I shook my head, watching His face tense. “Can’t get beyond the sex, can you?” he asked bitterly.

“I don’t know,” I answered, running my hand through my hair. “Face to face is different than reading about it.”

“More or less titillating?” He gave a sharp, humorless chuckle.

I hunched up my shoulders, and walked away from the heat of the fire. “The other night someone tried to scare me out of The End with a 4×4. I came here thinking it was you.” I overrode his interrupt. “Whatever my feelings about this conversation, you’re off the list.”

“Then the only reason you have is my sexuality.”

I shrugged again. “When you put a live person into a word like ‘pederast’ it loses an edge, but I don’t know if it loses any of its meaning. Mostly it’s none of my business.”

I gathered my thoughts slowly. “You dropped off my list, but Darryl climbed on. I think he adopted your initials for his drug cover.”

His eyes searched my face from across the room. “You agree with the police?” I nodded. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Either they really do believe it was an accident, or they think it’s drug-related. Easier on them if it’s an accident.”

“Don’t you think the similarity to Peter’s death a little too coincidental?”

“We’re not talking back-to-back here, Jonathan. There’s twenty years between the deaths; and the major coincidence is you.” That is, if I discounted Blackhead’s story. Or understood it.

“I don’t mean you had anything to do with their accidents. As unlikely as the coincidence seems to you, the cops are probably on the money.”

He didn’t want to believe it. “You don’t think it was suicide?” I asked gently.

He met my stare. “No, I don’t. I would have known if Darryl was that depressed. He wasn’t.” He shook his head. “Darryl didn’t kill himself.”

“You seem awfully certain about someone you’ve just discovered had a secret life?”

Barrie was more emphatic. “Maybe I didn’t know everything about his life, but I’d have known if he was suicidal.” Jonathan lifted the poker toward the fire, then smashed it hard on the rug. “There’s no damn reason for him to be dead!”

“Is there ever, for anyone? Jonathan, it was probably an accident.”

“You mean he was too high to save himself?” Jonathan said sarcastically. “What the hell was he doing there? Peter I could understand. It was summer and that’s where they went to swim. But it’s winter now, or damn close.”

“Grams to dollars, Jonathan, he was there to sell dope. He might have fallen in before he made the sale. The water’s near freezing, and if he hit his head…”

Still grabbing the poker, he leaped to his feet. For an instant I thought he was going to attack me, but he turned, moved close to the fireplace, and whacked at the flames. “It’s fucking cold in here,” he muttered between hits.

I gave him a little time before I walked to his side and took the iron from his clenched fist. At first he resisted. “How many times do you have to watch your life fall apart?” he asked helplessly.

I shrugged; it was a familiar question. “As many times as it does.” Zen Matt.

We stood quietly as the flame sucked at the dismembered carcass of the sacrificed tree. Occasionally a spark would crackle into the air and we’d flinch, but, other than the fire’s sporadic noise and the infrequent hiss of steam, all was silent.

“I don’t understand why you won’t at least look into the coincidence?” he finally said.

“I don’t want to investigate Peter’s death.” I looked at him. “For reasons we’ve already discussed.”

“That was before Darryl’s death.”

“Darryl’s accident is twenty years later,” I reminded.

He dropped the poker on the floor and walked, head down, back to the couch. “That’s what Melanie kept saying.”

“What exactly does Melanie know?” My voice bleated harshly.

Jonathan didn’t bother with my tone. “She’s always known that Darryl and I were lovers. I told her about his death and my problem accepting the police’s version.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t push it with her. Quarry’s End brings up enough as it is.”

“Does she know about you and Peter?”

He seemed unruffled, though concerned by my sharpness. “To Melanie, Peter was a saint. She was shattered by his accident. He had somehow managed to keep his hustling from her, and I wasn’t going to throw dirt on his life.” He rubbed his face. “I didn’t want to tell her.”

“About you or him?” My hostility had reawakened; I was suddenly suspicious about Barrie’s relationship with Mel.

He remained calm in the face of my attitude. “About either of us. Mostly I was concerned about her. Peter’s drowning left a hole inside Melanie that she filled in destructive ways. I wanted to give her a chance to find herself. I had planned on living with both of them, you know, not just Peter.”

