The Invisible Assistant

by John Gaspard

  Josiah returned the stare, but his was warm and without judgment.

  “Don’t you want to answer that?” Harley snapped.

  “Gladly,” Josiah said softly. “It’s just that, since you have interrupted me at every opportunity this evening, I just wanted to make sure that I in turn was not about to—inadvertently—interrupt you.”

  Harley sat back and spread his hands open before him, giving the floor to Josiah.

  “While I certainly respect your opinion,” he said quietly, “I cannot endorse it nor justify it. Life, in all of its forms, is sacred. It was given to us and it is not ours to take away, whether via a lethal injection in a prison or an exhaust hose in a garage—”

  “So you insist,” Harley said, cutting him off, “that you have a right to keep me alive, and I don’t have a right to choose the time of my death? Is that what you’re saying? But that is complete and utter—”

  Some network censor somewhere had pulled the sound down for the next few profanity-laden seconds of his rant, so Deirdre took that opportunity to take the iPad back and hit the Pause button.

  “Wow,” I said. “After seeing that, if you told me one of those guys killed the other guy and then himself, I would have sworn it was Harley Keller who pulled that trigger twice. Not Josiah Manning.”

  “My point exactly,” Deirdre said as she slipped the tablet back into the dark recesses of her purse. “I’m just having a bit of trouble getting the Homicide department to see things my way.”

  “It’s cut and dried,” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton grumbled. “And that’s the truth.”

  “The truth is rarely cut and never dried,” I misquoted, not at all sure what that was supposed to mean. “What does Homicide think happened?”

  “Harley Keller invited Josiah Manning to his home,” he began.

  “His home?”

  “Harley Keller lived in a townhouse on Cedar Lake,” Deirdre explained.

  Homicide Detective Fred Hutton gave her a long look and then continued. “Harley Keller invited Josiah Manning to his home,” he repeated slowly. “At some point, the two must have gone upstairs to Mr. Keller’s office on the second floor. While in that office, Josiah Manning shot Harley Keller point blank in the chest.”

  “Yikes,” I said involuntarily.

  “He died almost immediately,” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton continued, ignoring my short outburst. “Josiah Manning then went downstairs, sat down in a chair in the living room, put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

  “Where did you find the gun?”

  “On the floor next to the chair.”

  “Powder burns?”

  “Residue was found on the fingers of Josiah Manning’s right hand.”

  “How about Harley Keller?”

  “His hands were clean.”

  I sat back and considered what I had heard. I took a sip of my coffee, which had already turned cold. “Maybe someone else shot them both and then left?”

  Homicide Detective Fred Hutton shook his head. “The place was locked up tight. Both front and rear entrances were secured with heavy chain locks. All windows locked from the inside. Responding officers had to break down the front door after neighbors reported gunshots.”

  “Suicide note?”

  He shook his head.

  I took another sip of coffee and then turned to Deirdre. “And you think it happened some other way?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What’s odd about this,” I said as a new thought began to dawn on me, “is that in reality there were three deaths that night.” This produced curious looks from both of them.

  “How do you figure?” Deirdre asked.

  I counted them out on my fingers for emphasis. “Harley Keller and Josiah Manning both died,” I said. “But so too did Josiah Manning’s reputation. I mean, the method of his death will now always overshadow his life’s work. The anti-suicide guy will now always be known as the guy who killed himself. And Harley Keller certainly had the motive to put that reputation to rest.” I finished the rest of my coffee. “Can we go look at the crime scene?” I said as I stood up.

  Deirdre was already on her feet. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  You know how you can sometimes tell when a couple is arguing, even when you can’t hear them? I mean, just by their body language? That was the sense I got as I followed the happy couple across town to the Cedar Lake neighborhood. From my vantage point in the front seat of my car, I could see them talking in the front seat of theirs. And from where I sat, it did not look like a happy conversation.

  For some odd reason, that made me sad. Because, I figured, if she had to leave me, the very least she could do was try to be happy with the guy she left me for. I mean, otherwise, what was the point?

  In fact, on the few occasions I had witnessed these arguments, I had to restrain myself from saying something along the lines of, “Jeez, you left me so you could argue with him? You could’ve skipped the divorce and continued arguing with me.” But I wisely never said that. At least, not so far.

  Harley Keller lived—or had lived—on Cedar Lake, the most mysterious of the Minneapolis chain of lakes, primarily because it was impossible to drive around it. You could drive past it, but not around it.

  His townhouse, like all the others connected to it, looked relatively new and completely identical. A different brightly-colored windsock hung in front of each entryway, probably in a failed attempt to aid in the identification process.

  Deirdre and Homicide Detective Fred Hutton were already unlocking the front door when I caught up to them. “No crime scene tape?” I observed.

  “It’s no longer a crime scene,” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton grunted as he pushed the door open. I was surprised to be greeted by the sound of a yipping dog.

  “Hey, there’s a dog,” I said, clearly stating the obvious. “That’s weird. Why is there a dog?”

  “There are a variety of pets still in residence,” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton said flatly.

