“Did Mason take the blame in the solicitation case as an act of penance?” I said dubiously.
“Mason was living with Del at that time, so I don’t know what happened there. But Sully used to say Del was very aggressive about being gay. He believed in acting up—you know, coming out of the closet, being gay and being proud of it. Mason was never like that. He was never comfortable being bisexual. He didn’t believe in kidding himself about it, but he wasn’t a proselyte.”
“Are you saying that Del may have had an influence on Paul Grandin?”
“I guess I am,” Cindy said. “Paul used to spend a lot of time at Del’s house. After all, that was where Mason lived half the time. Being around Del, hearing him preach about gay pride, it might have had an effect on Paul, who was apparently very unhappy about himself and very impressionable. This thing about Paul getting arrested the first time in a park—that was something Mason said Del used to do before they met. Go to the parks and have anonymous sex in the public johns. Even after AIDS he used to do it. It was like a point of honor with him. He wasn’t going to be scared out of being who he was or living the life he wanted to live. It was one of the main reasons that Mason broke off with him—he was afraid that Del had contracted AIDS because of his promiscuity.”
I stared at Cindy, and she looked away at the pile of letters sitting beside her on the sofa cushion. She reached over and picked up one of the letters, handing it to me.
“I was reading it when you knocked on the door.”
I stared at the letter, which was written on plain paper and postmarked Columbus, Ohio. It was dated July 19, the Tuesday that Mason’s body was found in the Washington Hotel.
Dear Mason,
I’m grateful for all that you did for me yesterday. Nancy knows I’m here, although she doesn’t know that you helped me, of course. I talked to her late last night on the pay phone. She says she’s going to try to come up and be with me whenever she can. My mother doesn’t really give a damn. And Dad . . . well, you know exactly how impossible that is. I tried to find another way out. Believe me. I went everywhere I could think to go. But nobody wanted any part of me, except, finally, you. I’ve brought you so much trouble, Mason. I hope you’ll find a way of forgiving me for that. If I have to come back, I will. But maybe everybody’ll get lucky and I won’t have to. I tried calling you late last night, too, and didn’t get an answer. I could use some money for smokes and the phone. Nancy’s going to bring some. Maybe you could mail some up. You know the address. I’m sorry about Del. Tell him thanks, too.
Love, Paul
“What the hell?” I said out loud.
“It looks like Mason helped him,” Cindy said. “Or gave him money to hide out.”
“It must’ve been that night in the bar,” I said, knowing that still didn’t answer the question of who the accomplice was that Mason and Paul had been drinking with and Sullivan had apparently contacted, or what he had to do with getting Paul out of town, or why Greenleaf had immediately afterward gone from that bar, up that damn hill, into that hotel and killed himself.
“Who’s Nancy?” Cindy asked.
I assumed that was Paul Grandin, Jr.’s, sister. At least, that’s what I told her.
I took another look at the envelope, but there was no return address on the flap. The kid said that Mason knew the address, but Mason was dead.
I went over to the phone in the kitchen nook, called information, and got Paul Grandin, Sr.’s, phone number. I scribbled it down in my notebook as I hung up. I’d no sooner put the phone down than it rang, startling me and making Cindy jump. I picked it up and said hello.
“Mr. Stoner,” a woman said in a very nervous voice, “this is Marlene Bateman. Sully’s neighbor?”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Bateman. Did he finally get in?”
“Something’s wrong, Mr. Stoner. The police have just called.”
“What is it, Ms. Bateman?” I said, knowing already from the sound of her voice that the man was dead.
Her voice began to shake. “They’ve found Sully’s car on I-71, near King’s Island. There’s been an accident.” She started to cry. ‘‘Sully’s dead. They want somebody to come there to—identify the body. They said they’re having trouble getting him out of the wreckage. Frankly, I don’t think I can do it. I know it’s terribly presumptuous. But I couldn’t think of anyone to call. And since you’re a law enforcement professional, I was hoping . . .”
“I’ll take care of it,” I told her.
“Tell them to take him to Weiderman’s Funeral Home. I’ll . . . make the arrangements.”
******
At first Cindy insisted on going with me. Sullivan was her friend, and she felt an obligation to come along. But I managed to convince her that it was a bad idea. She’d seen enough death already. And she knew it.
“You’ll probably be a while, right?” she said as I got ready to leave.
“Yeah. Maybe you should go home. These things have a way of dragging out, and I may not be back until morning.”
“I’ll stay. It would be too depressing at home with Sully dead, too.” She gave me a questioning look. “You don’t think this has anything to do with Mason?”
“Sullivan said he’d talked to someone who’d seen Mason, and last night his landlady saw him with a guy that fits the description of the older man at Stacie’s bar.”
Cindy tapped her foot nervously. “I don’t like this. It’s frightening.”
“It’s unsettling,” I agreed.
“You know, I haven’t felt scared up till now. Just angry and suspicious. But it’s too strange, Sully getting killed.” She looked around the unfamiliar room and shuddered up her spine. “Paul had something to do with both of these deaths. I feel it.”
