Rust on the Razor

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “That doesn’t sound promising.”

  “He’s totally new on the job, which is somewhat good. He doesn’t want to be made a fool of in court. He knows he has to have a case. He wants to go exactly by the book, and going by the book at this point for you could be a very good thing.”

  I stuck my feet in front of the fan and began to pull on my shoes and socks.

  “Any chance I’ll be let out of here?”

  “I should be able to get you out without you being charged. If they find enough evidence to arrest you, that’s a whole ’nother thing, as I’m sure you know, but this has been long enough.”

  It was after five by now. He asked me what had happened from the moment we got to town. I told him. When I finished he said, “Come on with me.”

  “They wouldn’t let me out the door earlier,” I said.

  “Stick with me.”

  Beau took me by the elbow and walked me past the young blond cop. Harvey shuffled uneasily but let us pass. He followed us down the stairs. Beau stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gazed across the room at Cody, the dark-haired cop. Beau said nothing, just nodded to himself, and turned to the reception desk.

  Violet Burnside was standing near the reception desk. She wore tight short-shorts and a halter top that emphasized her enormous endowments. her hair looked artificially colored, and I thought I saw lines around her eyes that her excessive makeup almost completely concealed.

  She was speaking to the receptionist and several men in sport coats. I presumed they were plainclothes cops. She giggled and simpered at them.

  Once they noticed us, they all stopped talking.

  Wainwright Richardson came out of an office near the back. He strode to the railing. His eyes kept one continuous glare on Beau.

  “May we leave?” Beau asked.

  “Your client may not leave town. Any attempt to remove him from this jurisdiction will result in his immediate arrest.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Richardson, I understand. We want to be fully cooperative.”

  More dagger glares as we left.

  Outside, even the humidity felt good for at least the first couple minutes of freedom. We stood in the parking lot.

  “What do I do now?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. You’re still in danger, and not just because of the murder. You’ve got more to worry about being prominently gay. Most people in the South are reasonable. However, as anywhere does, we have our share of lunatics. Try not to be in the countryside alone after dark. Carrying a gun is iffy. Do you have one?”

  “No. Scott’s family might, out at the farm.”

  “Too long of a wait for a permit for you to carry one. And if you did, it could be an invitation to a nut to open fire—or it could protect you. Course, if they caught you with one without a permit, they could lock you up for that. Try to be with a crowd at all times. You might think of hiring a private detective.”

  “A local investigator? You’re seriously suggesting I trust somebody in this town? Other than you and Scott, there’s isn’t anybody in hundreds of miles that I would trust.”

  Beau sighed. “I wish you could leave.”

  “I wouldn’t want to go with Scott’s dad being ill.”

  “Your lover is also in more danger now.”

  “But we haven’t done anything.”

  “You’re a living, breathing, openly gay man, and this is the rural South.”

  Cody the cop walked out of the station with Violet, who certainly looked like she knew how to get a straight male’s testosterone flowing. She stood close to him, her thigh only a small shaft of daylight away from his crotch. She ran a fingernail down his chest and only stopped when it reached his belt buckle. He grinned and she giggled.

  “Touching scene,” Beau said.

  “You stared at him after we came downstairs.”

  “Any gay man would, but it wasn’t just because of that. Either his exact twin or as ‘Stud Likely’ that man dances every first and third Saturday night at a very exclusive gay men’s club in Atlanta. Mr. Likely ends up wearing only a fishnet G-string when he’s done stripping.”

  “He’d make a great Stud Likely.”

  “I’d say so. I heard Mr. Likely had some mysterious background from a few of my friends who could afford his after-hours services.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ask him.”

  “You might. Somebody had to commit this murder. One handy way of getting yourself off the hook would be finding out who did it. People with secrets are a good place to start.”

  “Nobody in this town is going to talk to me.”

  He thought a minute. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  Violet leaned close to Cody and their lips met. She grinned at him as he swung into a squad car and drove off. Violet casually gazed around the parking lot, at the windows of the police station, and then sashayed over to a white Cadillac parked three cars from where we stood.

  “That’s either salvation or deep trouble,” Beau said. “Who is she?”

  “Scott’s girlfriend from high school.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll take you back to the hospital and I’ll talk to Scott, but I can’t stay. I’ll try and get you a reliable lawyer from in town. Doubt if I’ll find you a gay one. Until you discover the real killer, you’re in deep trouble. More publicity could simply bring out more maniacs from the deep woods, but then a town crawling with reporters makes it tougher to gun you down.”

  “You think it would come to that?”

  “I don’t want to think that. I just want you to be prepared and be careful.”

  Beau walked into the hospital with me. Outside the CCU lounge Scott swept me into his arms in front of Hiram, Nathan, Shannon, and two nurses. Scott’s mom and his cousin Sally were in with his dad, who was resting comfortably. In the hallway, away from the family, I told Scott the whole story.

  “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said when I finished. “And now you can’t leave.”

  “I’m glad I came,” I said. “I want to be here. Whatever you and your family need is what’s important to me.”

