Murder at Willow Slough

by Josh Thomas

  “If you’ll take me to the diskettes and other records you’ve received from your son, we’ll try not to trash the place, you’re a senior citizen. But if you stay in denial of a lawful order, you can expect to do home repairs for the next year.”

  She led him right to the diskettes. Considerately, Dr. Randy had labeled and dated every one of them for Kent’s perusal, even supplied a handsome carrying case. With gloved fingers, Kent popped open the plastic box, beheld scores of neatly stacked disks.

  Then she showed him the videotapes, in the spare bedroom with its own TV and VCR: Barlow. Billy Gregory. Chuckie Pont. Crum had been in on several of Schmidgall’s murders, but Schmidgall was right, he had nothing to do with murdering the Pont boy, that was all Crum’s doing. Freakazoid, I Know Who You Are.

  ***

  At Major Slaughter’s suggestion, the other task force members used the St. Petersburg trip as paid time off too, so after the evidence was secured, they got to relax together. Jack brought his wife Marie and everyone got to meet her; she was a brunette beauty. Everyone went to the beach that afternoon; Kent was glad to strip down to swim trunks, soak up sun and think of nothing. Phil was his natural companion age-wise, little conversation, just occasional jokes and guytalk they could both do in their sleep. Bulldog and Hickman looked slightly ridiculous in their sunglasses, Hawaiian trunks and pale Ohio bellies, but they had the time of their lives ogling young, tanned Florida girls. Harvey sat under an umbrella with a sketchpad, while George sunned face-up, smoked stogies and took an occasional nip from his Glenlivet flask. Marie wore a one-piece bathing suit, had a very nice, fit, 40ish body with some serious cleavage. All the guys felt warmed by Jack’s love for her; a little envious. Jack teased Kent, “It ain’t just you young guys who get hot. Sweetest girl you ever met, Miss Jasper County, and she’s been mine for 22 years.”

  “Life begins at 40, I’ve got 14 years to prepare. Who set your nose when it got broke, the town blacksmith?”

  A couple of bikini’d women came up to Kent and Phil and invited them to play volleyball. Kent looked at Phil and said sure. They followed the ladies, while behind them Bulldog called, “Go for it, guys, ooh-la-la!”

  Hickman told Bulldog, “Wouldn’t violate my marriage vows to play a game or two.”

  “Why, Barry, what would the preacher say, you lusting in your heart?”

  “Ain’t my heart that’s lustin’.”

  Later they ate seafood at a place the locals frequented. The major got a little tight. They weren’t driving, so Kent did too.

  The hospital didn’t call.

  ***

  The next day at the end of his workout, Kent knew he wanted to be alone, not with a big group; he had things to sort out in his mind. He didn’t want to face them directly, but he knew they were there.

  Bulldog and Hickman were eager to get back to bikini beach, while Jack and Marie talked about hitting the antique stores. Everyone suspected that really meant staying in the hotel with the shades drawn, but they grinned and went along. Slaughter said, “I know a beach near Sarasota, forty miles south of here. Very different.”

  Phil asked, “How so?”

  “Families at one end, clothes-optional at the other.”

  “Cool,” Phil said.

  Harvey smiled, “Cooler still with no clothes on.”

  George said, “Kent, what do you need?”

  Kent shrugged, “Alone time. To kinda brood, I guess.” So the four single men drove to Sarasota. George and Harvey paired up, Phil headed straight for the nude beach and Kent sat, looking at the gulf, seeing universal waters, seeing nothing.

  He slowly realized he was depressed. He had every right to be, but still.

  In front of him little kids squealed, chasing waves out, then running back hollering when the waves rolled in. He looked at their little legs and chests, the delight on their faces. Wanted his own kid someday.

  Might not have one, now that he was in love with Jamie Foster. It was the first time he consciously had the thought. Then his mind went blank. ***

  Half an hour later he stood and stretched; maybe he didn’t want to be at the family beach anymore. Why confine himself to other people’s kids when there were clothing-optional adults a mile or two away? He told himself he’d just look. Maybe he’d meet a girl there. Maybe he’d meet a guy.

  Maybe he’d meet himself. He headed for the nude beach.

