Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (41 page)

Locked.

The panic subsided slightly at the discovery,
and I let my sweat covered palm fall away. Apparently the lock had
not been tampered with, and the rear of the house was still secure.
Now, since I didn’t carry a key to the back door, my only course of
action would be to enter the house from the front.

I turned to head in that direction and was
immediately blinded by a stringent beam of light that I would later
discover had emanated from the business end of a ridiculously
powerful Mag-Lite.

A voice barked angrily in the darkness,
“POLICE! DON’T MOVE AND KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!”

* * * * *

Flicking tufts of fur could be seen hanging
just below the exposed rafters of our living room ceiling. Dickens,
Emily, and Salinger each had taken a position on the wooden beams
to watch the proceedings below as police officers and crime scene
technicians went in and out of the house. Every now and then, one
of the felines would dip a whiskered face down alongside its perch
and inspect the goings on in the dining room. It was obvious that
they weren’t at all pleased with the intrusion into their
territory.

The dogs had been far worse in that regard
until they had been temporarily banished to the bedroom. At least
they had finally given up on the incessant barking.

“Go ahead, Ben,” I told my friend. “Yell or
something.”

“What for?” he asked in a dull monotone.

“Because that’s what you do,” I answered.
“It’s how you deal with people who screw up. I screwed up.”

He had arrived hot on the heels of the
uniformed Briarwood officers who had been first on the scene. They
were in the process of verifying my ID when his van fishtailed to a
halt in front of my house, a magnetic bubble light on the corner of
its roof casting evenly spaced red flickers across the faces of my
neighbors homes.

Now, as we spoke, the Crime Scene Unit was
gathering what little evidence they could from my defaced garage
door. A thorough inspection of the house had revealed nothing to
indicate that the perpetrator of the painting ever made it inside,
or even tried to for that matter.

“I’m not gonna yell,” he replied with a tired
sigh. “I’ve discovered it doesn’t do any good with you. You aren’t
scared of me.”

I didn’t say anything else. I simply took a
sip of my coffee then held the cup cradled in my hands. Felicity
and Austin had returned and were positioned around the dining room
table with me. They remained silent as well.

When Felicity had returned, she jumped from
the Jeep and hit the ground in full motion the moment she saw me
standing in the driveway with Ben and the other officers. She
slammed into me with all the force her petite frame could muster
while running in a long, far less than billowing, wool skirt. She
had clenched her arms around me, and the very first thing she said
was, “For as long as you live Rowan Linden Gant you NEVER ask me to
do something like that again, or I’ll make you wish you
hadn’t.”

I knew she meant it.

Ben leaned against the wall then neatly
folded his arms across his chest and eyed me calmly. “So what
exactly were ya’ plannin’ ta’ do if that asshole had been in the
house?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted with an
embarrassed shrug.

“Good plan.” He added a raised eyebrow and
quick nod of his head to underscore the sarcastic statement.

“I know… I screwed up.”

“Yeah, ya’ did,” he agreed. “You started by
gettin’ here before eleven, which I specifically told ya’ not ta’
do. Both of ya’. If you’d just stuck ta’ the damn schedule, I
woulda been here already. Now other than that, ya’ did great right
up until you got outta the Jeep.”

“Yeah. I know,” I conceded.

“You entered a potentially dangerous scene
unarmed and completely unprepared. It’s beyond me what ya’ were
thinkin’.”

“I was thinking this guy needs to be
stopped.”

“Yeah, I can agree with that. But just how
did ya’ think you were gonna do it?”

“I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

“Jeez, Rowan,” he exclaimed. “Whatever’s got
ya’ all outta whack on the hocus-pocus stuff must be affectin’ your
judgment too. What ya’ did was just plain stupid!”

My friend fell silent and studied me from
across the room. I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but
the glassy shimmer in his eyes told me that he was wrestling with
something that was going to involve a serious decision.

“You’d do it again, wouldn’t ya’?” he finally
asked.

I pondered the question with a frown and
after a moment doled out the truth, “Given the circumstances, yes,
I probably would.”

