by Josh Lanyon
“I’m not in their confidence. I can’t guarantee that they’ll arrest the right person. They might simply arrest the most obvious suspect.” He saw her gaze flick to Bob, who merely looked bewildered.
“And I suppose you know who the right person is?” Carl Winters said.
“I think so. Would you like to hear my theory?”
“No,” Claire said. “I think someone should throw you out.”
“We may as well hear it,” Veronica said.
“Yes,” Benedict Arlen said. “I want to hear what he has to say.”
Bob stared at his father, and then at Nathan. He seemed surprised to find a drink in his hand, and he brought it to his lips, tossing it off in one gulp.
Nathan said, “The police located Pearl Jarvis yesterday. She had an interesting story to tell.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Claire protested. “Dad, please!”
“Hush, girlie,” Benedict Arlen said.
Nathan said slowly, “I guess you could say that Philip’s murder was a crime of passion, but not in the ordinary sense. Plenty of people felt passionately about him, all right. Mostly they hated him, and mostly they had good reason.”
“How dare you!” Claire said.
Nathan ignored her outburst. “And in a way Phil set up his own murder. He faked his own kidnapping so that he’d have the money to run away with his girlfriend to Buenos Aires.”
“That’s not true!” Claire cried.
“It is, you know. The irony is, if his murderer had understood that he was running away—that it wasn’t just another scam, another grift—his death might not have seemed necessary. Maybe necessary is the wrong word, because this was more impulse than premeditation.”
“What are you trying to say?” Carl Winters demanded.
“Yes, Nathan,” Veronica said. “What are you trying to say?”
“That someone was clever enough, or shrewd enough, or just watched Phil operate long enough, to see through the kidnapping scheme. I think this person was tired of watching Phil manipulate and use everyone around him, and I think this person was especially tired of seeing Bob Arlen treated like a second-class citizen by his father.”
Bob said uncomfortably, “Oh, hogwash. Where do you come up with this stuff, Nathan?”
“Now see here,” Benedict Arlen began.
Nathan ignored this too. “And I think the final straw was when this person found out that Claire was going to have a baby. Because that baby meant that Mr. Arlen would reverse his earlier position. He’d reinstate Phil’s allowance, he’d try once again to get him to take his rightful place at Arlen Petroleum, he’d shower him with presents and stock bonuses—none of which really changed Bob Arlen’s position much, it was more the—the affront of it, I think.”
“It’s not true!” Claire cried. “None of it is true! He wasn’t leaving with her! He wouldn’t have, now that the baby was on the way.”
“I don’t think Phil was ready to be a daddy,” Nathan said. “I don’t think he had any intention of changing his plans because of this baby. But no one else could know that, except maybe Pearl. Everyone else would assume that Phil would recognize that baby for the ticket back into his father’s good graces.”
Phil’s father said unsteadily, “This is…poppycock. Phil was a good boy. A good son.”
No one seemed to have the heart to contradict him.
Bob said stiffly, “Why wouldn’t this person…kill Claire and the baby in that case? Even if Phil did leave, the baby would still be a—a rival for my father’s affections—and money.”
“Because this person didn’t hate Claire or the baby. Didn’t blame them—maybe even saw them as fellow victims of Phil’s ruthless and selfish behavior. Probably thought they—and everyone else—would be better off without Philip.”
No one said anything. Nathan moved over to the case against the wall with the miniature display of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. There was a mirror over the case and he could see them all sitting frozen in shock—with one exception. And he knew he was right. And if he was right about that, he figured he was probably right about the rest of it.
“Of course there were other reasons somebody might have wanted Phil out of the way. He had a bad habit of stretching his pocket money by blackmailing his friends and acquaintances—or trying to, anyway—and maybe he knew something about this person’s past as well. I don’t know. That’s speculation, but once I’d worked out that Phil arranged his own kidnapping, I realized I only had to look for people who didn’t have alibis on Monday night, and there was only person who didn’t have an alibi for Monday night.”
Nathan glanced at Bob. “Well, two people. Bob was in the vicinity of Griffith Park when Phil was killed, but his bum leg rules him out as the person who ran after Phil and shot him in front of Pearl.”
“I was here,” Claire said. “I was here the whole evening, waiting ’til Bob got back with word the ransom had been delivered.”
