|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Title: Fatal Inheritance
Author: Becca T
E-Mail: Beksmfa2@aol.com
Challenge: 62
Summary: As the siblings of Jesse's friend begin to be murdered,
Jesse must rely on his instincts to find the guilty sibling, and
stop another murder being committed.
Rated: PG
Fatal Inheritance
"And so," the reader recited, "Mr.
Wayne A. Davidson has left his wealth equally to his six
children, as a tontine. These six children are Alan
Davidson, Rhonda Barnes, Paul Davidson, Michael Davidson, Kate
Walker and Harry Davidson." The six of them sat there,
eyes wide, wondering how much their late father had given them.
"How much do we get each?" Rhonda
persisted to know, as she filed her well-polished nails.
The reader of the Will told them how much they would get
each. The six of them gasped in unison. They did not
know that their father was so rich.
"Should any of you six die or be unable to
claim your money within the first year of this, then what you
gain will be divided out to the remaining five, and so on.
After the first year, the money will be rightfully
yours." Everyone got up to leave. There was a
smirk on one of the faces as the group walked out of the room.
It was about one month later that the story really begins.
"You get HOW much?" Dr. Jesse Travis asked in
disbelief. He and his friend Harry Davidson were sitting in
his apartment, talking about the amount in the Will. Jesse
had nearly choked on his sandwich when he heard the amount that
Harry was to receive.
"Calm down," Harry said, hitting Jesse on the back in
order to stop him choking. "No amount of money would
change me. Although I think I deserve a better car."
He thought about the rusting car that was parked outside.
"Anyone deserves a better car than one that sounds
like a percussion band every time you start the thing."
"That's true," Jesse said as he took another great bite
out of his sandwich. "What else do you want from
it?"
"I think I'll do a bit of work in my back yard, and then
invest the rest of it," Harry said, thinking of all the
things that he could do with his yard. He could cut the
grass, for a start.
"You've got more sense than I ever would with that sort of
money," Jesse said, wistfully.
"You'll get your big break," Harry said, trying to
cheer his friend up. "What do you want from
life?"
"Something that money can't buy," Jesse said. He
explained that his friends investigated murders with the police.
Jesse helped out a lot, but he found that no one ever took
him seriously when he tried to help. "I want them to
take me seriously, for once. They know a lot more about it
than I do, I know that, but I really try and help, but it never
works." Jesse felt low when he finished his speech,
and Harry really didn't know what he could say or do.
"They think that you are still learning. I bet they do
listen to you. I think that Dr. Sloan does pick up from
some of your points. Maybe you have to explain yourself
better."
"Maybe," Jesse said.
Harry was waiting in the hospital for Jesse to finish his shift.
Afterwards, the two of them were going to see a movie.
When Jesse walked into the Doctors' Lounge to meet Harry,
he saw his friend was on the phone.
"That is brilliant news," Harry said in excitement.
He paused. "Which hospital is she in? How
much does she weigh? Has she got a name yet?" He
paused again, waiting for the answers to the questions. He
turned and saw Jesse, and waved to him. "Michelle
Frances. And she was how much? 7lb? She sounds
healthy enough. Give my love to Kate, and say I'll be
visiting her soon. I have to go, I have another call."
Jesse rolled his eyes, wondering how much time Harry didn't
spend on the phone.
"I'll make this quick," Harry whispered as he took the
second call. He waited.
"Help me, Harry," a voice whispered on the other end of
the phone.
"Paul, is that you?" Harry asked, immediately showing
anxiety in his voice. "Where are you? What's
wrong?"
"Insulin…" the phone went dead. Harry
slammed the phone in his pocket, and grabbed a confused Jesse as
he sprinted down the hall to the parking lot.
"It's my brother, Paul," Harry explained as they got
into Jesse's car. "He's diabetic. He said he
needs his insulin."
"And, he is too weak to get it himself?" Harry nodded
as he pointed to the left and Jesse turned the corner.
"Does he usually have problems like this?"
"Not for two years now, I think. There is a supply in
every room in the house." Jesse braked the car hard,
turned off the engine, and jumped out into Paul's house.
