Cheated By Death

A Jeff Resnick Mystery

by L.L. Bartlett

Copyright © 2010 by L. L. Bartlett

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This novel is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you
share it with. If you're reading this book and you did not purchase
it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should
return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.

A Jeff Resnick Mystery

by L.L. Bartlett

DEDICATION

In Memory Of

Leonard F. Bartlett

1926-2009

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The manuscript for CHEATED BY DEATH has been
read by many past and present critique partners over the years. My
thanks to all of them. However, several of them stand out in my
mind. They are:

Leslie Budwitz

Kate Doran

Doranna Durgin

Gwen Nelson

Sharon Wildwind was generous with her medical
expertise, and Colleen Keuhne and Shelly Franz helped with
proofreading and file formatting.

My thanks to all of you.

For more information on the Jeff Resnick
Mysteries, please visit my website:

LLBartlett.com

A Jeff Resnick Mystery

by L.L. Bartlett

~ PROLOGUE ~

It was not an easy death.

But it wasn’t a satisfying death, either.
Witnessing it didn’t cancel out the emptiness. That never went away
no matter how many pills, how much whiskey or empty sex. It was
always there, eating at the soul like acid through wood.

The old man’s eyes stared vacantly at the
gray sky, his mouth hung open, as though to scream. But the hollow
wail had never come. Knees blown away, then gut shot—his empty
belly had been drained of life.

Revenge wasn’t powerful enough a word to
convey the emotion behind it. The Bible said an eye for an eye, and
the old man had finally paid. Maybe he’d even welcomed it. He’d
lived with his sin for more than two decades.

Payment in full.

Almost.

Scuffed boots kicked the lifeless corpse.
Each death brought closure nearer. The killings gave life purpose.
One person remained. One life left to snuff out . . . one last
person to blame.

And it didn’t matter how many others were
sacrificed to accomplish it.

CHAPTER

1

My long-dead father came back to life on a
mild afternoon in early November. He’d never been dead it turned
out, but I didn’t know that at the time. It’s funny how one
incident can snowball and change your life forever.

Take me. Eight months ago, I was mugged; had
my arm broken and my skull fractured. That’s when things changed.
The way I see things changed. Feelings come to me, and sometimes
fragments of information. Stuff that makes me interested in other
stuff.

Stuff that gets me into trouble.

And then there are times when I’m still
blindsided by life.

On that balmy November afternoon two weeks
before Thanksgiving, I was playing one-on-one basketball with my
half brother, Dr. Richard Alpert. He’s twelve years older than me,
and rich as sin, but he still cheats at one-on-one. He’d just
tripped me—definitely against the Marquis of Queensbury rules,
should they ever be applied to basketball—and I ended up face down
on the dusty driveway, panting for breath. He helped me up.

“That’s enough for me,” I said.

“Come on, Jeff. You’re not hurt.”

I brushed off my sweatpants. “Maybe I should
go to a decent quack and find out.”

“Sticks and stones,” he countered, dribbling
the ball.

“You’ve got a height advantage.”

Richard looked down at me. “What’s six
inches?”

“And forty pounds on me.”

“So eat more,” he said, making a sweet lay-up
shot.

I captured the ball and dodged him. “But I’m
an orphan.”

He skirted round me. “
I’m
the orphan.
Your father’s still alive.”

I stopped dead, thinking I’d heard wrong. He
snatched the ball, sent it arcing for another two points—and
missed.

My fatigue vanished as adrenalin coursed
through me. “What did you say?”

The amusement left his face. “Your father’s
alive.”

My eyes narrowed. “He’s dead. He died when I
was a kid.”

“Who told you that?”

I didn’t know. All I knew was that the
bastard left us and never looked back, and that he was dead.

That I
believed
he was dead.

Richard bounced the ball, caught it, and
hitched it under his arm. “I saw him at the clinic yesterday. He’s
a patient.” Richard doesn’t need to work, but he volunteers his
time a couple days a week at the low-income clinic associated with
the University at Buffalo’s School of Medicine located at one of
the local hospitals.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Emphysema. He’s in pretty bad shape. On
oxygen twenty-four hours a day.”

The ground rolled beneath me. I got a flash
of something—too quick to register—more an impression. Of
death.

And hadn’t Richard broken some kind of
privacy laws by mentioning it?

“Why tell me now? I don’t care about
him.”

“That’s what I figured you’d say.”

“I don’t!” I said, the statement negated by
the emotion behind it.

“Then why are you so upset?”

“For thirty-two years I thought the guy was
dead. Finding out he isn’t threw me, that’s all. Come on, let’s go
for another game.”

He shrugged, bounced the ball, faked a throw,
Nikes squeaking on the drive as he pivoted then threw for real. Rim
shot.

I grabbed it. “Is he dying?”

“I thought you didn’t care?”

“I don’t.” The ball hit the backboard, missed
the hoop.

“Yeah, he’s dying.” His back to me, Richard
dribbled, turned, went for a long shot. Two points.

I captured the ball. “Did he know who you
were?”

“I said my name a couple of times, but I
don’t think it registered.”

I bounced the ball, threw it. It danced
around the rim. Missed.

Richard seized it.

“Are you sure it was him?” I asked.

“Chester Resnick. Do you want me to get his
address?”

“What for?”

“I know you’ll want to send flowers after
he’s gone.” He tossed the ball at me, and hit me in the chest.

“Screw you. I wouldn’t waste my time—let
alone money.”