  I looked to Deirdre for a more complete explanation. “Harley Keller had a dog, three cats, a bird and an aquarium. We were going to turn them all over to animal control, but the next of kin requested against that,” she said. She gestured toward the identical doorway to our right. “The lady next door stops in several times a day to take care of them. His next of kin are coming to town at the end of the week to handle the estate.”

  “That’s quite a menagerie,” I said. “Especially for a pro-death kind of guy like Harley Keller.”

  “Yes, it is,” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton said with what sounded like a sigh. This was followed immediately by something that sounded like a sneeze. And then another. And another.

  “Fred’s allergic to cats. And dogs,” Deirdre said by way of explanation.

  At that moment, a small mutt of a dog came racing towards us, yelping happily. Because Homicide Detective Fred Hutton was the only one of us allergic to animals, the dog naturally went right for him. He dropped a slimy, spit-covered rubber ball at the detective’s feet. Homicide Detective Fred Hutton gave the ball a disgruntled kick as he pulled out a handkerchief to catch his next sneeze. The handkerchief arrived a millisecond too late.

  As the dog chased after the errant ball, a large tabby cat arrived and began to wend its way around Homicide Detective Fred Hutton’s ankles. This cat was soon joined by another cat, this one small and black. Then the dog returned with the ball and the next phase of sneezing began.

  “Can we proceed?” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton pleaded between sneezes.

  “By all means,” I agreed. “Give me the nickel tour.”

  “Sure. The dog is named Gypsy and the cats are Jinx, Penny and—” Deirdre was cut off before she could complete her list.

  “He means a tour of the crime scene,” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton b
arked.

  “Oh,” she said, acting innocent. “I thought it wasn’t a crime scene anymore.”

  I put up a hand to stop them. “The way you two are behaving, it feels like it could easily become a crime scene again, at any moment. Could we just stick to the facts of the case?”

  While her husband blew his nose, Deirdre pointed out the chair where Josiah Manning had allegedly shot himself. It was an oversized recliner, upholstered in a light blue plush fabric. A large bloodstain covered the chair’s headrest. On a hunch, I tugged on each armrest. They opened, revealing a storage chamber within each arm. Both chambers were not only empty but spotless.

  Deirdre pointed out the place on the floor where he had dropped the gun. I gestured toward the chair and she nodded her permission. I slowly sat in the recliner, taking care not to lean back on the headrest. The blood had long since dried, but human nature dictated that I keep my distance and so I did. I mimed the motions of putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger. My arm dropped to the side. I looked down to see if my imaginary gun had landed in the spot Deirdre had indicated. To my mind’s eye, it was a direct hit.

  She then headed toward the stairway. I followed, and once he was able to disentangle himself from his animal friends, Homicide Detective Fred Hutton trailed behind us. We passed an impressively huge fish tank built into one wall. The fish swam aimlessly back and forth, looking exotic and colorful. I glanced at the tank and then back to the sniffling mess behind me.

  “You allergic to fish too?” I asked, trying to hide how much I was enjoying the question.

  “With my luck, yes,” he said as another sneeze arrived. We followed Deirdre up the stairs, with both cats doing their best to get under Homicide Detective Fred Hutton’s feet as he blearily navigated the stairs.

  Harley Keller’s office was a large room at the top of the staircase. A computer sat atop an IKEA-style desk, with matching bookcases lining one wall. Photos of Harley with notables lined the other wall. The rest of the room consisted of a series of cat beds, a dog bed, and various carpeted structures designed to provide an indoor cat with the climbing experience they were denied by being forced to live inside. To prove that thesis, a cat I hadn’t yet seen was resting atop the highest structure in the room.

  Homicide Detective Fred Hutton stood in the doorway and sneezed. As if responding to this call, Gypsy had returned and dropped his spit-covered ball at the detective’s feet. Once he realized that the human had no desire to play with him, the dog sniffed at the ball and then marched over to his rag-filled dog bed, circling the bed three times before finally settling in.

  I looked down at a large dark brown bloodstain in the center of the room, which had soaked into the cream-colored plush carpeting.

  “Based on the position of the body and the blood splatter, it appears Harley was shot right here,” Deirdre said, pointing to where the body had fallen.

  “So,” I said, trying to work out the chronology, “Harley and Josiah came up here. Josiah shoots Harley in the chest. He falls there,” I said, indicating the bloodstain. “Josiah then marches downstairs and shoots himself in the head.”

  “That’s the police version, yes,” she said.

  I stooped down. From where I was standing, I could see down the stairs into the living room. However, the recliner where Josiah had shot himself was not in view. I turned to Deirdre. “And what’s your theory? That Harley shot Josiah and then shot himself?”

  “That makes more sense to me.”

  “Even though the facts clearly do not support that supposition?” Homicide Detective Fred Hutton’s voice was a little ragged from the sneezing but his attitude came through loud and clear.

  “I think if you insist on looking at only some of the facts, you can easily reach the wrong conclusion.”

  I recognized Deirdre’s tone and my stomach tightened in what could only be called a Pavlovian response. I crossed the room and sat at the desk, trying to gather my thoughts while the happy couple continued to squabble. I did my best to block out their bickering while I sorted through the elements of the puzzle.

