Adrien English Mysteries: A Dangerous Thing & Fatal Shadows (7 page)

Why had he come back to the Blue Parrot that night?

Would it have changed anything if I had still been waiting?

Why had he come back? Had his date bailed? Had they argued? Or had Robert changed his mind before he ever got there?

Why hadn’t he come back to the shop if he wanted to talk to me?

I realized that I would never know what Robert had wanted to tell me.

Depressed, I went into the bedroom, lost the Hugo Boss blazer and the kicks, changed into black sweats. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror I thought, if you died tomorrow who would grieve for you?

Whatever Robert had been and done, he had people to grieve for him. Not just the usual suspects, but children. Hell, even an ex-wife.

Tara had caught me up as I was leaving the funeral.

She avoided my eyes, scraping a grass divot from her high heel. “Adrien, look -- I apologize. I shouldn’t have said all that. I’d been drinking. I never could handle it.”

After a moment I said, “Sure. You were upset. I understand.”

“It was just a phase Bob was going through. He was upset about a lot of things. But he still loved me. He told me that the last time we talked. I know we would have worked it out eventually. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You were a good friend in your way.”

“Forget it, Tara.”

She looked up then, her hands fluttering helplessly as though she wanted to make a gesture but didn’t know how. I moved to hug her. Dodged her hat. We embraced awkwardly, stepped back. I looked at the kids: Rob’s kids. The boy, Bobby Jr., was one of those golden-curled adorable tykes.

Holding his hand was a cherub-like little girl, equally golden-curled and rose-lipped. I could never remember her name. Twin pairs of green eyes gazed up at me. Rob’s eyes gazing at me. I felt unutterably sad. I wanted to do something for them.

“Tara is there anything --?”

38

Josh Lanyon

She shook her head quickly. “It’s sweet of you, Adrien, but no. There’s nothing. Not now.” Behind the veil her pale eyes were unwavering and tearless.

I had never understood her. Never understood what Rob saw in her. Even back in high school she had been a total mystery to me. Granted, all girls had been a mystery -- and pretty much still were.

Remembering the adolescent Tara reminded me of Rusty.

I dragged out the storage trunk in the spare room and began rummaging through it: photo albums, letters from Mel (why did I keep this stuff?), half-finished manuscripts, college magazines, and finally, bottom of the chest, my high school yearbook. Gold script on blue vinyl lettered out: West Valley Academy. “West End” the public school kids called it.

I wasn’t sure what I was searching for as I glanced over the faded inscriptions, trite then, but sort of poignant now. Good luck in college. Let’s stay friends 4-ever. Luv, Brooke. Who the hell was Brooke? What had happened to all these “Friends 4-ever?” Mostly I recalled my senior year as a panicked struggle to catch up while my mother and her Greek chorus of doctors waited in the wings for my anticipated collapse.

Memories wafted out of those glossy black and white pages like the scent of formaldehyde in biology class. I studied a photo of Rob. This was one of those carefully staged candid shots taken in the journalism club. Tara stood in the background watching Rob pretend to load film in his camera. I shut the yearbook with a snap and went downstairs.

“If you want to take the rest of the day, go ahead,” I told Angus.

He shrugged. “I don’t mind if you want to work in the back. It’s pretty dead.”

I must have winced because he whispered, “Sorry.”

I looked at the book he was reading: The Encyclopedia of Demonology.

Catching my gaze, Angus muttered, “It’s for my thesis.”

The hell you say. I opened my mouth, decided I didn’t really want to know, and went into my office. Sitting at the desk, I thumbed through the mail for the past week. It all seemed to be addressed to someone else. Someone who gave a damn.

The phone rang next to my elbow. I ignored it. It stopped ringing abruptly.

“Phone call for you,” Angus yelled from the store floor, and I nearly fell out of my chair.

The good news was that there was nothing permanently wrong with his vocal cords. Though we probably needed to work on his phone skills.

I picked up.

Silence.

“Can I help you?”

Click. Dial tone.

I shrugged. Hung up.

Fatal Shadows

39

So what was my next move? Robert was dead and the police thought I had killed him. At the very least they were convinced I knew something about his death.

