His Name Is John

by Dorien Grey

  “Baloney!”

  “So did you ask him to the recital?”

  “I asked him. He says he’ll try to make it. It’s still nearly two weeks away. A lot can happen in two weeks. He’s a busy guy.”

  “He’ll make it. He likes you. I can tell.”

  “We really have to get you a life, Cessy,” he said gently. “So is Brad home yet?”

  “No, he called and said he’d be a little late. Do you want him to call you?”

  “Yeah, if he would. I just have a quick question.”

  “I’ll tell him as soon as he comes in.”

  “Thanks, Sis. I appreciate it.”

  Cessy spent another five minutes filling him in on what each member of the family—including Bozo—had been up to since they last talked. The conversation only ended when BJ called down from the top of the stairs to ask what she’d done with his backpack and Cessy excused herself to go and find it for him.

  * * *

  After watching the news, Elliott remembered the steak he’d taken out of the freezer and put in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator before he left for work that morning. Going into the kitchen to retrieve it, he first located a large baking potato he’d bought his last trip to the store. Washing the potato, he stabbed it with a fork several times, then slathered it in olive oil, inserted two aluminum spikes to hasten baking, and turned on the oven. He’d broil the steak once the potato was done.

  He debated on having another drink, but thought better of it and returned to the den to see what was on TV. The phone rang just as he sat down.

  “Elliott. Brad. Cessy told me you called.”

  “Yeah, I was just curious if you’d had a chance to contact the San Luis Obispo police today?”

  “I did. But I don’t want to press them too hard. These guys are professionals; they know what they’re doing, and I didn’t want to imply otherwise. I didn’t ask them how deeply they’d looked into the partner, but I sent them our John Doe’s fingerprints for comparison and further verification. If they hadn’t done a fingerprint comparison before, maybe they will now. I told them we have some DNA information if they need it.”

  “That’s great, Brad. I really do appreciate it. Will you let me know if you find out anything more?”

  “Sure. You’re really a dog with a bone on this one, aren’t you?”

  He forced himself to laugh. “I guess so. Still don’t know why, but thanks for going along with me.”

  “Well, when we’re talking about a murder investigation, it never hurts to go a little out on a limb if it might help the case.”

  * * *

  Work on the building kept him totally occupied Tuesday and Wednesday, and gutting of the building next door proceeded apace, though he did not see Al Collina again. He’d decided against making an issue of the illegal parking, though told himself that if it happened again, he definitely would, and he kept his camera handy just in case.

  Tuesday night, he’d talked to Steve briefly. Steve hadn’t yet heard from the gallery, but while he was obviously anxious about the forthcoming show, he didn’t seem overly concerned.

  On returning home from work, he was surprised to find a message on his machine from his mother—it was the first time he’d heard her voice in over four months.

  “Elliott, this is your mother,” the message began, as if he wouldn’t know. But it was typical of her, so he just shrugged it off. “Your father and I will be returning to Chicago Friday afternoon. We’d like to have you and Cecilia and her family join us at the club for dinner, say around seven thirty? We look forward to seeing you. I’ve got to run, they’ve just announced our flight. Until Friday…” And she hung up.

  She hadn’t said whether she’d talked to Cessy, though he was sure she had, but just to be sure he dialed Cessy before hanging up the receiver.

  The phone had barely rung when Jenny answered.

  “Hi, Ladybug,” he said. “Your mom around?”

  “She’s changing Sandy,” the girl answered.

  “Ah, okay. Will you just ask her to call me when she gets a chance?”

  “Okay. Grandpa and Grandma Smith are coming home!” she announced. “We’re all going to have dinner with them on Friday. Are you going to come?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there. And I just wanted to ask your mom if Grandma had called her. Obviously, she did, so she doesn’t have to call me. I’ll talk to her later, okay?”

  “Okay. And you’re coming to my recital, too, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. A week from this coming Sunday. Are you practicing every day?”

