Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (14 page)

“Do what?”

I glanced at my wife and she was still
seething, so I continued with the explanation. “It’s a traditional
Irish curse. One that she’s particularly fond of using when she’s
angry.”

“Fuckin’ great,” he huffed. “Now I got a
curse on me?”

“Not exactly…” I answered. “Besides, it was
pretty mild. You don’t really need to worry until she starts
tossing in the Gaelic profanity.”

“Damnú
, I told
you to stay out of it then!” she ordered, shooting her glare my way
as she rejoined the conversation.

“Like now,” I said to Ben before casting my
own stern look at Felicity and adding, “And I told you, I don’t
think so. I’m not some little kid who can’t make decisions for
himself you know.”

“Aye, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Look
what you’ve done to yourself so far.”

“You know as well as I do that I haven’t got
any control over this.”

“Damn your eyes, but you do!” she snapped.
“You didn’t have to run off chasing a maniac in the middle of the
night!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“But it’s what
I’m
talking about, then! If I let Ben drag you
into this you’ll just do something stupid again.”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell ya,
Felicity,” Ben interjected. “I’m not gonna let it get that
far.”

“Like you think you can stop it, then?”
she chided before mumbling, “
Tá tú glan as
do mheabhair.”

“What?”

“You’re crazy,” my wife spat the general
translation.

“Maybe so, but what makes ya’ think I can’t
stop it?” he shook his head. “Look, Felicity, I wish it wasn’t
this…”

“Don’t you ‘look Felicity’ me!” She cut him
off. “We had an agreement!”

“I know,” he pleaded. “But…”

“But what?!” she demanded. “It wasn’t
convenient for you, then?
Fekking
breugadair
.”

“Jeezus, speak English will’ya’… And, no,
it’s just that…”

“Aye,
what
then? Your career is suddenly more
important than your best friend’s sanity?”

“Now dammit, you know better’n that.”

“I’m not so sure I do.”

“Oh come on, Felicity...” I tried to wedge
myself back into the dispute.

“No, Rowan.” Ben held up his hand and sharply
cut me off. “Stay out of it. This is between me and her.”

“Excuse me?!” I rejoined. “Hello? Do
you hear what you’re saying? What the hell has gotten into you two?
You’re arguing about
me
here,
so I think I have a right to voice my opinion.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. With each word,
their voices had grown louder and even more strained. Ben’s
heretofore-defensive posture was starting to lean further and
further toward the offensive. I could tell by the look on his face
that there was next to nothing holding him back. My wife’s
hammering staccato of interruptions were taking a toll on his
patience as the escalation of tempers progressed.

“So just what the hell are ya’ tryin’ ta’ say
here, Felicity?” Ben demanded.

“What is it you think I’m sayin’, then?” she
spat.

I desperately wanted to defuse the situation,
but I had no real clue how I was going to do it. My temper was
flaring just as much as theirs were, and that wasn’t going to do
any good. Thus far, every time I opened my mouth I only seemed to
stoke the fire burning beneath them, and that blaze was starting to
grow rapidly. In a very short time they’d reached a level where I
wasn’t entirely sure that they were even acknowledging my presence
in the room any longer.

It had now become plain to see that the issue
was one that was most definitely between the two of them. It was
also clear that it had festered for several months, and recent
events were simply bringing it to a head.

“Goddammit, dontcha’ think I have enough
guilt over what happened on that bridge?”

“Well if you do, then maybe you should think
about all this a bit harder then!”

The sharpness in their voices had intensified
several-fold. I had no choice but to resign myself to the fact that
we wouldn’t get anywhere until this was played out to conclusion.
Since they had drawn a bead on one another, for all intents and
purposes ignoring me, I could only watch.

“What? Ya’ think I haven’t?!”

“You’re askin’ to bring him into another
investigation, aren’t you?!”

