Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (27 page)

“I’ll take care of it,” Constance told her
evenly.

“See that you do.”

“One more thing, Lieutenant,” Mandalay
replied in a careful but frosty tone. “I suggest that you don’t
push me. I’m the last bitch you want to cross right now.”

“Yes, I am sure that you are,” Albright
returned in her own cold voice and then paused before adding, “A
bitch.”

They stared at each other for one of those
time-warped moments that lasts only a few brief seconds but feels
like an eternity to everyone within its sphere of influence.
Albright finally turned and headed away from our small clutch.

At first, she retreated without a word, but
after a few steps, she paused and called back over her shoulder,
her voice thickly frosted with sarcasm. “By the way, I had Miz
O’Brien’s Jeep towed and impounded as possible evidence. I do hope
it won’t be an inconvenience.”

“
Fek tù saigh
,” Felicity calmly
issued the curse of mixed colloquial Irish and Gaelic.

This wasn’t the first time my wife had
launched that particular phrase at the lieutenant and at one point,
had even supplied her with the English translation. Apparently the
meaning of the foreign words had stuck with Albright ever since, as
evidenced by her reply.

“Funny you should say that, Miz
O’Brien, because it is
exactly
what I was thinking.” She made the comment with an air of
satisfaction and then continued on her way.

The lieutenant’s haughty attitude told us
that as far as she was concerned, she had come out on top this go
around, and truth be told, she had. However, whether she wanted to
admit it or not, this was merely a single skirmish, and the war was
far from over. Still, it took everything I had to stand there
motionless and not say a word, and I’m sure the same was true for
everyone else. In fact, I could tell by looking at Ben that he was
struggling just to contain himself; and, though I’d seen him angry
a number of times before, the darkness of the emotions seething
from him at this moment actually worried me.

Right or wrong, the fact remained that there
was nothing we could do; at least, not with a head-on approach, and
not at this particular moment. It was beyond obvious that any
further confrontation would only make the situation worse, so we
stood our ground and kept silent.

In the end, it still took some swift talking
from Constance, as well as Felicity and me, to convince Ben not to
go after the lieutenant. While I doubted he would resort to
physical violence, I knew for a fact that his mouth would get him
into more trouble than he needed at this point in his life.

I can’t say that I blamed him. Albright was
deep under everyone’s skin, not just his. I even caught myself
having some intensely dark thoughts about the woman and had to
mentally back away from the ill wishes for fear I might
inadvertently manifest one or two of them. I glanced over at
Felicity and couldn’t help but notice that even at a distance, she
was systematically vivisecting the lieutenant with a razor sharp
stare. I have to admit that the intensity of her gaze made my
spiteful ruminations appear pleasant in comparison. Mandalay was
probably the calmest of our small group, but even so, almost
everything that came out of her mouth was clipped and official, no
matter to whom she was speaking.

However, what really stood out to me was the
mood of the cops working the scene. I certainly wasn’t about to
diminish how horrific this crime scene was. They were all
nightmares in the making. Still, over the past few years, I had
worked some that were far worse than this. I thought I knew what
the atmosphere should be like, and this wasn’t it. Considering that
these men and women were veterans whose experiences were sure to
overshadow mine in both volume and intensity, I was somewhat taken
aback by their overall tenor. The emotional climate in this corner
of the park had been barreling downhill since the arrival of the
first uniformed officer, and that pace had been quickening. It had
now progressed far beyond any level of edginess I would have
expected.

At first, I assumed the air of discontent was
simply due to the fact that they were working such a high profile
homicide. Let’s face it; this wasn’t Jane Q Public, this was the
daughter of the Saint Louis city mayor. There was bound to be more
than the average amount of pressure on these cops. But, as I
watched, it became clear that there was more at work here. While it
might have gone unnoticed by a casual observer, paying attention to
the various interactions between crime scene technicians and Major
Case Squad detectives told a story. And, the story was that
wherever the tension was greatest, Albright could be found at the
center, pulling the strings.