  “Oh, yes! I want to be good.”

  “You’ll be fantastic,” he assured her. “So tell Brad and your dad I said hi, and kiss Sandy for me.”

  “Okay. Bye now.”

  Given that he had never called—or ever been encouraged to call—his parents anything but “Mother” and “Father,” he wondered how they felt about Cessy’s kids calling them “Grandma” and “Grandpa.” He was pretty sure they were a bit uncomfortable with it but probably held their tongues lest they risk alienating Cessy, as they certainly would. He found it rather significant that while they called Brad Sr. “Brad,” the children were “Bradley,” Jennifer,” and “Sandra.” It was, Elliott was sure, their way of dealing with the fact of their own children’s disregard for family protocol.

  As he expected, not ten minutes passed before Cessy called him back.

  “I told Jenny you didn’t have to call,” he explained. “I’d only wondered if Mother had called you about Friday.”

  “Yes, they’re not even back in the country yet and she’s busily arranging things. Still, it’ll be nice to see them after all this time. I wonder if mixing with the common folk all over Asia might have mellowed them a bit.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “Right!” he said. “That’ll be the day. And going from luxury hotel to luxury cruise ship to luxury resort could hardly be considered ‘mixing with the common folk.’ The only common folk they know are you and me—though they’d rather die than admit it.”

  Cessy laughed, too. “My, we have been a burden on them, haven’t we?”

  “Not really,” he said. “That’s what our nannies were for. So, you’re looking forward to dinner at the club?”

  “Actually, I rather am,” she replied. “I’d never say it to Brad, but sometimes I do miss some of the perks of being rich. I’m sure Brad would prefer dinner at The Red Lobster, but he’s such a wonderful sport about things like this. And they don’t happen all that often.”

  “True,” Elliott agreed. “It should be interesting.”

  “Would you want to ride out with us? We have plenty of room, and maybe you shouldn’t drive all that way so soon after your accident.”

  “Cessy,” he said patiently, “it’s all of twenty-seven miles, and I’m fully recovered from my accident, thanks. I appreciate the offer, but I can take my own car. You’ll have your hands full with the kids.”

  “If you insist,” Cessy replied, her displeasure evident in her tone. There was a slight pause, then her mood apparently switched when she said, “Well, since you’re driving yourself, why don’t you invite Steve along?” she asked. “That would really liven things up!”

  He laughed again. “I’m sure it would, but I’d never subject anybody I was seeing to a night at the club with my parents! Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!”

  While he had not the slightest doubt that his parents were fully aware that he was gay, it was simply a subject that had never come up, and until and unless there was a real necessity to mention it, he was quite sure it never would.

  * * *

  He had just finished lunch and had returned to laying linoleum in the last of the Sheffield building’s bathrooms on Thursday when his cell phone rang.

  “Elliott? Brad.”

  The fact that he was instantly aware of John’s strong presence alerted him to the reason for the call.

  “Hi, Brad. What’s up?’

&nb
sp; “I heard from the San Luis Obispo police just now. Hill purchased a round-trip ticket to Chicago on March twenty-first, leaving for Chicago on the twenty-second with a scheduled return for the twenty-fourth. The return ticket was never used.

  “Tracking Hill’s itinerary hasn’t been easy. From everything they’ve been able to determine—which isn’t very much—he was a real loner. How he ended up with a partner is anybody’s guess. They’re doing a thorough check into the partner, too. They’re verifying his alibi of being in Reno at his parents’ at the time, but right now he’s shaping up as a prime suspect in Hill’s disappearance.”

  “Based on anything specific?”

  “Nothing specific that I know of. But all the pieces are there. Apparently, everything is in Hill’s name, though Cole seemed pretty possessive of them—kept referring to things as ‘our’ or ‘my.’ He and Hill had a joint bank account that Cole’s dipped into pretty heavily since Hill’s disappearance, and they’re looking into any other possible financial ties or irregularities.

