“He returned home rather late last night” I said. “There were peculiar noises throughout the night; although it was nothing I thought to call the police over. They asked me to go into the house with them and look around for anything out of the ordinary; I agreed to do so but wondered if I truly had the opportunity to say no.
We were both older, and I had been his neighbor for a long time at that point. He was nice to my children and I, although, he was an alcoholic. He always went to new bars; “whatever the kids were in to” he’d say. He would come home and tell all of us about his experience. But he would always say after he told us “god is great, beer is good, but people are crazy”. They didn’t let me see where my dear friend had passed but they asked me questions like they would a victim of a horrid crime. They were obvious questions though such as “ did he have any family members? “ and the answer would always be the same, it was clear he did but none of them cared enough to come visit the poor old man. “He had six children.” I told them he married twice; both times it evil women with cold hearts, if one at all. They only came around years earlier around Christmas time before the old man started drinking. His ex wives thought he was a terrible influence on the children at such a young age.” I paused; they were already teenagers at that point so why they thought of it that way I don’t understand.
I had forgotten to mention money although they had forgot to ask, I thought it was relevant to bring up. “He had a lot of money,” I told them. “But he didn’t care much about anything…he didn’t really care too much about his money either. He assumed it would go to a better cause once he passed away.” I continued to answer their obvious and rather narrative questions and eventually, they let me go home. I had the whole speech about not leaving town in case they need me for further questioning but honestly? “Me leave town? I’m 68 years old…where do you think I’m going?” I thought. Although, I was far older than him, he had always looked like he was at least twenty years older because of the alcohol abuse done to his body.
But, anyways I heard they found the bartender who had been tending that night. I couldn’t wait to hear all about it the next morning. I guess it went something like this; I’m sure they did the whole “I’m going to show you a picture …do you know this man?” Thing. They didn’t. They took me to watch his interview; so I could see what did and didn’t match mine. He said “I know I saw that man but I can’t remember his name or anything like that.” he paused. “He was sitting with a rather young fellow compared to himself and he’d bought a lot to drink…you know what?” he exclaimed. :” the guy he was with…his name was Tommy. I remember hearing him say something like ‘you’re a good man Tommy’ throughout the night.” Then the police asked him something about the way Tommy looked and he said he didn’t know but that is beyond the matter.
Many questions went buy and they still hadn’t mentioned money, I had been waiting. Once they finally did it didn’t do them any good anyways. All he said was “he didn’t mention money. They had this sort of family reunion feeling about them. They ranted about women they had been with and how much fun they had so far. It seemed like they thought time was slowing down and their opportunities were slowly drifting away. They both purchased abundance that night. He may have bought a lot of beer but so did everyone else and that didn’t mean they had fat pockets either.” he exclaimed. The men interviewing him gave him the most interrogating stares that day, I remember, when he stopped speaking or paused you could tell he was scared to answer. He practically sweat a puddle in that very room.
The police and detectives had all their stories, all their interviews and still nothing was good enough for them. They knew this case was dry. But they didn’t even know the mysterious man’s name…
The next day, two days after Eddie’s tragic death, this beloved neighbor was skimming though his will , because of course Melanie was Eddie’s much older sister if you haven’t figured that out by now and she was the only sibling he had left. As she read through the listings of who gets what and what goes to charity and whatnot she finally made it to the end and read “I now, as of June 20th 2001, give all of my fortune and my houses to this man I met at ‘Louie’s bar’ this evening and PS: his name is Tommy Walker (he’ll know I am when he reads my obituary though so don’t write his name too clearly).
No comments:
Post a Comment