Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation (28 page)

“I thought you were another reporter when you
pulled up over there,” I admitted, motioning to the bickering
throng as he trundled up my driveway.

“I’ll bet,” he responded. “Sorry I didn’t get
here sooner.”

“No problem. Seemed pretty quick to me.”

“How’s Felicity doing?” he asked as he
reached me. “I heard what happened from Ben.”

“Doctor gave her a clean bill of health. I’d
expect she’s going to be a little sore though.” I fell into stride
with him, and we continued up the flagstone walk. “Mentally, she
seems okay. She’s a pretty strong individual. I’m sure she’ll be
fine.”

“Good. Good. Glad to hear it.”

We climbed the stairs, and I opened the front
door for him.

“Honey, where are you?” I called out as we
entered the living room, and I shut the door. We were greeted only
by the cool air and calm atmosphere. “We have a visitor.”

“I’m in the kitchen. Who is it?” she called
back. She met us halfway as we proceeded through the dining room in
her direction. “Detective Deckert,” she smiled, “this is a
surprise.”

“Carl, please. Just call me Carl.” He offered
the baking dish to her. “I hope this doesn’t seem silly, but I told
my wife about what happened and all...Anyway, she made lasagna and
insisted I bring it over to you two.”

“It’s not silly at all.” Felicity took the
dish from him and motioned for us to follow her. “Come on in. Tell
your wife thank you very much. It’s very nice of her.”

“No offense intended, Carl,” I showed him
farther into the kitchen and offered him a seat at our breakfast
nook while Felicity stored the dish in the refrigerator, “but I was
expecting Ben.”

“None taken. He asked if I would handle it,”
he explained as he sat down, absently brushing his disheveled grey
hairs back into place. “I wanted to come by and deliver the lasagna
anyway.”

Felicity was working at preparing a pitcher
of herb tea, and I interposed myself between her and the cabinet as
she strained to reach an upper shelf. “Why don’t you sit down, and
I’ll finish this up.”

“I’m fine,” she objected.

“I’m sure you are,” I rejoined. “But I’ve got
this really intense desire to make tea, so why don’t you let me do
it?”

I’m sure she would have argued more had
Detective Deckert not been there. Since he was, however, she
quietly resigned herself to the fact that I was going to coddle her
for a while and joined him at the table. I had scarcely managed to
begin transferring the sun-brewed liquid into the ice-filled
pitcher when our guest spoke up.

“This is probably none of my business,” he
blurted hesitantly. “But you two are pretty close with Ben and his
wife, aren’t you?”

“Definitely,” I answered. “Ben was my Best
Man. We’ve known the two of them forever.”

“Why do you ask?” Felicity looked over at me
as she spoke, then back to Detective Deckert. “Is something
wrong?”

I continued what I was doing but kept my
attention on the conversation.

“You could say that,” he sighed. “Like I
said, it’s probably none of my business, but I couldn’t help
overhearing him on the phone last night... Then he asked me to come
over here when you called a little while ago.” He nodded his head
at Felicity.

“I noticed that he was a little distant,” she
agreed. “What did you overhear?”

“Well,” he explained, “I only heard one side
of the conversation, but I got the gist of it.”

“He and Allison are having problems because
of the hours he’s been putting in, right?” I volunteered.

“They’ve got a problem all right,” he told
us. “But his work schedule isn’t it. Near as I can figure, Ben’s
wife blames him for Felicity’s miscarriage.”

“She what?!” I exclaimed.

“Why would Allison do that?!” Felicity
appealed.

“Hey,” Deckert held up his hands defensively,
“from what I overheard, he agrees with her.”

I
t’s
not his fault,” Felicity voiced adamantly. “I’m the one that made
the choice to walk through that door. He had nothing to do with
it.”

“You know that, and I know that,” Deckert
nodded, “but he still feels responsible. He seems to think that if
he never got you two involved in this investigation, you never
would have gotten hurt.”

