Evolution

by L.L. Bartlett

  EVOLUTION

  by L.L. Bartlett

  A Collection of short stories that chronicle Jeff Resnick's (and that of his brother, Richard Albert) back story. What forces molded these men into the people they are today? Find out in the ten thought-provoking tales that span from their first meeting, until two years before Murder On The Mind.

  Copyright © 2013 by L.L. Bartlett. All rights reserved. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks for proofing go to Judy Beatty and Martha Paley Francescato.

  Table of Contents

  Timeline

  From the Author

  First Contact

  Betty’s Dead

  Shooting Hoops

  Resnick’s Revenge

  The First Noel

  Food For Thought

  The Turning Point

  Happy Birthday?

  Leaving On A Jet Plane

  Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate

  Reunion

  What Happened In Between?

  About the Author

  Books by L.L. Bartlett

  Timeline:

  First Contact (Year 1: December; Jeff is 14)

  Betty’s Dead (March; 3 months have passed)

  Shooting Hoops (Late April; 4 months have passed)

  Resnick’s Revenge (October)

  The First Noel (December)

  Food For Thought (Year 2: March)

  The Turning Point (Year 4: February)

  Happy Birthday? (Year 4; May 23)

  Leaving On A Jet Plane (Year 4; late June)

  Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate (March; 16 Years later)

  Reunion (April; 16 years later; (2 years before Murder On The Mind))

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  It seems like I never take the easy path when it comes to anything I do. Is it that I’m just not fast on the uptake, or that I need to approach certain things in a more measured progression? I don’t know. All I know is, I don’t work like most authors I know. As a pantster (one who writes by the seat of her pants), I often have to go back to figure out why my characters behave the way they do. This collection of stories is a prime example.

  While working on the four original books in the Jeff Resnick series (over the span of about five years—Dead in Red and Dark Waters came much later), I sometimes wrote character sketches to explore why Jeff and Richard reacted the way they did. The first short story was Bah Humbug (which comes directly after Cheated By Death). While writing a little about Jeff and Richard’s first Christmas together after they were reunited, I wondered what might have happened during their first Christmas together many years before. Out came The First Noel.

  I was lucky to have a published author in my local writers’ group critique the first three chapters of Cheated By Death. I was rather shocked when she asked, “How long has your protagonist had an eating disorder?” Her observation came as rather a shock to me, but then I reread the first two books in the series, and Cheated By Death, and realized she was right. Jeff definitely showed signs of being food adverse. And so I wrote Food For Thought to explore the whole concept.

  Next came the short story Reunion. I was trying to figure out how Jeff told Richard about the death of his wife, and again how difficult it was for the brothers to reconnect.

  The rest of the stories came from references made during the course of the various books. In Murder On The Mind, Jeff told Maggie not only how he and Richard met (albeit in only a couple of sentences), but also how his wife died. I needed to know more about those events, so I wrote about them.

  Jeff told Brenda about how he repaid Richard’s grandmother for her shabby treatment of him, again in Murder On The Mind, and that incident came back to haunt Jeff in Dark Waters, five books later. There are parallels with the books and the short stories. For example, Jeff and Richard playing basketball or chess.

  I’m afraid Richard comes off as a rather selfish man in this collection of stories, but it was the story The Turning Point where I explained to myself the reasons for his change of heart. Jeff and Richard led parallel lives. Jeff grew up feeling second best to the ideal his mother held about Richard, whereas Richard’s grandparents forced him into the role as a replacement for the father he never knew. His grandparents’ smothering love (or perhaps ownership) had a crippling effect on him. Ultimately, it was Jeff who gave him the courage to break away, and yet their parting was sad because neither of them trusted the other enough to talk about their respective futures … until it was too late.

  So be warned: these are not happy tales. They contain bitterness, anger, and a lot of regret. But it was love that brought the brothers back together. It’s the most powerful, frustrating, and ultimately satisfying emotion we as human beings can feel. And we all know just how deeply Jeff feels—even if he can’t read that trait in his own flesh and blood.

  FIRST CONTACT

  Richard Alpert stared at the touchpad on the phone before him, trying to muster the courage to punch in the number on the scrap of paper he’d held onto for almost seven years. Did he truly need courage for this?

  If he was honest—no. It might have taken courage to call that same number more than half a decade before when he’d hired a private investigator to track down the woman who’d given birth to him, but it had been easier not to do so—to stay steady on the course he’d plotted. To take that gap year in Paris before entering medical school. And what a year it had been. The happiest eleven months and twelve days of his life.

  And then he’d returned to Buffalo, New York, and the only home he’d ever known with his paternal grandparents. They’d led him to believe he’d been orphaned at a young age, but that hadn’t been the case. His father, their son, had died when he was two, but his mother was still alive, and though he’d asked his grandfather more than once, he still hadn’t received an adequate explanation as to why she hadn’t been involved in his life.

