The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (7 page)

“What overwhelming generosity,” Albert muttered.

Once he had pulled out of the parking lot, Fletch said, “Meanwhile, Caroline is phoning HQ to see how long we can borrow you for.”

“You didn’t see fit to ask me first?”

“I figured this is the sort of case you joined the Bureau to solve, and you’re loving every minute of it.”

“Let’s get two rules straight, Idaho Joe: you don’t make asinine assumptions about me; and you minimize your morbid interest in my life and my career.”

“You’re an interesting person, Albert. Surely you’d be the last person to disagree with me on that score.”

“Your lack of control is alarming.”

“Yeah,” Fletch agreed. “But, persistent as I am, a person can only take so much rejection. The woman I was seeing dumped me
in absentia
. Said she had her own life to lead, which is fair enough  -”

Albert asked, “Am I supposed to care?”

“She was so pretty, had a beautiful smile. I loved making her smile.”

“You think all women are pretty,” Albert informed him. “You lack discrimination.”

Fletcher grinned. “Yeah, I do, don’t I? Guess I just adore women.” Then he heaved a sigh. “It would be nice if they adored me back, mind you.” He received no reply. “Rejection,” Fletch repeated, looking across at his companion. “You’re not much better, you know. I figure I’m going to stop asking you out to dinner one day.”

“I can but live in hope.”

“I’m harmless, you know. My only motive is friendship.” Fletch laughed. “The anticipation of a friendship, to be more precise.”

Albert cast him a dry glance. “I hardly suspected anything else.”

“Well, you’re not going to frighten me away like you do everyone else.”

“Two rules only. Do I have to repeat myself?”

Fletch laughed again. “All right. A truce is declared.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” the man bit back.

“Are you Scott? Drew Harmer’s friend?”

The boy looked from Fletch to Albert and back again. He was abruptly scared, as if he guessed at the news they brought. “Yes.”

“I’m Special Agent Fletcher Ash, this is Mr Albert Sterne, from the FBI. Can we come in? We need to talk.”

“You’ve found him, haven’t you? Drew. Is he  -?”

“Let us come in,” Fletch said gently.

The boy suddenly sobbed, backed away, and the men followed him into the room he’d once shared with Drew. Albert shut the door, stayed there while Fletch went to sit by Scott on one of the beds.

“I thought it wasn’t that, all this time I was hoping Drew was happy, he found what he wanted.”

“What did he want?” Ash asked.

The storm had already passed, though Scott still shook in reaction. He was silent for a while, catching his breath, then he stood up and walked to stare out of the tiny window. “The usual things, I suppose,” he said distantly.

Fletcher remained seated, studied the boy’s profile. He prompted, “Tell me.”

“You see, I didn’t think he was dead.”

“You’ve been keeping something secret for him, haven’t you?”

Scott whispered, “Yes.” He might have cried again, but perhaps decided to save it for later. “Drew went to meet a man that night. I  was hoping he’d moved in with him. He didn’t come to get his records and things, his family did, but I thought this man might have given him  -”

“Why didn’t you tell the police that at the time?” Albert snapped.

“It was Drew’s business!” Scott protested. “His family were so horribly straight, he made me promise not to tell them
ever
. He thought they’d fuck it all up, drag him back home. I  mean, he thought this was it, this was what he’d wanted  - Did he, I mean was he  -?”

“He was tortured, raped and murdered,” Fletcher said. “Maybe that night, and maybe by this man you say he went to meet.”

“Oh hell,” the boy moaned.

“It wasn’t just Andrew Harmer’s business, you little moron,” Albert said, “it was Brett Jones’ business, too. He died, and another boy we don’t have a name for yet, who’s lying in the morgue waiting to be claimed. And if you’d told anyone at the time, the man might have been stopped before he reached them.”

“Oh fuckin’ hell  …” The sobs began again.

Fletcher moved to stand close to the boy. “Just tell us what happened,” he said quietly.

“Drew met this man that afternoon. Drew was gay, you see. And this was his big chance, he’d never been with anyone before. He was so  … high.”

“Where did they meet?”

“I don’t know. On a street somewhere. Drew was walking, and this guy drives up, and they talked.”

“What sort of car did he have?”

“I don’t know, honestly, I don’t know. Black, it was - but Drew really didn’t say any of that. He thought the guy was rich, thought he’d set Drew up sweet.”

“If Drew thought the man was rich, could that be because of the car? Drew knew about cars, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did. Maybe that was why, or maybe the clothes he was wearing.”

“All right.” Fletcher cast a glance at Albert. “Now, what did the man look like? Drew must have told you whether he was handsome.”

“Just that - big, he said, and handsome. Big, and good for  …” The boy went to rummage through the drawers for a handkerchief.

“Good for what?” Fletch asked after a moment.

“For cuddling.” Scott groaned. “Hell, this is terrible.”

“Yes, it is. What were they going to do? Dinner, or a club, or a movie, or what?”

“They were just going back to his place. Watch the baseball or something, and - you know.”

“What else did Drew say?”

“I don’t know anything more. Except the man knew what he was doing. Suave. Drew was all a-flutter, he wasn’t in any state to tell me much.”

Albert commented sourly, “Some first date.”

Scott pleaded, “I thought all this time Drew was happy.”

