Chapter Forty
SERGEANT SHIRLEY White peered across her desk at the sniveling man before her. Pitiful. If he was the Fairy Killer—a name she’d run across in Vincent’s file—she’d eat her government-issued hat, visor and all.
A night in jail hadn’t helped him. She watched as he wiped his eyes with his hands, waiting for him to regain his composure. After he pulled himself together, she said, “I’m having a hard time buying the story you told me yesterday.”
“But I haven’t done anything,” he wailed. Tears flowed down his cheeks and his nose dripped.
She offered him a tissue. For an innocent man, she thought, he sure acts mighty guilty. If he wasn’t the killer, he’d done something. “Mr. Carter.” He was trying what little bit of patience she had. “If you could please stop crying and answer my questions, this would go more quickly.”
He wiped his nose, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly clenching the tissue in his lap. After a long pause, he looked up from the wadded-up tissue in his hands. “I swear. I’ve never killed anyone. Give me a lie detector test, truth serum, or whatever it will take to convince you. I’m not lying.”
“Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me again how you came to know Philip Potter.”
He sniffed and dabbed at his nose with the mangled tissue. “It’s like I told you. I went for a walk Christmas Eve to see the snow.”
“And was this before or after you paid a male prostitute for sex?” She leaned on her elbows with her chin on her fists and watched his color drain. His shoulders sagged. She waited for him to answer.
“The day after.” He let out a long breath. “I moved here in August and have been too busy with my job—a job I’ll lose if this gets out—to meet anyone.” He stared at the crumpled tissue, pulling it apart and wadding it back into a ball again.
She nodded. “Go on.”
He focused his dreamy blue eyes on her. Even after a night in jail and hours of crying, the impact hadn’t waned. A deep stirring reminded her how very long it had been since a certain itch had been scratched.
“I got lonely,” he said, holding her gaze. “I didn’t know anyone, and the bus station was the only place I could think of where I might meet someone… like me.”
A career that made having a love life—or really any kind of life—next to impossible was something she could understand. She pictured herself pulling up next to a sexy man walking the streets and wondered what he’d say if she rolled down the window and asked how much he’d charge to rock her world. Though she’d been tempted, she’d never gone beyond being merely curious. Besides, all the hustlers she’d ever known were homosexual and would scream like a girl and run if she did. The image struck her as funny and she fought back the impulse to laugh.
“I met Rudy a couple of months ago, a few weeks after I got to Washington,” Beau continued, “and brought him back to my place. He offered me a discount for regular… appointments.” He blushed.
If anything, she was jealous he’d found a way to get laid free of messy entanglements. One way or another, there was always a price to pay. Cash kept things simple and was a lot more straightforward. “So you and this Rudy became lovers?”
Carter slumped farther into his chair. “No. It wasn’t like that. The arrangement made it easier to keep what we were doing secret. We didn’t have to hit the streets where someone we knew might see us or we could get arrested. I had my career to consider.”
“And what does any of this have to do with Philip Potter?” Pretty though he was, she was tired of Carter. The interrogation was going nowhere.
“After we’d been together a few times, Rudy told me about his lover. He never told me his name—just a lot about the man and things they did together. Rudy was terrified his lover would find out about his part-time job.”
“And Philip Potter was his lover?”
Carter shifted in his chair. “Yes, but I didn’t know that when I met Philip.” He dropped his gaze to the desk and sighed. “I didn’t figure out James and Rudy were the same person until I saw his picture in Philip’s apartment.” His hands trembled and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“So you killed James/Rudy, making everyone believe it was suicide, and then cozied up to his boyfriend because you wanted what they had together.”
He caught a tear on his cheek with a trembling finger. “I wanted what Rudy had, but I didn’t kill him, and I never knew his lover’s name or who he was—only that Rudy adored him. Once I knew, did I cozy up to him? You bet. I mean, who wouldn’t? Philip is a catch—handsome, intelligent, kindhearted, so sure of who he is and where he’s going. What I wouldn’t give for that kind of confidence.”
She watched him closely. He was holding something back. “What I don’t get, Mr. Carter, is why you were in the apartment on Christmas day when Mr. Potter returned.”
He paled and rested his trembling hand on a knee that bounced with such force that his entire body vibrated with the motion. “Christmas Eve, I was out walking when police cars went by with the sirens blaring and lights flashing. I could see where they’d stopped. Like everyone else, I was curious to see what was happening and was standing on the sidewalk outside the apartment building when Philip came home. I heard the officer tell him his faggot boyfriend had blown his brains out, and saw Philip faint and fall into the snow.”
She flinched. “Did one of my officers really use those words?”
“Yes.” He nodded, his expression earnest. “It was awful. I did what any human being would have done. I helped him up and made sure he was okay.”
“That still doesn’t explain what you were doing in his apartment the next day.”
Something changed in his expression. He sighed. His shoulders sagged and he pinched the bridge of his nose. After a moment, his eyes met hers. “I did a bad thing.”
She leaned forward. “What did you do?”
