by Dorien Grey
“Do you want to?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, sure,” Craig admitted, still hesitant.
“Then…?”
Needing no further prodding, Craig got up immediately and hurried after the group, who were just walking out the door.
“Jonathan Quinlan, boy Yenta,” I said with a smile.
“What’s a Yenta?” Joshua asked.
*
We took Craig home, then stopped at a pay phone to call T/T and let him know we were on our way.
He was waiting in front of the hotel as we pulled up, his suitcases by his side, but no garment bags or hatboxes. I got out of the car to open the trunk, while Jonathan changed to the back seat with Joshua—stopping in transit to exchange a greeting and quick bear hug with T/T, who got in front. He immediately turned around in his seat to greet Joshua.
“I do declare, Jonathan, this must be the handsomest boy-chile God ever put breath into! What’s your name, chile?” he asked, though of course he already knew and just wanted to engage Joshua directly.
“Joshua,” the boy said, wide-eyed. He had been staring intently at T/T since we drove up. I realized he may well never have seen a black man up so close—Jonathan had said once that his hometown in northern Wisconsin had no black families, and there were no black children at Joshua’s day care.
T/T twisted around to extend one large hand into the back seat. “Well, Joshua, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Joshua, of course, was delighted by the attention, and at only a little urging from Jonathan leaned forward to take and shake T/T’s hand.
T/T opened his eyes wide. “Why, chile, with a grip like that I’ll just bet you’re goin’ t’ be a football player when you grow up!”
“I’m going to be a fireman and a cowboy when I grow up,” Joshua announced with the total surety of a four-year-old.
“Well, if my ranch ever catches on fire, you’ll be the first one I’ll call,” T/T. said, grinning.
I’d managed to follow the conversation as I put T/T’s bag in the trunk, and when I climbed back into the driver’s seat, T/T turned his attention to me.
“Could you be a real lamb and swing by Steamroller so’s I can pick up my other bags?” he asked. “I meant to go over this mornin’, but I slept in. When you get to be my age, you need all the beauty rest you can get.”
“Come on, Teddy, you’re not a day over twenty-five,” I said.
He reached over to pat me on the leg, then turned to look at Jonathan. “Honey, you ever get tired of this man, you call me right away, hear?”
Jonathan grinned. “Fat chance,” he said, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”
*
We picked up T/T’s garment bags and hatboxes at Steamroller Junction, and headed for the airport. The trip was uneventful, much of it taken up with Joshua, with T/T’s encouragement, regaling T/T with his adventures, real and imagined.
We arrived in plenty of time, and found a parking place not too far from the terminal. T/T and I took the garment bags and suitcases, while Jonathan carried one of the hatboxes and held Joshua’s hand until we got into the terminal. Joshua had insisted on “helping” and with T/T’s approval, was given the lightest of the hatboxes, neither one of which was very heavy.
“You know, Dick,” T/T said as we walked behind Jonathan and Joshua toward the terminal, “I’ve been thinking of that nice white lady’s name, and it just won’t come to me.” He sighed. “Well, they say the mind’s the first thing to go…”
“That’s okay, Teddy,” I said. “If it comes to you, just let me know the minute it does.”
“Well, then, honey, expect a call some mornin’ around three a.m. That’s when I usually wake up rememberin’ somethin’.”
T/T’s plane was late, so he insisted on taking us—well, primarily Joshua—to the snack bar for ice cream, thus moving himself up several places on the list of Joshua’s favorite people. When we’d finished, T/T suggested we head for home rather than sit around and wait, but we had nothing better to do, and Joshua was, as always, enthralled with the planes.
We stood at the windows, talking—Joshua taking great care to call our attention, with undiminished enthusiasm, to every landing and takeoff in his line of vision.
After half an hour, T/T’s plane pulled up to the gate, and we watched as the plane emptied, and then waited until they announced boarding. T/T gave us all a big hug, including Joshua. Then, with promises to keep in touch, he walked down the passageway and was gone.
