by Dorien Grey
He wondered how Wilson had gotten his number; he certainly hadn’t given it to him. Then he realized that of the seven pages of Smiths in the Chicago phone directory, he was the only Elliott. And now Wilson had not only his phone number but his address.
“Sorry, Irv,” he said, “I can’t tonight.”
“Ah, got a date, huh?”
“No, just some stuff I’ve got to do around here.” He was mildly irritated at himself for feeling he had to give any sort of explanation.
“Sure, that’s okay. How about letting me take you to dinner Saturday night?”
“Sorry, it’s my sister’s birthday.”
“You’re not avoiding me, are you?” If it was meant as a joke, it didn’t come out that way.
He forced himself to laugh, resenting it immediately. “No, I’m not avoiding you. It’s just that l don’t go out much, especially during the week. Tuesday was an exception.”
There was a long pause, then: “Ah. Okay. But don’t forget that rain check.”
“I won’t. Take care.”
“You, too.”
Elliott hung up before Wilson could say anything more.
So why, he wondered, hadn’t he just told Wilson he wasn’t interested? Or said he was seeing someone?
* * *
A little pushy, isn’t he?
Uh, yeah. I don’t like pushy.
But you don’t want to cut him off at the knees.
Right. Anything new from Aaron?
Well, the static is fading a bit, and I’m able to understand him better, and I got the most detail out of him he’s ever given. Lord knows it’s taken long enough. It’s just hard for him to focus on any one thing for very long.
Yeah, I know a lot of people like that.
Exactly! People are people, and everyone’s different, on your side of the fence or on mine.
So, anything more on the threats you mentioned?
From what I was able to piece together, the Sunday before Bill disappeared he and Aaron ran into Wilson outside a restaurant. Aaron had never met him, though I gather he fielded several nasty phone calls from him. Irv really laid into both of them, and at one point he pushed Aaron so hard he nearly knocked him down.
Now, here’s what I consider most interesting—Aaron still communicates more in feelings and impressions than actual sentences, but he was very specific in what came next. After Irv shoved Aaron, Bill said—and I’m quoting Aaron here—“If you touch him again, I’ll kill you,” and Irv said “Not if I kill you first.”
A little heavy on the melodrama, don’t you think? It sounds more like a couple of third-graders having a scuffle at recess than a real threat. We all say stupid things when we’re angry.
Well, Aaron is dead sure—no pun intended—that Irv was serious.
If only we had some way to know, which we don’t.
One day at a time, as they say.
CHAPTER 9
Steve was waiting in front of his building when Elliott pulled up. He carried a small gift-wrapped package Elliott assumed, from its size and shape, was probably a book; he was mildly curious but didn’t want to ask.
A light snow was falling—the first of the season—and Steve wore what looked like a new London Fog raincoat over a blazer and tie. Nice-looking guy, Elliott thought, then immediately wondered if it was his thought or a comment by John.
Opening the door and getting in, Steve grinned. “Winter is here!” he said.
“Don’t plan on building a snowman any time soon,” Elliott replied, pulling away from the curb.
There was no sign of the Priebe clan when they arrived at the country club. As they entered the main building, Steve was duly impressed.
“I suppose it would be bad form to gawk,” he said.
“Only if you pick your nose while you’re doing it,” Elliott replied.
“Well, there goes my appetite.”
A quick check of the dining room verified Cessy hadn’t arrived yet. Leaving their coats—Elliott had just worn a light windbreaker over his sport coat—and Cessy’s presents with the coatroom attendant, Elliott suggested they wait in the bar and led the way.
Choosing seats that gave them a view of anyone entering the foyer separating the dining room from the bar, they gave their order to the bartender.
“Looks like they’ve just about cornered the brass-and-polished-mahogany market,” Steve observed, looking around. “You rich folks sure know how to live.”
Elliott grinned. “This is my parents’ world, not mine.”