I bounced the ball a few times, went to throw
and he blocked me, and took back the ball. I wiped the sweat from
my eyes. “When will you see him again?”

“I’ll find out his next appointment and make
sure I see him instead of one of the other doctors.”

“Don’t bother. He left us. Never got in touch
with me. Why the
hell
would I want to see him?” I took a
deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I guess this got to me more than I’d
like.”

Richard dribbled, dribbled, dribbled. For
such an old guy, he kept maneuvering out of my reach. I made a grab
for the ball, but he was too quick.

“Gimme the damn ball,” I growled.

Dribble, dribble. “If you decide you do want
to meet him, don’t wait too long.” He took a shot. It soared
through the hoop and net. Perfect.

I snatched the ball, and started getting one
of those feelings—the ones I know better than to ignore—about my
father. Richard ducked quick, took it from me again. I hadn’t even
known the old man was alive, and now I knew with certainty he’d
soon be dead. One of my skull-pounding headaches, a remnant of the
mugging that had nearly killed me, stirred.

“Don’t worry, Jeff. Nothing says you have to
see him or talk to him, let alone make your peace with him.”

Slam dunk.

I picked up the ball and started for my
apartment over the garage. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“Think about it,” he called after me.

“Sure,” I grumbled. “Later.”

Much later.

That night
I tended bar at a local
tavern where I work part-time. The Whole Nine Yards was nothing
fancy, just a neighborhood sports bar with one large-screen TV and
a middle-class clientele. I was grateful for a slow night, because
thoughts of my father kept me preoccupied. After screwing up my
fourth drink order, my boss, Tom Link, asked if I was trying to
drive him into bankruptcy. I apologized, but he laughed, gave me a
thumbs-up, and headed down the bar to talk to one of his
cronies.

I was drawing beers for two guys watching the
Sabres pregame show on the tube when Maggie Brennan, my lady of
five months, walked in. The bar wasn’t on her usual route home from
work. She looked professional in her business suit, her
shoulder-length auburn hair wind-tossed and sexy.

“Hey, baby,” I said, using my best Bogie
slur. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She slid smoothly onto a bar stool. “I think
I could be coaxed into it.”

“Cosmopolitan?” I offered.

“How about a glass of cabernet?”

“Coming right up.” I poured the wine and put
out a fresh bowl of pretzels. “What brings you here?” As if I
didn’t know.

“A little bird called and said you might need
a friendly face to talk to.”

“This
little
bird wouldn’t happen to
be six-two and sporting a mustache, would he?”

“He might.” Her expression softened. “Richard
told me about your dad.”

“He’s not my dad,” I snapped, instantly
regretting it. “Sorry, babe, but he was there for my conception—and
not much else.”

“I know about how he left your mom and
you.”

“Yeah, so the hell with him.”

She raised her glass in salute. “The hell
with him.”

“Right. Why would I want to meet him, let
alone get to know him?”

“He’s not worth your time.”

I frowned at her too-casual attitude.

“I’m just agreeing with you,” she said, and
took another sip of wine. “Yeah, why would you want to know the man
who gave you life? You don’t need to find out what went wrong with
his marriage to your mother. But what if he’d wanted to be more to
you? What if leaving was a mistake he always regretted?”

“And what if it wasn’t? What if he is just
some piece of shit who isn’t worth my time?”

“And what if he isn’t and you never prove it
to yourself before he dies? Will
you
be able to live with
that?”

I glared at her, yet some part of me was
thinking exactly the same thing.

“Jeff?” Tom caught my eye, thumbed toward the
hockey fans.

I poured another round and rang up the sale.
I took my time washing the glasses, thinking over what Maggie had
said.

A couple of guys came in and ordered mixed drinks.
“I’d better go,” she told me and collected her purse, then leaned
across the bar to give me a kiss. “You don’t have to make a
decision tonight. Just think about the pros and cons of meeting
him.”

I rested my fingers on top of her hand.
Because of this psychic crap I’m cursed with, she was one of the
few people I felt comfortable touching. “Okay.”

“I’ll be home if you want to talk later,” she
said, and headed out the door.

Despite my efforts to keep busy, the rest of
the evening dragged, leaving me plenty of time to consider all
she’d said.

I kept catching sight of myself in the mirror
behind the bar. Did I look like the old man? How much of my
character reflected his? That sobering thought haunted me in the
form of relentless self-examination, reigniting thirty-two years of
submerged anger.

“Don’t wait too long,” Richard had said.

I’d already waited thirty-two years.

Far too long.

I didn’t
sleep well that night,
obsessed with vague, unpleasant dreams. Images of a dead, faceless,
white-haired man, and an overpowering feeling of dread haunted my
sleep. I didn’t need a shrink to help me figure out the
significance of that subconscious message.

I chose the phone book as reading material to
go with my morning coffee. Only two Resnicks were listed—I was one
of them. The other was C. Resnick. I didn’t call. That might
indicate I gave a shit about a man I barely remembered.

I wasn’t scheduled to work that evening and
spent the day staring out the window or pacing the confines of my
apartment. Finally I hiked down the road to the community golf
course and shot a roll of black-and-white film. The temperature had
reverted to autumn norms, and the gray sky made the landscape look
as bleak as I felt. I returned to my darkroom and developed the
negatives, but didn’t bother with more than making a contact sheet.
Photography’s a hobby that sometimes lands me money. That day it
merely kept me occupied.