“POISON? AS IN SOMEONE POISONED HIM?”
“I’m afraid so, Skyler.”
He couldn’t speak. His throat constricted, aching.
“Skyler,” said Keith beside him. “Is that Sidney? Let me talk to her.” He didn’t wait for Skyler to reply. He simply plucked the phone from his hand and put it to his ear. “Sidney, it’s Keith. What have you got?” He nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.”
Skyler watched Keith listening intently but it was only then that the implication of it all sank in. Someone had murdered Lester Huxley! Murdered this man who was a mentor, a father, a friend. The lump in his throat ached deeper, and hot angry tears shimmered in his eyes. How dare they? How dare this unknown person take his friend’s life? He gritted his teeth. Who could have done it? And why? And in so callous a way.
He was breathing hard by the time he tuned back into Keith and heard him say, “Okay then. Do you want to talk to Skyler again?” Keith handed the phone back to him and Skyler white-knuckled it, pressed it to his ear.
“What have you got, Sidney?” he said sternly.
“Not much. Someone slipped poison into his coffee as far as we can tell.”
“Are there any leads?”
“Not as yet. Skyler. Now listen to me. I know this man was important to you but I do not—repeat—do not want you meddling. Do you understand me?”
“Gotta go, Sidney. Bye.”
He clicked the phone off and sat at the edge of the bed. He felt suddenly cold and realized he was still naked. Phone in hand he rose and grabbed his sweats.
“Skyler?”
“Uh huh?” he said absently, disappearing into the bathroom.
“Skyler.” Keith was standing in the doorway, naked, looking down at him with furrowed brows. “What did Sidney say?”
“You talked to her. You should know.”
“No, about…” Keith put a hand to his face and smoothed his palm down his stubbled upper lip to stubbled chin. Taking a breath he raised his eyes to Skyler’s. “I’m thinking that the last thing she probably said was to tell you not to investigate.”
“Uh huh,” he said, running the hot water into the sink and dipping a washcloth in.
“I see.” Keith turned so that he rested his back against the door jamb, shoulder blades framing the molding. After a long interval where Skyler was able to clean himself up, Keith heaved a sigh. “Okay then. Do you have a key to the museum?”
Skyler turned, warm washcloth dangling from his hand. “Yeah…”
“Then get dressed.”
He left the doorway and Skyler trailed after him. “Wh-what…? What are you…?”
“Get dressed. Wear something dark. I’m going with you.”
He blinked until the soaking washcloth dribbled cooling water down his leg, snapping him out of it. “Going with me…where?”
Keith had pulled underwear and socks from the dresser drawer and sat on the bed to sort them out. “To the museum. To investigate. I assume you plan on doing so, correct? I’m going with you.”
“Going with me…to investigate? Going with me? You’re…you’re not going to scold me and tell me to stay out of it?”
“Nope. This person was important to you. I get it. Hurry up.”
“Keith…?” He watched the man dress for a moment more before he couldn’t help it. He launched on top of him, knocking Keith backward to the bed. Skyler straddled him and kissed his cheeks, forehead, and finally his mouth where he spent the longest. “Keith.” Propping his hands and looking down at the man beneath him he shook his head. “I can’t believe…I don’t understand…but I love you so much, you know that?”
Keith smiled. “Yeah. I do. And I know there is nothing I can say that will deter you and so…as I promised a while ago,” he said with a grimace, “I will, um…help you.”
“What about Sidney?”
“We report our findings.”
“Oh my God, Keith! You don’t know what this means to me!” Skyler kissed him again.
Keith sighed and looked up at him with lazy lids. “If you don’t get moving and get dressed we will be delayed…for quite a while.”
Skyler felt that bulge beneath him growing and he quickly jumped off. Investigate now, sex later.
He ran to the closet and excitedly cast each hanger aside. He couldn’t believe it. Keith was going with him. Investigating with him. He and Keith, sleuthing! Sherlock Homo and his own sexy Dr. Watson.
