M Sellars - The Law Of Three

“So, is Felicity gonna be okay?” he finally asked.

“Yeah, eventually,” I told him.

“Should you maybe go talk to her?”

“Not now.” I shook my head. “I’ve been married to her for a long time, Ben. Trust me, this is something that will play out later when we’re alone.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah,” I guaranteed him. “I’m sure.”

“How ‘bout you? You gonna be all right?”

“Yeah.” I was still staring after my wife. “Yeah, I think so. I’m just not sure how I feel about being a matador.”

“Do what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” I reached up and rubbed my temple for a moment. “So what’s the deal? What’s so important that Albright needs us to look at it right now?”

“Well, so anyway,” he stumbled over the words a bit, “so what happened is the phone company managed to peg the number Porter used. It was a cell just like we thought.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” I asked.

“Not for the guy it used to belong to,” he replied.

“You mean he killed someone else already?”

“Not exactly.” He shook his head. “More like before.”

“Before?”

“Yeah.” He visibly grimaced as he spoke, both looking and sounding as if he really didn’t want to tell me. “We’ve actually known about this guy for a few days.”

“A few days?” I almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. “What do you mean you’ve known about him for a few days? Why haven’t you said anything?”

“Look, Rowan,” Ben huffed. “The Major Case Squad doesn’t report to you, you know. There was no reason to get you involved.”

I was more than just slightly angered by what I had just been told, and my voice came out as a thin hiss. “But if this happened a few days ago, maybe if I had gotten involved THEN, Randy would still be alive!”

He glanced through the passage into the dining room then back at me with his eyes wide. “Keep your voice down, Rowan,” he ordered in a strained whisper through clenched teeth. “There were reasons you weren’t called.”

“They’d damn well better be good ones,” I hissed back. “Because I lost a friend today and if I could have prevented it…”

“You couldn’t have, so drop it,” he interrupted with the stern instruction.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I glared back at him. I knew I had to trust that what he was telling me was true, but the reality was a hard lump in my throat, and I was finding it hard to swallow.

“Look, Row,” he sighed. “We need to move on this. Carl Deckert from county homicide is waiting for us at the scene right now.”

“Why now?” I demanded, barely managing to keep my voice even and low.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Bee-bee has a bug up her ass about this all of a sudden, and she’s already got Deckert waitin’ for us.”

“I couldn’t care any less about what she wants right now, Ben,” I told him.

“Yo, Kemosabe,” he appealed. “I’m on your side here, but let’s go have a look-see. This is a damn sight better than being banned from the investigation. Maybe you can do some hocus-pocus or somethin’, and we can nail this fuck before anyone else gets killed.”

“So you’re going to let me go at this my way?” I was demanding as much as asking.

“I didn’t say that,” he returned. “I’m not lettin’ you put yourself in danger over this.”

“What about Felicity?” I asked. “I’m not so sure I want to leave her right now.”

“Because of that little deal a minute ago?”

“No, because Porter obviously knows where I am, so I’m sure he knows she’s here too.”

He shook his head and waved me off. “I know what you’re sayin’, but it’s covered. There’s a copper out front and one in the alley.”

I started to object, but he held his hand up to stifle me before continuing. “Let me finish. If that ain’t enough for ya’, Mandalay is on her way over with another Feeb, and they’ll probably be here any minute.”

There were very few people besides him whom I would trust with Felicity’s safety, and FBI Special Agent Constance Mandalay was one of them. I’m certain he was playing that fact as his trump card to my impending objection.

“You’re sure?” I pressed.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he told me. “I talked to her right after I got off the phone with Albright. They’ll probably be pullin’ up about the time we head out the door.”

Back up the hallway, the doorbell chimed as if cued by some ethereal director.

“Well?” My friend looked at me expectantly and gave a quick nod as if to say, “told you so.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Okay, I’ll go. Just one thing: How are you going to stop me?”

“Stop you what?”

I didn’t explain. I just closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead as my ever-present migraine sidestepped any attempts to keep it at bay. Even worse, it began inching up the scale. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Kass-perzik-somethin-oww-ski, according to his driver’s license. First name, Joseph.” Ben looked at me and shrugged. “I dunno how the hell to pronounce it. Starts with a K and it’s got some Z’s and W’s in it.”

The ambient temperature inside the house wasn’t much different than it was outside. In fact, it was probably exactly the same. The only thing that made it feel warmer was the shelter itself and thus a reprieve from the wind chill factor.

“So how is it spelled?” I asked as I buried my hands in my coat pockets and worked my fingers to jump-start the circulation.

“Why?”

I shrugged.

He pulled out his notebook and flipped through it for a second. “Shit. Can’t read my own handwriting. Hey Deck,” he called across the room. “You got a spelling on the victim’s name?”

Saint Louis County Homicide Detective Carl Deckert was best described as everyone’s grandfather. He was a thick, round man, aged somewhere in his mid to late fifties. A trimmed crop of fine, grey hair covered his head, and that was often sheltered beneath a fedora with the brim neatly snapped over his brow.

His attitude, forged in a different time, was one filled with manners and kindness. His eyes never lacked the mischievous twinkle of a youngster nor his ruddy face a friendly smile. He usually had something good to say-even under less than perfect circumstances.

His overall appearance and demeanor had to be advantageous in his line of work, because to be honest, if I didn’t already know him, I would never suspect he was a cop. Even if I did, he still came across as someone to whom you could bare your soul.

Presently, he was several feet away from us with the virtually omnipresent fedora pushed up high on his forehead as he carefully studied the room. At his side, he held tight to a bag that might have been a sack lunch. I didn’t ask.

“K-A-S-P-R-Z-Y-K-O-W-S-K-I.” The older county detective offered the string of letters from memory. “You pronounce it, kasper-kush-kee.”

I mentally aligned the letters and then silently repeated the name back to myself, placing the proper “ksh” emphasis on the ZYK combination and allowing the W to remain silent. “Slavic, obviously,” I said aloud.

“Yeah,” Deckert agreed. “It’s Polish. Means something like ‘the place of Kasper’s son.’”

“You get that from the next of kin?” Ben asked.

“Still haven’t found any yet,” Deckert told him with a shake of his head.

“Nobody?”

“Nope. Not so far.”

“So, what’s up with you and the genealogy lesson? You been eatin’ a bunch of kielbasa or somethin’?”

“My babcia was originally from Poland.”

“Your what?” Ben asked.