  Beau said, “I appreciate your sentiment, but you’ll need to do something proactive to find someone else to be the main suspect in this murder. I cannot emphasize how much trouble you are in.”

  I nodded. I saw Scott staring wide-eyed over my shoulder. Following his gaze, I saw Violet Burnside, clutching a massive purse and swaying her hips seductively, strutting down the hall toward us.

  “Violet?” Scott said.

  She said nothing. When she reached us, she dropped her purse on the floor, threw her arms around Scott, whispered “Scottie,” and planted her lips on my lover’s. He put his arms on her shoulders and gently eased her away. He introduced Beau and then me, stating that I was his lover.

  She looked me up and down more slowly than she had on the street. “You’re very beautiful, both of you.” She talked in a high-pitched, breathy voice.

  Beau said, “I’m sorry, Miss Burnside, but we have important business to attend to. If you could just give me a few minutes with these two gentlemen …”

  She sighed, turned so that she faced the three of us in a semicircle. Her sheen of magnolia blossoms and delicacy dropped completely. Her voice was still airy and light, but she pointed at me and said, “I know you’re in trouble, and I know your relationship with Scott. I loved Scott and have beautiful memories of his kindness to me. You’ll need someone from here to help you out of this situation.”

  Scott began a protest, but Beau interrupted. “Dangerous and deadly matters are at hand, Miss Burnside. Are you sure you’d want to be involved?”

  She smiled at him and I thought she was going to revert to type, but she said, “It’s all right. I know very well what I’m doing. Word around town is you’re from Atlanta. Will you be able to stay and help?”

  “No,” Beau admitted.

  “Then,” Violet said, “by default, I am the rescue team.”

  5


  Nobody had a better solution, and frankly I was feeling desperate. I didn’t want just a lawyer to protect me, I wanted an entire platoon of gay commandos in battle fatigues toting machine guns—guys who had been working out in every gym in the country, could bend steel with bare hands, with all the necessary accouterments for stud-rescuers.

  Violet said, “Scottie, you want to stay here with your father. I’ll bet Tom’s hungry.”

  Her saying it reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since some time in the middle of the night, and then only a stale candy bar from a machine in the hospital basement.

  “I wanted to have my brothers protect Tom,” Scott said. “Nobody would bother you if they were escorting you around town.”

  “Will they do that?” I asked.

  “If I ask them to.”

  I hadn’t told him about the conversation I heard in the basement. I wasn’t eager to have the Carpenter boys as my protection. He looked for them, but they had disappeared, and no one knew when they would be back.

  Violet touched Scott’s arm. “And if Tom comes to my place to eat, we can compare notes about you, Scottie.”

  After some discussion, Scott gave in, I said okay, and Beau agreed.

  Inside her white Cadillac she turned on the engine, set the air-conditioning, picked up a portable phone, and dialed a number. She spoke with a friendly breeziness to whoever answered, then turned to me and said, “What would you like on your pizza?”

  “Cheese and sausage,” I mumbled.

  She spoke the order into the receiver and then hung up. “I hope you weren’t expecting a home-cooked southern meal,” she said.

  “If I don’t have to cook it or clean up after, it’s gourmet.”

  She slapped my thigh. “I think I like you.”

  As she guided the car out of the parking lot, she asked in a very quiet voice, “What’s it like living with him?” She glanced at me, then concentrated on negotiating her way through the traffic around the courthouse square.

  “He’s kind and tender and beautiful,” I said. “He has his faults, but I have mine. He would do anything for me, as I would for him.”

  “He hasn’t changed much. As a boy, he was kind and gentle and beautiful. The most handsome boy in three counties. I loved him as only a teenager can love.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’re asking me?” She laughed pleasantly. “He was always such a gentleman. I didn’t figure it out until years later, when he never came back with a beautiful bride. When we were kids, it was such a joy not having to fight him off, but then I began to want him to at least touch me. It took me forever to get him to go out necking in the woods.” She sighed. “He was so sweet.”

  In minutes, we pulled up to an unprepossessing home on a quiet street eight blocks from the square. The house was red brick along the base and halfway up the first floor and then wood above that to a second story. An enormous screened-in porch ran the length of the front.

  In a kitchen bright with geegaws, we sat at a Formica-topped table. On top of the refrigerator, next to a clock radio, was a picture of Violet with a boy who looked to be about twelve. She saw me noticing and said, “That’s my son, Scott.”

  I smiled.

  “He’s spending the summer with his dad. I ran off with his father when I was nineteen. He was a lean, mean truck driver with blond hair and a ponytail. We were divorced seven years ago. I think of him as my starter husband. I moved back to town last winter when I got a job here.”

  She poured me a large glass of lemonade, placed the pitcher on a towel near at hand, and sat down next to me. “With any luck he’d be rotting to death in a dismal swamp.”

  “Sounds miserable.”

  “The first time he hit me was the last. I grabbed him by the balls and twisted so hard it put him in the hospital. He agreed to a divorce right quick after that. Haven’t seen him since, but my son lives with him every summer.”

  “Why does such a rotten guy get the kid?”

  “I have custody, but he gets him on some holidays and parts of summers. A court order is a court order. He gets the kid for every allotted minute and that’s all.”

