by Jade Astor
“He and his fiancée had already broken up weeks ago, I heard. He would have been over the worst. He was free. He could start over. He could have found another job.”
“He did tell me he was ready to leave Birchwood. But starting over might not have been an option. After all, if he killed Timothy…”
Patricia and Jake, who was clearly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, exchanged a glance. Finally Jake spoke. “That’s the thing. We don’t believe he did.”
“Jake’s right. We think it was someone else.”
“You do? Who?”
“The same person who killed Aaron.” Patricia leaned over her plate toward Darian, her eyes wide with excitement. “Everett Finch.”
“What!” To hide his shock, Darian picked up his wine and gulped some down. “Everett?”
“We know you’re friends with him. But we think Timothy was having an affair with him, too. I saw things on campus. Just little glances in the hall. Timothy leaving Everett’s office with a big grin on his face, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t. And Jake saw them walk past the restaurant together. They were going to the coffee house down the street.”
“That doesn’t prove anything. Everett was his teacher. It could have been perfectly innocent mentoring.”
“Not in and of itself. But there could have been more to it. Maybe Timothy threatened to get Everett in trouble. Everett might have decided to silence him.”
“You’re suggesting Everett has a violent streak. I’ve never seen any suggestion of that.”
“You might be surprised. One time, a couple of years ago, he had the flu and I offered to drop some schoolwork off at his house. When I walked in, I saw a magazine sticking out of the mail piled up on his desk. It was…you know…young men tied up. Wearing leather straps and masks. And not much more. ”
“I…uh…see. Well, I admit that I’m surprised, too. But a lot of people look at stuff like that. They find it titillating.”
“Do you?” Patricia asked bluntly.
Darian fought back a blush. “Well, no. I admit I don’t. But it’s not illegal or even uncommon. Otherwise those kinds of photos wouldn’t exist in the first place.”
“All I’m saying is that there might be a side of Everett we don’t want to think about.”
“Which is true of most people,” Jake added.
Patricia nodded eagerly. “So this is what I’m thinking. Everett has an affair with Timothy—unpleasant to think about, I know—and Timothy threatens to tell Jeanette. Everett lures him down to the pond promising an assignation, and pushes him in.”
Jake picked up the story from there. Darian suspected they had rehearsed this. “What he didn’t realize was that Timothy had told Aaron Macklin about his relationship with Everett. Aaron and Timothy were sharing secrets. Uh…among other things.” He faltered and reddened. Patricia cleared her throat, an obvious signal for him to continue. “So anyway, Aaron threatens to accuse Everett publicly of Timothy’s murder, or maybe blackmail him, and Everett decides to shut him up. He’s complained to Patricia in the past about insomnia. It’s not too farfetched to think he might have a prescription or two on hand. Everett shows up at Aaron’s house to make the drop and forces him to take the pills. He stages the suicide and leaves, then pretends to find the body later.”
Darian listened with a neutral expression. “That’s quite a theory. But it’s got some holes, right? Why didn’t Aaron just go to the police with what he knew? Why blackmail Everett? And how could Everett force Aaron to take a handful of sleeping pills? Aaron was much younger and stronger. So was Timothy, for that matter.”
“Well, maybe Everett tricked him into taking them,” Patricia said. She sounded less certain this time.
“Right,” Jake agreed. “It could have happened that way.”
“But Aaron wasn’t stupid. Why would he confront Everett alone if he suspected Everett had already killed Timothy? That happens in movies, right? Not real life.”
They looked disappointed, though not deterred.
“The truth is out there,” Patricia said. “We just have to find it.”
Darian couldn’t argue with that. He decided not to tell them about the slip of paper with Aaron’s handwriting on it. As far as he was concerned, that was hardly evidence at all. And what Patricia and Jake were suggesting wasn’t impossible, even if it seemed highly unlikely.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the table.
“How about some cheesecake?” Jake finally asked.
