Bermuda Heat

by P. A. Brown

  “You got more of that?”

  Chris grabbed a mug and poured him a coffee. He topped up his own and sat at the table beside his laptop, which had been turned on and had gone into screen saver mode. Beside it was a crumpled Royal Gazette. Even from where he stood David could see the headline about Joel’s murder and his subsequent arrest.

  Also visible was the memorable image of him being led into the prison by the all too accommodating Lindstrom.

  Chris was staring at his face. He knew he looked rough, he 166 P.A. Brown

  could feel how tight his skin was and his jaw felt hot and achy.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Deja vu all over again.”

  Chris looked confused at first; David knew he didn’t get the reference. Then his face cleared and he offered a humorless smile. “Right,” he said. “You forgot to duck again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You hungry?”

  “After a day of hospital and jail grub? What do you think?”

  “I got some chicken we could barbecue.”

  “Barbecue?”

  “Down by that Mexican courtyard. I’ve got potato salad, too.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for barbecue?”

  “Never. How can Wheaties compete with grilled chicken?”

  “You got me there. You do know the way to a man’s stomach.”

  “I know the way to yours.” Chris’s smile was sultry.

  David responded. “Let’s eat first,” he said, watching Chris’s eyes darken.

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  The chicken wasn’t hurt by its extended stay in the marinade.

  David performed his usual magic on the barbecue and Chris presented his potato salad in a plastic tub with a flourish that had them both laughing. Dinner done, Chris cleaned up the dishes and made sure David took his meds, including a pain pill. He had put the last plate in the rack and was cleaning the utensils when David came up behind him.

  “I locked the door.” He nuzzled Chris’s neck, inhaling the achingly familiar scent. Chris bowed his head to allow him to get at the skin below his hair. David took advantage. He could feel Chris’s pulse leap.

  “What about the windows?” Chris stammered.

  “Curtains closed.” His lips continued their foray down Chris’s BeRMudA heAt 167

  satiny skin. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yeah,” Chris whispered, turning around. He tugged at David’s belt. “You can take that off.”

  Friday, 9:20am, Aunt Nea’s, Nea’s Alley, St. George’s Parish, Bermuda

  Chris was frying bacon and whistling Somewhere from West Side Story when David surprised him in the kitchen the next morning.

  “Umm, I can feel my arteries clogging as we speak.”

  “I haven’t even started the eggs yet. Omelet with Emmental and onions?”

  “What, no chicken?”

  “Well, there’s always me,” Chris said. “Or eggs. Your choice.”

  David took him in his arms. “To hell with cholesterol.”

  After breakfast David called Aidan. Chris puttered around the kitchen cleaning up the last remnants of breakfast and their interrupted supper.

  David talked to his lawyer for nearly forty minutes. He had already spoken to the police about it. They still seemed to think it was a random act of violence.

  “Muggers who take souvenir ties as trophies,” David muttered. “That’s a new one on me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  David told him about how a lot of psychopaths took trophies from their victims. “It lets them relive the glory.”

  He could almost see Aidan frown. “I think I’ve heard of that.

  But what kind of trophy hunter would target you—or would even know how to find you? Are you sure it was Jay you heard?

  Could you have been mistaken in your identification? After all, you were under stress—”

  168 P.A. Brown

  “It was Jay.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “No, there was at least one other person present. Not all serial criminals are solitary actors. We had the Hillside Strangler in L.A.

  years ago. That was two cousins. There was definitely at least two guys who jumped me last night. And one of them took my tie.”

  “I’ll take this back to the police. I’ll make sure they take it as seriously as I do,” Aidan said. “Now, I’m pushing for an early hearing. The prosecution’s stalling, which tells me they don’t have the evidence they need to convict. They want to wait until they can find more.”

  “Or manufacture it.”

  “Well, I dare say that won’t happen now.”

  “Why not?”

  “The case is too much in the public eye. The police must tread cautiously, lest they be observed doing something improper.”

  In David’s experience, cops didn’t stop because the public was on to them. But maybe they operated differently in Bermuda.

  From what he’d seen so far, he didn’t hold out a lot of hope.

  “Don’t worry, David. I’ll see that the police behave themselves, even if they’re not so inclined.”

  David felt a rush of relief, even as he realized it wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. “So what’s our next move?”

  “I’ll move to quash the results of their search. Their efforts are notoriously sloppy. It won’t take much to suggest their crime scene processing wasn’t up to acceptable standards. This is well documented in past cases.”

  David hated it when lawyers turned their dogs loose on the science of crime scenes. It was sometimes the strongest weapon the police had in their arsenal and all the lawyers could do was seek to undermine it by casting doubt on both the science and the ones how collected it. He opened his mouth to protest, but quickly shut it again. If playing clean was going to get him a criminal sentence and a lifetime in a foreign prison, and he knew BeRMudA heAt 169

  the truth was being ignored, didn’t he have the right to defend himself?

  “Do you think it will work?”

  “If I was a betting man—and I’m not—I’d say it’s a sure thing.”

