Foxe Hunt (6 page)

But…well. Jeff is such a sweetheart. I know he’s been running himself ragged doing the impossible. I know it’s pretty hopeless, but I had to let him try. Let’s get together soon, Skyler. Call me.”

Skyler clicked his phone closed. Well, that was something good, at least. What happened to Jeff and Evan shouldn’t happen to anyone.

While the phone was still in his hand, it suddenly rang. He opened it, assuming it was Sidney when a much deeper voice spoke. “I just wanted to hear your voice one more time.”

Skyler felt his face flush and he sunk, jelly-legged, to the sofa Foxe hunt
39

arm. “Oh. Hi.” So much for playing it cool.

“I’m trying not to be too presumptuous.” Skyler could hear Keith’s truck move into traffic in the background. “But I don’t think I want to wait till next weekend to get together with you again. How do you feel about that?”

“Well, we have to be careful…”

“I know. But how do you feel about it?”

Skyler repressed a giggle. “That would be fine.”

“Really? ‘Cause I’m wracking my brain trying to come up with something we can do on a school night. You know. Other than…”

“As long as that’s still on the menu.”

“Definitely.”

“I’ll think of something. It
is
my town. I’ll let you know when I see you tomorrow.”

Skyler plainly heard the smile in the man’s voice when he said, “Okay. See you, Skyler. Have a good day. What’s left of it.”

“Yeah. You too.”

He waited until he heard the click from Keith’s phone before he hung up and called Sidney.

“Well?” she said. “Hey, is that
Dreamgirls
on in the background?

Someone’s happy!”

“Someone is! Oh Sid. Where has this man been all my life!”

“Seattle, from what you were saying. So? Dish! Is he hung?”

“Why do you always ask that?”

“’Cause I’m living my sex life vicariously through you these days. Was he?”

“You know I’m not a size queen.” Skyler paused for only a moment. “Oh my
God!
Like a horse! I am
so
sore.”

“Poor Skyler. Want me to bring over some ice for your ass?”

“My ass is fine, thanks. But it was so much more than that. It was really…really…nice.”

40 Haley Walsh

She snorted. “Some English teacher you are. One date with super hunk and your vocabulary goes to hell.”

He fell backwards onto the sofa and stared at his ceiling.

“But it was. It was so nice to connect with someone. To have a conversation. To…well…wake up to someone.”

Sidney sighed. “Yeah. I miss that. So I guess I don’t have to ask if you’ll see him again.”

“I will. But I think we should take it slow, you know. I don’t want to go crazy after the first date.”

“Yeah. Okay. I can see that… And this will last how long?”

“No, I mean it. I’ve never dated before and I don’t want to make an ass of myself. Especially since we work together.”

“You work at the same place. Not together.”

“Whatever. It could get awkward. I want to keep it light.”

There was a pause.

“Sid?”

“Skyler, this is the first time you’ve ever done anything like this. Caution is good, but too much caution might scare him off.

And I don’t want you to do that.”

“
You’re
telling me
not
to be cautious? Why detective, what gives with that?”

“Just have fun, for God’s sake. And then promise me we’ll make a short night of it.”

“Short night of what?”

“Skyler! Have you already forgotten that in four brief hours you are taking me to your mother’s for dinner?”

“Oh
shit
! Oh fuck. I did forget. Can’t we get out of that?”

“No. She’s
your
mother. See you at five.” She hung up. There was no arguing there. And she was right. He hadn’t seen his mother in a while and it was time to make the pilgrimage.

Sidney arrived promptly at five, and Skyler drove her the few blocks to his childhood home. It was a small bungalow cottage from 1919, and though it was looking a little rundown these days, Cynthia Foxe kept the cottage garden impeccable. Wisteria vines grew over the front porch but the blossoms were beginning to drop. Even with the onset of November, the weather was still hot as the Inland Empire’s perpetual Indian summer invaded fall.

They walked up the flagstone walkway that Skyler and Sidney had installed his senior year of high school, and Sidney quirked a grin at Skyler. “Someone’s walking funny,” she said.

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, Skyler. You are
glowing
. She’s going to want to know what’s up. Wouldn’t this be a good time to tell her?”

