Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation (13 page)

I had just finished expelling the contents of
my stomach into the toilet I was kneeling before. I spat and wiped
my face then stood and flushed.

“Yeah,” I answered weakly. “Sorry about that.
I’m not as used to this stuff as you guys.”

“Used to it, hell,” he answered. “I came
close to doing the same goddamned thing earlier.”

I walked out of the stall, and Deckert patted
me on the shoulder as I passed him. Dr. Sanders was cutting the
body loose from the metal post, and the County Coroner had come in
and was preparing a body bag. Ben was facing away from the morbid
activity looking very green.

“Her heart has been removed. Can anyone here
tell me if it was found?” Dr. Sanders asked as she and her peer
rolled the body and slid the open, rubberized bag beneath it, then
let it gently back down.

“You won’t,” I told them, wiping my mouth
with the back of my hand. “He took it with him.”

“What, like a souvenir or somethin’?” Ben
asked.

“No,” I replied. “As part of the ritual.”

The violent bout of vomiting had shocked my
system and broken my concentration, effectively weakening my
defenses against otherworldly interference. Dizziness swarmed over
me as the room began to spin. I was losing control. My ears filled
with a rushing sound, and color melted liquidly from the images
before me. I fell backwards down a dark tunnel, speeding inexorably
away from an ever-diminishing point of light. When I at last jerked
to an abrupt halt, I was floating above the room, looking down upon
the recent past.

A hooded, cloaked figure.

A pretty, vital young woman bound nude on
the floor.

A dirk. I know that dirk. It belonged to
Ariel.

She wants to struggle but she can’t. I can
feel her trying to scream, but he’s taped her mouth. Her head
hurts. She remembers someone attacked her from behind.

What are you doing? Get away from me with
that knife!

I can feel the silent scream, the searing
pain as the knife bites into flesh, peeling back the skin.

“Stop it you bastard,” I say to myself,
struggling to break the connection.

“
I’m sorry,” he says to her.

Why is this happening? Our Father who art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come...NO!

I see him press the knife, Ariel’s athamè,
into her solar plexus and draw it across carefully, making the
ragged cut.

The pain is unbearable, indescribable.

He slowly removes a surgical glove.

He thrusts his hand into the incision. With
a twisting motion, he wrenches it back out.

Still quivering.

Dripping.

Karen Barnes heart lay in his hand.

“Rowan,” Ben’s voice echoed in my ears. “Hey,
Rowan.” He was nudging me. Colors flashed back into the scene and
kaleidoscoped wildly before finally settling to their proper shades
and places.

“Yeah,” I half whispered. “Yeah, I’m
okay.”

“You kinda spaced on us there,” he told
me.

“Just a second.” A sudden realization
hammered down upon me. “Dr. Sanders, don’t you do something with
Superglue and a black light to find fingerprints on skin?”

“Cyanoacrylate fuming,” she corrected. “And
it’s a bit more than just a black light. But it really depends on
the circumstances. Sometimes we use Ninhydrin. Fingerprints on skin
are very short lived. Perspiration and other natural secretions
destroy them rather quickly. Why?”

“He took off his glove before he removed her
heart.”

“How can you know that?” Detective Deckert
asked me.

“Intuition. Inspiration. Divine perception.
It doesn’t matter,” I spoke quickly. “Trust me on this. He took his
glove off.”

W
ith
some colorfully worded urging from Ben, the medical examiner
finally agreed to check the body for latent fingerprints. Still,
neither she, nor Detective Deckert, seemed inclined to believe my
claim about the glove, and I couldn’t really blame them. I could
provide no evidence to back up my statement, and they really had no
idea who I was. I often thought that life would be much easier if I
could just say, “Hey, I’m a card carrying Witch, see?” and show an
ID badge. Of course, that would only work if the rest of the world
were disposed to saying, “Oh, well, why didn’t you say that in the
first place?”