As angry as I was at being treated like a
fifth wheel, I fought to stifle it. “Fine,” I finally muttered,
though I sincerely doubted either of them heard me. “Go ahead and
kill each other. Give me a call when you’re finished.”

With that, I pushed my chair back from the
table, placing some small, symbolic amount of distance between them
and me. Hard as it was to stay out of it, I made a half-hearted
attempt to distract myself by leafing through a cookbook that had
been holding down a sheaf of papers on one corner of the table.
However, just as I was afraid it would, the growing conflagration
won out over recipes for such things as Beef Wellington and
Broccoli-Onion-Cheese Casserole. Like a horrific train wreck that
you just can’t stop staring at, I again returned my attention to
the duel between my best friend and my soul mate.

“Felicity, will you…”

“Will I what?! Stand by quietly and let you
get my husband killed?!”

“C’mon,” he shot back. “You know that’s not
gonna happen!”

“Aye, do I?!” She widened her eyes and shook
her head. “And just what have we been discussing for the past
several months then?”

“I know exactly what we’ve been talkin’
about, and ya’ know I’m not gonna let anything happen to ‘im.”

“Just like you didn’t let anything happen to
him the last time?!”

“Dammit, you know I already blame myself for
that!”

“As well you should!”

“Screw you!”

“Like I’d give you the pleasure!”

A brief lull insinuated itself into the
argument, brought on I can only assume by the intensely personal
level of the attacks. But though it slipped suddenly in like the
eye of a hurricane, its tenure was far shorter.

“Felicity, come on,” Ben pleaded, once again
making an attempt at reasoning with her. “Rowan is my best
friend.”

She wasn’t having any of it. “You’ve an odd
way of showin’ it.”

“Listen, do you really think…”

“What I really think is that you’ve lost your
mind!”

“You know as well as I do…”

“What?! What do I know as well as you
do?!”

“I’m tryin’ to tell you…”

“Come on, then! Tell me! What is it?!”

Her relentless attacks finally brought the
roiling argument beyond the red zone it had consistently occupied.
What had started as a simmer, then progressed into a rapid boil,
now erupted like steam from a burst pipe.

“JEEZUS FUCKIN’ CHRIST, FELICITY!” Ben
shouted in exasperation. “Will’ya’ just shut up for a minute and
lemme finish?!”

At that moment, for lack of a better
description, my wife “pulled her face off.” Her tight frown and
locked jaw opened wide into what could be metaphorically pictured
as a fanged maw, allowing her own anger to explode outward.

“FINISH WHAT?! FINISH KILLING MY HUSBAND?!”
she screamed as she physically rose from her chair. “DAMMIT, BEN,
YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T DO THIS!”

“SO I BROKE THE FUCKIN’ PROMISE! DEAL WITH
IT!” he returned in the same demonstrative tone, rising from his
seat as well.

Even with the table between them, he towered
over my petite wife. They locked spiteful gazes with one another
and a tense silence slid smoothly in as if to underscore their
words.

A period of time that felt to be the greater
portion of a quarter hour, but that in reality was surely less than
a single minute, oozed by as I watched them. Even with the quiet
permeating the room, I didn’t know if the conflict was fully over.
I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be to my advantage to make
another try at interjecting my opinion—or if it would even be heard
if I did.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t by my own choice
that I interrupted the terse mood that was now blanketing the
scene. In fact, I didn’t even realize I had done so until Ben and
Felicity turned their stares away from one another and sighted them
in on me.

The first sound I noticed came as a thin,
rapid scratching that held an even and almost hypnotic rhythm.

The second sound came as the first abruptly
ended then was replaced by a rustling of paper—like the sound of a
page being flipped.

The third sound announced its presence as a
recurrence of the first, matching rhythm perfectly with the point
where it had suddenly ended.

I didn’t want to look. I already knew what I
was going to see, but I also knew that ignoring it wouldn’t make it
go away. I followed their gazes down to the tabletop and joined
them in watching as my left hand methodically defaced the pages of
the comb-bound cookbook—scribbling quickly and evenly across the
paper, moving of its own accord.

