24

IT WAS past eleven when I pulled up in front of the apartment on Ohio Avenue. There was a light in my bay window that I hadn’t turned on when I left the house. I parked on Warner and walked up through the rain to my door. I could hear Cindy moving around inside, then I saw her through the curtains, as she walked over to the couch. I watched her for a while through the window, liking the fact that she was there—the freshness of it. I liked the way she looked as she cozied up on the couch, tucking her feet under her butt, holding her curly hair back from her forehead, reading a letter she held in her right hand.

As I unlocked the door and stepped into the narrow hall, she dropped the letter, jumped up, and ran over to me, smiling.

I kissed her mouth and kissed her again.

“My Lord,” she said. “That was a nice welcome.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah? I’m glad I’m here, too. I like your things. Your books and records. We had a little get-acquainted chat while I read.”

I glanced at the couch, where a pile of mail was sitting on the cushions.

“I stopped at Mason’s house,” she said, “on my way over here. I just couldn’t stand the thought of all those unopened letters piling up on his porch.”

“I don’t suppose you found one from Paul Grandin, Jr.?”

She gave me an odd look. “Why did you say that?”

I went ahead and told her what I suspected. “I’m pretty sure he had something to do with Mason’s suicide.”

I explained what I’d learned about the first solicitation bust immediately preceding Mason’s arrest, about the money that Mason had been doling out to the boy, about Grandin’s second arrest in late June, about his meeting with Mason at Nine Mile soon after, about the kid’s desperate search for shelter during the week that Mason had disappeared, and about their subsequent meeting at the bar on the night of Mason’s death. The way the case was shaping up, there was no way around Paul Grandin, Jr.—and his relationship with Mason Greenleaf.

As I spoke, Cindy sank down on the couch, staring morbidly at the far wall. “Mason didn’t talk about Paul much,” she said when I’d finished. “But I knew that they were still friends. I even saw him at the house a couple of times, just after Mason and I first met. Once Mason and I started living together, Paul didn’t come by. Still, there was something between them. I’m not sure what. But Mason always acted guilty when Paul’s name came up. At first I thought maybe he had slept with him—sometime that summer after the kid graduated from high school, before he went off to drama camp. But once I got to know Mason I realized it was so out of character for him to do something like that that I began to think it was something else—something that stretched way back into Mason’s past. The kid was very lazy, self-centered, and manipulative, I could see for myself. And Mason was no dummy when it came to being manipulated by lazy, self-centered friends. What I ended up thinking was that Paul reminded Mason of his roommate, Ralph Cable, and that he put up with the kid’s shenanigans as a kind of penance for turning his back on Ralph.”

“Did Mason take the blame in the solicitation case as an act of penance?” I said dubiously.

“Mason was living with Del at that time, so I don’t know what happened there. But Sully used to say Del was very aggressive about being gay. He believed in acting up—you know, coming out of the closet, being gay and being proud of it. Mason was never like that. He was never comfortable being bisexual. He didn’t believe in kidding himself about it, but he wasn’t a proselyte.”

“Are you saying that Del may have had an influence on Paul Grandin?”

“I guess I am,” Cindy said. “Paul used to spend a lot of time at Del’s house. After all, that was where Mason lived half the time. Being around Del, hearing him preach about gay pride, it might have had an effect on Paul, who was apparently very unhappy about himself and very impressionable. This thing about Paul getting arrested the first time in a park—that was something Mason said Del used to do before they met. Go to the parks and have anonymous sex in the public johns. Even after AIDS he used to do it. It was like a point of honor with him. He wasn’t going to be scared out of being who he was or living the life he wanted to live. It was one of the main reasons that Mason broke off with him—he was afraid that Del had contracted AIDS because of his promiscuity.”

I stared at Cindy, and she looked away at the pile of letters sitting beside her on the sofa cushion. She reached over and picked up one of the letters, handing it to me.

“I was reading it when you knocked on the door.”

I stared at the letter, which was written on plain paper and postmarked Columbus, Ohio. It was dated July 19, the Tuesday that Mason’s body was found in the Washington Hotel.

