I waited until after knew Tony had contacted them, and then called Charlie and Lucas.
Since I couldn’t tell them about my closeted cop boyfriend, I had to pretend I was just following up, and let them tell me what they’d heard. I hated having to lie like that. It forced them both to go into the details about what they knew about Brent’s death, a burden I could have spared them if only I could have been truthful.
But my pain and frustration were nothing next to theirs. They both wept openly on the phone with me. Neither of them had close friends or family in New York, and for a minute, I wondered if I couldn’t get them together to support each other. Then I realized that probably would be a bad, bad idea.
Hadn’t Tony listed sexual jealousy as one of the reasons people actually did kill each other? Brent might not have been murdered, but I could see Charlie and Lucas going at each other like two bulls in a small pen.
I was so angry.
At Tony, for treating our love like it was a dirty secret and for his cluelessness about how his hostility and bias against people who work in the sex industry might make me feel.
At Brent, for not being what I thought he was and for breaking the fragile hearts of two sweet guys who loved him.
At the guys at SwordFight, who, if they knew Brent was using, did nothing to help him. Hell, far as I knew, they encouraged it. The mix of drugs Brent was on was similar to the cocktail Lucas told me he’d use before a shoot. Something to get his mood up (Lucas said he was on crystal meth; Brent had Ecstasy in his system), something to get his cock up, and something to take the edge off (Viagra and Valium for both of them).
Was that suspicious?
What were the other two reasons Tony said people killed for?
Money. Brent made a fair amount, but not enough that I could see someone knocking him off for it. Given his youth and immaturity, I couldn’t imagine he’d saved any, so he would have been worth more alive than dead.
Thrills. I assumed Tony was referring to people like serial killers. All I knew about them was from movies and TV, but I’d imagine that if there were any signs of a thrill killing, Tony and his team would have found them.
So, we’re back to sexual jealousy. Given the life Brent led, how attractive he was, and how he used sex to get what he wanted (not that I was throwing stones at that one, mind you), that didn’t seem impossible.
He’d told Lucas he needed a break from their relationship.
Was the real reason because he was afraid Charlie’d found out about it? If so, was Charlie capable of killing Brent out of jealousy?
Or was it the other way around? Maybe Lucas was lying—Brent had made his decision, and he hadn’t chosen Lucas.
Lucas seemed a little unhinged to begin with. It wasn’t hard to believe that Brent rejecting him a second time would push him over the edge.
Or, maybe Brent was cheating with a third person?
Ugh.
This story could be written any of a hundred ways, but that’s all it was: a story.
In my heart, I didn’t feel that either Charlie or Lucas seemed capable of killing someone.
Of course, I’ve been wrong about that kind of thing before.
But I couldn’t believe they’d hurt Brent. They both loved him.
Ironically, the only people I knew had hurt Brent were the ones who should have loved him most: his parents. They turned on him like milk left in the sun on a hot summer’s day. Rejecting him for being born as he was and for having the courage to live his life honestly. Of everyone on my list, I think I was most angry with them. If they hadn’t kicked him out of his home, Brent would be alive today.
His father said Brent had been dead to them for years now. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. They may not have thrown him into that river, but their actions set into motion the events that led him there.
Now that their son really was dead, did they even have the decency to feel remorse?
I wondered if there was a way to get through to people who could be so heartless.
Maybe, I thought, remembering something Lucas had given me, there was.
At least it was worth a try.
The door to my office swung open. My mother strode in, not having bothered to knock or otherwise signal her entry. That would have implied she recognized a closed door as being a “boundary,” a concept she’s never been able to understand.
“I’m going,” she announced grandly, throwing her hands in the air like an actress emerging to thunderous applause, “to be a lady of the evening!”
I wasn’t sure she knew the meaning of that phrase.
“Say what now?”
“It’s true,” Andrew said, walking in behind her. They both sat in chairs across from my desk. “We showed the network the rough cut of the footage from Families by Design, along with some background interviews your mother’s been doing, and they were knocked out by it. They want to air it as a prime-time special. They think it’s going to be huge.”
“Can you imagine?” my mother gushed. “I’m going to have a prime-time TV show! Like Barbara Walters!”
“It’s great news,” Andrew echoed, “but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Sophie. It’s just the one episode.”
“For now! Wait,” she said, pointing a finger at herself, “till they get a load of this!” She shimmied her shoulders like a burlesque dancer. “Bite me, Diane Sawyer.”
My mother tended to exaggerate her accomplishments to the point where you had to take them with not just a grain of salt but the full shaker. Still, this was a pretty remarkable achievement.
“I’m proud of you,” I told her, walking around my desk to give her a hug. She stood for the embrace.
“I’m proud of me, too,” she agreed. “And this guy.” She motioned toward Andrew. “It was my idea—my brilliant idea, I should say—to go after those bastards at the adoption agency, but he’s the one who made it happen. Come here, producer man.”
A group hug. Great. Just what I was in the mood for. I removed one arm from around my mother so Andrew could step in.
“You’re like another son to me,” my mother said to him. “Or a son-in-law. Which I wouldn’t mind, if Kevin ever decides to stop waiting around while his idiot boyfriend decides whether or not he’s going to poop or get off the pot.”