Joshua insisted we wait until the plane was backed from the gate and began taxiing to the runway. “Bye, Teddy!” he said, waving in the certainty that T/T was watching him and waving back.
When the plane disappeared around the corner of the terminal, we convinced Joshua it was time to go, and we headed home.
*
While the weekend had given me a most welcome respite, the minute I woke up Monday morning, my mind shifted back into gear. As I sat at my desk doing the crossword puzzle, I was thinking of Evan Knight and what I was going to do—or be able to do, for that matter—about him. While the threat of being exposed for stealing another man’s work might possibly be a motive for murder, I found it a bit of a stretch. From everything I knew of Morgan, writing was an intensely private thing. Not even Scot McVickers, apparently, had ever read his writing.
What struck me as really weird was this oddly strong…connection…I felt with Morgan Butler. Where it came from or why, I had no idea. Our lives couldn’t have been more different, and maybe that was a part of it. The more I learned about him, the more empathy I felt for the guy. Having been gay all my life, I couldn’t comprehend what it must be like to live trapped in a closet, when all you had to do was turn the knob. But I wasn’t Morgan Butler.
On the one hand, it was clear that although Morgan was so securely imprisoned in his closet he probably never could have found his way out, much as he wanted to, I could easily see that his writing—particularly his books—would provide a form of escape. I realized I was doing an awful lot of speculation with little to really go on, but there was something about Morgan Butler I instinctively identified with. Don’t ask me what, but I felt I really knew this guy.
To me, anyone who kept carbon copies of handwritten letters felt a strong need to leave written evidence that he had lived. So, again, to me it was logical for him to keep a copy of his letters—even handwritten ones; once a letter without a copy leaves the writer’s hand it is, unless the recipient decides to keep it for some reason, for all intents and purposes, lost. But by making a copy, Morgan could be assured his words would also stay where he could preserve them—which was obviously his intent in leaving them to the Burrows. I clearly saw it as a somehow sad but understandable bid for immortality. He had his son, of course, but I don’t think that was the kind of posterity Morgan really wanted.
I’ve always suspected that for many writers, books are a more sure form of posterity than children. Books live longer than sons or grandsons, or great-grandsons, by which time all personal memories of the line’s founder are largely lost. But words can last forever and are a direct and personal link to the writer.
Then why did I think Morgan hadn’t made copies of his books? Well, for one thing, writing in a spiral notebook would have made making copies pretty cumbersome, unless he tore out every other page, and there was no evidence of that…only the last notebook of the second manuscript appeared to have had any pages missing. And since Morgan’s last note to Scot had been on spiral notebook paper, I’d bet it was torn from the unfinished book.
So fucking sad! my mind said, but I forced myself not to pursue the thought any further.
Maybe, again, I was projecting way too much of myself into him, but it struck me that Morgan also may well not have made copies because he really didn’t need to; he had no intention of their leaving his possession while he was alive. Letters are by their very nature intended for someone else to read. I didn’t think Morgan ever intended for anyone else to see his books…at least not
in his lifetime. He probably felt they revealed far too much of a side of his life he had to keep hidden. And I felt sure that if he would have shared his books with anyone on earth, it would have been with Scot. But from what Wayne Powers had indicated, apparently he had not.
I thought again how sad it was that people have to hide part of themselves even from the people they truly love. Even Morgan’s letters to Scot were largely guarded.
No, if I was right, his books were his way—the only way he felt he had—to set his soul free…and he wouldn’t even allow that to happen until after he was dead. I’m sure he took comfort in knowing they would be there long after his death. And perhaps he harbored a hope that they might eventually be published.
So, again, there were probably no copies of his books. The originals were enough. But now they were gone.
Then why would Evan Knight go to the trouble of killing Taylor Cates or anyone if he had the only copy of the book(s) in his possession? And if I were him, I’d have destroyed the original immediately after copying it. Evan may have been a bottom feeder, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew Morgan made copies of his handwritten letters. If the other manuscripts—and there was no doubt in my mind that there were other manuscripts—were also written in spiral notebooks he may very well have assumed, as I did, that making a copy would be next to impossible. But he couldn’t know for sure. And neither, I knew, could I.
