Unrevealed

Winston Gambrel had assembled over the years. You knew it had to be worth something because he had all of it in cases, protected behind heavy glass.
    The Gambrels, both British, came to the States in early 1970 and opened their popular pub initially for tourists and British transplants so they’d have a home away from home… or pub away from pub. But the establishment quickly found American fans who loved the Beatles’ motif, imported ales and lively atmosphere. In recent decades, Abbey’s Road Pub was the epicenter of all things charitable — from Run for the Cure events to feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving Day. They sponsored scholarships for adult literacy programs and were well known for their annual Halloween festivities, where they awarded a one-hundred-dollar cash prize to each of the four people whose costumes and appearance best matched George, Paul, Ringo and John.
    While Winston Gambrel looked nothing like John Lennon — his muscular and manly six-foot, four-inch frame would have dwarfed the thinner and slighter Lennon — Gambrel traditionally wore his John Lennon garb, circa 1969, to each year’s Halloween party. His wife, Abbey, of course, dressed like Yoko Ono. Photos of the pair in their costumes were a regular feature every November 1 in the “People” section of The Denver Post . As I walked up the staircase that led to the master bedroom, I studied the vast array of photographs that lined the wall. The shots chronicled Winston and Abbey’s cherished moments at their pub over
the last forty years. Amid the crush of photos were forty shots — one for each year of the pub’s operation — of their popular Beatles-themed Halloween parties. In the first shots, taken in the early 1970s, Winston obviously really had long, straggly hair that looked identical to Lennon’s unkempt mane, along with the beard and mustache to complete the Lennon-like vibe. But as the 1970s melted into the 1980s and then the 1990s, it looked as if Winston cut his locks and switched to a John Lennon wig and paste-on facial hair. As each year passed, I noted, Winston’s frame got a little heavier but his John Lennon costume never changed. From the cream-colored bell-bottom pants to the matching cream jacket and shoes, Winston Gambrel perfectly re-created the outfit Lennon wore on the Abbey Road album cover.
    I checked downstairs and saw that Mr. Gambrel was seated on a chair, head in hands, as the paramedics zipped his wife’s body into a black plastic bag and summarily lifted her onto a wheeled cart. There was no dignity to the whole thing, I thought. Here was the grieving husband and there was his wife, cold and dead, being zipped up like leftovers into a plastic baggie. Everything they shared before that moment was brutally truncated by fate and punctuated by the irreverent rip of a metal zipper. Every dream they dreamed ended at that moment; every knowing glance they shared across the breakfast table would be at the mercy of Mr. Gambrel’s heartbroken memory. Shattered . That’s the best way I can describe that man at that moment. Gutted . That’s what he looked like as he reached out and achingly touched the plastic bag one last time as they carted Abbey’s body out the door.
    I knew what the cops were thinking downstairs. Nice acting job, asshole. We’re all skeptics at any death scene. We
always see the worst in everyone because we’ve seen the shithooks of humanity and what they are capable of doing to their loved ones. To most of us, you’re not innocent until proven guilty; you’re a suspect until we can find the real perpetrator. And when I find a pair of your wife’s panties with bloodstains hidden under a piece of furniture…well, what can I say? It’s not leaning in your favor.
    I continued up the stairs to the master bedroom. The light on the landing was on. That was what Mr. Gambrel told me in his first telling of the story. I flicked on another switch, which partially lit up the master bedroom. Walking into the bedroom, I turned on another light and gazed around the dark wood-paneled room. My first thought was that it reminded me of the kind of elegance you might find in an English castle. There was the king-size four-poster that sat so high up, one would need a small step stool to comfortably get in. A stone fireplace across from the bed had a wrought iron emblem that looked like a royal crown and the words “Hail Britannia” beneath it. I’ve always wanted a fireplace in my