by Gregory Ashe
When Hazard knocked on the door, a young man answered it. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, or even handsome, but he had an expensive haircut, and even in a hoodie and sweatpants, his lean musculature showed to good advantage.
Then he smiled, and suddenly, he was cute. “Hi. You must be Mr. Hazard.”
“Rory,” the sheriff called from inside. “Did you get the door?”
“Got it,” Rory called back without breaking his study of Hazard.
“You’re Rory Engels,” Hazard said.
“Dad told me you were a good detective.” Rory was grinning now and held out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
They shook, and Rory led Hazard inside. Everything in the house matched what Hazard had observed on the exterior: well-tended, functional, with occasional splashes of ornament and comfort. Rory took Hazard into the family room, where Somers was sitting on a loveseat, a bottle of Miller Lite in one hand, talking to an older man. As usual, Somers was doing his usual charming: eyes bright, head cocked with interest, interjecting something that made the older man laugh before continuing his story.
“Hey,” Somers said. A little too loudly. “Hey, you made it.” He got up, one hand on the arm of the loveseat. His hand slipped and he had to catch himself before coming over to hug Hazard and kiss him on the cheek. Then, turning, he pulled Hazard against him and said, “Phil, this is Emery Hazard, my boyfriend. Emery, this is Phil—I don’t know your last name, I’m sorry.”
“Phil Camerata,” the older man said, pumping Hazard’s hand once. He had banker’s hands with a nice manicure, and he looked like he had reached a very well-maintained sixty years. Like the house, Hazard thought. Well-tended. Salt-and-pepper hair, dark eyes, age spots just beginning to mark the skin in places. He still stood tall, and he looked like he kept in shape. But sixty was sixty, and Hazard thought that Rory probably hadn’t hit twenty-five yet.
“I know,” Phil said, rolling his eyes. “I’m robbing the cradle. Everybody has the same reaction.”
“Not Dad,” Rory said, sidling up to Phil and taking his hand. “Dad’s reaction was to try to shoot you.”
“Really?” Somers said with a laugh. “That sounds like a story.”
“No,” Phil said, but he was blushing. “Rory likes to exaggerate. Dennis and I have always gotten along fine.”
“Oh, please,” Rory said. “You can both pretend I don’t know about your little night-time chat in Dad’s den, but I’m not an idiot.”
“We just talked about cigars,” Phil said. “And cars.”
Rory rolled his eyes.
“Dinner,” Sheriff Engels announced, coming into the room. “I hope you boys like meatloaf. Margaret is in Kansas City for work, so we’re on our own.”
“Mother does something with insurance,” Rory said. “Not that any of us understand what, exactly, she does.”
“She’s an actuarial supervisor,” Engels said. Then he offered a small smile. “And Rory’s right: I have no idea what she does.
They followed the sheriff into the dining room, and Hazard found himself drawn to a comparison between Dennis Engels and Phil Camerata. Their coloring was different: Phil darker, Engels with his hair already silver. And their style was different: Phil, with his manicure and a polo and chino he’d probably picked up at Brooks Brothers, Engels in a flannel shirt and jeans. Perhaps the most obvious difference was the one that Hazard was still processing. Phil was older than Rory’s father, maybe even by ten years.
In the dining room, they sat around a table covered in food: fresh rolls, green beans with almonds and bacon, a tossed salad, and the promised meatloaf, smothered under a red glaze that Hazard imagined was mostly sugar. His mouth watered.
“Sorry dinner is on a Thursday,” Rory said, glancing at his father. “Dad was afraid we’d split town without meeting you.”
Engels didn’t comment on this; he just cut slices of meatloaf and served.
“It’s great,” Somers said. Still a little too chipper. The light hit the bottle of Miller at the right angle, and Hazard could see that it was almost empty. “We’ve got to eat dinner sometime, you know?”
“Wasn’t sure you’d take a break from that big case,” Engels said.
“Actually, I wasn’t going to,” Somers said. His posture was easy, casual, angled away from Hazard so his shoulders made a kind of wall between them. Hazard wondered if everybody else could see it too. “We had a break late this morning, and I was going to tell Emery I had to work late. But the chief insisted I get a real meal and a few hours’ sleep.”
