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“Lemme get this straight…” Ben’s voice came at me over the cell phone. “Firehair went all Twilight Zone this time instead of you?”
Firehair was just one of the nicknames he had for my wife, but it was by far his favorite.
“Yeah, kind of,” I answered. “Or maybe in addition to.”
Felicity and I were parked diagonally across from one another in a booth at Seamus O’Donnell’s. She had pressed herself as far into the shadows of the corner as she could get, and I was keeping a close eye on her.
The pub wasn’t my first choice of places to be given the situation, but it was the closest for what she needed. Fortunately, the evening rush had not yet started, so I was able to carry on the phone conversation without yelling over the noise of a crowd or stepping outside.
“What?” he chirped, a note of concern leaping into his tone. “You were both all zoned out in a moving vehicle?”
“No, not exactly,” I explained, still trying to get a handle on what had happened myself. “I had some ethereal background noise in my head, but I never stepped over the line. I did that this morning before you came by.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Do what?” he barked again. “So you did the la-la land thing this mornin’, and you’re just now tellin’ me?”
“I didn’t have anything to connect it with at the time, Ben,” I replied. “Then the whole thing with the kidnapping happened… I mean, give me a break.”
“So you think it all has something to do with the Brittany Larson abduction?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Don’t be so goddamned overconfident, Rowan,” he chided.
“Cut me some slack, Ben,” I replied stiffly. “I’m still a bit rattled. This kind of thing has never happened to Felicity before. I’m not real happy about it, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yeah… Sorry. You’re right,” he apologized. “So listen, where are you two right now? Home?”
“No.” I shook my head out of reflex as I spoke. “We’re in a bar down on Oakland called Seamus O’Donnell’s.”
“What’d ya’ go to a bar for?” he asked, a note of confusion in his voice.
“It was the closest place where I could get her out of the heat and let her rest up,” I told him. “Besides, it’s actually where we were headed for dinner anyway.”
“She doin’ okay?”
“Seems to be.” I looked across at Felicity. She was still at the far end of the booth but had leaned forward now, elbows on the table, eyes closed, and fingers slowly massaging her temples. “But judging from the looks of her and speaking from experience, she’s got a killer headache at the moment.”
“What about you?” he pressed. “You gonna go all loopy or anything?”
“Like I actually know when that’s going to happen, Ben?”
“Yeah, forget I asked.” He huffed out a heavy sigh then muttered, “Jeezus fuck, white man. What am I gonna do with you two?”
“Wish I could help you there, Chief,” I told him. “I’m wondering the same thing myself.”
“Not what I wanted to hear,” he replied. “So listen, stay right where you are. I’m pretty much done here, so I’m gonna shake loose and come down there.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
I thumbed off the phone and clipped it back onto my belt then turned my full attention back to my wife. Her eyes were still closed, and she was carefully working her fingers from temples to forehead and back again. Her lips were parted slightly, and I watched the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled to regulate her breathing. I knew exactly how she felt, and it was killing me to see her like this.
Of course, I suppose now I knew exactly how she felt when the roles had been reversed.
“I’d like to tell you it gets better,” I said softly. “But, it’s more like you just get used to it.”
“Fek,” she muttered the colloquial Irish profanity.
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed.
“How do you do it?” she asked then moaned, still not opening her eyes.
“I wish I could answer that,” I replied. “I just do. If it’s any consolation, I’d rather not.”
“Aspirin,” she murmured.
“Let me see if I can get you some,” I told her as I started up from my seat.
“Purse. Side. Tin,” she told me, exaggerated economy in her selection of verbiage.
I pulled her purse across the table and rummaged about in the side pocket. Under any other circumstances I wouldn’t have dreamed of sticking my hand into the carryall. As I had told my wife countless times before, a woman’s handbag seemed to me to be a kind of tame black hole: a place where an impossible number of items disappeared and could only be found by the woman who owned the receptacle in the first place. At the moment, hers was definitely living up to that assessment.
“Left. Bottom. Yellow tin.” She offered another set of terse instructions.
I pushed my hand deeper into the pocket and finally managed to withdraw the sought after container of aspirin. I sat it on the table and pushed it over to her then started sliding out of the booth as she slitted her eyes and reached for the tin.
“I’ll go get you some water,” I told her.
“Black Bush,” she asserted.
“No whisky with aspirin,” I replied. “Water.”
“Black Bush,” she repeated.
“Water.”
She tossed the tin in front of her and it bounced across the table, tablets noisily rattling around inside. Then it slid off the edge and clattered to the floor.
“Black Bush.” This time it was a demand.
I knew exactly where she was coming from, and I didn’t fault her a bit. The truth was that the aspirin really wouldn’t do much good for the kind of headache she had anyway. Not that booze was any better remedy, but it would help take the edge off.
“Shot or rocks,” I conceded with a soft sigh.
“Bottle,” she replied.
“Slow down,” I said to my wife as she drained the tumbler and clacked it back onto the wooden table with a heavy thunk. “That’s your second double.”
