Full Release (15 page)

“Javier Hernandez was a fine young man,” he said. “A young man I remember well through my work with the Adventure Scouts. He’ll be fondly remembered by his friends and family.”When he was finished, Maldonado eased the young woman forward toward the microphone. The crawl beneath said Sylvia Navarez, Fiancée. “I just want to say that Javier was a hero to my son. I don’t know what we’ll do without him.”

The report ended with the anchorman telling us a fund had been set up for Eddie’s fiancée and her son. Sonja turned off the television. The room was eerily quiet. Then she cleared her throat and said, “We want to do everything we can to support you. You have some vacation time coming, don’t you?”

“Almost six weeks.”

“I think it might be a good idea for you to take that. If it turns out you need more time, I’ll see what I can do.” What was clear was that her idea of supporting me was to keep me as far away from the studio as she could. “Charles can take over for you in the meantime.”

Forgetting myself, I said, “That should be a disaster.”

She gave me a look. “Don’t be so sure. I got a call from Fred Metz in airlines. He’s quite happy to work with Charles.”

I refrained from saying they were both idiots. She’d find that out soon enough. We stood uncomfortably silent for a moment. Finally, I thanked her and said goodbye. There’d been a subtle power shift; Charles was in and I was out. And as long as I was a suspect in a murder case, I was going to remain out.

I walked back to my office. Eddie’s keys sat on my desk right where I’d left them. I only had a few minutes. Clearly, Sonja wanted me out of there. I didn’t think she’d go so far as to call security, but I figured if I was still here in twenty minutes, she’d come in and suggest I leave. Slipping the drive into the USB slot, I wondered if I should bring my personal items home with me. I didn’t have much. A coffee cup, an extra tie in case I spilled, a UCLA umbrella for those rare rainy days. I didn’t keep photos like some people or buttons with funny sayings or cartoons printed out from the Internet. Leaving would be easy.

The icon for the flash drive popped up on my desktop. It was called Eddie’s drive. Was that how he thought of himself? As Eddie? I clicked on the icon, and it opened. There was one folder on the drive, and it was labeled with a dollar sign. I clicked on it. A box came up asking for a password. Shit. I sat back in my chair and thought about how to go about guessing Eddie’s password. I hadn’t spent much time with him. I knew almost nothing about him.

Not for the first time, I wished my life was more like a movie. Usually, I wish I had some loyal but dorky friend who was secretly in love with me, which I’d notice only after he’d made a few simple but effective changes to his appearance and was suddenly adorably hot. On that particular day, though, I wished I had a genius friend who could whip up a computer program that would decode Eddie’s password in five tense minutes.

Unfortunately, my life was not a movie and I wouldn’t be able to easily access Eddie’s client list. I thought about my own passwords. For my financial accounts, the ones that really mattered, I used the phone number my parents had when I was a child. It was one of those things I couldn’t forget and no one else would ever guess. For other accounts, I used Jeremy1978. I knew I needed to stop doing that. I should probably get a pet so I could use its name as a password.

I wondered if Eddie might have chosen his passwords in a similar way. And was it any help to me if he did? The phone number idea wasn’t going to help. If Eddie did something similar, I had no way to find the number. His fiancée’s name was Sylvia. I tried variations on her name -- Sylvia1982, Sylvia1983, 1984Sylvia, and on and on.

I ran out of variations on Sylvia’s name and the folder hadn’t opened. I started putting in dirty words. Handjob. Jackoff. Wank. Anything I could think of. I was in the middle of trying to spell masturbator when Sonja walked by my office and glanced in. She didn’t say anything, but the message was clear. I took the thumb drive out of the computer, shut the PC down, and walked out.

On my way by Tiffany’s cubicle, she stopped me and whispered, “What’s going on Matt? It’s getting really weird around here.”

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t have anything to do with re-engineering,” I said. I was about to turn and walk out when I stopped. “Your son, Cameron, he’s good with computers.”

“Too good.”

“Could he open a password-protected file?”

“I think so.” She looked at me suspiciously. “This isn’t something illegal is it?”

“No,” I lied. “It’s just, you know, I locked this file and now I can’t remember the password.”

