The Devil's Analyst (34 page)

“He loves him. Of course he would.” It’s what they expected her to say, but Cynthia knew that Wally was really wondering if Josh was capable of causing all the damage. They all wanted to believe the man would do anything for Danny, but they feared they were entirely wrong in their assessment of the man.

Wally took a sip of his wine. He motioned toward Cynthia’s largely uneaten food. “You should finish that. We put it back on the menu today just for you.”

Cynthia wasn’t going to let his motherly talk distract her. “Josh and Danny have been together since 1987. I know they love each other.”

“I have no doubt that Danny loves Josh,” Wally said. He looked toward Stephen as though seeking affirmation, but his partner maintained his usual quiet stance. Wally sighed. “The thing is I’ve always distrusted Josh.”

“Really. I’ve never heard this before.”

“Remember that fall in Thread when he showed up after his parents died in that freak accident of carbon monoxide poisoning? He was so flamboyant and sought to be the center of attention wherever he went.” Wally shuddered as though recalling some memory he didn’t care to disclose. “He tried to win over everyone, even that creepy Van Elkind kid who used to torment you. Remember how he fanned that kid’s obsessions?”

Cynthia never liked to dwell on the unpleasant parts of her past. Once distasteful things were concluded she preferred to tuck them away in the recesses of her memory. The Van Elkind boy was a drug-addled, obsessed teenager, a kid that in the end she felt sorry for, like she usually did for everyone, especially after his grandmother, the matron and his guardian at the Van Elkind camp, died and he became so desolate.

Wally continued, “I always thought Josh egged on half of what that kid did. He really knew how to push the kid’s buttons. Weird in a way. And then after all these years, Josh actually goes out and buys the abandoned estate that once belonged to the kid’s family. What’s with that? Why would he want to go back there? I know that you and Chip still live in the area, but Danny and Josh never talked about northern Wisconsin. So suddenly, he drops a million or more buying a derelict mansion and restoring it. It never made sense to me.”

“Chip and I were happy when they made the purchase. We liked having them back in our lives.”

Neither Stephen nor Wally said anything. She knew what they were thinking: if Josh hadn’t bought the old camp, then maybe he would never have talked Chip into investing in Premios, and Chip might still be alive. She rubbed her stomach reflexively as though that might bring forth a genie to grant that different existence. But truthfully, both Chip and she were happy to see the two men back in the area. Chip welcomed having someone restore the old mansion. While the American Seasons complex generally propped up property prices around the lakes, few folks wanted the enormous places that were once the getaways of millionaires from Milwaukee and Chicago and the abandoned place was becoming an eyesore. Chip always considered it a good omen to have the estate shiny once again.

When she joined her two friends in one of their first walk-throughs of the abandoned place, she was enthralled. An interior decorator from Los Angeles, who had flown out to take on the restoration job, was also on hand. (That irked Cynthia’s mother, since she thought she deserved to be first in line for the design job, having once done work for the Van Elkind family.) But Josh bragged about wanting the finest, and the designer was excited about the camp’s potential. All the work was the very best.

The house had stood empty for years. While its thick log walls and double-paned windows certainly protected the interior, evidence of mice was throughout and there were raccoons in the attic. The few pieces of furniture that had been abandoned in the place were dusty and deteriorating. All in all, the place exuded a spooky air. Danny seemed subdued as though the house was haunted, but Josh was ebullient. He flung out ideas to the designer with the abandon of a kitten in catnip, gleefully rolling in his own imagination.

Stephen signaled for a server to clear the table. He recognized that Cynthia would not eat any more of her dish. “A black coffee for me,” he said to the server and then gestured for the others at the table to place their orders.

“I’m fine,” Cynthia said. She knew what was coming. Stephen always felt most at home with a coffee in hand. He wanted to add something.

Once his cup arrived, he took time swirling one sugar cube into its blackness. “I find I have to agree with Wally,” he said. “There is something troubling about Josh. Life is only about him.”

