M Sellars - Perfect Trust

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.”

“But this was an isolated incident.” I spoke the lie and didn’t look back. I figured I’d be caught in it eventually, but I thought I’d at least have some time to prove I was on to something important. I definitely wasn’t expecting my capture to be so immediate.

“Rowan, you’ve been sleepwalking for almost two months now.” My wife offered the truth back to me without judgment or anger-just a simple recitation of cold fact. “And the night terrors came like clockwork before that. I know you thought you’d kept them hidden from me, but you didn’t.”

We were fortunate, for the sake of my ego anyway, that the homicide division was less than fully staffed at the moment. There was no one close by enough to overhear the embarrassing revelations that were being put forth. I looked over at my friend’s somber face as he nodded and stared at me from behind his desk.

“I’ve known for a while too, white man. Felicity called me. Why do you think she was so mad at me earlier when she thought I might have brought you in on this? I gotta admit though, I was pretty surprised to have you turn up at an active crime scene like that.”

I sat there completely mute. I wanted to be angry with them both, and in a sense, I was. I wanted to lash out at them for engaging in these clandestine discussions behind my back. I wanted to admonish them for their conspiring to betray me. But I was still rational enough to realize that I was dealing with my wife and my best friend, and that they were obviously worried about me. The growing conflagration that was my ire was quickly reduced to a smolder when I asked myself simply, what if the two of them were correct? What if I was, in point of fact, out of control? What if I was so completely disconnected and ungrounded that I was starting to channel anything and everything without discrimination. The prospect brought a completely new and totally real fear into the fold.

“Listen, Row…” Ben now had a business card in his hand and was fiddling with it aimlessly. “Remember I told ya’ my sister had moved inta town?”

“Yeah,” I answered absently as I contemplated what my situation might possibly have now become.

“Well, here’s the deal,” he continued. “She’s a shrink…a good one. Hell, I’ve called ‘er a coupl’a times for advice myself. She’s even helped me with some of the shit I deal with on the job, and you know how I feel about shrinks.” Ben paused and brought a hand up to massage his neck then held the card out to me. “Anyway, Felicity and I have discussed it, and we both think it might be a good idea for ya’ ta’ talk to ‘er.”

“So now I’m crazy,” I said.

“No, Rowan, that’s not what we’re saying at all,” Felicity interjected.

“It’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Row,” my friend offered. “We see it here all the friggin’ time. I’m not sayin’ I’m qualified ta’ diagnose it, but if anyone’s a prime candidate, Bubba, it’s you.”

He had a point. It was even a valid one. Still, a painful depression was starting to set in. I’d fought harder than I’d ever thought I could just to get Ben to accept the things I was telling him at times-things where I had no tangible proof of their validity. I’d eventually won. I’d managed to convince him and others that I wasn’t a raving lunatic, and he had for a time accepted my word on an almost blind faith.

Now, I was right back where I started-maybe even a step or two to the negative-and it was very possible that this time I wasn’t the one controlling the dice.