by David Horne
“I’ll get some things at my apartment and can be at the house after six. If you’re home by then,” Perry mumbled.
“Why not just go by the house whenever you like. Make yourself at home. There’s a spare key hidden under the gnome near the sidewalk.”
“Aren’t you worried the little bastard would rob you blind?” Perry said, hoping a random jab at humor was good for his soul.
Without missing a beat, Gordon replied, “We have an agreement. I’ve done some pro-bono work for him.”
“That’s good.” Before he ended the call, Perry sighed. “Thank you, Gordon.”
“I love you, Perry.” He waited for Perry to reciprocate the sentiment.
Perry continued to watch Rick. He had his hand clawing at the back of his head. Perry remembered the reaction as one of Rick’s nervous ticks. Before he realized it, the call had ended. He looked down at the face of the phone. His thumb had betrayed him. He just hoped Gordon didn’t think it had anything to do with what was in Perry’s heart.
The detective’s cruiser pulled up next to Perry. He bent to look in at Macdonald behind the steering wheel.
“You know you’re in a world of shit,” she commented.
“Do you have anything more to point out to me that I don’t already know?” he asked. Rick continued to speak to someone on the phone. He walked further away from Perry and the detective.
“Not really.” She waited for a moment. Perry could tell she debated with making small talk with him. “I read the report about the break-in at your residence.”
Perry nodded. “I knew you’d see it eventually.”
“Do you know your partner had a similar experience?”
For a fraction of a second, Perry thought the detective spoke of Gordon that someone had broken into his house last night. Then he realized she meant Rick. He shook his head. “Rick didn’t tell me anything about that.”
“Well,” and she stopped talking with a shrug. The cruiser pulled away from Perry slowly. It turned into the parking lot. He watched the detective get out of the car and meet with the fire marshals.
Perry left the car lot. He had a list of things to do, people to call about insurance and banking business. He wanted to go by the apartment before dark. It was too much to think about returning to the place after sunset. He now knew Rick also had a secret.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Days later, Perry had too much on his mind to think clearly. The defaulted loans began to pile up. He’d had a few conversations with Rick. But they didn’t talk about anything other than the typical business transactions that happened to people when their livelihoods fell apart. The only reassurance he felt was the arms of his lover when they slept.
Gordon held Perry when they went to bed. Living alone for so long made Perry uncomfortable with someone sharing his bed. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy Gordon’s proximity. Perry just felt under different circumstances, they wouldn’t have moved so fast into their relationship. He felt like a burden to Gordon. He was too scared to go home, too broke to get a hotel room. And it was impossible to think there was any future in the business that he could salvage.
“What are you thinking about?” Gordon asked from the other side of the bed. His hand rested on Perry’s chest. It was as if Gordon needed the reassurance that Perry was there beside him when he slept. It’d been so long since Perry slept fitfully, he’d lay awake nights listening to Gordon’s even breathing, feeling his hand touching his neck or curled around Perry’s hand while he slept.
“I was thinking I don’t have a lot to offer you in this relationship.” It came out as if he’d thought it out loud.
Before Gordon spoke, he rolled over and turned on the bedside light. “You’re more than a job, you know that right?” he asked.
“I don’t feel like I’m much of anything anymore.”
“Of course you feel like that.” Gordon sat up. The sheet dropped to his waist. The smoothness of his chest gave Perry a pleasant distraction to look at while they talked. “You lost your business. People are dead. You have a right to feel poorly.”
“Don’t forget someone broke into my home.”
“Wait,” Gordon said, “What?”
“I didn’t tell you because there’s nothing really to be said about it.”
He shook his head. Gordon knew how to deflect his frustration. He wasn’t allowed the comfort of emotion when he was in court. If he wanted to switch it off in the privacy of his bedroom, it came in an instant.
Now it felt as if Perry had put too much on Gordon and his veneer of self-control fractured. The tears came without him realizing.
“You can’t think this has anything to do with you.” Gordon’s arms wrapped around Perry like two halves of a missing whole, he felt their healing embrace.
“It’s hard not to feel responsible for all of this.”
“I know.” Gordon sighed. Perry felt his naked chest rise and fall against him. A passionate sound in his ears, the healing touch of a surprising lover, all of it came at the cost of life and a destroyed company. “We’ll get through this.”
Perry felt a tightening in his chest. Gordon’s hands braced his face gently as he kissed him. “We will get through this.” He said it again, staring at Perry.
It was the point where Perry was supposed to respond. He understood the give and take of conversation. But he couldn’t find the words. Things fell out of his head before he caught them to say. Instead, he felt a safe nod of the head was best.
***
After Gordon left for work, Perry cleaned the house. It was a nervous reaction to the situation and a good distraction. He learned over the years when something got on his nerves, and he needed busy work to keep him from going out of his mind. While the house didn’t need a lot when it came to cleaning, it was the least he could do to earn his rent.
