What if, p.14
What If..., page 14
“What do you want?” asked the woman.
“To talk to you,” Abby yelled, studying the partially hidden flushed face.
“Well, I don’t want whatever you’re selling, so go the hell away.”
“I’m not selling anything.” Abby held up her badge.
The woman gasped. “What? Why are you here?”
“Well, you and your partner can come on down here and let me talk to you.”
At that, the woman disappeared, and Abby heard voices. She realized the good doctor had been cuckolded. That’s why the wife was so paranoid because she was actually doing what she was accusing him of. She shook her head at the duplicity of people and waited for the woman to open the door.
When Mrs. Brisko did, she was pulling her ruffled hair into a bun at the back with a scrunchie, as she tried for a smile.
“Come in, come in,” she said, “and I’m alone. You were wrong.”
“No, I wasn’t wrong,” Abby corrected her. “You and your lover were up there, which is especially interesting since you’re constantly accusing your husband of cheating on you.”
The woman stared at her in shock. “Oh my God, oh my God. Does he know?”
“Well, I sure as hell hope you’ll be the first one to tell him. Otherwise that’ll be something I get to do—with great pleasure, I might add.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. You just can’t,” she squeaked out.
“Why not?” Abby asked in a hard voice. “You make his life miserable, with all these accusations and private investigators for years, it seems, and then you cheat behind his back?”
“But, if he divorces me, I’ll have nothing.” With that, she wailed.
“Good God.” Abby shut the front door with a hard bang. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you actually had an affair.”
At that, heavy steps came down the stairs, and Abby looked up to see a man she’d never seen before, sheepishly coming into the room.
“She’s right, you know,” he told Mrs. Brisko. “You’ve been making his life pretty damn miserable.”
“Of course I have. It’s the only way to keep him from suspecting.”
“Wow, that’s nice,” Abby said, then turned toward the woman’s lover. “And you are a party to that too.”
The man shrugged. “I’m not here for the long haul. I’m only here for a good time.”
At that, the other woman cried out, “That’s not fair. We’ve been together forever.”
“Good God,” he said. “We’re only together as long as it’s fun. Remember? That was our agreement.”
“I know. I know.” She pleaded with him, “Don’t leave me, please.”
“This is not my sin, so you go do whatever atonement you need to,” he said, “but don’t bother calling me until you’ve got it sorted out. I don’t do drama.” And, with that, he turned and walked toward the door.
Abby laughed. “You don’t do drama, and yet you’re in the middle of this?”
At the doorway, he turned, looked at her. “I have a few rules. I don’t give a shit about married women because if they’ll cheat, they’ll cheat, whether it’s with me or somebody else, but I will not do drama. And I will not get involved in the middle of it.”
“Interesting rule,” Abby noted. “What’s your name by the way?”
He hesitated, looked at her, and asked, “What difference does it make?”
“Well, I’m involved in a murder investigation,” she added, “so it makes a lot of difference to me.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“You heard me. So whether you like it or not, you’re involved in drama. You just broke your first rule.”
He shook his head and started to panic. “No, no, no, no. That can’t be.”
“Several murders, in fact,” she noted, “so I’ll need your contact information and your name.”
He looked over at Mrs. Brisko, still staring at him in shock. “You damn bitch. I told you that I would never get involved in this crap.”
“I know. I know,” she agreed. “I don’t know what the detective is talking about. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Do with what?” Abby turned to look at her. “You sound like you do understand what’s going on here.”
The woman immediately shook her head. “No, no, I don’t. I don’t know anything,” she wailed, again facing her lover. “She just arrived at my door. You saw that.”
“Yeah, I did,” he said, his voice hard. “Regardless we’re done. You go tell that husband of yours, or I will.” With that, he turned toward Abby and handed over his card. “This is me. I’m a salesman.”
“Yeah, and what are you selling?” she asked, with a smirk.
He glared at her. “Not that.”
“Sounds like you are. Sounds like you’re making a hell of a success of it too. Is a medical supplies salesman another word for gigolo these days? Or maybe you’re selling dildos?”
He glared. “It’s got nothing to do with my work.”
“Yeah, I wonder if your boss knows anything about what you do while you’re on the clock.”
“I work on commission,” he stated stiffly. “So it’s none of their business.” He glared at her. “It’s none of yours either.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care what kind of an asshole you are in real life, but the minute you cross into one of my cases,” she snapped, her voice going equally hard, “you become my business. I don’t give a shit what you say. I’ll do what I need to do to find the answers I need.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said. “Right now, I wish I’d never even laid my eyes on this bitch. But, if it’s not me, believe me, another bull will be riding her in no time. That’s just what she is. Somebody else pays the bills, and she has a good time at their expense.”
“Nice,” Abby said. “Stay in town, won’t you?”
“Always,” he replied sardonically and walked out the door, without another word at the doc’s whimpering wife on the couch.