“What do you mean?” Cynthia asked.

“There came a point when we really didn’t want him involved with our restaurants any more. Certainly, he’s charming, feckless in a way, and always filled with grand ideas. I don’t deny that he’s smart and clever. But he achieves all of that with a price. He’s remarkably manipulative. You hardly know that he’s doing it, and it’s even harder to explain what he’s done. But he leaves behind a trail of bad feelings and disorder. He always gets what he want, although I must admit that usually I was never quite certain what it was he wanted.”

Cynthia wanted to shout at both of these men for their silence, but she bit her tongue, because she knew the reason. That was the laconic Wisconsin way. They never said anything. Just as Chip never mentioned to Danny how he distrusted Josh’s integrity. As a younger man, Chip was easily angered and quick to take offense at perceived slights. It took a great deal of personal constraint for him to tamp down that part of his personality. His first encounters with Josh had been testy, and Chip always feared that he never released his early resentments and so he gave Josh the benefit of the doubt. Everyone was always willing to forgive Josh for actions that might doom others.

But Cynthia never felt those vibes. The few times that Chip and she discussed his assessment of Josh, she quickly dismissed his concerns. All that mattered to her was that Danny was happy.

“I know that Josh wasn’t always the most sincere,” she said, “but did you ever see him do anything that would make you believe he’s capable of such horrible events?”

“I could list many things,” Stephen said, “but everything I would tell you would seem superficial. It would also make me look petty.”

Wally nodded his head in agreement.

Stephen continued, “But here’s one example of what I mean. Josh was always good at talking to our customers. He has a knack for knowing what people want to hear, and he gives them what they want. But I always felt his customer interactions were a ploy to prompt our guests to open up and disclose something that they might otherwise keep hidden. He liked to collect secrets.”

“He never forgot anything,” Wally added.

“And it wasn’t just that he remembered it all. He looked for ways to use it maliciously. We had this well-connected Hollywood producer who frequently dined with us. Most of the time his companion wasn’t his wife, and we assumed he was sleeping with most of the young women who ate at his table. But a restaurant booth is like a church confessional. What happens in them stays there.

“Josh knew that. But one night—it was still in our early days when Josh worked as a host—he walked over to the man’s table. It was on a night when he was actually eating with his wife. Josh made a point of welcoming the man, and then dropped a comment about he hoped to see him back with his beautiful daughter again. Because the wife was quick to assume that the dinner had been with some fling, she straightened her back and her face flared with anger. The husband’s mood darkened, and Josh immediately backtracked about confusing the man with another guest. But the damage was done. I saw Josh’s face when he turned to walk back to the reservations desk. It bore a look of triumph. He deliberately provoked that discord. Of course, I couldn’t prove it, and there was no rational reason why he would want to do it, especially since we never saw that particular man again. And he had been a big spender. But I think Josh did it just for the pleasure of doing it.” Stephen wrapped his story with the finality of a lawyer’s summation.

“He did it because he’s twisted,” Wally added.

“Even if all that is true, and I’m sure it is, isn’t it quite a leap to what we’re imagining? Are you saying Josh set in motion a plot to kill both a good friend and a major investor? Why?” Cynthia wanted someone to blame for her loss, and Josh could be that person, but it had to make sense.

Neither man could offer her that explanation.

But as she looked around the table, one nagging thought troubled Cynthia and she had to express it. “How is it possible that Danny didn’t see this?”

The hidden room
was comforting. Danny could understand why Josh liked it and now often wondered, because he was a sound sleeper, if there had been nights when his lover would get out of bed, walk down the several flights of stairs, and work in this room. Although Danny couldn’t ever recall not being able to find Josh in the house, it was clear the room had been often used.

Now Danny spent too much time in the hideaway, and he didn’t understand why. Night after night, year after year, he slept next to a man who kept so many secrets. They rose together, took turns showering, drank coffee, read the paper, went to work, watched television, made love, and kissed each other good night—all without ever really knowing one other. Josh could have asked him anything, and Danny would have answered as truthfully as possible. But not Josh. Instead, this man obsessed over plots and goals.