He didn’t hear the phone ring because he found Gordon’s CD collection. After he’d dusted off the stack of discs, he listened to each of the CDs while he polished the wood and scrubbed the floor.
He had eight missed calls. They were all from Rick.
“What’s going on?” he asked when Rick answered on the first ring.
“I think we’re going to be okay.” It came out as an announcement and hard for Perry to understand. “In fact, I think we’re going to be even better than okay.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard back from the insurance company. We’ve got a significant policy on the business. We’re going to be able to pay off the debts and still come out ahead.”
“How is that possible?” Perry asked. “Our policy is not going to cover arson.”
“What makes you think it’s arson?”
“Um, well, everyone around us thinks it’s arson. The detective told me she’s going to charge us with arson. People have died, Rick. I’m pretty sure it’s arson.”
“They have to prove its arson, Perry.”
“Rick.” He swallowed the immediate dry lump that caught in his throat at Rick’s observation. “Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. Frankly, I figured you would eventually come around to accuse me of all this.”
Perry didn’t want to fight. But things needed to be said. They were in deep, and if Rick did something with his half of the business, it still implicated Perry.
“I’m not accusing you—”
“Bullshit!” It was a half-hearted statement, and Rick was quick to pick up on it. “I know you, and your little boyfriend have been talking about me behind my back.”
“Where does this come from?” Perry responded. “And for the record, he’s not little.”
“Well, that’s great for you.” Rick huffed into the receiver. A gust of wind that cut out the background noise of him driving before he said, “I know you think I had something to do with this. Why not just ask me?”
“I thought I did.” It was a strange conversation that Perry
felt he had one-way. But Rick didn’t seem to hear him.
“We’re done with this.” Rick’s voice cracked. “I thought you trusted me. I thought we were in love once.”
“Is that what this is?” Perry asked. “Are you really going there? We haven’t been lovers for years. You’ve been dating pretty steadily. And as I recall, you started dating before we even ended our relationship. I’m not going to give you excuses for my relationship with Gordon. It was just the luck of the draw. But I’m not going to throw it away or feel guilty.”
He wanted to end the call. His thumb hovered over the ‘end’ button. Rick’s voice came through the speaker. There was no venom in it.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere. “I know it’s strange. A lot is going on. But I think out of all of this. Things are going to get better.”
“I saw a car the night someone broke into my house,” Perry said. “It had a dealer plate on the car.”
Rick didn’t answer immediately. “Are you trying to piss me off? Are you seriously going to assume I had something to do with that?” He huffed again. “You know someone broke into my house too.”
“I know. Detective Macdonald told me after she found out about the burglary of my place.”
“Doesn’t that account for something? Doesn’t that exonerate me?”
“I’m sorry, Rick. It just feels like it’s too much.”
“I know. But when the insurance company comes through, we’ll be okay.” Then he said something that stung, “And you’ll never have to see me again.”
It wasn’t worth calling him back. If Rick wanted to play the victim, Perry let him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Something came to mind, and Perry couldn’t shake it once it settled. Like remembering something important that just didn’t surface, Perry felt he’d missed something, and it stared him right in the face.
He left the house before Gordon got home. He received a text asking if he wanted to go out to dinner. They were in the excited, early romance part of their relationship. Everything was fresh; Gordon wanted to be out on the town with Perry. It was difficult for him to truly enjoy the exposure when he felt a target of some big conspiracy and ignorant to what was really going on. Perry wanted to contribute more to their relationship than just being someone who was at Gordon’s shoulder.
At that moment, he was too busy driving to answer the text. By the time he reached the destination, he was too involved in watching the area to tell Gordon he was doing something that bordered illegal.
On the far side of the parking lot where most of the sale-ready cars sat, Perry found what he was looking for. The car that sped away from his apartment that night sat in an accessible area. While the area had police tape around the entrance, the place was devoid of people. No one guarded the burned-out building.
He tested the doors and found the car locked. The dealer plate was gone. He was sure it was the vehicle he saw speeding away that night.
Since there was nothing left to do, Perry made his way back to his car. That was when he saw an SUV idling along the road. The car lot had some celebrity status now. It had some history, and people likely wanted to document the location on their social media post. But the closer Perry walked to the SUV, the more uneasy he felt.
Broad daylight, on a modern street, Perry didn’t show fear. His uneasiness came in waves. One moment he felt it was a tourist, taking in the sights. The next he thought it had something to do with more sinister, recent events.
By the time he reached the road, Perry had decided it was better to confront fear than run away. Someone had shot at him before. People were dead. He didn’t have anything to lose. He strode toward the SUV. Before he got too close, the vehicle pulled a U-turn and sped away from him. Walking back to his own vehicle, while he wasn’t entirely sure, it looked as though there were two people in the SUV.
