The Neighbor

Elijah was a quiet young man at the beginning of his career in teaching. He looked forward to his first day and couldn’t wait to meet his new students. Elijah was a gentleman, preferring bow tie and suspenders. Both handsome and charismatic, he fared well with the ladies. And, though he didn’t consider himself a babe magnet, he didn’t get turned down very often. All-in-all, Elijah was happy with his life and things were going well.

Moving to Denver was a big step. Growing up in farm country back in North Carolina, Elijah rarely ventured outside of Edgecombe county. Used to living on acres of land, it shocked him to see what it would cost to live in an apartment in Denver’s Capitol Hill area. A freshman teacher’s salary didn’t leave him with a lot of choices, but he figured he’d start out modest and see how things progressed. He took a studio apartment at the Camellia House location on Grant St.

As he was moving in, a neighbor, Scott Medina, stopped him to ask if he needed help and to welcome him to the neighborhood. It was a good feeling. It can be a bit nerve-racking waiting to see if your new neighborhood will be a good fit. So far in his transition, everyone he encountered had been friendly. Elijah, however, was a homebody. He typically kept to himself. He wasn’t an introvert, but someone who functioned better without drama. Friends often introduce drama, and Elijah had made it through life just fine by steering clear of it.

As he was leaving for work the next day, he encountered his next-door neighbor, Joselynn Ryan. She was a perky, breast-dominant blue-eyed blonde about his age. She was an admitted free spirit raised by her father on the islands. Like him, she wore her hair in traditional Rastafarian dreadlocks. Since Elijah was a simple country farmer, he knew nothing of the island culture and decided he wouldn’t pretend he did. They exchanged greetings and went their separate ways.

A few months had gone by and Elijah had settled in well. He was getting used to his new surroundings and work schedule. Surprisingly, his students liked him and no one had openly made any nerd cracks. Though he admitted, if only to himself, that he missed the simplicity of country living, he had no regrets that he made the move. It was just a shame that someone would interrupt his happiness in such a grotesque way.

The sound of sirens and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles awakened him in the middle of the night. According to news reports, someone had murdered one of his neighbors. Eventually, the police knocked on his door.

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but I’m sure you’ve heard that one of your neighbors has been the victim of a homicide. Have you noticed any strange activity in the area?”

“No sir,” Elijah responded. “Who was the victim?”

The detective checked his notes and responded, “Scott Medina.”

Elijah’s face went blank.

“Oh, wow,” he muttered. “I met him when I moved in a few months ago, but we haven’t spoken since. He seemed nice.”

“Well, sir, we won’t keep you any longer. Could I get your name for the record, please?”

“Elijah, Elijah Arsen,” he responded.

The detective thanked him and then left.

⁂

It was supposed to be a silly prank. She thought it might be a fun way of welcoming a new neighbor to the complex. She thought it might be a fun icebreaker. The problem, she forgot she was friggin’ insane and on the run for another such prank that went woefully off the rails. For whatever reason, she had been off her meds for months and her ability to reason was non-existent. So she continued plotting her prank as the vision of each misguided step gradually came into focus.

⁂

Scott Medina was a software engineer. His company was working on a chess game where people could connect via virtual reality headsets and move pieces by voice or hand gestures. The planned rollout was fast approaching, and Scott was a nervous wreck. He wasn’t necessarily a perfectionist, but he stressed over the smallest details, details he had hired a full staff of programmers to deal with. His role was to attract investors and get funding to continue production and meet payroll. In that regard, he was very effective, still a programmer at heart though, he couldn’t help stressing over the small stuff.

One of his programmers was Joselynn Ryan, Elijah’s next-door neighbor. She was very skilled and one of his top performers. Her free spirit approach to life made her seem a little eccentric, prone to outbursts with the slightest pushback on code choices, and downright nasty whenever someone challenged those outbursts. Everyone knew how volatile she was, and some on the team took a bit too much pleasure in pushing her buttons. Scott could see things were getting out of hand and called a meeting to address the issue, or rather appeal to everyone to tamp down the noise.

