Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (30 page)

“You don’t think this old homeless man is the
murderer, do you now?” She searched my face with wide eyes.

“No, not at all,” I returned. “But I think he
was at the second murder scene and picked up that Bible.”

“So I guess I’m still missing something,” she
appealed. “What does having this Bible do for you?”

“Probably nothin’ in and of itself,” Ben
answered her. “Considerin’ that all of the others have been clean,
and especially since this one has been in the possession of this
bum for a week. But…” He held up a finger. “It sure as hell places
‘im at the scene, and that makes ‘im a potential witness.”

“Miz O’Brien?” The same tall uniformed
officer we had come downstairs with now injected himself into our
conversation. “We need to get your statement now.”

“Go ahead,” I urged and gave her a quick peck
on the cheek. “I’ll be here when you’re through.”

“Just have someone bring ‘er up to Homicide
when you’re done,” Ben instructed the officer then looked over at
Felicity and winked. “I’ll make sure he’s here. Oh, and by the
way…”

“Aye?”

“Lovin’ the accent.”

* * * * *

“We haven’t been able to get anything out of
him, not even a name,” the uniformed officer told us as we
approached the door to the interview room. “We already took care of
prints and pics. Booked him as a John Doe. PD’s office has been
notified, and the on-call legal beagle should be on the way.”

“So is he waitin’ for the attorney?” Ben
queried the patrolman.

“Dunno,” the young man shrugged. “He hasn’t
said much of anything except for yammering about Tracy Watson every
now and then. Mainly he just sits there and stares off into space.
There was a bottle of booze in his pocket, and he blew about two
points over the limit.”

“Great. So we got a liquored up JD runnin’
around tweakin’ television personalities tits, and he just happened
to have that Bible in ‘is pocket.”

“That about sums it up,” the officer replied.
“So I don’t know what you’re going to get out of him until he
sleeps it off.”

“You pretty sure he understood ‘is
rights?”

“He indicated that he did, but in his
condition...”

“Yeah…” Ben nodded and let out a sigh as he
gripped the doorknob and gave it a twist. “Wunnerful.”

The old man was still wearing handcuffs when
we entered. They had endeavored to clean him up to some extent, but
the telltale stain of his encounter with a large double latté was
still drying on the front of his ragged overcoat. In actuality, the
hot drink had succeeded in washing away some of the accumulated
filth from his face, and a few weathered blotches of almost clean
skin peeked through the dirt randomly. His chin was bristling with
at least a month’s worth of scraggly beard, and his grey hair was
matted and stringy.

Felicity’s comment about the old man being a
bit rank had been a kind one. In the confines of the small room,
the stench of stale urine and long fermented human sweat was almost
overpowering. The smell of decaying garbage hovered about the bum
like a halo, intermixing with the other putrid odors to form an
invisible eye-watering haze of foulness. It was a small wonder she
hadn’t picked up more of the offending scent than she had.

He didn’t even look up as Ben and I entered
the room and pressed the door shut behind us. Instead, he continued
vacantly staring at the wall through sunken, clouded eyes as he
rocked in his seat. His hands, braceleted at the wrists, were held
splayed alongside his cheeks, one finger crooked and tugging at his
lower lip. Slowly he would slide them downward, smearing a small
trickle of drool as he did so. Finally, he would press his palms
together and steeple his fingers beneath his chin for a brief
moment and then repeat the entire mannerism from the beginning.
Every now and then a soft whimper would emit through his nose.

After a moment of watching the old man, Ben
glanced over at me and cocked an eyebrow then looked back and
cleared his throat. “Whatcha watchin’ there, Pops?”

The bum absently continued his introverted
ritual and answered with nothing more than another low, nasal
whine.

My friend let out a tired sigh and reached up
to massage the back of his neck. “Sir, I’m Detective Storm and this
is Mister Gant. We’d like ta’ ask you some questions, if ya’ don’t
mind.”

A mixture of emotions was tumbling throughout
the small room, the majority of which were emanating from the old
homeless man. My empathic senses easily detected an undertone of
love and lust, stunned betrayal, pain, and confusion. As would be
expected though, primarily I felt his fear of the situation.

