Adrien English Mysteries: A Dangerous Thing & Fatal Shadows (6 page)

“What is it?”

“You don’t know?”

“I know it’s a chess piece.”

“You play chess?”

I answered warily, “Yeah.”

“What piece is this?”

I picked it up. “Queen.” It was one of those cheap pressed plastic pieces. Nothing unique or memorable about it.

“You and Robert play chess?”

“When we were kids. I haven’t played in years.”

“Why’s that?”

I shrugged, replaced the piece on the table top. “I don’t know. No one to play with.”

“Boo hoo.”

I re-revised my original opinion. Riordan was indeed an asshole. But he was probably pretty good at reading people -- and manipulating them.

He added, “A piece exactly like this was found on Hersey’s body.”

“On his body?”

“Clutched in his hand.” Riordan studied me, and a weird half-smile curved his lips. “As Hersey lay dying, his assailant pressed this into his hand and folded his fingers around it.

Held it closed. There were bruises on Hersey’s hand.”

“Fingerprints?”

“No fingerprints.”

Fatal Shadows

31

I swallowed hard. Riordan reached across and pocketed the game piece. “Keep that to yourself. We haven’t released it to the press yet.”

“Why tell me?”

I couldn’t read the expression on his face. “Because I think you know what this chess piece means.”

I shook my head. “No. Unless the reference is to a queen. To Robert’s being gay.”

“That’s one explanation obviously.”

“I don’t have another.”

Riordan sipped his cappuccino. He did not look like a cappuccino kind of guy. “You think about it, Adrien-with-an-e. I bet it comes to you.”

* * * * *

Lisa, my mother, has never forgiven me for a number of things, but being gay is not one of them. My main offense was my decision at age twenty-five that I was well enough to live outside the parental holdings. Worse, to start a “grubby little shop” on the money left to me by my paternal grandmother. As Lisa has no interest in my life as an autonomous adult, our brunches make for rather superficial conversation. Yet neither of us quite likes to give up this delicate tradition of chitchat over blueberry cream cheese blintzes and pots of Earl Grey tea.

Today, the weather being sunny, we brunched on the terrace overlooking the scrubby green hills of Porter Ranch. The February breeze whipped the white linen and scattered Sombreuil rose petals from the garden into the blueberry sauce. Lisa, still trim as a dancer in an Aran knit sweater and lavender leggings, was pouring tea into fragile china cups as I stepped through the French doors.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming, darling. What do you think of my hair?”

she invited as I kissed her cheek.

“You look like Audrey Hepburn’s little sister.”

“Liar.” She preened.

I steadied the table as a gust of wind rocked it. The china rattled in genteel protest.

“Maybe we should do this inside.”

“Why? I love this weather. It’s very nearly spring. The daffodils are out.”

“So is a hurricane advisory.” But I sat down across from her, shook out my napkin --

barely kept it from blowing away.

Lisa placed a cup in front of me. “And how are you darling? You look tired. You’re not overdoing again?”

“No. I’m fine.”

32

Josh Lanyon

“You know what the doctors said.”

“Mm. How was the SPCA Ball?’

Lisa sat back and laughed her pretty silvery laugh. “Darling, it was a fiasco! You’d have laughed yourself sick. You must come next year, now promise, Adrien!”

“We’ll see.”

“You always say that.” She pouted briefly. She’s the sort of woman who looks delightful pouting -- of which she is well aware. “It would do you good to get out. To meet people. To have fun.”

She was probably right about that, but somehow I didn’t think hanging out with a bunch of cat-crazy geezers was going to cure what ailed me.

I murmured noncommittally and picked up the gold-edged pink tea cup. The handle was too small to actually get my fingers through. I always felt like I was playing house at these brunches. All that was missing was a giant imaginary friend. I could have used a friend here.

Leaning forward, her violet eyes brimming with a melting tenderness, she said earnestly,

“I know Mel hurt you terribly when he left.”

Oh God. “Lisa, really ...”

She sat bolt upright. “Darling! I’d nearly forgotten. I have some awful news.”

I waited, my gaze wandering over the manicured lawn, the pool glittering in the sunshine, the apricot and coral rose bushes trembling in the wind.

“You remember that little friend of yours from high school? Oh what was his name?

Well, he’s dead.”

“I know.”