Just outside the wine cellar, the game room held a large fireplace with a showplace of a hearth that sported an enormous mantel. Outfitted with gas logs, the fireplace required only one flick of the finger on a switch and the flames would burst forth. Danny was tempted to sweep everything off the shelves and out of the desk drawers . . . and carry everything out, set the fire blazing, and toss each piece onto the flames. One by one, the ashes could float up the flue and out into the night breezes. But Danny had learned his lesson decades earlier. Eliminating the possibility of knowing didn’t keep one from wondering and reliving what might have been.

It was painful but he had forced himself to face the room. During the course of the past few weeks, he read through every document. Upon completion, he wasn’t certain he had made the right decision. He wasn’t even certain he understood Josh one bit better than before he had started. But Danny had learned he stood alone.

The truth was he preferred the Josh that shimmered in his happy memories captured in the photo albums upstairs and in the stories that friends would repeat. That Josh was gone, not just because he was missing for two months and not because he left behind the tools that made it moot whether he was dead, alive, in Los Angeles, or lounging in some remote South American jungle . . . no, it was because everything he was meant to be had been torn away and Josh had been the one to rip it off.

Why? That was the question. What had he hoped to accomplish? Somehow, Danny knew that Josh’s stunt was meant as a test and he was certain he would fail it.

Back in 1988
, on the first weekend that Danny spent in Los Angeles, Josh woke him up one morning to say they were taking a hike. Grabbing a basket containing a thermos of coffee, cups, a bottle of champagne and fresh croissants, Josh drove them a few miles from their tiny home and parked near the Griffith Observatory. Danny expected their destination would be the broad terraces and roofs of that iconic building that promised an expansive view of the city. Instead Josh said, “Follow me.”

It was a brisk January morning coming after several days of winter rain. All dirt had been washed away, leaving nothing in the air to obscure the cleansing sun. In the unclouded Los Angeles light, every twig and grass blade appeared distinct and sharp. The hills stretched upward in a brilliant green. A variety of birds twittered in the bushes. The two started to walk up a dirt path, which was damp and packed solid by the recent rains. Since it was early in the morning, there were only a few cars parked nearby and Danny could see just a handful of other hikers on the paths—mostly a few solitary walkers with their dogs. Up ahead was the crest of a high hill, and the path they were on seemed to lead toward its peak.

“Is that where we’re going?” Danny asked.

“Yes,” Josh said, “we’re hiking to the top of Mount Hollywood, because I want to show you your new world.”

He pulled out the thermos and two cups, poured some coffee and handed Danny a filled cup. “Take a look,” he said as he moved his arm to encompass the scene in front of them. Straight ahead was the copper dome of the observatory. Beyond and below stretched the streets and avenues of Los Angeles marching in straight lines toward the sea. “That hill in the distance,” he said, “is Palos Verdes and off to the side you can make out the towers of downtown Long Beach. We’re lucky that this morning is so clear. Look at it all.”

And Danny discerned each of those locations, but in his imagination, he also envisioned trips back in time and across the ocean. Josh went on, “And in that direction is Hollywood. We can catch a good view of the famous sign from here. And over there are Beverly Hills and Westwood, and where you see the line of deeper blue that’s the ocean. In that direction, you’re looking at Santa Monica. I’ll take you there one day and we’ll ride the Ferris wheel on the pier so we can see even further. We’ll stare beyond the horizon.”

It seemed magical, this landscape of fabled names. “Now turn in that direction.” Josh commanded.

And Danny turned toward the east, where the early morning sun was still low and reflected off the tall towers of downtown Los Angeles. “That tall building under construction is Library Tower. When it opens it will be seventy-three stories high, the tallest building west of the Mississippi and the tallest building in the world topped with a helicopter pad. Wouldn’t it be something to fly and land there?”