P'town Murders: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery (24 page)

"That's about it," Brad said. "But I want to say I'm really sorry for getting you mixed up in all of this."

"That's what you really do?" Zach said. "You work for an organization that safeguards against threats to global security and has no name?"

Brad nodded.

"Whew!" Zach said. "I think you should stick with the golf pro story."

Brad managed a smile.

"And I'm really sorry about Big Ruby," Zach continued. "I adored her, but you aren't to blame. Obviously, somebody has it in for the people of this town. If we could just figure out why, then we'd probably know who."

"That's what I've been trying to do for the last week."

Rather than be scared off, Zach jumped into the story with zeal.

"I'm not an expert in international espionage, but it seems there's a common thread running between Ruby, Ross, and Hayden. And maybe even the guy who drowned the night you got here. There must be some deep, dark secret we haven't figured out."

Brad nodded. "Ruby knew Ross as a customer, but she didn't know he worked at the guesthouse until I told her. As for Hayden, Ruby claimed she hadn't spoken to him since their art gallery went bankrupt a few years ago."

"What about the drowned guy? Did he live here, too?"

"According to the police he'd been living here since the beginning of the summer."

Zach held up a finger. "Then this is what we know for sure: one, they all lived in Provincetown. And, as we know, everybody who lives in Provincetown knows everybody else." He raised another finger. "Two, they all had connections to the guesthouse, although Ruby's was admittedly from a distance."

Brad added a third finger. "And they all smoked dope. There's number three."

Zach looked sheepish. "So do we, but it doesn't add up to much, does it?" He thought for a moment. "What about a drug dealer?"

"I'm ahead of you there. I talked to him the day before yesterday. He was at Rosengarten's funeral. He's in a wheelchair, though."

"It doesn't mean he can't drive a car. Or that he's not faking his injury!"

"You sound like Grace," Brad said.

"Who else is there?"

Brad mentioned Perry the barkeep, watching for Zach's reaction.

Zach laughed. "I know him. He works at Purgatory. I meant to tell you." His hand went into his back pocket and fished out a wallet. "They called to say they found this. Perry tried to pick me up when I went in to get it."

Brad remembered Zach's missing wallet. He could've kicked himself for all the unfounded suspicions that had gone through his mind about Zach and Perry in the last day and a half.

Zach saw the turmoil in his face. "Don't worry. He's sweet, but not my type," he said. "You're my type."

"I'm glad. I hate to tell tales out of school, but he's also HIV positive."

"I know—he told me."

Brad hoped he could trust what Zach was telling him. He'd have to.

"What was Perry's connection with the guesthouse?" Zach asked.

"Perry worked there at one time, and apparently he knew Ross. They had a fight, but Perry says he was only trying to warn Ross to leave before anything bad happened to him. Unfortunately, Ross didn't listen."

"Whatever else he may be, I doubt he's a killer. I can sense these things. He's more like a wounded animal. But there's got to be something else that ties all these people together."

"Whatever it is, it's nothing obvious that would make them all potential murder victims." Bradford downed his drink. "I'm exhausted," he announced. "And I've got a lot of explaining to do in the morning."

He stepped down from the stool and nearly tumbled to the floor. Only Zach's quick reaction kept him from falling. Brad hadn't thought of his ankle since he jumped the fence to avoid the speeding car.

"I'm taking you home," Zach declared.

"No," Brad protested. "It's dangerous for you to get any more mixed up in this than you already are."

"I can't have you run over or falling down in the street," Zach reasoned. "Just let me walk with you. Besides, I already am mixed up in this. How much worse can it get?"

30

With his arm over Zach's shoulder, Brad was able to keep the weight off his ankle. At the door to his guesthouse he turned to Zach and held him. Their lips met. Brad broke off the embrace.

"I can't invite you in."

"Why not?" Zach pleaded.

"I'm afraid for you. I can't put your life in peril."

Zach pressed himself closer to Brad. "It's too late now. We've already slept together. We're both a part of this."

Brad felt his resistance weakening.

