“Get on with it,” he snapped. “My time is valuable.”
Valuable indeed, I mused. He seemed to be living from breath to breath.
I asked him, “Do you happen to know if your son used any fragrances other than Vétiver, perhaps an aftershave?”
He looked at me as if I were out of my mind. “How the hell would I—” His answer was interrupted by a coughing jag.
“Mica?” I asked.
She shrugged stupidly.
I returned my attention to her father. “Did Jason date much?”
With a touch of defensiveness, he answered, “Well, yes.”
“And whom did he date?” (There’s nothing quite so off-putting as the pedantic use of the objective case when one intends to seize control of a discussion.)
“There were…lots,” Thrush sputtered. “Jason was an athlete and a scholar. On top of which, he was blessed with rugged good looks. He dated many girls.” With haughty composure, Thrush added, “I daresay Jason had the pick of the crop.”
From behind me, I heard Mica’s tiny dog-pant of a laugh. I also heard Pierce click his pen for some notes.
“What has me stumped,” I told Thrush, scratching behind an ear, “is all these photos. Your son had many friends, obviously, but there are no girls in these pictures. Jason was still young; I thought maybe he hadn’t started dating yet. That’s the only reason I ask.” Actually, the reason I asked was that I’d found his stash of condoms. Clearly, the kid was sexually active. Either that, or he was uncommonly tidy when it came to masturbation.
Thrush wearily explained, “I told you: Jason was an athlete. He counted all his teammates among his friends. The pictures reflect that.”
“That makes sense,” I conceded, striking a question from my notes. Still…what about those condoms? “Can you recall the names of his girlfriends?”
Again that spooky little laugh slipped out of Mica.
Thrush started counting on his fingers, but couldn’t seem to come up with any names. Then something clicked; he tapped his noggin. “Nicole Winkler, that was her name. They were quite thick, you know—quite thick.” He attempted, without success, to twine two fingers as a demonstration of how close they were. “In fact, Nicole was homecoming royalty with Jason at last fall’s big dance. They made a splendid couple—splendid. I’m sure you’ll find the photo here somewhere.”
I’d studied all the photos and seen nothing of Nicole. If Jason ever had such a picture, it was stuck in a drawer, not framed in tribute to a magical evening.
“If you have any doubts,” continued Thrush, “just ask the pretty Miss Winkler. They were truly smitten.”
I made a note of it, but had already observed and concluded that Nicole was “smitten.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask Jason if the feeling was mutual.
“Mr. Thrush,” I said, closing my notebook, “I never knew Jason, and it seems that I still don’t. In the three days since his death, I’ve thought about him a lot, but he’s an enigma to me. How would you describe him to a total stranger? How would you describe your relationship?”
“He was my son,” Thrush reminded me, as if I were dim-witted. “What more need I tell you? He was my only son, the heir to my business. He was to carry on the family name. In recent years, I’ve had little else to live for. I’d hoped to see him through high school, then college, so I could hand over the reins.”
Thrush paused, resting his back against the wall, looking as if he might drop. “As a child,” he continued, letting his vacant eyes drift across the ceiling, “Jason was one of those special boys—everyone loved him, the mere sight of him. When his mother died, he was braver than I was, and he was only six or so. It was a joy, such a joy, to watch him grow out of childhood and approach maturity. There was nothing he couldn’t do or couldn’t conquer.”
Thrush paused again, turning his head against the wall, locking his eyes on mine. “I suppose you know that he viewed your nephew, the Quatrain boy, as his rival. Even though they went to different schools, Jason saw your boy as the only other one who measured up, at least in terms of theater, for whatever that’s worth. Ironic, isn’t it, that this asinine little play should bring them together and pit them against each other, head-to-head. And now, of course, my Jason is dead. He was to be the father of my grandchildren.”
Mica told him, “I can still give you grandchildren, Daddy.”
Thrush shot her a sidelong, wild-eyed glance. The notion of Mica procreating had seemingly never crossed his mind, and he was now aghast (as I was) to consider the grim possibility.
