Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation Read Free Page A

finally paid up.” Reaching into the bag he pulled out a
bottle of Glenlivet and a bottle of de-alcoholized white zinfandel. “So where’s
the little woman?”
    “Upstairs doing that bill paying thing,” I
answered, sliding the cigar beneath my nose with a flourish and
sniffing the spicy, Spanish cedar veneer that encased it. “She’s
gonna just love you for this,” I continued, waving the expensive
smoke at him. “I’m supposed to call her down when you get here, and
I suppose that would be about now.”
    “I’ll get ‘er,” he told me as he stood up and
took a stride to the door. “I need a glass and some ice anyway. You
good?”
    “I could go for a couple of cubes. Just fill
the ice bucket and bring it out if you want.”
    “Everything still in the usual place?” he
asked as he opened the door.
    “Yeah, same as always.”
    I could hear him calling up the stairs to
Felicity as the screen door swung shut; something pseudo-official
sounding about having the place surrounded and that all tiny
red-headed women should come out with their hands up. His call was
answered by my wife bounding down the stairs followed closely by
our English setter and Australian cattle dog vociferously making
their individual presences known. A few short minutes later he
returned, ladened with the ice bucket, a fresh glass, and Felicity
in tow.
    “So, before you even get started with your
cop stories,” my wife began, perching herself on the ledge near the
stairs, “how are Allison and Ben Junior?”
    Ben extracted the cork from the bottle of
white zinfandel and filled the wine glass she held forth.
    “Good,” he answered. “Pretty good. Al said
ta’ tell you guys ‘hey’ and sorry she couldn’t make it. The little
guy told me to make sure I said ‘hi’ to the dogs.”
    “We really need to find some time to get
together for a barbecue or something,” I stated as he planted
himself back on the edge of the porch and went about the task of
opening the Scotch.
    “Yeah,” Ben returned. “Why don’t ya’ tell
that to the bad guys. I could use a little time off.” He poured
himself a drink and topped mine off before sticking his cigar
between his lips and setting it alight with a wooden match.
“Ahhhhh,” he exclaimed, blowing out a stream of pungent smoke.
“I’ve been so damn busy lately, I really haven’t had a chance to
enjoy a cigar... Ya’know, I think this is the first time I’ve had
anything lit in my mouth in a month.”
    “Like you really need it,” Felicity
admonished. “Allison and I get you two to quit cigarettes, and the
next thing we know you’re sucking on some other burning
carcinogen.”
    “Boys will be boys,” I told her.
    “Yeah,” Ben chimed in. “What he said.”
    The friendly chatter eased my mind for the
time being, but I still felt a nag in the back of my skull. Sitting
here, I knew that just as I had suspected, my friend was without a
doubt its undeniable source.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Later in the evening, we called out for pizza
and moved our celebration indoors. After putting the dogs through
their paces for a handful of the crusts, Felicity said her
goodnights and went off to bed, for she had an early outing with
her nature photography club the next morning.
    Ben had grown quieter as the
evening wore on, leaning more heavily on the Scotch than I can ever
recall him doing before. After I finished clearing the dishes from
the table, he refilled our glasses from the near-depleted bottle
of Glenlivet , and
then we ventured out to the back deck.
    My friend dropped his large frame heavily
into a chair and went about trimming the end from a fresh cigar as
I lit the citronella-oil-filled tiki torches that rimmed the deck.
Mosquitoes had been bad this summer, and these seemed to stave them
off fairly well while providing an unobtrusive light. After
bringing the last torch to life, I took my seat opposite Ben at the
patio table and proceeded to work on my own after-dinner smoke. I
could