Jon Michaelsen's Blog: Ramblings, Excerpts, WIPs, etc., page 24

EXCERPT: Relatively Rainey (A Rainey Bell Thriller) by R. E. Bradshaw

Relatively Rainey

by

R. E. Bradshaw

Part I

PRELUDE TO A NIGHTMARE

“There are moments when even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance of Hell.”

 ― Edgar Allan Poe

 

CHAPTER ONE

7:00 PM, Monday, September 2, 2013

Chancery Court Subdivision

Durham County, NC

The small window screen in Dr. Kent Barker’s hand puzzled him. His profound bewilderment drew the attention of his neighbor.

“What’s the trouble there, Kent?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Kent, half listening, still tried to make sense of things.

The smiling neighbor pointed a dripping hose nozzle at the screen.

“You’ve been standing right there since I started watering this flowerbed.  I was so caught up in watching you, I think I over-soaked it.”

Kent looked at the perfectly maintained bed of flowers edging the driveway next door. The flowerbed exemplified the order in Kent’s upper-middle class, manicured subdivision. The homeowners’ association made sure everyone conformed to the neat and tidy rules. Upon returning an hour ago from a Labor Day weekend trip to the beach with family, the Thomas Kincaid-ness of his cul-de-sac struck him once more. The French Country style homes formed a perfect jigsaw puzzle picture of the American dream. No matter how many times Kent made that corner, the image remained the same.

He remarked to Marilyn, his wife, “I could take a picture of this street every day, and it would only reflect the change in seasons.” He smiled at his college freshman daughter’s reflection in the rearview mirror, adding, “There is comfort in that sameness.”

Hannah was almost on her own now, soon to relegate her time with the family to weekends when she could manage it. She was the last of the Barker brood to leave the nest. Kent had just turned fifty, and the slower pace of suburban living suited him. None of his medical school buddies would believe beer-bong champ Barker would prefer the mundane and routine in his later years. But after a long day of surgery, surprises were the last thing an anesthesiologist wanted. Spotting the screen out of place interrupted the solace Kent felt in his world of comfortable banality.

The neighbor persisted, “What happened? Did you get that off and now can’t figure out how to put it back?”

Kent asked, “Reece, were you around this weekend?”

“Yes. Well, I was. Travis took his mother to see his brother on Sunday, but I was here all weekend. Why, what’s wrong?”

Kent glanced back down at the screen and the basement window it should have been covering.

Shrugging, he answered, “I don’t know. This screen was off, but the window was still locked on the inside, and the alarm was active. Marilyn says it just feels like someone was in the house, but we can’t find anything missing.”

“Now, that’s disconcerting. I sure didn’t see or hear anything. Is she sure?”

Kent’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, came screaming out the front door with the answer.

“Daddy, some pervert went through my laundry and stole all my underwear, all of it, bras, and everything.”

Hannah left her first week’s worth of college laundry in the basement, before joining the family for the beach holiday with her older siblings and their spouses. Kent knew this because he carried the bulging duffle bag down the stairs Friday afternoon.

Kent’s wife fled the house close on Hannah’s heels, phone to her ear, and in mid-sentence, “…broke into our house and stole our teenaged daughter’s underwear. And if I’m not mistaken, there is some genetic material you need to come collect.”

At that moment, everything in Kent’s banal world changed.

#

10:00 PM, Friday, July 25, 2014

Buckhorn Road, Chatham County, NC

Arianna Wilde climbed into her grandmother’s farmhouse canopy bed, sinking into the feather top and down pillows. A source of countless fond memories, she felt the bed cradle her as it had on those special occasions when she came to visit the farm. Snuggled under Nana Wilde’s arm, Arianna would listen to her favorite books read aloud. Her war bride grandmother maintained her cultured British accent throughout her life, even after spending the last sixty-nine years of it near the banks of the Cape Fear River. Arianna believed a genuine appreciation achievable for Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan only when the texts were read aloud by a British grandmother.

She inherited the farm and her grandmother’s feather bed in January. After finalizing her divorce and the sale of the matrimonial home, Arianna moved into the farmhouse in May. The money from the settlement helped restore and modernize the old place. Having lived in Chapel Hill since her college days, the move twenty-five miles south to her family’s ancestral country home was a welcomed one. Wherever her laptop received a signal became an office, and the solitude of country living appealed to her at this juncture in her life. Relocating seemed the answer to the question Peggy Lee sang over and over in her mind for the last few years, “Is that all there is?”

The intense stress of living on site during a remodel was well worth it. Arianna relearned the self-sufficiency of her youth after too many years of living dependent on the skills of others. Now in the final stages, she was down to the cosmetics of painting the interior and trying to get a handle on the overgrown grounds. Beating back nature to the wood line in the massive yard by day and painting the two-story interior by night, Arianna worked her body to its limits over the last few weeks. She had no spare moments to dally in the past. The work focused her and kept her old friends Regret and Dread at bay.

Arianna regretted she didn’t love her husband. He was sweet and kind, but it wasn’t enough. She regretted that she’d stuck it out for thirteen wasted years and dreaded the thought of dating again at forty-one. She regretted she hadn’t spent more time with her aging grandmother. She dreaded the weekly phone calls from the ex, ostensibly to make sure she was all right, but it was more about propping him up.

He ended almost every conversation with some form of, “I could understand if it was someone else, but you just stopped loving me.”

Arianna regretted ever being honest with him about her feelings. She had contemplated telling him there was someone else, in hopes that he would move on with his life. She regretted that she didn’t care enough to lie.

Today she added a new bit of remorse to the list. She thoroughly regretted saying, “How hard could this be,” before turning the key on the old tiller and promptly sending it through the side of the barn.

“I should have remembered the tractor debacle,” she said aloud, following it with chuckles.

Her muscles ached but were taut. Her body looked better than it had in years. She overcame many things since the move, learning something new about herself and the farm seemingly minute by minute. She had taken back her name and worked on taking back her life one day at a time. Regrets aside, Arianna had mastered her dread of a coming new day.

Tomorrow, I will conquer the tiller.

She reached for the bedside lamp. As she pulled the old chain, plunging the room into darkness, she said aloud, “Think happy thoughts.” It was something her grandmother would say each night. Arianna thought of the happiest thing she could.

The new washer and dryer will be installed in the morning. Praise baby Jesus.

The lace curtains of the canopy bed swayed slightly with the light summer wind coming through the open windows. The heat and air would be installed once all the construction dust settled.

“No need to clog up a new system, ma’am,” the installer informed her, as he handed her a trip ticket with a much later installation date than she had hoped scribbled at the bottom.

The dust was the reason the wood-framed screens were removed downstairs and the large windows thrown open. Fans sat on sills, running day and night to dry paint and suck out the seemingly never-ending drywall dust. She cleaned and vacuumed every day, but the dust prevailed. Plastic covered the portal to the bedroom where she slept. With the door shut much of the time the room stayed relatively free of contaminants. The powder-fine gypsum dust still managed to slip through the tiniest cracks. She thought the hand-tatted canopy should come down before it was damaged, but it comforted her with the retained fragrance of her grandmother’s perfume. Arianna’s eyes fluttered shut as the night breeze tickled her nose with Nana Wilde’s Chanel no. 5.

#

He knew she would be one of his girls the first time he saw her. He had twenty-five regularly visited targets, but was always ready to add a new one if the urge struck. He had jogged past the old Wilde farm the day she ran the tractor into the ditch by the road.

“Perhaps brush-hogging the front forty wasn’t your wisest choice for a first outing,” he had said to her.

“No kidding,” she said, and then laughed before blowing strands of stray hair from her brow.

He had been obliged to stop, along with several other helpful country neighbors. That was the thing about people living in the county where they buried Mayberry’s Sheriff Taylor’s Aunt Bee. Down on the river, away from the suspicion and self-absorption of urban life, folks were there to help a neighbor in need. He needed Arianna Wilde from the moment she smiled in his direction.

He paid his first furtive visit to her that very night. He helped himself to a black bra and panties left hanging from a makeshift clothesline on the back porch, and now treasured among the many items he removed during successive visits over the last eight weeks. It took him only a few minutes the next day to find out about the new resident on Buckhorn Road. He simply mentioned the activity around the Wilde place to the man at the feed store over in Brickhaven. What the old timer didn’t know, his nosey wife filled in. A little more searching on the Internet and he had all the information needed on his new target, Arianna Wilde.

He watched her bedroom window, as the amber glow of the bedside lamp went dark. It wouldn’t be long now.

#

7:50 AM, Saturday, July 26, 2014

Arianna Wilde’s Farmhouse

“What do you mean there wasn’t anyone at home? I’m at home. I saw you drive away.”

Arianna listened to the voice on her phone for only a second, before unleashing a tirade.

“I think spending thousands of dollars with your company warrants more than a cursory knock. Flash Gordon could not have made it to the door before you decided no one was home.”

The voice interrupted her rant, causing her to pause. Upon hearing the delivery driver’s response, she sighed heavily.

“You want to know who Flash Gordon is? Oh, for the love of— Look, your office said the delivery would be between eight and nine this morning. It is just now seven-fifty. You turn that truck around this instant or return after I get off the phone with your boss, your boss’s boss, and on up the chain of command until I have a washer and dryer installed and working in my home, today.”

Arianna was halfway down the stairs when she hung up on the apologetic driver. The old washer was on its last legs and the dryer gave up the ghost years ago. Dogs or cats or some other creatures had been making off with her lingerie for weeks. She suspected the crow that hung out near the clothesline. He looked guilty and seemed always to be watching. Arianna laughed at the thought of a tree somewhere decorated with her bras and panties. She hated to think of the alternative—that one of the workers had a thing for ladies underwear. Her dirty clothes from the past week waited in a basket on the kitchen counter, in anticipation of a new working washer and dryer, and as a way to stem the tide of vanishings. She couldn’t afford to hang any more underclothes on the line to dry. She had no time right now to shop for more.

Reaching the front door, she flung it open and stood there ready to speed dial the appliance store if its truck did not return in a timely fashion. Another bright July day had dawned on a clear blue Carolina sky. Sunrays shot through the open door, illuminating the dust she stirred on her way down the stairs. Arianna watched the particles dance in the sunbeams. The light revealed a floor and stairs she’d cleaned the evening before, cast again with a layer of powder-thin dust.

“When will this end?” She asked, with a palm raised to the invisible powers that be.

She saw the footprints at the same time the appliance truck slowed on the road in front of the house and began the turn into the driveway. Tracing the path of the footprints with her eyes, Arianna noted they approached from the back of the house, went up the stairs, and then returned the way they came.

“Carl, are you here already?”

Arianna called out to the handyman she’d hired to help with the finishing touches. Maybe he arrived early and realized she had not come out of her room yet. He was supposed to finish the tile repair on the upstairs bathroom today. No response came from Carl. He was probably out back, waiting for her to appear with coffee. The guys were getting out of the delivery truck, tools in hand. All was right with Arianna’s world for a moment.

The euphoria was short-lived. As she led the installers through the kitchen to the laundry room at the back of the house, Arianna saw her dirty clothes dumped on the floor. The empty basket was left on the counter. As she reflexively picked up the clothes and returned them to the basket, she froze with her eyes on the footprints. She could see now they led up to her bedroom from the back door. Arianna’s sense of security took a major hit. Her anxiety registered with the men now watching her.

“Are you okay?” One of them asked.

Her shaken state evident in the reply, Arianna answered, “I believe someone has just stolen all my underwear.”

#

7:10 AM, Saturday, September 20, 2014

Chancery Court Subdivision,

Durham County, NC.

Kent Barker turned the last bend in the running trail, legs and lungs on fire. With the end in sight, he dug deeper, sprinting as fast as his fifty-one-year-old legs would allow. Crossing his imaginary finish line, Kent alternated between walking off the lactic acid surging through his near cramping muscles and grabbing his knees, gasping for air.

“Nice sprint,” a sheriff’s deputy said from the edge of the woods.

He and two other deputies appeared to be searching the strip of land behind Kent’s house that separated the running trail from the yards in the neighborhood.

“Thanks,” Kent replied, between gasps. “What’s going on?”

The deputy approached, asking, “Do you live around here?”

“Yeah,” Kent said, finally able to stand erect. “I live right there.” He pointed to the back of his home.

The deputy pulled out a pad and pen. “Could I have your name, sir?”

“Dr. Kent Barker. What’s going on? Has something happened to my wife?”

“Why would you ask that, sir?”

Kent became impatient. “Because you’re standing in the woods behind my house asking me questions.”

“Your wife is Marilyn Barker?”

“Yes. What’s happened? Is she okay?” Kent demanded.

“May I have a look at the soles of your shoes, sir?”

Kent immediately showed the bottoms of his shoes to the deputy and began to panic, “Oh, my God. Marilyn. Tell me what’s happened.”

“Your wife is fine, Dr. Barker. Someone broke into the house two doors that way.” The deputy pointed just a few hundred yards down the trail. “During the canvas this morning, we found tracks in the mud there and the same tracks here behind your home and more muddy prints on your back patio. They do not match your shoes. We spoke to your wife. We understand you reported a theft a little over a year ago. Is that right?”

“Yes. Did he come back?” Kent asked.

“The crimes seem to match the fetish burglaries we’ve had over the past twelve months, starting with your home last September, only this time the female was at home.”

“The Tanners, that’s who you’re talking about, right? Is anyone hurt?”

“Tanner, yeah that’s right. Do you know them?”

“Yes, we all know each other. It’s a friendly neighborhood. You didn’t answer me. Is everyone okay?”

“Yes, sir. No one was hurt. The teenager was home alone. She took a shower and when she came out, the clothes she left on the bathroom floor were gone along with the contents of her lingerie drawer.”

“My God, he was in there with her. When did this happen?”

“Where were you around midnight last evening, Dr. Barker?”

Incensed that he was under suspicion, Kent responded, “What? You think I stole my own daughter’s underwear, and now I’ve moved on to the neighbor’s?”

“We’re asking these questions of everyone, Dr. Barker.”

“I was home with my wife. Didn’t you speak to her? Didn’t she tell you that?”

The deputy smiled. “We have to ask and yes she did. Did you see or hear anything unusual last night?”

Kent relaxed. “No, nothing. We went to bed around eleven. I take a sleeping aid, and I was out pretty quickly. I wouldn’t have heard a thing for at least six hours. My wife says I’m like the living dead.”

“In the last year, have additional personal items disappeared from your home?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but our daughter doesn’t live here anymore. She shares a house with some friends a few miles away and closer to her school. The responding officers last year told us she was the target, that it was probably a teenager with issues.”

“I think we’re reevaluating that assessment, Doctor. This is the eleventh reported fetish burglary in the last year.”

“My God, I had no idea,” Kent said, feeling sick to his stomach.

The deputy made a note and put the pad back in his pocket. “We might want to speak with you again. Keep your doors and windows locked, sir.” He started to turn away but added, “You might lay off that sleeping aid for a bit. At least, until we catch this guy.”

