Boy Toy (30 page)

“Isn’t that great?” repeated Thad.

Tentatively, I directed my answer to Kwynn. “Well, it’s a bit risky, you know.”

She laughed, but it carried warmth. “You sound like my
dad
, Mr. Manning.”

“Dads worry. It’s our nature.”

Kwynn and Thad pattered on, but I was stuck on the comment I’d just made—I’d referred to myself as a dad, and it had rolled off my tongue as naturally as tomorrow morning’s headline. This was something of a watershed moment, and I had no way of sharing its significance.

Pierce seemed to understand that I was “dealing with something,” so he helped carry the conversation, asking questions about the colleges Thad and Kwynn mentioned. Their answers reinforced that they were in this together, and in my mind’s eye, I saw them sitting there, talking, a few years down the road, married, with a baby. A
baby
? I’d barely gotten comfortable with the notion of
myself
as a father—now this quick, precipitous leap into grandfatherhood.

“It’s in California,” Kwynn was saying to Pierce as she handed him a pamphlet that she’d pulled out of her purse. (Bag? Tote? Rucksack? God, I felt old—even my vocabulary was failing.)

Thad said, “Mrs. Osborne, our director at Central, told us about it. It’s a brand-new arts college, not even built yet. It opens
next
fall, after we graduate.”

California? I knew that Thad would soon begin applying to colleges, and I assumed that he’d want to get away from home. Since he was serious about theater, I figured, Northwestern has a fine program. Maybe the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. Either way, he could still drive home for a weekend whenever he wanted. If he needed a bit more distance, well, Yale is hard to beat. Sure, he could go Ivy League—if they’d have him. But California? It’s two thousand miles away. He couldn’t
get
any farther within the contiguous forty-eight.

“Oh, yeah,” said Pierce, pushing back from the table to look at the brochure. “Desert Arts College. I’ve read something about this. Glenn Yeats, the computer-software tycoon, apparently thought it was time to ‘give back’ to society. Dipping into his billions, he’s building, from scratch, a complete college campus dedicated to the arts. It’s already under construction in the Palm Springs area, near one of his homes. The facility itself will be first-class, and money is no object when it comes to raiding top faculty from other schools.”

Kwynn dabbed her lips, having finished her lunch. “That’s why Mrs. Osborne told us about it. This really important director has just agreed to move out there from New York—from
Broadway
—to be in charge of the new theater program when it opens a year from now.”

“Who is he?” asked Pierce.

I wasn’t really listening. I didn’t really care. I was sure there were better theater schools—established schools with long-earned reputations for excellence—much closer to home.

“It’s not a
he
,” said Kwynn with a laugh. “The director is a woman.”

That caught my attention. Could it possibly—?

Thad told Pierce, “Mrs. Osborne says she’s the very best. Ugh, what’s her name? It’s short. Something like… like…”

“Claire Gray?” I asked.

“That’s it!” both Thad and Kwynn responded.

“Of
course
,” said Pierce, “she’s a playwright too. A few years back, she wrote
Traders
—it was a hit on Broadway and became a hot movie.”

Thad asked me, “Then you already know about her?”

“Sure, I know about her. I also happen to
know
her. She was in Chicago a couple of years ago and attended the housewarming party that Neil and I gave at our loft. In fact”—I paused for effect,
dramatic
effect—“I danced with her.”

Kwynn was wide-eyed. “
Really
, Mr. Manning?” Thad seemed no less surprised. Pierce cocked his head skeptically.

“Yes,
really
.” I laughed. “Just because none of you have ever seen me dance with a woman doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” Sitting back, I added, “Claire thought I was pretty good.”

Pierce asked, “So it’s ‘Claire,’ huh? You’re on a first-name basis.”

“We are,” I stated flatly.

“Hey”—Thad thought of something. “You could write our letters of recommendation, Mark. Kwynn and I would be
sure
to get in.”

“Hold on,” I said, suddenly not so smug. “We don’t know
anything
about this school—it isn’t even
built
yet. And it’s halfway around the world.”

From the side of his mouth, Pierce reminded me, “It’s four hours by plane.”

Thad said, “You too, Sheriff. Can we count on you for letters?”