“That’s just plain ridiculous,” I stated.
“All he did was ask me the difference between a Pentacle and a
Pentagram because he’d seen this hanging around my neck.” I hooked
a finger beneath the silver chain and lifted the small pendant from
behind my shirt. “Other than that, I volunteered. Hell, he was
against the idea of me getting involved in the first place. I had
to talk him into it.”

Deckert shrugged and echoed my sentiments, “I
know, I know, but he’s your friend, and he feels responsible for
you.” He let out a long sigh. “Shit, it’s part of being a cop. You
feel responsible for everyone.”

At that moment, Detective Carl Deckert looked
far older than his years. It was clear that he and Benjamin Storm
had been cut from the same cloth when it came to loyalty to their
friends and loved ones—when it came to loyalty to their careers as
well. In a way, I felt I was seeing my best friend’s future being
played out before me by the man seated at my kitchen table.

“We need to have a talk with those two,”
Felicity ventured. “We’ve got to get this straightened out.”

I had finished preparing the mint tea and
placed the full pitcher along with glasses on the table then slid
in next to my wife. “Any ideas on how we should do that?”

“We need to speak to them when they’re
together, for one,” she posed.

“Sure, but that’s going to be a little hard
to accomplish with this investigation going on. Ben’s hours are a
little unpredictable right now.”

Detective Deckert cleared his throat, and we
both turned our attention to him. “I doubt that’ll be a problem. He
should be home at a decent hour tonight.”

“Why’s that?” I queried.

“That’s another piece of news I need to give
you.” He looked distantly out the window of the atrium then back at
us. The deep furrow in his brow revealed the fact that he was
struggling with exactly how to go about it.

“R.J. is being charged with the murders,
isn’t he?” Felicity intoned flatly.

“Not yet, but don’t be surprised if it
happens within the next day or so,” he echoed. “For the murder of
Ellen Gray at least. We got the warrant and searched his place
early this morning.”

“What did you find?” I wasn’t sure I wanted
him to answer the question.

“Black and white candles. A lot of ‘em,” he
detailed. “And a set of artists pastels among other things.”

“There has to be some kind of logical
explanation.” I shook my head. “What about the dirk, Ariel’s
athamè. Did you find that?”

“The knife?” he echoed, shaking his head.
“No. Not yet, but we’re still looking.”

“You’ve got the wrong person, Carl,” Felicity
implored. “I can’t give you tangible proof, but I just know R.J.
isn’t guilty.”

“I know you two think he’s innocent, but so
far, the evidence points to the opposite. I think you might be
backing the wrong horse.”

“The candles don’t mean a thing,” I declared.
“If you searched our house, you’d find a ton of candles. Witches
use them for everything, so we have a tendency to buy them in
bulk.”

“Especially if you find them on sale,”
Felicity added. “And as far as the pastels go, maybe he’s an
artist.”

“Since you mention it,” Deckert returned, “he
did take a few art classes at the community college, and guess who
his instructor was...one Karen Lewis, better known to us by her
married name, Karen Barnes.”

“He knows all three victims,” I muttered to
myself.

“Looks that way,” he continued. “So if you
add that in with the candles, the pastels, and his familiarity with
your religion...”

Neither of us had a convincing argument to
offer. We sat glumly, firm in our belief that the young man was
innocent of the crimes but completely unable to prove it.

“Well, what did HE have to say?” Felicity
almost demanded.

“We haven’t talked to him about it yet.”

“Well then, he might have a logical
explanation for some of the things you found,” I expressed. “You
won’t know until you ask.”

“Look,” Deckert intoned after a long pause.
“I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you all this, but to be
honest, I don’t understand why you two are so sure this kid’s
innocent. Hell, from what I understand, you just met him a few days
ago.”

“That’s true, but at the risk of sounding
cliché,” I explained, “it’s a Witch thing. It’s just a gut
feeling.”

“What about Devon Johnston?” My wife was on a
mission, and she wasn’t about to give up. “We haven’t heard
anything yet. Isn’t he still a suspect?”

