Fatal Shadows

by Lanyon, Josh

  * * * * *

  To say everything looked brighter in the morning would be an overstatement. For one thing it was pouring rain. Water rolled along the eaves like silver beads and poured off the striped awning. By mid-morning the streets were flooding. You feel rain in a used bookstore. The old pages pick up the damp and mustiness like old bones do rheumatism.

  I dug out the powder blue cashmere cardigan my mother, Lisa, gave me the Christmas before last, pulled on my oldest, softest Levi’s. Comfort clothes, the next best thing to a hug from a warm, living body. Lately there had been a shortage of hugs in my life. Lately there had been a shortage of warm, living bodies.

  It was hard not to be depressed at the sight of yesterday’s assault. Although I’d got the shelves back up with the help of the people who owned the Thai restaurant next door, the empty bookcases and bare walls were a chilling reminder. Suppose I’d walked in on the guy mid-rampage? There are things you can’t insure against. Freaking lunatics are one of them.

  The temp agency sent over Angus “Gus” Gordon. Angus was a pale, gangly twenty-something with John Lennon specs and a wispy goatee. Whether Angus had heard about Rob’s murder and was unnerved by it, or whether he was just neurotically shy, he seemed unable to meet my eyes for longer than a second. His voice was so soft I had to ask him to repeat himself every time he spoke.

  I put him to work stacking books back on the shelves. I didn’t care if he couldn’t alphabetize. Hell, I didn’t care if he couldn’t read. I just didn’t want to be alone in the shop.

  In the back office, I waded through the drifts of papers: catalogs, old receipts, invoices, shipping documents. Nothing seemed to be missing. There was nothing of value to anyone except possibly the IRS. It felt like the place had been trashed out of spite. I didn’t see why this burglar should have such a grudge against me, but maybe it wasn’t personal. Just an animal instinct for destruction.

  The most unnerving thing was that I knew the police, as represented by Detectives Chan and Riordan, figured I’d faked a break-in to divert suspicion from myself. As Riordan put it, “This seems like a lot of trouble for sixty bucks in loose cash.”

  “You don’t think this is connected with Robert’s murder?” I’d demanded.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s connected.” he said obliquely.

  “Were Rob’s keys found?”

  Riordan said reluctantly, as though it caused him physical pain to part with information, “No. There were no keys on the body or on the premises.”

  Which to his little gray cells could mean that I’d taken them away with me after I’d finished carving up my old “hump buddy.”

  The only reason I wasn’t already sitting in jail watching Oprah was the cops hadn’t finished building a slam dunk case against me. Imminent arrest, like their stale aftershave, hung in the air following Chan and Riordan’s reluctant departure. They’d cautioned me about remaining available for further questioning.

  I had a locksmith in before lunch to change the locks. The paper came and I read the details of “West Hollywood Man Murdered,” sitting on the floor amid my sorting. According to the L.A. Times, thirty-three-year-old Robert Hersey had been found in the early hours of Monday, February 22nd, by sanitation workers making their daily rounds. Hersey had been stabbed repeatedly in the face, throat, and torso by an unknown assailant. The murder weapon had not been recovered. Police had questioned an unidentified man observed arguing with Hersey hours before his murder, but had made no arrest. “We are still trying to determine the identity of a man Hersey allegedly met later that evening,” stated LAPD Detective Paul Chan.

  A hoarse whisper from behind had me starting up off the floor. Angus stood there, glasses glinting blindly.

  “Jeez! Don’t do that!”

  He was silent for a moment and then croaked, “Can I go to lunch now?”

  “Yeah, of course. What time is it?”

  “Noon.”

  “Okay.”

  Angus didn’t budge. I felt a tickle between my shoulder blades — as though a knife were aimed at my back.

  “How long do I get?”

  “What?”

  “How long can I take for lunch?” he whispered patiently.

  “Oh. An hour, I guess.”

  I leaned back, watching him walk through the aisles of books, then I got up, stepped out of the office to see him go through the glass doors past the locksmith busily drilling away.

