The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (37 page)

I slowly depressed the talk button and then
began speaking. “Goddammit? Did I hear you right? My, my, my,
Eldon. Taking your Lord’s name in vain?”

“Don’t push me, Gant!” he shot back.

“Isn’t there a commandment about that or
something, Eldon? You know what? I think there is. Seems to me it
goes: Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in
vain.”

“Don’t you dare pass judgment on ME,
Gant.”

“Why not?” I asked with mock surprise. “Turn
about fair play, Eldon.”

“Goddammit, Gant! I said…”

“
Again, Eldon?” I cut him off. “What
happened? Don’t tell me that somehow the devil got behind
you.”

“I told you I’ll kill her!”

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” I spat. “So
what’s stopping you?”

“I will, Gant! I’ll do it!”

“You talk a good game, but I don’t think so,
Eldon. Not this time, and let me tell you why.” I continued with my
explanation, ignoring his insistent commentary. “You need
Millicent. You need Millicent to get to me. That’s what this is all
about, isn’t it, Eldon?”

I waited for him to reply and heard only
labored breathing at the other end, so I pressed forward.

“See,” I told him. “What you really want is
to kill me, not her. We both know that. Hell, everyone here knows
that. You’ve made no secret of it. But there’s something else we
both know: if you kill Millicent, about two seconds later a team of
heavily armed SWAT guys is going to screw up your little world.

“If that happens, Eldon, it’s all over.
There’s no way you’ll ever get to me. How do you think your God is
going to feel about that?”

“My God is a compassionate God,” he
snarled.

“No, Eldon,” I countered. “I’ve read your
book. I know what it says. Your God is a vengeful God.”

“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live,
Gant,” he finally replied. “And she’s a Witch. She must be punished
for her sins.”

“Are you still stuck on that?” I admonished.
“You know, when I read that particular passage, there was a lot
more to it than that. Are you using some kind of abridged
edition?”

“Vengeance is mine,” he returned.

“Saith the Lord, Eldon,” I came back
immediately. “Let’s get the quote right if you are going to use it.
Or, is it maybe that you’re trying to tell me that YOU are the
Lord? If you are, then I think we are talking about a major sin
here. Hubris, idolatry, the whole nine yards.”

A quiet lull followed my observation, and I
listened closely to the sounds coming from the handset. I wasn’t
entirely sure what I was hearing at first. As the noise began, it
sounded like sobbing, but after a moment, it inched up in volume
and started taking on the properties of a throaty chuckle.

“Glad you find this all so entertaining,
Eldon,” I chided.

“You’re good, Gant.” Porter finally eked out
the words through the insane laugh. “I’ll give you that, you’re
really good. But I’m not fooled. Maybe a man without true faith
would have fallen for your lies but not me.”

“Well, Eldon,” I answered in a
pseudo-friendly tone. “You know how it is. Satan has an agenda, and
he expects me to keep it.”

“Don’t mock me, Gant.”

“Who says I’m mocking you, Eldon? You’re the
one who keeps telling me that I’m doing Satan’s bidding.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Stop trying to mess with my mind, Gant.” He
hardened his voice. “It won’t work. You know my path is clear, and
nothing you say can shake my belief.”

“Fine,” I replied. “You’re right, let’s just
quit screwing around.”

“Yes, let’s.”

The conversation had moved through a series
of levels since it had begun. In my mind, I seemed to have
accomplished the task given me by Agent McCoy, but he had yet to
assume control of the phone. I decided I would just keep going
until someone took the device away from me.

I wasn’t really interested in chitchatting
with Porter, to be honest. There were several things I wanted to
say, but they didn’t fall under the heading of pleasant
conversation. I mentally scrolled through the list but realized
quickly that the majority of them might very well undo what I had
just accomplished.

I wasn’t sure what my next comment should be.
I didn’t quite know how fragile the calm was that I had reached
with Porter. I suppose what finally came out of my mouth was as
much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else. What’s more, the
calm with which I made the comment was actually startling.