“The rude cop gave me the idea.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I fell in love with Philip on Christmas Eve. He told me a little about James and their time together before his sister picked him up. It was obvious how much he cared for James. He was devastated. Taking care of him, helping him during a hard time—it made me feel good, not dirty and disgusted like I always felt after paying for sex with Rudy.”
“One of my officers gave you the idea to fall in love with Potter?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Rudy talked about how nasty the DC cops are to homosexuals and about friends whose apartments the police had vandalized.”
The force had a bad reputation among homosexuals. The problem wasn’t homosexuals causing trouble. The bigger issue was that straight men couldn’t handle someone checking them out. Instead of being flattered by the attention, they were threatened. And when threatened, the kind of guys who tended to become cops reacted the only way they knew how. With force.
Carter buried his head in his hands. After a moment, he rubbed his eyes with his fists and continued, his voice so low she strained to hear. “I went back the next day. I saw his name on the mailbox and went upstairs to see if he was home. The apartment wasn’t locked.” He paused.
“So you went in,” she prompted.
“I went in and, when I saw the picture of Rudy, I realized that Philip was the man I’d heard so much about.” He took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair as he exhaled. “Knowing he’d think the police had done it, I kicked over the Christmas tree, broke a few chairs, and emptied out some drawers.”
She didn’t know what to think. “Is that it?”
He sat silent, staring at his hands. After a long pause, he spoke, his voice just above a whisper. “I spray painted ‘faggots’ on the living room wall.”
Her mouth fell open. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know.” He curled his fingers into his hair, making fists on either side of his head. “I guess I thought helping him to repaint and clean t
hings up would give him a chance to get to know me.”
Carter released his hair, twined his fingers together on his lap, and stared at his twirling thumbs. He was a broken man, but she didn’t think he’d committed any crimes—unless she counted vandalism, solicitation, and sodomy, none of which, aside from his pathetic confession, she could prove.
He met her gaze. “Are you going to charge me?”
She studied him, wondering if he was somehow pulling the wool over her eyes. “No, I don’t think so—not unless Mr. Potter wants to press charges.”
He relaxed and the worry she’d seen faded.
“Can you identify that bad cop?”
He gave her a wary look. “Well, that depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not my employer is going to find out about any of this. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
The question and his expression took her back to graduate school when she’d run into Joan—a light-skinned childhood friend she hadn’t seen since junior high. They’d been practically joined at the hip through grade school, and both girls had cried when Joan’s family moved away. They’d written, often at first, but the time between letters grew until they stopped coming at all. Shirley had been thrilled to see her again and couldn’t understand why she’d been rebuffed until later, when Joan had explained that nobody could know she was colored. You won’t tell anyone, will you?
The wary, fearful expression he wore was the same as Joan’s. She realized, in many ways, his situation was like her old friend’s. Carter was trying to pass too.
“No, Mr. Carter. Unless Mr. Potter wants you arrested, and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would, you’re not going to be charged with anything. So there’s nothing for your employer to find out.”
“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.” Then he pointed across the room. “Your bad cop is the big bald guy with the bushy eyebrow at the desk by the entrance.”
She stood and offered her hand. “Even one bad cop gives the force a bad name. Thank you, Mr. Carter.”
Chapter Forty-One
HAROLD HAD never seen his mother so upset. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, wringing her hands. Dirty breakfast dishes cluttered the table. Her hair had come loose, and smudges of mascara darkened her cheeks. Harold didn’t know what to do. Without asking to be excused, he got up and carried his dishes to the sink, where she hadn’t even run dishwater yet.
“Right now?”
“The Lord spoke to me, Harriet.” His father placed his hands on her shoulders and peered into her eyes. He’d been skittish since the dinnertime interruption the night before and had argued with her after Harold and Pete had been sent to bed. “He wants us in San Francisco. It’s a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Harold saw how she cringed at his touch. Poppa’s angry eyes betrayed his pleasant tone of voice, and Harold feared he might hit her.
“My work is there, and as my wife, your duty is to follow.”
She shrugged his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. “But Tripp, do we have to leave right now?” Her shaky smile didn’t match the fear in her eyes. “What’s the big hurry? Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Next week would be even better.”
Harold turned on the hot water and squirted soap into the sink, trying to act like he wasn’t listening. The anxiety in his mother’s voice worried him. He hoped she’d be able to talk Poppa out of his crazy plan to move west.
“What do you want me to do, Harriet? Tell God I have to wait to follow his command because you’re not ready?”
“But Tripp—”
Harold heard his mother cry out. Poppa had slapped her. Hard. Her hand didn’t hide the angry red mark on her cheek.
Pete stood trembling, his fists clenched by his side.
His father turned. “You boys go to your room and pack. Two suitcases for each of you. There’s no room in the car for more. We’ll donate everything else to charity.”
At that moment, Harold knew. The waiting was over. Poppa had snapped. Nothing would ever be the same.
PETE CLOSED the door and slammed his fist into his mattress. “If he hits her again, I’m going to kill him. I swear I will.”
