A Body To Dye For (Stan Kraychik Book 1)

by Grant Michaels

  Calvin shuddered. “I didn’t! I … I put my arms around him.” Sniff. “He felt cold, so I lay close to him. Then, he wasn’t moving.”

  “And you rammed it into his dead body? Is that what you did?”

  “No! I didn’t do anything!”

  “You’re lying Calvin. You’ve been home all afternoon. You left the shop before three o’clock.”

  His voice wavered. “But I went back to work. And I was late getting home.” He seemed on the verge of bawling again. “That’s why I was in a hurry to have sex with him. I knew you’d be here any minute.”

  “So what? You didn’t have to answer the door.” I turned on him and spat the words into his face. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

  Calvin moaned and fell onto me, limp and heavy. Great! He’d fainted. I eased him onto the floor, then got a glass of cold water from the adjoining bathroom. I hoped it would bring him around, since my only first-aid training is from the movies. And sure enough, when I splashed some of the water on his face, he regained consciousness. But then he grabbed me and pulled me down to him desperately. The stress that Calvin was going through was evident— his breath stank. “Don’t leave me in here with him!” he said, shaking me. “Take me out! Take me out of here!”

  I helped him back into the living room and laid him down on the leather sofa. When I picked up the phone, Calvin asked, “Who are you calling?”

  “The police, who else?”

  “Don’t! They’re going to think I did it.” The look of terror on his face gave me a twinge of pleasure.

  “You did do it, Calvin. You can’t blame anyone else this time.” I wondered how I’d got into a mess like this. Was it just because Roger had said things I’d wanted to hear? By the time I finished dialing, though, I was feeling kind of smug, as though I understood the whole situation and had it completely in my control. Someone finally answered, and I explained who I was and what had happened. I had to repeat myself many times. Finally, in exasperation I yelled, “There’s a goddam body here, and the killer is here, too!” from where he sat, Calvin mouthed the F word at me.

  I hung up and turned to him. “They’re on the way,” I said with conviction. I was really feeling powerful, especially over Calvin. Boy, was that a delusion!

  Calvin stood up. He was shaking. “I need a drink.”

  “Don’t drink! It looks bad when they take the report.”

  “Fuck off! I’m having a drink.”

  “On second thought, Calvin, have a double.” I left him alone. He wouldn’t be going anywhere in his bathrobe anyway. I went back to the bedroom. I wanted to find out exactly what had happened between him and Roger, and I thought maybe the residual energy in the room would give me some clue. As I stood in the doorway, I became aware of a spicy aroma I hadn’t noticed before. I moved toward the bed, thinking the scent might be coming from Roger, but it wasn’t. I saw a bottle of cologne on the dresser. I opened it, but it was nothing like the scent that lingered in the air. I sniffed around the bedroom until I discovered where the smell was coming from. It was strongest near the louvered closet doors. I slid one of them open and took a deep breath. There it was, that dark and spicy smell, something like frankincense, almost like patchouli, but not quite like either of them. I took another breath to fix the scent in my memory, then closed the door.

  I turned around to look at Roger and felt a wave of sadness. Roger was beautiful and gentle-looking. The bow ties would have been a playful come-on if he hadn’t been dead. But now they looked insidious. Then something strange caught my eye. I could have been mistaken, but the knots looked different from each other. The one around his neck was loose and fluffy, while the one down below was crisper and tighter.

  Before I left Roger, there was something I felt compelled to do. It was a weird notion, and I knew the cops wouldn’t approve, so I had to act before they arrived. I breathed deeply, then took Roger’s hands into my own. I wanted to say good-bye, even though I didn’t get the chance to know him well. Holding his lifeless hands, I discovered strange thick calluses roughening the tips of his fingers. Perhaps he used to play a guitar? I sighed heavily and put Roger’s hands down. I turned to leave the bedroom and saw Calvin standing in the doorway. He’d been watching me.

  “What the hell are you doing to him?” he asked with a sneer.

  I blushed, embarrassed at being caught in a moment of maudlin sentimentality. “Just saying good-bye.”

