Murder in Pastel

by Josh Lanyon

  “Now would be good,” I panted, working my dick. “Now. Please…”

  He worked his hand underneath my chest, palmed my nipple with unexpected roughness. It distracted me from the retreat of his fingers. The next moment I felt the head of his cock pressing into me.

  I froze. This never went well for me, and as much as I wanted it, I expected it to hurt. Adam’s palm circled my nipple, slid across and rubbed the other. They were amazingly sensitive. He kissed my back right between my shoulder blades; I shivered. The combination of wet mouth and sly fingers was bemusing. A kind of sensory overload. I still felt the cautious advance of that painful pressure but I couldn’t concentrate on any one sensation. When he pinched my nipple I strained closer, wanting his hand to rub my breast again—and the head of his cock shoved inside.

  “Jesus. You’re like hot velvet.” That guttural growl didn’t even sound like Adam.

  I whimpered, muscles spasming around that rigid thickness. Talk about blunt instrument. “I don’t—I can’t.” I bit my lip. The last thing I wanted was for him to pull out, but there didn’t seem to be room inside my skin for both of us.

  “Let go, Kyle. Relax.” His voice was tender as he paused, hands continuing to stroke and pet and soothe. I relaxed a fraction and he pushed the rest of the way in. Terrifying and exquisite feeling sang in every nerve; this was new. This I had never felt before.

  I couldn’t seem to remember any words so I made encouraging sounds.

  “Now the good part,” Adam promised, and he began to rock his hips against me, carefully at first, then strongly. After a helpless moment or two I humped back to meet him, falling into his rhythm. Adam’s hand covered my slack one and worked my erection full and hard again. I tipped my head back and found his mouth, a frantic, slipping kiss.

  “You,” he said against my damp temple. “You. You.”

  He shifted angle, I felt him even more deeply.

  “Adam,” I said woundedly. My heart thundered; I wondered if it would simply give out—and not a bad way to go.

  He thrust into me, again and again, lancing into some deep and secret core of delight which, penetrated, began to spill through me in rolling waves of thunder. I began to come, my seed leaking over our clasped hands. Different sensations collided and I started to laugh.

  Adam’s breath caught and he cried out, transfixed. I could feel reaction surging through him.

  We crashed down on the bed, sticky, trembling and spent. I struggled to contain myself as tiny aftershocks continued to ripple through my nervous system. After a few moments Adam raised his head and said bewilderedly, “What the hell are you giggling about?”

  “I don’t know,” I said shakily.

  He slid an arm under me, scooping me over so that I rested against him. He stroked my hair back, kissed my forehead.

  “Do you have a tattoo?” I asked him when I’d had time to catch my breath.

  “Baby, I think you’d have found it for yourself by now.”

  Brett had lied about so many things. He had lied about when and how he and Adam had first met. Now I wondered if he had got Joel to introduce him to Adam with a deliberate plan in mind. It had been Brett’s choice to come to Steeple Hill.

  “This feels right,” Adam said. “Being here with you like this. It feels like we’ve been together forever.”

  Forever. I closed my eyes against that unexpected pang.

  “No comment?” He kissed me.

  I felt fragile, exhausted and wrung out. I couldn’t reassemble my defenses this fast. Maybe he felt my mouth quiver despite my attempt at a stiff upper lip. He raised his head. “Okay?”

  “Yeah. Of course.” I pushed away, curling onto my side and presenting him with a shoulder. “Tired.”

  He was silent so long I thought maybe he had fallen asleep, but then he said quietly, “Okay, baby, I won’t rush you.”

