Here Comes the Corpse

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “I haven’t talked to him much recently.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We drifted apart as adults. He moved to St. Louis a couple years ago.”

  Rohter said, “We haven’t been able to pin down his movements at the reception. No one admits to seeing him heading to that washroom. Mostly he’s reported to have been sitting by himself in a corner or at a table with no one on either side of him.”

  “It was a big party,” I said. “No one was expecting to have to remember details as possible murder witnesses.”

  Hoge said, “We were hoping we’d find someone.”

  Scott pointed to Donny. “He heard the murder take place.”

  The stoic gazes of the detectives rested on Donny. The teenager said, “Hey, what! I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything.”

  The cops looked at Scott, me, and then the kid. Donny said, “You can’t question me without my parents here.”

  Everybody’s a lawyer these days. Although, anyone with half a brain, as opposed to most suspects on television shows, would ask for a lawyer and shut up.

  Then it hit me about why the kid made me uneasy. Here he was facing being questioned by the cops, and he didn’t look troubled or concerned. I saw petulance mixed with excitement. It was the same look as the night before when he’d first told us what he’d heard. For most of us there would have been some kind of strong reaction or worry or at least concern. He asked no questions about what had happened nor evinced the slightest bit of curiosity. Someone had been killed, and it didn’t seem to bother him. I didn’t detect any feeling from him that he should or could have done something to help. No residual realization that he had been in the presence of or in close proximity to a violent act that took a human life. He may not have completely understood what was happening at the time, but when he heard the news, it should have at least given him pause. Earlier this morning he’d been far too casual and composed for any fifteen-year-old.

  Scott said, “He ran away from home. He came here. Maybe because much of his family is here for the wedding, or maybe he had nowhere to go nearer to home. His parents are on their way to pick him up.” Scott gave them the details of Donny’s arrival, then said, “Here’s what he told us about the murder.” Scott finished, “We didn’t call you then because it was the middle of the night. He hadn’t actually seen the killer.”

  Rohter kept an impassive gaze on Donny as he said, “You’re not a suspect. You might be able to help us. Wouldn’t you want to help catch a killer?”

  Donny seemed to contemplate this for a minute. Then he folded his arms over his chest and set his jaw. I noted the familial resemblance to Scott at that moment. Scott has that same look on his face on the mound when he’s facing a fearsome hitter or when he’s particularly irritated with me.

  Donny said, “I ain’t saying nothin’ till my parents get here.”

  I love teenage logic. First, he hates his parents, then he runs to them for protection. The dyad of bravado and ego chasing the triumvirate of angst and immaturity and fear.

  I said, “I’m curious. How does this work? First you want to be free of your parents and be independent, but as soon as trouble rears its head, you run and try to hide behind them.”

  “I’m not hiding behind my parents.”

  “Sure you are,” I said.

  The cop asked, “Is what Mr. Carpenter said accurate?”

  “I guess, maybe.” Each word emerged at the speed of a molar being extracted.

  “Why don’t you tell us the story?”

  “You heard it from him.” If he snarled a bit more often in that tone, I might implicate him in the murder just for the hell of it.

  “We’d rather hear it from you.”

  “I’m waiting for my mom and dad, and I’m not hiding behind them.”

  “Is there more you need to add?” Rohter asked.

  Despite the detectives repeated proddings, Donny remained recalcitrant.

  “They stole my clothes.”

  Scott said, “We found electronic equipment piled on its way out the door. He’s run away from home at least once that we know of. We were afraid he’d try to bolt before his parents got here.”

  “They can’t take my stuff,” Donny stated.

  Rohter said, “Chain him up and dangle him off the side of the building for all I care.”

  I said, “You must have teenagers of your own.”

  “Got that right.”

  Donny saw no sympathy coming from any quarter.

  “When his parents get here,” Rohter announced, “we’ll want to see them and him. He doesn’t leave town. I don’t care how you keep him here.”

