All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (10 page)

“Yeah, well, he just might have been wrong on
that count too.”

“Be that as it may, it really is not my
point, Rowan.”

“I’m listening.”

“He is concerned.”

“Yeah, well no offense, Helen, but I’ve got
other things on my mind right now, so if he’s looking for
absolution tell him to try a confessional.”

“He is not concerned about forgiveness.
He is worried about
you
.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Rowan,” Helen’s voice took on a stern
quality I wasn’t used to hearing when speaking with her. “Stop
this. I know that you have a dire situation with which to cope.
And, after our talk yesterday I think that I, better than anyone,
know the stress you have been facing lately.

“I want you to understand that I am certainly
not begging sympathy for my brother. However, as both a therapist
and as your friend, I am telling you that you simply must let go of
some of this anger.”

“I can’t, Helen. It’s all that’s keeping me
afloat right now.”

“In the short run, I would say that is a good
thing. However, I know you, Rowan. You will not let this subside,
and you will continue feeding it. If you do that, then it is no
longer a good thing. It becomes unhealthy.”

“Well, we all have our addictions, don’t we?”
I replied, making a veiled reference to her chain smoking. “I guess
this one will be mine for the time being.”

I was sorry I made the stab as soon as it
came out of my mouth, but what was done was done. I’m certain she
caught my meaning, she was too smart and far too quick not to.
Still, she graciously ignored it. I suppose she was used to people
lashing out when under stress.

“If so, then I suspect you will again
be needing my services when you finally sink,” she told me in an
almost purely clinical voice. “Because trust me, you are going to
be hitting the bottom very fast and very hard. I am serious,
Rowan.
Very
hard.”

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to hope you
can dredge me up and put me back together when the time comes.”

“I believe we will both be hoping for that,”
she offered and then paused. I could hear her let out a small sigh
before continuing, “You are a very stubborn man, Rowan. I hope you
realize that I did not call to argue with you.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. For the
first time in the past few hours, the motion didn’t cause me
excruciating pain. My headache had mellowed down to a dull thud for
the moment, but I wasn’t expecting it to stay that way for
long.

“I know, Helen,” I told her. “I’m just not in
a very good place right now.”

“I know. And trust me, Benjamin is truly
concerned for your well being right now. As am I.”

“Join the club. That seems to be the order of
the day.”

“Did you have the nightmare again?” she
asked, momentarily switching the subject.

“Yeah. Three times last night.”

“And, how did you feel?”

“Scared.”

“Yes, but what about the other issue. The one
involving your wife.”

“It’s a non-issue.”

“Good. Your faith in Felicity is going to be
monumentally important in the coming days, Rowan.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Tell me about it.”

I happened to look up toward the stairs as I
made the comment and noticed a crime scene technician on his way
down, arms filled with books.

He called past me to another tech in the
living room, “Looks like we’ve got something here.”

I could see that the “something here” he had
in hand was every text on Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Mysticism I had
purchased, or checked out from the library, in the past week.

“Those are mine,” I called out to him.

He continued down the stairs, ignoring me
completely.

“I said, those are mine,” I stressed. “I just
bought them.”

Helen was calling to me from the earpiece,
“Rowan? Rowan, what is wrong?”

The technician finally shot me a glance and
shook his head. “Sorry sir. Now they’re evidence.”

My hand was already moving to hang up the
phone even as I spoke. “Helen, I’ve got to go.”

“Exactly which part of ‘I just bought those’
are you having trouble understanding?” I barked. “And, if you’ll
look closely you’ll see I got a few of them from the library as
well.”

My objections had gone unheeded for the most
part, and me simply being angry was starting to become me being
flat-out, livid pissed. Even as I spoke, the stack of books was
being placed in a paper evidence bag.

“Dammit! You aren’t taking those!” I almost
shouted.

“Calm down, Mister Gant.” The lead crime
scene technician tried to soothe me as his subordinate continued
the process of securing the evidence, tagging it, and adding a
description to the log.

“Calm down? My wife’s been arrested, you’re
tearing my house apart, and now you’re going to take something that
belongs to me and has nothing to do with this, all so you can use
it against her? Calm down my ass!”

I would have simply pushed the man aside and
gone after the technician who was actually bagging the books, but
the situation had recently taken on a new layer of complexity. That
layer came in the form of two uniformed Briarwood police officers
who were presently standing in very close proximity to our heated
disagreement. They had arrived at the house within a scant few
minutes of the evidence technicians and had been quietly surveying
the goings on from the middle of the dining room ever since. Until
now, that is.

When they originally showed up, I assumed it
had something to do with cooperation between jurisdictions. Keeping
each other in the loop, professional courtesy, that sort of thing.
While that was probably true to a large extent, they were now quite
obviously providing security for the team that was legally
ransacking my home.

“Mister Gant, I’m sorry but the books clearly
fit the description of items listed on the warrant.”

“Listen to what I’m telling you,” I stated
once again then exaggerated the enunciation of my following
sentences as if speaking to a small child. “They. Do. Not. Be-long.
To. Her… They. Be-long. To. Me.”

“I’m sorry.” He ignored my patronizing
comment and splayed out his hands in surrender to some higher power
as he made the apology one more time. “But, we have to take
them.”

“No. You don’t.”

His tone became harder and he shot back,
“Look, the warrant has been served, and it’s my job to execute it
per the instructions of the court. The books fit the description on
the list, so the books go with us. It’s that simple and there’s
nothing I can do about it.”

“Sure there is. You can stop spouting this
Nuremberg nonsense about following orders, engage your brain, and
give them back to me.”