"Are you telling me you're going to let me walk home alone in the dark?" Zach pressured.

Brad considered. "And you just thought of that now?"

"Well, not exactly," Zach admitted. "But you didn't think of it earlier, and now it's too late to send me home."

Zach's eyes begged to be let into his house, into his life. Brad hesitated. There'd been too many years alone, and Big Ruby's death had snapped something inside him.

"All right," he relented.

They went up the stairs together. Zach helped Brad out of his clothes and into the loft bed where they tumbled into one another's arms.

"I know I shouldn't say this, but it feels awesome to be with you," Zach said.

"It feels right," Brad agreed. "Somehow it just feels right."

He rolled over on top of Zach, his erection pressing itself between Zach's legs. The boy gasped and slipped his arms around Brad's chest.

"Oh, God!" Zach blurted out, wanting to say more, but he held back.

He shifted and Brad suddenly found himself lying beneath the boy.

"You're a wild ride, little buckaroo!"

"Save a horse—ride a cowboy instead. That's my motto!" Zach beamed.

Zach's erection nudged him. Brad suddenly realized how big the boy really was.

"Whoa!" he cried. "Nice and easy, now. That's practically virgin territory and I believe you need a passport to enter."

He reached over to his bedside kit and handed Zach a condom. He held onto the boy tightly as he entered, adjusting to the burning sensation. Then, just as suddenly, it turned to indescribable pleasure. Zach rocked gently till an urgency overtook him. He began to thrust more and more wildly. Brad looked down to see Zach's horse head tattoo join with his own to create a winged stallion.

"We're flying!" Zach roared as they rocked in unison till their heads were banging on the side of the loft.

"I love...
your hair!"
Zach gasped, and let out a laugh as they both came at the same time.

Zach collapsed, spent by his exertions. Brad cradled Zach's head against his shoulder, running his hands through the boy's blue locks. He was thinking for the tenth time that evening how right it felt to be with Zach, when sleep intervened. He woke in the night to find arms wrapped tightly around him, as though they would never let him go.

In the morning Brad was awake and out of bed first. He felt a dull pain in his ankle, but it was no match for the one in his head. He found he could walk gingerly if he was careful. He popped some painkillers and took his coffee onto the veranda where he sat looking over the awakening salt marsh. Everything was peaceful, as if there were no troubles anywhere in the world.

He thought of Ruby, and then he tried not to think of her. How could he live with the knowledge that he'd led her to her death? Any moment now the phone would ring and he'd have to face Grace. What would he say?

Lying in Zach's arms all night, he kept thinking how much he wanted out of this cat-and-mouse game of international espionage.

He longed for a normal life. Or at least as normal as any gay man's life could be. Did he even know what normal was anymore? Probably not, if he ever did.

What would he do now that he'd seen the world from the inside out: not the bank, but the money-laundering cartel that bribed the bank's president to overlook its activities; not the accident victim lying crumpled on the side of the road, but the conspiracy behind her death that had already led to at least two others? Where do you turn after seeing the world without protective glasses?

He'd been warned he would hit this wall sooner or later. Everyone does, he was told. Once you've put on your safety belt, you can't stop the ride, they'd said. You began to see things you might not want not to see, things you'd never forget. Your mind stretched to accommodate facts it never imagined possible, if it imagined them at all. And suddenly all of life seemed up for reassessment. You couldn't trust anything you'd ever assumed or relied on.

This was the frame of mind Bradford was in when the phone rang. He grabbed it in the middle of the first ring.

"It's Grace, Red. I understand you've had a bit of trouble down there."

"You could say that."

"I'm sorry to hear about Ruby."

"She's going to be missed by a lot of people," he said, suddenly thinking of his own father. "She was the kind of person who becomes a fixture in other people's lives."

"Obviously she wasn't the one..."

"I never thought she was."

"So you said. I wish I'd believed you."

"And I wish I'd listened to you. Ruby might still be alive today..."

"You were doing your job."

"Not last night. I stepped out of line..."

