Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars Read Free Book Online Page A

gonna start that again, are ya’? The asshole is
dead.”
    “Did you ever find a body?” I demanded.
    “No. So what?” he asked, but he didn’t wait
for an answer. “He’s suckin’ mud on the bottom of the river.”
    “The body would have surfaced by now,
Ben.”
    “Not necessarily, Row.” He shook his
head. “What goes down don’t always come up. Trust me. Plus, the
river flooded pretty good this spring. Maybe I am wrong and ‘e ain’t suckin’ mud at all. Maybe
‘e ended up bein’ fish food in the gulf or somethin’. At any rate,
he’s gone. Dead. Eighty-sixed.”
    “I’m telling you he isn’t, Ben.”
    “All right, tell me. How do ya know?”
    “It’s just a feeling, but I know I’m
right.”
    “Like I’ve told ya’ before, white man, this
is just one feelin’ I can’t get with you on. I think you’ve just
got some left over heebee jeebees or somethin’.”
    “No, Ben,” I spat back tersely. “It’s more
than that.”
    “Okay,” he took on his own hard edge,
“then where is he? Why hasn’t he killed again? Hell, why hasn’t he
come after you again?”
    I had to admit that I didn’t have the answers
to these questions. It was somewhat of an ongoing theme between Ben
and me. Something would tickle the back of my brain, and I would
have some manner of instinctual feeling or precognitive episode. I
would tell my friend, stressing the urgency of the vision, and he
would start asking questions. Then like an idiot, I would sit there
and say, “I don’t know.”
    I had to give him credit though; he had come
a long way. The first time I had helped him with an investigation,
he had been a complete and total skeptic. This last time around, he
had been extremely open-minded and willing to chase down the
avenues I pointed out with only my word as a catalyst.
    The real truth was that I had even been a bit
of a skeptic myself at first. Even though Magick is a very real
part of my religious path, until recently, I’d never experienced it
to anywhere near the extent that I had during my time helping with
the murder investigations. That’s the funny thing about faith.
Believing in something is one thing. Having it sneak up and bat you
over the head is something else entirely.
    Suffice it to say, I was only now getting
over the resulting headache.
    But as accepting as he had become, on this
particular point of contention between us Ben was not about to
budge. He was firmly convinced that the now identified Eldon Andrew
Porter was dead, never to return.
    This was one instance where I wished with
every fiber of my being that he was correct and that I was
completely and unequivocally wrong. But that itch in the back of my
head just wouldn’t go away.
    “Yeah, I thought so,” my friend finally
replied to my silence then let out a sigh. “Look, Row, I’m not
tryin’ to be an ass here. And this is exactly what I was afraid was
gonna happen. I know your intuition is pretty good. Hell, I’ve come
to rely on all that hocus-pocus stuff at times, but I really think
you’re wrong on this one. ID’n this whack-job was just a piece’a
blind luck, and it’s nothin’ but clerical shit now. It’s just a
name an’ face ta’ stick in the case file. The closed case file.”
    I didn’t argue. Belaboring the point was
going to cause nothing more than strife between us. Besides, I
really and truly did want him to be correct this time instead of
me.
    “Yeah.” I nodded. “Okay.”
    “Okay. So if we’re settled on that, here’s
somethin’ else we found out about ‘im that ya’ might find
interesting,” Ben offered, as if giving me a consolation prize for
losing the disagreement.
    “What’s that?”
    “During his trial it seems there was a bit of
a ruckus over his mental state,” he explained. “Coupl’a expert
witnesses rattlin’ a bunch of psycho babble about ‘im being highly
suggestible and incapable of distinguishin’ right from wrong. But
as it was, he had an overworked and under