Even if Morgan had made copies, that Taylor Cates may somehow have found them struck me as nearly impossible: Evan had access to the entire collection long before Taylor came along. And Taylor was only working with the materials brought over from the Burrows estate. Evan had undoubtedly taken the time to remove the bulk of Morgan’s letters to Scot—and with them any overt clue of Morgan’s being gay. Surely he would also have taken the time to check for copies of the manuscripts.
But if there were, despite all my neat conjectures, by any possibility, copies of Morgan’s books, there was only one person who might know where they were: Collin Butler, Morgan’s son. And if Collin had read them, it probably wouldn’t take him long to have figured out his dads’s secrets.
I was increasingly tempted to try to contact Collin Butler to resolve the question, but I was more than a little hesitant to do so. I understood Collin was, like his grandfather before him, a rabid homophobe, and I do not suffer homophobes gladly. I wondered again just how much Collin Butler knew about his father. And I wondered, too, just what Collin thought of the father who had in effect abandoned him when he was no older than Joshua is now. Did he have any idea what drove Morgan to it? How could he?
Still, if I was to figure out what Taylor Cates could have known or found out to have Evan Knight kill him, I couldn’t overlook the possibility, however remote, of there being copies of the manuscripts, and that Taylor somehow found out about them.
*
As so often happens, my dilemma about whether or not to contact Collin Butler was resolved by the ringing of the telephone, which, since I’d been so immersed in my thoughts, startled the hell out of me.
“Hardesty Investigations.”
“Dick, Darlin’, it’s Teddy.”
I was totally surprised, but pleasantly so, to hear from him. “Teddy! You made it back safe and sound, obviously.”
“That I did, sugar. Like I told you, I do my best rememberin’ when I’m asleep, and sure enough, I dozed off on the plane, and when I woke up I remembered the name of that nice white lady who helped Taylor get his scholarship. Her name was Gretchen Butler, an’ she lived in a big ol’ house on Crescent Drive. I still can’t think of her grandson’s name, though, but as soon as I do I’ll call and tell you.”
He didn’t have to. I knew the name already. “His name’s Collin,” I said.
CHAPTER 10
I managed to get through the rest of the conversation with Teddy, who seemed duly impressed with my detecting skills, and confirmed that the grandson’s name was indeed Collin, though my mind was of course off at a full gallop in several directions at once. We hung up after a mutual exchange of affection and good wishes and shared pleasure at having had the chance to get together.
The minute I hung up the phone, I reached for the phone book. And there it was: Butler, Collin, 7273 Crescent Drive. He apparently still lived in his grandmother’s house, and I briefly wondered if she were by any chance still alive.
I dialed the number and waited, not having a clue as to what I was going to say if he were actually there. But I was pretty good at winging it, and I was too impatient to sit down and write out a list of questions first.
“Butler residence,” a woman’s voice—too young-sounding to be the grandmother—the wife?…the maid?…answered.
“Is Collin Butler in?”
“No, I’m sorry, he’s not. May I take a message?”
I had no idea who I was talking to, but I guess it didn’t matter at the moment. “Yes, if you would,” I said. “My name is Dick Hardesty, and I’m with Hardesty Investigations.” I gave her my number and asked if she would ask him to return the call.
“I’ll do that, Mr. Hardesty,” she said, and we exchanged good-byes and hung up.
There’s nothing so intriguing as a newly opened can of worms, and to have learned that Taylor Cates knew the Butler family merely reconfirmed my suspicion that Taylor had somehow made a link between Morgan Butler and Evan Knight. I still had no idea exactly what the link might be, but perhaps Collin Butler just might be able to provide a significant piece of the puzzle.
*
I hung around the office a little later than normal in case he might return my call, but he didn’t, so I headed home. Jonathan was planning to stop by the photographer’s to pick up the proofs on his way home, and I’d volunteered to stop at the store to pick up a few things, including a jumbo box of Crunchy-Os, Joshua’s current cereal of choice. Either it was a very big box with very little cereal in it, or the kid was packing it away like a truck driver…the last box we’d gotten had lasted less than a week.
