All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (31 page)

“What? Oh yeah…” He finished mounding deli
meat and cheese on a slice of bread and then started twisting the
lid from the jar of mayonnaise. “So, Firehair, you got a sister you
been hidin’?”

“No,” she replied flatly, scrunching her
brow. “And just where the hell did that question come from
anyway?”

“The DNA tests.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Seems the DNA what hung ya’, sprung
ya’.”

“Cute, but don’t quit your day job,” Felicity
quipped. “Would you mind explaining just exactly what you’re
talking about?”

Ben looked over to me. “Remember what
Mandalay and I were tellin’ ya’ about the DNA last night?”

“No. I wasn’t here if you recall,” my wife
chimed in an annoyed tone.

“I was talkin’ ta’ Rowan.”

“Well talk to me. It’s my DNA you’re babbling
about.”

“Jeezus H. Christ, if it ain’t one of ya’,
it’s the other. You wanna take a swing at me too?”

“If you don’t get to the point, aye, maybe I
will.”

“Felicity,” I interjected. “Give him a chance
to talk, okay?”

She let out a hard breath, and her shoulders
drooped in unison with it. “I’m sorry, Ben,” she offered. “I’ve had
better weekends if you know what I mean.”

“S’okay. It’s understandable,” he answered as
he placed the dressed slice of bread atop the mound on the counter
and mashed it down to a manageable thickness. “So anyway, we were
explainin’ to Row about how DNA is used as evidence. The long and
short of it is, what they got on you was a partial match. Thing is,
it was such a close partial, and since the samples were degraded,
it looked like enough ta’ go after ya’.”

“But it wasn’t?” she asked.

“Well, as it stood, yeah, it kinda was. Up
until Saturday afternoon.”

I asked, “So what happened Saturday afternoon
to change it?”

“Gettin’ ta’ that,” he said then grabbed the
sandwich in one hand, took a huge bite and began to chew as he
started putting away the makings.

Felicity watched him as he started placing
things back into the refrigerator but by the third item was
shouldering her way in front of him.

“Go sit down and eat,” she instructed,
grabbing the mayonnaise from the center of the top shelf and
placing it in the door where it belonged. “It’ll be easier if you
just let me do this.”

“I promised I’d do it,” he mumbled as he
chewed.

“No, actually you didn’t,” she replied then
pointing in the direction of the breakfast nook ordered, “Now, sit,
swallow, talk.”

“Okay,” he grunted as he choked down the
mouthful then picked up his coffee and headed for the table, adding
in a much clearer voice, “Whatever you say.”

“Careful, she likes obedient men,” I
joked.

My wife snipped, “He’d take some serious
training before I’d call him obedient.”

“Jeez, let’s don’t even go there, you two,
okay?” he moaned.

“Then finish what you were telling us,” she
urged.

He hastily complied. “So anyway, got some
info in from some of the other homicides the NCIC had linked with
the two here. Most of ‘em had squat, but turns out a couple of ‘em
had even better samples to work with than us. Because of that they
had complete DNA profiles.”

“So are you saying they didn’t match with
me?” Felicity asked.

“Yes and no.”

“Make sense, Ben,” she said.

“That’s the thing. They cleared you because
the full profile was different enough from yours. But, it was still
damned close, and dead on with the partial from the other
scenes.”

“So that’s why the crack about a sister,” I
observed.

“‘
Zactly,” he said with a nod. “Lab guy
said the profiles are close enough they pretty much have to be
siblings. Uncanny kinda close he said. If they had some of your
father’s DNA for comparison that’d probably clinch it.”

“Good luck,” I offered. “I doubt Shamus would
give it willingly.”

Felicity gave her head a confused shake.
“Well, if they didn’t have the results in from the other murders,
and they didn’t have an exact match, weren’t they a little
premature in arresting me?”

“Yeah, well that’s another yes and no.”

“How is that?”

“Well, yeah, they were jumpin’ the gun a bit,
but believe me, when ya’ got a dead federal judge and a dead cop,
there’s a ton of pressure on.”

