symptoms. If I had, I’d probably still be talking to the staff psychiatrist as well as being taken on a tour of their lovely padded accommodations. I’d been down this road before, and I was in no hurry to visit it again.
You tend to get a small spectrum of reactions when you look at someone and say, “I’m a Witch.” The three biggies go something like this: One, they look at you like you are crazy. Two, they try to introduce you to Jesus and save you from yourself; or, three, they run screaming in the opposite direction. In my case, being male, I also get the added, ‘”Don’t you mean warlock?” This usually prompts me to give the actual definition of the word warlock, that being “oath breaker.” The resulting short explanation of the fact that male or female, a Witch is very simply called a Witch, is usually a good one for glazing over the eyes of the uninitiated in less than sixty seconds.
Though I don’t make a secret of my religious path or even my mystical leanings, I’ve learned to avoid the subject in given situations. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be honest-plain and simple.
When I’d made my call, I had found Ben behind his desk at City Homicide working on the situation that had gotten him out of bed only a handful of hours before. I’d suspected as much would be the case and hadn’t even tried calling him at home. When I told him what I wanted to show him, he’d suggested that I go to my own home and get some rest. I doubt he’d really expected me to follow the suggestion because he didn’t seem at all surprised to see me coming through the glass-fronted double doors of his department just over thirty minutes later.
Felicity on the other hand, had been a tougher sell. Though her outward appearance may be that of fragile beauty, my wife was as headstrong as they came. I was fully aware that what came across on the surface as stereotypical Irish stubbornness and temper was truly born of intellect, will, and protective instinct. Still in all, igniting that temper was something better left undone unless you had a damned good reason. I just didn’t feel I had a choice this time around, even if my reason was no more than repeating pages of nonsensical rhyme on a notepad and a gut-twisting bad feeling about them.
In the end, it took me all of fifteen minutes to convince her that if she didn’t take me by City Police Headquarters on the way home, I would simply find a way to take myself. She had finally given in, and at this particular moment she was parked next to me in one of the stackable, molded-plastic chairs the detectives used for visitors. It was no secret that she wasn’t happy with me in the least, but I was betting she would get over it. She always did.
I shifted in my own seat, it also being a refugee from the stack of seventies era furniture, and succeeded only in moving the discomfort from one side of my body to the other.
“Did you happen to notice anything other than the similarity to a children’s book about green eggs?” I asked.
“You got nice handwriting.” Ben shrugged. “Kinda pretty. I especially like that little curly-q thing you do with the bottoms of the I’s.”
“Exactly,” I affirmed, ignoring his sardonic addition. “It is nice handwriting. But it’s not my handwriting.”
“Whaddaya mean? I thought ya’ said you wrote it.”
“I did, but not of my own volition.”
“You wanna explain that?”
I sighed. I’d been through this with him already when I’d called, but obviously either I hadn’t made myself clear or he’d been ignoring me. I suspected it was the latter, but considering the altered states I’d been in recently, I couldn’t say for sure.
“It’s called automatic writing, Ben,” I explained. “It’s a psychic event that occurs when a spirit or entity channels through someone on this plane of existence. The person doing the channeling simply acts as the conduit for the spirit who then communicates by writing.”
“Okay…” my friend said as he tilted his chair back forward and picked up the notepad once again. “So what you’re sayin’ is that this is one of those Twilight Zone things?”
“It has to be.” I nodded. “I was completely unaware of the fact that I was writing any of that until it was pointed out to me. Also, I was writing with my left hand. I’m right-handed.”
He picked up a large mug and took a swig then set it back on the stained blotter. “So if I’m connectin’ all the dots here, you think maybe Paige Lawson is tryin’ to communicate with ya’.”
“That’s my guess.”
“Okay.”
I was dumbfounded by the matter of fact tone in his voice and his apparent lack of interest. I know I had at least one false start before I managed to stutter, “What do you mean, ‘okay’?”
“I mean, okay.” He shook his head and shrugged. “I’ve seen some weirder shit than this since I’ve been hangin’ around with ya’, so I’m willing to believe what you’re tellin’ me here.”
“So? Are you going to do anything about it?” I asked.
“Whaddaya want me ta’ do, Rowan?” he asked. “I’ve got a pad of paper here that has a little rhyme written on it about five jillion times.”
“Well shouldn’t you look into it? It’s a message from a dead woman.”
“You don’t know that for a fact, but just for the sake of argument, okay… Let’s say Paige Lawson is communicatin’ with ya’. I gotta admit I can see where she’s comin’ from. I expect that if I was dead I wouldn’t be all that happy about it either.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“Look, it’s not like this is some kind of hot clue you’re handin’ me here. It’s a piece of paper that says someone is dead and ain’t happy about it. News flash, Kemosabe, we already knew the first part… The second part’s just kinda obvious, don’t ya’ think?”
“But…”
“But nothin’, Row.” He cut me off before I could even form the objection and then ran his hand up to smooth his hair. “Look, here’s the real deal, between you and me. It’s lookin’ like this might not even be a murder. We’re still waitin’ on the autopsy, but there were no signs of a struggle. No forced entry. The place wasn’t trashed. She wasn’t shot, stabbed, or beaten. The only thing out of place is a small welt on the side of her neck…”
“Which side?” I interrupted quickly.
“Left, I think. Why?”
“Because I had a burning sensation on my neck last night.” I indicated the area with my hand. “It was on the left side too.”
“Okay,” he shrugged, “but if you’d let me finish what I was sayin’, you’d know that didn’t kill ‘er. It could be from a thousand different things, so even though we haven’t discounted it, it’s prob’ly nothing. The preliminary report I got from the coroner says she has a blunt force trauma to the side of her head that could be consistent with the corner of the end table just inside ‘er doorway. It looks like she prob’ly just slipped, fell, an’ clocked ‘erself. Damn shame for a young, good lookin’ woman like her, but it happens.”
“But why was I there, Ben?” I implored. “What made me show up at the scene like that?”
“You tell me,” he stated with a frown. “‘Cause I’ll be honest, it’s got me a little worried.”
“So you mean you think I’m right and it might not have been just an accident?” I latched on to the glint of hope in his words.
“No,” he shook his head vigorously and turned the glimmer to worthless pyrite. “I’m worried about you. I think what happened out on that bridge earlier this year has still got you fucked up.”
“That’s not it, Ben, and you know it.”
“Felicity? A little help.” Ben appealed as he looked over at her.
“I have to agree with him, Row,” she stated, voice even. “You haven’t been yourself lately at all.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered, more than just a hint of incredulity in my tone. “You’re on Ben’s side with this? Come on, Felicity, last time I checked you were just as open minded about this kind of thing as me. You’ve seen the things that have happened. You’ve even experienced them first hand.”
“Yes, I have,” she agreed. “But I was never in as deep as you have been. This is different somehow. Ever since you got involved in that investigation last February, you’ve seemed disconnected. Ungrounded. You even admitted it then.”
“Yes I did, but that was months ago. I’m well over that.”
“No, you’re not,” she replied. “In some ways you’re even worse than you were then. You’ve seemed almost out of control at times.”
“Out of control how?”
“Like tonight,” she asserted. “Disoriented. Not knowing who or where you are.”
