Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (8 page)

The earlier fog that had been ruthlessly
shrouding my brain had apparently lifted, though a dull ache still
persisted in the back of my head. I knew from past experience that
this wasn’t a good sign at all.

It was obvious to me that I was somehow
connected to this crime. Ben had already verified for me that the
victim was in fact a woman and that her name was Paige Lawson. This
information at least seemed to explain the rogue thoughts I’d
experienced. However, I hadn’t recognized her name at all, so to my
knowledge I didn’t know her, and therefore, I seriously doubted
that she knew me.

I remembered feeling a sharp stinging
sensation on the side of my neck just before I blacked out. An
active tingle still occupied the swath of flesh behind and below my
left ear, so I slowly reached up and gingerly probed the area with
my fingertips. There were no obvious welts or abrasions that I
could feel, but the burning sensation continued. No big surprise
there.

“Well what was he doing there then?” I heard
Felicity almost hiss.

“I don’t know,” Ben answered as
forcefully as he could without raising his voice. “Hell, when I
asked him,
he
didn’t even
know.”

I had been trying to ignore them while I
concentrated, but I was failing miserably at blocking out their
banter. Also, I was getting the impression that they were going to
escalate if something didn’t alter their current course. I
concluded that I had best intervene.

“He’s right,” I spoke loudly, casting my
words in the direction of the door. “It’s not his fault, so will
you two please quit arguing about it.”

Silence instantly replaced the tempered
squabble. After a moment Ben and Felicity came sheepishly through
the door and positioned themselves next to the bed.

“Row…” my wife sighed as she brushed my
disheveled hair back from my forehead, “shouldn’t you be resting,
then?”

Felicity gave the outward appearance of a
fragile china doll standing next to Ben. Petite, with a milky
complexion, her own hair was a pile of flaming auburn resting atop
her head in a loose Gibson girl. Whenever she let it down, it was a
rush of spiral curls reaching almost to her waist. Her green eyes
held more than a hint of concern as she gazed back at me. Her
normally smooth face was wrinkled with mild anguish. A second
generation Irish-American, her voice usually held only the barest
hint of an accent but could blossom fully into a thick brogue—at
times liberally peppered with Gaelic—if she were tired, stressed,
angry, or had recently spent time with certain members of her
family. Right now, it was obvious that at the very least the first
two options were weighing in, maybe even the third.

“I’m trying to,” I answered, “but it’s a bit
noisy.”

“Sorry, white man,” Ben offered
apologetically. “Didn’t mean to keep ya’ up.”

“You weren’t, actually,” I replied. “The
doctor told me I had to stay awake until the test results came
back.”

“So ya’ wanna help me out and tell the red
squaw here that I didn’t call ya’ in on this.”

“What were you doing there then?” Felicity
queried without waiting for me to fulfill Ben’s request.

“Ben didn’t have anything to do with me being
there.” I went ahead and made the statement for his benefit then
addressed my wife’s question. “And, I haven’t quite figured that
part out yet.”

The last half of my sentence was joined by
the swooshing sound of the door to the treatment room swinging
open. A tired looking brunette woman dressed in blue hospital
scrubs and a lab coat followed the door inward. In her hand she
carried an oversized brown envelope clearly marked with my name and
a handful of other scrawlings that only made sense to someone in
the medical profession or a two-year-old. I wasn’t sure which.

“How are you feeling, Mister Gant?”

“About the same, I guess,” I answered.

“Good.” She nodded as she crossed the room to
the opposite wall. “No new pains or tremors?”

“No. Just a bit of a headache.”

After pulling a rectangular x-ray from the
envelope, she deftly popped it into a pair of holding clips on a
wall-mounted box and then switched on the backlight.

“How about your memory?” she queried as she
stared at the black and white study of my skull. “Can you tell me
what day this is?”

“Tuesday, December eighteenth,” I answered,
exasperated that I was being put through this line of questioning
for yet a third time. “My middle name is Linden, I’m thirty-nine
years old, I’m married…”

“All I wanted was the date, Mister Gant,” she
cut me off, sounding slightly distracted. “And by the way, it’s
past midnight, so it is actually Wednesday the nineteenth.”

“Do I lose any points for that?”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the
ordinary on your x-rays,” she began, ignoring my jibe and giving
the film a final once over. She then turned and crossed her arms
over her chest as she leaned against the wall. “And your blood work
is fine.”

“So why don’t you look pleased?” I asked.

“I’m a little concerned about the fact that
you blacked out, as well as the description of your earlier
dementia provided by Detective Storm. These could be indicators of
a mild ischemic stroke. What I’d like to do is get a head CT and
keep you under observation for a while.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” I
protested.

“Well, I do,” she returned flatly. “And while
I certainly cannot keep you here against your will, I strongly
suggest that you have this test.”

The door whooshed once again, and a nurse
urgently poked her head through the opening. “Doctor Morrison, we
need you in Trauma-two.”

“Why don’t you discuss it with your wife,
Mister Gant,” the harried MD told me as she headed out after the
nurse. “Someone will check back with you in a few minutes.”

As the door swung shut behind her, I knew
better than to open my mouth. Felicity and Ben were looking at me
with steeled expressions, and it was immediately plain that they
were on her side. Effectively it had become three against one. I
never even stood a chance.

* * * * *

It was just past 6:30 in the morning.
Felicity had headed out in search of coffee, and I was all but
imprisoned in a hospital room against my wishes. Ben had headed
back to his crime scene as soon as he was convinced that I would
stay put without drastic measures. He had even gone so far as to
offer Felicity his handcuffs. Something told me she gave it serious
consideration; even though when she declined the offer her comment
included a pointed joke, saying that she just might be interested
in borrowing them when I was feeling better. At least I think it
was a joke. I didn’t always know where she was concerned.