“So much that they were willing to do this to
me even though they weren’t sure?”

“I’m afraid that’s the way it works,
Felicity,” Ben replied. “Arrests don’t always come with a hundred
percent guarantee that ya’ got the right person. You go based on
evidence and reasonable suspicion.”

“But it sounds like the evidence wasn’t all
in yet.”

“No, but sometimes you go with what you got,
and if there’s a pile of circumstantial that fills in the holes, it
starts makin’ for a case.”

“What other evidence did they have against
me? Surely nothing they found here. Unless…”

“Unless what?” I asked, perking up at her
tone.

“It’s nothing,” she replied quickly and with
little conviction.

I had a suspicion about what the “nothing”
actually was, and the look on Ben’s face told me he was debating
about what he should say which meant he probably knew for certain.
I considered turning to him for the answer, but given the situation
I decided it would be better to let it go for the time being.

“Yeah,” Ben finally offered after an
uncomfortable pause. “Well…Yeah, there was definitely some stuff
that they dragged outta here they were gonna toss on the pile just
for the sake of havin’ it, but they definitely had some other shit
they thought was even more incriminating.”

“What?”

“It’s pretty obvious actually. How do ya’
know an elephant’s been in your refrigerator?”

“Excuse me?”

“How do ya’…”

“I heard the question, Ben,” she returned. “I
just don’t understand what a silly children’s riddle has to do with
what I just asked you.”

“The footprints in the butter,” I chimed in,
going ahead and answering the old joke for him because I knew
exactly where he was headed with the reference.

“Ding-ding,” he said, then looked over to my
wife. “In this case, actually it was your shoe prints all over that
fruitloop you picked up in the nightclub.”

“But I thought he wasn’t pressing charges,”
she replied. “In fact I know he isn’t. Or at least he wasn’t as of
last week.”

“He still ain’t that I know of,” Ben shook
his head. “But that didn’t stop the crime scene guys from gettin’
pictures and more than just a little of his blood off your
shoes.”

“But I didn’t…”

Ben held up his hand. “I know what you’re
gonna say…You didn’t kill ‘im. They know that too, but it ain’t the
point. Ya’ did shit to ‘im consistent with the killer’s M.O., and
on top of that ya’ drew them freaky ass symbols all over the mirror
in the motel room.”

“What symbols?

I perked up once again. This was the first
I’d heard about her having drawn anything in the room, and I hadn’t
been inside it myself to see. At the time, investigating a crime
scene hadn’t been at the top of my list, protecting my wife
had.

“Yeah, what symbols?” I asked.

“The one’s you said were all about that
Voodoo stuff.”

“The
veve
?”

“Yeah.” He nodded then finished off the
sandwich in a single bite before adding, “Those things. Right there
on the mirror in bright red lipstick.”

Felicity frowned. “I don’t remember
that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about this
before?” I asked.

“I couldn’t,” he replied. “I think I
‘splained that to ya’ about forty times in the last few days.”

“Okay, not that I’m wanting to help the
prosecutor build a case or anything, but isn’t that pretty
incriminating in and of itself?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s still circumstantial,
and there’s no actual proof that Firehair drew ‘em. I mean, I think
we can all be pretty sure she did, but there were people in and out
of that room before she got there.” He looked over to my wife. “Not
to mention the lipstick in your purse didn’t match, and they never
found any in the room that did. So, by itself, not so solid.

“But when they got the DNA, that just became
some more circumstantial filler. Then, after the DNA went south, it
was back to bein’ nothin’ but suspicion. Now ya’ got reasonable
doubt and nothin’ ta’ counter it with.”

“So Felicity is still under suspicion?”

“Some people still got some questions, but
like I said, the DNA pretty much cleared ‘er even if it was freaky
close. Although, because of that, there’s a new prevailing theory
that she might still be in on it and is just coverin’ up for a
sibling.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Felicity snapped.

“Hey, it’s not my theory.”

“Well, as far as that goes,” she continued,
“I don’t know what to tell you. Unless my brother is running around
in drag doing this, it’s got to be some kind of bizarre fluke.”

