by Greg Herren
“I’m real sorry about all of this, Bill.”
“Well, you know, Joe, that’s mighty kind of you to say. I know you had some trouble dealing with the woman, and I want you to know how much I appreciate your going out of your way to keep her happy. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Well, I couldn’t have you quit the job before the house is finished.”
“Oh, I would have never done that. I might have sent her back up to Monroe, but I believe a man always finishes what he started. Once I give my word, I don’t go back on it.”
I stared at him. “Well, you sure had me fooled, Bill!” I somehow managed to keep my voice friendly and light.
All these weeks—all of this frustration and irritation, that I’ve put up with—for nothing?
He laughed. “Just trying to keep the peace and make the best of a bad situation. I do appreciate everything you’ve done though in the last few days. She really went downhill fast.”
“Went?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Here, let me refill your drink.”
“I thought you didn’t drink.”
“I always keep good liquor around—just because I don’t have a drink doesn’t mean everyone else has to be on the wagon.”
“Say, that’s some good stuff!”
“I always believe if you’re going to get something, get the best.” I put his cup down on the counter and reached up for the Wild Turkey bottle.
And right there, sitting on a lower shelf, were the sleeping pills.
They’d been prescribed for me after the storm.
I shook out two of the capsules and opened them, pouring them into the bottom of his cup. I smiled.
It was all falling into place.
I put some ice in his cup and poured the Wild Turkey over it, watching as the granules dissolved into the alcohol. I smiled and carried the cup back over to him. “There you go, Bill.”
“Thank you.” He took a long drink. “Ah, that’s some good stuff. I never get much chance to drink the good stuff.”
“So, you think she’s going to have to go into a facility?”
“Like you said, I can’t watch her all day.” He sighed. “I can’t be without a wife, Joe.”
“But—”
“I don’t know what to do. I guess I’ll have to divorce her. Damn. I never thought I’d see the day come when I’d be getting a divorce.”
“All your other wives have died?”
He yawned. “Yes, I’ve put them all in the ground. I figured I’d be burying Maureen, too—but this? Sorry,” he yawned again, “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy all of a sudden.”
“You’ve had a draining day—all that work on the house, and Maureen…”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Joe, I guess I’d best be getting to bed.” He fell back against the back of the love seat. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Let me help you up.” I helped him to his feet and put his arm over my shoulders. He reeked of whiskey and sour sweat. “Just lean on me, Bill, and we’ll just get you to bed.”
“I…don’t…understand…why…that…whiskey…hit…me…so…hard…”
“Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone.”
“I can…barely…keep…my…eyes…open…”
He was practically dead weight by the time I got him back inside the main house. I eased him down onto the sofa. His mouth fell open and he started snoring.
I stared down at him contemptuously.
“Idiot.”
All I’d wanted was for her to be put away. I wanted her and her insane laundry fetish gone, out of my life for good.
It would be so easy, I thought, looking down at his open mouth, to just put a pillow over his face—
In the other room, Maureen gurgled in her sleep.
I turned away from him and walked over to the bedroom door.
She was on top of the covers, sleeping on her back in a floral nightgown. Her glasses were on the nightstand next to the bed.
I looked back at Bill on the couch.
I never go back on my word, I heard him saying in my head again.
I smiled.
I walked over to the bed and looked down at her.
“Maureen? Maureen? Can you wake up for a minute?” I said softly, reaching down to shake her shoulder. “Maureen? Can you open your eyes?”
She shifted on the bed. “Go ’way, leave me alone.” Her voice was drowsy.
“Can you open your eyes for me?”
They fluttered open, and she blinked at me, squinting. “Joe? What?”
“Bill had a little too much to drink and I had to help him home.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Good-bye, Maureen.”
I reached down and my hands closed around her throat.
She thrashed against me, but I put my weight behind my hands.
And finally, she stopped.
I let go of her throat and smiled down at her. “You look so peaceful, Maureen.” I went back to my own apartment.
*
From my living room window, I watched them lead Joe away in handcuffs.
He looked upset, confused.
They always say that criminals are stupid. I like to believe only stupid criminals get caught.
I hadn’t planned on killing her. No, all I wanted to do was get rid of her, have her locked up in a home someplace where she’d never bother me again.
But it all just fell into my lap, and who am I to say no to opportunity?
And he was just as bad as she was, wasn’t he?
All that time, he knew she was making my life hell and didn’t do a fucking thing about it—actually, he helped her.
But to give him credit, he’d been bluffing and I’d been afraid to call him on it.
But I won the hand, didn’t I?
A strangled wife, a hungover husband reeking of whiskey? And the sad neighbor, telling the terrible story of how they fought almost every night, yelling and screaming at each other? “No, Officer, he was never here.” His word against mine—and really, what motive did I have for killing his stupid old wife? Like I told Detective Casanova, no one would kill someone over a washing machine.
Stupid annoying old bitch.
And that’s that. They have him dead to rights, anything he tries to say will just be seen as a lie calculated to get him out of a murder rap.
Stupid, stupid people.
