A Party to Murder

by John Inman

  Jamie shook his head. “Not on the road, at least. The bridge is destroyed, remember. With the rain still coming down, the stream will be a torrent like it was last night. I suppose we could trek through the woods, but it might take hours to reach the nearest house or highway. Even if we knew which way to go.”

  Tommy blew the biggest hole in the question of whether or not they could simply walk away from it all. “Even if we do leave,” he said, his hand now resting in Banyon’s, “the murderer will just pick us off in the trees.”

  “What do you mean?” Mrs. Jupp asked, a distaste for the young man, or more precisely his sexual proclivities, clearly written in her eyes. “Why would you say that?”

  Tommy leveled a mocking gaze back at her, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Because if we leave, the killer leaves. Why wouldn’t he? With his prey boogying off into the woods, there wouldn’t be much motivation for him to stay behind.”

  Mrs. Jupp studied Tommy’s face. Her dislike for him seemed to have fallen by the wayside all of a sudden. Fear was in her gaze now. Jamie could see it from across the room. Tommy could probably see it too, Jamie thought, but if it affected him he didn’t let it show.

  Mrs. Jupp’s thin fingers danced at her throat like a dying bird. “You said… prey.”

  “Yes,” Tommy answered, unmoved by her obvious terror. “Prey.”

  But Mrs. Jupp could not be completely cowed. Her face grew stern. She persisted. “So you really think the killer is one of us? Someone in this very room?”

  Tommy’s handsome young face turned mean in an instant. He squeezed Banyon’s hand until Banyon winced. “How many times do we have to go through this? Unless it’s a ghost, of course the killer is one of us! We’re the only people here.” His eyes lasered in on Mr. and Mrs. Jupp, one right after the other. “And while we’re on the subject, some of us might be a little old to go traipsing through the stormy forest for miles on end, don’t you think? We really have no choice but to stay here inside this house until help arrives. To suggest leaving is nuts!”

  Mrs. Jupp flinched in the face of his fury. Defensively, but with hurt in her eyes, she said, “I know my husband and I aren’t young. I just thought….” But she didn’t finish. She let her comment slip to silence. Gathering her plate and cutlery, she rose and left the room without a backward glance, heading presumably for the kitchen where she would begin washing up.

  Tommy Stevens watched her go with no sympathy on his face.

  “My wife is frightened,” Mr. Jupp spat bitterly, leaning across the table and aiming his words directly at Tommy’s face. “There’s no need to be cruel.” With that he rose and followed his wife from the room.

  Tommy looked surprised, although the two rising spots of color in his cheeks might have suggested a wee touch of shame was working its way through his system whether he wanted to admit it or not. He turned to the others in the room. “What’d I say?” He seemed abruptly surprised by the cool reception he got from his fellow guests. “Why are you looking at me like I’m an asshole?”

  Jamie smiled to himself when no one denied they were doing exactly that.

  “WHY DID they fight, do you suppose?” Derek asked. “Banyon and Tommy. I thought they were all lovey-dovey together.”

  “Together means different things to different people,” Jamie said. “Together for us means fucking like rabbits. Maybe together for them means punching each other in the face. Frankly I like our way better.”

  Derek grinned. “So do I.”

  “Think Professor Banyon culls through the student roster to find his latest trick?”

  Derek’s grin hadn’t faded yet. “Looks like it.”

  Jamie returned the grin with one of his own. “I suppose Tommy’s shooting for an A.”

  “After popping the professor in the jaw, I doubt he’ll get it.”

  They were in their room again. Jamie, for the tenth time, was digging through their stuff trying to find their cell phones.

  “They aren’t here,” Derek kindly insisted, pushing away all thoughts of Banyon and Tommy. “The phones were stolen. They had to be. There’s no sense looking for them. They’re gone.” But Jamie continued to search.

  The storm had reached a crescendo again. Lightning sizzling, thunder booming, wind and rain lashing the house and trees. Timbers deep in the walls creaked and moaned. Since they were on the second floor, they could hear shingles rattling above their heads and floorboards moaning below. The house was a fucking symphony.

