“So,” I asked after lighting the butt and taking a deep drag. “Why were you calling me in the first place?”
“Just wanted ta’ let ya’ know we looked into a connection between Lawson and Schaeffer.”
“And?”
“Nothing there, Row,” he told me. “No connection, no common friends, activities, or anything. Nada.”
“Are you certain?”
“Certain as we can be with what we’ve got. The whole Lawson thing is a dead end, white-man. She’s got nothin’ ta’ do with Debbie Schaeffer.”
“So I guess you’re closing the books on her then?” I asked, dejection filling my voice.
“Well, yes and no.”
“What do you mean, ‘yes, and no’? Which is it?”
I could literally feel his hesitation over the phone. “Man… I shouldn’t even tell you…”
“Come on, Ben. You can’t leave me hanging like that.”
“Shit,” he muttered the expletive. “Okay, but ya’ gotta promise me you’ll stay outta this and let us handle it.”
“Fine. I promise.”
“Yeah, right,” he returned, obviously not believing me for a minute, then he huffed out a breath before continuing anyway. “Okay, listen, it looks like ya’ might’ve been right about Lawson’s death not bein’ an accident. Well, not entirely an accident, anyway.”
“Go on.” I was intrigued, even a little elated. Vindication appeared to be on the horizon, and it was something I sorely needed.
“Remember I mentioned she had a welt on her neck?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, the M.E. says it’s consistent with the type of mark that could be left by a high-powered stun gun.”
“I thought those things weren’t supposed to leave marks?”
“Depends,” he explained. “Not always, but there’re a lot of factors; trust me, they can definitely leave a serious welt. I speak from experience.”
My hand lifted automatically to my neck, and I focused on the memory of the burning sensation I’d felt. The jangle and buzz that had taken over every nerve in my body; the disorientation and paralysis that had driven me to fall helpless on the ground while at that crime scene. A piece of the puzzle locked securely in with another. As yet, I could only imagine the picture that was going to be formed, but at least now I had a start.
“So it’s a murder case now?”
“Kinda,” he acknowledged without enthusiasm. “We figure what prob’ly happened was that some asshole waited in the bushes and assaulted ‘er on her way in the door. Most likely a doper or somethin’ lookin’ ta’ score some quick cash. Jammed ‘er with the stun gun, she fell and cracked her head on the table; shithead sees the blood, panics and runs without even liftin’ anything.”
“You think that’s all it was?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“But it could be more, right?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I really don’t think so. There’s nothin’ else there.”
In my mind’s eye I could see him shaking his head as he spoke.
I thought about it silently for a moment. Logically, Ben was correct, but I wasn’t subscribing to logical theories these days. There actually was something else there; he just couldn’t see it, and I wasn’t going to give up until I found it. With what he’d told me, I had a start; now I just needed to build on it. I could tell from my friend’s tone that he was already regretting that he’d told me anything at all, so I was just going to have to chase this lead on my own.
“So what about the whole smoking thing,” I asked, changing the subject as much to hide my intentions as to let him off the hook.
“Yeah, yeah, I looked into it. Far as we can tell they were both clean. Neither of ‘em smoked.”
“Guess it’s someone else then,” I submitted.
“There is no one else, Rowan,” he answered. “Listen, you still out there in the woods?”
“No. I’m sitting on the back of my truck.”
“Good,” he returned flatly. “Then get the fuck in it and go home.”
He ended the call with that abrupt command, an almost angry click following the last words. I wasn’t exactly making people happy.
I’d scarcely managed to climb into the cab of my vehicle and get myself belted in before the cell phone pealed for attention a second time. I gave the face a quick look, and the caller ID display registered my home number. I can’t say that it was unexpected, but I can say that I was dreading it. I answered it anyway.
It was dead on 6 p.m. when I pulled into the driveway, fully chastised via phone. Felicity was waiting for me when I walked through the front door, and she was armed and ready for round two.
If looks could kill she would have been planning my funeral two seconds after I arrived…
It took the better part of the next day for me to finally redeem myself with my wife. I hadn’t tried to hide anything from her, and while that helped my case to a small extent, she was still far from pleased.
I had a tendency to forget that even though Felicity wasn’t prone to the same type or frequency of bizarre visions as myself, she was a Witch nonetheless and very in tune with her surroundings. At this particular stage of the game, I had to accept that she was actually far more in tune than me, whether I liked it or not.
While she was unsure of the details-until she forced me to fill her in, that is-she had been perfectly aware that I was up to something. She had even experienced some sensations of my own fear because of the deep bond between us. Once she became privy to the particulars behind that fear, however, her initial concern folded quickly into anger.
Fortunately, since she had been a direct witness to what had happened at the morgue the evening prior, she was willing to believe that I wasn’t necessarily the one in control of the situation. While that tempered the anger, it only served to return her concern to the forefront, which started the vicious cycle anew.
Still, when everything was said and done, it was noon before she decided that she was speaking to me again.
CHAPTER 15
“Hello?” I said in a hurried voice. I had managed to snatch up the telephone receiver just as the fourth ring was dying away and only a split second ahead of the answering machine.
My greeting was met with nothing more than dead air, although there was a distinct hollowness to it, which lead me to believe that there was almost certainly someone on the other end. After a moment, I repeated the salutation.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
My query was answered by what I thought might possibly have been a shallow breath, though I couldn’t be sure. The sound was promptly followed by a soft click in the earpiece as the calling party hung up.
I dropped the handset back into the cradle and scanned the caller ID box next to it. The blocky letters on the LCD display read, UNAVAILABLE. Whoever it was either lived in an area without the CLID service, or more likely, they’d keyed in the code to disable it.
“Who was on the phone?” Felicity asked, as she zipped quickly through the living room and hooked past me on her way upstairs with an empty box that had earlier contained the holiday decorations that now tastefully adorned strategic locations throughout the house.
We’d both managed to grab a fairly substantial amount of sleep, and her brogue had melted back into the normally perceptible Celtic lilt minus the clipped affectations that had permeated her speech before. Of course, the extra time we’d spent resting was directly responsible for us now rushing about in a frenzy to get everything done before our guests arrived.
“Don’t know,” I called after her. “They hung up and the caller ID says unavailable.”
“That’s weird,” she said as she came back down the stairs, quickly sidestepping to avoid a cat that was on its way up. “There were three hang-ups on the answering machine when I checked it yesterday and another two this morning.”