Boy Toy (11 page)

“Damn.” Neil bit a nail. “Carl’s been good for Rox. I’ve known her since college, and she needs to settle down—emotionally, I mean.”

“Surely you’re not hinting at the M-word.” My tone was facetious, but in fact, neither one of us believed Roxanne would ever marry. She was simply too independent, a quality I found at once admirable and maddening.

Neil reminded me, “After two years of regularly sharing a bed with Carl, Rox still maintains her own apartment. No, marriage isn’t her style, but she needs Carl’s support, his maturity.”

“Don’t tell Roxanne that. She’s sensitive about their age difference. She doesn’t want it looking as if she’s ‘dating Dad.’ ”

Neil smirked. “They’re twelve years apart—he’s only fifty.”

I hugged him from behind, resting my head on his shoulder. “I hope you’ll be that charitable a few years down the road when
I’m
‘only fifty.’ ”

He snorted. “Don’t count on it.”

Then he turned around and kissed me, and I felt like a kid.

Roxanne phoned me from her car that morning to say the weekend traffic out of the city was clogged with vacationers heading north; she was running later than she’d hoped. So we abandoned our plan for a casual lunch at the house, and she would drive directly to the
Register
’s offices for our meeting with Sheriff Pierce.

“Will Lucille be there as well?” she asked.

“She’s my managing editor,” I reminded her. “The Jason Thrush case could develop into a major story. I hope not, but the paper needs to be prepared. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” She laughed. “See you at two, Mark.”

The reason Roxanne had asked about Lucille Haring is that neither woman was the “marrying type.” While this would seem to imply that they had a great deal in common, in fact they did not. For Roxanne, wedlock seemed unlikely owing to her sheer independence; Lucy was also the independent sort, but more to the point, she was a lesbian.

They had first crossed paths two years earlier at a party Neil and I had hosted in our Chicago loft. Mixed signals (i.e., Roxanne’s new summer haircut, a short-cropped bob) led to faulty assumptions, and Lucy propositioned Roxanne. The misunderstanding was quickly righted, leaving Lucy mortified and Roxanne magnanimously forgiving—which only served to convince the mannish Miss Haring that there was still some shred of hope in her quest for the stylish Miss Exner.

So when I climbed the stairs from the
Register
’s lobby that Saturday afternoon and entered the second-floor newsroom alone, it didn’t surprise me that Lucy looked up from the city desk, noting, “Oh. I thought you were bringing Roxanne.” The comment was spoken offhandedly, but its undertone was clearly crestfallen.

Suppressing a smile, I told her, “She’s on her way, just running late,” and I slipped into my office to check my desk.

I found the usual assortment of memos, circulation reports, story proposals, and mail, but nothing needed my attention over the weekend, so I sat back for a moment, surveying the quiet hubbub beyond the glass wall of my outer office. The newsroom was staffed by a skeleton crew that afternoon, as Saturdays are always slow for news, summers sleepier still. For once, I realized, I was not annoyed by this torpor. Both by training and by instinct, I had an itch for action—the point of newspapers, after all, is
news
—but just then I had little taste for the late-breaking or the hard-hitting. So far, Jason Thrush’s death, though tragic, was merely “unexplained.” There was no assumption of foul play. And I wanted it to stay that way.

These musings were interrupted by the sight of Roxanne, who had just climbed the stairs and was zigzagging toward my office through the maze of newsroom desks, followed by Lucy. Roxanne wore a smart white summer pantsuit that, miraculously, appeared to have survived the long drive without a wrinkle. Lucy also wore pants, as was her habit, but they were drab-colored, of vaguely military styling, which gave her the look of a redheaded Texaco attendant.

I rose from my desk and met them in my outer office, greeting Roxanne with a kiss. “Rough drive?” I asked.

“Bumper-to-bumper all the way up to Milwaukee. But then it thinned out.”

Lucy offered, “Can I get you…water or anything?”

Roxanne tendered a wan smile. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Then let’s get comfortable,” I told them, gesturing that we should sit. The space outside my office had been intended for a secretary, but unlike Barret Logan, the previous publisher, I had not found need for one, relying on the downstairs receptionist for phone duties. So the small anteroom was put to good use as a conference area.

