All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (11 page)

The crime scene unit had been gone for
something on the order of fifteen minutes now, and I was still
trying to figure out how they could possibly manage to lay waste to
someone’s home as quickly as they had in this case. All in all, it
had taken them just under two hours to accomplish what I can only
imagine would have taken a busload of sugared up toddlers an entire
day to do.

The emotional response to the specter of the
destruction even seemed to transcend the boundary between human and
house pet, as evidenced by our cats—Dickens, Emily, and Salinger.
At the moment, they were sitting in a loose semicircle on the
coffee table, perusing the mess. Earlier, they had found places to
hide away, as they always did whenever we had unfamiliar visitors,
and had only ventured back out now that the commotion was done and
gone. Watching them from across the room, it looked for all the
world like they were having an impromptu emergency meeting. It was
as if they were trying to come to some conclusion about the scene
before them that would make sense to their feline brains. Every now
and then they would look at one another then at me, nervously
twitch their tails or ears, and then go back to swiveling their
heads around the room, yellow-green eyes open wide with a glaze of
curiosity and perhaps even fear.

I couldn’t blame them. Our house was, in a
word, trashed. The only way I can explain the spectacle that
greeted me upon re-entering my home was that it looked as though
everything had been the victim of a very strong, but somewhat
considerate earthquake. I say considerate because nothing appeared
to have been broken, at least not that I could see. However, no
matter where I looked, there was obvious visual evidence of the
search.

Furniture had been moved out from walls and
instead of being put back was simply left sticking out at odd
angles. Books were piled on the floor instead of resting in their
rightful places on shelves. Even DVD and videocassette cases
created a haphazard mound on a chair after having been opened,
inspected and discarded.

That disaster was merely the living room, and
I knew for a fact that they hadn’t contained themselves there.

Now I was getting angry all over again.
Although standing on the front porch with the Briarwood officer had
calmed me considerably, I couldn’t quell the renewed surge of rage
as I looked at the mess and realized that not only had the books
been pulled from the bookcases but so had all the items we kept on
the shelf we used as our altar. I tried to keep telling myself that
they most likely had no idea that they were desecrating objects of
religious significance—literally violating what was deemed by our
faith a sacred space. But, no matter how many times I repeated it
to myself, it wasn’t an easy sell, mostly because I had recognized
a couple of their faces. They were people I had worked with at
crime scenes before. People, who knew who I was, knew that I was a
Witch, and had heard me speak about such things before.

And, even if that wasn’t enough, I knew
for certain that one of them had attended a class I had taught for
the police department on recognizing the difference between
religious activity and cult coercion. A portion of that workshop
had specifically addressed altars and their importance to
practitioners of alternative religions. At the very least,
he
should have known
better.

Of course, if I were the paranoid type, I
would bet that Albright had something to do with that as well. The
fact is, whether my suspicion was born of paranoia or not, she
probably did.

When I finally managed to dampen my newly
inflamed rage, I left the cats to their huddle and moved toward the
back of the house to continue my own assessment of the chaos. In
retrospect, I probably should have waited a little longer because
what I found only served to ignite my smoldering temper once
again.

My heart all but skipped a beat, and I felt a
hot rush of blood fill my face the moment I saw our bedroom. If the
front of the house had been the victim of an earthquake, this room
had been pummeled by its big brother as well as every other
disaster imaginable. The contents of the dresser and chest of
drawers now resided in a scattered heap on top of our bed, and
along with that was anything that might have been stored away in
the matching nightstands. While the majority was carelessly piled,
a small portion of it actually sat in something remotely resembling
stacks. I had a feeling these existed only because it had been
easier for them to take those particular items out of the drawers
that way.

The clothing that had once occupied the
walk-in closet was tossed in crumpled heaps across the footboard of
the waterbed. Garments that had once been methodically arranged by
Felicity according to color, length, and a number of other factors
that fit her personal system of organization, were now nothing
short of a giant pile of laundry.

Everything else from the closet looked as if
it had been vomited out across the floor. This included every pair
of shoes my wife owned, and trust me there were more of them than I
wanted to count. Those, along with several rectangular boxes where
some of them had once made their homes, formed a colorful debris
field expanding out from the mirrored doors which were themselves
hanging wide open. It looked much like a disastrous accident had
occurred in the middle of a shoe store stockroom.

On the far wall, through the bathroom
doorway, I could see that the medicine chest had pretty much been
ransacked. Judging from the terrycloth mass I spotted on the floor
just in front of the double vanity, the linen closet hadn’t been
spared either.

Standing here surveying the blatant
deconstruction of our lives, I didn’t even want to think about what
the office, or even worse, my wife’s darkroom and files, looked
like right about now. There was so much strife here on the main
floor that I wasn’t entirely certain I could stomach going upstairs
or downstairs just yet.

At this point, however, there was no doubt in
my mind that someone, whether it was Albright or not, had
instructed the crime scene technicians to lay waste to our home.
I’d been involved in far too many investigations and had seen how
these things were normally done. What I saw staring back at me now
definitely wasn’t an example of standard procedure.

My rising anger eventually gave way to a cold
swell of depression, and I simply hung my head. After a moment I
pushed a pile of shirts aside with a distracted swipe of my hand
then slowly settled myself onto the edge of the bed.

I couldn’t begin to say exactly what all had
been taken, with the exception of the books and a handgun that was
registered to me. The only reason I knew about the weapon was
because they had seen fit to tell me they were going to confiscate
it for the time being. I didn’t know why, but I had already
discovered that arguing with them over the books didn’t do any
good, so I didn’t bother to object.