“Did you really?” Albert asked.

The boy shuddered, and Fletch dropped an arm around his shoulders. “All right, that will do for now. Scott, I  want you to come down to the Bureau offices tomorrow morning, in the Federal Building - do you know it? We’ll get this down on paper. And think hard in the meantime, try to remember if Drew said anything else, a comment or a joke or any little detail.”

“Okay,” the boy said.

“Now, is there anything of Drew’s that you kept? Anything he didn’t want his parents knowing about?”

Scott went to the wardrobe, dug into a pile of clothes. “We had a couple of books - you know, gay books. Are you going to tell his parents?”

“We’ll probably have to.”

“Here.
Maurice
was his favorite.” The boy cast a sad lingering glance over the novels. “They’ll hate it, his folks - him being gay, I  mean. Serves them right. Anyway,” he continued, “there wasn’t anything else. With Drew, it was all in here.” And he indicated his chest, his heart, with a clenched fist.

Albert rolled his eyes at this display.

Fletch gave the boy a business card. “Come and see me tomorrow, around ten.”

“All right. Can I have the books back sometime? And do you think they’d let me have Drew’s records?”

“I don’t know,” Fletch said distantly, and walked to the door.

Albert broke the silence. “You’re here to get an education. Take responsibility for that, and quit wasting your life with day-dreams and pop music. Prince Charmings are as extinct as the dodo bird. Your friend Drew should have known that.”

Scott seemed stunned. Fletch asked, “Is there anyone we can ask over, someone you can be with?”

“Adam, in the next room,” the boy whispered, and he walked with them, slipped in through his neighbor’s door when it opened.

Outside the building, Fletch said, “That was severe. He’s just a kid.”

“It was the most sense that butterfly’s heard for years.”

“You have a rather self-defeating way of helping people, Albert.” But, Fletch reflected, at least the man tried.

After a moment, Albert asked, “How did it make you feel? Lying to the child this morning about her brother being in heaven.”

“It was a white lie. Necessary.”

“Most of society’s interactions are white lies. But not therefore necessary.”

“The rules don’t go both ways? I  have no problem with you showing a morbid interest in why I think what I think, Albert, and I’d like us to get to know each other better - but fair’s fair.”

There was a silence. Fletch added it up: Albert valued honesty, but when that conflicted with his precious privacy, the truth lost.

“Why don’t we continue this over an early dinner?” Fletch suggested.

“I thought you were going to stop asking me.”

“Give it a rest, Albert - I’m hungry, and I could do with a drink right now, that’s all. Then we can head back to the office and get some more reports started.”

Albert said, “That would be fine.” The venom in him soured the words.

Perhaps the rules did apply both ways. They sat in silence over dinner, Fletch more interested in the wine, and Albert apparently not hungry. Fletch was mulling over all they’d learned that day.

“So,” he said at last, after the waiter had cleared away their plates, “this man sees a boy walking, a  good-looking boy, and pulls over to talk. The man is confident, attractive. The boy’s suspicions are quickly put to rest, even though the man’s built large and strong, even though he’s picking Drew up off the street as if he were a prostitute. The man appears rich, drives a nice black car - is that a classy four-wheel-drive, or is it his town car? He probably has good clothes, a good haircut, maybe wears jewelry. He asks Drew home for the evening, they’re going to watch the baseball on the television - we’ll have to check the programming for that night. He’s very plausible, persuasive. And Drew thinks all his dreams have come true. They agree to meet later.”

“Why didn’t the offender take him home right away?”

Fletcher shrugged. “He didn’t want to frighten Drew until he had him safe. Or he had to prepare for what he wanted to do. Or Drew wanted to go and change his clothes, or tell Scott his good luck, and the man didn’t risk insisting.”

“If either of the brats had any sense, this never would have happened.”

“True enough. And if Scott wasn’t so loyal, or if Drew had thought his parents a little more tolerant, we might at least have been on the trail right away.”

“Both too naïve for their own good.”

“Do you think the offender liked that?”

“Speculation,” Albert reminded him.

“Yes. Perhaps he liked that Drew was expecting romance, perhaps he liked devastating a virginal bright-eyed kid. The fear in the kid’s face when he realized that Prince Charming had betrayed him.”

“There’s no need to sound like you relish the idea.”

“It’s not that I relish it - but I can empathize with the man who did.”

“A distinction so small as to be meaningless.”

“It’s not something I’m comfortable with, but my instincts and intuition enable me to do this job. I  use it.”

“We’ve had this conversation before, Ash.”

“And you didn’t believe me. Do you now?”

“It’s probably nothing more than an overactive imagination.”

“Albert, I’ll avoid making unjustified assumptions about you but that’s the only rule, okay? And you can do me the same favor.”

Silence again. Perhaps Albert wasn’t used to being challenged, or to anyone showing such a persistent interest. After a while, Albert began talking about the case, going over ground already covered, but that tacit agreement was enough. Fletch smiled.

“It’s been six months since you found the bodies,” Caroline said. Her tone of voice was overly reasonable, gently insistent, as if she were trying to make a willful child see logic for the first time. She was sitting beside Fletcher, rather than behind her desk. “Two months since the bulk of the task force was stood down. A year since the first boy died.”

“Drew Harmer,” Ash murmured.