by Josh Lanyon
We ordered, and while we waited to be served Mr. Atkins said, “I was very sorry to hear about Robert Hersey. I told my wife when I read the story in the paper what a waste it was. Such a bright, handsome kid.”
“This may sound crazy,” I said, rearranging the salt shakers. “But I’m afraid Robert’s death could have something to do with what happened with the Chess Club.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Mr. Atkins pushed his glasses back up his nose and frowned at me.
“No. Rusty Corday’s dead too -- also under suspicious circumstances. Both Rusty and Rob were found with ... well ... chess pieces.”
“What do you mean “found” with them?”
I explained what I meant. Mr. Atkin’s eyebrows shot up. “Well of course the whole school knew about Corday, but Hersey. I just can’t believe that. Hersey a queer?” He considered me, and I saw the light dawn. “Ah, I see,” he said regretfully.
Maybe at some point that doesn’t sting any more. I said stiffly, “The thing is, two people dead out of such a small group seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“Don’t get me wrong, son,” Mr. Atkins said. “Moralizing went out with Henry James. But it’s an unhealthy way to live, isn’t it?”
There were a number of responses to that. None conducive to getting more information.
The waitress brought our lunches. As soon as she was out of range, Mr. Atkins said, “I think you’re wrong, though. I admit at the time there might have been reason for murder, if you listen to the talk show hosts. There’s nothing more unstable than the adolescent male.”
“What actually happened?”
“You were there. Oh, that’s right. You came down with mono or something, didn’t you?”
“When I got back you had quit sponsoring the club.”
“Hell. I should hope so. What a mess!” He shook his head and ate a french fry. “Well, it’s no mystery. We were invited to the All City Tournament, and Grant Landis, the big doofus, cheated. Tried to cheat anyway. Knocked the board after making an illegal move or some such crap. You can’t cheat at chess. Not like that.”
“What happened?”
“We were disqualified.” He made a face. “The kids were humiliated and angry. Landis was -- well, I felt sorry for the kid. Poor bastard. All he wanted was to fit in. You know the kind of kid who tries too hard to be funny. Gets a laugh and then keeps telling the same joke over and over. He had a knack for irritating and annoying the kids he most wanted to impress -- like your pal Hersey.”
I tried to remember Landis. I thought maybe Rob and I had gone over to his house once or twice for study groups, but I couldn’t put a face to the name. Dark, I thought. Bushy dark hair when nobody was wearing bushy dark hair. Glasses, maybe.
“And you quit sponsoring the club? Why not just throw Landis out?”
“He quit.” Mr. Atkins looked uncomfortable at some memory. “Kids are merciless. One of the pack shows weakness and the others’ll devour him.”
“And that was it? They drove Landis out and you quit sponsoring the club?”
Mr. Atkins ate another french fry.
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Can’t you tell me? It might be important.”
“It was a long time ago, son.” He chewed thoughtfully.
“What happened to Landis? I don’t remember him my senior year.”
“Transferred out. Public school.” Behind the blue shades his eyes met mine and flicked away.
I said, “Mr. Atkins, it’s not curiosity. I’ve got to know.”
Mr. Atkins finished chewing and seemed to come to some conclusion.
“Suit yourself. About a month after the whole fiasco Landis was jumped one night coming home from the library. Well, Landis was a strapping kid. Skinny but substantial. So there had to be a gang of them. Anyway, they held him down, shaved his entire body, smeared make up all over his face, and put him in a dress. Then the little shits took photos which they handed round the school.”
I was silent trying to imagine this.
“Of course there was a stink to high heaven. We had everyone from the cops to the school board breathing down our neck. But nobody ever squealed.”
“Landis must have known who did it.”
“He said they wore masks. Maybe they did, but I always thought he was lying. I think he knew who it was, but what the hell. It wouldn’t have made his life any easier to finger them.” He added caustically, “Nowadays he’d have just come back with an automatic weapon.”
“Why did you assume it was somebody in the Chess Club? It sounds more like something a bunch of asshole jocks would do.”
“The Chess Club was a bunch of asshole jocks,” Mr. Atkins retorted. “Hersey was on the tennis team. So were you for that matter. Felicity, or whatever her name was, was the shining star of women’s softball. And Andrew Chin was a diver.”
“What about Rusty Corday?”
“Corday? Was he the wispy little red-haired queer bait?” He caught my eyes. “Sorry, but the kid was flaming.”
I was silent. I had to give old Mr. Chipps credit. I’d never have dreamed he was so full of biases back in the days of chalkboards and report cards. He’d seemed the epitome of the open-minded nonjudgmental educator.
I said slowly, thinking aloud. “Rob, Rusty and I were all gay. Not that Rob and I would have called it that, even to each other. Not then. Although what the hell we thought we were doing ... .”
Mr. Atkins cleared his throat uneasily, recalling me to the present.
“Was Landis gay? Or Chin?” I asked.
“Kids that age don’t know what they are.”
“But they dressed Landis in drag?”
“That doesn’t prove he was queer.”
“That could have been the message though. Maybe it was an accusation aimed at the entire club.”
