The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks (21 page)
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long, thin shaft in, sucking Perry hard and then easy, taking him in deeply, maneuvering his way down to the kid’s silky groin, which smelled pleasantly of boy sweat and semen.
Perry raised his head and watched himself disappearing in and out of Nick’s wet, hard mouth, and he made a long, keening sound, dropped his head back in the pillow, and began to ejaculate in creamy spurts.
Nick had known by the way Perry’s belly clenched, the way his thighs squeezed, what was happening -- he probably knew before Perry did. There was time to move out of the line of fire, but he found that he didn’t want to. He wanted to do this for Perry -- and he wanted to do it for himself -- and he swallowed the warm, wet burst of orgasm.
By then Nick’s need had reached boiling point, and he lowered himself on top of Perry’s shuddering frame and ground against him, his swollen, throbbing dick finding relief in the friction of velvety skin and the hard, close press of bodies. He’d timed it just about right, and it didn’t take any time at all before his own release was shooting between them, slick and hot.
“Oh God, Nick,” Perry said. It was practically the only thing he’d said the entire time, and it was disarmingly heartfelt.
Nick collapsed on him, and Perry fastened a tight arm around his back and kissed him on his ear and his temple and his hair. Puppy kisses, Nick thought. Puppy love…
* * * * *
That would be hard. He’d have to tough it out somehow. Nick would never have
patience with him getting all weepy and clinging, and he wanted to spend every possible minute with Nick before he left.
He’d need those memories to hold to all the long, lonely nights that would follow Nick’s departure.
Hearing the murmur of a second voice, he realized Nick wasn’t on the phone. He sat up, pulled on his jeans. Found his shirt. His hair was sticking up on end. He combed his fingers through it, walking down the short hallway.
“She could be a danger -- not just to herself but to the rest of us. I mean, if she’s going around hitting people over the head --” Jane broke off what she was saying to greet Perry.
“Well, there you are. How are you feeling after your morning’s adventure?”
For a minute he thought she was referring to what he and Nick had done. Then sanity reasserted itself. “Good.” Perry couldn’t look at Nick. He was afraid his face would give him away.
“You look better than I expected. There’s a little color in your cheeks.”
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He couldn’t help it; he raised his gaze. Nick’s eyes held his for a second, and Perry knew that now there was even more color in his face. Nick’s face was blank. He was probably great at poker. Perry was great at Old Maid.
“There’s cocoa in the kitchen,” Nick said laconically.
“Oh. Thanks.”
He stepped into the kitchen, poured cocoa while listening to Jane. She called out, “Miss Dembecki has just confessed to hitting Mr. Stein over the head with a poker.”
Perry stepped back out of the kitchen. “You’re…kidding.”
Jane shook her head. “Nope. I was helping her with her laundry, and she just casually mentioned it, just as breezy as could be. She said she thought he was a burglar.”
“But…” He looked to Nick who shrugged. “Why…what was she doing in my
apartment?”
Jane shook her head. “I have no idea. I’m not sure she does. She’s getting
very…peculiar is all I can say. And if she’s starting to whack people over the heads with pokers…”
Perry said to Nick, “But how did we miss her going downstairs?”
“I guess if she hit him and ran -- we didn’t look over the balcony, we just went across to your place and then went inside.”
“But the deputy would have seen her.”
Nick’s lip curled. “I knew that deputy was full of shit about how long he was away from his post.”
Jane said, “And that’s not all, by the way. The cops claim they’ve identified your body.”
Perry turned away from Nick. “Really? Who is he?”
“An investigator out of Jersey,” Nick said. “Raymond Swiss.”
“A private eye? For real? Why was he in my bathtub? Do they know who he was working for?”
Jane responded. “If the cops know, they’re not telling us lowly civilians. Apparently his secretary filed a missing persons report on him Monday when he didn’t return to the office.”
“He was a long way from home.” Perry digested this. “So…he was killed in this house?”
