A Party to Murder

by John Inman

  Jamie stepped forward, snagging Derek’s hand. Derek could feel Jamie’s fury. He stood silent and proud while Jamie spoke. Jamie’s voice was as tautly emotional as Derek had ever heard it.

  “Give them a happy life?” Jamie all but hissed, carefully keeping his voice down although it was evident he didn’t want to. “Those boys committed suicide because your husband—and I imagine you had a hand in it too—because you both tried to destroy their true selves. To make them deny who they really were.”

  Mrs. Jupp’s mouth was a thin, mean line dissecting her face. “Sinners! Yes, I know. And that’s exactly what we wanted them to deny. It was not my husband’s fault that their weaknesses….”

  Jamie bristled. “Their weaknesses? Are you going to stand there and tell me you’re blaming those boys for their own deaths? You don’t think your husband had anything to do with making them feel they had nowhere to turn, no one to offer help? Where were their parents? Why did they let their sons be put through that? Or did they consider their boys to be sinners too?”

  Mrs. Jupp raised her chin and straightened her shoulders. She stared at Jamie with pure hate. “They did indeed. The parents of the sixteen-year-old asked for our help. The other young man came to us on his own. We did what we could, my husband and I. But the boys were too far gone. They could not be turned.”

  Tommy stepped into the conversation. If anything, Derek thought, he appeared more furious than Jamie. “So you still blame the victims and not yourselves. How is it you weren’t sent to prison along with your husband? Did he protect you from the law? Did he lie and say you had nothing to do with it? Do you still feel no guilt about what happened? Do you still honestly think it was the boys’ fault and not your own?”

  Mrs. Jupp appeared to have no problem whatsoever in shifting her hatred from Jamie to Tommy. She did it without missing a beat. “I won’t stand here and be barked at by the likes of you. My husband and I were doing the right thing.” She cast her gaze into the fire, where the newspaper clipping chronicling her husband’s crime had now been reduced to a little black sliver of ash.

  When she looked up, Derek realized that tears had found her again. They shimmered on her cheeks. She seemed to suddenly wilt before their eyes. As if she was too tired to argue anymore. “Whatever happened back then,” she said wearily, “had nothing to do with what is happening now. I’m sure of it.”

  “Then you’re as blind as you are heartless,” Tommy snarled.

  Mrs. Jupp stared at him for a long moment, and turning away to face the fire once more, she mumbled, “Maybe I am. But it doesn’t alter the fact that it was already too late to punish my husband for what you think he did. He managed to punish himself, you see. He punished himself by dying in prison. He lost his religion. He lost everything. He was dead long before he ever got out.”

  “But he did manage to hang on to his hatred for gays, didn’t he?” Jamie said. “He didn’t lose that.”

  Her lips twisted minutely at the corners. Derek couldn’t be sure, but he thought it looked like the beginning of a smile. And a particularly nasty one at that. “No,” she said, her words clipped and precise. “He didn’t lose that.”

  Jamie and Tommy were so mad, they were shaking. Derek had to pull them both through the door to make them leave the room.

  When they were all in the hall, Derek softly closed Mrs. Jupp’s door behind them, as much to allow her some privacy as to eradicate her from Jamie and Tommy’s line of sight.

  “She thinks her husband killed himself,” Banyon said.

  All eyes turned to him. Tommy actually laughed. “My God, you may be right.”

  Derek stepped forward and pulled Jamie into a hug, while Banyon did the same with Tommy.

  “Do you think it’s possible?” Derek asked, but no one answered. He suspected it was because no one really needed to. The idea was preposterous.

  In the distance, they heard the gentle click of a door. Cleeta-Gayle had returned to her room.

  Chapter Eight

  THE WOMEN in the house—Cleeta-Gayle Jones and Mrs. Jupp—did not show themselves for the rest of the day. The storm meandered back and forth in its intensity. One minute it was a simple downpour, the next minute it was a vicious bombardment of house and forest with everything in nature’s arsenal. Hail, lightning, thunder, gale-force winds. The storm was so violent at times that shingles were stripped from the roof.