  I knew from past experience that if Deirdre was insisting about a point this vehemently, there was likely something behind it and it was worth pursuing. She was adamant that something wasn’t quite right in what we were seeing. She didn’t believe Josiah shot Harley and then himself. And given what little I knew about the two men, I was inclined to agree.

  However, if Harley merely wanted Josiah dead, he could have just shot him and then, if he was so inclined, he could have shot himself. But instead, he felt the need to kill Josiah’s reputation as well. But how?

  I thought about all the methods I knew to get an object from one side of the stage to the other. All the ways I had learned to take something off a person without them knowing it, and the more useful art of putting something on them without tipping them off. I thought about mirrors and stooges and dual realities and other forms of misdirection. I thought about my act from that afternoon. And then a glimmer of an idea began to take hold in the back of my head. But it was having trouble making itself heard above the din in the room.

  “Could you two please knock it off?” I finally said, saying it much louder than I had intended. My volume and tone produced the desired effect and they both stopped in mid-argument. “I can’t hear myself think,” I added at a much lower level. I got up and saw that they were each looking at me like contrite children. I moved to the center of the room.

  “This is where Harley was standing when he was shot?”

  Deirdre nodded, double-checked it with Homicide Detective Fred Hutton, and then nodded again.

  “Is it possible that someone could use a handgun like the one used in this case and shoot themselves in the chest? I mean, hold their arm out, point the gun at their own chest and shoot themselves?” I demonstrated what I meant, stretching out my arm and turning my hand back toward my chest.

  Deirdre started to answer, but Homicide Detective Fred Hutton beat her to it. “Yes, but a bullet to the heart would produce nearly instant death,” he said. “There would be no time to get the gun downstairs. Not to mention the powder burns on the hand.”

  Deirdre held up a hand for him to stop talking. He didn’t look like he wanted to, but a sudden sneeze shifted his attention away from me and back to his handkerchief. Deirdre jumped on this pause.

  “What are you thinking?” she said, stepping toward me.

  “What if it happened this way…” I began, heading toward the door. “Oh, do either of you have a gun? I mean, an unloaded gun, about the same size that was used here?”

  Still unable to speak, Homicide Detective Fred Hutton shook his head and then registered a look of surprise as Deirdre began to dig through her purse. A moment later, she produced a small handgun. “I checked it out of the armory this morning,” she said by way of explanation. “In case we needed to reenact anything. Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.”

  “Great,” I said, taking the gun from her, surprised at its heft. It was a little heavy, but not too heavy for what I had in mind. “Also, do you have any gloves, like the ones you use when sifting through evidence?”

  Deirdre nodded at Homicide Detective Fred Hutton, who glared back at her. There was a short tense standoff, and then he acquiesced. He put his handkerchief in one pocket and then pulled a pair of thin latex gloves out of the other. He handed them to me and I pulled one onto my right hand as I sprinted out of the room and down the stairs. I ducked into the kitchen for a moment, and the couple had made it to the base of the stairs by the time I returned.

  “Okay,” I said, beginning my impromptu presentation, “let’s try this scenario on for size. I am Harley Keller and I have invited Josiah Manning over to my townhouse. I’m not entirely sure how I got him here, maybe something about burying the hatchet, but anyway, I invite him and he comes over.”

  I walked to the front door and
mimed each action as I narrated. “Josiah comes in the front door. I welcome him and lock the door behind him and chain the door. Then, with his back to me, I knock him out with the butt of the gun.” I went through these actions, pretending to strike and then lower an unconscious body into the recliner. “Now, this puts a pretty big wound on the back of Josiah’s head, but that will be obliterated when I put the gun in his mouth, wrap his finger around the trigger and then pull it. Blam!”

  My impression of the sound of the gun was loud enough to make Deirdre jump. I patted her on the shoulder as I headed back to the stairs. “Sorry about that,” I said. “Anyway, now Josiah is dead and he’s got powder marks on his right hand. The first half of my plan is completed. Now for phase two.”

  I took the stairs two at a time, and then had to wait while Deirdre and Homicide Detective Fred Hutton trudged back up the stairs. Once again, the cats did their best to trip him up. I waited patiently for them to arrive and then waited a few more seconds for another quick round of sneezing.

  “Okay, so now it’s Harley’s turn,” I said, stretching my right arm as far in front of me as I could and pointing the gun back toward my chest. “I shoot myself point blank in the heart, drop the gun and die a few seconds later.” I looked up and smiled at the couple in the doorway. “Just that simple,” I added.

  Deirdre squinted at me and Homicide Detective Fred Hutton shook his head.

  “Now,” I continued, “you’re probably wondering how Harley got the gun from the floor next to him, down the stairs and next to Josiah’s body.”

  “Yes, we are,” Deirdre said, sounding annoyed. “That’s the whole point.”

  “Well, I think he did it the same way I got the cards from Joan’s hands to his hands during my act today,” I said, gesturing toward Homicide Detective Fred Hutton.

  “Melissa,” he said, and then blew his nose.

  “What?”

  “The volunteer’s name was Melissa.”