I beat them home by only five minutes or so, just long enough to put most of the stuff away and fix my Manhattan. When I heard the door open, I pulled out Jonathan’s Coke and I poured a small glass of Kool-Aid for Joshua.
Jonathan’s enthusiasm over the pictures had rubbed off on Joshua, who insisted we sit down and look at them immediately after our group hug. There were about twenty-four shots in all—about eight each of the three of us in casual and less-casual clothes, and another eight of Joshua alone. I always hate seeing pictures of myself, but I had to admit these were pretty good. We’d decided we’d get an 11x14 of the three of us, another 11x14 of Joshua dressed up, two 8x10s (one for Jonathan’s dad—Joshua’s grandfather—and one for us) and a dozen wallet-size of one of Joshua in his regular clothes, half of them for sending to relatives in Wisconsin. Of course I made the mistake of asking which one of himself Joshua liked best. “All of them!” he said. Let’s face it, the kid’s a ham.
*
I brought the box with Morgan’s letters to work Tuesday, intending to swing by Wayne Powers’ place after work. I’d called him the night before to verify that he’d be home, and after my morning coffee/paper/crossword ritual, I couldn’t resist the temptation to pull them out and read them one more time, to see if there might have been anything I’d missed. Each time I read them, Morgan became more real to me, and the more strongly I felt his situation. He clearly knew, I think, that he was doomed: a life sentence of self-imprisonment in his closet with no chance for parole. Yet the door was locked from the inside and I could tell he knew it. God, I felt for the guy. And my empathy was mixed with not a little anger. Just open the damned door, fer chrissakes! my mind all but yelled at him across the years. But he couldn’t, and we both knew it.
Sigh.
I couldn’t be quite certain if, with each reading, I was getting better at reading between the lines or if I was just subconsciously putting in things I wanted to be there, but I really didn’t think it would be too difficult
for anyone with an ounce of savvy to see Morgan’s love for Scot.
I looked closely for other instances, similar to the lady-in-the-fog incident, that I could tie directly to one of his…excuse me, one of Evan Knight’s…books. But I couldn’t. I determined to go back and read all the books again, carefully, to see if anything rang a bell from the letters. I was sure Wayne Powers would give me access to the letters again if I needed to check anything specific.
Just as I was finishing the last of the letters, the phone rang.
“Hardesty Investigations.”
“Dick Hardesty?” the male voice asked.
“Yes,” I said, hoping this might be the call I was waiting for. “Can I help you?”
“This is Collin Butler.” Four words crammed with no-nonsense. “You called my home yesterday. My attorney had mentioned you.”
“Yes, I did, Mr. Butler,” I began. “I was…”
“What is it you want?” he asked.
Well let me finish a sentence and maybe you’ll find out, I thought. Oh, well…I recognized a good-offense-is-the-best-defense ploy when I heard one.
“I understand you knew a Taylor Cates,” I said.
“Well, you understand wrong,” he said. “I’ve never heard of him. What has any of this to do with me?”
“Actually, this might go back a few years,” I said. “Taylor’s mother worked for your grandmother at your home on Crescent Drive. I understood that you knew him at that time.”
There was a slight pause then. “Taylor Cates. Negro. Yes, I remember him now. And it’s been more than ‘a few’ years. He was one of grandmother’s projects.”
“Projects?” I asked.
“Yes. Grandmother became an unregenerate liberal after the death of my grandfather, always taking on lost causes, helping the ‘downtrodden.’ Wasting both her time and her money on ingrates.”
“So, how was Taylor a ‘project’?” I asked.
“Taylor’s mother was Grandmother’s cleaning woman, and he was constantly here with his mother. While she worked, he read. We have an extensive library, thanks largely to my late grandfather, and Taylor read everything he could get his hands on. All with Grandmother’s approval and encouragement. She even let him wander around in our attic where there were even more books.”
