Somebody Killed His Editor: Holmes & Moriarity, Book 1 (29 page)

Josh Lanyon

mentally tough enough—to wield an axe and kill someone. I don’t think either of them are killers by nature, but they’re both the manly man type who’re willing to use violence to protect themselves and the things they value.”

“What makes you think it was a man with Peaches that night?” Espie asked. “She swung both ways.”

“I don’t know that she really swung both ways or whether she occasionally used sexual favors with same-sex partners to get what she wanted.”

“Who
was
in the room with Peaches that night?” Mindy asked, shooting distrustful looks from Edgar to J.X.

“Oh, that’s easy,” I said. “That was J.X.”

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“Huh?” J.X. said, straightening.

“Yeah, you’re the killer,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”

“What are you talking about?” He was staring at me in bewilderment. So was everyone else.

Rachel said uncertainly, “But…but J.X. was hit over the head and thrown in the cellar.”

“He faked that.”

“I…
w-what
?” J.X. stammered.

“Sure,” I said.

“How the hell would I do that?”

“You’re a cop. You know all kinds of ways to do stuff.”

He was staring at me as though I’d gone insane. It was very satisfying.

“So what’s my motive?”

“Peaches was your first wife. You married her when you were both attending San Francisco State University. When you tried to divorce her to marry your brother’s girlfriend, she threatened to take half of everything you owned.”

You could have heard a pen drop. In fact, several pens did drop from the hands that had been busily scribbling notes.

I met J.X.’s wide gaze steadily. After a long stunned silence, he said quietly, “You shit.”

I shrugged.

“What happened to
this isn’t a play, this isn’t a game
?”

“I told you I didn’t want to do this.”

“So you accuse
me
of murder?”

“You accused me.”

“I didn’t accuse you. I locked you up for your own protection. I should have killed you myself.”

“Ha!”

“What the hell is going on?” Edgar asked grimly, rising. He looked from J.X. to me.

“Kit is trying to be funny,” J.X. said.

“No one’s laughing,” Edgar pointed out.

“No. Sorry.” I looked at him. “And I mean that. I am sorry, Edgar.”

He blinked, then lost color. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Josh Lanyon

“It means, I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure you killed both Peaches and Steven Krass.”

Debbie gave a little scream. Her mother grabbed her, hugging her. Rita’s bleak gaze met mine over her daughter’s blonde head.

I said to her, “And I think if you didn’t know all about it, you suspected it.”

Her lips folded. She held Debbie closer.

The room was dead silent except for Debbie’s hysterical cries. I said to Edgar, “This is what I think happened. I think a long time ago, you and Peaches knew each other very well. I think she came back here and there was still a certain amount of chemistry between you, and I think you allowed yourself to be seduced.”

And who the hell could blame him married to the unlovely and unpersonable Rita? But while Miss Butterwith could have said that aloud, I could not. Instead I said, “And I think Peaches, with her socio-pathological streak, threatened to go to Rita.” My gaze was drawn again to Debbie sobbing on her mother’s shoulder. “I think maybe Peaches had a particular ace up her sleeve—”

“Don’t,” Edgar said roughly. Rita was shaking her head back and forth over Debbie’s.

I stopped. So I
was
on the right track. I said, “And I think that knowing how jealous Rita is, you tried to reason with Peaches. But I don’t get the impression that Peaches was a very reasonable person, and at some point you lost control and hit her with a piece of firewood from that basket over there.”

Edgar looked at the basket on the hearth beside him.

“When you saw what you’d done, you carried Peaches down to the truck. Then you either told Rita—

”

“Leave Rita out of it.”

“Or you went upstairs yourself and packed up Peaches’ belongings and carried her suitcases down to the truck. You or Rita are about the only two people who could move about the lodge at any hour without anyone questioning it, and naturally you have keys to every room and every cabin and every vehicle.”

He said nothing.

“I think you drove down to the shrine and dumped Peaches. I don’t think you had time for more than that, and I don’t think you had decided what to do yet. For obvious reasons you didn’t want her found on your property.”

