All acts of pleasure argi-7 Read online

  All acts of pleasure

  ( A Rowan Gant investigation - 7 )

  M R Sellars

  All acts of pleasure

  M. R. Sellars

  Thursday, December 1 2:47 P.M.

  New Orleans Public Library, Main Branch

  Louisiana Division, Archives

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  PROLOGUE:

  Steady rain was falling, relentlessly spattering the windows that looked out onto a small third floor courtyard.

  Rain was probably the last thing this city needed at the moment. Especially when one considered that the floodwaters, which had invaded the streets and neighborhoods in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, had only recently been pumped back to from whence they came.

  Of course, Mother Nature was on a roll, and she had every intention of hurling more water down upon the dampened city, whether it needed it or not. Fortunately, however, she also had a soft spot for this magickal place, so this go around the precipitation was merely a steady soaking instead of a violent downpour.

  Inside the library the unmistakable funk of mildewed carpet, coupled with countless strains of mold, filled the air. The stagnant aroma relentlessly intermingled with the rich, “academic” smells of paper and ink, both old and new, decaying and preserved. Not one inch of the building was immune as the ventilation system pumped the malodorous air throughout.

  Even upstairs where the archives resided on the third floor of the building, well above the highest point the floodwaters had managed to reach, the smell was still only of slightly lessened intensity. This fact was most likely due to its competition for dominance over the tang of oxidizing microfilm rolls and sporadic wafts of warm ozone.

  The telltale whine of a laser printer whirred upward, increasing in pitch until barely audible, revealing the source of the second of the sharp olfactory notes that stood out against the pervasive, flat mustiness. With a series of clicks and a plastic rattle, it spit out a piece of paper then hummed back into idleness.

  The piece of computer equipment occupied a low table next to a copier, located directly across from the main desk, all of which was just a short walk from the elevator. A few feet beyond the office equipment was the far corner of the information counter. There, the room made a sharp turn, wrapping around the rear of the empty courtyard.

  Perpendicular to the wall opposite the windows, shelves stacked with genealogical records and census data stood at attention, lined outward in perfect formation. At the far end of that dogleg, which terminated the L-shaped room, a man was hunched over, barely visible behind the back-to-back rows of chest-high metal cabinets.

  He straightened upward and gently placed a hand-sized, square box atop the cabinets then peered back downward over the rim of his eyeglasses. After a moment he began moving slowly to his right, fixed gaze scanning intently. A few seconds later he came to a halt and tugged at the front of the sheet metal cube before him.

  A drawer rolled out on full suspension slides, the decrepit ball bearings rattling complaints into the relative quiet of the room. Stepping backward, he extended it fully and then began carefully running his index finger across the contents. It took only a few seconds before he selected yet another of the cardboard boxes and extracted it from the shallow bin. Then, elbowing the drawer shut once again, he gathered the first container along with a tattered steno pad and headed back toward the center of the dogleg where the microfilm readers were set up in short rows.

  Activity had been minimal in the archives earlier in the day. Other than himself, there had only been what appeared to be a few students researching projects and an elderly couple who were obviously on a quest for a lost ancestor. What that had meant was that there were plenty of readers to go around.

  But, that was earlier, and unfortunately, things had changed. The number of warm bodies occupying the third floor had increased dramatically over the past hour or so, and it was now becoming commonplace to need to wait your turn.

  The man peered up and down the stubby ranks, checking the backside of the furthest stand of machines and found none free. With a tired sigh, he trudged over to a table and started to pull out a chair. The wait could be short, or it could be long. One could never tell.

  “Excuse me…Sir?” A feminine voice came into his ears just as he’d edged the seat from beneath the table.

  He turned to find a very blonde and very young-looking woman motioning to him with one hand as she spun a crank with the other in order to rewind the film she had been viewing.

  “Yeah?” he grunted.

  “I’m done here, if you need the machine,” she replied.

  He took notice of the fact that her voice held none of the affectations of the area he’d grown accustomed to hearing since he’d arrived. In that sense, she seemed almost as out of place as he felt. Still, she was young, clad in blue jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, with a nylon backpack sitting on the floor next to her chair. His sluggish brain added up the evidence at hand and came to the conclusion that she was probably a college student from out-of-state.

  “Yeah, thanks,” he replied with a shallow nod. His voice was a tired drone, which all but broadcast the fact that he was surviving on nothing more than coffee and very little sleep.

  He nudged the chair back beneath the table then walked over to the side of the reader and waited patiently. The young woman removed the spool and stuffed it back into a box then gathered her notebook. Hefting her book bag from the floor, she slipped it onto one shoulder then stepped to the side and gave him a quick smile.

  “You kind of have to coax it a bit sometimes,” she offered. “It sticks every now and then.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I had to use this one a little earlier. Thanks.”

  “Soooo…Genealogy?” she asked.

  He grunted, “Huh?”