We spent a few additional minutes looking
over the interior of the restroom, and I took several more
pictures, including some of the body, shot in haste to avoid
another bout of vomiting. Deckert pointed out the remains of Karen
Barnes’ Jack Russell terrier heaped in a corner. The animal’s skull
was crushed, apparently from having been repeatedly dashed against
the cinder block wall. Grossly violent yet still a much more
merciful death than faced by its owner. Dr. Sanders bagged the
remains of the dog at Ben’s request, and then we followed her back
out into the stormy night. Detective Deckert and I tagged along
behind as Ben drew up next to her.

“What are the chances of getting’ some
preliminaries back tonight, Doc?” Ben asked.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” he answered bluntly. “Did I sound
particularly funny to you?”

The rain had slowed momentarily, but the
earlier downpour had flooded the low-lying sidewalk. The wheels on
the gurney containing Karen Barnes’ body made sadly mournful
swishing noises as they rolled through the puddles.

“Who’s going to authorize this?” Dr. Sanders
stopped in her tracks and stared angrily back at Ben. “Remember,
I’m only here in a consulting capacity.”

“Look,” Ben softened, “I’m sorry about the
wisecrack. It’s been a long day, and right now I’m not seein’ the
end of it.”

“I know,” she answered, calming. “Same
here.”

“Listen, no offense,” he addressed the county
coroner. “But do you have any problem with allowin’ Doctor Sanders
here do the autopsy?”

“None taken. It’s unusual,” he answered with
a weary nod. “But it’s okay with me. I don’t suppose it would be a
problem with the right paperwork.”

“Submit whatever ya’ need, and I’ll sign off
on it,” he told him with a tired smile.

“Where can I reach you?” Doctor Sanders
queried.

“Right now I’m not sure where I’ll be. You
can try to catch me at my office, and if you don’t get an answer
then beep me. The number’s on my card.”

“Okay.”

Deckert and I had stopped behind them and
allowed Ben to do the talking. We stood in the light rain and
watched as Doctor Sanders and the county official loaded what was
once a living, breathing human being into the back of the coroner’s
hearse. The hatch-like door slammed shut with a dull finality as if
audibly marking the end of Karen Barnes’ existence.

Farther in the distance, across the parking
lot and behind the police barricades, a small city had grown.
Microwave dishes and retractable towers were pointed skyward,
extending from the roofs of numerous news vans. Bright lights
shined surrealistically through the night, igniting the falling
raindrops into fleeting fiery gems. Primped, pressed, and preened
reporters staunchly clutching umbrellas faced cameramen and
rehearsed their expressions of concern.

“Fuckin’ vultures,” Ben muttered.

He and Detective Deckert traded cards and set
up a meeting time for the following morning, as they were both
assigned to the Major Case Squad. We shook hands and parted,
leaving Deckert to wrap up everything at the scene while Ben was to
go get the ball rolling with the rest of the MCS. We had barely
made it halfway to the van before we were ambushed.

“Detective Storm, Detective Storm, can I have
a word with you.”

A lithe, young beauty in a neatly fitted
trench coat and high heels was sauntering quickly toward us. Her
hair was fashionably coiffed and honey blonde, the exact shade of
which I was certain could only be available from a bottle. The
cameraman behind her suddenly switched on an intense spotlight and
bathed us with its harsh glow. As we squinted against the glare,
the woman stopped before us, effectively blocking our path.

“I’m here on the scene with Detective
Benjamin Storm of the Saint Louis City homicide unit. Detective
Storm, does the fact that you’re here mean that the Major Case
Squad has been called in?” she spoke rapidly into a microphone and
then thrust it forward into Ben’s face.

“Go away Brandee,” Ben told her. “I’m not in
the mood for this right now.”

Ben started around her, but she quickly
sidestepped, her high heels clicking on the pavement.

“Is it true that this homicide is related to
Wednesday evening’s murder of Ariel Tanner?” Again, the microphone
bearing the stylized logo of her station shot forward.

“Talk to the public relations officer,” Ben
returned flatly.

“And you sir, your name is?” She shoved the
microphone toward me.

Before I could get “no comment” past my lips,
Ben reached out and removed the microphone easily from her dainty
hand. With a quick snap, he disconnected the line cord and handed
the device back to her.

She looked at him, dumbfounded for a moment,
then angrily stamped her foot as her luminous, blue eyes grew
large, clearly revealing an empty void behind them.

