Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (20 page)

“Yeah. That’s it,” he acknowledged, the
paused and nodded toward my absently clawing hand. “Something wrong
with your arm?”

“Trust me,” I answered. “You don’t really
want to know.”

“Anything else?” Ben queried, cutting him off
before he could comment.

“Well, the rope looks like regular utility
clothesline you can get at any hardware store. We’re gonna check it
out. The symbol on the door was spray-painted. We took samples.
That’s about it.”

“Okay, thanks.” Ben gave the tech a quick pat
on the shoulder. “Do me a favor, will ya? Check downstairs and see
if the coroner is here yet. I wanna get this body moved as soon as
possible. The uniforms can’t hold off those reporters down there
for much longer, and we really don’t need ‘er showin’ up on the ten
o’clock news.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks.”

The technicians were barely out the door when
Ben turned to me with a concerned gaze. “What’s goin’ on with the
arm? I thought it was all healed up.”

“It was,” I answered and began tugging off my
coat. “But it started itching again earlier this evening.”

“Why do ya’ think that is?”

“Well, obviously I’m being told something.
Maybe I was being warned about this murder.”

“Ahem.” Constance mimicked the earlier noise
made by the tech to grab our attention. “You guys want to fill me
in? What’s wrong with your arm, Rowan?”

“Show ‘er, white man,” Ben told me.

He held my coat and jacket for me after I
wrestled out of them, and I proceeded to unbutton my cuff and roll
back the shirtsleeve. There was no blood soaking through the
fabric, so it apparently had not yet progressed as far as it had
the last time.

Agent Mandalay stepped closer to have a look
as I finished peeling back the material and turned my forearm
upward to bring it into view. The faint pink scar of the original
wound was barely visible as a pale outline against my brightly
flushed skin. The flesh of my forearm was hot and already beginning
to take on shades of purple and blue as the unseen force bruised
me. On the surface of my arm was a raised circular welt
encompassing a large X bisected by a large P.

“Christ, Rowan!” Constance exclaimed as she
reached out and gingerly touched my arm. “How in the world did that
happen?”

“You shoulda seen the first one,” Ben
interjected.

“I think it’s a sign from the other side,” I
told her as I reached up and started to dig my nails in for a
blissful scratch.

“Don’t,” she admonished and grabbed my wrist.
“You’ll just make it worse. What do you mean a sign from the other
side? I thought you saw things in visions or something?”

“I do,” I explained. “But communication from
an ethereal plane can take different forms. I think someone is
trying to tell me something, and I just haven’t figured out what,
so they are getting a little insistent.”

“Damn, Rowan,” she muttered. “You’re like
something out of a horror movie.”

The door to the balcony was still hanging
wide open, and the temperature inside the room was spiraling toward
equilibrium with the frigid night. Outside, a thumping echo sounded
rhythmically in the distance. I realized as we were standing there
that I was beginning to shiver.

“Guys,” I said between teeth that were
starting to chatter. “It’s getting a little on the chilly side.
Mind if I put my coat back on?”

“Wait a minute,” Ben insisted. “Look at your
arm again. Does it look a little strange to you?”

“I think that’s already been established,
Storm,” Constance told him in a sardonic voice.

“No, I mean look at the symbol,” he huffed in
exasperation and directed our gaze with his finger. “It’s like a
twin image or somethin’.”

“Twin image?” I asked.

I was so intent on what Ben was trying to
point out that I scarcely noticed that the reverberating clamor
outside had grown louder.

“You ever seen a coin that’s been
double-struck?” he asked. “Like that. One image overlappin’ the
other.”

“He’s right,” Constance agreed. “Look.”

Upon closer inspection, I could see exactly
what Ben was trying to say. The welts that formed the itching
Monogram of Christ on my arm were offset slightly over another
similar set. The blemish was carefully enjoined to scribe two
circles encompassing a matched pair of X’s bisected by P’s.

“Whaddaya think that’s s’posed ta’ mean?” Ben
queried.