“No.”
“You seem pretty sure.”
“You teach a few years and you get an ear for lies. I don’t know who, and I don’t know why, but it was the kids in the Chess Club that humiliated Landis that way. The photos were developed in the journalism class.”
Robert.
I began to understand why Robert had sort of forgot to mention any of this to me during the long months of my convalescence. He’d had a tendency even then to resent “Tiny Tim’s lectures.”
Mr. Atkins finished his french fries. “All the same, son, I think you’re reaching. I don’t believe there could be any connection between Hersey’s death and the Chess Club.”
“Why’s that?”
“The one with the -- er -- motive would be Landis. Right? Well Landis is dead. He died right after high school.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I need to see you tonight,” Bruce’s voice said on my answering machine.
I fast forwarded through the rest of his message. A lot of tape.
Three hang ups and then Riordan, terse and to the point. “Call me when you get in.”
I called the Hollywood Investigative Services Unit and asked for Homicide. After a couple of transfers I got Prince Charming himself.
“Yeah? Riordan here.”
“It’s me. Adrien,” I said ungrammatically.
“Where the hell --” There was a pause. Then, “Hang on a sec.” I was back on hold. A couple of minutes later Riordan came back on the line. “Still there?”
“What are you doing, tracing my call? I’m at home.”
“I told you to call me last night.”
“I wasn’t home last night. I left a message for you this morning.”
“Just shut up and listen.”
“Well since you ask so nicely ... .”
There was silence. I listened. He didn’t say anything.
“Are we communicating through the Psychic Hotline or what?”
“Shut up a sec,” he said from between his pearly whites.
I shut up. Welcome to the closet, I thought. Is it dark in here or is it just me?
Riordan said
very quietly, “Listen, I don’t want you to overreact, but I think you may be ... next.”
“What?” I guess it was the uncharacteristically subdued way he spoke. It scared the hell out of me. “I told you!”
“Yes. I owe you an apology. Well, sort of.”
“You got that right.” Though it was what I’d been yelping about all along, it suddenly seemed preposterous. “What makes you think I’m ... next?”
“It’s this frigging Chess Club thing. I spent the last forty-eight hours checking into it.”
“And?”
“They’re all dead.”
That hit home like a punch to the solar plexus. I managed, “All of them? They’re all dead?”
“All but you, buddy boy.”
I closed my eyes. “How?”
“Landis committed suicide.”
“Right after graduation. I know.”
“Andrew Chin died in a car accident three years ago. The brakes failed on his BMW.”
“And Corday shuffled off to Buffalo.”
“Uh huh, but the clincher is Burns. Two years ago Dr. Felice Burns was stabbed to death in the hospital parking lot where she worked.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Then why did no one connect it?”
“There was nothing to connect at the time. Besides, Burns died out of state. She lived in Seattle.”
Riordan had managed to gather a lot of information fast. Either he had connections or he had pulled in favors. I said slowly, “But the MO keeps changing: stabbing, cutting brake lines --”
“How do you know Chin’s brake lines were cut?”
“Because I cut them! Jesus, I assumed, okay?”
“God save me from amateurs.”
I allowed myself one sweet moment of satisfaction. “You’re just pissed because you were wrong and I was right.”
“And I have to live with it the rest of my life.” He sounded sarcastic, not sorry.
“So how was Andy murdered?”
“I didn’t say he was murdered. As a matter of fact, from everything we can find out, it looks like it really was just an accident.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but accidents do happen.”
“Yeah, mostly within five miles of home. You don’t think Felice was accidentally stabbed to death, do you?”
He sounded like someone struggling for patience. “Obviously she was murdered. Obviously I think the odds are against coincidence. But I have to tell you, there was no chess piece found on Chin’s body or in his personal effects.”
“Maybe they missed it.”
“That’s not the kind of thing that gets missed in an investigation.” His tone had become chilly at this implied inefficiency of brother law enforcement.
“So what are you saying? You don’t think there’s a connection?”
“Ease up, English. There was a chess piece found in Felice Burns’ purse. A black knight.”
“Why a knight? Why black?”
“My guess? She was African-American. Black. Secondly, she was not a queen. She was not even a lesbian. She was a happily married pediatrician with a kid of her own. Maybe the horse symbolizes something? Maybe it’s an insult. She was a good ride? I don’t know how some sick bastard might reason.”
“It doesn’t make sense. If everyone’s dead, who’s doing this?” I filled him in on what I had learned from Mr. Atkins.
When I had finally run to a stop in the face of his daunting silence he said very mildly, “Not too bad for an amateur, English. I’ll give you that. Now listen to me very carefully. I will take it from here. You keep your god-damned nose out of it. Is that clear? Do I make myself understood?”
Not that I had any idea of how to proceed even if I wanted to, but I heard myself say, “Sorry? I’m next on the Hit Parade, remember?”
“That’s right. I’m sharing information that I could get my ass canned for sharing so that you can protect yourself, not so that you can play amateur sleuth like some character in your book.”
“And how am I supposed to protect myself?”
“By letting the police do their job.”