Maybe the police would figure it all out. That’s what they did for a living, right? Stranger things had happened.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to be a bit proactive here. Detective Riordan believed I knew more than I thought I did -- assuming that whole tête-à-tête hadn’t been some kind of trap.

I opened a drawer and pulled out a pad of legal paper. Great. Good start. I picked up a pen, neatly numbered one through ten. Okay. First thing ...

I eyed the blank page. Just in time I stopped myself from writing DO LAUNDRY.

Focus.

After a moment I drew a chess piece. A pawn. Was that Freudian or Jungian or plain doodling? Where the hell did one begin? Who would want to kill Robert? Tara? Claude? It was preposterous. Yet someone had murdered him.

Most murders are not committed by strangers. But I couldn’t help coming back to the theory of a random act of violence. Someone who hated gays in general? Someone who left a

“queen” as a calling card? Maybe even a serial killer. Although in that case where was the series of victims?

The police were investigating Robert’s death as an isolated event -- and me as the prime suspect.

Or were they?

What had Riordan been up to showing me that chess piece? Was I supposed to betray myself with my sinister knowledge of advances, gambits, jeopardy and end game? Was I supposed to turn white as the plastic queen and confess all?

Or did he really want my help?

That evening I was watching Frenchman’s Creek-- is it just me or does Basil Rathbone look hot in that long curled wig? -- eating a bowl of Apple Crunch Muselix when Riordan returned.

He was on his own, wearing Levi’s and a white Henley, and looking good enough to eat.

“I take it this isn’t a social call,” I said as he followed me up the stairs to my flat. “I won’t offer you a beer.”

“You can offer me a beer,” he said. He leaned against the kitchen counter studying the grape leaf stencil border on the opposite wall. He crowded my kitchen -- and it was a large kitchen. He made me self-conscious, which was annoying as hell.

I got a couple of Harp beers and earned the first flicker of approval I had seen from the man. Our fingers brushed exchanging the frosty bottle. There was a snap of static electricity.

I’m surprised it wasn’t spontaneous combustion.

40

Josh Lanyon

“Can I sit?” Riordan indicated the table.

“Sure. Where are my manners? I was just waiting for you to arrest me.”

He shot me a sardonic look and sat down, tilting the chair back on its legs.

“So what have you got for me?”

“I ... beg your pardon?” I think I actually blushed, that’s the direction my thoughts were going.

Riordan’s dark brows shot up in that supercilious way. “You’re supposed to be helping save your sorry ass by figuring out the connection between Hersey and that chess piece.

Remember?”

“I told you what I thought it meant.” I leaned against the fridge. I felt safer on my feet when I was around him.

“That’s it? Queen? You think we’re facing some chess-playing fag-hating Mr. Stranger Danger?”

I shrugged. “What do you want? The history of chess? It’s a game of intellect played between two people. Each player has sixteen pieces. So if you’re dealing with a serial killer maybe he plans on killing sixteen people. Or sixty-four. There are sixty-four squares on a game board.”

“We’re not dealing with a serial killer.”

“How do you know? Maybe Robert was the first.”

“I know.” He took a swig of beer. Looked me over. “How tall are you? Five ten? Five eleven?”

“Six feet.”

“In your dreams.”

Five foot eleven and a half actually, but I wasn’t going to argue the point.

“Hersey was what, five nine? Short but built. Worked out regularly. Anyway, the ME’s findings indicate his assailant was probably four to five inches taller. You could have done it, but you’d have had to stand on your tippy toes.”

We both stared at my feet in their white crew socks. I curled and uncurled my toes nervously.

“I think you’d have had trouble hoisting the body into the trash bin.” Riordan added, “I had a talk with your doctor, by the way. He says your overall health is good, although you work too hard and drink too much caffeine. If I understood him correctly your main trouble is an irregular heartbeat.”

“I had rheumatic fever as a kid. The valves of my heart are damaged.”

“Yeah, so he said. But he said normal physical exertion isn’t so much the problem for you as sudden shocks. You don’t react well to surprises; that I’ve seen.”

“He didn’t rule out the possibility of my stabbing someone to death,” I concluded.

Fatal Shadows

41

Riordan smiled that crooked smile. “He said it would be a strain, but he didn’t rule it out; no.”