Engels was nodding as he served green beans.
“What was the big break?” Rory asked. Then, to Phil, “John-Henry is working a murder case, honey.”
“I know,” Phil said with a smile. “I read the paper too. Can you talk about work, John-Henry?”
“Oh, come on,” Rory said. “Who’s going to blab? Phil and I are leaving tomorrow, Saturday at the latest. And Dad’s the sheriff. I mean, this is your perfect audience.”
“Except me,” Hazard said. “I live here, but I don’t work in law enforcement.”
“That doesn’t stop you from still acting like you are,” Somers said into the bottle and then took a drink.
Rory’s face was curious; Phil’s was carefully neutral. The sheriff couldn’t look up from the roll he was buttering.
“Maybe they’d like another drink, dear,” Phil said.
“Oh, right. Emery, what’s your drink?”
“A beer’s fine.”
“Anything in particular? We have—”
“I bet he’d like an Old Fashioned,” Somers said. “I saw your bar, Sheriff. You’re well prepared.”
“A beer’s fine,” Hazard said.
“No, no,” Rory said with a laugh. “Phil’s a whiz with mixed drinks. He’ll make you a killer one. John-Henry?”
Somers still held himself at an angle, but Hazard tried to give him a look, let his eyes go from Somers’s face to the empty bottle.
“Another of these, definitely,” Somers said with a smile. “And thanks.”
So they ate. And they drank. And the conversation flowed along, cheerful and shallow enough that Hazard could pick his way carefully along the surface.
Until Rory looked at him and said, “Dad swore up and down I needed to meet you two. When I heard my parents were moving here, the middle of nowhere, I just about lost my mind. I mean, Phil and I weren’t going to visit. We just weren’t.”
Phil shifted in his seat, his face a mask of discomfort.
“But Dad talked himself blue about you guys, he really did. Kept saying things were better than I expected. So, let’s have it: Wahredua, Missouri. Is it really just another hole where all the creepy-crawlies end up? Is it as bad as I think?”
“It looks perfectly lovely,” Phil said. “We had a very nice lunch—”
Rory waved a hand. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the rest of it. You guys grew up here. Is this Klan territory? Do people give you hell for being who you are? That’s what I’m asking.”
“It’s a good place,” Somers said. “It’s better than it used to be.”
Hazard nodded slowly.
“That’s it?” Rory said. “Come on.”
“Let it alone, dear,” Phil said.
“No, I think it’s a fair topic. If Dad is going to work here, maybe retire here, I want to know if I need to worry about getting dragged behind a truck when I come visit him.”
“Rory,” the sheriff said.
“Well?”
“No,” Somers said.
“Maybe,” Hazard said.
The word cut the air like winter.
“All right,” Rory said. “Let’s hear it.”
“He’s joking,” Somers said. “This is Emery making a joke.”
“I’m not joking. Wahredua is a complicated place. Lots of good people. Some bad. Lots of people who don’t want change. Lots of people who do.
They don’t all necessarily fall in the same categories. Some of the people who want things to stay the same, they’re mostly good people. Some of the people who want things to change, they can be as bad as anybody else. We don’t have the Klan, but we have the Ozark Volunteers, and they’re as bad as anything around. But we also have the college. We have a lot of people who come here from all over the world. It’s not a hole.” Hazard shrugged, suddenly aware of all the attention on him. “But it’s not perfect.”
The pause that followed could have snapped like a rubber band.
“It’s a good place,” Somers said again. “It’s home for us; once you get used to the quirks, it’s a great place to be, to raise a family.”
“Oh my God,” Rory said, slumping against Phil. “Did you hear that? Did you hear how incredibly cute they are?”
Phil just smiled.
“Come on,” Rory said. “Let’s hear it. How’d you guys meet?”
“Jesus Christ,” Hazard muttered.
“That bad?”
“Pretty bad,” Somers said. He tapped a nail against the bottle. “I’m going to need another of these to tell it right.”