“He pulled through, but he’s gonna be laid up
for a good long time,” he answered. “We talked to him this morning,
and Ben checked out his alibi. Except for killing a dog, the
assault on you, and a couple of trespassing charges, he’s in the
clear.” Once again he stared past the small jungle of potted plants
and out through the atrium window. After a short pause, he let out
a sigh of resignation and then continued in a fatherly tone, “Trust
me, I’d like to believe you guys, but like I said, there’s a lot of
evidence, even if it is circumstantial. It’s the fingerprint you
found on the candle that really clinches it.”

“I wish I’d never seen it,” Felicity muttered
in a dejected tone.

“And if R.J. really is
guilty?” Deckert asked her rhetorically. “How would you feel then?
Look, I don’t want to see an innocent kid go down either, but I’m
not so sure that’s what’s happening here. The shrink says it looks
like the kid got himself a crush on these women and then got
rejected. It just kept building, and he finally snapped and carved
‘em up. Got himself a vicious circle going. Kill a woman then feel
guilty. Fix it, in his mind anyway, with that
expulsion thing
of yours and then do
it all over again.”

“Expiation spell,” I corrected. “And as pat
and logical as that all sounds, it doesn’t feel right.” The hair
rose on the back of my neck, and a tingle ran down my spine as I
voiced my next thought, “R.J. being unjustly accused isn’t our
biggest worry right now though.”

“What is then?” he questioned.

“If we ARE right, and he IS innocent,” I
expressed grimly, “then the real killer is still out there, and
that means another young woman is going to die.”

* * * * *

The waxing moon was creeping steadily toward
fullness and had just begun its trek across the cloudless, early
evening sky as we parked in front of Ben and Allison’s home.
Nestled snugly within the confines of the historic district of the
city, the stone structure rose upward two stories from the
well-kept lot to a steeply pitched, slate tile roof. The two of
them had spent the first few years of their marriage restoring this
house, and Felicity and I had been there to help them put it all
together. Now, the two of us felt as if we were, in a figurative
sense, responsible for tearing it apart. We weren’t about to let
that happen.

After Detective Deckert left earlier in the
day, I called Ben at the MCS command post. He had remained distant
and guarded during the conversation, much as he had the day before,
but I was determined in my desire to resolve the situation and
effectively invited Felicity and myself over for a visit. Before he
could object, I said goodbye and hung up.

Allison met us at the front door wearing a
thin, disconcerted smile and kept silent as we entered. Ben was
wearily lounging on the sofa, tie undone, and fingers twined around
the neck of a full bottle of beer.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Allison
offered mechanically.

“No thanks,” I responded, “I’m fine at the
moment.”

Felicity just shook her head. Allison
fidgeted nervously, reminiscent of a trapped animal. It was as if
our declining her offer had somehow cut off an avenue of escape,
leaving her no choice but to face that which she was working so
hard to avoid. After spending a tense moment recalculating her
options, she hesitantly positioned herself on the couch. She took a
seat noticeably distant from Ben but close enough to give the
outward appearance that nothing was wrong. Still, the strain with
which this was done would have been palpable to even the most
oblivious stranger. The fact that we knew them as well as we did
turned the small sign into a lighted billboard.

“Where’s the little guy?” I asked as Felicity
and I found chairs opposite them.

“He’s sleeping over with his friend across
the street,” Allison replied, seeming to ease somewhat at the
benign question.

“I guess Deckert told you ‘bout R.J.,” Ben
interjected, unceremoniously changing the subject.

“He did,” I answered, “and while we have our
own views on the subject, that’s not the first thing on our
agenda.”

“Agenda?” Ben repeated. “Are we havin’ a
meetin’?”

“You could say that.”

The two of them simply stared back at us
sullenly. We sat and allowed the thick silence to envelope the room
and the four of us with it. Felicity and I had troubled over this
conversation the entire afternoon, and though we had discussed and
rehearsed everything we wanted to say, when it came down to the
wire, the memorized script was forgotten.

“Look, Felicity, I’m sorry,” Ben suddenly
gushed. “If there was anything I could do, I would. I wish I had
never mentioned this case to you guys.”

“So Deckert was right,” I asserted. “You
really do blame yourself for what happened.”

“If the shoe fits,” Allison muttered.

“Are you serious?” I faced her. “You actually
believe Ben is at fault?”