Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

Tuesday May 29
    "Hey, do you know a librarian named Daniel Christensen?"
    "Yeah, why?"
    "Because he's dead."
    I set down the syrup with a thump and looked across the table at my brother. Obituaries with breakfast: one of the joys of rooming with a homicide detective. "It can't be the one I know. Dan's not even 40 yet."
    Kevin folded the paper into quarters and handed it across the table to me. "Thirty-seven. Take a look."
    I looked.
    CHRISTENSEN, Daniel W., 37, of Glendale, passed away suddenly on May 25, 2012. He was a graduate of CSU-Northridge and UCLA, and was a librarian at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is survived by his parents, William and Brenda Christensen, his sister, Eliza Melendez, and his nieces, Sarah and Lindsey. Arrangements are pending.
    Oh my God . I laid the paper down, stunned. “I knew him from library school. We had classes together during my first semester.”
    “Were you all friends?”
    “Yeah…but I haven’t seen him in years. This is unbelievable. I wonder if he’d been sick?”
    “Doesn’t it say he died suddenly?”
    “Yeah. Doesn't that mean heart attack, usually? He’s kind of young for that.”
    “Not necessarily. He’s pushing 40.” Kevin took the paper back and scanned the obituary again. “How well did you know him?
    I sighed. "Pretty well. He was the first gay guy I met after I moved here. He was looking for a good time, and it had been a while for me, you know? I think I was a novelty to him, me the jock academic, but we both got tired of the novelty pretty fast.”
    “How’d he get to be a medical librarian?”
    “Same way I got to be a history librarian. He already had a degree in something medical. As I remember, he was an RN.”
    “So you were more than friends."
    "We slept together, if you consider that being more than friends. We didn’t have much in common. He was into the leather scene and wanted to hang out with bikers and bondage types. I didn’t find that appealing.”
    “But you fooled around with him anyway.”
    I glared at Kevin. "Stop the interrogation. It didn't last long. Only one semester. Then he broke up with me and we both moved on. I don't really know anything about his personal life after that."
    Kevin resumed scanning the death notices. "I don't remember meeting him."
    "Because you didn't. He didn't like cops. Just one of the many things we didn't have in common." We'd argued about it. "It wasn't a sustainable relationship."
    "Sustainable relationship. I like that. Have to use that in a sentence today. 'The suspect blew her old man away because it wasn't a sustainable relationship.' Whaddya think?"
    "I think that's not a very good excuse for murder."
    Kevin snorted. "There almost never is." He waved his fork at my plate. "Finish up. Your pancakes are getting cold."
    I poked at my pancakes with my fork. "I'm not that hungry."
    "Well, eat anyway. You're only a week out of the hospital. You have to eat to get your strength back."
    Kevin’s girlfriend, Abby, came out of their bedroom. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, ready for work doing set construction at one of the studios. She overheard Kevin’s last remark. “He’s right, you know.” She dug in her bag for her keys. “And breakfast is the most important meal, blah blah blah.” She bent down to kiss Kevin and then patted me on the head. I swatted at her hand and she laughed. “See you tonight, guys.”
    Kevin saw her out the door, then sat back down and tapped me on the hand with his fork. "Hey. You sure you're ready to go back to work?"
    "I have to go back. I told Dr. Loomis I'd be back today. If I don't show up, she'll probably come get me."
    Kevin regarded me for a minute. “Well, take it easy. Pace yourself this week. You don’t want a relapse.”
    I glared at him. “Yes, Dad.”
    He just laughed.
    I left the apartment and headed toward campus. After Kevin got divorced and I moved to LA, we’d chosen an apartment in Westwood Village based on convenience. I could walk to work, and Kevin and Abby both had fairly short drives. I enjoyed my daily trek across campus. On the way to work, it let me get into the library mindset and think about what I needed to do that day. On the way home, it let me clear my head and decompress. I had a car, an old VW bug, but I didn't have to use it very often.
    Today, though, I wasn't thinking about what I was going to face when I got to work. I was thinking about Dan.
    Dan had been a rebound relationship for me, several months after