by A. P. Eisen
“Damn right you’re not.”
“Don’t mess with me before I’ve had my coffee, Paulie. Anyway, she’s resting and feeling better. The kids are happy she’s home. And both my mother and mother-in-law are here.” Rob’s voice dropped. “I’m going crazy. I need to get back to work, but I gotta be here, you know?”
Paul couldn’t hide his smile. “I know. You’ll come when you can. As long as she’s okay.”
“Yeah. She’s an amazing woman. I swear she’s stronger than me. We had a long talk last night and said everything we were afraid to tell each other, and we both agreed, no more kids. She’s happy with how we are and so am I.”
“So I’m stuck with you now, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Like fucking superglue, buddy. I think she’s going back to work next week, but she told me if she keeps feeling as good as she is now, she’s ready to get rid of me as early as tomorrow.”
“God knows I need you here.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me what you’ve got.”
Paul briefed Rob on everything that happened, ending with the bizarre drug arrest of Chase Ulrich. He’d come in to discover that, as expected, the young man had been bailed out by his mother.
“Huh,” Rob said, and Paul could hear the wheels turning in his partner’s head. He needed this tossing of ideas back and forth; it was one of the reasons he missed Rob. Friendship first, but they also worked so well together.
“What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Sonny Boy had a nice gig going. Maybe he was stealing daddy’s prescriptions for himself and to sell. When Ulrich found out, they had a row, and the kid clunked him on the head. Fit of anger. Those drugs’ll do it.”
“Yeah, and almost seems more likely than Shane, our playboy blackmailer. He had no reason to want to kill Ulrich, especially if Ulrich was paying him off. That could go on for years.”
“True, but if he found out his rich sucker was done with him and moving on, he might’ve gotten angry enough to kill him as well. Sort of like, ‘If I can’t have you, no one else will either.’ ”
“You’ve got a point there.”
“So what’re you going to do first? Pay a visit to the bad boy? Catherine Ulrich is going to put you on her shit list, man, if you start questioning her baby boy. She’s a tiger when it comes to him.”
Paul grimaced. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. But that’s not going to stop me.”
Rob laughed. “No shit, Bulldog. I’d be shocked if it did. Go get him.”
“I think first I’m going to talk to Shane. Keep him off-balance. He was scared when we talked to him.”
“Yeah. And not too bright. He might trip himself up.”
“Talk to you later. Tell Annabel that Cliff and I are thinking about her.”
“I will. Keep me posted.”
Paul hung up, feeling immensely better now that he’d run through the facts with Rob. His phone rang.
“Hey, Lanie. What’s up?”
“We just got back the lab analysis of the bone and tissue samples we sent in. There was no dirt inside the skull or any wood or rock fragments. They did find some microscopic paint chips, but nothing else.”
“Hmm. Well, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Thanks.”
“Not a problem.”
He hung up and left to go to Flex. Pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together, but Paul, with years of experience behind him, wasn’t convinced they were close to solving the case.
Flex was buzzing with early morning clients, and Paul spotted Shane doing lunges with weights, watching his form in the mirror. He sauntered over and met Shane’s eyes in the reflection.
Shane turned pale and dropped the weights, narrowly missing smashing his foot but hardly noticing. “What do you want?”
“To talk again.” The weight had landed by Paul, and he bent and hefted it in his hand. “Here.”
With a frown, Shane took it from him. “Thanks.” He assessed Paul with a hard stare, then relaxed his tense shoulders. “I got time. Let’s go in the back so no one can hear us.”
Paul followed him to the same room where he and Rob had first questioned Shane. He waited for Shane to close the door and was caught completely off guard when Shane pushed him against the wall and kissed him, thrusting his tongue into his mouth while reaching down to grab at Paul’s crotch.
Fucking hell.
Reflexes kicked in, and he shoved Shane away so hard, the man fell on top of the table and rolled to the ground. He scrambled to his feet, red-faced and eyes blazing.
“Why’d you do that?” Shane rubbed his crotch. “Let me lock the door, and we can get down to it.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Paul wiped at his mouth.
“You came here to see me,” Shane said sullenly. “I know the signs. You’re a gay cop looking to get it on.”
“I came here to question you in a murder investigation, you goddamn idiot. You touch me again, and I’ll arrest you for assaulting an officer.”
“You wanted me. I could see it. You don’t have to pretend.”
Paul leaned over the table and jabbed his finger in Shane’s face. “Listen good, because I’m only going to say this once, so you get it through your thick head. I am here for the sole purpose of investigating a homicide. All I want from you are facts.” Thoroughly rattled, Paul took a moment to catch his breath. “Were you told that Dr. Ulrich no longer wanted to train with you?”
“Yeah, so what?” Shane shrugged and pulled out a chair to sit. “That wouldn’t have lasted long. The man wanted me.”
“The gym assigned him to a different trainer, and you had no issue with it?”
Shane scowled. “I told you I didn’t give a shit. Ulrich loved me. He was like a bitch in heat whenever we were together, and I had what he needed to scratch that itch.” Shane smirked. “You know what I mean. He was pissed, but it would blow over. I wasn’t worried.”
