Just by looking at her, you couldn’t tell that she was worn out, but I knew better. We were all running on adrenalin, caffeine, and extended second winds; at least she looked good doing it, which was more than I could say for myself.
The comforting sounds of a fire crackling in the fireplace on the other side of the alcove provided the ambient backdrop to the quiet conversations scattered throughout the dining area. The earthy scent of the burning wood filled the air. Outside, snow was continuing to fall in steady curtains of white. Were it not for the circumstances, this just might have been a perfect, laid-back day to sit and visit with friends.
“Helen seems to be fitting right in then.” My wife voiced the observation as she sidled up next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s my sis for ya’,” Ben returned as he cast a glance back over his shoulder.
As my friend turned back to us, his cell phone began warbling. He plucked it from his belt and inspected the face. “Fuck me, it’s Bible Barb,” he muttered aloud as he glanced around then cocked his head in the direction of the hallway. “I don’t wanna disturb anyone, so I’ll be up front.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He was already answering the phone with a curt, one word admission of his last name as he exited.
“It’s a good thing,” I offered to my wife as I watched Ben leave.
“What is?” she asked.
“Helen fitting in so well. She can lessen the burden on you.”
“Aye, that she can, but I’m their Priestess. It is MY job to be there for them.”
I frowned with concern. “You don’t resent her being here do you?”
“Not at all.” She dismissed my question. “It is just that I have a responsibility to them. It is something that comes with the title High Priestess, you know.”
“Yes, I know, hon, and you HAVE been there for them,” I soothed. “But you need a break too, and Goddess knows I’m not much help in this department.”
“Aye, you aren’t,” she sighed the matter-of-fact statement. “On top of that, you’re just another worry for me, in and of yourself then.”
Her voice held a slight hint of animosity at the end, leading me to believe the second half of her statement was what bothered her most. I was only slightly taken aback by her brutal honesty. I’d grown used to it over the years.
Back up the hallway, I heard the faint treble of Ben’s cell phone ringing yet again.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No need to apologize,” she told me. “I’m not angry with you. Not about that anyway. I know you’ve as much to deal with as I.”
“But you’re mad at me about something else?”
“Aye, but this is neither the time nor place to discuss it then.”
“Felicity, I know how you are,” I said. “If you don’t let it out, you’ll just build up resentments.”
“Don’t you worry then,” she instructed. “I’ll get over it.”
“You say that now, but I have a feeling I’ll pay for it at some point.”
She agreed with a purposeful nod. “Aye, that you probably will.”
“Well, don’t sugarcoat it.” I offered the comment with its own thin lacquer of sarcasm.
“Aye, I won’t.”
“Uhmm-Hmmm!” The sound of Ben clearing his throat intervened before our conversation could dip any closer to the danger zone. “You two want me to get you some gloves and ring the bell?”
“No,” I said in a quiet tone, chagrined that our verbal discontent had been witnessed.
Felicity simply shook her head.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Yeah. No reason to drag it out. So listen,” my friend began as he reached up and massaged his neck. “There’s been a bit of a change in plans here.”
“She didn’t pull you off this completely, did she?” I asked, shunting my un-quelled annoyance off to another target.
“No,” he returned. “No, she didn’t. Believe it or not, she actually wants you and me to go look at somethin’.”
Felicity immediately pushed away from the countertop next to me and started from the room. As I reached out for her, she shrugged away from my hand and turned. She raised a finger and stared back at me, cold fire in her green eyes. A single tear was advancing across her cheek, and she held her rigid position for a weighty measure of time before she finally spoke. “Aye, go. You go, but you’d best come back.”
With the unmistakable instruction given, she turned on her heel and strode through the pass-thru into the dining room.
“I didn’t say I was going to…” My words trailed off almost immediately as I realized they were falling short of reaching her; not that she would have been paying attention if they had.
“Dammit,” I muttered as the lightning bolt of realization struck me square between my eyes. “I’m not sure, but I think I might have just figured out what your sister was trying to tell me.”
“She’s good for doin’ that kinda shit to people,” Ben affirmed.
“Yes, she is.”
“So, is Felicity gonna be okay?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, eventually,” I told him.
“Should you maybe go talk to her?”
“Not now.” I shook my head. “I’ve been married to her for a long time, Ben. Trust me, this is something that will play out later when we’re alone.”
“You sure?”
“Oh yeah,” I guaranteed him. “I’m sure.”
“How ‘bout you? You gonna be all right?”
“Yeah.” I was still staring after my wife. “Yeah, I think so. I’m just not sure how I feel about being a matador.”
“Do what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” I reached up and rubbed my temple for a moment. “So what’s the deal? What’s so important that Albright needs us to look at it right now?”
“Well, so anyway,” he stumbled over the words a bit, “so what happened is the phone company managed to peg the number Porter used. It was a cell just like we thought.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” I asked.
“Not for the guy it used to belong to,” he replied.
“You mean he killed someone else already?”
“Not exactly.” He shook his head. “More like before.”
