Unrevealed by Laurel Dewey Read Free Book Online Page B

distance between where her body lay and the location of the panties under the secretary. When you fling lacy panties aside, they tend not to travel far, due to their weight. Also, a rough tile floor, such as the one in the Gambrels’ entryway, prevents items such as lacy panties from scooting too far. Additionally, when I recovered said panties, they were pretty well hidden under the piece of furniture. It was that observation that generated a change in Mr. Gambrel’s telling of the story.
    With head bowed and eyes never locking with mine, Mr. Gambrel said that the lights in the house were already turned on when he awakened to find his wife missing from their bed. While he still maintained that he cut his nude body en route to the landing because of being half asleep, he claimed that when he descended the stairs, he had no recollection of
removing her panties and tossing them aside. All he recalled was doing CPR and frantically trying to revive her. When I pressed him, asking why her panties were bloodied and seemingly hidden under the secretary, he maintained that he had no memory of removing them.
    No memory . That’s never a good answer, especially after you’ve already stated something else. But I’m patently aware of shock and how it can wreak havoc with recall. Shock can also create gaps in stories big enough for trains to chug through. Furthermore, interviewing a shock victim — especially someone who has just witnessed a loved one’s death — can be problematic, since the shock tends to suspend one’s reality, often making a person feel as if he is viewing the event from outside his body. The story is told from a more generalized point of view, rather than rife with detail, simply because shock creates a cloudy wash over the trauma. The mind says that “this can’t be happening” and, thus, detachment begins to shield an individual from further emotional damage. It’s the body’s way of protecting itself, but it creates huge problems for a detective who is trying to piece together the puzzle.
    One of the local cops on the scene made a comment out of Gambrel’s hearing about what a “fine, upstanding guy” Gambrel was and how it was “too damn bad” that this event would fuck up that reputation. It was then that I realized who in the hell Winston Gambrel was. He and his wife owned and operated Abbey’s Road Pub, a Denver downtown landmark. The name of the place was a play on words, combining the title of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album with the name of Gambrel’s wife, Abbey. The couple had no children and so their business became their “baby.” Abbey’s Road Pub celebrated all things British, from the ceiling that sported a
painted wall-to-wall Union Jack to the bevy of commemorative plates that adorned each booth, with the Queen, Prince Charles, the Queen Mother and Princess Diana featured. But what I remembered most about his pub was the incredible collection of Beatles memorabilia that Winston Gambrel had assembled over the years. You knew it had to be worth something because he had all of it in cases, protected behind heavy glass.
    The Gambrels, both British, came to the States in early 1970 and opened their popular pub initially for tourists and British transplants so they’d have a home away from home… or pub away from pub. But the establishment quickly found American fans who loved the Beatles’ motif, imported ales and lively atmosphere. In recent decades, Abbey’s Road Pub was the epicenter of all things charitable — from Run for the Cure events to feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving Day. They sponsored scholarships for adult literacy programs and were well known for their annual Halloween festivities, where they awarded a one-hundred-dollar cash prize to each of the four people whose costumes and appearance best matched George, Paul, Ringo and John.
    While Winston Gambrel looked nothing