“Why would he do that, though? If he was so happy with you, like you said. What was he upset about?”
The cockiness drained from Shane’s face. “Am I under arrest? Do I need a lawyer? Because I don’t think I want to talk anymore.”
I’ll bet you don’t.
“If you want a lawyer, you can get one. We’ll meet at the precinct next time for questioning. Is that what you want? If so, I’ll stop the questioning right now.”
“I’m just asking. I didn’t do nothing to Dean.”
“What’s a little blackmail among friends, right?”
Shane paled and licked his lips. “Wh-what’re you talking about? B-blackmail?”
“Wouldn’t you call taking naked pictures of someone while they’re sleeping and asking for money not to show them to their wife, blackmail?”
With his face gray and pinched and covered in sweat, Shane didn’t look so pretty anymore. “How…but I didn’t kill him. Yeah, we had a big fight, but I wasn’t really gonna show them to her. I needed a new car, and I figured it would be easy money.”
Dumb. Considering how desperate Dean Ulrich was for him, Shane most likely could’ve simply asked for a loan and Ulrich would’ve given it to him.
“But he didn’t bite.”
“He got mad, yeah, and said we were through, but the next day he texted me and said he’d have the money and could we meet in the hotel room. So why would I kill him? That would be crazy.”
And unfortunately for Paul, Shane was right. It didn’t make sense either way for him to kill Ulrich.
Dammit.
“Did you ask him for the money when you met up again?”
“Yeah, but he laughed at me and said it was too much. A few hundred bucks here and there was no big thing, but ten grand was a lot of money. But that was bullshit. It was nothing to him. I know where he lived. He was loaded.”
“So because he was rich, you thought it was okay to steal from him?” That kind of thinking disgusted Paul.
“I’m just saying…” Shane pouted, and while that look m
ight’ve worked on Ulrich, Paul wasn’t moved.
“Did he ever give you the money?” They’d yet to find the ten-thousand-dollar money order Ulrich had made out.
“No,” Shane said irritably. “I told you he said no.”
“But he took out a money order for ten grand two days before the murder. So where do you think it went?”
Paul walked out, leaving Shane openmouthed with shock.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After checking in with his father to see how his mother was doing that morning, Cliff dived into his workday. First the emails from corporate had to be answered, and that required numbers and charts and the grunt work part of the job he hated. But he did it because it showed his bosses that the hotel was at almost full occupancy and their ratings from travel companies were excellent.
By the time he finished creating the last chart and sent it off to his supervisors, it was close to noon. The breakfast he’d shared with Paul seemed long ago, and his stomach growled. To himself only, he’d admit he liked when Paul and Rob were investigating a case at the hotel. It gave him a chance to see Paul during the day. Paul limited his discussions about the case to nonspecifics, but Cliff knew it was hard for him not to have Rob. Sighing, he once again turned to his emails and the next problem to tackle: overseeing the restaurant schedules.
When a knock sounded on the door, he didn’t even raise his head.
“Come on in.”
The door opened, but no one spoke, so he peered over the screen and couldn’t help the smile that broke out over his face.
“Hey. What’re you doing here?”
Paul shut the door behind him and hefted a bag. “Well, I finished questioning a witness and realized it was time for lunch. If I were with Rob, he’d force me to go to a fast-food joint, but since I’m on my own, I was hoping you’d want to share. I stopped at that new salad place and picked us up something.” He grinned, and Cliff’s heart did a funny loop the loop, but he managed a steady response.
“Oh, thanks.”
“Are you going to be seeing your mother after work?” As he spoke, Paul took the salads out of the bag and gave Cliff his. For some reason, it still surprised him that Paul remembered he didn’t like celery or green peppers, only the red kind, and that he took his dressing on the side. It should be this way after being together for three months, but Cliff had been so badly burned before, he wasn’t taking anything for granted, even though this relationship felt different.
“Yes. I spoke to my father, and they discharged her, so she’s home.” He faltered for a moment, and Paul, with that razor-sharp sense of his, stopped what he was doing, circled around the desk, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
Feeling stupid, he shook his head, focusing his gaze anywhere but on Paul’s concerned face. “It’s nothing. Just…I haven’t been home…in that house…since they kicked me out.”
“That was a long time ago,” Paul said with a squeeze.
“It was, and yet it seems like yesterday.”
Cliff saw himself a lifetime ago: young, shaking and sweaty, sitting at the old kitchen table.
“I have something to tell you both.”
His mother turned pale. “Are you sick? Did something happen?”
“No, I’m not sick.” His gaze flickered to his father, who sat, as usual, silent, with no expression. “I’m gay.”
She blinked at him. “What? Gay?” Her eyes grew wide and shiny. “Oh, no. No.”
“Yes. I’m sorry if that hurts you, but I needed you both to know. It’s who I am.”
His father stood, his breath coming in short bursts. “I knew something was wrong with you. Wasn’t interested in football or baseball. Should’ve sent you to military school and toughened you up.”
“You think that would change me? I was born this way.”
“No. No, you weren’t. You were a perfectly normal kid—”
“And what, now I’m not? I’m abnormal? Something to be ashamed of?”