As irritants go, she was at the top of the
scale and virulent to a fault.

My concentration on the scene was shattered
by a hard nudge against my shoulder, and I broke my stare away to
glance up at my friend.

“Huh?”

“I said, c’mon,” he voiced, apparently
repeating himself. “I’m takin’ you two home.”

* * * * *

Sleep was a welcome commodity to us all,
although for me, it was nowhere near as restful as I would have
liked. Even though my conscious mind knew Felicity was safe and was
lying beside me in the bed, my subconscious had elected to unload
the emotional baggage of the past few hours.

My slumber was plagued with more than one
nondescript, but horribly intense, dream of loss and despair: each
cycle driving me upward into wakefulness, only so I could dry my
dampened cheeks on the pillowcase then roll over and repeat the
process, or so it seemed. I’m not sure how long it took before I
fell into something resembling actual sleep, but in the end, even
that was shallow and fitful. I suppose that is why I’m the one who
heard the noise.

I’m not sure which sound I heard first, the
dogs barking or the banging on the door. In either case, there was
enough racket to pluck me out of the twilight sleep I’d finally
become semi-comfortable with and deposit me face first into the
harsh world of the awake.

I opened one eye and saw that the bedroom was
dimly lit by sunlight that was forcing its way between the slats of
the closed mini blinds. I lifted my head and cast my monocular
glance in the direction of the clock and saw that it was 3:43 in
the afternoon. I closed my eye and let my head fall back onto the
pillow then listened for a moment. All I heard were the muffled
reports of various Sunday afternoon outdoor activities— children
playing, lawnmowers running in the distance, an occasional car
passing by, the usual stuff.

I struggled to think about it for a moment.
Firstly, there was nothing more than ambient noise meeting my ears.
Secondly, I really didn’t want to get up yet. And, thirdly, Ben was
in the living room. We had convinced him not to drive, since he was
surely as tired as we both were, so he had crashed on the couch. It
stood to reason that if there had been any such noises as barking
dogs and door banging, he would have heard it first and gotten up.
My foggy brain tallied the column and then decided that since I
wasn’t hearing anything now that I hadn’t actually heard anything
before.

Besides, considering the abnormally busy
expressway running between my conscious and subconscious, whatever
it was I thought I’d heard couldn’t be real anyway. It was most
likely yet another dreamlike terror come to wreak havoc upon my
already abused psyche. I’d had more than enough of that and didn’t
plan on dealing with any more, so I simply rolled over and pulled
the pillow up over my head.

I didn’t even have a chance to get
comfortable when the banging sounded again and was followed by our
doorbell ringing in a rapid staccato. The entire disorganized
symphony was underscored by the dogs wildly yapping and growling.
This time, however, there was an added thud as Ben’s feet hit the
living room floor, and I could hear him muttering something. While
I couldn’t make out the actual verbiage, I had a fairly good idea
of the content because I was considering a few expletives myself,
and I’m pretty sure they were the same ones.

“Aye,” my wife mumbled in a tired voice. “Who
do you think it is?”

“Who knows,” I muttered.

“Are you going to get up and see?” she
asked.

“Let Ben get it.”

“That would be rude. It’s not Ben’s house,
then.”

“He’s family.”

“Rowan.”

“He’s closer to the door.”

“Rowan…”

“All right, all right…” I was already moving
as I spoke the words.

I sat up on the edge of the bed and let out a
yawn as I rubbed my eyes. After a quick stretch, I slid on a pair
of pants and then pulled a t-shirt over my head as I trudged around
the end of the bed toward the door. I could hear movement and
voices out in the living room and knew that Ben had already
answered the door, so I didn’t rush.

“Listen,” I said. “He already got it.”

“Go and see who it is,” my wife mumbled as
she rolled over on her side.

“Why me and not you?”

“Because you’re already up,” she
muttered.