  Richard had never really known his mother. Upon his father’s death, his grandparents had managed to wrest custody of him from his mother, and she was a forbidden subject.

  At last, he punched in the number and listened to it ring three times.

  “Hello?” The voice was that of a boy. A fourteen-year-old boy. Richard’s half-brother. Someone he’d never met.

  “Is Elizabeth available?” Richard asked.

  “Who?” the kid asked.

  “Your mother.”

  “Who’s asking?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Tell her it’s Richard. Her son, Richard Alpert.”

  A long silence followed his words, and then he heard a click as the connection was broken.

  Richard replaced the receiver in its cradle and frowned. He knew the boy’s name: Jeffrey. The PI had told him that and provided pictures of the then seven-year-old, a solemn little boy dressed in what looked like hand-me-downs.

  Richard punched in the number once again, and this time it rang and rang, but no one answered. He replaced the receiver and frowned. Why had the boy hung up on him? Hadn’t the idea of an older brother appealed to him? But then the thought of meeting a younger sibling hadn’t had much (any?) appeal to him seven years before, either.

  With a shrug, Richard rose to his feet and retreated from behind his grandfather’s mahogany desk, determined to try again—but not in the evening. Not when the boy was likely to be around.

  It had been twenty-four years since he’d last seen his mother. He could wait another
day or so.

  #

  I knew something was wrong as soon as I’d opened the door to the stairwell that led to our apartment over the bakery. Gut feeling warned me. That was nothing new. How many times had I come home from school, knowing before I opened the apartment door that I’d find my mom passed out—drunk? But this was different. Somehow I knew the apartment door wouldn’t be locked. Sure enough, when I grasped the handle it turned. I let myself in.

  My mom and a stranger sat at the little square table that bridged the kitchen and living room of our small apartment. I already knew who he was. Richard. The guy who’d called two days before. Richard. The bastard. The jerk. The guy my mother didn’t know but loved more than me.

  “Jeffrey, come in,” Mom said, her smile wider than I’d ever seen. She was happy. I think I’d seen her happy one or two times in my entire life. And she never called me Jeffrey. Well, only when I’d done something wrong. “You’ll never believe who this is,” she said, her voice filled with pride.

  I glared at the man with the full mustache. “You’re Richard.”

  “I am,” he said, and smiled, but that feeling didn’t extend to his eyes. They gave him away.

  The two of them sat opposite one another, and between them on the table was a bright red poinsettia that hadn’t been there when I’d left the apartment to go to school that morning. He must have brought it. He brought a stupid plant, when what we really needed was something decent to eat.

  Richard stood. He was tall—really tall. He held out his hand and, because I knew my mother would want me to, I shook it. But I didn’t like him. And yet, I wasn’t quite sure who I was really angry at—him, or my mom. All my life I had heard about this stranger. This super brother who had never come to see us, who was bigger and better and smarter and more wonderful than I could ever be. His father had been a hot-shot lawyer. My father—someone I could barely remember—had been a dry cleaner. For some reason, mom had always made me feel that that had been my fault, as if she hadn’t been some part of that equation.

  Richard resumed his seat. I turned and plopped down on the couch, but I didn’t take off my coat. Suddenly I felt cold right down to my bones.

  “Richard’s a doctor,” mom said with pride. “Maybe he can help me get well.”

  He looked too young to have a clue how to cure cancer. Despite the dark circles under her eyes, mom looked hopeful.

  “My current rotation is surgery,” Richard said. “For the most part, I’ve been observing, although I have assisted on a few procedures.”

  “Will that be your specialty?” mom asked.

  “I haven’t decided,” the guy said.

  Indecisive bastard.

  “Where have you been all these years?” I accused.

  He met my gaze. His eyes were an intense blue—like our mother’s. Mine were muddy brown.

  He laughed nervously. “Right here in Buffalo. Only, I didn’t know about you two until recently.”

  He was lying. I could see it in his eyes. Why had he chosen to contact us now? What did he want?

  “This is absolutely the best Christmas present I could ever have,” Mom said, “seeing my darling boy once again.”

  Her darling boy.

  The boy—now man—she hadn’t even seen for over twenty years. And what was I? Chopped liver?

  Yeah, chopped liver. My father—whoever he was—was Jewish, and mom was a staunch Catholic. She’d told me time and again that Richard’s father, John, was Catholic. They’d been married in the church. Her marriage to my father had happened at City Hall. His people hadn’t wanted her any more than they’d wanted me. And didn’t that make me some kind of bastard to the church she made me go to?

  I didn’t like that feeling of being second-best, and I’d had it shoved down my throat for as long as I could remember.

  I glared at the guy, taking in his fancy-schmancy clothes and found my hands sliding down to cover the patched knees of my jeans. The kids at school made fun of me. My clothes came from the thrift store, not from the suburban malls.

  His eyes met mine and I looked away.

