The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (16 page)

The comforting sounds of a fire crackling in
the fireplace on the other side of the alcove provided the ambient
backdrop to the quiet conversations scattered throughout the dining
area. The earthy scent of the burning wood filled the air. Outside,
snow was continuing to fall in steady curtains of white. Were it
not for the circumstances, this just might have been a perfect,
laid-back day to sit and visit with friends.

“Helen seems to be fitting right in then.” My
wife voiced the observation as she sidled up next to me and leaned
her head on my shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s my sis for ya’,” Ben returned
as he cast a glance back over his shoulder.

As my friend turned back to us, his cell
phone began warbling. He plucked it from his belt and inspected the
face. “Fuck me, it’s Bible Barb,” he muttered aloud as he glanced
around then cocked his head in the direction of the hallway. “I
don’t wanna disturb anyone, so I’ll be up front.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He was already answering the phone with a
curt, one word admission of his last name as he exited.

“It’s a good thing,” I offered to my wife as
I watched Ben leave.

“What is?” she asked.

“Helen fitting in so well. She can lessen the
burden on you.”

“Aye, that she can, but I’m their Priestess.
It is MY job to be there for them.”

I frowned with concern. “You don’t resent her
being here do you?”

“Not at all.” She dismissed my question. “It
is just that I have a responsibility to them. It is something that
comes with the title High Priestess, you know.”

“Yes, I know, hon, and you HAVE been there
for them,” I soothed. “But you need a break too, and Goddess knows
I’m not much help in this department.”

“Aye, you aren’t,” she sighed the
matter-of-fact statement. “On top of that, you’re just another
worry for me, in and of yourself then.”

Her voice held a slight hint of animosity at
the end, leading me to believe the second half of her statement was
what bothered her most. I was only slightly taken aback by her
brutal honesty. I’d grown used to it over the years.

Back up the hallway, I heard the faint treble
of Ben’s cell phone ringing yet again.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No need to apologize,” she told me. “I’m not
angry with you. Not about that anyway. I know you’ve as much to
deal with as I.”

“But you’re mad at me about something
else?”

“Aye, but this is neither the time nor place
to discuss it then.”

“Felicity, I know how you are,” I said. “If
you don’t let it out, you’ll just build up resentments.”

“Don’t you worry then,” she instructed. “I’ll
get over it.”

“You say that now, but I have a feeling I’ll
pay for it at some point.”

She agreed with a purposeful nod. “Aye, that
you probably will.”

“Well, don’t sugarcoat it.” I offered the
comment with its own thin lacquer of sarcasm.

“Aye, I won’t.”

“Uhmm-Hmmm!” The sound of Ben clearing his
throat intervened before our conversation could dip any closer to
the danger zone. “You two want me to get you some gloves and ring
the bell?”

“No,” I said in a quiet tone, chagrined that
our verbal discontent had been witnessed.

Felicity simply shook her head.

“That was quick,” I said.

“Yeah. No reason to drag it out. So listen,”
my friend began as he reached up and massaged his neck. “There’s
been a bit of a change in plans here.”

“She didn’t pull you off this completely, did
she?” I asked, shunting my un-quelled annoyance off to another
target.

“No,” he returned. “No, she didn’t. Believe
it or not, she actually wants you and me to go look at
somethin’.”

Felicity immediately pushed away from the
countertop next to me and started from the room. As I reached out
for her, she shrugged away from my hand and turned. She raised a
finger and stared back at me, cold fire in her green eyes. A single
tear was advancing across her cheek, and she held her rigid
position for a weighty measure of time before she finally spoke.
“Aye, go. You go, but you’d best come back.”

With the unmistakable instruction given, she
turned on her heel and strode through the pass-thru into the dining
room.

“I didn’t say I was going to…” My words
trailed off almost immediately as I realized they were falling
short of reaching her; not that she would have been paying
attention if they had.

“Dammit,” I muttered as the lightning bolt of
realization struck me square between my eyes. “I’m not sure, but I
think I might have just figured out what your sister was trying to
tell me.”