I also knew for a fact that some of
Felicity’s clothing and shoes had been removed because I saw them
being loaded into evidence bags while I was standing on the outside
looking in. From what little I overheard, intimate garments had
been of particular interest and in fact, were even specifically
listed on the warrant. I’m sure the reasoning for that probably had
everything to do with the sexual nature of the crimes.

Even though I knew my wife wasn’t one to be
easily embarrassed, I certainly didn’t know how she would react to
a handful of strangers looting her lingerie drawer. For some
reason, the fact that they had encroached upon this particular
sanctity made me feel more violated than any of the other things
they had manhandled and then absconded with. Surprisingly, even the
desecration of our altar no longer mattered in the face of this.
Odd, considering that they weren’t even my undergarments, but I was
in a very protective mode right now. Anything that violated
Felicity was, to me, patently unforgivable.

I heard a damp snort and looked over to see
our English setter staring at me with sad eyes. Taking a tentative
step forward, he nudged my hand then nuzzled in and brought his
head to rest on my thigh. I absently stroked his crown and gave him
a half-hearted scritch behind the ears. Usually, Quigley the
Australian cattle dog was hot on his heels, but last I’d seen him
he was sitting in the dining room looking just about as confused as
the cats.

Our animals were as close as we had to
children—not that we hadn’t tried for one of our own species.
Unfortunately, Felicity’s only pregnancy to date had been abruptly
terminated by a physical altercation between her and a murder
suspect who was making a getaway attempt. Since then, even though
everything checked out for both of us according to doctors, we
hadn’t had much luck in the conception department.

In truth, it was probably a good thing that
we didn’t have children because I had the feeling that right now I
would be completely lost. I could easily comfort a dog with a few
pats on the head even if he could still sense that something was
amiss. On the other hand, I had no clue what I could possibly tell
a child that would quell his or her fears in a situation such as
this.

“Mommy is going to go with the nice policemen
for a while,” just didn’t seem to me like it would do the trick.
And, right now, saying something like “Don’t worry, everything is
going to be okay” could very well be a flat-out lie. Primarily,
because I wasn’t so sure that it was going to be okay. On top of
that, I knew that my own mental state wouldn’t be particularly
healthy for a child to endure either.

I looked down at the dog, only to find his
large brown eyes peering back up at me. As he watched, the small
sprigs of hair that passed for eyebrows began rocking back and
forth on his expressive face then his tail began slowly thumping
against the side of the bed.

“Kind of a mess, isn’t it, buddy?” I mumbled,
turning my head and looking around the room while my hand continued
automatically stroking his fur.

My brain was more or less chasing itself
around in a circle at this point. What I felt like I wanted to do
right now was to jump in my truck and head down to the police
station. But, that was just the surface reaction. What I truly
wanted more than anything else was Felicity back home, safe and
free of this insanity. Short of “busting her out,” there wasn’t
really much I could do to make that happen. At least not by showing
up there and causing a scene, anyway. Since Jackie had told me to
stay put, I had no choice but to fight back the urge to make a
beeline for Clark Avenue downtown.

Our attorney was certainly right about one
thing. I would definitely cause more trouble than anything else,
and I knew that. I just had to trust her to take care of this, but
that was becoming harder to do with each passing moment. A quick
glance at the clock told me that better than two hours had passed
since she had told me she was on her way to the police station, and
I still hadn’t heard anything from her. I suppose that in the grand
scheme of things, two hours isn’t really that much time, but for me
it had already been an eternity.

As I continued looking around the room, my
eyes fell on a picture frame resting in a niche on our headboard.
From all outward appearances, it was apparently the only thing that
hadn’t been touched by the uncaring hands of the crime scene
technicians. The frame was small but intricately designed—the kind
of heirloom that readily evokes sentimentality at first glance.
Centered within its rectangular border was a semi-candid shot of
Felicity and me.

I stared at the photo, studying it to the
exclusion of everything around me. Though I had pretty much
forgotten that it was there, I remembered the snapshot well. It had
been taken at a party some years before. My petite wife was perched
on my lap with her arms around my neck, and mine were encircling
her waist, hugging her close. We were both grinning, obviously
filled to overflowing with the happiness of the moment. The vivid
memory played back inside my skull as I recalled the gathering.
What stood out most of all was the fact that only moments before
that particular photo had been snapped, we had all been playing the
“trust game”. In essence, it was an old pseudo-psychological
exercise where you demonstrate your trust in your partner by
falling backwards into their arms. We had all really just been
clowning around, but in truth, there was an underlying seriousness
to the results.

Almost all of the people at the get-together
had faltered to some extent, much to one another’s chagrin.
However, Felicity and I had fallen freely into one another without
hesitation and without so much as a flinch of doubt. I hadn’t
thought much of it at the time, as it simply seemed natural, but in
the final analysis these were acts of absolute, blind faith. We
both knew that neither of us would allow any harm to befall the
other. I trusted her, she trusted me.

Trust. A concept I had only recently been
forced by my overactive psyche to revisit. Fortunately, the
reminder had taken hold and flourished.

I trusted in the fact that I knew Felicity
was innocent, and moreover, I trusted her. Just as, even at this
moment she was trusting me. Trusting me to take care of her, to get
her out of this mess. But, instead of honoring that trust, here I
was perched on the edge of the bed, feeling sorry for myself
because she wasn’t here.

I’m not sure how long I had been sitting
there staring at the photograph. To be perfectly honest, it could
have been a minute, or it could have been five. My perception of
time was so far off kilter that I probably wouldn’t have known the
difference between the two even if I had been watching the clock
instead of the picture.