  Calvin sneered, “You’re sick!” He turned and strode angrily back down the hallway to the living room, his robe flying open behind him. I caught a glimpse of the back of his body and thought that somewhere there was justice: For all the hours he spent pumping and primping himself at his gym, Calvin still had lousy legs.

  When I returned to the living room, he’d turned up the lights and propped himself among the pillows of the dove-gray leather sofa. Calvin’s eyes had a soft glaze that told me he’d already belted down a few drinks. He was fidgeting and pouting like a child in a doctor’s waiting room. He lit a cigarette. I envied him. It seemed perfect to be smoking at a time like this. He flung the heavy crystal lighter onto the rosewood coffee table. It nicked the tabletop but surprisingly didn’t shatter.

  “Damn!” he muttered. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “You’re supposed to get your story straight for the cops. And you’d better be ready, because they are going to trip you up and knock you down.” And I secretly couldn’t wait to see him undone.

  “How can they? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Right, Calvin. There’s a body on your bed, you’re prancing around in a silk robe, and nothing happened.”

  “He was just a trick. I don’t even know him.”

  “Calvin, those are your bow ties on him!”

  He swooned and looked almost ready to faint again, but he recovered quickly. “Since you’re so smart, Vannos, why don’t you tell the cops what happened? You already got a head start on the goddamn phone.”

  “But I wasn’t here, Calvin.”

  “That’s right, Vannos, you weren’t. So why don’t you just shut up. They don’t know who was here and who wasn’t. In fact, it’s my word against yours. Maybe I’ll just tell them I came in, and you and Roger were having a fight, or even better, you were on the bed yourselves.”

  “You ass! You’re going to look pretty stupid spouting that kind of garbage sitting around in a flimsy silk robe, naked underneath.”

  It was then that we both heard horrible sounds in the hallway outside Calvin’s suite, the heavy tread of authority, loud voices, squawking radios, sudden banging on the front door.

  “Police here! Open up!”

  Calvin leaped up from the sofa and ran for the bedroom. He hollered from within, “Don’t let them in! I’m not ready!”

  “This isn’t a fashion show, Calvin!”

  I opened the door and he was there, all six feet of him. My senses switched to slow motion to take it all in. He stood with his weight shifted onto one of his long, muscular legs. His blue-gray eyes glittered. Though recently shaven, his beard cast a bluish shadow against his satin olive complexion. He didn’t smile, but I knew when he did, it would be luminous. His curly dark hair was tousled. An aroma of balsam surrounded him. One second had passed.

  “You got trouble here?” he asked, restraining the natural power in his resonant voice. A clean white cotton shirt was slightly wrinkled; a striped necktie lay loosened at the collar; sleeves were rolled to expose powerful, hirsute forearms; gray pleated slacks tried in vain to conceal the assertive strength in his loins; shiny black loafers enveloped broad feet with high insteps. When my gaze returned to his face, I saw his eyes looking straight into my own, and felt a Mediterranean zephyr caress my face. Two seconds.

  “Who are you?” he asked curtly.

  “Stan Kraychik,” I answered.

  He pushed his way by me, and three other cops followed him. I heard him say, “Lieutenant Branco,” as he went by. Of the other three cops, one was a plainclot
hes officer in his late twenties. I sized up his compact body and styled blond hair. A fitting assistant, I thought, but maybe a little too cute and cool. The wedding band on his left hand relieved some of the mystique.

  Another of the three cops was a uniformed officer, a hefty woman almost as tall as Branco. Her arms and shoulders dwarfed mine. Her features were dark and rough, but I sensed a warmth in her.

  The last cop was the lab expert, a reedy black man slightly taller than me. His big bright teeth took up one-fourth of his face when he smiled, which he seemed to do easily. He seemed too gentle to be a cop.

  Branco looked around the room quickly, but I could see him register every detail in a computer-like mind. He scribbled words into a small black notebook while he surveyed the room—and me. “There’ll be more personnel arriving shortly. Now, what happened here?”