Note to self: Never, ever let someone use your washing machine again. Ever.
Murder on the Midway
Jeffrey Ricker
Summer in St. Louis was three months of misery. During the day, the sun tried to burn you to a crisp. If that failed, at night the humidity tried to steam you alive. It was like the city wanted you dead.
The weather didn’t kill Jacob Anderson, but he was still just as dead.
He was lying face-down in the middle of the carnival that had taken up residence on the parking lot of the Unitarian Church. They’d done this for the past several years, raising money for Building Our Youth, the local gay support group that was Jacob’s primary mission in life.
Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the back of the head from the mallet used in the Test Your Strength booth. Whoever killed Jacob probably could have made the bell ring.
It was an undignified end for someone always trumpeted in the media as a pillar of the GLBT community, always willing to lend support and hard work for a good cause—especially if it involved helping rejected gay teens and young adults. It didn’t take long for the phrase “hate crime” to get tossed around. The city wasn’t exactly known for its tolerance.
Sam Page was surprised when Milo Leveque came into his office two days later to discuss the case.
Milo was one of St. Louis’s A-list gays. Independently wealthy and semi-retired after making some incredible—and incredibly well-timed—real estate deals a few years earlier, he now devoted himself to civic life. He was seen at all of the right art gallery opening
s, served on the boards of Food Outreach and Effort for AIDS, gave money to the cultural bulwarks of the city, and helped plan A Tasteful Affair every year. He helped raise money for Pride St. Louis even though he never set foot in the park for the sweltering summer festival.
Maybe he didn’t want the heat and humidity of St. Louis to kill him.
He was also blond and fit, and Sam would have paid attention to him even if he wasn’t a potential client and loaded to the gills.
“Someone is threatening me,” Milo said, sitting down in Sam’s shabby office. “They think I know something about why Jacob was killed, and they want me to keep quiet about it.”
“What makes you think that?”
Milo reached into his front pocket and pulled out his phone. He flipped it open, pressed a few buttons, and handed it to Sam. It was a cheap phone, which surprised Sam. Milo seemed like the sort of person who would be first in line to get the latest smartphone—well, the sort of person who’d pay someone to stand in line for him.
It was a text message, the sender’s number blocked. Keep your mouth shut. I’ve still got a few swings left. Just ask Jacob. Oh, wait…
Sam snapped the phone shut and handed it back.
“Any idea what they think you know?”
Milo shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “If you know something and want me to help you, you’d better tell me. I don’t like it when clients only tell me half the story.”
Milo leaned forward. “So you’ll take my case?”
Sam waited long enough to instill a hint of doubt. “Nicely played, Mr. Leveque. And yes, I’ll take the case.”
“Do you think you can trace that text message?”
“Obviously, you don’t want to go to the police.” Sam shrugged. “If the sender had any sense, he used one of those pay-as-you-go phones. Or sent it anonymously over the Web. Next to impossible to trace.”
“But not impossible, Mr. Page.”
“I’ll give it a shot.” Sam picked up a pen and positioned a legal pad in front of him. He was not a note taker, but he found it helped to have props—clients liked that. Besides, putting something in his hand kept him from wanting to reach for a cigarette. “So,” he asked, “do you think Jacob’s murder was a hate crime?”
Milo shook his head and smiled, but said nothing.
“Spit it out, Mr. Leveque. There’s only one thing I require from my clients: complete honesty.”
“Please, call me Milo. And how often do you get complete honesty from your clients?”
Sam ignored the question. “So tell me why you think Jacob was murdered.”
Milo leaned back again and put his hands behind his head. His biceps flexed impressively. He clearly devoted himself to both civic and gym life. “Jacob got his biggest charitable donations by using his best asset: his ass.”
“Excuse me?”
Milo smiled. “Turn on your computer.”
Sam typed in a URL Milo gave him, and soon he was staring at a profile on a site called rentboy.com. A photo of a lean, muscular, and almost completely naked Jacob Anderson smiled seductively at him. He described himself as being three years younger than he really was at his time of death and a “nonstop pig bottom who’ll let you do anything you want.”
Charming.
“This still doesn’t explain why someone would want to kill him,” Sam said.
Milo rolled his eyes. “Jacob specialized in wealthy, closeted clientele. People who had certain tastes, but didn’t want them widely known. He saw to it such…tastes found expression.”
Sam smiled at Milo’s delicate euphemism. “Go on.”
“Sometimes, he found his clients were prepared to pay to keep their tastes private. Jacob sometimes offered a visual incentive to open their checkbooks.”
Blackmail. Now there, Sam thought, was a reason for murder. “Pictures?”
“Videos. Easier to set up and oh so much more persuasive.”
“Were you one of Jacob’s clients?”
Milo didn’t answer at first. “I know what you’re thinking,” Milo said. “I was stupid to get involved, and would be even more stupid to admit it.”
“I don’t judge.”
“Everyone does, Mr. Page. You’ll just have to believe me. Jacob may have been doing a lot of things to me, but blackmail wasn’t one of them. I want you to find out who killed him because I don’t think the police will.” He leaned forward and placed his hand over Sam’s. “Please.”