#

4:56 AM, November 22, 2014

Arianna Wilde’s Farmhouse

Buckhorn Road, Chatham County, NC

She watched the second hand on her grandmother’s kitchen wall clock tick away the minutes in slow motion. The large red rooster with the clock in his belly hung in that very spot as long as Arianna remembered.  She’d been sure to rehang it as soon as the new paint dried. Mr. Rooster’s clock hands said it was closing in on five in the morning. Her attacker left her at three, two hours ago. Two hours that crept by one tick at a time.

“Arianna, can you look straight ahead for me?”

The EMT’s smile did not cover his concern, as he focused a small flashlight in each of her eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, clipping the penlight back inside his shirt pocket. He checked the bandage on her head, seemed satisfied, and asked, “Are you warm enough? Can I get you anything?”

Arianna pulled her grandmother’s quilt tighter around her shoulders and resumed watching the seconds tick by.

“Are you sure we can’t take you to the hospital?” A second EMT asked.

“I’m sorry, gentleman. May we have a moment alone with Ms. Wilde?”

Arianna heard the voice of the female detective again, the one who tried to interview her before without much luck. The only words Arianna spoke in the last two hours were to the emergency operator. The details she gave were sparse. Her name, address, and the declaration “he raped me” were all she said before hanging up. The phone repeatedly rang in the long minutes she waited for the police to arrive. Arianna ignored it while she watched Mr. Rooster tick-tick-tick away the life she knew. Convinced this was punishment for walking out of her marriage, for trying to start over, for seeking the life of independence she craved—Arianna Wilde stopped talking because there was nothing left to say.

The flashlight bearing EMT protested being asked to leave, “She needs medical attention.”

“That’s the goal, but right now what she needs is to process,” the detective responded with authority.

“Well, if she starts showing signs of shock—”

A female voice unfamiliar to Arianna interrupted the EMT.

“I think what Ms. Wilde needs right now is a little quiet. If you will just wait outside in the hall, I’m sure she’ll leave with you voluntarily when she’s ready.”

The room cleared of all but the detective and the other woman, the one with the calm, controlled tone. The moment the police arrived the normally peaceful country night had filled with male voices and the sound of heavy footsteps. They attempted hushed communications, but Arianna could still hear them—and smell them. Or was that his odor lingering on her skin. She rubbed her nose in her grandmother’s quilt, hoping for a whiff of Chanel no. 5, as quiet returned to the kitchen.

Arianna heard the refrigerator door open. She turned to see the calm voice belonged to a tall woman with short chestnut curls, dressed in a black, classic, long wool coat. At the moment, she was removing a carton of half and half from the shelf. Arianna became entranced with the woman who did not try to speak to her, but went about making tea. A full five minutes of silence passed before the tall stranger sat down across from Arianna and slid a cup of tea in front of her. A little wisp of steam curled up between them.

“I hope I got it right,” the darkly attractive woman said. “You look like you could use something warm. It’s getting chilly in the early mornings, isn’t it?”

Arianna nodded and reached for the cup. She pulled it close, wrapping both hands around it for the warmth. To her bones, she felt a chill that only seemed to turn colder as time wore on. Tea was exactly what she wanted, but she hadn’t been able to articulate that to anyone. Arianna stared across the table into eyes that understood.

With eye contact made, the woman began to talk. Nothing in her voice registered the seriousness of the situation. She spoke as if they were sitting down for a casual tea, two strangers meeting for the first time.

“I’m a coffee drinker, but my spouse spent a summer in England during college. I’ve been told putting the milk in first and then adding the tea and water makes a better cup. Do you add your milk first?”

Arianna answered without thinking. “Yes, my grandmother was British and taught me to make it that way.” She then took a sip of the tea and found it tailored to her taste. She smiled at the stranger. “It’s perfect. How did you know?”

The woman returned the smile and replied nonchalantly, “You have half and half in the refrigerator. The used cup in the sink has a residue, giving me a clue as to the color I was shooting for. The sugar bowl, a few spilled granules, and the spoon on the paper towel by the hot water dispenser were a clue that you stirred a bit of sweetener into your tea. Since you are health conscious, according to your food choices, and appear to be in great shape, I guessed it was only a small amount, a guilty pleasure.”

Arianna took another sip before asking, “Are you some kind of Sherlock Holmes?”

“In the way that Doyle explained the power of observation, I guess you could say I am a believer. My name is Rainey Bell. I’m a behavioral analyst by trade.”

“Are you a detective, like her?” Arianna indicated the other woman standing silently by the kitchen sink.

“No, Detective Robertson and I go back to my days as an FBI agent, but I’m a consultant for local law enforcement now.”

“Why are you here?” Arianna wanted to know.

“Sheila,” Rainey said, giving a nod to Detective Robertson, “thought I might be uniquely qualified to help you.”

“Why, because you have experience making victims talk?”

Rainey Bell leaned a little closer and locked her eyes on Arianna’s. “No, because I’ve been exactly where you are. I know what this feels like, and I think I know what you need to hear.”

“Oh yeah, and what is that?” Arianna asked with a bit of attitude, thinking this woman couldn’t possibly know what to say to take away the self-blame. Could she have fought harder? Should she have fought him until he killed her? He would have, she was sure of that. And what was that feeling, nagging, pulling at her heart—was it shame for choosing compliance over death?

The behavioral analyst kept her deep green eyes focused on Arianna as she explained,  “Every assault is unique, but one thing remains the same. You did what you had to do to survive and that is all that matters. You survived. Hang on to that. Hold it tight. It will help you in the days to come. When your brain starts telling you what you should have and could have done differently, simply remind yourself that you are alive to hear those doubts.”

“He was going to kill me,” Arianna said, and finally broke.

#

9:15 PM, Sunday, November 30, 2014

Long-term Parking, RDU Airport

Wake County, NC

“Park on the other side of that RV in the last row. The security cameras can’t see this far back.”

The older man laughed. “I see this isn’t your first rodeo. How old are you kid?”

The teenager turned to the man. “However old you need me to be to complete our business.”

The man eased the car into the parking place and put the car in park.

The teenager instructed, “Turn it off. The security guard tools around here on a golf cart. He won’t notice us if the car isn’t running. Keep your foot off the brake.”

“You come here often?”

The man’s attempt at humor was lost on the teen. He replied to the joke, “Let’s get this over with. Fifty bucks for the blow, like I said. If you want to touch me, that’s going to cost you double. Money up front.”

The man dug into his back pocket for his wallet. “I don’t usually pay first.”

“Well, you haven’t been tossed out of a moving car by an asshole that didn’t want to pay up.”

The kid held out his hand for the money, unprepared for the cold steel that slapped around his wrist.

“You are under arrest for prostitu—”

The teenager didn’t hesitate. He snatched his wrist free of the man’s grasp, taking the handcuff with him. In an instant, he was out of the car and running toward the woods. There was no moon, and once he was out from under the parking lot lights, he was plunged into inky black darkness. His eyes took their time adjusting, but he didn’t slow down. He heard footsteps and shouts coming fast on his heels.

“Stop! Police!”

“Fuck that,” the boy said, and ran faster.

His heart pounded in his chest as his feet flew across the ground before he felt the earth drop out beneath him. A few seconds of hang-time later he plunged into the frigid water of the drainage pond.

“Dammit,” he thought, “I forgot about the fucking pond.”

He thrashed around in the cold water and finally found his footing. He stood up in the glare of multiple flashlights.

Silhouettes of officers shouted, “Let me see your hands. Let me see your hands.”

The teenager reached for the sky. A submerged tree branch caught on the handcuff still dangling from his wrist. It followed his hand into the air and slapped against his side.

“Jesus Christ,” a voice behind a flashlight exclaimed.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” the kid yelled, before stumbling backward.

As he swung wildly to catch his balance, the branch swung around in front of him. That’s when he saw it wasn’t a branch at all. The teenage tough-guy turned into the little boy he truly was, screaming and falling on his back in the water, as skeletal arms wrapped around him.

#

1:00 PM, Monday, December 1, 2014

Bell’s Bail and Investigations

East Franklin Street

Chapel Hill, Orange County, NC

“Rainey Bell,” she said into the phone.

“Ms. Bell, this is Detective March, from the Wake County Sheriff’s Office.”

“Good afternoon, Detective. How can I help you?”

“Actually, I have some information for you,” the detective replied. “It’s about your assault case. I was told you should be informed of a recent finding.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” Rainey said and sat up straighter in her chair.

“We found three bodies in the drainage pond near a long-term parking lot at RDU. Two of the bodies haven’t been there long enough to be JW Wilson’s victims, but the third, a male, appears to be that of Dr. John Taylor. We don’t have DNA evidence yet, but we did find his wallet and credit cards near the body. We aren’t making this public knowledge until the test results come back, but things leak. You know how it is. We thought you should know before you read it in the paper.”

“Thank you for that consideration, Detective. I appreciate it. You don’t have to call the former Mrs. Wilson. I’ll take care of that.”

“You’re welcome. Yeah, Detective Robertson, over in Durham, said you’d probably want to do the notification with Mrs. Wilson.”

Rainey tensed and corrected him. “She’s Mrs. Bell-Meyers now.”

“Yeah, I guess she remarried. Anyway, we can put the case to bed. Wilson must have sunk the missing escorts out deep in the lake.”

Rainey commented, “I guess we will know that when the bodies are discovered. Thank you again for calling. Is there anything else?”

The detective seemed confused by Rainey’s dismissal. “Uh, no. I guess that’s it. Have a good day, Ms. Bell.”

“You too, detective,” she hesitated, before sending him off with the truth. “By the way, Katie Meyers Wilson married me. She’s my wife and the mother of our triplets. You can put that in the file before you close it. People should know there was a happy ending for us.”

Rainey was pleasantly surprised at the detective’s response, “I’ll do that, Ms. Bell. That’s good to hear. Congratulations.”

She hung up the phone and stared at the wall.

Ernestine Womble, the office manager who only came in two days a week now, topped the stairs leading into Rainey’s office. Known as Ernie by all that loved her, she was still as spry as ever, acting and looking much younger than her seventy-two years. She was semi-retired but kept an eye on things, as she had since Rainey’s father opened the bail bond business back in the seventies.

“What crazed idiot does Wake County want you to help them catch this time?”

“That wasn’t a consultation request,” Rainey replied. “They found John Taylor’s body—the veterinarian set up to take the fall for JW Wilson’s crimes.”

“Oh,” came Ernie’s one-word reply.

“I guess I better call Katie before the media leaks the story.”

“You all right kid?” Ernie asked.

Rainey would always be a kid to Ernie. She helped Rainey’s dad, Billy, raise her and was more of a mother figure during her formative years than her biological mother. Ernie was giving Rainey the eye, the one that said, “Don’t lie to me.” Rainey knew better than to be anything but truthful.

“I think so. I’m not sure. Every time I get to a place where the memories of that time dissipate, something pops up to remind me. Here comes another round of nightmares.” She added sarcastically, “Katie will be thrilled.”

“He didn’t win, you know,” Ernie reminded her.

Rainey shook her head in response. “Yes, he did. He intended to scar me for life and apparently he has. JW Wilson will just not go away.”

Ernie would not abide self-pity. “He intended to kill your ass, how many, three times? He did not succeed and is dust in an urn as we speak. You’re still here. You fill your head with that beautiful family of yours and evict that evil SOB from your mind. He’s of no consequence to you now.”

Rainey smiled at Ernie’s simplification of a complicated neural process.

“That’s not exactly how PTSD works. I can’t control when the memories come. It doesn’t matter how happy my life is. He comes again in the night with no warning. Each round of nightmares brings more detail than the last. I suppose until my mind processes the entire event, I’m going to be forced to witness the explorations of my repressed knowledge of that night.” She paused, before adding another truth with a sigh, “Ernie, I don’t want to remember.”

“Maybe that’s the problem, Rainey. You need to talk it out. You never have. Your dad was the same way, kept everything tight to the vest. He wouldn’t even talk to Mackie about the war for years. His demons came in the night too until he had to get help. Do you know when that was?”

“No, I just remember his nightmares, his screams, and barking orders.”

“Oh, those were mild compared to the early years. He shot a hole through the sliding glass door in his bedroom once. He was dangerous in his sleep.”

“I never knew that,” Rainey said, wondering what else she did not know about her father. The first ten years of her life, she hadn’t known he existed. She didn’t come to live with him until she was fourteen. Parts of Billy Bell’s life remained a mystery. Rainey had discovered only a few years ago that she had a half-sister.

“When you started coming to visit, Mackie and I told Billy he had to go to therapy, or he might shoot you during one of his nightmares. He went every day for a while. He’d check in at the office in the morning and then head to the VA hospital over in Durham before beginning his day. It changed him for the better. He still had the dreams occasionally, but they were never as bad.”

“I knew he spent a lot of time with vets, working through their PTSD battles.”

“He was working on his own as well, Rainey. You can’t keep those horrid memories locked inside forever. At some point, they are going to come out. The question is, will it be on your terms or theirs?”

#

The house was finally quiet. After feeding, bathing, and tucking the triplets into their beds, Rainey read to them until the last little eye closed. She and Katie went to bed a few minutes later, exhausted from the trying day. The discovery of John Taylor’s body had veiled the evening in somberness. Emotionally drained, they lay there quietly, each lost in thoughts of her own. Freddie, Rainey’s cat, was comfortably curled at her feet. With Katie’s head resting on Rainey’s chest, they drifted off to sleep.

The movie in her dream began almost immediately. Rainey had experienced it many times before. Disconnected from her bound and gagged body, spread-eagle on the bed, she watched him rape her. Rainey saw him dig the scalpel into her flesh, as she floated above the scene, able to look on now without the heart-pounding panic of earlier viewings. Time had hardened her emotions toward the violence perpetrated against her body. The physical scars from those injuries had healed. It was the gaping wound to her psyche that had yet to close.

She had come to view this part of the dream as the prelude to the impending nightmare. If she were lucky Rainey could force herself awake, before being thrust into the helpless body on the bed and returned to the pain and panic of the attack as if it were happening for the first time. But that was not to be the case on this occasion.

He was at her ear, whispering, “You be a good girl now, or I will have to hurt her.”

Rainey felt the plastic wrapped mattress beneath her body. She closed her eyes against the panic and the searing pain screaming through her body. She fought the bindings, flailing her head wildly from side to side.

“Look at her,” he demanded.

Opening her eyes to see an unconscious Katie tied on the bed next to her, Rainey’s guttural cries were muffled by the gag while the nightmare continued to veer from its normal course.

“What?” He asked, his eyes sparkling with delight behind the black mask concealing the rest of his face. “You don’t want me to hurt her?”

Rainey glared at him through eyes nearly swollen shut, her breath fast and shallow, air puffing in and out of her gagged mouth. Her nose bled profusely, providing no access to more air and threatened to drown her in her own blood, but still she fought him.

He raised the scalpel over Katie’s chest. “She should have known, you know. She should have seen what I was. She wasn’t paying attention. This is all her fault, right? She should pay for the pain she allowed me to inflict on you. Katie should have seen it all coming, don’t you think?”

