Leftovers

by Larry Tyler

Lucas D. Pinkham got off the cruise ship about two hours before sunset, along with sixteen hundred other people, most of whom headed for the shops and restaurants around Key West. Lucas Pinkham stayed at the Mallory Square pier though and didn't wander very far off. The heat was making him queasy. He was overweight and in bad health to begin with, and had aged beyond his forty-eight years because of all the broken bones he had nursed over the years, so he didn't feel like moving around much. He had to get to the post office eventually, but he figured that trip could wait, maybe even until the next morning.

Street performers lined the pier, performing all around him. They juggled with fire, sang folk songs, and strapped themselves into straightjackets, but Pinkham paid no attention. Crowds began to gather along the shore to watch the sunset, but Pinkham didn't care about that either. He stepped back from the crowd and tried to calm his aches and pains. He was usually pretty good at that.

About twenty minutes after sunset he was gripped by a sharp pain, a pain that was new to him.

He stumbled into a psychic's booth, knocked a table full of cards and junk jewelry to the ground and landed on top of the pile. People around him figured he was drunk, a pretty reasonable guess. Half the people around him had plastic cups of liquor in their hands, and were gulping down frozen daiquiris, piña coladas, or lite beers to stave off the heat and humidity. But Pinkham wasn't drunk. He fell and bounced once, rolling onto his back. His eyes stared wide and unblinking toward the sky, making it quite clear he wasn't drunk, but absolutely dead. A young woman screamed and dropped her chocolate-dipped key lime pie bar out of her hand. It landed onto Pinkham's stomach and stuck where it landed, rising like a brown and yellow flag from his belly.

That was the end of Pinkham.

For the next hour or so, the street performers were forced to kick their acts into high gear to compete with Pinkham's performance. Paramedics showed up, the police, and the press. Pinkham not only stole the show; he was stealing from their livelihood. He would have enjoyed knowing that. He was that kind of thief.

The police found a note in Pinkham's wallet that read, “In case of emergency, contact…” and there were three names on the list: his sister, his brother, and his nephew. The note was taken back to the police station, and the police dutifully made three calls.

It was about eighteen hours later that Pinkham's nephew, Riley Bellamy arrived at the Key West airport and took a cab to the police station. He had come to collect his uncle's belongings.

Bellamy didn't look anything like Pinkham. The two barely looked like they were the same species, let alone relatives. For one thing, Bellamy was as little as Pinkham was big. It would have taken three Bellamy's to equal one Pinkham. And that was one reason why Detective Sgt. Leo Englebrecht took a long time to double-check Bellamy's ID when he showed up to claim Pinkham's possessions. The other reason was that Bellamy couldn't stop grinning.

“You don't appear to be very upset by your uncle's death,” Englebrecht observed.

Bellamy grinned and shrugged.

Englebrecht gave him a slow up and down. “We found three contact names in your uncle's wallet, including yours. So we left three messages, but I'm a bit surprised to see you here, Mr. Bellamy. Frankly, we expected a callback from you, not a visit.”

“No point wasting a long-distance call from Chicago, is there? I knew someone had to come and claim my uncle's belongings, so I decided to save the rest of the family some time and effort.”

Englebrecht didn't answer. “Your uncle didn't have many belongings,” he said, studying a list in his hand. “And I thought that was kind of strange. Apparently traveling alone on a cruise ship, and not packed very well for a vacation, he died at his first port of call.”

“Uncle Lucas always did things in an usual way,” Bellamy said. “Even when it didn't make sense to anyone else. Especially when it didn't make sense to anyone else.” He had his eyes focused on a small trash bag in the corner of the room with a strip of masking tape marked, “Pinkham” on it. “That's his stuff?”

“It is, but I can't turn it over to you yet.”

“Why not? I've got all my identification papers here.”

“Got a few formalities to clear up first,” Englebrecht said. “Just a few.”

The phone on Englebrecht's desk rang and Officer Lew Petrelli spoke to him when he lifted the receiver. “Got another one of the dead guy's family members out here, Sergeant, a woman. She says her name's Carrie Friedling, sister of the deceased. She also says she's here to pick up her brother's stuff.”

“Mm-hm.”