The bartender brought their drinks, and Steve reached for his billfold, but Elliott raised a hand to stop him.
“Would you put it on the Smiths’ tab?” he asked the bartender. “We’ll be having dinner, too.”
“Of course, sir,” the bartender said pleasantly, and moved off toward an elderly couple who had just come in and settled into one of the padded leather booths lining one wall.
“So, did you finish your project last night?” Elliott asked.
“Yep,” Steve said, and offered no further explanation. “How about you? Do anything exciting?”
He wasn’t sure exactly how Steve meant the question. He took a sip of his whiskey sour before answering. “Nope. Just watched TV and went to bed.”
Steve gave a sudden heads-up nod toward the door, where Cessy and her family were just entering. Elliott smiled to himself when he saw Brad carrying Sandy. Like baby pigeons in New York City, baby humans were seldom seen in the rarified environs of the club. He knew Sandy’s presence was Cessy’s subtle way of demonstrating her independence from their parents’ world.
He caught his sister’s eye and waved. She smiled and indicated with a nod that they would meet in the dining room.
As they got up, Elliott took out his billfold to leave a tip, but this time Steve was the one to raise his hand.
“Let me,” he said, and Elliott shrugged, putting his billfold back in his pocket. Stopping to pick up the presents from the coatroom, they entered the dining room.
The maître d’ was in the process of seating the rest of the family and motioned for a waiter to bring a high chair for Sandy. Though babies were a rarity at the club, the management acknowledged their existence by keeping a proper seat on standby.
As he and Steve stood waiting, Elliott was struck yet again with the odd little rituals and the etiquette by which the rich lived. He and Steve could just as easily—more easily, actually—have gone directly to the table by themselves, but ritual required that they be shown the way by the maître d’. He glanced at Steve and, seeing him with a Mona Lisa smile and slightly raised eyebrow, wondered if his mind was being read.
The maître d’ remained by the table until the family was properly seated then smiled, nodded, and turned back toward his podium and Steve and Elliott.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen,” he said cordially. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Smith. If you would care to follow me…”
* * *
Greetings exchanged, menus brought, and drink orders given, Elliott and Steve presented Cessy with her birthday gifts. Sandy, in the high chair beside her mother, was fascinated by the ornate bow on Elliott’s package and leaned over to grab it, tearing the wrapping in the process.
“Well, I guess that tells me which one to open first,” Cessy said, completely removing the bow and handing it to her daughter, who seemed transfixed by it. Opening the box to find the perfume, she beamed at her brother. “Thank you, Elliott! I was hoping you might remember!” She leaned over and kissed him on the check.
She then turned her attention to Steve’s gift. Instead of a book, Elliott saw as she removed the wrapping it was a small framed painting of a single yellow rose in a crystal vase on a windowsill, against a background of a brilliant blue sky with a few puffy white clouds.
“Oh, Steve!” she said, “It’s beautiful…simply beautiful! How did you know yellow roses were my favorite?”
Steve smiled. “I’m psychic,” he said, sm
iling, his gaze darting briefly to Elliott.
Noticing the glance, Cessy said, “Elliott told you. Of course. But thank you so very much!” She held the painting up so everyone could see it, and everyone but BJ, who was at the age where expressing no emotion was the height of “cool,” commented favorably on it.
“I see you and Elliott have something else in common,” Brad said to Steve with a grin. Steve looked puzzled, and Elliott felt a flush of warmth. “So, how is it going with that Stiles-Somers thing? Find out anything new?”
“Not much,” Elliott replied, feeling Steve watching him out of the corner of his eye.
“l got all As on my report card,” Jenny interjected before either Brad or Elliott could say anything more.
“That’s great, Jenny,” Elliott said, infinitely grateful for the change of subject, though he still noted a look of mild amusement on Steve’s face. “I’m proud of you!” He turned to BJ. “And how about you, BJ? How’s school?”
“He has a girlfriend now,” Cessy said, smiling warmly at her son.
