by Dale Mayer
The guy resumed glaring at him again.
The detective returned. “According to the photos from police files, he’s looking like Grant. But, if he’s Grant, what the hell is going on?”
“Exactly. And I agree he does look like Grant.” Weston held up the photo he’d taken off the wall.
The detective looked at it and nodded. “We have something similar.”
“So, is it Grant? Do you have any mention of Grant having a family in your police files?”
“Just his brother, Gregory,” the detective said.
“Did anybody mention they were twins?”
The detective’s eyebrows shot up, and he frowned. “Are you Gregory then?” he asked the guy.
The man’s eyes went from one to the other, and his shoulders all of a sudden sagged. “I’m Grant.”
“So says you,” said Weston. “Now I don’t believe you.”
The man glared at him. “I’m in my home. I’ve got my ID, and you can see from the photos it’s me.”
“No, not necessarily,” the detective said. “I’ve also got a dead man, buried and gone, who was ID’d as Grant. I spoke to a brother who was coming up here.”
Grant said. “You spoke to me.”
“No, not buying it,” Weston said. “If this was your house, you would have kicked me out. You wouldn’t have let us in, and you wouldn’t have hidden like you did. So the only reason you’re still hiding, if you are Grant, is if you had something to do with your wife’s death, as well as the man who was with her.”
“It was her lover,” he said bitterly. “And that lover was my brother.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a minute.” The detective held his hands up by his shoulders. “So was it you I talked to or your brother?”
“There’s just the two of us, and it was me you talked to,” he said, as if he was suddenly tired of the whole mess. “My wife and her lover were killed, so I moved back into my house. But I knew it would look bizarre, and, once I realized you had identified him as me, I laid low over these past several weeks, trying to figure out what I should do about it. There are some advantages to dying and disappearing,” he said. “I could go down and take up my brother’s life. Or I could wipe him off the face of the earth too,” he said with a shrug. “I hadn’t figured it out yet.”
“Six weeks is a long time to figure it out,” Weston said. He looked back at the dog, who was now sleeping in front of the fireplace. “Why didn’t the dog come and greet you?”
“She greeted me on the other side of the house,” he said. “And then, when I came in, I just ordered her to go lie down, so she did.”
“That makes sense,” Weston said. “So why didn’t you go find the dog after she went missing in the accident?”
“How was I supposed to know where she was?” he exclaimed. “The truck went off the road, and I never heard any more. The dog was gone. My wife was dead, and so was my brother.”
“So, what you’re trying to decide is which one of you had more money? Then you would assume that life?”
“Not really,” he said, “I inherit anyway.”
“So, does your disappearance and trying to figure out which person you should pop back up as have something to do with that threatening letter?”
The guy blanched. “What do you know about the letter?”
“I found it,” Weston said. “We were looking into the accident, thinking the letter was about you, and I still don’t have any reason to change my way of thinking.”
“It wasn’t for me. It was for him, and I think the threatening letter was for real,” he said. “That’s another reason why I was trying to figure out which way to work this. If I’m alive, and they know it, then they’ll come after me again.”
“You mean, that’s the real reason why you’ve been hiding out here,” Weston said. “After they killed your wife and your brother accidentally, you figured you were safe, but only if nobody knew you were alive.”
Grant nodded. “Something like that, yes. And my brother would have come up to see me if I had died anyway.”
“Would he though?”
“If I had died and left my wife alone, yes. As it was, I was gone on a trip for quite a while, and he came anyway.” At that, the same bitter note could be heard in his voice.
“Did you know they were carrying on behind your back?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t. But then again my brother and I look a lot alike. And I’m not sure, if my brother stepped into my shoes, if my wife knew or not.”
At that, the two men stopped and stared at him.
“You’re thinking your wife didn’t know it was your brother and not you?”
“No, I’m not sure she did,” he repeated. “When I came back, I stepped into the kitchen, and she ripped into me because I was supposed to have done something that morning and hadn’t. I just stopped her and said, ‘Whoa, hang on a minute there,’ and she wouldn’t. She just kept yelling at me. I stepped back out, not sure what I was supposed to do, when I realized my brother was driving in with his vehicle. I hauled him off to the shed, where I beat the crap out of him. Then he admitted he’d come in for a visit, and she’d thrown her arms around him, pretty hot and heavy, and he had succumbed to temptation.”
Weston stared at him.
Grant nodded grimly. “What the hell was I supposed to do then? At that point, I looked pretty stupid, but, then again, my wife would look bad as well. My asshole of a brother should have identified himself.”
“Your wife didn’t know?”
“I don’t know,” he said tiredly. “But, when the vehicle went off the road, it wasn’t me. It was him. I’d been trying to deal with how to get back into her life as it was.”
“Hang on a minute. How long were you gone for?”