Abby glared at the cheating wife. “That was pleasant.”
“You didn’t have to show up this morning,” she cried out.
“No, I didn’t, but, on the other hand, you didn’t have to be a cheating wife.” At that, a hard gasp came from the hallway, and Abby looked up to see Dr. Brisko standing there. “Oh, did you not know?” she asked. “Your wife’s lover just left.”
He turned in shock and stared at the woman he married, who burst into tears even harder than before.
“I really wouldn’t listen to that caterwauling,” Abby suggested, “because lover boy’s still in his vehicle out in front here.”
At that, Dr. Brisko raced forward, took a look out the living room window, and back at his wife. “Seriously? That’s Ron.”
She nodded. “I know. It’s Ron.”
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
And Abby could tell from his voice that he was devastated.
“It just started,” the wife tried to explain.
“No, it didn’t,” Abby refuted, her arms across her chest, bored. “Nice to know that you’ll lie right now. I’ll be taking good notes of whether I can trust anything else that comes out of your mouth.”
“You! It’s all your fault,” the woman snapped. “You didn’t have to come here this morning.”
“Wow, on the other hand,” Abby pointed out, “look at how much good it’s done. I just came to ask some questions and instead find you in bed with your lover. And, by the way, it was your husband who gave me this address.”
The wife turned to look at him in shock. “What? You are responsible for this?”
“Well, it’s a murder investigation, and one of the people who is dead happens to be the private investigator you set on me to make my life miserable,” her husband explained. “And here I find out that you’re the one who’s screwing around.” And then he stopped and, in a small voice, he asked, “Is this the only one?”
Immediately she nodded like a puppy. “Yes, yes, it is. It’s the only mistake I made.”
He looked over at the detective, and Abby shook her head. “Not according to lover boy. Ron’s just one in a long stream of many,” she repeated. “Apparently you go to work, and so does she, but she works on her back. Free of charge.”
*
Leon taught classes throughout the day, his heart heavy. Every time his phone rang, he was sure it would be his aunt, and, even when it wasn’t ringing, he kept checking to see if he got a text message or something. But there was nothing. Most of his students were leaving today and wouldn’t be attending more classes, as they were heading into exams. Now final reports were being handed in, but essentially it was wind-down time. He had his exams ready to go, and he would be supervising a couple of them, depending on how the schedule worked.
He didn’t have the years at the university that his aunt did. Normally she wouldn’t have to even show up, but she was the kind of person who would show up anyway because she abhorred cheating of any kind. He smiled at that; she might not have been easy to get along with, but you always knew where you stood with her. She was exactly as she seemed. Maybe a bit hard around the edges, but she always came with purpose.
As he walked toward his office, readying to leave for the day, the dean called to him.
“Hey, any news?”
Leon shook his head. “Nope, nothing on any of it.”
“Rumors have it that you heard from Gertrude.”
“Well, rumors have that I thought I heard something, but she couldn’t get through, so I don’t know if it was her or not.” He shrugged. “If she could call me, and I heard clearly enough, I could say for sure that it was her.” He wasn’t sure why he was backtracking from saying he heard from her, but everybody was jumping on him about it, and he didn’t know what to say. “I hope it was her. Let’s put it that way.”
“Well, I do too,” he agreed. “I can’t imagine replacing her at this stage.”
And, of course, that’s all he was concerned about—the university’s responsibility to the students. “It might be a little hard to get a replacement prof. I can see that,” Leon agreed with a nod.
“Don’t even talk like that,” the dean replied in horror. “Your aunt’s been a mainstay here, and we could always count on her.”
“Well, you can always count on her, until you can’t,” he noted, “but that’s hardly her fault.”
“No, no, I get that.” The dean waved his hand. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. Your aunt’s been a godsend all these years. She’s not been any bit of trouble, unlike some of the profs.” He sent a glaring look down the hallway and walked off in a huff.
Leon didn’t even need to turn to see who he was talking about because it could have been several profs that he didn’t like either. But that was okay; that’s just the way life was. He returned to his office, unlocked it, stepped inside, and sat down in his chair. Almost immediately his phone rang. He grabbed it. “Hello.” This time, it still showed no number, no ID at all, but, as he waited, he heard the static again. “Gertrude? Gertie, is that you?”
“Yes.”
And this time it was a little bit clearer, a little more distinct. “Thank God. Are you all right?”
There was a weird silence, and then she said, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Do you need help? Where are you? Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”
There was an odd metallic echo in the room.
“I can’t talk long,” she replied in a hushed voice. “You have to check out what if.”
“Check out what about it?” he cried out. “You said something about that last time. What does that mean?”
“It’s connected,” she said. “I don’t know how. I don’t know why, but it’s connected.”
“Look. I know you left with somebody. Where did you go? Who picked you up?”