“I know,” Nathan said. “You were here with Mr. Arlen. And Carl was at the theater. So that pretty much left only one person.” He looked into the mirror over the miniature case and Veronica stood in the doorway, one hand on the light switch, one hand holding a pistol pointed at his back. He took a deep breath, but then the side doors next to him flew open, and Mathew and a number of uniformed cops were rushing into the room.
He glanced back in the mirror in time to see Veronica’s hand move on the light switch, and the room plunged into darkness. He saw the reflected flash of muzzle fire, there was a loud bang, and the mirror splintered next to him, tiny shards of glass dusting his face. Screams were followed by the sound of crashing furniture, and he was knocked to the ground hard. There was another shot.
Someone who weighed a ton was lying on top of him, and Matt breathed into his face, “No, you goddamned well don’t, Nathan. You don’t get out that easy!”
And the next minute the lights were on again, and everyone was picking themselves off the floor. No one seemed to be hurt, though Clare was sobbing her fright. Matt got up, dragging Nathan to his feet, hands fastened in Nathan’s shirt like he wanted to punch him. His face was furious. He gave Nathan a little push, turning away to where Veronica stood with two police officers holding her arms. There was a gun at her feet. Her black hair spilled loose over her shoulders. She looked as wild as her outlaw grandfather must have.
“Ronnie,” Bob gasped.
“W-what is the meaning of this?” That was the old man, looking every one of his years.
Mathew strode over to Ronnie. He said curtly, “Veronica Thompson-Arlen, I’m arresting you for the murder of Philip Arlen…”
“All kinds of things pointed to Ronnie once I started looking,” Nathan said. “She was on a bunch of committee boards, including one for the George C. Page Museum.”
“The Brea Tar Pits,” Mathew said automatically. They were sitting in a small café on Wilshire a few hours after Nathan had nearly got his head blown off playing Master Detective at Benedict Arlen’s Mandeville Canyon estate. Nathan was busily rattling off his reasoning, but he didn’t fool Matt. Matt knew guilt when he saw it, and knowledge was sitting in his guts like a lump of cold snow.
“She knows how to handle firearms, she’s physically strong, cool under fire—”
Mathew said quietly, “Just so we’re clear—you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”
Nathan broke off what he was saying. Color rose in his face. “Look—”
“No, you look. One thing I never figured you for was a coward.”
The color faded right out of Nathan’s face.
“The entire goddamn world’s at war. We might not any of us be here a year from now. You don’t think you can hang on long enough to see how it turns out?”
“That’s not fair—” Nathan was getting angry now. That was fine by Matt. He’d been mad ever since he opened the door to Benedict Arlen’s drawing room in time to see Nathan calmly setting himself up to get shot
.
“Don’t.” Matt cut across, his voice very quiet, and though no one was paying any attention to them, Nathan threw an instinctive look over at the table nearest them. “Don’t. Because we both know you’ll be lying, and whatever else happens between us, at least let’s be honest with each other.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened. He nodded curtly.
“I didn’t look for this. It’s the last thing I was looking for, but…I don’t regret it. You understand?”
Nathan nodded again.
“I don’t know how we’re going to work it out. I just know…it’s worth working out. It’s worth it to me anyway.”
“You don’t know—”
“Neither do you, Nathan. Neither does anyone. I can tell you what I do know. Love…doesn’t happen every day. It doesn’t happen at all for some people.”
Nathan ducked his head. Mathew watched him fight for control, eyelashes flickering, mouth unsteady. “Don’t do this to me,” he whispered.
Matt ignored that. “We’re, what, three—four days from the New Year? You can focus on the end, or you can focus on the beginning, that’s up to you. But I’ll tell you what I want. Assuming you decide to hang around and hear it.”
Nathan sucked in a sharp breath, nodded. After a moment, he looked up, meeting Matt’s eyes.
“I’m not leaving town,” he said.
About the Author
A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author Josh Lanyon has been writing gay mystery and romance for over a decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas and novels, Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including The Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USA Book News award for GLBT Fiction. Josh is an EPIC Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. Josh is also the author of the definitive M/M writing guide Man, Oh Man! Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks & Ca$h. To learn more about Josh, please visit www.joshlanyon.com or join his mailing list at groups.yahoo.com/group/JoshLanyon.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9139-7
Copyright © 2011 by Josh Lanyon
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