  It took quite a bit of hiking; he began to doubt the place existed. Idly he watched the families, the couples having fun or yelling at each other. It seemed like a world he no longer quite belonged to.

  He needed time off after a critical incident.

  Would Jamie ever see this place? Would Kent ever take him there? Probably not.

  He so wanted the hospital to call, to say Jamie was all right.

  Either Kent’s directions were wrong or there was no nude beach. He was about to turn back when he spotted a tall, topless brunette with a nice set of knockers.

  He smiled, suddenly cheered up. He liked knockers, always had.

  She wore a bikini bottom and held hands with a little boy naked as a flamingo. Then the boy took off, trying to capture a seagull, which lifted effortlessly away.

  Few places in the world emphasize freedom of knockers; it ought to be a constitutional right. Kent grinned, wondered what Phil was up to by now.

  Kent headed past teenage couples, naked families who surprised him; a couple of retired ladies didn’t mind that their breasts no longer qualified for Playboy. People on this end of the beach chattered happily, they played, they didn’t argue. They were utterly blasé about the nudity surrounding them. Men didn’t have erections, they played catch with their kids. Eight teenagers played volleyball, guys and gals both, and though they had to be horny, they didn’t say a single thing different from what clothed teenagers would say.

  He began to want to take off his swim trunks.

  Other people wore bathing suits, spectators, odd people out. Why would anyone wear clothes when the norm was nothing at all?

  Clothes weren’t nature’s way. He slipped his trunks off his hips, wadded them up and walked on.

  He felt the gulf breeze on his ass, between his legs. Wind on skin, was there a finer sensation? He liked his body, and he could tell from the looks he got that others did too, men and women both, boys and girls.

  He passed a young man, longhaired, with a slim, tanned body. Kent openly looked at him. Why go naked if not to be looked at? Did Kent like that body?

  Maybe, a little, but compared to the blond picture in his head it wasn’t so great. What did he feel about the guy’s body?

  It had a certain beauty, like the brunette with the knockers, like the naked son who tried to capture seagulls. Like the older ladies worshipping the sun. What pleasure and surprise he felt to stumble into freedom, to feel the sensation of his quads and gastrocs and glutes propelling him ahead.

  He had seen athletic men’s bodies his entire life. They didn’t all look the same. Pitchers and catchers carried some extra weight because of the pounding their bodies took. First basemen were taller than second basemen and shortstops. The hot corner required muscle and speed, a great throwing arm. Outfielders, himself among them, had the most proportional bodies, the most beautiful ones. For home run hitters like himself, add big, soft hands and an extra 10 or 20 pounds of muscle.

  He missed playing and hitting home runs.

  He’d always touched guys’ bodies, teammates, coaches, and they touched him back, the game couldn’t be played without it. Touching was so normal he never thought a thing. He enjoyed it, though, missed teammates’ hands on him the last few years. The last time he got a therapeutic massage, he realized his skin hungered for touch, had grown unaccustomed to it. He jumped when the therapist started to work on him.

  He liked touching Jamie, but Jamie never touched him back. Like it all meant something sexual, when it didn’t. Or maybe did.

  With Jamie, touching was definitely sexual. Pat his butt
and he’d haul out an M-16.

  That was why Jamie never touched him back, he’d never move on a Straight guy. Kent wanted to tell him it was okay sometimes. Then, screw the sometimes, it was okay.

  Kent’s eye was drawn to a blonde woman who sat with her back to him. He paused, studying her. He remembered the first time he’d ever seen yellow hair, on a mistreated little boy in a movie musical. Kent stared at Oliver’s hair, trying to make sense of such a wonder. Why did it stir such feelings in him? Why did he almost envy it?

  Natural blond hair is rare; that makes it special. Kent felt rare and special as an athlete, but he didn’t have blond hair.

  He frowned, shrugged and moved on. A few nights ago he’d creamed his jeans, blond hair was so special. Couldn’t argue that wasn’t sexual.

  Without thinking enough to decide anything, Kent knew he’d love Jamie without becoming Gay. Jamie was an individual. Kent loved his personality; he didn’t wear dresses and Kent wasn’t Gay. Jamie was an aberration maybe, a phase.