He scrambled to find a dark shirt, shoved his head in and pulled it through the neck. He yanked down a pair of black skinny jeans from its hanger and danced inside the closet, pulling each leg through.
Keith was dressed and poking his head through the closet door. “Dressed yet?”
“Almost. Keith, this is so exciting. You honestly don’t know what this means to me.”
“I think I do. But we don’t do anything dangerous or illegal.”
“Isn’t breaking into the museum kind of illegal?”
“You have a key, don’t you? That’s not breaking in.”
“But I don’t have a good reason to be there. It’s after hours.”
“Weren’t you telling me how worried you were with all those missing items? You’re just double checking something.”
He zipped up and put his hands on his hips. “You know, Special Agent Fletcher, there’s just a smidgeon of larceny in you, isn’t there?”
It looked to Skyler as if Keith were trying not to smile. “No comment. Are you ready to go?”
Skin tingling from excitement as they left the house, Skyler followed Keith out. They got into Keith’s black F-150, and once the engine roared to life, they maneuvered onto Olive Street and drove several blocks into the night, past tall swaying Washingtonia palms, past more rambling Victorian houses in various states of renovation and repair, through pools of street light.
They turned the corner at the back of the museum and Skyler jumped out. The air was still warm and he could easily have stayed in shorts, but then his white legs would have shone like a beacon. “Let’s go in through the back door,” he whispered. Glancing around, he didn’t see anyone on the street and slipped quickly into the shadows behind the building. Keith was right behind him when he clenched the key in his hand. There was a security keypad next to the door and Skyler entered the five digit code before turning the key in the lock. It clicked softly open. He held the door for Keith before closing and locking again.
“We’re in!”
“It’s not like you picked the lock,” Keith said softly.
“I know but it kind of feels like it. Covert and all.”
“You really do enjoy this, don’t you?” he said, looking around.
Skyler paused. Yes, he supposed he did. But then he felt terrible. The only reason they were here at all was because someone killed Lester Huxley. He said nothing as he moved toward the desk and switched on the desk lamp, an old style library lamp with a green glass shade, the same kind Skyler had at home at his roll top desk.
Keith didn’t move. He merely surveyed the office. “What’s that door lead to?” He pointed to the only other door.
“It’s to the museum.”
“Is it armed?”
“No. Only the exterior doors and windows. And I turned that off with the keypad.”
“Is there a record of the keypad entries?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” Keith leaned back and sat on the edge of Lester’s desk and crossed his arms. “Sometimes security locks not only keep a record of when they were entered but by whom.”
“No, we don’t have anything that sophisticated here. It’s just a straight-up alarm system. Open the doors or windows without using the code and an alarm goes off.”
“Hmmm.” Keith reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out two pairs of purple latex gloves. He shook them out and handed a pair to Skyler and then slipped them on his own hands.
Skyler stared at them. “Just out of curiosity, do you always carry these around?”
He smirked. “You never know.”
“Kinky.”
“Quiet, you. Put ‘em on.”
“Why? I work here.”
“Just…put ‘em on.”
“Yes, sir, Special Agent.”
Sighing, Keith turned to him. “I know you’re enjoying yourself but it is serious business. I could lose my badge for this.”
Skyler sobered. “I know. And I really appreciate your, um, helping me. It really means a lot.”
Keith nodded and rose. “So who has a key?”
“Well…me, Lester, Jerome, the board. Everyone, really.”
“All the docents?”
“Yeah. It just made more sense.”
“What about cleaning crew?”
“You’re looking at him. And the other docents.”
“And the code for the keypad? Everyone has that, too, I suppose?”
“I see where you’re going with this. Anyone could have gotten in and stolen that stuff. Dammit. This is so not right.”
“And poisoned Lester Huxley.”
“Oh my God. And everyone knows he uses a Thermos. Even though we have a perfectly decent coffeemaker, he never uses it. He always brings his coffee from home. So that must mean he was poisoned by someone who works here.”