  Scott got up, left the room, and came back with socks, shoes, and a T-shirt. He tossed them to the boy. The young man went to finish dressing.

  Rohter said, “I don’t envy his mother and father.”

  “They should be here soon,” Scott said.

  “Call us.”

  We agreed to do that.

  I asked, “What else can you tell us about what happened?”

  Rohter said, “We discovered that Mr. Gahain had been robbed. There was no money or credit cards in his wallet. You sure you didn’t see anyone else?”

  “Absolutely. Could Donny have robbed him?”

  Rohter said, “It wasn’t part of the story he told you. Did you find Mr. Gahain’s credit cards when you looked through Donny’s stuff?”

  “No.”

  “Did he have a lot of money?”

  “We found a thick wad of cash in Donny’s backpack. No more than he could have stolen from his parents or taken out of his own savings account. How much money was Ethan supposed to have on him?”

  “We don’t know. His mother says she saw a few bills when he put the parking-garage ticket in his wallet before the event.”

  Scott said, “It would take somebody pretty cruel to rob a dying man and not help.”

  “We see it more than you think,” Rohter said. “Traffic-accident victims lose their possessions all the time.”

  “Do you have any other notions on who might have done it?” I asked. “Have you checked on the protesters? There were a lot of crazy homophobes out there.”

  “And they did what?” Rohter asked. “Decided to murder one of the guests, snuck in, waited in an obscure bathroom, hoping someone would show up, and murdered him? To what benefit?”

  I said, “To cause a sensation, besmirch the wedding. There’s always someone who wants to wreck things.”

  Rohter said, “They could have called in a false fire alarm or bomb threat, done a whole lot less drastic and dramatic things than murdering a guest. Are you seriously suggesting someone would commit a capital felony simply to make you unhappy?”

  “Not when you put it that way,” I said.

  Scott said, “We ran into a private detective named Jack Miller. He said he tried to talk to you guys.”

  “Trust me,” Rohter said. “We do not rush to our nearest private eye or amateur sleuth for assistance. We can handle this all on our own.”

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “We checked him out. He’s legitimate.” Rohter’s tone suggested being a legitimate private eye was tantamount to being a carrier of the black death.

  “What happens next?” Scott asked.

  “I have one or two things you might be able to help us with. When you got to the washroom, did you see signs of sexual activity?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “We’ve got copious amounts of semen in his underwear and a bit more on his pants.”

  “His or the killer’s?” I asked.

  “We’re having it examined. Maybe both.”

  Scott asked, “Are you saying he had an orgasm while he was being killed?”

  Hoge said, “Maybe. More likely in the hour or so before he died. He could have been sitting at a table playing pocket pool and gotten out of control. He could have beat off in that john and used his shorts to wipe up, or he could have b
een having sex with another person and come before he could get his prick out because he was so turned on, or not taken his prick out because he got his jollies doing it in his pants whether alone or with someone else. I suppose there are a few other possible explanations of how they got stained that I haven’t thought of.”

  I said, “I get the drift. I didn’t see any stain.”

  “It was mixed with blood.”

  Scott said, “Maybe he was waiting until the cum residue dried before coming out of the john. A big wet stain on the front of your pants could be embarrassing.”

  Rohter asked, “Anybody at the party he might have had sex with?”

  “I don’t know if he was dating anyone who was at the party or not. I don’t know if he picked someone up. He was unattached and not bad looking. He has four ex-wives, one in St. Louis and three here. I have no idea if they have a motive for killing him. Certainly they weren’t invited to the wedding.”

  Hoge said, “We’ll be talking to the ex-wives. I doubt if we’re going to find they were all in town for a ‘how to murder your ex-husband’ convention. We definitely want to interrogate your nephew. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Rohter and Hoge left.

  We repaired to the kitchen. It was just after ten. Scott began frying bacon. I began chopping mushrooms, onions, sausage, and crumbling feta cheese for omelettes.

  Scott said, “We could drive to St. Louis. It might be faster than flying.”