Her hand was still wrapped around the glass, and her head was tilted back, face pointing upward to the ceiling. She drew in a deep breath and then exhaled heavily, puffing out her cheeks as she did so.
“Aye, but I said bottle, not double,” she stated as she lowered her gaze down to meet mine.
“Give those a chance to work,” I told her. “They aren’t even in your bloodstream yet.”
She frowned back at me but didn’t argue. She slouched down in her seat, and a moment later I felt her sneaker-clad feet slide up onto the bench next to me. She reached up and pressed her palms against either side of her head as if she were trying to squeeze it back into shape.
“This sucks,” she moaned.
“I know,” I replied.
I was fully aware that the words were of little consolation, but they were the best I had to offer at the moment. I wanted desperately to ask her about the experience. But, she needed some time to come to terms with what had happened, so I didn’t broach the subject.
Usually such an ethereal event came with some manner of built-in, albeit obscure, reference to something in the here and now-although, admittedly, mine from earlier this day had held no such prize. Neither had the similar ones I’d suffered through at the beginning of the year.
Patrons were starting to fill the establishment as round one of the dinner rush came upon us. It hadn’t reached the point of obnoxious as yet, but the noise level was rapidly approaching that of annoying static. It didn’t seem to be bothering Felicity, though.
“You look like shit.” Ben’s voice cut through the hum of the growing crowd.
I looked up to see him standing over my shoulder, his gaze locked on my wife.
“But you’re still a hell of a lot prettier than paleface over here.” He jerked a thumb at me as he added the comment.
A waitress sidled up to the table and shot me a questioning look. “Do you folks need anything?”
“I’m good,” I replied.
“Black Bush, neat, double,” Felicity chimed in.
“Felicity…” I admonished.
“All right then.” She cut me off with an annoyed tone lacing her words. “Jamieson, neat, double.”
I shook my head and waved my hand in surrender as I looked up at the waitress. “Give her whatever she wants.”
“Black Bush,” my wife chirped.
The waitress craned her neck and looked up at Ben. “How about you?”
“Beer,” Ben told her.
“We have Guinness on tap,” she offered.
“No honey.” Ben shook his head. “Beer isn’t s’posed to be black. Bring me somethin’ in a mug that’s cold, fizzy, and beer-colored.”
“Whatever you say.” She shook her head back at him then before she turned and walked away, she added rhetorically, “Do you want me to bring you a straw with that?”
“Friendly place you picked here.” Ben made the sarcastic comment as he slid into the booth next to Felicity.
“Aye, you’re in a pub, Ben,” my wife informed him, still lounging in her seat. “Quit bein’ a Colleen.”
“She’s doin’ the accent,” he remarked as he looked over at me. “The Twilight Zone thing do that to her?”
“Leave me alone,” Felicity muttered.
“I’m sure it wore her out, but I think the two double Irish whisky’s are to blame,” I replied.
“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, glancing over at her then back to me. “She’s not gonna start talkin’ that gibberish is she?”
“Duairc,” Felicity chimed.
“That answer your question?” I asked.
“She just called me a name, didn’t she?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“I said you’re a rude man,” she offered.
“Well, at least this time you got the gender right.” He shook his head and looked back to me. “So explain it to me. What’s up with the squaw doin’ the la-la land thing? I thought that was your gig.”
“Me too,” I answered with a nod. “I’m not sure what’s going on there myself.”
“Will you quit talking about me like I’m not here, then,” Felicity insisted.
“Okay. Chill.” Ben jumped the tracks and boarded another train of thought. “So what about this mornin’? What’s up with that?”
“Again, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “The episode was almost exactly like the ones I had back in January.”
“You mean when you were floppin’ around like a fish outta water when Porter was…” his voice trailed off at the mention of the name.
“Yeah,” I acknowledged and finished the sentence for him. “When Porter was trying to kill me.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to dredge that up.”
“No problem. It’s not something I’ve managed to forget yet anyhow.”
“So I thought those stopped after he was locked up?”
“They did. Until today that is.”
Ben frowned hard and stared back at me. Without a word, he reached to his belt and pulled out his cell phone. After an aborted attempt, he managed to key in a number with his thick finger and tucked the device up to his ear. I had a feeling that I knew what he was getting ready to do, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer he was seeking.
“Yeah, Roy?” he said after a moment. “Yeah, it’s Ben Storm. Not much, you?… Yeah, so listen, I need a favor. Can you check somethin’ for me? Yeah, I need status on an inmate… No, don’t have his number, but you’ll probably remember ‘im. Uh-huh… Name’s Eldon Andrew Porter… Yeah, thought you would… Yeah. Not a problem. Yeah, on my cell. Great. Bye.”
As Ben ended the call, the waitress came toward the table, expertly maneuvering through the crowd with a drink-burdened serving tray held above her shoulder. In a practiced motion, she swooped it down and plucked a tumbler full of whisky from it then slid the glass in front of Felicity. Next, she placed a pint glass of beer in front of Ben. In a reverse motion, she hefted the platter back up to her shoulder and regarded my friend.
