Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (9 page)

“Fek
,” she
muttered the colloquial Irish profanity.

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed.

“How do you do it?” she asked then moaned,
still not opening her eyes.

“I wish I could answer that,” I replied. “I
just do. If it’s any consolation, I’d rather not.”

“Aspirin,” she murmured.

“Let me see if I can get you some,” I told
her as I started up from my seat.

“Purse. Side. Tin,” she told me, exaggerated
economy in her selection of verbiage.

I pulled her purse across the table and
rummaged about in the side pocket. Under any other circumstances I
wouldn’t have dreamed of sticking my hand into the carryall. As I
had told my wife countless times before, a woman’s handbag seemed
to me to be a kind of tame black hole: a place where an impossible
number of items disappeared and could only be found by the woman
who owned the receptacle in the first place. At the moment, hers
was definitely living up to that assessment.

“Left. Bottom. Yellow tin.” She offered
another set of terse instructions.

I pushed my hand deeper into the pocket and
finally managed to withdraw the sought after container of aspirin.
I sat it on the table and pushed it over to her then started
sliding out of the booth as she slitted her eyes and reached for
the tin.

“I’ll go get you some water,” I told her.

“Black Bush,” she asserted.

“No whisky with aspirin,” I replied.
“Water.”

“Black Bush,” she repeated.

“Water.”

She tossed the tin in front of her and it
bounced across the table, tablets noisily rattling around inside.
Then it slid off the edge and clattered to the floor.

“Black Bush.” This time it was a demand.

I knew exactly where she was coming from, and
I didn’t fault her a bit. The truth was that the aspirin really
wouldn’t do much good for the kind of headache she had anyway. Not
that booze was any better remedy, but it would help take the edge
off.

“Shot or rocks,” I conceded with a soft
sigh.

“Bottle,” she replied.

* * * * *

“Slow down,” I said to my wife as she drained
the tumbler and clacked it back onto the wooden table with a heavy
thunk. “That’s your second double.”

Her hand was still wrapped around the glass,
and her head was tilted back, face pointing upward to the ceiling.
She drew in a deep breath and then exhaled heavily, puffing out her
cheeks as she did so.

“Aye, but I said bottle, not double,” she
stated as she lowered her gaze down to meet mine.

“Give those a chance to work,” I told her.
“They aren’t even in your bloodstream yet.”

She frowned back at me but didn’t argue. She
slouched down in her seat, and a moment later I felt her
sneaker-clad feet slide up onto the bench next to me. She reached
up and pressed her palms against either side of her head as if she
were trying to squeeze it back into shape.

“This sucks,” she moaned.

“I know,” I replied.

I was fully aware that the words were of
little consolation, but they were the best I had to offer at the
moment. I wanted desperately to ask her about the experience. But,
she needed some time to come to terms with what had happened, so I
didn’t broach the subject.

Usually such an ethereal event came with some
manner of built-in, albeit obscure, reference to something in the
here and now—although, admittedly, mine from earlier this day had
held no such prize. Neither had the similar ones I’d suffered
through at the beginning of the year.

Patrons were starting to fill the
establishment as round one of the dinner rush came upon us. It
hadn’t reached the point of obnoxious as yet, but the noise level
was rapidly approaching that of annoying static. It didn’t seem to
be bothering Felicity, though.

“You look like shit.” Ben’s voice cut through
the hum of the growing crowd.

I looked up to see him standing over my
shoulder, his gaze locked on my wife.

“But you’re still a hell of a lot prettier
than paleface over here.” He jerked a thumb at me as he added the
comment.

A waitress sidled up to the table and shot me
a questioning look. “Do you folks need anything?”

“I’m good,” I replied.

“Black Bush, neat, double,” Felicity chimed
in.

“Felicity…” I admonished.

“All right then.” She cut me off with an
annoyed tone lacing her words. “Jamieson, neat, double.”

I shook my head and waved my hand in
surrender as I looked up at the waitress. “Give her whatever she
wants.”

“Black Bush,” my wife chirped.

The waitress craned her neck and looked up at
Ben. “How about you?”

“Beer,” Ben told her.