Tentative sunlight was gilding the faces of everyone in the room. The storm had finally moved past.

“I think maybe I did hear a truck that night,” one of the pink ladies chimed in.

J.X. said, “And Steven saw what happened?”

I was watching Edgar’s face. “I don’t think so. I think if Krass knew for sure what had happened, he would have spoken up. But I think he knew what Peaches…I think he knew a fair bit of Peaches’ history, and I think he was drawing some natural conclusions. Did he arrange to meet you that night?”

Edgar said nothing. His eyes moved to Debbie and Rita. He looked at me.

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Somebody Killed His Editor

I said, “If you tell me what happened, I won’t offer my theory on motive.”

When he spoke, Edgar’s voice was hoarse. “I didn’t arrange to meet him. I waited for him to go to bed that night, but he didn’t. He couldn’t sleep, I guess. He paced in his room for hours and then, finally, when the rain stopped for a little while, he went outside to smoke. I followed him to the patio and I…shut him up once and for all.”

There were a number of winces and shivers from our spellbound audience.

“How did you get hold of my earring?”

His eyes met mine unwaveringly. “It was in the folds of her clothing. It must have fallen out of your ear when you bent over her body. It dropped on the truck bed when we lifted her in.” He shrugged. “I didn’t have anything against you, but you’d had a run-in with Krass that night, so I thought I’d use it.”

“Why did you attack J.X.?”

“I was snooping in the cellar,” J.X. said. His eyes met mine. “That much I do remember.”

Edgar nodded reluctantly. “You were snooping everywhere.”

“Why didn’t you kill him?” I asked.

Edgar scrubbed his face wearily. “Because I wasn’t sure we—I—was going to get away with it, and I didn’t want to make things worse for myself. Things were unraveling too fast and there was no point killing a cop if I was going to be arrested anyway. I thought I’d wait and see what happened. If I could have made someone believe that he’d killed Patty, but…” He looked at me. “You kept insisting on all the reasons he couldn’t have.”

He could have killed me, of course, but that was veering into mass murderer territory, and Edgar wasn’t that kind of a killer, although as frightened and desperate as he was, he must have at least considered it while I was bending over that black pool in the icehouse. A shudder rippled through me as I remembered—

“There’s a plane coming,” George spoke suddenly, pointing at the long picture windows. “Helicopter, I mean.”

We all turned and stared out. Sure enough a sheriff’s copter was hovering over the vineyard, making its slow approach, scanning for a good place to land.

“I don’t think I should say anything more,” Edgar said.

I tended to agree with him.

Everyone was rising, crowding out through the meeting room doors, going to greet the sheriffs. Edgar went to Rita and put his arms around her and Debbie. The three of them stood there in a small huddle, holding tight.

There was a hand on my shoulder. I turned and J.X. was behind me. Having to look up to meet his eyes gave me that funny fluttering feeling in my belly. He was shaking his head, but he was smiling too—

wryly.

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Josh Lanyon

“Nice going, Holmes. Even if you did get sidetracked and accuse me of murder.”

“Elementary, my dear—”

He kissed me.

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About the Author

Over the past decade, multi-award-winning author Josh Lanyon has written numerous novels, novellas and short stories as well as a definitive M/M writing guide. In June 2009
Somebody Killed His
Editor
, the first book in a brand new mystery-romance series, will be published through Samhain. Josh is a Lambda Literary Award finalist.

To learn more about Josh, please visit
www.joshlanyon.com and
jgraeme2007.livejournal.com
. Send an em
ail to Josh at [email protected] o
r join his Yahoo! group to join in the fun with other readers as well as Josh
groups.yahoo.com/group/JoshLanyon.

Look for these titles by Josh Lanyon

Now Available:

Crimes & Cocktails

Mexican Heat

(Writing with Laura Baumbach)

Holmes & Moriarity

Somebody Killed His Editor

An old mystery brought them together. Solving it could tear them apart.