I was hoping the doctor would get the results
of her test back soon or at least see fit to release me so that I
would be able to head home, but so far it wasn’t looking very
promising. I had been trying to squeeze in a nap ever since she had
okayed it, but all I’d really managed to do was doze in and out for
the past 45 minutes.

My head was resting in the deep depression of
a too soft pillow, and I was settled uncomfortably on the inclined
bed. I was just taking another run at getting some sleep when I
heard the doctor’s voice.

“How are you doing, Mister Gant?”

I opened my eyes and found her standing at
the end of the bed. She appeared just as tired as she had a few
hours ago.

“As well as can be expected I suppose.”

“Good,” she answered succinctly as she jotted
something on a clipboard, then without looking up she added,
“Interesting talent you have there. Is it legible or are you just
doodling?”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“The writing without looking.” She gestured
to the adjustable table that was positioned over the bed in front
of me. “You were even doing it with your eyes closed when I walked
in.”

I tilted my head forward to gaze in the
direction she indicated and watched in astonishment as my left
hand, gripping a pencil, moved swiftly back and forth across a
small notepad. Several pages had already been filled and flipped
upward.

The fact that I was right-handed isn’t even
what bothered me most. Or even the fact that I was writing both
forwards and backwards. No…it was the realization that I’d had no
idea what my left hand was doing until it had been pointed out to
me that really got under my skin.

As I watched, my hand automatically flipped
the newly filled page up and set the tip of the pencil against an
empty sheet. I stared on as it continued of its own accord to
scribe in smooth, clear, and wholly unfamiliar handwriting,
repeating over and over the same line of text as it had on all the
previous pages.

Dead I am. Dead I am. I do
not like that dead I am
.

“So what’re ya’ doin’ now?” Ben asked as he
stared at the pad of paper. “Tryin’ ta’ be some kinda morbid Doctor
Seuss?”

I’d expected that. I didn’t necessarily like
it, but it was bound to come out of someone sooner or later. And
the more I thought about it, the more I suspected it would end up
being not just sooner or later, but both. Even I had no choice but
to admit that the similarity between what I’d written and one of
the most memorable lines from a beloved children’s book was
uncanny. I was certain to be hearing about it from anyone who
became privy to the product of my unconscious scribbling. Under
wholly different circumstances the parallel might even have been
amusing.

But it was under
these
circumstances, not different ones, and the
word “dead” played a prominent role in the repetitious line of
text. Couple that with the fact that the pad full of paraphrased
prose came out of me involuntarily, and I didn’t find it amusing in
the least.

“I’m being serious here, Ben,” I returned, my
voice dull.

“Okay, okay.” He tossed the notepad onto his
desk blotter and leaned back in his chair. Propping one ankle
across his knee then clasping his hands behind his head, he gave me
a serious look. “I’m listenin’. What’s the deal with this
notepad?”

I had called my friend as soon as I’d been
released from the hospital. The doctor still had no definitive
results back from the tests that had been run, but I was feeling
fine, so she’d relented and allowed me to leave. I knew full well
that I hadn’t had a stroke, but I wasn’t about to try explaining
what had caused my very pronounced symptoms. If I had, I’d probably
still be talking to the staff psychiatrist as well as being taken
on a tour of their lovely padded accommodations. I’d been down this
road before, and I was in no hurry to visit it again.

You tend to get a small spectrum of
reactions when you look at someone and say, “I’m a Witch.” The
three biggies go something like this: One, they look at you like
you are crazy. Two, they try to introduce you to Jesus and save you
from yourself; or, three, they run screaming in the opposite
direction. In my case, being male, I also get the added, ‘”Don’t
you mean warlock?” This usually prompts me to give the actual
definition of the word
warlock
, that being “oath breaker.” The
resulting short explanation of the fact that male or female, a
Witch is very simply called a Witch, is usually a good one for
glazing over the eyes of the uninitiated in less than sixty
seconds.

Though I don’t make a secret of my religious
path or even my mystical leanings, I’ve learned to avoid the
subject in given situations. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be
honest—plain and simple.

When I’d made my call, I had found Ben behind
his desk at City Homicide working on the situation that had gotten
him out of bed only a handful of hours before. I’d suspected as
much would be the case and hadn’t even tried calling him at home.
When I told him what I wanted to show him, he’d suggested that I go
to my own home and get some rest. I doubt he’d really expected me
to follow the suggestion because he didn’t seem at all surprised to
see me coming through the glass-fronted double doors of his
department just over thirty minutes later.

Felicity on the other hand, had been a
tougher sell. Though her outward appearance may be that of fragile
beauty, my wife was as headstrong as they came. I was fully aware
that what came across on the surface as stereotypical Irish
stubbornness and temper was truly born of intellect, will, and
protective instinct. Still in all, igniting that temper was
something better left undone unless you had a damned good reason. I
just didn’t feel I had a choice this time around, even if my reason
was no more than repeating pages of nonsensical rhyme on a notepad
and a gut-twisting bad feeling about them.

In the end, it took me all of fifteen minutes
to convince her that if she didn’t take me by City Police
Headquarters on the way home, I would simply find a way to take
myself. She had finally given in, and at this particular moment she
was parked next to me in one of the stackable, molded-plastic
chairs the detectives used for visitors. It was no secret that she
wasn’t happy with me in the least, but I was betting she would get
over it. She always did.

I shifted in my own seat, it also being a
refugee from the stack of seventies era furniture, and succeeded
only in moving the discomfort from one side of my body to the
other.

“Did you happen to notice anything other than
the similarity to a children’s book about green eggs?” I asked.

“You got nice handwriting.” Ben shrugged.
“Kinda pretty. I especially like that little curly-q thing you do
with the bottoms of the I’s.”