"Paul, where are you?" Jesse and Harry looked for
him. They found him in the kitchen. His eyes were
closed, and there were no signs of movement. Beside him
were the phone and an insulin kit. Jesse checked his pulse,
and shook his head. Harry sat down and put his head in his
hands.
"Thanks for getting here, Mark," Jesse said. He
and Harry were sat on the couch whilst the body was taken away.
Rhonda and Michael were there, too, trying to comfort one
another. Their sister Kate was at the hospital, having just
given birth, and Alan was on his way there from work.
Mark took Jesse aside for a moment. Jesse didn't have to be
told what Mark was going to say. "I know, Mark.
One month after learning about their inheritance, there is
a death. There is motive for the five of them."
"I know, Jess," Mark said, "but after the autopsy,
we might have to see Steve on the case. Amanda thinks that
someone tampered with Paul's insulin kit."
"I was afraid that you'd say that." Jesse turned
away. He hadn't been friends with Harry for very long, but
he had gotten to know his family, because they were very close,
and he couldn't imagine any of them being murderers. There
had to be some kind of evidence that didn't point to any of them.
Especially Harry.
Jesse sat in the church and listened as the oldest of the
siblings, Alan, gave a speech regarding Paul.
"Paul had suffered for most of his life with his condition,
but still, it never got him down. He was always part of the
fun. He was never weak, or down. He was always there
for others. He will be missed by all." Jesse
couldn't figure it out, but there was something wrong with that
speech. Something was wrong, but Jesse didn't know what.
The five brothers and sisters all put white flowers into the
grave where Paul was laid to rest. It was a tragedy for
Kate, thought Jesse, knowing that on the same day as her daughter
was born, her brother died. The group of well-wishers for
Paul parted, leaving the closest to Paul standing in silence.
With their heads bowed, they too left.
Jesse took Harry back to his house in his car. Jesse drove
in silence, leaving Harry to gather his thoughts. Harry,
being the youngest, probably found it difficult to accept the
loss of one of his siblings, one that he had probably looked up
to when he was younger. Paul was about ten when Harry was
born, so when Paul was going into his teenage years, Harry was
four, and probably wanted to be a lot like Paul, because he was
older. And now, he was gone.
"Jesse," Amanda said, catching up with him in the
hallway of the hospital. His shift was over for the day,
and he was planning on going home and getting some sleep.
"I got the autopsy report for Paul Davidson. You
might want to sit down with some coffee before you hear
this." Jesse did as he was told, and sat down at a
table with his cup of coffee.
"Well," Amanda began, knowing how much Jesse would not
like the news. "The report showed that Paul had taken
his insulin. What he didn't know was that the insulin that
he took had been diluted. I think that he only knew when he
phoned Harry. By then, it was too late."
Jesse let his head drop to the table, narrowly missing his cup of
coffee. He would have to tell his friend that his brother
had been murdered. And, that although Harry had an alibi,
he was a suspect, because he had motive.
Mark walked in then, and could tell from what he saw that the
news on Paul's autopsy was not good. He sat down at the
table with Mark and Amanda, and threw a questioning look to
Amanda. When she nodded towards Jesse with a sad look on
her face, Mark knew that Paul had been murdered. Jesse
looked up at that moment, and then decided to put his face back
on the table.
"Jesse," Mark said, "Do you want the police to
tell the others that Paul was murdered, or do you want to tell
them?" Jesse wondered what the reactions would be from
all of them. He wasn't sure about Alan, because he was the
strongest of them all, and always took grief well, keeping it
inside him. Rhonda was much the same usually, but Paul was
her twin, and losing him would probably hit her hard.
Michael was closest to Paul, because of the age, and they
were both boys, so it would hit him hard, too. Kate was
going through a tough time, anyway, with the new baby, so this
news would probably settle in later, and later she would feel it.
And Harry? Harry would be cut up too, but he would
only show it by sitting there in silence, with a stony look on
his face. Jesse silently winced to himself as he imagined
the pain in each one of the siblings.