  “But the fact that Hill was killed in Chicago makes for a pretty good alibi for Cole, especially if he can prove he was with his folks. I suppose it’s possible he somehow arranged for Hill to be killed here, but that’s pretty unlikely.”

  “Cole told me that he and Hill were business partners. Did the police look into that?”

  “Yeah, he told the police the same thing. Apparently, he considered sleeping with the guy and cleaning up the place qualified him as a ‘business partner.’”

  “I still can’t believe it’s Hill,” Elliott managed to say. “Did they check the fingerprints you sent?”

  “That’s another mark against Cole. They tried, but it seems Cole has OCD—how recent an addiction this might be they don’t know. He was polishing the chrome on the motor home’s bumpers when they got there and didn’t stop puttering the whole time. He even asked them to take off their shoes before going inside. He agreed to let them check for fingerprints, but the interesting thing is that they didn’t find any. None. Not on the steering wheel, or the dashboard, or door handles, or in the bathroom, or on any of the surfaces most likely to have them.”

  “What about Hill’s personal things? His camera equipment?”

  “Nothing. So, either Cole is a neat freak, or he’s trying to cover something.”

  “So it’s still possible that Cole just used the photo I sent him to claim it was Hill.”

  “Normally, I’d just give you a flat ‘no.’ But the more we find out about Cole, the more weight I tend to give to your scenario, even though it’s more than a little far-fetched,” Brad said. “If he is just claiming our John Doe is Hill, he can’t get away with it forever. He doesn’t strike me as being the brightest button in the jar, and if he’s lying, we’ll find out.

  “But the fact remains that until and unless we can prove otherwise, we have to go on the assumption that our John Doe is G.J. Hill.”

  Despite his confusion Elliott forced himself to say, ”So what happens now?”

  “They’ll keep looking into Cole, and try to see if anyone in the area might know anything at all about Hill, or be able to recognize the photo. The problem with the photo is that other than the bruises, Doe has what we call a ‘generic’ look—the kind of guy who’d be hard to pick out of a lineup. There are an awful lot of guys who look enough like him to confuse people.

  “So they’ll do what they can from their end, but since Doe was killed in Chicago, and as far as we know Hill flew to Chicago that same day, that lets San Luis Obispo toss the case back in our court. We’ll start with the airport. We’ve got the flight number, and arrival time, and we’ve started checking the car rentals, shuttle services and cab companies. Maybe we can get an idea of where he was staying.”

  “Did Cole have any idea at all what Hill might be doing in Chicago?”

  “No, other than that he read the Chicago papers regularly. So maybe he had some connections here.”

  Elliott was slowly getting a grip on his thoughts.

  “You might check the City Suites Hotel on Belmont,” he said, having no specific reason, other than it was well known in the gay community and popular with gays visiting Chicago. “I’d imagine that since no one here reported him missing, he probably wasn’t staying with friends or relatives. And since he was gay, he might well have made reservations there.”

  “Hmm,” Brad said. “I’m sure we showed his picture there and nobody said anything. But we didn’t have a name at that time, either, so we’ll definitely be rechecking all the hotels in the area. We’ll start with the City Suites. Thanks for the tip. Maybe you should consider a job on the police force.”

  Elliott laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks. One cop in the family is enough.” He paused, then said, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but would it be possible for you to keep me posted what you find out on all this?”

  “Well, since without you we never would have put a name on Hill, I think that can be arranged. We’ll have to start checking for his family, too. Cole said Hill told him he didn’t have one, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. They may not be local, but we’ll check it out.”

  “Thanks, Brad.”

  “No problem. Now I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Elliott said, but he knew he was lying.

  He really struggled to keep his mind on the business at hand, but it was as though he were trying to run while waist deep in molasses. He was successful in fighting off his thoughts, but not his emotions. He was weighted down with a combination of confusion, frustration and anger. And while he felt nothing specific from John, he was well aware of his presence and a sense of emotions as strong as his own. He refused to let himself even formulate what he knew were all-too-obvious questions.

