Mitch sat now, hugging his knees with his arms, and flicked off his light, alone there in the wet, roaring darkness. And terrified. He would be feeling way more sure of himself if Des were backstop-ping him, no question. Not that he blamed her for saying no. She had to think of her future. He knew this. But he also knew that she was his safety net. Walking this particular tightrope without her made the trip a whole lot more daunting. He took a sip of the peppermint schnapps, realizing at long last that what it tasted exactly like was Nyquil-although he doubted that a slug of peppermint schnapps would put him to sleep in ten to twelve minutes with drool dribbling down his chin.
In fact, he doubted he’d be asleep for a long, long while.
The waterfall masked all distant noise. Mitch didn’t hear the other car arrive. Didn’t hear its door slam shut. Didn’t hear the footsteps approaching in the darkness-not until they were right there beside him, sure and quick on the slippery granite ledge.
And Mitch heard a raised voice say: “You came alone?”
Mitch reached down and flicked on the microcassette recorder at his feet. It was a powerful little unit. When he’d tested it in his bathroom with the shower and faucet running full blast it could pick up his voice quite clearly from four feet away. “Of course I did,” he responded, hearing the quaver of fear in his own raised voice. “I said I’d be alone, didn’t I?”
“You said it was urgent, and that I should meet you up here. Why here?”
“Because this is your special place. You feel safe up here. I think I can see why. It’s comforting being surrounded by so much darkness and water. You’re totally free to be yourself-the self that you hide so well from everyone in the daylight.” He took a gulp from the bottle. “Want some peppermint schnapps?”
“I’ve never liked the stuff. Since when do you?”
“Oh, I don’t.”
“Then why’d you bring it?”
“As a tribute.”
“Does anyone else know we’re here, Mitch?”
“Not a soul.”
“Why are we?”
“Because we’re friends. I want to help you.”
“You said on the phone that you know. What do you know?”
Mitch reached for his flashlight and flicked it on, its beam illuminating the lean, taut face of Will Durslag. “I know that you loved Tito and you killed him. I know you loved Donna and killed her. But I don’t know why, Will. I need to know why.”
Will’s eyes turned to narrow, frightened slits. He looked like a wild, desperate animal crouched there in the torchlight.
Mitch flicked it off, plunging them back into the darkness. They’d been doing better there. “We talk about lots of things when we walk on the beach together. Can’t we talk about this?”
“Sure, Mitch,” Will finally said, his voice heavy with sadness. “Let’s do that. It’ll be good to talk about it. Maybe I won’t feel so scared.”
“I can’t imagine why you’re scared. You’ve got away with it all. There are no witnesses. And the only physical evidence is in your Franklin stove.”
“My Franklin stove…?”
“Sure, that’s why you made that fire in your parlor this morning. Not because of the chill, but because Donna’s blood got all over your clothes. Plus there were the towels you mopped up with. I’m thinking you must not have been wearing rubber-soled shoes when you killed her-rubber stinks out loud when it burns. You must have had on your leather flip-flops. I suppose you could have buried the stuff, but a fire made a lot of sense.” Mitch glanced over at him in the darkness. “What are you scared of, Will?”
“Myself. I’m not in control of me anymore. My God, I even killed my own wife. That’s generally considered to be pretty despicable behavior.”
“Generally.”
“Tell me, Mitch-how did you know?”
“You told me yourself.”
“I did?” Will shot back in surprise. “When?”
“On the beach the other morning, when I asked you about your croissant recipe. You mentioned you’d gotten it from your partner in, I think you said, Nag’s Head.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“When I asked you if you meant business partner you said no. But you didn’t clarify what you did mean. Just kind of left it hanging there.”
“So?…”
“So I work with words for a living, Will. Guys our age usually use the word ‘girlfriend’ when we’re discussing a significant romantic partner. Unless, that is, we’re going out of our way to be non-gender specific. Unless, that is-”
“Unless we’re gay,” Will said.