  The phone rang and I picked it up. It was Bruce Green, the reporter from Boytimes.

  “Don’t hang up, Mr. English,” he said right off the bat.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m trying to help you. My informant tells me LAPD plans to make you the scapegoat for Hersey’s murder.”

  My finger hovered over the disconnect button, but I waited.

  “You’re gay and that’s good enough for LAPD.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said. I didn’t know if I believed it or not. “Anyway, you’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything. I didn’t kill Robert; that’s the only thing I know.”

  “You’d better talk to somebody, Mr. English. Tell your story,” advised Green. “Your next interview with Riordan and Chan will be downtown, take my word for it. They plan to have an arrest by the end of the week.”

  I tried to speak around the heart suddenly lodged in my throat. “What is it you think you can do for me?”

  “I can get the support of the gay community behind you. We’ll put your story on the front page: the story of how LAPD is trying to railroad an innocent gay man because they’re too prejudiced and lazy to do their job.”

  I thought of “my story” on the front page, my photo in smudgy black and white, and I quailed.

  “Mr. Green, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I don’t have anything to say.”

  “Just talk to me, Mr. English. Five minutes. That’s all. Off the record.”

  “No. Really. Thank you, but no.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Mr. English. Sooner or later —”

  “Thank you, Mr. Green, but no thank you.” I pressed disconnect.

  I went behind the counter and started dialing customers whose search lists we’d matched. There was a 1972 first edition of Robert Bentley’s Here There Be Dragons which had taken nine months to locate, and which I was tempted to keep for myself. A paperback copy of Ngaio Marsh’s When in Rome, several Patricia Wentworth hardcovers: Ah, the thrill of the hunt!

  The locksmith finished up and gave me the new keys. I paid him. A few customers wandered in and then straight out again, put off by our new and highly original floor display. I checked Angus’s re-shelving of the books and was relieved to see he could alphabetize.

  After Angus returned from lunch I boiled water for Cup-a-Soup and returned to sorting through the piles and piles of paper littering the office. A forest’s worth of bills, catalogs, bibliographies, press releases. It seemed as good a time as any to purge the files, do the spring cleaning I’d been putting off for the past couple of years.

  It had been nearly twenty-four hours since I’d heard from Chan and Riordan. No news was good news, I told myself, and hoped it was true.

  I was afraid the reporter from Boytimes was right, that with me as a convenient scapegoat, the police weren’t interested in looking further. Motive and Opportunity. Those are the main two angles in any criminal homicide investigation. Since I had no alibi after leaving the Blue Parrot, the police would certainly conclude I had opportunity. Now they were hunting for motive. I was afraid that motive might be subjective.

  I wondered if I needed to get hold of a lawyer? There was always the family firm. I tried to picture the ultra-conservative institution of Hitchcock & Gracen defending me in a homo crime d’passionale (as Claude would say), and wondered if it might not be easier to just shut up and go to prison. On the bright side, since Lisa only read the Society pages and the Calendar section, chances were she’d never hear anything about this, barring my arrest. For
all I knew, I might be able to stall her through the first couple of years of my sentence with the skillful use of phone messages. Do they let you keep your cell phone in prison?

  I sound more flippant than I felt. Each time I considered the real threat of arrest — jail — my brain seemed to flatline.

  Angus turned out to be a hard worker. By late afternoon, he had half the books back on the shelves. Another day or two and we would be back in business for real.

  Bundled in an army fatigue jacket, he appeared in the doorway of the office.

  “Mr. English?” he mumbled, addressing the shelf above my head. “I’m going now.”

  I rose, dusting my knees off. “Sure.” I looked at my watch. “Oh, sorry. You should have told me it was so late.”

  “Do you want me tomorrow?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to come back.”

  He gazed at me, owlish and unsmiling. “I like it here.”

  “Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I walked him out, locked the door behind him. Maybe he was just socially backward. Maybe it was his first job.

  Maybe I was imagining things.

  * * * * *

  On Tuesdays, the Partners in Crime mystery writers group usually met in the store after hours to critique each other’s work in progress, tear published writers’ books apart, and argue hot topics like who was bringing what refreshments next time.