  Derek thought of the bodies in the basement. Leaking abominable fluids. Decomposing. He wondered how long it would take for meat to begin sloughing from lifeless bones.

  He gave himself a shake to chase that last macabre thought away. When it steadfastly refused to go, he sat on the edge of the bed and stared morosely out at the rain lashing the bedroom window.

  His silence must have attracted Jamie’s attention. He quickly crossed the room and knelt at Derek’s feet.

  Jamie’s words nudged at Derek like a probing kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll get through this.”

  Derek smiled down at him as Jamie laid his head in his lap. He ran his fingers through Jamie’s hair, which was still damp from the rain. “We’ve come a long way, you and I,” Derek said. “I don’t want to lose you now.”

  Jamie gazed up, his eyes dreamy. He seemed to be enjoying Derek’s fingers in his hair. “What do you mean, lose me now?”

  “Now that we’ve found each other,” Derek explained. “Now that I’m starting to realize what you mean to me.”

  “What do I mean to you?” Jamie asked, brushing his lips over the tender skin on Derek’s wrist, as if savoring the taste.

  Derek blinked. The answer was so obvious he was surprised he had to explain it. “Everything,” he said. “Don’t you know that? You mean everything.” Jamie’s eyes misted up. A tear gathered, shimmering on the long sweep of his blond lashes, then fell with an almost audible plop, sliding down the side of his nose. Derek bent and kissed it away before it was lost forever.

  “Please don’t break my heart,” Jamie whispered.

  “Never,” Derek whispered back. He laid a second kiss to Jamie’s cheek, as if the residue of his tear might still linger and he wanted to taste it again. With his lips still on Jamie’s skin, he muttered careful words. “I want you to come with me.”

  “Come with you where?”

  “Down to the basement.”

  Jamie jerked back, his eyes no longer dreamy and soft. They were wide and worried now. “The basement? Why?”

  Derek felt color rise to the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure why what he was about to say embarrassed him so, but it did. Still, there was no way around it. This was something he had to do. “I want to cover the bodies. I can’t just leave them lying there on that filthy floor. They were old. They must have loved each other for decades. They… deserve better.”

  Jamie’s gaze bore into Derek’s eyes. The faintest of smiles touched his lips. Derek, unable to stop himself, leaned in to kiss them, one after the other. When he was finished, Jamie claimed his hand.

  “Let’s go, then. Let’s do what we can for them.”

  Derek’s heart gave an odd lurch inside his chest. His pulse quickened at his temple.

  “Thank you,” he said, pulling a kitchen knife from his trouser pocket.

  Jamie’s eyes got big and round. Wary all of a sudden. “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “Protection. I swiped it from the dining room.”

  “Oh.”

  “Unless you have an Uzi we can use.”

  Jamie patted his pockets and frowned. “Sorry. All out of Uzis.”

  “Then the knife will have to do.”

  “I don’t suppose you swiped one for me too?”

  Derek pulled a second knife from his pocket. “As a matter of fact, I did. Try not to stab yourself. Or me. Or anybody who isn’t trying to kill us.”

  Jamie’s eyes narrowed to beady slits. “What am I
, twelve?”

  Derek studied him fondly. “I remember you at twelve. You were sexy then too.”

  The snarl slid from Jamie’s face like a scoop of ice cream sliding off a plate. He slid his fingers under Derek’s shirttail, ruffling through the hair on Derek’s belly. A purr entered his voice.

  “What else do you remember from when we were twelve?”

  THE STENCH of human waste was stronger now. It was mixed with the acrid scent of old blood, ancient coal dust, and woodsmoke. The bodies of the old couple had not been moved since Mr. Jupp discovered them the evening before. The only difference was a string of ants that now crossed the coal-bin floor from the trap door high in the wall and disappeared beneath the hem of the old woman’s skirt.

  Jamie almost passed out looking at them. He desperately tried not to imagine what they were doing under there.

  He and Derek had blankets tucked under their arms, gleaned from the linen closet off the second-floor hallway.

  Jamie stared at the ants again. Busy little bastards, scurrying back and forth. Doing God knows what. “We need a can of Raid.”

