Fair Play (All's Fair Book 2) (20 page)

Chapter Thirty

“You should have come to us,” Detective Pine said for the eighth time. Maybe he thought Elliot wasn’t listening.

Soft pink light filtered through the dead orchard, turning the trees white and luminous in the dawn. Nobb’s Organic Farm was now a crime scene. Oscar Nobb had been taken to jail two hours earlier, but Elliot and Roland were still being questioned. Not that there was much left to say. Elliot felt that Pine was merely making—and underscoring—his point.

“I should have,” Elliot agreed.

Pine was unimpressed with this show of cooperative spirit. “Nobb’s confession isn’t going to hold up.”

“It doesn’t need to,” Elliot said. “Now that you know Nobb is your perp, it will be easy to track his steps.”

“Thanks for your confidence in us,” Pine said sarcastically. “Belated though it is.”

Elliot was only half listening. Part of his attention was on Tucker, who was standing a few yards away, talking on his cell phone. Tucker’s eyes met his. As usual, his expression gave nothing away. He answered whatever the person on the other end of the phone call was saying.

The other part of Elliot’s attention was on Roland, who sat at the picnic table at the other end of the patio. He was being interviewed by Detective Upson. Roland looked weary. Detective Upson looked sympathetic. She tucked her hair behind her ear.

“And you believe if we dig up this patio we’re going to find the body of Susanne DeWoskin?”

“Yes.”

“There wasn’t any right-wing conspiracy to kill your father and stop publication of his memoirs?” That was delivered with heavy sarcasm too, but Elliot didn’t bother to remind Pine that the right-wing conspiracy theory had originally been
his
theory.

“No.”

“What it all comes down to is Oscar Nobb was afraid if your father published his memoirs there might be something in there that linked him to DeWoskin’s disappearance.”

“Yes.”

“And is there anything that links him?”

“Yes. It’s all circumstantial evidence, but yes. If anyone started looking for Susanne, the trail leads straight to Nobb. And of course he knew the physical evidence was here.”

Pine looked automatically at the patio bricks beneath their feet. He said, “What doesn’t make sense to me is everyone in that group knew about Susanne. Any one of them could have started asking questions at any time. Why would this book make a difference?”

“Because no one in the Collective had given Susanne a thought in years. They all assumed she was off raising her grandkids somewhere. But if the book was published, someone else might read it, might start wondering, might start looking. Susanne’s family did file a missing person’s report. She
was
missed. I think Nobb’s instinct was correct. The book was a danger to him. But only a small danger. He could have said Susanne had split and no one would have really been able to prove otherwise. No judge would ever have granted a search warrant on such flimsy evidence.”

“True,” Pine said in the tone of unhappy experience.

“But because the rest of the Collective were uncertain and guilty about what might have happened to J.Z., they were willing to go along with pressuring my dad not to publish.”

“And your father knew Nobb had killed DeWoskin.”

“No. I’m sure he didn’t. He suspected something after the attack on the island. I think he knew someone in the Collective was warning him not to publish the book, but he thought it had to do with Special Agent Zelvin. After he spoke to Zelvin and his wife in Montreal, I believe he began to put the pieces together.”

Pine said skeptically, “And he came back here to smoke dope and drink wine and convince his old pal to give himself up?”

“I believe that’s correct.”

Pine’s expression indicated he figured Elliot would believe anything.

And so the interview went on for another thirty minutes, covering the same ground again and again.

When Pine finally wearied of the sport, Elliot went to Roland, who greeted him with a pale and unsmiling face.

“Do you need a ride? Are you coming back to the island?”

“No,” Roland said. “I’m going to see about arranging bail for Oscar.” His gaze was still hard, still unforgiving.

Elliot opened his mouth and then closed it. He nodded tightly.

He walked with Tucker through the meadow, past the crime scene technicians who were lugging their equipment over the rough ground. Sunlight edged the flowers with gold. Bees hummed busily as a new day began.

“Let’s go home,” Tucker said. His voice was flat.

Elliot knew the feeling. He tried to read Tucker’s profile. “The apartment?”

“No. Home. I’ve got the day off.”

Elliot’s heart sank. “You’re suspended?”

Tucker’s mouth curved wearily. “No. No, Montgomery is letting me take a day of personal leave. She spoke to Zelvin yesterday, and she’s very happy with both of us.”

“You and Zelvin?”

Tucker made a sound too tired for a laugh. “You and me.”

It took a moment for that to sink in. “Good. I’m glad someone’s happy,” Elliot said finally.

They didn’t say anything more until they reached the parking lot, where the cops were turning away Oscar’s worried-looking employees. Elliot spotted the red-haired gingham girl. She looked close to tears.