Scott didn’t know Joselynn personally. He knew she lived in the same apartment complex, but they had never met socially. He didn’t realize she admired him and would not have been unreceptive to social interaction.

“Not sure what he’s waiting for,” she thought. “If he doesn’t make a move soon, I will.”

Joselynn was about to challenge the workplace rule covering manager/subordinate relationships. It would not go well. Scott had built his company through hard work and dedication. He was not married, didn’t have a steady, and wasn’t looking for one. His company was his baby. He caught Joselynn staring a few times, but he never responded. It made him nervous that she stood uncomfortably close when they interacted. But he gave her no sign he was interested. She simply wasn’t his type, and he finally had to pull her aside and let her know he was not interested in socializing.

“Not your type?” she responded sarcastically.

“What does that even mean, man? Look at me,” she said as she ran her hands down the perimeter of her body. “Man, I’m everyone’s type.”

And then the dreaded outburst…

“YOU BEST RETHINK YOUR POSITION ON THIS, MAN. I’LL GIVE YOU THREE DAYS,” she blurted out loudly.

In-other-words, the conversation went off the rails and everyone in the office had a front-row seat to the show. Scott, embarrassed and upset that a subordinate would push an issue like that, promptly fired her. She hastily gathered her stuff and stormed out of the building to a deafening level of applause and cheers.

Joselynn bumped into Elijah when she got home. She was carrying an armful of banker’s boxes. He knew what that meant and offered to help. He grabbed a couple of them from her arms and carried them inside her apartment. She thanked him and he excused himself, saying he needed to get to work.

“Wouldn’t you like to stay awhile?” She asked provocatively.

“We should get to know each other,” she purred.

Now Elijah wasn’t blind. Joselynn was stunningly beautiful, and he had a heck of time controlling himself, as her playful smile confirmed.

“C’mon, Elijah. I’ve had a rough morning. Stay and play with me for a while,” she said as she lightly ran a finger across his chest.

It took every ounce of willpower, but Elijah respectfully declined, as he was already late for work. He asked for a rain check. She did not mask her annoyance as she dismissed him with a hand on hip, flick of a wrist, and a proper eye roll. Elijah knew he had just burned that bridge, but somehow felt relieved that he had. There was something “off” about Joselynn, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that deep down, he was a little afraid of her.

⁂

Her planned prank had just taken a turn towards the absurd, and there was no one in her orbit to talk her off the ledge. As she sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her butt, she hugged a throw pillow tightly. She had a blank stare as she looked out the window into nothingness. It was a stare of someone who was allowing madness to engulf her very soul. She was not in a good place. And when she got like that, bad things followed. Awful, evil thoughts were freely crawling through her mind and she quivered at the thought of what she would do.

⁂

Three days had passed since Joselynn’s encounter at the office, and she was still steaming about it. Scott’s time had expired, and he had not heeded her warning. She sat at the window of her apartment as she began writing a note. A note that would become central to an unforgivable plan of attack against two incredibly innocent victims.

Scott was preparing for bed when he heard the knock at the door. He thought of not answering, and then it came again. He got out of bed, put on a bathrobe, and went to answer it. As soon as he opened the door, a hooded intruder popped him in the face with the blunt end of a fire extinguisher, sending him flying backwards as he lost his balance and fell to the floor. The intruder quickly pounced on him and repeatedly slammed the fire extinguisher into his face until he fell unconscious.

The intruder then grabbed a butcher's knife and slit Scott’s throat from ear to ear, all the way to bone. He bled out within minutes. The intruder stayed and watched as Scott’s body twitched and jerked involuntarily as it gasped for much needed oxygen. When it was over, the intruder used Scott’s cell phone to call 911 and reported someone was trying to break into his apartment. The operator took vital information and dispatched the police and medical units.

When the police arrived, they found Scott’s body lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Detective Roger Mansfield was the lead detective and took charge of the investigation. As the emergency crew prepared the body for transport, one of them noticed a piece of paper in his bathrobe’s right pocket. He notified Detective Mansfield, who placed the note into an evidence bag for later review.

