The Fortune of Henry Stillman

San Francisco Metro Division, 4:12pm, December 14th

“Please, sir, this is just a formality and required for our records. You’re not in any trouble—”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the man beside her interrupted.

She turned to her left. “Are you in possession of any convicting evidence that you’ve forgotten to share with me?” she asked him. He remained silent. His hands gestured upward and quickly retreated back into balled fists. Carry on.

“Right,” she turned back to the witness in question, “please state your name and occupation,” the woman in the suit repeated.

The man across from her was hunched over the aluminum table. His eyes raced around the room, past the two suits and into the giant mirror. The man in the reflection was not the man he remembered. His brown hair was disheveled and thinning. Sunken eyes sagged in his gaunt face. Tattered and stained clothes draped over his bones.

“My name is Henry,” the man forced a cough, “Henry Stillman. I, uh, drive a bus—I’m a bus driver,” the skittish man finally said.

“Excellent. Thank you, Henry. I’m detective Angela Dearns,” the woman pointed to her left with a pen, almost carelessly, “this is detective Jacob Crath.” The man raised his chin to Henry.

Henry’s eyes darted towards the man. The suit jacket was draped over the chair behind him and his tie hung loosely from his stubbled neck. The color of his eyes remained unknown due to Henry’s inability to meet them.

“Do you know why you’re here?” she asked.

“Do. You. Know. Why you’re here?” the other detective repeated, agitated.

“Norman?” Henry finally replied.

“And what do you know about Norman?” Crath interrogated.

The woman held up her hand to her partner.

Henry’s face dropped and he spoke softly to the table, “He’s dead.” Crath raised a brow.

"Can we back up, please? It’s okay, Mr. Stillman. Can you tell us how you knew Mr. Davies?” Dearns spoke with a gentle tone, eager to diffuse the tension in the small room.

“He, uh, commuted on my line. My bus line. The 24-Divisadero. Work, I think.”

“You’re saying that he rode your bus to work every morning?” the detective asked.

“That’s right—correct, I mean. That is correct. Though, I don’t see why he continued to work at all, what with all that money he won.”

“You were aware of his recent winnings?”

“He liked to stand up at the front with me and talk. Mainly about the Giants and their, uh, bad luck. I just like to listen.”

“He told you?”

“Correct. The morning after it happened. Seemed excited about it that day. Then some time passed—‘bout a week, maybe—and he seemed different. Didn’t really talk to me anymore. He talked to himself. Almost whispered.”

“Okay. Mr. Stillman, we called you in today because we checked the call records on his phone. His wife, distraught as she was, was able to cooperate and unlock it for us. There were the usual calls made. Mainly from her and his office. But there was one thing unusual: the seven missed calls and unanswered text messages from a ‘Henry Bus’,” Crath eagerly remarked. “My questions are: What is Norman Davies doing with his bus driver’s phone number? And why is his bus driver frantically calling him minutes after his death?”

Henry paused a moment while the two detectives scanned over him. “Every once in a while, we’d grab a beer. Watch the Giants play.” His voice dipped low, “I called him because I was, uh, I was worried about him.”

“Worried about what exactly?” she asked while reaching into her bag.

The witness’s eyes fluttered and followed her hand. One hand clicked a pen. The other retrieved a small black notebook. Upon looking at it, Henry’s face transformed. His mouth peeled open and eyes grew wide.

“N-n-no, no, don’t!” he shouted and held up his hands. “Don’t open that!”

The detectives froze in their chairs. Crath sat as a statue with a furrowed brow and dashing eyes. Dearns held the journal in her hand.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Please, do not open that notebook,” he repeated.

“Mr. Stillman, this is my personal journal. I need it to detail my cases. They’re just notes. See?” she turned it to him. The spine cracked aloud as the pages unfurled.

“No! No!” Henry violently recoiled in his seat, throwing up his arms as a shield. The thrust of his emaciated body tipped him backward and he landed on his back. The aluminum chair clashed with the tile and clanged against the walls of the small room.

“Mr. Stillman!” she shouted and the detectives immediately jumped to the man on the cold floor.

Henry writhed on the floor, covering his eyes, repeating himself. “No! No!” he continued.

Detective Crath pried Henry’s hands away from his face, trying to reassure him. Henry pinched his eyes shut, white wrinkles jutting outward. He continued to repeat the same word, shaking his head. Detective Dearns stood up and grabbed her notebook from the table and returned to the two on the floor.

“Mr. Stillman! Henry! Henry, look!” She held the open notebook in front of his clinched eyes. “They’re just notes!”

Crath looked up from Henry at his partner. “Just close it. He’s hysterical. Type up the damn notes later, if you have to.”

She looked back at the poor withered man squirming on the floor. The notebook was closed and placed upon the table once again.

“Okay, Henry. It’s okay. The book’s closed. It’s okay,” her gentle voice returning.

Henry’s shouting slowly dissolved into a low murmur. The two detectives reassured the man. His heaving chest became a slow rhythmic rise and fall. He finally opened his eyes and saw the two detectives; the notebook out of sight. After acquiescing to their efforts, he was gently ushered back to his chair. The other two returned to their seats.