  * * * * *

  Thursday was a slow day for sleuthing. A slow day for writing too, and I was getting paid for that. I stared at the empty computer screen, the blinking cursor, and reminded myself that my boyhood idol Max Brand, a pulp magazine and early Western writer, used to average thirty pages a day of final draft; in fact, one day after breakfast he wrote an entire 27,000 word novelette. He churned out novels and short stories like there was no tomorrow—and having a serious heart condition, for Max that was a real possibility. Now here I was, facing my first bout of writer’s block 230 pages into my current project. My tale of a charming IRA psychopath and his ruggedly handsome SAS counterpart didn’t seem so nearly amusing these days. Real murder can make the fictional stuff uncomfortable.

  Still, I struggled on improving my typing skills if nothing else, knowing in my heart most of what I was writing was destined for the delete key.

  I saw Adam head out early in the Acura for parts unknown. He had not returned by the time I knocked off work and went to change for dinner with my grandfather.

  * * * * *

  The porch light was dark when I arrived at my grandfather’s for dinner. It was past six o’clock; there were no lights on inside the house.

  I knocked a couple of times on the front door.

  No answer. Maybe the old man had forgotten?

  I tried the door and it opened under my hand. Stepping inside, I could see the stove light in the kitchen. I walked toward it.

  “Granddad?”

  Silence.

  I entered the kitchen, following the unpleasant smell. There was a large kettle on the stove hissing dryly, water boiled away. The burning mingled with another odor: metallic, sharp, primitive. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise.

  It looked like the set of a play. My grandfather lay on the wooden floor. Blood pooled beneath him. Blood soaked the brown-and-white plaid of his flannel shirt; a great carving knife stuck out of his chest. His hazel eyes were sunken, glazed over, his mouth ajar, his complexion gray-blue: corpse-like. He was dead and there was no mistake.

  How long did I stand there not thinking, not feeling, just trying to take it in? He was dead. He had been murdered. Not complicated, but I couldn’t seem to get it.

  Through the open window I could hear sprinklers, and someone washing dishes next door, and the sound of birds twittering in the trees as they settled down for the night. Peaceful sounds.

  Feeling a weird pressure shift in my head, I reached out to steady myself against the table. The dizziness passed. I crossed to the phone and dialed the sheriffs. Next I called Adam.

  That seemed to be all I could do. Loosening my tie, I took two tablets and sat down to wait at the kitchen table, neatly laid for our never-to-be dinner.

  * * * * *

  Adam arrived first. I heard the front door screen bang and the sound of his footsteps crossing the parquet floors. He checked in the doorway. A muscle in his jaw moved.

  “I don’t understand it,” I said as though we were continuing a previous conversation. “Why would anyone kill him?” This is what I had been asking myself for the past fifteen minutes.

  “I don’t know.” Adam’s voice sounded thick. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded; reached for him.

  For a couple of minutes we stood there simply hugging each other. Adam held me so tightly I felt like my bones were cracking.

  “There’s an accident on the coast road,” He said against my ear. “That’s why the sheriffs aren’t here yet.” He let go of me and looked around. “Is this exactly as you found it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You haven’t touched anything?”

  “No.” I thought back. “I turned off the stove.”

  “Have you looked around at all?”

  “No.” With Adam there I began thinking again. “Shit. I should have. I should have—”

  “Relax.” He pushed me toward the doorway and the formal sitting room beyond. “Wait in there. I’ll be right back.”

  He was back in less than five minutes. His eyes seemed to avoid mine, but what he said was prosaic enough. �
��Are you sure he actually lived here? The place is immaculate. If the motive was robbery—”

  “It wasn’t robbery.” I didn’t recognize that voice but since I was talking it had to be mine.

  “How do you know?”

  “You said the place is immaculate. He wasn’t robbed. First Brett—”

  Adam’s tone changed. “You’re not thinking this is connected with Brett?”

  I jumped up. “Yes, it’s connected. Of course it’s connected. It’s not a coincidence for God’s sake!”

  Adam’s brows drew together. “Don’t have a spasm, Kyle.”

  That was a damned irritating thing to say to someone who was a heartbeat away from having a spasm, but it did have the effect of making me stop to take a couple of much needed breaths.