After dinner, Darian drove home through what had become a pounding torrent of rain, his mind churning through a whole new tangle of facts and theories. Everett, a cold-blooded double murderer? Impossible—though the tidbit about the magazine did make him wonder if he knew Everett as well as he thought he did. He needed to tell Argo, but he worried that doing so might lead to the end of his friendship with Everett.
The hint of tension between Patricia and Jake surprised him, too. He supposed Jake probably did spend long hours on the job, starting just before the lunch rush and going long into the evening. Patricia probably had to entertain herself here or hang around his other kitchen, sharing him with his employees and patrons. No doubt Jake’s passion for his business caused some strain in their relationship, despite Patricia’s efforts to portray their marriage as nearly perfect. Her near-constant chatter in the faculty lounge about Jake’s attentiveness and culinary genius now took on a slightly different patina.
Was it possible Patricia and Jake had been unfaithful to one another? Timothy and his family had eaten at Jake’s restaurant—had Jake and Timothy discovered a forbidden attraction?
Or was Timothy open to experimenting with an older woman? Was Patricia’s eagerness to solve the case and send Everett up the river just a smoke screen for her own involvement—or her husband’s?
When he got right to it, Everett wasn’t the only colleague he really didn’t know too much about. As friendly as they seemed, any of them could be hiding dark secrets.
His next surprise came when Argo’s SUV came splashing down the half-flooded road and pulled into his driveway right behind him. He waited in the driver’s seat while Argo got out and walked up to his window wearing a bright yellow rain slicker.
“Are you going to ask for my license and registration?” he quipped when he rolled down the window.
“I need to tell you something.” Argo’s rain-streaked face was grim. “Now. Inside.”
Chapter 14
His hopes for a grand romantic reunion dashed, Darian led the way into his house. Tension followed him up the driveway along with Argo’s plodding boots.
He pointed to the rack beside the front door. “You can leave your coat here.” He decided against suggesting they could strip off the rest of their wet clothes together.
Nodding, Argo shrugged out of his slicker and hung it up. Darian placed his damp jacket beside it. Side by side, the two garments looked so comfortably domestic that he felt an irrational pang of longing.
Without waiting for an invitation, Argo strode into the living room. He stopped short of seating himself in one of the upholstered chairs and instead stood flexing his fingers as if he wanted to make them into fists but couldn’t quite bring himself to.
Darian sighed. “Okay, let’s get this over with. Spill it.”
“I’m warning you right now—this is going to rock your world.”
“Whatever it is, I can handle it. Even if you’re about to tell me you have a wife and thirteen children stashed in a cabin in the woods somewhere. I mean, I’d be ticked off, to say the least, but I’d survive.”
Again Argo hesitated. Bewilderment, along with a spark of fear, flashed through Darian. Argo’s face looked exactly the way it had when Darian told him about that unexpected kiss by the pond. At the time, he’d taken secret pleasure in making Argo jealous. Only a few hours later, Aaron lay dead.
No way. The whole idea was nuts. Argo wouldn’t kill a guy, even if….no. Not for any
reason.
Just the same, he started to calculate a mental timeline.
Finally Argo spoke. His first words didn’t offer much comfort.
“It’s about the deaths of Timothy and Aaron.”
“I’d deduced that much. So go on. Has there been some new development?”
“More like an old development—one over twenty years old, in fact.”
“Aha.” Darian’s shoulders slumped in relief. “You’re talking about Roderick Talbott.”
“Can we sit down?” Argo asked. He motioned toward the sofa. Darian settled himself there, but Argo continued pacing around the room.
“I’m afraid I misled you a bit about that case and its connection to what’s been going on around here. I know I discouraged you from looking into it—made it seem like I didn’t believe it had any relevance to Timothy and Aaron’s deaths. To put it simply, though, I do. I suspected it from the day we fished Timothy out of those damned nasty weeds. I just didn’t want anyone to know. Not even you. And I’m sorry about that.”