“We have Guinness on tap,” she offered.

“No honey.” Ben shook his head. “Beer isn’t
s’posed to be black. Bring me somethin’ in a mug that’s cold,
fizzy, and beer-colored.”

“Whatever you say.” She shook her head back
at him then before she turned and walked away, she added
rhetorically, “Do you want me to bring you a straw with that?”

“Friendly place you picked here.” Ben made
the sarcastic comment as he slid into the booth next to
Felicity.

“Aye, you’re in a pub, Ben,” my wife informed
him, still lounging in her seat. “Quit bein’ a Colleen.”

“She’s doin’ the accent,” he remarked
as he looked over at me. “The
Twilight
Zone
thing do that to her?”

“Leave me alone,” Felicity muttered.

“I’m sure it wore her out, but I think the
two double Irish whisky’s are to blame,” I replied.

“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, glancing over at her
then back to me. “She’s not gonna start talkin’ that gibberish is
she?”

“Duairc
,”
Felicity chimed.

“That answer your question?” I asked.

“She just called me a name, didn’t she?”

I shrugged. “Probably.”

“I said you’re a rude man,” she offered.

“Well, at least this time you got the gender
right.” He shook his head and looked back to me. “So explain it to
me. What’s up with the squaw doin’ the la-la land thing? I thought
that was your gig.”

“Me too,” I answered with a nod. “I’m not
sure what’s going on there myself.”

“Will you quit talking about me like I’m not
here, then,” Felicity insisted.

“Okay. Chill.” Ben jumped the tracks and
boarded another train of thought. “So what about this mornin’?
What’s up with that?”

“Again, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “The
episode was almost exactly like the ones I had back in
January.”

“You mean when you were floppin’ around like
a fish outta water when Porter was…” his voice trailed off at the
mention of the name.

“Yeah,” I acknowledged and finished the
sentence for him. “When Porter was trying to kill me.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to
dredge that up.”

“No problem. It’s not something I’ve managed
to forget yet anyhow.”

“So I thought those stopped after he was
locked up?”

“They did. Until today that is.”

Ben frowned hard and stared back at me.
Without a word, he reached to his belt and pulled out his cell
phone. After an aborted attempt, he managed to key in a number with
his thick finger and tucked the device up to his ear. I had a
feeling that I knew what he was getting ready to do, and I wasn’t
sure I wanted to know the answer he was seeking.

“Yeah, Roy?” he said after a moment. “Yeah,
it’s Ben Storm. Not much, you?… Yeah, so listen, I need a favor.
Can you check somethin’ for me? Yeah, I need status on an inmate…
No, don’t have his number, but you’ll probably remember ‘im.
Uh-huh… Name’s Eldon Andrew Porter… Yeah, thought you would… Yeah.
Not a problem. Yeah, on my cell. Great. Bye.”

As Ben ended the call, the waitress came
toward the table, expertly maneuvering through the crowd with a
drink-burdened serving tray held above her shoulder. In a practiced
motion, she swooped it down and plucked a tumbler full of whisky
from it then slid the glass in front of Felicity. Next, she placed
a pint glass of beer in front of Ben. In a reverse motion, she
hefted the platter back up to her shoulder and regarded my
friend.

“Cold, fizzy, and well, yellow-colored,” she
said, reaching with her free hand into the change pouch around her
waist and withdrawing a straw. She tossed it in front of Ben and
shot him a smile as she walked off. “Enjoy.”

“Jeez…” he muttered, shaking his head at
me.

“So you don’t really think Porter has escaped
or something do you?” I asked abruptly, the edginess in my voice
was obvious even to me.

“Don’t know,” he replied. “But we’ll know
shortly. Roy’s an old friend of mine, and he works for the Missouri
Department of Corrections.”

“But wouldn’t there have been some kind of
bulletin or alert or something if he’d escaped?” I pressed.

“Depends, Row.”

“That doesn’t make me feel very secure,
Ben.”

“Listen, Kemosabe, don’t get all worked up,”
he told me. “I’m just checkin’ to be sure. C-Y-A and all that
shit.”

