So Weeps the Willow - 32. Salix Bablyonica - 10 - The Plan

Salix Babylonica 10 – The Plan

Walking on willow tree roads by a river dappled with peach blossoms, I look for spring light, but am everywhere lost. Birds fly up and scatter floating catkins. A ponderous wave of flowers sags the branches.

Wang Wei

“Can we go over the case against Eddie again,” Ben’s voice was shaky as he asked the question. “There isn’t any real evidence against him. Is there?”

Rush smiled sadly. He looked up from his coffee at his partner. After a few moments, he spoke.

“There’s quite a bit of circumstantial evidence against Eddie.”

“Like what?”

Rush pushed his laptop to the side and leaned over the table. The look on his face was intense, focused, and he spoke deliberately.

“Eddie was there. The video camera recorded him leaving Jake’s building around the time his ex was poisoned.” Rush’s index finger popped up, indicating point one.

“Yeah, that does make him look guilty,” Ben responded with a nod. He paused and then argued, “But, he could have been visiting someone else. Jake’s apartment building is in his neighborhood, so he could know others who live there.”

Rush shook his head. “Let’s use the old rubric for discovering the perpetrator of a crime. Means, motive and opportunity. Eddie had the opportunity, that is, he was within the nexus of the place the crime occurred.”

Ben nodded in agreement. “He was there when the crime occurred.”

“Yeah,” Rush said resolutely. “In other words, Eddie was in the vicinity of the victim. He had the physical proximity to cause Jake’s death.”

Ben thought briefly and agreed. “Okay, so Eddie was there at the time of Jake’s death. Where are you going with that?”

Rush ticked off another finger. “Motive. Jake was moving on with his life. According to his sister, he was seeing another guy.”

“But, I thought Jake said they were getting back together.”

Rush pulled the laptop closer and his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Let’s see what Jake said about his relationship with Eddie.”

Rush started reading:

“Eddie held me and let me unleash. After I got my act together, he kissed my forehead and took me home. He made sure I was okay. Only after all that, he left. I remember he looked back and the love poured from his eyes. Yet, is he the one? Fuck.

It hurts so much, but I have to be honest. I’m not sure it’s Eddie, not anymore. Not after, our night together.

I hope I’m not wrong.”

Ben stiffened as the implications became more evident. Jake was breaking up with Eddie, so the motive certainly was there, especially as presented by Jake. Then, something else occurred to him. A memory came zooming in from his study of the case materials.

“Didn’t they have a date the next night? I remember Jake writing they were supposed to meet.”

Rush grimaced. “It sounded like they were going to meet and make it work, but let’s go back to his words.”

“And then there’s Eddie. We talked before work. He told me he’d call at ten o’clock and we could get together. He hadn’t called, so I called him. I don’t know what’s going on. This seems odd. This morning, things seemed to be coming together. I had Eddie back in my life.”

Ben said, “See, it sounds like they are getting back together.”

“I don’t think so,” Rush continued. “Jake said they were over in the previous entry, and now he’s trying to change their relationship so Eddie is still in his life, but not as a lover.”

“How do you get that?” Ben said, shocked.

“Jake commented that ‘things are coming together’ and he had Eddie back in his life, yet the day before he said, ‘I’m not sure it’s Eddie, not anymore.’ We read it thinking Eddie and Jake were getting back together, but Eddie knew as he read it; Jake was done. We don’t see the reactions in their faces as the talk.”

“Eddie knew Jake was done with him as a boyfriend.”

“And that gave Eddie a motive,” Ben answered the unexpressed question. “Means?”

Rush said, “That’s the part that’s most tricky. “Eddie was in the building. Eddie probably wanted to make Jake pay in some way, but was the heater Eddie’s? Did he have access to it and did he use it to kill his ex? That is our weakest link.”

“And we have no hard or direct evidence, just circumstantial evidence suggesting Eddie was the killer.”

Rush admitted as much with his expression. He also said, “We need evidence from a witness or from the forensics to place Eddie in Jake’s apartment at the right time. We also need Eddie to have access to Jake’s heater and a way to make it the murder weapon.”

Ben frowned. That was a problem, and a key one. How had the heater gotten into the apartment and turned into the mode of murder? He reiterated their discussion.

“Because we now have a motive. That’s where the physical and factual witness evidence makes all the difference.” Ben was subdued at first, then he asked, “What about Wylie’s connection in all this? How does he fit in with Eddie as the killer?”

