by J. L. Wilson
He tossed that out like a casual bombshell. I nodded slowly. At the time, “gay” wasn’t something that people talked about. When you’re a kid, people keep things from you, and it’s only when you’re an adult and look back that you realize what was really going on. “I suppose you’re right,” I said. “I guess I never thought about it.”
“Peter was bisexual.”
I stared at Bell, open-mouthed. “He had a girlfriend,” I reminded him. “That’s one reason I was so surprised when he told me how much he loved me. He and Tina had gone together for almost a year.” I frowned. “Whatever happened to her?”
“My detectives found her, too. Tina Lilly died not long after graduation. She went to California. Coincidentally, she lived not far from Peter’s mother, who moved there after Peter died. Tina drowned in the ocean a few months after she moved there.”
“Really? Wow.” I didn’t like Tina, who was an arrogant, statuesque girl who acted like she owned Peter. “But wait a minute. You said he was bisexual. How do you know?” He leveled a gaze at me that made my face get hot again. “Holy crapola, did he come on to you?”
Bell nodded. “Peter was really ambivalent about his sexuality. I think Lim seduced him at least once. You know Peter’s father was gay?”
I shook my head. “How do you know that?” Peter’s parents were only eighteen years older than us. They married young and his mother had Peter when she was just a teen.
“Those detectives I hired. They found what happened to Peter’s father. Remember when his father and mother got divorced? It was when Peter was ten or so. His father left and I had the detectives track him down. He lived with another man in Berkley.”
“Holy crapola,” I muttered, my brain spinning. “Is that why Peter tried to rape me? Was he trying to prove his manhood or something?”
“What?” Bell sat up straighter. “You never told me that.”
“Maybe rape is too strong. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had to hit him to get him to stop. That’s when he got off me and we argued.”
“You never told me that. You told me your shirt got torn when you fell down the steps.”
“I lied. I was afraid you’d beat Peter to a pulp if I told you.”
Bell flexed his fingers. “I would have.”
“Then it’s a good thing I never told you, isn’t it?” I considered what he said. “Why do you care about Jamie Lim?”
“I just think it’s odd that the party happened at his house and he left so soon afterward, that’s all.” Bell propped his right ankle on his left knee and jiggled it, deep in thought. “Did your mother leave you anything?”
The change of subject caught me by surprise, making me take a bigger swallow of gin than I planned. I almost choked when liquor went down the wrong pipe. “What do you mean?” I managed to gasp.
“She told me once that she had information about that night.”
“How often did you visit her?” I eyed him suspiciously.
He avoided my gaze, twisting on the couch to reach for his drink on the end table. “Now and then. Did she leave you anything?”
“I haven’t gone through the safety deposit box yet. Maybe there’s something there.”
“OK. Let’s go there tomorrow.”
“I didn’t invite you.”
He stuck out his lower lip. “Really?”
“Oh, okay.” Truth be told, I would be happy for his company. The constant outpouring of sympathy was beginning to wear on my nerves. Having him along would be a buffer between me and the people at the bank where Mom and Dad had their accounts for so many years. “I get the feeling you have an idea about what you want to find. Care to clue me in?”
“Peter’s parents took out a half-million-dollar insurance policy on him when he was just a kid. When they got divorced, it was part of the divorce agreement that his father continue to make the payments. Sylvia was the beneficiary.”
“What’s that got to do with my mom’s safe deposit box? And besides, Peter committed suicide,” I protested. “Life insurance won’t pay out on suicide.”
“It wasn’t suicide.” Bell sipped his drink. “It’s listed as ‘cause of death unknown.’ ”
I always assumed it was investigated as a suicide. But now that I thought about it, I guess I never read anything official about it. My parents were with me when I struggled back to consciousness and they said that Peter died. No one talked about it except for whispered mutterings in the hallway of the hospital.