Chasing Smoke

© 2009 K.A. Mitchell

In the best of times, Daniel Gardner hates visiting his family. With his boyfriend pressuring him for a mortgage-serious commitment, Christmas in Easton, PA sounds, for once, like a welcome escape. His old house holds more than memories of a miserable adolescence, though. It has Trey Eriksson.

At seventeen, Trey was taken in by the wealthy Gardner family after his father was jailed for his mother’s murder. Until he left for the Army, he fought a double-edged battle—for proof of his father’s innocence and against his attraction to Daniel.

Fifteen years later, things haven’t changed. Trey is still looking for the real killer. And Daniel has never forgotten how Trey used to sneak into his room at night.

Now new clues to the murder are resurfacing—and so is Trey and Daniel’s sexual chemistry. Except this time, Trey has come to terms with his orientation.

But their connection may not be enough to overcome the mistakes of the past. Not while a murderer still walks free…

Warning:
Anyone who would rather not read about hooking back up with someone who broke your
heart, minor suspense, hot guys who can handle guns and each other, and lots of steamy gay sex probably
isn’t reading this warning anyway, but if you are, back away slowly and keep your hands where I can see
them.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Chasing Smoke: Trey didn’t know. After all these years of wild supposition, clinging to the idea he and Danny had hatched long ago about a conspiracy worthy of a John Grisham novel, the cop in him said it was drugs. So his dad hadn’t killed his mom. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he might as well have, involving himself in that shit.

“I don’t,” Danny said with all the conviction Trey couldn’t find. “Your father didn’t get those records sealed. It’s something big, just like we thought. And I’m betting it has something to do with the war.”

Jumping to his feet, Danny pulled the Polaroid off the wall and flipped it over, still inside its plastic.

“There. You think that’s Howie?” He pointed at a faded squiggle of ink. It could be Howie. Or Harry. Or Hank, for that matter. Only the
H
was still clear.

Danny counted off the names across the bottom with a finger and flipped the picture again. “Him?”

An indistinct blob of a face under curly hair growing out of the military buzz cut. All Trey could tell was the guy was white and wore a goatee.

“We should take this when we go to see Maureen Flynn tomorrow. We could see if she recognizes him.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Altoona’s only three hours away.”

“Four. Exactly how fast do you drive, Agent Gardner?”

Danny cocked his head in a half-smile. “All right, three and a half. But we could still do it in a day.”

Trey felt the pull deep in his gut, like Danny’s excitement was some kind of gravitational well. He stuck his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, as if that would help ground him. “Stop. Just stop.”

“What?”

“Danny, this isn’t a game.”

“I never said it was. I thought you wanted answers.”

He did. But he didn’t want ones that ended with his dad dealing heroin. And right now that looked like the best answer. “I do. What the fuck do you think I did all this for?” He jerked his head at the corkboarded walls.

He could see the excitement leave Danny’s face, like someone had unplugged the lights. His shoulders drooped.

“I get it,” Danny said.

“What do you get?” Trey couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t stand the dose of guilt Danny’d always been so good at dishing out. Stepping over to the desk, Trey clicked out of the sites Danny still had open.

“You just don’t want me helping you.”

“Maybe I’m trying to figure out why this is suddenly so interesting to you. You haven’t spoken to me in fifteen years. So why now?”

“You know why.”

There was none of the playfulness in Danny’s voice now. Just a familiar need. Familiar from the wakefulness on those dark nights when he’d sneaked into Danny’s room. Familiar because it was the same earnest voice that had welcomed him under the blankets. Familiar in the way Danny was waiting for him to make the first move before he’d kiss Trey back like it was his only hold on life. But they weren’t seventeen anymore.

Trey looked up. And that was a huge mistake. Because Danny was close, so close Trey would know how hard the muscles were under the soft black sweater if he took one more step.

“Ah, fuck it.” Trey reached out and grabbed Danny’s head, pulling him into a kiss.

Hard, like it had been then, when neither of them had known what they were doing, a quick thrust of tongues, Danny’s teeth dragging over Trey’s bottom lip, pulling his mouth open.

And then it was nothing like back then, because they did know what they were doing now. Knew the right pressure, the way to ask and get what they needed.