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"Boulder Aymer Is Dead"
"Boulder Aymer Is Dead"
1/18/2006
I.
"The police won't be here for at least an hour," Bane told the family that was staring at him. "Due to the roads being closed because of the icy conditions and the fact that they are still tied up dealing with a three car collision on the LIE with one fatality, Sergeant Raskowskie tells me he doesn't expect officers to get here until midnight at the earliest."
Woody Aymer, eccentric father of an eccentric family, regarded him with one good eye. The left one was glass, crafted well enough but given away by the manner in which it did not move with its organic mate. Woody was tall and skinny, with a pointed white beard and long white hair that reached his shoulders. His face was taut and his lips pressed hard together as he fought to keep control of himself. Beside him was his wife of thirty years, Frieda, just as tall but a little too voluptuous in a black dress tighter and shorter than seemed appropriate for a woman her age. Her own hair was so completely jet black that it seemed obvious it had been given some help from a bottle.
Facing the two of them, Jeremy Bane felt his mind working furiously as it tried to take in so many details at once, organizing and analyzing. The Aymers were Internet royalty in their way. Their creative and bizarre YouTube videos had over two million subscribers, with a huge number of views every time they released a new one. The Aymers made what were essentially five-minute horror movies with a comedy twist at the end. Some of their catchphrases had passed into common usage on message boards. Bane had not been aware of any of this. He had hastily looked it all up before coming here just a few minutes earlier.
The Dire Wolf stepped back and looked over the scene again. The Aymers had converted their living room into a movie set by moving out all the furnishings. Behind him, six plastic lawn chairs sat in a loose row against the far wall, and a powerful lamp was attached to a metal pole that one of them held for each scene. The wall nearest them was covered with a green silk curtain. As Bane understood the process, the Aymers would later insert scenery filmed elsewhere where the green showed.
Lying on the bare wood floor, blond head propped up against the wall where he had fallen, was the body of the youngest son. Boulder Aymer, named because he had been conceived on a trip to Boulder, Colorado nineteen years earlier. The hole in the middle of his chest was small and only had a smear of blood around it, but a big puddle had seeped out from under him as the exit wound would be larger. Boulder had been a good-looking kid, with almost androgynous features, and he was a major reason for the success of the Aymer videos. The famous sky-blue eyes were rolled up as if he had been trying to see his own forehead when he died.
Bane had crouched over the corpse but not touched it. He did not want to be later blamed for tampering with the crime scene, as lawyers might use that somehow. The Dire Wolf straightened up again. He was wearing his invariable uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, but he also had a long black coat on and a pair of thin leather gloves. He had walked here from the Holiday Inn just down the road rather than drive half a mile on the slick roads.
"I'm glad you were so close at hand, Jeremy," said Woody Aymer in an unsteady voice. "When I talked to you earlier today, I never expected to be seeing you under these dreadful circumstances."
"Oh my baby, my bady," Frieda wailed. She had stopped crying except in bursts, and was wiping her face and blowing her nose with paper towels from a roll that sat on the floor near them for some reason. "Boulder was the most beautiful child. Like an angel. And now he is one!" That set her off again.
"He'll be the biggest star on YouTube now," said Locke. He either was not moved by the events or just had a natural deadpan face. "My little brother is immortal now as far his fans are concerned."
II.
The Dire Wolf swung around to face the rest of the family. He had already gotten their names. The oldest son, Donnie, with his beer belly and red beard, stood a head taller than anyone else in a family of tall people. Locke, thin and shorter, had a bristling head of hair the same bright red. That left sad old Hyde, a lifelong friend of the family. Hyde had suffered detached retinas after a bad fall years earlier and had only limited vision in one eye. He and Woody had this shared affliction between them.
It had been Hyde who had fired the fatal shot. He still seemed to not fully understand what was going on. His head moved to follow each person who spoke but his face remained confused.
"Mrs Aymer, perhaps you should take a seat in one of those chairs," Bane said in a gentle a tone as he could manage. "In fact, I want all of you to sit down to keep the scene as untouched as possible. That's good. Okay, now." He didn't say so but he also wanted them all within sight to watch their reactions.
The heavyset redhead Donnie had a flushed face and a distinct odor of beer. He was glaring at Bane with open hostility. "Why should we do anything you say, mister? You didn't know Boulder! I never saw you before." He tightened his freckled hands into fists and Bane watched him warily. Those big bony fists would hit like hammers if the drunk redhead connected.
Taking his document case from an inside pocket, the Dire Wolf opened it and held out his PI card close enough for the man to read. "I am a private detective, licensed by the City and State of New York," he said calmly. "I knew your parents years ago when they got drawn into an kidnapping investigation. The police thought they had something to do with it, but I managed to clear things up."