“Storm?” A deeply timbered voice vied for
attention from the kitchen doorway.

“Yeah, Murv, whatcha got?” Ben turned to the
head crime scene technician.

“A lot of nothin’,” the man drawled. “No
prints, no fibers, no nothin’. Looks like whoever it was just did
the spray job and beat feet… And they apparently did that entirely
on solid ground ‘cause there’s not a fresh imprint in the snow
anywhere around this house.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

The CSU tech shrugged. “Got samples of the
paint for the lab, not that I’m expecting much.”

“Great, thanks,” Ben told him. “Why don’t you
and your team go ahead and wrap it up.”

“Will do.”

“Austin?” Ben directed himself at my
brother-in-law.

“Aye?”

“Can you hang out for a bit and keep Felicity
company?”

“Aye, no problem that.”

“Good. Come on, Rowan, let’s you an’ me take
a walk.”

* * * * *

“This,” Ben told me, “is a Glock
Seventeen.”

We were standing on the street at the back of
his decrepit looking Chevrolet van. The doors were splayed open,
and he had just withdrawn his large hand from a gym bag. In his
palm was a sturdy black holster filled with the handgun he was now
describing.

“Austrian designed, mounted on a lightweight,
high impact plastic frame,” he continued as he unsnapped the
holster and withdrew the firearm. “Magazine releases here.”

He held the pistol out into the glow of the
streetlamp with the muzzle pointed at the ground and displayed the
grip to me. Using his thumb he pressed the release and slid the
magazine out with his other hand.

“Ben…” I started to object as I realized
where this was heading.

“Shut up and learn.” He cut me off succinctly
and then began indicating points on the weapon with his index
finger. “Sights are here and here. This is a semi-automatic, and
the firing pin is fully enclosed here, so there’s no hammer like on
your revolver. The slide is spring-loaded and it’s actuated each
time you fire, so keep your thumb down and out of its way, or it’ll
take a chunk outta it. Guaranteed. There’s a safety here. You
depress it automatically when ya’ squeeze the trigger, so the only
thing it’s good for is keepin’ it from firin’ if ya’ drop it.
Follow me so far?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“This is a high capacity magazine.” He held
up the oblong rectangle for me to view. “It holds seventeen
nine-millimeter rounds.” He turned the magazine at an angle to
display the blue nosed bullets it carried. “These are Glaser Safety
Slugs. They’re eighty-grain rounds with number twelve shot
suspended in Teflon gel. They’re specifically designed to frag on
impact and not ricochet. This does two things. One, ya’ don’t send
a wild round through the wall and kill your neighbor. Two, they
make a very nasty mess of soft targets. If you hit ‘im you’ll fuck
‘im up. Guaranteed.”

He turned the magazine back on its side and
made a show of sliding it into the bottom of the grip. “Mag goes
here, just slide it in till it locks.” The telltale snap of the
catch taking hold punctuated his instruction. “Pull the slide back,
let it go, and it’s ready to rock.”

Ben jacked the metal slide on the weapon
backwards as he stated the instruction then released it. With a
quick mechanical snap and a metallic ping, a shell was extracted
from the magazine and chambered. He lifted the Glock and continued
his demonstration.

“Hold it firmly, cup your left hand and press
the knuckles of your right hand into your left palm. Extend your
arms and pull back with your left while pressin’ forward with your
right. Use equal pressure and ya’ get a stable firin’ position. No
stupid TV bullshit or anything. Hold it upright and use both hands.
Sight down the barrel just like you would with your revolver and
squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it.

“If it misfires or jams, don’t panic. Just
turn it on its side and repeat what I just showed you. Just rack it
and return to the firing position. Got it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

Ben carefully slid the sidearm back into the
nylon holster and snapped the loop over the grip before handing it
to me. “I want that on your belt at all times. Any questions?”

I could smell the pungent odor of solvent and
light oil wafting from the handgun as I hefted it. It had obviously
been very recently cleaned. This told me that Ben hadn’t made this
decision on the spur of the moment as I had originally believed.
There had been serious thought involved, and he had intended to arm
me even before the incident tonight. Still, I wasn’t sure how
comfortable I was with the idea.