“I said,” Ben, told her, as he brushed past,
“go away Brandee.”

We heard her wheel about as we continued
across the lot to the van. She let out a frustrated shriek that was
rapidly followed by the sound of the disconnected microphone as it
roughly impacted the pavement near us and skittered by.

“I’m going to get this story, Storm!” she
screamed after us. “You’re not doing this to me again!”

By the time we climbed into the van, Brandee
Street was berating her stony-faced cameraman, her arms flailing
wildly as he simply stared at her.

“What’d she mean ‘you’re not doing this to me
again’?” I asked Ben as he started the van. “And what the hell is
she chewin’ his ass for?”

“Brandee Street has never, I repeat, NEVER
gotten a story from me,” he answered, pulling his plastic poncho
over his head. “As for ol’ Ed out there, she probably just caught
him addin’ to his collection.”

“His collection?” I puzzled, removing my own
rain slicker. “You know that guy?”

“Hell yes, all the coppers know Ed. He’s been
a cameraman for years. As to the collection, he tapes reporters
when they throw temper tantrums. He’s got a whole library of ‘em...
calls hers ‘Brandee Whines’.”

“Seems like they would try to get him
fired.”

“Oh, they have,” Ben, continued. “Ed’s got a
couple of things goin’ for him though. First, he’s the best
cameraman in the state. Second, a real good union.”

“Bet that pisses them off,” I mused.

“Uh-huh. Drives ‘em nuts. I’ll have ta’ give
you a call next time Ed wants to get together for some beers and
‘movies’.”

“Count me in.”

We pulled out of the parking space in
silence. The windshield wipers tapped out an irregular swooshing
tempo as they displaced the rain, only to have it return a second
later. We slowly started past the news vans, enduring the bright
lights that were quickly brought to bear on us. I was sure that Ben
felt some extra heat coming from the savage glare Brandee Street
was throwing at him as we hooked around her vehicle.

“So,” Ben said as he nudged the van along,
exiting the small city of reporters. “You went off into ‘la la
land’ there for a minute.” He shot me a quick glance then returned
his eyes to the road. “That where you got that whole glove thing
from?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s what I saw him do.
I don’t know if it will do any good or not. He didn’t take the
glove off until just before he pulled her heart out.”

“Shouldn’t that have caused you some damage
or somethin’?” he queried. “You know, like Felicity was talkin’
about this afternoon.”

“If I had experienced it directly,” I
explained. “Like I did with Ariel. This wasn’t the same. I didn’t
get pulled into the experience. It was like I was just a
spectator.”

“So you didn’t feel anything this time?”

“Well, yeah, I felt some of the pain. Just
not directly.”

We continued along quietly for a moment or
two, winding along the park access road and out to the main
street.

“Did ya’ see his face?” Ben asked.

“No,” I answered. “I wish I had. I’ve never
witnessed a past event like that before, and it came on me all of a
sudden. I think when I got sick I let my guard down, and that’s why
it happened. How long was I blanked out anyway?”

“Around a minute, maybe two,” Ben told me.
“Deckert thought ya’ were gonna puke again.” He paused for a moment
and merged with the main street traffic. “Did ya’ see anything
besides the glove thing?”

“Ariel’s athamè,” I told him. “He used it
again.” I hesitated. “A lot of fear... A lot of pain... She was
trying to recite the Lord’s Prayer to herself when the bastard
pulled her heart out.”

We rode the rest of the way to my house in
silence. The storm was dying out now, and the rain had tapered to a
gentle, patchy sprinkle as the tail end of the system moved through
the area.

“I don’t know what’s gonna hit the news
tomorrow, Rowan,” Ben spoke as he came to a halt in my driveway.
“But for now, this whole thing stays with us. You can tell
Felicity, but I don’t want those kids in there babblin’ all over
creation if ya’ know what I mean.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I know exactly what you
mean.”

“Do you think you can meet with the MCS
tomorrow?” he queried.

“What for?”

“I’d like you ta’ fill them in on the symbol
and inscription,” he explained. “Along with some of the ideas you
had tonight. I think it might give us some places to start.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, mulling over the
implications. “I’m not some kind of ‘FBI shrink’ like Detective
Deckert said.”