Jesse looked up to his wise friend and colleague "I'll
tell them." With that, Jesse walked out of the room, leaving
his full cup of coffee on the table. Mark and Amanda looked
at each other, each thinking that they weren't sure if they had
ever seen Jesse in this state of mind.
Steve brushed past Jesse in the hospital corridor. Steve
put his hand up to greet his friend with, but when he got no
response he wondered what was wrong. Steve walked into the
Doctors' Lounge, sat where Jesse had sat, and took a gulp of
Jesse's now lukewarm coffee. Amanda and Mark were still
sitting there, going over the report. Steve saw the name of
the deceased, and then it clicked as to why Jesse was in a foul
mood.
"I take it that Paul Davidson's death wasn't as simple as we
had hoped," he said, glancing at the report, and thinking
that a hospital ought to serve warmer coffee than that of the cup
he had just drunk from.
"You take it right. He managed to take his insulin,
but it had been diluted, and so had very little effect on
him," Amanda said to Steve as she passed him the report.
"He got to the phone to call Harry, but they never
made it to Paul's house in time."
Steve read through the report, and sighed. "All of
those brothers and sisters have motive. Including Harry.
I take it you know about what their father left them?"
"Yeah," Mark said, "a tontine. And, it could
be causing a lot of trouble."
"What's a tontine?" Amanda asked.
"It's an annuity shared by subscribers. As the
subscribers die, the value increases, until the last survivor
gets all of it. What Wayne Davidson did was to divide his
wealth into six, and so each of his six children would get an
equal share of his wealth when he died. They would only get
it a year after his death, for legal reasons or something.
Anyway, if any of the children died in that year, their
share of the wealth would be divided up into five, and given out.
After that year, the money was theirs to do what they
wanted with."
"So, before the year is up, someone will go around killing
all of the children," Amanda said, understanding.
"Not quite," Mark replied. "They would
probably only kill two or three of them, because if they killed
all five, they would be exposed."
"Whatever it is, it's a great motive for murder," Steve
said, looking up from the papers. "What we have to do
now is look for clues as to who the murderer is. Only the
siblings had motive. Nobody else knew Paul Davidson.
He lived alone, and relied on his family for support."
"Okay," Mark said. "We'll assume it was one
of the kids. Who can we rule out?"
"The first one is easy," Amanda said. "At
the time of the murder, Kate was giving birth, seen by three
doctors and two nurses, and heard by everyone else in the
hospital."
"Well, that's an airtight alibi," Steve said, mentally
crossing Kate off of the list. "Could anyone she knew
do it for her?"
"Her husband was present when the baby was born, complete
with earplugs, I understand," Mark said, chuckling to
himself.
"Okay, not Kate." Steve thought for a moment.
"Michael?"
"He was at work. He is a dentist, down the block from
here. He couldn't have been out. His dentist was
crawling with patients that afternoon."
"A back-way out?" Amanda asked.
"Not enough time to get there and back."
"What if his insulin was tampered with before?"
Amanda asked. "That would give the murderer time
to go to a place with lots of people there."
"That means we have to start over again!"
Steve got frustrated when trying to work his cases out with his
friends.
Jesse turned the key off outside Harry's house. He knocked
on the door, but there was no answer. He searched around
the house, looking through the windows, but there was no sign on
him. The longer he didn't tell his friend, the harder it
would be when he did tell him.
Jesse got back in his car. He had been through a lot of
murders before. He had watched his friends at work, solving
cases, doing autopsy after autopsy, but rarely, Jesse had stopped
and really thought about those who were close to the murder
victims. The people who cared about them. Maybe, he
thought, if I had stopped to think about it, I wouldn't have
found what was happening now so daunting. But, you can't
change the past, only the present and the future.
When he got back home that night, there was a message on his
answer phone, from Harry. It told him that his brother
Michael had invited Jesse to lunch with his other brothers and
sisters that weekend, partly to celebrate Kate's baby daughter,
plus it was an excuse for the family to get together. Jesse
was always envious that Harry's family was so close. He had
never had that. He pushed his jealousy aside, and told
himself that he was not to feel sorry for. Harry had to
learn the bad news yet.