BJ rolled his eyes and sighed wearily. “She’s a girl, mom. She’s a friend. There’s a difference between a girl friend and a girlfriend. Get Uncle Elliott married off first, then worry about me.
Steve and Elliott exchanged glances, then Elliott grinned. “Don’t encourage her,” he said as the waiter arrived with their drinks.
* * *
“That was really nice,” Steve said as they left the parking lot after saying good-bye to the Priebes at their car. “And the food was fantastic, though I was a little embarrassed to order the lobster. Even though the menu didn’t include the prices, I can imagine.”
“I twisted your arm,” Elliott replied, making a right turn toward the city. “And my folks can well afford it, believe me. I’m still mildly pissed at them for not holding off their trip until after Cessy’s birthday, but we’re both used to them by now. They don’t live in the same world as the rest of us.”
“Must be nice,” Steve said, wistfully.
“Their life has its advantages, that’s for sure. But it’s not for me.
They rode in silence for several minutes; Elliott, though looking at the road ahead of them, was well aware Steve was studying him.
“What?” he finally asked.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit, ‘nothing.’ Something. What?” He knew “what” even as he asked, but wanted Steve to bring it up first.
“Brad’s comment about our having ‘something else in common’ when I said that about being psychic.”
Elliott sighed, removing one hand from the steering wheel briefly to scratch an itch on the side of his nose. “Yeah. Well…” Not sure what to say next, he said nothing, knowing Steve would prompt him.
“So, you’re psychic?”
Forcing himself to laugh, he replied, “Good God, no!” Realizing he had probably overreacted, Elliott stumbled a bit, adding, “I’m just…well, like you, in that I just…sense things, sometimes. I’ll plead to being an empath, but that’s as far as I’ll go. Being an empath is nowhere near the same thing as being psychic.”
“Have you always been?” Steve asked, eyes still on him.
“I wasn’t aware of it until after my accident.”
“How come you didn’t mention it before?”
“It’s not the kind of thing I talk about casually.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who told me I was. You might have mentioned it then.”
Sighing deeply, Elliott shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not as comfortable with it as you are.”
“Mmm,” Steve said, and they were silent for another few minutes until he said, “So, what about ‘that Stiles-Somers thing’ Brad mentioned? It’s about your building and that second-floor apartment, isn’t it? You knew that was Aaron’s apartment, and you couldn’t not have known that he’s the guy l painted in the window. I just wish you’d said something.”
Elliott nodded. “You’re right. And I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“I don’t want to push you, but please don’t let the fact that it’s none of my business stand in your way. Like, who is Somers?”
Elliott was surprised to realize he had never mentioned Bill to Steve. Still not willing to go into detail, but figuring Steve deserved some sort of explanation, he briefly sketched in the events leading up to and following Aaron’s death: Bill’s disappearance, Aaron’s having died without knowing Bill had died before he did, and Elliott’s strong feeling that Bill’s death wasn’t a suicide. He said nothing at all about Aaron’s participation in his forming that opinion.
“The more l found out about him from Mrs. Reinerio,” he concluded, “the more I got to feeling something wasn’t right, so I just started digging into it, to see if I could figure out what happened.”
“Wow!” Steve said when Elliott stopped talking. “I’m impressed.” He raised two fingers to his forehead and squinted as if in deep concentration. “But l get…the impression…wait…yes…there’s a little more to the story.”
Elliott reached across the space between them and slapped him on the thigh, hard.
“Hey, what did you do that for? I’m an empath, remember?”
Grinning, Elliott said, “An empath, yes. Madam Arcati, no.”
“Well, I think this whole thing is pretty darned exciting. If there’s anything I can do to help…well, two empaths are better than one, as they say.”
Laying his hand on Steve’s thigh, he said, “I appreciate that. I wonder if you know what I’m thinking right now?”
