“Like he hasn’t already?” she volunteered.
“Yeah, well I’m talkin’ stupid enough to give her a reason to arrest ‘im.”
“Hey!” I declared. “I’m standing right here you know.”
Ben looked at me. “Yeah, and?”
“Yeah, and, you two seem to have a bad habit of talking about me like I’m not here, that’s what. You do it all the time.”
“Not all the time. Just when it’s for your own good.”
“That’s subjective.”
“Uh-huh. Two-way street, Row. You aren’t exactly the pinnacle of objectivity yourself.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point. Of course, that didn’t mean I had to like it. “Well, it’s still annoying.”
“Yeah, well so’s when you talk to dead people the rest of us can’t hear.”
Felicity piped up, a matter-of-fact tone permeating her voice. “Aye, Ben’s right.”
“What do you mean?” I scrunched my forehead as I spoke. “You’ve ventured over to the other side yourself as I recall.”
“Not about that.” She dismissed my comment with an impatient shake of her head. “About your giving Lieutenant Albright a reason to arrest you, then. If you don’t calm down, you’re going to do just that.”
“You’re not gonna win, Row,” Ben offered. “Especially if you play ‘push me-shove you’ with her. She’ll knock your ass down and kick you while you’re there.”
“Whatever happened to the whole ‘to protect and serve’ thing?” I asked.
“Number one,” he returned, “you’ve been watchin’ too much TV. And number two, never pull the ‘taxpayin’, law-abidin’ citizen who pays your salary’ crap with a copper. Trust me, it just pisses us off.”
“So, it’s okay for her to treat me like a criminal?”
“How many times have I gotta tell ya’, Row? This is reality. She’s holdin’ the cards here, not you.”
“Yeah, I know,” I grudgingly admitted. “But she’s still getting to me.”
“That’s YOUR problem, then,” Felicity said. “You know how to get around that. Ground and center yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” I said as I pulled my glasses off and rubbed my eyes, lingering for a moment as I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.
“How’s your head?” Felicity asked, her voice still edgy but softened by a few degrees of concern.
“Killing me,” I answered.
“Twilight Zone?” Ben asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded slightly. “And we’re already hell and gone past the signpost.”
CHAPTER 6:
Lieutenant Albright breezed in through the front doors of the medical examiner’s office just over twenty minutes later. True to what Ben had told me earlier, her gelid expression had not changed in the least.
“Mister Gant,” she said as she entered, cracking what might have passed for a pleasant smile had there not been so much sarcasm affixed to it. “I am surprised to find you here in the lobby as I asked. Apparently you CAN obey the law if you try hard enough.”
“The door is locked,” I answered coldly. “You know that.”
“Of course.” She nodded. “But that sort of thing has never stopped you in the past.”
I caught an acidic response in my throat and choked it back down, turning my head to the side and closing my eyes as I did so. I heeded Felicity’s advice and took an audibly deep breath in through my nose, then exhaled slowly through my mouth as I opened my eyes and turned back to face Albright. I could feel energy flowing along my spine and coupling with the Earth in a solid ground. It was as tangible to me as a hot and neutral lead on an electrical outlet. Still, it didn’t bring complete calm, and simply being in this woman’s presence made me bristle.
“Look, Lieutenant,” I began. “You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. I have no desire to continue down this path with you.”
“And which path would that be, Mister Gant?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“I’m telling you that I am not going to allow you to bait me any longer, Lieutenant,” I replied. “I’m here, just like you asked. I’m just waiting for you to tell me what it is you want from me.”
I cannot say that she was visibly disappointed by my stance, but I definitely had the feeling that some of her steam had instantly become just so much condensation. There was a short period of silence while she considered what I had just said. I fully suspected that she was using the time to regroup and plot her way around the obstacle I had just placed before her.
“Mister Gant,” she proceeded with a tilt of her head. “What I want, you cannot possibly give.”
“How so?”
“No matter what powers you may claim to have, you cannot change that which has already happened. I firmly believe that the man on the table beyond that door is there because of you. There is nothing you can do to bring him back nor any of the other victims for that matter.”
“No. No I can’t,” I agreed in a quiet tone.
“Now, just a little while ago I had the unpleasant duty of phoning Mister Harper’s wife to ask that she come down here to identify his remains, and…”
She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Like a banshee wail, Felicity’s voice pierced the air between us, rendering everyone mute. “You what?!”
“Excuse me?” Albright turned her hard stare on my wife.
“Aye,” Felicity began as she stood and moved forward, bringing herself eye-to-eye with the lieutenant with no more than a pair of steps between them. “You told Nancy that Randy was dead, over the phone?”
“And what would you have had me do, Miz O’Brien?” she shot back.
“Send someone to tell her in person.”
“That is not how it is done.”
The one word response that my wife uttered next surprised everyone, including me. “Bitch.”
The thick calm that enveloped her as she spoke was something I had seen only once before and was in no hurry to see again. The button that had now been pushed was well up the column from what I’d done earlier. I wasn’t sure if there were enough Gods to create a pantheon that was capable of quelling the fire that had just been ignited.
I actually saw a wash of surprise flow across Lieutenant Albright’s features as she stared back at the redheaded tempest in front of her. It was obvious that Felicity’s outburst had blindsided her.
“What did you just say?” she asked.
“I think you heard me, then,” my wife answered with frigid purpose in her voice as she cocked her head to the side and glared. “But I’ll be more than happy to repeat it for you if you’d like.”
The door on the back wall of the lobby clicked loudly and then whooshed open just as Albright started to open her mouth. A pale young man with a stoic expression and scraggly goatee poked his head through the opening and regarded us with general disinterest. After a moment, he pushed the door wider and held it open with his back against it.
“Doc says for you to come on back” was all he said.
Albright swung her gaze from the young man back to Felicity and shook her index finger perfunctorily as she mustered a menacing tone. “We will finish this discussion later.”
“Aye,” my wife retorted as she gave her a curt nod, but still never broke eye contact. “I’ll be looking forward to it, then.”
“Johnathan, could you please turn that down?” The medical examiner on duty called out to the diener who
