Idyll Threats (9 page)

I was due to stand before a swarm of press, concerned citizens, and selectmen in a couple of hours. So my two-day shadow had to go. I scraped a razor along my cheek. Stubble collected along the blade like metal filings to a magnet. Day five and nothing to show but the videotape, autopsy report, and ballistics findings. No suspects and no witnesses. The phone rang. My hand was specked with shaving foam. It rang again. I cursed and wiped my hand on a towel. The answering machine picked up.

The machine announced it had a message. It insisted on telling me the date and time. Then a beep, click, and my mother's voice. “Hi, Tom. I called Benson's. They'll send a wreath to St. Anthony's for Rick's service. Give us a call. Or stop by for dinner soon. Dad sends his love. Bye.” I'd called and asked my mother where to order flowers for Rick's memorial. She'd taken this as a charge to do it herself. I'd call later to explain I couldn't make it home. I wouldn't mention what had happened the last time I showed up for a last-minute dinner invitation.

The table setting should've tipped me off. My family didn't use the china except for holidays and dinners with deans. My brother, John, and his wife, Marie, exchanged furtive looks over their glasses. Were they having another child? Bit late, for both of them. And should Marie be drinking wine? The doorbell rang.

“I'll get it!” my mother said. A minute later, she brought in a man wearing a velvet jacket with a paisley pocket square. Slender and smiling. Chris Danforth. My mother knew him through her charity work with the New York Foundation for the Arts.

“Chris was in a revival of
The King and I
on Broadway.” My mother squeezed my forearm. My muscles contracted under the pressure.

He was seated across from me at dinner, half visible through the spring bouquet set there for his benefit. We weren't flower people. He asked about my work while he sawed at his chop. I was polite but brief. Homicides don't make nice dinner conversation. Not the sort I'd seen recently: a wife bludgeoned with a hot iron, a man hog-tied and carved up.

“Your mother tells me you like boats,” he said to me.

“Did she?” I had, as a child. John smiled brightly at me. I kicked his leg under the table.

“Ow!” he shouted.

Marie sussed the situation and asked Chris if he was preparing for future roles. He ducked his head, as if embarrassed by the attention. Bullshit. No actor I'd met hated attention. “I'm auditioning next week for the chorus of
Rent
.”

“How exciting!” my mother said. This from the woman who fell asleep when she attended a Broadway show. She claimed all that singing and dancing tired her out.

“You know it's a musical?” John asked Mom. I didn't respond to his wink. He was on my shit list. He'd known what they'd planned and hadn't warned me. Some brother.

Chris asked about my parents' work. Mom talked about her Brontë research. “I've always preferred Anne to her sisters. More common sense and a better writer.”

Chris said he'd loved
Wuthering Heights
in high school. She wrinkled her nose.

“Emily wrote that,” I said.

Dad talked about his study of philosophy, and his latest subject, Albertus Magnus.

“And what do you study?” Chris asked my brother.

John stopped petting his wife's hand and launched into a lecture about how climate change is real and we're going to be the means of the planet's destruction. Cheerful stuff.

“What a remarkable family.” Chris showed off his veneers. “You weren't tempted by academia?” he asked me.

“No.” All that reading? Just a one-way ticket to Sleepy Town.

“Tom always wanted to be a cop,” John said. “And unlike most boys, he didn't outgrow it.”

“I always wanted to perform,” Chris said to me, as if we shared a secret. Then he grabbed a flower from the bouquet, tucked it in his napkin and waved it above the table. He opened the napkin and nothing fell. Everyone applauded except me. I knew where the flower was.

At my mother's insistence, I escorted our guest to the door after dinner. Chris adjusted his pocket square. I wondered if it meant something. There'd been a whole gay subculture of kerchiefs. Colors and styles indicated preferences and persuasions. I'd never learned them. He patted my arm. “If you ever need help—”

“Help?”

“Navigating your way out of the closet—”

Had he prepped that exit line, just in case I didn't respond to his smiles?

I pointed behind me. “They know I'm gay.”

“But not at work, right?”

What did he know about being gay on the force? Did he know about Jackson's memo to our lieutenant? The one that complained of his partner's “multiple unwarranted and unnatural physical advances?” The one pinned to our memo board. The one we'd laughed at for weeks. Typical cop humor. Did he know how the only “out” detective in our precinct had transferred after only two months? Did he think being gay at work made you a hero? It made you a target. Unless you worked in a field like acting.

I opened the door and waited. He left. I slammed the door. Nothing angered me more than other homos telling me how to be gay. This asshole was upset because I didn't represent “gay” with a big grin while standing on a rainbow-colored parade float? Fuck him.

“Is Chris gone?” My mother entered the foyer prepared to back out, hopeful of interrupting something.

“Don't ever do that again,” I said.

She got close. Combat position. “I thought you two might hit it off.” The lines about her mouth deepened. “I see I was wrong.” She gave me a disappointed look. I knew that look well.

In the living room, John and Marie laughed, their hilarity escalating into hiccups. “Oh, you didn't!” Marie said.

My mother got on her tiptoes and smoothed my hair. “I just want to see you happy.” Angry as I was, I knew she'd meant well. They all did.

Now, back at my house, I pushed a button and erased my mother's message. I'd call later to decline the dinner invite. Who knew where her good intentions would lead this time? Better not to find out.

Something crashed on a hard surface. Tiles. The bathroom. I hurried to find my toothbrush cup smashed into shards. The toothbrush's bristles rested on the dirty tiles. I'd need to buy another. I picked up glass pieces.

The glass. What was it? I looked at the uneven shards, opaque in my shadow. There'd been glass in the gutter, when Rick died. Some homeboy's broken forty a foot away from Rick's body. My eyes had stared at those shards after the EMTs shooed me away and bent over him, working his chest like a bellows.