By the time I finished physical therapy for my broken leg and went back to school in the fall, the usual resiliency of youth had asserted itself and we all moved on. “Don’t tell me. Your detectives dug up the cause of death.”
“Actually, they dug up that there is no listed cause of death.” Bell looked down at his glass. “It’s a matter of public record. I just think it’s odd that everyone associated with his death left town.”
“Lim was probably fired. You went to college. The other kids at the party were graduating and most of them left town. So?” I shrugged. “That’s what happens after graduation. People leave.”
“I was thinking more about the grown-ups. Sylvia left town the winter after Peter went missing.”
“Went missing? He was buried, Bell. She identified his body.”
“She didn’t identify anything. The body was identified by the dental records.”
“Well, see. That proves it was Peter.” I sipped my drink, wondering what he was getting at. In the years following Peter’s death, I had managed to shove my guilt about Peter’s behavior onto the back burner of my brain. All this talk with Bell heated up those memories and I was more than a little resentful about it.
“It doesn’t prove anything. Did you know that Sylvia worked as a volunteer at the Vietnam Vets Outreach Center in Iowa City?”
That surprised me. Sylvia Barry was a self-centered wannabe socialite. It was hard to image her volunteering to help homeless vets. “She volunteered. What does that mean?”
“Peter had his dental work done there. His father was a vet, so Peter had privileges there. His mother couldn’t afford orthodontia and he had to use the free clinic to have basic work done. She scrimped on everything just so she could join the country club and act richer than she was. How many nights did Peter come to your house for supper?”
I started to deny it then a small memory nudged me. “Dreams and stardust,” I muttered.
“What?”
“My mother used to say that Peter’s mother lived on dreams and stardust, but it was silly to expect a growing boy to live on them, too. My mother didn’t have a lot of patience with Sylvia Barry.”
Bell smiled. “I can imagine your mother saying that. She was practical. But she had a dreams and stardust side, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes when I visited we would go for long drives. She would roll down the car window and let the breeze blow through the car. I gave her some CDs and she brought them with her and she’d sing along.”
My mother? Listening to CDs and singing along? I could imagine it but it was hard.
“She liked to go out to the lake. We’d go for a walk near the shelter there and she would take bread to toss to the birds. I think she had the knack for attracting the pelicans. They would wait politely for her, not jostling each other, and she would toss out bread to each one individually.”
My mother never mentioned pelican tossing to me. Of course, she never mentioned Bell’s visits either, so why was I surprised?
“She called them the Never birds. She said they were so odd looking, they shouldn’t be in Iowa, in the middle of farmland.” Bell pursed his lips thoughtfully. “They are exotic, aren’t they? I think that’s what she meant. She had her dreams and stardust side.”
I took a long swallow of watered-down gin, trying to cool a faint simmer of jealousy. I made a mental note to check that box of music tapes and CDs of Mom’s that I had set to one side. I hadn’t even glanced at the titles while
I was packing her belongings but now I wondered what music Bell brought for her. She obviously listened to it enough to sing along with it.
I jerked my mind from the subject of Bell and my mother. “I still don’t see why it matters that Peter had his dental work done at the free clinic.”
Bell sighed. “You used to be smarter than this.”
I glared at him. “Maybe if I knew what you were leading up to, I might be able to add two and two.”
Bell ticked off points on his fingers. “There was a fat life insurance policy on Peter. His mother worked at the place where his dental records were stored. She left town not long after his death. She invested the money she got from the insurance policy and she’s now relatively wealthy.”
“Relatively?” I muttered. “Is that compared to you?”
“Don’t be snide. Think, Wendy. What does it mean?”
“You’re saying Sylvia killed Peter so she could get the insurance money?” I shook my head, denying it even as I said it. “Peter jumped out that window. He went to the river and threw himself in. It’s only dumb luck and charity on the part of the authorities it wasn’t listed as suicide. There’s nothing to prove that Sylvia killed him.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Bell looked down at his glass, rattling the ice cubes. “I’m saying Peter is still alive. They faked it all.”