“Wylie is the guy Jake was fooling around with,” Rush answered without a pause. “Wylie was figuring out his sexuality and Jake was the one helping him do so.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Ben said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Is that why Jake was so conflicted in those last couple of days before he died? When you read the blog, it’s not clear what he thought about he and Eddie. He almost seemed to fear Eddie was leaving him, in a way.”

Rush seemed to agree with his reaction as he shuffled through a folder with the printout. “Here’s from day seven of the blog.” He offered:

“It hurts so much, but I have to be honest. I’m not sure it’s Eddie, not anymore. Not after, our night together.

I hope I’m not wrong.”

“And the next day, he wrote this,” Rush continued reading.

“Eddie confessed our time apart has been hell for him. He never stopped loving me. My actions were driving him insane, so he kept his distance. When I’d pick up a guy, it stabbed at his heart. I saw in his eyes how much pain I’d put him through.

God, I feel so bad. How did I not see this? It was going on right before my eyes. Yet, I couldn’t see it.

At the end of our talk, we agreed to take it slow. We’d actually date and get closer again while being careful about the other’s space.”

“It’s obvious there was another guy in there somewhere. They’d talked and were trying to make it work.”

Ben added, “So you think they got back together and then Eddie couldn’t handle Jake’s cheating, well, it wasn’t cheating because they weren’t a couple at the time…”

“By the same token, it’s clear Eddie had a motive. We have the circumstantial evidence that Eddie expressed to Jake.

“Rush, is this case too complex to solve? We have seen so little physical evidence from the scene.”

Rush looked out of the window. “It seems so.”

Ben stood and collected their coffee mugs. Rush put a hand on his partner’s arm, stopping him. Ben waited, and listened to his boyfriend.

Rush looked deeply into his eyes and asked, “Or are we being stupid and this is not a complicated case?”

“What does that mean?” Ben asked, sitting back down next to Rush this time, instead of across from him.

“Maybe this is so sloppy we think it’s complex. I can’t tell right now.”

Ben laid his head on Rush’s shoulder. “I just hope no one else gets hurt."

“Me too,” Rush said, stroking Ben’s cheek, and thinking.

***

Rush realized the quality of the light changed so much about the look of a place. Gallivant’s in the evening light of early spring was so bright, and there were colors reflected off the plate glass windows and shining metal made the building dazzle. The building surfaces mirrored the amazingly brilliant colors and made the bar seem so inviting, and enticing. He’d come here again, because something was bothering him. This was the site where something occurred that set off this whole case.

He exited his vehicle and loped across the tarmac to the front doors. Breathing in deeply, he smiled as he opened the front doors. This would be a good visit. He was feeling confident now. Energized, Rush walked into the darkened space and up to the bar.

Unlike the last time, the bar was about half full of drinkers, seated and talking to one another. There was an energy in the air that was lacking last time. A man he’d never seen before flitted from patron to patron, like a butterfly from flower to flower, extracting the nectar of money and depositing the pollen of booze.

“Fuck that,” Rush said, growling. He realized he was heady with the effect of the atmosphere, not reading the scene.

“These people are just having a good time, and shutting out the world,” he whispered to himself.

Rush approached the bar and sat down on a stool.

The bartender smiled at him, shaking a drink in a stainless-steel container, and greeting him with his eyes.

“What would you like?” the man asked, pouring the golden liquid into a short rocks glass and setting it in front of a patron.

“How about a gin martini?” Rush answered.

“Any particular brand?” the bartender’s sculpted eyebrow made an arch.

“Yeah,” Rush said, and smiling added, “I’d like a Bombay Sapphire martini, on the rocks, with a twist.”

The man stopped for a minute, and then recovered, with a broad grin. “That’s a lovely drink.”

“Yes,” Rush said. “It is.” He watched as the bartender filled another metal shaker with a mound of ice and a generous pour of booze. The guy knew what he was doing. He seemed to care about his work. The PI tested his hypothesis.

“I bet you see lots of amateur drinkers.”

“I do,” the man responded. He placed a clouded and chilled glass before Rush, and poured the strained clear gin and dry vermouth into the vessel. “We have lots of regulars as well.”

Rush processed the comment quickly, and understood what the man was conveying.

“So, there are lots of other restaurant people who come here frequently?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” the bartender responded. Yet, he paused after his answer and looked Rush up and down. “Why do you ask?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just curious.”

