by Andrea Speed
He could see what Matt saw in Trey. He was cute, with fine bone structure and high cheekbones that most male models would kill for. His dark, almond-shaped eyes were deep set and heavy lidded, natural bedroom eyes, his face lean and almost knife-blade narrow, giving him a hungry look that could be mistaken for rampant passion. And while his olive skin wasn’t exactly flawless, the couple of acne scars on his face gave him a certain type of character that kept him from being blandly attractive and made him kind of interesting. In a strange way, it made him look a little dangerous, which, while probably truth in advertising, had a troubling allure. His black hair was cut reasonably short but had a strange unevenness to it, the hair on the back and sides of his head shorter than the jet black hair on the top of his head, sitting there like a squashed and mangled hat. Either he’d gone for a trendy haircut and suffered a tremendous misfire, or he was growing out a faux-hawk and all the shorn hair was growing in at its own different speeds. He wore a dark blue polo shirt that didn’t flatter his skin tone in the least, and Paris wondered if that was some attempt to appear straight on his part—an inability to dress.
Paris stayed where Trey could see him, pretending to browse the 25 percent-off table (he saw nothing Roan would like here—he’d probably have to go back to the paperbacks, which Roan preferred to read on stakeouts anyway), and when the woman left in a cloud of perfume, still nattering away on her phone and ignoring everyone else, he saw Trey’s all-encompassing glance become a riveted stare.
Paris smiled to himself as Trey seemed to take an inordinate amount of time studying his ass, then took in the rest of him. He couldn’t help but feel the old swell of pride at how goddamn good-looking he was. Was it vain and egotistic of him? Oh fuck yeah, but since he’d gotten so sick, it was nice to know he still had it. Paris turned slowly and caught his eye, and for a moment Trey stared back at him with a heat that was combustible, but then he seemed to remember something—Oh, right, I’m not supposed to be a homo—and he looked away suddenly, as if he’d gotten a Taser in the ass.
Paris felt really good as he sauntered up to Trey’s cash register with his sexiest smile affixed firmly to his face. This was the hunt, and he felt almost ecstatic at the rush of it. This poor kid would be easier prey than he thought. He leaned on the counter and said, “Hi, I was wondering if you could help me?”
Trey’s eyes scudded toward his face, and again their eyes locked, Trey’s stare as helpless as that of a deer in the headlights. Paris just knew Trey was thinking he was gorgeous, and of course that gave his ego a needless pumping. (But damn if this type of outward validation still didn’t feel good.)
“Um, yeah, if I can,” he said, quickly turning to his register and pretending to do something so he didn’t have to look at Paris face on.
“I was hoping to buy a book for a friend, but you know, I’m kind of overwhelmed by the choices. I was wondering if you could recommend something.”
Trey’s dark eyes flicked toward him, then flicked away, like he was too bright to look upon for long. “Well, what does she like?”
“He likes lots of things, that’s why I’m having such a problem,” Paris said, giving him his sunniest smile and leaning in enough that Trey could probably smell him. The emphasis on “he” made Trey give him a long, hard, sidelong glance, and Paris gave him the look. The look that gay men gave each other, the one that said I’m gay too and interested. Straight people didn’t know the look; they didn’t recognize it when they saw it. They might smile politely back at you, but they’d totally miss the subtext, the edge, the appraisal and hunger in the eyes. Trey recognized it—he returned it before catching himself and looking away again, nervous and fidgety, like he’d broken out in a rash all over his body.
But he glanced back at Paris, as if helpless to resist his overwhelming gravity. Trey was starting to sweat, and it looked like his hands were starting to tremble. Paris’s smile deepened, mainly because he found it a struggle not to laugh. This must be what it felt like when a cobra hypnotized its prey; this was what it felt like to make someone your puppet. He knew this feeling well, and it was a blast from the past, really, a wicked hit of nostalgia. He used to do this all the time before he got infected and his world turned upside down and inside out. It felt really good.