She held out her hand. I took the Pez dispenser out of my pocket and handed it to her.

“Cute,” she said, when she saw the rubber duck top. “I’m going to tell Cameron it’s illegal. That way he won’t be able to resist.”

Chapter Fifteen

Down in the garage, I got into my car and drove out of the building. I had no idea when I’d be driving back in. An idea began to form in the back of my mind. I wasn’t sure if I had the guts to do it, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice. I decided to think about it later -- there wasn’t much I could do today anyway. My phone rang. I’d left the ear bud at home, so I illegally took the call while I drove. It was Jeremy. Before I could say anything, he said, “I’m not speaking to you.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“The police were here,” he said petulantly.

“That’s not my fault.”

“They were asking all these weird questions about our sex life.”

“Well, I hope you told them I’m too vanilla for you,” I said with a sting in my voice. Jeremy was quiet. “Oh, my God, what
did
you tell them?”

He lowered his voice. “There are bruises on my neck.”

“Did you tell them you made me do that to you?”

“Skye was in the room. What would he think?”

“You let the police think it was my idea so that your boyfriend wouldn’t think you’re some kind of sex deviant. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“You make me sound awful.”

“Jeremy, why did you want me to do that to you? Is it something you do a lot?”

“I’ve never done it before. I’ve heard about it...and that guy hanging himself in your garage or, you know, whatever happened to him...it made me think it might be fun to try.”

“Did you tell the police about sitting in front of my house the night Eddie was killed?”

“They didn’t seem to care about that,” he said. I was pleased that he’d at least stopped lying about being there.

“So, were you sitting out in front of my house that night? What time?”

“I guess it was six-thirty. Six forty-five.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Why? Why were you there?”

“Skye wanted to see it. So, I showed it to him.”

“Did you bring him inside?”

“Of course not. Not without asking you.” I gave him a credit for that, but then realized he might not know where the extra key was hidden after all. “They asked other questions, too,” he said. “Like what bars you go to, and if I knew any of the guys you went with.”

I sighed heavily. “They’re trying to prove I’m into this scarfing thing. They think I killed Eddie by mistake. They’re looking for other guys I might have done it with.”

“You didn’t, I mean...you couldn’t, right?”

“Couldn’t what?”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“How can you even think that?” I sounded outraged, but I had to admit I wanted to ask Jeremy the same thing.

“I don’t think that,” he insisted. “But I have to ask. I mean, you have been acting, well, different.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

I was nearly home, but then, abruptly, I turned onto Cahuenga and headed into the valley. It was ten-thirty. I’d read in the paper that Eddie’s graveside service was set for eleven at Hollywood Hills Memorial Park. The cemetery was located on the side of a large hill and boasted a lovely view of smoggy Burbank for the dearly departed and their loved ones. I’d be able to get there on time.

Going to the funeral was probably not a good idea. I knew that. But I was out of good ideas. I could have gone home and sat in my house waiting for something to happen, but that made even less sense than going to Eddie’s funeral. I pulled off the main drag and wound my way up a pleasant driveway and parked my car.

As soon as I got out of the car, I was able to pick out Eddie’s grave because about fifty people were huddled around it. I walked up the hill. The incline was steep, and I did my best not to walk on anyone’s grave. When I got close, I hung back about twenty-five feet from the crowd. I didn’t really want his family to see me. They’d probably jumped to the same conclusion the rest of Los Angeles had, that I’d killed Javier. Fortunately, the Hernandez family was seated in the front row with their backs to me.

The red-haired priest I’d seen on TV was conducting the service. Next to him were Carlos Maldonado dressed in a black suit and Eddie’s fiancée Sylvia Navarez in a black mini-dress with black stockings. I assumed they were planning to speak, as well, which is why they weren’t seated with the other mourners.

I thought I saw the back of Eddie’s mother’s head in the front row. Seated next to her were several tall young men who were probably Eddie’s brothers. I had no idea who the rest of the people were. Extended family. Friends from high school, maybe. Were any of Eddie’s clients there? There were a couple single, middle-aged men standing or sitting solo here and there. I wondered if I should try to talk to them and what I should say if I did? “It’s a tragedy, isn’t it? The world has lost a great masseur?”