Pierce was obviously flattered, but he took his cue from my reticence. “Once everyone’s decided on the schools where you should apply—of course, I’d be happy to recommend you. Both of you.”

Both Thad and Kwynn were getting googly over these prospects when Nancy came to the table with Berta. Nancy lilted, “I hope everyone saved room for you know
wha-aat
,” as Berta began clearing dishes.

Great, I thought. Just what the kids needed. Get a little sugar in them, and they’d be bouncing off the walls.

Dessert, it turned out, was a sensible concoction of mixed berries, heavy cream, and a drizzle of booze, so the fructose was blunted by the alcohol. By the time we left the restaurant, Thad and Kwynn were still bubbly, but short of hyper. Out on the street, they thanked me for lunch and the earlier office tour, then took off together to check on weekend reservations at the theater office, leaving Pierce and me to walk back to the
Register.

Along the way, Pierce asked, “Was it just my imagination, or is there something going on between Kwynn and Thad?”

I shrugged. I sighed. “Beats me. It seems they’re closer than I thought. Whether it’s friendship or romance, I can’t tell.”

Pierce laughed softly. “Chances are, neither can they.”

“God. They’re talking about going off to
college
together. I wonder if Neil has picked up on that.” We were walking past his office, and I could see that he had not yet returned from his lunch meeting. My question would have to wait.

Pierce and I continued voicing these idle speculations, but as we approached the door to the
Register
’s lobby, he stopped speaking in the middle of a thought, reached inside his jacket, and unclipped the pager from his belt. Peering at it, shading it from the sunlight with his hand, he told me, “It’s Vernon. I can call him from my car, or we could go up to your office.”

“Let’s go upstairs.” I opened the door for him. Entering, I waved to Connie, and we climbed the stairs.

Leading Pierce across the newsroom, I headed straight for my office without greeting staff or snooping at the city desk. Glancing up, Lucy noted my rushed entrance, and deducing correctly that there was a development on the Jason Thrush story, she followed Pierce to my office.

I waved her in. “The coroner just paged Doug—toxicology, I assume.”

Pierce was already dialing from my desk. A few seconds later, he said, “Yes, Vernon. What have you got?”

Pierce listened, nodding, then said, “Hold on a moment, Vernon. I’d better take notes.” So he sat at my desk, clicked his pen, and began writing on a pad that I kept near the phone.

Lucy and I glanced at each other, antsy for information, while Pierce scribbled, occasionally asking for spellings. His half of the conversation revealed little, though, consisting mainly of mumbled uh-huhs and okays. At last he said, “Thanks for putting a rush on it, Vernon. I’ll see you later this afternoon.” And he hung up the phone.

Lucy and I both stared at him with an expression that asked, Well…?

He looked over his notes briefly, then summarized, “Toxicology tests have revealed the presence of choline and muscarine in Jason’s remains, pointing to poisoning by the mushroom known as”—he squinted at his writing—“fly agaric.”

I tossed my hands in the air. “Frank Gelden was right on the mark. Just last night, he told me that if Jason died from mushrooms, it was probably fly agaric.”

Pierce continued, “Since fatalities from this species are rare, and since the mushrooms themselves were not found in the victim’s stomach, the circumstances are deemed highly suspicious. Vernon will issue his final report later today.”

“Unless I’m mistaken,” said Lucy, “the Jason Thrush case has moved up a notch.”

“Yes, indeed.” Pierce stood. “Jason’s routine postmortem has just launched a murder investigation.”

AUG. 8, DUMONT WI—IN
a report issued late yesterday, Dumont County coroner Vernon Formhals concluded that Jason Thrush, 17, died last Friday as the result of mushroom poisoning. Circumstances surrounding the tragic death point to foul play.

Dr. Formhals told the Register, “The mechanism of death was respiratory failure. Toxicology revealed the presence of choline and muscarine in the boy’s body, which produced deadly complications to a common cold.”

The toxins are associated with a species of mushroom known as fly agaric (
Amanita muscaria
), which is found locally at this time of year. However, a large amount of these mushrooms would have to be ingested to prove deadly, and under analysis, the victim’s stomach contents did not include mushrooms.

“Because these particular toxins act quickly,” explained Formhals, “the mushrooms would still have been in the boy’s stomach had he accidentally eaten them. The presence of these toxins, then, is highly suspicious. As there is no circumstantial evidence suggesting suicide, we can only conclude that the manner of death was homicide.”