Did that make him evil? Oh, probably. This power over someone, this deliberate manipulation, was wrong, and yet it came with a rush of pure adrenaline. The power was absolutely intoxicating, and he had missed it terribly.
He could make this boy do whatever he wanted him to do. He could make him crawl. Paris supposed he’d have felt a bit sorry for him if he hadn’t suspected that Trey was a killer.
But since he suspected he was, he didn’t regret this one damn bit.
ROAN couldn’t believe this. He sat on the arm of the sofa and asked, “Why suicide?”
Murphy sighed, prepared for the inevitable third degree. “Because the dose she took was far too fucking big to be an accidental overdose, at least in the coroner’s opinion. She took a speedball that could have killed three average-sized men—and this girl was five three and ninety-eight pounds. I have to admit, that makes it seem deliberate.”
Roan was surprised, mainly because he didn’t think anyone combined heroin and cocaine anymore. “What sense does that make, Murph? She was taken off the street by men and found dead hours later of a suicide? She was in the bay, for Christ’s sake! Did she decide she wanted to overdose by the fishes?”
“It’s possible she OD’d elsewhere and was dumped by panicky friends, which is technically a crime, but not one usually pursued. And really, we have no evidence she was taken off the street by anyone.”
This was un-fucking-believable. “Yes, you do! I have a witness who saw it.”
“A witness who is dead and never got to make an official statement. All we have is you reporting what he told you.”
He huffed an angry sigh through his nose. “And my word isn’t good enough. Thanks, Murph. Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t be that way. If you can bring me some actionable proof of anything....”
“What about my witness getting murdered just before he made a statement? That doesn’t strike you as suspicious?”
He could hear her tapping a pen on her desk impatiently, and he knew he was trying her patience, but fuck it. He was closing in on a good suspect here—well, okay, currently Paris was—and he didn’t need this right now. “The timing was really bad, I admit—”
“Really bad?”
“But we have a suspect in custody for that, and unless you can connect Parker Davis in some way to Thora Bishop....”
“Davis was set up! He’s an easy patsy!”
She sighed again, this time more sharply than ever. “You buy his lame excuse? We have an eyewitness who can place him at Panic picking up Eric before he was murdered.”
“Toby the bartender, I know, I brought him in.”
“So you don’t believe your own witness?”
He shot an evil glare at the phone, even though it was totally wasted. “You know I do. But I think we’re only getting half the story. Do you have any physical evidence tying Davis to the scene? Do you have a weapon?”
The pause was so great he knew she was glowering at her receiver now. “Not yet, but all the forensic tests aren’t in.”
“This is bullshit, Murph, and you know it. Eric’s murder was no coincidence. Thora could have been easily overpowered by any man and shot up with a speedball. Were there bruises on her body?”
“Of course there were; she was fairly discolored from being in the water. You know what the water does to a body.”
Sadly he did. Water could do amazingly awful things to corpses, which was probably why water was such a favorite dumping place for killers. “Why aren’t you investigating the bruises?”
“The coroner was unable to determine if she received them due to violence or because of medical problems.”
Roan collapsed back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, where a s
liver of sunlight cut across it like a spear. There were times he was so very glad he wasn’t actually a cop anymore, and this was one of them. “What medical problems? Do I assume her anorexia left her anemic or something?”
“You know that information—”
“Is the case closed?” he interrupted.
“Goddamn, you’re a rude bastard sometimes. Yes, the case is closed.”
“Fine, then it doesn’t matter if you tell me or not.”
She was silent for another moment, and he could feel the waves of hate coming down the open line. It was funny, but sometimes he and Murphy fought like a married couple, more than he and Paris did at any rate. Their fights were brief squalls, but when he and Dropkick locked horns, it was like a tsunami. “She was anemic, smart ass. She also had a small viral load in her bloodstream.”
“Viral load? What virus?”
