Unrevealed (8 page)

Winston cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “Spend as much time in America as I have and your accent gets lazier. Ask any transplanted Brit. People even say I sound American at times.”

“Do they? Is that when you get tired at the end of a long day? Or talk in your sleep?” I leaned forward. “Or become emotional? Is that when your American accent creeps through?”

His chin began to tremble. I caught his eyes checking out one of the cameras in the corner of the room.

“When you were informed of your wife's death,” I continued, “I heard you say, ‘
She's my world
.' And you said it with an American accent. It was one of the realer moments of your life because your defenses were down. That's when the truth creeps out of a person. Shock takes over and you step outside yourself. But that wasn't the first time shock overwhelmed you, was it?”

Winston gripped the side of the metal table with his large hand. “Please…can we not do this?”

I opened the manila folder and brought out the three items I'd borrowed from the small brown box I found on Winston's closet shelf. I laid the first one on the table as his eyes grew larger. “Recognize that? Those are ticket stubs to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game. And the date clearly shows 1964. How about that? And then this.” I revealed a beat-up royal blue basketball jersey with a faded number thirteen across the front. “Even though this was before my time, it only took me a few seconds on the Internet to identify this as a genuine Philadelphia 76ers fan shirt with Wilt Chamberlain's number. And what's more, Wilt autographed it!” I pointed to the faded signature on the back of the jersey. It looked like Winston's mouth went dry. I peered closer at the signature. “It's hard to make out Wilt's name. But it sure isn't difficult to make out the name of the guy he was signing it to.
Rick
.” I spread out the jersey in front of Mr. Gambrel. “Now, if this was bought on eBay, you'd have it hanging in one of those tempered-glass cases. You know? Like the ones you have all that Beatles memorabilia in at your pub. You'd want to show off this puppy. But instead, I found it stuffed in an unmarked box in your closet…with the tickets to that Phillies game in 1964. Now, you tell me how you were going to a Phillies game and having Wilt sign your shirt during the
same
time period when you were allegedly studying at Oxford in merry ol' England?”

He started to say something.

“Remember,” I cautioned him, “anything you say can and
will
be used against you in a court of law, Mr. Gambrel. You told me you'd never been to America before you and Abbey flew over the pond and settled in Denver. So I advise you to not tell me that you made two separate trips in '64 and again sometime between '65 and '68 when Wilt was tearing it up for the 76ers.” Gambrel sank back into his chair. “Then there's this.” I slid a faded color photograph of a young Gambrel with his parents toward him. His eyes welled up. The shot showed the happy trio standing in front of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The young Gambrel was cleanshaven and had short hair. On the back of the photo, it said: “Last photo of us. May, 1969.” “You were twenty-three in that photo. One month away from graduating from college. Which meant you were one month away from the first time your world crashed around you.”

Gambrel turned away, tears welling in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to shield himself from one of the cameras. “Please don't do this. I beg you.”

“Bear with me, Rick,” I said gently, “I have to do this.” I brought out a single sheet of paper with an article I'd copied. “I did a simple search using the name Rick Gambrel in the archives of
The Philadelphia Inquirer
between May and December of 1969. It didn't take me long to locate this article about the car wreck you and your parents were in while en route to a family college graduation party.” Gambrel stared at the article I slid in front of him. “They died instantly, and you, their only child, miraculously had only minor injuries. But it took the paramedics over an hour to free you from the
wreckage.” Tears fell freely from Gambrel's eyes. I looked at him with compassion, fully feeling the brunt of grief that choked his throat. “That was the longest hour of your life, I imagine. And shock took its predictable course.”

Gambrel slid the faded color photo of his parents and him toward him. “One second we were talking about how I was going to spend the summer,” he said, his British accent gone, “and the next, I was hanging upside down with my father's face shoved against mine. I felt his blood falling on my cheek and his skin slowly grow colder. I wanted to reach out to him but I was pinned. I kept telling myself it was a dream and that I was going to wake up.” He looked at me. “And that's the way my life kept going for me. Like I was living in a dream. There were days when I hovered above myself. Reality was debatable. Large gaps of time were unaccounted for. I dissociated every day.” As he relived that time of his life, it was clear to me that Gambrel obviously suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder — unfortunately, something I'm intimately familiar with. One's mere existence becomes questionable, at best. He continued. “The only thing that kept me somewhat grounded was music. The Beatles, most of all. I let my appearance go that whole summer of ‘69. People started saying, jokingly, that I looked like John Lennon with my beard and long hair. And that was okay because — you were right — I
did
identify with him in many ways. I wanted to be free, like I thought he was. I had to get away from Philadelphia and the memories. I sold the family house and everything in it. The only thing I kept was that 76ers jersey, the Phillies ticket stubs, and that photo. I have no idea why. I just needed something tangible that would remind me occasionally of who I used to be. But the truth was,
I couldn't stand being myself anymore because there was too much pain attached to that guy.”

“And becoming British was pretty cool to you.”

“Becoming John.” He rolled his eyes.

“But calling yourself ‘John' would have been too obvious, right? So, you opted for next best name.
Winston
. Lennon's middle name.”

Gambrel shook his head. “You're good, Jane.”

“You smoked Dunhill cigarettes because John Lennon smoked them.” He nodded, shocked that I made that connection. “You bought some reel-to-reel tapes on proper elocution so you could speak with a proper British accent.”

“God, you found them, too, eh?” He swallowed hard.

“Yeah, I opened up lots of closets and drawers.”

Gambrel stared at me. I knew
exactly
what he was thinking.

“So, you went to England,” I said, changing the subject.