“I didn’t think much about it. Not until this morning, when you used the word again in connection with Donna. That’s when it dawned on me that you’re bisexual. And that you were the one getting it on with Tito-who, like you, had relations with both men and women.”
“No,” Will said emphatically. “You’re wrong on both counts.”
“Okay, tell me how.”
“For starters, we weren’t ‘getting it on.’ That suggests something quick and sweaty in the backseat of a parked car. It wasn’t like that, Mitch,” he insisted, his voice growing painfully earnest. “It was real love. I was ready to devote my life to him. Give up Donna. Give up everything. We were in love, Tito and me. And Tito wasn’t bisexual. He was one hundred percent bitch-his word, not mine. Oh, sure, he got married to Esme. And he could perform sexually with women, up to a point. He was one hell of an actor, after all. But his heart was never in it. Tito was gay from the time he was a barrio boy, Mitch. He kept telling me: You have no idea what it’s like to be a bitch in the barrio. The scorn you face, the contempt. He hated being gay. That’s why he became an actor-so he could become someoneelse, anyone else. That’s why he got high all of the time. And that’s why he was always trying out so many different women. He kept hoping that one of them would ‘cure’ him, as if what he had was a disease. God, he was so nineteenth century.”
Mitch sat hunched there on the damp granite, recalling that both Abby and Chrissie had pointed out how disappointing the lovemaking with Tito had been. Chrissie even told Des that the screen idol hadn’t been able to perform at all the final time they’d slept together.
“Tito was a tortured soul, Mitch. He couldn’t be himself. They wouldn’t let him be himself.”
“Who wouldn’t, Will?”
“The powers that be, that’s who. You of all people should know why.”
Mitch nodded his head. “You’re right, Will, I do. It’s the final frontier. And no one, but no one, has ever been able to cross it.”
There was a very short list of bankable Hollywood leading men- the $20-Million-Dollar Men they were known as, by current wage standards. Actors whose name above the title guaranteed a picture instant financing. There were seldom more than a half dozen such actors at any one time. Right now there were the two Toms, Cruise and Hanks, Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro. And, until a few days ago, Tito Molina. These leading men all had very different qualities. But they all had one very important trait in common.
They were not gay. They were never gay.
There was no such thing as an openly gay Hollywood leading man. The mass audience simply would not accept him. If anything, gay actors had been driven even deeper into the closet than they had been in the Rock Hudson days, when everyone in the business knew but the public didn’t. There was too much tabloid money out there now. Too much ugly fascination in the stars’ private lives. Not to mention AIDS awareness. The merest whisper about a lingering respiratory infection or unexplained weight loss could completely shortcircuit an actor’s rise to stardom. Mitch had seen it happen.
“Will, how was it possible for him to keep his sexual identity a secret?”
“By marrying a great beauty,” Will replied. “By sleeping around with a million women. By never being happy one single day of his life.”
“You’re the first man he slept with since he got famous?”
“No, of course not. He
had others. But he hadn’t been with a man since he married Esme. Mitch, he was deathly afraid of falling into the clutches of an opportunist. So he was always very careful to choose the right type.”
“Which was..?”
“The married type. Men with children and roots in the community. Men who had just as much interest in keeping it quiet as he had. Tito never, ever cruised the bars. Never picked up anyone. Never told anyone. Not his agent, not Chrissie-”
“What about Esme? Did she know?”
“Never. His marriage to her was the greatest acting performance of Tito’s life. Not that he hated her or anything. He genuinely liked Esme as a person. And they belonged together in a weird sort of way. They were both so confused and vulnerable. I mean, God, that poor girl is so screwed up after what Dodge did to her.”
“How could you let Dodge get away with that, Will? How could you cover for him?”
“I had to.”
“Why, because he was like a father to you? That doesn’t justify it.”