  He had already dropped a spool of aging film from the box into his hand and was pushing it onto the feed spindle when she asked the question, so he wasn’t really paying attention. In actuality, he was thinking about the fact that, until today, he hadn’t done research via microfilm since he was in college, and that had been longer ago than he cared to remember. He mentally “hmmphed” as the memory passed and mutely attributed the interaction with the young student as triggering it.

  “I was just wondering if you were maybe doing genealogical research,” she continued, undaunted by his inattentive demeanor. “You know, investigating your roots. That sort of thing.”

  “Yeah,” he glanced back at her and replied with a tired nod. “Yeah, I guess you could say it’s something like that.”

  He returned his gaze to the front and pressed the plastic spool inward until he felt it snap into place then tugged at the free end of the celluloid. He could literally feel that the young woman was still standing behind him for some unknown reason. He briefly wondered if he should reach back and check for his wallet, however, what she was exuding definitely didn’t feel malicious. In fact, unless he missed his guess, it felt like a strange mix of curiosity and arousal. At any rate, since no hairs were rising on his neck and no alarms were going off inside his head, he mentally shook it off and tried to ignore her.

  She didn’t let him.

  “Yeah, I figured as much,” she finally said. “I’ve been watching you.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her again. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Well, I mean…” she paused and shrugged. “You look kinda old to be a student.”

  “Thanks,” he replied flatly, a complete lack of sincerity haloing the word.

  He turned back to the machine and continued on with the task at hand, threading the film under the glass and hooking it carefully into the take-up reel.

  “Oh,
that wasn’t meant as an insult,” she offered.

  “No big deal. I wasn’t offended. I realize I’m old as compared to you. That part of my brain still works.”

  Though their voices were already held low, she dropped her own down a notch and infused it with a cloying sweetness that bordered on an attempt at sultry. Shifting her stance, she leaned in toward the man and cocked her head as if sharing a secret with him. “The truth is, I really like older men…a lot…know what I mean?”

  Now the hairs on his neck actually were starting to pivot upward. There certainly wasn’t what you would call a sense of physical danger by any means, but he knew the conversation was taking a turn down a path he didn’t want to follow.

  He stopped what he was doing and hung his head. With a sigh he finally said, “Please tell me you aren’t trying to pick me up.”

  There was an audible shrug in her voice. “Well, hey… You’re kind of cute. I was thinking maybe we could go get a cup of coffee or something and see where things go from there?”

  He turned to face her. “I’m betting I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “Yeah, probably. So what? That’s the point.”

  He started to reply to the last statement but thinking it better left alone simply objected with, “I’m also happily married.”

  “Yeah. Okay. But, she isn’t with you right now is she? You’ve been alone since I’ve been here.”

  “Actually, she’s the entire reason I’m here at the moment, but that’s not the point…”

  “Hey, I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “Look, young lady…”

  “Erika,” she interrupted, holding out her hand. “And you are?”

  He ignored the gesture but returned with a sigh, “Rowan.”

  “Rowan. That’s an interesting name. I like it.” She continued to hold her hand thrust forward.

  “Thanks,” he replied, still avoiding the offered appendage. “So listen, Erika, you’ve got to know that you’re playing a dangerous game here. You have absolutely no idea who I am.”

  After a thick silence she finally pulled her hand back. “Yeah. Well, that’s part of the turn-on too.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I could be some kind of sicko for all you know.”

  “You look pretty safe to me.”

  “Most sociopaths do,” he said. “And, I’ve actually got some experience in that area.”

  “Really? How so?”

  “Trust me, you really don’t want to know.”

  She paused for a moment, giving him a once over, then said, “Okay. So, tell me. Are you a ‘sicko’?”

  “Again, that’s not the point.”

  She stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “So what is it then? Are you just not into blondes?”

  “Listen, Erika, is this some kind of game show? Is there a hidden camera somewhere? Because, honestly, I don’t have time for this.”

  She chuckled. “You’re funny too.”

  He let out another heavy sigh and held up his hands. “All right, look, I’m flattered…At least I think I am…Anyway, this just isn’t going to happen. Understand?”

  She blinked and gave her head a quick shake as if reality had just rapped her on the back of the skull. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “You really don’t want to…”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Well…Okay. It’s your loss.”

  “I’ll just have to take your word for that.”

  “Well, you know…” she started as she opened her notebook to a fresh page and began fishing a pen from the spiral binding. “I could give you my number in case you change your mind…”

  This time he did the interrupting. “That isn’t necessary. I won’t.”

  She paused then shoved the pen back down and closed the notebook. “Okay. Well, never know until you try.” She shrugged and added, “Good luck with whatever you’re doing there, I guess.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. You too.”

  After staring at him curiously for a moment, she shook her head then turned and walked away.

  This was the second time he’d been propositioned in as many days, and it was something he wasn’t particularly used to having happen. He wasn’t sure if it was his obvious emotional state or what. Vulnerability was exuding from every one of his pores and he knew it; he had just hoped that the rest of the world wouldn’t notice. Of course, maybe it was something in the water, so to speak, and women here just had a thing for worn-out, middle-aged men with greying hair and ponytails. Whatever it was, he could certainly do without the aggravation right now.