I had no other questions for Thrush, and neither did Pierce, so we thanked him for his cooperation (a diplomatic nicety, baldly insincere) and excused ourselves. Thrush remained in Jason’s room, looking at the empty bed as we stepped into the hall and descended the stairs.
Mica followed us. Pierce and I didn’t speak, feeling uncomfortably tailed.
At the front door, we turned to thank her, but she said nothing. Glancing over her shoulder, she slipped out the door with us and followed us to the street. Her behavior was downright weird—was she drugging? By the time we arrived at my car, I was sufficiently rattled by her presence that I was tempted to jump behind the wheel and floor it. Besides, it was hot. Time to go. But Pierce paused before opening his door and asked Mica, “Do you…need something?”
She looked Pierce in the eye, then me, then Pierce again. Through a slit of a smile, she told him, “Jason didn’t date.”
I was suddenly in no hurry to leave. I asked, “What do you mean, Mica? Your father said he dated lots of girls.”
“Daddy liked to think that, but Jason liked boys.”
I glanced at Pierce with blank surprise. Mica’s assertion was intriguing, to say the least, but I wasn’t sure if I believed it, considering the source.
Pierce asked her, “Jason was gay? What makes you think that?”
“I just know, that’s all. He’d say things; I’d hear things. And despite what Daddy says, Jason couldn’t stand that Nicole bitch—she drove him nuts.”
I asked, “Did Jason have boyfriends?”
“He had sex with boys—quite a few, if that’s what you mean.”
That was precisely what I’d meant. “Anyone in particular? Was there one boy he got together with most often?”
“Was there someone special?” added Pierce.
Mica nodded coyly. “Oh, yes. But he’s not a boy. He’s much older. And he and Jason were on the outs—I could tell. I heard Jason fighting with him on the phone.”
“Who?” Pierce and I asked together.
“Isn’t it obvious?” She panted her anemic little laugh, then turned away from us, walking up the sidewalk to the house. When she got to the door, she stopped and looked back.
With a fey flick of her wrist, she told us, “Have a mah-velous day, gentlemen.”
And she disappeared inside the house.
Shortly before noon, I left the Register to walk the block to Neil’s office. Emerging from the newspaper’s lobby onto First Avenue, I noticed at once that the weather had changed. It was still hot, but the humidity had dropped. The summer sky had turned from white to blue, with a cheery midday sun hanging high overhead. A mild breeze had picked up—a meteorological fillip. For the first time in weeks, it was actually a pleasant day. I didn’t even bother to loosen my tie.
Strolling through the noon rush along Dumont’s main street, I laughed aloud at the contrast between this “urban” scene and the one I had left in Chicago. The big city had ample allure, of course, and there was genuine glamour to the lakefront neighborhoods where I had lived and worked. Still, life in small-town Wisconsin offered its own rewards, and I enjoyed to the fullest Dumont’s quieter pace and simpler pleasures. Was I discovering some deeper meaning to long-held notions of success and growth and ambition? Or was I simply getting old? Even that dreaded question, I noticed wryly, didn’t seem to bother me.
What bothered me, in spite of these blithe musings, was the web of circums
tances surrounding the death of Jason Thrush, a web that grew more tangled every day, a web that threatened another young man whose happiness and future now rested with my ability to protect him from the darker side of life in Dumont, where “reputation” was lifeblood, where gossip could kill.
NEIL M. WAITE, A.I.A. The discreet sign on the storefront snapped my momentary funk and had me grinning like a kid on a date. One of the greatest rewards of my reinvented life on the moraines of Middle America was my ability to amble a few hundred yards at lunchtime, open the door (as I was now doing), and pop in on the only man who mattered.
“Hi,” said Neil, looking up from his worktable. Pocketing a pair of reading glasses, he asked, “How was your morning?”
“It had its moments.” Closing the door behind me, I crossed the small office and met him in a loose embrace. “You look great today, as usual.” I sniffed his neck. “Smell nice too.” Just checking—he had indeed worn his Vétiver, and it was indeed the same fragrance stored in two bottles in Jason’s suite. It was not the fruity scent I’d smelled in the theater or noticed on Jason’s corpse.
