Eyewitness

"Why would you want to solve Brenda's murder?" Klench seemed to recover from the shock.

"Does it matter?" I didn't want to waste time with the man. If he wanted to help he would, if he wanted to sink my entire investigation, it wouldn't take too much effort.

"It really matters, who is she to you?" Klench wouldn't let go and was getting aggressive.

It looked like there was no way for me to be stubborn. I don't like explaining myself, but I had a hunch that old man Klench had valuable information, and he might want to share it.

"She's my friend, I reawakened a few days ago and Brenda has helped me, a lot. Is that enough?" I asked Klench, but I could tell it wasn't enough.

"No. Why would a stranger help her? Even if she helped you, how much help could she offer?"

"I don't know what you want me to say. It isn't very complicated. She helped me, when I was alive I was a detective.

The greatest mystery of her life is who she is and she really wants to solve this mystery. I really wanted to pay her back. If this isn't enough, I'll leave." I didn't want to leave, but what was the point of staying there to be cross-examined by Kletch?

Kletch studied me for a while, I don't know what he was thinking about, but I knew his next words were essential for my investigation.

"What do you want to know, I don't know a lot of things, but what I know I'll share." The Old man said.

"What's your relationship with Brenday Armhurst?" Turnabout is fair play and I really needed to know the answer to this question.

"I don't know, but she was really important to my father."

"Is your father still alive?" In the 21st century, we believed that in the future everyone would live much longer than one hundred years old.

Maybe the average lifespan has reached biblical proportions.

Perhaps futuristic humans were like Methuselah and able to live nearly a thousand years. Maybe one thousand years isn't the limit! My imagination got away from me.

"Barely," Klench said.

"Can we see him?" I was excited, this could be my first possibly my last eyewitness.

"We can, but I don't know how helpful it will be. His mind isn't what it used to be. He also has a powerful obsession with Brenda.

When he heard about her grave being dug up and that maybe she was a Skaltan; he nearly went mad.

There's something he wants to say to her, but the shock of her possible rebirth nearly killed him." Klench looked like a man with a lot of mixed-up emotions.

I wasn't there to straighten him out, but I could understand him.

Why was his father so obsessed with Brenday? I had a few theories.

Chief among those was romantic entanglement, or possibly a close family member. Gustos was Klench's last name while Armhurst was Brenda's.

Maybe Armhurst is her maiden name? There was no point in speculating, especially with a living witness.

"Can you tell me what you know?"

Klench looked at me, surprised. Maybe he thought that once I heard there was a living eyewitness I would immediately want to meet his father.

My belief is that the more witnesses the better. Each witness could add a little more information, and no one witness remembers events perfectly.

However, as an experienced detective, having one witness, even one who was barely alive, was rare.

"Okay, well, from what I know Brenda's death is because she probably saw something she shouldn't have."

"You don't know for sure?" He didn't look old enough to be an eyewitness, but he was pretty old, so you never know.

"No, I was a baby when all of this happened. What I know is more or less what my father told me, and the rest is from me fishing out information from other old timers over the years." Klench said.

"A bit of an investigator yourself, I see."

"I had to be, my dad was so obsessed with this woman that I got ignored half the time. I always wanted to know why he cared so much."

"Maybe she's your mother," I threw a random thought at Klench to see how he would react.

"Could be, should be, that's what I've been thinking. Otherwise, I don't get his anger and bitterness, plus he always praised her like she was a princess."

I wasn't surprised that Klench thought of this possibility. It seemed a pretty obvious possibility, and without more information, it was the most likely answer.

The real mystery was how did a young mother like Brenda get herself killed.

I didn't settle on this answer completely, but it was the best theory so far and it was worth exploring more.

Now that we explored this direction a little, I wanted to get back to some different questions.

"Anyone that didn't like her, any enemies, suspicious persons?"

"There were a lot once the accidents spread out. When the accidents were just happening to her, most people pitied her.

Then, others were dragged in, so they began to blame her. I'm pretty sure that everyone who died hated her."

"Any others, maybe some who survived?"

"Sure, the families of the victims a few upper crusts, and then some others. The animosity wasn't kept to any one class.

"Did she have any family?"

"None that survived the accidents, other than possibly my father and I."

"Even her family died?"

"Family, friends, and complete strangers. As I said, there wasn't any rhyme or reason to the deaths as far as we could tell." This was a pretty suspicious point, but it also made it harder to pick a direction for the investigation.

"Did the police have any theories?" Klench snorted in derision.

"Yeah, their theory was that if they investigated that might solve the case, and apparently that wasn't something they wanted to do."

"Laziness or someone paid them off?" I asked, this was really important. I began to wonder if Detective Ai was protecting the interests of the Skaltans, or someone else's by refusing to cooperate.

"I would like to say it's laziness, but when I got older I talked to one of the officers who investigated the whole thing. He was pretty frustrated." Klench said, looking to the side and remembering that event.

"Did you tell you anything?"

"Yeah, go away and leave it alone if I knew what was good for me."

"Could you make a list of people who were affected by this incident. I'll need to follow up with them, or at least investigate them if possible."

"Sure, give me a minute," Klench left and after a couple of minutes I could hear the sound of a pen scratching on a piece of paper.

When he was done, Klench came back to the living room and handed me a piece of paper filled with a list of names, and addresses, and then he surprised me with a box filled with a lot more information.

"This is everything I know. If you want to know more than that, then you'll need to ask Klintas."

"Your father?" I asked, Klench nodded in the affirmative.

"Do you have any picture of you and your dad, when y'all were younger? I'm sure Brenda would like to see the faces of her husband and son," I told him.

"If it turns out she's my mom, do you think I can meet her?" Klench looked hopeful.

"I'll call her tomorrow and see what she says. The Skaltans will be here in about eight days, so I need to solve this thing before then."

"Why do you need to solve it before then?"

"I don't think the Skaltans will let Brenda and I remain on Earth, especially since I'm investigating this case," I informed him.

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Klench got emotional and his cheeks flushed red. His fist tightened and his knuckles turned white.

"All of this started because Brenda wanted to know what she looked like. I'm a detective, so I have the skill to reconstruct her face based on her skull.

I went to the Detectives Bureau and asked to use some equipment to aid in the search, instead, I was warned off the investigation. According to them, they no longer have the technology."

"You still showed up, how did you figure out who Brenda was and where she came from?" It was clear that the longer we talked the more Klench believed Brenda was his mother.

"As I said, I knew how to reconstruct her face, I didn't need their technology, it would make things easier, that's all. From there I was able to find photos of her leading me to Midbow."

"Wow, you really are a good detective. You probably don't like being told no?"

His comment was pretty funny.

"Too much Texan in me. We Texans don't like anyone tellin' us what to do." Flexing my Texas pride, how could I not?

"What's a Texan?"

"Someone who comes from these parts. At least, when I was alive this place was Texas, but non one knows about Texas. They don't even remember the United States of America."

Klench didn't react much, in part it's probably because I used so many unusual names.

"I like this Texan attitude, can you help us solve this mystery?" I looked Klench in the eyes and rested my hands on his shoulders.

"I'm going to do my best.