*
Since it was a Tuesday—Jonathan’s night for chorus practice—I decided to take a quick run to the Spike when he got home. I was getting ready to change into an old pair of jeans and a white T-shirt and boots, which I hoped would be close enough to the bar’s uniform of the day to keep me from standing out, when the phone rang. I didn’t make it into the living room before Joshua had a chance to pick it up.
“Hello?… This is Joshua. Who are you?”
I’d reached him by that time, and he handed me the phone.
“Hello?” I said.
“Dick, it’s Glen. I just wanted to let you know I’m deposing Pete Reardon tomorrow at my office at three thirty. I was a little surprised at how willing he was to cooperate but am glad he is. I just wanted to let you know.”
“I appreciate that, Glen,” I said, and I did. He was under no obligation to let me know what was going on. It was me who was working for him, after all, not the other way around.
“Well, I know you have a stake in how this all progresses,” he said. “If the deposition goes as I hope, I’ll have it on St. John’s desk before he leaves work tomorrow night. I don’t hold out much hope it will convince him to drop the charge against Jake, but it will sure shoot another large hole in his case, which already has more holes than a chunk of Swiss cheese. All we can do is try.”
I thanked him again, and we hung up.
If Reardon was being deposed at three thirty, that meant if I got to the Spike when it opened at four Reardon would probably still be at Glen’s. I doubted the bartender would remember me, and he wouldn’t have much of a reason to say anything to Reardon even if he did.
Joshua and I played a game of “cards,” then I got him ready for bed and Story Time. When he complained he’d read all his books and insisted on me telling him a story, I promised him the three of us would go make a weekend trip to the library and get him his very own library card—it would be in my name or Jonathan’s, but as long as Joshua thought of it as being his…—so we could begin reading our way through the children’s section. Joshua, of course, thought it was a great idea and wanted us to go the next day. I told him I’d think about it.
Chapter 24
At four Wednesday afternoon I pulled up in front of
the Spike. I’d taken the jeans, boots, and T-shirt I hadn’t worn the night before to work and changed there. It wasn’t that I wore anything fancy to work, but this outfit was a little too casual for the office.
There were three guys in the bar, plus the bartender, whom I fortunately didn’t recognize: It seemed the Spike had as high a bartender turnover rate as the Male Call. I ordered a beer and then wandered over to the platform with Reardon’s bike on it. He’d obviously cleaned it up since the ride; I could see myself in the fender. He’d even cleaned the tires. It looked as though it had just come off the dealer’s showroom floor.
Pretending to look at the pictures, I went first to the back of the platform, where I was able to get close to the wall. I tried as casually as I could to look down the length of the bike. Everything appeared perfect. What the hell did I think I was looking for, anyway?
I then strolled casually around the platform, taking an occasional swig of beer. The ramp was the same width as the platform and extended probably five feet in front of it. In order for me to get close enough for a good look down the side of the bike from the front, I’d have to really lean forward and support myself with my arms. That might have looked a bit peculiar if anyone was watching, which I hoped they weren’t. Awkward.
I got as close to the wall as I could at the base of the ramp and, again on the pretext of looking at the photos, tried to look down the front side of the bike. Nothing…or wait! It looked like there was something—the fender about a foot back from the very front edge. What the hell was it? Just…something—a definite irregularity on the almost liquid shine of the surface. Sort of like a ripple on a smooth pond.
I had to look closer. Glancing toward the bar to make sure no one was watching me, I took three steps up the ramp to where I could see better. It was definitely a dent maybe four inches long and two wide, where the paint looked just slightly different from the rest of the fender.
“Hey, buddy, no one’s allowed up there,” the bartender called.
I quickly stepped back. “Sorry,” I said. “I was just admiring the bike. A real beauty.”
He just nodded and went back to whatever he was doing. I returned to the bar and sat down to finish my beer.
The jumbled pile of unrelated facts and suspicions my mind had been accumulating began to sort themselves out without much conscious effort on my part, forming into a plausible scenario. The key was the relationship between Manners and Reardon. Both Carl Brewer and Don Gleason had told me Manners would do anything Reardon wanted. Obviously, what Reardon wanted was the Male Call. I had no doubt Manners might have acted as Reardon’s eyes on what went on at the Male Call—Reardon was eager to spot any chink in Carl Brewer’s armor, which the AIDS rumors and Cal Hysong provided.
Now came the really murky part of the picture. Might Reardon have gotten Manners to steal Jake’s gun? Maybe even have used it himself to kill Hysong? Or had Manners acted completely independently? He definitely had ample motives that didn’t involve Reardon.
But regardless of whether he or Reardon had killed Hysong, Manners himself was dead now, and the picture from this point suddenly became much clearer. That Reardon had made an offer for the Male Call through a surrogate—and I had no doubt that’s what he’d done—meant he had somehow gotten the money from Manners before Manners’ death. Money has motivated more than one murder. I had no idea how it had happened, but the idea that Manners would expect something in return was logical. And if Reardon didn’t want to give it to him…
*
Even before I changed back into my regular clothes at the office, I called the City Annex and asked to speak to Detective Gresham. Once again I was in luck.
“Detective Gresham.”
“Marty, it’s Dick. Quick question—where would I find a motorcycle involved in a fatal accident?”
“Depends on where the accident took place,” he said, then paused. “Are you talking about that AIDS ride accident?”
“Yes. I know it wasn’t within the city limits, but I gather it was somewhere around the county line.”
“Well, as I recall, it was on this side of the county line and the sheriff’s office has an impound lot here in town. What’s up?”
I quickly outlined my suspicions.
“Interesting,” he said.
“Could you arrange for me to get in there and look at Manners’ bike?”