“Well, it’s definitely female DNA,” Ben
added. “So I think your brother is safe on this one. Speakin’ of
him, everything okay there?”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “With him, anyway.
Can’t vouch for the rest of the family.”

“Aye, I’d rather not get into that,” Felicity
interjected coldly.

“Yeah, me either.”

“So, you’re absolutely sure ya’ don’t have a
sister?” Ben tossed the question out again.

“I already said so, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but are ya’ sure is what I’m
askin’.”

“Look, Ben, when I was a child, like most
little girls, I wanted a sister, yes,” she replied with an annoyed
sigh. “But I sure as hell didn’t manifest one. So, yes, I’m sure I
don’t have a sister. Only a brother.”

“Well, I know ya’ didn’t wanna talk family,”
he pressed. “But ya’ might wanna open a coupla’ closets ‘cause the
lab guy says he’d bet hard money you do.”

* * * * *

“So…is this it?” I asked, looking across the
table at my wife. “The ‘nothing’?”

“The what?” Felicity returned her own query,
only briefly glancing up from the box she was unpacking.

“This,” I said, pulling a dark purple bag
from a cardboard box and hefting it up in front of her. “When I saw
you on Saturday you tried to tell me something about an overnight
bag, but we got interrupted. So, I just kind of assumed it was
something the police had in their possession.

“Then today when we were talking to Ben,
something about evidence taken from the house had you a bit on
edge, and when I asked you about it…”

“I said, it was nothing.” She finished the
sentence for me.

True to what Ben had told us, the recovery of
our seized property was far easier than I had expected it to be. In
fact, the drive downtown and back took longer than the actual
paperwork. The only requirement over and above that which he had
detailed for us was that I also needed to show my handgun permit in
order to get my confiscated revolver returned to me. Fortunately, I
had anticipated such and had it in my wallet.

While there, Felicity had quickly inventoried
the items against the voucher and everything appeared to be intact.
Everything that was on the official list, anyway, because at the
time of seizure, I had angrily signed the piece of paper they
presented with little more than a quick glance. All I had wanted
right at that moment was to get them out of my house, so I wasn’t
using the best judgment. The truth was, they could have walked out
with things they didn’t bother to list, but there wasn’t much I
could do about that at this point. I was going to have to take them
at their word.

We had only just returned home and unloaded
the trio of boxes from the back of my wife’s Jeep. Immediately
emptying them of their contents and putting things back where they
belonged seemed like the best thing to do, rather than have them
sit around as a reminder of the legally sanctioned violation of our
lives. So, that task became the undertaking of the moment.

The overnight bag just happened to be at the
top of the pile in the first box I opened.

“Umm…yes,” she spoke again after a long pause
then repeated while still staring at the bag, “Yes, that’s it. I’d
actually almost forgotten about it until this morning…actually, you
weren’t supposed to get that box…I must have mixed them up.”

“Okay,” I said with a shrug then placed the
weighty carryall on the seat of the dining room chair between us.
“Then I’ll forget about it too.”

I was lying. I wasn’t going to forget about
it. There was really no way that I could. The urgency in her voice
when she had first mentioned the overnight bag back at the Justice
Center still hadn’t left me. Then, there was the “nothing” comment
on top of it. Obviously something about it concerned her greatly.
Even more so, what my impression of it, or something inside it,
would be. Therefore, although my mind had placed the snippet of
conversation in a holding pattern for the past few days, it was
still there. Seeing the bag now had simply returned it to the
forefront.

My curiosity, however, was going to need to
remain unquenched. Whatever the mysterious purple bag held was
apparently deeply personal for Felicity, otherwise I would have
known of it before now. Violating its sanctity would make me no
different than those who had already crossed that boundary, and
pressing her to talk about it would only demonstrate distrust on my
part.

I delved back into the box before me and
began extracting the stack of books lined in the bottom. I was
going to need to sort them out and return a few to the library
sometime this week. I was on my third handful of the tomes when
Felicity spoke.

“You want to know what’s in it, don’t you.”
She wasn’t asking a question, she was making an observation.