P'town Murders: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery (3 page)

That evening had been the beginning of Bradford's initiation into P'Town's gay life. And now, more than a decade later, a bag slung over his shoulder, he strode down Commercial Street with something like a hometown boy's pride. Weaving in and out among the colorful crowds, he noted the passing landmarks: Cabot's Salt Water Taffy Store, Whaler's Wharf, and the Seamen's Bank. He paused outside Spiritus Pizza where the handsomest of men gathered in the evenings all summer long, talking and laughing late into the night. There was no place quite so fine as P'Town.

It was here, Brad knew, that America had the first inkling of what it was to become when a gang of unruly pilgrims dropped anchor offshore to make the peninsula's tip their home for a month. They stayed just long enough to write the Mayflower Compact, declare their divine right to annex the New World and finally realize they were straight, and therefore didn't belong in the Gayest Place on Earth, before moving inland to nearby Plymouth and its momentous rock.

As he walked, Brad pictured the drunken queen making her regal pronouncements that long-ago night in the A-House. It was status she'd been trying to explain. At the height of summer, Provincetown's famed homes-away-from-home were all about prestige, in the same way fraternities jockeyed to reach the top social rung on campus and drag queens schemed to have the grandest hairdo at the ball. It wasn't enough to have a gilded birdcage enwrapped in one's wig. No!
One must have the bird as well!
And so, in Provincetown, gay men vied with one another vigorously and openly to stay at one or another of the better houses.

And
yet!
Brad knew that the real prestige came when you left the heavy traffic of the downtown strip and slipped over into P'Town's residential district. While the tourist zone beckoned endlessly with its circus of delights, the far end of town withdrew from all the bustle and clamor. Here, the crowds thinned and silence took hold of the Cape once more. It wasn't quaint or inviting. It stood aloof, like the Pilgrim Monument or Garbo, wanting only to be left alone.

Here was where the status game got mean and tough. Here a good house could cost as much as three or four thousand a week. And it was here, less than half a mile from where the first pilgrims had landed, that Bradford Fairfax stayed whenever he came to town.

He set his bag down outside a stately house set back from the road and framed by an opulent garden. He removed a pen-like object from his pocket and aimed it at the entrance. The tip emitted a red laser burst and the front door swung open.

Inside, he set his bag on the tiles. With a hand clap, light flooded the hall. He stamped his foot and the door closed securely behind him. Here he'd be completely safe and as alone as he chose to be.

While other guesthouses could boast of costly antiques, famous histories, or naked room service, and one well-nigh legendary place even had original 1930's Norman Bel Geddes furniture to its credit, Brad's house offered a combination of solitude and modernity, two surprisingly compatible companions. It came loaded with the latest in technology and security, while providing a serene seafront view from its upper deck.

Brad climbed the stairs and entered an open space where he was momentarily blinded by a profusion of flowers. The scent of lilies filled the air. A card protruded from a basket of blooms.
Sorry for your loss,
it read, signed simply, "G."

He smiled. Good old Grace. She really did have a tender side under that crusty exterior. Not that he knew what her exterior looked like—they'd never met. And under the terms of his agreement, they never would. All physical identifiers, contact details, and given names had been reduced to code words, pseudonyms, and fabricated identities. She was simply Grace and he was Agent Red. He might pass her in the street and never know.

Intelligence agents joked that NSA stood for
No Such Agency.
Bradford's own agency had even less to identify it by. Apart from a phone number, his only contact was via an obscure postal address. Thus the organization's nickname: Box 77.

Like all intelligence groups, Box 77 kept a low profile. It vigorously denied its own existence, and from time to time invented fictitious organizations rumored to operate in its place. The few colleagues he'd met jokingly referred to the organization as
Neverland.

Training had been thorough and secretive. The inductees were loaded onto a plane with blacked-out windows. Brad and the twenty-four others found it impossible to tell even which direction they'd flown. On landing, they were blindfolded and driven by truck for several hours in the dead of night before being made to walk the final half hour to their destination. All they could tell of the place was that it was tropical. Apart from the camp operators, they never saw another person or even a road going in or out.

