Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (17 page)

“It means we have a serial killer who just
claimed a third victim,” Constance announced flatly.

“Hey you three,” Felicity said. “I’m
obviously not blonde, but maybe I’m having a moment here. A little
help, then?”

“Tamara Linwood and Sarah Hart.” Ben
explained, “Both corpses were found minus their heads.”

“Oh Gods…” she murmured softly.

“The initial theory on Hart was that it might
have been due to predation,” Constance offered. “But then the
medical examiner found seven grooved striations on the posterior of
the remaining C-six vertebrae. The tool marks lab matched them to a
manual hacksaw, most likely with a fourteen TPI bi-metal
blade.”

“Good memory,” Ben said. “I didn’t know you
were on that case.”

“I wasn’t.” She shook her head. “It came up
as an NCIC match when we ran Larson’s abduction profile. Secluded
parking lot, missing twenty-something-year-old woman,
etcetera.”

“And you got all that from a NCIC hit?”

“Not all of it.” She shrugged. “I had a few
minutes this morning, so I read the file.”

Ben raised an eyebrow and looked back at her
incredulously. “And you remembered all that?”

“Well sure,” she replied.

“Jeezus, Mandalay, you’re almost as weird as
these two.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Storm.”

“Well, I hate ta’ say it, but we still got
another problem,” he ventured.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We got no way to prove any of this stuff
about Larson is true.”

“Unless we can find the body,” I offered.

“That’s a big ‘unless’, Rowan,” Constance
expressed.

“What’re ya’ thinkin’ white man?” Ben
queried. “You got that hinky look goin’ on.”

“I’m thinking that I obviously saw something
while I was ‘under’ so to speak,” I explained. “So maybe I saw more
than just the ‘no head’ thing.”

“Yeah, but apparently you didn’t even
remember that, so how are you gonna remember anything else?”

“It’s a long shot, but…”

“NO.” Felicity’s austere voice cut me
off.

“What?” Ben turned his head and asked her.
“Was he gettin’ ready to say he wanted to do somethin’ stupid?”

“Yes,” she replied, her tone still harsh.

“How do you know what I was going to say?” I
asked, slightly annoyed.

“She’s married to ya’, Kemosabe,” Ben huffed
with almost a note of pained disgust in his voice. “She knows
everything. Even what yer gonna say next.”

I sped immediately into an explanation,
hoping to overshadow his words and more importantly, his tone. “I
was only going to recommend we do a regression.”

“Like a past life thing?” Constance asked.
“Hypnosis?”

“Similar,” I nodded as I answered her. “But
instead of past life, I’d just be going to a previous point in my
own.”

“Breugadair
,”
my wife spat, resorting to a Gaelic epithet for liar. “Someone
else’s
death
is what you
mean.”

“We don’t have much choice in the matter,” I
contended.

“Rowan, not an hour ago your heart stopped
beating for almost two minutes.”

“DO WHAT?!” Ben exclaimed, whipping his gaze
back around to me.

“You were still passed out,” I explained
quickly. “Besides, she’s making it out to be worse than it is.”

“I am not,” she defended herself.

“Yer fuckin’ heart stopped?” Ben pressed.

“Not according to the paramedics,” I
said.

“Paramedics?” he exclaimed. “Jeezus H.
Christ! What the hell else did I miss?”

“Rowan,” Constance said, ignoring Ben’s
query. “Maybe Felicity is right.”

“It’s not as dangerous as she’s wanting you
two to believe,” I appealed.

“All right. Fine.” Felicity leveled her
determined gaze directly on me and pushed away from the counter as
she announced, “Then how about if I do it.”

T
alking myself into
corners was something I excelled at on various occasions. Most
especially when it came to trying to convince my wife that I was
prepared to handle anything the ethereal world could throw at me.
Of course, over the past few years she had seen more than her share
of my experiences with such, and she knew better than to believe
me. Therefore, it always took some creative explaining to convince
her otherwise; or try to at least, because as of late, invariably I
would lose the verbal scuffles.

