All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  “Rowan, you know damn good ‘n well what this is about!” my friend shot back. “A dead federal judge and a dead copper.”

  “Bullshit! Politics is what it’s about,” I snarled at him. “Who’s behind this? Albright?”

  I almost gagged on the name of the cop whose life’s mission seemed to be anything that involved making my very existence unbearable. Captain Barbara Albright, self-appointed leader of the “God Squad.”

  Of course, there you had it, plain and simple.

  When you took into consideration the fact that she was an old school, fundamentalist Christian with a badge, and I was a Neopagan Witch who consulted for the police department, we were bound to clash. The problem was, it was even worse than that. In plain truth we weren’t just at polar opposites; in many ways we seemed almost to be one another’s arch nemesis. Unfortunately, she tended to take that idea very seriously and more often than not would push things way too far.

  She had already interjected her opinions and views into the current investigation, casting aspersions on both Felicity and me. Out of all of my detractors, she had been the one I most feared would skew the investigation. Given how vocal she had already been, it stood to reason that she would be behind this action. However, in my estimation, her habit of pushing things too far had just turned into shoving them completely over the edge and gleefully watching them fall.

  “Look, I already said this a dozen times,” my friend spat in reply. “Ya’ got the goddamned warrants right there in your hand. Read ‘em!”

  I barked in return as I waved the sheaf of legal documents in the air, “And, I’ve told you every time you said it that I already did and they don’t tell me a fucking thing.”

  “Well, try readin’ ‘em again!”

  Ben stared back at me, grimly silent on the heels of the shouted order. I had to keep my head tilted back to meet his gaze, as he stood six-foot-six and was, therefore, better than a head taller than me. He carried himself on an overtly muscular frame that often made him seem larger than life, and in a sense, almost heroic.

  His classic, angular features, which not only broadcast his pure Native American heritage but also served him well in forming his handsome visage, were now creased into a hard scowl. The deep lines made him look less like my friend and more like the stoic “Injun on the warpath” from an old Western. All he needed were some feathers and face paint to make the caricature complete.

  In fact, a travesty is all that was left of him in my mind, for at this particular moment, even though his dark eyes were betraying his own turbulent mix of emotions, any sense of heroism I envisioned in him had long since fled. To me, he had become no more than a threatening obstacle standing dead in the middle of my path.

  He sighed heavily then shook his head and cast his eyes toward the floor. Out of reflex he reached up with a large hand to smooth his jet-black hair. This was a mannerism I’d seen countless times, and it was something he always did whenever he was thinking hard on a subject. I stood watching him, and in the wake of the motion, I could see salty flecks of grey that I knew for certain had been there for quite some time but now seemed to be appearing right before my eyes. It was as if he was visibly aging as he stood there.

  Under the circumstances, I think perhaps we both were.

  I waited for a healthy measure, or at least I think I did. I know I tried. Unfortunately, my patience was as thin as the dry, paper-like skin of an onion right now and even more brittle. I wasn’t interested in giving him time to think about anything. I wanted answers and I wanted them ten minutes ago.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Ben!” I repeated my demand for the umpteenth time.

  “GODDAMMIT, ROWAN! I CAN’T!” he shouted then suddenly slammed the heel of his fist hard against the doorframe before repeating in a near whisper, “I just…can’t.”

  Whether we were getting somewhere or not, I couldn’t say, but this was the first time he had given me a response other than “you know” or “read the warrants.”

  My friend looked over his shoulder through the glass of the storm door as it slowly worked its way toward obscuring the view by fogging over with condensation. After a second he looked back at me and muttered, “Jeezus fuckin’ Christ, Row…don’tcha think I wanna tell ya’?”

  I didn’t let up. “You sure as hell aren’t acting like it.”

  “Sonofabitch! Dammit…I…Jeez…I…It’s…Shit! Fuck me! Dammit, Row, I just can’t!” He stuttered through the sentence as his morose tone ramped back into anger.