"And we have been grateful ever since!" snapped the father at the redhead. "We owe Jeremy a real debt. Whenever he's out here on the end of Long Island, he calls to see how we're doing."
"We asked him to stay here tonight," the mother said, still dabbing at her eyes. "So he wouldn't have to drive all the way to Manhattan with the roads the way they are."
"I appreciated the offer, but I already had a room booked and I needed to make a lot of phone calls tonight," Bane said. "It's just chance that I was so close when this happened. Now, run it past me again. What were you filming?"
Woody Aymer took a deep breath. He seemed to be holding his emotions in as if afraid that once he let them out he would lose control altogether. "It was for one of our skits. You see that baseball cap on the floor over there? It has fishing line tied to it that goes up to a eyelet in the ceiling. We were supposed to see only Hyde's hand raise the gun and fire, then I would yank the fishing line and the cap would fly up off Boulder's head. It was a joke reaction, you understand?"
"I see," answered Bane. "And you were using a blank cartridge, of course?"
"Of course! I made it myself. I've done it before for our videos. There was gunpowder in the cartridge, but no bullet. Just a paper wadding to hold the powder in. The gun was far enough back that the wad couldn't have hurt poor Boulder."
Bane went and crouched low over the floor. "Yep, here's the wadding. All burnt, of course. It certainly couldn't have hurt the boy."
"Then how is he dead?" screamed the mother. "There he lies, my baby! You say the blank was harmless but there he lies."
"There's one answer but you're not going to like it. Who loaded the blank?"
"I did," said Woody. "I prepared the blank and put it in the chamber just before the scene."
"Did you inspect the barrel right before use?"
"What? No, why would I do that? I cleaned that piece last night. It's my personal Ruger, I've used it for years." Woody sat up straighter and his mouth worked as if about to speak but he couldn't get anything out. He was under immense stress.
Bane was trying hard to keep his voice calm and reassuring, but that was not his normal manner. "This is important. Was the gun locked up until use?"
"No. Sorry, no. I keep it in that drawer over there, always unloaded of course. We've used it in our videos several times, I don't think I've fired live ammo for over a year at this point. There's a box of cartridges in the bottom drawer but I haven't even opened it."
"There have been a few cases where something in the barrel of the gun was forced out by the firing of a blank cartridge. Muzzle blast is enough at close range that even a small bit of debris can inflict a fatal wound." Bane bent over the corpse and studied it again. "This will have to wait for the autopsy, of course. But I think a real bullet was in the barrel of that gun. The paper wad was forced out to send the slug right at Boulder here as fast as if it had been shot from the chamber."
"What?" bellowed Donnie, rising up to loom over Bane like a bear rearing up on its hind legs. "That's insane! There must be another explanation!"
"Sit down." There was an icy authority in the Dire Wolf's voice that reached through even the slight alcohol daze that Donnie was wrapped within. "Good. Listen closely. I know which one of you placed that bullet in the barrel so that Boulder would be killed."
A few seconds later, Bane held up his hands for silence. "That is such an old trick I'm ashamed to use it. But it usually works. All of you looked back and forth at each other, wondering who did it. Except one. One of you just looked right at me." The Dire Wolf pointed an accusing finger. "Locke."
"You're crazy. I had nothing to do with it," the middle son said with a smile that did not touch his eyes.
"That grin convinces me." Bane's pale eyes had seldom seemed colder. "The police will conduct their own investigation but I will be signing an affadavit under oath about this past half hour. They know me. And I think they will agree that Locke here is the only suspect worth prosecuting. Was the motive simple jealousy? Envy of the good-looking little brother who had all the fame? No, you don't need to answer."
"Locke..." said Woody. "My boy. Tell me this isn't true."
"Of course it's not true!" Locke snapped. "Don't believe anything this fool says. He doesn't know us. He's just wrong about everything."
"I imagine you left evidence somehow," the Dire Wolf said. "They always do. You wiped the Ruger itself so your prints aren't on it. But what about the handle of the desk drawer where the live ammo is kept? Would there be any reason why your fresh prints would be on that handle right now?"
With something like a snarl, Locke jumped to his feet and lunged but an open palm from Bane cracked into the middle of his chest and drove him back faster than he had been moving forward. The middle brother landed sitting up, almost knocking the lawn chair over but just barely staying in place.
"I'd take that as a confession," the Dire Wolf said. "Now we just wait for the LI police department to get here." He exhaled and went over to unfold a chair for himself. "Woody. Mrs Aymer, Donnie, Hyde. I haven't even given you my condolences yet. I'm sorry about the death of your son. It's not given to us to restore life. All we can do is try to find some justice when we can."
