She looks embarrassed. “I’m fine. Thank you. I heard Sam’s doorbell. I thought it might be you. Sam guessed you would be round soon. She, uh, asked me to give you something.” She holds out an envelope. There’s no way this can be good news. Part of me just wants to run away but instead I take it from her.
“Thank you Mrs. Hunt, I appreciate it.” I get a strong premonition I won’t ever see this good lady again. “And thank you for being such a good neighbour to Sam. I know she thought the world of you.” I realize I just referred to Sam in the past tense. Is this some other nightmarish premonition.
I hurry down the steps and into the waiting Healey. I fumble open the envelope and in the feeble glow of the interior light read the letter.
Dear Cal,
I want you to know I love you very much. I will never love anyone the same way I love you. But I just can’t go on like this. Ellie and I were put in deadly danger again because of you. I know you had a good reason for killing those people but I can’t live with the consequences of your actions anymore and I can’t allow Ellie’s life to be in danger. We are going away, far from Vancouver. When we get settled, I will let you know but for now I think it would be better if you don’t try to contact us. I will arrange for you to message El and at some point talk to her by phone.
I would be happy if you gave up your career but I know that being a detective is in your soul, so I would never ask you to make that change.
All my love,
Sam
and Ellie xoxoxoxxxoo
I read it a second time, then rest my head on the steering wheel and try not to cry.
48
Max
He fumbles with the key. That’s good. The roofie’s starting to take effect. Perfect timing. I’m getting good at this. So I should; I’ve had some practice. He finally gets the door open and stumbles into the entranceway. I slip off my backpack and as I place it on the floor the contents clink together. “What’ja got in there?” His voice is starting to acquire a slur. “A toolkit?”
I can’t help laughing, he doesn’t know how right he is. He takes my hand and I try not to flinch as he leads me into the living room. It’s beautifully and expensively furnished with a spectacular view. As soon as we are inside, he grabs me and tries to kiss me. Degenerate! “Hold on tiger, hold on,” I say, fending him off. “Let’s take this slow and sexy.” I try not to gag on the words. “Why don’t you fix us a couple of drinks and we can, you know, get to know each other first.”
“OK. Scotch?” Good, he’s in the compliant phase. I nod. He walks over to a cabinet and takes out some glasses and a crystal decanter. “What made you decide to come to GAMMA?” he asks as he starts to pour unsteadily.
“Through a friend,” I say and smile. I learned Dale’s nasty little secret when I saw him heading for the GAMMA meeting just ahead of me. I often wonder what would have happened if I had got there first and he’d have seen me.
“Oh, who’s that?” He hands me a glass and I catch the smell of peat.
“A guy named Dale,” I say. No reason not to tell him. “Cheers,” I say and take a sip of the single malt. Excellent. I must remember to take this glass with me.
“Cheers.” His voice is becoming more slurred. Not long now. I feel the tingle of pleasure starting to build. “Yeah, I know Dale. Funny that you men… you mentioned him. D’you rem… remember the guy… the guy in the whee…” He starts to sway. “I feel a bit…”
“Why don’t you lie down Paul. Let me take you into the bedroom.”
“The bedroom. Yeah,” he leers. “Thought you’d never…” He starts to sway.
I put my arm round him before he falls and help him into the bedroom. A quick push onto the bed and he’s unconscious before his head hits the pillow.
I look around. The room’s decorated in pink and purple and has a delicate smell of roses. The bed linen has patterns of tiny flowers on it. It brings memories flooding in.
His eyes flicker open. The effects of the drug are wearing off. He looks around the room in puzzlement. He obviously knows he’s in his own bedroom. He tries to roll off the bed but the ropes and the duct tape hold him in place. He starts to struggle. “Welcome back Paul,” I say. He rolls his head in my direction and blinks, his eyes trying to focus. He recognizes me. He tries to speak but the sock in his mouth, secured by duct tape, mutes the sound. He looks puzzled. Now I get to play.