“I think we’re going to have to find him.”
“How?”
“Possibly through his sister. She apparently knows where he is—or was, as of a week ago.”
“Why did he mention Del in that letter?”
It was a question I’d wondered about myself. “It’s something else to look into.”
Cindy reached out for me suddenly, grabbing my arm as if I’d lost my balance—or she had. “Maybe you shouldn’t, Harry. Maybe we should stop.”
I sat down on the arm of the sofa and pulled her to me. “Cindy, I can take care of myself. I’m pretty good at it, actually.”
“I know that. But I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you, too, because of Mason. His death is terrible. I regret it, I mourn it. I always will. But I won’t let you get hurt because of it— because of me.” She stared directly into my eyes. “I’m not kidding, Harry. Mason would have felt exactly the same way.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll have to make sure that nothing happens.”
She smiled, but she didn’t look confident.
“This is a part of life I’ve successfully avoided up till now,” she said
“Which part is that?”
“Your part. The dangerous part.”
I smiled. “Living with Mason Greenleaf wasn’t exactly a safe bet.”
“Yes, it was. In most ways it was exactly that. Safe sex. Safe haven. No chance of getting hurt.” She laughed mordantly. “I’m beginning to understand just how unrealistic that whole idea is.”
I stood up and went over to the door. “I’ll try to call, if I can. If you get lonely, the girl upstairs is a good soul.”
Cindy arched an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
“She’s twenty-two years old. A grad student in English. Her name is Linda Fine. Tell her you’re a friend of mine. My new roommate.”
******
It took me about twenty minutes to make my way out 71 to King’s Island through a driving rain. I spotted the accident a mile before I got there—a cluster of flashers blinking on the left side of the highway, the south lanes going toward Cincinnati. As I got closer, I could see a white car, a BMW 633, sitting in a grassy decline on the far shoulder. A telephone pole was bent above its
hood. Two state patrol cars were parked on the embankment, above and below the Beemer. An ambulance with its flashers going was parked alongside it, its back doors open. Flares spilling sulfur yellow sparks at their tips were posted on the highway around the wreck.
I had to drive a few miles north to find a turnaround. Traffic was backed up above the accident, so it took me another fifteen minutes to work my way back down to the BMW. When I got to the first flare, I pulled off on the embankment and parked behind the state patrol car. A cop in a yellow rain slicker came up to me before I could open the door, signaling with his hand for me to roll down the window.
“This isn’t a spot for sight-seers,” he said, giving me a tough look.
“I’m here to identify the body.”
Straightening up, he stepped back from the door. “Watch yourself when you get out.”
I opened the door and sidestepped my way up toward the Beemer. The headlights from the stacked-up traffic flooded the roadway with white light, diffused by the rain and a thin mist crawling along the ditch where the front of the car was sitting. As I neared the BMW, the cop fell in step beside me.
“Is he still in the car?” I asked him.
“No. We got him out and into the ambulance a few minutes ago.”
I glanced at the wreck. There was a star fracture in the front windshield with a hole in its center the size of a man’s head. There was some blood on the glass and on the hood.
“His head went right through it and slammed into the pole,” the cop said, following my gaze. “We think he had a blowout.” Turning toward the highway, he pointed to some heavy skid marks on the pavement. “Anyway, he lost control. He’d had a bad night, so maybe he wasn’t concentrating a hundred percent.”
“Why do you say that about a bad night?”
“There was a fresh speeding ticket in the front seat. He got it just outside Columbus, about nine forty-five.”
“Was there anything else inside the car? Papers, briefcase?”
“Whatever we got is in the ambulance, along with the body.” He cleared his throat uneasily. “You want to take a look?”
I nodded.
Two paramedics were sitting on the rear bumper of the ambulance, smoking cigarettes and talking in the rain. They looked up as we walked over. One of them dropped his cigarette on the wet pavement, stubbing it with his foot, then climbed up into the ambulance. He flipped on an interior light, and I saw the gurney with the body bag sitting on the cobble-metal floor.
The one sitting on the bumper said, “Are you here to identify the body?”
“Yeah.”
He stood up. “Watch your head.” He opened the doors fully and backed away, shielding his cigarette with a cupped hand.
I climbed into the ambulance. The first paramedic was standing at the head of the gurney. Stooping, I went up beside him.
“You’re a friend of his?” he said.
“Harry Stoner.”
He picked up a clipboard and wrote my name down, then reached over and unzipped the top part of the body bag. I took a look and nodded.
“It’s Ira Sullivan.”
The paramedic zipped the bag up over Sullivan’s battered face.
“Did you find anything in the car?” I asked him. “Personal belongings?”
“Wallet, watch.”
“No papers?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Casual way he was dressed, it didn’t look like he was on business. Maybe he was just visiting a friend.”
25
I GOT back to the apartment around three-thirty. Cindy was asleep in the bed. She’d left the radio in the living room on a talk station—probably to comfort herself with the sound of a voice. I flipped it off and sat down on the couch for a while, thinking that in the morning I was going to have to do something I didn’t really want to do. But with Sullivan gone, I didn’t see where I had a choice. Too many people had suffered, directly or indirectly, because of Paul Grandin, Jr.