6/26/2016
1/18/2006
I.
"The police won't be here for at least an hour," Bane told the family that was staring at him. "Due to the roads being closed because of the icy conditions and the fact that they are still tied up dealing with a three car collision on the LIE with one fatality, Sergeant Raskowskie tells me he doesn't expect officers to get here until midnight at the earliest."
Woody Aymer, eccentric father of an eccentric family, regarded him with one good eye. The left one was glass, crafted well enough but given away by the manner in which it did not move with its organic mate. Woody was tall and skinny, with a pointed white beard and long white hair that reached his shoulders. His face was taut and his lips pressed hard together as he fought to keep control of himself. Beside him was his wife of thirty years, Frieda, just as tall but a little too voluptuous in a black dress tighter and shorter than seemed appropriate for a woman her age. Her own hair was so completely jet black that it seemed obvious it had been given some help from a bottle.
Facing the two of them, Jeremy Bane felt his mind working furiously as it tried to take in so many details at once, organizing and analyzing. The Aymers were Internet royalty in their way. Their creative and bizarre YouTube videos had over two million subscribers, with a huge number of views every time they released a new one. The Aymers made what were essentially five-minute horror movies with a comedy twist at the end. Some of their catchphrases had passed into common usage on message boards. Bane had not been aware of any of this. He had hastily looked it all up before coming here just a few minutes earlier.
The Dire Wolf stepped back and looked over the scene again. The Aymers had converted their living room into a movie set by moving out all the furnishings. Behind him, six plastic lawn chairs sat in a loose row against the far wall, and a powerful lamp was attached to a metal pole that one of them held for each scene. The wall nearest them was covered with a green silk curtain. As Bane understood the process, the Aymers would later insert scenery filmed elsewhere where the green showed.
Lying on the bare wood floor, blond head propped up against the wall where he had fallen, was the body of the youngest son. Boulder Aymer, named because he had been conceived on a trip to Boulder, Colorado nineteen years earlier. The hole in the middle of his chest was small and only had a smear of blood around it, but a big puddle had seeped out from under him as the exit wound would be larger. Boulder had been a good-looking kid, with almost androgynous features, and he was a major reason for the success of the Aymer videos. The famous sky-blue eyes were rolled up as if he had been trying to see his own forehead when he died.
Bane had crouched over the corpse but not touched it. He did not want to be later blamed for tampering with the crime scene, as lawyers might use that somehow. The Dire Wolf straightened up again. He was wearing his invariable uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, but he also had a long black coat on and a pair of thin leather gloves. He had walked here from the Holiday Inn just down the road rather than drive half a mile on the slick roads.
"I'm glad you were so close at hand, Jeremy," said Woody Aymer in an unsteady voice. "When I talked to you earlier today, I never expected to be seeing you under these dreadful circumstances."
"Oh my baby, my bady," Frieda wailed. She had stopped crying except in bursts, and was wiping her face and blowing her nose with paper towels from a roll that sat on the floor near them for some reason. "Boulder was the most beautiful child. Like an angel. And now he is one!" That set her off again.
"He'll be the biggest star on YouTube now," said Locke. He either was not moved by the events or just had a natural deadpan face. "My little brother is immortal now as far his fans are concerned."
II.
The Dire Wolf swung around to face the rest of the family. He had already gotten their names. The oldest son, Donnie, with his beer belly and red beard, stood a head taller than anyone else in a family of tall people. Locke, thin and shorter, had a bristling head of hair the same bright red. That left sad old Hyde, a lifelong friend of the family. Hyde had suffered detached retinas after a bad fall years earlier and had only limited vision in one eye. He and Woody had this shared affliction between them.
It had been Hyde who had fired the fatal shot. He still seemed to not fully understand what was going on. His head moved to follow each person who spoke but his face remained confused.
"Mrs Aymer, perhaps you should take a seat in one of those chairs," Bane said in a gentle a tone as he could manage. "In fact, I want all of you to sit down to keep the scene as untouched as possible. That's good. Okay, now." He didn't say so but he also wanted them all within sight to watch their reactions.
The heavyset redhead Donnie had a flushed face and a distinct odor of beer. He was glaring at Bane with open hostility. "Why should we do anything you say, mister? You didn't know Boulder! I never saw you before." He tightened his freckled hands into fists and Bane watched him warily. Those big bony fists would hit like hammers if the drunk redhead connected.
Taking his document case from an inside pocket, the Dire Wolf opened it and held out his PI card close enough for the man to read. "I am a private detective, licensed by the City and State of New York," he said calmly. "I knew your parents years ago when they got drawn into an kidnapping investigation. The police thought they had something to do with it, but I managed to clear things up."
