Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (29 page)

“Unfortunately, yes,” I agreed.

“You’re right, it would explain the change in
his pattern and definitely the sudden escalation,” Agent Mandalay
remarked from behind me. “If he feels that he’s losing control,
another spree could be just around the corner.”

“Great,” Detective Deckert muttered
sarcastically then appealed, “Just how long is this crackpot’s
list?”

“Depends on how many names the previous
victims gave him. And like I said, it just keeps growing,” I
offered the detail in answer. “Your guess is as good as anyone’s.
There is quite a large Pagan community in Saint Louis whether you
know it or not. Just using myself as an example, while I certainly
don’t know every Witch in Saint Louis, I could probably name
twenty-five without even thinking hard. If pressed, I might be able
to give you a hundred. I’m sure Brianna, Kendra and Sheryl could
have done the same.

“On that note, however, I would like to
mention something else. I have made my case for the fact that this
guy is after Witches or anyone he perceives to be one. As you know,
last night, he deviated from that pattern when he killed Robert
Webster. Now based on the facts at hand, I think we can all agree
that Mister Webster was NOT on the list, especially since the
Kristine Webster he was supposed to have gone after is unmarried.
That would mean his death was purely unplanned, at least as far as
the pattern has been established. Now unless I grossly
misinterpreted the scene, I believe the killer is feeling some
pretty heavy remorse over this.”

“Enough to make him stop killing?” a voice
asked.

“I think so. Not for long, mind you,” I
returned. “But, yes, I do feel that it might buy us a short
reprieve. I would suggest we find him before he gets over it,
however. I’m no psychologist, but I have a bad feeling that he is
going to turn this guilt into anger and blame. When he does, I’m
betting the blame will end up on the heads of Witches and Wiccans,
and like Agent Mandalay said, another spree could be just around
the corner. Maybe even worse than last night if he…”

Across the squad room the glass-paned door
swung open, and a young, uniformed officer poked his head through.
“Excuse me, Detective Storm?”

“Yeah, whatcha’ need?” Ben looked up and
across at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he proceeded, “but a
unit just came in with an old bum they popped for an assault, and,
well... I think you should come down and have a look.”

“What for?” Ben shot him an impatient
frown.

“Well, when they searched him they found a
Bible in his pocket with a passage highlighted.”

“What was the passage?” I asked.

“Exodus, twenty-two-eighteen.”

Stunned silence layered itself across the
room in an almost stifling fog. Colors bloomed and flashed in a
sparkling fireworks display that rained outward in slow motion. A
distant ethereal scream shattered my ears.

Liquid fire rushes down my throat.

I cannot scream.

The pain is piercing my very soul.

Why doesn’t someone help me?

The colors had begun to spiral back into
themselves, and the imagined silence breaking shriek was fading
steadily. I clung to the vision a moment longer, fearing it
intensely, yet knowing that it had been triggered for a reason.

I’m floating.

Flames lick at me from below.

I cannot feel them.

I CAN feel them.

I still cannot scream.

Something... Someone... A movement in the
darkness.

An old man.

Stumbling.

Sudden horror in his eyes

Flames lick at me from below.

Chroma, hue and sound completed their sudden
wild pinwheel through the fold of the room and settled back to an
even tone. The bloom faded and normalcy once again prevailed. The
jangle of ringing phones filtered into my ears as if they had never
been absent. I knew my brief excursion into another realm had been
just that. Brief. I doubted anyone noticed other than myself.

“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live,” I
recited aloud then glanced back at Ben. “I knew there should have
been a Bible at the second scene... That has to be it... He was
there...”

“Jeezus,” Ben muttered under his breath.

“Son of a bitch,” Deckert echoed behind
him.

“And by the way, Mister Gant,” the uniformed
officer added. “There’s a woman downstairs asking for you. Pretty
redhead about so tall.” He held his hand up to illustrate. “Say’s
she’s your wife. Seems she’s the one who tackled the guy and sat on
him until the squad car arrived.”

“S
o you picked this guy up
on an assault?” Ben asked the arresting officers.

