Case of the Murdered Chessplayer Ch. 01

"There were multiple people here, of several nationalities." I said. "At least four, maybe five, besides the dead man. One of them was a woman. They played contract bridge, and whoever was in dummy during a hand would come and talk to one person not playing, usually in the kitchen, but sometimes at the sofa. I suspect the dead man was the one not playing.

"There have been quantities of drugs here, and I suspect that drug deals have gone down here in the past. The dead man was stabbed somewhere around this door to the kitchen, stumbled back into the main room, leaned over the chessboard, and then fell down and died where he lay when we found him. I once again commend your attention to the chessboard, Feeley. The victim tried to leave us a message on it!"

As Feeley stared at the chess set, puzzled, I continued. "The killer very likely entered through the back door, got a knife from a kitchen drawer and stabbed our unfortunate chessplayer here. The killer then either exited through the back door, locking it on the way, or through the front door. Feeley, when you got here, was the front door locked or unlocked?"

"Uhhh..." Feeley said.

"Unlocked sir." said Patrolman Hicks, who had been listening to me (as had everyone in the room). "In fact, it was cracked, and I looked inside and saw the body lying there. That gave us probable cause to enter without a warrant."

"Indeed, yes. Thank you, Patrolman Hicks."

"Sir," said Officer Feeley, "how do you know all that?" I noticed Tanya behind Feeley, suppressing a laugh.

"Feeley, you have disappointed me." I said, perhaps a bit brutally. "You may have missed a chance at a Detective badge tonight. You have seen everything I have seen. You were even here before I was and saw the scene in pristine condition! So you tell me how I've come to those conclusions."

I actually didn't wait for Feeley to try. "Perlman," I said, "wrap things up here and see me at Headquarters in the morning."

"Yes sir." Perlman said, turning back to her work as I exited the scene. She looked over at Feeley; he looked stunned, and as if he was about to cry.

"Come on, Pete." she said, trying to distract him, feeling a bit sorry for him. "Help me get this finished." Like a lost puppy, Feeley complied.

Part 3 - Legacy And Consequences

Getting home to The Cabin, I showered and lay down to get a little sleep before morning. As I lay in bed, the memories came to me, suddenly and without reason...

It was a week after I had solved the Arruzio-Burke murders. Laura and I sat on the patio of The Cabin in the early evening. The view over the town and University was breathtaking.

Laura sighed. "The tests came back. Jeanine is carrying Jack's child."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I thought about lying and telling them it was Tim's baby. But then I realized that he's gone. He just wouldn't believe it, and he's obsessed with Jeanine giving it up. She's just as obsessed with keeping it." Another sigh. "I think he's going to file for divorce."

"That's too bad." I said. "Has he no idea of the treasure he has?"

"He's blinded by some serious emotional pain." Laura said. "By the way, I saw the results of two of the three tests you added to mine. But what was the third one?"

As I looked at her in shock, she said "Don't blame Nurse Jones. One of the lab guys at the Hospital, a real idiot, sent me the results of two of the tests and a bill for three beyond the ones I'd asked for. Nurse Jones is very loyal to you; she wouldn't tell me what the third test was at all, and I think she enjoyed being defiant about it."

"So now you know about Todd and Ned?"

"Yes." the beautiful woman said, shifting her legs slightly. I was aching to fuck her. "So what do you want to do about it. Tell Todd?"

"Yes." I said, "I think we should... don't you?"

"Yes." Laura said, nodding. "And I'll handle it if you'd like me to." She then peered at me for a moment. I met her eyes, locking into them, letting her search for what she was seeking. She finally conceded.

"You're just not going to tell me what that third test was, are you?"

"Not yet." I said, wrapping my arms around her. "That will come in its due time. You'll just have to trust me on that one."

"Oooh, a man of mystery." Laura said. "I'll just have to find new ways to... motivate you to tell me." She kissed my mouth and fire spread throughout my body, all the way to my toes.

"Let's go inside... I want you to make love with me." she whispered. Taking me by the hand, she led me inside and to bed.

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"Thank you for coming." Laura said, sitting next to me on one of the sofas in her office. Michael and Eleanor Burke were sitting on the other couch, facing us. The two sofas faced each other, with Laura's desk at one end of them and a nice fireplace at the other. I was remembering the time that Melina and I had sat where the Burkes were sitting now... sitting on that sofa seems to be a place that changes peoples lives, I mused.