  “Hush.”

  Jamie hushed. Derek carefully spread a blanket over the old man, neatly tucking in the edges. When he finished, Derek plucked the other blanket from Jamie’s grasp and spread it over the woman. Jamie imagined the ants lighting little tiny candles and wondering what the hell had happened.

  It was a relief not to see the corpses’ faces anymore, but the two blankets did nothing to quell the reek of corruption that seemed to have burrowed into the basement walls.

  “Can we go now?” Jamie pleaded, patting his pocket to make sure the knife was still there.

  Derek was staring at the bloodied shovel lying at his feet. It was exactly like the one in the dining room upstairs, Jamie decided. Derek nudged it with his toe but didn’t try to touch it. Fingerprints, Jamie supposed.

  Jamie’s gaze wandered back to the bodies. “Do you still think they were killed so the house could be used as a staging area for murdering the rest of us?”

  Derek eyed him with what looked like renewed respect. “I hadn’t thought it through quite that clearly,” he said, “but yes, Jamie, now that you mention it, that’s exactly what I think.”

  Jamie tried not to preen under Derek’s admiration for his acumen. As long as he was on an intellectual roll, Jamie figured he might as well shoot for another brilliant deduction. “It means whoever the killer is, he already knew about this house, so it stands to reason he already knew the owners.” At that, his gaze fell again on the bodies at his feet.

  Derek nodded. “Yes. That’s what I think too.”

  “It also explains why the pictures were removed from the walls.”

  “Yes. Something in the pictures would have given the killer away. But we’ve already been over this.”

  “I know,” Jamie said. “But there must be more to it.”

  Jamie chewed on the inside of his cheek as if it were a fat ball of bubble gum. He tried to order his thoughts, while at the same time struggling to ignore the stench of death and human waste. An idea struck him out of the blue. He snapped his fingers.

  “So many pictures have been removed from the house, it must mean the killer was a relative of the old couple. Surely a mere friend wouldn’t be so prominently displayed.”

  “No,” Derek agreed. “Surely not.”

  Jamie blinked. Still thinking. “We need those pictures, don’t we?”

  Slowly, Derek turned and aimed a smile right at him. “Bingo, Sherlock. That’s exactly what we need.”

  As one, they turned away from the coal bin and its unholy contents and glanced about the basement. If Derek was expecting to immediately spot a bigass pile of discarded family portraits, Jamie was afraid he would be sorely disappointed.

  “There!” Derek cried, and Jamie jumped two feet straight up into the air.

  Derek strode forward and scanned a shelf filled with odds and ends: light bulbs, tools, a huge roll of twine, paint cans, and other assorted junk.

  Alongside the shelf in the middle of the floor stood something covered with a large black tarp. Jamie stepped forward and lifted the corner of the tarp to expose a motorcycle that looked shiny and new. A helmet dangled from the handlebar. He and Derek stood side by side staring at the thing for a moment, and then Jamie rearranged the tarp the way he’d found it. They had other things to worry about.

  Jamie forgot about the motorcycle quickly enough. He was just glad he hadn’t found another body. While Derek fiddled with the junk on the shelf, Jamie edged up close behind him and tucked his hand in Derek’s back pocket for anchorage.

  “That’s good,” Derek whispered. “Stay close.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jamie whispered back. “I fully intend to. Where’s your knife?”

  “In the other pocket,” Derek said.

  “Oh good. I won’t cut my fingers off.”

  JAMIE TRAILED along behind Derek as he searched the basement further, still looking for clues, of which there were damn few. Aside from the bodies and the shovel, there were none, in fact. Not one damn clue anywhere. Jamie still had his hand tucked securely in Derek’s back pocket, and frankly, Derek was happy to feel it there.

  Strangely, Derek’s mind was only partially focused on the search and the murders. The bulk of his brain matter was contemplating his future with Jamie. That was assuming they would have a future after the killer got through with them.

  His thoughts a maelstrom, he bent and once again began rummaging through a pile of crap stacked haphazardly in a basement corner. Derek hated spiders, and he cringed at every unexpected twitch of fabric or material, but he doggedly plowed on, hoping to find the missing pictures.