He, a pair of uniformed patrolmen, and I were
making our way to the lower level of the station via seemingly
endless flights of stairs. Detective Deckert and Agent Mandalay had
remained behind with the rest of the Major Case Squad to go over
the facts of the cases so far and see if they could brainstorm any
fresh ideas.

“Yeah,” one of the uniformed men returned. He
was among a small number of individuals I had met in my lifetime
who was tall enough to look Ben straight in the eyes. “You know
Tracy Watson? The meteorologist over at Channel Five with the
big...” He made an exaggerated cupping motion at his chest with his
large hands.

“Yeah,” Ben chuckled lightly. “The big
ratings boosters for the male demographic ages thirteen to still
breathin’. She the one makin’ the complaint?”

“Yeah,” the officer returned. “Seems this old
dude just ran up to her as she was coming out of a coffee house. He
started screaming ‘Tracy I love you’ and then grabbed himself a
couple of handfuls.”

“You mean?...” Ben pawed at the empty space
in front of him and allowed the question to hang in the air.

The younger, shorter cop nodded, “Yeah. Guess
he wanted to find out if they were real. Lucky bastard.”

“Looks like he got more than he bargained for
though,” the tall officer snickered. “Ended up with a nice, hot
double latté in his face and a psychotic little redhead with her
knee in his back. I mean to tell you, she’s a smokin’ little number
herself, but I feel sorry for the asshole that’s married to that
one if he ever pisses her off.”

The young cop’s face spread into a wicked
grin. As he shot a glance back over his shoulder, he began
fervently nodding. “Yeah, but you know what they say about
redheads. If she’s got that kind of energy in the bedroom then I
wouldn’t mind getting some time with her. Know what I mean? I’ll
bet she could...”

“Fortunately,” I interjected before he could
continue to dig the hole any deeper, “it’s been my experience that
she doesn’t get quite that pissed off very easily...but I do try to
avoid doing it anyway.”

All forward motion abruptly ceased and both
of the uniformed men swiveled their heads back to look at me. The
stairwell fell silent except for the fading echoes of our
footsteps.

“That’s right.” I bobbed my head. “I’m the
‘asshole’ that’s married to her.”

The cop who had been about to regale us with
his lurid fantasy about my wife flushed through varying shades of
red, ending at a particularly bright crimson. Slowly, his jaw began
working up and down, and he started to stammer, “Well... I, ummm...
I... Well... I didn’t mean any offense, Mister Gant…”

“None taken at this point, but it
wouldn’t bother me if we changed the subject slightly.” I smiled
back. “But regarding that ‘getting her pissed off’ thing—I’d advise
against letting
her
hear your
thoughts about what you want to do with her in the bedroom. I’ve
never been on the receiving end, but based on what I’ve witnessed I
happen to know she has a pretty quick knee.”

Ben grinned at the stuttering cop and clapped
him on the shoulder with a massive hand as we started downward once
again. “Open mouth, insert foot, huh, Carter?”

* * * * *

“Taking out a few aggressions, sweetheart?” I
asked as I planted a light kiss on Felicity’s forehead and gave her
a quick hug. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She returned the squeeze. “Still
a bit of adrenalin jitters, but I’m okay. Surely I feel like I
could do with a shower. That old man was pretty rank.” She released
her grip on me and then leaned back. Out of habit, she reached over
and straightened my visitors badge while she spoke, “I wasn’t
exactly expecting this much excitement today. I suppose that will
teach me not to be going out for coffee when we break then.”

“Wrong place, wrong time, eh?”

“Aye, depends. I suppose Ms. Watson would
consider it fortunate I was badly in need of a caffeine fix.”

I leaned in again and made a show of sniffing
her hair. She hadn’t really picked up too much of the old man’s
malodorous bouquet, and what she had was primarily on her jacket,
but I played along anyway. “Yeah, I think you’re right about the
shower. A date with some soap and water probably wouldn’t hurt
you.”

“Aye, and you’re askin’ for it today, aren’t
you then, Mister Gant?”

