Foxe Hunt (7 page)

“Skyler. He used a gun,” she said enunciating each word. “
In
his mouth
. Do you know what that means?”

He closed his eyes, trying to keep his stomach contents where they were. “Jesus. Okay, okay. Just…get us there in one piece.”

Sidney dodged the traffic and managed to skim through every yellow light. Both Skyler’s feet were jammed to the floor on imaginary brakes. He flopped to the side, first at the window and then almost into Sidney as she wheeled around trucks and over the curb a few times.

“Jesus!” he squealed, but she ignored him. When they turned
48 Haley Walsh

the corner, it was obvious which house it was. There was an ambulance and two black and whites with red and blue lights flickering. They were parked in front of a modest white stucco house from the sixties, a small boxy one with square hedges. Cops were standing on the lawn talking to neighbors and a horrible sense of déjà vu welled in Skyler again. It was like that first murder scene, that one where he found his principal’s son, Wes Sherman Jr., so many weeks ago. But that had been in an alley behind a dance club and so much had happened since because of it.

Sidney was out and standing by his car door. He emerged slowly and glanced up at her stern glare. She was clipping her badge to the waistband of her jeans. “You stay outside. I’ll come get you. Do you understand me?”

“You’ll get Jeff?”

“Yes.” She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Trust me, Sky. You don’t want to go in there.”

“Okay.” She hurried ahead and Skyler walked across the lawn in slow motion. People bustled beside him, some going in, some coming out. The ambulance doors were open, but he knew there was no need for them to hurry. It was only to take the body away to a local mortuary.

Skyler milled, looking for familiar faces but not finding any. Was Jeff inside? Did he find Evan? How horrible! Skyler’s stomach still felt funny—fluttery and kind of sick. He couldn’t believe it. He had just seen them this last weekend. And Jeff had been so worried.

Skyler moved between the porch and the sidewalk. Uniformed police looked his way but didn’t stop him. There was a bit of police tape in a square in the flower bed on the side of the house.

When Skyler drew closer it looked like a footprint but he couldn’t see any details. Some criminalists crouching beside it were mixing what looked like plaster in a plastic container.

He glanced at the house again. What was taking so long? Was Jeff even in there? Had Sidney forgotten about him?

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49

He needed to decide. Dare he go in? If Jeff was there he’d need Skyler’s support. He doubted that Jeff had any friends inside. He
had
to chance it.

Skyler approached the porch cautiously, eyeing the cops taking notes. No one made a move to stop him as his trembling hand touched the doorknob. He twisted it slowly and eased the door opened. The hinges whispered and he poked his head in the foyer. A latticework divider blocked some of the living room from view. Men and women with gloves and shoes covered in blue scrubs crossed before him.

The first thing that assaulted him was the sight of two men in EMT uniforms tightening the straps over the unmistakable shape of a body in a zipped-up body bag, lying on a stretcher in the hallway. Skyler swallowed past a lump in his throat and turned away.

On a card table against the divider, but on the living room side, sat a box of ammunition, some thin metal tubes the length of bamboo skewers, a can of oil, a bottle of something called Hoppe’s Nitro Powder Solvent, and some tiny squares of blackened, oily-looking cloth.

In front of the sofa sat an empty wheelchair.

But when he looked up, he saw the wall beyond it.

A splatter of slick material and blood fanned across the wall.

It could only be one thing.

Not going to get sick. Not going to get sick.
Lightheaded, Skyler wondered as his stomach warred within if the mantra would work.

“
Skyler!
Dammit!”

Sidney grabbed his arm and dug in with her fingernails. It hurt, even though she was wearing gloves. She yanked him out the door and hurled him onto the porch. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Didn’t I tell you to stay outside?”

He swallowed a few times, not yet trusting himself to speak.

He ducked his head and leaned over on his thighs, breathing
50 Haley Walsh

evenly.

Sidney motioned to a plainclothes detective. “You see this man?” and she pointed at Skyler. “
Do not
let him inside again.”

She whirled away and entered the house once more, leaving Skyler alone with the detective. He frowned at Skyler. He seemed about Keith’s age with a slim build. A little taller than Skyler which put him at about medium height. He had a high forehead, dark short-cropped hair, and tanned skin with Asian features. His badge clipped to his russet suit said “De Guzman.”