Silence hung low in the air, now thick with discomfort. Henry looked straight at the notebook on the table and continued breathing. The detectives bounced glances to each other. Minutes crept by. Hours, maybe.

Crath broke the silence. “You want to tell us what the hell just happened?”

Henry continued to study the black notebook on the table and carefully discerned the embroidered text atop the cover: SFPD. He let out an exasperated sigh. Relief returned his face to normal.

“Norman. He, uh, had a notebook just like that.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, yeah. What about Norman’s notebook throws you into a tantrum?”

“Crath, my god. Would you like to step outside? I’d be more than happy to relieve you.”

“You saw what just happened! Why are we walking on eggshells around this guy? We most certainly shouldn’t be so damn quick to—”

“Detective!” Dearns slapped the table with an open palm.

“No, no. It’s okay,” Henry interjected. “He’s right. Norman’s notebook was…different. One ride, he dropped it while walking off the bus. I tried calling his name, but the 24 gets packed like sardines at rush hour. He got off at Castro Station; that transfer just about empties the entire bus and a new group fills it up. So, I picked it up and held on to it. I figured I’d give it to him the next morning.

“The book was—I don’t know—strange looking? There were no words on it, just a logo. Some gold circle. When I looked at it, it made me feel weird. Made me uncomfortable. The thing was an animal. An eel. Or a snake. It was, uh, eating its own tail.”

“What did you do with the notebook?”

“I put it in my work bag. Figured I’d give it to him the next day. But he never showed up again. I thought ‘Maybe he got a new job or something’.”

“You never opened it.”

“No.”

“‘No’ you never opened it? Or ‘No, that’s an incorrect assessment, detective Crath, I opened it’?”

“I opened it.”

“When?”

“The next day.”

A buzzing came from detective Crath’s pocket. He reached in and pulled out his phone. A few seconds of silence slipped by. “And then, Mr. Stillman?”

“Nothing—well, not ‘nothing.’ I, uh, just don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember. Right. Okay, first things first: I definitely think my partner, detective Dearns here, spoke too soon when she said you’re not in any trouble.”

“Detective Crath.” Dearns said, her gentle tone running its patience.

“Pardon?” asked Henry.

“When we asked you if you knew why we brought you in, you told us it was because he was dead. That happened a week ago. But if you look here,” he held his phone up, its glow highlighted Henry’s clenched jaw, “the news of his death wasn’t released to the public until five minutes ago. Seeing as how five minutes ago you were thrashing about on the floor, something doesn’t seem right, would you agree? So, please, tell us. How did you know he was dead?”

Detective Dearns looked at her partner’s phone. She reached down in her bag and pulled out her own. Fervent eyes dashed back and forth across her phone. She looked back up at Henry. He was staring at the notebook. His breathing was slow and cadenced, unchanged.

“I knew he was dead because of his notebook.”

“Again, with the notebook. Listen, I think it’s time you start—”

“His notebook said he was going to die.”

The detectives fell silent. They glanced at each other until Dearns spoke.

“You mean, like a suicide note?”

“No. It was something else. It wasn’t written by him. I knew the way he talked, and he never talked like this. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It said ‘Be this book opened and read with naked eyes, the host will be stripped of the fortune and its breath, and a new candidate will be crowned.’”

A new silence painted the walls of the interrogation room. Dearns’s pen rapidly tapped against the table. The detectives continued to glance at one another. Henry never looked up from the notebook.

Crath broke the silence again. “What did you do with the notebook?”

“I threw it away. Tossed it immediately out of my window when I read it. That’s when I called him.”

“Listen, you can’t just sit here and expect us to—”

Another buzzing interrupted the detective. It came from Henry’s pocket. He reached inside and looked at the phone with a furrowed brow.

“Expecting some news, Mr. Stillman?”

“No,” a number flashed across his screen, “I’m not.” The number seemed familiar. Henry couldn’t quite pinpoint its recognizability.

“Well, are you going to answer it?” Crath asked.

A flash of revelation crossed Henry’s face. He gasped and threw the phone across the table, as if it had bitten him. It turned upward, facing detective Crath. He looked at the number and recognized it immediately.

“Hey, look at that,” Crath remarked, “we have the same bank. Let’s see what they want.” He pressed the green icon on the phone when Henry protested aloud.

“Detective! Grab your jacket now and—” Dearns erupted and stopped as abruptly as she began.

The voice in the phone began to speak into the opaque disquiet.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Stillman. This is an automated message regarding the deposit made into your account on…December…Seventh. This is a standard procedure conducted when a sum is over a designated amount. Please call us at your earliest convenience to confirm the amount and if you require assistance in funds dispersal. Thank you.”

A grave stillness ballooned in the room. Henry’s wet eyelids clicked nervously. His chest began to heave once more as he began to furiously whisper to himself. The detectives froze. Crath seemed to be holding his breath. Dearns then spoke very precisely, careful not to let a syllable go unheard.

“Mr. Stillman. Please think very, very carefully when I ask you this. Where, exactly, did you throw that notebook?”

Henry Stillman never got a chance to answer.