All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (16 page)

All things considered, I suppose it was
probably a good thing I didn’t really have those nails handy.

Of course, whether I wanted to admit it
or not, the situation was without a doubt one of those proverbial
Gordian knots. If I took a moment and put myself in Ben’s place,
I’m sure that what I was calling “reason” certainly sounded like an
outlandish fantasy. And, as usual, that pretty much seemed to be
the way of things in my peculiar world. It was no wonder he used
the term
Twilight Zone
in
reference to me as often as he did. My life definitely played out
like a marathon episode with no end in sight.

Still, I didn’t make any secret of the fact
that even I didn’t consider the overabundance of ethereal
happenings in Felicity’s and my life to be normal. But, be they
normal or not, that didn’t make them any less real. I suppose it
came down to the fact that I was just far more open-minded with
regard to accepting that the events simply were what they were, and
no amount of rationalizing or postulating on my part could change
that. To paraphrase the worn out truism, magick happens. Much to
our dismay, however, it just isn’t always the magick we want.

Fortunately, as I sat there mutely pondering
what items might be readily available that I could substitute for
coffin nails, common sense got a much-needed boost from the
insistent warble of my cell phone. Shadowy emotions were instantly
shoved onto the back burner once again, and considering just
exactly how dark they had been getting, that was a very good
thing.

“Rowan Gant,” I said into the mouthpiece as
soon as I dug the device from my pocket, thumbed the answer button,
and tucked it up to my ear.

“Rowan, it’s Jackie,” my attorney’s voice
came back across the line. “Where are you?”

“At Forty, the diner right across the street.
Do you want me to come over? Can I get in to see Felicity now?”

“Just stay right where you are,” she replied,
circumventing my second question. “I’ll be there in just a few
minutes and we can talk about that.”

The line clicked off without so much as a
goodbye, so I hung up and laid the phone on the table in front of
me.

“Lawyer?” Ben asked with a thrust of his chin
toward the device.

“Yeah, apparently she’s on her way over here
right now.”

“Well, then I guess I’d better get outta
here,” he replied, gathering up his coat. “You’re gonna wanna talk
to ‘er without me around.”

I shot a quick glance to the side and then
over my shoulder. In less than five seconds I counted three cops
who were easily within earshot, and those were just the ones
wearing uniforms. I looked back over to Ben and said, “Yeah, well,
we’ll probably want to go somewhere else to talk anyway.”

“Yeah,” he grunted as he slid out of the
booth and stood up. “Prob’ly not a bad idea.”

Ben slipped into his jacket, shrugged it up
onto his shoulders, and then took a moment to adjust his holster
rig beneath its folds. Even after he was finished, however, he
continued to stand next to the table, staring out through the
window at Clark Avenue and the half dozen or so squad cars
diagonally parked against the curb in front of police headquarters.
After a quiet moment, he looked down toward me with a thoughtful
stare.

“Listen…Row…Are we gonna make it? I mean…Is
this…”

“I’m still pissed at you, Ben, if that’s what
you mean,” I replied, meeting the clumsy question head on. “That’s
not going to go away overnight.”

“Yeah…” he mumbled. “I pretty much figured
that. But what I wanna know is are we gonna be able to make it
right between you an’ me?”

“I honestly don’t know yet.”

“Fair enough,” he sighed. The heavy breath
seemed to broadcast a sense of depression. He waited a second then
added, “So, is there anything I can do ta’ fix it?”

“Yes. You can help me clear my wife.”

He shook his head slowly. “I dunno what I can
do on that front, Row.”

“I’m not sure either, but it might help if
you’d just start believing she’s innocent.”

“Yeah.” He let out what might have been a
curious half-chuckle. “Well, I know you’re not gonna believe this,
but Constance told me the same thing a coupla’ hours ago.”

I had been wondering how she was doing. The
last time I had seen her was at the funeral, and she had been just
as distant as Ben. I assumed it had to do with the ongoing
investigation, but considering her run in with “Felicity in
Miranda’s clothing,” I couldn’t help but worry that her forgiveness
had worn off. Based on what Ben had just stated, obviously, it had
not.

