by Dorien Grey
Setting his drink on the bar, Elliott turned toward him. “Problems at work?”
Steve sipped his drink, waited until he’d swallowed, then shook his head. “No. I’ve just been having a hell of a time sleeping.”
Instantly alert, Elliott tried to remain casual. “Oh? How come?” He was afraid he knew full well “how come.”
“More crazy dreams. No sense to them at all. No continuity. Just feelings of frustration and confusion and a bunch of disconnected thoughts flying in all directions. It’s like being tossed into a mental cement mixer. It’s really hard to explain, but they just don’t seem like they’re my dreams. I suspect Aaron’s involved.”
Elliott sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “He probably still thinks I’m going to walk away, and that he’ll never know exactly why Bill died.”
“And you’ve never had any dreams about him? He’s never tried to connect with you other than through the banging?”
“No.” Elliott felt once again to be between a rock and a hard place when it came to not telling Steve about John. “But he’s obviously trying to get through to you.”
“What do you think he expects me to do?”
Elliott grinned. “You’re doing it. He can’t connect with me for some reason, other than the rapping, so he’s letting you know he’s upset.”
Raising an eyebrow, Steve said, “I get the feeling upset is the understatement of the year. So, what are you supposed to do?”
“Find out who killed Bill. And I’m doing my best.”
“Well, I asked this before, but is there anything at all I can do?”
“I really don’t want to drag you into this, Steve—”
“Maybe you don’t, but it seems Aaron does.”
“Point. But I honestly don’t know what you might do I haven’t done already. I just wish someone at your work had known Bruce had a brother. I’d really like to know more about their relationship.”
“You think Bruce had something to do with Aaron’s death?”
“Indirectly, yes. But more directly, I think he killed Bill Somers.”
Steve stared at him, so Elliott roughly outlined everything he’d managed to put together, again skirting any mention of John.
“So, finding out anything more about the Bruce-Aaron dynamics might give us…” He was instantly aware of the implications of the word us. “…something else to go on. I know that wouldn’t be easy, given the fact he isn’t exactly your buddy.”
Steve finished his drink and set the glass on the bar. “Two classic understatements in one conversation,” he said with a smile, “but I’ll be glad to see if I can pick up anything at all that might help.”
The waitress came over to tell them their table was ready.
* * *
They didn’t talk much during dinner, but as they sat with their coffee, Steve brought the subject up again.
“You know, Bruce has been working there a lot longer than I have, and a couple people have actually had conversations with him, I gather. Maybe I can check with them to see if I can find out anything more about him.”
“That’d be great. I’d appreciate it.”
Steve was looking at him with a small smile.
“What?” Elliott asked.
“I’ve said it before, but do you realize how crazy this is? Two relatively sane grown men conspiring to catch a maybe-murderer on the basis of a dead guy who knocks on walls and causes crazy dreams?”
Elliott returned the smile. “Relatively? Hey, we’ve all got something.”
* * *
Leaps and bounds! I’m proud of you.
I prefer one step at a time, thanks.
Whatever. But it does seem to be getting easier for you. Who knows, one of these days you might even be brave enough to spring me on him.
I’d pack a lunch on that one, if I were you. It’s going to be a while.
So, you’re dead sure…no pun intended…that Bruce and his wife killed Bill and caused Aaron’s death?
Aren’t you?
I’m getting there. The sad thing is I don’t think Aaron has a clue.
He doesn’t? How could he not?
I don’t think he can bring himself to think his own brother could do something like this.
Jeezus!
What?
If Aaron gets to the point where he gets any closer to Steve’s thoughts, he’ll know for sure!
Well, even if he does, there really isn’t much he can do about it. That’s one of the drawbacks of being…well…dead. Bruce is a shit, but he’s still his brother. And I can’t imagine him doing anything even if he could.
You’re sure about that? I’m not.
You’ve seen too many horror movies.
Then how does Aaron manage the rapping? It takes a solid hitting a solid to produce sound. And if he’s got enough solid to make sound…
Slow down, cowboy. Our world—Aaron’s and mine—isn’t the same as yours, remember. Not by a long shot. I’m not sure myself how he does the knocking, but I can assure you it’s not by solid striking solid.
Well, that’s comforting. I think.
* * *
Thursday morning, just as he was putting his lunch into the small ice chest he used as a lunch box, his cell phone rang. Fishing it out of his shirt pocket, he flipped it open and saw Cessy’s number.
“Hi, Sis. What can I do for you?”
“I didn’t know if you might be on your way to work yet, but I wanted to catch you.”
“Just getting ready to leave. What’s up?”
“I know it’s short notice, but do you have plans for dinner? I’m defrosting a huge pan of lasagna Brad’s mom left last time she was here, and it’s big enough to feed an army. I know how you like her lasagna, so I thought you might want to join us. It’s been ages since we’ve seen you.”
“What do you mean, ages? It seems like only a couple of days ago I was over there celebrating the South’s rejoining the Union.”
“No, I’m sure it’s been longer than that. So, will you come?” “Sure. Six thirty as usual? Tell Brad I’ll stop and pick up some beer. I think I drank the last of his last time I was over.”
