Adrien English Mysteries: A Dangerous Thing & Fatal Shadows (41 page)

The mattress springs squeaked, the wooden frame creaked. Jake’s hands closed on my hips. He redirected his efforts, thrust harder, deeper and hit the spot that sent exquisite sensation crackling through me. I cried out. Jake was grunting fiercely in time to the bang of the headboard against the wall. I gripped hard and felt him stiffen.

“Oh, baby,” he groaned. His body went rigid, his face twisting in distressed delight. I felt him come hard, hot seed shooting into me.

Startled, I realized that I was coming too. Twice in one evening. It had been a long time since that happened.

“Adrien ....” His voice shook. His arms slid under me, gathering me against him. I wrapped my arms around him, and we rocked together while our bodies played out, cocooned in warm and sticky closeness.

* * * * *

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I turned my head. Jake leaned on the doorframe of the long front room observing me going through my bi-monthly exercise routine.

“Tai Chi,” I informed him, palms resting on the floor. Last night he’d had plenty of opportunity to evaluate my limberness firsthand.

“Looks a lot like ballet.”

“I took ballet. This is Tai Chi.”

“You took ballet?” Jake sounded horrified. He stopped scratching his sun-browned belly.

“Your mother is an example of why people should have to have a license to have kids.”

I straightened up. “Lay off my mother.”

“Ballet but not the Boy Scouts? It’s your mother’s fault you’re queer.”

I exhaled fast, serenity vanishing in a puff of morning breath.

“Listen, asshole -- and I use the term deliberately -- my mother is not the reason I’m queer. If she’d opted for the Boy Scouts or military school I’d just be a different kind of queer, okay? Secondly, I don’t know that ‘fault’ is the right word. This is how God made me.

You are how God made you. All God’s chillun are how God made ’em. You think God made a mistake, take it up with Him.”

I scrubbed my face with my towel, threw it at Jake, and stalked off to the shower.

By the time I was bathed and groomed and feeling like my normal mild-mannered self, Jake had breakfast on the table. I don’t know if this was a peace-offering or he simply didn’t trust my cooking after the night before.

“French toast?” I said doubtfully.

“The breakfast of champions. You want jam or shall I melt brown sugar for syrup?”

That sounded fairly ghastly. I said, “Maybe just coffee?”

My much-maligned mater couldn’t have looked more disapproving. I got my coffee with a plate of French toast spread thickly with crab-apple jelly, and Jake sat down across from me, elbows propped on the table. He applied himself to his vittles as though someone were paying him a bonus to finish ahead of schedule.

I said, “I thought I’d do some research in town this morning.”

He nodded, not glancing up from his plate. “Watch your back.”

Now that struck me as a little too disinterested. I speculated on what Jake’s plans might be?

“Eat your breakfast,” he growled.

I washed the sweet toast down with a mouthful of hot coffee while I reconsidered.

Maybe he was trying to ditch me, but these days the majority of detective work is done by computer. Let Jake try his way, and I’d try mine.

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Josh Lanyon

* * * * *

There was a newspaper morgue, but it only went back ten years. Everything earlier had been shipped to the library where it had been copied on microfilm.

That was the story at The Basking Express anyway. The library had a different story.

“We never got the funding,” Miss Buttermit, the rhinestone librarian informed me.

“So nothing is on microfilm?”

“Oh, it’s not so bad as that. We were able to copy the newspapers back to ... well, circa the 1920s.”

“What happened to the newspapers before circa the 1920s?”

Miss Buttermit’s pale eyes flickered behind the kitschy glasses. “They’ve been preserved.

To an extent.”

“To what extent?”

“To the extent that they are bound in hardcover in the basement.”

I asked tentatively, “Would it be possible to --?”

“Only library personnel have access to the basement,” she regretted firmly.

I thought this over.

“What was it you were looking for, Mr. English?”

That was the crux of it. I did not have a theory; I did not really even have a hypothesis.

Basically I had a hunch.

Handing Miss B. some meaningless response, I headed for the computers, and spent the morning pouring over microfilmed copy of The Basking Gazette, getting the Gazette’s spin on such world-shaping events as Vietnam, Gandhi’s assassination, and the completion of the Cascade Tunnel.