  He was about to suggest they move their search up the basement stairs and into the house itself, but instead he found himself turning and taking hold of Jamie’s shirtsleeves. Jamie looked startled but waited patiently for whatever Derek was about to say. The trust Derek saw burning in Jamie’s eyes at that moment reconfirmed the fact that he was right to say it.

  He also knew he would never be happy if he didn’t.

  Derek cleared his throat. He shuffled from one foot to the next, seeking the words to begin.

  When Jamie reached out and rested his hand on Derek’s chest, Derek edged closer, cupping Jamie’s face in his hands.

  “If we die in this fucking house, I want to know that I did one thing right before it happened. Jamie Roma, I’ve been crazy about you since the fifth grade. I have no idea why it took us fifteen years to finally crawl into bed together, but now that you’re in my bed, I’ll do whatever I can to keep you there. God, Jamie, please tell me you’re crazy about me too, and that you’re not just in it for the pheromones.”

  He finished in a tongue-tied flurry of disjointed vowels and consonants, his face so hot he must be red as an apple. Within moments, tears were dribbling down his face, and he had the hiccups. He stood meekly—half-embarrassed, half-terrified—waiting for Jamie to respond. He also needed to pee, but he was trying his best to ignore that.

  Jamie stepped forward and tucked his head under Derek’s chin. With his warm breath on Derek’s throat, he pressed a gentle kiss to Derek’s Adam’s apple. It bobbed up and down in Derek’s throat while he tried not to sob out loud. At that moment, he was more scared of the hope in his heart than he was of the killer in the house. The one controlled his happiness; the other only his death.

  In any contest, happiness would win hands down.

  “Thank you,” Jamie muttered against his skin. Jamie nibbled on the little V of bone at the base of Derek’s throat. He slid a hand under Derek’s shirt and caressed his side, tucking his fingers in the slots between Derek’s ribs. When Jamie’s lips traveled up his neck and found his ear, Derek shivered and tilted his head to the side to let Jamie have his way.

  Jamie’s breath blew across his temple, and Derek’s shiver became a tiny laugh. Or was it a baby sob? Jesus, was the guy ever going to answer?

&nb
sp; “I have to admit,” Jamie breathed, “the pheromones are great.” He dragged his lips over Derek’s cheek until they reached his mouth, and there Jamie came to rest. His kiss was sweet and gentle and wetter than usual. It took Derek a moment to realize it was moistened by both their tears.

  “I am crazy about you,” Jamie finally whispered. His voice sounded weak and fractured, like it had been taken out and beaten like a rug, but he managed to make himself understood.

  Derek grinned beneath the kiss.

  “And you’ll stay with me when we get home?”

  “What do you mean, stay with you?”

  “I mean live with me.”

  Jamie’s jaw fell open, and he blinked six times. “You mean honest-to-God live with you? Like cohabitation? Like you take out the trash and I’ll scrub the toilet live with you?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  Jamie still hadn’t finished blinking. “Well, yeah, I guess I could do that.” Desperation swelled up inside Derek. He wasn’t getting the enthusiasm he’d expected.

  “But do you want to live with me?”

  “Yes, Derek, I want to live with you.”

  “In my apartment? I hate yours.”

  “Are we talking forever here?”

  Derek hesitated for less than a heartbeat. “Maybe.”

  Jamie huffed but didn’t balk, to Derek’s relief. “Fine. But we’ll get a new apartment. A bigger apartment. We’ll split the rent. And I want a dog.”

  Derek tried to pout, but Jamie’s sharp little teeth snagged his bottom lip and wouldn’t let him do it. He squirmed and flapped around like a worm on a hook. “Ouch! That hurts. Fine, we’ll get a dog.”

  “A big one. And a cat.”

  “Oh Jesus….”

  Jamie laughed and pulled back far enough to study Derek’s eyes. “Just so you know, the dog’s a must, but I’m flexible on the cat.”

  Derek reached up and squeegeed a tear from his own cheek. When he was finished doing that, he took pity and squeegeed one from Jamie’s.

  “I’ll make you happy,” he said gently.