Murder in Pastel (27 page)

I went home to work. But after a few minutes I rose and went to the bookshelves, thumbing through my father’s astronomy books. I remembered him pointing out the constellations to me on clear midsummer nights; hand on my shoulder, facing me toward the stars.

“Did you know the full moon of each month has its own name?”

“What’s the July moon called?”

“July’s moon is the thunder moon.”

He had all the answers, my father. He knew things no one else knew, and his deep voice resonated in my subconscious as the voice of supreme masculine authority. I had never really known him. Never understood him, but how I had admired him. His strength, his confidence, his utter self-sufficiency.

And how I had loved him.

A square of butcher’s paper fell out from between the pages of star charts and photographs. A keepsake of the man who kept nothing.

Curiously, I unfolded the paper.

I stared at it for a long time, till the colors prismed through the tears blurring my vision. It was a child’s drawing: red and yellow monster fish swimming and smiling in a navy-blue ocean. No sign of budding artistic genius there.

I turned over the yellowed paper. In my father’s crisp, black hand was written,
Kyle, age 5
.

Author’s Note

Murder in Pastel
was started around the same time as
Fatal Shadows
. Originally it was written for my own amusement and there was no intention to publish it -- especially since I had used so many of the same themes and motifs (not to mention actual bits and pieces) of
Fatal Shadows
. But it remained one of my personal favorites, and I simply liked it too much not to share it.

Initially, I self-published using the pen name “Colin Dunne.” Later I sold the story to an indie publisher. Both times readers instantly recognized the Lanyon writing “voice,” and it seemed best to let the novel go out of print. So I did.

But
Murder in Pastel
belongs in the Lanyon catalog, and so I’ve had it re-edited and I’ve commissioned a wonderful cover by Johanna Ollila that brilliantly echoes Giorgio de Chirico’s “Mystery and Melancholy of a Street”.

I hope you enjoy the return of one of my favorite stories.

About the Author

A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author JOSH LANYON has been writing gay mystery, adventure and romance for over a decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and novels, Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including
The Hell You Say
, winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT Fiction. Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.

Find other Josh Lanyon titles at
www.joshlanyon.com

Follow Josh on
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, and
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.

If you enjoyed these stories, check out the following titles, also by Josh Lanyon:

Novels

The ADRIEN ENGLISH Mysteries

Fatal Shadows

A Dangerous Thing

The Hell You Say

Death of a Pirate King

The Dark Tide

Stranger Things Have Happened

The HOLMES & MORIARITY Mysteries

Somebody Killed His Editor

All She Wrote

Other novels

This Rough Magic (A SHOT IN THE DARK Series)

Fair Game (ALL’S FAIR Series)

The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

Mexican Heat (with Laura Baumbach)

Strange Fortune

Come Unto These Yellow Sands

Stranger on the Shore

Novellas

The DANGEROUS GROUND Series

Dangerous Ground

Old Poison

Blood Heat

Dead Run

Kick Start

The I SPY Series

I Spy Something Bloody

I Spy Something Wicked

I Spy Something Christmas

The IN A DARK WOOD Series

In a Dark Wood

The Parting Glass

The DARK HORSE Series

The Dark Horse

The White Knight

Snowball in Hell (DOYLE & SPAIN Series)

Winter (HAUNTED HEART Series)

Mummy Dearest (XOXO FILES Series)

Other novellas

Cards on the Table

The Dark Farewell

The Darkling Thrush

The Dickens with Love

Don’t Look Back

A Ghost of a Chance

Lovers and Other Strangers

Out of the Blue

A Vintage Affair

Lone Star (in
Men Under the Mistletoe
)

Green Glass Beads (in
Irregulars
)

Blood Red Butterfly

Everything I Know

Short stories

A Limited Engagement

The French Have a Word for It

In Sunshine or In Shadow

Until We Meet Once More

Icecapade (in
His for the Holidays
)

Perfect Day

Heart Trouble

In Plain Sight

PETIT MORTS (SWEET SPOT Collection)

Other People’s Weddings

Slings and Arrows

Sort of Stranger Than Fiction

Critic’s Choice

Just Desserts

Merry Christmas, Darling (Holiday Codas)