She scoffed. “Oh wow, have I actually uncovered something you didn’t know? I should call the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“Can the sarcasm. What are we talking about? I assume the common cold’s right out.”
“She was infected. Newly infected, for what it’s worth. It hadn’t expressed itself yet, she hadn’t had enough built up.”
It was a good thing he was lying down, he thought. Because while he knew the room actually hadn’t shifted, it felt like it had. “She was infected? How long?”
“Well, it’s hard to tell exactly, but the coroner put it at approximately two weeks, give or take a couple of days on either side.”
Enough time to maybe inform one or two people, although clearly she hadn’t told Matt (probably because he was a bit of a motormouth). Suddenly he wondered if he’d just found a new motive for murder.
Or even suicide.
12
Satin in a Coffin
HANNAH NOYES lived in a gated community that was an actual gated community—not one of those weird suburban ones where the big metal gates were flanked by fences that looked like they were made of plywood, flimsy ones a big dog or an average toddler could knock down, a place where you bought the idea of security rather than the actual thing. (Ones he hated with a passion so pathological he wondered if perhaps he was projecting. He always had the urge to kick in a fence slat or two when he saw them, show them how delusional they were, and Paris wondered if he should give antidepressants a try.) No, this was a genuine gated community, with wrought iron gates and regular security patrols down its abnormally clean streets by rent-a-cops. As he walked the wide, tree-lined streets, a couple of rent-a-cops in silver and blue sedans cruised by him slowly, eying him with obvious suspicion. The first time they drove by, he waved good-naturedly; the second time, he blew them a kiss. That earned him an evil look, and he suspected the patrols would increase from now on.
All the houses were on wide lots, Victorian reconstructions and rococo monstrosities, and Hannah’s was at the end of one block, painted a pale lilac with sky-blue trim, and it had a little cobblestone walkway up to the main porch, a path lined with flowering cherry trees and white dogwoods. He felt for no reason like he was a part of a bridal procession.
Hannah was an average height woman as thin as a bird, her skin like a taut shroud over a framework of sharp bones, and it made her look like she’d had two facelifts too many. Her face seemed like it was mostly eyes, a washed-out blue like a desert sky, her nose pug and surgically perfect just above thin lips painted a coral pink that was a sophisticated grandmother shade, all topped off with straight, chin-length platinum-blonde hair that looked like a wig. (Was it?) She was in her midfifties, but looked so thin and frail she could have passed for sixty, and while she was dressed in what was probably an expensive indigo dress, it hung on her like it might on a broomstick.
The inside of her home was sparkling clean and smelled of floral potpourri that made him sneeze until he popped an Altoid, and the peppermint overwhelmed his senses, made his eyes water briefly, stung his sinus passages raw. He blamed allergies, because he wasn’t about to explain to her that his superpower was a sense of smell beyond the average person. As superpowers went, it wasn’t only lame, but more often a hindrance than a help, especially in situations like this.
Lots of windows let in cold, early winter light, and there was so much Victorian reproduction furniture and so much lace everywhere that he felt as if he had walked into a life-sized dollhouse. The hardwood floors were polished to a warm high gloss, so much so that he expected them to be as slippery as ice. (They weren’t.) He might have been gay, but this place was far too gay for him, and he had to suppress the urge to run out of the house screaming.
He perched on the edge of a mauve settee, and she offered him tea, which he accepted. Hannah called for a maid named Luisa, a short, stout, young Hispanic woman in a pale blue uniform with a frilly white apron, her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. Hannah asked her to get them some sweet tea, and Luisa simply nodded and left. Roan felt like getting up and following her—he was more like the “help” than anyone else in this entire fucking neighborhood. Was it envy? Or did ostentatiously wealthy people just bug the shit out of him? He wanted to think it was the latter, as really they did. Seriously, get your own fucking tea.