Jesse reluctantly picked up the receiver, and then put it down
again. This sort of thing would only work if face-to-face.
He left a short message that he would be over and would
wait for him, and he got back in his car and drove back to his
house. So much for getting some sleep, he thought.
He got to Harry's house, and tried again to see if he was in.
This time, he got an answer.
"Jesse, come in." Harry could tell from the
concern in Jesse's voice and the fearful look on Jesse's face
that something was not right.
Jesse got straight to the point, and told Harry that Paul was
murdered. And then, he told him the worst news.
"Harry, the police think that Paul's murderer was one of
your brothers or sisters. My good friend Steve is on the
case, and will do whatever they can to make sure the real
murderer is brought to justice." Jesse wasn't sure
whether Harry had heard the second part. He just sat there,
still.
"My brother was murdered, and by someone in our family?
It can't be true." Harry sat there, with the
predicted stony look on his face. Jesse knew that his
friend wanted to be alone.
"Will you tell everyone else for me, or shall I?"
Jesse asked as he stood up to leave.
"I'll tell them," Harry said, not looking up.
Jesse knew that he was crying. He silently left the
house, got back in his car, and wondered what would happen now.
Jesse found himself walking up the
garden path to Michael's front door that Saturday morning.
It was nearly lunchtime. Jesse could smell the food
that was being cooked. Michael was a great cook, and so was
his wife, Helen.
"Hi, Jesse," Michael greeted him, looking slightly more
sober than usual. He took the bottle of wine from Jesse,
and showed him in. "The others are in the garden,
because it is such a nice day." Jesse walked out to
the back, and again saw a sober family. The only one that
added any brightness to the picture was Kate's baby, Michelle.
The tiny child was wrapped up in a sleep suit, held in
Rhonda's arms. Jesse sat down next to Rhonda.
"She's adorable," Jesse said, glancing to the baby.
"What?" Rhonda said, and then realised. "Oh,
yes, she's a lovely girl." Rhonda took a deep breath,
and said, "Your cop friend thinks I did it."
"Steve?" Was all that Jesse could say.
"He came round to my place this morning, asking
questions."
"And does he still think you did it?"
"He didn't say, but I think that he does. I can tell
with these people, you know." Jesse wasn't sure what
Rhonda meant by this, so he didn't say anything. Rhonda
gave the baby to Jesse, and walked inside.
For a moment, baby Michelle was quiet, but she opened her eyes,
took one look at Jesse, and began to howl. Jesse looked
around for Kate, but she was nowhere to be seen. He tried
rocking the girl, but this did nothing. At last, a man came
over with a bottle for her.
"Thanks," Jesse said, feeling a bit embarrassed.
The man smiled.
"Don't worry. She is a bit volatile right now. I
am sure that it is nothing personal." The man, who was
probably Michelle's father, walked away to his seat to comfort
the baby. Just as Jesse breathed a sigh of relief,
there was a loud explosion from the house. Jesse, whom had
fallen off of his chair from the impact, jumped to his feet and
went inside the house.
The explosion had come from the kitchen. Holding a sleeve
of his shirt over his mouth, he looked inside the smoke-filled
room. On the floor, he saw a body. Choking as he did,
he felt for a pulse. It was weak. He carried out CPR,
but to no avail. By now, Jesse had inhaled a lot of smoke.
He took a deep breath, and picked up the body from the
floor, and carried him outside.
He saw everyone in a huddle in the middle of the garden.
Harry was phoning the fire department. Jesse laid
Michael, whom could now be identified in the open air, on the
ground, and asked if anyone else was missing.
"We can't find Kate or Rhonda," Kate's anxious husband
said. "Alan has gone in to look for them."
Jesse hurried back into the burning house, and saw Alan
escorting Rhonda out of the house. Jesse ran upstairs to
look for Kate, and found her in one of the bedrooms. She
had been too scared to come downstairs. Jesse assured her
that the firemen would soon be there, and they had to get down in
case the stairs collapsed and they would be trapped up there.
After hearing this, Kate decided that it would be better to
go downstairs.
