“Based on the photographs you’ve shown me, I would tend to agree,” Berger replies.
We get out. I can’t see Eric Bray well enough to recognize him, but my vague impression is of a well-dressed, attractive man who is close in age to his slain sister, maybe forty or so. He hands Berger a key attached to a manila tag. “The alarm code’s written on it,” he says. “I’m just going to wait out here.”
“I’m really sorry to put you to all this trouble.” Berger gathers a camera and an accordion file from the backseat. “Especially on Christmas Eve.”
“I know you people have to do your job,” he says in a dull, flat tone.
“Have you been inside?”
He hesitates and stares off at the house. “Can’t do it.” His voice rises with emotion and tears cut him off. He shakes his head and climbs back inside his car. “I don’t know how any of us… Well,” he clears his throat, talking to us through the open car door, the interior light on, the bell dinging. “How we’re ever going to go in and deal with her things.” He focuses on me, and Berger introduces us. I have no doubt he already knows very well who I am.
“There are professional cleaning services in the area,” I delicately tell him. “I suggest you contact one and have them go in before you or any other family member does. Service Master, for example.” I have been through this many times with families whose loved ones have died violently inside the residence. No one should have to go in and deal with their loved one’s blood and brains everywhere.
“They can just go in without us?” he asks me. “The cleaning people can?”
“Leave a key in a lock box at the door. And yes, they’ll go in and take care of things without you present,” I reply. “They’re bonded and insured.”
“I want to do that. We want to go on and sell this place,” he tells Berger. “If you’re not needing it anymore.”
“I’ll let you know,” she replies. “But you, of course, have the right to do whatever you want with the property, Mr. Bray.”
“Well, I don’t know who will buy it after what happened,” he mutters.
Neither Berger nor I comment. He is probably right. Most people do not want a house where someone has been murdered. “I already talked to one realtor,” he goes on in a dull voice that belies his anger. “They said they couldn’t take it on. They’re sorry and all that, but they didn’t want to represent the property. I don’t know what to do.” He stares out at the dark, lifeless house. “You know, we weren’t real close to Diane, no one in the family was. She wasn’t what I would call really into her family or friends. Mostly just into herself, and I know I probably shouldn’t say that. But it’s the damn honest truth.”
“Did you see her very often?” Berger asks him.
He shakes his head, no. “I guess I knew her best because we’re only two years apart. We all knew she had more money than we could understand. She stopped by my house on Thanksgiving, pulled up in this brand new red Jaguar.” He smiles bitterly and shakes his head again. “That’s when I knew for sure she was into something I probably didn’t want to know a damn thing about. I’m not surprised, really.” He takes a deep, quiet breath. “Not surprised really that it’s ended up like this.”
“Were you aware of her involvement in drugs?” Berger shifts her file to her other arm.
I am getting cold standing out here, and the dark house pulls at us like a black hole.
“The police have said some things. Diane never talked about what she did and we didn’t ask, frankly. As far as we know, she didn’t even have a will. So now we’ve got that mess, too,” Eric Bray tells us. “And what to do with her things.” He looks up at us from the driver’s seat and the dark can’t hide his misery. “I really don’t know what to do.”
So much eddies around a violent death. These are hardships that no one sees in the movies or reads about in the newspapers: the people left behind and the wrenching concerns they bear. I give Eric Bray my business card and tell him to call my office if he has any further questions. I go through my usual routine of letting him know the Institute has a book- let, an excellent resource called What to Do When the Police Leave written by Bill Jenkins, whose young son was murdered during the mindless robbery of a fast-food restaurant a couple years back. “The book will answer a lot of your questions,” I add. “I’m sorry. A violent death leaves many victims in its wake. That’s the unfortunate reality.”