Dust

  Chapter 23 - Whodunit

  “So you don’t think Steven killed himself?” Asked Phillip.

  Smitty shook his head.

  Others in the room started to drift toward Phillip’s table. This had for certain been on everybody’s mind. Millions may be falling out there every day – they’re statistics to be studied, but the death of the one person you knew and worked with every day, now that’s personal and emotional. It was especially emotional for Phillip who occupied the position of not one but two men who died suddenly.

  “If he didn’t blow his own brains out then who murdered Steven and staged it to look like suicide?” asked Phillip rhetorically.

  Phillip answered his own question. “I really don't know. We may never know. It could have been suicide just like it looked. Steven had done a pretty horrific thing to everyone on earth. His conscious may have convicted him or perhaps he couldn't face the humiliation that would have come when he would have had to face justice for his deception and its consequences. We were a little slow but we did figure out what he had done.

  “But in cases of suicide, there is often a note. It was a shot through the temple – dedicated suicides put the gun barrel in their mouth. There was only one cartridge in the revolver and it had no fingerprints on it. Was Steven playing Russian roulette by himself? Where did the gun come from? There was no serial number on it. It wasn’t that the numbers had been filled off – there never had been any on the gun. That’s not something the man in the street can come up with. It sounds like black ops.

  “OK, suspect number one: It could have been Jon who wasn't really in on the scheme but found out he'd been used by someone who was supposed to love him. I'm not convinced Jon is the type to commit murder but that’s the type that does. He has been conspicuously absent since Steven's death.” There were some murmurs in the crowd from those who had been clueless about Steven’s personal life.

  “Suspect number two: Charles, with or without the help of Brenda, whose ambition got the better of him. He had something to gain from Steven's death. I felt he wanted to kill me at one point. I'm not sure he was smart enough to pull it off but you never know. One could think that for a career army guy killing would be a legitimate solution to a problem. I have to believe Steven would have dealt with the stink those two were making and they should have known that he would. Either the passion of their extracurricular activities was so strong that they acted without thinking or they felt protected. Steven was already dead when Charles fired me. Perhaps that is what gave him the idea he could screw me without contradiction. Perhaps murder was the crime that the dust was punishing when it took their lives.”

  “Suspect number three: It could have been the pharmaceutical industry if Stephan’s true plan had leaked out. What he was doing would put every one of them out of business — that’s motive. You can’t sell drugs to someone who has the cure for everything in their blood already. Maybe Charles and Brenda were working for them. They certainly weren’t working for us.

  “Suspect number four: It could have been the dust passing judgment on Steven for his motives and actions without compassion. It could have gotten into the office without being detected. It could have gotten into his head and made him pull the trigger of a gun whose origin we still have not determined. The dust could have cleaned up after itself not leaving a single molecule of evidence behind.

  “Suspect number five: It could have been the government. Steven had been warned that he'd be watched. They should have had the ability to discover his story was all a hoax and meted out justice. These people would have had the skill and means to terminate him with extreme prejudice without being detected. They could have influenced our security detail and police to not look too close and even to destroy evidence.

  “It's probably an unsolvable incident.

  “Steven was the John van Neumann of our day, Brilliant. But he was also a manipulative liar. Was he the savior of our species, or a heartless mass murderer? Was he a pawn of fate or of his own creation? Whatever he was, he was an enigma and so was his death.

  “If we ever get the chance to talk to the dust maybe it can tell us who Steven was and how he met his end.”

  "My money is still on suicide."

  Phillip was tired and wanted to drop this discussion for just a little while. “You know how when you've won the big game the adrenalin keeps going till the partying is done? Well when you lose the big game it takes awhile to get yourself back up on the horse.”

  Troy asked a rhetorical question of the person next to him. "Does he always mix his metaphors?"

  “Right, now, if we aren’t going to be dismantled in the next hour, I want to get out of this building and walk in the sun. I haven’t seen natural light in three days. Then we'll figure out what to do next."

  “Would you like some company?” said Nan, who had appeared in the room from the door behind Phillip sometime in the last minute. Everybody's face widened in affirmation ready to join in, even though that is not what Nan had meant.

  “Sure.” Said Phillip as he waved a come-on in the air and turned toward the door. His other arm enveloped the shoulders of Nan.

  In the reception area, a somewhat plump short woman waited in a garish dress and a big smile.

  "Your mother?" Pronounced Phillip more as the answer than as a question.

  Nan nodded and smiled. Phillip opened his free arm and gathering in the woman and exited the building.

  Most of the group followed Phillip out the door onto the concrete sidewalk. Smitty stayed behind and returned to his office.