Chapter 4
I almost dropped my gin glass. “That’s crazy.”
“Is it?”
“Why would Peter fake his own death?” This made no sense.
“Think about it. Think about what half-a-million dollars meant back then.”
I started to protest but the words died before I could speak them. He was right. That kind of money wasn’t chump change, no matter when you’re talking about. And years ago, it was a boatload of cash. Maybe there was motivation after all.
“Is he with her? With Sylvia? How did they—why—where are they—what—” I was stammering, trying to articulate my shock. I had gone from incredulity to tentative acceptance in the blink of an eye. All these years I thought Peter was lying in a grave and now Bell says—“Wait a minute. Who’s in the grave?”
Bell shot me a disbelieving look. “Sylvia worked with homeless vets. You figure it out.”
“But—you mean she murdered someone and substituted his dental records for Peter’s? That’s insane. Sylvia didn’t have the kind of smarts to pull that off. Heck, Sylvia didn’t have the guts to pull off something like that.”
“But Peter did.”
Any further protest was totally squashed. He was right. Peter was brainy and clever and ruthlessly cold when he wanted to be. If anyone could figure out how to fake his own death, it would be Peter. Suddenly my bemusement changed to outrage. “That asshole,” I muttered. “All these years I’ve been blaming myself because I thought I was the cause of Peter’s death.”
“I hate to say it, but if I’m right, you were a convenient excuse and that’s all.”
I glared at him. “Thanks.”
“A beautiful, naïve, convenient excuse,” he amended. “If it’s any consolation, he made us all feel that way. You, me, Jamie Lim, the authorities—poor Peter, depressed and alone.” Bell smiled wryly. “You’re in good company. And to answer your other question, the detectives have taken pictures of Sylvia with a younger man, but he doesn’t look anything like Peter.”
“Maybe it’s a Boy Toy,” I muttered. “Sylvia always did have an eye for the guys.”
Bell shook his head. “No, it doesn’t look like that. They’re friends, but not that friendly. He’s the right height and build for Peter, and the hair color is similar, but the face is all wrong.”
“Plastic surgery?” I ventured. Then I heard what I said. “Holy crapola, I can’t believe I’m buying into this. It’s crazy to even think it.”
“Why? If you can imagine it, why isn’t it possible? If I’m right,” Bell said with heavy emphasis, “Peter and Sylvia are living the good life in California.”
I thought about it for a minute. “What can we do about it? How do you prove that they defrauded the insurance company?”
“I’m not sure. I have some ideas.”
“What would happen? Sylvia is in her sixties now. Would she go to prison?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know. I do know that I don’t think it’s right that they get away with it.” Bell looked down at his glass. “There’s something else. I was with your mom the day before she had her stroke,” he said quietly. “I’ve worried that maybe something I said caused it. She and I went out for a ride. She had been going through some of your father’s things. She asked me if I wanted his journals.”
Dad kept notebooks of ideas for years. We called them his Inspiration Spirals. “I didn’t know she still had them.”
He nodded. “She said she kept them and had been looking through a couple of them. She seemed puzzled by something in his journal. She asked me a lot of questions about what happened the night Peter jumped out that window.”
“Really? Mom and I hadn’t talked about it in years. Why would she bring it up?”
“I’m not sure. When I told her what I remembered, she seemed upset. I was afraid that maybe I said something that disturbed her.”
“Of course not,” I said, answering his unspoken worry instead of the actual facts. “What could you do or say that would cause a stroke?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. The first I knew she was sick was when I called her house a few days later and somebody else answered.”
“What? Who answered?”
“Your Aunt Jane. She told me what happened. I think she was at the house getting some things for your mom in the hospital.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“You know somebody visited your mom the day she had her stroke?”
“Who visited her?”
“Your aunt wasn’t sure. She called your mother and your mother just said that she had company.”
