The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (6 page)

“Does a little nocturnal incident at the
morgue a few weeks ago ring a bell?” he asked.

Unfortunately, it did. During the hunt for
the serial rapist, I had convinced Ben to get me into the medical
examiner’s office to view the remains of a victim from an
overlapping investigation. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a
problem, except that I had talked him into doing so in the middle
of the night. The chaotic psychic events that ensued from there had
caused quite a bit of commotion in this realm and my friend a
generous share of trouble at the time. Apparently, they still
were.

“Well, what if I had a talk with her?”

He scrunched his brow and looked confused.
“What about?”

“About me and what I can do to help.”

“Were you just not listening?” he asked
incredulously. “The woman flat out said for me to ‘leave my devil
worshipper downstairs where he belonged.’ News flash, Kemosabe. She
was talkin’ about you.”

“I realize that, Ben, but she doesn’t know
anything about me.”

“Oh hell yes she does,” he returned. “At
least she thinks she does anyway.”

“How can she?” Felicity chimed in.

“Neither one of you is particularly low
profile,” he answered.

“You mean the papers?” I asked.

“…
And the TV.” He nodded.

“But that’s just media hype,” I told him in a
dismissive tone. “That’s not going to tell her anything.”

“Well, guess what?” he chided. “She’s read
‘em and watched ‘em all, and as far as she’s concerned, they’re
gospel. And she didn’t get the nickname ‘Bible Barb’ for nothin’.
She’s drawn her conclusion, white man. You’re the wicked Witch, and
that’s all there is to it.”

“But that’s just her,” I objected.

He countered with a statement I hadn’t
expected, “And a few others.”

“Who?” Felicity asked. “Arthur McCann?”

“He’s one, obviously. But there’re more… A
handful of uniforms. Couple of detectives… Couple of the
higher-ups, including the new chief…”

“What about my track record?” I asked.

He started shaking his head again, “I got
news for ya’, Row. Your track record has a few potholes, which is
another reason why you aren’t scorin’ any points. Right now you’re
kinda looked upon as a loose cannon.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” he continued. “Chasin’ after Porter
on that bridge, the thing at the morgue…”

“What about you?” I asked with a nod in his
direction. “What do you think?”

He fell silent for a moment, looked away,
then sighed before bringing his eyes back to meet mine.

“After what you did a few weeks back, I think
maybe you might be a bit of a danger to yourself, yeah.”

He was talking about the fact that I had
deliberately run his van through a set of plate-glass windows in
order to get inside a building.

“That was different, and you know it,” I
argued. “The sonofabitch had Felicity in there.”

“Yeah,” he rebutted. “And that’s the only
reason I let it go, white man. If you’ll remember correctly, I lied
about what really happened on my report.”

I didn’t have a comeback for the comment
because I knew he had done exactly that.

“Listen, Row,” he started after an
uncomfortable silence. “You’ve still got friends in the department,
and I’m one of them.”

“Even though you think I’m a danger to
myself,” I volunteered with a slightly sarcastic edge to my
voice.

“Yeah, even though,” he echoed. “Cut me some
slack here. I know what you can do. I’ve seen it first hand. And
I’m even willin’ to trust you if you wanna know the truth.”

“Trust me to what?”

“To help stop this bastard.”

“That will be hard to do if I’m cut off from
the investigation.”

“I know.”

My friend turned to stare out the window, and
I allowed my gaze to follow his. Our muted reflections stared back
from the pane of glass, mirroring our weariness like an overexposed
snapshot. The darkness of night was still holding its ground and
seemed in no hurry to relinquish its position. A quick glance at my
watch told me that there was a pair of hours yet to go before the
morning would ooze in above the heavy clouds.

“So, where do we go from here, then?”
Felicity piped up again.

“Back to the beginning. Back to what started
this whole conversation.” He turned his gaze to her, then to me.
“Do you think you can come up with somethin’ worthwhile off that
crime scene?”

“That’s kind of a moot point isn’t it?” I
shook my head as I asked the question.

“No. No it’s not,” he replied.

“But you said I was banned from the
investigation.”

“Officially you are.”