  It was about a five-hour drive. Flying would take an hour’s trip to the airport, an hour’s wait at the airport—I’m a get-there-plenty-early kind of guy—an hour or so of flight, an hour or so to pick up the luggage, rent a car, and get to downtown St. Louis. That would be assuming no delays. I reminded Scott of all this, then added, “Let’s drive. I like to see the crops being harvested.”

  Some people like vast mountain vistas, or cold, deepwater lakes on remote plateaus, or cityscapes of breathtaking beauty. I like those, too, but the best of all are the flat plains of Illinois. From the grays, blacks, and browns of winter, to the golden harvest of fall, to the hot green of summer, they are the way the world should look, beautifully plain, stark, simple.

  I said, “If we play our cards right, we could have dinner at Tony’s.” If you get a chance while in St. Louis, go to Tony’s restaurant. It’s near the Arch and definitely very pricey. Trust me. Just go. Take out a bank loan if you have to. It’s worth every penny.

  “I thought our goal was to look in Ethan’s house.”

  “We have to eat,” I responded.

  We called Todd Bristol, our lawyer, and he agreed to talk to the authorities. The mayor had been at the damn reception after all. They couldn’t very well tell everyone who had been there not to leave town. True, the mayor didn’t find the body, but still. We asked about Jack Miller, the private eye. He’d heard of him.

  “Jack Miller has quite a reputation. He has a very select clientele, charges astronomical prices, gets results nobody else can, and is totally gorgeous. Stunningly butch and reputedly extremely dangerous. He’s got an international reputation. Sexual orientation unknown despite some of the best efforts of the most vicious old gossip queens in the city, myself included.”

  “I’ll try not to be too impressed.”

  Scott finished frying the bacon. Over the years, he’s gotten reasonably good at making omelettes. I figure my cooking is a success if I chop ingredients and don’t slice off any parts of my anatomy. I’m still trying to boil an egg to his liking. To my liking, it’s easy. Put the egg in water, turn the heat as high as it will go, wait twenty-two minutes, and the thing is edible. Add a little mustard, mayo, and pepper, and it’s fabulous. Just because he took a class, does that give him a right to be finicky?

  The kid strolled in.

  “What would you like in your omelette?” Scott asked him.

  Donny said, “If you cook me something, does that obligate me to anything?”

  “Yes,” I said. “If you don’t eat what we put in front of you, we take you down to the hidden caves far below the sewers of Chicago, where to loud disco music from the midseventies, we torture you mercilessly, eventually beating you senseless with large baseball bats satisfying the primitive urges of the parents of every teenager on the planet. If you do eat, the same things happen.”

  “You’re not funny,” Donny said.

  “I wasn’t aware I was joking.”

  Scott said, “We’ve got Swiss cheese, cheddar, feta, onions, sausage, mushrooms, and probably a few more things in the refrigerator.”

  “Just cheddar cheese,” Donny said.

  Omelettes made, bacon distributed, juice poured, we sat down to eat. I said, “Donny, I’d like to make pleasant breakfast conversation with you, but I don’t know what will set you off. Maybe you’re too angry to talk to me or your uncle at all. If you’d like, I could leave the room, and you can talk with Scott alone.”

  The appraising look he gave me at this point seemed to be a trifle less hostile than usual.

  After several moments he said, “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?” Scott asked.

  The intercom phone rang. Donny’s parents were downstairs.

  9

  Leaving Donny in the kitchen, Scott and I met them at the elevator. Hiram was taller than Scott’s six foot four by at least five inches. He also weighed at least 100 to 150 pounds more than Scott. His wife, Cynthia, bulged out of her clothes. She had a high forehead with hair pulled back in a modified bun.

  Hiram’s first words were “Where’s my son? I want to see him right now.” He delivered the words with more snarl in his tone than his son had used in everything he’d said so far.

