P'town Murders: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery

by Jeffrey Round

Brad was disappointed. He was sure Ruby knew something that could help. At least the dope was working. The throbbing in his head had begun to feel like a distant ache. He pulled out his card. "Here's my number. Call me if you remember anything."

  "Will do." Ruby shook her head and laughed. "My, my! What kind of Karma do you have going on, brother?"

  17

  Zach was waiting at the cafe. He wore a tight yellow sweater that focused attention on his boyishly handsome face, while leaving no doubt about his well-formed physique. He'd come capless that evening. His hair had been coaxed into a whorl over his brow, a little peak tilting up and back the way the younger boys styled it those days.

  That is one delicious-looking young man, Brad decided, as he crossed the room. Envious eyes followed him to his seat. Anyone watching might think they were a couple. Oddly, that appealed to him.

  Their waiter that evening was somewhat more experienced at serving the public than the one Brad had endured the night before. He spread a napkin across Brad's lap and made sure he was comfortably settled before leaving. Every few minutes he would float by the table or wink from across the room, as though the three of them shared a secret. In fact, he was so attentive, Brad began to suspect he had designs on Zach.

  Zach was forthcoming about himself. As he told it, his family were typical middle-class liberals who embraced the ideals of tolerance, education and self-knowledge. His parents encouraged their children to follow their own paths in life. Zach's sister Anna had recently become a dancer with a European ballet company, while Zach's older brother Harold, a nuclear physicist, was busy making waves in his field.

  Zach was the baby in the family. His talents had proven somewhat more esoteric. Apart from an affinity for healing, he'd also come out in his last year of high school. Secure in his sexuality when others were just questioning theirs, he informed his parents of his orientation. We support you in anything you choose, was their response. Zach had never looked back.

  After high school, he enrolled in university but showed no real interest apart from Asian languages. He dropped out in his second year to tour the Far East. He spent a month rafting on the Ganges and eight more months in the mountains of Tibet learning to harness the healing powers latent in his hands. That, he claimed, had taught him more than all his years in school.

  He'd returned home the following spring, but couldn't make up his mind about his studies. He hemmed and hawed about it all summer. At the last moment, he chose not to return to school and had come to Provincetown instead, hoping to discover a new direction in life.

  Zach ended his narrative and listened as Brad spoke briefly of his past, and how he'd become a ward of the state at the age of fifteen after the death of his father. He also mentioned Ross's death, the reason for his presence in Provincetown. Zach offered his sympathy.

  "We'd been apart for a few years," Brad said. "Still, I wish now I hadn't let him go."

  "Do you feel responsible for what happened?"

  "In a way," Brad admitted. "Though I always thought of Ross as a survivor. Whenever he fell down, he'd just pick himself up and go on. He never wasted time feeling sorry for himself. And even though he had a family, he thought of himself as an orphan, like me. I just never expected him to end up like this."

  "Was he another younger guy who fell for you?"

  "Ouch!"

  "Sorry. I didn't mean it that way. How long were you together?"

  "Two years. Just long enough for me to fall in love and long enough for him to realize he wasn't the settling-down type."

  Zach cocked his head. "Most gay guys aren't. They just think they want to be. As soon as anything ties them down, they get scared and start to run."

  "Is that experience talking?"

  "Exactly."

  "You don't seem old enough to have had all that much experience—no offense."

  "I'm twenty-one!"

  Bradford whistled. "Twenty-one! You'll be old and jaded in no time."

  "Anyway, what's age got to do with it? These days most teenagers know more about sex than the pope."

  Their server had chosen that moment to return with a bottle of wine.

  "Depends which pope," he remarked as he opened the bottle with a pop.

  Zach grinned. "How's your head feeling?" he asked Brad when the waiter had gone.

  "Much better, thanks. Between your Reiki and Big Ruby's fair-trade joint the pain seems to have receded to a dull roar at the back of my head."

  "Well, let's have some wine then," Zach said. "Whatever the Reiki started, this will finish. Cheers!"

