Inbox Zero

by Patrick O'Duffy

me, hands out, ready to strangle me. But from his expression it was pretty clear that he wanted to. 'You better make your fucking point, Barber, or God help me...'

  I shrugged. 'My point is that you were embezzling money, lots of money – upwards of two hundred thousand dollars, from those records. I'm sure you thought you were clever about it. Putting in false invoices from non-existent vendors, short-changing orders and pocketing the difference, selling bulk lots of 'damaged' stock at full price. I mean, that probably would have worked in a lot of businesses. But your brother was good at his job and good at picking through information. The man wrote a damn thorough spreadsheet, I can tell you that.'

  Jericho's eyes were turning red – I couldn't tell if it was rage or tears or both – and flecks of spit were getting caught in his increasingly soggy beard. 'Just shut up! You shut the fuck up! I just... I just...'

  'You just needed the money. I understand.' I tried to pitch my voice low and sympathetic. 'But he found out, didn't he? I bet he confronted you about it. Told you off. Made you feel like you were the bad guy, that it was your fault. Is that it?'

  'I was going to pay it back!' he yelled. 'I was going to pay it all back! I had a plan, I had a system... I was going to win it all back and more. But Enoch wouldn't, he wouldn't fucking listen! I prayed with him in the chapel at the house, asked God for forgiveness. But he said he was going to take it to the board, to Mother, to our pastor. I couldn't... I couldn't...'

  'And you did what you had to do,' I said.

  'Yes,' Jericho said, his voice quiet, grateful, glad I was listening to his side of things. 'I smashed his head into the back of the pew. It wasn't... it didn't kill him. It didn't. And then I dragged him out to his car, put him in the driver's seat, took it to the cliff... it was the only thing I could do.' He looked up at me, red-eyed, pleading. 'It was what I had to do.'

  'Wow,' I said. 'That's pretty fucked up, Jericho. I thought maybe you were misunderstood, but no, you're a murdering prick after all.'

  'You fucking bastard!'Jericho yelled, and started towards me.

  That's when my very good friend Detective Grayson stepped out of the office bathroom, pointed his gun at Jericho and said ‘That’s enough!' Well, to be perfectly honest Grayson didn’t like me and I wasn't that fond of him, but right now I could have kissed him full on his greasy moustache.

  Jericho paused, I dived for the floor, Grayson ordered him to put his hands up and two uniformed cops burst through the office door, sending a massive crack through the glass panel emblazoned with KENDALL BARBER OBITUARIST. Well, fuck; I'd only had that door repaired a couple of months back. That was going on Jericho's bill.

  There was a lot of shouting and yelling and manhandling after that, which I stayed well away from, but eventually Jericho was in handcuffs and Grayson was giving me a withering look while putting his gun in its holster. 'You're a goddamned idiot, Barber. I should never have let you talk me into this bullshit theatre. We should have just arrested Jericho once you came to us with those records.'

  'Come on, Detective,' I said, 'you know this was the best way to go. I might speak fluent spreadsheet, but a jury would have a much harder time working out what Enoch's documents meant. This way you got a confession.' And this way I hopefully wouldn't have to appear in court to testify, which was something I preferred to avoid, but I didn't say that.

  Grayson snorted. 'I seem to be making a habit of saving your hide from people who want to kill you, Barber. I can't say it's a habit I really enjoy. Try to get into less trouble from now on.'

  'I'll do my best,' I said.

  Grayson started to say something about coming into the precinct to make a statement, but didn’t get far into it before Abraham Jericho twisted around in the grip of the uniformed cops and staggered a step towards me. 'You have to delete it!' he cried, and that stopped the conversation cold.

  ‘Delete what?' I asked, confused. 'I'm not erasing evidence, you mad prick.'

  'No!' he yelled. 'The email! The video! You have to get rid of it!'

  'Enoch's video? Why would I do that?'

  'You can't let that email go out!' Jericho plead-shouted. 'He has a family! He has a wife and sons! If word gets out that Enoch was a sodomite, the family, the company will be ruined. We have employees, for heaven's sake, we have twenty people working for us! You'll destroy their jobs! Our mother... you can't... I'm still paying you, damnit!' And he continued in that vein until the cops got a better grip on him and dragged him out the door.

  Grayson turned to me. 'Are you going to do what he said?'

  'He has a point,' I said. 'That email will do a lot of damage. And he is still paying me to look after his brother's affairs.'

  'Whatever,' Grayson said. 'You do what you have to do. Just don't delete anything we'll need for evidence. And don't leave town before coming in for a statement. And then... hell, just stay out of my life for a change.'

  And then he left, and I sat at the computer and opened up the Deathswitch page and looked at Enoch's last email again.

  I hated to admit it, but Jericho was right. His brother's email would ruin his family’s memories of their son/husband/father. And yeah, it would do no good to Jericho Publishing if their religious clients discovered that one of the founders was homosexual, especially when the other founder was in jail for murder. The email was a destructive and unwelcome force, and no-one wanted it to be released.

  Except for Enoch Jericho, who loved Jesus and loved other men and couldn't work out how to reconcile those two needs while he still lived. And who was ready to sacrifice his family's memories and respect if it meant he could reconcile them after death. Even if it meant he was going to Hell for who he was.

  I pulled up the account and changed the timeframe for the emails, so that they went out daily rather than monthly. One initial, one reminder; in two days Enoch's family, friends and clients would find it in their inboxes, click the link and learn an inconvenient truth. And they would cope with it somehow. Life would go on. For them.

  In the end, my clients may be the living ones who paid me, but the work I did is for the dead. Because someone had to watch out for them.

  ...which was all well and good, but I also had to watch out for myself. So I quickly started prepping my invoice to send to Jericho's secretary, hoping to get paid before Jericho Publishing went tits-up in a cloud of outrage, homophobia and murder charges.

  Before the switch flipped from living to dead.

  # # #

  Afterword

  If you've already read The Obituarist (or even if you haven't), then I hope you enjoyed this short trip back to the world of Kendall Barber and the digital afterlife industry. I'm working on a full-length (well, full-novella-length) sequel to that book, and it should be out sometime in 2013. But a number of people wanted a story right now, and I had an idea, and I thought it'd be fun to write something short and quick to keep their appetites whetted.

  Deathswitch is a real company and a real service, and the folks there were gracious enough to look this story over for errors; any mistakes in my portrayal of them are my fault, not theirs. If you're interested in their services, a basic account (one email recipient, no attachments) is free.

  This cover of this story is a clumsily-modified version of Carla McKee's original cover for The Obituarist, with the new title added in Photoshop. Kind of cheap, I know, but the only affordable option for a story I'm giving away for free.

  If you've enjoyed this story, spread the love! Feel free to distribute it to friends, family, well-wishers and torrent sites. The more readers the better. And there's more free work (and a few inexpensive ebooks) available as well from the links below.

  The Obituarist

  Hotel Flamingo

  Godheads and Other Stories

  'The Descent'

  'Watching the Fireworks'

  'The 86 Tram Disaster as Outlined in a Series of Ten Character Studies'

  'Hearts of Ice'

  'Pension Day'

  Connect with me on
line

  Website: https://www.patrickoduffy.com

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/patrickoduffy