I read my great grandfather’s obituary, and the announcement of my grandmother’s engagement to Thomas English. Rolls of 35mm film later I read my grandmother’s obit.

Interesting but not germane. If my hunch was right, the answer I was seeking was buried in the distant past, buried deep with the crumbling foundations of the early days of Basking Township.

I went out for a cup of coffee and returned to the library.

“Who do I have to talk to about getting access to the volumes in the basement?” I asked Miss Buttermit.

“You would have to call the Head of Reference and make an appointment. We have to know why and to what purpose you wish to examine those old and fragile research materials.” Her faded eyes blinked suspiciously at me from behind the cat’s-eyes lens.

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I said, “I’m a writer. I’m researching a book.”

She repeated as if by rote, “If I knew exactly what you were looking for?”

A voice behind me exclaimed, “Adrien, what are you doing here?”

I turned at this interruption to find Kevin standing there looking surprised and delighted all out of proportion to the circumstances. He wasn’t the only one; Miss Buttermit’s expression was close to beaming.

“Hey, Mitty,” Kevin greeted her.

“Why, Kevin!”

I answered Kevin’s question, glad to see that he was still at large, at least for the moment.

“I’m trying to get access to the old newspapers in the basement.”

“No problem,” said Kevin. Then he caught Miss Buttermit’s eye and looked guilty. “Oh.

Is it a problem?”

“Apparently.”

“Now, Kevin,” Miss Buttermit cautioned. “You know there are channels.”

“Yeah, but Adrien is ...” Kevin seemed at a loss how to classify me. “How about this,” he suggested suddenly, “I’ll go downstairs with Adrien and take responsibility for the papers?”

I opened my mouth to say that wasn’t necessary, but shut it again. Maybe it was necessary. I sure wasn’t having any luck on my own. I watched Kevin work that hopeful puppy dog look for all it was worth.

“This is a great responsibility, Kevin,” Miss Buttermit observed after a moment, but she took a key off her Mrs. Danvers-like key ring and handed it over.

I followed Kevin past the water coolers and restrooms down two flights of stairs. Kevin unlocked the basement, and we stepped into a room as crisp and smelly as the vegetable bin in a refrigerator. I waited till Kevin pulled the chain to turn on the ceiling bulb. Garish light bounced off faded green walls and a cement floor discolored by water stains.

“Holy --” I didn’t finish the sentence. There were filing cabinets, a few broken shelves, a chair minus a caster, but mostly there were books. We were surrounded by boxes and boxes and boxes of books.

“I think the newspapers are over on those metal shelves.”

I stepped over a box of books stamped “Discard,” steadying myself with one hand on the metal shelf stacked with hardbound volumes. The shelf wobbled alarmingly. “I wouldn’t want to be here in an earthquake,” I remarked.

“Yeah, really. But nobody ever comes down here.”

I opened the cover of the nearest book.

A glance verified that we were indeed looking at the earliest editions of The Basking Gazette.

“These aren’t indexed,” Kevin announced. “What are we looking for?”

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Josh Lanyon

“Any reference to the Red Rover Mine.”

He looked up, interested. “Why’s that?”

“It’s just an idea.” I studied him. I liked Kevin, but I respected Jake’s opinion. Jake had a lot of experience when it came to bad guys. “Kevin, did Livingston call at all during the time he was supposed to be away from the dig?”

His jaw dropped. “He was dead,” he reminded me.

“I realize, but what I mean is, did anyone call saying they were Livingston? Or did anyone at the site claim to have heard from Livingston?”

Kevin had a weird expression. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “He did call in -- or at least we thought he did.”

“Who took the calls?”

Kevin shook his head. “Amy? Marquez? I’m not sure. There were written messages a couple of times.”

“Whose writing?”

“I’m not sure. No one questioned the notes.” His eyebrows drew together. “Shoup seemed to be in contact with him. That’s what we all thought anyway.”

I tried another approach. “What’s the deal with this mine? Why is everyone so interested in it?”

Kevin spluttered, “You’re the one who wants to look through old newspapers. Don’t you have a -- a --”

“Plan?”

“No. A -- a --” He gestured over his head.

“Theory?”

