Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas

by Lanyon, Josh

  “I think I’d better show you.” To Cormac, Austin said, “I’m sorry, but I have bad news. I think your father may be… There’s a body in your cellar.”

  “What?”

  Cormac recoiled, and Brady pushed past him on the narrow staircase. “Show me.”

  Austin did an about-face and led the way quickly downstairs. Jeff was right behind him. Austin wasn’t sure if Cormac followed or not. He sort of hoped not, but mostly he was thinking that the scent of green apples made a welcome change from Raid and death.

  “How did you happen to find him?” Jeff asked, brisk and businesslike.

  “I was trying to work out why it smelled so bad down here. I couldn’t concentrate.”

  “Yeah, I guess you must have a pretty sensitive nose in your line of work.”

  “I don’t think anyone could have missed this.” Despite the old-house smells, the damp and the decay, Austin was still baffled no one had picked up on that putrid odor earlier. As he and Jeff reached the bottom, the smell of rotting garbage made his stomach churn. He’d have liked to wave Jeff on to the back of the cellar without him, but pride insisted that he lead the way.

  All the same, he stood on the other side of the shelving, hand protectively shielding his mouth and nose while Jeff went around the corner.

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Jeff reappeared, his handsome face grim.

  “What makes you think that’s the old man?”

  Austin lowered his hand. “Isn’t it?”

  “Naw.”

  “Who is it?”

  Brady opened his mouth, then closed it. “I think we’d better call the police.”

  Austin nodded, grateful to escape the cellar and its grisly contents.

  They started upstairs only to be met by a delegation of concerned citizens. A tall, thin, beaky-looking man with curly silver hair and a beard that looked like pheasants could live long and prosper in its strands was leading the charge. Cormac and Carson followed—the resemblance between them was even more striking now that Carson had changed out of her ball gown and into jeans—seeming torn between an adolescent mix of nervous amusement and awkwardness. Behind them was a washed-out woman with alarmingly red hair and a very nice triple strand of pearls. Sasha, Stepmother #4, collected pearls in all shapes and sizes, and Austin knew a nice set when he saw them.

  Pearls, that is.

  Trailing them all was Faulkner looking as impassive as ever.

  “What the hell is going on here?” demanded the bearded gentleman, who Austin guessed was Roark Cashel, the patriarch.

  “There’s a corpse in the cellar,” Jeff announced. “Everyone needs to go back upstairs.”

  “That isn’t possible,” quavered the lady in pearls. The genealogical Auntie Eudie, Austin presumed.

  Carson and Cormac gripped each other’s arms.

  “Nonsense,” Roark said. He tried to propel his way forward, and Austin nearly overbalanced on the narrow stairway. Jeff steadied him with one hand—and planted the other in Roark’s chest.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ve got a crime scene downstairs.”

  “This is my house!”

  “Sure, but you don’t want your fresh fingerprints found down there, Mr. Cashel. It’ll just confuse things when the police get here.”

  “Police!” repeated all four of the Cashels.

  “That man didn’t crawl in here to die a natural death,” Jeff said. “Of course we have to call the police.”

  Roark smelled of whiskey and sleep sweat and something else. Fear. Reaction suddenly hit Austin. His stomach lurched, and he wondered if he was going to vomit on the old man’s striped socks. And how unsanitary was that? Running around in socks in these ruins? Now that he thought about it, Roark’s feet didn’t smell any too sweet either.

  “Can someone let me through?” he requested.

  His desperation must have made itself felt, because they all began to back up and shuffle around, the staircase squeaking and groaning ominously beneath their feet. The Cashels were talking at once, but Austin didn’t listen. His sole concern now was getting out of there without disgracing himself.

  He jumped when Jeff placed a light hand on the small of his back. Kindly meant or not, that was not a normal gesture from a straight guy. Austin had pegged Jeff for aggressively heterosexual the minute he’d seen him, but nonetheless that casual touch seemed to reach right through him and cup his balls in a friendly fashion.