When they got out, they had found that everyone was now in the
front garden, examining the damage. Jesse sat down on the
front lawn, choking from the smoke that he had inhaled. All
was a blur for him when the fire crew arrived, along with an
ambulance. Jesse was taken to the hospital, for smoke
inhalation, and for the slight burns on his arms. Jesse had
been so confused that he hadn't had time to notice the burns.
All he wanted to do was sleep and forget about it all.
In hospital, he had plenty of time sleep, and think, too.
He lay on the bed, bandage around his arm, wondering how
the explosion was caused. The other thought that refused to
be pushed out of his head was whether he had done enough for
Michael to keep him alive. Was he alive? He'd ask
somebody when he got the papers to be signed.
Mark walked in then, to check on Jesse. Jesse smiled, glad
to see a familiar face.
"Hi," Jesse said. "Who else got taken to
hospital?"
"Kate, for shock and smoke inhalation, and that's it."
Jesse knew that Mark was hiding something.
"What about Michael?"
Mark knew that Jesse would not like what he was about to say.
He kept it short. "DOR. He was so badly burnt
that nothing could be done to save him." Jesse
wondered whether his day could get any worse.
"I tried to save him," Jesse said to himself.
"Jess, you did what you could. You did a lot more than
that, actually, and I know that everyone wants to thank you soon,
especially Kate."
"Do the others know that Michael is dead?" Jesse
asked. He decided that he didn't want to have to tell the
family that there was another death.
"Yes, they do." Mark put his arm around Jesse's
shoulder. "Steve is on the case, and they think that
they have a suspect."
"Who?"
"Rhonda. She has motive, no alibi, but…"
"Mark, I know Rhonda, and I know she didn't do it.
Although she can be an airhead at times, she is not one to
go around killing her family. Besides, how do you even know
that Michael was murdered? It could have been an
accident."
"Jesse, they found her prints on Paul's insulin kit,"
Mark said, ignoring Jesse's last statement.
"I remember why she did that. She washed the case for
him because she spilt juice on it. That's why she handled
it."
"And she has no alibi for the time of the murders. For
Paul, she says she was at home on her own. For Michael, she
said that she was in the bathroom. No one was there on both
counts."
"Let me go with Steve to check out the scene. I might
be able to tell him something. I was a witness there, after
all."
"Jesse, you have been asleep for a while longer than you
think. It's now early morning. Let Steve and the cops
get up first." Mark smiled as Jesse lay back in his
bed again.
When he got there, he went up to Steve and told him that he was
there.
"Jesse, this is a police investigation…"
"I know, but I want to help. Mark thinks that Rhonda
did it, but I know that she couldn't have done. What have
you found?"
Steve thought better of arguing with his friend, and gave in.
"We found a piece of string," he said, holding up
a clear plastic bag with the item in.
Jesse took a close look at it. He noticed three things
about it. "It's burnt on the end, it has glass in it,
and it's wet."
"Well done, Sherlock," Steve said sarcastically.
"The glass is green." Jesse headed into the kitchen,
and looked around the area, which was now black from smoke.
He looked at the area with the oven, which was blacker than
anything. He looked for anything that was un-even in the
black sheet covering the surface. Carefully, with a cloth,
he picked up something that did not seem to be part of the
picture. He wiped the dirt from it, and revealed that it
was a shard of green glass.
"What did you find?" Steve asked his friend, looking
over his shoulder. He saw the glass. He asked himself
the question that both he and Jesse were thinking.
"How would there be glass here and on the string that
we found?" Steve looked, and sure enough, a window
there was open.
"The string would have to have been long enough to go
through the window. It must have been tied around a glass
bottle or something." Steve and Jesse turned to see
Mark standing in the doorway. He walked in, brushing past
the refrigerator containing many smoked-coloured post-it notes.
"So, it was really a murder. The person would have
tied the string to a neck of a bottle, which would have been on
the shelf next to the stove. The string would be almost
transparent unless you looked carefully."
"And, in the bottle would have been gasoline?" Steve
questioned.