Skyler felt the need to apologize. “I know them,” he said weakly, gesturing toward the door.

De Guzman’s frown vanished. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Skyler shook his head and leaned against the wrought-iron porch railing. “I haven’t seen them in years, you know? And I ran into them just last weekend. This is so awful.”

“Detective Feldman is very good at what she does. She’ll see that everything will be in order.”

“I know. She’s my best friend.”

De Guzman brightened. “Are you Skyler?”

Skyler looked up. The man’s dark eyes were studying him with renewed interest. “Uh…yeah.”

“She talks about you all the time. I’m Mike de Guzman.” He said it as if Skyler were supposed to recognize it. But when he didn’t, the man’s features darkened. “So she’s never mentioned me.”

Something he was missing? “She hardly mentions anyone she works with by name,” he said quickly. “I’m sure she must have talked about you…” But by the look on the man’s face, he wasn’t pleased to hear this half-truth.

“Great,” said the detective under his breath.

Someone stumbled out of the door. It was Jeff, red-faced with tears streaming unabated down his face. A uniformed female officer was holding his arm when he looked up and spotted Foxe hunt
51

Skyler.

“Skyler!” He fell forward into Skyler’s arms. Skyler held fast, just clutching him. The tears started to flow down his own cheeks.

Skyler led Jeff down the steps and sat him down. He never let go of the man’s shoulders, gripping tightly. He wanted to say something, some sort of comforting words, but the warm lump in his throat wouldn’t allow it.

Jeff ’s arms were streaked with red scratches and his wrists were bruised, but he didn’t seem to bother about them in his grief.

“Skyler,” Jeff choked. “My God. What am I going to do?

What am I going to do without him?”

Skyler rocked him, rubbing his back soothingly. They sat that way for a while until the paramedics wheeled out the stretcher.

Skyler pulled Jeff out of the way and tried to turn his face into his shoulder, but Jeff pulled away.

“Evan!” he cried, sinking to his knees on the lawn. “Why did you
do
it! Why!”

So many thoughts spun through Skyler’s head as he watched his friend fall to pieces on the front lawn. Besides the horror of losing one’s partner this way, there were going to be those inevitable legal problems Jeff was soon to encounter. For one, they had no legal standing with one another. They might have been partners for years, but if Evan had a family,
they
would likely be notified for funeral arrangements. Was the house in both Evan and Jeff ’s name? Their bank accounts? What about VA benefits?

Jeff was going to be quickly cut out of the picture.

It was going to be twice as bad as it was now.

Skyler knelt beside Jeff and pulled him to his feet. “I’m going to get you out of here, Jeff.”

“No! No! I can’t. I can’t!”

“Jeff! We’ve got to get out of here. There’s nothing more we can do right now.”

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“But what about… Skyler, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

“It’s okay. Remember that friend I told you about in college?

Sidney? She’s a police detective. She’s in there right now. She’ll tell us. I’m taking you to my place.”

Jeff said nothing more as Skyler ushered him to his car. He opened the passenger door for him, gently coaxed him inside, and even seatbelted him in.

He trotted to the other side and slid into the driver’s seat.

After readjusting it from Sidney, he started it up. But de Guzman was at his window.

“Where are you taking him?” he asked.

“I’m taking him to my place, detective. Sidney knows where that is. She has to pick up her car there, anyway. She can check on things.”

“Mike. You can call me Mike.”

“O-okay. Mike. Do you want my phone number?”

“No. Sid has it, as you said.” He gave the window sill a few pats and stepped back so Skyler could pull away from the curb.

They drove to Skyler’s place in silence. The autumn evening had cooled considerably from the warmth of the day. Street lights offered dispirited pools of white along the sleepy neighborhood streets. The wind was picking up, and the canopies of giant ancient date palm trees danced over the sidewalks, flickering the streetlights and appearing as sinister fingers clawing towards the parked cars.

Skyler pulled into a space near his front stoop and shut off the engine. He glanced at Jeff, but the man didn’t move. He merely stared into his lap. Skyler got out and came around. He opened the door, grabbed his arm, and hauled.

