. “Ssshhh. Don’t worry about it. That’s all over and done with. I know I’ve been keeping you at a distance on this.” I paused for a moment to collect my own thoughts before letting out my own tired sigh. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been very good about staying grounded myself, and I think that might be affecting me. The whole idea of what this guy is doing has me kind of rattled.”
“And it should.” Felicity nodded. “But you’re just one man, and you can’t be taking the responsibility of stopping him on yourself alone.”
“It’s my nature, Felicity.”
“Aye,” she nodded again. “And it’s my nature to change that about you, Rowan.”
“There she is!” Ben’s voice interrupted as he sidled up to us. “The Red-Haired Terror of Cole Street.”
“So I’m an urban legend, am I now?” Felicity forced a light chuckle as she pulled back from me and quickly whisked away an escaped teardrop from the corner of her eye.
Ben tactfully ignored the motion and threw me a quick glance. I simply nodded and smiled.
“That’s what I’m hearin’ from the witnesses,” he answered as he gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “You okay? You don’t smell so good.”
“Aye, not you too?” She rolled her eyes at him and smiled. “And yes, I’m fine. I swear, everyone has been acting like I just single-handedly captured someone from the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list or something.”
“She doesn’t know?” Ben looked over at me questioningly.
“No.” I shook my head. “Hadn’t gotten that far yet.”
“Know what, you guys?” She swung her glance back and forth between us. “And just what would you two be talking about?”
“Well,” he began, “the bum you tackled might not’ve been on the Ten Most Wanted list, but he had somethin’ in his pocket that we’ve been lookin’ for.”
“What?” she asked. “Come on now. Out with it.”
“A Bible,” I told her.
“Okay...” She looked at me and shook her head slightly, while giving me one of her trademark ‘so what?’ shrugs. “And?”
“Part of the killer’s M.O. has been ta’ leave behind a Bible with a verse highlighted and bookmarked,” Ben explained.
“Except for the second scene,” I continued for him. “There wasn’t one, and it’s been eating away at me ever since that day. It looks like the Bible this guy had in his pocket may very well be the one that was missing.”
“You don’t think this old homeless man is the murderer, do you now?” She searched my face with wide eyes.
“No, not at all,” I returned. “But I think he was at the second murder scene and picked up that Bible.”
“So I guess I’m still missing something,” she appealed. “What does having this Bible do for you?”
“Probably nothin’ in and of itself,” Ben answered her. “Considerin’ that all of the others have been clean, and especially since this one has been in the possession of this bum for a week. But…” He held up a finger. “It sure as hell places ‘im at the scene, and that makes ‘im a potential witness.”
“Miz O’Brien?” The same tall uniformed officer we had come downstairs with now injected himself into our conversation. “We need to get your statement now.”
“Go ahead,” I urged and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll be here when you’re through.”
“Just have someone bring ‘er up to Homicide when you’re done,” Ben instructed the officer then looked over at Felicity and winked. “I’ll make sure he’s here. Oh, and by the way…”
“Aye?”
“Lovin’ the accent.”
* * * * *
“We haven’t been able to get anything out of him, not even a name,” the uniformed officer told us as we approached the door to the interview room. “We already took care of prints and pics. Booked him as a John Doe. PD’s office has been notified, and the on-call legal beagle should be on the way.”
“So is he waitin’ for the attorney?” Ben queried the patrolman.
“Dunno,” the young man shrugged. “He hasn’t said much of anything except for yammering about Tracy Watson every now and then. Mainly he just sits there and stares off into space. There was a bottle of booze in his pocket, and he blew about two points over the limit.”
“Great. So we got a liquored up JD runnin’ around tweakin’ television personalities tits, and he just happened to have that Bible in ‘is pocket.”
“That about sums it up,” the officer replied. “So I don’t know what you’re going to get out of him until he sleeps it off.”
“You pretty sure he understood ‘is rights?”
“He indicated that he did, but in his condition...”
“Yeah…” Ben nodded and let out a sigh as he gripped the doorknob and gave it a twist. “Wunnerful.”
The old man was still wearing handcuffs when we entered. They had endeavored to clean him up to some extent, but the telltale stain of his encounter with a large double latté was still drying on the front of his ragged overcoat. In actuality, the hot drink had succeeded in washing away some of the accumulated filth from his face, and a few weathered blotches of almost clean skin peeked through the dirt randomly. His chin was bristling with at least a month’s worth of scraggly beard, and his grey hair was matted and stringy.
Felicity’s comment about the old man being a bit rank had been a kind one. In the confines of the small room, the stench of stale urine and long fermented human sweat was almost overpowering. The smell of decaying garbage hovered about the bum like a halo, intermixing with the other putrid odors to form an invisible eye-watering haze of foulness. It was a small wonder she hadn’t picked up more of the offending scent than she had.
He didn’t even look up as Ben and I entered the room and pressed the door shut behind us. Instead, he continued vacantly staring at the wall through sunken, clouded eyes as he rocked in his seat. His hands, braceleted at the wrists, were held splayed alongside his cheeks, one finger crooked and tugging at his lower lip. Slowly he would slide them downward, smearing a small trickle of drool as he did so. Finally, he would press his palms together and steeple his fingers beneath his chin for a brief moment and then repeat the entire mannerism from the beginning. Every now and then a soft whimper would emit through his nose.
After a moment of watching the old man, Ben glanced over at me and cocked an eyebrow then looked back and cleared his throat. “Whatcha watchin’ there, Pops?”
The bum absently continued his introverted ritual and answered with nothing more than another low, nasal whine.
My friend let out a tired sigh and reached up to massage the back of his neck. “Sir, I’m Detective Storm and this is Mister Gant. We’d like ta’ ask you some ques
tions, if ya’ don’t mind.”
A mixture of emotions was tumbling throughout the small room, the majority of which were emanating from the old homeless man. My empathic senses easily detected an undertone of love and lust, stunned betrayal, pain, and confusion. As would be expected though, primarily I felt his fear of the situation.
“Sir,” Ben spoke again while waving his free hand in front of the man’s face, “can you hear me? Do you understand why you’re here?”
Slowly, the bum turned his head and rolled his clouded eyes up at the imposing figure that was Detective Benjamin Storm. He continued to rock in place, but after a moment, he left his hands resting on his cheeks and began working his jaw as if to speak. Finally, after a raspy false start, he allowed his cuffed hands to fall to the surface of the table and his face spread into a chastened frown.
“Tracy is mad at me,” the old man muttered. “I shoodn’t have touched Tracy. That was wrong.”
“Sir, do you understand your rights as they were told you by the other officers?”
“Yes, I unnerstan I was wrong. Is Tracy okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine.”
Thus far the old man had seemed relatively lucid, though obviously not entirely sober. Ben fell silent and held his gaze, gauging by instinct whether or not he should press forward with more questions.
The odor of cheap bourbon and sour breath trailed along with his words, mingling thickly with the other unpleasant redolence. I caught myself searching the ceiling for the non-existent exhaust fan and trying to will one to appear.
After a moment, he continued, “Sir, would you mind answerin’ a few questions for us?”
“The other lady wuz mean,” the old man mumbled. “She hit me. But she had pritty hair. What questions?”
“We’d like to ask you about somethin’ you had in your pocket. A Bible.”
Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 22