The blade glinted in the air. Rainey tried to scream and tore at the bindings, ripping skin as the rope dug deeper into her wrists. The small part of Rainey’s brain that was conscious and horrified by what it saw began to beg.

Please God, start the siren.

Rainey’s silent prayer was answered with the sweet sound of a distant whine blaring from a patrol car in route to save the day. It was an accident, a mistake that saved her life. The orders were to approach in silence. A rookie cop hit his siren and charged toward the scene before someone told him to turn it off. Mercifully, it sang out just long enough to warn her attacker.

The dream resumed its chilling retelling of the night JW Wilson nearly killed her. Katie’s body disappeared. Rainey once again inhabited her private hell alone with JW, who bolted from the bed and scampered out of the room. Now came the moment when he paused at the door and looked back over his shoulder. Rainey could see his mouth move, but she could never make out what he said—until now.

She could only imagine he believed she wouldn’t survive the overdose of narcotics he’d given her, or at least the amnesia-inducing effects would block her memories. Rainey didn’t remember, but her subconscious had witnessed the entire attack and kept a record. It had been a long reveal, one painful disclosure at a time, but Rainey had now seen it all. Her mind finally played the last moments on the memory reel.

JW looked down at her. “I should have done that years ago.”

The next and last second of the movie played in slow motion. It was the first time it had ever advanced this far. Rainey watched in disbelief.

Oh, my God!

“Rainey, wake up. Rainey! Wake the hell up!”

Rainey’s eyes flew open. Katie was standing by the bed, cautiously hitting her with one of the decorator pillows from the chaise lounge by the window.

“Wake the hell—oh, there you are. Wow,” Katie said, “that was a bad one. Sorry, I had to hit you. You were losing it. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Rainey sat up. “I’m sorry, honey. I wasn’t loud, was I? I didn’t wake the kids, did I?”

“No,” Katie said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “It was one of those where you’re trying to talk, but it’s all garbled in your throat. Are you okay, now? Did Freddie hurt you? He was biting your wrist.”

Rainey blinked her eyes a few times and looked down at the tiny feline bite marks on her left wrist. She sighed deeply and then wrapped her arms around her wife. She buried her face in Katie’s hair and whispered into her neck, “No, honey, I’m not. I need to call Danny. I need help.”

 

EXCERPT: Kill Switch – A Kyle Callahan Mystery by author Mark McNease

Kill Switch

A Kyle Callahan Mystery

by Mark McNease

 

Part I

Among the Living

CHAPTER One

Kyle Callahan glanced around his therapist’s office. He’d sat in this overstuffed beige leather chair, talking to this wise and soft-spoken man for the past six months, and still there were small details he would notice on a visit that he hadn’t seen before. A photograph of Peter Benoit’s daughter, now in her second year at Princeton. A small, cheap plaster bust of Chopin, Peter’s favorite composer, staring blindly from the bookshelf. A book about circuses among the dozens on psychology, psychiatry, and the byzantine workings of the human mind. And tonight: a set of bronzed baby shoes on Peter’s desk. Kyle never sat at or beside the desk. He only looked at it tucked tightly into a corner of the room beneath a window overlooking Central Park West. It was as mysterious as his therapist—he only knew about the daughter and the love for Chopin by asking questions, a reversal of roles that had happened perhaps a half dozen times over the course of twenty-four one hour sessions spent talking about his life since the killing. Correction, the shooting, as Peter reminded him. Yes, Kyle had killed a man. Yes, it had been in self-defense. Yes, it had ended the nightmarish career of the Pride Killer, among New York City’s most successful and cruel sociopaths. So, rightly, Peter Benoit (pronounced “Ben-wah”) reminded Kyle from time to time that it was not murder. But that didn’t change how Kyle felt. It didn’t erase his guilt, however unnecessary. He had taken a man’s life in an Upper East Side townhouse basement, and he had been trying to live with it ever since.

“I haven’t seen bronzed baby shoes since I was a kid,” Kyle said, looking at the desk. “I started to ask if they still made them, but obviously those were made a long time ago. Are they yours?”

“Yes, Kyle, they’re mine,” Peter responded. “I was that small once. We all were.”

“Are they really bronze?”

“I don’t know. My mother had them made. But they look bronze.”

“Yes, they do.”

Kyle turned his attention back to Peter. Lately he’d found himself attracted to the therapist and it made him uncomfortable. He knew it wasn’t real—not real real—and that it was some kind of “transference”, but it made him uneasy. It didn’t help that the therapist was quite tall and handsome, late-forties, with brown hair shot through with gray; blue eyes, large hands, and much too relaxed for anyone living and working in New York City.

“What were we talking about?” Kyle asked, trying to refocus.

“Your father’s death,” said Peter.

“Really?”

“Yes, Kyle. You were visiting your parents in Highland Park. You went in to see your father in his study and you found him slumped over his desk—the same desk you now have in your spare room at home.”

Kyle thought about it. He could not understand how talking about killing Diedrich Keller—the Pride Killer—had morphed into talking about his dead father. Or how it led to talking about his relationship with his husband, Danny. Or his job. Or anything, really. None of those things were why he’d come here, but they had entered his conversations with his therapist and he was as uncomfortable with that as he was with feeling attracted to the man. Psychoanalysis was a curious, dangerous beast, and Kyle wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision letting it out of its cage.

“He didn’t like me,” Kyle said. Just like that. Flat, true.

“What made you think that?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. I just asked why you thought your father didn’t like you.”

Kyle stared at him. “Because he told me.”

There, it had happened again. Another unsettling truth uttered as if he’d said it was cold in the room or that he’d left his umbrella at home and it was raining. This had happened quite a few times over the months. Bits and pieces of memories, emotions and unpleasant realities popping out into the air, floating there for a moment then falling to the floor or staining his heart.

“How did it happen?” Peter asked.

“How did what happen?”

“How did your father tell you he didn’t like you? Were you having an argument? Was it a response to something that had been said?”

Kyle remembered it clearly now, just like he remembered finding his father dead at his desk—a not-so-repressed memory he’d told very few people. His mother knew; she was in the house that day, too. Danny, of course. But almost no one else.

Kyle had been at the kitchen table having breakfast. He was twenty at the time. Twenty-one? He was in love with David Elliott, the young man he pursued to New York City from Chicago where they’d both attended college. He’d made the decision to move but not yet done it. His father had not taken kindly to Kyle’s being gay. It wasn’t rejection, per se, but more of a further distancing to an already distant relationship. Kyle’s father had taken the news coolly, as he’d taken all of Kyle’s decisions in life. As if he didn’t care.

“I told him I was moving to New York,” Kyle said, recalling it now in the therapist’s office. “He shrugged. He said, ‘Fine,’ or something like that. Something short and disinterested. ‘Don’t you care?’ I asked him. I didn’t want him to oppose the move—I was hell bent, as my mother said, on chasing David across the country—but something.”

“You wanted him to take it as a loss,” Peter said.

“Yes, yes, I did.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

“Not at all,” Kyle said. He looked down now, worried his eyes might water. “I said, ‘That’s all you have to say? ‘Fine?’ And he just … I don’t know … took a bite of his toast, looked at me and said, ‘I don’t like you, Kyle.’”

“It must have hurt.”

Kyle felt his facial muscles tighten. He hated being told such clear simple truths. Of course it hurt. And of course Kyle had never told anyone before tonight what his father had said, or how deeply it cut him.

“Yes,” Kyle said. “It hurt. Then he got up and went to his study. To his desk. Where I found him dead twenty-five years later. Can we change the subject?”

Peter was sensitive, which was not surprising. He was a very experienced therapist and knew when to let things rest. He paused for a moment to drink some of the ginger tea he always had on the stand beside his chair. Kyle knew it was a way of shifting away from one subject to another. Peter Benoit was not the only one in the room who could read people.

“How are the nightmares?” Peter asked, setting his teacup back down.

It was a question the therapist hadn’t asked for several weeks. Kyle was glad of the omission; he preferred not to talk about the dreams that had plagued him since the shooting in Diedrich Keller’s basement. They’d stopped for a while—a short while—but had returned the last week, as distressing as ever. The dreams’ scenario changed slightly, their sequence of events, but they always ended the same: with Kyle sobbing over the body of the serial killer he’d just stopped with a bullet to the heart, while his husband Danny and his friend Detective Linda Sikorsky lay dead at the hands of the man he’d murdered.

“It wasn’t murder,” Peter said the first time Kyle described the dreams. “It was kill or be killed. You need to remember that.”

Kill or be killed. A struggle, a twist of fate, a gunshot, and Kyle had taken a life. He knew it should matter whose life he had taken—a brutal killer who had claimed fourteen victims over seven years and who’d been within a knife blade’s distance from killing Danny—but watching a man die at your own hand defied emotional logic. Death was death. And as he’d seen the life quickly flee from Diedrich Keller’s eyes, he’d felt as if he had been tattooed forever by it. Then the dreams began and he sought out a therapist to try and stop them.

“Not so bad, or so often,” Kyle lied. He’d had a dream just the night before.

“Good,” said Peter, doubting Kyle had told him the truth. “How about your photography?”

Kyle looked up at him. Once upon a time, not long ago, he’d been an avid amateur photographer. The passion had lasted about fifteen years for him, ever since his father had given him an expensive camera for his fortieth birthday. Then the murders at Pride Lodge, Kyle standing over the empty blue pool taking photographs of his friend Teddy’s broken body at the bottom; his first and only photo exhibit at the Katherine Pride Gallery, just days after the madman Kieran Stipling had been stopped from killing Stuart Pride. It was all connected, Kyle knew. The murders, the murderers, and his photography. As one entered his life, the other left. Now he no longer took pictures and had no desire to.

“It’s still on hold,” Kyle said, knowing it would probably stay there. Maybe he would someday see something he thought would look amazing through a camera lens, turned into a moment in time. Or a face that needed preserving in a photograph, or a scene. But not anytime soon. His camera had lain on a shelf in the spare room gathering dust for six months.

Peter leaned forward. It was usually a signal their fifty minutes were coming to a close.

“Have you given some thought to what I suggested?” Peter asked.

The therapist had been encouraging Kyle to take on something new—another passion, another pastime. Kyle had expressed for the first time his interest in getting into the reporting end of his career. If his boss Imogene could do it, he could, too. He’d even begun contributing to her stories—un-credited, of course. He was writing copy now, under Imogene’s tutelage. He knew he was too old to become a reporter, but there may be ways to contribute. No one knew what editors looked like, and Kyle had discovered he had a knack for writing and editing as well as being the best personal assistant Imogene had ever had. He was good for more than bagels and coffee and answering her emails well past quitting time.

“Yes, I have thought about it,” Kyle said. “And Imogene thinks it’s a great idea. I’ve been working on stories with her. She’s very experienced, she’s teaching me a lot—about angles to stories and how to shape them.”

“Good, good. And are you still taking anti-depressants?”

“Oh, God no!” Kyle said, as if he’d just tasted something bitter. He’d tried three different anti-depressants and each made him feel disembodied. No matter how low the dose, whatever they did to him was pronounced and unpleasant. He was glad to find a therapist who preferred talk to medication. Kyle had thrown the pills out each time and was now determined to find another way to deal with his . . . trauma. He didn’t like the word. He didn’t like thinking he’d been traumatized. But sometimes there was no better way to describe it.

What he did not tell Peter Benoit that night was that he’d been thinking through the suggestion to find a new interest and had come up with something very different from writing, editing or reporting. Something he was not ready to tell Peter about. Something that already had him waking up feeling better, clearer, and once again energized.

“Our time’s up,” Peter said gently. He always ended the sessions with his kind voice. Then, as he did from time to time, he said, “I’ll be away next week.” He reached for the Day Planner he kept next to his ginger tea, opened it and said, “Two weeks from tonight is okay for you?”

It was always okay for Kyle. Peter had only skipped three sessions in six months. He never said why; it was part of his mystique. Kyle knew his therapist was divorced—there were no photos of his ex-wife in the office. He knew he had a daughter, and a cat whose white hair was sometimes on the therapist’s pants. But beyond that he knew very little.

“Two weeks is fine,” Kyle said.

He stood up then and shook Peter’s hand. He often wondered if they’d been at it long enough for a hug, but it was better to keep the distance.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” said Kyle. He turned and let himself out of the office.

Tomorrow was Tuesday and he planned on working late with Imogene. The Manhattan District Attorney was under investigation and it was a huge story, with developments breaking daily. He would be in the office well into the evening.

He would also be paying a visit to someone who could help him find his new obsession, his path back to the life he’d known.

* * *

A short synopsis: Kyle decides the best way he can reengage with life is by following his other true passion – solving murders. He takes on his first cold case: the killing of a teenager three years ago. She was the daughter of a friend, and Kyle decides to give it a try, to bring justice to a grieving, obsessed father, and to pull himself out of his own despair. Joined again by his friend Detective Linda Sikorsky (New Hope, PA, retired), he finds himself delving into the undercurrents of New York City politics and on a collision course with a crime boss who kills as easily as she breathes. Everyone thought Corinne Copley was killed for her cell phone in a random act of violence on a Manhattan side street – but was she? Kyle is determined to find out, and to stay alive.

EXCERPT – Chapter One from “HOPE” (Sequel to SAFE) by Mark Zubro

HOPE

by Mark Zubro

Excerpt:

Chapter One

Friday 8:04 P.M.

 

I held Steve tight and whispered, “Shhhhsh, shhhhsh.”

Through his sobs, I heard him say, “I won’t go back. I won’t go back. No one can ever make me go back there.” Between words and tears there were a lot of sniffles, snorts, and hiccups. The shoulder of my T-shirt was soaked.

I wasn’t sure what to say or do. I’m not sure a lot of people would know. I guess maybe a therapist would, but I wasn’t one of those. I was a high school senior who got pretty good grades, but I was holding the boy I loved, and he was in a lot of pain. I knew I was going to hold him for as long as he needed me to. The poor guy.

We’d been dating a few months. My parents had come around and were pretty okay with me being gay. He and I

had talked about him coming out to his mom and dad. Both sets of parents knew Steve and I hung around. I’d

helped rescue him from some terrible people. He’d been through some hideous moments but wasn’t given to tears and hysterics. Or hadn’t been until now. I was really worried. Most of the time he was quiet and shy except when we managed to find time to ourselves alone.

I didn’t call it dating in front of my parents. Why rub it in? We were still in high school after all. His parents fawned over me when I saw them. They saw me as the savior of their son.

They were big on Saviors being members of the largest fundamentalist church in Riverside, California. His dad was the pastor of the Witness for Jesus conglomerate.

I didn’t urge or discourage Steve from coming out to them. I’d told him no matter what he decided, I’d be there for comfort and support.

No question, it’s gotten better for gay kids in general and for me in particular. I’m just not sure it’s always easier. When I’d come out to my mom and dad, they had been a little nutsy at first, but they’d come a long way since then. They had even attended the last few local PLFAG meetings.