“You don’t understand, Mitch. I had no choice.” Will fell silent, shifting around next to him on the ledge. “I hit a pretty bad patch after my dad died. Got into some real trouble. I-I stole a car and accidentally ran somebody down in East Dorset. An old lady. I almost killed her, Mitch. Dodge was a state senator then. He went to bat for me. Kept the newspapers out of it. Got the charges dropped. My record is clean, and I have Dodge to thank for that. I owe him, okay? And I will always be loyal to him. He’s big on loyalty. He’s big on trust. Can you understand that?”
“I guess I can,” Mitch said, recalling the steely way Dodge had stared at Will on the beach when he’d said the word “trust.”
“Esme could never make Tito happy,” Will went on. “She neverknew why. And it was a source of tremendous pain for her. He felt bad about that, because he was hurting her and he knew it. But there was only one person on the face of the earth who could make him truly happy, Mitch, and that person was me. With everybody else, he was just acting.”
“How do you know he wasn’t acting when he was with you, too?”
“Because it was real, damn it!” Will cried out, enraged. “We loved each other!”
“How long were you two together?”
“We met the day he and Esme arrived in town. The Crocketts had us over for dinner and… and we just stared at each other across the dining table all evening long. Couldn’t take our eyes off of each other. God, Tito had the most beautiful eyes. He made the first move, out on the patio after dessert. I’ll never forget those first words he said to me, not for as long as I live. He said, ‘I’d better warn you-I’ll break your heart.’ I said I’d take my chances. And he did break my heart-because he loved being a star more than he loved me. It wasn’t just the money. It was being Tito Molina. He wouldn’t give it up for anything, Mitch. I was willing to sacrifice my marriage, my business, everything I’d ever worked for. I was willing to throw it all away for him. But he wasn’t willing to do that for me.” Will let out a heartbroken sob. “And now he’s dead and, God, I miss him so much.”
“You should have thought of that before you killed him.”
“I didn’t think, don’t you see? I lashed out in a blind rage. I just couldn’t stand to lose him. Tito was my true soul mate, Mitch. Someone like that… it only happens once in a lifetime.”
“It can happen twice, if you’re real lucky.”
“I loved him, Mitch. And he loved me. Just not enough. He wouldn’t leave Esme for me. He wouldn’t risk his career for me. That’s what he came up here to tell me that night. That he had to b-break it off.”
Mitch uncapped the peppermint schnapps and took a swig. “I didn’t know what he was mixed up in, Will, but he did tell me he felt trapped. I urged him to get clear of whatever it was. So whatever hesaid to you that night-it was partly my fault. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Mitch,” Will said to him insistently. “Tito broke it off because he wanted to break it off. And when it came time to do it he was ice cold. Do you want to know what he said to me? He said, ‘This doesn’t have to end badly, it just has to end.’ Like he was talking about a service contract on a kitchen appliance. I wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t imagine not being with him. I begged him. He refused. We argued. And now I’m all alone.”
“Will, how much did Donna know?”
“She knew that I’d been involved with men, if that’s what you mean. Not a big deal, as far as she was concerned. Not until lately, that is.”
“Since you’d met Tito?”
“I started coming home from work later and later. My physical interest in her fell way off. She kept asking me, ‘Who is it?’ And I said ‘You don’t have to worry, it’s nothing.’ And then one night she caught Tito dropping me off at The Works after we’d been up here together. My own fault. It was late. I thought she’d already gone home for the night. I was wrong. She said, ‘What are you doing with him?’ And I said, ‘We’re friends.’ And she said ‘Since when?’ Donna was no dummy, Mitch. She knew what was going on. She was hurt. And she was afraid. She started drinking a lot more than usual. And flirting. Trying to make me jealous. I saw her getting all frisky with you at the beach club.”
“That was the night you killed him. Did she know about that, too?”
“She put two and two together,” Will acknowledged. “She started acting very guarded around me, very uneasy. I didn’t think she’d turn me in. She did love me, after all. But I was afraid that she’d get involved with someone else. You, maybe. And that one night she’d have herself a little too much to drink and blab my little secret. This is Dorset, Mitch. The most dangerous weapon here isn’t a gun, it’s a whisper. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t take that chance.”