I took a moment to admire Eleanor Burke. She was a very attractive woman in my eyes. Her salt and pepper hair was styled combed sideways in a 1980s hairdo, but her saucy body was in good shape and she had a very nice pair of legs. She was very, very fuckable, I thought to myself.

"What did you want to see us about?" Mr. Burke asked. "Is this about Jimmy and Jeanine?"

"Part of it is, yes." she said. "I have been working with Tim and Jeanine, and we have run some medical tests. The findings caused me to run some more extended tests, the results which we felt we must share with you."

"What are those?" Eleanor Burke asked, her voice low, husky and sultry despite the concern in her voice. Laura looked at me.

I asked "First, I must ask you some questions, and I apologize in advance that they will be very personal. Please understand that the answers to your questions will not leave this room unless you want them to." They nodded as I continued, "I must ask you, were your sons artificially conceived?" The Burkes looked uncomfortable, but Mr. Burke finally answered.

"Yes, they were." he admitted. "We had procedures done for both of them. My sperm was plenty healthy but there was a problem in the way Eleanor absorbed..." he blushed as he stopped.

"I understand." Laura said, her voice comforting. "It is not uncommon at all. Don?"

"I have another personal question that I have to ask." I said. "Mr. Burke, about 20 years ago... did you know a young woman named Elizabeth--" I asked, naming my sister by her maiden name, hoping he wouldn't yet realize it was also my last name. Mr. Burke's eyes widened in shock.

"Er... yes, I did. Why?" he said.

"You lived in Apple Grove at the time?"

"No, I worked for a service company that had a client there, and I visited frequently, often staying weeks at a time. How do you know this?" Burke demanded.

"Mr. Burke, did you have a sexual relationship with Elizabeth?"

"What is the meaning of this? I can't answer that." he almost roared, his face red.

"I understand." I said, raising my hand to arrest his attention. "She was, shall we say, 'a bit young' at the time, but I'm really not worried about that. What you need to know is that we did several tests on her son Todd. Mr. Burke, Todd is Jack's brother... and your son."

"Oh my.... oh my God." Burke said. Mrs. Burke seemed shocked as well, and was peering hard at her husband. "We... we always thought that... that high school quarterback knocked her up." Mr. Burke said.

Mrs. Burke had taken her eyes off her husband and began peering at me, her eyes smart and cunning. "Come now, Detective. How would you know all this?" Laura and I exchanged a glance and she nodded.

"I am Elizabeth's younger brother, and Todd is my nephew. You have another son, Mr. Burke."

"Jesus Christ... so that is who you are..." Burke said, his soft voice betraying his total shock at the events happening to him at this moment. "I thought your name was familiar, but I thought it was just from reading the papers. So you're Douglass's boy? How's he doing?"

"Yes sir, I am his son. I'm sorry to say that he died some months ago." The Burkes expressed their sympathies, but I didn't have time for all that. I wanted to move on before Mr. Burke also remembered my name from college days.

"There's more." I said. "the reason we asked about the pregnancy procedures... Mr. Burke, Tim Olivet, or Jimmy as you knew him, is not your biological son, but he is Mrs. Burke's son." This was almost too much for them, I realized.

"How... how did that happen?" Mrs. Burke asked.

Laura said "We believe they may have injected the wrong semen sample, or that they used contaminated... er, previously used equipment. I am sorry to say that such carelessness is not at all uncommon."

"And there's even more." I said. "Elizabeth's younger son, Ned, is Tim's biological brother. Apparently Elizabeth's husband of that time was a sperm donor, and his sperm impregnated you, Mrs. Burke."

"How did you know to run those tests?" Mr. Burke asked.

It was Laura who answered him, a weird smile on her lovely face. "This man just solved your son's murder, so how easy was it for him to observe similarities between Tim and Ned as well as Todd and yourself and Todd and Jack... er, on the videotapes Jack made."

Nice going, Laura, you almost slipped there, I thought. But a deft recovery.

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Todd was in shock.

"Jack Burke was my brother? Mr. Burke is my father?" he asked, his voice trailing. He looked out the window of The Cabin overlooking the Town.

"Yes." I said. "And the Burkes want to meet you. I know it's awkward, Todd."

"Yeah, sure as hell is." he replied. "But yeah, I guess I'll meet them."

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Back in the present moment, I drifted to sleep, totally unaware of the life-changing events that were happening across Town...

The weather just would not relent. More sheets of rain continued to fall as the second wave of the storm passed through.