  “How long has he been dead?” Adam prodded.

  “You’re asking me?”

  “This is what you do for a living right? Write about this stuff?”

  He was probably asking in order to kickstart my mind. I tried to remember when rigor mortis set in. Four hours right? I recalled that the ME would be able to determine the time of death by taking the temp of the victim’s liver. Or was it something to do with the fluid in the eyeballs?

  My stomach gave a queasy roll.

  “Hours, I think. The…lividity of his skin, the rigidity of his body…” My voice gave out. I stared at Adam. “He was my last relative. My last blood relation in the world.”

  “Don’t.”

  I closed my eyes, nodded.

  We heard the sirens.

  * * * * *

  This time we were separated immediately; Adam was taken into the dining room, and I was shown into my grandfather’s study. I drew Rankin first. I guess that made me the #1 suspect.

  “What’s MacKinnon doing here?” the sheriff charged right off the bat.

  “I called him.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted him.” I noticed the deputy faithfully taking notes, and tried not to sound like the hysterical faggot he no doubt pegged me for.

  “Why?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I was scared, I guess.”

  Scratch, scratch, scratch wrote the deputy. In Rankin’s eyes I sighted—as Max Brand would have said—“a cold light of suspicion, and the sight was not pleasant.”

  “I gather you’re fucking MacKinnon these days?”

  I returned politely, “Actually, he’s fucking me, if it makes a difference.”

  “You can say that again, sonny boy,” the sheriff retorted. He didn’t give me time to reply, even if I’d had a reply. “What time did you get here?”

  After I answered this, the questions were routine—if your routine is being interrogated by the police. I answered slowly, carefully, expecting some trick question. If there was a trick question, I didn’t notice it. When I believed we had finished, we started all over again.

  The clock on the mantel read ten thirty. Was Adam still being questioned? I wondered. Was he waiting for me?

  A gurney bearing my grandfather’s body was wheeled slowly past the open study door.

  “Something you might be interested to know,” Rankin said. I jerked my head back his way. “Folks around here believe your grandfather killed Cosmo Bari.”

  That startled me as intended. “What?”

  “Killed him and buried him in the old churchyard.”

  “Who believes that?”

  “Old-timers.”

  Old-timers like Doc Hicks and the Cobbs. Town Fathers. Founding families. Upstanding folks who viewed Cosmo’s disappearance as no loss. My father was the resident black sheep, and Aaron Lipez was one of them.

  I was too tired to hide my agitation.

  “It’s a rumor, Kyle. Gossip. No one actually accused Lipez.”

  “So no one ever investigated?”

  “Cosmo Bari has yet to be officially reported missing, let alone the victim of a homicide.”

  Score one for the man in the cowboy boots.

  “Why do people think my grandfather killed my father?”

  “Guess they think he didn’t like him much.”

  I must have looked as unamused as I felt.

  The sheriff took out a chaw of tobacco.

  “Well, sonny boy, the story is your grandfather threatened to kill your father, and that’s why he took off for New York.”

  “But he came back and married my mother.”

  “That’s true. Fourteen years later. But your grandfather didn’t forgive your daddy. When your mother died there was some wild talk. The story I heard was your grandfather punched your daddy right there at your mother’s graveside.”

  I sat there blinking at him stupidly, trying to fit this jagged little piece into the 3D puzzle of my past. “Why?” I asked at last.

  “Blamed him, I guess. Said he broke your momma’s heart.”

  I didn’t want to ask the obvious next question, did not want to hear the answer. Sherlock would have asked. Marlowe, Poirot—hell, Miss Marple would have asked. I sealed my lips.

  Rankin, seeing I did not want to play, chortled at his own private joke and dismissed me.

  * * * * *

  I woke with a scream echoing in my ears. My own scream.

  Someone was grabbing me, hurting me. I fought back.