  When the ceiling in Derek and Jamie’s room began to drip, they found the source of the leak in the third-floor attic directly above, accessed by a second flight of stairs not connected to the one where Mr. Jupp had fallen. In this attic room, they discovered toys. A tricycle. An electric train on a round track. A collection of children’s books with titles like Shiloh and Black Beauty and Bambi. A cedar chest stood in the corner, filled with balls and plastic dinosaurs and comic books and all the other flotsam of a forgotten childhood.

  The strategic placement of a child’s beach pail solved the problem of the dripping ceiling for now, but Jamie wondered how long the house would remain standing under nature’s relentless assault.

  With Mr. Jupp’s corpse rolled up in a quilt and laid out like a mummy on the daybed in the sewing room, it was Derek who took it upon himself to wash the blood from the foyer floor. He knew the police would not be pleased with the evidence being repeatedly destroyed, what with cleaning up after Mr. Jupp and covering the bodies in the basement, but he figured there was no way around it. God alone knew how long they would be trapped inside this house. They didn’t need to be looking at pools of blood and murdered bodies all the time. Nerves were shattered enough already.

  While Jamie played detective, searching the second-floor landing for clues, Derek descended to the basement once more. He was determined to make amends for destroying so much evidence. So upon arrival at the coal bin where the older couple lay moldering, he placed the murder weapon, the small shovel, in a plastic trash bag he had brought with him to preserve the prints and blood.

  His first inclination was to put the shovel, now securely wrapped in plastic, back where he found it. Then he had a better idea. If the murderer was indeed inside the house, as everyone suspected, what would prevent him from attempting to dispose of this weapon himself, thus inhibiting the police from finding the very prints Derek was trying to protect?

  Clutching the bag guardedly in his arms, he looked around. In the dim light cast by the single light bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the room, he spotted a shadowy corner. Above the top shelf of the dusty shelving unit behind the spot where the tarp-covered motorcycle stood, Derek noticed what amounted to a tiny inset, mere inches of space between the rafters and the top of the unit. Fringes of cobweb swayed from the ceiling like a veil, and hardly any light reached the space at all. Standing on a rickety stool, he tucked the shovel as far back into the shadows as he could, making sure to leave a tail of black garbage bag hanging out in plain sight to lure the police—but hopefully not the murderer—to the location where the murder weapon was hidden.

  Stepping down off the stool, he eyed the results. From a few feet back, you couldn’t see the smidgeon of black plastic at all. It blended too well with the shadows. The police, however, when they carried out their investigation, would have the place lit up like an operating room, so they would be sure to spot it.

  Satisfied, Derek replaced the stool in the corner where he’d found it and, in spite of his best efforts not to, turned to stare down at the unfortunate couple in the coal bin one more time.

  They looked so small and pathetic tucked under their blankets. Derek wondered how long they had lived together in this house. How long they had been married, if they actually were. He wondered too if they truly loved each other as much as he wanted to believe they did. Had they no children? No relatives? If not, then why were there toys stored in the attic? Why had no one tried to reach the old couple to find out if they were surviving the storm?

  Pulling his T-shirt up over his nose to filter the smell of death,
he knelt at their feet and reached out to touch the toe of the old man’s shoe.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered softly.

  The scrape of a footstep behind him startled him so, he almost toppled onto his side. He awkwardly hurled himself to his feet and spun around, arms flung out in a defensive posture.

  To Derek’s surprise, he found Tommy Stevens standing in front of him. His arms were crossed casually over his chest, and he had the embryo of a grin on his face, as if he found Derek’s reaction to his arrival amusing.

  “Oops,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you to death.”

  Derek lowered his arms. He was not appeased by Tommy’s sarcastic apology, and he was pretty sure his face showed it.

  “What do you want?”

  Tommy shrugged. His eyes fell to the couple on the floor, then returned to Derek. “What were you doing?” As if his words suddenly seeped into his own ears and he realized how they might be misconstrued, his face softened. A forced innocence smoothed his features. “I mean, what are you doing down here all alone? It seems a little dangerous for any of us to be wandering around on their own.”

