by Jade Astor
“A notebook and pen? What the hell, Quin? Am I supposed to write down my life story or something?”
“No. I want a detailed confession to killing Timothy and then Aaron. Today went down like this. You came over here with Argo and found Everett dead of an overdose. He was distraught over Aaron, whom you had already killed. When Argo started to put the pieces together, you served him the drugged coffee, stole his gun, and turned it on him.”
Darian barked out a shallow laugh and felt a little burst of strength and mental clarity.
“Oh, come on, Quin. You’re a writer and you can’t come up with anything better than that? No one would buy that in a million years. You might as well write out a confession yourself. And sign it Santa Claus, while you’re at it.”
“It’ll work fine,” Quin snapped. “Don’t try to bluff me.”
“It’s not a bluff. Think about it. Argo and I came over to Everett’s house and found him overdosed, so I killed Argo, too? Why not just pin the whole thing on Everett? Would you believe that if someone told you that nutty story? Face facts. It won’t work.”
“I’ll deal with that later. You won’t be alive to worry about it. For now, get the notebook.”
The last syllable shook a little. Emboldened, Darian thrust out his chin. “No way.”
Snarling, Quin tilted the gun toward the floor. “Then I shoot Argo in his sleep, right here and now. I’ll get by without the note. Let those bumbling cops figure it out for themselves. Either way, they’ll never connect me.”
Darian held his breath while Quin’s finger slowly tightened on the trigger. Finally he exhaled heavily. “Okay, then. If that’s the way you want it. I’m going over there now. Take it easy.”
Waddling awkwardly on his knees, he made his way across the room and groped along the top of the counter until he felt the wire spiral binding of a school-style notebook. Sure enough, a black ballpoint pen was stuck into the top of the wire coils. Without raising himself from the floor, he tugged it down and inched his way back to his original spot.
“Find a blank page you can fill up.” Quin wore a smugly satisfied expression when he spread it open on the floor and flipped through it.
The first few pages were filled with Everett’s scribbly writing. They seemed to contain phone numbers, grocery lists, and recipes, along with the names of a few exotic cocktails Everett seemed interested in trying out. He felt a pang of sadness to think he would never have the chance to do so now.
“Go ahead,” Quin demanded. “Take the pen out. Turn to the middle of the book. Then start writing. And don’t try to use code or something. I’m going to check over every word as soon as you’re finished.”
“You’ll have to help me think of what to write.” Darian injected a note of irritation into his voice. He didn’t want Quin to think that he was frightened, which might make him even more jumpy and trigger-happy. The truth was, he had never been more terrified in his life. “I’m still woozy from the drugs you gave me. I can hardly focus.”
“That’s your problem. You’re an English teacher, for crying out loud. Figure it out on your own.”
“I can try.” Darian found a blank page and pretended to struggle with slipping the pen out of the coils. Every minute he could drag this bizarre project out would give Argo more time to wake up. He had to risk angering Quin. “Just so I can get started, tell me again why Everett supposedly killed himself. I mean, if I’m taking the blame for Timothy and Aaron, why would Everett go that extreme? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to have committed one of the murders and me the other?”
“Shut up! We’re not laying the blame for any of that on Everett. I regret what I had to do, but I won’t besmirch his memory along with everything else. Let the people at Birchwood remember you as a killer. Not Everett.”
“So now I understand. All of this started because you were trying to protect Everett. You did it all out of love, didn’t you?”
Quin snickered. “You’ve just realized that? A great scholar like yourself? I must say, I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Winter. I thought it was obvious from the very beginning. For years, I’ve been twisting myself in knots trying not to reveal too much. At least I can take some comfort in knowing I succeeded.”
Lowering the pen, Darian gazed up at Quin with that he intended as a sympathetic expression. “When did all of this start? You and Everett, I mean.”
“Way back in my student days. I thought about him all time, even then. Took as many classes with him as I could. Asked him to read my manuscripts. Self-centered fool never even realized what I was trying to tell him. But then, in fairness, I didn’t fully understand it either.”