  If not he’d deal with it later. Kent had loved guys before; Tim Virdon came immediately to mind, sitting in a lounge off the locker room as Tim cried his eyes out for his horribly sick daughter, and Kent held him. He remembered the feeling of holding a man.

  It was fine for guys to love each other, nothing wrong with that. Kent didn’t have to throw over his whole self-image; he and Tim loved each other. Tim’s daughter beat the cancer; oh, the joy of that.

  Kent liked knockers and he liked Jamie. He could live with the news.

  Then something hit him in the pit of his stomach; what Jamie was doing to Dreadlocks that made Kent cream his jeans. Jamie was putting it to the guy, acting like a man. That’s what turned Kent on so much. He pictured the video of Jamie fighting back. Jamie was so manly, maybe he wasn’t Gay at all. Maybe he’d just fallen in with the wrong crowd.

  Kent started to feel aroused, which wasn’t appropriate on a nude beach. He tried to think about building a garage for his new pickup.

  He walked further, up a little dune where the vegetation changed. Something told him he might have crossed an imaginary line. He traveled on until he stopped in his tracks. Nothing but naked guys here, the air charged with sexheat. Turn around or walk on? Half-panicked, he let his body decide. He felt somewhat aroused again; he loved people looking at his major-league body. His feet walked deeper into the Gay section, until he finally came to a little swale so soft and private and inviting he had to lie down on it.

  He soaked up sun. ***

  At last Jamie came to him, naked too. Jamie touched his face, ran his fingers through his hair. They hugged and kissed, naked athletes together, making love on the beach.

  Kent felt wet warmth on his dick. “Oh, Jamie, this is fantastic.” He opened his eyes and saw the setting sun on bright blond hair, bobbing up and down between his legs, Jamie’s back to him, sucking. “Man, come up here, let me love you.”

  He pulled him up and around to kiss him—but it wasn’t Jamie at all, it was some unshaved beach bum with missing teeth. Kent screamed, scrambled up, grabbed his trunks and ran. ***

  He didn’t want just sex; he wanted Jamie. If Kent was Gay, maybe he’d have let the beach bum blow him.

  He wasn’t Gay.

  But it didn’t seem likely that someone as smart as Jamie fell in with the wrong crowd. At any rate, the hospital didn’t call.

  43

  Iota

  When Kent got back with the smoking diskettes, nurses suggested that he try talking to Jamie, since Kent was on guard duty every night; some people believe the comatose can hear.

  The coma dragged on three days, five days, longer. So Kent talked, said everything that came into his head, with no one else around. Did something else too; kissed little fingers, blessed them, begged God, before he left every morning. Found no response, just Jamie’s body imperceptibly curling into a fetal position.

  ***

  Operation Pride was successful, with nine arrested and four dead, Kent told him; Jamie was fantastic. Kent talked about the patch when Jamie called home like it was the most brilliant idea in history. “You could have called direct, but by working it through us, we knew what to do.” He described the chain to the FBI, the ongoing investigation; he praised Jamie to the skies. He told all about Carson, the most evil of the bad guys, because he was a lawman. “We searched his vacation house and found child pornography, Jamie. Pictures of three-year-old girls with no clothes on. And adults doing things to their private parts. His own daughter! It makes you so mad to see them. I mean, little babies? Guys like that should be shot.”

  Kent was the one who shot him, lurking in the trees. One flesh wound and Carson tumbled right out of a maple.

  Kent talked about the press coverage; he babbled and didn’t care. “It’s a media zoo. We’ve been invited onto Larry King, Barbara Walters, that show with Jane Pauley—I always liked Jane Pauley, she’s a Hoosier girl. ‘60 Minutes,’ let’s see, who else? Letterman. I’ve talked to David Letterman’s mom, Jamie, can you believe that? She’s very nice, down to earth, like your aunt who always gives you a shirt for Christmas, the same shirt every year. Of course, I’m not going to do a show like that, even if he is from Indy. It wouldn’t be right, it’s an entertainment show and this ain’t for laughs. He’s off limits. But it’s kinda nice to be asked.

  “The tabloid shows have all begged and begged, but I vetoed all of ’em, don’t want nobody talking to ’em. There’s a show called ‘Cops’ that wants to do a re-enactment, and we might do that someday; the major kinda likes that show and other officers watch it. All the morning shows, what else? Oh, ‘48 Hours’ with Dan Rather.”