“I was gone for three weeks, working at a mine, back for one, then gone for another four,” he said. “I was working up north. I saw the letter the first time I was here. I put it away in the drawer, not sure what to do about it. Then I was gone for the last four weeks and came back just before the accident. That’s when my wife reamed me out, and my brother and I had the big toss-up over it all. The next thing I know, they’re both heading out in the truck, and I never saw either of them again.”
“And where was Shambhala at this time?”
He looked at Weston in surprise. “I have no clue. Why?”
“Was the dog in the back of the truck?”
He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “She must have been. She wasn’t here. After they left, I came back into the cabin, determined to move back into my own house and have it out with them. That’s when I found out my wife was pregnant. She’d left a pregnancy test on the counter. And it was positive. Only I knew chances were, it wasn’t mine. It was my brother’s.”
The three men sat for a long moment in silence.
“Jesus,” Weston said. “If your brother did all that without you knowing, and without her knowing, that’s even shittier than—I don’t know. I’m at a loss.”
“It was the worst of the worst,” Grant admitted. “The thing is, I’m also not sure if that letter was for me or for him.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because I’ve never done anything wrong,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure out what happened to my life. My pregnant wife just ended up dead. My brother is gone, and this threatening letter, which came while I was away, makes no sense to me. But, for all I know, that’s the reason why they are dead.”
“Okay, this is really confusing,” the detective said. “You don’t have any clue who sent that threatening letter, nor really to whom?”
“No,” Grant said, “I don’t. I know that’s confusing. That’s why I’ve been lying low, trying to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do.”
“Jesus Christ,” Weston said.
At that time, the dog hopped up from her nap and walked closer to them. Instead of going to Grant, she went to Weston. Weston gent
ly stroked her head and scratched her behind the ears.
“Every time she comes close,” Weston said, looking at Grant, “she comes to me, not to you.”
“I know,” he said, “but I’ve been gone a lot. Shambhala was more my wife’s dog than mine.”
“You think?” the detective asked in a sour tone.
But Weston could understand Kruger’s point and his sour disposition too. A ton of paperwork had to be dealt with, all because of the duplicity of this man in front of them and then that of his twin brother. The authorities would likely have to exhume the body and verify who they had buried. “It’s also quite possible,” Weston said, “that you are Gregory, trying, for some perverted reason, to step into Grant’s life.”
The detective nodded. “Do you have any idea what a nightmare this is for the police department?”
“You do what you have to do,” Grant said, his face suddenly losing all vitality. “Just remember. Not very long ago I was a happily married man with my future ahead of me, and now apparently my brother, my wife and what? A baby—my son or daughter, or my nephew or niece, I guess—they’re all gone. So, if you think it’s confusing and inconvenient for you, just imagine how I feel. I’m so conflicted. I’m angry, hurt and grieving for everybody involved. It’s just devastating.”
“But you’re not an animal person, are you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Grant asked in frustration.
Weston shrugged. “Not a lot, I guess. It’s just odd because you’ve got an animal here that desperately needed care, and yet you weren’t giving it to her.”
“But remember,” Grant said. “I didn’t know what happened to the dog.”
“And yet I can’t imagine the dog, if it was in the back of that vehicle right up to the crash, having gone anywhere but back home again,” Weston said, stating a truth that was hard for anybody to argue.
“Well, if she did,” Grant said, “maybe one of the rescuers took her back into town, and she ended up running away.”
“That’s possible,” Weston said, nodding his head slowly.
“Thank you,” he said. “I know you’re thinking I’m involved in something shady, and I am—but it’s not by choice. I didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
“Not sure that blame or what you deserve has any place in this,” the detective said. “This is just shit from start to finish.”
Grant nodded. “Finally you’ve said something that makes sense, but you still don’t get it. You might have paperwork to catch up on, and you might have a dog to deal with, but I’ve lost everything.”
Chapter 8
Daniela watched as the truck drove up the long driveway to her small house. She stepped out onto the porch, with Sari in her arms, and watched Shambhala jump out of the truck, shaking herself as she hit the ground, then running up the few steps toward them. Her missing leg didn’t seem to affect her or to slow her down. In her arms, Sari started to wiggle and clap her hands.
“Doggy, doggy!”
Daniela crouched in front of Shambhala, who started to clean Sari’s face. Laughing and crying out, Sari tried to grab the dog’s head, but her pudgy fingers and the dog’s cheeks started slipping past each other. The dog darted in for kisses and then left again.
When Daniela straightened up, Weston stood there with his hands on his hips, looking at the three of them. She smiled. “It doesn’t look like you had a good afternoon.”
“Definitely an odd one,” he said, providing a somewhat cryptic answer. “Sometimes you just never know how things will turn out.”
“Well, that’s confusing,” she said, as she turned and walked back inside.
“Very confusing,” he said. He lifted his head and sniffed. “Smells great.”
“Let’s hope it tastes great too. Dinner’s ready,” she said, checking the clock on the kitchen wall. “Or it will be in a few minutes, if you want to go wash up.”
He took the hint and nodded, heading down the hallway to the bathroom.