***
“Are you out of your mind?” Gordon shouted when Perry told him about the incident. He was home again and had only responded to Gordon’s earlier text with a cryptic message about needing to talk and wasn’t interested in going out to eat. “By the way, the house looks awesome, thank you. But seriously, are you out of your freakin’ mind!”
And Perry told him more of the news. “It was the same car that came to my house. And there were two people in the truck. As far as I could tell,” he added. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“Well, if I were your attorney, I’d tell you to contact Detective Macdonald and tell her what you think.”
“And should I do that?”
Gordon sat down on the couch. “I don’t know if it would do you any good. Right now you’re a person of interest in a series of crimes. If you put something else on her plate, she might convince the DA that you and Rick are co-conspirators who are now trying to off each other.”
“You don’t think Rick has anything to do with this.”
Gordon’s face gave away his answer before he spoke. “It doesn’t look good. He’s got as much to lose as you do. Maybe more if the murders have anything to do with him.”
“But I know Rick. I thought I loved the guy once. I can’t see him being mixed up in all this.”
“Well, people change. And honestly, we don’t know what this is all about. There’s nothing that makes any sense. Why a used car lot? Why a body dump? Why kill an employee? Why did you get shot at? And don’t deny it, I was there!”
Perry found the cushion next to Gordon and leaned against his shoulder. “I know. Those are the same questions I’ve been asking for weeks.”
“Let this one go. Don’t forget about it.”
“How could I forget it?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Two days later and Perry was ready for some good news. It came from a phone call. Gordon and the firm received a ruling on the fire at the car lot.
“The fire marshal can’t find the cause of the fire.”
“So that means it wasn’t arson?” Perry asked.
“Not exactly,” Gordon replied. “It just means the fire marshal can’t rule it arson. But they can tie up your insurance company for a while. They can let the clock run out on the ruling and force you to wait for a check.”
“I don’t care about the money.” Perry needed some relief, and the last thing he wanted to ruin a good thing was brooding on the possibility of still being charged with a crime. “Let them keep the money.”
“I think that’s something you don’t need to think about. But you’re on the right path. The less you care about the money, the further away from a motive.”
“I can’t speak for Rick.”
“Nor should you.” Gordon made that sound through the receiver that suggested he had something else to put on Perry’s shoulders. “I think it’s best if you and he didn’t have any more conversations about the business or the crimes involving the business.”
“Okay,” Perry said with some pulling concern. “What’s going on?”
“Well, in my experience, there might be enough now for the police to tap your phone calls. They might have convinced the DA and the judge, something is going on between the two of you. This is a make or break moment. Believe me when I tell you money can change a person. I know you want to think of Rick in a way that makes him the man you remember as a partner. But right now, you need to think of him as just a business associate who had a vested interest in a business you share.”
“That sounds like I need to break ties with him.”
“Well, you do.” Gordon quickly added, “At least until this is all behind you.”
“I’m going to the bank today. I want to get inventory sheets on all our sales.”
“I would suggest waiting until I get home. But I feel like you’re going to do it anyway. All I can say is ‘be careful.’”
“I know.” He sighed. “I love you.”
“I like hearing you say that.” And Gordon ended the call.
***
The bank associate was new to the job. He didn’t unde
rstand what Perry wanted, and it took another supervisor to make sense of the request.
“It’s simple,” Perry told them. “I want to look at the full sales sheets for the last few years.”
“Isn’t that something you can get on site?” the supervisor asked.
“Normally, yes,” he said. How could he explain the situation without making them gawk at him? “The business is in trouble. I need to see if your records match the records we have.” It wasn’t a lie.
“You’ll have to pay for the copies.”
“Of course,” Perry responded, hopeful. It didn’t matter how much money they paid to the bank, nothing was free.
It took over an hour to print and collate the collection of sales records. By the time he had everything he needed, the stack of papers in Perry’s hand was over an inch thick.
“I remember seeing something on the news about a used car lot that burned to the ground. Was that your business?” the associate asked before Perry left the office.
“Nothing like a little lemon for my paper cuts.” He left the young man sitting at the desk, puzzling over his quip.
Perry took the rest of the day going over the sales sheets. It took several passes before Perry found one discrepancy. It was a single sales amount that didn’t match the account records that showed for the car.
“Hey Alice,” he said when she answered the phone. “How are you?”
“Oh my God, Perry,” she stammered. “I’ve been worried about you. I didn’t have your number or I would have called you. Did you hear about Johnnie?”
“Yes, I did.” He didn’t want to share in the lament of the departed young man until he got through the business of why he called her. “I wanted to talk to you about your sales you had that night.”
“Yeah?” she whispered. “Listen, I need to tell you something.”
“It’s okay, Alice, you’re not in trouble, I just needed to know something.”