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Adrian stared into her grandfather’s casket with mixed emotions. Grief filled her soul, but she didn’t cry. Everybody around her cried, but she didn’t. She just stared, thinking back on his life. And on his death.
She would never forget the day that she picked up her telephone and the voice on the other end said that he had been killed. Murdered in his living room. Signs of a brief struggle were evident, but the assailant had won, and her grandfather was dead for three days before a neighbor found him. Adrian shuddered at the thought of it as she stared at the gunshot wound to his neck. Makeup partially covered it, but the signs were still evident.
“He was a sweet man, wasn’t he?” Mrs. Reese, a friend of Adrian’s mother, said. “I can’t understand why somebody would murder him in cold blood.”
“He was rich,” Adrian suggested, raising her hand to wipe away the tears welling in her eyes. “That’s all I can think of.”
“Were you close to him?” Mrs. Reese looked at her expectantly, and Adrian shook her head.
“Not really, and I regret that in a way. But the murderer didn’t make off with his money; he apparently left the house alone other than to kill Grandpa.”
“It’s a shame we weren’t closer to him,” Jason said. He put a long arm around his sister and squeezed her shoulder. “We could have inherited some of the fortune, and we’d be so much better off, especially since we’re in our twenties now and could use the money.”
“That’s all you can think about right now?” she asked, unsure she had heard him correctly. “He’s lying here dead, and…”
“I’m just saying that we might as well have gotten something out of the old man’s death,” he replied. Mrs. Reese stared at him in disbelief before walking away.
Adrian examined her brother as he looked at the dead, pale, cold body in the casket. The set look on his face told her something, something that she didn’t even want to think about. “You did it, didn’t you?” she said. The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them.
A smirk crossed Jason’s face as he looked back down at her. “Of course I did, Adrian, and you and I both know that you’ll never let anybody know I did it.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked, her body shaking. This wasn’t the brother she knew, the one who had always cared for her and protected her growing up. And now he had killed their grandfather. Why?
“Because, if you tell somebody, I will kill myself.” His words struck terror in her heart. “And I know you don’t want that.”
She didn’t say anything else to her brother for the rest of the funeral. That night, as she lay in bed, a knock suddenly sounded on the door. She grabbed a knife to protect herself before hesitantly opening the door. To her relief, it was Sergeant Peters from the Police Department. “Yes, Mr. Peters?” she greeted him, ushering him into her house. He had been the man who had broken the news to her about her grandfather.
“Adrian, I hate to tell you this,” he started, “but your brother shot himself in the head outside of the funeral home tonight.
Adrian gasped, and then asked the dreaded question. “Why?”
“I don’t know. We’re investigating it. Adrian, I am so sorry,” the officer said. He stayed and chatted with her about some details for a little while before leaving.
The next morning, as she was rifling through her purse for something, she came upon a note that was scribbled in her brother’s handwriting. It said:
Adrian, I know what you did. I didn’t want this for you, but I know you killed Grandpa because you wanted to be rid of him. I know he was old and feeble and wouldn’t live much longer. I know that Mom took most of her time, time that could have been spent with us, to take care of him. I know that you killed him to free us all from the burden of having to live with him. Why, Adrian, did you not think it through? You see, I pulled up in his driveway that night because I was going to do the same thing you did. I saw your car and drove away, and then later found out that he was dead. I know it was you, and because I cannot live with myself for not beating you to it and keeping you from having to cover up your crime, I am going to kill myself. I hope the best for you, but I just can’t go on with myself knowing that you did it and having to cover up for you. I love you, and I hope that by my death I can do more for you than I ever did for anyone else.
Love,
Jason
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