“What?!”
“Sure, I’d love to do it. It would be fun. I can go put on some heels for you, and I’m certain Rowan won’t…”
“Felicity!” he objected.
“Really, Ben. You just lay down on the floor, and I’ll go change shoes. I’ve got this really sexy pair of blue pumps, and I could…”
“Dammit, Felicity!” he barked.
“Oh. Would you prefer black or red? I have those too.”
“Stop it! Just stop!”
“It’s okay. I understand,” she replied with a wicked grin.
“Jeezus…” my friend muttered, letting his forehead fall into his hand.
My wife still wasn’t finished. “It’s okay. Really. I do understand. Constance and I wear the same size. I’ll just loan them to her.”
“Felicity, goddammit!” Ben snapped. “Will ya’ just knock it off?!”
She shrugged. “Okay, if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“Thank you,” he spat.
“No. That should be, ‘Thank you, Mistress’.”
My friend sighed and looked over at me. “Jeeezus… Row… I dunno how you do it.”
I leaned back against the counter and took a sip from my own cup of coffee. I couldn’t help but be somewhat amused by their exchange, especially since it didn’t take the turn I had feared.
“Actually, she’s not usually as mean to me as she is to you,” I replied.
“I can be if you’d like,” she offered.
“We’ll discuss that later.”
“Fuckin’ wunnerful,” Ben spat then started shuffling through the pile of photos once again until he found the shot he was looking for and pulled it out with a quick jerk. Holding it up, he continued, “So, you two clowns wanna get serious for a minute and have a look at this one? Believe it or not, the reason I came here is ‘cause I’ve got some police work to do.”
CHAPTER 10:
“This is what I really wanted you two ta’ check out,” Ben offered, handing a picture to Felicity.
I stepped toward the table and peered at it over her shoulder.
The image we were staring at was that of the quadrant on Wentworth’s chest where the series of shallow cuts had been scored into his flesh. These had been the lacerations I had first noticed when we were at the crime scene, and they were also what had sparked that foreboding tickle in the back of my skull. Now that I was standing here looking at the close-up photograph, and I could see the wounds in all their unconcealed glory, that feeling was returning as a full-blown aggravation.
I continued staring at the glossy color page following the thin, and sometimes faint, marks with my eyes. As I had suspected earlier, they seemed to form a pattern. At the time, all I had been able to see was an almost random checkerboard, but now more detail had been revealed. What I was seeing certainly wasn’t symmetrical, and was far from perfect, but upon close inspection it appeared to be the outline of a heart within the crosshatched slashes.
“A heart?” I said aloud.
“That’s what we thought it looked like,” Ben replied. “Mean anything to you?”
“Other than the obvious, ‘I heart this’ or ‘I heart that’ bumper sticker reference, not really,” I answered. “I mean it looks familiar…” I paused, letting my words trail off as I reached out and with my finger traced a portion of the pattern in the air over the top of the photo. “The crosshatching and all seems to ring a bell, but I just may be thinking of a Valentine’s Day card I’ve seen or something like that.”
“Well, don’t know if this makes any difference,” Ben offered. “But Doc Sanders thinks these marks were done post-mortem whereas the others on his back weren’t. She’s waitin’ on some lab results to verify that, but she’s pretty sure.”
“That’s odd,” I muttered.
“Tell me ‘bout it,” he grunted.
“They don’t look as precise as the others,” Felicity stated. “It’s as if they were done out of rage.”
“Or maybe the killer’s just got a bad case of peekawhosits,” my friend replied, his tone almost joking. “Got all worked up and went to slicin’.”
“Maybe it wasn’t anger,” I speculated aloud. “If these cuts were made post mortem then maybe it was haste.”
Ben gave a hearty nod. “Yeah, that’s actually kinda what we were thinkin’. But, even so, if the killer took the time to do this before gettin’ outta Dodge, then it’s gotta mean somethin’.”
“Well, like I said, it looks familiar,” I told him. “But, I have to be honest, I can’t really place a meaning on it.”
“The love we feel,” Felicity offered.
“Sorry?” Ben asked.
“The love we feel,” she repeated. “That’s one of the supposed meanings of the heart on the Leather Pride flag.”
“Leather Pri… Jeezus… I don’t wanna…” My friend looked at her, shaking his head, then pulled out his notebook and flipped it open before fishing in his pocket for a pen. “Okay. Go ahead. Leather Pride?”
“When I was dating Bob, we went to a couple of S amp;M/B amp;D conventions,” she explained.
“Ya’ mean like the one the church people were picketing a few years back?” he asked.
She nodded. “Exactly. Either way, just like Gay Pride has the rainbow, the BDSM community has the Leather Pride flag. It’s black and blue horizontally striped bars top and bottom, with a white stripe dividing them across the middle. In the upper left hand corner is a heart. Many in the community say the heart is meant to symbolize ‘the love we feel’.”
“Black ‘n blue,” my friend grunted. “Go figure.”
“Aye, it’s not what you think. Black represents leather and blue represents denim.”
Ben finished scribbling a note then stared back at my wife silently for a moment, then finally said, “You really kinda got into that whole deal, didn’t ya’?”
“Yes, very much so, as long as I was the top,” she replied. “But, I already told you I did.”
He made a quick huffing noise as he closed his eyes, tightened his shoulders, and then feigned a shiver.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He looked over to me. “This shit doesn’t bother you?”
“What? The bondage stuff?”
“Well yeah.”
I shrugged. “Not particularly, if it’s between consenting adults.”
“But…” his voice faded away and he fell silent.
“But what?” I asked.
He pointed to Felicity. “But it’s her we’re talkin’ about here, white man. And you knew nothin’ about this?”
I simply shrugged again in reply.
“I have to keep him guessing, don’t I?” my wife offered. “A little mystery is good for a relationship.”
He shook his head at me and then looked back to her. “Man, I’m just not sure I needed to know this shit about you, Felicity.”
“Well don’t dwell on it,” she told him. “It will just get you all hot and bothered, then.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “So anyway, let’s get back ta’ business. You’re thinking maybe the killer carved a Leather Pride symbol into Wentworth?”
Felicity shrugged. “Maybe. Right now I’m merely speculating just like you. All that’s really there is a heart, but if the killer was a dominatrix, it might make some sense.”
“Whadda you think, Row?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Sounds like as good an explanation as any, for the moment. All I can tell you for sure is that you’re right. It means something.”
“So Wentworth’s not talkin’ to ya’, huh?”
I knew immediately what he meant. “No. Not a word. Not yet, anyway. Why?”
“Dunno. Just got a hinky feelin’ about this one.”
I pointed to the pile of photographs. “So is that feeling why you came all the way out to the county to show us these?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” he said with a nod. “Just can’t shake the notion that there’s somethin’ more to this.”
“Me too,” I agreed. “I just don’t know what it is. You know, maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”
“Jeezus, I hope not.”
“Aye, it could be worse,” Felicity said.
“How’s that?”
She shot him yet another wicked grin, but as she opened her mouth to speak, the relative quiet of the room was pierced by a sudden electronic trill that grew louder and more obnoxious with each consecutive chirp.