Leaning back on his draftsman’s stool, he asked, “Did you go to the Thrush house, as planned?”
“We did,” I assured him, parking my butt on a file cabinet. As I began recounting the visit, I observed Neil’s work space, taking comfort in its tidy permanence.
Neil had decided to move his practice to Dumont only nine months earlier, but he was clearly entrenched here now, and busy as well. Though he ran essentially a one-man shop, he had recently taken on a part-time apprentice, a college student, to help with some of the bigger projects. Today, though, he worked alone in his studio, which had proved to be the perfect use for a handsome old First Avenue storefront that had sat vacant for a few years. Everything was now painted white, with gray trim and nubby charcoal carpeting. New suspended light fixtures gave the space a trendy, postmodern feel. The big display windows on either side of the door were shuttered to eye height, with diagonal stripes of light pouring in between the vanes and from the bare glass above. The floor space was divided equally between its clerical and design functions, with the usual furnishings and equipment for each—desk, basic business computer, file cabinets, conference table, phone, and fax for the office; drafting table, taborets, engineering computer, plotter, flat files, and sample racks for the studio. It was Neil’s domain, and he ruled it well, looking every bit the prosperous local architect in his crisp plaid shirt, knit cotton necktie, and pleated worsted slacks.
He asked, “So Jason’s dad had a monster insurance policy, eh?”
“Ten million.”
“There’s a motive if you need one.” Using a long-handled horsehair brush, he whisked eraser grit from a large floor plan on his drafting table.
“The charming Mica stood to gain as well,” I reminded him. “Daddy’s sick, and she’s now the sole heir. Plus, she’s weird, Neil. She literally lurked.”
Neil laughed. “ ‘Lurked’?”
“I swear to God—peeking from behind curtains, sneaking down the stairs, eavesdropping around corners—she lurked. You’d expect no less from someone who’d vivisected their neighbor’s cat.”
“What?”
I filled Neil in. “Then, when Pierce and I left, Mica skittered out to the car with us and dropped a bombshell.” I grinned, hoping to tantalize Neil, knowing he’d enjoy the next part.
He set a few drafting tools aside. “Well…?”
“Get this: Mica told us that her brother, Jason, didn’t date. I found this unlikely because I’d seen a well-depleted stock of condoms in his bathroom. Then she told us that Jason preferred boys.”
“No way.”
“She said she was certain. I just don’t know whether to believe her.”
“Yow—that would be a whole new angle.”
“But that’s not the half of it. The plot, as they say, thickens. Not only was Jason gay, according to Mica, but he’d also been having an extended affair with someone older, and they were recently on the outs.”
“Another possible motive.”
“Possible,” I agreed. “And here’s the most enticing part: Mica didn’t exactly say it, but she strongly implied that the other man was none other than”—I paused for effect—“Denny Diggins.”
Neil’s jaw dropped. “Good God. It sounds crazy, but it sort of fits. I’ve never been sure, but I assume Denny is gay—”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“—and he obviously likes being around kids, or he wouldn’t have written and directed Teen Play. What’s more, he cast Jason as the opening-night lead. I admit, the whole setup is conceivable.”
I stood. “But why—and how—would Denny kill Jason on Friday night? We don’t even know yet if Jason was killed, but if he was, and if Denny was somehow motivated to do it, why would he threaten the success of his own play by killing off the star on opening night? That doesn’t fit. Does it?”
Neil thought, shook his head. “No. Unless we don’t have the whole picture.”
“That’s a safe bet.” I laughed. “This whole new angle is based on nothing more than the unsubstantiated claim of Mica Thrush. She’s as wacky as they come, not what I’d call a dependable source in the first place. Second, she herself stood to gain from her brother’s death, and frankly, that whole family is so dysfunctional, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if either Mica or Burton murdered the kid.”