Dear Mason,

I’m grateful for all that you did for me yesterday. Nancy knows I’m here, although she doesn’t know that you helped me, of course. I talked to her late last night on the pay phone. She says she’s going to try to come up and be with me whenever she can. My mother doesn’t really give a damn. And Dad . . . well, you know exactly how impossible that is. I tried to find another way out. Believe me. I went everywhere I could think to go. But nobody wanted any part of me, except, finally, you. I’ve brought you so much trouble, Mason. I hope you’ll find a way of forgiving me for that. If I have to come back, I will. But maybe everybody’ll get lucky and I won’t have to. I tried calling you late last night, too, and didn’t get an answer. I could use some money for smokes and the phone. Nancy’s going to bring some. Maybe you could mail some up. You know the address. I’m sorry about Del. Tell him thanks, too.

Love, Paul

“What the hell?” I said out loud.

“It looks like Mason helped him,” Cindy said. “Or gave him money to hide out.”

“It must’ve been that night in the bar,” I said, knowing that still didn’t answer the question of who the accomplice was that Mason and Paul had been drinking with and Sullivan had apparently contacted, or what he had to do with getting Paul out of town, or why Greenleaf had immediately afterward gone from that bar, up that damn hill, into that hotel and killed himself.

“Who’s Nancy?” Cindy asked.

I assumed that was Paul Grandin, Jr.’s, sister. At least, that’s what I told her.

I took another look at the envelope, but there was no return address on the flap. The kid said that Mason knew the address, but Mason was dead.

I went over to the phone in the kitchen nook, called information, and got Paul Grandin, Sr.’s, phone number. I scribbled it down in my notebook as I hung up. I’d no sooner put the phone down than it rang, startling me and making Cindy jump. I picked it up and said hello.

“Mr. Stoner,” a woman said in a very nervous voice, “this is Marlene Bateman. Sully’s neighbor?”

“Oh, yes, Ms. Bateman. Did he finally get in?”

“Something’s wrong, Mr. Stoner. The police have just called.”

“What is it, Ms. Bateman?” I said, knowing already from the sound of her voice that the man was dead.

Her voice began to shake. “They’ve found Sully’s car on I-71, near King’s Island. There’s been an accident.” She started to cry. ‘‘Sully’s dead. They want somebody to come there to—identify the body. They said they’re having trouble getting him out of the wreckage. Frankly, I don’t think I can do it. I know it’s terribly presumptuous. But I couldn’t think of anyone to call. And since you’re a law enforcement professional, I was hoping . . .”

“I’ll take care of it,” I told her.

“Tell them to take him to Weiderman’s Funeral Home. I’ll . . . make the arrangements.”

******

At first Cindy insisted on going with me. Sullivan was her friend, and she felt an obligation to come along. But I managed to convince her that it was a bad idea. She’d seen enough death already. And she knew it.

“You’ll probably be a while, right?” she said as I got ready to leave.

“Yeah. Maybe you should go home. These things have a way of dragging out, and I may not be back until morning.”

“I’ll stay. It would be too depressing at home with Sully dead, too.” She gave me a questioning look. “You don’t think this has anything to do with Mason?”

“Sullivan said he’d talked to someone who’d seen Mason, and last night his landlady saw him with a guy that fits the description of the older man at Stacie’s bar.”

Cindy tapped her foot nervously. “I don’t like this. It’s frightening.”

“It’s unsettling,” I agreed.

“You know, I haven’t felt scared up till now. Just angry and suspicious. But it’s too strange, Sully getting killed.” She looked around the unfamiliar room and shuddered up her spine. “Paul had something to do with both of these deaths. I feel it.”

“I think we’re going to have to find him.”

“How?”

“Possibly through his sister. She apparently knows where he is—or was, as of a week ago.”

“Why did he mention Del in that letter?”

It was a question I’d wondered about myself. “It’s something else to look into.”

Cindy reached out for me suddenly, grabbing my arm as if I’d lost my balance—or she had. “Maybe you shouldn’t, Harry. Maybe we should stop.”

I sat down on the arm of the sofa and pulled her to me. “Cindy, I can take care of myself. I’m pretty good at it, actually.”