He seemed to be looking inside himself. “It’s impossible for people to understand that, despite the sex, my relationship with Peter was primarily paternal. My relationship with Melanie has only been paternal.”

“‘Paternal’ is a hard word to swallow.”

He smiled resignedly. “Then don’t swallow. All I can tell you is what I know.”

He ignored my visible discomfort. “Until Darryl, I simply avoided enduring relationships. For a long time I was afraid Melanie might interpret closeness with anyone else as abandonment.” A frown passed across his face as he considered something in the past, but all he said was, “There were incidents which reinforced my fears.”

He wandered into idle thought, then returned to the conversation. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never viewed my years with Melanie as a sacrifice. Our relationship embodies what Peter had only promised. I love her more than I could have imagined loving anyone. She supplies a center to my life I hadn’t thought possible. It hasn’t been a sacrifice, it hasn’t been altruism. It’s been an honest, loving relationship.”

“Was Darryl the reason she left home?”

“Not at all. I thought it important that Melanie be on her own. We both did. It’s one thing for a middle-aged man to live a quiet, work-and-home sort of life, another for a woman in her prime.

“Like any father”—he glanced at me to see if I resisted his description—”I wanted her to have what I didn’t. I wanted her to have an advanced degree. I wanted her to have a career.” He smiled ruefully. “I wanted her to have a family.”

He paused, a dark look passing across his features. “I had my own agenda as well. The brief time it took me to get involved with Darryl left little doubt of that.”

I walked over to the small refrigerator and got two more beers. “Can you stoke that thing?” I pointed to the fire.

Jonathan threw another log onto the low-riding flames. “I forget how cold it gets when the fire dies.”

His last sentence echoed in the windowless room. “In a way that says it all. For so long, Melanie was enough. Last year, after she moved into her apartment, I met Darryl. It was a surprise to realize I still wanted more from my life.”

My mind flew to Melanie’s unpacked crates. The move had been more difficult for her than he either realized or acknowledged.

Barrie returned to his seat. “It was a shock to discover I could still have romantic feelings for someone. When we decided to live together, I felt like hell about getting something out of life that Melanie didn’t have. After a while the guilt faded, but the excitement remained. Until now.” His voice trailed off as he stared at the fire.

Before I could speak, Jonathan added quietly, “All this comes as a shock, doesn’t it? Is that why you don’t want to get involved?”

I thought for a long moment, then shook my head. “I don’t want to investigate because it’s useless. And because I am involved. You don’t want to push it with Melanie and neither do I. Doing what you ask would rub her face in something that will lead nowhere.”

My words registered. “Is there something between the two of you?”

“Something.” I frowned, then added, “I intend to find whoever it was that tried to run me out of The End. Darryl may have been a rung on a ladder I’ll need to climb. If I turn up anything funny about his accident I’ll let you know. But, Jonathan, I honestly don’t expect to.”

“What do you expect?”

“I think whoever tried to run me out of The End is drug connected. I expect I’ll discover more about Darryl’s life, not his death.”

“Will you tell me about that?”

I ran my hand across my eyes. “Melanie doesn’t need you walking around wounded any longer than necessary.” I leaned forward and picked up my jacket. “Let it rest, Jonathan. It’s hard enough to deal with the death of someone you love without digging into the truth of their life— especially a hidden one.”

I caught him eyeing me closely, but I’d run out of comfort. I stood up and pulled my jacket on. He stayed seated and said in a wondering tone, “Did you ever feel that things couldn’t be what they seem?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s the quality of Darryl’s death. I’m afraid it will drive me crazy not to know why he died. Maybe, why they both died.”

The “they” bothered me too. Every time I came up for air, Blackhead’s story papered the wall. And I couldn’t get the seams straight. But that was my problem, not Jonathan’s.

“If something comes up, Jonathan, I’ll tell you.”

He nodded in silent agreement. The fire had damped down, and the chill crept back into the room. Jonathan sat lost in his grief. I finished my beer and pulled my jacket tighter. It was time to leave.