Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas

by Lanyon, Josh

  “You’re right. They’re not.”

  “They’re not?” Although Austin had just said so, he lifted the bottle, scrutinizing it closely in the dappled sunlight. “How do you know?”

  “Because none of the vintage wines Dominic Williams sold Dermot were the real thing.”

  “According to whom?”

  “According to Henrietta Williams, his wife and partner in crime.”

  “Wine fraud?” Austin stared down at the dark bottle, the mysterious liquid sloshing inside it. It was a letdown, no doubt about it, but definitely less of a letdown because Jeff had taken the time and trouble to break the news himself. “Crap. So what’s in here?”

  “Hundred-year-old Madeira. The booze is real enough. It just didn’t belong to Robert E. Lee. The bottle was doctored to make it look like it came from Lee’s cellar.”

  “So all that vintage wine is counterfeit?”

  “Anything supplied by Dom Williams is counterfeit.”

  Austin stared, perplexed. “You seem awfully pleased about it.”

  “I wouldn’t say pleased, but I’m certainly glad that the Martyn, North, & Compeau representative who vouched for all that vintage wine being the real deal was some woman named Theresa Bloch and not you.”

  At last Austin said faintly, “Theresa authenticated the cellar—the entire cellar?” Appraised and authenticated in the space of a few weeks? What had been the rush? Had she been in such a hurry to establish her position following Austin’s departure?

  Jeff was nodding. “I thought you’d enjoy that.”

  “I don’t know about enjoy. There but for the grace of God, if you know what I mean.”

  “Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing these last few weeks. Working with the sheriffs to uncover Dom’s partner in his counterfeiting scheme. It turned out to be Henry all along. We cracked the case the day before yesterday.” He added, “Or I’d have been here sooner.”

  Austin found it hard to look away from that bright green gaze. When Jeff looked at him that way, he couldn’t help thinking maybe everything was going to be okay. “Who killed Williams? His wife?”

  “Bingo. She claims it was an accident, but it’s hard to accidentally hit someone over the head with a bottle of Madeira.”

  “She used—” Austin stared at the bottle in his hand.

  Jeff gave an abrupt laugh. “Different bottle. She broke the one she used. It turns out Faulkner cleared it up.”

  “Hold on,” Austin said. “I’m getting confused. Henrietta killed her husband. Why? And why did she hire you to find him in that case?”

  “Henry hired me to throw suspicion off herself once Dom’s death was discovered. As for why she killed him, well, I have a suspicion that had to do with jealousy over Carson, but Henry’s not talking on that point. She claims it was an accident, but everyone knows she had a terrible temper and was jealous as hell. What she does admit is that when she and Dom heard there was going to be an appraisal of the Cashels’ cellar by such a noted expert, they panicked and went to the house, trying to recover the Lee bottles as the most likely counterfeit to fail close inspection. At some point they quarreled, and Henry whacked her husband over the head. Then she panicked and fled.”

  “And Faulkner covered for her?”

  “Faulkner covered for Tyrone, who he believed had killed Dom.”

  “I’m lost. Where does Tyrone fit in?”

  “It would be nice to ask him one of these days, but he split the afternoon he was helping y’all with the appraisal and hasn’t been seen since. From what we can get out of Faulkner, it sounds like Tyrone had either figured out the wine fraud or was hoping to lift a couple of vintage bottles to sell. We think he must have seen Henrietta conk Dom, because Faulkner saw him bury the remaining Lee bottles beneath the cherry trees. I guess Tyrone was planning to dig them up again once things cooled down, but when it looked like he might end up taking the rap for murder, he skipped.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “You can believe it,” Jeff said. “It’s taken us three weeks to put together the evidence to charge Henrietta.”

  Austin stared down at the bottle.

  “And that’s why you’re here? To tell me how it all worked out?”

  “I’m here,” Jeff said, “because you never came back, and I’m not about to let this…this relationship go without a fight.”

  Relationship, not affair. That sounded great, but what did it really mean? Had anything really changed between them?

  Austin turned the bottle over absently, thinking.

  Jeff said suddenly, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because he had trouble talking about his feelings, he didn’t care.”