Petrelli's voice lowered a bit. “She didn't look too pleased when she heard her son was in your office. She looked like she'd swallowed a garden slug when I told her.”

“Mm-hm,” Englebrecht said again. He looked over at Bellamy who was looking over at the bag in the corner. “Send her in,” he said.

Carrie Friedling burst through the door like a grand stage entrance. She made a beeline toward her son, Riley.

Riley stood up abruptly, startled by the dramatic entrance, and turned around just as Carrie muckled onto him. She smothered him in kisses—or at least tried her best—and said, “Oh, my son, my precious wonderful son. Why haven't you written or called, you naughty boy? It's been months.” She looked at Englebrecht. “He's so naughty. You should lock him up.”

Englebrecht held his hand out for a handshake, but Carrie flopped into a chair beside her son, out of reach of his hand, so Englebrecht dropped his hand and sat down. “Ms. Friedling?”

“No, no, no. Not Ms. Friedling. It's Carrie, please. Just Carrie. I'm not quite ready to be an old lady yet.”

Englebrecht wasn't taken aback by Carrie Friedling's flamboyance—he was a cop in Key West after all—but the contrast between mother and son was a sharp one, as sharp as the contrast between Pinkham and Bellamy, and it made Englebrecht reluctant to hand over the bag of belongings to either of them, much as he would have liked to get rid of the bag and get on with more important things.

“You see?' Carrie said to her son, “If you had just called me, I could have saved you a long trip. That's another reason you should stay in touch with your mother.”

“It was no trouble at all, Mother,” Riley Bellamy said without a grin. “I love Key West.”

“Ms. Friedling,” Englebrecht said.

“Up-up-up…Carrie, just Carrie,” she corrected him again, wagging her finger playfully.

“I was just explaining to your son that it seemed unusual your brother had so few possessions on board the cruise ship when he died.”

Carrie sat forward. Her smile drifted, then sprang back to life. “What possessions did he have?”

Englebrecht picked up the list on his desk. “An address book, a watch, a pen, a shaving kit, a wallet, one set of clothes bundled for the laundry, and one clean set of clothes. Nothing else, not even an extra pair of shoes.”

Carrie sat back in the chair with a relaxed grin on her face. She looked more like her son now. “Oh yes, that was Lucas, quintessential Lucas,” she said. “Always impulsive. Anytime he needed anything he'd just go out and buy it. Never a plan for tomorrow. Never gave tomorrow a thought.”

Englebrecht scowled at the list and nodded thoughtfully. “He had just eighteen dollars in his wallet when he died, no credit cards, no checkbook. It doesn't seem that would have given him much buying power, does it?”

“Well, yes. That is curious,” Carrie conceded. She thought a moment. “You aren't suggesting the people on the boat stole money from him, are you?”

Englebrecht didn't answer her. He stood up and went over to the bag of Pinkham's belongings as Friedling and Bellamy watched his movements closely. Englebrecht picked it and studied it a long moment. He excused himself and carried the bag out of the room.

He took the bag down the hall to Petrelli's desk, plopped it down, and said to him, “Go through this stuff one more time, Petrelli. Go through it all. And I also want you to call the M.E. to find out when the autopsy will be done. Something's not right with all this.”

Petrelli untied the knot and opened the bag up. “What are we looking for?” he asked.

Englebrecht shrugged. “Something.”

“Something?”

“I don't know what. Just look through this stuff. There's got to be something in there that these two are after.”

“Okay, something. We don't know what. Well, that should be easy enough to find.”

Englebrecht went back in his office and told Carrie what he had told her son just a couple minutes before, that there would be a delay turning Pinkham's belongings over to them. She asked the same question Riley did, and got the same answer.

“Exactly how long do you expect these formalities to take?” Carrie asked.

“Not long,” Englebrecht answered evasively. “Why don't you check back this afternoon, and I can let you know how things are progressing?”

“I'd rather wait here,” Carrie said.

Englebrecht shook his head no. “I'm afraid you'll have to come back this afternoon.”

Mother and son both pleaded a bit more, but their pleas only reinforced Englebrecht's determination to sort a few things out. The two finally left the office, but did so reluctantly, and they paused outside the police station for a tête-à-tête.