That meant zero. Lisa had a string of doctors who could testify I was practically an invalid. “Isn’t it true that for every expert witness the prosecution presents, the defense can find an equally credible witness to challenge?”

“Sure. But we’re not going to trial, English. We’re trying to find out who actually killed your old -- er -- pal. See, I’d just as soon arrest the right perp to start with. Saves the taxpayers money.”

“How noble.” I drank from my beer. Beer and Muselix. It’s what’s for supper.

“Hey, you may find this hard to grasp, but I believe in the system. It works, so long as everybody does their job.”

I said dryly, “You’re going to tell me cops never make a mistake?”

“Not as often as the movies would like you to think. Our legal system may not be perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything else going.”

I met his eyes briefly, considered those rough, masculine good looks, considered a nose that had obviously been broken more than once -- and no wonder.

“Robert owed a lot of people money -- including me.”

“You think one of Hersey’s creditors called in his loan? Not a very profitable way to do business.”

I set my beer aside, turned, rinsed out my cereal bowl. I turned off the water. Through the sink window the moon hung in the night smog looking old and tarnished. From the other room Basil in the role of Lord Rockingham was purring threats in that wicked public school accent, filling the silence between us.

Riordan said idly, “Chan thinks you killed Hersey. Chan has pretty good instincts.”

“So arrest me.”

“I would if we had enough to convict. Right now I don’t need the ACLU breathing down my neck.”

I turned to face him, asked flat out, “Do you think I murdered Robert?”

Riordan shrugged. “I’ve been wrong before. Not often.” He scraped at the label on the beer bottle with his thumbnail. “For the record, you’re right about the money angle. Hersey owed big time. Credit cards, child support and some of the less -- conventional -- money stores.”

“Loan sharks?”

His lip twitched at my tone. “Uh huh. We are pursuing that angle.”

“But you don’t think maybe some street thug --?”

“Like I said, it’s not a profitable way to do business. You generally don’t start by killing the borrower. First you loosen a few teeth. Break a few bones.”

42

Josh Lanyon

I got Riordan a second beer. He didn’t seem to notice. No doubt used to being waited on hand and foot by doting females.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said slowly. “Robert was seeing someone. Not just a pickup stick.

There were flowers in his apartment. Roses. Hustlers don’t bring you flowers. Rob wasn’t the kind to buy himself flowers. Find the guy Robert went to meet that night and I think you’ll nail whoever killed him.”

“Unfortunately there was no card,” Riordan pointed out. So much for thinking the police might have missed this. “You could have sent Hersey those flowers for all we know.”

That reminded me. I pushed away from the counter, pulled the box of flowers out of the trash and threw them on the table.

“Gee, this is so sudden,” he drawled.

I ignored him. “These arrived today. There’s a card somewhere.” I returned to the trash bin, rifling around ’til I found the card between the empty cans of Tab and frozen food boxes. I slid the paper rectangle across the table to Riordan. “I tried to tell myself there was a mix-up at the florists.”

He picked it up. Read it. Shrugged. “You could have sent these to yourself.”

“You could at least go to the florist and find out.”

“What am I finding out? You want me to believe there’s a connection here?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling. ...”

“Feminine intuition?”

“Fuck you!”

Riordan pushed his chair further back, precariously balanced, as immune to civility as he was to gravity. “Temper, temper.” He raised those reckless brows. “Ready to start reaching for the kitchen knives?”

“I think you’ve already checked out the cutlery.”

He grinned, unperturbed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Monday when you pretended to be looking for prowlers in my closet.”

He laughed. “Hey, it’s not much of a closet is it?”

“No. It’s not. I don’t like closets. Life’s too short to spend hiding in the dark.”

He stuck the florist’s card in his shirt pocket and said, “Tell you what. I’ll check out this flower shop. You do me a favor. Tell me about Claude La Pierra.”

“Great. Now you want me to rat out my friends.”

“If he killed Hersey, he’s no friend. Are you and La Pierra lovers?”

“No.” I must have shown my surprise.

Riordan said, “You took a helluva chance going after those letters. That is what you were after in Hersey’s pad, wasn’t it?”