“Now for some fun.” I say. His eyes widen but he doesn’t object. He thinks I’ve tied him up so that I can fuck him. Fat chance, faggot. I take the tailor’s shears out of my backpack. There’s fear in his eyes. I feel the tingle through my body. Oh this is going to be good. Not yet, take your time, Max. I start at the bottom of his shirt and cut up to the right armpit and along the sleeve to the wrist. I do the same on the left side then throw the remains of his shirt on to the floor. I give him a big smile and he nods. He’s enjoying the game.
I start to tell him the story.
There’s a slick of sweat on his chest and belly. I run my gloved fingers across his belly just above his belt and I can see the swelling in his jeans. He’s turned on. Disgusting!
With a smile I unbuckle his belt and pull it off. “Mmmm,” he moans.
Still talking, I take a leisurely walk to the bottom of the bed and cut through the thick denim of his jeans. From ankle to waist, left leg then right. The rendered jeans join his shirt on the floor. Two more cuts and his underwear adds to the pile.
Now he’s really turned on. I just stand and watch, savouring the moment, feeling the excitement growing inside me. I stop telling the story; this time it might spoil his reaction. He looks into my eyes and he knows I’m turned on too, he just doesn’t know why. But he will in a moment. I’m still holding the shears. I put them on the bed between his legs. Oh yes, this is good. I’ve thought of a new addition to my routine. Oh my God yes, why did I not think of this before? My breath comes fast as the pleasure builds.
I take him in my left hand and gently massage up and down; my anticipation drowning my disgust. He’s moaning through the gag and nodding to me. His eyes lock on mine and I gently speed up the movements of my left hand. With my right hand I pick up the shears and spread the blades. He doesn’t see the movement, he’s too caught up in his own pleasure. My left hand pumps a little faster… and then faster still… and just as his moaning approaches its crescendo, my right hand jabs forward and snaps the blades closed. I lift up my left hand for him to see the trophy and reach down my body with my right hand.
His muted shrieks of pain trigger the ecstasy and I can hardly hear him over my own groans of pleasure.
49
Cal
I step off the elevator and stop. The doors close behind me. My mind’s in turmoil. I just can’t decide. It’s not too late to turn back now but if I go forward there will be no turning back later. I want to take the dozen or so paces to the room but I’m wracked by indecision.
Ping. The elevator to my right stops at the floor, disgorging an elderly couple holding hands. They smile at me and I feel like a fool standing here. “Are you lost?” the lady asks.
“No,” I smile embarrassedly. “Just lost in thought.” Not wishing to seem a complete idiot, I walk to the door marked 803 and knock. Thus are decisions made: by embarrassment not by logic.
The door opens. “Cal, I’m so gla— Oh my god, what happened to your face?” The punch in the face from Javier has turned me into a trash panda. She steps back and lets me enter. I smother my shock that she’s wearing a bathrobe and walk into the room. It turns out that it’s a suite. Must be nice to be the VP of a large company like Southbrook.
“Oh it was nothing. One of the bad guys decided to take a shot at me.”
“Are you all right?”
“Sure,” I shrug it off. “I’m doing better than him.” I try not to think about Hardy Island; it’s a sure-fire mood destroyer.
“Well, I’m glad you came.”
“Yes, well, to tell the truth, I was sitt
ing at home feeling sorry for myself. So I was really happy to get your call.”
“Do you mean you wouldn’t have been happy to get my call if you hadn’t been feeling sorry for yourself?” Her Southern accent is playful.
I can feel myself blushing. “No I didn’t mean that, it’s just that—” I stop in mid-sentence. I have an overwhelming desire to tell her about Sam and what happened and the letter she left for me but I don’t know Em well enough yet. I search for the right words but her laughter saves me from saying anything more.
She lets the door close and slides her arm through mine. “I know,” she says. “I was just joshing you.” She leads me over to a beige sofa—why are hotel room sofas almost always beige?—and sits me down. “What would you like to drink?”