Englebrecht looked out the window and saw them engaged in a spirited conversation on José Marti Drive for five minutes before they went their separate ways.

Englebrecht checked in on Petrelli, who was on the phone to the Monroe County Medical Examiner's office. He listened in for a moment, then went back to his desk to think.

Within twenty minutes, Petrelli was in Englebrecht's office with an update. “Well, Sergeant, I came up with a few things,” he said. “First of all, I found out that Pinkham used to sweat a lot. That was a pleasant discovery. I hope I don't have to go through his stuff a third time.”

“What else did you find out?”

“I shook out his wallet, took apart his shaving kit: Nothing there.”

“Nothing.”

“Ah, but then I looked through his address book and found a few little curiosities.”

“What do you mean curiosities?”

Petrelli smiled. “Well, first of all, there were only a dozen entries in the whole book.”

“Okay.”

“And every entry has a post office box for an address, and a series of numbers or letters after each box number. There's not a street address or phone number in the whole list.”

“Hm.”

“Yes, that's what I thought too. Hm. Secondly, the addresses are from all across the country. When I looked up the cities, they were no closer than three-hundred miles from each other.”

“So we have a business list of some sort, maybe a list of regional managers. Any idea what line of work he was in?”

“No clues from his wallet.”

“Well, I'll ask his family when they come back this afternoon.”

“And one more thing. At least half the pages in the book were torn out. The list isn't alphabetical. It's just a random list of a dozen names.”

Englebrecht took the address book and flipped through it. He squinted hard at the book. “These numbers and letters might be safe combinations.”

“Could be.”

“Anything else?”

“Yep. I also got the chance to talk with the medical examiner,” Petrelli said.

“What did he have to say.”

“He thinks Pinkham died of a heart attack. The guy was big and fat and out of shape. But the M.E. discovered something interesting. For someone as big and fat and out of shape as Pinkham was he had a lot of injuries, broken bones in his legs, shoulder, ribs, wrists, all over the place.”

“So he played some rough sports when he was young?”

“Doctor Greiner doesn't think so. He said a lot of the breaks don't look very old, but the guy had a bunch of them, and he's been breaking bones for thirty years, by Greiner's estimate.”

“Okay, I'm lost,” Englebrecht said. He handed the book back to Petrelli. “See if you can reach any of these men by phone. Let's do a little more research. I hate nuisance, and this thing is turning into a big nuisance.”

Petrelli left Englebrecht's office and went back to his desk. He busied himself with the research and gave Englebrecht a call at eleven-thirty.

“I've got two things on this Pinkham case,” Petrelli said when Englebrecht answered the phone. “Thing number one is that I came up empty on that research you told me to do.”

“Alright,” Englebrecht said resignedly.

“And thing number two is that we've got another visit from Pinkham's family.”

Englebrecht glanced at his watch. “They're pushing it a bit, aren't they? I told them to come back this afternoon.”

“Whole different family member this time,” Petrelli said. “We've got his brother out here now.”

“Not another one,” Englebrecht said. He tapped his finger on the desk. “Okay. Let me take a look at him.”

“What do you want me to do about the list of men in the address book?” Petrelli asked.

“Stay on it.”

“I couldn't locate a single one. None of them have a phone, none of them have a police record, none of them exist outside this book. I'll keep looking if you want, but so far, they're all ghosts.”

“Just stay on it. And send his brother in here. Maybe he can give us some answers.”

The door opened and Wallace Pinkham entered Englebrecht's office with a timidity equal to his sister's audacity. He wore an orange-tan jacket over his blue plaid shirt and string tie. His gray trousers draped like bags around his lanky frame, were hoisted too high on his hips, and showed signs of wear along the cuffs where his boot tips poked out. He announced—in a voice barely above a whisper—that he had just flown in from Tulsa. “My plane was delayed in Houston. It was a very long trip for me, very long and very sad. Do you know whether my brother suffered much before he died?”

Fact was, Pinkham was dead before he hit the ground, but Englebrecht searched for a more tactful way to put it. “No, no he didn't.”

“Good,” Wallace Pinkham said, closing his eyes and nodding his head slowly. When he opened his eyes he leaned forward and said in his half-whisper, “I don't really know how to go about this. I suppose I need to make arrangements to gather his belongings and have his body brought back home somehow.”