  “Who?”

  “Your daddy.”

  “He made his living talking about his feelings.”

  “About big political issues. It’s not the same thing. You’re good at putting your thoughts and your feelings into words. Not everyone is.” Was Jeff still talking about Harrison, or was he talking about himself?

  Austin was still thinking it over, warning himself not to assume, when Jeff said calmly, “When my daddy found out I was gay, he shot himself.”

  Austin nearly dropped the bottle of Madeira. “What?”

  Jeff smiled faintly—presumably at Austin’s patent horror and not his own remembrance. “I’m not saying he didn’t have some other…issues. He’d tried to kill himself once before. He battled with depression a lot of his life. That’s another thing we don’t have in the South. Southern gentlemen do not get depressed.”

  Reading Austin’s expression, Jeff said, “I’m not trying to blame my dear old daddy for all my hang-ups. The truth is, I was happy enough with the way things were until you came along. I’d given up all those dreams and ideals I’d had in college, and I was doing fine. I thought. Then you showed up.”

  It was impossible to read his profile.

  Jeff expelled a long breath and said, “You were right. About all of it. Mostly, I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling—didn’t believe it could be true—and I guess a part of me thought that if I could make you acknowledge… Hell. I don’t know what I wanted. I was safe before you came along.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I realize that being safe isn’t the same as being happy. And that it’s hard to be happy without love. And if I let fear keep me from loving someone like you…” Jeff’s voice strengthened. “Which is funny, because I never thought I was one for settling down. I’ve hardly known you any time at all, but this last month I’ve missed you like I’ve never missed anyone in my life. I knew when you didn’t call after the second week that you probably weren’t going to, and I could go back to the way things were and nobody would be any the wiser. You know what? It didn’t feel safe. It felt lonely. I miss you all the time.” Jeff’s voice sounded strained. “I don’t know why you didn’t give up in the first five minutes, Austin, but since you didn’t, I’m going to ask you to give me another chance. This time I won’t let you down.”

  Austin’s heart jumped. He said very carefully, “What exactly are you saying? What are you asking?”

  “I’m saying that together we can work this out.” Jeff’s smile was wry, but the depth of feeling in his eyes was something Austin had all but given up on ever seeing. “I don’t know how we’ll do that, but I know I want to try. And I hope you still do too. I don’t know if that means me moving here or you moving there or us finding someplace midway. I don’t know. I just know…I can’t lose you now.”

  Austin looked down at the bottle he was holding. “Is this evidence in a court case?”

  “Yeah, well, this piece of evidence was conveniently lost. I thought you might want to drown your sorrows or…”

  “Or?”

  “Toast to a new beginning.”

  Austin nodded gravely. “Kind of a BYOB proposal?”

  “Yep.” Jeff’s gaze never wavered.

  Austin held up the bottle. “How do we get it open?”

/>   Jeff pulled out a Swiss Army Knife with a corkscrew. He opened the bottle and handed it to Austin. “It might be vinegar, you know. It might be… What do you call it? Corked. I probably wouldn’t know the difference, but you will.”

  Austin grinned. “If it’s vinegar, we’ll have a really terrific salad.”

  “If you say so. Just don’t…send it back.”

  Austin took the bottle, swirled it gently to release the rich, earthy bouquet: nutty and sweet in the spring afternoon. He took the first sip and handed the bottle to Jeff, leaning forward, smiling into his eyes. “Naw. I know my wines. This is an excellent vintage.”

  Blood Red Butterfly

  Chapter One

  “Bad news,” Hernandez said. “Your homicide suspect’s alibi just turned up.”

  “No way.” Ryo grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at the fleck of mustard on his navy silk tie. He shot Hernandez a look in the mirror over the bank of sinks in the john. “You’re kidding me.”

  Hernandez shook his head. He was not a kidder.

  “No. Way.” Now Ryo was angry. Still watching Hernandez in the mirror, he scrubbed ferociously at his tie. “Torres is not walking away from this. He popped the Martinez woman and he’s going down for it. And no little chiquita—”

  Hernandez’ sour grin stopped him. “The alibi is male.”