“Do you have the makings of a Black Russian?”
“I sure do.” As she leans forward to open the door to the minibar, her robe slides to her shoulder and I see the rise of her breast. My breath catches in my throat. She takes out two little bottles of vodka and two of Kahlua. She drops ice into a glass and pours in all four bottles—vodka first, then Kahlua—picks up her glass of red wine and comes back to the sofa. She hands me my drink saying, “It’s a double so you can catch up to me,” and she sits down beside me, facing me, with her knees drawn up onto the couch between us.
“So tell me all about Calvin Rogan,” she says brightly.
“Well first thing it’s not Calvin, it’s California. My mother had a thing about it; she always wanted to go there.”
“That’s a good start. California’s a lot cheerier than Calvin.”
I tell her everything: my childhood, university, my early days in the VPD, Sam and Ellie, the heroin, my years living on the streets, finding my father and finally how Stammo and I came to be partners. She’s such a gentle and attentive listener—asking questions and offering supportive comments—that I feel safe enough to tell her an edited version of the letter from Sam.
She doesn’t comment, just reaches out and takes hold of my hand.
It feels good.
“Tell me about you,” I say.
“I had an idyllic childhood growing up in the South. My parents were quite well-to-do and my younger sister and I wanted for nothing.” She smiles as if savouring a memory.
“That picture in your office of your parents and your sister, did you take it?”
“I did. That was when I was home from college in the summer of two-thousand, remember Y2K? I had taken a course in photography and fancied myself as the Annie Leibovitz of Georgia. Silly really.”
“No, it’s a wonderful photo,” I say. “You said your sister… passed away?”
“Yes, a year after I took the picture, almost to the day.”
“How did she die?”
As I look into her eyes I see the sadness.
I give her hand a squeeze. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
She smiles. “That’s fine Cal. I’ll tell you about it some time. Soon. Not just now.”
Instead she tells me some stories about her exploits as a Southern ingenue doing a business degree at Columbia. After a particularly hilarious one about how she paid back an overly flirtatious older professor, we both collapse in laughter.
As the laughter dies, our gazes entwine and as one, we lean forward until, with exquisite gentleness our lips meet in the lightest of kisses. The touch of her lips sends a sparkle of electricity up and down my spine as she draws me toward her.
The jangling of an alarm kicks me into wakefulness. Disorientation. Dark. Where the— I roll over and feel the warmth. Oh. Em. I slide my arm round her and she rolls toward me. “Mmmm,” she purrs. “Cal-if-or-ni-a.” She kisses me gently and I run my fingernails softly down her back. “That’s nice,” she says. I bring my hand round and cup her breast and am rewarded with another kiss. I reach downwards.
“Oh no, Mr. Sexy,” she says, arresting the progress of my hand. “I have work to go to.” Before I can complain, she rolls out of the other side of the bed and walks into the bathroom.
I look at the green digits of the alarm clock. 6:32. I have time. Time to think about last night. It was without doubt the most amazing experience. Somehow we… I don’t know… we just fit. It was like we had known each other for years. We each seemed to know how to excite the other; her boundaries were my boundaries, I was turned on doing the things that turned her on and vice-versa; we rejoiced in each other’s body. We were perfectly synchronized. Three times. It was like we could reach into each other’s mind. And the in-between times were wonderful too: we talked, we laughed, we even sang We All Live in a Yellow Submarine together. We talked sexily to each other until we were thrown into a renewed bout of passion. Everything worked.
I hear the sound of the shower and have an urge to go in there and make it a two-person sport but think better of it.
When she comes out of the bathroom she’s naked. I smile at her and she looks sideways at me. Pause. “OK,” she says. “You can watch me get dressed.” Did it again: she read my mind.
When she leaves, I feel the loss and know our connection is more than just the sex.
50
Cal
Thursday
“Cal, I got something, and you are not going to believe it.” The words tumble out of Adry’s mouth before I’m halfway through the door of the office and the alarm has finished its triple beep. “I was waiting for you to get here so I could tell you and Nick together.”