So, getting into the corner was easy.
Escaping from it once I found myself pinned was definitely
something at which I needed more practice. As it happened, this was
rapidly becoming a perfect opportunity for just such an experience.
Since my back was now so firmly pressed into the metaphorical niche
that it was beginning to take on a similar angular shape, I had
nothing to lose by trying.

I blurted the second thing that came to mind,
“No way.”

I chose the second thing to pop into my head
because the first phrase was more along the lines of, ‘it’s too
dangerous.’ Quite obviously, echoing my wife’s very sentiment would
have been equivalent to surrendering my king before the first pawn
had been moved. I already wasn’t sure that I was going to be able
to talk myself out of this one, but I wasn’t going to simply give
up. I knew my response was less than inspired, but my creative
juices were failing me miserably at the moment. Still, I charged
ahead, making a bid to break free of the ‘rock and a hard place’ of
my own making.

“Why?” Felicity asked coolly and then baited
me with, “Because it’s too dangerous?”

“No. Because it wouldn’t do any good,” I told
her. “You didn’t see the things that I saw.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, crossing
her arms beneath her breast. “Neither one of us can remember
anything except what the other one said.”

“Right,” I agreed. “And you didn’t mention
anything about her being headless.”

She arched her eyebrows as she gave her head
a slight shake. “So?”

“So I must have seen more than you did.”

“Oh come on,” she exclaimed. “You don’t buy
into that any more than I do.”

Ben voiced his own observation. “Jeezzz, Row,
even I know that’s a lame argument.”

“You aren’t helping,” I returned.

“Look,” Constance spoke up. “I don’t know as
much about this as you two do or even Storm for that matter…”

“Hey, you see a broom between my legs?” Ben
objected. “Leave me outta this.”

“…
What I’m trying to ask,” she
continued, glossing over his interruption. “Is that if it’s
dangerous for Rowan wouldn’t it be dangerous for you too,
Felicity?”

“Not as much,” she replied.

All bids to get myself out of the corner were
immediately null and void. I knew the next words out of my mouth
would sabotage my own argument, but I was unable to keep myself
from calling Felicity on her comment.

“Okay, so who’s blowing smoke now?” I
chided.

“All I did was pass out, Rowan,” she
asserted. “My heart didn’t come to a screeching halt like yours
did.”

“Will you get off that? The paramedics told
you I was fine.”

“Aye, they did,” she shot back. “But I didn’t
believe it then, and I don’t believe it now.”

I literally threw up my hands in
exasperation. “Okay, so what do we do then? You don’t want me doing
a regression, and I don’t want you doing one either. So where does
that leave us?”

“Okay, like I said, I don’t really know that
much about all this,” Constance started in again. “Just what I’ve
seen you do here and there, and, well… It’s usually pretty freaking
bizarre to be honest… But, that’s beside the point. Anyway, here’s
my idea. What if you still did it, but in a controlled manner?”

“What do you mean by controlled?” I
asked.

“Yeah, Mandalay,” Ben voiced. “I think I know
where you’re headin’ with this.”

“I mean what if you, or Felicity, or even
both of you underwent hypnosis by a third party. That way if it
gets too weird then you could be snapped out of it right away.”

“That’s a thought,” Felicity said.

Constance shrugged. “We sometimes use various
forms of forensic hypnosis with witnesses to help jog repressed or
misplaced memories, so why not with you two?”

“She’s right,” Ben added. “Charlee McLaughlin
was tellin’ me she used it with a rape victim a few months back.
What they got from her was inadmissible in court, but it gave ‘em
enough to get a decent lead on the asshole. After that, all they
had to do was gather evidence.”

“The rules of evidence are pretty dicey when
it comes to information retrieved via hypnosis,” Constance agreed.
“But we aren’t after that in this case. We’re just looking for a
location on Larson’s remains.”

“I’m not sure it would work.” I shook my
head. “Since the experiences were ethereal to begin with, for all
intents and purposes, they took place on another plane of
existence.”

“But wouldn’t the memories still be there?”
she asked. “Just inaccessible to the conscious self.”

“That’s the unknown variable here,” I
replied.