  They clinked glasses and sipped.

  "Wow! This is really good wine!" Zach declared.

  Brad looked up in surprise. Here was a very attractive twenty-one-year-old with blue hair telling him the wine was good. It was good wine, he knew, because he'd purposely selected an excellent vintage. In fact, it was superb wine. But at twenty-one, not only had Brad not known good wine from bad, he had yet to discover that he liked wine.

  Brad found himself gazing with interest across the table. This wasn't the same boy he'd slept with a scant year and a half earlier. Or perhaps he just hadn't given him much of a chance then.

  Zach combined the boyish good looks of Tobey Maguire with the sexual appeal of a young porn star. He was a grunge Gainsborough: Hustler Blue Boy. Brad still recalled their initial encounter the previous summer. He'd been idling on the Internet one evening when a message blinked in front of him: I found your profile on GayNet, it said. You sound like a very cool guy. Want to meet?

  It was signed 'Zach,' which Brad assumed was a pseudonym. No one signed his real name on GayNet. He read the profile. It sounded innocuous enough. Zach professed to like hiking and camping. Brad smirked when he read that. On screen, all the boys professed to like hiking and camping, but few turned out to have done either.

  He read further. Zach also enjoyed most 'outdoor pursuits.' That sounded like a euphemism for sex. Brad clicked on the picture. It showed an attractive young man posed on a mountaintop in hiking gear. His legs were tanned and rippling with muscle. He looked like a pop-up poster boy for the great outdoors. That said something, of course, unless it'd been Photoshopped. You could be standing on top of the Pyramid of Cheops at Giza without ever having set foot in the Middle East, and no one would be the wiser.

  With his sunglasses on, Zach had looked about twenty-six or twenty-seven in the photo. That was a decade or two shy of Brad's ideal but, Hey! It was a Friday night and he was horny. Wasn't that the purpose of being on GayNet?

  A brief electronic conversation ensued, followed by an invitation from Zach. Brad was at his door in less than an hour. When it opened, the boy who stood there was considerably younger than he'd appeared in his picture. A lot of men Photoshopped their images to look younger, he knew, but almost nobody did it to look older. Just how much younger Zach was, Brad couldn't tell, but one thing was sure—he was hot! And what he lacked in age he made up for in sheer sensuality. Bradford quickly decided 'Zach' would do for an evening's fun.

  As it turned out, the sex was great. There weren't many younger men who could satisfy him the way an older and more experienced man could, but Zach had made all the right moves that evening. In fact, he was far better in bed than Brad had been at his age. Or perhaps he was just more comfortable in his skin.

  Brad enjoyed playing the older aggressor role that evening. He hadn't been rough, but he'd taken advantage of Zach's submissiveness. He raked the boy's back with his chin stubble, giving him love bites and gripping him forcefully as he took control of his body, making Zach gasp and moan. He was a tasty meal and Bradford dug in for a generous helping.

  All was going well until Zach responded to Brad's passion with an ardor of his own. I love you! Zach blurted out as he climaxed, clapping his hands over his mouth as though to shut out the offending words.

  That was his first fatal error in Gay. Another quickly followed: the confession that he was only nineteen. But almost twenty! he'd added as an after
thought. All this had come on the heels of an admission that he already 'sort of had a boyfriend, though, as far as he was concerned, the relationship was all but over.

  Brad left Zach's apartment that evening with a promise to call that he knew he'd never keep. For days afterward, he was plagued by the memory of their encounter, but as much as he'd wanted to repeat it he couldn't see himself as the partner of a nineteen-year-old who showed no emotional restraint whatsoever. Even Grace would have given pause at the thought.

  Brad had long ago decided he would never let mere physical desire overcome his willpower. He saw himself as someone very much in charge of every aspect of his life. He needed to be in complete control. It was only beginning to occur to him now that it was the main reason he was always alone.

  So how was it that a year and a half later he found himself seated on the upstairs patio of an upscale restaurant in Provincetown after a very enjoyable dinner, sipping wine with this same boy? But clearly this wasn't the same boy. Even his hair color had changed!