  “Couldn’t happen soon enough.”

  “Patience, David, patience.” David thought he heard Aidan ruffling through papers. “I should give you my cell phone number. Just in case the police get overzealous and my office is closed. Chris, I believe, has my home number.”

  “Right.”

  David found Chris down in the pool spa, in his flowered board shorts. He changed into his own suit and grabbed a towel.

  He paused on the step to watch Chris, his golden body stretched out, his face relaxed in the soothing movement of warm water.

  David felt himself harden just watching the man he loved. It never ceased to amaze him how strong his desire remained after so many years. When Chris opened his eyes, David was beside him in the water.

  “You know we’re about five minutes from the beach,” Chris said, lazily swirling his fingers through the water, lightly brushing David’s thigh.

  David shook his head. “Yeah, but look at the crowds.”

  Chris looked around. “What crowds?”

  “My point exactly. Come on.” David slapped his butt under the water. “Let’s go get some of that pink sand in our crevices.”

  “Ewww.”

  They returned to their room long enough to grab T-shirts and shorts and Chris’s digital camera. Five minutes later they trotted across Church Folly Road, past the Ruined Church and up Government Hill Road to make their way down into Tobacco Bay beach. The parking lot was empty except for a couple of scooters and a Volvo. In the jagged limestone separating the beach from a swath of green park, a man and his young son were 170 P.A. Brown

  flying a large, circular rainbow-hued kite. Chris paused to take a couple of pictures. After climbing down a stone path they found themselves in a cozy inlet surrounded by limestone. A longtail drifted in on the sea breeze. Aside from a couple fro
licking at the far end with their young children, the beach was almost empty.

  Over the rolling surf David could hear their laughter and high voices. They had an accent, Australian, he thought. Chris caught the quiet beauty with his camera; David was the target of several surreptitious clicks.

  They lay their towels down on the sand and shed their outer wear. Chris handed David the camera and with a rebel yell he made a run for the waves, throwing himself into the shallow surf.

  David followed more sedately. He was up to his knees when Chris swam up to him. Dolphin-like he erupted from the water, laughing and splashing David.

  “So what did Aidan say?”

  David sat cross-legged on the pink sand, water lapping at his chest. Idly he pointed the waterproof camera at Chris and captured a couple of images. Small fish darted around his calves, nibbling at his leg hair. “He thinks he can quash the search on grounds of incompetency.” He scooped up a handful of pink sand and let it wash through his fingers, rinsing it off before he touched the camera again. “Or at least throw a reasonable doubt into the jury.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  David wouldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s good. Aidan seems to think they have a history of incompetence.”

  “Jesus, David.” Chris dropped onto his knees. “He’s not the only one. I found a few online accounts of their tactics. They make the LAPD at its worse seem positively progressive. Good to know Aidan’s on top of it.”

  “I know, and I want this gone as much as you do. But I don’t want to sell my soul to do it.”

  “They fight dirty, so should you.”

  Only David didn’t see it that way. If he didn’t have his self-BeRMudA heAt 171

  respect what the hell did he have? If he could only win through dirty tricks, was that really winning?

  “I called Des last night,” Chris said.

  David didn’t ask why. He knew Chris and Des were close, in some ways closer than he and David were. In the beginning David had been unsure about their friendship. To be honest, he felt threatened by it, until he realized that Chris loved him, not Des. What he felt for Des was a once in a lifetime friendship, but it wasn’t love.

  “And?” he asked.

  “He was all ready to fly out and beat some Bermudian ass.

  I’ve got Trevor keeping a leash on him.”

  “Isn’t that a little bit like putting the fox in charge of the hen house?”

  “Don’t ever let Des hear you call him a hen.”

  “God forbid.”

  Chris floated on his back, his hand brushing David’s legs. He used David’s knee to pull himself upright. David thought he was going to do something foolish like kiss him, but abruptly Chris flung himself backward, falling into the water with a grunt.

  “What the hell are they doing here?”

  David swiveled around to find two police officers at the head of the limestone path, staring over at them. They stood, hands on hips, both wearing Bermuda shorts and sunglasses, making it impossible to read the expression on their faces.

  David scrambled to his feet and marched out of the water.

  Chris stalked after him as he scooped up his own shorts and pulled them on, followed by his T-shirt. He shook the sand out of his towel, while Chris got dressed. Chris was about to head back to the road that would take them to Aunt Nea’s, when David put his hand on Chris’s arm.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Before Chris could speak, he snapped several images in a row 172 P.A. Brown

  of the staring cops. Finally, he guided Chris toward the roadway.

  “Go on,” he said. “Let’s see what our buddies in blue want.”

  “As if you don’t know.”

  The two of them stepped onto the road to find the cops still there, watching. Two patrol cars sat side by side in the nearly empty parking lot. Through their open windows David could hear the chatter of staccato voices over the police radio.