“Then where did Mica come up with the Denny Diggins angle? Did she pull it out of thin air?”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s exactly what she did. Minutes earlier, up in Jason’s bedroom, Pierce had asked her about the phone system there, mentioning that Denny had repeatedly tried calling Jason on Friday, leaving several voice messages. That could easily have inspired her to spin the story about a relationship with Denny. Thanks for the insight, Neil.”
“My pleasure,” he said, removing masking tape from the corners of the plan on his drafting table. He paused. “Still, it’s an intriguing notion: Jason Thrush was gay. It’s all the more intriguing to think that he was into older men.” Neil twitched his brows. “Talk about ironic.”
I gave him a quizzical look.
He explained, “The rivalry between Jason and Thad first became apparent to us at dress rehearsal, when Jason accused Thad of being our boy toy. It would be the height of irony if Jason, the accuser himself, was in fact the boy toy.”
“Gee.” I nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. If Mica’s story is true, Jason’s put-down of Thad was not only unconscionable, but supremely hypocritical—accusing someone else of being what he hated in himself.”
“Heavy, man.” Neil’s tone was facetious. Then he paused, getting serious. “You know, from the moment it happened, Jason’s ‘boy toy’ comment struck me as sort of…off somehow.”
I nodded slowly, sensing Neil’s logic.
He continued, “Think about it: Would a straight guy, supposedly a young, homophobic het jock, use a term like boy toy? It’s so…Madonna. The expression just strikes me as intrinsically gay, like fag hag. Where would Jason pick up such argot—if not from the inside?”
Neil had raised an intriguing point. Perhaps I was being too hasty in my eagerness to dismiss Mica’s claim that her brother was gay. Recalling all those framed photos of Jason palling and horsing with his Abercrombie crowd, it was easy to imagine what was making him smile.
“Yeah,” I admitted, “Doug and I had better take another look at this. We simply weren’t willing to take Mica at her word. But who knows?”
“There,” said Neil, adding the plan he’d just finished to a stack of other blueprints, preparing to roll them up. “Ready for lunch?”
“Not so fast.” I grinned. “What are you working on?”
With hand on hip, he told me, “It’s about time—I thought you’d never ask.”
Stepping behind him, I said, “Show me something beautiful, kiddo.”
“The conference table is better for spreading things out.�
� Bundling the plans under an arm, he led me to the front of his office, where four chairs surrounded a generously large table. Light from one of the display windows filled the whole area.
Neil fanned out the plans, making sure he had them in the correct order. The sheets measured perhaps two feet by three, not actually blueprints, as in the old days of ammonia-stenched diazotypes, but black-line prints, essentially large photocopies of his original drawings. Neil was also adept at computer drafting, which could spit out prints from a plotter, but he preferred traditional methods for residential work. “These are my plans for the addition to the Geldens’ country home.”
“I should have guessed. Big presentation tonight at dinner?”
“No harm in mixing a bit of business with pleasure.” Then he walked me through the plans.
The first sheet was a site plan showing the boundaries of the entire property and the relationship of the existing house to the new construction, the road, and the neighbors. “Wow”—I said—“I had no idea the place was so rambling—what I’d call an ‘estate.’ ”
Neil nodded. “It’s five acres. Wooded, secluded, a lovely setting.” With a grin, he told me, “The house ain’t bad, either.” He flipped the page, revealing a closer view of the house plan in relation to the new building. The new part was shown in far greater detail, but even the existing house showed all of its rooms—it was impressively sprawling. “It’s a solid four thousand square feet, all on one floor. Lots of fieldstone, timbers, and other natural materials. Reminds me of a lodge in New Hampshire. It was built some thirty years ago, and Cynthia bought it from the original owners around the time she married Frank.”
“Frank married well,” I observed dryly. “Did you draw elevations?”
“Not of the main house, but I did a nice perspective rendering of the new building, shown in relation to the existing house. Here we go.” He slid a drawing out from the bottom of the pile.
“It’s gorgeous, Neil. Suitable for framing.”
He leaned next to me and hugged my waist. “Many clients do frame the renderings. I admit, this is one of my better ones.”
Boy Toy Page 16
