7
TWILIGHT WAS just descending over Blue Jay Drive, when I pulled into Cindy’s driveway at nine sharp. She was waiting for me on the front stoop, her chin on her knees and her hands wrapped around the legs of her loose white dress. Even in her brown study she was more than pretty. It had been a while since I’d met a woman who made me feel like she did—just to look at.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, stirring as I came up the walk.
“And you,” I said, smiling at her.
She reached out a hand, and I helped her to her feet. “I’ve had Mason’s brother and sister here all day.”
“How was that?”
She shrugged. “They’re nice, rich, stupid people who want to feel bad but don’t know how. Neither one of them has an inkling what Mason’s adult life was like. They cut themselves off from him once they learned he was gay, so the only good memories they have are of him as a child. That’s what they talked about, mostly. What a good swimmer he was. How kind to animals and other children. Actually they were just exercising their nostalgia, remembering themselves as kids, trying to work up a little honest grief. It was depressing and a little revolting, too.” She sighed. “I’m probably being unfair. I’ve been feeling disappointed with people anyway, lately.”
“It’s normal. You’ve suffered a loss.”
“Have I?” she said with a cynical smile. “What have you lost when you don’t know the person who’s been taken from you well enough to realize that he’s on the verge of taking his own life? Harry, I lived with Mason for three years. I saw him almost every day of those three years. This is something—” She threw her hands to her head and combed her fingers through her curly black hair, pulling it back savagely from her face. “How could I not know that something was this badly wrong with him? What kind of person is that blind? And what kind of person would keep this kind of pain secret from his lover?” Dropping her hands, she shook her head disgustedly. “Anymore, I don’t know if I knew Mason at all. Or myself.”
I tried to look sympathetic, following the etiquette of mourning like friends are supposed to do when people die. But the truth was that she was right about her lover—he was a jerk to have abandoned her like he did—and she was wasting her emotions trying to figure a motive that he himself probably hadn’t fully understood.
“I’m sorry to lay this on you,” she said, brushing her eyes with her sleeve. “But I’ve had to play the gracious widow for the last three days. And I’m tired of it. Come inside.”
I followed her through the door into the narrow living room. A half-dozen folding chairs had been set up by the couch and along the window side of the room to accommodate the mourners. Paper cups and plates were scattered on the floor. A stack of fresh plates sat on a card table near the kitchen hall, along with a coffee machine and the remains of a tea ring.
“I know it’s a mess,” the girl said, staring morbidly at the room. “There have been a lot of visitors here. A lot of Mason’s friends from school. A lot of current and former students. It’s funny how many people loved him.”
“Why funny?”
She dropped down heavily on the couch. “Because he obviously didn’t know it, or he wouldn’t have done this terrible, stupid thing.”
I sat across from her on the stuffed chair. “The way that other people felt about him may have had nothing to do with why Mason killed himself. You yourself said he’d been troubled.”
“Troubled, not suicidal.”
Cindy Dorn shook her head. “What the hell happened, Harry? I know Mason had problems. Maybe more than the usual allotment. He worried about AIDS. He worried about being bisexual. He was deathly afraid of cops. But he was not in despair—or no more so than any fairly thoughtful, screwed-up human being is. Hopefulness was his creed.”
“What you said about the cops,” I asked. “What does that mean?”
She flushed as if the question embarrassed her. “Mason had some trouble with the police about six years ago, before I knew him. Sully’s the one to talk to about it. You remember Sully?”
“Vividly.”
“He represented Mason when the charges were brought. It was an ugly, preposterous thing involving a note that Mason had written to a kid at school. Mason was actually locked up for several days before the charges were dropped.”
“He hadn’t had any further trouble along those lines, had he?” I said, trying to make it sound like an innocent question and not succeeding.
Cindy stared at me coldly. “For chrissake, Harry, Mason wasn’t a child molester. The whole thing was a terrible misunderstanding. You have no idea how careful teachers have to be around their students these days. Anyone who works with children has to be careful. You don’t dare lay a hand on one of them for any reason, for fear some vindictive parent will twist it into abuse. In case you haven’t noticed, there has been an epidemic of such charges in this country and in this city. It’s paralleled the growth of AIDS, a kind of fundamentalist AIDS.”