“Aye.” My wife cocked her head to the side
and raised an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”

“What I’m sayin’ is that if I’m gonna take a
chance on losin’ my badge, I need to know it’s gonna get us
somewhere.”

I never got a chance to answer my friend’s
question.

The muffled electronic wail of a pager began
sounding from somewhere across the table. By the time it had
completed its second demand for attention, it was joined by the
steadily rising trill of a cell phone vying for the same.

“Jeeeez…” Ben complained aloud as he pulled
the beeper from his belt and fumbled with it until he managed to
switch it off and then peered at the display while sending his
other hand to rustle through his coat pocket. “It’s Albright,” he
told us as he laid the pager on the table and withdrew the
screaming phone.

Before he could thumb the button on the
second device to answer the call, the beeper began pulsing once
more, prompting him to clumsily stab at it again.

“Yeah, Storm, hold on…” he barked into the
phone while struggling to mute the pager.

The device was swallowed by his large hand,
and his searching fingers were no match for its relatively
diminutive size. Felicity finally reached out, snatched the
noisemaker from his palm, and pressed the appropriate button. He
quickly mouthed the word “Thanks” in her direction before turning
his attention to the voice at the other end of the cell phone.

“Uh-huh, yeah, I’m here,” he said as he sent
his free hand on another fishing expedition, withdrawing it from
his pocket a moment later and laying his notepad on the table.
“Yeah… Yeah…”

My friend held his pen poised over the paper
as his eyes closed, and his face noticeably slackened. He dropped
the pen and sighed heavily.

“Yeah, okay. You’re sure? Uh-huh. Yeah,
great… No, I’ll take care of that. Jeez, I don’t fuckin’ need this…
Yeah, I know. Okay. Yeah.” He picked up the pen, and his hand began
moving as he scratched out a jumble of letters that were legible
only to him. “Can ya’ spell that? Yeah…Yeah…Uh-huh…t-i-g-k-e-i-t.
Yeah. Two S’s? Okay…Got it.

“Okay, yeah. You sendin’ someone?” He shook
his head as he spoke into the phone. “Yeah. Yeah. No problem. He’s
with me now. We’ll be there in about ten. Yeah. Later.”

He pulled the device away from his ear and
immediately began stabbing at buttons in an ordered fashion.

“What’s going on?” Felicity asked.

“Just a sec,” he told her as he tucked the
phone against the side of his head once again. “Yeah, Osthoff, it’s
Storm… Yeah, tell me about it. Listen, there’s a file folder in my
desk, middle drawer. Yeah…Yeah…Got it? Good. So there’s a list in
there. Yeah. So, I need you to call Ackman and feed him the
numbers. Yeah, yeah… It’s not good. No, he’s with me. Yeah, I know.
No, he’s on scene so call his cell. You got the number? Great.
Thanks. Yeah, I’ll tell him. Bye.”

The cell phone beeped as he pressed a button
to end the call and then stared across the table at us with an
eyebrow arched and a pained frown deepening the fatigue lines in
his face.

“What?” I finally asked.

“I’m thinkin’” was his reply.

“Uh-huh,” I returned. “Now tell me something
that isn’t obvious.”

“Chill, Row.” He reached up and rubbed his
forehead. “This ain’t good.”

“What is it, Ben?” Felicity asked, her voice
carrying far more concern than had mine.

“Well, that was Ackman back at the scene.
Albright had him call. Looks like she wants you there after
all.”

“Why the change of heart?”

“Seems Porter left you something.”

“What?”

“A note. But they aren’t sure quite what it
says. Well, not all of it, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s apparently a page from a book,”
Ben explained. “Or a copy of a page. His handwritten note reads
‘Gant—your wife has lovely hair.’”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I
shook my head and frowned.

“Beats me, but the rest of the printed
text is in German, so until it’s translated we won’t know much.
Albright did recognize a few words; apparently, she took German in
high school or somethin’.
Prossneck
,
Deutchland
,
Folterung
,
Hexefertigkeit
and the year sixteen
twenty-nine.”

He stumbled over the pronunciations, but I’m
not sure I could have done much better.