“Are you sure I need this, Ben? We’ve got the
Ruger in the house.” I referred to the .357 magnum revolver Ben had
convinced us to purchase some years ago for the purpose of home
protection. At that time, he had put both Felicity and I through a
much less abbreviated version of what he had just finished.

“This one is easier ta’ conceal and no
offense, white man, but Felicity is a hell of a lot better shot
with that revolver than you are. This one has almost three times as
many rounds, so maybe you can hit somethin’ for once, which reminds
me—this gun has a little quirk. The first two rounds out of it’ll
be about six inches low, but don’t worry about that. Just aim it
dead-on for center mass, and keep pullin’ the trigger. When it’s
empty, the breach’ll lock open.”

“Aren’t your colleagues going to wonder why
I’m carrying a pistol?” I made another appeal.

“Wear a coat and don’t go through any metal
detectors and they’ll never know.”

“Let me rephrase that, Ben. You know I’m not
licensed to carry this.”

“Yeah, so?”

“A little technicality called breaking the
law?”

“Better judged by twelve than carried by six,
paleface.”

“I’m still not so sure about this…”

“Look, Row, I can’t be with ya’ twenty-four
hours a day, and ta’ be honest, I just don’t trust you not to pull
another stunt like ya’ did tonight.” He levered the doors on the
van shut as I sidestepped out of the way. “Just indulge me. Put the
damn thing on your belt and don’t let me catch ya’ without it until
this is all over.”

“Okay,” I surrendered. “But I won’t guarantee
that I’ll use it.”

“Trust me, Kemosabe. I hope like hell ya’
don’t ever have to make that decision. If I can help it, ya’
won’t.”

In the resulting quiet my friend pulled a
pair of stubby Chateaus out of his pocket and offered one to me. He
proceeded to slip his cigar out of its cellophane wrapper, and with
a quick snip he trimmed the end. Borrowing his guillotine, I
followed suit.

After lighting the tight roll of tobacco and
giving the glowing tip a cursory inspection, he tucked it in the
corner of his mouth and puffed.

“So fill me in,” he said between clenched
teeth. “What’s the scoop with Rev. 21:8?”

“Book of Revelation, chapter twenty-one,
verse eight,” I told him as I finished igniting my own smoke. “But
the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers,
and whoremongers, and sorcerers,” I stressed the word sorcerers,
“and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second
death.”

“Second death?”

“The proverbial afterlife, Ben. I think maybe
since he couldn’t kill me tonight, he just wanted to make sure I
know that I’m going to burn in hell.”

* * * * *

Austin was supposed to be leaving to return
to Ireland the next morning and had reluctantly departed our home
somewhere around one a.m.; but only after we had spent a solid hour
convincing him there was nothing he could do. We still weren’t sure
whether or not he was going to cancel his flight.

Neither Felicity nor I had come down from our
adrenalin highs, so after a fitful try at sleep we elected to sit
up with Ben.

It was 4:30 in the morning, and the deep fold
of darkness had yet to lighten when he and Felicity came out the
back door in search of me. My friend had been maintaining his
caffeine buzz with one cup of java after another, and I was
supposed to be brewing a fresh pot of the fuel. Unfortunately,
somewhere in that process, time had suddenly segmented itself and
fallen away from my reality. A void now occupied the space in my
mind between then and now. I was barely conscious of standing
coatless in the cold air, shivering as it chilled me through.

“Rowan, honey, what are you doing out here?
What’s wrong?” My wife’s concerned voice was the first to meet my
ears.

“Dammit, white man,” Ben’s words followed
close behind. “You scared the hell outta us.”

Their voices prodded me from my catatonia,
and I broke my locked gaze from the inscription gracing my garage
door. As their thick words formed coherence in my sluggish brain, I
slowly turned to them.

“What’re ya’ doin’ out here by yourself?” my
friend pressed.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered.

Felicity let out a sudden gasp then gently
grabbed my hand and pulled my arm farther into the light.