They made it to the steps and climbed to the covered porch.

“Tell her that her only son sucks cock with the same mouth he kisses her with?” he whispered. “That he takes it up the ass? I don’t think so.”

“Skyler, you—”

The door swung open and Cynthia Foxe stood in the doorway. “Sidney! Skyler! Right on time.” She kissed them both on the cheek. Skyler handed his mother a bouquet of orange chrysanthemums and Asiatic lilies, but he couldn’t stop thinking of the flowers Keith brought him. “This will be perfect for the table! Thank you, Skyler.”

Cynthia wore a pair of tan slacks that hugged a figure still toned from a daily routine at the gym. She adjusted her lavender sweater over her hips and cocked her head at her son, smiling with the Dior “Rose Panorama” lipstick she always wore.

“Sidney dear,” she said. “You are looking lovelier all the time.”

Skyler turned his head to look at his friend. And he noticed…

that she was. Her face was long and angular with a thin, straight
42 Haley Walsh

nose and shapely lips. Her make-up was subtle—just a bronzer for her cheeks, a dark, natural tone for her lips, and a little liner for her eyes. Her dark hair hung in corkscrewed locks just to her shoulders. If he had been straight, he would definitely have made a move—and then that thought gave him pause. One day, his Sidney wouldn’t be his anymore. A pang of jealousy warmed his chest. Silly really. She’d always be his Sidney. She’d just belong to some other guy, too.

“And Skyler.” His mother cupped his cheek. “Sweetie. You look positively radiant.”

“Must be someone he’s seeing,” said Sidney.

Skyler shot her a murderous glance.

Cynthia Foxe broke into a smile. “Skyler! You’re seeing someone? You should have brought her.”

“I…we…only went out once.”

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t know if this will turn into anything. No sense in getting your hopes up.” He retreated through the dining room and pushed open the kitchen door. Footsteps followed him.

Cynthia was there when he closed the refrigerator door.

“So who is she?”

“Just…someone.”

“A fellow teacher,” Sidney interjected.

He was going to kill her so much! He gripped the iced tea pitcher hard and set it down, afraid it would shatter. He reached into the cupboard for a glass and set it beside the pitcher.

“Oh, a teacher.” She folded her arms. “Is that wise dating someone from work? Do they allow that?”

“The district frowns on it but it isn’t disallowed.” He poured the liquid into his glass and gulped it down. Mmm. No one made it like his mother. “Anyway, who knows? Can we talk about something else?”

“Well, I just don’t want to be too old for grandchildren.”

Foxe hunt
43

She had no idea how comments like that made his heart hurt.

What could he possibly say to her?
You’ll never get grandchildren,
Mom. It’s just not ever going to happen.
He couldn’t say it.

“Do you have anything stronger than iced tea, Mom?”

§ § §

“It’s just that you never brought home any girlfriends.”

It was turning into a nightmare, what with Sidney’s sly innuendos and his mother’s complaining, the night was stretching longer and longer with no end in sight.

He spooned more pasta onto his plate. “I don’t have girlfriends. I don’t really date.”

Cynthia Foxe shook her head. “I’m no prude, you know.” She always said that right before she launched into a prude-ridden diatribe. “But with all the diseases out there a young man your age shouldn’t be hopping into bed all the time.”

“Mom!”

“I’m just saying it isn’t safe. And I don’t think it’s good for your psyche. You’re twenty-five, Skyler. I was married at that age.”

“And look how well that turned out.” It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. His glance darted toward her stony face. She readjusted her cloth napkin in her lap without looking up.

“By the way. I ran into a couple of your friends the other day,”

she went on.

The change of subject was expected. Cynthia Foxe dodged personal issues, especially having to do with Dale Foxe, Skyler’s dad.

But then Skyler pulled up short. Friends? Which ones? God, not Jamie!

“I was in the supermarket and Vanessa the cashier was talking to me and I guess she must have said my name, and the boys behind me asked if I was related to you. You knew them in college, apparently.”

44 Haley Walsh

Skyler wracked his brain. That could have been anyone.

“That poor boy,” she said, manicured fingers delicately holding the stem of her wine glass. “I didn’t ask, but they looked like vets. Probably lost the leg in Iraq.”