“Okay. So that’s your big confession? You’re secretly investigating a cold case?” Darian blinked, giddy with relief.
“No. That’s only part of it. What I need to tell you now is way more difficult. I’ve been pretending all along that Roderick Talbott was a stranger to me, that I had no real knowledge of and no suspicions about his death. That was an outright lie, Darian.”
“You knew Talbott? But you were just a kid then, Argo—a teenager.”
“That’s right. Do you know Roderick Talbott’s full name?”
Darian thought for a moment. He’d seen it on the monument and in the news stories. At the time, he had smiled at the pretentious first initial followed by an unusual middle name, a form common among wealthy men and Anglophile scholars. Neither of those was an endangered species at Birchwood.
“His first initial was A.”
“The A was for Arthur. My real name, too. I was named after him. Darian, Roderick Talbott was my uncle. Or great uncle, If you want to be technical—my grandmother’s brother.”
“He…what? Oh, Argo, I’m so sorry. I never guessed.”
“I know you didn’t.” Argo swallowed hard. “The thing is, we all knew Uncle Rod didn’t die in an accident. And I’ve never believed he committed suicide because he was lusting after his students. At least, I didn’t want to believe it. One of the reasons I fought to get this job was so I could find out what really happened to him.”
“But I don’t get it. Why didn’t you tell me? I was suspicious about Roderick’s death, too. I told you that. You didn’t want to listen.”
“I was just pretending, mostly because I didn’t want you to get involved—either with the case or with me. I’m carrying a lot of baggage here, Darian, way more than you ever imagined.”
Darian was more annoyed than he thought he’d be—probably more than he had a right to be, strictly speaking. He and Argo barely knew each other. Argo owed him nothing. Yet, he would have hoped Argo would have levelled with him about something so important, especially after….
“I could have helped you figure it out,” he said. “Your baggage doesn’t matter to me. I would have helped you carry it.”
“I know that now, but I’ve been struggling with this for a while and it hasn’t gotten any easier to talk about. There was another reason I kept you back from everything, too. You can probably guess.”
“You didn’t want to put me at risk?”
“Exactly. When I heard what happened to Aaron…well, the first thing that went through my mind was that it could have been you. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out what thinking about that did to me. It was all I could do to hold myself together while you were at the station yesterday.”
“But Aaron killed himself out of remorse. You said so yourself.”
“I said it was likely, and at this point that’s the official party line. I have my doubts, though. If you want the truth, I suspect he was murdered. Just like Timothy and my uncle were.”
“Okay.” While he sat there, staring at Argo, Darian felt his body slowly go numb. Knowing that his suspicions had most likely been correct all along gave him no pleasure. Quite the reverse. He felt like his whole world has about to spin off its axis and go hurtling into dark, cold space. “Can I ask why you’re so sure now?”
“I don’t have any strong evidence yet, if that’s what you mean. It’s more of an instinct. For starters, though, Aaron was reeking of alcohol when we found him. I wonder if he would have had the coordination to wrap that plastic around his head as tightly and perfectly as he did. Those layers were precise.”
Darian frowned, recalling Aaron’s behavior when he’d shown up in the Uber. He could barely stand that night, never mind carry out an intricate suicide plan. But then, there was no way of knowing how far in advance he had prepared everything.
“Maybe he had the plastic ready before he hit the bottle. Had to get his courage up, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Argo allowed. “Or maybe someone wrapped his head up for him after he passed out.”
“I feel terrible even saying this, but...” Darian swallowed. “Tonight I was at Jake and Patricia’s house for dinner. Patricia mentioned leftovers, and I started thinking about what Jake must use to store them. Such as big, thick rolls of plastic wrap. Industrial strength.”
Argo nodded. “Thought of that already. I don’t have enough cause for a search warrant, but I sent Cutler over to the restaurant for a takeout lunch, and I made sure he got it sealed up good and tight. Then I took the plastic over to the medical examiner’s office and had them compare it to what was found on Aaron’s body.” He shook his grimly. “Not a match. That doesn’t exonerate the Woodleys, exactly, but it wasn’t a step forward.”
