With a Twist by Jack Kilborn Read Free Book Online Page B

the victim had apparently toured Europe, staying in London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. Bills for fancy restaurants abounded. The most recent purchases included several hundred dollars at a local hardware store, a dinner for two at the 95th Floor that cost over six-hundred dollars, a one week stay at the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago, a digital video recorder and an expensive new stereo, and a bill for wall-to-wall carpeting; the beige shag Mr. Wyatt was currently staining had been installed last month.
    I also found several grocery lists, and the handwriting seemed to match the handwriting on the suicide note.
    Next to the desk, on a cabinet, sat a Chicago phonebook. It was open to BURGLAR ALARMS.
    The den also had a cabinet which contained some games (Monopoly, chess, Clue, backgammon) and jigsaw puzzles, including an old Rubik’s Cube. I remember solving mine, back in the 1980s, by pulling the stickers off the sides. This one had also been solved, and the stickers appeared intact.
    I left the den and found the door to the basement. It was small, unfinished. The floor was bare concrete, and a florescent lamp attached to an overhead beam provided adequate light. A utility sink sat in a corner, next to a washer and dryer. On the other side was a workbench, clean and tidy. The drawers contained the average assortment of hand tools; wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, saws, chisels. Atop the workbench was an electric reciprocating saw that looked practically new.
    A closet was tucked away in the corner. Inside I found an old volleyball net, a large roll of carpet padding, a croquet set, some scraps of decorative trim, and half a can of blue paint. Also, hanging on a makeshift rack, were three badminton rackets, an extra-large super-soaker squirt gun, and a plastic lawn chair.
    After snooping until there was nothing left to snoop, I met Herb back in the living room.
    “Find anything?” Herb asked.
    I described through my search, ending with the Swedish Fish.
    “That was the only food?” Herb asked.
    “Seems to be.”
    “Are we taking it as evidence?”
    “I’m not sure yet. Why?”
    “I love Swedish Fish.”
    “If I poured chocolate syrup on the corpse, would you eat that too?”
    “You found chocolate syrup?”
    I switched gears. “You figure out the note?”
    Herb smiled. “Yeah. Funny how the note is perfectly clean when everything around it, and behind it, is soaked in blood.”
    “Find anything else?”
    “I tossed the bedrooms upstairs, found some basics; clothes, shoes, linen. Bathroom contained bathroom stuff; towels, toiletries, a lot of puzzle magazines. Another bookshelf—non-fiction this time. Some prescription meds in the cabinet.” Benedict checked his pad. “Diflucan, Abarelix, Taxotere, and Docetexel.”
    “Cancer drugs,” Phil Blasky said. He held Wyatt’s right arm. “That explains this plastic catheter implanted in his vein and this rash on his neck. This man has been on long term chemotherapy.”
    A picture began to form in my head, but I didn’t have all the pieces yet.
    “Herb, did you find any religious paraphernalia? Bibles, crucifixes, prayer books, things like that?”
    “No. There were some books upstairs, but mostly philosophy and logic puzzles. In fact, there was a whole shelf dedicated to Free-Thinking.”
    “As opposed to thinking that costs money?”
    “That’s a term atheists use.”
    Curiouser and curiouser.
    “I found receipts for a new stereo and camcorder. Were they upstairs?” I asked.
    “The stereo was, set-up in the bedroom next to that big bay window. I didn’t see any camcorders.”
    “Let me see that note again.”
    The suicide letter had been placed in a clear plastic bag. I read it twice, then had to laugh. “Quite a few religious references for a Free-Thinker.”
    “If he was dying of cancer, maybe he found God.”
    “Or maybe he found a way to die on his terms.”
    “Meaning?”
    “The terms of a man who loved mysteries, games, and puzzles. Look at