All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars Page A

was told by the police between now and then, her answer could
well be “Yes. I think I’m guilty.”
    That single possibility, all by itself,
scared me as much as anything ever could right now.
    “Find a way to get her home, Jackie. I know
that’s asking a lot, but I need her home. I need her home NOW.”
    “I’ll do what I can,” she offered. “But, you
need to be prepared for this.”
    “Prepared?” Incredulity filled my voice.
“Okay, then why don’t you tell me how I’m supposed to prepare
myself for my wife spending time in jail on a bogus murder
charge.”
    “I wish I knew, Ro…”
    The end of her sentence was truncated by an
annoying beep issuing from the earpiece of my phone. Lately, I had
been ignoring the call-waiting when it chimed in, due to a recent
resurgence of mysterious hang-ups that had been plaguing us off and
on for the past few years. Under the circumstances, however, I
thought it might be a good idea to answer it this time.
    “I’ve got another call coming in. Can you
hold for a sec?”
    “Listen, I’m almost to my car,” she replied.
“Why don’t you go ahead and answer the call. I’ll get back to you
when I get to the police station and have a handle on things.”
    “Don’t you want me to meet you there?”
    “Absolutely not. There’s nothing you can do
at this point, and emotionally you’re a bomb looking for a place to
explode. You’d do nothing but cause trouble and make things worse.
Just stay right there while they’re searching the house, and don’t
do anything stupid.”
    The insistent beep chimed in again.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean just stay there and don’t
do anything ,” she instructed,
heavily emphasizing the last word. “I need to concentrate on your
wife right now, so I don’t need to be worrying about you
too.”
    I answered in a clipped tone. “Yeah. Fine.
Okay. Later.”
    I didn’t wait for her to say goodbye. I
reached out and stabbed the off-hook switch on the telephone’s base
with my finger, held it for a second, and then released it. A
second later I heard the telltale click rattling in the earpiece as
the call I had just been on was disconnected.
    “Hello?” I said into the mouthpiece.
    “Rowan,” a familiar voice floated into my
ear. “How are you doing?”
    I sighed, half from relief and half from
frustration. It obviously wasn’t a hang-up, but it also wasn’t
someone calling to tell me this had all been a terrible mistake
either. Of course, logically I knew that wasn’t going to happen,
but under stress we tend to create fantastic resolutions for
situations simply in order to maintain hope, and that was but one
of the happy endings bouncing around inside my skull at the
moment.
    “I’ve been better, Helen,” I replied, my tone
flat.
    “I know, Rowan. Benjamin just called and told
me what happened.”
    “I suppose he wants you to find out if I’m
still mad at him,” I quipped.
    I knew I shouldn’t be taking my anger with
her brother, and the situation, out on her; but I just couldn’t
help myself. The way I saw it, everyone in my path was a potential
enemy at this point.
    “Actually, Rowan, no, he does not. I believe
he is fully expecting you to be angry with him for some time to
come. He has resigned himself to that.”
    “Very astute observation on his part,” I
asserted. “Mainly because he’s right.”
    “He was forced to make an extremely hard
decision.”
    “Well, I’ve got some bad news for him. He
decided wrong. Felicity is innocent and he knows it.”
    “I am speaking of his decision to handle the
arrest rather than allow someone else from the department to do
so.”
    Apparently, Jackie had been correct. Still,
it didn’t change the fact that he had led my wife out of the house
in handcuffs.
    “Yeah, well, he just might have been wrong on
that count too.”
    “Be that as it may, it really is not my
point, Rowan.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “He is concerned.”
    “Yeah, well no offense,