I heard the edge in my laugh and knew he did too. “Yeah, right. Twenty-four hours ago the police thought I was a hysterical faggot making this up, if not actually a murderer. Sorry if I don’t have a lot of faith in the p --”
He interrupted, “I said I was sorry. Okay? That’s a murder investigation. Feelings get hurt. Hell, why am I explaining?”
I sure didn’t know. Into my silence he said more reasonably, “I believe we’re dealing with a possible serial killer. I believe you could be targeted. That’s just my gut. I have yet to convince my superiors of this. Chin’s death doesn’t fit and neither does La Pierra’s.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we need to follow procedure in order to nail this guy. See -- we don’t actually have a suspect.”
Me. I was the only suspect still standing. Reading between the lines, I grasped what Riordan was actually saying. Since the departmental view was that I probably was the killer, they weren’t going to expend a lot of energy on protecting me.
“What you’re saying is, no one is going to take this seriously until they find me carved up in an alley.”
“I’m saying -- I’m saying you need to be careful.”
“I can’t stay locked up twenty four hours a day! I can’t even leave town because he travels, right? He found Rusty in Buffalo. Felice in Seattle.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“Me? No.”
“That’s probably just as well,” he said dryly. “Okay, do you have someone you can stay with? Hell, stay with your mother. The Pentagon doesn’t have the security system she’s got.”
I really would rather die. “I’m not putting my mother in the path of a serial killer. Thanks for the thought.”
“God help the serial killer who tackles your mother,” Riordan muttered. “Listen, just use common sense. Your friends had no warning. You do. If you’re by yourself, keep the doors locked and have a phone handy. Avoid alleys.”
“Thanks,” I said sourly.
“I’ll have a squad car swing by every couple of hours. How’s that?”
“Great.”
“And don’t go anywhere without letting me know. I mean anywhere.”
“Wow,” I blurted. “It’s like we’re going steady. How long am I under house arrest?”
It was the loudest silence I’d ever heard. No sense of humor, this lawman.
He said finally, very reasonably, “I have a lead. Nothing solid yet. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Fair enough?”
“Hell no.”
He smothered a laugh. “You’ll be fine. But if you see or hear anything suspicious, dial 9-1-1.”
* * * * *
The rest of the day passed uneventfully; yet I felt increasingly keyed-up, strained. Despite the Technicolor azure skies the air felt snappish, like right before a storm. Late afternoon the wind picked up. The old building creaked and muttered. I concurred.
I found the bolline in my office desk drawer -- where it had never been before. So much for my theory it had been taken during the break-in. Angus avoided my eyes when I mentioned I’d found it. I let him go early and locked the door after him. I drew the security bars across. Watched him to his car.
But the minute Angus’s Volkswagen buzzed out of the lot I became uneasy, looking over my shoulder at every creak in the timbers, starting when I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the oval mirror over the fireplace. It could take years to catch this maniac. Look at the Zodiac killer. Look at all those people on Unsolved Mysteries.
Why come after me? I protested mentally. I wasn’t even there! I wouldn’t have gone along with the public humiliation of Landis. But maybe my stalker was someone who didn’t know that I hadn’t been there. Or maybe he didn’t care because he had grown to like killing people. Or maybe he was a freaking nutcase and the rules of
sanity didn’t apply.
I thought of Mr. Atkins and his view of “emotionally unstable adolescent males.” I considered the thing that had happened to Landis. It was horrible and cruel. I hated thinking Rob had been part of that, and yet I believed it. It was the kind of thing he deeply regretted as an adult. He didn’t like hurting people; it just seemed to come naturally to him.
And what about poor Landis? Kids felt everything intensely. They reacted intensely. Had he lived, he probably would have put that night in perspective. Not that the wounds of adolescence couldn’t still hurt. I thought about Bruce’s parents and their rejection. And I can still remember my mother saying sadly, “Your father would be so disappointed in you, Adrien.” I don’t remember what it was over, just the pain of believing my father would not have wanted me for his son.
Time heals ... if you let it. Big if.
Who knew why Landis had taken his own life? He might have been gay; a third of all teen suicides are, but even if he hadn’t been, that kind of humiliation would have been hard to get past. I tried to remember the adolescent mindset, the social hierarchy of high school life. Looking back from a safe distance, I think a shrewd eye and a sharp tongue had shielded me from my peers. You’re a sarcastic shit, Rob used to say in compliment.
* * * * *
Bruce called as I was opening a can of dinner. I realized I hadn’t finished listening to his earlier message.
“Where have you been all day? Why didn’t you call?” he demanded first thing.
“I haven’t had a chance.” I filled him in briefly on what had been happening. Bruce listened impatiently and then said, “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m okay.” Here was one solution to spending a night alone with my memories and fears.
“I miss you.”
“Bruce ...”
“Let me come over.”
“Not tonight.” I tried to soften it. “I’m going to have an early night.”
“You sound strange. What’s wrong? We can have an early night together. Come on. Let me take care of you.”
You need someone to take care of you, ma belle, Claude’s ghost whispered. I felt that burn behind my eyes.