“So, she believes Felicity is innocent?” I
asked.

“Yeah, actually, she does,” he replied with a
nod. “And she’s been lettin’ everyone who’ll listen to ‘er know
it.”

“Good to know we still have someone on our
side.”

He ignored the overtone of the comment and
responded purely to its face value. “Yeah, well I gotta tell ya’,
the water she’s swimmin’ in is startin’ ta’ get real hot.”

“Is she in a lot of trouble?”

“Not yet, but after the toes she stepped on
ta’ get Firehair released and make the assault charges
disappear…well, put it this way, she’s runnin’ short on friends and
long on enemies.”

I hadn’t had much room to house any
compassion for others over the past few hours, but Constance truly
had gone out of her way to make some potentially damaging charges
against my wife vanish into thin air. I was aware she had called in
some favors, but at the time, I had been so wrapped up in the
situation that I had no idea she might be seriously jeopardizing
her career in the process.

“Is it really that bad?” I asked.

“Let’s just say if she ain’t careful she
might end up dustin’ off ‘er law degree for use in the private
sector.”

“I didn’t know…”

“And you still don’t. I wasn’t s’posed to say
anything to ya’, so just…ya’know…keep it to yourself.”

“Yeah…Okay…” I agreed.

Ben snorted and shook his head before saying,
“Just a feelin’.”

“What?”

“That’s what Constance said… The reason
why she doesn’t think Felicity is the killer. It’s
just a feelin’
.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, well she’s probably just gone shoe
shoppin’ with Firehair too many times. Some of that spooky ass shit
musta rubbed off on ‘er.”

“You say that like it’s a problem.”

He harrumphed. “I got enough a’
your
Twilight Zone
stuff in my
life as it is, Row. Don’t need ta’ be datin’ one of ya’ on top of
it.”

“I seem to recall you telling me awhile back
that cops get feelings about things too…inexplicable hunches.
‘Hinky feelings’ I think is what you said.”

“Uh-huh, yeah. Guess I shoulda known tellin’
ya’ that would come back ta’ haunt me.”

“Are you saying you don’t really believe
it?”

“You know better’n that.”

“So maybe you need to listen to your gut,
just like she is.”

“My gut ain’t talkin’ right now.”

“But Constance’s is, and she believes
Felicity is innocent even after everything that happened.” I
offered the words more as an admonishment than a question.

“Yeah, Row, I get it. If Mandalay thinks
she’s clean, why can’t I?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t really feel the need
to because he had said almost verbatim what I had been
thinking.

Ben turned his face back to the window and
stared into the growing darkness of the evening as he let out a
long sigh. “Like I said, white man. My gut’s not talkin’. I’m just
not gettin’ a feelin’ on it, either way.”

“Then give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“I’m tryin’…” He shook his head. “Believe me,
I’m tryin’…”

“Maybe it’s just that you’re too close.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

After a long pause I offered, “Felicity once
said something about you that you might like to know. She told me
she felt that when it came to your friends you were loyal to a
fault.”

“I try.”

“
Well, I’ve never had a reason to
disagree with that assessment…until now.”

“Ya’think I’m not feelin’ guilty enough about
it on my own, Row?”

“Maybe you are,” I replied. “But I think we
both know I’m not in a terribly forgiving mood right now.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “No shit.”

The bell on the diner’s door jangled, and I
glanced back over my shoulder to see Jackie coming through the
opening.

“Well, your mouthpiece is here,” Ben offered
as he scooped the still-wrapped burgers from the table and cradled
them in one large hand. “Guess I’d better go so you two can
talk.”

“Don’t give up on Felicity, Ben,” I returned.
“Just…just believe.”

Without looking back down, he spoke in
a low voice that sounded almost like a plea. “Gimme somethin’, Row.
Dammit, just gimme a reason I should
believe
.”

“You don’t need a reason from me, Ben,” I
replied. “You already know in your heart that she’s innocent. You
just have to stop being blinded by the evidence.”