  The clumsy procession reached the top level at last, and Austin managed to work his way to the front of the line while yet restraining himself from actually shoving anyone down the stairs. Carson discreetly indicated the powder room off the front hall, and he strode quickly down the corridor to a tiny room with red velvet wallpaper and dark paneling. After locking himself behind the flimsy door, he turned the taps on the sink and proceeded to be quickly and comprehensively sick.

  After he’d flushed the toilet, he splashed a gallon of cold water on his face, rinsed his mouth, and gazed in disgust at himself in the diamond-shaped mirror. He tried to imagine his father in this same situation. Harrison Gillespie losing his breakfast just because he’d seen a dead body!

  “Man up, for crap’s sake,” Austin muttered to his wan reflection.

  He splashed more cold water on his bloodless face and finally abandoned the refuge of the powder room.

  He could already hear what Whitney was going to say when he heard about this. Austin watched enough TV to know that the cellar was going to be labeled a crime scene and he was probably not going to be allowed back in there for days. Maybe weeks. Whitney was going to be seriously pissed. In fact, he was liable to see this as Austin’s personal failure.

  Speaking of personal failures, now that Austin had a chance to think, he needed to get his laptop out of the cellar immediately. He couldn’t take an even remote chance that it might be confiscated. It wasn’t like he could do any more damage to the crime scene than he’d already unwittingly done, after all.

  He started down the hall. Not tiptoeing, exactly, but trying to walk quietly. He could hear voices—agitated voices—drifting from one of the side rooms. By the sound of things, the Cashels were not taking the news of the body in the cellar well. But then he couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t taking it well either.

  He had just reached the hall entranceway when his cell phone sounded with the countdown-to-spaceship-launch ringtone that meant Ernest was calling.

  Austin reached for his phone. Jeff Brady stuck his head out of the parlor doorway.

  “There you are. I was starting to wonder whether y’all decided to sneak out the back.”

  Since there was nothing Austin would have liked more, he gave Jeff a withering look and answered his cell.

  “Hey, Ernesto.”

  Ernest said in his gruff voice, which made him sound more like ninety than nine, “They’re sending me to boarding school in the fall.”

  Uh-oh. He’d known this was coming—just not so soon. He should be in Maryland, not way down yonder in the land of cotton.

  “It’s for sure?”

  “Harrison broke it to me half an hour ago.”

  For some reason Ernest had called their father by his first name from the time he had been old enough to speak. And more astonishing, Harrison had allowed it. But then Ernest was a remarkable kid. The family joke was he’d been speaking in complete sentences at nine months and offering his opposing political viewpoint at eighteen. The real joke was that it wasn’t a joke.

  “McDonough is a good school,” Austin said. “They’ve got riding stables and a great science program.”

  “I don’t want to go.” Uncompromising.

  Austin licked his lips, tried to find the right words. “It’s not like you imagine. A lot of it is really fun.”

  “I’ve done my research. I don’t want to go.”

  Sometimes it was easy to forget that despite the 159 IQ and his unequivocal way of expressing himself, Ernest was just a little kid.

>   “Listen, Ernie, I got through it. Harrison—Dad—got through it. It’s…just part of growing up.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “We’ll talk about it when I get home, okay?”

  “When are you coming back?”

  Austin looked at Jeff Brady, who was listening in on his phone conversation with unabashed interest. “Well, it might be sooner than I was thinking. But I’ll call you from my hotel tonight. We can talk more then.”

  “We can talk, but I’m not changing my decision.”

  “Try to keep an open mind.”

  “I don’t see any point. I already know it will interfere with my work.” Ernest’s voice wobbled infinitesimally as he added, “And I’ll be homesick.”

  Austin’s already sensitive stomach knotted unhappily. “I’ll call you tonight. It’s hard to talk right now.”

  “What time?”

  “I’m not sure. But I will call.” For an instant it went through Austin’s mind to tell Ernest the setup. He probably knew more about a homicide investigation than Austin.

  “Bye.” Ernest disconnected.

  Austin turned off his iPhone, and Jeff asked curiously, “Your son?”