“Sir,” Ben spoke again while waving his free
hand in front of the man’s face, “can you hear me? Do you
understand why you’re here?”

Slowly, the bum turned his head and rolled
his clouded eyes up at the imposing figure that was Detective
Benjamin Storm. He continued to rock in place, but after a moment,
he left his hands resting on his cheeks and began working his jaw
as if to speak. Finally, after a raspy false start, he allowed his
cuffed hands to fall to the surface of the table and his face
spread into a chastened frown.

“Tracy is mad at me,” the old man muttered.
“I shoodn’t have touched Tracy. That was wrong.”

“Sir, do you understand your rights as they
were told you by the other officers?”

“Yes, I unnerstan I was wrong. Is Tracy
okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine.”

Thus far the old man had seemed relatively
lucid, though obviously not entirely sober. Ben fell silent and
held his gaze, gauging by instinct whether or not he should press
forward with more questions.

The odor of cheap bourbon and sour breath
trailed along with his words, mingling thickly with the other
unpleasant redolence. I caught myself searching the ceiling for the
non-existent exhaust fan and trying to will one to appear.

After a moment, he continued, “Sir, would you
mind answerin’ a few questions for us?”

“The other lady wuz mean,” the old man
mumbled. “She hit me. But she had pritty hair. What questions?”

“We’d like to ask you about somethin’ you had
in your pocket. A Bible.”

“Ex-oh-duss.” He nodded vigorously and
proceeded to misquote the highlighted passage. “Whiches shall not
live.”

“That’s what was bookmarked,” Ben agreed then
urged him on. “Can you remember where ya’ got the Bible?”

“It wuz on the table,” he answered.

“Can you tell me where this table was?”

“By the fire,” he returned matter-of-factly
and shrugged. The old man continued to stare at Ben as if he fully
expected the answer to make perfect sense to us. Before the obvious
next question could be asked, his face slackened, and his eyes
seemed to lose focus for a moment. Leaning forward, he began to
search Ben’s face, “Is Tracy okay?”

“I already told ya’, Miz Watson is fine,” my
friend returned impatiently. “Now can ya’ be a little more specific
about where ya’ obtained this Bible.”

“Tracy, Tracy,” the old man grinned
sheepishly and began singing, “Tracy, Tracy, I love Tracy. Tracy
with the big, big tits!”

Ben shot another glance over at me, and it
took no great skill to read the expression that had applied itself
to his chiseled features. The old bum wasn’t exactly residing in
the same plane of reality that we were. Whether or not this was
entirely due to the alcohol in his system still remained to be
seen.

“The mean lady with the pritty hair hit me,”
the bum announced. “Didyu ‘rest her too?”

“Sir...” Ben started.

“She wuz mean.” He furrowed his brow and
belched loudly. “Tracy is nice.” Again he began his off-keyed
ditty, “Tracy, Tracy, I love Tracy...”

“Sir,” Ben cut him off with a disgusted sigh,
“please concentrate on the question. Where did ya’ get the Bible we
found in your pocket?”

My friend’s voice had taken on a sharp,
biting tone that made the old man flinch and cower away. I could
easily sense that his irritation with the state of affairs was
rising and that his temper was well on its way to a minor flare at
the very least. I knew this would serve no purpose other than
driving the old man’s memory further out of our reach and decided
to break my self-imposed silence.

“You said it was on a table next to the
fire,” I volunteered in a soothing voice. “Can you tell us where
the fire was?”

The bum cautiously shifted his gaze over to
me and stared quizzically. “Fire?”

With my eyes fixed to his I spoke, keeping my
timbre light and even, almost to the point of being a dull
monotone, “Yes, you were telling us about the Bible you found on
the table.”

“On the table,” he echoed my words, nodding
slightly as he did so.

“Right.” I smiled and continued to soothe him
with my voice. “You said the table was next to a fire. Can you tell
me where the fire was?”

He, himself, having been on the receiving end
of such an impromptu hypnosis by me, Ben quickly caught on to what
I was trying to do. He immediately ceased pressing with his own
questions and fell silent. He even went so far as to back away from
the small table as if he thought he might somehow be in my way.