  This was the first time Hiram and Cynthia had been to the penthouse. His words and the tone they were delivered in didn’t strike me as an auspicious beginning. When Scott remained silent an uncomfortable amount of time, I said, “Welcome to our home. While you are here, you will observe the rudiments of civility. Nor will you make any demands outside the bounds of welcome guests.”

  Hiram turned red.

  I continued, “Your son came to us. We’re willing to help you and him, but we’re not going to put up with any verbal abuse. I’m curious, though. In what way do you think being officious and demanding is going to help?”

  Scott finally spoke. “Tom is right.”

  Cynthia put a hand on her husband’s arm. “It’s their home. You promised.” She turned to us. “We’d like to speak with our son as soon as possible.” Scott had always described her as a milquetoast, Baptist, obey-your-husband type.

  Scott said, “There’s a good chance if he’s not supervised he may try to run again. He just got done telling us he was scared. He didn’t have time to tell us of what.”

  Hiram and Cynthia exchanged confused looks, then stared at us. Cynthia asked, “What’s he been saying?”

  I said, “Why don’t we listen to him?”

  The four of us met the kid in the kitchen. Donny stood up as we entered the room. His mom hugged him, but Donny’s hands remained slack at his sides. His dad approached, but Donny flinched back. Cynthia had a tearful reunion. Hiram glowered angrily. The boy did not look at his father. We all moved to the living room and sat down.

  From running away, to blatant lies, to attempted theft—if the kid wanted attention from his parents, he’d certainly gotten it. Or maybe he was trying to gain power or assert independence, or a combination of all of the above? I didn’t know what he wanted. Maybe he didn’t know himself.

  Hiram asked, “What the hell is going on?” He banged his fist on a glass-topped table. It rattled but didn’t break.

  Not a bad question, and I was close to feeling as frustrated as he sounded.

  Cynthia gripped Hiram’s arm. “Stop it! Now! How is pounding and demanding going to help!” She began to sob. Hiram sat with his mouth hanging open. Even Donny’s eyes were misty.

  I found some tissues and handed them to her. As Cynthia’s tears subsided, Hiram
reached out a hand to her. She brushed it away. Hiram frowned. I debated us leaving and letting the family resolve its own problems, but by his actions Donny had made us a part of his and their lives. And I didn’t trust him to tell the truth, or even the same lies he had told us. I prefer teenagers who tell consistent lies. That’s the kind of guy I am. And he was connected to the murder. That had to be dealt with.

  I handed the parents Donny’s wad of money, the stolen credit card, and the receipt from the plane ticket.

  Cynthia Carpenter said, “Donny, why?”

  “That’s my money!” His voice squeaked. Donny pointed at us. “They took my stuff. They made me walk around in my underwear.”

  Very softly, Cynthia repeated her question.

  Donny’s eyes shifted from adult to adult. I sensed evasion tinged with guilt. He said, “You don’t understand me.”

  I thought this was a weak countergambit. A universal teenage complaint, but hardly worth traipsing over a quarter of the continent for. He said nothing yet about being gay.

  “What don’t we understand?” his mother asked.

  “Everything.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Hiram snapped.

  “It’s as good as your going to get,” Donny snapped back.

  Silence. Cynthia started crying again. Hiram softly beat the palm of his hand against the chair arm.

  Scott said, “Here’s what he told us.”

  At significant points in his narrative the parents reacted. It was Hiram who said, “We never caught him having sex.” Cynthia said, “He’s dated girls. They call him all the time.” About abuse Hiram said, “We are strict, but we aren’t animals. He hasn’t even been spanked once since he was four or five.” Cynthia said, “I could count on one hand the times he was spanked.” And even later Hiram said, “We never forced him to play sports. He loved being outdoors. He was a champion from the start. People said he could be as good as Scott.” And later still, “We never found pot in his room.” And finally, “We have no idea what he could be afraid of.”

  The mention of suicide stunned them.

  “He’s never said such a thing to us,” Cynthia said. She reached out and touched her son. “We would never want to lose you.”