  I tried to answer coolly. “Someone’s not breathing in the bedroom. No pulse either.” My stomach lurched again and a tremor ran up and down my spine. Branco nodded to his assistant and the lab man to go check out the body. Suddenly we heard the frenzy of banging drawers and slamming closet doors, even the flushing of a toilet. Branco whirled at me. “Someone else here?”

  I rolled my eyes and nodded, as though letting him in on a secret. “You bet.” I began to explain, but was interrupted by Calvin’s arrival from the hallway. He’d put on a puffy salmon-colored cotton shirt and baggy white linen pants. The stuff was expensive, just the perfect togs for a Palm Beach reception, but it was out of season in Boston. I was surprised that Calvin could commit such a fashion blunder. He was under more stress than I thought.

  Calvin looked Branco up and down. “Well!” he exclaimed, “I thought that blond you sent to the bedroom was a nice piece, but the prize bull is definitely out here.”

  Branco ignored the comment. (Was he used to it?) Instead he spoke brusquely to Calvin. “Who are you?”

  “I live here. So the real question is, who are you?” His voice quivered with an artificially induced energy.

  Branco said evenly, “Lieutenant Branco, homicide.”

  “No uniform? How do I know you’re a cop?” Branco flashed his badge. Calvin looked at the badge, then at Branco. He said. “You seem quite real, Mr. Bronco.” I was certain Calvin had mispronounced the name intentionally. He continued, “I’m Calvin Redding and I own this flat. And some rather unpleasant events seem to have occurred this evening. I hope your men will able to set everything straight.” The female officer glared at Calvin and cleared her throat.

  I said, “Something’s weird, Lieutenant. He wasn’t like this before.” I sounded defensive.

  Branco looked at me coldly. “Quiet, you!” Then to Calvin he said, “We’d appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Redding.”

  “You want me to cooperate? I’d be only too happy to help you, but I think Vannos here may be the one you want to talk to.”

  Branco turned on me. “Just what is your name?”

  His sudden vehemence startled me. “I, uh … it’s … Stan,” I said. “I mean, Stanley. Well, actually, Stanislav is the most correct. But in the shop it’s Vannos. But my grandmother used to call me Stani.”

  Branco shook his head and muttered, “Jesus!”

  Meanwhile, the blond assistant returned from the bedroom. He looked at Branco seriously and said, “You’d better have a look, Lieutenant.”

  Branco said, “Okay,” then left Calvin and me in the living room with the female officer while he and the blond cop went back to the bedroom.

  Calvin whispered to me, “Some cop! No uniform, and he has hairy forearms.” He frowned in distaste.

  The female officer moved between us and grumbled to Calvin, “Anything you got to say mister, speak up!”

  When Branco and his assistant came back out, he sent me to the kitchen with the blond one while he interrogated Calvin in the living room. I told the assistant everything that had happened since I first arrived. Talking to him was easier than with Branco, and my fumbling defensive tone went away for a while. Branco took longer with Calvin, so I watched them both from the kitchen doorway. Calvin sank lower into the leather sofa as Branco pressed him for answers. He began to resemble a dog left outside a restaurant while his master went in for a steak dinner. He was quite a different Calvin from a few minutes ago, or even earlier that day. Branco finished and came into the kitchen. He sent the blond cop back out to question Calvin again. Then he sat down, opened his black leather note pad, and took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hear your side of it.”

  “Again?”

  “Just talk.”

  I tried to tell him everything I’d told the other cop, but his physical presence unnerved me, and I lost track of exactly what had happened. To make things worse, Branco would jot things in his little black book, but it always seemed at the wrong time. When I’d say something I thought was important, he’d do nothing. Then, when I’d pause to remember a detail, he’d write like a demon, which made me wonder what kind of game he was playing. When I finally finished, he asked me without looking up, “You haven’t touched anything, have you?”

  “No, sir.” I lied calmly, but I had to look away from his steely eyes. By examining Roger and touching him, I knew that I had technically tampered with evidence, but then, so had another hero of my youth, Perry Mason. When I glanced up, Branco’s hard eyes were narrow and staring at me, full of doubt.