We settled into the upholstered chairs that surrounded a low table. Lucy unloaded an armful of files she’d carried from the newsroom; I unclipped the pen from my pocket and readied a notebook; Roxanne set her gray leather handbag on the floor. I was collecting my thoughts and about to speak when the phone warbled. Having grown used to these interruptions, and having grown tired of running back to my inner office to take the calls, I’d recently had an extension of my line installed here in the conference room. “Excuse me,” I told the ladies as I answered the phone on the center table.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Manning. It’s Connie downstairs. It’s time for my break, and I wondered if you’re expecting anyone.” On weekends, the lobby doors to the street were kept locked, and visitors needed to be buzzed in.

“Thanks, Connie. The sheriff is coming, but we’ll cover for you. Go ahead.”

As I hung up the phone, Lucy asked, “Buzzer duty?”

I nodded. “Do you mind?”

“Nah.” With a smile, she stood, excused herself, and left for the lobby.

Leaning toward Roxanne, I told her, “Thanks for rushing up here today. The situation with Thad isn’t quite a crisis, but the—”

“Mark,” she interrupted, leaning forward, mirroring my posture, “as I mentioned on the phone last night, I really think we need to talk. As for Thad, well of
course
I’m more than happy to offer legal advice, moral support, or whatever it takes. Meanwhile, though, I’ve been dealing with some…issues. And you and Neil are really the only guys I care to turn to with this.”

Pointedly, I asked, “What about Carl? Or is Carl the, uh, ‘issue.’ ”

Sitting back, she nodded—it was a tiny wobble of the head, barely perceptible, but it spoke volumes.

She didn’t seem prepared to offer more, but since she herself had steered our discussion to this topic, I asked, “Where
is
Carl this weekend? We haven’t seen him in a while.”

Again she nodded. “Springfield, naturally.”

I shrugged, minimizing the implications of his absence. “He’s a deputy attorney general. It’s no surprise that he needs to spend time in the state capital.”

“No, Mark”—she wagged a hand—“it’s not just the time in Springfield. It’s—”

“Wait,” I told her, my turn to interrupt. “Here comes Lucy with Doug Pierce. Maybe we should continue this later.”

“Thanks, Mark.” She smiled. It wasn’t clear if she was grateful for the warning or the offer to talk later or both.

I stood as Pierce crossed the newsroom and walked into my office with Lucy. “Hey, Doug,” I told him, “thanks for coming over on a Saturday.” I shook his hand, but also pulled him close in something of a half hug, a body brush.

He clapped my shoulder (he’d always been much more adept than I at that sort of guy stuff), quipping, “I’m a public servant, Mark. Your wish is my command. Though I must repeat”—his look turned serious—“this meeting strikes me as unorthodox at best.” Then, turning to Roxanne, he smiled, bowing his head. “My favorite barrister.” And he shook her hand warmly, clasping it with both of his.

“Hi, Doug,” Roxanne answered, sounding suddenly chipper, “nice to see you again.” Her grin betrayed the lusty interest she’d always had in him, even since the previous autumn, when our speculation was ended and we learned unequivocally that, yes, Pierce was gay. No doubt about it, Roxanne had a habit of falling for gay men (Neil and me, for instance, before she introduced us), which is why both Neil and I had greeted with cautious optimism her evolving relationship with Carl Creighton—the proper, well-bred, divorced, old-school sort of Brooks Brothers legal genius for whom the term straight had been invented. If things were now deteriorating between Roxanne and Carl, I shuddered to think how she might react to their failed romance, fearing she might revert to her old self-deceptive (and self-destructive) exploits.

Equally unsettling were the odd cross-dynamics now at work in my outer office. Lesbian Lucy was pining over straight Roxanne, who was off-limits, while Roxanne entertained visions of undressing the openly gay sheriff, also off-limits. Pierce’s inscrutable libido was, as always, kept well in check, while I couldn’t help wondering (just wondering) if he ever thought of me “that way.” The whole setup defined the very notion of sexual tension.

“So,” said Pierce, “what have we got?” He, Lucy, and I joined Roxanne, sitting around the table.

I began by summarizing, mainly for Roxanne’s benefit, “At a rehearsal last Wednesday, Thad and another young actor, Jason Thrush, got into a verbal pissing match. Jason started it. Thad ended it by paraphrasing a threatening line from the scene they’d just rehearsed—Thad told Jason that he ‘may not live till opening night.’ Sure enough, last night, Jason didn’t make it to the theater, Thad stepped into the leading role, and minutes after Thad’s triumphal performance began, Jason’s fright case of a sister found Jason at home, dead of unknown causes. Right after the show, as soon as news of Jason’s death got out, speculation began to spread that Thad had made good on his promise.”