It was night, and Steve and I were on a bench in Fairmont Park down by the river in Riverside, California. Moonlight shone through the leaves of a vast pepper tree under which the bench we sat on rested. A ring of huge old jacaranda surrounded our tree making it as secluded a spot as we would like in the middle of the city.

We’d come here before. If we didn’t have a movie to go to or a place to be, we headed for this corner of hidden serenity. It was quiet, and we weren’t likely to be disturbed. We could cuddle, and we did that a lot. Sometimes through the branches and leaves of the trees we just sat and watched the moon rise and the stars begin to shine over the mountains to the east.

I heard footsteps on the path about twenty feet on the other side of where the tree’s shadows ended. It sounded like a couple murmuring to each other. I heard a soft giggle. They moved on and gave no indication they were aware of us.

A gentle wind rustled the leaves. The weather was warm so we didn’t need jackets right now. The night would cool enough for that later.

Half an hour ago, all his message had said was, “At Fairmount Park. Please come at once.” We’d planned to go out that night so it wasn’t a big change of plans. Sometimes we texted about what we wanted to do instead of calling, so getting a text wasn’t real odd. As soon as I’d joined him under the tree, he’d flown into my arms, which had caused me to stumble a few steps backwards.

Once I’d steadied us, I’d eased him onto the bench. When he calmed down enough but his head was still resting on my shoulder, I asked, “What happened?”

“I walked into the house after you dropped me off.”

I’d picked him up from the downtown library where he’d been while I was at baseball practice. We didn’t kiss when I dropped him off. It was too public, too risky being right out in front of his parents’ house.

He took a deep breath then lifted his head. “When I walked in, my mom and dad were both sitting on the couch. Each of them held a Bible. They just sat there. So I began to go up to my room. Then my dad commanded me in his most pissed from the pulpit voice, ‘Come here young man.’ I didn’t know what was going on. His tone kind of scared me, but what he said next for sure scared me.”

“What’d he say?”

“He did that raise his right arm, shake his index finger at me. He does that from the pulpit when he’s describing and denouncing great sinners. Then in that deep, disdainful, rumbly voice, he asked, ‘Have you been dating that boy?’ When he said the word ‘dating,’ I knew that tone he said it in. I’d heard him use it from the pulpit when describing all kinds of sins. He made it sound like filth and perversion.”

He gulped. “I didn’t know what to say.”

Steve moved his head and looked me in the eyes. “I finally just gave this real pathetic nod. I wish I’d been braver.”

“You were doing the best you could. I know even that nod must’ve taken a lot.”

“I was scared shitless.”

“Then what?”

“His voice got real quiet which was almost scarier than the rumbly angry voice. He’s learned to change his voice to great effect.”

“What did he say?”

Steve shuddered. “He said, ‘Get out. Don’t come back until you have confessed to the Lord and begged his forgiveness.’ I started to say something. I’m not sure what I was going to say. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t even get a word out. At the first sound that came out of me, he was on his feet bellowing at the top of his lungs and ranting about God and Jesus, sin and perdition, and burning in Hell.”

A light breeze ruffled the leaves for a few moments. A few stray purple petals from the nearby jacaranda trees skittered by our feet. I heard the hum of a couple of cars on Market Street.

“Did he say who told them?” I asked.

“Not him. I stood there for his ranting. When he finally drew a breath, it was my mom who told me in her mousy voice. I hate that mousy voice.”

His mom was this real plain woman, gray hair, gray complexion, kind of always sort of gray clothes. She never said much when I was around and even then she spoke in pretty much a whisper.

Steve went on. “She said that the neighbors told them, the Bazniks. That it was embarrassing that they had to hear it from someone who lived next door to us.” He shook his head. “The Bazniks are prominent in another church called Heaven Sent. They’re my dad’s big rivals. They’re always smiling to each other’s faces, but my mom and dad hate them.”

“Not very Christian of them.”

He gave the briefest hint of a smile as one side of his mouth lifted a half an inch. He continued, “My mom spoke so calmly, almost like a recitation. It was spooky. Zombie like. It bothered me more than my dad’s ranting. She went on and on about what the damn neighbors would think. She actually said that. ‘The neighbors. What will they think of us?’ She talked about how she knew they’d gloat about our family harboring a nest of sin.”

“You’re a nest of sin?”

“I guess so.”

“How does that feel?”

“If I’m in your arms, not bad.”

“How’d the neighbors find out?”

“She said the neighbor’s son, Harold, saw me kissing ‘that boy’. He’d taken a picture with his phone. She showed it to me. It was of us in your car in the parking lot after a night baseball game. Remember? We thought everybody was gone.”

Was Harold jealous? A closet case? Or just a teenage religious whack job with too much time on his hands?

“My mom finished with, ‘We thought he was a nice boy.’” Steve took a deep breath. “At that point I lost it. I yelled at her, ‘He is a nice boy. I love him.’” He pulled in another deep breath, let himself calm down, then resumed. “After that it got really quiet. I felt bad right away for yelling at my mom. I shouldn’t yell at her. She puts up with enough from my dad. She looked like I’d slapped her, and saying I loved you to them was also a mistake.” Another deep breath. “My dad started screaming, ‘Love! You don’t know what love is. Has he touched you? If he has, it’s rape.’ He gave this big shudder, but when he started again he was still screaming. ‘Touching another boy!’ He advanced on me. I was just frozen to the spot. He loomed over me. He belted me with his right hand.” Steve began crying again.

He’d rushed into my arms when I arrived, and I didn’t get a close look at him in the dim light. When he was once again calmer, I lifted his head and saw his left cheek. From his ear to his nose was red and a darkening purple dotted the area nearest his eye.

“He hit you!”

More tears fell. I held him tight.

When Steve finally stopped sniffling, got himself under control, and blew his nose, I asked, “What did you do?”

“I rocked back on my heels. I may have taken several steps back. I had to brace myself on the coffee table for a few seconds to keep from falling. When I finally stood back up, he swept his arm toward the front door and just kept screaming, ‘Get out! Get out! And never come back!’

“I ran all the way downtown to the library. I hid in the reference section in back on the second floor. I didn’t call you because I know your family doesn’t let you take calls while you’re eating dinner. One of the librarians saw me crying and he asked if I was okay. He’s always nice to me. I said I was fine.”

“He might have seen your face.”

“Is it really bad?”

“It looks like you got beaned with a baseball several times around the same spot.”

He wiped his nose. “When I was finally calm enough, I came here and texted you. I was too upset to talk, and I was afraid someone would see me crying.”

Steve and I were pretty out as a gay couple at school. Most of the more prominent homophobes were in jail or on probation or kicked out of school or cowed enough not to try something openly against either of us. The biggest and most blatant homophobes from school had murdered an unfortunate gay kid a few months before. I was part of helping find out who did Steve and I had almost got killed ourselves in the process. It had been a harrowing rescue. After everything calmed down, we began dating.

Kids are kind of benign these days about gay stuff. Most of them anyway, but all it takes is one and at that time, there were more than a few.

In terms of his family finding out, I realized we probably should have been more careful. That kind of teenage hubris, we’d studied that in literature class last semester. Or was it teenage obliviousness? I thought I had less of that than most. I guess I had as much to learn as any other teenager. We should have been more discreet, should always have kept in mind the danger of our being a couple hurting Steve’s relationship with his family. It was a tough barrier for two high school kids dating each other even though I was a senior, graduating soon, and he’d be a senior next year.

Normally we didn’t do public displays of affection and were careful when we did. Obviously not careful enough. Angry or jealous people were following us around, maybe taking pictures with their phones as if we were the victims of some kind of demented high school paparazzi. At the moment that didn’t seem too paranoid.

A lot of times I just wanted to hold his hand, like straight couples did, as we walked down the halls, or a peck on the cheek as we each left for our separate classes, or have him jump into my arms after the team won a game. Or, hell, make out like some straight couples did when the lunchroom supervisors weren’t looking.

He’d just told his parents that he loved me. Those words echoed in my brain. We actually hadn’t said “I love you” out loud to each other even in a romantic moment.

I wanted to show the world I loved him, to show him I loved him. Saying “I love you” to him was kind of a big step I had been waiting and hoping to take.

I’m realistic enough to know love in high school doesn’t have a big chance of lasting forever, but I wanted to give whatever we had as much of a commitment as I could for as long as I could. Sometimes I thought about a huge marriage ceremony with the two of us all dressed up in tuxes. That would be cool. Someday. If we’re lucky.

Right after he’d had an awful fight with his parents, and he was stuck in a horrible, rotten situation, didn’t seem the right moment to discuss the romantic state of our relationship. I was too concerned with helping him through this than with my need to express my feelings, which I wasn’t as good at as I wanted to be.

He was still in my arms, gazing up at me while we talked. I rubbed my fingertips between his shoulder blades. I knew he liked that, and it soothed him when he was stressed.

He sighed and lay in my embrace for a few minutes, but then he shook himself and stood up. “What am I going to do?”

I leaned forward, put my elbows on my knees, and looked up at him. “What do you want to do?”

“Erase the afternoon.”

“I left my time warp at home.”

He gave the briefest of smiles. “That would work.”

We’d watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show together on my computer a month ago. He’d said he thought Rocky was hot, and that I had the build of the actor who played him. I agreed that the guy was a stud, but I thought it was a bit much to say I resembled him. Nice, but exaggerated.

Steve began pacing around under the leaves of the trees. Puffs of the breeze reached us in our shelter. We could hear the distant rumble of traffic on Highway 60.

I stood up and went to him. We hugged for a few minutes, then he stepped back. “I guess the first thing is to figure out where I’m going to go now, for the night. There aren’t any relatives that live nearby who I’m close to. The ones that do live nearest are all as loony religious as my parents. Some worse, if you can believe that.”

I didn’t know the right words to say. The only thing that came to mind was that for the moment we needed some kind of adult intervention. I said, “I guess for now, come home with me.”

“Can I stay with you?”

“You’ve gotta have some place to stay. We’ll talk with my parents. We’ll begin to put the wheels in motion to deal with this. Your situation is more than a couple of teenagers can handle.”

As I drove, I wondered what my mom and dad would say. They liked Steve, but a houseguest for an indefinite period of time? And one with issues? I guess we’d see.

We stopped at In-N-Out Burger on the way home. He hadn’t eaten dinner. He still ate like the entire starting infield of the baseball team combined including the pitcher and the catcher but never gained an ounce.

27th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists – Awards Announced June 1, 2015

It’s finally here! The 27th Annual Lambda Literary Awards will be announced at a dinner ceremony in New York Monday evening, June 1, 2015.

MYSTERY FINALISTS:

LESBIAN MYSTERY

The Acquittal , Anne Laughlin, Bold Strokes Books


Done to Death, Charles Atkins, Severn House Publishers


The Old Deep and Dark-A Jane Lawless Mystery , Ellen Hart, Minotaur Books Slash and Burn, Valerie Bronwen, Bold Strokes Books


UnCatholic Conduct , Stevie Mikayne, Bold Strokes Books

GAY MYSTERY

Blackmail, My Love: A Murder Mystery , Katie Gilmartin, Cleis Press
Boystown 6: From the Ashes , Marshall Thornton, MLR
Calvin’s Head , David Swatling, Bold Strokes Books
DeadFall , David Lennon, BlueSpike Publishing
Fair Game , Josh Lanyon, Carina Press
A Gathering Storm ,  Jameson Currier, Chelsea Station Editions
Moon Over Tangier , Janice Law, Open Road Media
The Next , Rafe Haze, Wilde City Press

 

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/27th-an...

EXCERPT: Done To Death: Lambda Award Finalist Charles Atkins – Lesbian Mystery

Done To Death

by

Charles Atkins

Excerpt:

Chapter Two

Barry Stromstein felt the migraine coming. His vision had wavy lines around the edges and it was hard to focus on Lenore’s face. There was her trademark auburn bob and arresting green eyes; admittedly, her hair was wavering to the right and, at the moment, she had four eyes. He heard her words, but struggled to put them into sentences. Just nod and smile, he told himself, hoping he could make it through, knowing it was her perfume – Lenore’s ‘Possession’ − that triggered what was blossoming into a headache that if he didn’t take his Rizatriptan in the next ten minutes would leave him desperate for his bed and a dark room for the next three days. ‘Right,’ he parroted her last sentence, ‘local color . . . petty jealousies, fun characters.’

‘Are you even listening?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think you’re getting this, Barry, and to be honest, your first treatment I wouldn’t use for toilet paper. Bargain Bonanza? What kind of crap project is that? We’re not cable access. You either pull this together fast, or I’ll give it to Carrie. And if that happens . . .’

He wanted to scream, and he knew she wasn’t kidding. ‘I’ve got it, Lenore,’ and, struggling to find the words, he blurted, ‘you want blood, guts, expensive tchotchkes and scenic New England. Kind of Antiques Roadshow meets The Hunger Games on the set of Gilmore Girls.’

There was a moment’s pause. ‘Hallelujah!’ she said, closing the space between them.

Her perfume, like a wave of noxious gas, engulfed him. He had to get out of there. ‘I’m on it.’ He backed away, ‘I’ll have something on your desk by morning.’

‘That’s a good boy,’ she said. ‘And Barry, if you don’t . . .’

He took that as his cue and, holding his breath, bolted from her inner office. Half-blinded by the oncoming migraine he raced out of Lenore’s penthouse suite and down the hall. He bypassed the elevators and flew down eight flights of stairs, his thoughts fixed on the pill in his upper desk drawer. He sprinted to his offices and banged his knee on a glass top desk in the reception area.

Celia, his secretary, looked up, ‘Oh crap,’ she said. ‘You’ve got migraine eyes.’

‘Yeah,’ he said without stopping, the words thick on his tongue. It was always the same. First the vision went, then his words, and then came the actual headache, like a vice squeezing his eyeballs while a steel pike pounded into his brain. He jerked the drawer open, grabbed the little blue box, pulled out the ridiculously expensive pills, fumbled at the packaging and finally popped the melty lozenge under his tongue. It tasted like chalk and like something trying to be a pastille mint, but bitter and metallic. He closed his eyes, and heard Celia as she quietly walked around his corner office closing the blinds and shutting out the spectacular views of Central Park and midtown.

‘Do you want me to cancel your afternoon meetings?’

‘Please.’

‘You got it . . . you should go home.’

‘Can’t. Need to come up with a new concept. She hated Bargain Bonanza. Give me forty-five minutes. Wait!’ Still tasting the pill’s remnants on his tongue, he thought through Lenore’s directive. ‘Tell the team to toss everything on Bargain Bonanza but the locale . . . I think that’s still OK – in fact, I know it is. Tell them blood lust and collectibles, and to be ready to pitch by one. And no one’s leaving till we have a winner.’

‘Will do. Anything I can do to help?’

‘No . . . it’s just got to run its course. Thank God for the magic melt-under-the-tongue pills.’

‘It was her perfume, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why don’t you tell her?’

Barry looked at his assistant through hooded eyes. ‘Seriously?’

‘Right,’ Celia shrugged, as her phone rang. ‘Hope you feel better,’ and she shut the door.