  At that moment more cops arrived, along with a photographer, a doctor, and more lab people. The place was suddenly full of men on a mission. Branco said, “You can make your formal statement downtown.”

  “Doesn’t this one count?”

  “There’s less distraction. You’ll be able to think clearly.”

  “I’m thinking clearly now.”

  Branco arched an eyebrow. “Something else may come to mind.”

  “You don’t think I did it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You’re not going to book me, are you?”

  “That depends,” he said coldly.

  “Don’t I get any points for calling you guys in?”

  “The law’s the law.”

  “That doesn’t sound hopeful.” Here I thought I was innocent! Then, amidst my growing fear, I remembered the most unlikely thing: Sugar Baby, my pet cat, a taupe-colored Burmese exactly the shade of her namesake candy. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t fed her. “I’ve got to feed my cat!” I said urgently. “She’ll destroy everything!”

  “You can do that later.” Branco slapped his book closed and stood up. “Let’s go then!” And the four cops took Calvin and me downstairs where two cruisers were double-parked with their flashers going. It had begun to rain.

  3

  THE BOY NEXT DOOR

  THE COPS TOOK CALVIN AND ME in separate cars, probably to prevent our talking on the way to the station. Funny thing is, I had only two words to say to him, and they weren’t love you. Calvin got to ride with Branco and his blond assistant, who drove the cruiser. I was in the second car with the other two cops, and I felt horribly alone, almost like a criminal. I wondered, Would riding along with big Italian Branco have given me more confidence about the outcome of the night’s events?

  I struggled to see into his cruiser ahead of us. Through the rainy windshields I could barely make out three silhouettes. Branco and Calvin seemed to be chatting it up, and I wondered what was so damn interesting. When they ran a red light, we lost them in the wet snarl of traffic.

  By the time we got to the station, Branco’s crew and Calvin were already inside. I got out of the cruiser and the big female cop escorted me quickly into the station. She took me to a tiny dark room with a table and a gooseneck lamp on it and left me alone with the door slightly open. I looked around. The small chamber resembled a storage closet with painted cinder-block walls and no windows. Suddenly the door swung open and banged against the wall behind it. An big-bellied cop reeking of smoke and sweaty clothes tromped in and flung a dirty clipboard onto the table in front of m
e. A leaky bail-point pen rattled on the chain that attached it to the scarred old clipboard.

  He belched loudly. “You here for that faggot killing?”

  “I’m here to talk to Lieutenant Branco.”

  He scratched his scalp, then sniffed at his fingertips. “He’s gonna be a while.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said.

  He pointed to the blank form on the clipboard. “You can make your statement there.” Then he left and slammed the door closed. A sour smell remained in his wake. I wondered if the door was locked. I didn’t hear a ventilation fan. The walls felt closer every second. Drops of perspiration rolled down my back between my shoulder blades. Claustrophobic panic tickled the base of my throat and began to inhibit my breathing. I said my mantra, trying to calm myself and think about what I would write. (They give you a pen so you can’t change anything once it’s down, unless you cross it out. If you do that, they figure you’re lying and they perk right up.) I tried to remember how much I’d said in my report at Calvin’s place. All I remember is trying to act cool and not succeeding at it. I’m sure they noticed that. They’re trained to notice everything you do and say, as well as the stuff you don’t. The best cops can already do it before they go to police school.

  I replayed the whole evening in my mind and pulled out the important moments, the ones that would help incriminate Calvin. Then I wrote it all onto the official form in front of me. It came out all short sentences written with simple words: I said this; he did that; I saw this; he said that. There was no confusion in the writing. When I finished, my thoughts wandered back to my own apartment. What were Sugar Baby’s claws hooking into at that moment?

  The door opened again and Branco entered, bringing with him the aroma of clean cotton and balsam. I wondered whether it was his after-shave or his laundry detergent. Maybe it was both.

  “How’re you doing in here?”