She nodded eagerly, her hazel eyes sparkling. “Absolutely. Where to next?”
He dug a few bills out of his wallet and tossed them on the table, waving away her own attempt to help pay the check. It wasn’t a date but Jason was old-fashioned about things like who paid or who opened the door.
“Billings. We’re going to talk to Roger Gaines’s older brother.” He checked himself. “Wait, I meant I am going to talk and you are going to sit there quietly and listen. How does that sound?”
Her full pink lips drooped with disappointment. “Typical. It sounds typical. But I’ll be like a quiet little mouse. You won’t even know I’m there.”
Jason would always know Brinley was near. She was a woman you couldn’t miss or ignore.
Chapter Six
‡
The resemblance was strong between Stuart and Roger Gaines. Both had a pallor that spoke of an indoor lifestyle plus a slight paunch around the middle that suggested hours of sitting per day. Both had the same hooked nose at the bridge and dark brown hair with a receding hairline. The only difference was that Stuart’s – being the older brother – had marched back a few more inches than Roger’s.
Stuart Gaines and his wife Lisa sat across from Jason and Brinley at the couple’s kitchen table. Stuart was holding his wife’s hand while drinking a cup of the coffee Lisa had served when they all sat down.
“We’re very sorry for your loss, Mr. Gaines. I know this is a difficult time for you and your wife but I do need to ask you a few questions. Your information could help us find the person that did this to Roger.”
Brinley held her tongue as Jason tried to alleviate the tension in the air. She’d never talked to anyone whose loved one had been murdered. Lisa and Stuart both had red-rimmed eyes indicating they’d been crying. It felt strange and a little rude to intrude upon someone’s grieving with nosy, personal questions but she and Jason had little choice if they wanted to find the killer.
“It’s okay.” Stuart squeezed his wife’s hand and nodded. Lisa’s lips trembled and she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “We want to help if we can.”
“I appreciate your cooperation.” Jason flipped open a small notebook, pen poised. “What can you tell us about your brother, Mr. Gaines? What were his usual daily habits? Who were his friends? That sort of thing. Please, take your time.”
Husband and wife quickly glanced at one another before Stuart spoke. “Roger was currently unemployed. He’d been having some trouble finding full time work since he graduated.”
“That was from the University of Montana, correct? In psychology?”
“Yes, that’s correct. He was planning to go to graduate school but he hadn’t gotten around to filling out the paperwork and so forth.”
While Jason and Stuart Gaines discussed the mundane topic of Roger’s educational goals, Brinley allowed her gaze to wander around the room. The kitchen was bright and sunny, scrupulously clean and tidy. The living room they’d walked through when they’d entered the home had been the same, barely looking lived in. Brinley’s own home was always clean but cluttered with books and newspapers in the living room and socks on the bedroom floor.
“So how did Roger spend his time when he wasn’t looking for a job?”
Lisa’s lips thinned and Stuart shifted in his chair. “Well, that’s an interesting question. The last several months Roger wasn’t really looking for a job. Not seriously anyway. He spent most of his time on his laptop. Pretty much all day and most of the night too.”
That sounded boring as hell but then Brinley was used to talking to people all day, even if those people happened to be short and about seven years old.
“Did Roger have any enemies? Anyone who might have wanted to hurt him? Anyone he may have owed money to?”
“He only owed money to us,” Lisa said, sitting up straighter in her chair. Stuart gave her a quelling look but she shook her head, rejecting whatever silent message was passing between the two of them. “What can it hurt now? Roger was a good boy but he had very little ambition since he graduated. The fact is I don’t think he wanted a job. When we would ask him about it he would talk about making YouTube videos and making a living that way.”
Brinley hadn’t even known you could make a living doing that. Apparently Jason hadn’t either because his brows had shot up and he was intently scribbling in his notebook.
“So you had to lend him money? But he didn’t borrow from anyone else?”
“Not that we know of. I asked Roger and he said he hadn’t.” Stuart answered this time and Lisa twisted her hands together, the knuckles white. “Roger had simply lost his way, that’s all. The fact is we didn’t see much of him unless it was dinner time. He kept to himself. Strange hours. He would have gotten bored eventually and straightened out.”
“What about his friends? Is there anyone he was close to? Maybe a girlfriend?”
“Roger didn’t go out much. He was kind of a homebody these past months.” Stuart frowned for a moment. “He did have a good friend in high school and college. Brad Enright. Good guy. We liked him a lot.”
Jason scratched down the name. “Is Brad local to the area?”
Lisa smiled and nodded. “He certainly is. He took over his father’s car dealership on the edge of town. Enright Luxury Cars. Brad was such a good friend to Roger. They were inseparable for the longest time.”
“We’ll want to talk to Brad. Can you think of anyone else?”
Stuart shook his head, red streaks high on his cheeks. “Roger didn’t share much with us, and I didn’t want to pry. He was a grown man, after all.”
Kind of. It sounded like Roger had never really launched into adulthood the way he should have.
“Can we see his room? It might help.”
The couple looked at each other, their expressions dubious, but finally Stuart relented, nodding his agreement.
“I guess it would be okay. We haven’t been up there in several days and it might be messy.”
“That’s fine,” Jason assured the man. “We’re not here to judge, only to try and find some leads.”
Lisa seemed to breathe easier. “I’ll show you up then. If you’ll follow me.”
The couple stood and she and Jason followed them past the laundry room to a set of stairs at the far side of the house. At the top was a closed door that Stuart opened, flipping on a light switch on the wall.
“Here it is. I don’t know how it will help.”
The smell was the first thing to hit Brinley. A combination of body odor and rotting food. She felt her stomach twist in her abdomen and she had to swallow down her rising breakfast that had lodged in her throat.
This was beyond mere clutter.
It looked like Roger had never put away anything in his entire life. Clothes, books, magazines, even dirty dishes were stacked everywhere. The only place that could be considered habitable was the desk area and still it was covered with papers and dust.
Lisa and Stuart looked embarrassed and uncomfortable. They’d probably had no idea of what they were going to find in this hidden room.
“You don’t need to hang around while we search if you don’t want to. We’ll call you if we need anything,” Jason offered.
“Well, if you don’t mind.” Stuart looked eager to leave the room. “We do have some arrangements still to make for the funeral. If you need us we’ll be in the kitchen.”
The couple practically fell over each other as they ran down the stairs. Brinley watched their hasty exit and then looked balefully at the room. “I can’t say as I blame them. This is beyond disgusting. How could he live in this?”
“You should have seen the apartment I lived in with three other guys in college,” Jason chuckled. “It wasn’t quite this bad but it wasn’t good either. We never brought girls back home. They would have run screaming from the building and never looked back.”