My hands clenched. I felt a sharp pain. “Shit!” A piece of glass was stuck in my index finger. I pulled it from my finger pad and dropped the glass in the trash. Ran water over the wound. Pink water swirled down the drain. I looked for a bandage and found one behind an expired bottle of aspirin. My hands botched the job: the bandage puckered. But I hadn't time to do it over. I was running late and still had to finish my shave.

When I reached Town Hall, cars filled every parking spot. I cruised past, once more. Nope. Not one free, except for a handicapped spot in front of the arched brick doorway. I thought for a second. No, I couldn't. I bumped my car over the curb and parked on the grass between the lot and Main Street.

The press conference was in the Porter Room, named after the town's founder, Isaiah Porter. His portrait hung outside the room. A
cheerless man in a weathered hat, holding a Bible. The room's heavy wooden door opened to reveal seven rows of occupied folding chairs. News crews were present. At the podium, Mayor Mike repeated the tip-line number. He spotted me and waved his arms as if landing a plane. “And here, ladies and gentlemen,
as promised
, is Chief of Police Thomas Lynch.”

When I reached the podium he said, “Where have you been?” The mic picked up his question. There were titters from the audience.

“I'll take your questions now,” I said.

A black woman wearing a pretty scarf said, “Shirley Winston,
New Haven Register
. Chief Lynch, do you have any suspects?”

Yes, but I'm not sure who he is.
“We're pursuing several leads.” She pursed her lips and gave me a look that said she'd heard that line before.

John Dixon, from the
Idyll Register
, asked if the murder could be the work of a serial rapist/killer. He was underfed and wore a suit two sizes too big.

“No. It's an isolated incident. There were no signs of sexual assault.”

He scratched his nose with the pink eraser of his pencil. “Perhaps this is the killer's first victim? A trial? Maybe he'll advance as he goes?” He sounded hopeful.

My breath emerged as a huff into the microphone. “I'm not sure what sort of TV shows you've been watching, but this isn't a serial killing. And it's not entertainment.”

John Dixon sat down and shut up.

I fielded questions about motive (I wouldn't speculate) and one about a town curfew (unnecessary). There wasn't much else to say. The reporters would have to pad their pieces with thoughts on what a shock murder was in this sleepy community. The mayor took me aside when the news crews shut off their lights and wound their cables. “I assume you've an excellent excuse for being late.” The stains under his armpits were two shades darker than his shirt.

“New information came in. I'm sorry. It took precedence.” The lie came easy.

“We couldn't reach you at the station.”

“I was talking to the techs, from home.”

The mayor walked with me out of the building. “Next time, call ahead to say you'll be late.” He squinted and said, “Is that your car?” He didn't need to ask. Its side read “Police Chief.”

You mean the one you threatened to take away?
“There weren't any spaces.”

“Not even the handicapped one?”

“I didn't think it would be right to park there.”

“You need to treat your vehicle like you would a lady, Chief.” He withdrew a pair of aviator sunglasses and put them on. “With respect.”

1130 HOURS

I poured flat soda on my plant and looked down at the parking lot. My car glinted in its reserved spot, safe for now. The mayor had bought my lie, but he'd been unhappy. Maybe he and the selectman had hedged their bets, not changing the nameplate on my door.

The phone rang. “Chief Lynch,” I said.

“Hello Chief, this is Mr. McKinley, owner of the Nipmuc Golf Course. I'm just following up about last night.”

“Last night.” What was he talking about?

“The trouble?” He waited for a response. I said nothing. “Charlie saw some teens by the ninth hole last night.”

“Oh.” First I'd heard of it. “I could send an officer to keep an eye out after Charlie's left.” I didn't need ghoul-hunting teens on the crime scene.

He said, “The murder…well, I don't want people to associate the course with it.”

Good luck with that. “I'll assign someone for a week.” It would be a dozer. Maybe I'd send Yankowitz, or Hopkins. He was still acting pissy for my scolding him at the clubhouse. “Did Charlie give a description of the kids?”

“Yes, when he called the station last night.” So that's why he
thought I knew. Because Charlie had called it in. The desk sergeant and I were due for a chat.

“I'll send someone tonight, after Charlie finishes his rounds. How's that?”

“Fine. Thanks, Chief.”

I hung up the phone. A tentative knock lifted my gaze. I had a visitor. “Come in.” Yankowitz opened my door, his face the definition of confused.

“Help you?” I asked, my tone less than pleased. He usually stayed away from my office. Had never been inside as far as I knew.

“There's a man here. He says he knows you.”

“And?” His posture implied there was more to this story. He looked over his shoulder. Then back at me.

“I pulled him over on Sparrow Street. He was doing 45 miles per hour. It's a school district. No school now, but there are day programs for kids.”

Stop the presses
, I opened my mouth to say.

“His name's Leo Wilton.” My open mouth snapped shut. The man I'd picked up. The man at the cabin.

“He insisted on seeing you. Says you'll straighten it all out.”

“He's here?” I tried to look around Yankowitz.

“Yeah.”

“Send him in.”

“Okay.”

Twenty seconds later, Leo Wilton stood in my office. “Close the door,” I told Yankowitz. He did, his face no less confused as he left.

“Hello, Chief.” Leo looked older under the fluorescent lights. His grey hair looked slightly green. “Had a feeling we'd meet again. Had no idea it would be so soon.”

“You seem to have a lead foot,” I said.

“Your officer there is very by-the-book.” He sat and crossed his leg. “Tried to give me a fifty-dollar ticket.”

“He takes speeding seriously.”

Leo pulled a paper from his pocket and held it out. The ticket.

“And you came here because?” I asked.