  Chris made to pass them, but David wasn’t backing down this time. He stopped and took two more pictures, making sure he captured each constable. He could tell it pissed them off. He strode up to the nearest cop and planted himself in front of the older black man he assumed was the senior constable.

  “Help you, Officer?”

  The few people in the park, including the kite fliers, had been drawn to the scene. David pretended to ignore them, but he knew the cops were all too aware of their audience. It might not have gone as well for him and Chris if there’d been no witnesses.

  Chris came up behind him; he remained silent, but David could feel his growing anger.

  “Can I ask what you are doing here?” the older officer asked.

  His partner stared through his shades. He eyed the digital camera dangling from David’s hand. “You got pornography on that thing?”

  David knew he didn’t have to answer, but he also knew better than to antagonize the local law any more than he had to. “No,” he said, making to hand the camera over. “Unless you call a couple of mutts harassing innocent tourists porno.” He withdrew his hand, pulling the camera out of reach. “You want to look? Come back with a warrant.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  David inclined his head toward town. “Aunt Nea’s.”

  The younger cop smirked. “The fag hotel.”

  David hadn’t heard it called that before. More enlightenment.

  “Want me to prove it?”

  BeRMudA heAt 173

  The cop’s smirk became a leer. He took his sunglasses off.

  His irises were a startling blue-gray. His gaze slid over Chris, then back to David. His eyes were cold, like the stormy Atlantic off the coast of Provincetown. “No, that won’t be necessary. Have a good day, gentlemen.”

  The pair sauntered back to their patrol cars. The younger constable with the storm-colored eyes was a burly guy with a shock of red hair. He leaned against the hood of his car and watched Chris and David. His partner was speaking through his two-way. Looking for outstanding warrants?

  David jerked away from the probing gaze and, touching Chris’s back, indicated it was time to go. They walked stiffly up the road to Aunt Nea’s. Both patrol cars passed them on Government Hill Road, driving slowly, their windows open.

  David ignored them. They waited for the cars to vanish west, before crossing the street. “No sense letting them give us jaywalking tickets,” David muttered.

  They were in a much more somber mood when they finally climbed the steps to their room.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Chris shut and locked the door behind him. “Aren’t you afraid of pissing them off?”

  “What more can they do to us?”

  Chris threw his wet T-shirt on the bathroom floor in a fit of pique. “Is that what we have to face until this is over? Constant intimidation?”

  “They’re slick, not doing enough to raise harassment charges, but enough to let us know they’re watching. They must have seen us go into the park, so they decided to check us out.”

  “Don’t they have better things to do?”

  “They don’t think so.”

  David scooped up Chris’s dirty clothes and added his own to the laundry basket. Chris had bought some laundry soap in his last shopping foray. David added it to the pile now and trudged down the stairs to the laundry room. Chris trailed after him.

  174 P.A. Brown

  “Why aren’t you mad?”

  David looked up from filling the washing machine. “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “I’m spitting—”

  “I can tell,” David said. “That working for you?”

  “Working how?”

  “Is it making you feel any better?”

  “Well, no, of course not…”

  “So the only one you’re hurting is you. You’ll make yourself sick, letting them get to you. Trust me; they’d like that just fine.”

  Chris made a face at him. “You’re so bloody smart.”

  Back up
stairs Chris transferred his images to the laptop, clearing the camera’s memory. Then his BlackBerry vibrated on the bedside table. He answered it. After listening for a minute, Chris said, “Trust me, hon, no one could ever forget you.” Chris rolled his eyes and mouthed the word “Des.” David grinned and sighed. It was way too early to have to deal with Des and his Beverly Hills hysterics.

  Chris handed David the BlackBerry. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Hey, Des,” David said.

  Des sounded breathless. “I’ve been waiting for you to call.

  You’re such a beast, forgetting all about me.”

  “I never forgot you, Des.”

  Des sniffed. “So have you put those island bumpkins in their place?”

  David switched the BlackBerry from one ear to the other.

  “We’re working on it. Consider it a work in progress.”

  “I hope Chris got you a good lawyer.”

  “Oh, I think he got me a good one.” David shared a warm glance with Chris. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll be okay.”

  “You better be. I want you both back here soon. I told Chris BeRMudA heAt 175

  you shouldn’t have gone. I told him it wasn’t a nice place.”

  “We’ll be okay. I promise. Have I ever broken a promise to you, Des?”

  “Well, no…”

  “Have a little faith,” David said. “I’m not going anywhere except home. Count on it.”

  “Well, I know where to find you if you’re wrong.”

  David laughed and handed the BlackBerry back to Chris, who talked a few more minutes, then rejoined David.

  “What else did you pick up for us to eat?” David asked.

  “I got some pasta. I can put together an Alfredo sauce if you’re interested. Or I got some salmon steaks.”

  “Pasta.” David picked through some grapes Chris had set out on the counter. “Can I help?”

  “Grab the pasta, I’ll get the sauce going.”

  Over dinner David was thoughtful. Finally he put his fork down and asked, “Have you had any chance to think about what I said? On the plane ride over?”