"And we have been grateful ever since!" snapped the father at the redhead. "We owe Jeremy a real debt. Whenever he's out here on the end of Long Island, he calls to see how we're doing."
"We asked him to stay here tonight," the mother said, still dabbing at her eyes. "So he wouldn't have to drive all the way to Manhattan with the roads the way they are."
"I appreciated the offer, but I already had a room booked and I needed to make a lot of phone calls tonight," Bane said. "It's just chance that I was so close when this happened. Now, run it past me again. What were you filming?"
Woody Aymer took a deep breath. He seemed to be holding his emotions in as if afraid that once he let them out he would lose control altogether. "It was for one of our skits. You see that baseball cap on the floor over there? It has fishing line tied to it that goes up to a eyelet in the ceiling. We were supposed to see only Hyde's hand raise the gun and fire, then I would yank the fishing line and the cap would fly up off Boulder's head. It was a joke reaction, you understand?"
"I see," answered Bane. "And you were using a blank cartridge, of course?"
"Of course! I made it myself. I've done it before for our videos. There was gunpowder in the cartridge, but no bullet. Just a paper wadding to hold the powder in. The gun was far enough back that the wad couldn't have hurt poor Boulder."
Bane went and crouched low over the floor. "Yep, here's the wadding. All burnt, of course. It certainly couldn't have hurt the boy."
"Then how is he dead?" screamed the mother. "There he lies, my baby! You say the blank was harmless but there he lies."
"There's one answer but you're not going to like it. Who loaded the blank?"
"I did," said Woody. "I prepared the blank and put it in the chamber just before the scene."
"Did you inspect the barrel right before use?"
"What? No, why would I do that? I cleaned that piece last night. It's my personal Ruger, I've used it for years." Woody sat up straighter and his mouth worked as if about to speak but he couldn't get anything out. He was under immense stress.
Bane was trying hard to keep his voice calm and reassuring, but that was not his normal manner. "This is important. Was the gun locked up until use?"
"No. Sorry, no. I keep it in that drawer over there, always unloaded of course. We've used it in our videos several times, I don't think I've fired live ammo for over a year at this point. There's a box of cartridges in the bottom drawer but I haven't even opened it."
"There have been a few cases where something in the barrel of the gun was forced out by the firing of a blank cartridge. Muzzle blast is enough at close range that even a small bit of debris can inflict a fatal wound." Bane bent over the corpse and studied it again. "This will have to wait for the autopsy, of course. But I think a real bullet was in the barrel of that gun. The paper wad was forced out to send the slug right at Boulder here as fast as if it had been shot from the chamber."
"What?" bellowed Donnie, rising up to loom over Bane like a bear rearing up on its hind legs. "That's insane! There must be another explanation!"
"Sit down." There was an icy authority in the Dire Wolf's voice that reached through even the slight alcohol daze that Donnie was wrapped within. "Good. Listen closely. I know which one of you placed that bullet in the barrel so that Boulder would be killed."
A few seconds later, Bane held up his hands for silence. "That is such an old trick I'm ashamed to use it. But it usually works. All of you looked back and forth at each other, wondering who did it. Except one. One of you just looked right at me." The Dire Wolf pointed an accusing finger. "Locke."
"You're crazy. I had nothing to do with it," the middle son said with a smile that did not touch his eyes.
"That grin convinces me." Bane's pale eyes had seldom seemed colder. "The police will conduct their own investigation but I will be signing an affadavit under oath about this past half hour. They know me. And I think they will agree that Locke here is the only suspect worth prosecuting. Was the motive simple jealousy? Envy of the good-looking little brother who had all the fame? No, you don't need to answer."
"Locke..." said Woody. "My boy. Tell me this isn't true."
"Of course it's not true!" Locke snapped. "Don't believe anything this fool says. He doesn't know us. He's just wrong about everything."
"I imagine you left evidence somehow," the Dire Wolf said. "They always do. You wiped the Ruger itself so your prints aren't on it. But what about the handle of the desk drawer where the live ammo is kept? Would there be any reason why your fresh prints would be on that handle right now?"
With something like a snarl, Locke jumped to his feet and lunged but an open palm from Bane cracked into the middle of his chest and drove him back faster than he had been moving forward. The middle brother landed sitting up, almost knocking the lawn chair over but just barely staying in place.
"I'd take that as a confession," the Dire Wolf said. "Now we just wait for the LI police department to get here." He exhaled and went over to unfold a chair for himself. "Woody. Mrs Aymer, Donnie, Hyde. I haven't even given you my condolences yet. I'm sorry about the death of your son. It's not given to us to restore life. All we can do is try to find some justice when we can."
6/26/2016