Harold knew he meant it too. “Do you think he’s serious about leaving for San Francisco today?”
“Yeah.” Pete stretched out on his bed and put his hands behind his head. “He did the same thing once before, but you were too little to remember. I don’t remember much either, except that we lived in Alabama and drove for days to get to Maryland.”
In truth, the idea of going to San Francisco appealed to Harold. Talk about exotic and far away. But that his father—the person he most wanted to escape—would take him there defeated the purpose. “What are we going to do? Mom doesn’t want to go to California any more than we do.”
“It’s three against one,” Pete said. “Maybe it’s time we stand up to him. He’s not that much bigger than I am anymore.”
“Yeah, but you’re not crazy.” Harold sat on the edge of his bed. “Predicting what he might do is impossible. I’d say that gives him the advantage.”
Pete sat up in the bed and swung his feet onto the floor to face him. “Good point. Here’s what we do. We stall. Take our time. Drag our feet every step of the way.”
Harold thought for a moment, unsure about whether or not delaying tactics would work. “What does that get us?”
“Time. Maybe Mom will do something or Poppa will slip up and we’ll see a way to stop him. For now, that’s all we’ve got.”
Chapter Forty-Two
PHILIP STEPPED off the bus, trying to recall when he’d ever been so tired from a day at the museum. He was halfway home when he noticed Terrence sitting on the front stoop of his apartment building. Even from a distance, Philip could see he was upset. His head was pillowed on his arms, and his shoulders moved in the unmistakable rhythm of someone sobbing. He eased himself down on the stoop beside the crying boy and touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Terrence didn’t answer, but the rise and fall of his shoulders accelerated. Philip waited, keeping his hand on Terrence’s arm in what he hoped was a reassuring touch. After a strangled sob, Terrence raised his tear-stained face and then threw his arms around Philip’s shoulders, sobbing into his coat. Philip held him, squeezing hard, hoping to reassure him with the force of his hug.
He let him cry. The poor kid had been through a lot—more than many twice his age could handle. Though impressed by his courageous spirit and self-confidence, Philip was glad to see that a child’s heart still lived within the streetwise teen.
After a time, the sobbing evolved into sniffles. Terrence raised his head, sliding his arm around Philip’s waist and leaning on Philip’s shoulder. “He killed my best friend and my boyfriend,” Terrence wailed, losing the little bit of composure he’d found. He buried his face in Philip’s chest for a long moment before speaking again. “It’s like he’s singled me out to take everyone I love away from me.”
Philip patted Terrence’s back, trying to calm him down. “And now they’ve caught him.”
The sniveling stopped. Terrence drew back, brushed his knuckle across his nose, and wiped his eyes with the back of a hand Philip noticed could use some hot soapy water. “They did?”
“Yes, they did.” He stood. “Now come inside and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Terrence uncoiled himself and stood, slinging his black bag over one shoulder and the camera strap over the other. “Got any more of that sweet potato pie?”
PHILIP POINTED to the bathroom. “Wash your face while I see what I can find in the kitchen. You can even shower if you like. There are towels and an extra robe behind the door.”
“Thanks.” Terrence stepped toward the bathroom and stopped. “Would you mind if I took a bath? We only have showers at the shelter and I’m simply dying for a long hot soak.”
Philip nodded. “Of course. I like a nice relaxing bath now and then myself. Help yourself
to any of the bath salts, soaps, and lotions you see.”
Terrence slid the bags on his shoulder to the floor. He reached into one and pulled out a fire engine–red transistor radio. “Mind if I listen to some music?”
Philip stared at the radio. His mind drifted. He couldn’t remember what had happened to the one he’d purchased for James. Had he left it at Beau’s that fateful night? Could the little red radio be in Milan, with Mary, Alex, and Thad? Had he stashed it in some drawer or closet for safekeeping? Terrence’s expectant look brought him back to the moment. “Sure, music would be nice.”
“Great!” Terrence said and closed the bathroom door.
Philip heard water running and the tinny sound of a female voice singing something about being set free as he headed toward the kitchen. Figuring the radio could be anywhere, he decided not to worry about it. He filled the Pyrex coffee pot with water.
Terrence’s voice singing along drowned out the radio.
As Philip measured coffee into the basket, he thought again about James and his secrets. Although it wasn’t something they talked about, Philip had always prided himself for having rescued James from a life on the streets.
But he hadn’t. Not really. It was all a lie. Like some fantasy or fairy tale.
Philip had also believed they’d had no secrets. Anything about him James didn’t know had simply never come up in conversation. He’d certainly never withheld anything on purpose. James hadn’t told him everything—or really, much of anything. What else didn’t Philip know and how much could he believe of what he did know?
He twisted the burner under the percolator up to high and headed to his bedroom. As he passed the bathroom, Terrence’s voice came through the door singing along with a different song.
Philip returned his coat to the hanger he’d retrieved from his closet. How would he have reacted if James had told him about his visits to George and his little part-time job? Had James been afraid of him? Sure, Philip was the larger man, by a significant fraction. But he’d never given James cause to fear him, had he?
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