“Okay, now listen to what
I’m
telling
you
,” he instructed. “Because this is the last
time I’m going to say it. You aren’t getting the books back. As of
this moment they are evidence. Now, up till a few minutes ago,
you’ve been cooperative and we definitely appreciate that. But, if
you’re going to start interfering, I’m going to have to ask you to
step outside.”

I shook my head and stared back at him as if
he’d lost his mind. “Bullshit. I have the right to be present
during the search.”

“As long as you aren’t obstructing the
search, that’s true. But, you’re getting very close to crossing
that line.”

“So, just because you and your crew can’t use
a little common sense, you’re going to kick me out of my own
house?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Gods! What is it with you people?! Does the
fact that I just bought those books have no bearing on this at
all?”

“Look, if that’s true, and you have receipts
to prove it, you can take it up with Major Case and the
prosecutor.”

“Maybe so, but right now I’m taking it up
with YOU,” I returned.

In reality, I’m sure he was correct. If I
could provide receipts, which I could, at the very least Jackie
should be able to negate the effect of the books as evidence. In
fact, she could probably get them thrown out altogether before it
even went that far. But, I wasn’t willing to take that chance
because with the situation as it was, our attorney’s ability to
accomplish that feat was by no means guaranteed.

Ominous shadows were lurking somewhere in the
background of all this. Someone, or maybe even something, was
trying very hard to stack the deck against Felicity. That much had
become painfully apparent over the past hour. I certainly wasn’t
about to let anything I was holding in my own hand be used in that
process if I could help it.

“That’s it, I’m done with this,” the crime
scene technician replied with a wave of his hand before looking
over to the Briarwood cops. “I have a job to do, and this man is
preventing me from doing it. Would you guys like to take it from
here?”

“Sir,” one of the uniformed officers spoke
up. “Why don’t you step outside with me for a bit?”

The tech had turned back to face me, and I
was now holding him locked in a stare down, so I snapped an acrid
reply without breaking my gaze. “Why? Because I don’t want to.”

“Sir, that wasn’t a question. It was a strong
suggestion.”

“Your suggestion is noted.”

“Sir, it was a
very strong
suggestion. Under the circumstances I
can make it an order.”

“What? You people aren’t happy with just
arresting my wife? Now you’re arresting me too?”

The officer replied, “No sir, you aren’t
being arrested.” After a short pause he added, “Not yet, but if you
keep going the way you are, it’s a very good possibility. So, why
don’t you do like I suggested, and just step outside with me where
you can cool off for a few minutes?”

Before I could manage to formulate another
snide remark, I flashed on the recent conversation with Jackie. The
words “don’t do anything stupid” rang through my head at full
volume and made me take pause. As much as I wanted to lash out at
all of them, to just go stark raving berserk, the fact remained
that getting myself locked up wasn’t going to help Felicity at
all.

I dwelled on the realization for a moment
then huffed out a resigned sigh and ended my unblinking glare at
the technician. With an agitated shake of my head, I looked over at
the officer and grumbled, “Yeah, fine.”

“Good call,” he replied.

He was standing close enough to me that when
he’d spoken I’d easily been able to pick up the odor of burnt
tobacco on his breath.

“You smoke, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, why, I got bad breath?”

“No, because I need a cigarette.”

I hadn’t really given much thought to the
comment, any at all, really. It just came tumbling out of my mouth
in place of something far more caustic. Still, all I could manage
to do was give an internal shrug when it dawned on me what I had
just said.

As we headed for the door, the officer pulled
a pack from his pocket then tapped it across his index finger
before holding it out toward me.

Whether it was out of reflex or because I
truly did feel like I needed one, I don’t know, but I reached over
and pulled the proffered smoke from the pack and stuck it between
my lips.

“You want to grab a jacket?” the officer
asked.

A sarcastic quip escaped before I could
subdue it. “Why would I want to do that? I’m supposed to be cooling
off, right?”

“Yeah. Right,” he returned.

Without another word I pushed the door open
and headed through with him on my heels. As I’d suspected,
neighbors had positioned themselves to watch the show. Since it was
still early enough in the afternoon, there weren’t as many peeking
from behind curtains or lethargically walking dogs as there could
have been. But, it was a good bet that phones were buzzing with
news of yet another incident involving the police at “the Witch’s
house”. I’m sure my ears should have been burning.

It was only a few moments later that a van
emblazoned with the logo of a local television station pulled up
and parked on the opposite side of the street. As usual, I wasn’t
going to be immune from the jaundiced spotlight of the media
either.

“Damn TV people,” the cop muttered and then
offered, “We can go out back or sit in the car if you want.”

“That’s okay,” I replied with a slight shake
of my head. “It’s not the first time they’ve pointed their cameras
at me, and I doubt it will be the last.”

“Guess the neighbors are having a field day,”
he grunted.

“Yeah, probably,” I agreed. “You’d think
they’d be used to it by now.”

I didn’t expand on the history of flashing
lights and news vans that had been positioned in front of my house
over the years, and he didn’t ask. He probably already knew all
about it anyway. In fact, it was entirely possible he had been one
of the many cops to have graced my doorstep in the past. After a
quiet moment I pulled the cigarette from my mouth and inspected the
still pristine paper and tobacco on its end.

“Got a light?” I asked before tucking it back
between my lips.

He dug in his pocket then withdrew a
disposable lighter and handed it to me. I gave it a quick flick
with my thumb and touched the flame to the business end of the
smoke then handed the stubby metal and plastic device back to
him.

As we stood on the porch, and I took the
first drag on the nicotine and menthol laden tobacco, I simply
yielded to the idea that I was once again re-adding an old vice to
my list.

If circumstances were different, given my
earlier jibe, I suspect Helen would have found it thoroughly
amusing.