  Brad watched him across the table. The night they'd made love Zach's body had been every bit as superb as the wine they were now drinking. Except the wine was older. At that age, Brad knew, he probably forced himself to go to the gym once a week, at most. Muscles appeared spontaneously on kids like Zach and were the envy of every gay man over thirty. Himself included.

  There was a decade between them, but Brad wondered if his experiences in the last five years alone weren't an impassable chasm. On the other hand, he was having what amounted to a very intelligent conversation with this boy who was barely out of his teens. On the other hand again, the boy was truly irresistible. Zach smiled and Brad felt himself melting.

  Now what? Brad wondered. Here I am sitting across the table from one of the world's sexiest twenty-one-year olds. Do I turn him down again?

  "So, are you a little more single these days?" he ventured.

  Zach nodded. "Completely. I always seem to fall for the wrong type. Men are only after me because they find me attractive, but they don't want to know what's beneath the surface. They just want a sexy kid to hang with at the bars or sleep with once or twice and then dump."

  Brad swallowed.

  "Sorry, that was a bit pointed."

  "You can't blame them for wanting to be seen with you. You're very beautiful," Brad said. "And as for the sex, I can vouch for that."

  Zach smiled shyly. "Was that a compliment?" he asked.

  "I think that was two compliments, actually."

  Zach cocked his head as if a thought had just occurred to him. "You know, I'm glad I came tonight. I almost didn't." "Oh?"

  "Considering what happened the last time, I didn't know whether I should meet you again."

  "You mean yesterday in the dunes or the night we slept together back home?"

  "Both, actually. I realize it must be hard for you to sit across from me knowing I've said the 'L' word. I wasn't very experienced then, but I definitely am now. You were only the second guy I'd ever slept with..."

  "What!"

  Zach nodded sheepishly. "I think I was expecting too much. I didn't even want to have sex with you that night, but I couldn't help myself. When I saw you, I..."

  "...you realized we'd spent eons together on Neptune's moon and thought, 'This has to be.'" Brad was grinning.

  Zach stopped talking and sat watching Bradford. "You're making fun of me," he said

  It was true. It was something he did to distance himself from other men. He judged them, waiting for them to trip up and make a fatal mistake that would allow him to dismiss them. He didn't want to get attached to anyone.

  Zach set his glass down. "Do you think we could just overlook those things and..." He shrugged. "I don't know. Just get on with it, I suppose, and not get so awkward with each other?"

  "And if I invite you to stay with me tonight, would that be making things awkward?"

  Zach drew a breath. "I said I wouldn't sleep with you again even if you asked me to," he replied. "But sitting here across the table from you makes me feel weak in the knees."

  The wine was getting the better of Brad. Something clicked in his head and said,Do this!

  "Well, I think you should listen to your knees, young man. Why don't you down that wine and let me take you home so you can rethink things?"

  Zach sighed. "I don't want another one-night stand with you," he said.

  Brad sat back. "I can't promise anything," he said.

  "On the other hand," Zach said, brightening, "I'd really like you to fuck me silly again." He picked up his glass and tossed down the contents. "Okay, let's go," he said.

  If Bradford thought they'd had good sex before, this time it was positively extraterrestrial. From the moment they shed their clothes it was as if their bodies had become one. Zach played virtuosic first violin to Brad's mellow cello, winding fine lines of fancy around him. Together they were sweet music, Mozart ma non troppo and "The Lark Ascending," while below the earth awaited their rapturous return. Not even the heights of passion he'd shared with Ross had been this blistering. Sometime in the night they fell asleep wrapped in one another's arms, their lips touching.

  18

  Brad woke to the phone's steely ring. Before he could open his eyes, it cut short.

  "Fairfax House."

  He rolled over to see Zach sitting naked on the floor, receiver in hand.

  "Who may I say is calling?"

  There was a pause. Zach stood, his muscles rippling coltishly as he passed the receiver up into Brad's extended hand.