“So, your brother is from Tulsa?” Englebrecht asked.

Wallace hesitated and gestured his hands in little circles while he searched for words. “Not really.”

“Not really?”

“My brother traveled extensively for many years. I don't believe he had any place in particular he could call home.”

“What did he do for work?” Englebrecht asked.

“Again, many things. Many, many things.”

“What for instance?”

Wallace rubbed at his eye with his little finger. He looked down at the floor. “My family has never been very close, sir. All of us are very private people. We love each other very much, don't get me wrong. But we know very little about each other.”

“Mm-hm,” Englebrecht said. “So, tell me, who is Riley Bellamy?”

Wallace cocked his head. “Riley Bellamy? Why, he's my sister's boy.”

“Describe him.”

“Well, he's a small lad, must be in his twenties now. He has dark hair, receding a bit. Nervous kind of boy. My sister gave birth to him by her third husband I believe. Why do you ask?”

“He was here earlier today. So was your sister.”

Wallace mulled that over. He stood up slowly and smiled a faint smile. “Well now, I suppose I have made this long journey for nothing then, haven't I? I'm sure they have taken care of everything.”

“Excuse me just a moment,” Englebrecht said. He left the room and spoke to Petrelli. “Any more updates on this Pinkham thing?” he asked. Petrelli shook his head no. “Okay then, bundle up his stuff. Let's give it to his brother and be done with the whole thing. I don't trust any of them, but this guy's no worse than the other two. Sooner I get rid of that bag of stuff the better I'll feel.”

He walked back into his office. Wallace stood up politely. “Good news for you, Mr. Pinkham. Follow me to Officer Petrelli's desk and he will have you sign a couple forms. Once you do that, you can take your brother's belongings and go.”

“Well, thank you sir,” Wallace said. He shook Englebrecht's hand. “You've been most kind. I truly appreciate it.”

Englebrecht led Wallace to Petrelli's desk. He gave him a card with the address of a funeral home. “You can contact this place to make whatever arrangements you choose to make,” Englebrecht told him.

Wallace took the business card and studied it.

“Officer Petrelli will assist you with the forms,” Englebrecht said.

Wallace thanked him one more time in his hushed voice.

Englebrecht walked quickly back to his office, closed the door, and gave a sigh of relief.

He wasn't disturbed for another twenty minutes.

When the phone rang, he picked it up and Petrelli said, “Sis is here and she's fit to be tied. Says you had no business giving away her brother's belongings.”

“I'll come out,” Englebrecht said. He walked to the front desk where Carrie was in full tirade. Englebrecht looked over at Petrelli. Petrelli gave him a shrug. “I'm sorry, Ms. Friedling, but it's a done deal,” Englebrecht said. “Your brother signed a slip for the belongings, and left. We gave him the address of a funeral home in town. You might catch up with him there.”

Carrie fished a torn business card from her purse and plunked it on the counter. “There's the card you gave him,” she said. “It was in pieces on the ground outside the police station. He never had any intention of taking care of Lucas. He just wanted to get his hands on my brother's belongings. That's all he cared about.”

“Why?” Englebrecht asked. “Why did he want those belongings?”

Carrie glared at Englebrecht before she answered. “Because he's just a damn fool.” She turned and stared out the window. “I'll track him down,” she said. “He's got to be around here somewhere.”

“Probably not,” Petrelli said. “Before he left he called a cab to take him to the airport.”

Carrie swung around. “Airport?”

“Said he had a twelve-forty flight back to Houston.”

Her eyes darted over to the clock. It was twelve-ten. She burst out the front door and ran into the road yelling, “Cab! Cab!”

Petrelli looked at Englebrecht. “Should I bring her back in here before she gets run over?” he asked.

Englebrecht shot him a look. “Are you kidding?” He headed back toward his office, then turned around. “If she starts beating up a cabby bring her in here, otherwise for God's sake, let her go.”

Riley Bellamy showed up at the station at twelve-thirty five.

Englebrecht got another call from Petrelli and went out to the desk again. Bellamy was as agitated as his mother was, but his agitation was a whiny agitation. “You promised you'd give the stuff to me when I came back,” he said. “You promised.”