“I’m a cop, Row. We live and die by the
evidence.”

“Then stop being a cop for a minute. Stop
looking at what someone else is calling evidence and take a long,
hard look at the truth.”

Saturday, November 19

10:05 A.M.

Saint Louis, Missouri

I gave up and simply stopped paying attention
to the angry voice that was currently bellowing from the speaker of
the answering machine in the living room. Given that it was my
father-in-law, calling yet again to place blame and scream epithets
at me, I didn’t feel that his diatribe warranted very close
consideration on my part. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t already heard
everything he had to say more than once. I’d even made the
unfortunate mistake of blindly picking up on the initial ring the
first two times he’d called, so I’d twice been on the receiving end
of every name and insult he could think of—and, some that I
suspected he’d just made up. Of course, my grasp of Gaelic extended
only as far as my wife’s commonly used phrases, so I couldn’t be
positive about anything other than the fact that he’d repeatedly
damned me to hell for all eternity.

I’d already told him once that as far as I
was concerned, I was already there, and the past twenty-four hours
had definitely seemed endless. I didn’t bother to repeat it.

After that second round, I’d learned my
lesson and just started screening the calls, allowing the machine
to handle his ongoing tirades. There was nothing I could tell him
that he didn’t already know, and I was just as frustrated as he
could ever be. Probably more so when you considered that last
evening Jackie hadn’t even waited to get out of the diner before
breaking the news to me that I wasn’t going to be able to see
Felicity until today; and that would only happen if she could call
in a favor or two and get a judge to sign off on it. Needless to
say, I hadn’t taken the news well at all. Of course, I’m sure she
had expected that fact, and it probably had quite a bit to do with
her decision to tell me while standing in a diner full of cops.
Still, even then I made a scene, but in the end there was nothing I
could do to change the harsh reality, and all that I accomplished
was to get us kicked out.

After that, things took a turn for the worse,
which was something I hadn’t really thought possible. As if the
first piece of painful information wasn’t enough, Jackie was now
completely unwilling to discuss any further details of the case
with me. My own wife, it seems, had requested that everything
remain under the umbrella of attorney client privilege for the time
being, and since I was neither attorney nor client, I was
completely removed from the loop. Had she dropped that bomb on me
prior to us getting kicked out of the diner, my explosive response
probably would have ended up getting me arrested.

The insult topping it all was that I wasn’t
even privy to her reasoning behind subjecting me to the information
blackout. Each of these things, in turn, had dumped their own load
of distress onto my already strained emotional state. Adding all of
them together was just about to put me over the edge, and I still
honestly don’t know how I managed to avoid having a bigger meltdown
than I actually did.

I was momentarily snapped out of my
introspective haze by an angry click popping loudly from the
speaker in the front room. Shamus had once again ended his call by
slamming down the phone. If I was lucky, maybe this time he had
broken it and wouldn’t be able to call back for a while.

Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily bode
well either. At this point, I had lost track of how many times the
man had phoned just this morning. He had pretty much reached
critical mass, and I had a bad feeling he actually might be ceasing
the relentless calls very soon anyway. I say a bad feeling because
I figured once he stopped, it wouldn’t be long before he replaced
phone calls with a face-to-face attack. I feared he would soon be
knocking on my door, and a physical confrontation with my wife’s
hot-tempered father was something I really didn’t want to deal with
right now.

I didn’t actually fear him; it was the
situation itself I wanted to avoid. He was nowhere near as big as
Ben, so I could pretty much guarantee that we would both end up
going to the hospital, and that wasn’t going to help anyone, least
of all, Felicity. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly wasn’t looking
for another fight, but if it came in search of me, I wasn’t about
to turn and run from it either.

The thought prompted me to look down at the
back of my right hand. It was slightly swollen and had already
started taking on a reddish-purple cast. I ran the fingers of my
left hand over the bruised knuckles and noticed that it was
definitely sore. Still, I suspected I would be able to ignore that
if the need presented itself.