They met their trainers on the first day. The atmosphere was convivial, relaxed. This was going to be an adventure, Brad thought. At the very least, it promised a friendly bonding session. It was the last time he thought anything like it.

The constant physical tests—feats of strength and endurance—were engineered to mould their bodies into finely tuned and highly responsive instruments. The psychological tests were even harsher. After the first day, a subtle and not-so-subtle eroding of egos and personalities began and continued until a number of recruits begged to be returned to their private lives.

Diamonds were being formed from lumps of coal, flaws ruthlessly weeded out. A trainee suspected of having a weakness for cocaine was offered a stash of blow that nearly blew his mind. Anyone who broke simply disappeared and was never mentioned again. Those who remained had their confidence in themselves worn down to the point where they doubted even their own names.

Told repeatedly they weren't good enough, that their lives and the lives of countless others could be in danger due to their ineptitude, they began to feel they'd never make the grade. The trials seemed endless, the routines exhausting. Nothing was as it appeared. The trainees were set one against another until it seemed no one could be trusted. It wasn't until the final day that the camaraderie returned and the remaining six were congratulated for being among the finest cadets ever initiated.

Brad never learned where he'd been or where the organization's headquarters were located. He simply returned to his old life, telling his friends only that he'd been away on business.

The extreme secrecy had seemed a clichéd holdover from the Cold War, but Brad had quickly come to understand the need for it. The agency couldn't afford to be associated with the actions of its own agents. If anything went wrong, he had no knowledge of his superiors' identities and could never betray them. Not for gain, not even to save his life.

Brad glimpsed his reflection in the window where it was superimposed over the dunes. Few knew his true identity. Lately he'd caught himself wondering who he really was. DNA samples were taken from everyone who joined the service and kept in secret vaults until an agent died. Other than that, their voice and retinal prints were the only foolproof means of identification. Box 77 was a shadow operation, its agents ciphers.

Brad unpacked quickly. He wanted to settle things with Ross as soon as possible, in case he was unexpectedly recalled. He hung his shirts and trousers in the bedroom closet alongside a dress jacket, the only formal wear he'd brought. In all likelihood, he wouldn't need it. He intended to have Ross's remains cremated and assumed he'd be the only one at the ceremony. Casual would suffice. Ross would've appreciated a farewell send-off in jeans and T-shirt. A party was a party, after all.

The fridge contained the usual bottles of Dom and a handful of Brad's favorite whites, including a hedonistic little Robert Niero Condrieu. Seductive hints of marmalade layered with honeysuckle came to mind, as did that night at a Cairo hotel alongside a supple Egyptian. A quick glance showed the wine closet to be stocked with several of the better reds. A Chateau de Beaucastel looked particularly inviting. He'd have it with supper one night—alone, no doubt, as he wasn't likely to be doing much entertaining.

He poured a gin and tonic and took it to the living area where a surprisingly cheerful Wifredo Lam hung over the chaise lounge. The dour Cuban cubist complimented a breezy Robert Motherwell above the mantel and a Dali sketch on the far side of the room. At first sight he'd mistaken the Dali, a male nude with scandalously enlarged genitalia, for an early Tom of Finland.

Next to the decor, his favorite feature in the house was the loft bed set under a cathedral ceiling overlooking the dunes. Twilight lent it a soft violet glow, while mornings brought forth a spectacular golden light. It was one of the most soothing and restive views he'd ever woken to.

The marble-tiled bathroom housed a steam room and a mammoth Jacuzzi to complete the set. Plush towels and fine toiletry articles lined the inset shelves. Guesthouses could get more costly, he knew, but not more comfortably luxurious.

Brad finished his drink and sauntered down to the turnoff where Interstate 6 met 6A. He looked back once at the house perched on a rise, surrounded by beech trees and backlit by the fading daylight.