“Cold, fizzy, and well, yellow-colored,” she said, reaching with her free hand into the change pouch around her waist and withdrawing a straw. She tossed it in front of Ben and shot him a smile as she walked off. “Enjoy.”
“Jeez…” he muttered, shaking his head at me.
“So you don’t really think Porter has escaped or something do you?” I asked abruptly, the edginess in my voice was obvious even to me.
“Don’t know,” he replied. “But we’ll know shortly. Roy’s an old friend of mine, and he works for the Missouri Department of Corrections.”
“But wouldn’t there have been some kind of bulletin or alert or something if he’d escaped?” I pressed.
“Depends, Row.”
“That doesn’t make me feel very secure, Ben.”
“Listen, Kemosabe, don’t get all worked up,” he told me. “I’m just checkin’ to be sure. C-Y-A and all that shit.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I knew that my tone was less than convincing. My friend shook his head then brushed the straw out of the way and lifted the pint of beer. After a long swallow, he rested it back on the coaster and watched it intently as he slowly spun the glass.
“So you said on the phone that you were movin’ when Felicity went all la-la,” he finally said, bludgeoning the stalled conversation in a new direction with a blunt segue.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Kind of. When she seized, her foot slipped off the brake, and we started into the intersection.”
“Not too fast then?”
“Not really I don’t guess.” I shrugged. “But I still probably didn’t do the transmission any favors.”
“How so?”
“When I popped it into gear.”
“I don’t follow.”
“To stop the Jeep,” I explained. “I switched off the key and then popped it into gear. Kind of an abrupt stop, but it worked.”
“I thought you said you weren’t movin’ too fast?”
“We weren’t really. Just rolling more or less.”
“Just rollin’?”
“Yeah, why?”
He creased his forehead. “Then why didn’t ya’ just pull the emergency brake?”
I closed my eyes and hung my head in sudden embarrassment as the mental picture of the Jeep’s center console painted itself in my brain.
Ben looked back at me, his face spread into a grin, and I could tell that he was already formulating a wisecrack. Fortunately for me, his cell phone began its low warble, cutting him off before he could utter the taunt. He motioned me to wait and answered it. “Storm. Yeah. That was fast. Yeah. Yeah… You’re sure? Okay, thanks, Roy. I owe you one… Uh-yeah,” my friend hesitated for a moment before continuing, “Yeah, I’ll tell ‘er. Bye.”
A slightly pained look crept in to replace his grin, and I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, I could tell that it came from something other than the query about Eldon Porter.
I raised an eyebrow and dipped my head at him. “All good?”
“Yeah,” he replied as he fumbled to put the cell phone back on his belt, finally giving up and dropping it on the table in front of him. “Porter is locked away safe and sound, preaching to all the other wingnuts in the population.”
“Great.” I frowned.
“Hey, a coupl’a minutes ago you were getting’ ready to panic on me,” he observed. “What’s up?”
“No I wasn’t.”
“Yeah, right. What’s the deal?”
“Okay, maybe I was,” I admitted. “A little. But I guess maybe I was still just hoping for an easy explanation to all of this.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Woulda been nice, but look at it this way; at least he’s not on the street.”
“True. So since we’ve ruled that out, maybe it is the Brittany Larson thing after all,” I offered with a shake of my head, not really believing it myself. “But that wouldn’t explain why I was having the seizures in January.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he agreed.
I picked up my pint of Stout and took a sip then set it back on the table. The murmur of the crowd was ramping up to a dull roar now, and I looked out of the booth, glancing around at the milling bodies.
Across the way, the bar itself was stacked two deep with people waiting for drinks or simply inhabiting their claimed bit of real estate at the polished, wooden counter. I knew it should be approaching eight, and the band would be playing soon. At that point, we would be unable to carry on any kind of worthwhile conversation, not to mention the fact that I was in no mood for singing along with drinking songs. I suspected that Felicity no longer was either.
I scanned the wall, looking for a clock, and my eyes came to rest on the television set perched on a shelf above the rows of liquor bottles. I watched as a news update filled the screen, absently taking note of the ever-changing price of gasoline.
When the tube flickered and displayed the picture of a twenty-something young woman inset over the shoulder of the anchor, my heart skipped a beat. Beneath the photo was the caption, Tamara Linwood.
Neurons fired in rapid succession, flooding my brain with a not-so-distant memory as I stared at the picture.
Gruesome discovery.
Badly decomposed human arm.
Shallow grave.
Body may be that of Tamara Linwood, the grade school teacher who disappeared from the parking lot of Westview Shopping Mall back in January…
The memory of the phantom metallic tang tickled the back of my tongue, and I closed my eyes. I definitely wasn’t going to call it easy, but there it was- the explanation for at least a part of my day.
And, I was absolutely certain that I didn’t like it.