The bartender shrugged and walked away.

Rush looked around the bar and saw several people sitting on stools and drinking, most quietly, but a few were talking and flailing their hands about as they made a point or told a story.

He wasn’t sure where to start or what to ask or even who to ask. They were customers in a bar, the only place so far, they’d connected Wylie and Ogden together. This was only place where Eddie was seen with both Jake and Steve at the same time.

Rush didn’t see the manager, Steve’s sister around today. Was it a day off or was she in the back avoiding him? Certainly, he’d stirred up emotions last time he’d been here.

As he pretended to sip his martini, he noticed a woman walking from group to group, holding a bottle of beer in her hand. She was slim, dressed in jeans and a loose-knit sweater. Her hair was mousey brown, but she had a ready smile. Her laugh was infectious, and it seemed like she knew everyone in the place.

Rush followed her progress down the bar, and he tried to catch her eye. This was exactly the kind of person who talked with everyone. Maybe she knew Jake, Eddie, and Steve. Perhaps, she knew the story behind their love triangle, or at least, if one existed.

She was chatting with two guys opposite from Rush when the bartender approached. “How’s the drink?”

“Good. Say, can I buy the woman over there a drink?”

“Which one?” he asked.

“The one in the blue sweater talking to the two men in cowboy hats.”

“Oh, you mean Cindy. You want to buy her a drink?”

“Yeah,” Rush said, now taking a sip from the martini. It was an excellent drink, balanced and with just enough vermouth to mellow out the juniper. “Whatever she’d like.”

“She only drinks beer,” the bartender said and grabbing a five from the bar, walked over to her. He pointed at Rush and spoke to her in low tones. She looked surprised, pleased, and smiled at him.

Rush lifted his drink in return.

The bartender pulled out a bottle and twisted off the cap. He handed the woman the bottle and she saluted the detective with it.

Rush waved at her. She grinned again and then walked towards him. It was obvious she was intrigued by the expression on her lined face.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” she said. “I’m Cindy.”

“I’m Rush.” The detective turned on his stool and saw she was drinking a light domestic beer, inexpensive and practically tasteless. “I just moved into the neighborhood,” he lied, “and wanted to check out the local watering holes. This is a pretty nice place.”

“It’s really friendly. Where did you move from?”

“Northern metro area. I’ve always lived in the Twin Cities”

She looked at him in surprise. “You moved in from the suburbs?”

“Yeah, a messy breakup,” he said, hoping to gain sympathy points, and to give his next question some credibility. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Is the wound too fresh? I get that,” she said, climbing up on the stool next to him. “I’ve had one or two situations myself.”

“Yeah,” Rush said. “Whoever let you go, must have been crazy.”

The woman smiled coyly, playing the game, “Sometimes things don’t work out.” She took a drink of her beer and looked thoughtful.

Rush considered the back story he’d concocted, and said, “Yeah, I thought I was happily married, with a couple of kids, but then I met someone and it opened my eyes.”

Cindy was now watching him carefully. “What made her different?”

Rush shook his head slowly mouthing, ‘He’. He let her consider what he meant. She didn’t take long to get there.

“You decided the city would be a little friendlier to guys like you.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Rush stumbled over his words. “I mean, he was married too, and it happened so quickly…” he said, gauging her reaction.

Cindy was the type to accept everything. She was nodding. “There are more accepting people here. We are mostly your average people, but there are a few gay guys who come in here. Or, there used to be.”

“Oh yeah.” Rush then asked, “How come they don’t come here anymore?”

“We haven’t seen Eddie since Jake died.”

Rush suppressed his excitement. “Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“He died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Everyone was so upset when they found out he’d passed away.”

“It was an accident?” Rush asked.

“They thought so at first. Now, nobody knows. Then another guy who hangs out here was found dead. It’s tragic.” Cindy took a healthy swig from her beer. “Poor Heather is beside herself. Personally, I don’t believe what they say. Stevie and me had a thing and its kind of ridiculous,” the woman looked Rush up and down, “But I guess you never can tell.”

“I don’t understand,” Rush said, and continued, “You and this other guy dated?”

“Yeah, I’d swear he was straight as an arrow. There was nothing gay about that man, but then, look at you. You seem like a normal guy, but you played around with a guy.” Cindy mused, “Steve just didn’t seem even a little curious, you know?”

Rush thought he did know. Someone was playing them for the fool, but who?