She stopped him. "Listen to me, Red. There are no rulebooks for what we do. Every day brings new decisions.
Tough
decisions. No one can tell you what's right and what's wrong. You have to trust your gut and do what you feel is right. Otherwise you'll be the one who ends up dead. It's the same for you and for me and for all of us, every single day."

She was trying to convince him what he'd done wasn't wrong. She'd guessed at his fragile state of mind and knew he needed bolstering more than he deserved reprimanding for having ignored an order.

"Ruby knew something about someone. Even if you hadn't been there, that person would have figured it out sooner or later. It had nothing to do with you personally. Do you understand that?"

Brad hesitated. Could he afford to believe it? He had to.

"Sometimes you've got to take risks to get things done," Grace went on. "And sometimes you're going to think that those risks aren't worth it, but they are. You're much too valuable for us to lose, Red. Do you hear what I'm saying?"

"Yes."

"Now pull yourself together. You've got important work to do in the next forty-eight hours. The Dalai Lama's talk is in three days. I'll be damned if you're going to run off now and let whoever's trying to ruin his little party blow his head off with a long-range rifle. I don't want another 'grassy knoll' incident on my hands."

"I'm with you all the way."

"And, Red..."

"Yes?"

"That blue-haired boy you're with?"

Brad felt a lump in his throat. He waited.

"He checks out. As far as we can see, you can trust him on all counts. Just... look after him."

For a moment he couldn't speak. "Thanks," he croaked.

He put the phone down and sat looking out across the marsh. Had he really suspected Grace had something to do with it? He had. When she didn't return his call the night before Hayden was murdered, he wondered if she'd slipped away to arrange to have someone put a bullet through Rosengarten's forehead and leave Agent Red holding the bag. She'd have no problem justifying it to the organization. Now he saw how idiotic that was.

He stepped onto the ladder and stood watching Zach breathe. You're such a beautiful guy, he thought. Zach turned his face toward him and murmured.

"What was that?" Brad asked.

Zach's eyes opened. He smiled. "I dreamed I fucked you last night," he said. "It was the most wonderful dream I've had in ages."

"I'm glad you stayed last night, but I have to say you're about as stubborn as a donkey."

"I'm hung like one, too," Zach replied, raising his eyebrows and pulling back the covers to reveal a whopping morning erection.

"You are
so
twenty-one," Bradford said, climbing back in beside him as a bell chimed the hour.

31

An hour later they were on their way to the Pilgrim Monument, the granite monolith that glowered over P'Town's landscape. Erected three centuries after the arrival of the pilgrims, the tower commemorated their effort to bring the ideals of freedom and democracy to the new land. In its dedication ceremony, however, no mention was made of the people who were displaced by those ideals. As the Indians learned, democracy is one tough cookie.

"I need a day off," Brad declared when Zach asked the occasion for the visit. "I think it only right I should celebrate getting plundered by a donkey with a pilgrimage to Provincetown's biggest phallic symbol. Though I have to say you were only able to take advantage of me last night because I was drunk."

Zach snorted. "If your legs point due north every time you get drunk, I'll gladly pay for the shots whenever we go out."

At the museum entrance they startled a sleepy-looking attendant. She handed over their tickets and change, reminding them to save time for the museum's displays after their climb.

"We currently have a very exciting pictorial history of Provincetown's sand dune formations," she enthused. "As well, you'll find a compelling 'who's-who' of fashion in pilgrim times."

Inside, the tower was eerily silent, the air cool and undisturbed. No one else seemed to be braving the hundred-and-sixteen-step ascent that early on a sunny morning. Markers embedded in the stone bore the names of Massachusetts' earliest communities. As they climbed, an occasional window slit allowed brief views to the outside.

Before they reached the halfway point they found themselves panting with the exertion. "And we call ourselves 'young'," Zach scoffed.

"Speak for yourself," Brad said. "I'm over thirty."

They stopped to peer over the railing to the ground below. Brad lurched back and gripped the wall behind him. He took a deep breath and looked up at Zach's inquiring face. "Fear of heights," he explained sheepishly.