The Last Thing I Saw by Richard Stevenson Read Free Book Online Page B

have a wife and eleven children?”
    He chortled. “Don’t worry. I won’t come on to you.”
    “That’s just as well.”
    “I dreamed last night that I was having sex with a guy who started bleeding and bleeding, and blood was coming out of his nose and mouth and ears and dick and ass, and even his navel ripped open and blood was pouring out. Right now, I can’t imagine ever having sex with a man again.”
    I told Gummer I thought he’d get over that, and he said he was going to try.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Gummer didn’t want to go back into Bryan Kim’s apartment and he wasn’t sure the police would approve of my doing so, but reluctantly he lent me the key. Yellow crime-scene tape had been stretched across the door, but I unlocked it and shoved it open with my foot and ducked under the tape. Gummer’s mention of a certain type of Mexican meat market had been apt; Kim’s living room smelled like a slaughterhouse in a tropical country that made do without a lot of meddlesome government sanitary regulations. A throw rug was missing from the hardwood floor, apparently having been carried off by the forensics team. The stained floor next to where the rug had lain had been cleaned but only perfunctorily. I noted blood spatters on the nearby leather couch and even as far away as an end table with a lamp whose pretty silk shade was spotted. The scene suggested a great deal of violence.
    Across the room were a good-sized plasma TV and an elaborate sound setup. The CDs next to it were current pop with some dance-club house music. On a shelf were framed photos of Kim in the company of what appeared to be a sober Korean-American family of five. Alongside the pictures was Kim’s local Emmy for “distinguished Boston news coverage.”
    Among the books on a nearby shelf was Wenske’s Notes from the Bush . I checked the inscription, which read: “To Bryan—good reporter, hot number, beloved pal—Eddie.” I also noted that the book’s printed dedication was to My parents, Susan and Herb Wenske. There was also a copy of Weed Wars.
    It was neither inscribed nor autographed. Its printed dedication was To Paul Delaney. Who was Paul Delaney? He had to be someone important in Wenske’s life, but his name hadn’t come up.
    Kim’s bedroom had a king-sized bed, neatly made, with a handsome Japanese cotton coverlet. The bookmarked book on the bedside table was Mary Ann in Autumn , the final Tales of the City volume. Kim had made it to page 73. The closet was stuffed with what looked like a small fortune in well-crafted dark suits, a supposed occupational necessity—though an Albany news anchor had once confessed to me that for him it was the other way around: he needed to be on television so he’d have an excuse to own all those suits.
    It looked as if somebody had already been through Kim’s desk. The police? The killer? The drawers were empty and their contents had been arranged in neat piles on top. It was basically just entertainment brochures and advertising. Anything more personal or potentially revealing—letters, bills, bank and credit card statements—had been taken away, I guessed. There was no computer, just—as with Wenske’s desk—a space where one must have sat. So who took that? The police or the killer?
    Kim’s tidy bathroom contained a lot of toiletries but nothing that told me anything noteworthy about who Kim was. The only pharmaceuticals in his medicine cabinet were Tylenol, over-the-counter cold remedies and some prescription Cialis, a 30-tablet box of 5mg each, the daily dose.
    I checked the kitchen to see if maybe a large knife was missing, suggesting that the killer had not planned on attacking Kim and had simply grabbed a knife in a rage. But I had no idea how many knives Kim owned to begin with, so I learned nothing. Anyway, the nearly empty fridge and the Thai and Korean boxed entrees in the freezer suggested that not a lot of cooking had gotten done in this kitchen. And not a lot of cheesecakes