“Yeah, a theory. Do you honestly think one of us killed Livingston? Why? Because of some mine we couldn’t even know we’d find?”

“Did anyone have any problem with Livingston? Anyone argue with him?”

“No. We all admired the man. We all liked him.”

“Who didn’t?”

“Nobody! He was ...” Kevin shook his head. “He wasn’t the kind of person who gets murdered.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was a ... a scholar and a gentleman. I guess that sounds corny. Archeology was his passion, but he loved teaching. He loved sharing his knowledge, and he made the past come alive. He made archeology a lot more than old bones and broken pottery.”

I sat down in the broken chair, which tilted drunkenly, and began to thumb through the pages of the volume I held.

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Kevin said suddenly, “Did anyone ever tell you that you sorta look like that old actor?”

“Old actor?”

“Well, I mean he wasn’t that old. Not back then. He played the priest in that Hitchcock movie.”

“I remind you of an old priest ...”

Kevin chortled. “You know who I mean. He was really good looking.”

“For an old priest.”

“Yeah.” Still chuckling he pulled a volume off the shelf and sat down on a box across from me.

“Hey,” he said after an hour of silent reading, “This is about the sinking of the Titanic.

‘Mr. Hubert Duke, a resident of Basking, was aboard the doomed vessel,’” he read aloud.

“Pretty cool.”

“Chilling.” I glanced up. “When was the Titanic? 1912? You’ve got to go back a couple of decades.”

“Basking was founded in 1848.”

“Royale came west in 1849. We’re probably looking for something circa the 1850s.

When did Royale die?”

“Beats me.” Replacing one volume on the shelf, he pulled out another. “This could take forever,” he muttered.

I was afraid he was right.

Another hour passed, and Miss Buttermit brought us coffee in foam cups and a plate of Fig Newtons.

“What’s this mysterious hold you have over Miss Buttermit?” I asked Kevin, brushing crumbs off my hands.

“Hmm? Mitty? She’s a sweetheart, isn’t she? She’s one of us.”

“One of us?”

“Gay. Well, lesbian.” He grinned at my expression. “She’s not out or anything. People of her generation can’t be.”

“They can’t?”

“Not in a small town.”

I was still mulling over that as Kevin lowered his gaze to the page before him. “Listen to this, Adrien. ‘Abraham Royale dead at forty-five.’”

“What’s the date?”

“September 11th 1860. Have you noticed, that there are editions missing?”

“I was hoping it only seemed that way because they’re not indexed.”

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“No, look how the dates jump around in this volume. It looks like someone tore out an edition.”

I examined the volume. Sure enough it appeared someone had taken a razorblade to several pages.

“Where else might there be copies of this paper? The local college?”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe not everything was saved. Maybe some copies were lost or destroyed. This stuff is pretty fragile.”

Gently I turned another yellowed page. History was literally turning to dust beneath my fingertips.

“These pages were here. They existed and someone removed them. Why?”

“It could have happened years ago, Adrien.”

I took the volume from Kevin and scanned it. In brief, Abraham Royale had died after sustaining a head injury in a fall down his grand staircase. There had been no witnesses to the accident, and Royale had never regained consciousness. He was survived only by his estranged wife, Alicia Royale, née Salt.

“Salt.” I looked up. “Where have I heard that name before?”

Kevin, his mouth full of Fig Newtons, shook his head.

“‘Estranged wife?’ Weren’t they divorced? She ran off with the blacksmith, didn’t she?”

“Maybe he wouldn’t give her a divorce,” Kevin replied thickly. Jake was right, he did have freckles on his nose. Like gold dust. Kissable.

“Maybe. Maybe she pushed him. It sounds like he left a considerable fortune.” I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “Salt! That’s it. Barnabas Salt was the name of Royale’s partner in the Red Rover mine. Alicia must have been his daughter.” I considered this. “That must have made for some awkward moments around the sluice boxes.”

“Salt was already dead by the time Royale married his daughter.”

“How do you know?”

“It said so in the obit.”

I continued reading. Kevin was correct. Salt had been killed a couple of years earlier in a shootout with Mexican bandits. “This would be interesting to read about,” I said. “See if you can find the story of Salt’s shootout with the banditos.”