I didn’t get a chance to answer him. Just as
I opened my mouth to speak, a violent rush of wind and icy snow
blasted through the open sliding door. Outside, amid a thunderous
din, the light of a small sun was born into the chilled
darkness.

“S
onofabitch! Goddammit!”
Ben exclaimed at the top of his lungs. “That’s gotta be
Street!”

Special Agent Mandalay and I could barely
hear him over the cacophonous racket of the news helicopter
hovering a frighteningly short distance from the balcony. We were
all half-blinded by both the screaming wind and blazing spotlight,
and I knew he could no more see into the aircraft than I could.
However, if the Eyewitness News logo emblazoned across the side of
the Bell JetRanger was any indication of the machine’s occupants,
his intuitive guess was most likely correct.

I scooped up my coat from where he had
allowed it to drop and quickly pulled it on as I made my way to the
door. Ben had already barreled through the opening with Constance
close on his heels and was now fighting to hold down the sheet that
had earlier been placed over the still hanging corpse. By the time
I pushed myself out onto the balcony to help him, Agent Mandalay
was stiffly holding her ID forward in plain view and making angry
motions with her free arm—vigorously indicating without any
ambiguity whatsoever that the aircraft was to leave immediately if
not sooner. The hostile bite of the manmade gale tore through my
unzipped coat and buffeted the three of us wildly as it continued
kicking up a cloud of snow from the overhanging watershed dormers.
The intense spotlight burned across the balcony in a harsh
antiseptic beam, starkly illuminating everything in sight, even the
shadows. I was forced to squint and turn my head away from the
glare while fighting to keep my side of the sheet pulled taut
through the wrought iron railing.

By now, the raucous event had attracted one
of the uniformed officers that had been guarding the door to the
apartment, and he burst out onto the balcony.

“Get on the goddamned radio and call it in!”
Ben screamed back at him over the maelstrom. “I want everyone on
that chopper in handcuffs the minute it touches down!”

The officer gave him an animated nod to the
affirmative and shot back through the door. A frigid zephyr
suddenly tore upward and billowed out the sheet, threatening to
rend it from my grasp. I hunched down and entwined my fist in the
fabric, holding on so tight I could feel my fingernails biting into
my palm.

“GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” Agent Mandalay’s
shrill demand sliced through the cacophonous thudding to reach my
ears as she continued to wave her free arm furiously.

Obviously, there was no way the pilot could
have heard her command, but it was at this moment, he apparently
elected to obey her pointed gesticulations. Either that, or someone
elsewhere had told him it was time to go.

The brilliant spotlight suddenly switched
off, and the pitch of the hovering craft’s engine rose with a
rapidly increasing whine. Still seeing multi-colored spots before
my eyes, I watched as the helicopter smoothly nosed forward then
canted to the side and sped off and upward across the thickly
clouded night sky.

I slowly began relaxing my grip on the sheet
as I watched the winking, red and blue anti-collision lights of the
craft shrink in the distance. My friend was staring after it as
well, his face grim and temper seething. His heated glare was a
textbook example of looks that could kill, and I was more than
relieved that it wasn’t aimed in my direction.

“DAMMIT!” Ben exclaimed and hammered the heel
of his fist against the top of the iron railing in a frustrated
release of anger. “I just don’t believe that bitch!”

Constance was standing next to me on the
other side, and I noticed that she had traded her badge for her
cell phone. She held the device pressed tightly against her ear as
she pushed her ruined hairdo from her eyes with her free hand.

“Yes, FAA?” she began speaking, “This is
Special Agent Constance Mandalay with the FBI, Saint Louis field
office. My badge number is nine-five-seven-four-dash-three-six-six.
I need to speak with someone regarding an airspace
violation...”

* * * * *

“I shouldn’t even hazard a guess at a time of
death before I get an internal temperature,” Doctor Sanders
informed Ben and Constance. “Not with her being exposed to the
elements unprotected like that.”