“Not necessarily,” said Keith. “It could still be someone out in public. And it wouldn’t rouse suspicion out in full view because he knew a lot of people. They could have stopped by quickly, slipped it to him, and left just as quickly. No one would be the wiser. But, uh, you’re forgetting a third possibility.”
“What’s that?”
Keith approached the door and carefully grabbed the doorknob. Turning it slowly he pulled the door open noiselessly and peered into the darkened museum. It was stuffy with the air turned off. And hot.
“Well, Skyler…” Keith began. “It was in his coffee Thermos. There is the distinct possibility…that he did it himself.”
“No! No way. He’d never have done that. He was very religious.”
“Okay. I was just putting it out there.”
He walked into the museum and Skyler followed. Keith got out his phone and switched on the flashlight app, shining it around the display cases, careful to keep the beam away from the windows.
“So the sorts of things that were missing. Very expensive?”
“Oh yeah. Christie’s Auction House expensive. Irreplaceable. Someone could get a lot of money for them in the right auction.”
“What about provenance? Wouldn’t it be known they were stolen from a museum?”
“Not necessarily. I mean, if we hadn’t noticed, if someone had written them on the sheet, we wouldn’t scour the auctions looking for them. As it is, I guess the first order of business for me is to inform the board of our findings and start getting the word out.” Skyler stopped. “Oh for crying out loud!”
“What, Skyler?”
He gestured toward a glass case. “Something else is missing. Goddammit!” He pressed himself against the glass. Mary Lincoln’s opera glasses and Tad’s spats. Both missing. “Jesus Christ, this happened today! These were here this afternoon. What are we gonna do?”
“Well the first thing I’d do is install some cameras and keep them hidden. I can help you out with that.”
“This really sucks.” He turned to Keith. “I guess that leaves Lester off the hook. Oh! Do you think the same person stealing these things killed Lester?”
“I don’t know. It’s an awfully big coincidence if they didn’t.”
“It has to be an inside job. But how can it be any of these people I work with? I just can’t fathom it. They loved Lester. It’s not like he caught them at stealing and they hit him over the head. They planned it. They had to go to the trouble of getting the poison and deliberately put it in his Thermos.” He clutched his hair. “I can’t wrap my head around something so diabolical. God, Keith. It’s just…just…evil.”
“I know, sweetheart. We’re doing something about it.”
He looked up at Keith. “Yeah, we are. Thank you again.”
Keith smiled grimly. “The things you’ve noticed missing. Can you see who was on the schedule the day before?”
Skyler’s heart swelled. Yes! They were doing something, and Keith was offering brilliant ideas. His solid calm presence was giving Skyler confidence. “Let’s go look.” He retreated to the office and grabbed his notepad of missing items and pulled the clipboard with the schedule off the wall. He sat in Lester’s old seat without even thinking about it and laid them side by side. Running a finger down the list of items he compared the docents and dates when the missing exhibits.
Skyler sat back in a slump. “Damn. It’s all random. There isn’t any one person on all the days when we noticed an exhibit missing the next day. Except for me…and I didn’t do it.”
“Hmm.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Sidney will question all the docents…or should we?”
“Well, I can’t. But you could.”
“I guess I’ve got to tell her about the missing exhibits. That’s motive, isn’t it?”
“Could be.”
“Shoot. I thought we could do this.”
“We might be able to help in ways Sidney can’t, and still keep it more or less legal. I’ll help you to make sure you don’t taint evidence. I think for now, you can subtly ask the docents about, well, motive. Did they need the money for something? Was there recently a life-changing incident in their lives? That sort of thing. Subtle, Skyler.”
“I can be subtle.”
“Since when?”
“I can. I’ve just never needed to be subtle with you.”
“You can’t let a suspect know you’re on to them. Just make it everyday conversation.”
“Okay. Good note.”
“I’ll see what I can do on the FBI end of things. I’ll have them be on the lookout for the items in auctions. They have a better database for that sort of thing. Get a list to me as soon as you—”
Something slammed against the front door, startling the both of them. Skyler thought something heavy had been thrown against it until he heard, “Police! Open up! Throw down your weapons!”