  Mine, however, had never ramped down. “That’s not good enough!”

  “Well it’s gonna hafta be for now!”

  Ben Storm was probably my second best friend walking the face of the planet—period, end of story. However, at this instant I was within a hair’s breadth of planting my fist square on his chin replete with every last speck of strength, anger, and unfettered malice I could muster. Never mind the fact that it would probably be the one and only shot I would get before he pummeled me into the middle of next month, or even that he was a cop with a gun and a similarly armed partner sitting in a vehicle in my driveway. Right now, none of that mattered to me.

  What did matter, more than anything, was what had brought the two of us to the brink of a violent, physical confrontation such as this. And, that, beyond any shadow of a doubt, would be my best friend. Not my second best friend, but my first, and absolute, best friend—a petite, redheaded, Irish-American woman whose name was typed prominently upon the warrants.

  And, the thing about my dear and lovely wife that had me on the edge of committing assault against Ben was the fact that I had just stood here in my living room and watched him place her in handcuffs then recite to her the Miranda rights of silence.

  Miranda.

  Now there was irony in all its glory considering that one simple word, the name “Miranda”, had everything to do with the head-on collision my life, my friend’s life, and moreover, my wife’s life had just become.

  Our screaming match was far from over, and since it was my turn I shouted back, “Something, Ben! You’ve got to be able to tell me something!”

  “I told you, I CAN’T!”

  “Fuck that! What you mean is you WON’T!”

  “Goddammit, Rowan! What I mean is I CAN’T! Do ya’ really think I like this any more than you do?”

  “Ben, you just arrested my wife for murder! You can’t just do that then walk out like nothing’s happened! You’ve got to give me some answers here!”

  He huffed out a breath then dropped his forehead into his hand and allowed it to rest there for a moment before pushing his palm back through his hair once again. This time, he left the large paw clamped onto his neck and began working his fingers against the muscles.

  “I wish I could.”

  “Well, answer me this: Why aren’t you arresting me too?”

  “We ain’t got a reason. But trust me, it was mentioned.”

  “Dammit, you don’t have a reason to arrest her either!”

  “I’m afraid we do, Row.”

  “What is it? Tell me.”

  “Look,” he offered. “I’m not even s’posed to say this, but all I can tell ya’ is there’s hard evidence that Firehair might be the one that killed Hammond Wentworth and Officer Hobbes.”

  I found myself offended by the fact that he called her Firehair. The use of the friendly moniker he had long ago dubbed Felicity with seemed inappropriately familiar under the circumstances. Considering what he had just done, I didn’t feel he had that right. I started to say something but decided against it before the words could leave my throat. No matter what my visceral response to it, the truth is, the hypocrisy I saw in his use of the nickname really wasn’t what was important right now.

  Instead, I focused on the crux of what he had just said and made a demand. “What kind of evidence? Surely not the hairs you said they found at the Wentworth scene.”

  “I can’t say, Row.”

  “Well, whatever it
is, it’s bullshit and you know it. She didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I…she…crap…” he muttered.

  “Dammit, Ben, think about it! If she killed Wentworth and Hobbes, then why didn’t she kill that character she picked up at the club?”

  “I dunno. You tell me. For all you know she might’ve if things had gone different.”

  “No, she wouldn’t have and here’s why—because she didn’t kill any of them. I told you what was going on. She was possessed by a Lwa that night.”

  “Dammit, Row, that’s not gonna fly an’ you know it. Not with my superiors and sure as fuck not with a court.”

  “It’s still the truth.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” I snipped. “So now you don’t believe me either?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yeah, well from where I’m standing you haven’t said much, period.”

  He didn’t reply. He just kept working on the knotted muscle in his shoulder.

  “So, what’s this hard evidence?” I pressed, returning to my original query. “Tell me.”

  “I’ve already said more than I should.”

  “Damn you, Ben,” I growled.