“She’s good for doin’ that kinda shit to
people,” Ben affirmed.

“Yes, she is.”

“So, is Felicity gonna be okay?” he finally
asked.

“Yeah, eventually,” I told him.

“Should you maybe go talk to her?”

“Not now.” I shook my head. “I’ve been
married to her for a long time, Ben. Trust me, this is something
that will play out later when we’re alone.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah,” I guaranteed him. “I’m sure.”

“How ‘bout you? You gonna be all right?”

“Yeah.” I was still staring after my wife.
“Yeah, I think so. I’m just not sure how I feel about being a
matador.”

“Do what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” I reached up and rubbed
my temple for a moment. “So what’s the deal? What’s so important
that Albright needs us to look at it right now?”

“Well, so anyway,” he stumbled over the words
a bit, “so what happened is the phone company managed to peg the
number Porter used. It was a cell just like we thought.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” I asked.

“Not for the guy it used to belong to,” he
replied.

“You mean he killed someone else
already?”

“Not exactly.” He shook his head. “More like
before.”

“Before?”

“Yeah.” He visibly grimaced as he spoke, both
looking and sounding as if he really didn’t want to tell me. “We’ve
actually known about this guy for a few days.”

“A few days?” I almost couldn’t believe what
he was saying. “What do you mean you’ve known about him for a few
days? Why haven’t you said anything?”

“Look, Rowan,” Ben huffed. “The Major Case
Squad doesn’t report to you, you know. There was no reason to get
you involved.”

I was more than just slightly angered by what
I had just been told, and my voice came out as a thin hiss. “But if
this happened a few days ago, maybe if I had gotten involved THEN,
Randy would still be alive!”

He glanced through the passage into the
dining room then back at me with his eyes wide. “Keep your voice
down, Rowan,” he ordered in a strained whisper through clenched
teeth. “There were reasons you weren’t called.”

“They’d damn well better be good ones,” I
hissed back. “Because I lost a friend today and if I could have
prevented it…”

“You couldn’t have, so drop it,” he
interrupted with the stern instruction.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as
I glared back at him. I knew I had to trust that what he was
telling me was true, but the reality was a hard lump in my throat,
and I was finding it hard to swallow.

“Look, Row,” he sighed. “We need to move on
this. Carl Deckert from county homicide is waiting for us at the
scene right now.”

“Why now?” I demanded, barely managing to
keep my voice even and low.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Bee-bee
has a bug up her ass about this all of a sudden, and she’s already
got Deckert waitin’ for us.”

“I couldn’t care any less about what she
wants right now, Ben,” I told him.

“Yo, Kemosabe,” he appealed. “I’m on your
side here, but let’s go have a look-see. This is a damn sight
better than being banned from the investigation. Maybe you can do
some hocus-pocus or somethin’, and we can nail this fuck before
anyone else gets killed.”

“So you’re going to let me go at this my
way?” I was demanding as much as asking.

“I didn’t say that,” he returned. “I’m not
lettin’ you put yourself in danger over this.”

“What about Felicity?” I asked. “I’m not so
sure I want to leave her right now.”

“Because of that little deal a minute
ago?”

“No, because Porter obviously knows where I
am, so I’m sure he knows she’s here too.”

He shook his head and waved me off. “I know
what you’re sayin’, but it’s covered. There’s a copper out front
and one in the alley.”

I started to object, but he held his hand up
to stifle me before continuing. “Let me finish. If that ain’t
enough for ya’, Mandalay is on her way over with another Feeb, and
they’ll probably be here any minute.”

There were very few people besides him whom I
would trust with Felicity’s safety, and FBI Special Agent Constance
Mandalay was one of them. I’m certain he was playing that fact as
his trump card to my impending objection.

“You’re sure?” I pressed.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he told me. “I talked to
her right after I got off the phone with Albright. They’ll probably
be pullin’ up about the time we head out the door.”

Back up the hallway, the doorbell chimed as
if cued by some ethereal director.