“You were close, though. That’s obvious.”
“He looked at me as a protégé, sure. Only in the strictest academic sense. Not the way I wanted him to.”
“You were the headmaster’s son,” Darian pointed out. “He wouldn’t have taken a chance like that.”
“Why not? He took chances with every other sweet, sashaying little twink who crossed his path. Caterers…cleaning crew…even a drifter or two from the bus station downtown. And all the time I sat and listened to his tales, too jealous and sickened to speak up. Finally, I graduated and put some distance between us. I thought surely that would do the trick.”
“But it didn’t work?”
“Not for lack of trying. I did everything my father and Birchwood expected of me, and more. Degrees from Columbia. Career in New York publishing. Two wives and several mistresses to boot. Lots of alcohol and even a few harder drugs, back when it was fashionable. Still I kept coming back to Birchwood. Again and again and again. Settled back in the area, pretending it was so I could write. Even agreed to become a trustee. All because of Everett. Every damn last bit of it. And still he never thought of me as anything more than a friend.”
Darian nodded. Quin seemed a little calmer now, as though telling his story had relieved some of the pressure inside him. But he still held the gun with the confidence of a trained marksman.
“You mentioned you felt jealousy toward Everett’s other…conquests. That must have included Timothy.”
“Jealous of that worthless little grifter? Well, maybe for a heartbeat or two. But that wasn’t why I decided to kill him. He demanded not just passing, but honors grades from Everett. And Everett, whatever his other flaws, was always a consummate scholar. He refused. Timothy didn’t like that. He would have ruined Everett’s reputation along with his career.” He bared his teeth, and a bead of perspiration ran down his cheek. “Everett made a big mistake there. He told me about the mess he was in only after it was too late. If he’d come clean sooner, I could have put a stop to it. Things would have turned out much differently then.”
“But Everett got himself involved with a student, even if he was of legal age. He knew better than to do such a thing. We both know it wasn’t the first time. Don’t you think he should have faced the music for what he’d done?”
“Of course not! Everett didn’t need to live by everyone else’s bourgeois notions of proper sexual behavior. He was a brilliant man and had earned the right to live by his own rules.” Quin paused to mop his face with the back of his arm. “Timothy, along with those others, should have been grateful for the gift he gave them.”
Some gift, Darian thought, though he didn’t dare to say it out loud. But still, a gift he never gave you. And it was one you wanted very badly.
Instead, he said gently, “I get that. You felt you had to protect him.” The moment he heard his own words, a terrible realization dawned. “Just like you protected him from Roderick Talbott, twenty years ago.”
“Yes. I killed Mr. Talbott. No point in denying it now. It’s not like you’ll ever tell anyone, will you?”
Darian ignored the remark. He most certainly did plan to tell everyone he could think of—as soon as he could grab Argo and get away from here safely. “He knew about Everett and his penchant for young men, I assume.”
“Yes. Damned hypocrite
. He would have done the same thing himself if he’d had the nerve. He didn’t. Instead, he threatened Everett. I intercepted the note asking Everett to come and talk to him about a serious matter. Handwritten stuff in those days. He wanted to meet where they wouldn’t be overheard. Fine. I took Everett’s place and pretended I’d sought him out to offer more dirt on Everett’s behavior. He soaked up every word of it—probably turned him on, even though I was making the whole thing up. I was a good storyteller even then—a born writer, I guess.” Quin snickered.
“You must be proud of your talent.”
“Of course I am. Anyway, while Talbott stood there, half-mesmerized by his own twisted imagination, I pushed him into the water. He never saw it coming, and he sank like a stone. I laughed while he drowned. You won’t believe me, but it actually looked comical, the way he was thrashing around.”
Darian winced, sickened, but Quin smiled with fond recollection.
“I really think fate meant for me to take action on Everett’s behalf that morning,” he went on. “It turned out later that Talbott had already written a pompous retirement letter thanking everyone for their years of comradery and entreating them to muddle on without him. My father, along with everyone else at the time, interpreted it as a suicide note. They hushed it all up and said it was an accident. No one investigated his death at all. Not that they would ever have suspected me. I was the headmaster’s son, as you just pointed out. A perfect student and a perfect gentleman. Doing a gap year…just like Timothy was, twenty years later.”