“So you killed her.”
“I suggested we try to rekindle our romance at the Yankee Doodle. We’d been joking about the place for ages. She loved the idea. She even bought herself some sleazy black lingerie for our little tryst. We made it all into a game. We arranged to meet there a half hour apart, just like a pair of illicit lovers afraid of being found out. She got there first.”
“And she paid for the room with her credit card,” Mitch said. “She didn’t try to keep it off the household books, or disguise her identity. She didn’t have to, because the man who she was meeting was her own husband. Dodge was right about her, you know. He put his finger right on it-Donna wasn’t the type to sleep around.”
“I couldn’t risk it,” Will repeated vehemently. “When I spoke to Des this morning I reversed our roles. I told her it was Donna who was slipping out on me. All a lie, of course. There was no boyfriend. And no catering gig after the Merchants Association dinner. I made all of that up. I parked our van behind a beauty parlor just down the road from the Yankee Doodle. I didn’t want anyone to spot it in the motel parking lot. That was the one thing I couldn’t chance. I brought along a change of clothes as part of our game, and I left nothing behind. Not even the towels I used to wipe the blood off of my hands. I burned it all when I got home. Towels, clothes, my flip-flops-just like you said. And then I got busy acting like the concerned husband. I called our late man, Rich. I called the state police. And I waited there for someone to knock on my door to tell me Donna was dead. Des, as it turned out. I think I was pretty convincing as the grieving widower. I learned a few pointers about acting from Tito. The main thing he told me is you have to believe the dialogue. I believed it, all right. I believed every damned word of it.”
“How could you do it, Will? How could you murder Donna that way? Tito I can comprehend. It was a momentary spasm of anger. But Donna’s death was something that you plotted out really, really carefully. How could you?”
“I told you, I’m not in control of myself anymore!” he cried out. “I loved Donna, don’t you see? And now I’m all alone and I’m scared and I’m desperate and I-I don’t want to go to prison for therest of my life. That’s why I had to kill her. If she’d told anyone, I’d be fi
nished.”
“You are finished, Will. It’s all over now. Come on, let’s go do the right thing, okay? Let’s go call Des. I’ll be by your side the whole way, I promise.” Mitch fumbled around in the dark for his tape recorder, shut it off and stuck it in the back pocket of his shorts. Then he grabbed the schnapps bottle and climbed to his feet, flicking his flashlight beam on Will. “Tell me something-was it any easier?”
Will remained crouched there on the granite ledge, staring out into the fog-shrouded blackness. He seemed very calm now, very at peace with himself. “Was what easier?”
“Killing Donna. It’s supposed to be easier to murder someone if you’ve already killed once before.”
“No, that’s a Victorian myth, same as thinking you can be ‘cured’ of being gay. Just because you’ve killed once doesn’t mean that you’ve gone over to the dark side, Mitch. I hated what I did, and I’ll be haunted by it for as long as I live.” Will looked up at him now, blinking in the torchlight. “Quite honestly, I don’t think the third time will be any easier either.”
It happened so fast.
Will lunged at him with such sudden ferocity that Mitch’s flashlight went clattering to the rocks and rolled right over the cliff, plunging them back into darkness as they wrestled with each other there on the slick granite ledge, slipping and sliding. Will trying with all of his might to push Mitch over the edge. Mitch trying with all of his own might to stop him.
“Will, don’t do this!” he gasped, struggling to dig his heels in. He did have heft on his side, and a lower center of gravity. But Will had a distinct advantage of his own-he was insane. “You have to turn yourself in.”
“Never,” he gasped back at him.
They fell to the ledge now, rolling around there on the narrow shelf of rock, punching and kicking and clawing for their very lives. And there was only them and the roaring water and the blackness of certain death a hundred feet below.
Will was back up on his feet, kicking blindly at Mitch in the dark, smashing him in his ribs, his shoulder, his neck.
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