M Sellars - The Law Of Three

The vehicles in the foreground were angled haphazardly across the partially cleared street, nosed into piles of snow along the curb. The tableau looked, at first, like toys left in disarray by a child in the midst of an imaginary game. Closer inspection showed that there was some amount of method to the madness, in that they formed a rough, staggered barrier.

Between the patrol cars and the building, a dark-colored sedan sat with the corner of its front bumper against the wall of the building. The car’s headlights were still burning, slicing into the darkness to illuminate a small section of the structure’s brick face. At the moment, it seemed to be the primary focus of the officers’ attention.

Across the bottom of the tube, a stylized graphic cut a colorful streak; culminating on the left in the station logo. Words were emblazoned across the stripe, spelling out in slanted block letters, BREAKING NEWS.

I felt Felicity next to me as she slipped her arm in around my own then interlaced her fingers with mine and squeezed. Her other hand slipped across and closed in an unrelenting grip on my bicep.

With my free hand, I clicked the volume back up a notch as we both stared at the event playing out on the screen.

“…Shortly after six this evening,” the reporter’s voice-over faded in as I continued to mash the button and brought the sound up to a more discernible level. “An apparent car-jacking led to a high-speed chase which involved officers from five separate municipalities, as well as the Missouri Highway Patrol, Saint Louis County, and the Metropolitan Saint Louis Police department.”

“Car-jacking my ass,” Ben muttered from behind us.

“The chase began in the county near the Interstate Two-Seventy, Highway Forty interchange and proceeded through several neighborhood streets before continuing on eastbound Forty at a…”

“They’ve got the bastard cornered,” Ben spoke again, louder this time.

“Ssshh!” Felicity urged.

“…Sideswiped another vehicle, injuring the driver, before exiting Hampton to Highway Forty-Four. Metropolitan police attempted to stop the car as it exited at the riverfront on Memorial Drive. The suspect then literally crashed through a construction barrier at Third Street and Washington, narrowly missing pedestrians who were crossing the street on their way to Laclede’s Landing.

“The chase finally ended here at this abandoned warehouse on Second Street where the suspect fled the vehicle with a woman who is believed to be a hostage, and they are currently inside the building.”

“There are two agents on the scene,” Mandalay offered into the lull that followed the reporter’s words. “Porter is definitely inside, and he has Sullivan with him.”

“He won’t go down without killing her first,” I said.

“They know that,” she replied. “That’s why no one has entered the building yet.”

“Osthoff just told me they have a SWAT entry team standing by,” Ben told us. “They should be rolling any minute.

“I’ve been in there,” he added. “It’s at Second and Ashley. Back when I was in uniform, I chased this little prick into it after he had tried to break into a place a coupla’ blocks over on Broadway.” He shook his head and noisily sucked on his teeth as he pondered the screen. “There’s a whole lotta places to hide in there. And in the dark on top of it? Shit…”

Ben’s cell phone pealed, and he turned it up in his hand to inspect the display. With a disgusted grunt, he stabbed the device with his thumb then placed it against his ear. “Yeah, this is Storm. What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

The languid pace of the drama on the television screen prompted the station to cut from the scene and back to the studio. The transition was a sudden switch to a groomed man behind the news desk who was staring at an angle off camera as he began speaking.

“We will now return you to network programming…” The reporter did a quick double-take motion with his head and then suddenly shifted a quarter turn toward the live camera with only a slight stutter.

I ignored the segue back to the sitcom and focused my attention on the side of Ben’s conversation that I could hear.

“Yeah, we’ve got it on the TV right now,” he said into the phone then waited.

Constance, Felicity, and I watched him as he frowned and rocked in place. He brought his free hand up to smooth back his hair, winced, shot it a disgusted look, and then went ahead with the mannerism anyway.

“Yeah, well I don’t really think you can blame Rowan for you bargin’ in here,” he said with a note of irritation. “You wasted your own time, Lieutenant, not him.

“Uh-huh…Yeah…Uh-huh… Well, trust me, we weren’t plannin’ on goin’ anywhere at the moment anyway, so I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about.”

“That woman is a real piece of work,” Mandalay muttered.

“Aye, I was thinking more like she’s an oinnseach,” Felicity remarked.

“What’s that?”

“An idiot.”

Mandalay smirked at the insult. “I’ll agree with you there.”

“Yeah, well, you can…” Ben barked suddenly and then paused for a moment to regain his composure before continuing in a restrained tone. “Yeah, well you’ll just have to tell him that yourself. Yeah. Fine.”

My friend ended the call without ceremony and then terminated the connection with a pair of clumsy thrusts from his thumb against the keypad. He looked up at us while shaking his head in an animated arc. “Jeezus H. Christ on roller skates!”

“What did she say?” Mandalay asked him, then added, “Like we can’t guess.”

“Well,” he huffed. “She started out by blaming Row for her wasting time here, but I guess you prob’ly caught that. Other than that, she told me she’s en-route to the scene and has officially ordered us to stay put until we hear from her.”

“What are you supposed to tell me?” I asked.

“Let’s not go there, white man.”

“Ben…”

“Just the same shit, Row,” he growled. “She’s all about saying that you’re responsible for whatever happens to Sullivan.”

“Well,” I returned, “I am.”

“Look, Row,” he said. “What I was saying earlier, forget it. You went with your gut, and you kept him on the line long enough to peg a location. You made the right call, and you aren’t responsible for what this wingnut does.”

“I won’t argue it with you, Ben,” I answered. “I know what I have to own up to in the end.”

“You won’t have to,” Constance offered. “It won’t hold up in court. There’s no way.”

“That’s not where I will have to face it. Anything you do comes back to you,” I told them, then recited a snippet of the Wiccan Rede as explanation. “Mind the threefold law ye should, three times bad and three times good.”

“Aye,” Felicity spoke up. “Don’t you start quoting like Eldon Porter now. The law of three would not apply here.”

“I won’t debate it with you, either,” I told her gently. “I deliberately antagonized him, and I just might have made the wrong choice.”

“Stop second guessing yourself, Rowan,” Ben instructed. “Albright’s wrong. That’s all there is to it. End of story.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Ain’t no remains to be nothin’,” he spat. “She’s wrong, so drop it.”

Across the room, the bell on the telephone sprang to life, jangling out an angry-sounding demand to be answered. We all froze, staring at one another with shared trepidation. I started to move toward the kitchenette just as the ringer belted out its noise for the third time.

Behind me, Mandalay’s cell phone began to chirp. By the time I brought my fingers to rest on the handset in the kitchen, Ben’s phone had added itself to the fray, forming a discordant trio of chaotic tunes.