Jeff complied and Skyler took him up the dark front walk between the dwarf orange trees, up the dim staircase to his front door. He opened with his key, flipped on a light by reaching through the doorway, and urged Jeff in ahead of him.

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He sat Jeff on the sofa. He left him for only a moment to get an extra pillow and blanket from his bedroom closet. He tucked them into the sofa’s arm and sat beside his friend, clutching his shoulders again. Jeff sunk his head against Skyler’s chest and pulled a trembling breath. “Would you rather sleep in my bed with me?” Skyler asked softly.

Jeff didn’t answer, but after a while, he slowly nodded. Skyler lifted him and took him to the bedroom, sitting him on the bed.

He got out a pair of sweats and an extra-large T-shirt Sidney left at his place to sleep in, and proceeded to undress his guest and redress him in the T-shirt and sweats. He pulled gingerly on one of his wrists and looked down at his arms. “Should we do something about this?” he asked, wondering if he had any antiseptic. Jeff shook his head and Skyler tucked him into bed.

He stripped off his own clothes and pulled on his drawstring sleep pants and a T-shirt. Lifting the blanket, he doused the light, then pulled Jeff into an embrace.

Over the long night, they both slept on and off, with morning still far away.

§ § §

Skyler rolled over and found the bed empty. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled into the living room and found Jeff dazed and sitting on the sofa watching the muted TV.

Skyler trudged to the kitchen and made coffee. He supposed he should call into work and tell them he wouldn’t be in. As he picked up the phone to do that, Jeff finally spoke.

“I called the number the detective gave me,” he said.

Skyler put the receiver down and leaned back against the cold tile counter. The world outside his tall front window showed a gray, foggy morning, almost too early for the sun to glaze the fog white.

Jeff toyed with something. A wallet. “He said that I had to make some decisions about Evan. He has no family, so it’s up to me.” He hacked a dry imitation of a laugh. “Who else would it be up to?”

54 Haley Walsh

“I’ll take you anywhere you need to go.”

“Thanks, Skyler. You’re a real friend. But you have a life. A job. I called our LGBT Center counselor and he’s coming to pick me up.”

“Jeff… It doesn’t matter. I’m here.”

“I appreciate it, Skyler. I do. But there’s a lot to do right now.”

He moved closer in emphasis. “But if you need me—”

“I know where to come. You know, I almost thought that seeing you again gave Evan a new lease on life. He talked of nothing but you since we saw you.”

Skyler stared at him. Something was scratching at the backdoor of his thoughts.

“He was almost normal for the first time in weeks,” Jeff went on. “I just…I just…” He sighed deeply and leaned back. He opened the wallet and looked in it.

Skyler sat beside him.

“I forgot I had this,” he said, gesturing with the camo nylon wallet. “It’s Evan’s. I always carried his wallet since the leg. He just didn’t want to.” He laid it on the coffee table and began pulling things out; pictures, credit cards, business cards.

He showed Skyler the pictures, some of the two of them in Iraq before Evan’s injuries. They had their arms around each other, just two buddies in desert fatigues on patrol. Jeff flipped through the gas credit cards, his VA ID, his ATM card. “I guess I’ll have to cancel these.”

“Don’t do anything today, Jeff. Give yourself some time.”

“For what? You know they trained us for this. What to do when a buddy gets killed. But it isn’t the same as the training.

This is different. He wasn’t just my buddy. I loved him, Skyler.”

He sniffed. It seemed all the tears had been pulled out of him last night. He turned and looked at Skyler with red-rimmed eyes.

“Do you have someone, Sky? You were always so full of life back in college. But you were always on to the next guy. Do you have a boyfriend now? Someone that cares about you?”

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A flash of dark hair and ice-blue eyes flickered through his thoughts. He shook his head and then shrugged. “No. I…I don’t know.”

Jeff gave a half-smile. “Still playing the field. Such a loverboy.”

He spread the business cards on the table. There was one for Studs, a leather bar on Redlands Boulevard; Alonzo’s, an Italian restaurant in San Bernardino; Skyler’s card with his phone number; a well-worn lawyer’s card; a card for Redlands Orchid Farm; the LGBT Center card; and half a Veteran’s Administration card, with “James Fis—” cut in half.