I told him, “Kwynn noticed it again tonight—on you. She asked, ‘When did you start wearing that cheap perfume?’ ”
“Mr. Manning,” Tommy stammered, “I…I don’t even shave yet… I mean, not today…”
“But you are wearing it. I can still smell it—we all can.”
“Hey!” said a voice through uncertain laughter, interrupting us. Frank Gelden had finished his tasks in the balcony control booth and now trotted down the aisle from the back of the theater. “What’s going on down here? Something sounds fairly intense.” He wore loose-fitting shorts and a tight gray T-shirt that was seductively darkened by the pattern of his sweat. Though I’d spent an evening with him only two nights earlier, I was once again surprised by the depth of my gut-level attraction to him.
I said, “Yes, Frank, this is ‘fairly intense.’ We’re close to solving a murder.”
He stopped as he entered our circle of light. “Jason’s?”
From where Denny stood in the aisle, he answered for me, “Mahk has some cockamamy theory that Jason was poisoned with ‘cheap perfume.’ ”
“Actually,” I told Frank, “it’s the coroner’s theory again, not mine.” I ran him through the particulars I had discussed with Dr. Formhals that afternoon, concluding, “Perfume or aftershave is largely alcohol, which would make a convenient vehicle for the toxic tincture.”
Weighing all this as I spoke, Frank nodded, then told me, “I must admit, it makes sense. The culprit would really have to know what he—or she—was doing, but once the toxins were in the aftershave, the victim would end up dousing himself with the poison. Pretty slick.”
Tommy, near tears, blurted, “He thinks I did it, Mr. Gelden.”
Frank looked at Tommy in stunned silence, then turned to me. Dismayed, he said, “You can’t be serious, Mark. Tommy’s a wonderful kid. Sure, I suppose he ‘gained something’ from Jason’s death, and sure, he did resent—”
“Smell him,” I told Frank. “Isn’t it obvious? He fairly reeks of the same sweet, fruity scent that Jason Thrush was wearing at last Wednesday’s dress rehearsal. Friday night, I smelled the same scent on Jason’s poisoned, lifeless body.”
“Mr. Gelden,” Tommy pleaded, now crying openly, “help me. I promised I wouldn’t tell, but—” He cut himself off, breaking down in a full-blown bawl, burying his head in his hands. As he heaved with sobs, Thad, though confused, stretched an arm around Tommy’s shoulders, offering comfort.
Frank froze speechless, as if horrified by the intensity of Tommy’s breakdown.
“Frank,” I said quietly, “what did Tommy promise not to tell?”
Frank turned to look at me as if he couldn’t fathom my words.
I repeated, “What did Tommy promise not to tell? Did you treat him to an erotic massage this afternoon—out at your house, with your wife out of town—the same routine you used to enjoy with Jason Thrush?”
Frank closed his eyes, unable to answer. His shoulders slumped; he looked as if he might topple. There in the center aisle, he slowly lowered himself, sitting on the carpeting that covered the bottom step. Denny and Thad watched silently, astounded. Tommy’s tears stopped; he looked humiliated, betrayed, and outraged, all at once. Doug Pierce had risen from his seat in the darkness and now walked down the aisle, stopping next to Denny, behind Frank. As everyone was still absorbing the full impact of the question I had posed to Frank, no one even raised an eyebrow at the sheriff’s unexpected appearance.
Frank shook his head, clearing his thoughts. “Mark,” he began tentatively, “that’s nuts. I would never—”
“You did too,” yelled Tommy, rising from his seat and stepping in front of Frank. “You said I was ‘special’ and ‘so mature.’ But Jason? He got the same routine? Answer me!”
“Of course not,” said Frank, himself near tears.
“Frank,” I cautioned, “don’t deny something that’s so easily proven. By tomorrow, we should have the computer records of calls to and from Jason’s cell phone; your number will be all over that list. And everything else fits.”
Mustering a cynical laugh, he asked, “What fits?”