For some reason, he started thinking of Arrested Development, the canceled sitcom, and wondered if there were hidden cameras filming him somewhere. Maybe this was a more reality-based sequel. It would explain the décor.
Hannah thanked him for looking into what had happened to Thora and for his “discretion,” which he took as a very veiled warning not to bug the rest of the family. She had a leather-bound photo album that showed pictures of Thora, as well as the rest of the Bishop clan. They were all very handsome people, redolent of good breeding and old money, and none of the females appeared to be above a hundred and twenty pounds. Did they have a family nutritionist? A family liposuctionist? Adam Bishop, family patriarch, looked like he’d had some chin work done too—an early picture had him with a Bruce-Campbell-like lantern jaw, but more recent photos had it smaller and less prominent. Looked like he got an eye lift too. Did he dye his hair?
The last photos of Thora in the album were taken at cousin Crystal’s wedding, the one Matt had escorted Thora to, the one where he said the groom, Cody Ginter, had groped him and hit on him in the bathroom. He was able to pick Thora and Matt out of the photos quite easily, as they were usually standing off to one side. Thora wore a flimsy dress of a really unfortunate mint green that was ruffled like a ’70s tuxedo shirt, apparently the bridesmaid’s dress. (Crystal must have been a sadistic bitch.) Now, you couldn’t judge people by looks, that was a slippery slope to go down, but Cody did look like the type of weaselly, oily guy who’d cop a feel in the bathroom. Maybe Cody was Crystal’s punishment for having such cruel tastes in bridesmaid’s dresses.
Hannah’s grief was extremely restrained but genuine. She just seemed too patrician and emotionally constipated in that classic New England old money way to shed tears, but her face pinched and her lips thinned until they almost disappeared. There was a pain in her eyes that made them seem cloudy, and her body posture became more rigid and painful, until it looked like she might snap her own bones. She referred to Thora several times as a “darling girl,” and when Luisa came in with a silver serving tray, Hannah tried to cover it all up, like proper white people didn’t grieve in front of the help.
The tea was served in actual china cups, ones with roses painted on them and gilded rims that could have been genuine gold. A perfect tea set for a dollhouse, now that he thought about it. The tea was a golden amber color and so powerfully sweet he could feel the sugar buzz through his veins on contact. He thanked Luisa for the tea, which seemed to surprise her. Was that improper etiquette?
Once she was gone, he started asking Hannah about the Bishop family dynamics. The problem was, she didn’t want to talk about it. She said her relationship with her sister—Thora’s mother—had always been “complicated,” but she didn’t go into details. He asked if perhaps she didn
’t like Adam Bishop, and she said that she had no problems with Adam—which was a lie. There wasn’t enough floral potpourri to cover that up. She said Thora had been going through a rebellious teenage “phase” that had caused the rift with her parents, but Hannah assumed it was temporary and just another one of those “teenage things”—and this too was a lie. So she didn’t think it was temporary, or there was far more to the estrangement than she was willing to go into. He didn’t press, but he filed it away for future exploration if necessary.
Thora had had a room at Hannah’s place that she stayed in until she got her own apartment, and he asked to see it. She led him upstairs, up a red-carpeted staircase with a banister polished so smooth it felt like silk gliding beneath his hand. The room was painted a marine blue, with gauzy azure curtains framing a large window overlooking a well-landscaped backyard. The room had a four-poster bed with a blue print bedspread, a white desk that held an older style computer, and there was a glass-framed print of a sailboat on an ocean, completing what seemed to be an oceanic theme. It was very neat, clean enough that you could have done surgery in this room, but once again there was a startling lack of personalization that was starting to suggest pathology. As he looked around the room, searching for something that could have told him a bit more about Thora, Hannah looked out the window at the backyard and talked about the last time Thora had stayed here, which was after her stint at Laurel Springs. Under her computer keyboard, he found a yellow sticky note with random words written on it—passwords? A good bet. He slipped the note into his pocket.