The Picture Part 2

By the time he had driven home, he was thoroughly perplexed as to why anyone would go to this much trouble to play a practical joke on him. That was the only thing he could imagine this was about, but then he remembered Jack was dead. He wanted desperately to call and ask if there was any further information about the cause of death but was afraid the police would make more of it than idle curiosity. He had already been subjected to quite an inquisition by the police and wanted to avoid another.
The next morning, as Kent was preparing to leave for his office, the phone rang. Upon answering it, he was asked if he would mind stopping by the police station. When he asked the reason for the request, he was told that there was a few details that needed to be cleared up. Nothing more was forthcoming so he decided to risk being placed under arrest by going to his office instead.
Once Kent had arrived at this office, he began to get things in order so that, if arrested, he would not have to worry about his business. Taking the phone off the hook, he stared by locking all his files and his desk to keep them safe. The next step was making a phone call to his attorney to advise him of the possibility of imminent arrest. Once these were accomplished, he sat down behind his desk with the morning paper to await developments.
He had just finished the front page when the door opened and in walked one of the two cops who had questioned him at Jack's office. In his hand was an official looking envelope and he had a frown on his face. Taking a chair without being asked, he opened the envelope and proceeded to read the contents out loud so Kent could hear. This was the preliminary autopsy report on Jack. It stated that he had died as a result of a heart attack and not foul play at all. The cop apologized to Kent for the way they had treated him and then told him that they had found a bottle of nitro glycerin tablets on the floor near Jack's desk. Evidently, he had been trying to take a tablet but had dropped the bottle when he died.
After the cop left, Kent unlocked the files and his desk and replaced the phone on it's hook. One mystery had been solved but there still remained the mystery concerning the picture. He was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this since he had received the envelope containing the cash. He knew the city where Jack had received the mail instructions from so thought that would be a good place to start.
The airline told him there was only one plane per day that made connections that would take him to his desired destination. It left at 6:30 in the morning and a return flight got in at 8:00 in the evening. Making reservations, Kent filled his briefcase with everything he had that had any connection to the picture or the house. Then, he locked his office and left to go, once more, to the old house.
When he arrived, there was an old pick-up in the driveway and an older man was using a riding lawn mower to cut the grass. He saw Kent approaching and stopped the mower and shut off the engine. Without the mower running the only sound was the birds in the trees and the far off whistle of a train. Kent introduced himself and they shook hands as the other fellow gave his name as Seth Davis, a gardener. It seemed that Jack had hired him to keep the yard up until the house sold. Kent was disappointed to find that Seth knew less about the heirs than he did. It looked as if the trip was the only option if he wanted to learn anything. Seth said he knew about Jack's death but figured he had been hired to do a job and would continue doing it until someone told him to stop.
The lawn mower started up as Kent walked to the front of the house. Unlocking the door, Kent made his way inside and into the parlor where the picture was hanging on the wall just as he had left it. Taking it down, he once again carried it with him out to his car which he had left behind Seth's pick-up. Tomorrow he would take the picture with him to the distant city where he hoped to find someone who could shed some light on the mystery.
Next morning Kent was at the airport a half hour before his plane was due to board. Just as he was walking toward the check-in desk, he heard his name being paged. Asking the young lady behind the counter, he was directed to some phones a short way to the side. There he picked up the one she had indicated and spoke into it. A female voice he did not recognize told him he would be wasting his time taking the trip as the location was only a mail box. He was instructed to go to his office where he would be contacted by the people who had paid for the appraisal. Kent had to admit to himself that it made a lot more sense to go to the office and wait than to go on a wild goose chase. Still, he wanted to find out what was going on. Canceling his reservation, he drove to his office and parked in the street instead of the parking lot he normally used. This made it simpler for him to enter the building through the front door rather than the back. When he opened the door to the building, a man was standing in the hall near the door to his office. Hearing him coming, the man turned and Kent was staring at someone who looked astonishingly like himself. In fact, the man was his identical double, even to the way his hair tended to fall over his forehead.
There was a moment of discomfort as the two men stood staring at one another. Then the other man spoke in a voice that even sounded much the same as Kent's. Only, his speech indicated an ivy league education while Kent had attended state university. Greeting Kent by name and asking for a few minutes of his time, the man stepped aside to let him open the door to his office.
An hour later, Kent was aware that he had a twin brother who had been raised by his paternal grandparents who Kent had never known. He had been told all his life that his grandparents had died before his birth. Now he discovered that, not only had they not died but had lived only a few miles away in the next state. The house he had been appraising belonged to his great grand parents who had recently died. Before they died, they had told James (Kent's twin brother) the facts concerning his birth. Kent's father had been killed in Korea before he was born and his mother had no money to pay the doctors and hospital. Kent's paternal grandfather had never liked the woman his son had married and offered no help. Finally, upon learning that there were twins expected, he made her an offer. If she would give one of the babies to him to raise he would pay all her expenses and provide a monthly amount for the support of the child she would keep. She was never to divulge the existence of the twin and was never to make any attempt to contact either them or the child. James had been to visit his great grandparents several times through the years but had never been allowed to go into town while there. The great grandparents had kept a scrap book filled with every piece of information and every picture of Kent through the years. This is where James had gotten the picture he had hung to replace the one Kent had taken. It was a couple of friends who had been in the van each time Kent had seen it and was James' fiancee who had paged Kent at the airport that morning. All of this was a scheme to find out as much as possible before James revealed himself to his twin brother.
James' grandparents had left him extremely wealthy and it was his desire to share his wealth with his long missing brother. This was the reason for the elaborate scheme. He wanted to be sure Kent was someone he would want as part of his family.
By the time they had finished talking it was plain that both men were anxious to become better acquainted and be the brothers they had been denied the opportunity to be.
All this came about because of The Picture.
THE END