“I’ll meet you at the ferry in Steilacoom,” Tucker said.

Elliot nodded. “I’ll see you there.”

His knee felt stiff and achy. He was getting painfully into his car when he heard a shout behind him. “Elliot!”

He turned to see Roland striding across the dirt lot, and went to meet him, braced for round two. He was startled, unprepared, when Roland pulled him into a rough embrace.

After a moment of stiff surprise, Elliot hugged his father back.

Roland’s voice was muffled, but Elliot heard every word. “You’re my kid and I love you. I don’t want you to walk out of here thinking I don’t understand why you felt you had to act.”

Elliot’s throat closed. His eyes stung. The truth was he’d rather have Roland alive and furious with him for the rest of his life than have Roland dead and approving. He felt sorry for Nobb—and he regretted causing pain to the people who cared about Nobb, relied on him and the farm—but he was never going to regret taking the course of action he’d followed. From where he stood, he had not had a choice.

Maybe he understood Tucker a little better now.

“You’re a good man, Elliot,” Roland muttered. He released Elliot and walked away without looking back.

* * *

“I think Montgomery is going to ask you to talk to Corian,” Tucker said, breaking the long silence.

They were in bed, at home on Goose Island, though it would be a long time before they could sleep.

Elliot, resting in Tucker’s arms, considered this for a few moments. He tilted his head, studying Tucker’s rock-hard jaw. His smile was wry. “You don’t like that. Any part of it.”

“No.” Tucker’s gaze held his. “But it’s your decision.”

Elliot nodded. That was true, but it didn’t bring him any pleasure to make Tucker unhappy. “Maybe I wasn’t completely fair,” he admitted.

“Maybe not. But you were right. We have to know we can trust each other.”

“I do trust you. What I said before—I spoke in anger.”

“I know.” Tucker met his gaze and smiled. “I do know. Something Nobb said made me think. He was talking about how your father didn’t know about loneliness, didn’t understand what it was like not to have love. And that’s how it’s been for you too. You knew you were loved and wanted from the day you were born. So you don’t understand, can’t understand how it is for someone like me, someone who hasn’t known that.”

It felt like Tucker had reached into Elliot’s chest and yanked out his heart. He started to speak, wanting to reassure Tucker. How? As though Tucker didn’t understand his own experience? But Tucker spoke over him with a funny, almost gentle authority. “I do want to protect you and what we have together. And I probably do—and maybe always will—put your back up when I cross the lines you’ve drawn. Because I know that everyone doesn’t get this, that this is worth protecting, worth fighting for.”

“I know that too,” Elliot said. “I had a different childhood from you, but what we have here—I’ve never had this with anyone else. I don’t want to risk losing it. And I would fight to protect it too.” He said, trying to match Tucker’s honesty—and gentleness, “But we can’t live in a bubble.”

“No. I agree.”

Elliot closed his eyes. “I can’t tell you what I’m going to do because I don’t know yet. Maybe it is worth talking to Corian if I can get answers from him. It would help your case and it would help the families. But if he’s just looking for an audience or someone to play another round of his twisted game, then it would be better to stay away—which is what I want to do anyway.”

Tucker said nothing.

Elliot opened his eyes. “I can tell you this. I’m not deciding anything, not even thinking about it, until we’ve had that vacation you promised me.”

Tucker’s cheek curved. “Deal.”

They were silent for a time, then Elliot said, “These last weeks. Reading about my dad and his friends, what they believed in, what they were fighting for, what they tried to do...one thing that stays with me, moves me, I guess, is how sincerely these kids believed they could change the world. They really believed that anything was possible. That everything was possible.”

“All you need is love,” Tucker said, smiling faintly.

“Yeah. I don’t know if love is all you need. But it’s not a bad place to start.”

Tucker said, “I think maybe it’s the only place to start.”

* * * * *

Author’s Note

The “Goose Island” in the All’s Fair series is modeled on Anderson Island, which I renamed Goose Island in a dangerous burst of poetic license—only to discover that there already was a Goose Island in the Puget Sound (and it is, confusingly, nothing like my Goose Island).

About the Author

Frequently described as “the gateway drug” for readers new to male/male romance, bestselling and multi-award-winning Josh Lanyon is the author of over fifty titles of mystery, adventure, fantasy and romance. Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English Mysteries series, including
The Hell You Say
, winner of the 2006 USABookNews award for GLBT Fiction. Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. When not writing—which is pretty much never!—Josh enjoys mucking around in the garden, film noir, fine wine, vintage mysteries and night swimming.

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ISBN-13: 9781426898976

Fair Play

Copyright © 2014 by Josh Lanyon

Edited by Deborah Nemeth

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