"Right. The stove would have been hot, because Michael
was cooking pasta. So, when he was near the gas stove, the
murderer would only have to pull the bottle off of the shelf, and
whoever the person at the stove was would be very burnt,"
Mark finished.
"So, I can make this an official homicide," Steve
announced. He left the room to explain his father's theory
to the other police there. Mark came to console Jesse.
"So, any one of the others could be next," Jesse said
to Mark. He thought about the remaining four.
"You know, Jess," Mark said with concern, "you are
pretty close to the family. The murderer might target you,
too."
"But, there isn't the motive to kill me. They wouldn't
gain anything from it."
"They may try to lead the detectives off the scent.
You could be just the person who could do that."
Mark was showing Jesse that whatever was happening was
dangerous, and that he should be careful.
"I'll be careful, Mark," Jesse said. "Do you
think that Amanda would have the autopsy report on Michael done?
We could look for clues in it."
"Probably, yes."
"Do you think Harry could have a look at it?" Jesse
asked hopefully.
"Why?"
"He might find something."
Mark was about to answer when Steve came over. "The
lab. is having an easy day, and they managed to ID the prints on
this glass very quickly. They belong to Rhonda."
Steve paused, put off by the frustrated expression on
Jesse's face. "I'm going to find her and take her
in." With that, Mark, Steve and Jesse left the scene
of the crime.
Mark was at the hospital two days later, going over the autopsy
with Amanda. Mark idly went in through the clothes of Paul,
seeing if he could spot anything. He did just that.
"Amanda, what is this stain on Paul's shirt?" Mark
asked, examining the tiny spot.
"I assumed it was food or something," Amanda said.
"No, I don't think it is," Mark replied. "It
smells funny, like there are chemicals in it." Mark
stopped and thought. "I know where I have smelt it
before. It's nail gloss."
Amanda came over to have a look. "Paul wasn't wearing
any of it. So, if we find out who was, we could have our
killer."
"Rhonda always has polished nails, but they are always
coloured. This is clear."
"It could be a clear one," Amanda suggested.
"It could be," Mark said. He smelt it more, and
then tasted it with his tongue. He shuddered slightly as he
did so.
"What did you do that for?" Amanda asked.
"This is the stuff people put on their nails to stop them
biting them," Mark explained. "If Rhonda wore
this, then we know for sure that she did it."
Jesse had stopped just outside Harry's house. He had done a
lot of thinking, and he had realised what was really happening.
He knew that all along, he was right. Rhonda wasn't
the killer. He called Mark, but got only his answer phone.
He left the important message.
"Mark," Jesse said, "listen carefully to this.
Alan doesn't have as solid an alibi as we thought.
Alan works in media, in the business part of it. He
could have had access to a tape player. He could have
played a tape of him on the phone, for twenty minutes, say.
That would have given him time to go home and switch the
insulin in Paul's case. For Michael, he could have pulled
the string on the wine bottle. First Paul, then Michael.
Both boys, going in age order. Paul death was on
their father's birthday, and then Michael on Fathers' Day.
The next important date for the son of a father would be
their parents Wedding anniversary. That is today.
Harry is the next son. I hope I'm right."
With that, Jesse put the phone down, and unbuckled his
seatbelt.
Less than a minute later, Mark walked into the house, closely
followed by Amanda. He dropped his keys on the table and
clicked the answer machine button, reading him the one message.
He listened carefully the instant that he heard Jesse's
voice. All through the tape he listened. When it had
finished, Steve walked in.
"I just took Rhonda in for questioning. She still
won't admit…"
"That's because she didn't do it. Jesse was
right. It wasn't Rhonda. It was Alan. And Harry
is next. Today! We have to get to Harry's house.
I'll explain everything on the way." Then Mark
remembered. "I remember seeing that Alan's nails were
short and bitten, but glossed," he said out loud to himself.
He, Steve and Amanda jumped into the car and sped towards
Harry's house.
Jesse walked around the back of the house. Harry had to be
in there. He had to be alive, he kept thinking to himself.
He heard talking coming from the living room, but he could
see no sign that the TV was on. It was two men talking.