“Actually, no I didn't. I told you I'd give you a progress report when you came back. And the report is, your uncle got all the belongings and left. In fact, his plane is heading for Houston this very moment.”

Bellamy heard the sound of a plane taking off in the distance. It was carrying Lucas Pinkham's two siblings to Houston, Wallace and Carrie.

“You made a huge mistake,” Bellamy said. “My uncle's a crook, the worst crook I've ever met. You gave the stuff to the wrong person.”

“What stuff?” Englebrecht asked. “You mean the address book?”

“Yes, the address book.”

“What's so valuable about that book?”

Bellamy looked out the window and watched the plane rise between two palm trees, making a slow arc. It was too late to get his share from his mother and uncle. He knew he'd never see any of it now because the Pinkham family rather prided itself on an unforgiving craftiness. You snooze, you always lose, and deserve to lose.

“I hope you were at least smart enough to copy down the list before you gave it to Uncle Wallace,” Bellamy said, clinging to a scrap of revenge.

Englebrecht shot a sheepish look at Petrelli who shot a pained look back, a look that told Bellamy that no copy was made. Bad police work.

“Tell me about Lucas Pinkham,” Englebrecht said. Bellamy didn't answer. “Why did he have so many broken bones? Who did he piss off? Was it drug dealers? Gamblers?”

“You're on the wrong track. Way off. Uncle Lucas made his living by stepping in front of traffic and collecting insurance claims. That's what he did for work. He could take a great flop, my Uncle Lucas.”

“He deliberately let himself get hit by cars?” Petrelli asked.

“Well, not deliberately. He could make it look like a solid hit and the car wouldn't even touch him, but sometimes his timing was off a little. Anyway, the more broken bones he had, the more money he made.”

“That's plain nuts,” Petrelli said.

“I agree,” Bellamy answered. “He was a crook, just like Uncle Wallace, and my own mother. They'll do anything to scam people, and they don't care who they scam. They'll even scam their own family, as you just saw. That's why I've stayed clear of them all my adult life.”

“But I don't understand,” Englebrecht said. “What did your uncle and mother want with those names and numbers in the address book? Who are those people?”

Bellamy grinned. “They're all Uncle Lucas,” he said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Bellamy said. “Nothing at all.” He turned away and headed toward the front door.

Englebrecht scowled off into space.

“Do you want me to bring him back, or let him go?” Petrelli asked.

Englebrecht shrugged. “Let him go, I guess.” He started toward his office, then turned and asked Petrelli, “What do you remember about that list of names?”

“Nothing really,” he answered. “They were just names, names of people who lived nowhere.”

“People who lived in a post office box,” Englebrecht said.

Petrelli nodded.

Wallace Pinkham and his sister sat on a northwest bound plane to Houston, planning their itinerary. They wouldn't be in Houston long. They had twelve post office box combinations to read, twelve personal injury insurance checks to retrieve in twelve places across the country, and twelve phony names to sign. Twelve aliases of Lucas Pinkham. And all the time they would be tracking this down, they would also be trying to figure out how to outsmart each other and get to the post office boxes first and alone. By their reckoning, this was their brother's sole estate—their inheritance—and it was not to be shared with anyone, even each other if they could help it.

And while Wallace and Carrie were busy with their plans, Riley Bellamy walked the streets of Key West, also heading northwest, until he came to Duval Street. He stopped and looked at the cars that were lining the road. Might as well make the most of a bad situation, he figured.

He bought a hotdog from a street vendor, ate half, and crushed the rest of it tight in his left hand.

About a block down the road he saw a dog sitting alone in a car, on the passenger side, with the window rolled halfway down. It looked like maybe a beagle mix breed. Bellamy stuck his left hand close to the dog's nose, let it get a good sniff of the hotdog, then yanked his hand away sharply. He did the same thing a second time and the dog reacted by growling and snapping its jaws. He did it a third time and let the dog chomp down on his hand. The bite marks and gush of blood covered old scars on his hand. Bellamy screamed in pain, “I'm bit! I'm bit! Who owns this vicious dog? I'll sue!” He looked around and waited for the owner to come running forward in a panic.