Roxanne looked toward the ceiling, thinking. “So then,” she said, “you’ve got two distinct problems. First, how did Jason die? And second, how do you shift the focus away from Thad?”

“Precisely.”

Pierce cautioned, “I need to keep an open mind about this, Mark. That second question is your concern, not mine.”

Lucy skipped past that, saying, “The cleanest, most obvious answer to the second question is simply to answer the first. Once it’s shown that Jason died of natural causes, which I assume to be the case, any question of Thad’s possible involvement disappears.”

I told everyone, “That’s exactly how I hope it’ll play out, but for Thad’s sake, it needs to happen fast. Good God, I
know
Thad didn’t kill Jason, and I have no doubt that the facts will exonerate him—eventually. By then, though, some serious damage may be done.”

Roxanne didn’t understand my concern. “You mean his…‘reputation’?”

“No, not at all. Well, sort of. Look, in the last year, Thad has managed to pull himself out of a nasty adolescent funk. Now he’s taking school seriously, he’s making friends, and he’s getting ‘into’ things—most notably, theater. Suddenly, his newfound friends are turning against him, thinking him capable of murder. That’s
bound
to put a crimp in his ego. And if the investigation drifts on inconclusively for a few weeks, as it often does when toxicology is involved, this whole mess will follow Thad back to school—at the start of his senior year, no less.” Frustrated, I paused to rub my forehead. With a sigh I concluded, “He just doesn’t need this, not now. He’s at a vulnerable juncture in his life. I don’t want to see him hurt.”

I must have sniffled—Pierce leaned over and patted my arm. There there now.

He said, “I want to get this wrapped up as quickly as you do. But you’re right, Mark—the investigation of a death that’s merely ‘suspicious’ can indeed drag on because we simply don’t know what we’re looking for. So you might want to bring your own investigative talents to the fore. My own limited police mission at this point is to determine the cause of Jason’s death, which may not go far enough or fast enough to serve
your
mission of clearing Thad of suspicion before the gossip gets out of control.”

I must have sniffled again—now Lucy was leaning to pat my other arm, a warm gesture inconsistent with her usual no-nonsense manner, her stiff bearing.

She told me, “I’ll do whatever I can, Mark. Depend on me. Besides, this is sure to make a great story. After all, we could
use
a few scorching midsummer headlines, and if, in the process, we also get Thad off the hook, all the better.” She sat back in her chair and jogged the pile of manila folders she’d brought from the paper’s morgue. “The sheriff’s right—we
don’t
know what we’re looking for, but it’s never too early to start digging. I’ve pulled everything we’ve got on the Thrush family as well as the Thrush business. There’s quite a bit, but I’ll study it all, and when I’m through with that, I’ll get busy on the computer.”

This was the Lucille Haring I’d known, respected, and hired. She was a loyal, dedicated worker, a skilled researcher, and a peerless computer wiz. Her rare bouts of ditsiness erupted only with Roxanne on the scene, and even now, with the object of her desire mere inches away, Lucy was back in control, telling me things I needed to hear.

Not to be upstaged by this outpouring of support, Roxanne rose from her chair and glided around the table, stopping behind me. She placed her hands on my shoulders and told the others, “I’ve known Mark longer than anyone in this room, and I’ve never known him to back off from the challenge of righting a wrong. As a reporter, as a man, and now as a father, he’s been tireless in the unpuzzling of perplexities, whether petty or dastardly. This I tell you: if foul play has
again
wounded the collective psyche of fair Dumont, Mark Manning will not rest till truth be bared, justice served. To this same end, I pledge the assistance of my own meager skills. Behind him I stand.”

Puh-leeze. Screwing my neck, I looked up into her face.

“How was that?” she asked.

“Plastic. Mawkish. Inflated to the point of insincerity.”

“Take it or leave it, bud.”

Bending my head, I kissed her fingers on my shoulder. “Thanks, Roxanne.”

She fluffed the hair on my temples, then stepped back a pace, crossing her arms. All business now, she asked, “Where are we?”

Pierce reviewed the known facts: “Jason Thrush was found dead at home by his sister shortly after eight o’clock last night. Based on the observed condition of the corpse, Vernon Formhals estimated the time of death to be a few hours earlier, between five and six. For the previous several days, Jason had exhibited symptoms that were assumed to indicate a bad summer cold. He was found fully clothed, lying facedown on his bed; we don’t know whether he collapsed there or if he had lain down, then died. The body showed no signs of physical trauma, and the room showed no signs of a struggle. How did Jason die? In short, it’s a mystery.”