  “My brother.” Half brother, actually, but it wasn’t a distinction Austin made.

  “Are you, er, married?”

  “Er, no.”

  Jeff scratched his jaw thoughtfully and gave Austin a funny look from beneath his long, dark lashes. “Domestic partnership?”

  “I’m not involved with anyone,” Austin said shortly. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that things hadn’t worked out with Richard, but it was another failure, wasn’t it?

  Jeff smiled. On a scale of one to ten, with one a wallflower and ten charismatic world leader, the smile was a devastating nine. Austin narrowed his eyes in the full force of it.

  “I…see,” Jeff said, forcing those lazy, no-account Southern vowels to put in a full day’s work.

  Austin stared. He began to think he had got Jeff Brady all wrong. “I need my laptop,” he said. It was the first thing that popped into his mind.

  Jeff seemed to follow the non sequitur without trouble. He looked regretful. “Sorry. The cops said to keep the cellar sealed off till they get here.”

  “You don’t understand. If they hold on to my laptop for any length of time, I’m ruined.”

  Jeff’s blond brows rose. “You got naughty pictures on there or something?”

  “Of course not.” Did he? It was Austin’s personal computer. There were a lot of things on there he wouldn’t choose to share with the public. Nothing illegal. Opinions of wines, vineyards, vintners, and others that didn’t need to be public. Not without softening them considerably. “I’ve got my notes for my next column, the rough draft of this week’s blog—and I have to be able to check my e-mail. My entire work world is on that laptop.”

  “They’re not likely to hold your laptop,” Jeff reassured. “They might glance through it just to verify that you are who you say you are. I’m sure it wouldn’t be more than a few hours. Maybe overnight.”

  Austin blanched. He lived on his laptop. It was like being told he wouldn’t have access to his body for a day or so.

  “Jeff…” He stopped. What could he say? Why should Jeff Brady care about Austin’s problems?

  And yet…Jeff tipped his head, seeming to consider all that Austin was not saying.

  His eyes were green, Austin noticed absently. The rich, mysterious green of an old Bordeaux bottle.

  Seeing Jeff’s indecision, Austin urged, “Please. I can’t do any more harm than I’ve already done. My fingerprints and footprints are all over the place.”

  “True.” Jeff glanced back at the parlor where the Cashels were, from the sound of things, having some kind of family debate. “Okay. I’ll do this for you.” It seemed sort of a solemn way to put it, but Austin was too relieved to analyze, and Jeff added, “But we better make it quick.”

  Austin flashed him a grateful look and sprinted down the dark hall. Jeff was right on his heels, running lightly, swiftly. They pounded down the staircase.

  The cellar looked undisturbed, but breathing in that horrifying stink now, Austin couldn’t understand how he hadn’t smelled it the minute he’d walked in. The insecticide had masked it very effectively.

  He turned off his laptop, waiting impatiently for it to power down while Jeff prowled restlessly back and forth. Every now and then he threw Austin a look that seemed both curious and expectant. Austin didn’t know what to make of it.

  Watching Jeff, then glancing back at the shadowy recess where the body lay, Austin said, “You know him, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “The dead man.”

  Jeff stopped walking. “What makes you say that?”

  Austin thought back to those moments when Jeff had first seen the body. “You weren’t surprised when you saw him. You were…taken aback, but not really surprised.”

  “You lost me.”

  “You were surprised he was dead, but you weren’t surprised that, if someone was dead, it was him.”

  Jeff stared. He laughed. “That’s not bad.”

  Absurdly, Austin felt a flicker of pleasure that Jeff seemed even fleetingly impressed. “When I asked you who he was, you almost answered. Then you thought better of it.” Austin’s laptop screen went dark. The keyboard lights went out. He grabbed the laptop and thrust it into its case, zipping it up.

  Jeff was still gazing at him with that funny smile—almost like they knew each other. What was that about? Austin felt like he was missing something. Like there was an undercurrent running that he was unaware of.

  “How did he die?” He slung the bag over his shoulder.