He looked through the kitchen window, and saw Harry with
Alan. Alan was pointing a gun at the face of a terrified
Harry. Jesse gulped when he saw the scene. He hoped
that Mark would get the message soon. How could he stop
Alan? Alan was a murderer, and presently he was armed and
dangerous.
Jesse crept through the back door into the hallway. He knew
that he would have to directly call Steve. It was the
fastest way. He hoped that he would be quiet enough.
He dialled the number, and Steve answered.
"Sloan," Steve said.
"Steve, get to Harry's house now," Jesse whispered, but
not quietly enough. Two gunshots, and the phone was dead.
Steve heard the phone go dead, and immediately dialled the
station, telling them that there was a man with a gun at Harry's
address. Mark sped up the car towards the house. It
was infuriating for him to see so much traffic.
Jesse put the receiver down and reluctantly turned around to face
Alan and the less promising end of the gun. "That was
a mistake on my part," Alan said. "Now, they know
I have a gun. But, actually, do they know it's me?
There is a small chance that they don't. No matter
for you, though. You've been a bit too interfering, Travis.
You were next, and last, on my list. But, since you
dropped in, I can get you both with the same blow." He
pointed the gun firmly towards the two friends. "Down
on the floor, now," he ordered. They silently obeyed,
and when they did, he struck them both hard on the back of the
heads with the gun. Then, he tied them up, and put them in
a closet. With them, he left a bucket of dry ice.
Deadly, he thought to himself as he shut the closet.
He needed to get rid of the bloodstains that he had produced from
Harry's head when he hit him with the gun. And the strands
of rope hairs. The detectives were getting better, and so
he would have to be more careful. He had just finished when
he heard sirens.
He leapt out of the back door and over the fence, but Steve
spotted him. "Police!" He yelled.
"Drop the gun, now." Slowly, Alan gave in.
Steve came over to him and cuffed him. "Okay,
where are they? You know where. Tell me now."
"I've got two words for you, Sloan. Dry ice."
When Amanda and Mark heard these two vital words, they knew
that they had to look in small places. Knowing how harmful
it was, they had to find what they were looking for quickly.
As soon as they went inside, they heard a faint banging sound
coming from upstairs, but after one last bang, it stopped.
The three of them dashed up the stairs. They took a
room each, but there was no sign of anything in any of the three
closets, or the bathroom. Then, on the landing, Mark saw
the linen closet, and pulled the doors. Out tumbled Harry,
Jesse, and the bucket of dry ice.
Amanda took Harry and Mark took Jesse and they both started CPR
on them. Thankfully, after a choke, they both began to
breathe again. "Mark," Jesse gasped, "did
you get him?"
"Don't worry, we got him, Jesse," Mark said.
"It's all over." Jesse was so glad that it
really was all over. Mark continued. "You were
right Jesse. You were right all along. It wasn't
Rhonda." That, thought Jesse, is the best thing that I
have heard all day.
A week later, Jesse was back at work when he found Harry waiting
for him in the hall of the hospital.
"Jesse," Harry said, walking over to him.
"Rhonda, Kate and I really want to thank you for all
that you and your friends did. Especially me, because you
saved my life."
"Just doing our jobs," Jesse said,
smiling.
"Well, we are going to thank you by giving you
these tickets to the game this Saturday. For you, Steve,
Amanda, Mark, and me." He gave Jesse an envelope.
"Game? Wow, they'll love these!
Well, what game are they? Who will we see?
Lakers, maybe?"
"Well, Jesse, actually…" Jesse
opened the envelope and read what was on the tickets. His
eyes looked up at Harry. He was not impressed.
"Ice hockey? After what nearly happened
to us, you have the nerve to take us to watch a game of ice
hockey?" Jesse was almost laughing by the end of it.
"Yeah, I know the coach of the home team," he said.
"They are for tomorrow night, so tell your friends to
be at my house at 6:30pm sharp. If you're late, then you
make your own way there. If you aren't there by seven,
you're in trouble!" For a man having just had his life
put on edge, thought Jesse, smiling to himself, this guy could
sure tell people what to do.