“Before?”
“Yeah.” He visibly grimaced as he spoke, both looking and sounding as if he really didn’t want to tell me. “We’ve actually known about this guy for a few days.”
“A few days?” I almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. “What do you mean you’ve known about him for a few days? Why haven’t you said anything?”
“Look, Rowan,” Ben huffed. “The Major Case Squad doesn’t report to you, you know. There was no reason to get you involved.”
I was more than just slightly angered by what I had just been told, and my voice came out as a thin hiss. “But if this happened a few days ago, maybe if I had gotten involved THEN, Randy would still be alive!”
He glanced through the passage into the dining room then back at me with his eyes wide. “Keep your voice down, Rowan,” he ordered in a strained whisper through clenched teeth. “There were reasons you weren’t called.”
“They’d damn well better be good ones,” I hissed back. “Because I lost a friend today and if I could have prevented it…”
“You couldn’t have, so drop it,” he interrupted with the stern instruction.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I glared back at him. I knew I had to trust that what he was telling me was true, but the reality was a hard lump in my throat, and I was finding it hard to swallow.
“Look, Row,” he sighed. “We need to move on this. Carl Deckert from county homicide is waiting for us at the scene right now.”
“Why now?” I demanded, barely managing to keep my voice even and low.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Bee-bee has a bug up her ass about this all of a sudden, and she’s already got Dec
kert waitin’ for us.”
“I couldn’t care any less about what she wants right now, Ben,” I told him.
“Yo, Kemosabe,” he appealed. “I’m on your side here, but let’s go have a look-see. This is a damn sight better than being banned from the investigation. Maybe you can do some hocus-pocus or somethin’, and we can nail this fuck before anyone else gets killed.”
“So you’re going to let me go at this my way?” I was demanding as much as asking.
“I didn’t say that,” he returned. “I’m not lettin’ you put yourself in danger over this.”
“What about Felicity?” I asked. “I’m not so sure I want to leave her right now.”
“Because of that little deal a minute ago?”
“No, because Porter obviously knows where I am, so I’m sure he knows she’s here too.”
He shook his head and waved me off. “I know what you’re sayin’, but it’s covered. There’s a copper out front and one in the alley.”
I started to object, but he held his hand up to stifle me before continuing. “Let me finish. If that ain’t enough for ya’, Mandalay is on her way over with another Feeb, and they’ll probably be here any minute.”
There were very few people besides him whom I would trust with Felicity’s safety, and FBI Special Agent Constance Mandalay was one of them. I’m certain he was playing that fact as his trump card to my impending objection.
“You’re sure?” I pressed.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he told me. “I talked to her right after I got off the phone with Albright. They’ll probably be pullin’ up about the time we head out the door.”
Back up the hallway, the doorbell chimed as if cued by some ethereal director.
“Well?” My friend looked at me expectantly and gave a quick nod as if to say, “told you so.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Okay, I’ll go. Just one thing: How are you going to stop me?”
“Stop you what?”
I didn’t explain. I just closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead as my ever-present migraine sidestepped any attempts to keep it at bay. Even worse, it began inching up the scale. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
CHAPTER 14:
“Kass-perzik-somethin-oww-ski, according to his driver’s license. First name, Joseph.” Ben looked at me and shrugged. “I dunno how the hell to pronounce it. Starts with a K and it’s got some Z’s and W’s in it.”
The ambient temperature inside the house wasn’t much different than it was outside. In fact, it was probably exactly the same. The only thing that made it feel warmer was the shelter itself and thus a reprieve from the wind chill factor.
“So how is it spelled?” I asked as I buried my hands in my coat pockets and worked my fingers to jump-start the circulation.
“Why?”
I shrugged.
He pulled out his notebook and flipped through it for a second. “Shit. Can’t read my own handwriting. Hey Deck,” he called across the room. “You got a spelling on the victim’s name?”
Saint Louis County Homicide Detective Carl Deckert was best described as everyone’s grandfather. He was a thick, round man, aged somewhere in his mid to late fifties. A trimmed crop of fine, grey hair covered his head, and that was often sheltered beneath a fedora with the brim neatly snapped over his brow.
His attitude, forged in a different time, was one filled with manners and kindness. His eyes never lacked the mischievous twinkle of a youngster nor his ruddy face a friendly smile. He usually had something good to say-even under less than perfect circumstances.
His overall appearance and demeanor had to be advantageous in his line of work, because to be honest, if I didn’t already know him, I would never suspect he was a cop. Even if I did, he still came across as someone to whom you could bare your soul.
Presently, he was several feet away from us with the virtually omnipresent fedora pushed up high on his forehead as he carefully studied the room. At his side, he held tight to a bag that might have been a sack lunch. I didn’t ask.
“K-A-S-P-R-Z-Y-K-O-W-S-K-I.” The older county detective offered the string of letters from memory. “You pronounce it, kasper-kush-kee.”