  I had heard about him—King Richard—since the day I’d been born. How wonderful he was. Smart, good looking—the best baby, the best toddler—the best everything. But most of that had been projection on my mother’s part. Yeah, I knew about projection—I wasn’t as dumb a shit as my mother seemed to think I was. But now that she knew Richard was a doctor, I was sure to have that piece of information shoved up my ass on a daily basis.

  It made me hate the bastard even more.

  “So, Jeffrey, do you go to junior high?”

  I continued to glare at him. “I’m a freshman. And my name is Jeff, Rich.”

  “My name is Richard,” he countered.

  Not to me.

  Our mother seemed oblivious of the tension between her sons. She reached over and clasped Richard’s hand. “I can’t believe the two of us are together again at last.”

  Did she even see me sitting there?

  I stood. “I’ve got to do my homework.”

  As I turned to go to my tiny bedroom, I heard my mother say, “This calls for a drink. I’ve got some Scotch. Would you like a glass?”

  I turned so fast I twisted my knee.

  “No, thanks—I have to go on duty at the hospital within the hour. I really need to get going.”

  “So soon?” mom asked, sounding wounded.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You will come back to visit us—won’t you?”

  Don’t beg, I wanted to shout.

  “Of course,” Richard said, but I didn’t detect sincerity in his voice. He rose from his seat. “It was lovely to meet you, Betty.”

  Betty? He couldn’t even call her mom or mother?

  “I can’t tell you how long I’ve dreamed of this day,” she said as she struggled to her feet. He grasped her elbow to steady her, and they walked right past me to the door, where they paused.

  “I’m so glad I got to meet you at last,” Richard said. “And you, too, Jeff,” he added as an obvious afterthought.

  I said nothing.

  “Can we make a date to meet again?” Mom asked.

  “Sure. I’ll call you,” Richard said.

  I knew he wouldn’t.

  He kissed mom on the cheek. “Until we meet again,” he said.

  Mom positively beamed.

  Richard gave a wave, and then started down the stairs. Mom watched until he closed the door at street level, which reverberated with a bang. Then she hurried to the window that overlooked the street to watch him. She stood there for a long time before she turned back for the kitchen.

  “You’re not going to have a drink, are you?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Drinking could interfere with your chemo.”

  “Richard finding us is cause for celebration.” She looked at me with what seemed like disappointment and shook her head. “You’re still so young. You just don’t understand.”

  Once again she’d underestimated me. I understood only too well. Tomorrow she’d wait for the phone to ring, and that her super son would call, and when he didn’t, she’d drink too much, cry, and pass out on the couch. She wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t take her meds, and I’d have to clean up the mess—as usual.

  Why did that bastard have to find us?

  Why couldn’t he have just left us alone?

  I heard the Scotch bottle gurgle as my mother poured herself a tumbler of the stuff.

  Finally, I walked to my bedroom and closed the door behind me.

  ***

  BETTY’S DEAD

  It hadn’t been a merry Christmas. First of all, Richard had to work; but even if he hadn’t had to, the thought of Betty Resnick sitting in that seedy apartment, dying, had haunted him. And so he hadn’t called her again. He’d gone on with his regular routine until the holidays were behind him. But despite his best efforts to forget the hollow-eyed woman, she remained in the back of this thoughts, which ate at him like the can
cer that was consuming her.

  It had been ten days since he’d met his mother and younger half-brother. She’d told him about the cancer; told him the names of her doctors, but he’d waited until after Christmas to face the bad news. And, coward that he was, he’d avoided calling her, too.

  And so, it wasn’t until January second that he dialed the phone number he’d looked up weeks before and asked the question for the answer he didn’t want to hear.

  “She’s got two—maybe three months,” the oncologist told him.

  His mother—whom he’d only recently met—was living under a death sentence.

  Richard swallowed hard. “Does she know?”

  “She’s been told, but she seems to be in denial.”

  Well, who wouldn’t be?

  She was going to die, and what would happen to his half-brother, Jeff, when she was gone?

  Richard didn’t want to think about it.

  So, after making his call, he went on his way. Day after day; week after week, trying to blot out the memory of the haggard woman—her head swathed in a multi-colored scarf to hide her bald scalp—that was etched upon his memory, and did nothing about it.

  Until….

  “Dr. Alpert, your mother called,” reported the duty nurse on the general ward at Sisters Hospital.

  All around him chaos reigned. Monitors beeped, techs raced purposely down the hall, and dinner carts trundled past. “What?” Richard asked, a chill running through him.

  “Your mother. She left a message. She said it was urgent.” The nurse handed him a slip of paper. He stared at the phone number, suddenly feeling numb. “Thank you,” he managed, stuffing the paper into the pocket of the white lab coat that covered his blue scrubs. It was seven in the evening and he was scheduled to work until at least six the next morning. What was he supposed to do?

  Troubled, he darted into the nearest conference room and called the number, but it was only one of the nurse’s stations at Roswell Park Memorial Institute.

  “I’m Elizabeth Resnick’s son. She called me. Does she have a phone in her room?” he asked