  He sucked in a quick breath and pulled his hand from his shoulder, stiffly jabbing his index finger toward me. His eyes glowered as his face hardened once again, and his mouth opened in preparation to deliver some manner of angry ripost. However, no sound issued from him even though his jaw slowly worked at forming the words.

  After a tense exhale he lowered his hand and shook his head. With a sad note underscoring his words, he mumbled, “Yeah, Row. Damn me. That’s fine. If it makes ya’ feel better, go ahead an’ damn me all ya’ want.”

  We stared at one another in almost total silence for a handful of heartbeats. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I wanted answers I wasn’t going to get, even from my friend. With that avenue closed to me, I was suddenly feeling very flustered. I suspected the only thing keeping me from losing any semblance of rationality I still maintained was the seething anger that filled my very being.

  For that very reason, I clung to the outrage like a lifeline.

  Ben turned and glanced out the fogged door once again, pushing it open for a moment to get a better view. When he looked back to me, he broke the silence. “The guys from the CSU just pulled up. They’re gonna hafta search the house.”

  “I pretty much got that from the handful of papers. What are they looking for?”

  “Look at the warrant. It’s all listed.”

  “I did and it’s pretty goddamned ambiguous, Ben.”

  “Yeah, well that’s how they write ‘em.”

  “Obviously. So what are they really looking for?”

  “I can’t tell ya’. You should know that.”

  “Uh-huh, that seems to be your answer for everything right now.”

  He shook his head. “They’re lookin’ for evidence, Row. Evidence.”

  “Dammit, Ben. This is wrong and you know it.”

  “Call your lawyer,” he said. “And light a candle…or burn some incense…or whatever the hell you Witches do. ‘Cause I’m tellin’ ya’ now, Felicity’s gonna need it.”

  “This isn’t over, Ben.”

  “Jeezus, Row, believe me…I hope like hell you’re right.”

  “I want to talk to her before you go,” I demanded.

  “She’s already in custody.”

  “Yeah. No shit.”

  “What I’m sayin’ is that means I can’t let ya’ talk to ‘er. Not now. Not yet.”

  “Bullshit! Get out of my way. I’m talking to her.”

  “I just told ya’, you can’t,” he replied in a far more stern tone, punctuating it with a shake of his head. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

  “The hell I can’t!” I shot back as I started forward.

  I didn’t get very far.

  I was stopped cold as the palm of Ben’s hand thudded hard in the center of my chest. I wasn’t surprised that he would do something of the sort, but I also had no intention of letting it stop me for very long. I instantly lashed out, swinging my right arm wide in a roundhouse punch.

  Of course, I should have realized that he would be expecting it. As turbulent as the past few minutes had been, he had probably been waiting for me to do something stupid all along. And, stupid was putting it mildly.

  My friend’s left arm shot upward out of trained reflex, sliding against mine and deflecting my angry fist harmlessly away. With a quick thrust of his right, he pushed me hard. Since my wildly careening punch already had me off balance, it didn’t take much for him to launch me backward across the room.

  I stumbled a pair of steps before completely losing my footing, and a split second later sharp pain shot through my buttocks as they impacted the floor. That sensation was almost instantly followed by a stab of agony lancing into my left elbow when it came down against the hardwood, and finally there was a dull thunk on the back of my head from striking the arm of the chair. That last blow didn’t exactly do wonders for my already throbbing grey matter.

  I heard myself yelp, and then I started to scramble upward but only came a few inches off the floor before dropping back down with a heavy thud. Dull pain was radiating from my tailbone up through my lower back, and my nerves were more than just a little jangled.

  “Jeezus! Fuck me! Goddammit, Rowan!” Ben sputtered with more than enough anger to fill the room to capacity. “GOD DAMMIT! GOD DAMMIT!”