  “Male?” Ryo stopped rubbing his tie. “You mean…?”

  “I mean you might even know him.” This was not a dig. Hernandez had been Ryo’s partner for a couple of years back when they were both street cops, and he knew a thing or two about Ryo’s personal life that Ryo didn’t generally share. “Might be something you can use. I don’t think the Sotels are an equal opportunity employer, you know what I mean?”

  Yeah, Ryo knew what he meant. As badly as he wanted Torres, he wasn’t sure he liked that idea. He’d prefer to break Torres’ alibi, which should be easy enough to do because Torres had murdered that old woman in cold blood. Nothing and nobody was going to convince Ryo otherwise. “You believe this punk’s credible?”

  Hernandez shrugged. “Torres used his one phone call to get this guy over here. See what you think. He’s sitting at your desk biting his nails as we speak.”

  Ryo curled his lip, double-checking he didn’t have a piece of lettuce between his teeth. He ignored the derisive sound Hernandez made. It wasn’t about looking good, though Ryo knew he looked good—on a scale of Asian Hawtness, Russell Wong to Dean Cain, he fell comfortably in the middle of Yeah Baby!—it was about conveying bulletproof confidence and unassailable assurance. Attitude. It was half the game.

  He straightened his tie. “I don’t think this is going to take long.”

  Hernandez cocked and eyebrow and said nothing.

  The punk was still sitting in front of Ryo’s desk, though he had stopped biting his nails. Ryo had a quick impression of a slight and slouching boyish figure clad in jeans, a pair of chucks, and a gray hoodie. Across the noisy bullpen someone slammed a file drawer and the kid flinched. Ryo smiled inwardly. Yeah, he’d smash this bogus alibi in less than twenty minutes and get back to building his slam dunk case against Mickey Torres. And this time Torres would not be getting off lightly because of his tender age and deprived childhood. This time he was going away forever. Or what counted as forever in the screwed up Los Angeles County judicial system.

  The punk raised his head and Ryo almost walked into a chair. A pale, pointed, delicately-boned face, chestnut hair, wide light eyes like a faun—assuming a faun was what Ryo thought it was.

  The Ice Princess.

  No fucking way.

  Mickey Torres’ alibi was the same guy who had three times blown off Ryo at Fubar, a gay club he used to frequent. In fact, the Ice Princess was the main reason Ryo had quit going to Fubar. A guy could only take so much rejection.

  So this little stuck-up femme dude had cold-shouldered Ryo, but was willing to offer his bony ass to Mickey Torres? Willing to supply gang banger Mickey Torres with an alibi for homicide?

  Ryo smiled unpleasantly, noisily dragging his chair out from behind his desk. “I’m Detective Miller. You have information for me Mr.…?”

  The Ice Princess jerked straight. His face went whiter, his eyes went wider, but there was no recognition in his turquoise eyes. Just fear. Maybe the fear a lot of honest citizens seemed to feel dealing with the law. Maybe the fear of someone about to perjure himself to the police.

  “Tashiro. Kai Tashiro.” His voice was light and husky. A young voice. A young man. But not as young as Ryo had originally thought. Probably in his mid-twenties. Twenty-three or twenty-four.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Tashiro?” Tashiro looked about as Japanese as the big-eyed androgynous figures in the manga Ryo’s little nieces loved so much. A poser. It was another point against him, though Ryo knew that wasn’t fair.

  Murder wasn’t fair.

  “I got a call from a fr—Mickey Torres. He said he’d been arrested and he needed me to—” a nervous swallow, “verify where he was three nights ago.”

  Ryo opened the long desk drawer, removed a file, and slammed the drawer closed, harder than he had to. Tashiro gave another one of those little jumps. Ryo opened the file, read for a moment, and then studied the man on the other side of his desk.

  “Did Torres tell you what he was arrested for?”

  “Homicide.” Tashiro’s voice was almost inaudible.

  “That’s right.” Ryo shoved the file with the Martinez crime scene photos across the desk. “He killed a seventy-year-old woman by the name of Esther Martinez. Take a look at what he did to her. Take a good look.”