“Mom!”
“I just want you to be happy, baby.”
“Me too,” Andrew said, taking advantage of the moment to squeeze my ass. “Baby.”
“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” my mother said to him.
Andrew blushed. “Sorry.”
“Not that I blame you,” my mother added. “He does have an adorable little tush.”
“Mom!” I broke the hug.
“What?” my mother asked. “I’m not allowed to love every bit of you? My own son?”
I thought of Brent’s parents and the Merrs. A parent’s love was nothing to take for granted.
“You’d better love every little bit of me,” I said. “Because I love every big bit of you.”
38
Family Secrets
The Dawsons’ house was as Tony had described it. A well-maintained, single-family brick home like every other one on the block. The bushes were trimmed, the grass cut, and the garage door painted within the past year.
But there were also three or four newspapers sitting on the porch that no one had bothered to pick up. They matched the overturned garbage can, its trash spreading across the lawn like the world’s ugliest confetti. The mailbox had been left open, revealing what looked like a few days’ worth of neglected correspondence. In the driveway, a late-model sedan was haphazardly parked at a careless angle. One tire pressed against the grass, having left a deep rut in the lawn on its way there.
Overall, it felt like a place where, very recently, someone had decided it was no longer worth his or her time to Keep Up Appearances.
I knew I should have called first. Unlike my mother, I did understand boundaries. No one wanted an unexpe
cted caller—especially one sure to bring up painful memories. Showing up with no warning or invitation was rude of me.
Good.
I wanted to make this as difficult for the Dawsons as I could. Tony had told me they were both retired, and I was hoping to catch them by surprise.
At least I’d brought a gift.
The Dawsons’ doorbell played the first ten notes of “America the Beautiful.” The patriotic call was answered by a man I assumed was Brent’s father.
He was of medium height, medium build, and a once-handsome face of no particular character. His thinning hair might once have been as blond as his son’s, but now was the most nondescript brown possible. He wore a NY Yankees T-shirt that hung over baggy sweatpants. He was unshaven and his hair hadn’t met a comb yet, even though it was well after noon.
I’d been expecting a scowling scarecrow, an obvious villain of a man with the ungenerous features of an Ebenezer Scrooge. Instead, I found myself standing across from a man of stunning blandness. Even his expression was slack, as if his facial muscles couldn’t be bothered to reflect any particular mood.
Until he looked at me. Then, I saw the same spark of “Could it be?” in his gaze that I’d gotten from everyone else who knew Brent when they first saw me.
But where Charlie and Lucas were overjoyed that Brent might be back, the same couldn’t be said for his dad. His eyes widened in shock, then settled back to their normal size when he realized I was nothing more than a look-alike, then narrowed in suspicion.
“Yeah,” he greeted me. “Whaddya want?”
“Hello.” I extended my hand. “My name is Kevin Connor. I was a friend of your son’s.”
I let that sit for a moment.
“And?”
“And . . . I wanted to stop by to offer my condolences.”
“Okay, thanks,” he said dismissively. “Good-bye.” He started to close the door.
I blocked it with my foot.
“Wait,” I said.
“What?” he said, his voice close to a snarl.
“Harry?” A woman’s voice came from inside the house. “Who is it?”
To her: “It’s no one. Don’t worry about it.”
To me: “Get your foot out from my door, you little fairy.”
Lovely.
“I just want to talk,” I said.
“I know what you want,” he spat. “I know what you are. It’s because of people like you that my son is dead.”
“Right,” I said, all at once filled with an anger that surprised me, “because I threw my vulnerable teenaged son out of his home to fend for himself because I was such an ignorant, hateful bigot. Oh, wait, that wasn’t me.”
It hadn’t been my plan for things to get this ugly this quickly. Another one of my schemes gone wrong.
“It can’t be ‘no one’ if you’re still talking to him,” the woman’s voice called. “Who is it?”
“I said don’t worry about it, Claudia. Mind your business.”
“Her son isn’t her business?” I asked.
“She doesn’t have a son anymore,” he barked. Spittle flew from his mouth in an ugly spray.
I had to hand it to Mr. Dawson—he’d made the transformation from sleepy old dog to rabid pitbull in record time.
“Thanks to you,” I prodded.
“Either get the fuck away from this door,” Mr. Dawson hissed, making a fist, “or—”
He was interrupted by his wife, who squeezed in beside him. It was closer to dinnertime than breakfast, but she wore a fluffy pink robe with matching slippers. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy, slightly greasy bun, from which stray locks had limply escaped. She wore no makeup. Good bone structure and the same luminous quality to her skin that I’d observed on Brent couldn’t hide the bags under her eyes or the deep furrows between her brows.
“Claudia,” Mr. Dawson growled. He stepped forward, trying to keep himself between her and me. But she’d already gotten a look at me. With surprising confidence, she pushed him aside and stood before me.
It was her turn. The confused moment of impossible recognition, followed by the reaction that revealed the person’s true feelings toward Brent.
What showed on her face was both familiar and unexpected. It hit me like a slap of sunshine.