  I was definitely stunned from the fall, and my ears were now ringing, so his tirade came at me as a muted string of syllables. Fortunately, I didn’t feel any queasiness or a blackout coming on, so I didn’t think I was truly injured.

  However, I just kept sitting there, motionless, letting my rage work as an anesthetic for all the pain, emotional as well as physical.

  Ben’s tone ratcheted down the scale from anger to remorse in the span of a single sentence. “Awww, Jeez, Row…Man…What’d ya’ hafta fuckin’ go an’ do that for?!”

  I assumed the question was rhetorical, not that I had really intended to answer him if it wasn’t. Still, I couldn’t help but throw one of his earlier comments back in his face.

  “I think you know,” I spat.

  “Jeezus…Are ya’ okay?” He stepped forward as he spoke, extending his arm and offering me a hand up.

  I simply shrugged away from him.

  “Row…”

  “Fuck you, Ben,” I told him.

  “Dammit, Row, this…”

  “Get out of my house,” I ordered, my voice a low growl, fully devoid of any compassion. “Just…Just get out of my house.”

  He stood there, looking down at me with abject sadness welling behind his eyes. What just happened was something neither one of us was going to be able to fix, at least, not right at this moment. And, the way I was feeling, I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted it fixed. I had a sickening notion that I was going to need every bit of my anger just to get through what was coming, and that was assuming that I was going to make it through at all.

  The silent pause continued with us both staring at one another, him pained, me incensed. I allowed it to continue for what seemed a full minute but was in reality probably no more than a scant few seconds.

  “You heard me you sonofabitch!” I finally screamed. “Get the fuck out of my house!”

  With a dazed shake of his head and one last look of sadness, he turned and headed for the door.

  CSU technicians were already coming into the house as Ben was lumbering out. One of them shot me a concerned look, glanced over his shoulder at Ben’s back as he disappeared down the front steps, and then returned his gaze to me.

  “Are you okay, sir?” he asked.

  “No,” I snipped.

  He reached his hand toward me and started to ask, “Do you need…”

  “No!” I cut him off, my tone still livid. “Just leave me alone!”

  He shook his head and muttere
d a sarcastic “Excuse me” as he took a step back then turned away and joined up with the other techs as they began fanning out through my home.

  I didn’t bother to drag myself up from the floor until I heard Ben’s vehicle back out of the driveway then speed away, taking my entire reason for living with it.

  CHAPTER 5:

  “This isn’t good,” Jackie’s voice hummed from the earpiece of the phone.

  Our attorney had patiently listened to me as I relayed to her the story of Felicity’s arrest, interrupting me only when necessary to ask for clarification on particular facts. Then, following a proverbial pregnant pause at the end of my diatribe, those three words were all she said. Unfortunately, they were far from what I wanted to hear.

  Jackie had a habit of thinking out loud, and I’m certain that the comment was nothing more than her rhetorically voicing her thoughts. However, I was still at least five notches beyond pissed off, not to mention the fact that a handful of crime scene technicians were turning my house into a disaster area all around me as I stood there. Therefore, I was really in no mood for listening to someone tell me something I already knew. Especially when it wasn’t helping to fix the problem.

  “No fucking shit,” I spat into the handset. “Are you billing me for that? Because I already had it figured out on my own.”

  “Okay,” she returned, far more calmly than I expected. “The first thing you need to do, Rowan, is settle down. Biting people’s heads off isn’t going to help the situation. Especially when the head you’re biting off is mine. I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Yeah, well you’ll have to excuse me. I’m still trying to pry a knife out of my back that was put there by someone else who was supposed to be on my side.”

  “Your friend the cop? The one who arrested Felicity?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call him my friend. Not now. Not after this.”

  “You might need to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective, Rowan.”

  “I’m not so sure that there is another perspective on this.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she replied. “Think about this. You’re in a big city where they usually frown on having police officers arresting their friends. You aren’t in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and there’s no choice in the matter. It would be better for the department to avoid a conflict of interest like this.”