Just breathe, he told himself, his head in his hands, his eyes shut tight. Let it pass. What a bitch! After three years with Lenore, Barry had no illusions. Either he came up with an acceptable pitch in the next twenty-four hours or he could take his résumé and try to find another producing job in an industry where thirty-five is over the hill and forty is washed up, and he was thirty-eight. To the outside world this was a great gig, a high six figure salary, bonuses, a team of young and energetic wannabes snapping at his heels. His NYU Alma Mater, Tisch School of the Arts, wanting him to take interns, holding him up as an exemplar of someone making it in the entertainment industry. And in a single day it could all turn to ashes. Lenore was desperate to stay on top . . . of the ratings, of her celebrity, of everything and everyone. She was hunger personified, a gaping maw always wanting more. ‘She’s a monster.’ He cracked his eyes open, and thought of his one point five million dollar apartment that was barely eleven hundred square feet, with a tiny patio, two modest bedrooms − one for him and Jeanine and the other for three-year-old Ashley. He pictured his gorgeous wife and their little girl, with blond ringlets that would darken with time, bright hazel eyes − they were his two treasures, his salvation. You have to pull this together.

He and Jeanine, a contestant on his last successful show, Model Behavior, had no more than a two month cushion in the bank and no family safety net. To Barry’s blue collar Jersey parents and Jeanine’s, who survived crop to crop on their Iowa farm, they were the affluent ones.

His phone buzzed; Celia’s voice came through the speaker. ‘Barry, it’s Jeanine, do you want me to tell her you’re out?’

‘No, put her on.’

The line clicked.

‘Hi sweetie,’ Jeanine’s husky voice even better than his magic pill.

Barry closed his eyes, ‘Hey babe, what’s up?’

‘It’s kind of stupid,’ she said. ‘But I felt like I should check before blowing twenty-five hundred bucks on a pocketbook.’

‘What?’

‘I know you’ll tell me just to do it. But I’m looking at all the other high-end real estate agents and the ones who get the million dollar sales are all carrying Chanel or Birkin. It’s part of the uniform − a Chanel suit, a pair of Louboutin pumps and a Birkin bag.’

‘Then do it,’ he said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Babe, if you need it, you need it.’

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Migraine.’

‘What triggered it?’

‘Lenore’s perfume.’

‘That bitch! Are you going to be OK?’

‘Yeah, actually just hearing your voice helps.’

‘Why don’t you take the rest of the day? Screw the purse, I’ll pour you a bath, give you a massage . . .’

Barry let Jeanine’s words fill his head. He imagined her soft hands kneading his tense shoulders, the tickle of her silky curls against his skin. ‘That would be what the doctor ordered, but I can’t.’

‘Barry, tell me what’s wrong, and I’m not just talking the headache. What’s going on?’

He didn’t want to tell her. He hated this crushing sense of failure, of letting her down. He also knew she wouldn’t let up until he told her. ‘She hated the pitch.’

‘Barry, I’m so sorry. What’s the backup plan?’

‘Working on it now. I’ll come up with something.’

‘And if you don’t? What did she say? Tell me, please.’

‘Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine. Everything’s fine. Really. It’s just the headache couldn’t have come at a worse time. But I got to my pill in time, it’s passing. You know me, it’s all about pulling rabbits from hats. I want you to go out and buy that pocketbook. Because you know what they say?’

‘What?’

Remembering advice from one of his first mentors in the industry. ‘The more you spend, the more you make.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Absolutely. I’m going to want to see that purse when I get home. Although don’t wait up, it’s going to be a very long night.’

‘I love you Barry,’ Jeanine said. ‘And that has nothing to do with a pocketbook.’

‘I know. But I want you to have it. I want you and Ashley to have everything, and I’m going to make damn certain that this next pitch blows Lenore away.’

‘OK then . . .’

He heard the concern in her voice. It was like a knife. ‘I’m going to make this work.’

‘I know you will.’

‘Buy the pocketbook.’

‘OK.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ she said, ‘and I hope that bitch Lenore drops dead.’

‘Please God no,’ he said. ‘Without Lenore there will be no Birkin bags.’

‘Fine, then I guess she can live. And Barry . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘I am going to wait up.’

After he hung up he felt a familiar tingle that pushed against the migraine. Eight years into their marriage and ten into their relationship, just her voice made everything right. If she wanted a Birkin bag, he’d make damn sure she’d get it. Lenore trashing Bargain Bonanza was not the end of the world . . . not yet. With his eyes closed he hung on to the sound of Jeanine’s voice. How did you get to be that lucky? It was time to get to work.

He glanced at his monitor and braced for the stab of pain the light would send to his head. He squinted and focused on unread emails. His vision was clearing. The pill was doing its trick with the pain − holding it back. Sure, he’d have a headache, but he’d gotten to the med in time. Just function, he told himself. That was all that mattered − function, come up with something brilliant − Antiques Roadshow meets The Hunger Games on the set of Gilmore Girls − pitch it and get Lenore to love it. In spite of everything, he chuckled. ‘That won’t happen.’ In his three years with Lenore she didn’t love anything, and even when she did, she’d never let you know. ‘I expect brilliance,’ is what she’d say. ‘It’s what I pay you for.’

            Celia, who pre-screened his emails, had divided them into files. He started in with those related to the now tanked Bargain Bonanza. There was one from the field agent who’d been scouting locations − Grenville, CT being a front runner, as Lenore had a country place in Shiloh, the town immediately north. There were several from agents who represented prospective hosts they’d approached, and a small stack from assorted locals at the various sites. He flipped through a couple from freelance show runners and field producers, two of whom he knew well, one he’d gone to school with, Jim Cymbel.

He opened Jim’s.

Hey B:

            Wanted to get back with some ideas for your killer new reality show − Bargain Bonanza. Where the market’s saturated with these flea market contests, it’s a tough sell getting a new boy to float to the top. I’ve got several ways we could do this. I’d love to talk it over and see if we could make a marriage.

            Love ya . . . and Jeanine.        

            Jim

He thought about calling, but only as a last resort. Sure, Jim wanted to help − help himself to Barry’s job. Because that email − and several others in his queue − were a lot like the one he’d sent to Susan Grace, the woman whose offices he now occupied. Last he’d heard she’d fallen down the industry food chain to where she couldn’t even get pitch meetings.

He looked back at the screen and shifted from prospective producers and their promises to deliver fresh ideas, scanning the ones from talent agents − waste of time till you know what you’re doing. He scrolled past the smattering of locals at various sites. Those were a crap-shoot, everything from mayors and first selectmen, wanting Lenore’s reflected glamour in their town, to B and Bs and prospective locations eager to sign lucrative deals.

His eye caught on one headed ‘Cash or Trash − Lil Campbell’. ‘That’s as lame as Bargain Bonanza’ – but he clicked it open anyway.

Dear Mr Stromstein:

            This is in response to the email I received about my syndicated antiques and collectibles column, ‘Cash or Trash’. Yes, I’d love to set up a phone time to talk about one of my favorite things − my hometown Grenville, CT, the antiques capital of New England (possibly the world). The thought of having a Lenore Parks show feature our town is a thrill. Feel free to call any time − the home number is the best, but I do carry my cell.

            Best,

            Lil Campbell

 

He replayed his Hail Mary pass that Lenore seemed to like − Antiques Roadshow meets The Hunger Games on the set of Gilmore Girls. Scenic Grenville, in the Litchfield Hills, fit a third of the equation. Through hooded eyes he dialed Lil Campbell’s number and pressed the button for speaker. He leaned back and waited for an answering machine.

‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice answered.

‘Hi, this is Barry Stromstein, of Lenore Parks Productions. I’m trying to reach a Lil Campbell.’

‘How strange is that? I had literally just dialed your number when you popped up on call waiting.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Talk about synchronicity. Do you mind if I put you on speaker? My partner Ada Strauss is with me and we don’t often get calls from TV producers.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘So what got you to dial?’

‘You’re kidding,’ she said. ‘The thought of having even a single episode of a show shot in Grenville would be a big deal. I mean several of our dealers have been experts on other shows, but nothing in the town itself.’

‘Right,’ and Barry recoiled at the familiar scent of want. ‘So,’ falling into his familiar role of gatekeeper to the brass ring, ‘what makes Grenville special?’

He listened as this Lil woman extolled the town’s beauty. He’d seen the pictures and knew she wasn’t lying. It would be a dream to film: the changing seasons, lovingly preserved Colonial and Federal houses, the tidy greens with their romantic bronzes and ancient cannons. Fine, it’s pretty, he thought, lots of places are pretty. And sure, it probably fulfills two out of three − Antiques Roadshow and the set of Gilmore Girls. He imagined bringing Jeanine and little Ashley out for the shoots; they’d love it. His thoughts drifted, and he made polite noises as though he were paying attention as Lil Campbell talked about the two hundred antique dealers, the weekly flea market and active council − God save me from active councils. He’d heard enough. He gently cleared his throat. ‘It does sound like a place to consider,’ he said, and prepared to launch into his kiss off.

‘Lil, don’t forget to tell him about the murder rate,’ a new voice popped in.

‘Excuse me?’

‘The murder rate,’ this other woman, with a slight New York accent, repeated. ‘Grenville had the highest per capita murder rate in Connecticut for two years running. And if you think about it, all of the victims were in some way connected to the antiques industry, although in that horrible fire at the assisted living center it was mostly that doctor.’

‘Which doctor? And I’m assuming you’re Ada.’

‘Ada Strauss. Long story short: it was a huge Medicaid fraud, we’re talking millions, that centered on this doctor − who apparently was both an antique clock collector and a hoarder. We’d see him every week at the flea market. It wound up as an arson slash multiple murder at one of the biggest assisted care facilities in the state. And, considering the total population of Grenville is twelve thousand, it doesn’t take much to bump our numbers up. That pushed us to the top for 2011, and in 2010 there was a serial killer who was taking out high-end antique dealers. Come to think of it, another doctor − what is with them? That one was a dentist. The freaky thing is he actually worked on a crown for me that came off when I was eating a crème brulée . . . sorry, too much information. Although both Lil and I barely made it out when he torched his place.’

‘What? Wait a minute!’ Barry was forward in his seat. ‘Not too much at all.’ His complacency and the throbbing in his head had suddenly been blown away like leaves in a storm . . . meets The Hunger Games. Ding ding ding. ‘Tell me about the murders. It seems like you know a fair amount about them.’

‘Please, we were there . . . I mean really there, as in almost got killed. You see Calvin Williams, the psychopathic dentist, had a lifelong crush on Lillian, and apparently his mother, who had Alzheimer’s, had been selling off the family heirlooms to local dealers who’d essentially robbed her blind.’

Barry was mesmerized as plots and twists fell from this Ada Strauss’s lips. A town filled with competing dealers, a supply of merchandise that was hotly contested, corruption, bribes, small-town scandals, a child-molesting dentist . . . murder. Too good to be true. He tried to picture Ada Strauss. She sounded a bit older, knowledgeable and funny. At one point he interrupted her, ‘Do I have your headshot?’

She laughed, ‘Why would you?’

‘Right . . . not an actress or on-screen personality, I’m assuming.’

‘Hardly. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember Strauss’s department stores.’

‘I remember them.’ He laughed. ‘I remember my mother putting us in matching caps so she wouldn’t lose us during the back to school sales.’ He felt a twinge of regret. She might be too old for on-screen talent, or she could be a total dog. ‘You’re that Strauss . . . and Mr Strauss?’

‘Passed several years ago.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You didn’t kill him. But it’s kind of you to say.’

‘You’re quick.’

‘You’re surprised.’

His usual defenses were down. There was something here − at least he hoped there was. You’re desperate, Barry, this is a reach. ‘Is there any way I could get you – I mean the two of you – into the city for a pitch meeting this afternoon?’

‘I have no idea what that is,’ Ada Strauss said. ‘I mean aside from what you read in Jackie Collins novels. Lil? What do you think?’

‘We could be there in two hours. It’s the middle of the day, and traffic shouldn’t be bad.’

‘Fantastic!’ And he gave them the address.

After they hung up, he buzzed his assistant. ‘Celia, we’ve got an Ada Strauss coming in from Connecticut. I want some test shots, and get Jason to get her on tape. Have her talk about anything: antiques, murder, whatever.’

He hung up and realized his headache was gone. Please, he thought, feeling the dangerous seed of hope take root. Please, please, please.

 

 

 

Exclusive Excerpt – Lambda Award Finalist – Jameson Currier’s “A Gathering Storm”

An excerpt from A Gathering Storm, a novel by Jameson Currier, published by Chelsea Station Editions.

Chapter 54

Thursday

The room is four walls, white, plaster flaking where moisture has invaded, warmed, and dried. The floor is beige linoleum tiles full of scuff marks, black and brown from boots, wooden chairs, the metal legs of the table in the room. It is chilly, a musty smell hangs in the air. The lighting is fluorescent, artificial, heartless. On the table top sits a microphone, wires that lead to a tape recorder, and an ash tray.

“We went to Joe’s first,” he says. “Sloppy Joe’s. That’s the place on Market.” He doesn’t attempt to lean into the microphone. The orange jumpsuit he wears is the brightest thing in the room. It highlights the redness in his eyes, only half-open because he feels heavy, tired. “We had a pitcher of beer there, then Rick said he wanted to go somewhere else.”

“The beer was all you had?” Teddy asks. He sits across the table from the suspect. His hands rest on the table top. A pencil and a notepad are in front of him but he doesn’t write anything down. A lawyer sits next to his client. Kurt Vong. He is in a dark suit, hair slicked back. There is a sharpness to him that his client does not have. Another man stands watching at the door. The town prosecutor. Cal. Cal Marram. Like Teddy, there is a lumpiness to him. Bald, mustache, something of a gut. Wears a jacket, tie.

“To drink, yeah,” A.J. answers. “We ran out of crank that morning.”

“Crank?” Teddy asks.

“Yeah,” A.J. answers. “We used up a bag the day before. Toked it.”

“So you had nothing other than the beers that night?” Teddy asks.

“Yeah,” A.J. answers. “We had a pitcher at the Starlite, too.”

“So you weren’t looking for any drugs?” Teddy asks.

“Sure, we were looking,” A.J. says. His eyes swivel, then steady. “We’re always looking. But we were both broke. Rick had spent what he had at Joe’s. We barely had enough money to get the pitcher at the Starlite.”

“What time did you arrive at the Starlite?” Teddy asks.

“It was about 11:30,” the suspect answers. “I didn’t have any money on me except some change. We paid for the pitcher with change. Rick did.”

“So you walked into the Starlite. Got a pitcher. Saw you didn’t have any money. And decided to rob someone.” Teddy says. “Because you needed some money?”

The lawyer does not offer an objection. His expression is tense. Wavy lines in forehead. Flat lips. A meeting before this one he agreed to let his client talk. Confess. Tell his side of the story.

“No. Not at first,” he says.

“What happened first?”

“We played a game of pool,” A.J. says. “We didn’t even know anything about the guy. We were just shootin’. Rick wanted a cigarette so he asked a couple of guys at the bar. The queer dude had one. They talked a bit before I came over.”