“I was just fishing for a motive, Cindy. Don’t take it personally.”
“I just don’t like stereotyping. People have done it to me, because of . . . well, because I like men. And they did it to Mason all the time. That’s precisely why he was charged, because to the cops all gays are potential perverts.” She leaned forward on the couch and stuck her chin in her hands. “I don’t suppose they found anything useful, the cops?”
“They haven’t really done a thorough investigation.”
“Of course not,” the girl said bitterly.
“It’s not just Mason, Cindy. Suicides are always tough for cops. All the CPD really knows is that Mason died of an overdose of Seconals and alcohol. He apparently did the drinking in a bar called Stacie’s, Monday night.”
“Stacie’s?” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been there.”
I told her the truth. “It’s a gay bar, Cindy. Mason was seen there with two other men. A tall, gray-haired middle-aged man and a younger blond man. The older man drank a lot of Scotch.”
“Del,” she said, falling back against the rear cushions of the couch.
“That was my thought, too.”
She sat with her head to the wall, looking betrayed—the way she’d looked on the night we’d searched Mason’s condo.
I said, “The police didn’t question the two men Mason was drinking with, so it may not have been Cavanaugh. To be honest, the whole inquiry was cursory.”
But she was thinking about the depth of Greenleaf’s betrayal. “Why would he have done that to me?” she said in a heartsick voice. “When he left Del, he went through an agony of remorse and self-recrimination. He didn’t just walk out on him like a stranger.”
“We don’t know what happened, Cindy. The part about Cavanaugh is speculation.”
She put her hands to her face and sat for a moment in silence. “I thought I could let this go. I thought that was what Mason would have wanted—what I wanted. But the fact is I was afraid of finding out the truth. I am still afraid.”
It was my cue, although I sure as hell didn’t feel like picking it up. “I could look into it for you,” I said uneasily. “At least I could find out if Cavanaugh was the one in the bar.”
Cindy nodded. “Yes. I guess I need to know who he was with—and why.”
“The why could be tougher,” I said. “You do understand that this could be painful, don’t you, Cindy? You may not want to know some of things I find out.”
“All I know for sure is that I can’t go on like this.”
“Okay. But try to remember that I warned you.”
I got to my feet, feeling as if I’d gained fifty pounds, as if I’d literally shouldered the burden of Greenleaf’s death like a pallbearer. I could think of all sorts of reasons not to do this thing, not the least of which was the likelihood that, in spite of my warning, Cindy Dorn would end up hating me for what I revealed to her about Mason and herself. But it was a cinch that the cops weren’t going to do any more work. And I didn’t want to send her to a stranger.
“I’ll start in the morning,” I said, as I walked over to the door. “You may want to collect Mason’s effects. They’re in the CPD property room. The cops found his car outside the bar and towed it to the Gest Street impoundment lot. Call Jack McCain if you have any trouble getting a release.”
I went out the door and down the drive, knowing that I’d made a bad mistake. It was going to be Ira Lessing all over again—I could feel it in my gut. As I got in the car, Cindy Dorn stepped out on the stoop. She stood there in the moonlit driveway, while all around us the sleepy yellow brick houses dreamed their pleasant suburban dreams.
“I didn’t say thank you,” she said, coming down by the car. She reached in the window and put her hand on my face. “I’ve been a bitch tonight, and I’m sorry. If Mason were around, I would have taken it out on him. Anyway, I wanted you to know that it was a lucky thing the day I called you. Lucky for me.”
“Let’s hope you feel that way when I’m finished,” I said heavily.
“I will always feel that way,” she said.
Leaning through the window, she kissed me on the mouth. “You know I’m fond of you, right?”
The persistence of her candor made me smile. “I know.” She smiled back at me. “Good. Because I’m depending on you, Harry. You’re about all I can depend on, just now.”
Pulling her head back through the window, she walked up the driveway with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. I watched the woman go inside the house, then sat there for a few moments, liking her and at the same time feeling burdened by the pain Mason Greenleaf and I were bound to bring her.