I mentally aligned the letters and then silently repeated the name back to myself, placing the proper “ksh” emphasis on the ZYK combination and allowing the W to remain silent. “Slavic, obviously,” I said aloud.
“Yeah,” Deckert agreed. “It’s Polish. Means something like ‘the place of Kasper’s son.’”
“You get that from the next of kin?” Ben asked.
“Still haven’t found any yet,” Deckert told him with a shake of his head.
“Nobody?”
“Nope. Not so far.”
“So, what’s up with you and the genealogy lesson? You been eatin’ a bunch of kielbasa or somethin’?”
“My babcia was originally from Poland.”
“Your what?” Ben asked.
“Grandmother,” he explained. “She was a first generation immigrant.” He then gave his head a quick tilt to the side before adding, “But since you brought it up, she did make a pretty mean kielbasa and kraw.”
“What’s a ‘kraw’?”
“Sauerkraut.”
“Oh, okay. I love that stuff, but it kills me every time I eat it.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Hey, she make those pierogie things too?”
“Yeah.” Deckert nodded. “Pierogies, kluski, golabki, krupnik, you name it. Babcia was a hell of a cook.”
“That what’s in the bag?”
“I wish.”
“Too bad. Jeez, I guess we better stop talkin’ about food,” Ben said. “I just realized I haven’t had anything to eat since dinner last night.”
“Hey,” I interjected. “Is this really the appropriate time and place for this discussion?”
I suppose there was some level of disdain in my voice that was readily apparent because both of them looked at me with somewhat apologetic expressions on their faces.
“Coppers do this shit, Row,” my friend told me. “You know that. It’s how we keep from goin’ nuts.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Sorry… I’m just… I don’t know.”
“It’s okay, Rowan,” Deckert offered.
Ben shifted the subject back to what had originally led down the culinary path. “So why were you askin’ about his name anyway, white man?”
“Curiosity I guess,” I told him. “Trying to make sense of everything.”
“Well I hate to sound crass.” Ben tossed in his two cents, “But his name could be Smith. Doesn’t really matter. He’s dead.”
“You’re right,” I returned. “But he was alive once.”
“Uh-huh. ‘Bout two weeks ago,” Deckert offered and then explained. “According to the M.E., he’d been deceased for approximately a week when he was found, and that was a week ago itself.”
I nodded. “So I’ve heard.”
The wholly unmistakable funk of death still lingered on the gelid air, and the lag time between death and discovery Deckert just mentioned explained it. Fortunately, it was faint as there had been some time for the place to air out; which also explained why every time I spoke I could see my words as well as hear them. Still, it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
I let my eyes roam and slowly scanned the area around me, getting a visual feel for the place. We were actually standing in the partially finished basement of a house that sat just inside the municipality of Wood Dell. Recently hung sheet rock formed a wall to our right and was marred at intervals by wide vertical swaths of joint compound. Bare studs to our rear formed a half-wall return that separated one section from the next. At the far end of the room, a doorway led deeper into the basement and presumably the ongoing remodeling project.
My gaze eventually came to rest on the centerpiece we’d surrounded-a set of well-seasoned sawhorses, age-greyed and paint-spattered, that were occupying the middle of the room. A hardwood one-by-ten
was stretched across them with the beginning of a decorative edge routed into one side. The smoothly tapered cut ran for approximately ten inches then suddenly degraded as the careful craftsmanship vanished into an arcing gouge that hop-scotched across the surface of the wood.
On the bare, plywood sub-floor beneath, a chalked outline stood out against the sawdust and construction detritus. At a bulbous point in the scribed profile that was obviously where the man’s head had been, dried blood stained the wood a rusty brown. It had pooled in a haphazard pattern that in a bizarre sense resembled a fuzzy map of Italy, morbid as that observation was. Additional stains spread outward from what had probably been the early stages of purging and putrefaction.
The coppery scent of the old blood blended with the nasal bite of sappy lumber, adding themselves to the potpourri of odors. Even as faint as it was, in the back of my mind I wondered if I would ever be able to forget the sharpness of this smell.
My friend took notice of where my focused stare had fallen, and he cleared his throat.
“You slippin’ into la-la land?” he asked.
“No,” I returned, breaking my intense gaze away from the outline and turning to Ben. “Just thinking.”
“Coroner’s report says he bled out,” Deckert told me as if he felt a need to explain the bloodstain. “Looks like the wacko came in while the guy was working, picked up a hammer, and jacked him in the head. Poor bastard just laid there and bled to death. Of course, he probably would’ve ended up being a vegetable if he hadn’t.”
“Lesser of two evils,” I muttered.
“Something like that,” he agreed, then continued. “Anyway, from what we found it looks like the asshole might have lived here for at least a couple of days after he killed him. Maybe a week.”
“So Porter’s been in town for at least two weeks?”
“Yeah,” Deckert answered. “Looks that way.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about it until now,” I contended.
“Albright was already running things, Row,” Ben spoke. “She made it pretty clear that you weren’t to be involved.”
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