  The doorbell rang. She left the room and returned with a pizza. I wolfed down a quarter of it before she had eaten one piece.

  “Didn’t feed you in jail?”

  “What was with those guys?”

  “Who can ever be sure what is with men? I went down there to find out what I could. The whole town is in an uproar about the sheriff and you two. I wanted to do what I could for Scott. If that means helping you, I will.”

  “You aren’t hoping to win him back?”

  She smiled at me. “You’re very shrewd. I suppose in my fantasies that crossed my mind, but I believe in reality and doing what can be done. I know he’s yours. Even that little while in the hall in the hospital, I could tell how much you love each other.”

  “And that didn’t bother you? You wouldn’t want to maybe see me in prison or executed, so you could get him back?”

  “Shrewd, careful, and maybe a little paranoid.”

  “I’m in a fix. If you’re going to turn on me, I at least want it out in front that I have these fears.”

  “Aren’t you too paranoid?”

  “I’ve had kids follow me down Clark Street in Chicago screaming ‘Faggot,’ and that frightened me plenty. I very definitely don’t want to be alone in the rural South with somebody screaming ‘Faggot’ at me. That may be paranoid, but my guess is every gay or lesbian person in America would agree with me. Look at that case in Mississippi where the guy killed two gay men. You know, with the lesbians and that farm.”

  She nodded.

  “They’re trying to get a killer off using the ‘It’s okay to kill them because they’re gay’ defense.”

  “Only way those fears about me are going to go away is for me to help you. If it doesn’t work, you’re no worse off, because—let me tell you—you’re very bad off now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I need to give you a little history lesson.”

  “Beau, the lawyer, told me some.”

  “But you need a local perspective.”

  I leaned back and munched slowly on another piece of pizza.

  “When Scott was growing up, he was the pride of the county. When he was a junior in high school we won the state baseball championship for the first time and then turned around and won it again the next year. Burr County burst with pride. We’d never come close to winning anything in any sport. Atlanta papers sent people to do articles and even put some of us on television. It was the closest we’ll ever get to fame, unless a serial killer shows up in town. Anyway, Scott pitched and hit and did everything that made us win. He got his own parade through town. We also made it to the semifinals in football his senior year. He wasn’t the main player, but he started at wide receiver. The sheriff, the one you found in your backseat, was the hero of that team. They were best friends for years. I went out with Peter some before I dated Scott.”

  “How was Peter as a date?”

  “Typical. Ordinary. Wrestling matches on Saturday night. Begging me just to touch him. He was nearly as handsome as Scott.” She traced her finger around the top of her empty lemonade glass. She sighed. “The point is, this town idolized those boys, and especially Scott. With that big family on their farm, it was just idyllic. He was so masculine and strong. And you see, now all that is gone.

  “Sheriff’s dead. Scott Carpenter is gay. Since the headlines in the paper, people have claimed that they knew long ago. Sure, there were probably a few rumors over the years since he’s been gone. I heard one or two when I moved back, and a few of the more perceptive people in town, if they gave any thought to it, might have figured out he was gay. But most people don’t want to know, and now that they know, they aren’t happy about it.”

  She sounded like Beau. I told her what he’d said.

  “Sodom brought home on our streets,” she said. “I heard the ministers
were going to try and get together and have a united front against you both, angry sermons or some protest or other, but Scott’s family has a lot of respect in this town. Plus there are those who won’t deal with the facts. Even if you two walked through the courthouse square at high noon naked and holding hands, they wouldn’t accept that their hero was less than perfect.”

  “But most people are angry?”

  “Yep. Everybody might or might not be sad about the sheriff being dead, but you finding the body is bad news.”

  “What do you mean, not being sad about him being killed?”

  “Sheriffs in small towns know everybody’s secrets. That’s not any different south or north, east or west. He had enemies.”

  “Clara Thorton, for one.”

  “I heard what she did at the Waffle House. I was surprised at old Clara. She’s supposed to be the one who encouraged the ministers to organize some kind of protest or statement about you two.”

  “She must have hated Peter.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’ve got to talk to her.”

  “Sure thing. Of course, I can’t see Clara wielding a razor in a blind rage, holding down the sheriff, and slitting his throat.” She laughed. “Mad Clara from Georgia.”

  I told her about what Beau told me about Cody. “I need those kind of secrets.”

  “I don’t know that many of the more recent secrets. I only moved back to town last year. I’ve been gone too long. But Peter would have known them for sure. He was always furtive for no reason. Kind of a funny kid. Popular enough, but if he hadn’t been a sports star, I don’t know.”

  When she paused, I asked, “Don’t know what?”

  She rubbed her hands against her upper arms. “I think he could have been a brute. He never tried anything with me, but I wonder.”

  “How about talking to his wife or his kids?”

  “Kids are too little. Leota, his wife, was a year behind us in school. When I dropped him, he started dating her. She became head cheerleader the year after me. We can try.”

  “Who else in the county? Who would fear him? The rich and powerful?”

  “Depends on who had done what, how illegal it was, and how desperate Peter was to get reelected.”