  That evening I half-expected, half-hoped everyone would cancel. It didn’t happen. In fact all five members showed up early, with Claude arriving first. He wore a white raincoat, looking as suave as Shaft at a New Orleans funeral.

  “Mon chou, have you reconsidered what we discussed yesterday?” He helped me set chairs in a semi-circle: a fake Chippendale, a fake Sheraton, and four genuine folding metal that pinched your butt if you didn’t sit up straight. Cheap thrills.

  We dragged the long library table to the center.

  “If you’re still talking career ops in B & E, no.”

  Claude made distressed noises.

  “I can’t believe you’re serious about this,” I said. “The police already suspect me.”

  “You!”

  “Moi. Even if I —”

  We were interrupted by the arrival of Jean and Ted Finch.

  “Adrien, you poor baby!” exclaimed Jean, giving me a hug.

  The Finches are writing partners, which seems like a surefire way to destroy a healthy marriage, but what do I know? My social life was pronounced DOA many moons ago. She’s small and slim and dark, and so is he; a matched pair, like bookends. They met at one of the Bouchercon mystery conferences. Love among the midlist.

  “It’s raining cats and dogs!” Ted announced, which gives you an idea of the sort of thing they write. He collapsed a rain-spotted red umbrella, adding, “We were sorry to hear about Rob, Adrien.”

  “Thanks.” I felt awkward in my role as bereaved.

  Jean, spotting Claude at the coffee maker, darted away to contest his decision to serve Godiva Cinnamon Hazelnut over Don Francisco’s Moka Java.

  Ted sidled over to me. “Do the police know who did it?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not exactly in their confidence.”

  “Jean thinks it’s a serial killer preying on the gay community.”

  “A serial killer with only one victim?”

  “It has to start with someone.”

  I was still mulling over that happy thought when tall, well-built Max Siddons blew in. Max threw off his yellow poncho, shook himself like a dog, and made straight for the coffee and the chocolate pecan brownies provided by Jean. She giggled nervously as he flirted with her.

  None of that awkward sentimental stuff for Max. I remembered that Robert had hit on Max once or twice when Rob first came back to LA That was before the thing with Claude. Rob had briefly joined our writing group but gave it up after we ran out of eligible men. Max was aggressively heterosexual which Robert had been convinced was just a facade. I never knew exactly what happened, but Max was coldly civil to Robert after the misunderstanding. Luckily duels were no longer acceptable social behavior.

  Studying Max as he flattered Jean out of one side of his mouth and crammed brownies into the other, I wondered just how offended he had been.

  Max finished grazing and sat down with Ted. They held a breezy post-mortem over Rob. Ghoulish but probably inevitable with mystery writers. Wasn’t I standing here considering whether muscular Max would be capable of tossing Robert’s body into a trash dumpster? I shoved aside that mental picture, but as I went to get more pens I could still hear Max and Ted — now joined by Jean — comparing their theories against the newspapers’ conjecture. As they knowledgeably debated the possibilities of disorganized lust murder over organized lust murder, and demonstrated their technical expertise by discussing types of blades, defense wounds, stab vs. slash injuries, I realized that Rob’s death wasn’t real for them. They could have been playing a grisly version of Clue.

  “Are we going to get any work done tonight?” Grania Joyce demanded while I was in the storeroom.

  “If Adrien ever stops futzing around,” Max returned easily.

  “I’m ready.” I left the storeroom, pens in hand and joined them at the circle. Grania, head bent over her manuscript, reached for a pen without looking up. She’s tall, red-haired, the Boadicea type. She turns out hard-boiled feminist stuff and informs me regularly that my writing is “anemic.” Tonight she wore a T-shirt that proclaimed, Listen to Girls, which we did, settling down to the dissection of the first three chapters of Claude’s The Eiffel Tower Affaire with huffy rustles of paper and under-breath comments from Max.

  Robert’s funeral was Friday.

