Read Online The Last Thing I Saw by Richard Stevenson - Free Book Online

he disappeared I was afraid that maybe he went out one night to wherever it was he needed to go after midnight, and that last time he just…he just never came back.”
    Based on what I knew by then about Eddie Wenske’s personal and professional lives, this description of events was about as plausible as any I’d heard. But of course it explained nothing.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Back at the Westin, I phoned Timmy, and he was anxious for my report.
    “I was going to call you if you hadn’t called. Good grief, I saw in The Times about Bryan Kim. What happened?”
    “If you read the paper, you know about as much as I do. Kim was killed several hours before we were supposed to meet at the hotel and go to dinner. Apparently he was bringing along a third party, identity unknown, and I’m guessing it wasn’t just social. The point of the dinner was to talk about Wenske’s disappearance.”
    “So then, does it sound like Kim being killed had something to do with Wenske, and somebody thought he had to shut Kim up?”
    “It sounds like that, and it sounds like a lot of other things too. Such as Kim the man of many boyfriends may have once been involved with a psycho who turned up again, this time off his meds. Or Kim the investigative reporter may have been digging into something that made somebody feel threatened enough to want to shut him up and maybe serve as a warning to others. Or Kim had his own secret dark side, so-called, that led to his brutal murder. The list goes on, and I am going to hope that the Boston cops are competent enough to explore all the possibilities. The guy in charge seems capable, so we’ll see.”
    “Sure,” Timmy said, “I suppose lots of scenarios are plausible. But don’t you think it’s more than coincidence that Kim was killed just before he was bringing somebody along to meet you to talk about Wenske’s disappearance?”
    “Probably.”
    “And you haven’t heard from the third diner?”
    “No, but he may not have my cell number or email address. I take it there have been no odd messages at the house.”
    “None, no.”
    “Anyway, with Kim killed, the third diner may have been scared off. I might never know who he is.”
    “Is or was. Maybe he was killed too.”
    This had not occurred to me—maybe because my need to talk to this mystery man was so great that I had to believe that eventually I would identify him and track him down and learn why Bryan Kim was bringing him along to talk about the missing Eddie Wenske.
    “Timothy, that’s an unsettling possibility you have introduced into the equation. Maybe I should be looking into who else in greater Boston was murdered yesterday afternoon.”
    “That should be easy, right? Boston is not the murder capital of North America.”
    “No, but it’s not Walden Pond in the 1840s either. There’s a lot of drug-related violence. Bad gang stuff, including innocent bystanders dying young and pointlessly. Of course, it’s unlikely Bryan Kim would be bringing any of those people along to dine out in Back Bay on a Saturday night.”
    “Really? But there’s the drug connection coming up again. Maybe all that ugly Weed Wars stuff really will end up leading to an explanation for Eddie Wenske’s disappearance.”
    Why was it that whenever I discussed anything important with Timothy Callahan, I nearly always ended up thinking, yes, on the one hand this, on the other hand that. Maybe because it was so often true that the way things eventually worked out was awfully complicated.
    § § §
    I meant to get in touch with Marsden Davis first thing Monday morning, but I didn’t have to, because he called me.
    “What were you doing in Bryan Kim’s apartment, Strachey? That location is a crime scene, as was clearly indicated. You entered the apartment illegally. Please tell me, if it wouldn’t put you out too much, what the fuck am I supposed to think of that?”
    “I don’t know. What do you think of it?”
    “I think the forensics team did a