“So he introduced himself to you?” Teddy asks.

“I got his name,” A.J. replies.

“Did the college boy—did Danny offer you any drugs?”

“Nope,” A.J. answers. “If he’d had anything like that we’d probably wouldn’t be here.”

“Here,” Teddy says. “In this room.”

“Yeah,” A.J. answers. “We were strung out because we were coming down from the crank. From the night before.”

“So all you had were the beers. A pitcher at Joe’s. A pitcher at the Starlite.”

“That’s it,” A.J. says. “That’s what I said before.”

“So you had a lot to drink. Two pitchers. You were drunk then?”

“On a pitcher?” A.J. laughs. “Don’t think so.”

“So you wanted some more,” Teddy says. “So you and your friend, Rick, decide to hit on someone to get some more beer.”

“No,” A.J. answers. “Not beer. We wanted the money.”

“You wanted money,” Teddy says. “But not for beer. Drugs, maybe? So you could score some drugs?”

“Maybe,” A.J. says. “Or maybe another pitcher. We weren’t sure. We’d been cranked up since Friday night. We sorta wanted to come down a bit.”

“So when you met Danny at the bar,” Teddy says. “Did he identify himself as homosexual to you?”

“Well, he looked like fag to me,” he answers. “From the way he was talking and stuff.”

“What do you mean?” Teddy asks. “That he looked feminine?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “He looked like a sissy boy.”

“And that’s when you decided to rob him,” Teddy asks.

“No,” he answers. “We went to the head. Rick said we could give him a ride home and jack him then.”

“So it was Rick’s idea to rob him?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And he left the bar with you because you were giving him a ride home?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Did you give him any indication that you were homosexual?” Teddy asks him.

“I ain’t queer,” he answers quickly, an edge in his voice. His eyes are wider now, a blackness to the pupils, as if it is drawing in anger. “You know that.”

“But did he think you were?”

His eyes shift a bit uneasy. He looks for something to alight on, to deflect his expression, but there is nothing in the room except the suit by the door, staring down at him. He casts his eyes uneasily at the table. “He might have. Rick was being flirty.”

“Flirty?”

“Dancing a bit,” he says. “The music was playing. Rick was sort of dancing as he smoked. Like he was showing off for the guy or something.”

“And it was sexual?”

“Depends on how you look at it?”

“So he thought you were a homosexual?”

“He was askin’ Rick if he’d been to a place in Richmond,” he says. “Said he’d gone there over the weekend. He said it was a place for queers.”

“He used that word—queer?” Teddy asks.

“No, he said ‘gay.’ He said it was a gay club. He started talking about the music they played there.”

“And your friend, how did he respond?”

“He played it real cool,” he says. “Said he wanted to go there sometime and check it out. The queer guy said he’d go with him, if Rick wanted.”

“And did he?” Teddy continues.

“He was being friendly with him,” A.J. answers. “He was leading the guy on. That’s when he asked the faggot if he wanted a ride home.”

“Danny?”

“Him.”

“And then what happened?” Teddy asks.

“We left together,” he says. “Walked out to the car.”

“And where were you headed?”

“Rick was driving,” he answers. “I let Rick pick the spot.”

“So Rick was driving your uncle’s truck?”

“That’s the way it was,” he answers. His voice is again steady, unrattled, sleepy.

“And that left you free to beat the guy?” Teddy asks.

There is a pause, as if A.J. is aware that he is offering a confession. He tilts his head toward his lawyer, then back. “I didn’t do anything to him till he grabbed me.”

“He grabbed you?”

“That’s right,” A.J. answers.

“Where did he grab you?”

“He sort of ran his hand along my thigh,” he says. “And he was close to my crotch.”

Teddy is surprised by the answer, but tries not to show it. He thinks the suspect is taunting him, mocking him. That this part was rehearsed with the lawyer. “And this was when you hit him?”

“He was coming on to me,” he answers. “I let him know I wasn’t that way.”

“And then what happened?”

“He tried it again. Said ‘please.’ I gave him a good punch. That’s when I took his wallet.”

“And Rick was driving during this.”

“That’s right,” he answers. “He was sort of laughing. That’s when we pulled over and drug him out of the car.”

“Did he try to defend himself?”

“Well, yeah,” A.J. says, as if it is the dumbest question he has been asked all day. “But he won’t much of a fighter. Too much a girl. He kept saying ‘please, please,’ real soft like. Like a sissy would.”

“And that made you angry?”

“He was coming on to me,” A.J. says, his voice rising. “He was all over me.”

“I think my client has established that he panicked,” the lawyer says. It is the first thing he has said, except for clearing his throat when he arrived to the room. He folds his hands across the table, an edge of a lip pulled up into a smile.

Teddy returns to A.J. “And your friend, what was his reaction?”

“He was laughing at first,” A.J. says.

Teddy looks down at the pad, thinks a moment, then asks, “How long were you out there—at the fence?”

“Maybe ten minutes,” A.J. says. “Seems like longer.”

“Did he ask you to stop?”

“Well, yeah, he was getting the shit beat of him,” he answers. He gives a little laugh. Then decides it is the wrong thing to do, turns his head toward his lawyer, then back. “I wanted to take him home but Rick got a rope from the truck and said to tie him up to the fence and leave him there.” He thinks some more about his story, then continues. “It was like someone else was doing it. I don’t know what was going on with me.” He looks over at the detective, searching out his eyes for the first time since he entered the room. “He’s bad off, isn’t he, Mr. DeWitt? Is he gonna die for sure?”

“I think so,” Teddy answers. He doesn’t give A.J. the satisfaction of returning his gaze.

A.J.’s expression changes. His cheeks flush, then the corner of his lip turns downward, into a pout, like a bad boy mad that he got caught. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I can’t believe it happened. I just blacked out. I felt possessed. You know, he was coming on to me.”

“Is that why you were afraid of him, A.J.? Because he made you think you were gay?”

“I ain’t gay.”

“You beat him and took his money and his coat,” Teddy says. “Because he made you scared about yourself. Is that why you took his shoes? Because he scared you?” Teddy asks.

“His shoes?” he answers. His voice is rusty. Like it is a stupid question. “Don’t know. When is this ending? This is making my head hurt, you know. I don’t know why we took the shoes. You should ask Rick. Rick was behind all this. Why haven’t you asked Rick all these questions?”

____________

Jameson Currier is the author of ten works of fiction. In 2010 he established Chelsea Station Editions, an independent press devoted to gay literature (located on the Web at www.chelseastationeditions.com). Books published by the press have been honored by the Lambda Literary Foundation, the American Library Association GLBTRT Roundtable, the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards Foundation, and the Rainbow Book Awards.

 

Excerpt: Lambda Award Finalist – Lesbian Mystery – The Old Deep And Dark

The Old Deep and Dark

By

Ellen Hart

Chapter Two

“The old deep and…what?” said Cordelia, tossing her rhinestone-encrusted reading glasses on the restored Chippendale card table she used as a desk.  A giant woman and a giant desk, one with huge claw feet, were meant for each other.   At least, that’s how the antique dealer had sold it to her.  As the part-owner and artistic director of the newest theater in Minneapolis–The Thorn Lester Playhouse–Cordelia required an office that reflected her personality and status.  Gilded Age, while not a reflection of her bank account, seemed the perfect fit.  It was also the general era in which the theater–originally an opera house–had been built.

Across from her sat the University of Minnesota’s preeminent Minnesota historian, Archibald Van Arnam, a friend and avid theater goer.  He had, on his own time and at his own expense, offered to look into the history of the theater for her.  He’d come to her office at the crack of dawn this morning–nearly ten A.M.–to give her his initial findings.

“Yes, yes,” he said eagerly.  “That’s what they used to call this place.  The Old Deep and Dark.  Fascinating, isn’t it?  Fascinating.”

Archibald, when excited, tended to repeat himself.  He was a naturally pedantic man, used to speaking in front of large crowds of disinterested college kids, and thus primed to talk more loudly than was strictly necessary.  He was in his early fifties, with the face of an embittered Roman emperor–or a hired thug–the body of a wrestler gone to seed, and a combover that was so pathetic, Cordelia couldn’t imagine how he could look at himself in the mirror every morning and not dissolve in a fit of hysterics.  In her opinion, he was the perfect dinner guest, always arriving with several bottles of excellent wine, ever willing to entertain.

“Yes, it’s interesting,” she said, picking up her reading glasses and settling them back on her nose, “but even you have to admit, it’s not exactly good news.  ‘Let’s get tickets to The Old Deep and Dark for a show tonight, Sweetums.’  Virtually every staff meeting I’ve had this week has devolved into a conversation about branding and positioning our new theater.  Do we really want to be The Old Deep and Dark?”

“Don’t you want to know why it’s called that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, one eyebrow arching.  “Do I?”

“The original owner, Elijah Samuelson, the man who built the place in 1903, sold it in 1923.  The new owners, Gilbert and Hilda King, intended to turn it into a vaudeville stage, but because of mismanagement, and some say Gilbert’s gambling problems, they couldn’t make a go of it.  Remember, this was right around the beginning of Prohibition.  Apparently, as the theater was on its way toward insolvency, Gilbert got involved with some unsavory types.”

“Gangsters?”

“Bootleggers, though you’re probably right.  They were likely connected.  Lots of mob activity in the Twin Cities back then, you know.  Anyway, Gilbert King–he started calling himself King Gilbert–only ran shows on weekends and spent the rest of his time developing a speakeasy.  That’s what kept him and Hilda afloat until the early-thirties.”

“Where was the speakeasy?”

“In the basement.  People came in through a door along 5th.  They were hustled down a narrow back stairs.”

The comment jogged Cordelia’s memory.  The basement of the theater was essentially unexplored territory.  She’d been down there a few times with her sister to check out the rooms, many of them stuffed with old theater paraphernalia.  Beyond heating, cooling, plumbing and electrical concerns, and because extra storage space wasn’t needed at the moment, she’d decreed that the basement renovation could wait until the upper floors had been completed.  As she thought about it, she did recall seeing a rather beautiful Art Deco bar somewhere in the bowels of the building, but had assumed it was a shell, a prop created in a scene shop for a specific play.

The proscenium stage was located on the third floor of the main building.  The costume shop, scene shop, electrical shop, and prop and costume storage rooms fit reasonably well on second.  The main floor served as a small lobby, with elevators at the edges, and a ticket booth out front under a large marque.  A two-story addition had been added on to the east side of the building during the late forties.  The first level contained two rental spaces, already taken by an independent general bookstore and an Italian Deli.  Theater offices were on second.

“Where exactly was the speakeasy?” asked Cordelia, removing a nail file from her sack purse.

“The southwest corner of the main building.  King Gilbert had it walled off from the rest of the basement. That is, except for a small door, which, at the moment, is unlocked.”

“You’ve been down there?”

“I’ve been searching for old theater records.  I assume you don’t mind.”

She waved the comment away.  “And thus, because of the illegal nature of the speakeasy, the theater became known as The Old Deep and Dark?”

“No, the building wasn’t called that until Gilbert and Hilda were murdered.”

Her eyes widened.  “Murdered?”

“It was 1933, the year Prohibition ended.  Supposedly, King Gilbert got in over his head with the wrong guys.  Those guys cornered him and Hilda behind the bar one night and blew them away.  According to eyewitness accounts, it was a fairly typical gangland shooting.  One goon stood upstairs outside the door on 5th, while two more crept down the stairs and opened fire with Thompson submachine guns.  A couple of bystanders were wounded.  Thankfully, both survived.”

“Wonderful.  Just…exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“I believe Gilbert was hit with at least fifteen rounds.  Seven slugs passed through Hilda.  What was left of them was buried at Lakewood a few days later.”  He adjusted his bifocals.  “I’m afraid there’s more.”

“Of course there is.”

“The building’s haunted.  For the past eighty years, folks have seen faint images of Gilbert and Hilda on the stairs, in the elevators, on stage during shows.  They’ve heard voices and footsteps, creaking floorboards when nobody is around.  Windows in the offices are found open in the middle of winter.”  Leaning closer to her, he dropped his voice.  “Apparently, they don’t get along.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s a lot of bickering.  You’ve got a ghost light on the stage, right?”

“Of course.  It’s an actor’s equity thing, a safety feature.  It’s not supposed to work for actual ghosts.”

“Why are you smiling?” asked Archibald.

“Every theater should have a ghost,” declared Cordelia.  “It’s tradition.”

“Yes, well,” he said, clearing his throat.  “If you believe in that sort of thing.”

“You don’t?”

“I believe in the romance of any given theater being haunted, but no, I don’t believe in actual ghosts.”  Flipping past a couple of pages, he continued.  “To move on with our mini-history tutorial.  After Gilbert and Hilda died, the theater sat empty for many years.  It was the Great Depression and nobody had the money to restart it.  Eventually, two Chicago-based entrepreneurs bought the property for a song and turned it into a movie theater.  They slapped a neon marquee on the front, added elevators in the front lobby, built the addition, and operated it until 1959, calling it The Downtowner.  It was sold again in 1967.  The third floor movie theater was dismantled and the space was used as a general auditorium.  It continued to deteriorate.  A couple theater groups rented it after that.  One from 1975 to 1987.  One from 1998 to 2006.  It sat empty for the rest of the time.”

“And then my sister and I bought it,” said Cordelia, trying to hurry him along.  She had another meeting scheduled for eleven and wanted to get some breakfast before it began.

“Speaking of your sister, where is Octavia?” asked Archibald, closing the folder.  “I was hoping she might sit in on our discussion this morning.”

“Italy,” said Cordelia, repositioning her turquoise necklace across her impressive décolletage.  She knew the necklace was gaudy, which was why she liked it.  “She’s trying to disentangle herself from husband number fifteen.”

“Fifteen?” he repeated, looking shocked.  “So many?”

“Well, eight?  Twelve?  I can’t keep track.  This one’s a real bloodsucker, that’s all I know.”

“When will she be back?”

“Next month.  Next week.  Tomorrow.  She is a willow-the-wisp until we start rehearsals.”

“With a name like hers–so famous on the New York stage, in movies–”

“She obviously has the lead in our first production.”

“And you’ll direct.”

It gave Cordelia a bad case of indigestion to even think about directing her sister.  Not only was Octavia a black hole when it came to emotional hand holding, she didn’t take direction well.  Since the renovations and the need to get the theater organization on firm footing had run into a few snags, the opening production couldn’t be mounted until spring.

Rising from her chair, Cordelia hoped that Archibald would get the message and do the same.

“Am I being dismissed?”

In high heels, at nearly six-foot three, she towered over him, though she wasn’t interested in intimidation–at least, not this morning.

“One more question before I go,” he said, shuffling papers back into the folder.  “You’re giving me full access to all areas of the building, right?”

She saw no reason to deny the request.  “Everything but our current office space.”

He smiled, tucked the folder under his arm.  “I’d like to continue our little meetings, just to keep you abreast of what I’m learning.”

Cordelia walked him to the door.  “Just so that we’re clear.  You intend to write the text for the pamphlet we intend to use for publicity purposes, yes?”