“It could have been an accident.” Jane hugged herself against a sudden chill. “But that’s the thing. They’re saying he died from a blow to the head.”
“You’re not thinking Miss Dembecki?” Perry protested.
“She’s not denying she clobbered Mr. Stein. The thing is the cops have taken Mr.
Teagle in for questioning.” Jane was eyeing Nick speculatively. “And that was after your friend here had a word with them.”
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Perry swallowed. He didn’t like to think of poor Mr. Teagle in jail even if he was an old weirdo. He couldn’t believe that he was a murderer, although he clearly had a few issues. But he couldn’t believe Miss Dembecki had killed someone, either.
He said, “If it was an accident, why didn’t someone say?”
Jane shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t know what they were doing. Maybe they still don’t.” She added slowly, “Maybe they were afraid. Maybe…they couldn’t come forward.”
Perry stared at her trying to follow this reasoning.
“Nobody killed Tiny by accident,” he said. “Tiny was shot.”
Nick said, “From the way you described the body, I’m guessing Swiss had been dead for a while by the time he was stashed in your apartment. He was probably killed somewhere else in the house. Maybe the basement. No one but Tiny ever went down there, and it would be pretty easy to clean up.”
“Or maybe he was killed in one of the secret tunnels,” Jane said. “They run all through the house and through the grounds and -- get this, it’s pretty awful -- there are all kind of eyeholes and listening stations throughout the house.”
As though on cue, there was a scratching sound behind the fireplace wall.
“They’re in the woodwork,” Jane muttered. “Cops, I mean. They’ve been prowling through the passages all morning.”
Perry gulped, thinking about all those peepholes. Meeting his eyes, Nick grimaced. The same thought had apparently crossed his mind.
Jane said, “Then whoever killed Tiny must have killed him to cover up the original crime -- whether it was an accident or not.” She looked pale. “You’d have to be pretty ruthless to kill someone as harmless as Tiny.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I think we’re dealing with someone pretty ruthless. It would be a good idea not to forget it.”
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When Jane finally talked out her nervousness and departed, Nick said, “Okay, we’ve still got enough daylight to get in some target practice. Grab your jacket.”
Perry stiffened. He said shortly, “Look, I already know how to use a gun.”
“Great,” Nick said easily. “Then this won’t take long.”
“Not long at all, because I’m not going shooting.”
Nick raised his brows at this open defiance. Perry was obviously scared to death of firearms -- which was pretty much what he had expected.
He said patiently, “I need to know that you can take care of yourself, and I don’t think hand-to-hand combat is going to be your thing.”
“Neither is shooting people.”
Nick choked back his immediate retort. He said mildly, “I’m not asking you to become a sniper, but if you get cornered by your pal from the passageway again, you might find this useful.” He offered his backup weapon, a Sig P-228. Small, light, accurate, and easy to conceal, all of which made it a perfect choice for Perry.
Except Perry was not cooperating. He stared at the Sig, not moving. His eyes raised to Nick’s. The Bambi look.
Nick hardened his heart. “I want you to carry it till this thing gets straightened out.”
Perry lifted one shoulder. “Fine.” He still hadn’t touched the gun.
“But first I want to be sure you know how to use it.”
“I already said.”
“I want to see for myself.”
Perry flushed, his eyes narrowing. “You won’t take my word for it?”
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His righteous affront took Nick by surprise. He said quickly, “Yeah, I take your word for it, but I want to see whether you can hit anything.”
Perry put down his cocoa and rose from the table. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”
He was still not speaking as they climbed into Nick’s pickup. Nick told himself he was unmoved. The kid could sulk all he liked. This was for his own good. Like learning to eat properly or wearing a condom.
But better not to let his thoughts drift in that direction, or they’d be heading straight back into the house for a little more afternoon delight. It was disconcerting. Nick hadn’t felt like this…well, it had been a long time. He wasn’t sure he’d ever exactly felt like this, because he was uncomfortably aware that he was taking advantage here. Cradle robbing, that’s what they called it. That was one of the nicer things they called it.