I wondered if Eddie’s password was in front of me somewhere. For instance, there was a ten year-old boy standing near the front row. The son Sylvia had mentioned? Would Eddie have been close enough to the boy to use his name as a password? I wondered if I should get closer and hope to hear someone call him by name.

Just then, I noticed Tripp and Hanson standing at the back of the crowd. She looked over her shoulder and caught my eye. After tapping Tripp on the shoulder, the two detectives walked back to me. Hanson spoke first. “You know why we come to a victim’s funeral?”

I shook my head.

“Because the murderer sometimes shows up.” She gave me a hard glare. Any thought of giving them the flash drive was completely driven from my head.

“Thanks for the tip,” I said. “I’ll keep my eyes open. I heard you were harassing my ex-partner.”

“Yeah, that’s what we do,” Hanson said. “Harass people.”

“He was sitting in front of my house at six forty-five,” I said, fudging just a little. “So you think I rushed in afterward, had sex with Eddie, strangled him, dragged him out to the garage, strung him up, then pretended to come home, find him and then call 9-1-1. All in a little more than an hour.”

“It works for me.”

It was possible, I suppose, just not likely.

“You know what else works for me?” asked Hanson. “Not even twenty-four hours later you’re squeezing the life out of another guy while you’re fucking him. Your ex-partner’s lucky to be alive.”

“He asked me to do that,” I said lamely.

“Yeah. I bet they all do.”

With that, she walked away. Tripp stayed. He took a step closer, and every muscle in my body tensed with awareness. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but suddenly I began to sweat. My heart beat fast, and I had a little trouble breathing. It felt like lust, but then again it might have been fear.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said, my voice wobbly.

“That’s not usually the way we do this, but go ahead.” Tripp looked me right in the eye, and I almost forgot what I wanted to ask him.

“Is there a way to tell if Eddie had sex or was having sex when he died?” If he or his client were into scarfing, I wondered if there was a scientific way to prove it.

Tripp watched me for a moment. I could tell he was trying to figure out why I’d asked that particular question. “I was at the autopsy,” he said. “There wasn’t any semen found on his body. As far as other indicators are concerned...the report’s not complete yet, but the coroner said it can’t be ruled out even though he doesn’t have conclusive evidence.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m not doing you any favors. When you get a lawyer, he’ll be able to get you the autopsy report.”

“I can’t afford a lawyer.”

“The state will provide a lawyer when the time comes.”

“You could at least say if,
if
the time comes.”

He gave me a sad, disappointed look, then said, “I could say it, sure. But I don’t think there’s any if about it.”

After Tripp walked away, I stood there a minute or two. I couldn’t get over the feeling that coming to the funeral had been a mistake, and not only the funeral. I had the feeling every move I’d made in last few days had been wrong.

I walked slowly back to my car. Before I got there, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Carlos Maldonado running up to me. His face was red and angry. “Why did you come here? Haven’t you done enough to this poor family?”

Absurdly, I felt shame. As though I’d done the things he was suggesting. I had to defend myself. “I didn’t hurt anyone,” I said.

“You’re not the first killer to tell that lie.”

“You can tell his family that I’m looking for the killer. I’m going to find out who did this.”

He stared at me for a moment, then chuckled. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. And when I find the killer, you can apologize to me.” His face turned even redder. Pleased with myself, I walked away.

Driving home from the funeral, I realized I’d committed myself to finding the killer. Well, I really didn’t have a choice. Tripp and Hanson weren’t doing anything to find him. I was sort of stuck. I did have an idea about how to do it, and when I got home, I put the plan into action.

Walking into the house, I went straight for the spare room. Eddie’s table was still in there, just where he’d left it. I unzipped the case and took the table out. It was fairly simple to set up. I took it down and set it up again. I did it a few more times until I felt I might look like I knew what I was doing. In the side of the case was a pocket where I remembered Eddie keeping his lotion, his iPod, and the flannel sheet he used to cover the table. I slid my hand into the pocket and found it empty. Nothing was in there. Eddie had probably just thrown his supplies into his overnight bag. It would have been easier. But the police had taken his bag. I’d have to make do.