  Tashiro looked—he couldn’t avoid it—and closed his eyes. He opened them almost at once. “Mickey didn’t do that.”

  “Yep, he sure did. He strangled her and then, for good measure—and because he’s a fucking animal with no conscience or self-control—he beat her head in.” Ryo kept his tone cool and cordial; hoping nobody at the surrounding desks was listening too closely.

  Tashiro gave a shake of his head. “He was with me, Detective Miller.”

  Ryo took the file back. He considered his strategy. There were a couple of ways to play this. He hadn’t missed Tashiro’s hesitation using the word “friend” in regard to Torres.

  “Okay,” he said easily. “He was with you. From when to when exactly?”

  Tashiro was still wearing the hood of his sweatshirt. It gave him a strangely monkish look. “From about eleven thirty to seven thirty the next morning.”

  “About eleven thirty? So is that eleven fifteen, eleven twenty, a quarter to twelve? You’re going to have to be precise about the time when you stand up in court and swear to it in front of a jury.”

  Tashiro’s eyes flickered, but he said, “When we left the bar, the clock on my car dashboard said eleven twenty-eight.”

  “And what bar was that?” Ryo pulled out his notebook and jotted down the times.

  “Fubar.”

  “Fubar. Hmm. I think I’ve heard of it. Where’s that located, exactly?”

  “Santa Monica Boulevard.”

  “That’s a gay bar, right?”

  Tashiro nodded, not meeting his eyes.

  Ryo put his pencil down. “Do you really not recognize me?”

  Tashiro looked across and his eyes went wider still. “Huh?”

  Ryo picked up his pencil. Made a sharp notation. “So you and Torres leave Fubar together at eleven twenty-eight on Tuesday night. Then what happens?”

  “We drive—drove—to my place.”

  “Which is where?”

  “14159 Armacost Ave.”

  Ryo grunted. “Nice.” Very nice. Half a million nice. What the hell had the neighbors made of street scum Mickey Torres? And what the hell did Kai Tashiro do for a living that he could afford that kind of prime real estate? Nothing legal probably. “Then, what? You guys sat around and played checkers all night?”

  Tashiro turned a shade of pink that would require some serious crosshatching in manga. �
��No. We had another drink and then we…went to bed.”

  “Went to bed? Yeah? Did you watch Letterman? Eat animal crackers? Tell spooky stories? I bet Torres has a few of those. Has he shared with you how he wound up in prison the first time?”

  Tashiro shook his head. “We…had sex.”

  “I didn’t catch that.”

  “We had sex.”

  “You fucked. Is that what you mean?”

  Tashiro’s look was murderous. Ryo smiled. He had a very white and charming smile, and he knew how to use it for maximum annoyance. “So you’re gay?”

  “Obviously.”

  “No, no. We try not to make insensitive assumptions on the police force. So you’re gay and I guess Torres is gay?”

  “I…”

  “That news is going to cause quite a stir with the home boys. Homosexuality is not popular with Torres’ gang. And I use the word gang deliberately.”

  “Is that it?” Tashiro demanded. “Are we done? Mickey was with me. I’ll swear to it in court if I have to. Can I go?”

  “You don’t want to wait around for Torres to be released?”

  Tashiro’s brows drew together in confusion that was at least partly dismay.

  “I’m kidding you,” Ryo said. “It’ll be hours before he’s out. Lots of paperwork involved. In the meantime, we need to get a little more background on you, Kai.”

  Chapter Two

  His name was Kai Tashiro; he was twenty-four, single, gay, and self-employed as an illustrator.

  “Huh. What do you illustrate?” Ryo asked, momentarily distracted.

  “Books.” Tashiro was terse.

  “What kind of books?”

  “How is that relevant?”

  Ryo was very polite. “To what?”

  “To your case!”

  “It’s hard to know. I’m still building my case. Everything could be relevant.” Ryo paused. “Or nothing.”

  Tashiro gritted his jaw. Ryo repressed a smirk and went back to making notes.

  Tashiro lived in a stylish, luxury condo, drove a Tesla Roadster, and claimed to possess a sizable trust fund. No wants, warrants, or priors.