  “Kyle! Wake up! Kyle—”

  The darkness was a black blanket thrown over my head, but I recognized the voice, and that I was in bed.

  I quit fighting.

  “I’m awake. Let me go.”

  Adam had me pinned to the mattress. He was breathing as hard as I was. He let go of my wrists, raised himself off of me. The springs of the mattress protested. A light came on. Silky rose-colored light.

  I blinked up at the ceiling, trying to orient myself, when I saw Adam’s shadow come sliding across the wall as he turned back to me. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like a shadow-puppet ax falling toward me.

  I flinched away throwing my arm up to ward him off.

  “Kyle…” Adam sounded shocked. After a moment he reached out tentatively, as though he thought I might fight him off. “Are you okay now?” His hair was standing on end. I wasn’t surprised.

  I tore my gaze from the wall where I was still watching for the ax shadow, and I nodded. “Sorry.” My vision focused on Adam’s left eye which looked red and puffy. “Adam, did I punch you?”

  He put a hand to his cheekbone as though he hadn’t noticed. “You could have. You seemed to think you were fighting for your life.” He sounded grim. “Was it the nightmare again?”

  “I don’t remember.” The dream was fading fast, like always. I was so tired I felt delirious. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to remember the things that had happened that evening. Drawing the covers over me, I turned on my side.

  Adam put his hand on my shoulder. “Tell me what you dreamed.”

  “I’m tired, Adam. I need to sleep.” I pulled away from him, and burrowed down into the pillows once more.

  “You can sleep in a minute. What did you see?”

  I threw myself on my back, scowling. “The same thing as last time. It’s always the same thing.” I laid my arm across my eyes. “What is this, the third degree? Turn the light off.”

  He turned the light off. The darkness was soothing, like an ice pack on a headache.

  I related the dream for Adam’s listening entertainment. He was silent till I finished speaking.

  “Did you ever talk to anyone about this dream?”

  “Like a shrink?”

  “Like anyone.”

  “No. You.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Nothing.” I tossed fretfully; the mattress coils squeaked as Adam avoided another collision. “It’s a night terror. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  I could see moonlight shining off the profile of the nymph lamp beside the bed. The smiling face looked evil in the shadows. I closed my eyes.

  “It must mean something. Maybe the images in you
r dream are symbols for something?”

  Like the Dali dream sequence in Spellbound?

  I said crabbily, “I’ve gone my entire life without knowing what this damn dream means. Can’t it wait one more night? I need to sleep.”

  Silence.

  Peace at last, I thought, and my nerves quit sizzling.

  “Have you had these dreams your entire life? When did you start having them?”

  I moaned. “I don’t know. I guess…when I went away to college.”

  I had always assumed the nightmares were triggered by the stress of leaving the sheltered environment I’d grown up in, combined with fears about my health and my father’s desertion.

  “You’re sure the dreams started in college?”

  After Cosmo disappeared, that’s what he meant.

  “Yes.”

  “The images in your dream are probably symbols. If you understood what the symbols in the dream meant, they might not affect you so much.” The mattress dipped as he moved my way. He gathered me into his arms, his body accommodating the angles of mine, as though we had been lovers for years. He was thin but wiry; his arms surprisingly muscular. I rubbed my head against his chest. The soft hair tickled my cheek. I expelled a long breath.

  Adam stroked my head, his fingers threading my hair as he thought aloud.

  Held by him, stroked and petted, my muscles loosened, my body going slack and heavy. There’s nothing more trusting than falling asleep in someone’s arms. I listened to Adam from a safe distance.

  “Maybe this woman represents your Anima, the embodiment of what’s feminine and emotional in you.”

  I snickered at that. Like I wasn’t in touch with my feminine side?

  Adam misread my amusement. “The emotional, intuitive, instinctive side of your nature,” he explained.

  “Got it. So why is she blue?”

  “I don’t know. What does this woman look like?”

  I shrugged within the circle of his arms.

  “Try to picture her.”