And a few days later…

It was shaping up to be one of the worse days of his life. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Elijah Arsen,” came the commanding sound of a detective’s voice. “Turn around and place your hands behind your back. I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Scott Medina. You have the right to remain silent, yada yada yada.”

Elijah was in shock. Arrested for the murder of someone he’d only seen once since moving into the complex months earlier. He was feverishly combing his mind, trying to figure out how they could have come to such a conclusion. On the way to the police station; he was practically in tears as he envisioned spending the rest of his life in prison.

At the trial, Elijah was gobsmacked by the amount of evidence they introduced against him: a note found on the victim showing motive, fingerprints on various items found throughout the victim’s apartment. And if that weren’t bad enough, a witness that testified she saw him enter the victim’s apartment the night of the murder. Things weren’t looking good for Elijah. But as fate would have it, his lawyer would masterfully pick the prosecution’s case apart.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began. “The case against my client is a non-starter, based on planted evidence, and an untruthful witness. I will show that Mr. Arsen is completely innocent of the charges, and frankly, I expect an acquittal by,” looks at watch dramatically. “Oh, let’s say, about an hour from now.”

There were audible gasps from the audience and the judge had to issue a warning to people in the gallery to contain their emotions. The lead detective, Roger Mansfield, had always felt the case was flimsy and didn’t believe Elijah was the murderer, but he was bound by the evidence to bring the case to the District Attorney. He knew with almost certainty that the person guilty of the crime was sitting in the courtroom. His problem was that his team simply didn’t have the skills necessary to analyze evidence critically.

Fortunately, Elijah’s attorney did, and he went through each piece and methodically picked the prosecutor’s theories apart. The prosecution leaned heavily into one piece of evidence, a note that Elijah supposedly penned and left on the victim. He was about to bury the prosecution’s case and at the same time implicate the actual murderer who was, in fact, sitting in the courtroom. He held up the note and put a close-up picture of it on a huge overhead monitor.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my client did not write this note.”

He put another note that he had Elijah write with identical wording alongside the original on the screen to show the difference in penmanship. It clearly showed Elijah’s handwriting was much more pronounced and legible.

And then came the bomb.

“I further submit, ladies and gentlemen, the most damning piece of evidence against my client, the murder weapon.”

He made a dramatic showing of holding it high above his head as he turned and showed the entire courtroom.

“The police could produce no fingerprints,” he said loudly, “but guess what? My lab technicians did.”

He backed away from the jury box in dramatic fashion to a thunderous round of audience response, and the judge again rattled his gavel to demand silence. He warned Elijah’s attorney to forgo the theatrics.

“Yes sir, your honor, my apologies, sir,” he said as he approached the jury box again, preparing to disregard what he had just apologized for.

He took in a deep breath and proclaimed loudly, dramatically, as he pivoted and extended his left arm straight out and rigidly pointed to a lady sitting in the gallery, Joselynn Ryan.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that woman sitting right there in row two with the Rastafarian dreadlocks is your murderer. My lab crew identified the fingerprint on the murder weapon as belonging to one Joselynn Ryan, and she sits right there in the gallery. She and the victim had a public falling out three days ago where she threatened him. She left items with my client’s prints on them, items he helped her move into her apartment the day the victim fired her from her position at his company.”

He backed away to allow the information to sink in and register with the jury. He then made a motion that Joselynn be taken into custody and charged with the murder of Scott Medina. The courtroom exploded with cheers and applause as everyone in the gallery looked to distance themselves from her. Even the judge knew the case against Elijah had just fallen apart. The prosecution, who also knew their case was flimsy, offered no objections and the judge ordered Joselynn taken into custody. All charges against Elijah were dropped, and he was released, a free man.

Elijah was elated. He thanked and hugged his lawyer and made a beeline for the door, went home, packed, and went back to the simple life in his hometown of Louisburg, North Carolina, vowing never again to take the simple lifestyle for granted.

K.R. Eaton - The Neighbor

Short Stories by K.R Eaton