“Well,” he said, “if you’re right, it’ll be a police matter, so I wouldn’t have any problem in getting in, but they might not let you in alone. I’d be willing to go with you, if you’d like.”
“That’d be great!” I said. “When would be good for you?”
“Let me give them a call,” he said, “and I’ll get right back to you.”
*
He called back within ten minutes, giving me the address of the sheriff’s impound lot and telling me he and Detective Couch would meet me there in an hour. Fast worker, that Marty, and much appreciated.
The lot was in a fairly new industrial park on the far east side, surrounded by a concrete block wall unbroken except for a small window and glass door next to a sliding metal gate. Parking was no problem, and since I was, as usual, early, I got out of the car and stood by the gate until an unmarked police car pulled up. I don’t know who they think they’re fooling by not marking them—I can usually spot them a mile away.
I joined them for handshakes as they got out of the car, and we walked to the office. A deputy behind a small metal desk looked up as Marty pressed a buzzer beside the door, and, in turn, pressed a button somewhere just out of sight on the desk, letting us in. Marty made the brief introductions, and the deputy got up from his desk. He’d obviously been expecting us, since he said, “I’ll show you where it is,” and led us outside through a rear door.
The lot was relatively small, unlike the vast salvage yard to which the city sent wrecks from within its jurisdiction. There were maybe only a dozen or so vehicles in various stages of demolition—a couple of them were nearly unrecognizable as motor vehicles. At the end of the line was a twisted blob of yellow metal from which a pair of bent handlebars rose above a tire that looked like a Salvador Dali watch.
Pointing toward it, the deputy said, “If you need anything, holler,” and turned back for the office.
The bike lay on its right side, which was the side I wanted to see. It took all three of us to lift the wreck, which still smelled of gasoline. It wouldn’t stand on its own, so we lowered it back to the ground. I knelt to inspect the badly crumpled fender.
“There it is,” I said, pointing to a deep fold in the metal. “It” was a three-inch scrape of bright blue.
Detective Couch leaned over for a closer look and nodded.
“I’ll go get the camera,” Marty said.
Chapter 25
And that was it.
Well, not really, of course, but for all intents and purposes, my part in the case was over. It was all in the hands of the police from that point on.
The blue paint on the right front fender of Manners’ yellow bike came from the left front fender of Pete Reardon’s when, the police speculated and on which I’d have bet a bundle, Reardon had deliberately swerved into Manners as the semi passed, sending him under the wheels and to his death. That the semi driver had seen Reardon moving up fast behind Manners as he passed was a pretty good indication Reardon had seen an opportunity and gone with it.
Reardon denied everything, of course, but the case the police were able to build against him was pretty ironclad. The fact he had tried to cover up the damage to his bike himself—tools and a small can of manufacturer’s touch-up paint found in his garage verified that point—by pounding out the dent and repainting it and then replacing the bike on the platform—albeit facing in the wrong direction—was obviously to prevent anyone from noticing the damage.
In the confusion and emotion of the immediate aftermath of the accident, it was very unlikely anyone would have noticed it. Reardon was probably waiting until enough time had passed before taking it for a professional repair, or more likely, to replace the entire fender. The fact he had endangered his prize possession was an indication of how much he had wanted to get Manners out of the way.
That one of his reasons might have been because it was actually Reardon rather than Manners who had killed Hysong—Manners merely having stolen the gun at Reardon’s request—remained an unprovable possibility, and no one but he would ever know the truth.
A look at Reardon’s financial records revealed there had, indeed, been a partnership contract drawn up between him and Manners shortly after Hysong’s death, with a clause giving everything to the survivor in case of one partner’s death. I found it a little hard to imagine Manners could have been so gullible, but then I wasn’t him, and still didn’t know how deep the relationship between the two men went.
So, if Reardon had actually killed Hysong, getting rid of Manners would have prevented the possibility of his ever telling anyone else. Perhaps the fact Reardon agreed to have Manners as a full partner might have been another indication Manners had something on him.
Unfortunately, with the elections rapidly approaching and the District Attorney slipping in the polls, he refused to drop the case against Jake rather than admit he was obviously trying to convict the wrong man. He obstinately held that Manners’ supposed confession to Reardon was tainted by the fact Reardon was now accused of Manners’ murder.
Jake’s trial began the week of the election. Victor St. John was ousted from the D.A.’s office and the new D.A., at Glen O’Banyon’s insistence, dropped all charges against Jake, who managed to come through all the stress in good spirits and with no further health problems, for which all his friends breathed a deep sigh of relief.
*
Story Time over, Joshua safely asleep and Jonathan and I in bed, I once again speculated on how life is so not like a movie or a TV show. No white-knuckle car chases or sudden, adrenalin-filled exchanges of gunfire; no wrestling someone on a tightrope over a crocodile-filled moat; or long drum roll ending in a crash of cymbals and timpani. Just another case solved, another bad guy getting what he deserved. I could live with that.
About the Author
Dorien Grey started out as a pen name, nothing more, for a lifelong book and magazine editor who wanted to write his own novels as a bridge between the gay and straight communities. However, because he was living in a remote and time-warped area of the upper Midwest where gays still feel it necessary to keep a very low profile, he did not feel comfortable using his own name—a sad commentary on our society, he admits.
But as his first book, a detective novel, led to the second and then the third, he found Dorien slowly became much more than a pseudonym, evolving into an alter ego.
“It's reached the point,” he said, "where all I have to do is sit down at the computer and let Dorien tell the story.”
As for the Dorien’s “real person,” had a not-uninteresting life. Two years into college, he left to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program—he washed out and spent the rest of his brief military career on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The journal he kept of his time in the military, in the form of letters home, honed his writing skills and provided him with a wealth of experiences to draw from in his future writing.