“Hardly, but six thirty will be fine. It’ll be good to see you.”
“Shall I wear a name tag so you’ll recognize me?”
“Very funny. Go to work.”
Well, he thought as he drove to work, that resolved the issue of when or whether to talk to Brad. He knew he was walking on thin ice, but he was willing to do just about anything to get Aaron out of his life.
Even as those thoughts were crossing his mind, however, he also felt a twinge of guilt for putting his own annoyance with Aaron and his desire to sell the property ahead of finding a murderer and giving a poor dead guy peace.
CHAPTER 14
After another day with no disruptions from Aaron, he raced home for a quick shower and change of clothes. Stopping to pick up two six-packs of Honker’s Ale—Brad’s favorite—on the way, he arrived at the Priebes’ at six fifteen. Brad’s car was already in the driveway, so Elliott pulled in behind it. Taking out his cell phone long enough to turn it off, he returned it to his pocket. If anyone wanted to reach him, they could leave a voice mail.
Crossing the back porch, he could see Cessy and Jenny setting the table. Shifting both six-packs onto one arm to free his other hand to open the door, he went in without knocking.
“Uncle Elliott!” Jenny said, putting the silverware down and running over to him for a hug, which he managed with his free arm.
“Hi, there, Ladybug,” he said, giving her a squeeze. He looked up at Cessy and gave her a smile and a wink. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” she said as he released Jenny and moved to put the beer in the refrigerator. “Brad’s in the living room, and he already has his beer.”
Nodding, Elliott took a bottle out of one of the six-packs. Twisting off the cap, he tossed it in the wastebasket under the sink and joined Brad in the living room where he was watching CNN
.
Jenny started to follow, but Cessy called her back to finish her table-setting chores.
“Elliott,” Brad said by way of greeting. He turned his head only far enough to glance at him then returned his attention to the TV.
“Brad,” Elliott responded, taking a seat on the sofa. He waited until the current news item was over, then said, “So, how’s work going?”
Brad took a swig of his beer. “Like always. About three feet over our heads. I honestly don’t know what this city’s coming to, and I try to just shut it all out and do my job. It ain’t easy.”
“I can imagine,” Elliott said, then paused. He didn’t want to just rush in with his own agenda.
“How’s your project going along?” Brad asked.
“Fine. The building’s just about ready to go on the market.”
Brad nodded and took another swig of beer. “Good,” he said. “But I meant your other project—the Somers thing.”
Elliott grinned, relieved Brad had opened the door. “Funny you should ask,” he began, but was interrupted by Jenny’s running through the room to the base of the stairs. Leaning forward into the stairwell, she yelled, “BJ, Mom says dinner’s ready!” She then turned to Elliott and her father. “Mom says dinner’s ready,” she repeated sweetly, then went back into the kitchen.
As he and Brad got up, BJ came bounding down the stairs. “Hi, Uncle Elliott,” he said, and without looking directly at either of them as he hurried into the kitchen.
“We can talk more after dinner,” Brad said as he gestured Elliott to precede him through the door.
* * *
After dinner, when the kids had gone to do their homework and while Cessy was putting the baby to bed, Brad and Elliott returned to the living room.
“So, you were saying…?” Brad said.
Elliott took a deep breath.
“You know Aaron Stiles had a brother?” he asked.
“Yes. A woman in their building mentioned him, and we checked him out just to see if he knew anything about Somers. He said they’d never met. Apparently, he didn’t approve of his brother’s lifestyle and had as little to do with him as possible. Why?”
“Well, I think he and his wife were responsible for Bill Somers’ death.”
“Their motive being…?”
“Bruce Stiles is a homophobe who loathed his brother despite everything Aaron did for him. In fact, the more Aaron did for him, the more Bruce hated him—a classic example of ‘no good deed goes unpunished,’ I suppose.”
“Which makes him an ungrateful shit, not a murderer. And if he was going to kill somebody, why not just kill Aaron?”
“Because they probably thought he was planning to leave all his money to Bill, which in fact I’m pretty sure he was—he and Bill had an appointment with a lawyer but never kept it because Bill disappeared.
“Killing Bill would mean they’d be almost guaranteed to get everything as Aaron’s sole surviving relatives. And if Aaron and Bill had named each other as beneficiary, killing Bill while Aaron was still alive would mean they’d get Bill’s money, too.”
“Didn’t Somers already have a will?”
“Yeah, he left his share of his business to his partner, Jim Babcock, and the rest of his money to various charities. But Bruce Stiles had no way of knowing that.”
“Wouldn’t Babcock have just as good a motive as the brother and sister-in-law?”
“Possibly, but theirs is stronger, and things point more directly to them.”
“So, you have a scenario?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Elliott shook his head and grinned. “Now you’re making me feel like Sherlock Holmes assembling all the suspects in the drawing room.”
“Assemble away. I’m listening.”
Taking a deep breath, Elliott continued.