  “In that case,” Derek replied, tactfully skirting the question and not falling for Tommy’s innocent routine one little bit, “what are you doing down here all by yourself?”

  Again Tommy’s eyes slid to the bodies on the floor. If he noticed the murder weapon was missing, he made no mention of it. “I’m not alone,” he said. “I’m with you.” He tilted his head toward the two corpses. “And them. I saw you come down here, Derek. I followed you.”

  A chill crawled down Derek’s spine. “Why?”

  Tommy Stevens took a long, shuddering breath. He once again focused his gaze on Derek’s face. “I’m worried,” he said.

  Sensing no threat now, Derek relaxed his stance. He tried to convey a friendlier tone. They were all in the same boat, after all. If someone wanted to talk, he should be willing to listen, to help.

  “About what, Tommy?”

  Hearing the kinder tone in Derek’s voice, Tommy visibly relaxed as well. “I’m worried about Ollie,” he said. “I think he lied earlier.”

  This caught Derek’s attention. “Lied about what?”

  “He said he had been in the dining room having coffee when the old man flew off the landing. But he wasn’t. He only reentered the dining room a few seconds before I did.”

  “And where were you?” Derek asked. “I’ve forgotten. Tell me again.”

  “I was exploring the back hallway. Back where nobody goes. I think there are old servants’ quarters back there.”

  “Is that on the first floor, or the second?”

  “The first,” Tommy said. “If you’re wondering if I was on the second floor when old man Jupp was pushed, I wasn’t. But I don’t know where Oliver was.”

  Derek studied Tommy’s worried expression. Finally he said, “I thought you guys were an item. Why are you ratting him out like this?”

  Tommy stared back. Squarely. Unintimidated. “I’m not ratting him out. I’m just saying I don’t think he was where he said he was when the old man fell.” Tommy gave a minute shrug, spinning his torso to the side as if he were trying to answer something for himself. “See, it’s just that I haven’t been with Ollie that long. We’re tricks. We’re not lovers like you and Jamie.”

  “What makes you think Jamie and I are lovers?”

  Tommy looked startled. “I don’t know. The way you act together, I guess. Like you, you know, love each other.”

  Derek refused to be led into that conversation. His feelings for Jamie were his own. He had no intention of sharing them with Tommy Stevens. “And you don’t love Oliver?”

  Tommy rolled his eyes. “Except for fucking each other’s brains out, we hardly know each other. I don’t owe him my allegiance. Especially if he’s up to something we don’t know about.”

  “You should stay close to him,” Derek said. “Keep an eye on him, then.”

  “What if he’s the killer?”

  Derek considered that. “Well, chances are he won’t kill you when the two of you are in bed alone. That would be pretty hard for him to alibi himself out of.”

  Tommy grinned. “True.”

  Derek studied Tommy more closely. “If you two barely know each other, how is it you both received invitations? Or did you?”

  “We did,” Tommy said. “But don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t. Neither can Ollie. In fact, that’s one of the reasons we came. We wanted to know how we both ended up on the same invitation list when we really didn’t know each other that well to begin with. We have no past together. We don’t move in the same circles. We have no mutual friends.”

  “Are you in one of Oliver’s classes at the college where he teaches? Is that how you met?”

  “Yes.” A smirk crossed his face. “The things we’ll do for an A, huh?” The smirk dissolved and his expression grew wily. “Please tell me you don’t think I’m the killer,” he said.

  Derek was surprised by the question. “Of course not.”

  Derek tensed when Tommy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a knife. The knife reflected a blade-shaped sliver of light onto the basement wall. “I’m armed, you know. Mama didn’t raise no fool.”

  At that, Derek pulled the knife from his own back pocket. “My mama didn’t raise no fool either.”

  Tommy stared at each of their blades and laughed. “Yours is bigger than mine.”

  He stepped closer. Tucking the knife back into his pocket, he reached out almost casually below Derek’s waist. He splayed his fingers lightly over Derek’s crotch, caressing gently.

  “Let me go down on you,” he whispered.