“As long or short as you’d like.”

“You’ll need to talk with our marketing director, Marcus Yeboah.”

“I have a meeting scheduled with him later today.”

“Good man.  I owe you.”

His smile broadened.  “I’m easily bought off with comps.”

“Consider that a given.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excerpt: Lambda Literary Finalist in Gay Mystery: Fair Game by Josh Lanyon

Fair Game by Josh Lanyon

Excerpt:

Elliot was still brooding—and increasingly annoyed with himself for doing so—as his car topped the pine-tree-lined drive and his headlights illuminated the dark cabin.

The porch light was out again.

Maybe there was a short in the wiring on the front of the house. The cabin wasn’t new. Or maybe he’d forgotten to turn the light on when he’d left that morning. He couldn’t specifically recall doing so, but leaving the light on was automatic by now.

There was nothing concrete, but he felt uneasy.

He pulled into the garage, turned off the engine and removed his pistol and flashlight from the glove compartment. He racked the Glock’s slide and slipped out of the car, leaving the door open.

The garage was nearly pitch-black and Elliot spared a grateful thought that he hadn’t lived in the cabin long enough to accumulate much junk. He edged past the cabinets and tool bench, crossed behind the Nissan, and made his way as noiselessly as possible to the side door. He unlocked it, eased it open and stepped out into the crisp, cold night.

Above the serrated silhouettes of the pines he could see the moon sailing serenely through the silver edged clouds. The spicy scent of pine mingled with the faint tang of the sound.

The rough wooden logs caught at his jacket as he inched down the length of the cabin. He held his pistol at low ready. When he came to the sunroom, he craned his head and stole a quick look. The room was in darkness. He could make out the shape of furniture in the gloom. Nothing moved.

The only sound was the wind soughing through the tree tops.

Moving across that wall of windows would be a mistake if someone was waiting for him inside, and though his knee was better than it had been on Saturday, the days when he could crawl along the ground commando style were gone.

He thought it over and then went back the other way along the side of the house, pausing by the side door to the garage and listening intently.

Nothing.

He peered inside. No light shone from under the kitchen door. Not the faintest glimmer.

Continuing along the wall of the cabin, Elliot climbed with some difficulty onto the side of the shadowy porch, and ducked past the nearest window. He pushed gently against the front door. It didn’t budge.

He touched the handle.

Locked.

Was he overreacting? If he really believed there was a threat he needed to get down to Steven’s cabin and summon the Pierce County Sheriff Department.

Stubbornly, he resisted the idea of not being able to deal with this, not being capable of handling his own problems—assuming his problem was anything more than too much imagination.

If someone was in the cabin they would be expecting him to enter through the kitchen door leading onto the garage. Second best guess would be the mud porch entrance which he might use if he had gone around to the back to get firewood or dump something in the trash cans. He used his keys to quietly unlock the front door. He pushed it wide.

It swung open with a yawning sound.

Elliot stayed well to the side to present the smallest possible target and avoid being backlit by the bright moon behind him. A quick scan showed the front room bathed in quicksilver: furniture, rugs, fireplace. All looked perfectly, reassuringly normal.

He pulled the flashlight from his waist belt and advanced into the room, using the hands-apart technique: his gun hand extended, his left holding the flashlight at random heights. He intermittently pressed the tailcap sending short bursts of radiance bouncing across the room. It was a long time since he’d done this and it felt awkward—not to mention silly—but the advantage was it made it difficult for his possible quarry to mark his position. It there was someone waiting for him, the moving light would theoretically draw fire away from his center-of-mass.

The flashlight beam caught and spotlighted the empty rocking chair, the face of the grandfather clock, the painting over the fireplace of the Johnson Farm, the black oblong of the hall entrance.

He proceeded to the hallway. The light illuminated family photos and the staircase at the far end.

Elliot turned the opposite direction and walked toward the kitchen. His empty water glass sat on the counter, a copy of William L. Shea’s Fields of Blood rested on the table where he’d left it that morning before leaving to catch the ferry for the mainland.

No sign of any disturbance. No sign of any intruder.

But Elliot’s unease, his sense of something wrong, was mounting. His scalp crawled with tension, his back and underarms grew damp.

He stepped into the sunroom, still pressing the flashlight button at irregular intervals and alternating the light position.

At first quick glance the sunroom seemed just as he’d left it. But the next instant the flashlight beam highlighted the half-full crystal wineglass balanced on the edge of the diorama.

Elliot’s heart stopped and then his pulse went into overdrive. He flashed the light around the room, finger quivering on the Glock’s trigger.

No one was there, but an open bottle of Lopez Island merlot sat on the fireplace mantle. It gleamed dully in the overbright glare of the flashlight.

Was anything else was out of place? No. Or was it? He stepped forward, shining the flashlight on the diorama. The diminutive hand painted houses and trees, the miniature gardens and roads popped up in the spotlight. Something was wrong…

JEB Stuart’s entire cavalry unit was gone.

Vanished.

He checked the diorama to see if they had been moved. They had not. The flashlight beam finally picked out what was left of the resin and alloy men and horses crushed and broken in the fireplace grate. Stuart’s small plumed hat winked like a jewel in the ashes.

The mudroom door slammed shut, the bang reverberating through the dark cabin. Elliot spun, the incautious move sending pain flashing through the damaged nerves and muscles of his knee. He ignored it and sprinted for the back of the cabin.

 

EXCERPT: Lambda Literary Award Finalist – DeadFall by David Lennon

Chapter 4

He’d spent the afternoon cleaning and vacuuming. Other than a different floral wallpaper and “brick” linoleum in the kitchen, and shortened drapes in the living room and study, the house hadn’t changed in the thirteen years since he’d been there. He opened a window over the kitchen sink and pressed his right hand against the screen, savoring the feel of the cool evening air against his skin for a moment.

A knock startled him and he spun around. Through the screen door he could see the shoulder of a dark blue shirt and a badge. His heart did an unexpected quickstep as he moved cautiously to the door.

The officer looked to be in his late thirties, though the soft belly swallowing the top of his belt buckle suggested older. His face was unremarkable, his receding hair faded blond. Only his eyes were interesting. They were pale green, watchful.

“Can I help you?” Danny asked.

The officer just stared back. Danny licked his lips and stole a quick glance at the silver nameplate pinned above the right breast pocket: Holtz. An image of mirrored sunglasses and a thick blond mustache flashed in his mind. “Dick Hole,” he whispered involuntarily, then tried to cover it with a cough.

“Nice to see you, too, Danny,” Weston Police Lieutenant Rick Holtz said dryly, then gave a tight smile. “Or is it Dan now?”

“Danny’s fine,” Danny replied. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” Holtz said. “As I recall, I may have earned the name a few times. I heard you were back in town and just wanted to stop by to say hello. All right if I come in for a minute?”

Danny immediately felt wary, but pushed the door open. Holtz stepped stiffly past him into the hallway, then turned right into the kitchen. He took a look around before turning back to Danny. Danny leaned against the door frame, cradling his left arm across his stomach with his right hand.

“Settling in okay?” Holtz asked.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Danny’s mouth suddenly felt dry. “You want something to drink?”

“Do you have any coffee?”

Danny shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t drink it.” He felt oddly embarrassed. “I guess I just never acquired the taste.”

“Mommy has a headache. Make mommy some coffee, just the way I showed you.”

“Probably just as well,” Holtz said. “Stains your teeth and rots your gut.” He nodded toward the family room. “Shall we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Danny said uneasily.

Holtz sat on the plaid couch, while Danny took the orange twill recliner by the fireplace. He shook a Marlboro from a pack on the side table, then looked up. “You mind?”

“It’s your house,” Holtz shrugged.

Danny clamped the cigarette between his lips and lit it.

“So is your left arm paralyzed?” Holtz asked. It came across as detached curiosity rather than intrusive.

“No,” Danny replied. “The nerves are okay, but it got busted up pretty badly and the bones fused in this position. By the time I was stable enough for surgery, they would have had to re-break them all. Didn’t seem worth it since no one expected me to wake up.” He looked down and wiggled his fingers. “Maybe some day I’ll get it fixed, but right now I don’t want to see the inside of another hospital for a long time.”

“I’m sure,” Holtz nodded. “So are you planning to stick around for a while?”

“Yeah. Seems like a good place for me right now.”

“Emotionally comfortable,” Holtz offered.

Danny considered it, smirked. “Well, let’s just leave it at emotionally familiar. Plus my mom’s going to need me to cart her around for six months until she gets her license back.”

“When does she get out?”

“Monday.”

Holtz nodded. “I’m sure it’ll be good for her to have you here. I think she got lonely out here by herself.”

The words hung there for a moment, and Danny wondered if he’d imagined a note of blame. He decided to change the subject. “So how long has the Gardners’ house been empty?”

“It’s not,” Holtz said. “Joey lives there.”

Danny blinked back. “It looked abandoned when I drove by.”

“Yeah, he hasn’t exactly kept the place up. I don’t know if anyone told you, but his mother committed suicide a few months after Bryce was killed. Pills. His father has some sort of degenerative brain disease. Joey moved back to take care of him about five years ago but had to put him into a home last year.”

Danny nodded, only half-listening. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might see Joey again, at least not so soon. “Is he married?” he asked. “Any kids?”

Holtz frowned. “I don’t think he’s exactly the marrying kind. He pretty much stays to himself at the house. We see him in town once in a while, though never for long.”

So he’s some kind of freaky homo hermit now?

The neurologist had told Danny “the voice” was just unconscious thought bubbling up from a part of his brain that hadn’t reintegrated with the whole yet. He preferred to think of it as a remnant of his fifteen-year-old self, lurking in some corner of his brain. He found the idea comforting.

“You should stop by and visit,” Holtz said. “I’m sure Joey would appreciate seeing you. And it might be good for both of you.” He looked at a grouping of family photos on the wall above the mantel for a moment, then pushed to his feet with a grunt. “I should get going. I’m sure you still have a lot of unpacking to do, and my wife’s holding dinner for me. Like I said, I just wanted to stop by to say hi.” He paused for a half-second before adding, “Though I would like to sit down and talk with you at some point.”

Danny’s stomach clenched. “Why?”

“I’d like to hear what happened the night you and Bryce were attacked.”

Danny considered just telling the truth—that he didn’t remember anything from that night or the weeks leading up to it—but something in Holtz’s tone struck him as odd. “Why? What does it matter?” he asked. “Tim Walczak’s already in jail.”

Holtz shrugged casually. “You never know. You might remember something that didn’t come out during the original investigation.”

“Like what?” Danny pressed, beginning to feel annoyed.

Holtz smiled as though he’d just discovered Danny was slow. “If I already knew, then there wouldn’t be any reason to talk to you, would there?” Before Danny could reply, Holtz took out his wallet, removed a card, and handed it to him. “Give me a call when you have some time. I’m not on patrol anymore, so I’m usually at the station.” He patted his stomach and offered up a grin that seemed intended as self-effacing. “Or grabbing a bite at Ye Olde Cottage.”

Danny felt the old dislike come rushing back.

Chapter 5

Danny watched the taillights disappear down Cherry Brook, then went back inside and locked the door. He grabbed a Coke from the fridge and lit a cigarette.

He wasn’t sure what to make of Holtz’s visit. Clearly it had been more than just a social call. How had Holtz even known he was back? He’d been in town for less than nine hours and had made only a quick stop at the boutique grocery store that replaced the Triple A Market.

The Holtz he remembered had been petty, insecure, and desperate to have his authority respected. He’d been like the substitute teacher who starts class by warning the kids not to test him or they’ll be sorry. It might have made him dangerous if he hadn’t also been predictable. Danny had always gotten off with a slap on the wrist because it had been so easy to push Holtz’s buttons and get him to undermine his own credibility.

This Holtz seemed outwardly different. More direct, at ease with himself, maybe even thoughtful. Yet Danny had still sensed the old Holtz lurking behind the not-so-shiny new facade, and the visit had definitely felt like a warning shot.

But for what, and why did he need to stop by so soon? It’s been thirteen years. What difference would another few days make?

His thoughts began to move faster.

Or another few years? Walczak’s already in jail, so what does it matter? Why does he want to talk with me at all? I don’t know anything. I didn’t have anything to do with the murders. I was almost killed. But what if he doesn’t believe that? What if he’s been waiting all this time to prove that I was the killer, and…

Danny caught himself and laughed. He took a drag on the cigarette to slow his racing pulse, and shook his head. Or maybe he’s just missed me because he hasn’t had anyone to hassle since I’ve been gone. He cracked the tab on the Coke, took a sip, and headed upstairs.

*****

Though he’d expected to be immersed in his past when he moved back, he hadn’t realized it would be quite so literal. His room was a virtual time capsule. Marantz receiver and Technics turntable still on a low stand under one window, albums neatly arranged beneath. Bookshelves lined with classic adventure and mass market paperbacks. Walls a who’s who of stoner rock—Pink Floyd, Hendrix, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Aerosmith, the Allman Brothers, Cream, Skynyrd, Marley. Paint and a new mattress were definitely in the near future, he decided.

He looked at the lone poster over the bed, a stark black and white shot of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page from a 1973 show at the Boston Garden. Plant’s shirt was open, his hips thrust forward, his cock and balls gaudily outlined against his upper thigh. Danny smiled, remembering Caroline staring at the poster with a combination of disapproval and curiosity. How did she not know? he wondered. I hardly ever listened to Led Zeppelin.

She was married to Jerry for seventeen years.

He knelt in front of the stereo and pressed the ON button. After a few seconds the tuner glowed blue. He set the function to FM and slowly turned up the volume. A station promo—“WBCN Boston. The more you listen, the longer it gets.”—segued into the frenetic marimba organ loop of Baba O’Riley.

Guess that hasn’t changed either, he thought. He opened a box and began sorting clothes into the dresser.

The idea of seeing Joey scared him. It wasn’t just the disturbing picture Holtz had painted. What if things between them were too different? Though he knew it would be ridiculous to assume they could pick up like no time had passed, what if there was no connection at all?

He pushed the drawer shut, opened another, and began filling it with socks and underwear. He had a vision of Karl giving him an exasperated look and straightened up the underwear.

He’d never been one of the popular kids or even part of a clique, but he’d always felt like he belonged. It wasn’t just pieces of his memory that were missing. He’d lost that sense of belonging. The world he’d been part of had moved on without him, but he didn’t feel part of this one yet either. Something was missing. He’d hoped he could find it by coming home. Maybe Joey would be part of that.

He pushed the drawer shut and reached into the bottom of the box for the porn magazines Abby had slipped into his bag as a going-away present from Shady Meadows. He already had them pretty much memorized, but couldn’t bear to part with them. He crossed to the nightstand and opened the top drawer. All thoughts of Joey faded.

The drawer was empty save for an oversized white book with horizontal bands of both bright and dark green above blocky hand-drawn type: WESTON 78. It was the yearbook of what should have been his graduating class.