My petite wife’s voice still held a definite
Irish lilt, obvious and musical, though not entirely as strong as
it had been the night before. Her speech pattern was woven of a
rich tapestry of Celtic design and probably would be for the week
to come—the audible results of an evening with her family and her
encounter with the whiskey.

Her hair was pulled back in a loose French
braid that poured down her back in an auburn stream, and she was
casually dressed in a pair of jeans and a denim shirt. Her waist
length leather jacket was hanging open, and her matching gloves
peeked out of a pocket in the insulated lining. She looked up at me
with tired green eyes as she brushed a fugitive strand of her fiery
mane from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Even slightly
disheveled she was absolutely gorgeous.

“I’m only kidding and you know it.” I
grinned. “I don’t think much rubbed off on you, although you’ll
probably want to get your jacket cleaned.”

She nodded in agreement. “Aye, I was thinkin’
just that.”

“How’s the hangover?” I questioned.

“Gone for the moment. Well not so much gone
but at least forgotten. I still surely feel like I need some real
sleep then,” she expressed and absently began to chew at her lower
lip. “Row, about last night...”

“Forget it,” I told her before she could
continue. “You were upset and rightfully so... I should have
realized you would be feeling what I was going through, especially
considering that it has happened before... I just wasn’t
thinking.”

She stared past me into the distance for a
moment, continuing to gnaw at her lip, then returned her gaze to
mine. “I just don’t want you to shut me out then. Even if you think
you’re protecting me. We both know that won’t work, and it will
just cause problems for us in the long run. Better you let me face
it with you... Still, I shouldn’t have been such a mess when you
arrived home.” She sighed heavily. “Not exactly very supportive of
me now, was it then? And if you had actually ended up going to a
hospital or something...”

I detected a slight catch in her voice as it
trailed off, and I knew she was choking back a tear. As my lovely
wife would tend to do, I knew that inside she was unnecessarily
beating herself up over something she couldn’t change.

I reassured her with another tight squeeze.
“Ssshhh. Don’t worry about it. That’s all over and done with. I
know I’ve been keeping you at a distance on this.” I paused for a
moment to collect my own thoughts before letting out my own tired
sigh. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been very good about staying
grounded myself, and I think that might be affecting me. The whole
idea of what this guy is doing has me kind of rattled.”

“And it should.” Felicity nodded. “But you’re
just one man, and you can’t be taking the responsibility of
stopping him on yourself alone.”

“It’s my nature, Felicity.”

“Aye,” she nodded again. “And
it’s
my
nature to change that
about you, Rowan.”

“
There she is!” Ben’s voice interrupted
as he sidled up to us. “The Red-Haired Terror of Cole
Street.”

“So I’m an urban legend, am I now?” Felicity
forced a light chuckle as she pulled back from me and quickly
whisked away an escaped teardrop from the corner of her eye.

Ben tactfully ignored the motion and threw me
a quick glance. I simply nodded and smiled.

“That’s what I’m hearin’ from the witnesses,”
he answered as he gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “You okay? You
don’t smell so good.”

“Aye, not you too?” She rolled her eyes at
him and smiled. “And yes, I’m fine. I swear, everyone has been
acting like I just single-handedly captured someone from the FBI’s
Ten Most Wanted list or something.”

“She doesn’t know?” Ben looked over at me
questioningly.

“No.” I shook my head. “Hadn’t gotten that
far yet.”

“Know what, you guys?” She swung her glance
back and forth between us. “And just what would you two be talking
about?”

“Well,” he began, “the bum you tackled might
not’ve been on the Ten Most Wanted list, but he had somethin’ in
his pocket that we’ve been lookin’ for.”

“What?” she asked. “Come on now. Out with
it.”

“A Bible,” I told her.

“Okay...” She looked at me and shook her head
slightly, while giving me one of her trademark ‘so what?’ shrugs.
“And?”

“Part of the killer’s M.O. has been ta’ leave
behind a Bible with a verse highlighted and bookmarked,” Ben
explained.

“Except for the second scene,” I continued
for him. “There wasn’t one, and it’s been eating away at me ever
since that day. It looks like the Bible this guy had in his pocket
may very well be the one that was missing.”