“Yes, right,” he said, trying to contain his anxiety. “But I still wasn't all there…up here.…” He tapped his head. “But that all changed…when I found my Abbey.” He smiled. “We met at a pub not far from Abbey Road where that photo was taken for the album. John Lennon was singing 'Give Peace a Chance‘ on the radio. She told me it was a kaleidoscope of synchronicities that meant we were destined to be together. Me, who looked like John Lennon, and her, named Abbey, in a pub on Abbey Road. And I believed her. She breathed light into my darkness for the first time since the accident. She fell in love with the image of who she thought I was. And I kept telling myself that it was okay to let her believe that, because deep down, my love for her
was
honest. When she told me she dreamed of going to America, I told her I'd follow her
anywhere. I loved her sense of adventure and she…loved my eccentricities.”

“Eccentricities.”

He looked at the two-way mirror in a guarded fashion. “Yes,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“When did you tell her about your past?”

He sheepishly looked at me. “Never.” I couldn't believe it, but he was serious. “I wanted to, believe me. I kept thinking that I would early on in our relationship. But then, it became easier and more comfortable to be Winston Gambrel than Rick Gambrel. I liked Winston because my Abbey loved him so much.”

My God,
I thought. That's one helluva secret to keep under your vest. “And so you came to Colorado and lived happily ever after.”

“Yes.
We did
,” he emphasized. “She was truly my soul mate.”

I leaned forward. “But she was working fairly long hours, lately, wasn't she?”

“Yes. The pub is sponsoring two big events this month — ”

“She wasn't getting a lot of sleep?”

Gambrel stared at me. “No. She had bouts of insomnia.”

“So, she took something to help her sleep.”

He eyed me carefully. “Sometimes…”

“A drug whose label clearly states that one of its side effects is sleepwalking.” He looked at the two-way mirror and then back to me with pleading eyes. I leaned forward and whispered to him. “A secret is not worth keeping if it means you have to tell a greater lie.” He bowed his head. “You asked me if I gave cold bottled water to people like you and I told you that I did. I don't, however, give cold bottled water to killers. And you are
not
a killer. When I met you by
the elevator today, I was coming upstairs from the evidence room. Prior to that, I'd gotten a call from the coroner's office. The autopsy on Abbey showed that she died from the fall down the stairs and that she had ingested twice the recommended dose of the sleeping pill approximately two hours before she fell. Sleepwalking is my guess.” Gambrel closed his eyes. “Furthermore, based on lividity, it appears that she lay there for at least an hour, dead, before you found her. The trauma on her body shows it was incurred post-mortem, when you were performing CPR.”

Gambrel broke down in tears. “I felt such guilt that I didn't feel her get out of bed or hear her fall. The love of my life lay there dying on a cold tile floor while I'm asleep upstairs!” He pulled his fingers through his hair. “I just happened to stir and see she wasn't in bed and that's when I got up in the dark and bumped into the bed and the side table, cutting my hip. When I saw her lying in a heap at the foot of the stairs, I thought, Please, God! Don't take away another person I love so deeply in the blink of an eye! I pounded on her chest and I tried to breathe life into her, but it was no use.”

“And that's when you called 9-1-1.”

He wiped his tears off his face with his large hand. “Yes.”

“But you felt guilt about something else, didn't you? Before the paramedics showed up, you removed these.” Opening the manila folder, I lifted the plastic Kapak that held the bloody white panties and set them on the table in front of Gambrel. He stared at them in stony silence. “I was the only person on the scene who secured these in the Kapak. Nobody else bothered to check the tag. Size extra large. And your wife probably wore a small.” Gambrel buried his head
in his hand. “The paramedics came to the door. You remembered you had them on and so you tore them off and hid them under the furniture. The blood came from you when you cut yourself walking around the bed in the dark.” I leaned closer to Gambrel. “You were willing to confess to
murdering your wife
to keep your secret fetish under wraps? My God, man. How does that become the
better
option?”

“Don't you see? You know how this tabloid world operates! Everything about my past would come out. My entire life would be up for ridicule. I would be the punch line on every late-night talk show. My image as the burly Brit who runs the landmark English pub and gives back to his community…all that would vanish. Nobody would care
why
my life turned out like this. They'd be too busy laughing and judging me. And all the good Abbey and I have done for forty years would be forgotten. I never told Abbey the truth about my roots but she did know about this.” He glanced to the panties. “And she didn't care. John Lennon had his eccentricities and so do I. But the world will not be as kind as my dear wife was.”

I glanced back at the two-way mirror and then turned back to Gambrel. “You see this writing on the Kapak? That shows who submitted the panties into evidence. That's my signature. And when I signed them out of evidence, I also left my signature. As you can see, nobody else signed them in or out. So I'm the only one who's really…intimately connected to them. And since your wife's death was ruled accidental,” I broke the seal on the Kapak, “I have the authority to return your property to you.” I handed him the panties. “You can throw them away or put them in the drawer on your side of the closet with the others.”

He looked at me, genuinely thankful. Still, there was trepidation. “How can I trust
them
,” he jutted his chin toward the two-way glass. “That journalist scored a story from some cop at the scene — a story that was pure conjecture. How can I be so sure that one of those people on the other side of the glass won't chitchat with a reporter?”

I turned to the two-way glass. “Because…there's nobody back there.”

Gambrel was confused. “But — ”

“And those cameras? If they were on, there'd be a red light indicating that. This interrogation room is actually out of commission while they remodel it.”

Gambrel pointed to the tape recorder that was still on. “And that?”

“Oh, that's real. But it's just a prop. All secrets need sturdy props to make them more realistic.” I turned off the tape recorder. “Look, when I saw you by the elevator, I was about to tell you what I'd learned from the coroner and give you back the panties. But then you confessed to murder and so I had to shift gears.”

He tried to wrap his mind around everything. “So…just to be clear…you are the
only
one who knows any of this?”