He laid the magazines on the nightstand, sat on the edge of the bed, and took the book out, resting it on his lap. He stared at it for a moment, then ran his fingers over the cover. He felt a tingle run through his body, raising the hair on his arms. He took a deep breath and flipped it open.

The inside cover and fly leaf were covered top to bottom with scrawls of blue and black ink. Danny leaned closer and studied them. There were a few short notes, but mostly signatures. He recognized nearly all the names, and felt a lump form in his throat. He looked self-consciously into the hallway as though Caroline might be watching.

He turned the page. On the right was a photo from his last Christmas morning, proudly modeling the fleece-collared Levi jacket Caroline had gotten him. His long sandy hair was disheveled and his eyes still a little puffy with sleep, but he looked genuinely happy. He was sure it was the only choice Caroline had given the yearbook committee. She’d told him it was her favorite photo of him because he was always sweetest in the morning, before he remembered to be a teenage boy.

Across the top of the page it read DEDICATION, and just above the photo, To Our Friend Danny Tyler. Below it, We Miss You. Love, The Class of 1978.

Danny began to cry.

 

Excerpt: Lambda Finalist in Lesbian Mystery: The Acquittal by Anne Laughlin

T HE A CQUITTAL

1 •

C HAPTER O NE

Friday, February 15

Lauren flipped on the kitchen lights and saw the body of her lover sprawled at her feet, a bullet hole centered on her forehead. She knelt and felt for Kelly’s pulse. There was no need, really, since half of her head appeared to be stuck to the breakfast room wall. The body was still warm, the smell of the gunshot still fresh in the air. Kelly’s glorious hair was fanned out and drenched in blood. Her arms and legs were shooting out at curious angles, so at odds with the graceful woman she’d been. Lauren had to turn away. She saw her own revolver on the floor a few feet from the body. When she touched it she could feel it was still warm as well.

A tremendous clatter came from the hallway behind her, booming in the dead quiet. Lauren grabbed the revolver and shot blindly, splintering a kitchen cabinet. All was quiet for a moment before her cat came rocketing out of the doorway, galloped across the family room, and flew onto the fireplace mantel. She licked herself furiously. Lauren dropped the gun where she found it.

She sat next to the body and watched a small rivulet of blood make its way toward her, heedless of the ridiculously expensive business suit she wore. Kelly had given it to her as a gift. She was quite generous that way, as long as she was using Lauren’s credit card. She felt guilty thinking ill of Kelly. The things she complained about were the very things she’d found charming about her when they first got together.

The gift buying, the elaborate care she took of herself, the relentless cheerfulness morphed over time into reckless spending, shallowness, and inability to take anything seriously. They’d had a bad fight about her spending that morning.

But Lauren felt real sorrow. They’d been together a number of years. There’d been many good times. She stood and reached into her bag for her phone. She dialed 911 and then went to see if the cat was okay.

  C HAPTER T WO

Friday, September 6

The paint was barely dry on the walls when Josie Harper’s first client walked through her office door. Josie sat cross-legged on the floor of the reception room, trying to put together an Ikea chair. She hadn’t expected any business her first day, but now an exceedingly tall woman was standing with one hand on her door, reading the words stenciled on the glass—Josie Harper, Private Investigations.

Josie got up from the floor. She was shoeless and wore a tattered Led Zeppelin T-shirt and blue jeans. She was dressed for back-room assembly, not front-room sales.

“Can I help you?” Josie said. She could feel a flush of color move up her face.

“I’m Sarah DeAngeles. I have an appointment with Stan Waterman. I think his office is past yours.”

Sarah appeared to be in her thirties, good-looking, if your preferences ran to cheerleader faces and ponytails. Josie’s did not. She watched Sarah’s eyes as they traveled from her ancient ball cap, past her old 501s, down to her polka-dot socks. They might as well have been different species.

“Sure, I know Stan,” Josie said. He ran Shield Detectives down the hall.

“When I saw your name on the door I decided to come in,” Sarah said. “I’d much rather work with a woman on this matter.”

“Naturally,” Josie said. She had no idea what the matter was, but was happy to take advantage over a PI with more experience than her—a group that included every PI in Chicago.

“Is this a good time to talk?” Sarah said.

“Of course. Let’s go into my office.”

Sarah took a minute to cancel her appointment with Stan Waterman before following Josie through the Ikea detritus and into her office.

The window faced east toward Lake Michigan. The light streamed over the desk and visitor chairs that were fortunately assembled and ready for business. The rest of the room was a mess. Josie’s laminated wood desk would be peeling in a year’s time. It was littered with office supplies still in shrink wrap. Josie could see the wary look in Sarah’s eye as she took the chair in front of her desk.

“I’m sorry things are such a mess. Setting up an office is a real pain,” Josie said.

“But you’ve been in business for a while?”

“I was a cop for over ten years. I’ve been doing investigations for a long time.” Josie felt that was true, depending on what definition of “long” was being used. Or “investigations,” for that matter. She’d been a property crimes detective for a couple of years before leaving the department. “Why don’t you tell me what brings you here?”

“I’m a member of the board of directors for Wade-Fellows Publishing. Our president and editor-in-chief was recently acquitted of murdering her partner. We need help clearing her name and I’ve been put in charge of that effort,” Sarah said.

It took a moment for the words to sink in and Josie felt a twinge of panic. Murder? It didn’t seem possible her first case would involve murder. And Sarah hadn’t delivered the statement with the right amount of gravitas. She sounded like she was inquiring about getting new carpet for her home.

“What did you say?” Josie said. She’d placed her hands flat on her desk and leaned slightly forward.

“You sound surprised. Haven’t you handled murder cases before?” Sarah said.

“Not as a private investigator. You won’t find many of us who have.” Josie didn’t want to tell Sarah that Stan Waterman was one of the few PIs with actual homicide experience. Hell, he was a former homicide detective.

“Then you have at least two things in your favor,” Sarah said. “You’re female and you have police experience. Should I tell you the story now?”

“Please.”

Sarah got herself settled in her chair. Apparently she was one of those women who constantly drink water. She’d already taken several long pulls from the bottle she’d walked in with. She dropped her bag to the floor and took another swig before shrugging out of an expensive high-tech climbing jacket Josie doubted would ever brush up against a mountain.

“Are you familiar with the Lauren Wade case?” she began.

“Not really. I’ve heard her name on the news once or twice.”

“It’s unusual for a woman to be accused of murdering her female lover. I’d have thought it would grab your attention.”

“Why would you say that?” Josie asked.

Sarah cocked her head to one side. “Am I getting this wrong? I read you as lesbian. I was thinking that I’d gotten very lucky when I walked through your door.”

Was she that obvious? Josie thought of herself as average. Average height and weight, average face. Not average lesbian. Simply average.

“For the record,” Sarah said. “I am too. But you probably guessed that.”

No, she hadn’t. She would have lost a lot of money on that bet.

“So your company is concerned?” Josie prompted.

“Yes, of course. Having our top executive arrested for anything would be of concern to the board, especially a murder charge. But Wades have always been at the head of the company; Lauren Wade is naturally given a lot of leeway before action would be taken against her by the board.”

“But she was acquitted,” Josie said.

“The board thinks that still leaves the question of whether she committed the murder hanging in the air. There was no evidence that she didn’t do it. The jury simply felt the prosecution didn’t meet their burden of proof. There are plenty of people in the business world who think she may be guilty.” Sarah looked hurt at that opinion, as if it reflected on her personally.

“Why is that a concern?” Josie asked. “The system says she’s not guilty.”

Sarah looked at Josie as if she’d just said something odd. Or stupid. “Obviously there are authors and companies who will refuse to do business with us.”

Josie shrugged. “What about the police? Won’t they be trying to catch the real killer?” Josie knew that was unlikely. Once someone’s acquitted, the file’s unofficially closed. The police always think they got it right the first time.

“I’m sure they think they already have. We’re not counting on further action from the police. We want you to identify the killer.”

Josie pulled a notebook out of her bag and wrote Lauren Wade’s name on a fresh page. The pages before it were filled with notes from when she was a police detective. “What’s your relationship with Lauren Wade?”

She’d been reading books on how to be a private investigator. One stressed the importance of knowing your client’s true motivation.

Sarah, however, seemed taken aback by the question. “Why do you need to know that?”

“It’s pretty basic information. Is there some reason you don’t want to tell me?” Josie said.

Out came the bottle of water again. Sarah appeared to be buying some time by taking a long drink. Finally she capped the bottle.

“Initially, Lauren and I had a strictly business relationship, which goes back a few years now. In addition to sitting on the board, I also publish books with Wade-Fellows. We’re not best friends or anything, but we’ve had enough meals together to say the relationship goes beyond business.”

“Did you urge the board to fund this investigation?” Josie said.

“I don’t know why you’re questioning my motives,” Sarah said, sounding a little annoyed. “I’m trying to help her, not harm her.”

Josie didn’t want to lose her first client before she even got started, so she backed off. “Why don’t you tell me the story and we can figure out where to go from there.”

Sarah relaxed and sat back in her chair. “I know a little about Lauren’s relationship with Kelly. They’d been together for five years when Kelly was murdered, and from what Lauren told me they were happy.”

“When did she tell you this?” Josie had zero experience in happy relationships.

“It was several weeks before Kelly was killed. They’d just finished redoing their house. I don’t think you do a renovation when your relationship’s on the rocks.”

“Why not?” Josie said. “People have babies to try to save relationships.”

“True, but Lauren seemed genuinely excited. I got the impression they were a pretty solid couple. It turns out there was trouble. But I’ll get to that.”

She didn’t think Sarah had been unhappy to hear Lauren and Kelly’s relationship was shaky.

“Tell me about the murder,” Josie said.

“You’ll find all this in the trial transcript, which I’ll give you, but the bare facts are Lauren came home around eight thirty on February fifteenth and found Kelly dead on the kitchen floor. She’d been shot through the head. When the police arrived they discovered Lauren’s own revolver next to the body and no sign of forced entry anywhere in the house. The gun had been recently fired and they found powder residue on Lauren’s hands. They took her in for questioning and then charged her with the murder.”

“How did Lauren explain the gun and the residue?”

Sarah leaned forward. “That’s what’s so weird about this whole thing. Lauren wouldn’t say anything at all to the police.”

“You mean she requested a lawyer?”

“No, she refused a lawyer. She wouldn’t say anything to defend herself. The detectives and their lieutenant took her refusal to answer questions as tantamount to a confession. They felt they had enough to charge her.”

Josie was drawing question marks in her notebook. “Tell me more about Lauren’s work.”

“Wade-Fellowes Publishing is an old family company. They produce hobby and lifestyle books,” Sarah said. She sounded very formal. “I write crafts books and publish with them, which is how I first knew Lauren. I joined the board only recently. I was scheduled to have a business lunch with her the day after her arrest and I had to call her office several times to find out why it was canceled. None of her staff would say anything, but one referred me to the Tribune’s website, where the story was breaking. Everyone was stunned, of course,” Sarah made this sound like she spoke for the nation.

“I left Lauren’s assistant a message with the name of the criminal defense attorney recommended by our general counsel, but I didn’t know at the time she was refusing counsel. Lauren eventually ended up using that lawyer. I was touched she took my advice.”

Josie looked up from her notebook. She saw Sarah had a little color on her cheeks. Even a PI with Josie’s limited experience could see she had a thing for Lauren, and the crush, or whatever it was, was probably enough to convince Sarah of Lauren’s innocence.

“The trial only took a few days,” Sarah continued, “and most of that was jury selection. Lauren didn’t take the stand. All her lawyer could do was argue the evidence was insufficient to meet the beyond-a reasonable-doubt standard.”

“Why do you think Lauren didn’t testify?” Josie found Lauren’s silence the most disturbing thing about the story. How could she help someone who didn’t want to be helped?

“I really don’t know,” Sarah said. “I haven’t had any contact with her other than sending her the attorney’s name. She refused to see me when I went to Cook County Jail for a visit.”

“So far I don’t see how Lauren got acquitted.”

“I think it was due to Nancy Prewitt, Lauren’s lawyer, who gave an amazing closing. She pointed out what I think the jury already thought—the prosecution had done a half-assed job and the police investigation may have been worse. The jury couldn’t see past the fact Lauren was unlikely to be stupid enough to shoot Kelly with her own gun and then leave it next to the body before calling the police.”

“The prosecution didn’t offer anything else at trial?”

Sarah looked uncomfortable. “The only other thing that came out was Kelly was having an affair with another woman and Lauren had recently found out about it. That’s what I meant about Kelly and Lauren not being as happy as I thought they were.”

It also gave Lauren a whopping motive. Josie contemplated what to say next. The case seemed tremendously fucked up and probably nothing but trouble. But it was a paying case—if she could manage to get hired.

“Have you considered the possibility my investigation may prove Lauren did murder Kelly?” Josie asked.

Sarah looked unconcerned. “There’s no downside. Lauren can’t be retried for the same crime. And after all, that’s the information the company wants an investigator to find.”

“True, but perhaps it’s something you’d rather not know.”

Sarah waved that away. “I’m not worried about it. I don’t believe for a minute she’d hurt anyone. But you can see how murky the whole thing is and why it’s important to remove that doubt.”

Josie couldn’t, really. She’d think Sarah would thank her lucky stars for the acquittal and leave it at that. It seemed Lauren had.

“I can check on the status of the police investigation,” Josie said. “I have contacts in homicide.” She thought that should impress Sarah.

“What does Lauren think of this effort of yours? She doesn’t seem very interested in keeping her name untarnished.”

Sarah fiddled with her water bottle. “She doesn’t know anything about it.”

Josie stopped writing and looked up, careful to take the sarcasm out of her voice. “You want me to find the person who killed Lauren’s girlfriend, presuming it’s not Lauren herself, without her knowledge? Won’t she know the board hired an investigator?”

“We’re not volunteering the information, but we’re aware she’ll find out as soon as the investigator starts interviewing people.” She paused. “You sound like you may believe she’s guilty. I need you to be on board.”

Josie didn’t believe in causes. She believed in paychecks and getting the job done. She stole a look at her watch. She was going to be late for her therapy appointment.

“I have an appointment I need to get to, so we’ll have to stop here. I have to think about this before I can agree to take your case.”

“Of course. And I’ve not yet decided whether to hire you,” Sarah said. She pulled a thick file out of her bag and pushed it across the desk. “You’d find most of this on the Internet, I imagine, but I’ll save you the time of looking it up. These are the media reports and trial transcript. Maybe you could read them and we’ll meet again tomorrow morning.”

Josie looked at the file skeptically. She wasn’t a particularly fast reader. She’d just finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy and that took forever. This was a very thick file. “I could meet you back here at four tomorrow afternoon. That’ll have to do.”

Sarah rose and put on her jacket. “Fine. I assume all this will remain confidential?”

“Of course.”

There was a hint of a smile on Sarah’s lips as she turned away and left the office. Josie took a moment to whisper a thank-you for the possibility of a paycheck and another thank-you for all the medications that made it possible for her to take on this case. She grabbed the Lauren Wade file, found her shoes, and hurried to her fifty minutes of torture.