“What do you mean she called Mom?”
Bell sighed patiently. “I visited your mom. Then the next day somebody else visited her. Your aunt called while the visitor was there and your mom said someone was there. She said it was an old friend. Your aunt assumed it was me and it wasn’t until later that we compared notes and I realized that someone else visited her.” He looked expectantly at me, as though I had the answer to this mystery guest.
“Since I didn’t even know that you were visiting her or how often you were visiting her, I have no idea who it might have been.” I eyed Bell accusingly, but he ignored my look.
“I wonder if that visitor had anything to do with her stroke.”
It took a second for the meaning to soak in. “What?”
“It’s odd that she was asking me about the day Peter vanished, then a day or two later, she has a catastrophic stroke and she loses most of her memory and her ability to speak. Your mother was in good health and she was young to have a stroke like that.”
I shook my head. “You sound paranoid.”
“Just because I’m paranoid, that doesn’t mean somebody isn’t behind it all.”
“There’s no way to prove anything.” I touched his hand. “Mom had a stroke, Bell. It happens. She had arterial disease and the doctor said it might happen.”
“I know. Maybe I am grasping at straws, trying to find a reason where there isn’t anything there.” Bell drained the last of his gin in one belligerent swallow. “It’s just that—if Sylvia and Peter got away with faking his death, they should be brought to justice but I don’t know if it’ll happen.”
“Why do you care?” I shrugged when he glared at me. “They’re not hurting anyone, are they? Okay, okay, they’re criminals, but—”
“Criminal? That’s a mild word for somebody who faked his death, either killed someone or caused someone to die and then got off free with thousands of dollars. They defrauded everyone.”
“Us included?” I prompted.
Bell didn’t reply immed
iately and I waited. I knew from past experience that when he was ready to talk about an uncomfortable subject, he would, and not a moment earlier. “Yes, I am pissed off that they fooled us,” he finally said. “I wondered for years if my argument with Peter was what triggered his actions.”
“Your argument? I thought my argument caused him to jump. What argument did you have with him?”
Bell sighed. “I haven’t told you everything that happened that night.”
“Well, maybe it’s time you did.” When he didn’t speak, I added, “That’s not a request, Bell. It’s a demand.”
He sighed again. “After you and I argued and we broke up, Peter approached me at school. It was the afternoon of the party.”
“What did we argue about?” I asked. “I don’t remember.”
He shrugged. “Whatever it was, you were pissed off enough to break up with me.”
I stared at him incredulously. “You broke up with me.”
Bell shook his head. “Nope. You broke up with me.” When I started to protest, he hurried on. “No matter who broke up with who, the bottom line was we decided to split up. We had planned to go to that party together, but when Peter found out we weren’t a couple any more, he told me that he was going to take you. I got mad and took a swing at him.”
“What?” This was the first I heard that Bell and Peter weren’t the best of friends right up until the moment Peter died—or supposedly died.
“It was after baseball practice. Peter told me that he had always wanted to go out with you and now that you were free, he was going to ask you out. I took a swing at him. Curly and Dibs broke up the fight.” Bell rattled the ice cubes in his empty glass. “That’s why I came looking for you at the party. I decided that no matter what happened, I didn’t want to break up with you. It didn’t matter who was right or wrong. You and I belonged together.”
“I went to the party with Mary and some other girls.” It was amazing how clear the memory of that party was, even after all these years. Of course, it was a life-changing event for almost everybody involved, so I suppose that was why. “Peter told me that you were up in the loft and you wanted to see me. I was so happy we weren’t mad at each other anymore, I believed everything he said. He and I went up into the loft and that’s when he attacked me.” Jamie Lim’s old barn was the hangout for kids who liked to smoke dope, listen to risqué music, and make out, usually up in the hay loft. Bell and I never made out there. We had a private spot we liked out south of town. Bell’s car was big enough to make it fun.