He crossed the highway and leapt over the guardrail, heading across the salt marsh. Sand dunes rose in squat mounds that shifted year by year as the wind and water pushed them about like restless crabs dragging their shells along the beach.

He climbed a ridge and the ocean came suddenly into view. Once the sun went down, there would be nothing here but starlight glinting off the licorice-colored water. The air was cooling as he stood looking over the beach where a handful of men tarried in search of love and other narcotics. He could almost taste the air. When he breathed in, it filled his lungs completely rather than simply occupying the space inside him.

He continued toward the lighthouse sitting solitary at the Cape's outer tip. Here the point of sand curled briefly back toward the mainland, as if at the last moment it had doubted the wisdom of getting too far from solid ground just before it ran out of steam.
Pentimento
the Italians called it, when an artist regretted his efforts and began to paint over the mistakes of the past, concealing but not erasing his work. Never erasing. So too with love, thought Brad. You can bury it deep inside, but it never really goes away.

The sun had long since disappeared by the time he reached the breakwater, a mile-long rock extension connecting the peninsula's tip to the western edge of town. Crossing was dangerous in the dark, he knew, but it would be faster than going the long way over the marsh where the incoming water had already reclaimed much of the land.

Brad stepped gingerly across the oversized boulders, taking care to clear the dark crevices between them. He stopped to inhale the salt smell of clams and algae. High tide was approaching, the ocean reaching shoreward. Birds skimmed its surface in search of a flash of fin as the lighthouse scanned the waves. Across the harbor, the lights of town were coming on. The view was calm to the point of being blissful.

He was halfway across when something caught his eye, a dark shape pooled in the windward side of the breakwater. It moved gently, playing hide and seek among the reeds and the in-rushing tide.

He eased carefully down to the water's edge, pulling the shape back from the current that dragged and sucked at it as though reluctant to give up its prize. The body was that of a boy, probably in his early twenties. Alive, he would have been stunningly handsome. And judging by his condition, he hadn't been in the water long.

Still, dead was dead.

4

The cop who answered his call was a tall dark bruiser. Identifying himself as Officer Tom Nava, he pulled out a badge and held it in the glare of a flashlight inches from Brad's face.

"Yup, that's you all right," Brad agreed, looking from the ID photo back to the officer. He was
mestizo
—part Mexican and part native—a look Brad found particularly appealing.

They stood on shore at the near end of the breakwater. In the distance, the lights of a police boat flickered as the crew lifted the body from where Brad had secured it to the rocks with his shoelaces.

"What relation were you to the deceased?" Nava asked, jotting in his notepad.

"None," Brad said, wondering if the bristling tuft of hair at Nava's collar extended over his entire chest.

The officer scowled. "Were you two having sex when he slipped in and drowned?"

"I told you, he was dead when I found him."

Nava grunted. "So I guess you can't tell me if he was on any sort of recreational drugs?"

"Obviously not."

Nava scribbled away. Thinking of Ross, Brad said, "Why do you think he was on drugs?"

Nava shrugged. "Some bad party favors going around lately. And besides, it's not that deep here. I'm wondering what would make a healthy young guy like this take a one-way plunge off the breakwater at high tide."

He finished taking down Brad's statement, and then asked the address of his guesthouse. Something seemed to twig at the name.

"Fancy place, I hear."

Brad shrugged. "It's cozy," he said.

The cop had already assumed Brad was gay; the address had probably confirmed it.

Nava put his notebook away. "I may be calling you with more questions," he said.

He insisted on escorting Brad to his house, though it was only a block away. Brad guessed the officer wanted to see if he was telling the truth about where he was staying.

Leaving Brad at his front door, the patrol car backed out of the driveway and down the road. Brad went upstairs and lit the fireplace, pouring himself another drink. He tried unsuccessfully to get the drowned boy's face out of his mind. Finally, he went out onto the upstairs deck overlooking the dunes. Beyond the street lamp all was blackness.

In the morning, Brad called the coroner's office. He'd been right in assuming no one from Ross's family would show up to claim the body. He made an appointment and got dressed.