Page 36 of Chaotic Curse
I add salt and pepper to my eggs and then mix them with the hashbrowns.
“So…about your brother’s death.”
“Why are you so interested again?”Hank asks.
“True crime,” I say.“I knew him a long time ago, and always thought there was something fishy about how he just disappeared one day.”
“All I know,” George says, “is that he was shot in a barroom brawl in some dive outside Summer Creek.”
“Right.That’s what you said.”
George cocks his head at me.“So you’re telling me you knew our brother fifteen years ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Pardon me for saying it, but you look too young to have known him fifteen years ago.”
I clear my throat.“I get that all the time.Turned forty last month.”
“Well I’ll be goddamned,” Hank says.“Not only do you have those bedroom eyes, but you look young for your age.”
I nod.
Lying does not come naturally to me.
In fact, I hate it.
But sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do for the greater good.
I learned that lesson a long time ago.
It was reinforced when my brother went to prison for Eagle.
“So…” I say.“Were they ever able to find out who shot your brother at the bar?”
“Unfortunately, no,” George says.“We asked a lot of questions, but whoever had the gun got away.No one was able to name him.Said it was a stranger they’d never seen there before.”
Right.Nice coincidence.My father paid them all off.
“Who started the brawl?”I ask.
“Nobody knew the answer to that question either,” Hank says.
I look at Hank.He’s an attorney.But maybe he wasn’t when this all happened.“Doesn’t that strike you as kind of strange?”I ask him.
“I’m not a criminal lawyer,” Hank says, “but yeah, the whole thingisodd.I’m sure George already told you that Ted didn’t drink.So why the hell was he in a bar?”
“That’s what I’d like to find out,” I say.
“Why the interest now?”George asks.“I get that you like true crime, but this case is about as cold as my coffee.”He flags our waitress, holding up his cup.
I shrug.“Just always seemed strange to me.And now it seems even stranger still, since you said he didn’t drink.In fact, now that you mention it, all those times we played Monopoly, he never did join me in a beer.”
“Not surprising,” George says.
“All I know is that he worked as a personal assistant to Austin Bellamy, the big billionaire rancher, my boss.”I lean in.“Did Ted ever say anything to you about Austin Bellamy?”
George and Hank both shrug.