“Okay. Among his other kindnesses, Aaron set his sister-in-law up in a real estate business. Probably, good guy that he was, when he and Bill started thinking of buying a house, Aaron insisted they throw the business her way, which put her in a perfect position to set up a fake suicide. She could easily have known about the house on North Lovejoy, and that it was due to close very shortly, which would mean Bill’s body would be found fairly soon. She had no way of knowing the escrow would fall through at the last minute.”
“So why, when it did, didn’t she or her husband just give an anonymous phone tip to the police?”
“A couple reasons, I’d imagine. First, they wouldn’t want to risk anyone’s suspecting the death was anything but suicide. Secondly, while I’m sure they were unhappy when the escrow on the house fell through, they didn’t know Bill’s body wouldn’t be found before Aaron himself died.
“And the longer it took to find the body, the greater the chance that nature and time would take care of any possible incriminating evidence. They probably hoped—rightly, as it turned out—that either the shock of Bill’s body being found or the strain of not knowing what had happened to him would cause Aaron’s heart to give out. In fact, a friend of both Bill and Aaron told me that just before Aaron died, he’d called Bruce for some sort of emotional support, and Bruce all but told him to drop dead. Which he did.”
After Elliott finished, there was a long silence, broken only by the distant sound of rap music coming from the second floor.
Brad sat looking at him. Finally, he pursed his lips and raised one eyebrow, then said, “Interesting theory. Only one problem that I can see—proving it. Theories don’t stand up well in court without hard evidence. What do you have in that department?”
Elliott shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any, somewhere. I guess I was hoping there might be something in what I just told you that you could look into it, in light of what you know now but didn’t know at the time.”
Brad studied without saying anything for what seemed to Elliott like an eternity. Finally, he said simply, “It’s been four years.”
“But the case is still open.”
“Yes, the case is still open. But the fact of the matter is I can’t see anything in what you’ve said that’s really solid enough to warrant making it an active investigation again. It’s good speculation, but unless we have something solid to go on, that’s all it is—speculation.
“Believe me, we did everything we could think of at the time, and even if we’d known these things you’ve learned that we didn’t know, I don’t see that the result would have been much different. Even if the department wasn’t having a hard enough time just keeping up with current cases, we couldn’t warrant reopening a four-year-old case without solid evidence.”
Elliott sighed. “I see your point,” he said. “But the idea of the Stileses getting away with murder bugs the hell out of me.”
“No argument on that point, and I really do wish I could help you. But unless we have something more solid…”
“I understand. But I know there has to be something concrete out there, and I’m going to keep looking.” He didn’t mention that if he ever wanted to get rid of Aaron he had to.
Cessy came downstairs to sit on the arm of Brad’s chair and put an arm around his shoulder.
“Sorry it took so long,” she said. “Sandy wouldn’t stop demanding attention. She’s her father’s daughter,” she added with a smile.
Brad turned his head to look up at her. “Thanks. I think.”
Turning her attention to her brother, she said, “So, how is Steve? The kids pretty much dominated conversation at dinner, and I didn’t have a chance to ask.”
“He’s fine, thanks. We had dinner last night.” He didn’t want to mention it had been Steve’s birthday because she would feel bad for not getting him something.
“That’s nice,” she said. “He’s perfect for you, and you’d better not let him get away.”
Elliott grinned. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere.” And kept himself from adding, I hope.
; He changed the subject as quickly as he could, and when the grandmother clock on the bookcase struck nine, he said, “I’d better get going. Work tomorrow. A great dinner as always, and tell Mrs. Priebe ‘hello and thanks’ next time you talk to her.”
He got up from the sofa, and Cessy insisted on walking him to the door.
* * *
Realizing Friday morning that he had not yet called the lawyer, he took a minute during a morning break to fish the number out of his billfold. As he checked the information, he experienced a sensation similar to the slight jolt el cars make as they come to a full stop. This was accompanied by the strong awareness of a presence he knew was not John.
He felt the hair stand up on his arms. He hastily put the number back in his billfold, gulped down his coffee, and went back to work.
It was only with extreme concentration he was able to get through the day, though by the time he was on the way home, he was unable to resist. The presence he’d felt could only have been Aaron, and the realization he had actually been as aware of him as he always was of John was disconcerting in the extreme. He had no idea what it meant, but he didn’t like it.
He had accepted having direct contact with one…okay, he forced himself to use the word—dead—guy in his life; he did not want more. The prospect of what lay behind that particular door frankly rattled him.
* * *
He forced himself back to reality by concentrating on his planned dinner-at-home evening with Steve. He stopped at the store to pick up steaks and some other groceries, which succeeded in taking his mind partially off the situation for a short time.
But as he puttered in the kitchen having a Manhattan and getting things set up for dinner, his mind went back to the incident at work, and he gradually became aware of John. He wondered if John was somehow drawn by his thoughts, and hoped they’d have a talk that evening. He was willing to risk Steve’s hearing him talking in his sleep.
* * *
Steve arrived exactly on time, and almost immediately picked up on Elliott’s mood.
“What’s up?” he asked as Elliott handed him a drink and sat down beside him, noting he was wearing his birthday cologne.
Deciding not to play the “What do you mean?” game, he simply said, “Aaron.”