Tim Olivet sat in his office at his plant, the only light coming from the lights in the parking lot outside and the lightning. A half empty bottle of Scotch and an empty glass were on his desk in front of him. And also a gun, a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver, fully loaded. Though I only need one bullet, Olivet thought to himself.

Dr. Fredricson had tried to delay telling him the results of the pregnancy tests, but he had insisted, making an ugly scene in her office in front of Jeanine. If it had not been for that Police Detective there also, Tim might have lost control. And the news almost made him lose control again.

The baby was his hated big brother Jack's. Jeanine had refused to abort the evil progeny growing inside her. They had argued violently, several times, nearly coming to physical blows... but Olivet couldn't bring himself to harm his lovely wife, as much as she had betrayed him with the big brother that he hated even more now in death than in life.

To add to his pain, his parents had now found him after so many years; they would not leave him alone. And worse, they wanted him to "join" their "new" family... his father Michael, the bastard... had fathered a child with some slut girl nearly 20 years before. This new brother was embracing the Burke family, even taking their last name as his own, the father filing the papers adopting this new son. Jack's "successor".

Tim sat silently, long past the point of crying, of wailing, of the intense pain. It was a dull ache now. The Scotch had failed to make him drunk, had failed to ease the pain. He was sitting in the office of his business, the business he had put up for sale, the business he had built for the sake of his wife, to give her everything she could possibly want. But that was all over now. The one thing she had wanted, and that his reviled big brother had given her that he, Timmy, had not, was a baby.

He was preparing to leave town again, take yet another name, hide away again... and this time without his wife. He had filed for divorce. Dr. Fredricson had tried to talk him out of it, Jeanine had tried to persuade him not to, and she was contesting the divorce as fiercely as she could.

Sitting in his dark office, drinking the Scotch, he realized that there was only one way to truly get away, to truly be free, and to truly assuage his pain. He felt a joyous lassitude, almost sexual in its pleasure, as he nodded in acknowledgement that he was doing the right thing. He picked up the gun, looking at it a moment, then began raising it.

"Are you so eager to die?"

The sound of the voice calling out stopped Tim in his tracks. The light of the hallway outside left the figure in shadow in the doorway.

"Who in the fuck are you?" Tim said, suddenly feeling exhaustion, something that often happened to people attempting to commit suicide but suddenly being stopped.

The stranger walked into the room. He was slender and looked very young. A real nerd. Tim was somewhat athletic, though not nearly as much as his big brother Jack, and this kid was not athletic at all. But Tim realized that there was some kind of similarity between himself and this man, and their hair was very much alike: wispy and light brown.

"You'll know everything before I leave here tonight." the stranger said. Tim pointed the gun straight at the young intruder's face.

"Tell me now, or you won't leave this place... alive." Tim responded darkly.

"Here, look at this." The man tossed a file of papers onto the desk. Tim slowly pulled it to him and opened the file. The man leaned forward and snapped the desk lamp on, lighting the papers, but leaving his face still in shadow.

Tim read the contents. "Where the hell did you get this?"

"I have a friend that works at the University Hospital. My uncle actually had the test run along with the ones that confirmed that my brother Todd is Michael Burke's son. My friend managed to get me an extra copy before it was sent back to the bitch Fredricson.

"And this test?" Tim said, holding the top piece of paper.

"I don't know the 'how' or 'why' of it, but it shows that you and I have the same father, and it is not Michael Burke. Somehow, my father inseminated your mother, and here you are. You and I are brothers, through your mother."

Tim reeled in shock. "Am I Todd's brother, too?"

"No. You are not Michael Burke's biological son, and he is not Eleanor Burke's son."

"Who are you?"

The young man leaned down so that his face was visible in the light of the lamp desk.

"My name is Ned--" the young man introduced himself, then continued. "And I'm here to help you take revenge on these people who have caused you so much pain... so much pain. They have caused me great pain, also, especially Todd... and my God-damned uncle. Your brother beat you down mentally and physically, and your parents have pursued you relentlessly; my brother has beaten me down, though for the last time ever, and my uncle has pursued me just as relentlessly. I understand your pain, Tim. I can help you get the revenge you need."

"Why do you think I want revenge?" Tim said. "Why don't I just end it all here?" He put the gun to his temple.

"If that is what you want to do, do it." Ned replied. "But revenge first would be so much sweeter, and you'll get your wife back... if you want."

Tim slowly eased the gun down but did not set it on the desk. Lightning cracked outside, lighting up the room with an eerie glow.

"What do you have in mind... brother?"

To be continued...