“Come on out and get me, Eldon, I’m waiting
right here.”

“With a small army,” he spat.

“Hey, you invited them when you kidnapped
Millicent,” I chided. “Don’t lay that one at my feet.”

“I’m not coming out,” he replied.

“Okay, then what do you suggest we do about
this?”

There was a heavy pause before his voice
issued from the earpiece. “You come in here.”

“You see, now, Eldon, I’d love to do that,” I
offered. “Really I would, but I don’t think the gang down here is
going to allow it.”

“It’s heresy for them to protect you that
way.”

“Protect me?” I responded with feigned
surprise. “They aren’t protecting me. They’re protecting you. You
see, Eldon, everyone down here knows that I have every intention of
killing you.”

His next words came as an even hiss. “You
come in, and I send the Witch out.”

As I’d been expecting, someone took the phone
away. Not physically from my hand, but in a sense, the method was
just as unceremonious. This time there was no warning click as
there had been when I was back at the apartment. No rush of static.
No beep. No nothing. The handset simply retreated into the all too
familiar thickness of electronic death as the line was instantly
severed by the HNT.

“Eldon, Mister Gant isn’t here to negotiate
with you,” I heard Agent McCoy begin. “Now, I gave you something
you wanted. It’s time for you to give something in return…”

I turned back to face the team and held the
now-useless phone out in front of me. Agent Kavanaugh appeared by
my side and took the device from my hand then settled it carefully
into the large gadget box. When she had said I was her
responsibility, she had apparently been serious.

“Don’t trust me?” I quipped, keeping my voice
low.

“It’s not a trust issue, Mister Gant,” she
returned.

I answered with a shake of my head, “Could’ve
fooled me.”

She took me by the arm and began guiding me
away from the group. “You’ve been very helpful, Mister Gant, and
you did very well on the line. Especially using the hostage’s first
name repeatedly.”

“Yeah, I read about that somewhere,” I
replied. “But it won’t work with him. He doesn’t care about her
identity.”

“That remains to be seen,” she returned. “As
well as you did, however, I would question the wisdom of that last
ploy.”

“You mean when I told him I was going to kill
him?”

“Yes sir,” she acknowledged.

I glanced over at her as we walked, and I
spoke with absolute sincerity, “Who says it was a ploy?”

* * * * *

“I know this is an unpleasant situation for
you to be in, but we need to ask you for some more help,” Agent
Kavanaugh told me.

We were sitting in the back of a large panel
van, the inside of which looked like a compact conference room,
communications center, and armory all rolled into one. I was
holding a thermos cup that was half-filled with coffee. I had
accepted it when it was offered but after a couple of sips, came to
the conclusion that I didn’t really want it. Not that it was bad or
anything, I was just far too wired to even think about drinking
it.

As it was, the only reason I was still
holding the container was that I didn’t seem to be able to find a
place to put it down. Any space that appeared like it would fit the
cup was already supporting something else far more important
looking and in the case of the electronics, far more expensive.

“Forgive me for asking then,” I replied,
fighting to keep the shortness from my voice, “but if you need my
help, shouldn’t I be out there instead of in here?”

The entire day, right up to a very few
moments ago, seemed to have been built around an ever-increasing
urgency. Now, suddenly that imperative had slammed face first into
an invisible wall. That barrier had presented itself in the form of
the standard operating procedures for hostage negotiation.

“There’s no rush,” she told me. “This is
standard procedure. It takes several hours at least before
Stockholm Syndrome starts taking hold.”

“I already told you this wacko doesn’t care
about her identity,” I remarked. “You aren’t going to get any
Stockholm Syndrome. He doesn’t play by your pat psychological
profile.”

“We know what we are doing, Mister Gant.”

“I’m sure you do under most circumstances,
but you’re wrong this time.”

“How do you know that?”

“Long story. You wouldn’t believe me if I
told you.”

She looked back at me and frowned then
absently drummed the end of a ballpoint pen on the notepad she was
holding.