“And Aaron? How did you manage to lure him to his death?”
“Aaron was the easiest to trap out of all of you. Poor fellow—he meant well, but he wasn’t very bright by Birchwood standards. I wonder why Jeanette hired him in the first place. Of course, he wasn’t totally naïve. He knew Everett and Timothy had been together. Apparently Timothy bragged about his many colorful experiences in effort to seduce poor Aaron. Aaron didn’t know what to do with the information at first, because he didn’t want to out himself. Since he knew Everett and I were close, the fool confided in me. The moment he opened his mouth, I knew he had to go. Just a matter of time before he blabbed it all to someone else. You, for example.”
Darian froze as a tiny movement at Quin’s feet distracted him. Quin, luckily, was facing in the other direction and was so caught up in his tale that he noticed nothing. But Darian was sure he had seen Argo stir.
He spoke hurriedly, eager to distract Quin. “Look, Quin, maybe you’re right and this whole thing was fate working in some mysterious way. From what you’ve told me, Everett is gone now. That means you have no reason to stick around any longer. Why don’t you just leave? Go now. Drive to Canada. You can change your name and start over there. There isn’t any real proof against you in any of those cases. They’ll all be classed as suicides, no matter what Argo might think.”
“Argo? Now you’re the one who’s talking madness. He’ll tell everyone that I drugged him.”
“Not necessarily. I’ll tell him Everett drugged the coffee himself to make his suicide easier. He’s been knocked out the whole time we’ve been talking. Didn’t hear any of it. And I certainly don’t want trouble. In case you haven’t noticed, I need my job at Birchwood. I won’t say anything.”
For a moment, Quin looked inclined to take him up on his offer. His cheek twitched, and the muscles in his throat flexed visibly. “I’d like to believe you. But I can’t. Killing Aaron was supposed to resolve the Timothy issue, too. He would have been blamed for that posthumously, and that would have been the end of it. You wouldn’t let it rest, so basically you have no one but yourself to blame for the situation you find yourself in now.”
“I guess that’s true, but I’ve seen the error of my ways. This time I won’t tell a soul.”
“Please. You’re sleeping with a cop! Besides, I can’t leave you to slander Everett’s memory.” He waved the gun and his face hardened into a mask of barely controlled fury. “Enough negotiating. You can go to your death knowing the truth, and that will have to be your consolation. Write.”
His heart hammering with such force he feared it might explode through his chest, Darian picked up the pen and bent toward the notebook. While he wrote slowly, pretending to agonize over every word, he was sure he saw Argo move a little more. Seconds later, those fierce blue eyes opened, glazed over, and drooped shut again.
Wake up, Argo, he begged silently. At the same time, he struggled to keep his face perfectly composed. Had Argo heard any of Quin’s confession? Had he caught the part about his uncle Rod’s murder? If anything would spur him back to wakefulness, Darian knew, it would be the knowledge that the man who had almost destroyed his whole family was standing right beside him, ripe for a takedown. Come on.
His hand slowed enough that it came to rest on the paper. Raising the gun a little higher, Quin took a step toward him. “I said write! Enough of this fooling around. I need to get out of here before anyone sees Argo’s car.”
“That’s right.” Darian glanced up with a curious expression. “Where’s your car? I didn’t see it parked out front. Argo boxed Everett’s in, so you won’t be able to take his.”
“I parked down the street and walked so none of Everett’s neighbors would see it,” Quin said proudly. Darian knew this tactic alone would compromise any defense he might eventually mount. He’d come planning to kill Everett, to the extent that he had left his car elsewhere. If he and Argo had been a few minutes later, he might well have gotten away with this murder, too, just like he had Uncle Rod’s. Everett would have bene blamed. “Now stop trying to distract me and get on with it.”