  It was one of those perfect days when the Santa Ana winds sweep the smog out over the ocean; the sky looked as uncannily blue as if it had been colorized by Ted Turner.

  The mourners didn’t outnumber the church officials by many. I recognized a few people but most were strangers. Strange to me anyway. Rob had always been popular. Where were the people we had gone to school with? The friends who, like me, stood by while he married Tara in a chapel very similar to this one? Where was all the extended family? The aunts, uncles, cousins? Where were the cronies of the last few liberated months? Claude did not show. Nor any of Robert’s numerous lovers — at least none that I recognized.

  The media were represented by a local news van parked by the cemetery gates. The murder of one gay man was hardly a Stop-the-Presses event. A bored reporter waited outside the vaulted-ceiling chapel kicking pebbles back and forth. There were a few sightseers. And, of course, the police. Detectives Chan and Riordan looked suitably grave in dark suits and sunglasses. I think I did a kind of guilty double take when I spotted them. Chan nodded affably.

  I found a place behind Robert’s father, shrunken in his wheelchair, and Robert’s sisters. The younger one had had a crush on me in junior high. She could barely meet my eyes now.

  Tara sat on the other side of the first row of pews, the kids with her, wide-eyed and scared. She looked like hell beneath her chic Princess Diana hat. Like she hadn’t slept in days. That made two of us.

  My mind kept wandering during the generic service. It was obvious the minister had never met Robert. Rob’s sisters took turns getting up and speaking huskily about his qualities as a brother and husband and father and son. The church felt stuffy, airless. I viewed the rosewood casket. How quickly, how neatly the chaos of a living person could be reduced to an insignificant box.

  When the service ended I hung back while everyone shuffled outside into the windy, sunlit afternoon. I wasn’t sure how Tara would react to my presence. I didn’t feel up to hysterics: hers or mine.

  “Adrien? Mr. English?”

  I turned around. Next to me stood a very tall man with strong features and black, lank hair. Kind of attractive in a homely way. He offered a hand.

  “Bruce Green. Boytimes.”

  We shook hands. His grip was warm, firm.
r />   “I just came by to pay my respects.” Brown eyes held mine. “Have you changed your mind about talking to me?”

  “Man, it must be a slow week for news.” I broke off as Chan and Riordan materialized beside us. There was an uneasy pause. Perhaps I looked as tense as I felt. Bruce Green gave my hand a meaningful squeeze before letting it go.

  “What are you doing here?” It came out roughly because I was afraid I knew what they were doing there.

  Chan said quietly, “Just paying our respects like everyone else, Mr. English.”

  “This could be viewed as harassment,” Bruce Green said.

  They stared at me. Stared at Green.

  Riordan inquired, “And you are —?”

  “Bruce Green. Boytimes.”

  Their faces said it all.

  Green turned to me. “You don’t have to talk to them, you know?”

  Chan looked pained. Riordan … well, I momentarily expected a MegaMan reaction of nuclear proportions.

  “It’s routine, so they tell me.”

  “I’ll be in touch.” Green’s gaze locked once more with mine.

  I nodded. He gave the cops a curt inclination of his head before turning away and vanishing into the line of mourners still filing out through the double doors. He looked too well-groomed, too well-dressed to fit my image of a reporter.

  Riordan made a sound of contempt. “Reporters.”

  Chan said, as though it had just occurred to him, “Mr. English, were you aware that Mr. Hersey had taken out a sizable life insurance policy a few months before he died?”

  “No. How sizable?”

  “People have committed murder for less,” Riordan said.

  I was afraid to ask. “Who’s the beneficiary?”

  Riordan’s brows shot up. “Can’t you guess?”

  I stared at them dumbly. Whatever I said, I knew they would think I was lying. The more I tried to explain, the worse it would look. It was like being in quicksand. The more I struggled, the faster I would sink.

  “Excuse me.” I pushed past them, following the scattering of mourners down the slope toward the ornamental lake. The ground was soggy from previous days’ rain. My shoes squelched in the grass as I made my way to the green canopy positioned a yard from the grave.