  “Take your hands off me,” Derek said, his voice icy. “It’s bad enough you make a pass at me in front of Jamie. This is even worse. There are dead people here. Show some respect.”

  Tommy reluctantly pulled his hand back, but he didn’t seem embarrassed. In fact, he looked amused. He didn’t bother to glance at the corpses on the floor. “Fine. I’ll meet you somewhere later.”

  Derek glared at the young man in front of him. “As you damn well know, I’m with Jamie.”

  “And you don’t cheat, I suppose.” He slid his hand over the erection outlined in the front of his own jeans.

  “That’s right,” Derek said, resentment swelling inside him. “I don’t cheat. Stop touching yourself.”

  Tommy ignored that. “Are you saying Jamie wouldn’t cheat on you?”

  “Yes,” Derek said, with only a beat of hesitation. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. And while we’re on the subject, don’t you think we have more pressing matters to worry about than getting our rocks off? Like not getting ourselves murdered, for instance?”

  “A blowjob won’t change anything,” Tommy cooed, easing forward again, a lustful simper twisting his mouth.

  Derek stepped firmly back, well out of reach. “It would change me,” he said. “And I don’t think I’d like myself very much afterward.”

  “Pity,” Tommy sniffed. Shifting the bulge in his crotch to make it less noticeable—or maybe because he thought it would turn Derek on, which it didn’t—he turned and headed for the stairs. He gave the hanging light bulb a gentle slap as he passed beneath it, sending it swinging.

  Seconds later, Derek stood alone. As the light bulb ceased to sway, the roiling shadows slowly stilled around him. He willed his anger to seep away.

  Calmer now, he turned to the corpses at his feet and said, “What a jerk.”

  JAMIE WONDERED if Derek was having any better luck than himself at finding clues. He had spent the better part of twenty minutes crawling around the second-floor landing, where he found little of interest.

  The runner on the floor was bunched up, but that didn’t really tell him anything. He had also found a deep scratch in the waist-high oak railing at the edge of the landing at what must have been the very spot where Mr. Jupp tumbled over. The scratch looked fresh, and it had likely come from M
r. Jupp’s belt buckle, since thinking back, that was the only item of metal Jamie could remember the old man wearing.

  He supposed the rucked-up runner and the deep scratch on the banister indicated there might have been a struggle, but it certainly didn’t point a finger at any specific perpetrator. All it truly hinted at was that whoever chucked Mr. Jupp off the landing must have either overpowered him or caught him by surprise. And Mr. Jupp was no lightweight, so it must have been someone strong.

  Scratch Mrs. Jupp. And you could probably scratch Cleeta-Gayle too, although she did look wiry and might be stronger than one would imagine. But she was such a nervous wreck all the time he was loath to suspect her. Hell, she practically passed out from fright every time a streak of lightning sizzled past. Unless she was a master of deception, he couldn’t see her having anything to do with the deaths inside this house.

  As for the old couple in the basement, any of the people here (aside from Derek and himself) could have been their killer. It didn’t matter that the Jupps were the first to arrive. The couple had been dead before that, possibly for several days, so any of the guests, including the Jupps, might have tooled up here to the boonies, offed the old couple, then split and rearrived later, looking innocent as lambs.

  Jamie noticed the niggle of an approaching headache stirring in the back of his brainpan. He rested his elbows on the banister at either side of the deep fresh gouge in the wood and stared down at the foyer below. From this distance, he could still see the bloodstains in the hardwood floor, even after Derek had so diligently tried to wash them away. He had an overpowering desire to spit and watch it fall, as one does when looking down from a great height. But the last thing he wanted was the police to find his DNA mixed up with the residue of Mr. Jupp’s blood, so he resisted the urge.

  The storm was taking a breather outside, and the unfamiliar stillness carried Jamie to other thoughts. To last night, for instance, lying in Derek’s arms in the middle of the night in a strange bed in this weird old house. Leaning heavily on the banister, Jamie dropped his head, closed his eyes, and remembered every word they spoke, every movement they made. Every sensation he’d felt.