Dumont County sheriff Douglas Pierce is leading the police investigation, which is already under way. He told the
Register
, “Several leads are being actively pursued, but there are currently no firm suspects.”

Pierce cited the perplexing biology of the boy’s death as a formidable hurdle to unraveling the mystery. “We’ve isolated the telltale toxins,” he said, “but they left no sign of the mushrooms themselves. How, then, was Jason Thrush poisoned?”

The victim was a student, athlete, and actor who would have entered his senior year at Unity High this fall. His death on Friday occurred a mere two hours before he was to appear in
Teen Play
, the current production of the Dumont Players Guild.

I
AWOKE TO A NOISE
, not startled, but simply aware that I was no longer sleeping. Though my mind was not fully alert, my brain tried to analyze what I’d heard while assuring me that its source was benign. A flushed toilet? A distant car? A single, light cough or snore from Neil? Then I heard it again, but more distant. Smiling with the satisfaction of a mystery solved, I knew that the morning paper had landed on my porch, then another copy had landed next door. The
Dumont Daily Register
was peppering the town.

Rolling onto my back, I saw that it was not yet dawn. Beyond the French doors on the far wall of our bedroom, the sunporch was washed with a gentle bluish light, not from the sun, but still from the moon.

Close your eyes, I told myself. Go back to sleep.

But my sleep that night had been restless at best. It was now official: Dumont had a murder on its hands. A killer was at large, and due to the timing of an adolescent spat, a number of locals believed that the killer was Thad. When the town awoke today and read my own front-page story detailing the coroner’s report that Jason Thrush had in fact been murdered—and that the bizarre weapon was poisonous mushrooms—fuel would be added to the smoldering suspicion that already whorled around Thad, suspicion that could well ignite into an ugly public outcry.

Close your eyes, I told myself. Such fretting is neither logical nor warranted, at least not yet. Go back to sleep.

But sleep was now impossible. At best, I could simply try to rest, to store a bit of energy for a day that promised to be difficult. And there was no point in disturbing Neil. Glancing to my side, I saw him in the dim, ambient moonlight, sprawled under the sheet, one leg fetchingly exposed. I stifled the tremor of a gentle, silent laugh, recalling his performance the night before, out on the sunporch. Making good on his promise to surprise me with a gift of ecstasy, my “fantasy masseur” had done that and more—he had reminded me that everything I wanted, I already had.

These pleasant thoughts, I knew, could not erase the vexing Jason-and-Thad issue, but they did provide a respite from my worries, and I must have dozed. Minutes escaped me, and my head rolled on the pillow. A lazy eye drifted open, aimed at the doors to the sunporch. Still no daylight. Still only moonlight. Still, it seemed, a midsummer night. Somewhere in that netherworld between waking and sleeping, between thinking and dreaming, I relived the pleasures of the previous night, when mushrooms had danced.

Neil appeared—buffed and ready and crisply dressed in white. Announcing his payback, he said no more. With a gesture, he invited me to the sunporch, where he’d arranged a bench like an altar for the purpose of physical, manual worship. Oiling his hands, he touched my body, starting with my head, exploring every inch. He both lulled and excited me. Relaxed and stimulated, I rode waves of emotion that stemmed as much from the mind as from the groin. Ultimately, though, it was indeed the groin that was the focus of his attentions, the focus of my waning consciousness. The orgasm, when at last it came, was both eerie and wonderful—eerie because it seemed to draw life itself from me, yet wonderful because I surrendered it so fully and willingly to Neil. He watched with a woozy smile as I thrashed beneath his hands. A moment later, he thrilled me with the sight of his own ejaculation. Then we kissed. It seemed like hours. But finally, my erotic massage was over.

And the cleanup began. Neil was drenched with sweat, my entire body was an oily mess, and we were both splattered with semen so thick, it was gummy. We laughed at ourselves; Neil even apologized for my unctuous condition as we both attempted to towel me off, but with little success. I needed a shower, but even that left a slippery sheen on my skin—oil and water don’t mix. While Neil had acquitted himself superbly at mimicking the ministrations of a professional masseur, this last detail, in truth, fell short.