  Jeff was already moving back to the stairs, clearly uneasy about the possibility of their being discovered down here. “Couldn’t you tell?”

  Austin shook his head, swallowing queasiness as he remembered the dead man’s face.

  “Someone slammed him on the side of the head with that good old favorite: the blunt instrument.” Jeff added thoughtfully, “But I don’t think this cellar was where he died.”

  “Then where did he—”

  But Jeff was already running up the stairs. Austin had a very nice view of Jeff’s trim, tight ass and the flex and bunch of muscles beneath his jeans as he moved—and he moved well. A natural athlete.

  They reached the first-landing door. Jeff glanced back. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep those thoughts to yourself for now.”

  “You mean if the police ask—”

  “Not the police, naw. I’m not worried about the police. I mean, don’t say anything in front of the family.”

  What was the big deal? It wasn’t like they had tampered with evidence. Jeff definitely seemed on the paranoid side. Not that it mattered. He owed Jeff, and it was a harmless enough request. Jeff wasn’t asking him to lie to the police, after all. Austin nodded. “Sure.”

  “Thanks…Austin.”

  It was a casual comment, but something in the deliberate way Jeff said his name, said Austin as though he was testing it, trying the sound of it on, affected Austin in an almost visceral way. For an instant they stared into each other’s eyes.

  Jeff treated him to another of those winning smiles and held the door for him.

  “Where’ve you been?” Cormac demanded as Austin and Jeff walked into the parlor.

  Austin started to respond, but Cormac interrupted. “I mean him.” He glared at Jeff with loathing.

  Jeff gazed coolly back. “I went to check on Mr. Gillespie.”

  “You poor child,” the fragile, titian-haired Auntie Eudie murmured to Austin. “You come and sit right down here.” She patted the green velvet upholstery, and a gust of dust moved through the air. She sneezed.

  It had been a long time since anyone had called Austin a child. Not that twenty-nine was so old. In oenophile terms, he was still a young wine: light, fresh, and…um…fruity. He obeyed her summons and sat gingerly beside her on t
he sagging sofa.

  She peered at him nearsightedly. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Austin answered hastily. He was embarrassed about earlier. That had been more about his sensitive nose than his sensitive nature.

  Roark stood at the liquor cabinet putting away what appeared to be fine Kentucky bourbon and living up to the reputation of the gin blossoms on his nose and cheeks. He asked of no one in particular, “Who is the infernal fellow? That’s what I want to know. What the hell was he doing in our cellar?”

  Auntie Eudie said, “Mr. Gillespie is here to appraise Papa’s wine cellar, Roark.”

  “Not him. Not the damned Yankee.” Roark was impatient. “The dead man!”

  The Cashels all gazed expectantly at Austin. Did they think he’d brought the dead man along in his laptop case?

  “I never saw him before in my life,” Austin asserted.

  “’Course not,” Carson said. She gave a shiver and went to Jeff, who put his arm around her wide shoulders.

  “Now, now, honey,” Jeff murmured with all the sincerity of an AT&T recording.

  “Just who are you?” Cormac demanded, watching Jeff cuddling his sister.

  Carson flushed. “Hush, Corrie. Mr. Brady is a friend of mine.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since last night at the Blind Pig Tavern.”

  Cormac’s face grew even tighter and more sullen, and Austin began to wonder if all those alarming Southern plays he’d had to study in school hadn’t maybe got it right.

  Roark said, “I find it most suspicious that this man appears at the same time a body turns up in the cellar.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Jeff was grinning.

  “I just find it most suspicious that these two events should coincide.”

  Carson giggled. “Exactly which two events are you referring to, Daddy?” She was an engaging minx. Austin had to give her that.

  Roark’s already red face went the color of the Confederate flag.

  “Mr. Gillespie, are you by any chance related to the Macon Gillespies?” Auntie Eudie inquired, ignoring the unpleasantness brewing around her.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I thought you were going out with Blythe Landreth,” Cormac said to Jeff as Roark launched into a diatribe about respecting one’s elders.