Steve grinned broadly and put his own hand on Elliott’s thigh. “I hope so,” he said.
He didn’t hear from John until Sunday night.
I’m glad you and Steve talked about it, though I’ll bet you’re a whiz at dodgeball.
I am, too, I guess—glad the subject came up, that is. And as far as dodgeball, I just tried to dodge the ones thrown at me…I didn’t want to hand him any new ones.
Yes, I noted any mention of me was missing from the conversation.
Well, you’re a pretty big ball to dodge. And besides, you’re mine, John. All mine!
Uh-huh. You may be good at dodgeball, but your acting sucks.
So, anything at all new from Aaron?
I’m afraid not. He’s really as much in the dark on this as we are. He has strong feelings that Irv Wilson and Jim Babcock are involved, though he can’t offer anything specific.
Wilson and Babcock? Both of them?
No…but that’s just what I mean. He suspects them but can’t explain why. They’re the only ones he can think of who might have wanted to hurt Bill.
Well, that’s really not much help. Granted, I can see his point—Babcock wanted the company, and Wilson’s a borderline psychopath. But I honestly don’t have a clue on where to go from here.
I’m afraid the fact that Bill’s insistence on not bothering Aaron by leaving his work problems at the office only compounds the issue. If he had talked more about what was going on at work, Aaron might have picked up on something. As it is…
And as for Wilson, you never know just how far a kook will go…and I sure as hell don’t want to find out.
* * *
He awoke in the morning feeling as though he’d spent the night staring into a washing machine in which thoughts of Aaron and Bill and Irv Wilson and Jim Babcock and suicide and possible murder sloshed back and forth in response to the agitator of his mind, and he wondered if he had gotten any real sleep at all.
As he showered, dressed, had his breakfast, and packed his lunch, he could not avoid accepting what was increasingly obvious. He had no evidence—Aaron’s certainty hardly could qualify as such—that Bill Somers had been murdered. Worse than that, if Bill had been murdered, how could he find out who had done it? And worst of all, how could he possibly prove it?
He was not a detective. He had no desire to become a detective. He enjoyed the work he did, and resented that someone else—a dea
d man he’d never met, no less—expected him to perform some sort of miracle.
Work on the building was nearing completion; most of the major rehabilitation had been done, and it was now mostly the finishing touches that needed attending to. Rather than install new carpeting throughout, Elliott had opted for carpeting only the hallways and stairs, refinishing the apartments’ original hardwood floors, and that had been a major project.
Wednesday night, just as he was finishing dinner, the phone rang. Assuming it was either Steve or Cessy, he was unpleasantly surprised to hear Irv Wilson’s voice.
“Hi, Elliott. I was wondering if you’d like to cash in that rain check. I feel like going out for a drink.”
“Ah, sorry, Irv,” he said. “I had a long day and have to be up early tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, how about Friday?”
“I’ve made plans.”
“A date, huh?”
Impatient but trying hard not to show it, Elliott said. “Not a date. This is a guy I’ve been seeing.”
“Just meet him?”
“No.” He refused to go into detail, and was increasingly irritated.
“Well, I guess that doesn’t keep you from hitting the bars trolling for tricks.”
His irritation descending into anger, Elliott forced his voice to remain calm as he said, “Look, Irv, I’ve got a call waiting. I’ve got to go.”
Hanging up rather more firmly than he’d intended, he was glad Irv didn’t have his cell phone number.
Steve called shortly thereafter and, during the course of their conversation, expressed an interest in seeing the progress on the building. Elliott, of course, agreed, suggesting they stop by sometime over the weekend. He couldn’t help wondering if Steve might have some motive other than curiosity about the property improvements.
* * *
Interesting.
What?
A couple of things. Aaron’s growing impatience, for one. He’s enough pulled together now to want to know what you’re doing to help him. I’ve tried to let him know you’re doing everything you can, but that you really don’t have much to go on. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to help. He’s just getting more and more agitated.