He drove until they passed a long empty meadow. Nick pulled to the side of the road, and they walked out through the tall grass. Nick lined up a row of tin cans he’d liberated from the recycling bin before they left the house.
He walked back to where Perry waited, hands shoved in his jean pockets, an un-Perry-like scowl on his pointed face.
Nick demonstrated. “Okay. Here’s the clip. You --”
Perry took the clip from him and slapped it into the P-228. He turned, stepped into perfect firing stance, and fired off three rounds.
Nick blinked as blam, blam, blam the tin cans went flying one after another off the crumbled stone wall.
“Jesus, Foster. You’ve got a hell of an eye…”
Perry fired off four more rounds. Clean, accurate shots picking off the rest of the tin cans. He ejected the clip and handed the empty Sig Sauer to Nick. He gave him that long, unfriendly look Nick had seen once before when Perry felt he had been seriously let down.
“Where the hell --”
“I learned to shoot when I was ten. My dad thought it was important for a man to be able to handle himself, which according to him meant being able to use a gun. I can blow away tin cans all day, and we both know that it doesn’t mean anything against a live target.”
He was right. Again. It was beginning to be a habit with him.
Nick finally found his voice. “Fair enough. But at least I know you can hit something if you have to.”
Perry shook his head. “I couldn’t shoot someone. No way.”
Nick strove for patience. Perry was coming at this from a perspective alien to his. “You don’t think if your life was in danger…”
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“My dad used to make me go hunting with him. He said…” Perry changed his mind about sharing whatever recollection that was. Instead, he said, “I shot a rabbit once. It screamed.”
“They do sometimes,” Nick admitted.
“I threw up.”
“Look, frankly, I don’t get a big kick out of hunting, either,” Nick said. “There’s a difference --”
“I’m going back to the truck.” Perry stalked away.
* * * * *
What happened to people like Miss Dembecki once they couldn’t take care of
themselves? She didn’t seem to have any family.
She clutched his sleeve, saying eagerly, “Isn’t it dreadful! These secret passages run all through the house.” But her eyes were bright with excitement, not alarm.
“You’ve lived here so long,” Perry said. “Didn’t you have any idea about the secret passages?”
“Oh no! None of us knew. Not even Mrs. Mac.”
Well, that was clearly not true. Mr. Teagle had already plainly, if inadvertently, admitted to knowing about the tunnels.
Tiny might have known -- he’d been prowling the estate for decades. Certainly the back passages had served in his mysterious disappearance. He didn’t appear to have been killed in the house. It was possible, though not probable, that he could have been dragged into the passage against his will. But surely someone would have seen or heard something?
Then again, Raymond Swiss had disappeared in this house -- presumably against his will -- and no one had seen or heard anything. Except his murderer.
And that was a point right there. Surely no one was going to be willing to admit to prior knowledge of the secret passages, because it automatically made them a suspect in Tiny’s and Swiss’s killings. And the fact that Mr. Teagle’s concern had been over being caught out peeping surely meant he hadn’t been worried about being suspected of murder because he hadn’t committed murder?
As though reading his mind, Miss Dembecki said, “The police have discovered where Tiny was shot in the passageway. They think his killer must have thought he was dead and left him, and then Tiny must have dragged himself to the door that leads into Mr. Watson’s apartment. And then he was too weak to go any farther.”
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Nick asked, “Do they have any leads on who might have shot him? Have they
narrowed the weapon down?”
“Oh! They’ve been searching for guns in poor Mr. Teagle’s rooms.” Miss Dembecki fluttered away and then -- as Perry and Nick started up the staircase -- fluttered back.
“They’ve arrested him, you know. Mr. Teagle.”
* * * * *
orange half moon seemed to be dissolving right out of the black night.
Nick had roasted a chicken for dinner, and he served it with mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn. The food was good -- everything Nick cooked was good -- but Perry picked at his supper.