“Sorry,” I offered.
“Not your fault,” he returned. “So what about the basement, if that’s what it was. Do ya’ remember anything about it? Anything unique?”
“Just what I already told you. Your standard grey concrete walls and floor. They were a little on the pitted side though, so I’d guess it was an older house… Kind of hefty rafters… Wooden stairs… Had a fairly high ceiling, considering… And then there was the oversized crucifix and the candles. Get rid of those and it’s just a pretty basic basement.”
“Crucifix and candles,” he echoed under his breath then paused. “That would imply that the killer is Roman Catholic.”
“Or Greek Orthodox, or Russian Orthodox, or Lutheran for that matter…” I let my voice trail off. “I’m inclined to agree that he practices some manner of Catholicism based on his adherence to the Malleus Maleficarum. Of course, Saint Louis is just like most large cities. We have a rather substantial population of traditional Catholics as well as the various offshoots. The religion factor, in and of itself, really doesn’t narrow the field much.”
“Don’t remind me,” he sighed.
The ensuing silence was interrupted by a muffled electronic warble demanding immediate attention. Ben stepped over to a chair and rummaged about in his coat then produced a hand-held cell phone from a pocket. Flipping it open and stabbing it on, he cut off the third ring mid-peal and placed it against his ear. “Storm.”
Only he was privy to who was on the other end of the line, but his broken attempts to reply made it apparent that the person was a mere heartbeat away from hysterics. The caller’s identity became immediately obvious when he was finally able to forcibly wedge a sentence into the one-sided conversation. “Whoa, whoa, calm down, okay? He’s right here and he’s fine. I’m standin’ here lookin’ at ‘im… No problem. Hold on.”
Ben had covered the short distance between us as he talked and now offered me the device. “It’s your wife. If I understood her right she seems ta’ think that you’re dead.”
Upon hearing my voice, Felicity abandoned her frenzy of concern and burst into relieved sobs. Running the full gamut of emotions at a breakneck pace, her solace was quickly followed by happiness, embarrassment, and eventually anger. I allowed her to vent, and after five minutes of bombarding me with her particular brand of Irish fury at my having engaged in such a dangerous endeavor, she completed the circle and returned once again to relief. A few moments later I finally convinced her I was fine and promised to stay that way.
Doctor Sanders had been sitting quietly and now stared at me incredulously for a moment as I switched off the phone and handed it back to Ben.
“Your wife could see what you were seeing?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” I returned. “More along the lines of a premonition or a nightmare. She saw me being burned and felt some of the pain that I was feeling.”
She continued to stare across her desk at me and slowly cocked one eyebrow. Momentarily, she drained her glass of bourbon and planted it on the desktop then pushed her chair back. “I’m not entirely sure what to make of anything I’ve heard so far tonight, Mister Gant… But on that note, I believe I have an autopsy to finish.”
My dinner consisted of a stale Zagnut coaxed unceremoniously from a recalcitrant vending machine in the lobby of the building. I had washed it down with coffee served in a cheerfully decorated paper cup left over from a holiday office party. It now felt as though it was lodged sideways in the pit of my stomach, angrily fighting for space with the three tumblers of bourbon. Not exactly fine dining at Kemoll’s, but I took what I could get.
Quarter-sized clumps of snow were pelting me mercilessly as I tipped my head back and swallowed the last dregs from the red and green, holly-inscribed vessel. The remaining brew had already begun to grow cold, and it slowly forced its way down my throat in a bitter, watery lump.
While sitting alone in the break room, choking down the dry candy bar, I had been subjected to only slightly muted versions of the earlier pains brought about by the procedure going on in the autopsy suite. Physically, I could neither see nor hear what was happening in that room. Mentally, I was being treated to-or more accurately, tortured by-a first hand view through a dead woman’s eyes. Before long I was left with no choice other than to seek safe haven by placing even more distance between the corpse and myself. Constrained by the hazardous travel conditions and my only avenue for refuge being outdoors, I had ventured out into the snowy night. The added distance served to blunt a good deal of the pain; however, even the frozen darkness couldn’t remove it entirely.
I had continued to feel the spirit of Kendra Miller cry out in protest at what was being done to her earthly remains. I was unable to escape her wailing lament at what she could only view as more torture.
I crumpled the empty paper cup and stuffed it into my coat pocket then turned my back to the frigid wind, seeking what shelter I could alongside the glassed-in foyer that jutted from the front of the building. With cold-numbed hands, I slipped the cellophane from a Cruz Real #2 and neatly guillotined the end. A thick swoosh sounded behind me as the sluggish metal-framed door was forced open, and I heard heavy footsteps squeakily crunching in the snow.
“Still hooked on those Mexicans, eh?” Ben’s voice met my ears, the words making a weary jab at my choice of cigar brands.
The match I held cupped in my hands flared to life, and I touched its fire to the cigar clenched between my teeth. Staring into it, I felt myself becoming mesmerized by the tiny flame. A hot knife dragged down my spine, and I closed my eyes tightly, forcibly willing away the vibrant Technicolor flashes of my recent vision.
“I guess you could say that,” I answered as I turned and shook out the nearly spent wooden match.
He had just finished paring the end from his own smoke and now tucked it into the corner of his mouth before burying his hands into his pockets. “One good thing ‘bout this freakin’ blizzard,” he mumbled, “the bastard’s prob’ly snowed in just like the rest of us.”
“Probably, but I wouldn’t count on that stopping him for long.”
“Yeah. Great. Bust my bubble why don’tcha.”
We stood in silence, listening to the relentless pattering of the falling snow. Ben shielded the end of his cigar with large hands and lit it purposefully, taking time to remove it from between his lips and inspect the glowing tip once he had extinguished the lighter. Satisfied, he placed it back in his mouth and gazed out across the white-blanketed parking area. Of the three vehicles on the lot, his van was the least buried. The other two seemed to be no more than huge shimmering dunes cast in soft blue shadows.
Directly across the street, the backside of the building that housed City Hall was a dim, hulking shadow in the night. Catty-cornered from where we stood, a small coffee shop was all but obscured by the downward streaming curtain of ice crystals. A short distance behind it, the lights of the indoor ice arena that was home to the Saint Louis Blues hockey team cast an upward glowing halo. No sound was issuing from the nearby highway, and it seemed that even the police headquarters, which dominated most of the block, had fallen silent and still.
“So, Red Squaw was pretty upset, huh?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, she was. Scared mostly, but she’s okay now,” I replied. “What about you?”
“Whaddaya mean? I’m fine.”
“Yeah. Right,” I returned, sarcasm flowing through my words. “You put up a good front, Ben, but you aren’t fooling me. I know for a fact that what happened in there scared you. I could feel it then and I can feel it right now.”
A nervous laugh emitted from between my friend’s clenched teeth. “Yeah, well, you’re wrong. I wasn’t scared. I was more like fuckin’ terrified if you wanna know the truth. When ya’ went all Twilight Zone in there, I just kept thinkin’ about that whole deal last time… Last summer… Ya’know what I’m sayin’?”