“The park,” the old man mumbled and blinked.
“The fire wuz in the park.”

I could feel how hard he was concentrating on
the question and in a way felt sorry for him. I knew it was just as
hard for him to make sense of his disjointed remembrances as it was
for me to cajole them to the surface. I wasn’t even sure my
expenditure of energy was going to get us anywhere, for the old man
may have seen nothing at all.

I could only hope that it wouldn’t be
fruitless because the tightening that now crept along my scalp was
a harbinger of the payment I would be doling out in the very near
future.

“Good.” I nodded and then urged calmly, “Now
can you remember anything else about the park? What did you
see?”

Wide-eyed horror slowly crept into the bum’s
face, forcing his befuddled expression aside, then finally
overtaking and replacing it entirely.

An acrid burn washed over my skin as my hairs
rose on end. Gelid fear tickled the pit of my stomach and
threatened to force its way outward through every pore on my body.
The barest glimpse of what the old man had seen that night hazily
began to form as the experience was blurted into the ethereal space
between us.

“Oh no!” he cried and began shaking his head.
“No! She’s in the fire! No!”

An image visible to only the old man and I
began to congeal and clarify, offering its testimony of the events
that were played out. I stared hard into the vision searching for
anything that would even remotely equal a clue.

Without warning, dull pain bludgeoned me with
a rock hard fist directly between the eyes as the small snippet of
that night was unceremoniously ripped from my grasp, even before I
had had the opportunity to truly view it.

I turned suddenly at the sound of the
interview room door flying open and was greeted by the image of a
beleaguered young man wielding a briefcase and a file folder. He
followed the swinging barrier hastily inward while glaring angrily
in my direction. Ben shifted quickly to the side to avoid being
creased by the heavy metal rectangle pivoting on its hinges.

“Just what the hell do you two think you are
doing?” he demanded as he waved the file between us. “Which one of
you is Detective Storm?”

“That’d be me,” Ben answered coldly. “You
are?”

Considering the current circumstances, I was
glad the man was focusing his attention on Ben. The primary thrust
of agony was now beginning to fade, but I knew something just this
side of bearable was going to be left in its wake.

“I am this man’s attorney.” If the young man
was taken aback in any way by Ben’s stature, he didn’t show it
outwardly. Instead, he turned on him as he answered the question
and spat authoritatively. “I want both of you out of here right
now.”

“Slow down.” My friend held up his hands in
mock surrender. “Your client has been Mirandized, and he agreed ta’
speak with us. ‘Sides, we aren’t even discussin’ the assault.”

“Alleged assault,” the court appointed
attorney insisted. “And my client, according to your own
department’s Breathalyzer test is legally intoxicated. I am certain
the blood test you gave him will prove that out. He is in no
condition to agree to speak with you about anything without
adequate representation present.”

“Hold on just a minute...”

“No, YOU hold on. Unless you want me to bring
the both of you and this department up on charges, I suggest you
two get out of here and let me speak to my client!”

Ben let out a resigned sigh and shook his
head. “Come on, Row. Let’s get outta here.”

I gave a gentle nod and turned toward the
open door. Before I completed a single step for the opening, the
old man’s voice met my ears in a pleading tone, “Hey, Mister.”

I stopped mid-stride, tried to ignore the
thudding in my skull, and turned back to him. As I did, the still
fuming lawyer interposed himself between us and spoke quickly, “As
your attorney I strongly advise against continuing your
conversation with these men.”

“Mister,” the old bum looked around the body
obstructing his view and appealed to me once again while shaking
his head. “Tracy shoodn’t feel bad cuz she spilt her drink on me. I
know it was uh accident. Kin you tell her for me? I doan wan’ her
ta’ feel bad.”

It wasn’t what I had hoped he was about to
tell me, but I wasn’t surprised. The sudden interruption had undone
everything I had started to accomplish, and the drunken old man had
instantly reverted back to his fantasy world.

“Sure,” I said. “Can I tell her your
name?”

“Name?” He looked back at me with a puzzled
frown.