M Sellars - Perfect Trust

“So just what the hell are ya’ tryin’ ta’ say here, Felicity?” Ben demanded.

“What is it you think I’m sayin’, then?” she spat.

I desperately wanted to defuse the situation, but I had no real clue how I was going to do it. My temper was flaring just as much as theirs were, and that wasn’t going to do any good. Thus far, every time I opened my mouth I only seemed to stoke the fire burning beneath them, and that blaze was starting to grow rapidly. In a very short time they’d reached a level where I wasn’t entirely sure that they were even acknowledging my presence in the room any longer.

It had now become plain to see that the issue was one that was most definitely between the two of them. It was also clear that it had festered for several months, and recent events were simply bringing it to a head.

“Goddammit, dontcha’ think I have enough guilt over what happened on that bridge?”

“Well if you do, then maybe you should think about all this a bit harder then!”

The sharpness in their voices had intensified several-fold. I had no choice but to resign myself to the fact that we wouldn’t get anywhere until this was played out to conclusion. Since they had drawn a bead on one another, for all intents and purposes ignoring me, I could only watch.

“What? Ya’ think I haven’t?!”

“You’re askin’ to bring him into another investigation, aren’t you?!”

As angry as I was at being treated like a fifth wheel, I fought to stifle it. “Fine,” I finally muttered, though I sincerely doubted either of them heard me. “Go ahead and kill each other. Give me a call when you’re finished.”

With that, I pushed my chair back from the table, placing some small, symbolic amount of distance between them and me. Hard as it was to stay out of it, I made a half-hearted attempt to distract myself by leafing through a cookbook that had been holding down a sheaf of papers on one corner of the table. However, just as I was afraid it would, the growing conflagration won out over recipes for such things as Beef Wellington and Broccoli-Onion-Cheese Casserole. Like a horrific train wreck that you just can’t stop staring at, I again returned my attention to the duel between my best friend and my soul mate.

“Felicity, will you…”

“Will I what?! Stand by quietly and let you get my husband killed?!”

“C’mon,” he shot back. “You know that’s not gonna happen!”

“Aye, do I?!” She widened her eyes and shook her head. “And just what have we been discussing for the past several months then?”

“I know exactly what we’ve been talkin’ about, and ya’ know I’m not gonna let anything happen to ‘im.”

“Just like you didn’t let anything happen to him the last time?!”

“Dammit, you know I already blame myself for that!”

“As well you should!”

“Screw you!”

“Like I’d give you the pleasure!”

A brief lull insinuated itself into the argument, brought on I can only assume by the intensely personal level of the attacks. But though it slipped suddenly in like the eye of a hurricane, its tenure was far shorter.

“Felicity, come on,” Ben pleaded, once again making an attempt at reasoning with her. “Rowan is my best friend.”

She wasn’t having any of it. “You’ve an odd way of showin’ it.”

“Listen, do you really think…”

“What I really think is that you’ve lost your mind!”

“You know as well as I do…”

“What?! What do I know as well as you do?!”

“I’m tryin’ to tell you…”

“Come on, then! Tell me! What is it?!”

Her relentless attacks finally brought the roiling argument beyond the red zone it had consistently occupied. What had started as a simmer, then progressed into a rapid boil, now erupted like steam from a burst pipe.

“JEEZUS FUCKIN’ CHRIST, FELICITY!” Ben shouted in exasperation. “Will’ya’ just shut up for a minute and lemme finish?!”

At that moment, for lack of a better description, my wife “pulled her face off.” Her tight frown and locked jaw opened wide into what could be metaphorically pictured as a fanged maw, allowing her own anger to explode outward.

“FINISH WHAT?! FINISH KILLING MY HUSBAND?!” she screamed as she physically rose from her chair. “DAMMIT, BEN, YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T DO THIS!”

“SO I BROKE THE FUCKIN’ PROMISE! DEAL WITH IT!” he returned in the same demonstrative tone, rising from his seat as well.

Even with the table between them, he towered over my petite wife. They locked spiteful gazes with one another and a tense silence slid smoothly in as if to underscore their words.

A period of time that felt to be the greater portion of a quarter hour, but that in reality was surely less than a single minute, oozed by as I watched them. Even with the quiet permeating the room, I didn’t know if the conflict was fully over. I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be to my advantage to make another try at interjecting my opinion-or if it would even be heard if I did.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t by my own choice that I interrupted the terse mood that was now blanketing the scene. In fact, I didn’t even realize I had done so until Ben and Felicity turned their stares away from one another and sighted them in on me.

The first sound I noticed came as a thin, rapid scratching that held an even and almost hypnotic rhythm.

The second sound came as the first abruptly ended then was replaced by a rustling of paper-like the sound of a page being flipped.

The third sound announced its presence as a recurrence of the first, matching rhythm perfectly with the point where it had suddenly ended.

I didn’t want to look. I already knew what I was going to see, but I also knew that ignoring it wouldn’t make it go away. I followed their gazes down to the tabletop and joined them in watching as my left hand methodically defaced the pages of the comb-bound cookbook-scribbling quickly and evenly across the paper, moving of its own accord.

With a little concentration, focusing on the fluid scribbling and ignoring of the preprinted words that made up the recipes, one could make out the repetitious couplets.

Hey, hey, hey, whaddaya say!

Don’t ya know I’m dead today!

Hey everyone, I’m here to say!

I’m dead today! I’m dead today!

Gotta let Rowan come out and play!

Gotta let him do it ‘cause I’m dead today!

I looked back up as Ben huffed out a haggard breath and turned his gaze back to Felicity. My hand continued to move, though it now seemed to be slowing and had begun to falter at the end of each line. An effect, I assume, of the fact that I was now fully aware of its activity.

In a calm voice my friend finally asked, “So, ya’ wanna keep arguin’ about this, or do ya’ wanna help me keep ‘im from doin’ somethin’ stupid?”

My wife kept her eyes locked with mine and let out her own resigned sigh. “Aye…it looks like I don’t really have a choice, then.”

The hands of the clock were firmly pressed up against midnight when we arrived at the Saint Louis City Morgue. Situated on Clark Avenue, the building was flanked by police headquarters on one side, an on-ramp to Highway 40 on the other, and across the street from the rear entrance of city hall. All in all, the structure was less than obtrusive in appearance-simple brick and mortar construction with nothing that would make it stand out, architecturally at least-against the rest of the buildings in the area. In reality, there would be nothing outwardly distinctive about it at all if it weren’t for the small, black-on-white, block lettered sign above the main entrance that stated simply, MEDICAL EXAMINER.