She put Sari in her high chair. “It’s time for food.”
Sari laughed. “Doggy eat too.”
Daniela remembered the dog food they had bought at the feedstore and realized it was still in the back of her truck. “Let’s hope Weston can get it for us,” she said with a smile.
“Go get what?” Weston asked, as he walked back into the kitchen.
“The dog food for Shambhala. It’s still in my truck.”
He nodded. “I’m on it.” And headed out the front door. Minutes later he came back in with a large bag on his shoulder.
She looked at it in surprise. “It didn’t look nearly that big in the store.”
“Do you have a bowl I can use?”
Smiling, she pulled out two bowls—one for food and one for water. She gave him the one for food and filled the other with water. Together they placed the dishes down where the dog could eat in peace. Shambhala came over, tail wagging, and dug into the food.
“I wonder when she had her last meal.”
“A handful of treats at the feedstore would be my guess,” he said with a laugh. “Best not to have Sari get close to Shambhala when she’s eating. Clearly she’s been suffering for some time, and she might be possessive over food for a while.”
“It’s so terrible she lost her owners.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’ll tell you over dinner.”
She served up three plates, and, as he sat down, she asked, “So, what happened this afternoon?”
“What happened was,” he said, “we found a man in Grant and Ginger’s cabin, or rather I found one when he attacked me. But he claims to be Grant and says the guy who died in the accident with Ginger was his twin brother.” And then he gave her the details.
She ended up putting down her knife and fork, interrupting her dinner. “Seriously? The brother stepped into Grant’s life while he was away at work, and the wife didn’t know? Is that possible?”
“That’s what Grant says anyway. And maybe he’s just hoping that’s the way it was, that his wife and brother weren’t just carrying on behind his back all this time.”
She winced at that. “If so, that’s really disgusting, and honestly I’m not sure I could believe the wife wouldn’t have known it wasn’t him.”
He looked up at her for a long moment. “Do you think you could tell the twins apart?”
“As the wife, absolutely,” she said. “Everything would be different, you know? From the different clothing, different mannerisms, different smells, a different way of making love. They might look the same, but the men themselves would be very different.”
“Well, that was my opinion too,” Weston said, “so maybe Grant is delusional and is just hoping it’s that way. Otherwise, he has to accept they were carrying on behind his back.”
“And then you have to wonder if he isn’t the one who killed them,” she said. “If anybody killed them of course. But if you found out your brother was carrying on with your wife, and she was now pregnant with probably your brother’s child, what would you do?”
“What I would do and what I’d be tempted to do,” he said, “are two different things. But you’re right. Anyone would definitely be tempted to send them both over a cliff on a permanent basis.”
Not only had Daniela given him something to think about, Weston now had a different issue at hand as well. He stepped out the kitchen back door onto the patio and sent Badger an update. When Badger called a few minutes later, Weston wasn’t surprised.
Badger said incredulously, “Is it really a mix-up of identities between two brothers?”
“I’m not sure,” Weston said honestly. “When you think about it, it could go either way. The threatening letter does add some validity for Grant wanting to hide his identity.”
“But it also potentially gives Gregory, who may have thought about stepping into his brother’s shoes, a chance to reverse course, so he
’s not who he started out to be.”
It took Weston a moment to figure that out, but then he could see Badger’s point. “Right, so you got a shitty scenario either way. Whether the dead guy is Gregory or Grant, the writer of the threatening letter may realize maybe the wrong brother was murdered, and, if the bad guys find out the other brother’s still alive, the bad guys may realize they got the wrong guy and come after whoever is left alive.”
“Exactly.”
“Then why would this brother hang around?” Weston asked. “What could be the reason for staying?”
“Maybe to see if something can be done? Maybe to see if the property has any value? It’s a homestead up there with a house on it. Depends on what kind of lifestyle he wants. What we need to do is find out if either of the brothers were in each other’s will.”
“The local police are on that,” said Weston. “And the problem is, none of this really has to do with Shambhala. She was supposedly in the back of the truck, but yet nobody saw her there, and nobody saw her at home. I caught her near the local feedstore.”
“Yeah, that’s another mystery,” Badger said. “And you’re right. That’s our priority. We need to find a home for her, where she’ll be safe and content.”
“She also didn’t react with this guy when we talked to him,” Weston said. “Not happy or negative.”
“Which, for a dog like that, is very odd,” Badger said with frustration in his voice.
“I know,” Weston said. “It’s all a bit on the bizarre side.”
“You want to check around and see if there are any potential places where we can foster the dog?” Badger asked. “And what’s your time commitment to this project? Do you want to come back immediately, or are you okay to stay for a week or two?”
An odd note was in Badger’s voice, and Weston realized he was really asking about the scenario with his daughter. “I’m currently staying with my daughter’s mother.” He realized how bizarre that sounded. “My daughter took one look at me and started bawling,” he said with a laugh. “On the other hand, she took one look at Shambhala and fell in love.”