“Well?” My friend looked at me expectantly
and gave a quick nod as if to say, “told you so.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Okay, I’ll go. Just one
thing: How are you going to stop me?”

“Stop you what?”

I didn’t explain. I just closed my eyes and
rubbed my forehead as my ever-present migraine sidestepped any
attempts to keep it at bay. Even worse, it began inching up the
scale. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Kass-perzik-somethin-oww-ski, according to
his driver’s license. First name, Joseph.” Ben looked at me and
shrugged. “I dunno how the hell to pronounce it. Starts with a K
and it’s got some Z’s and W’s in it.”

The ambient temperature inside the house
wasn’t much different than it was outside. In fact, it was probably
exactly the same. The only thing that made it feel warmer was the
shelter itself and thus a reprieve from the wind chill factor.

“So how is it spelled?” I asked as I buried
my hands in my coat pockets and worked my fingers to jump-start the
circulation.

“Why?”

I shrugged.

He pulled out his notebook and flipped
through it for a second. “Shit. Can’t read my own handwriting. Hey
Deck,” he called across the room. “You got a spelling on the
victim’s name?”

Saint Louis County Homicide Detective Carl
Deckert was best described as everyone’s grandfather. He was a
thick, round man, aged somewhere in his mid to late fifties. A
trimmed crop of fine, grey hair covered his head, and that was
often sheltered beneath a fedora with the brim neatly snapped over
his brow.

His attitude, forged in a different time, was
one filled with manners and kindness. His eyes never lacked the
mischievous twinkle of a youngster nor his ruddy face a friendly
smile. He usually had something good to say—even under less than
perfect circumstances.

His overall appearance and demeanor had to be
advantageous in his line of work, because to be honest, if I didn’t
already know him, I would never suspect he was a cop. Even if I
did, he still came across as someone to whom you could bare your
soul.

Presently, he was several feet away from us
with the virtually omnipresent fedora pushed up high on his
forehead as he carefully studied the room. At his side, he held
tight to a bag that might have been a sack lunch. I didn’t ask.

“K-A-S-P-R-Z-Y-K-O-W-S-K-I
.” The older county
detective offered the string of letters from memory. “You pronounce
it, kasper-kush-kee.”

I mentally aligned the letters and then
silently repeated the name back to myself, placing the proper “ksh”
emphasis on the ZYK combination and allowing the W to remain
silent. “Slavic, obviously,” I said aloud.

“Yeah,” Deckert agreed. “It’s Polish. Means
something like ‘the place of Kasper’s son.’”

“You get that from the next of kin?” Ben
asked.

“Still haven’t found any yet,” Deckert told
him with a shake of his head.

“Nobody?”

“Nope. Not so far.”

“So, what’s up with you and the genealogy
lesson? You been eatin’ a bunch of kielbasa or somethin’?”

“My
babcia
was originally from Poland.”

“Your what?” Ben asked.

“Grandmother,” he explained. “She was a first
generation immigrant.” He then gave his head a quick tilt to the
side before adding, “But since you brought it up, she did make a
pretty mean kielbasa and kraw.”

“What’s a ‘kraw’?”

“Sauerkraut.”

“Oh, okay. I love that stuff, but it kills me
every time I eat it.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Hey, she make those pierogie things
too?”

“Yeah.” Deckert nodded. “Pierogies,
kluski, golabki, krupnik, you name it.
Babcia
was a hell of a cook.”

“That what’s in the bag?”

“I wish.”

“Too bad. Jeez, I guess we better stop
talkin’ about food,” Ben said. “I just realized I haven’t had
anything to eat since dinner last night.”

“Hey,” I interjected. “Is this really the
appropriate time and place for this discussion?”

I suppose there was some level of disdain in
my voice that was readily apparent because both of them looked at
me with somewhat apologetic expressions on their faces.

“Coppers do this shit, Row,” my friend told
me. “You know that. It’s how we keep from goin’ nuts.”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Sorry… I’m just…
I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, Rowan,” Deckert offered.

Ben shifted the subject back to what had
originally led down the culinary path. “So why were you askin’
about his name anyway, white man?”