  "It's your grandmother," he whispered.

  Brad groaned.

  "Good morning, Red," came Grace's resonant voice. She'd returned as mysteriously as she'd disappeared. "Cat caught you napping?"

  "Well, you caught me, that's for sure."

  He slid down the ladder, wrapping a sheet around himself as he took the phone out onto the balcony. Dawn was just touching the tops of the dunes.

  He gave Grace a synopsis of the events of the previous two days, including the news that the young man who'd answered the phone had rescued him from what would in all likelihood have been a nasty fate.

  "Glad to know someone's looking out for you," she said. "Any idea who did it?"

  "Not for certain. But I'm pretty sure it was Rosengarten or possibly one of his clients who murdered Ross," he said. "The man's got a propensity for taking out his anger on his houseboys. I got the impression he'd be capable of almost anything, if you pushed him."

  "Keep that in mind while you're looking into things down there. We don't need him taking anything out on you. Have you managed to uncover a motive?"

  "Rosengarten deals in fulfilling personal desires, which includes anything money can buy and maybe a few things it can't. It's possible the boys who work there are up for sale—dead or alive. It's also possible Ross spotted a closeted celebrity or politician who wants his identity kept secret at any cost. When I talked to him, Rosengarten seemed pretty concerned about discretion. Apparently he does a good job of providing it. The night I was there I saw a certain Senator Freeman of the Republican persuasion..."

  Grace let out a low whistle.

  "Though why Rosengarten would kill one of his own just to keep up someone's reputation..."

  "Maybe it wasn't Rosengarten," Grace spoke up.

  "I'll be surprised if it isn't," Bradford said. "He just feels like a killer to me."

  "He may be a killer, but that doesn't make him Ross's killer."

  "True."

  "In the meantime, I'll run a check on him and Freeman, but your houseboy's story about his boss's background sounds credible. Anybody else we should check on, while we're at it?"

  "Tall, thin fellow named Jeremiah Jones and an Asian bodyguard called Johnny K."

  "I'll see what I can do with that."

  "When am I leaving for New York?"

  "Not until you find out what's going on there. Upstairs thinks there's a connection to the New York problem somewhere on the Cape. So
get out there and dig."

  "Any clues as to where I should start?"

  "Just sniff around for anything to do with His Holiness and you'll be on the way."

  "Sniff around? I can't seem to avoid stepping in it. Did you know every other person in this place is a dyed-in-the-wool Buddhist?"

  "The better to find your way home again, Red. Just remember to watch out for the big bad wolf."

  That's if I don't turn into one first, Brad thought, glancing through the window at Zach, who sat practicing his yoga. Grace clicked off and he went back inside.

  "I've got to get going..."he began, but stopped when he saw Zach's lotus posture encompassed a whopping erection pointing due north.

  "But not just yet."

  "I want you to show me where you found me the other night," Brad said to Zach as they lay stretched out side by side. "Will you take me there?"

  Zach smiled and rolled on top of Brad. "Only if you promise to take me to Tea Dance at the Boatslip this afternoon."

  "All right," Brad consented, tousling his hair. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon than by going to Tea Dance with a beautiful boy.

  They turned right off Bradford Street where it joined the I-6, and then walked for a quarter mile. Zach pointed out the ditch he'd jumped in to avoid the oncoming car. Brad knelt and looked up and down the pavement. Cars passed, slowing to watch the pair who might have been checking for divots on a golf green.

  There was nothing unusual to be found. Brad stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. He looked at the blue-haired boy waiting for him to finish, and felt a flush of tenderness thinking of the night they'd just spent together.

  A loud cawing reached them from a nearby dune. A second crow joined in, followed by a third. Soon there was a veritable symphony of crowing that went on and on. Brad looked over at the tangle of brush leading from the dune to the beach.

  "Something's making those crows angry. Think it might be someone in the bushes?"

  Zach glanced over. "Could be a fox," he said with a shrug. "But they do seem pretty upset about something. Too bad I don't have my binoculars. That's what I use them for—bird watching."