Then I headed in to my bedroom and took off my clothes. I slipped on my smallest pair of designer briefs and went out to the living room to get my phone. In my bathroom, there’s a large mirror covering the wall above the sink. I hated it and had hoped to replace it with a more modest, less narcissistic, medicine cabinet when I redid the bathroom. That particular afternoon, though, it was very useful. Standing there, I held the phone in front of my face and snapped a photo. Not so hot. I’d exposed too much of my face and wasn’t happy with the way my stomach looked.

I got down on the bathroom floor and did twenty-five sit-ups. Then, tightening my stomach muscles as hard as I could, I centered the phone in front of my face and took another photo. I got one that might work, but I wasn’t completely convinced. I did about a hundred more sit-ups and took another ten photos. I wished again that I had my laptop. There was a rudimentary photography program on it. It would have been nice to adjust the color and up the contrast. But I didn’t have my laptop, so I’d have to deal with what I had. Taking a deep breath, I slipped my briefs off. This would be the difficult part. I needed a picture I could put on the massageformen.com where my cock was a least semi-hard.

Unfortunately, the police had removed not just Jeremy’s box of kink but all the porn from the house. That left me with just my imagination. It had been a long time since I’d masturbated without visual aids. Not that I needed to finish. Not that I needed to get very far along even. But still. I felt like the only porno-deprived fag in Los Angeles County.

Closing my eyes, I began pulling gently on my cock. I started considering what I should think about to make this easier. I’d certainly had a number of sexual adventures recently. I could have recalled any of them. But Eddie was dead and it was too creepy to use him as an imaginary fluffer. The guy at the gym was an ass; thinking about him now might make my dick shrivel. And Jeremy, well, the sex was hot, but fantasizing about him was too complicated. Simon was out of the question. I considered a couple porn stars I liked, but without the actual material, they didn’t do much for me.

Detective Tripp popped into my head, and my prick woke up. I imagined him showing up for no reason at my house. Wearing one of his crisp, well-tailored business suits. He’d stand at my front door, not sure what to say, mumbling a little. I’d invite him in, but I wouldn’t step back far enough. He’d be very, very close to me. I’d tilt my head back, and he’d kiss me. His lips would be amazingly soft. I’d push the door shut. My hands would be all over him, feeling his wide shoulders, his tight stomach, his cock struggling to get out of his slacks.

My dick had swelled to a respectable size. I stood back, aimed my phone at the mirror and snapped a couple shots. Checking them, I was impressed with myself. They looked good. I considered taking a break and finishing the fantasy I’d started about Tripp, but I had work to do. I pulled my briefs back on and went into the bedroom and got dressed.

Sitting on the hard box spring, I clicked away at my phone. I went to massageformen.com website and placed the following ad:

Erotic massage by hot thirtysomething

Hi! I’m Zeus! 5’ 11’’ 185 lb. jock. I offer a relaxing Swedish massage done on a table and in the nude. Out call only $140. Full release guaranteed. Open to suggestion.

Maybe Zeus was a silly choice for a name, but there were a lot of ads and some of the guys looked like they spent every spare minute at the gym. I needed something that would make me stand out. I could have gone with Dirk, but something felt wrong about that. So, I stuck with Zeus.

I worried that “open to suggestion” might not be specific enough. I changed it to “open-minded”, but that seemed lame, too. I needed something that would bring in Eddie’s killer. I finally went back one more time and changed it to “into most scenes.” I needed to leave myself room to say no. I didn’t want to have to fulfill every fetish out there. I attached the two best pictures I’d taken and then I was done.

Now all I had to do was wait. Well, no. I had to do more than that. I had to think through what I’d do when someone answered the ad. It was very unlikely I’d receive an email from Eddie’s killer that said, “Hi! I’d like to choke you to death. Are you cool with that?” No, he’d probably hint at what he wanted in an email. Then he’d be more specific when I got there in person. He might not even ask for what he wanted until we were well into the massage.

That meant I needed to think through two very important things. First, I had to be convincing enough in my massage techniques to keep Eddie’s killer from jumping off the table and running away. And second, I had to be able to protect myself if he tried to strangle me.