I collected my thoughts, then began proposing a script for murder: “Jason’s sister, Mica, told Doug and me that Jason was gay and had been having an extended affair with someone from the theater group, someone ‘older’ who she assumed to be Denny. What’s more, she knew that the relationship had recently soured because she’d heard Jason fighting with the guy on the phone. It had never occurred to me that Jason might be gay, but recalling last Wednesday night, Neil found it strange that Jason had accused Thad of being our ‘boy toy,’ an unlikely term for a het seventeen-year-old to pull out of thin air—unless, perhaps, he himself was someone’s boy toy.
“Meanwhile, Frank, I got to know you and Cynthia through Neil. This past Monday night, we visited your home, and I saw your well-equipped spa, noting its many amenities and supplies, learning that your knowledge of massage techniques rivals that of any pro. I also learned, just this morning from our housekeeper, Barb Bilsten, that you were presumed gay during your high school years. I won’t embarrass you, Frank, by detailing our reasoning, but Neil and I concluded that you might indeed be gay and that your relationship with Cynthia might be a marriage of convenience.”
Frank looked me in the eye. “How dare you?”
“You’re right to be offended, and I apologize. Any understanding you may or may not have with your wife is no one else’s business—unless it sheds light on a murder plot.”
“What murder plot? All you’ve said is that Jason may have been gay and that you suspect me of being gay too. It sounds as if you’ve been doing some wishful thinking, Mark. It does not sound as if you can tie me to Jason’s death.”
Pierce cleared his throat. “Mark, that is a bit of a stretch.”
“Patience,” I told them. “There’s more. The critical link here is the ‘cheap perfume,’ the fragrance we noticed on Jason and now on Tommy, which we’ve presumed to be aftershave. All along, the scent seemed familiar, triggering some long-ago memory, but I couldn’t place it till this evening, when I realized that the smell wasn’t aftershave, but something else, something with a very specific use.”
Tommy sniffed himself, looking confused.
“Recently, I myself happened to enjoy a relaxing massage”—my listeners needed no details regarding the circumstances or the purpose of Neil’s delightful payback—“but at its conclusion, I found it difficult to remove all the oil. Neither toweling nor showering did a satisfactory job, and I recall thinking that oil and water don’t mix. What my masseur had failed to provide was the typical finishing rubdown with an astringent that would cut the oil and cool the skin. Plain old rubbing alcohol would do the trick, as would witch hazel, which is mostly alcohol—and is often scented with a sweet, fruity fragrance that I now remember from my youth. It was routinely used in neighborhood barbershops, back in the dark ages before salons and stylists. At the end of a haircut, witch hazel was splashed on the back of the neck to soothe it after being shaved. It’s still used by some masseurs at the conclusion of a treatment. And in fact, I noticed scented witch hazel among the many products stocked in the Geldens’ home spa.”
Still sitting in the aisle, Frank leaned back against the first row of seats. He had listened, grinning. “Boyhood memories of barbershops—big deal. Witch hazel in my home spa—big deal. Mark, this adds up to nothing.”
“Hardly,” I told everyone. “As I said before, everything fits. And here’s how. Here’s a detailed chain of events that can explain how Jason died:
“Frank was gay, but he married Cynthia some eight years ago. It was a classic marriage of convenience, made all the more convenient for Frank by Cynthia’s work schedule in Green Bay. In recent weeks, she’s been out of town every Tuesday through Friday. Frank got involved with the Players Guild this summer, and Jason Thrush entered his life.
“The physical attraction was mutual, and Frank wasted little time luring
his hot young friend out to the country house, to the spa, where he treated Jason to the first of many long, lazy, sensual massages—treatments that surely reached an energetic climax for Frank as well as Jason. Frank routinely finished off each session by cleaning the oil off Jason’s entire body, rubbing him down with liberal amounts of witch hazel. They had one of their sessions last Wednesday afternoon, and that evening at dress rehearsal, the smell of the scented witch hazel was conspicuous on Jason when he began sweating in the hot theater.
“This arrangement was heaven for both Frank and Jason, for a while. But something went wrong; the relationship soured; perhaps Jason made threats of exposing Frank. A professor of molecular biology and a knowledgeable mycologist, Frank found it an easy feat to extract choline and muscarine from fly agaric. Suspending these toxins in witch hazel, he created a tincture that Jason, already weakened by a bad summer cold, would find deadly—within three hours of its application. So on Friday afternoon, Frank treated his boy toy to one last doozy of a hot massage, capped off by the tainted witch hazel. Jason went home to get ready for that night’s opening performance, but he succumbed to the toxins before leaving the house.
