Murder On The Mind

Murder On The Mind - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The sun hadn’t come up yet, but I’d already showered and dressed by the time the Sunday morning paper was delivered. I spread it across the kitchen table, grateful to study it in solitude. As I’d hoped, the top story was still the Sumner killing. Sumner was survived by his wife, Claudia, and three grown children, Rob, Diane, and Michael. There’d be no public viewing. Private interment would take place Monday morning.

Noises from another part of the house caught my attention. I decided to make myself scarce while Richard and Brenda breakfasted.

Back in my room, I sat on the edge of my bed. With eyes closed, I cleared my mind. The man in the newspaper picture was older than the face imprinted on my brain. Could I have met him? It seemed likely. But not in New York. It had to be years ago, when I still lived in Buffalo.

The newspaper said he’d worked for Bison Bank for over twenty-five years. Did I meet him at an early point in his career? I’d never had a bank account until I’d joined the Army. Maybe it had nothing to do with banking.

I thought back to my first summer job at Benson’s car wash. I’d wipe down sleek Corvettes and angular Cadillacs, wishing for a junker of my own. Was Sumner a customer? I remembered the job, but not the people associated with it.

Damned frustrating, those holes in my memory.

Another summer I’d flipped burgers at some fast-food joint—anything to keep me out of the house and away from the crotchety old Alperts.

I let it go. Eventually it would come to me.

Despite my faulty memory, the bright morning invigorated me. On a whim, I decided to reconnect with the rest of the house, avoiding the kitchen and Richard and Brenda. It was soon obvious that only three rooms were in use: the kitchen, the study, and—I assumed—the master bedroom suite upstairs. Like the living room, much of the furniture in the other rooms was still shrouded in sheets.

Slipping into Richard’s study gave me my first feeling of homecoming. The old leather-bound books had always attracted me. The dark-paneled walls lent a feeling of security. Years ago, Richard’s wizened grandfather used to live behind the big mahogany desk. Sometimes we’d sit at opposite ends of the room and read the old man’s books. He’d smoke his pipe, the sweet tang of tobacco filling my nostrils. The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the empty silence. Mr. Alpert and I weren’t friends, but we weren’t exactly enemies, either. I couldn’t imagine Richard taking his place in the oversized, burgundy leather chair.

A set of the Encyclopedia Britannica filled the shelves behind the desk—the last edition available in hardcover, by their copyright date. Richard must’ve brought them from California. I pulled out a volume, intending to look up psychic phenomena, and quickly decided against it, shoving the heavy book back into the slot from where I’d plucked it. It might be better to bungle my way through the discovery process with no preconceived expectations—or limitations.

Could I make it work for me? I picked up objects in the room, trying to zero in on previous owners, previous history.

A heavy glass paperweight was cold in my palm. The delicate wings of the butterfly encased inside seemed poised for flight, but I felt nothing odd or sinister. Likewise with the dust-free pipes and stand on the polished desk, sitting there as though waiting for old Mr. Alpert to strike a match.

But something had happened to me when I’d first entered the house. I’d been hit with cold dread and horror. Melodramatic, maybe, but that’s what I’d felt. It was time to make another visit to the upstairs bedroom.

My sneakered feet squeaked on the polished floor as I rounded the corner. The hallway seemed to extend miles ahead of me, like a camera trick in an old Hitchcock film. The staircase, when I reached it, also seemed to have telescoped in length.