“I know that. But I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you, too, because of Mason. His death is terrible. I regret it, I mourn it. I always will. But I won’t let you get hurt because of it— because of me.” She stared directly into my eyes. “I’m not kidding, Harry. Mason would have felt exactly the same way.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll have to make sure that nothing happens.”

She smiled, but she didn’t look confident.

“This is a part of life I’ve successfully avoided up till now,” she said

“Which part is that?”

“Your part. The dangerous part.”

I smiled. “Living with Mason Greenleaf wasn’t exactly a safe bet.”

“Yes, it was. In most ways it was exactly that. Safe sex. Safe haven. No chance of getting hurt.” She laughed mordantly. “I’m beginning to understand just how unrealistic that whole idea is.”

I stood up and went over to the door. “I’ll try to call, if I can. If you get lonely, the girl upstairs is a good soul.”

Cindy arched an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”

“She’s twenty-two years old. A grad student in English. Her name is Linda Fine. Tell her you’re a friend of mine. My new roommate.”

******

It took me about twenty minutes to make my way out 71 to King’s Island through a driving rain. I spotted the accident a mile before I got there—a cluster of flashers blinking on the left side of the highway, the south lanes going toward Cincinnati. As I got closer, I could see a white car, a BMW 633, sitting in a grassy decline on the far shoulder. A telephone pole was bent above its hood. Two state patrol cars were parked on the embankment, above and below the Beemer. An ambulance with its flashers going was parked alongside it, its back doors open. Flares spilling sulfur yellow sparks at their tips were posted on the highway around the wreck.

I had to drive a few miles north to find a turnaround. Traffic was backed up above the accident, so it took me another fifteen minutes to work my way back down to the BMW. When I got to the first flare, I pulled off on the embankment and parked behind the state patrol car. A cop in a yellow rain slicker came up to me before I could open the door, signaling with his hand for me to roll down the window.

“This isn’t a spot for sight-seers,” he said, giving me a tough look.

“I’m here to identify the body.”

Straightening up, he stepped back from the door. “Watch yourself when you get out.”

I opened the door and sidestepped my way up toward the Beemer. The headlights from the stacked-up traffic flooded the roadway with white light, diffused by the rain and a thin mist crawling along the ditch where the front of the car was sitting. As I neared the BMW, the cop fell in step beside me.

“Is he still in the car?” I asked him.

“No. We got him out and into the ambulance a few minutes ago.”

I glanced at the wreck. There was a star fracture in the front windshield with a hole in its center the size of a man’s head. There was some blood on the glass and on the hood.

“His head went right through it and slammed into the pole,” the cop said, following my gaze. “We think he had a blowout.” Turning toward the highway, he pointed to some heavy skid marks on the pavement. “Anyway, he lost control. He’d had a bad night, so maybe he wasn’t concentrating a hundred percent.”

“Why do you say that about a bad night?”

“There was a fresh speeding ticket in the front seat. He got it just outside Columbus, about nine forty-five.”

“Was there anything else inside the car? Papers, briefcase?”

“Whatever we got is in the ambulance, along with the body.” He cleared his throat uneasily. “You want to take a look?”

I nodded.

Two paramedics were sitting on the rear bumper of the ambulance, smoking cigarettes and talking in the rain. They looked up as we walked over. One of them dropped his cigarette on the wet pavement, stubbing it with his foot, then climbed up into the ambulance. He flipped on an interior light, and I saw the gurney with the body bag sitting on the cobble-metal floor.

The one sitting on the bumper said, “Are you here to identify the body?”

“Yeah.”

He stood up. “Watch your head.” He opened the doors fully and backed away, shielding his cigarette with a cupped hand.

I climbed into the ambulance. The first paramedic was standing at the head of the gurney. Stooping, I went up beside him.

“You’re a friend of his?” he said.

“Harry Stoner.”

He picked up a clipboard and wrote my name down, then reached over and unzipped the top part of the body bag. I took a look and nodded.

“It’s Ira Sullivan.”

The paramedic zipped the bag up over Sullivan’s battered face.

“Did you find anything in the car?” I asked him. “Personal belongings?”

“Wallet, watch.”

“No papers?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Casual way he was dressed, it didn’t look like he was on business. Maybe he was just visiting a friend.”