“With Jason gone, Frank saw an opportunity to nurture a new boy toy, an even younger one. Barely old enough to drive, he hadn’t a clue, when his car broke down and Frank offered to give him rides to and from the theater, that he would become an innocent young victim of middle-age lechery. But sure enough, tonight Tommy sweated through a hot rehearsal, branded as Frank’s prey by the smell of witch hazel.
“Minutes ago, Tommy’s own words condemned you, Frank, as a child molester. When I asked if you had given him an erotic massage, you denied it, but he yelled, ‘You did too.’ Tomorrow, when Jason’s cellphone records reveal, as they surely will, that you had numerous, long conversations with him—at all hours, day and night—will there be any doubt whatever that you lived out your fantasies with Jason, at home, in the spa? With that established, will our hot-dog prosecutor, Harley Kaiser, have any doubt whatever that these circumstances supply every missing piece of the puzzle described in the coroner’s report?”
Listening to all this, Frank had slumped forward, legs folded in front of him, head down. There on the floor, in his shorts and T-shirt, he looked like a little boy who’d sat down for a cry, scolded for stealing cookies. The real accusations, both spoken and implied, were of course infinitely more grave.
Tommy was first to speak, and his voice now carried not anger, but fear. “Am I going to die, Mr. Gelden? Were you trying to kill me too?”
Frank looked up, tears falling from his face, turning black as they hit the gray cotton of his shirt. “No, Tommy—I’d never hurt you.”
Thad rose from his seat and approached me, needing my touch, needing to connect with his family, to which I was the sole remaining blood link. I closed the last step between us and gave him a full embrace, saying into his ear, “It’s okay now. It’s over.”
Though Thad’s crisis had passed, Frank’s had just begun. Pierce touched his fingers to Frank’s shoulder and softly recited the Miranda formula.
Frank nodded, then looked up at the sheriff. “I need to explain what happened.”
Pierce said, “You’re in deep trouble, Frank, but the more you admit now, the better. Cooperate, and the DA may show some leniency.”
Thad and I stepped forward to listen, joining Pierce, Tommy, and Denny. We stood in a circle, with Frank sitting at our feet.
Frank breathed a long, mournful sigh, then wiped his cheeks with both hands. With a vacant look that seemed to stare through my knees, he told us, “Jason Thrush was the most beautiful young man I’ve ever seen—I never thought of him as a ‘boy.’ ”
Pierce reminded him, “The age of consent is eighteen in Wisconsin. Jason was seventeen; he was a boy.”
Frank laughed at this detail as if it didn’t matter. “You couldn’t possibly understand. Neither could Cynthia, which is why she could never know about Jason. Yes, our marriage is unconventional, but it suits both our needs. It’s an arrangement we can both live with; we’re happy. By and large, it works. But when I met Jason earlier this summer, it was as if destiny had conspired to bring us together. Not only was he beautiful, but he said I was beautiful too. He wanted to know me; he wanted our special friendship; he wanted to see me at the house while Cynthia was out of town. And her schedule proved all too convenient. Naturally, I offered to Jason the private gift of my own massage skills. Those sessions were nothing short of magic; they were addictive, for both of us. Our afternoons together were sublime. Our occasional evenings were pure rapture.” He paused with his memories.
Pierce asked, “But something went wrong?”
“Yes.” Bitterness colored Frank’s voice as he spoke to the floor. “Jason, you see, was not only beautiful, but he knew it. There was a certain arrogance about him, and for a while, I chalked it off as something of a birthright, the price of his beauty. It didn’t stop at arrogance, though. He was petty as well. And when arrogance is combined with pettiness, it produces vindictiveness, a mean streak.”
I couldn’t help marvel that it had taken Frank all summer to discover this; the darker side of Jason Thrush was apparent to me the first night I’d seen him. But then, I hadn’t been blinded by lust.