Her eyes went wide like a startled fawn. “How can you know? I only heard from Jane Quinn this morning and she’d only talked to Annette Penick last night.”

I’d forgotten the maternal communication system, even more complex and infallible than Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars.

“He worked for me, Lisa,” I reminded her patiently.

“Worked for you? When?”

“Up until he ... died.”

“In Buffalo?”

“You’re thinking of Sioux City.”

“I am? I’m sure Jane said Buffalo.”

“It was Sioux City, but he’s been living in West Hollywood for the past nine months.”

My mother bit her lip, looking adorably perplexed. “Darling, what are you babbling about? This happened a couple of months ago -- and he died in Buffalo. Oh, Adrien, you’ll Fatal Shadows

33

never believe! At least ... ” She paused, looking troubled. “Darling, you don’t wear dresses, do you?”

I choked on my Earl Grey. “I’m not a transvestite, no. Neither was Robert.”

“Who?”

“Robert Hersey. The friend who died.”

“Robert Hersey is dead?” Her tea cup hit the saucer with a clatter. She gaped at me.

“Darling, when? That’s horrific. Why you were such chums. Whatever happened? Not ... .”

Her voice sank. “AIDS?”

Sidetracked, I tried to explain, leaving out the awful parts, which didn’t leave much to say. Lisa was appalled and wanted to know all the awful parts. I did manage to avoid telling her I was the police’s favorite suspect, but with all the hedging it took awhile before I remembered the original point of our conversation.

“Lisa, you said another friend of mine had died?”

She hit mental rewind and her eyes grew saucer-like once more. “Oh! Yes. In Buffalo.”

She gazed at me sympathetically. “I shouldn’t laugh because it’s really quite tragic. What if it was suicide? Think of his poor mother. It’s just that it’s so undignified. And what a spooky coincidence! Skippy or Corky or Whatever-His-Name was Corday fell out the window of some posh hotel. Twelve stories down in a polka dot cocktail frock and white pumps. White pumps, darling, and that was weeks past Labor Day!”

34

Josh Lanyon

“The police were here,” Angus informed me when I got back to the shop that afternoon.

My heart sank. “Again? Why? What did they want?”

Angus mumbled something. I snapped nervously, “What? Can’t you speak up?”

“There was just one of them this time. A Detective Regan, I think.”

“Shit. What does he want now?” This was merely a rhetorical whine because Angus clearly had no idea.

“Well, is he coming back? Am I supposed to call him?” Is there a warrant out for my arrest?

Angus shrugged. Not really his problem. His problem was those tiny agitated twins of me mirrored in the lens of his glasses.

I headed upstairs and Angus called softly, “Some flowers came for you.”

The flowers lay outside the door to my flat in one of those long white florist boxes.

I don’t get many flowers. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten flowers. I pulled the lid off and gawked. Black hollyhocks and a dozen blood-red roses, perfect to the last thorn --

which pricked my thumb. I sucked on my thumb and gingerly lifted out the card.

Nothing to him falls early, or too late ...

No signature.

For one crazy moment the thought flitted through my brain that Riordan had left them.

Don’t ask me why. He didn’t look like a hearts and flowers kind of guy, not even for his best gal (of whom, I’m sure, he had many).

The roses were beautiful and no doubt expensive, but as I beheld them, nestled in their silvery tissue, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something about the black hollyhocks and the black satin ribbon looked funereal. And a handwritten unsigned card?

Was that romantic or plain old sinister?

Goin’ to the chapel and I’m gonna get buried?

Fatal Shadows

35

I tried to think of someone who might send me flowers. Anyone. I couldn’t think of a single person I was on flowery terms with -- let alone flowers with cryptic notes.

Downstairs the cash register rang; I heard the rustle of paper and Angus thanking a customer for their business. I heard the shop bell jingle.

A simple explanation occurred: a screw-up at the florist’s. Flowers meant for Robert’s funeral had been sent in care of me.

Of course. It made perfect sense. What else could it be?

But even while I assured myself that this was the only plausible explanation, I felt uneasy. Because if it wasn’t a screw-up and the roses weren’t from anyone I knew ...?

Nah. Too far-fetched.

Unlocking the door to my flat, I carried the box inside and dropped the roses in the trash bin. I don’t care that much about flowers, really. And these were a little too elegiac.