This time, Hazard said fuck-all to discretion and looked Somers in the eyes.
Somers ignored him.
“Emery? Another Old Fashioned?”
Hazard was still waiting for Somers to acknowledge him, but Somers was staring straight ahead. Tension prickled inside Hazard.
“Let me get those,” Rory said.
Hazard put a hand over his glass, and the moment passed. “No, I think I’m driving for both of us tonight.”
So Somers had another beer. He was chipper, Hazard thought, watching Somers smile and drink. He was glassy-eyed. He was sharp enough to cut.
“I was a total asshole,” Somers said, but he managed to say it in a way that made everyone laugh, even Engels. And he talked about being an asshole, skirting the worst of it, the serious injuries, the beatings. He managed to make it funny without making light of it. He managed to make it into something you could tell at a cocktail party. Hazard’s head pounded with pressure. Like a fucking anecdote, that’s how Somers was telling it.
“But I guess he forgave me,” Somers said, spinning out the end of story hour. “Once we were partners, we realized we had important things in common. And we realized we liked each other. And then we realized we loved each other. And here we are.”
Rory wiped his eyes, and Hazard had to repress a snort. “That’s so beautiful. Phil, isn’t that so incredibly beautiful?”
“Yes,” Phil said, but he looked sad and old now, somehow changed by the story.
“What about now?” Rory said, wiping his eyes again. “Emery, Dad tells me you’re going to be a private detective. That’s so exciting.”
“That’s a possibility,” Hazard said.
“It’s more than a possibility,” Somers said. He leaned forward, sloppy now, the words a little too loud. “He’s going to do it. It’s just a matter of time. He’s definitely going to do it. He’s the best detective you’ll ever meet.” Somers shrugged. “It just makes sense.”
“We’ll see,” Hazard said.
“No way,” Somers said. “It’s definitely going to happen.”
Hazard took his next bite of green beans so hard he almost took a few tines off the fork.
“How’s the adjustment going?” Engels asked, breaking the silence he had kept for most of the night. “Some men have trouble leaving behind the badge.”
“It’s going well,” Hazard said.
Somers grinned, but it was kind of a nasty grin. He slung an arm around Hazard and said, “Not much of an adjustment, if you ask me. Emery might as well still be police. The whole thing, him resigning, it was stupid—
“All right, John. Let it go.”
“—but I guess it doesn’t matter because he’s still acting like a cop. You know what he did today? He found the murder weapon in that case we’re working.” Somers laughed, and for the first time all night, he sounded drunk. Hazard didn’t miss the look that passed from Phil to Rory. “How’s that for a private citizen?”
“Someone would have found it,” Hazard said. “I just happened to be the one who did.”
“He’s being humble,” Somers said, leaning too far over the table again. “He’s not saying what he would normally be saying: that the Wahredua PD are a bunch of backwater fuckups who couldn’t find their own asses with two hands.”
“I’m just saying, someone would have found it.”
“But he’s the one who found it,” Somers said, waving the bottle at Rory as though delivering a crucial point. “Emery found it. I thought he was dropping off the dry cleaning. How stupid is that? But he wasn’t. He was out solving a murder.”
“Ok, John.”
“I keep thinking, what’s he doing wasting his time with petty shit like dry cleaning? He should be out doing this kind of work. He should be doing the stuff he’s best at, not worrying about my fucking eggs in the morning, not counting rolls of toilet paper to see if he needs to put it on his shopping list.”
Hazard’s face was an inferno. “That’s enough.”
The words whip-cracked so hard that Rory actually leaned back, bumping up against Phil.
After that, dinner died a slow, miserable death. Neither the sheriff nor his son invited them to stay for drinks, and when Hazard said he needed to get home, Somers trailed him to the door.
Before Hazard could escape, though, Sheriff Engels said, “Could I have a word with you?”
Somers glanced at each of them and then seemed to realize. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“No—” Hazard began.
“In your car, I mean.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Rory said, and Phil excused himself, wishing everyone goodnight.
Then Hazard and the sheriff were alone.