I flipped off the lamp and stared out at the streetlights, smeared by the rain. On a normal night, on a case like this, I would have drunk myself to sleep. That night, I went into the bedroom and lay down next to Cindy Dorn and held her tight.
I woke up early—startled by a thunderclap. The last of the night was still there outside, graying and clamorous. I left Cindy sleeping and walked into the kitchen, making coffee in the sink with hot water and crystals, then taking a quick shower. Morning began to break as I toweled off, enough so I could see the wet streets through the bedroom curtains and the first spate of traffic starting like a fuse in the half-dark. It was still only a little past seven.
She woke up as I began to dress, propping herself up on her elbows and smiling at me groggily.
“I took a pill,” she said. “I don’t usually do that. But I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise. Last night was pretty spooky.”
It explained why she’d slept through my early morning arrival and the noisy thunderstorm. It occurred to me that it might also explain something else—where Mason Greenleaf had gotten the Seconals that killed him. I didn’t say anything about it to her. If it was true, it was something she didn’t need to know.
“I dreamed about Sully,” she said, sinking back into the pillow. “His friend, Marlene Bateman, called again after you left. We talked about him for a while. You know, he never liked to drive at night.” Cindy smiled sadly. “He never liked to do anything that put him out. He must’ve had a good reason to go riding around in a storm.”
“He went to Columbus.”
“How do you know that?” she said with surprise.
I told her about the speeding ticket.
“Unless he had a friend or relative up there that you know about, I’m guessing the trip had something to do with Paul Grandin.”
She shook her head. “Sully’s folks are dead. Marlene told me that. He really didn’t have anybody, except for her and Mason.”
Cindy put her hands over her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “It’s just that I’d like this shit to end.”
“I’m going to see to it,” I said, putting my shirt on and slipping into my trousers. “Today.”
While Cindy took a shower, I went into the living room and dialed Paul Grandin, Sr., at home. Grandin himself answered, sounding as if he was still half-asleep.
“Yeah? What?”
“Mr. Grandin, this is Harry Stoner. I talked to you the other day about your son.”
“Paul?” he said.
“You were playing tennis with your daughter.”
“I remember you,” he said, suddenly pissed off.
“I don’t know whether you know this, but your son is in trouble with the cops again. He was arrested several weeks ago for solicitation in a Mount Adams bar. From what I’ve been able to find out, he’s been having a tough time of it since then.”
“I can’t hear this,” the man said with pain in his voice. “I can’t look after him anymore. He’s got to take the reins of responsibility in his own hands.”
It was probably a lecture that Paul Grandin, Jr., had heard every day of his life—and ignored. The pathetic part was, it still sounded like the man was trying to convince himself—as if he had never quite given up on reforming his son, in spite of the public notice and the public humiliations. I knew his vanity was something I could use against him.
“I need to talk to him, Mr. Grandin. Several people are dead. If I don’t talk to him, I’m going to have to go to the police.”
“Dead,” the man said with horror. “Dead because of Paul?”
“I think so.”
“That cocksucker Greenleaf, for chrissake! Who the hell cares if he’d dead, after the shame he brought on us?”
It was hardly that simple, as the man well knew. But there was no point in going into it with him. I had to play to my strength—which was to make him fear for his wayward son and his own reputation.
“It’s not just Greenleaf, Mr. Grandin.
Another man, a lawyer named Ira Sullivan, is dead, too. And Paul was the last person he was seen with. Right now, all that’s hanging over Paul’s head is a solicitation charge. If I go to the police, it could be much worse.”
“I don’t believe this,” the man said—sounding like he believed every word of it. “Even Paul isn’t this stupid and irresponsible.”
“I want to talk to you—and your daughter.”
“Nancy? Why Nancy?”
“Because she knows where Paul is staying, Mr. Grandin.”
The man exploded with rage. “You stay away from my daughter with your filthy lies. You stay away from her, or I swear I will kill you myself. She’s not involved with any of Paul’s problems.”
“Ask her yourself, Mr. Grandin.”
He slammed the receiver down. But I knew I’d made my point. I knew he’d ask her.
As I hung up the phone, I saw Cindy standing in the hall. I didn’t have to ask how much of the conversation she’d heard.
“It’s the only way, Cindy,” I said, flushing. “I’ve got to get that girl to tell me where he is—or lead me to him. Otherwise, this thing will never come clear.”
She nodded. “You had to.”
But she was no more happy about it than I was.
******
We didn’t say a lot to each other for the next half hour. Cindy puttered in the kitchen fixing breakfast. And I went through the rest of Greenleaf’s mail. Bills and junk mail, mostly. But one of them turned out to be interesting.
“Who does Mason know in Indianapolis and Lexington?” I called out.
“He’s got friends all over the place. Why?”
“His MasterCard statement. He booked a motel room in those cities on Friday the eleventh and Saturday the twelfth. On Sunday the thirteenth, he stayed in Columbus.”
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