  He once again managed to make it through the work day, but the minute he stepped into his car the tsunami of thoughts came rushing in. Anger rose to the top of his feelings, and while he tried to direct it at John for possibly lying to him, it was instantly rechanneled against himself for ever having allowed himself to believe so firmly that “John” was anything more than an aberrant creation of his own mind.

  I am not G.J. Hill!

  “Go away!” Elliott said angrily—and, he was immediately distressed to realize, that he’d said it aloud. It was the first time he had ever done so, and only the second time that John had said anything while Elliott was awake. It again made him think that he had no alternative but to seek professional help to get rid of his delusions once and for all.

  * * *

  He uncharacteristically had three drinks before tossing a frozen TV dinner in the oven and staring sullenly at the television. The fact that he was in such a foul mood was also uncharacteristic of him and it took his full concentration to keep his thoughts caged. It was rather like trying to close a suitcase that had far more items than it could contain.

  When the phone rang as he was finishing his third drink, he let the answering machine pick it up. But when he heard Steve’s voice, he picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Elliott, hi. How are you doing?”

  “Lousy, thanks,” he replied sullenly, immediately sorry he’d said it. He had no reason or right to drag Steve into his problems.

  “Uh-oh, sorry!” Steve said. “Anything you can talk about, or do you want to call me back when you’re in a better frame of mind?”

  Elliott sighed. “I’m sorry, Steve. It was just a bitch of a day, a long story I don’t want to subject you to right now. I’ll be okay.”

  “Hey, you’re entitled. I’m just sorry you had to go through whatever it was.”

  “Thanks; me too. But you didn’t call to hear me bitch. What’s new with you?”

  “I heard from the gallery. They’ve scheduled the show for next month, the fourteenth through the twenty-first.”

  “That’s great!” Elliott said, relieved to find that Steve’s good news was able to pull him a few inches out of his mental cesspool. “I’m reall
y glad for you!”

  “Thanks,” Steve said. “I’m going to meet with Mr. Devereux at the gallery Saturday evening at eight to discuss exactly what pictures they’ll want to display. I know it’s short notice, but I was wondering if we might be able to get together tomorrow night to celebrate—if you’re up to it. My treat.”

  “I’d love to,” he replied, and realized he really meant it. “But my folks just got back into town and they’ve set up a family-dinner thing. But maybe we could do something Sunday if you’re not busy?”

  “Sunday’d be fine. Call me when you get up in the morning.”

  Feeling considerably better, he said, “I’d rather nudge you, but reality rears its ugly head.”

  Steve laughed. “Reality does that a lot,” he said. “But we’ll survive.”

  “Good luck at the gallery,” Elliott said.

  “Thanks. And I’ll look forward to seeing you Sunday. I hope you’re feeling better by then.”

  “I’m sure I will be,” Elliott said. “Later, then.”

  Though Steve’s call had raised his spirits considerably, he had to fight off a slow slide back into depression as he ate his dinner in front of the TV, letting the images on the screen flow past his eyes without filtering them through his brain. As a new show started, he realized he couldn’t remember the name of the one he’d just watched.

  He deliberately forced himself to stay up well beyond his bedtime, even though Friday was a work day. He didn’t want another conversation with John. He considered having another drink to dull his thoughts, but decided against it and reluctantly went to bed at eleven thirty.

  I’m not G.J. Hill.

  Damn it, go away!

  I can’t. We’ve come so far!

  What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  I mean we can still find me. I know it. We’re getting closer.

  The only thing I’m getting closer to is being fitted for a straightjacket.

  That’s not true, and you know it. Trust your instincts. They led you to G.J. Hill. Don’t give up on them now. There’s more. I know it.

  Elliott found himself swimming toward the surface of consciousness, then relaxed, sinking back down past the level of conversation and into the depths of dreamless sleep.