“Not exactly the night I imagined,” the sheriff said.
“What do you want?”
The sheriff’s smile came in and out like a memory. “I’ve worked with a lot of men over the years. Men who can’t hold their drink. Men who can’t keep their mouths shut. Men who hit their wives. Men who take it all out on bums or drifters.”
Hazard set his jaw and waited.
“I don’t think I’ve ever worked with someone in John-Henry’s position, though. I was wondering if you appreciated that fact.”
“The limitations of your experience aren’t exactly my main area of interest, Sheriff.” Hazard reached for the door. “If that’s all . . .”
“Very few men would know what to do if their partner on the force lost his job, lost all connection to that world, and yet was still part of their lives. He’s struggling, Emery. That’s what I’m trying to say. And you getting involved in this case, that’s the hardest part.”
“Work was never an issue between us.”
“No. But it’s not work anymore. Not for you. And he’ll have people on the force asking questions, making jokes, raising suspicion. His ass is on the line for your behavior. For everything you do, and maybe doubly because of how you left.”
Hazard raised his head and met the old man’s gaze. “Is that all?”
Nodding slowly, the sheriff said, “Have a good night, Emery. And thank you for coming.”
Instead of whatever mouthful of garbage Hazard was supposed to say in return—we had a lovely time, or some bullshit like that—he yanked open the door and plunged out into the night. November slapped into him, stinging his eyes and his cheeks and his lips. At the curb, the Odyssey was dark, but Hazard could see Somers’s shape in the passenger seat, a silhouette cast by the streetlights.
Halfway down the lawn, Rory was waiting: arms crossed, bouncing on his heels, the details of his face lost in the darkness.
“Emery.”
“Goodnight.”
“Emery, just a minute.” Rory caught Hazard’s sleeve. “I just—thank you. For coming. I’ll come back
, you know. Phil will come back. Meeting you guys, it really meant a lot.”
“Fine,” Hazard snapped. “Great.”
But Rory didn’t let go.
“Can I ask you something?”
Hazard wheeled around, ready to bite the kid’s head off, but something in Rory’s face stopped him. “What?”
“Phil’s great, ok? I know people think it’s weird we’re together, but I really think he’s great. Even my dad likes him, which is kind of amazing. Mom wasn’t crazy about the age difference, but she’s coming around. I just . . .”
Somewhere in the distance, a nightbird cried, punctuating the soft buzz of the streetlights.
“I was watching you guys tonight. The way John-Henry looks at you. And then, coming out here, he was trying really hard to hold it together, but he’s going out of his mind, ok? I mean, what do I know, but I honestly think he’d go crazy if he lost you. And it’s amazing, seeing people in love like that. But then I think about Phil, I think about what I feel, what I think he feels, and I just—I don’t know. I just wanted to know what it feels like, to love someone like that.” He laughed and chafed his arms. “Ok, do I win the most invasive question award? Just tell me I’m crossing a line, seriously.”
Maybe it was that strange, semi-subterranean fight with Somers. Maybe it was the Old Fashioneds. Maybe it was the kid, chafing his arms and looking a little bit lost, and Hazard remembering what it had felt like to be with his first boyfriend and not know if what he was feeling, any of what he was feeling, was right or true. Something that straight kids didn’t have to worry about; at least, not in the same way. Maybe it was a lot of things—the tingle of cold still working through Hazard’s face, the cry of a nightbird, Somers’s silhouette like a man lost. Whatever the reason, Hazard heard himself answering before he realized he had made a decision.
“A few weeks ago, I was lying in the living room. It was the middle of the day. I had the lights off. I was just . . . lying there. I couldn’t anymore. Not anything, really. So I was just lying there, staring up at the ceiling, thinking—” He caught himself here, before he could say, thinking about that little blue box on the top shelf of the cabinet in the garage, thinking about the nine-inch santoku in the kitchen, thinking about the gun safe under the bed, thinking about all the doors that open and let you out. “And John came home. We didn’t say anything to each other. Nothing, really. But he was there. And after a while, I had to get up. Get it?”