“I can understand that, Doc,” Ben returned,
“but if you can ballpark it, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Well,” she replied, “I can tell you this
much. The wounds on her back and abdomen appear recent, and the
bruising would indicate that she was alive when they were made.
She’s definitely not completely frozen yet...”

I was standing across the room next to the
gurney containing the woman’s body. I followed along distractedly
with the banter between the coroner and the two law enforcement
officers. Hearing, but not really listening to what was being
said.

The sliding doors leading out to the balcony
were now shut, and the temperature in the room was returning to
something more bearable. While Doctor Sanders and her assistant
were moving the corpse, I had mechanically removed my coat and
unrolled my sleeve then slipped back into my tweed jacket.

Ben had turned up the volume slightly on the
television when the Saturday night movie had been interrupted for a
breaking news update. Brandee Street, her cameraman, and the pilot
had been arrested all right—but not before getting the morbid video
into the station’s hands. Even through the overblown colors of the
malfunctioning set, you could easily make out Ben, Constance and me
on the balcony of the apartment. We had fought a desperate fight,
but in the end the sheet had fluttered enough to give at least a
partial view of the woman’s nude remains.

We all stared silently at the picture as the
talking heads behind the anchor desk identified us each in
succession. It was all we could do to stifle disgusted sighs as
they proceeded to tag us with a sensationalized nickname. A moniker
that would unfortunately not only stick for some time to come but
was also picked up immediately by every other station and newspaper
in the bi-state area. We had been christened “The Ghoul Squad.”

The welts on my arm had continued growing,
and my flesh was dappled with the full spectrum of colors normally
associated with bruises—and a few unrelated shades as well. The
itching was growing fiercer by the moment, and each time I tried to
tend it, I would wince at the soreness my fingers awakened. I knew
it was only a matter of time before the welts would turn into
bleeding lacerations. Whoever was trying to get my attention
definitely had it. Apparently, I just didn’t comprehend the
message.

I stood, looking down at the shrouded body.
The earlier emotions that had welled up inside me fought to return
and I let them. I had never known this woman, but the sense of loss
overwhelmed me as I stared mutely at her covered remains. My nose
tingled with an acidic burn for a brief moment, and a single watery
tear crawled from the corner of my eye to begin rolling across my
wind-ravaged cheek.

“...at my office.” Agent Mandalay was
speaking now. “If there’s anything you need, I can get it rushed
through the lab in Washington.”

“I appreciate the offer,” Doctor Sanders
replied. “I’ll be certain to call you if...”

I ignored the snippet of the conversation
that had intruded on my sorrowful introspection. While they
continued to talk, I knelt next to the gurney and then carefully
pulled back the sheet and tugged down the zipper on the body bag.
Absently I reached over to claw at my savagely itching arm, and the
stiletto of pain that shot up to my shoulder reminded me of why I
hadn’t done it sooner. I flinched and pulled my hand away then
continued to quietly stare at the young woman’s lifeless face.

Sheryl Keeven’s strawberry-blonde hair was
tousled about her head in a tangled halo, whipped there by the wind
and elements. The thin poly-cotton cord was still snugged about her
neck, visible against the blotchy contusions that surrounded it. I
visually counted the loops in the slipknot. Then I counted them
again. Both times the total ended in thirteen.

A hangman’s noose.

Her features were a grotesque mask of fear
and pain, sculpted in life and frozen in death. Her eyes were
locked open in an endless stare, showing the glassy, bloodshot
whites where they had rolled upward. Gummy tape residue still
surrounded her mouth. The wide swatch of silver duct tape that had
once been there had eventually come loose but was still
precariously attached by one small corner. The same kind of tape
had been used to make several revolutions around her wrists. Her
now exposed lips were parted to reveal the bulbous purple mass of
her swollen tongue as it forced its way between them.

She had asphyxiated.

She had strangled to death while suspended by
the neck with her arms bound behind her back. Hanging was simply
another of the favored methods of execution used during the
Inquisition. Its effectiveness had not waned over the years.

I closed my eyes, and the scene flashed
haphazardly through my mind. I could see her struggling.