“I’m glad to hear that, anyway. You should also know that they pointed the finger at Everett. Turns out he has a secret collection of kinky magazines that pretty much shocked Patricia right out of her shoes. Frankly, their reasoning seemed flimsy to me.”
“Everett’s a person of interest as far as I’m concerned. For one thing, he knew my uncle. Trouble is, nothing really points to him. The piece of paper we found at the pond was Aaron’s, though he claimed Timothy was alive and well when he lost it. And Everett seemed genuinely rattled when he found Aaron like that. He was close to fainting when he called me.”
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t believe it for a minute. He doesn’t strike me as the violent type at all.”
“Don’t let the fact that he’s your friend distract you. That might be just what he wants to do.” At Darian’s stricken look, Argo relented. “Still, there are a number of other people who worked at Birchwood then and now. Whoever it was, I don’t intend to give that person a crack at another victim—you, for example.”
“I can take care of myself,” Darian protested, though secretly he was more than a little unnerved at the thought of ending up like Aaron. At the same time, he was glad that Argo was worried and committed to his safety, secrecy or not.
“I don’t doubt that. I was just hoping you’d accept a little help in this particular case.”
“Well…it is your job, I suppose.” Darian felt his mouth quirk in a tentative smile, and he saw the same expression loosen Argo’s stern face.
“It’s more than that, and you know it.”
In two quick steps, Argo closed the distance between them and sank down on the couch beside Darian. Powerful arms closed around him, dragging him against Argo’s chest. The kiss they shared was so hard it seemed to bruise Darian’s lips. He didn’t mind at all, though. When they broke apart, he could hear his heart pounding and his blood singing in his ears. He stroked a hand through Argo’s spiky hair and down the back of his neck.
“I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through. I shouldn’t have said half the things I did about Roderick and the way he died. I’m surprised you don’t hate me.”
“I don’t. I’ve struggled with my thoughts about his death for more than half my
life. My uncle was gay, and I knew that from a young age. He knew about me, too—we never really talked about it, though. That wasn’t his way. We just knew. It was like we had this silent bond between us.”
Darian nodded. “I can imagine what it was like. Guys in his generation had a much harder time coming out, even to themselves. You were probably a huge comfort to him. A support system, even if it was unspoken.”
“I wish now we had talked about it.” They were still clinging together when tears appeared in Argo’s eyes. “I loved my uncle. Depended on him, especially after my father died. Then, one day, he was gone. No warning, no explanation. For a while, I hated him for abandoning the family. And me. I needed him. He went and took a coward’s way out. That was how I saw it then.”
Darian felt as if Argo’s pain were coursing through his own body. A knot formed in his throat, too. “It must have been awful.”
“It was. But then, years later, when I started to think like a cop, I realized that what I’d been told might not have been true. I asked myself—what if he was murdered?”
“Do you really think so? I mean, wasn’t there a note?”
Sighing, Argo dropped his arms from Darian’s shoulders and leaned back, wiping his eyes hastily. “Yeah, there was a note. Read one way, it did look like what someone might write before committing suicide—goodbye to everyone, I’ve loved my time here, have to leave all of you now, that kind of thing. But read another, it could just as easily have been a letter he’d written in preparation for retiring from the school. That was how the administration decided to play it off, in fact.”
Darian nodded. “Yes. Jeanette told me.”
“In a strange way, realizing it could have been murder came as a kind of relief. I’d always hoped it wasn’t the way I’d imagined it at first—sordid, seedy, my uncle running away from a disgrace he’d brought upon himself. But it’s also been driving me crazy for two decades. I worked my ass off to get the job here, mostly so I could get close to the evidence and the place where it all happened. There’s barely been a day I haven’t thought about it. And now two more people are dead.”