“I can’t talk long,” she repeated, her voice getting faint. Static kicked in.
“Are you a prisoner?” he cried out in concern. “Do you need help?”
“It’s too late for that,” she said sadly. After a moment, then she added, “Call him.”
“Call who?” he asked.
“Call the man from before. Regarding your mother’s death.” And, with that, she was gone.
He stared down at his phone in shock. “Call who?” he whispered. “What the hell,” he roared. He got up, paced around. Who the hell was she telling him to call? Something to do with his mother’s death?
He shook his head, as he walked around and around and around. Finally he turned and cried out, “Who the hell am I supposed to call, damn it!”
When his phone rang again, he looked at it in frustration. The ID read Private Caller. “Hello,” he answered.
“If you would stop screaming,” the man said, “I might help.”
He stared down at the phone. “What the hell are you talking about?”
The man groaned. “You know that it’d be so much easier if I could get past this stage and have people not freak out, but I don’t have time for this shit.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your aunt called me,” he replied, “and she wants me to talk to you.”
“You heard from her too?” he asked excitedly. “I just got off the phone with her, but she didn’t sound okay. I’m trying to find out where she is, and she wouldn’t tell me.”
“That’s because she doesn’t know,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean, she doesn’t know?”
“Your aunt has no idea where she is. She doesn’t know what she can do, what she can’t do. The fact that she’s even communicating is a feat in itself.”
“I don’t understand,” Leon said. “Why is everything like talking in Chinese all a sudden? I don’t understand why it’s not clear. What the hell is going on?”
He took a long slow deep breath. “Look. This will be a bit of a shock.”
“You think? I’m past the point of being worried about shocks,” he snapped. “I want some answers. Who are you?”
“And I have one answer that you won’t like.”
“What’s that?” Leon sat down at his desk, exhausted.
“I am Stefan Kronos. We’ve spoken before.”
Stefan Kronos? Why hadn’t his name come up as one of Leon’s Contacts then? Instead it read Private Caller, so maybe Stefan had a new phone. “What is going on? Just tell me, dammit,” he spat in a tight voice.
“Look,” Stefan said. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your aunt is dead, and she was contacting you and me from the other side.”
Chapter 13
After leaving the doctor and his wife in a full-blown spewing temper fit, after which she was hoping the doc would kick his cheating wife out of the house, Abby got back into her vehicle and returned to the station. Now she was more tired and fed up than anything.
As she walked in, Harvey looked up at her, smiled. “Hey, I’ve been looking into the case files that our PI had been working on.”
“Good,” she said. “Hopefully he found something other than a cheating wife?”
Harvey looked at her in surprise, clearly confused. “A cheating wife?”
“Don’t worry about it. It was more of a nuisance than anything. What did you find?”
“Well, he’s the one who supplied a lot of the information on the sister’s murder,” Harvey noted. “He’s been running a full investigation into it but can’t get any information to satisfy his client. He’s even made notes in here, like, ‘No answers. Yet saying nothing found will not get us paid, but there’s really not a whole lot to find.’ He’s got personal notes about her being fairly aggressive and determined to find answers. Although maybe not any longer.”
“No.” She nodded. “Particularly as there have been phone calls to Leon—so she’s no longer a missing person—but her absence isn’t helping us close the cases. What else did you find?”
“I looked into a bunch of the PI’s cases. We do have a couple divorces happening now because of the work he did, and he does have a couple companies grateful for the job he did on tracking employee theft and things like that, but nothing really hard-core. Nothing popped.”
“Right, what about relationships? Did he have any?”
“Not in the last few years that I can see,” he noted. “He was married. His wife left him, saying that he was never around, except to get drunk and fall asleep on the couch, and was more interested in his cases than in her.”
Abby winced at that. “That’s got to be a hard thing to hear.”
“Particularly when he was the one pulling in the income, since the wife wasn’t working at the time. Of course, now with the separation, she’s back at work.”
“Interesting.” Abby shook her head. “I just wonder if any happy marriages are out there.”
“Oh no, you don’t. You don’t get to ride the Why bother? All relationships end up in the sewer train.”
“No, of course not,” she said, with an eye roll. “How about completely miffed and unamused about people’s propensity for lying?”
“Hey, that’s just the reality in the world we’re living in right now.”
“But it doesn’t have to be,” she argued. “Is everybody a cheater? Does everybody break their vows? Is everybody just out for themselves?”
“Sometimes. And certainly in some of the people we live and work with, yes,” he agreed, “but it’s not everybody.”
“So, I just have a skewed view of humanity because of the people I work and live with, is that it?”
“I think it’s mostly the cases that we have to work,” he murmured gently. “When you think about it, it’s not as if we’re dealing with the most honorable, ethical, trustworthy types.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s a definite no. So nothing with the PI, yet he’s got the same manner of death as the two students.”