Or maybe I was getting superstitious in my old age. First Robert’s murder, and now this gruesome coincidence of Rusty -- Richard Corday -- dying in Buffalo.

Rusty. I hadn’t thought of him in years. He was the first of our clique to come out -- and what a misery his adolescent life had become. I hoped like hell he hadn’t jumped. I hoped like hell the last fifteen years of his life had been happier than the first.

There was a small sound behind me. I whirled to find Angus standing in the doorway to my kitchen.

“Jesus Christ! What are you doing?”

No doubt he heard the fright in my voice. No doubt people on the street did. He raised his hands apologetically. “Sorry, man,” he said quietly. “I forgot to tell you. Your friend’s been calling all day.”

“What friend?”

“Mr. La Pierra.”

Claude. I relaxed. “Right. Thanks.”

He continued to regard me. Then he looked at the box of flowers in the trash. He looked back at me.

“Hay fever,” I offered. “The antihistamines make me jittery.” I smiled tentatively but Angus did not respond. He nodded and edged out of the kitchen as though afraid to turn his back on me.

I locked the door after him and sat down to call Claude.

“Where the hell have you been?” Claude greeted me, sounding less French Quarter and more South Central than usual. “You led them straight to me, you -- you -- imbecile!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The one! The cops! They were here. Here in my restaurant.” He made it sound like the Huns were marching on Paris.

36

Josh Lanyon

“I told you they had your letters. How long did you think it would take to put a name to

‘Black Beauty’?”

There was a silence filled by the background noise of voices and clanging pots and pans, and then Claude said spitefully, “Ha! And as to that, ma belle, he was asking as much about you as me, your blue knight in shining Armor All.”

“Who? Detective Riordan? What do you mean? What kinds of things was he asking?”

“Personal things!” shrieked Claude. “Who, what, where, when, and how often! I don’t trust him, that cop. He’s up to something.”

I bit back a flare of panic and said, “It’s normal procedure, right? They have to check up on everybody who knew Robert.”

Claude made a sound that in English translates to “Paugh!” “There’s something about that dick. Dick -- that’s the operative word. Yeah, I know him from somewhere. ...”

He brooded without speaking for a moment. I wondered if the cops were tapping either or both of our phones?

“Claude, who was Robert seeing? Who did he go to meet that night?”

He put his hand over the mouthpiece and yelled unintelligibly before returning to the line to say in a surly voice, “How should I know?”

“You know,” I coaxed. “You always know.”

“People tell me things,” Claude admitted grudgingly. “I hear things.”

“He had started seeing someone, hadn’t he?”

“Someone? He wasn’t a one-man woman, Adrien. He was a slut.”

The bitterness in Claude’s voice took me aback. Had it been serious on Claude’s side?

I persisted slowly, “Robert left in the middle of an argument with me to go meet someone. Someone he couldn’t -- or wouldn’t -- put off.”

Claude’s laugh was shrill. “And he winds up doing the Ginsu with a trick in an alley. It slices, it dices, and that’s not all.”

For a second I wasn’t sure what Claude meant. Was he joking or was there an underlying message? Did he know about the chess piece Robert’s killer had left?

I said, “Was Robert with a trick? Or was he hustling?”

“Suddenly I’m the expert? The girl liked to fuck, mon ange. He wasn’t particular.”

“He needed money. Was he tricking?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said he was with a trick. Why? You must have had some reason.”

Silence.

“Stay out of it, Adrien. Let the cops handle it,” Claude said finally.

“You just said you don’t trust the cops.”

Fatal Shadows

37

“I know what I said. Better jail, than dead. N’est-ce pas?”

I opened my mouth but the phone disconnected. Slowly I replaced the receiver.

I sat there staring at my grandmother’s violet sprig-pattern china gleaming behind the cupboard windows. A trick, Claude said. I didn’t think so. It didn’t fit with Robert’s mood in the days before his death. He had been happy -- hell, gay. And secretive.

Robert loved secrets. His own and other people’s. And he wasn’t above dropping hints. It amused him to watch people sweat. That was one reason I thought he might take it a step further (admittedly a big step) and offer to exchange silence for money. The trouble was I couldn’t imagine Rob privy to any information worth paying for -- let alone worth killing for. Homosexuality just wasn’t what it used to be in the Golden Age of mystery writing.