“Yeah,” I huffed. “Because I’m already up. Go
figure.”

I was just reaching for the door handle when
there was a hard knuckled rap on the bedroom door.

I followed through, giving the handle a twist
and then swung the wooden barrier open. As expected, I was greeted
by the disheveled countenance of my friend. His clothing was
rumpled, and his hair was protruding from his head at odd,
pillow-induced angles. He was standing there massaging his neck and
staring at me with surprisingly clear eyes. Even though his outward
appearance bespoke of recent intimacy with sleep, he was obviously
far more alert than I.

“You two better get cleaned up,” he said
simply. “Mandalay’s here. Looks like ‘Bible Barb’ wants you both
downtown.”

“C
onstance, why don’t you
go home and get some sleep, then,” Felicity said.

We were all seated in an interview room at
St. Louis City police headquarters. This wasn’t the first time I’d
been in one and probably wouldn’t be the last unless my life made a
very drastic change and dead people suddenly stopped talking to me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see that happening any time in the near
future. Still, this was a bit different. I was used to being on the
metaphorical other side of the table. Being the interviewee was yet
another new experience to add to my résumé.

We were waiting for Lieutenant Albright to
arrive and had been for better than fifteen minutes. I knew that
making us wait was nothing more than a stalling tactic intended to
set a mood. It was a blatant textbook attempt to make us nervous
and give her an upper hand. What she failed to realize was that not
only was there nothing for us to be nervous about, we were still
simply too tired to care.

“Maybe when this is over,” Mandalay returned
in a spent voice.

She was slouched in a chair, head tilted back
and eyes closed. She hadn’t had the same luxury of sleep as had we,
and in the past quarter hour, she had nodded off at least once.

“You look like hell, Constance,” I said.

“Yeah, probably,” she agreed, then chuckled.
“But have you looked in a mirror lately, Rowan?”

She was correct. We had done our best to get
ourselves together, but both Ben and I were just to the other side
of folded, spindled, and mutilated. Not the good side, mind you.
Even Felicity was showing some signs of wear around the edges, and
that was unusual when you considered that she always looked like a
perfect china doll even when she had just crawled out of bed.

The ragged FBI agent tilted her head down
with a yawn then slowly pushed herself upright in the chair. She
gave us a sleepy glance and then spoke again. “So, did you manage
to get hold of your attorney?”

“She wasn’t in,” Felicity answered. “I left
her a message though.”

“You said when you picked us up that we
weren’t being charged with anything,” I offered.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she replied. “Like I
said, she didn’t tell me what this was about. But, I’m not putting
anything past Albright. I really think your attorney should be
present for this.”

“I’m sure she’ll call as soon as she picks up
her voice mail,” Felicity offered.

“Well, until then, I’m staying,” Constance
replied.

“I know you have a law degree, Constance,” I
told her. “But wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?”

“Fuck it,” she replied. “Friends don’t let
friends get railroaded.”

“You’ve been hanging around Ben too long,” I
quipped.

She nodded. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“‘
Bout time ya’ learned ta’ speak
English,” Ben said. “I knew I’d rub off sooner or
later.”

“Wouldn’t having an attorney here just make
us look like we were trying to hide something?” my wife asked,
still dwelling on the earlier thread of the conversation.

“It doesn’t matter with this bitch,
Felicity,” Mandalay replied. “She’s got it in for you two. That’s
all there is to it.”

“Ya’know she’s prob’ly on the other side of
the window listenin’ in right now,” Ben said.

“Yeah,” Mandalay agreed. “She probably is. So
what?”

“So she prob’ly just heard ya’ call ‘er a
bitch.”

“Good,” she replied as she twisted in her
chair and looked toward the one-way glass. I watched her reflection
as she stuck out her tongue and then twisted back around to face
us. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.”

“I think you’ve made your position clear,” I
said, surprised by the somewhat juvenile display but writing it off
to her lack of sleep.