“Jeff and Evan?”

“Yes, I think that’s what they said.” She sipped her wine. “We chatted a little about you.”

The back of his neck broke out in a sweat. “What did you say?

What did
they
say?”

“That they knew you in college and you were all friends—”

She set the glass down. “You never introduce me to your friends, Skyler.”

“Well…there’s a lot of them out there.”

“I’m glad you’re so popular.”

Sidney choked on her drink.

Skyler spared her a glance before he asked, “Did they say anything else?”

“Only to tell you hello and it was nice seeing you the other day. That sort of thing.”

He relaxed. Well. That was okay then. When he turned to Sidney she wore that
just tell her
look again.

“So,” said Cynthia Foxe. “What about this girl you’re seeing?”

§ § §

Managing to skirt the issue once again, Skyler and Sidney took the dishwashing duties while Cynthia took the linens to the service porch. “Will you stop trying to egg my mother on!” he rasped out of the side of his mouth. “It isn’t your responsibility to out me, you know.”

“What are you waiting for, your death bed? What if you find Mr. Right? What if you
have
found him? Don’t you think she’d want to know that her only son is happy?”

He scrubbed angrily at the plate before rinsing it and thrusting Foxe hunt
45

it into the dishwasher. “She sees that I’m happy. I don’t have to shove my lifestyle down her throat.”

“She already knows you sleep around.”

“Yeah. And where did she get that tidbit of news, huh? Have you been talking to her again?”

She shrugged. “She asks me stuff. I answer. I’m a public servant. I find it hard to lie.”

“Well you’d better get used to it. I don’t want her to know and that’s final!”

“Don’t want who to know what?” asked Cynthia, returning to the kitchen.

“It’s nothing. It’s just Sidney poking her
yiddishe
nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“
Goyishe kop
,” she said, slapping him upside the head.

Cynthia chuckled. “Honestly. You two. You might as well be married the way you carry on.”

She rearranged the plates Skyler had already placed into the dishwasher and poured in the soap. Skyler wiped his hands on the towel, relieved that the evening was almost over. What he really wanted to do was go home and have a nice, long masturbatory session thinking about Keith Fletcher.

Sidney left the kitchen chatting with Cynthia when her cell phone rang. Sidney looked at it, clicked it open, and said, “Feldman.”

She listened intently for a moment before her eyes widened and her glance darted toward Skyler. She nodded again and made writing motions toward him. Cynthia stepped forward and handed her a notepad and pen. Sidney wrote, nodded, wrote, before she hung up.

She stared at the note for a long time before she slowly stripped the top sheet off the pad. She held it in her hand and swiveled toward Skyler.

“I have to go,” she told him. She looked at Cynthia and offered
46 Haley Walsh

a perfunctory smile. “It was a very lovely dinner, Mrs. Foxe. I’m sorry we have to cut the evening short. But my car is at Skyler’s.”

“Sidney?” He touched her arm. It was obviously about a case but he’d known her long enough to realize there was more to it than that. “What’s going on?”

She stared at him and took a deep breath. “Skyler, sweetie. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…it’s Evan Fargo.”

Skyler’s breath seized just as his mother gasped behind him.

His chest felt a flush of heat. “What?”

She shook her head. “Skyler, I’m really sorry. But it looks like…he committed suicide.”

Skyler let Sidney drive. He was too upset to take the wheel.

“Take me there.”

“No, Skyler. Absolutely not! It’s a crime scene.”

“But it’s Jeff ’s house. He’ll need someone.”

“You’re not going.”

“Fine. As soon as you drop me off, I’ll go anyway.”

“I’ll take your keys.”

“I’ll get a taxi.”

She gripped the steering wheel, her arms rigid. Skyler felt the car accelerate through traffic. Horns honked as she cut off cars, slipping in front of them with ease. She accelerated around a corner with squealing tires. The little Bug clunked and bounced.

He grasped the seat and held on.

“You don’t touch anything and you don’t ask anyone anything.”

“Why would I do that?”

“He used a gun, you know. Are you sure you want to go?”

Skyler felt a squeamish wriggle in his stomach. He wished he hadn’t had dessert now. “It’s for Jeff.”