With a little concentration, focusing on the
fluid scribbling and ignoring of the preprinted words that made up
the recipes, one could make out the repetitious couplets.

Hey, hey, hey, whaddaya say!

Don’t ya know I’m dead today!

Hey everyone, I’m here to say!

I’m dead today! I’m dead today!

Gotta let Rowan come out and play!

Gotta let him do it ‘cause I’m dead
today!

I looked back up as Ben huffed out a haggard
breath and turned his gaze back to Felicity. My hand continued to
move, though it now seemed to be slowing and had begun to falter at
the end of each line. An effect, I assume, of the fact that I was
now fully aware of its activity.

In a calm voice my friend finally asked, “So,
ya’ wanna keep arguin’ about this, or do ya’ wanna help me keep ‘im
from doin’ somethin’ stupid?”

My wife kept her eyes locked with mine and
let out her own resigned sigh. “Aye…it looks like I don’t really
have a choice, then.”

The hands of the clock were firmly pressed up
against midnight when we arrived at the Saint Louis City Morgue.
Situated on Clark Avenue, the building was flanked by police
headquarters on one side, an on-ramp to Highway 40 on the other,
and across the street from the rear entrance of city hall. All in
all, the structure was less than obtrusive in appearance—simple
brick and mortar construction with nothing that would make it stand
out, architecturally at least—against the rest of the buildings in
the area. In reality, there would be nothing outwardly distinctive
about it at all if it weren’t for the small, black-on-white, block
lettered sign above the main entrance that stated simply, MEDICAL
EXAMINER.

Even though it was clearly marked, it was
easily possible for someone to drive past the building on an almost
daily basis and not even realize just exactly what it was. It
looked like nothing more than just another office building, and
even the sign above the door didn’t truly betray the fact that
inside was the final stop for those departed from this world under
suspicious circumstances. In fact, it was more than likely that the
majority of the civilian population of Saint Louis didn’t even know
that this was more that just a business office, it was the place
where bodies were dissected in search of hidden answers.

But, unlike the majority, I knew those
details all too well.

I’d been here more than once, and each time
when I had taken my leave, I’d been completely devoid of any desire
to ever return. Still, it seemed that I always ended up back here
whether I truly wanted to be or not. Even worse, it was sometimes
at my own behest.

Like right now.

It had taken a good while to talk Ben and
Felicity into allowing me to come here and view the remains of
Debbie Schaeffer. Neither of them was particularly keen on the
concept, least of all my wife, so she had taken the most convincing
by far. If that weren’t bad enough, my friend was absolutely no
help. I had been completely on my own in accomplishing the
task.

I suppose in some ways it was understandable.
For one thing, Ben was already treading on thin ice with her, and
both their tempers were only now beginning to cool as it was. Add
to that the fact that my coming into direct contact with the young
woman’s remains didn’t exactly fit with his concept of keeping me
as far removed from the investigation as possible, and there you
had it. The combination was easily more than enough to make him
unwilling to help me plead my case.

Considering the fragility of the current
truce between Felicity and he, I can’t say that I blamed him.

Not much anyway.

I might have simply given up, gone ahead
without her, and then suffered the consequences later if it hadn’t
been for one simple fact—I needed Ben in order to get into the
morgue, and his tenuous agreement with the plan was entirely
contingent upon her being present to keep an “ethereal eye” on me
just in case I started to slip.

At one point, in a failed attempt to change
his mind, I had made the mistake of again mentioning the fact that
Felicity may not be able to do anything about it whether she was
there or not. For that remark I promptly ended up working double
time, not only to win over my wife but to re-convince my friend as
well.

When all was said and done, it was already
half past eleven when we climbed into Ben’s van and made the trek
downtown. The intensity of my own stress level finally decreased a
fraction as soon as we were under way. Unfortunately, the quiet
ride also allowed for earlier forgotten nuisances to return full
force.