  He shook his head then tried to forget about it. If the rest of this day continued along the same fruitless vein, as had the morning, he still had quite a bit of searching to do. And, even then, he knew he might not find what he was looking for because, to be honest, even he didn’t know quite exactly what that was.

  Cocking his head over against his shoulder and staring at the image on the marred base, he wound the film a few frames forward and found a reference point. Quickly glancing to the side, he checked a note he had scrawled on the steno pad then looked back to the dimly luminous image. He started to crank the winding lever, stopping and giving it a hard rap to engage the slipping gears once again before continuing. After a moment he slowed, advancing frame by frame until he found the date he sought.

  Twisting the projection head, he turned the glowing reproduction of the over one hundred-fifty year old newspaper so that he no longer had to hold his own head at such an odd angle. Seating himself, he adjusted the magnification and fiddled with the focus until it was as good as it was ever going to get, which wasn’t exactly sharp by any stretch of the imagination.

  With determination he scanned the hard to read blobs, picking his way between scratches, dropout, and the just plain low quality print of the day. He was on the verge of giving up and moving on when his eye caught something familiar. He pulled on the positioning bar and moved the frame in enough to center it and then drew a bead on the type that had commandeered his attention.

  Tilting his head up and gazing through the lower half of his bifocals, he focused on the words. Then, with one finger he slowly traced along beneath the lines of text, his lips slowly but silently moving as he read to himself.

  Then, he read the lines again.

  And, again…

  After the third time, he sat back in the seat and let out the hot breath he had unconsciously been holding within for the duration. Slowly he ran the palm of his hand across the lower half of his face then pushed his glasses up and closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. After a moment, the man let out a quiet chuckle that could have been born of subdued elation or exhaustion-induced insanity, even he didn’t know which.

  When he finally opened his eyes again, he looked at the page just to make sure the words were really there then muttered aloud to no one in particular, “Miranda, you bitch.”

  Two Weeks Earlier

  Thursday, November 17

  12:16 P.M. Saint Louis, Missouri

  CHAPTER 1:

  “My heart is pounding in my chest so hard that I can hear it… And I don’t mean like that thudding rush of blood you get in your ears when your heart is racing. I mean I can literally hear this frantic thump echoing in the darkness.

  “Then, just all of a sudden I gasp for breath. I guess it’s the panic that makes me do it, I don’t know. Anyway, the air is foul. There’s this…I don’t know…something like a stench of death, rotting meat, and maybe even excrement all mixed together. It’s so thick it seems to coat the back of my tongue. You know what I mean? And then I feel this sudden need to vomit…”

  I paused for a moment to gather myself, staring off into space as the steam from my breath quickly dissipated before me. The temperature was hovering right around freezing, several degrees below normal for Saint Louis in late November, but then the weather here was always an enigma. How
ever, ruminating on the offbeat weather patterns was something I didn’t have time to do. I had something much more important, and unfortunately, far more horrifying to contend with. I was already beginning to think the latter was an understatement.

  Thus far, the retelling of my recurring nightmare had been just as bad as living it each night. I had hoped that voicing it to a sympathetic ear might be liberating, which is why I was here, now, putting myself through this. However, instead of manifesting as a freeing experience, it was just serving to make my head hurt and my stomach churn.

  Next to me, Helen Storm shifted against the balcony rail and lit another cigarette. “So, is that when you wake up, Rowan?”

  What the outside observer might see as a casual conversation was in actuality an impromptu therapy session. Helen was a psychiatrist, and odd as it may seem, this was pretty much how all of our sessions happened. Outside, rain or shine. Whether it was frigid and windy, as it was now, or hot and muggy in the dead of summer, it didn’t matter. We would always be outdoors, with her chain smoking and me nursing a cigar.

  Whenever we were in the building where her office was located, as we were today, this particular spot was exactly where we could be found. Standing out here on the large, partially covered corner balcony that had been set up as a smoking lounge for several of the upper floors.

  Unusual, yes, but there was a familiarity between us that allowed for the less than formal setting; in fact, it all but demanded it.

  Helen had come into my life during a period when I truly thought I was going insane. In fact, at the time, I was fairly sure that I had already been delivered to madness’ doorstep. Of course, discovering that you can communicate with the dead can tend to do that to a person, and at that point I had already been living with that very affliction for quite some time.

  To be truthful, I hadn’t been falling all over myself to talk to a psychiatrist when it was suggested. My immediate assumption was that I would be labeled insane, instantly medicated, and carted off to the land of straightjackets and padded rooms. However, considering that the deceased individuals with whom I had been having conversations were all murder victims, and I’d been spending an inordinate amount of time helping the police track down their killers, I needed to vent to someone. I had been seeing things that seasoned cops had trouble dealing with, and I had been experiencing them on a far grander scale than photographs or even the physical crime scene. I saw through the eyes, and felt through the bodies, of the victims.