A flush of hearts.
A mother’s love.
Her hand reached out to me instinctively and then pulled back to cover her mouth. She made a tiny, muffled squeak upon realizing her mistake. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I told you, you didn’t need to see this.” Mr. Dawson grabbed his wife’s arm.
Again, she surprised me with the strength with which she moved. She pulled from his grip as if he weren’t there, stepping forward and cradling my face in her hands. Her eyes met mine with an intensity and tenderness that I knew weren’t meant for me. “Who are you?” she asked in a husky whisper.
“I’m a friend of Richie’s,” I said. “I just want to talk.”
“A faggot friend,” Mr. Dawson muttered.
“My god,” Mrs. Dawson exclaimed, turning to face her husband with fire in her eyes. “Will it ever end? You’ve already taken my son from me once.” She gulped back a sob. “Twice.
“I let it happen,” she said, sounding furious and sad at the same time. “Now, it’s too late. But if this young man knew our boy, if he can tell me about our son, I want to hear what he came here to say.”
She took my hand in hers. “Don’t you?” she asked her husband. “After everything that’s happened, if there’s anything of a father left in you, anything of a man, don’t you?”
Apparently, the bitter shell of Harry Dawson contained neither father nor man. After giving his wife a disgusted grunt he grabbed his keys off a hook by the door and “accidentally” bumped into me on his way to his car. Real mature, asshole.
He got into his automobile and slammed the door shut for emphasis, just in case we hadn’t figured out he was pissed. He peeled out recklessly, swinging in a too-wide arc out of the driveway, leaving new tracks in what was once a nice lawn.
“I’d apologize for him,” Mrs. Dawson said to me, “but I don’t think I’ll be doing that anymore.”
She stood up a little straighter and ran her hands down her robe. “I’m a mess. So’s the house. Now, for that, I’m sorry. I usually believe in keeping a neat home.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “It’s must have been a difficult week for you.”
“It’s been a difficult twenty-five years,” she said, regarding the damage left in the grass by her husband’s hasty departure.
“Maybe it’s about to get better,” I offered.
She was still looking at the damage to her yard. “Everything grows back,” she said, wistfully. Then, remembering what had brought me there, she added, “Except for the things that don’t.
“Some things are gone forever.”
Mrs. Dawson ushered me into her home. She was right. It was a mess. Dirty dishes everywhere, jackets and shoes carelessly left wherever they’d been taken off, and it smelled: a bitter, rank smell like sweat and old age. Sorrow lived here, sorrow and regret.
All the shades were drawn, and the living room where we sat was dark and depressing. The furniture had been ugly to begin with, and age hadn’t done it much good. Thin layers of dust coated everything. Nothing seemed less than twenty years old, except for an incongruously large flat-screen TV that dominated one of the walls. Across from it was the “man chair,” Mr. Dawson’s hideously oversized brown canvas recliner, which had drink holders built into the armrests. It was hard not to imagine him sitting there self-importantly, watching the Big Game, yelling at his wife to bring him another beer.
I sat on an uncomfortable couch while Mrs. Dawson settled into a club chair to my left.
“Thank you for coming,” she began. “You’re the only one who did. I know Brent had a life after he left here, but I don’t know much about it. Can you tell me . . .” She took a deep breath. Her hands fluttered
in the air, looking for a place to land. They settled on her knees, where they clenched and released, clenched and released, like she was kneading.
She was needing. Needing a connection with a son who, through malice or weakness or a combination of both, she’d abandoned when he was at his most vulnerable.
I’d brought the card Lucas had given me from Brent—well, here it was probably better to think of him as Richie—to wound his parents. To pierce their hearts with guilt. Seeing her now, here, I realized she’d hurt herself more than I ever could. In fact, I thought that seeing her son’s final words to her might actually bring her some peace.
“He wanted you to have this,” I said. “I think he was going to send it himself but never got the chance to.” A fib. The first of many, I suspected. There was no way I could tell her the truth about how I’d met her son, or how he made his living. I handed her the note he’d written, telling his parents that no matter what happened, he forgave and loved them.
“You’d think,” Mrs. Dawson said, her gaze still directed down at the two-sentence note she’d spent several minutes reading and rereading, “that eventually you’d run out of tears.”
She looked up at me, the water running freely from her eyes. “But you don’t. It seems like a well that never runs dry.” She took a used tissue off a table next to her and blew her nose as discreetly as she could.
“I suppose that’s a good thing, too. Because I should cry. I deserve to cry. Every day. For my son. For what I allowed to happen to him.”
“You loved him very much.”
“Yes.” This brought on another wave of sobs.
“Then . . . why?” The obvious question.
“Oh, why? That’s the one I ask myself every day. I was raised very traditionally. Conservatively. There was right and there was wrong. Sin and godliness. A man’s role was to lead the family and a woman’s role was to serve. Blah, blah, blah. I could tell you that I married my husband too young, that I was afraid of him. That he . . . hit me. It would all be true.
“He told me Richie would come back. That we had to be strong and wait out the devil. That the only way to save him was to . . . banish him. To hurt him a little now to save his soul for eternity.
Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery) Page 29