“According to Bee-Bee they roughly
translate as
Prossneck
,
Germany, torture, and WitchCraft.”

Felicity audibly caught her breath and
jerked, dropping her coffee cup in the process. Hot java splattered
across the table, spilling over the edge. The ceramic mug bounced
once from the wet surface before falling to its demise on the tile
floor. Ben jumped back in his seat and instantly began extracting
handfuls of paper napkins from the metal holder next to the window.
In his haste, he sent the salt and pepper shakers spilling into the
seat and a bottle of catsup rolling toward me. The condiment-filled
vessel came to rest against my own coffee cup with a sharp plinking
noise, which is fortunate, because I wouldn’t have caught it. I was
otherwise paralyzed by the words my friend had just recited.

“You okay, Felicity?” he asked as he began
mopping up the spill.

My wife’s normally pale complexion was washed
to stark white as she sat frozen, staring across the table at Ben.
Her green eyes were wide, and it didn’t take a Witch to literally
feel the fear coming from her.

“Felicity?” Ben called her name again and
then shifted to me when she didn’t answer. “Row? What the hell?
What’s going on?”

The throb in my head moved up the scale a
pair of notches, instantly becoming far more than a nuisance.
Fear-induced nausea welled in the pit of my stomach and sent a
bitter burn into the back of my throat. I slipped my hand along the
edge of the table until I reached Felicity’s and then clasped her
fingers tight.

“It’s not going to happen,” I said, fighting
to mask my own distress.

“What?” Ben pressed as he threw more napkins
onto the puddle of cooling liquid. “What’s not going to
happen?”

I turned my gaze to him but continued
to hold Felicity’s hand tightly. “The page is most likely from a
book by Wilhelm Pressel,” I recited. “It’s pretty obscure, but most
anyone who’s studied the Witch Trials of the Burning Times is
familiar with it. It didn’t dawn on me at first, but the minute you
said
Prossneck
, Germany,
well, that’s a bit of a giveaway. Anyway, if it is in fact a page
from
Hexen und Hexenmeister
,
then the text is an actual accounting of the first day of torture
inflicted upon an accused Witch in the year sixteen
twenty-nine.”

“Okay. That’s the kinda thing that would fit
with this wingnut’s profile. But, what’s with the comment about
Felicity’s hair?”

“The first thing the hangman did to this
woman,” I explained, “was to bind her hands, attach her to a
torture ladder, and cut her hair off.” I swallowed hard before
continuing. “He then doused her head with alcohol and set it on
fire to burn the rest of her hair off down to the roots.”

“Aye,” Felicity muttered quietly as she
regained her voice. “And that was only the beginning.”

“He’s taunting me,” I stated as anger began
to creep into my voice. “The sonofabitch is telling me what he
plans to do to my wife.”

“Jeezus… Goddamnit…” Ben whispered. “And I
thought I was takin’ the easy out. So much for breakin’ it to you
gently.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I offered with a
shrug.

“No,” he returned. “But the note is only half
of it.”

“What else,” I asked with a grimace.

“Aww man, Jeez…” He rested an elbow on the
table then dropped his head into his hand and closed his eyes.
“They ID’d the victim…”

The portent in his voice was unmistakable,
and it struck both Felicity and me with no less force than a
physical slap across the face. I could almost guess what was
coming, and I am certain Felicity could as well.

The ache inside my skull took on the
properties of root canal sans anesthetic. I braced myself for the
news, not truly wanting to hear it but unable to escape its
reality.

“Oh, Gods…” Felicity murmured into the
silence between us, audibly broadcasting her dread.

“Yeah,” Ben returned. “Randy Harper. He took
out a member of your Coven.”

“Dammit,” I spat the curse. “Isn’t this how I
got involved in all this shit to begin with?”

My reference wasn’t lost on him. The first
investigation I’d helped Ben with had been the murder of Ariel
Tanner. She had been one of my students in The Craft as well as a
good friend. Moreover, she had been the priestess of the Coven
Felicity and I had since adopted.

“Yeah. Déjà vu and all that crap,” Ben
returned.

“Gods…” Felicity moaned, and her eyes grew
wide. “What about everyone else? If he knew about Randy…”