“Yeah, okay.”

I knew that my tone was less than convincing.
My friend shook his head then brushed the straw out of the way and
lifted the pint of beer. After a long swallow, he rested it back on
the coaster and watched it intently as he slowly spun the
glass.

“So you said on the phone that you were
movin’ when Felicity went all la-la,” he finally said, bludgeoning
the stalled conversation in a new direction with a blunt segue.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Kind of. When she seized,
her foot slipped off the brake, and we started into the
intersection.”

“Not too fast then?”

“Not really I don’t guess.” I shrugged. “But
I still probably didn’t do the transmission any favors.”

“How so?”

“When I popped it into gear.”

“I don’t follow.”

“To stop the Jeep,” I explained. “I switched
off the key and then popped it into gear. Kind of an abrupt stop,
but it worked.”

“I thought you said you weren’t movin’ too
fast?”

“We weren’t really. Just rolling more or
less.”

“Just rollin’?”

“Yeah, why?”

He creased his forehead. “Then why didn’t ya’
just pull the emergency brake?”

I closed my eyes and hung my head in sudden
embarrassment as the mental picture of the Jeep’s center console
painted itself in my brain.

Ben looked back at me, his face spread into a
grin, and I could tell that he was already formulating a wisecrack.
Fortunately for me, his cell phone began its low warble, cutting
him off before he could utter the taunt. He motioned me to wait and
answered it. “Storm. Yeah. That was fast. Yeah. Yeah… You’re sure?
Okay, thanks, Roy. I owe you one… Uh-yeah,” my friend hesitated for
a moment before continuing, “Yeah, I’ll tell ‘er. Bye.”

A slightly pained look crept in to replace
his grin, and I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, I could tell
that it came from something other than the query about Eldon
Porter.

I raised an eyebrow and dipped my head at
him. “All good?”

“Yeah,” he replied as he fumbled to put the
cell phone back on his belt, finally giving up and dropping it on
the table in front of him. “Porter is locked away safe and sound,
preaching to all the other wingnuts in the population.”

“Great.” I frowned.

“Hey, a coupl’a minutes ago you were getting’
ready to panic on me,” he observed. “What’s up?”

“No I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, right. What’s the deal?”

“Okay, maybe I was,” I admitted. “A little.
But I guess maybe I was still just hoping for an easy explanation
to all of this.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Woulda been nice, but
look at it this way; at least he’s not on the street.”

“True. So since we’ve ruled that out, maybe
it is the Brittany Larson thing after all,” I offered with a shake
of my head, not really believing it myself. “But that wouldn’t
explain why I was having the seizures in January.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” he agreed.

I picked up my pint of Stout and took a sip
then set it back on the table. The murmur of the crowd was ramping
up to a dull roar now, and I looked out of the booth, glancing
around at the milling bodies.

Across the way, the bar itself was stacked
two deep with people waiting for drinks or simply inhabiting their
claimed bit of real estate at the polished, wooden counter. I knew
it should be approaching eight, and the band would be playing soon.
At that point, we would be unable to carry on any kind of
worthwhile conversation, not to mention the fact that I was in no
mood for singing along with drinking songs. I suspected that
Felicity no longer was either.

I scanned the wall, looking for a clock, and
my eyes came to rest on the television set perched on a shelf above
the rows of liquor bottles. I watched as a news update filled the
screen, absently taking note of the ever-changing price of
gasoline.

When the tube flickered and displayed the
picture of a twenty-something young woman inset over the shoulder
of the anchor, my heart skipped a beat. Beneath the photo was the
caption, Tamara Linwood.

Neurons fired in rapid succession, flooding
my brain with a not-so-distant memory as I stared at the
picture.

Gruesome discovery.

Badly decomposed human arm.

Shallow grave.

Body may be that of Tamara Linwood, the
grade school teacher who disappeared from the parking lot of
Westview Shopping Mall back in January…

The memory of the phantom metallic tang
tickled the back of my tongue, and I closed my eyes. I definitely
wasn’t going to call it easy, but there it was— the explanation for
at least a part of my day.

And, I was absolutely certain that I didn’t
like it.