“After a point,” Frank continued, “our relationship became strained, at least from his perspective. I don’t know why—perhaps he got bored, perhaps he was ready to find something ‘better.’ In any event, he threatened, just for the hell of it, to expose the whole affair. It goes without saying, that would spell the end of both my marriage and my teaching career, so I got panicky.”
I said, “And that’s when you concocted the deadly tincture of fly agaric and witch hazel.”
He looked up and told me flatly, calmly, “No. I did no such thing. I confess, I thought about the possibility of killing Jason, but I never acted on it because, ultimately, I just couldn’t—I loved him.”
Pierce asked, “Do you deny giving Jason Thrush a massage last Friday?”
Frank answered without emotion, without squirming, “As a matter of fact, I did give Jason a massage on Friday afternoon, finishing it off with witch hazel. I asked him to the house that day in hopes of effecting a reconciliation. I also thought that a long, soothing massage and sauna might help get him in shape for that night’s performance. But it was not my intent to kill him, and the witch hazel had not been tainted by mushrooms—or anything else. I was surprised as anyone to learn later that night that Jason was dead.”
Pierce scratched behind his ear. “Do you expect us to believe that, Frank? All the circumstances clearly, logically line up against you.”
Frank threw his hands in the air. “I gave Tommy the same massage today, the same rubdown with witch hazel. He’s fine.”
“Get up, Frank. You’re under arrest.”
Frank stood. “For what, for God’s sake?”
“Criminal sexual conduct, multiple counts.” Pierce produced a pair of handcuffs. “And suspicion of murder.”
Thursday, August 9
BARB TURNED TO ME from the sink with the coffeepot. “Whataya mean, ‘Frank won’t be coming to dinner tonight’? I’ve busted my ass.” Neil didn’t say a word. He’d heard the whole story in bed after I’d returned late from the theater. Now, preparing for a rushed breakfast, he buttered toast. Thad was still in bed. Doug Pierce was probably at the gym for his morning workout, but he would not be paying his usual visit to the house on Prairie Street; he was meeting me at the Register’s offices promptly at eight. The Thursday paper lay there on the kitchen table, carrying not a word about the events of the previous night; I had left the theater well after the front-page deadline, and besides, even now, the story was incomplete.
Succinctly, I explained to Barb, “Frank’s in jail.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s just say I should have listened to you yesterday—about the marriage of convenience. You were right. Frank’s gay.”
Barb beaded me with a sly stare, seating herself next to me at the table. “They don’t lock people up for being gay, Mark, at least not in Wisconsin, last I heard.”
Neil broke his silence with a laugh, then buttered more toast.
“Look, this is not for public consumption, at least not yet.” I paused—the whole mess was embarrassingly sordid. “It seems Frank has something of a history of intimacy with underage boys, behind his wife’s back, of course. One of those boys was Jason Thrush.”
Barb’s eyes widened with interest as she poured coffee for Neil and me.
I continued, “There was sufficient circumstantial evidence for Doug to arrest Frank on suspicion of murder. He was held overnight, and the DA is still reviewing the case, deciding if he wants to permit bail.”
Barb whistled, mulling this turn of events. “What’d wifey-poo say?”
Neil ate toast.
After a quick slurp of coffee, I answered, “Cynthia was on the job in Green Bay, but Doug and I managed to track down her apartment. Sometime after midnight, we reached her there by phone.” Unnecessarily, I added, “She wasn’t happy.”
“I’ll bet. Where is she now?”
“She should be back in Dumont by now. She was shocked, of course—angry and confused. Even if bail is allowed, she threatened not to post it. As a courtesy to a friend, I offered to keep everything out of today’s paper; in truth, it was already too late to run anything. I suggested that she come to my office this morning so we could discuss the paper’s handling of the story.”
Barb’s brows arched. “That was big of you.”
Neil ate more toast.
“It was the least I could do. It’s one of those ‘sensitive’ stories—bound to be inflammatory—and both Cynthia and Frank have been generous with their friendship. So we booked a meeting for eight-fifteen.”
Neil swallowed. “She’s always punctual.”
Drinking more coffee, I checked my watch. “Yeah, I’d better run. I need to meet with Doug first; he’ll be at my office in ten minutes.” I rose.
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