Heritage: Against the Grain

Chapter 7 - An Empty Life

John Barringer Driscoll, the third, accountant. The name somehow conjured up a man with a large, proud family in Gillian’s mind—rich people with men who followed in the footsteps of their fathers.

The reality differed greatly from the fairy tale.

The only person with a key to the building was the janitor, and they met him outside.

He turned out to be a curt man, sparse with his words and old before his time.

His hands were heavily rheumatic and work-worn. His hair was steely gray, and his blue eyes were as faded as his coveralls.

He led them up two flights of stairs because there was no elevator.

The building, although neat and well-maintained, was utterly featureless. Functional, boringly similar, drab, uniform, and painted a shade of white not even Gillian could name, but well-built and recently so—no rising damp, neglect, or even one health code violation.

Wordlessly, he opened the door, handed them the key, and walked off.

Gillian and Colt glanced at each other, and the situation would have been amusing if not for the circumstances.

The place feels like a prison block without wardens.

Although they had hoped to learn more about John, they found themselves at a loss.

The interior was as drab as the exterior. At some point, a woman had tried unsuccessfully to soften the hard, functional decor.

The apartment looked unlived in, and there was none of the clutter of human life visible on any surface.

No photos or knick-knacks adorned the surfaces; nothing to say anything about their victim.

John was either obsessively neat, or he never moved in.

“A fine lad… decent like—” It certainly explained the janitor’s sparse description of him.

The kitchen looked unused. Gillian opened the refrigerator to find it virtually empty—but for one tub of margarine and a half loaf of low GI, whole wheat brown bread.

Colt opened the cabinets, and they were stocked with canned foods—mostly soup, fish, and spaghetti packed in neat rows and sorted to death.

“This looks so… staged,” Colt muttered.

The bedroom was the same. A bed, a lamp, and a closet filled with gray suits, white shirts, white socks, and white full-briefs. Navy ties, white cotton pajamas, black dress shoes, and black slippers—arranged with OCD precision.

“My closet looks like the clothing hamper expired; some of this stuff’s still in their packages,” Colt said, walking to the bathroom.

Gillian followed.

The white-tiled bathroom had white towels and white everything.

Colt opened the cabinets. “No medication, toothpaste, shaving cream, or even an electric razor.”

“I don’t get this,” Gillian said. “Why have an apartment when you don’t live in it? Hotel rooms are not as sterile as this. There isn’t a single photo, magazine, diary, or paperclip in the whole place, not even loose change. He doesn’t own a TV, a radio, a laptop, or a CD player. I’ve heard of minimalism, but this is just creepy.”

“No one lives like this.” Colt sounded pissed as she opened the door for the forensic team and waved them inside. “Let’s go find John’s office.”

A smile tugged at Gillian’s lips, but she held it in check.

Colt said those words as if they hadn’t been going to search the office anyway.

Sometimes the detective can be just a bit of a b***h—but I like my new underboss.

The office building didn’t look promising, and the inside less so.

John had a suite of offices that turned out to be an outer office for his secretary, who quit a month prior and wasn’t replaced (according to the receptionist downstairs).

An inner office that looked like his apartment.

A white bathroom behind a paneled wall with a big bath and shower cubicle.

“Signs of life,” Colt murmured when she spotted a medicine cabinet with the usual array of soaps, little this and that’s, aspirin, and razors.

They were also sorted to death, but the entire vibe was different—these were actual traces of the man himself.

Gillian turned and found a little draft touching her skin.

She studied the panel’s details for a moment or two before spotting the button—it slid open smoothly, and Colt jumped at the sound. The detective had her gun in her hand in the blink of an eye.

Gillian raised a brow, and Colt just shrugged at her—the gesture said: rather safe than sorry.

She allowed the detective to walk in first and gave her a moment to settle herself. Everything that was missing from the apartment was here.

John worked to live and lived at work.

“Call Cassie and Clyde, tell them to pack it up, and come over,” Colt ordered. “They won’t find anything at the apartment.”

Gillian obeyed.

It was the small details of people’s lives they were trying to piece together. To find out where they were in those last few hours of their existence—and from that, they tried to discern what singled them out in the eyes of a killer. And this was the part of the job that got to her.

It brings everything down to the bare details and reduces our victims to statistics while making them seem less and more real—all at the same time.

John Driscoll lived in this tiny room inside his office.

It might have once been a panic room of sorts, but it had become his haven.

His laptop stood on his bedside table, and a magazine lay on the bed.

Gillian opened the closet, and it looked nothing like the one at his home. One half was filled with suits and pants, and the rest looked like it belonged to a teenager.

She spotted a Star Wars t-shirt and a pair of leather-studded pants.

When Gillian had seen their faces on that whiteboard earlier in the evening, she had wondered about the average days that started with no warning as to their end. All the little things that consume people’s time and effort.

What is the purpose of it? That expensive breakfast you are too busy to really appreciate. The tailored suit or dress you will not get to wear. That new song you will never hear again. The bill you will not get to pay. The face cream you just had to have but did not get to use. That gift you wrapped up so beautifully, but still had to fill in the card.

It made people’s lives feel so futile. Wasted. Unfinished. Like a beautiful painting only half done.

The potential of it and the wonder ended with a single act of cruelty by one fatal stroke, like cutting a puppet’s string in mid-dance.

“Don’t.”

The word startled Gillian.

She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she’d lost track of the people around her and didn’t hear Colt approach.

“Don’t get entangled in the details of what they would never get to do,” Colt warned. “Their lives were stolen from them, yes. Lilly will never see her children grow up, go to their graduation, attend their weddings, or hold her grandchildren, but Lilly Sims has a legacy. Her children adored her, and we owe them closure.”

Their eyes met.

“We must find this guy so no other child will have to mourn their mother or mother mourn their child.” Colt believed what she said and lived by it—it was her code of honor. “We fight, so no woman loses the chance to tell her man that she loves him. We owe them the devotion of our time and effort to stop this killer and not fail.”

Gillian nodded.

“We can’t do that if we can’t shut away our pity and pain or our feelings of loss and futility.” So much unspoken pain and emotion lay beneath those words, enough to tell a rookie that the lesson had been a dear one. “We can stare at that board and with our secret heart see the people, while with our mind, we need to see the details that connect the dots.”

Gillian opened a drawer but did not see what was inside.

“The only place these people’s lives ever crossed was on the tollgate at the I90…” Gillian said, her mind retracing their steps, and both of them froze.