“Yes.”
And with that one devastating word, his father turned his back and walked away.
“Mom?” Cliff hated that his voice quivered.
“I’m sorry. I don’t…I can’t. It’s wrong, Cliff. Being with another man, never getting married or having children? It’s what we’re here for.”
“I thought we were here to love our fellow man.”
“Why did it have to be you? Why couldn’t you have been someone else’s child?” She pushed away from the table and ran after his father. Even more than what his father said, his mother’s words left him bleeding and broken.
He spent the night at a friend’s house.
When he called them the next day, hoping they’d had time to think and accept him, his father answered.
“Don’t bother coming back until you’re not gay.”
Cliff hung up the phone without a word.
He blinked, returning to the present. “It’s going to be weird as hell walking in there again.”
“Are you going to be all right?” Paul frowned.
“I think so. I want to be forgiving. Isn’t that how we should live? And so many years have passed, I’m thinking—hoping, really—from the way they spoke the other day, that maybe their attitudes have changed.”
Paul opened his salad, and Cliff sat down and did the same, knowing neither of them had the luxury of time to work this out on only an hour’s lunch break. But it felt good to speak about it and say the words out loud.
“I would assume so,” Paul said, “but does that make the hurt any less? I don’t know.” His fork poised to dig into the salad, Paul set it down instead. “It’s something you had to learn to live with and deal with on your own for so long, it had to have shaped you into the person you are today.”
Surprised by Paul’s insight, Cliff nodded and took a bite of his food. “Maybe. I didn’t expect acceptance, but I didn’t think they’d cut me dead. But now they want me in their lives again, almost as if nothing ever happened. I don’t know if I’m that nice a person to keep up the pretense that it didn’t hurt like hell all these years having no family to be with every day or at the holidays.”
“I understand.”
He knew Paul did. Paul might not have been cast out by his family, but a self-imposed exile was almost as bad.
“Do you think you’d ever tell your father?”
Paul exhaled a harsh breath, and lines scored deep furrows across his brow. “What’s the point? He’s got a touch of dementia now, and I think the last thing he’d need is for me, his only surviving child, to walk in and tell him something that’s only bound to upset him. When I last spoke to him, he told me he’d found a ‘lady friend,’ as he called her. I’m glad he’s found someone to spend time with.”
“How often do you see him?”
“A few times a year. I’ll go down and stay the weekend. Take him out to dinner and listen to him talk about his glory days in the service. That’s why he was so proud of Harley.”
“I’m sure he’s proud of you as well. You’re a detective with an amazing record of putting murderers and other terrible people in jail.”
At his words, Paul laughed. “You don’t need to jump to my defense. He was okay with it at best, but in his opinion, the military was the only worthwhile career. ‘Love your country and serve her proud’ was his motto. Too bad it cost his son his life.”
Cliff heard the bitterness in Paul’s voice. “You think Harley enlisted to win your father’s approval?”
“Didn’t he?” Paul jabbed at his salad. “And I was too caught up in my own head to sit him down like any good older brother would and tell him not to get involved in that war. It was one made for losing.”
“I tried,” Cliff said, and Paul’s haunted eyes flashed to his.
“You did?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want him to leave. For selfish reasons, because he was my best friend and I’d miss him, but also for what you said. I was scared for him, and
from everything I could see, it was a war that couldn’t be won. He laughed and told me not to be a worrywart like his mother. He was excited to go and see the world.”
“It didn’t turn out that way. He died alone, and I never had the chance to get to know him.”
“I can tell you about him. We have all the time in the world for that.”
“After this case, I’d like that.”
Summoning up his courage, Cliff looked Paul squarely in the eyes. “There’s always going to be another case or something else. I think we should talk about it sooner rather than later.”
Paul stared out the window, the tension visible in his tightly clenched jaw and rapid, uneven breathing. For a moment Cliff feared he’d pushed too far, too fast, and opened his mouth to pull back his words. But Paul gave a jerky nod.
“You’re right. I know it, and for years I skated by on the excuse of work. But he deserves more than that, doesn’t he?”
“You both do.” Cliff hoped Paul understood. From the beautiful smile he received, it seemed he did.
They finished their lunch quickly, as Paul had to get to the bank to see if they could put a tracer on the money order. They’d put all their leftovers in the paper bag Paul had come in with, and Cliff walked him to the door.
“Aren’t you afraid people will start talking if you keep coming by here without a reason to? Not that I’m complaining, but I was thinking about you.”
“You know, I’m tired of all the subterfuge. If someone is so interested in my life that they notice who I’m having lunch with, then it’s their problem, not mine. I don’t live my life owing anyone an explanation, except you, when I show up late for dinner. And speaking of dinner, I’ll see you later? Mine or yours?”
“How about mine? I need to check my mail and—”
“Hey,” Paul said, running his fingers gently down Cliff’s cheek. “No explanations needed. Wherever you want is fine with me.”
“I’ll text you when I’m finished at my parents’.”
“Do you want me to come with you? I should be finished by then, and you might need the support. I can’t imagine it’s going to be easy walking back in there after all these years.”