“OK, great.” I give her a big thumbs-up. “Let me get a coffee and you can tell all.”
“Already on your desk,” she says, following me into the office.
Nick is at his desk. Some of the purple bruises are starting to take on a greenish hue. “Nice colour scheme,” I say. “Very attractive.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Rogan. Did you look in the mirror this morning?”
I did. Not pretty.
Adry cuts through our less than witty repartee. “OK boys, settle down,” she says. “Don’t you want to hear what I found out?”
“Sure, have at it.” I take a chocolate digestive from the plate on Stammo’s desk and sit down.
“Cal, you asked me to do a deep dive into Pastor Mueller at Luke Summers’ church. I did and I found some very interesting stuff.” She pauses, savouring the moment I guess. “Have either of you heard of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas?”
“I’ve never heard of Topeka, Kansas,” Stammo grunts. “Is that where Dorothy came from?”
“Who?” she asks.
“Dorothy, Toto, you know.”
“No.” Adry looks annoyed at Stammo for breaking her rhythm.
“I feel old. Sorry. Go on,” he says.
“So… the Westboro Baptist Church was this horrible, totally anti-gay church that would do things like picket the funerals of dead soldiers. They were disowned by the Southern Baptist Convention and just about every other church in the world. The guy who ran it died in twenty-fourteen, good riddance, but guess who used to be a member back in the nineties when it was at its height?”
I can guess, but after Stammo’s interruption I don’t want to steal her thunder.
She looks at me with a big smile on her face. “Pastor Joseph M. Mueller.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I don’t want to falsely accuse someone.”
“I am. At first I thought it might have been a coincidence, you know, a different Joseph Mueller. But then I was able to find a few old videos on CNN’s site showing some of Westboro’s demonstrations and in one of them, he was right there, twenty years younger of course, holding a ‘God Hates Fags’ sign. It was definitely the same guy whose picture’s on the website of Luke Summers’ church, although his bio at the current church doesn’t say anything about Westboro.”
“I knew there was something wrong about Mueller. These Westboro people, was there any evidence of them doing physical violence?”
“Not that I could discover.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing Mu
eller’s reaction to this bit of info. I wonder if VPD knew about this. Did they say anything about it when you spoke to them Nick?” Stammo shakes his head, his mouth full of cookie. “That was really well done Adry. Did you discover anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, Adry, well done,” Stammo says. With a broad grin she heads toward her desk but Stammo calls her back. “Wait a minute, there’s something I want to tell you guys.”
Something seems to be bothering him. He takes a drink of his coffee and clears his throat. “I went to that GAMMA meeting. Dale was a member there. They didn’t know about his death. One of the guys there said they were worried about him ’cos he hadn’t shown up for meetings. Anyways, they seem like a good bunch of folk. I didn’t see anyone who looked like they didn’t belong.”
“Shame. I just thought maybe Dale met someone there the night he was killed. Worth a try.”
“Yeah, it was. Thing is…” he pauses and takes a deep breath. “I thought you guys should know and I hope it doesn’t change anything but, uh, I never told you guys before that I’m gay. I’ve been in the closet my whole life so I thought it was about time to come out.”
I wonder if I should tell him that I know.
Adry leans over his wheelchair and gives him a big hug. “Doesn’t matter to me Nick,” she says. “Half the members of my family are gay.”
He gives her a hug but is looking over her shoulder, eyes drilled in on me.
I give him a big smile and a thumbs up. He looks relieved. Maybe, when we get a quiet moment together, I’ll tell him it was an open secret at the VPD and no one had a problem with it.
“You guys finish your hug-a-thon; I’ve got phone calls to make.”
The offices are not much bigger than ours with eight people crammed in, all huddled over their computers. A skinny young guy who looks like he’s not old enough to drink yet, looks up from his screen, “Are you Mr. Rogan?” he asks.
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