Sam stared at their hands for a moment, and turned his over in Milo’s palm to end with a handshake. “I’ll do my best, Mr. Leveque.”
“Please, call me Milo.”
“Right. Milo.”
*
Was Milo really motivated by a desire for justice? Sam doubted it. He also couldn’t figure out why someone who looked like Milo would have to pay for sex, unless he was into something truly twisted that no one would do for free. Even if that were the case, such things usually found their own level in a way that didn’t involve a financial transaction.
That meant something else was the driving factor behind Milo’s hiring him, but Sam hadn’t yet figured that out. Maybe Milo wanted to hide the fact he was sleeping with a hustler, even if he was a hustler for noble reasons. And yet he’d readily admitted it to Sam, and didn’t seem all that ashamed about it. So what was he hiding? All Sam knew was he’d gotten used to people lying to him. Milo was likely no exception.
Still, Sam had to let himself hope every once in a while.
In parting, Milo had given Sam a key to Jacob’s apartment. That he had one raised Sam’s curiosity, but he didn’t pursue it for the moment because he wanted to see the place with his own eyes.
Since the murder had occurred elsewhere, the police hadn’t cordoned it off as a crime scene. Sam suspected plenty of illicit if not downright illegal things had happened there, if not murder.
It was the upstairs unit of a two-family house in south city, a few blocks south of Tower Grove Park. In this part of town, a nice block might be surrounded by a block or two of sketchville. Jacob’s was one of the nice blocks, mostly single-family houses and tall, sheltering trees. The two-family was nestled in the middle of the block. Jacob’s downstairs neighbor didn’t appear to be home.
Sam wasn’t alone, though. He opened the front door and looked up the stairs. A man peered over the landing. He regarded Sam through narrowed eyes, one hand on the railing, the other out of sight. Another face peered around the corner, only this one was about nine inches off the floor, covered in black fur, and had whiskers.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
Unable to see the man’s other hand, Sam held up one of his own while he carefully reached for his wallet. “I’m a private investigator looking into Mr. Anderson’s death.” Sam climbed the stairs far enough to hand his business card to the man. “Are you a friend of Jacob’s?”
When he took the card, Sam could see what the man was holding in his other hand. It was just a can opener. The black cat descended the stairs and proceeded to rub against Sam’s ankles.
“Hello, who’s this?” Sam knelt and scratched behind the cat’s ears.
“That’s Nero. I’m Rick.”
“You’re Jacob’s…” Sam let his voice trail off.
Rick shook his head. “Friend. I figured everyone would forget about Nero, so I’ve been looking after him ever since…” Now it was Rick’s turn to let the thought trail off. He rattled the can opener, and Nero came bounding back upstairs. To Sam, Rick said, “Come on up. I need to feed him.”
Sam followed. At the top of the stairs Sam found himself in the living room. Nero followed Rick into the small galley kitchen at the back. In the living room were pictures of Jacob where he showed his face and actually wore clothing. In all of them he was usually smiling and in the middle of a large group of people. The apartment seemed pretty standard for a young—but not too young—gay man who didn’t make much money working in the not-for-profit
arena: small, tidy, sparsely but tastefully decorated.
“So, who hired you?” Rick asked.
“Actually, that’s not something I can—”
“It was probably that Milo guy, wasn’t it? He came around a lot. Judging by his ride, I’m pretty sure he’s loaded, right?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “You must live close by if you know about people’s comings and goings.”
“I live across the street, but Jacob talked about him all the time. Out of all the guys, I think he liked him best.”
“So you knew what Jacob…”
“That he was a hustler-slash-blackmailer for charity? Yeah. And don’t even get me started on how many times we argued about that. I told him it was dangerous.” He set Nero’s bowl on the floor. “Wish I hadn’t been right.”
“Have the police been by?” Sam was sure they had, but maybe Rick would know something he didn’t. He meandered into the master bedroom. The furniture was simple, Scandinavian in style but nicer than Ikea. In other words, how most gay men decorated. The bed was neatly made.
“Yeah,” Rick said. “Interviewed the neighbor downstairs and left after a couple hours.”
“They didn’t talk to you?”
He shook his head. “I stayed across the street until they left.”
“They take his computer?”
“Why do you ask?”
Sam didn’t answer. Of course they took the computer. The second bedroom was set up as an office and had a desk, printer, and other peripherals, but no desktop or laptop. He doubted there was much left to find in the apartment. He sat on the bed.
“Ever see any of his other clients?”
Rick shook his head. “Milo was Jacob’s only in-call. Otherwise he was strictly out-calls only.”
“How much did you know about what Jacob was up to?”
Rick shrugged and sat on the other side of the bed. “I volunteer at Building Our Youth, mostly doing stuff around the office. Data entry, that kind of thing. Jacob was reeling in a lot of big anonymous donations, and I asked him how Building Our Youth managed to get so lucky. He said something about it being more than luck, and eventually the whole story came out.”