“But, they could be there, right?” she
reiterated.

I pondered the question for a moment. I’d
never really given the idea much thought, until now.

“She might have a point, Row.” Felicity broke
the short silence. “You’ve always retained memories from psychic
episodes before.”

“Yeah,” I replied slowly. “That’s true.”

“Aye, so it’s worth a try at least,” Felicity
said.

Mandalay glanced at her watch and looked
thoughtful for a second then said, “I can make a couple of calls.
I’m not sure if we have anyone available on this short of notice
though. It may have to wait until tomorrow or even Monday.”

“But wouldn’t there be a better chance of any
latent evidence still being intact if the scene is located sooner?”
I asked.

“Of course,” Ben answered for her. “Fresher
the crime scene the better. That’s a given.”

“Then we need to do this now,” I
declared.

“Like I said,” Constance offered. “I can make
some calls.”

“I’ll go you one better,” I said as a vague
memory edged into focus. “Ben, your sister performs hypnosis in her
psychiatric practice, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, I think she does,” he replied with a
nod.

“Do you think she’d be up for this tonight?”
I asked.

He shrugged. “Hell, she never does anything
other than work or sit at home reading, so I don’t see why not. One
question though.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Actually it’s for Mandalay,” he
replied as he looked over at her. “Say one of these two
Twilight Zone’s
us a crime scene.
What’s the next step?”

Constance wrinkled her forehead and gave a
knowing nod. “Guess we’ll have to go verify it.”

“And after that?” Ben pressed. “Which one of
us is gonna tell Albright how we found it?”

“As much as I’d like to do it,” she told him.
“I’d sure hate to steal your thunder, Storm.”

“Yeah, funny. Like I haven’t heard that one
before.”

* * * * *

As it turned out, my friend had been
incorrect this go around. His sister had in fact been out to dinner
and not holed away in her house reading as he had said she would
be. We were lucky, however, as her home number had been forwarded
to her service and no sooner had Ben left a message than she called
back. Fortunately, not only was she more than willing to come by
the house, she was less than fifteen minutes away.

When Helen arrived, Felicity was in the
kitchen starting a fresh pot of coffee, and Constance was hiding
away in our bedroom for a few minutes so she could return some
calls. Ben was expectantly standing at the open door when she
pulled into the driveway. He met her on the sidewalk and
immediately renewed the brotherly interrogation he’d originally
launched on the phone.

Now that they were in the house, I was
standing back and quietly watching the continuation of the small
family skirmish that was taking place in my living room.

“I am a grown woman, Benjamin.” Helen Storm
looked up into her brother’s face. Her voice was calm, but the
words were underscored with an unmistakable note of no-nonsense
finality. “Not to mention that I am your older sister. I can
certainly go out on a blind date without your approval.”

There was no way one could miss the
relationship between the two of them. The family resemblance was
more than obvious even though Helen was of average height as
opposed to her towering sibling. Both were possessed of the same
dark eyes and typical angular profiles. Although in most ways they
were the same, Helen’s features were far softer. Her pretty face
was framed by a cascade of thick, black hair, streaked randomly
with strands of grey. The touch of silver was the only visible
indicator that she was actually older than her brother.

Having been in some sense a patient of hers,
in both official and unofficial capacities, I was used to seeing
her in conservative business attire. This evening, however, she was
projecting a vastly different outward image via a somewhat
flirtatious cocktail dress.

“That’s not what I’m sayin’, Helen,” my
friend objected. “There’re a lotta nutjobs out… And that dress
is…”

“My dress is just fine, dear brother,” she
replied in the wake of his stammering. “And, I met him at the
restaurant so that I would have my own car. I am quite capable of
making rational decisions.”

“Yeah, but what’d you know about this guy?”
he continued. “For all you know he’s a wingnut with a…”

“End of discussion, Benjamin,” she replied,
cutting him off mid-sentence.

He stared back at her and shook his head but
kept his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry we interrupted your evening,
Helen,” I offered, slipping the apology into the mildly
uncomfortable void that fell behind her last declaration.