  He thought he saw Jamie twitch at the last one—he couldn’t be sure—so every night Kent watched Dan Rather and talked about him, but Jamie never woke up.

  ***

  When he ran out of things to say, Kent confessed the other thing that happened that night. “I wasn’t there for you.” He cried; his tears were burning hot. “I let you down.” He screeched, he’d never hurt so bad in his life.

  But it led to the ultimate confession, of his feelings for him.

  Jamie slept right through it. ***

  Afterward Kent felt a little better to finally admit the truth. He prayed that if Jamie woke up, Kent would say one-fourth of what was on his mind, even if he had to force himself. “You deserve to hear the truth, man. Even if you hate me, you deserve to hear.”

  Major Slaughter brought him magazines to read during the slack time: Gay ones for Jamie called Out Is In, The Clarion, Into the Streets; plus People, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time. The crime was on the cover of most of them. U.S. News got the whole team together. People trotted out an old shot from that time they named Kent the Sexiest Man in Baseball. SI had action photos from his playing days.

  He read articles to Jamie, though he didn’t understand what he was reading with the Gay stuff. He described the pictures; his commentaries were more amusing than the stories. “You should see this guy, he’s got piercings and tattoos and I don’t know what. Wild spiky hair, a whole row of things up his ear. A ring in his nose, with chains that go up to his earlobes and down to where? The picture’s cut off below his waist. Good grief, you’d think he’d rust after awhile. Put him in a rainstorm and he couldn’t move. The Tin Man. Maybe he carries 3-in-1 Oil in his backpack.”

  Over and over Kent spilled his guts to a silent snore. The situation was hopeless, though, every night the same.

  But Jesse Jackson played in his head: “Keep hope alive.” Kent cried some, and got tough; and cried a little more, and talked, in case it helped. “It can’t hurt anything,” his mother told him. Martha Kessler visited her son every evening, and Kent always told Jamie what she wore, the food she brought, how things were going on the farm.

  He watched Jamie’s body melt away for lack of food. Every day beautiful muscles atrophied as the body devoured itself. It was heartbreaking, grotesque, terrifying, and there was nothing Kent could do to sto
p it.

  He brought his chair close, studied the bruises on Jamie’s face, the backs of his hands where Ford stood on them. The wounds on Jamie’s side had no way to heal. The body can’t repair when it’s fighting for survival. Yet Kent loved those bruises, like he loved the footage of Jamie getting aggressive.

  “You portray yourself like you’re not the fighting type. You’d rather talk about old movies. You have an aversion to guns you can’t even tell me about.

  “But there you were, fighting for your life. Thirteen against one and you attacked! It took ’em five minutes to get you back down, it took seven guys to do it. Man, your arm strength was awesome. If Ford had-n’t had that knife you’d have beaten ’em!

  “Jamie, I just wish I’d gotten there sooner. If it was you and me, I know we could have taken them. The guy with the little knife, the one who stabbed you, they did an autopsy. He’s the one you kneed and kicked. You broke his jaw, Jamie. If he hadn’t been killed on the scene, he’d have needed surgery after you got done with him.

  “I’m sorry for the way it came down; but I’m proud of what you did. You were incredible! But you know what I’m proudest of? That after all that work for other people, you finally fought for yourself. Man oh man, that just fills my heart with pride. Sometimes in this world, it’s kill or be killed, Jamie. I know you don’t want to live that way, but sometimes that’s how it is. And when they tried to get you—you went for the kill.

  “You hated those killers as much as I do. You hated, man. Hate’s not a great thing. But sometimes it is. Let loose! Hate them.

  “And you did. You traded your life for some poor stupid guy you didn’t even know.

  “That’s why you gotta stay alive now, Jamie. You gotta wake up. They’re dead, some of ’em, and now’s your time to live.”

  It was bottom-of-the-heartfelt. But it didn’t help one iota. ***

  Kent ran the whole gamut of emotions. “Jamie, I was so scared. Shakin’ in my boots. How could you do this to me? Man, I was terrified. I still am, damn you. Wake up!”