“I told you. I’m trying to think of the right words. I’ve always been a slow writer. It comes with teaching – you start to question everything. And being half-stoned from sleeping pills doesn’t help much, either. I doubt this note will be very convincing.”
“I don’t care what people think. Your idea about Canada was a good one, but I’m afraid I can’t leave until I shut the rest of you up permanently. With Everett gone, I don’t care about Birchwood or anyone who works there anymore. All that’s left is for me to save my own skin. This letter should accomplish that.”
“Forgive me if I’m less than sympathetic to your plight.” Darian forced himself not to glance back at Argo, worried that Quin would follow the motion of his eyes and turn around. Then, from the back of the room came an entirely new interruption: a low, steady shuffling sound, followed by a shadow slanting across the kitchen floor. Quin looked up and gasped in shock.
His pen still poised over the paper, Darian twisted around and looked up. Everett stood in the doorway, his face pale and his disheveled hair sticking up like a handful of coarse gray straw.
“Quin, what’s going on?” One of his hands pressed against the wall, propping him up. The other clutched an empty green prescription bottle. “One minute we’re getting ready for brunch, and the next I wake up with this on the pillow next to m—”
His vacant gaze darted around the room until it settled on Quin, who stood motionless with Argo’s gun still raised in front of him.
“Quin!” Everett’s voice rose imperiously. “What on earth are you doing? Put that down at once!”
“I’m sorry, Everett. I can’t. Go back to your room. It’ll be all right. I promise you.”
“Like Hades I will! What’s going on?”
“Darian and Argo came to frame you for Timothy’s murder. I was holding them captive until the other cops can get here. Please, it’s not safe. Go back to your room and I’ll be there in a minute.”
Everett turned slowly to Darian, his dilated pupils widening even more in astonishment. He swayed and made a move to back out of the kitchen again.
“Everett, wait,” Darian ordered. “He’s lying to you. He’s drugged us all with the pills. Tell him, Quin. Tell him what you just told me. The truth this time. About Timothy, about Aaron.”
While he spoke, desperately willing time to pass more slowly, a
dark shape slowly unfurled on the kitchen floor. It crept steadily closer to Quin, who was too focused on Everett and Darian to notice. As he gripped the gun tighter, Quin’s hand began to shake.
Everett teetered unsteadily in the doorway. Finally he leaned the entire right side of his body against it. He scowled at Quin. “Well?”
“You should have kept your mouth shut.” Quin turned the gun on Darian, pointing it right at his face. “All you had to do was write a stinking letter. Now look what you’ve forced me to do!” His finger tensed on the trigger.
Though he steeled himself to take the bullet, Darian didn’t close his eyes. That was how he saw the ghostlike green shape fly over his shoulder, arc across the dining room table, and strike Quin in the side of the head. Grunting, he staggered back just as Argo, still on his stomach, lunged forward and grabbed both of Quin’s ankles. The next thing Darian knew, Argo had slammed him flat on the floor beside the pill bottle Everett had thrown.
It would have been the perfect tackle, something worthy of a scene from a movie, except for one thing. Just before Quin hit the floor, he managed to squeeze off a shot. Darian felt another object whiz past his shoulder, this one speeding in the opposite direction. Behind him, Everett yelped and crashed to his knees. Then he pitched forward, clutching his chest.
By the time Darian got to him and turned him over, blood was seeping through his fingers. The two of them watched, wide-eyed, as Argo flattened Quin’s body with his own, bent his arm back roughly, and tore the gun from his fingers. Darian heard a bone crack and felt his stomach roil. When Quin began to resist, flailing wildly with one arm flopping limply at his side, Argo expertly brought the butt down on his head. Quin slumped to the floor, motionless.
“Don’t worry,” Argo muttered as he awkwardly tucked the gun back in his waistband. “He’s not dead. Just down for the count.”
“Your cuffs are in his pocket, Argo,” Darian called, still holding Everett close. Argo fumbled for a moment, clearly still fighting the effects of the drugs, but managed to retrieve the cuffs and clipped them securely around Quin’s wrists.