“Be that as it may, you’re safer in here,”
she finally replied.

“From what, Agent Kavanaugh?” I asked as I
motioned in what I thought was the general direction of the
warehouse. “He’s hiding out in the building. What’s he going to do
to me?”

She pointed toward the opposite corner of the
van. “The building is that way.”

“Sorry,” I snapped. “It’s been a really
freaking long day.”

“I understand that.” She nodded
sympathetically. “But as I told you earlier, we don’t know for sure
what Porter has in there with him, and now that the urgency of the
moment has passed, we want you to stay out of sight.”

“Unless you expect him to throw loose bricks
at me, I doubt you have anything to worry about.”

“Mister Gant,” she said. “Apparently, I am
not making myself clear. While we do not know this for a fact, we
do have every reason to believe that Porter is armed.”

“You mean with a gun?” I shook my head and
asked the question with an overabundance of incredulity in my
voice. “No way. That’s not his style.”

“Style or not, Mister Gant,” she contended.
“The second victim this morning was shot once in the back of the
head. That tells us he has a gun.”

It took a moment for what she had said to
register. When it did, I’m sure the look of confusion on my face
had to be textbook.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I waved my free hand at
her. “Back up for a second. What second victim? What are you
talking about?”

“At the scene on Locust where Mister Harper
was found, a second body was discovered. The victim was male,
approximately mid-sixties and apparently homeless. The current
theory is that he entered the warehouse in search of shelter and
stumbled upon Porter in the act of… Well, you know.”

“How do you know it was Porter who killed
him?”

“Fingerprints on the body,” she returned
matter-of-factly. “Porter apparently had Mister Harper’s blood on
his hands already.”

The image of Randy’s corpse imprinted itself
on my retinas, dancing in the air before me like a
three-dimensional movie. I stopped for a moment and fought back a
wave of nausea.

I shook my head again when the feeling
passed. “No way. This doesn’t add up. Porter doesn’t use a gun, and
besides he kills Witches not homeless people.”

“What about Mister
Kasprzykowski?
” she asked, stumbling over the
name. “He wasn’t a Witch.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that,” I replied. “But
even then, he killed him with a blow to the back of the head with a
hammer.”

“Yes, and he killed this homeless man
with a gunshot to the
back of the
head
. I’m certain you know that Porter has a criminal
history, Mister Gant,” she continued. “Several of his earlier
crimes involved handguns.”

I closed my eyes and started rubbing my
forehead. My perpetual headache was working its way around the
inside of my skull. The pain was thick and just the other side of
normal. As usual, I couldn’t put my finger on the cause other than
to say that it was coming from a source beyond the physical
realm.

“No. No way,” I said. “Porter doesn’t have a
gun.”

“Mister Gant.” Agent Kavanaugh took on a
concerned tone. “I really don’t understand why you are having such
a problem with this.”

“Twilight
Zone
,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“Twilight
Zone
,” I said a bit more clearly as I re-opened my
eyes and looked up at her.

She shook her head as a mask of obfuscation
passed over her features. “I don’t understand.”

“Ask the big Indian outside,” I told her.
“He’ll explain it to you.”

“What did he say to you during the first
conversation this morning?” Agent Kavanaugh asked.

We had been sequestered in the back of the
panel van for something close to half an hour by now. She had all
but dismissed my objection to the idea that Eldon Porter was using
any type of firearm, as well as my suggestion that she talk to Ben
for an explanation as to how I could be so certain. Of course, I
don’t suppose that his answer would have been any more convincing
than mine.

“Which part?” I asked, still trying to temper
my impatience at the “hurry up and wait” overtone of the current
situation.

The order of the moment was taking the form
of an in-depth interview of yours truly. The questions that
comprised the Q & A ranged from the expected to the seemingly
non sequitur. She had already made several queries that appeared to
come from far left and well over the horizon, leading me at times
to simply stare back at her with a dumbstruck gaze.