Are You Nuts? (8 page)

“What has?” I asked.

“Feuds, petty jealousies, some real dislike. Now it's all turned to hatred.” Stephanie was well launched. She wouldn't need much prodding from me. “See, the Quigleys and the Muffins belong to the same Baptist church. They were newcomers back when this town was mostly Episcopalians and Lutherans. People weren't particularly prejudiced, it's just that they were outsiders, a lower class of people. That feeling is gone mostly, but there is still a residue. That's just one example. Those past angers, hatreds, and feuds come out in the open once in a while. Particular events have brought it out more strongly at certain times. Forty years back there was a mayoral race that was very unpleasant. About twenty years ago there was a stink about a prom-queen election. People hardly remember reasons anymore. They do remember discord and anger.”

“Half of the time the fights were about silly nonsense,” Agnes added.

“But taken very seriously by those involved,” Stephanie said. “Then in the last school board election, Belutha, Lydia, and their faction decided to commit themselves to winning at all costs. Those of us who had been around a long time rallied against them. We were happy when the union got so involved.”

“You saved all of us,” Agnes said.

Stephanie continued, “What you don't know is that there are splits among their faction. Belutha and Lydia don't care for each other that much. Their families used to take vacations together, but they had a falling out. There have been a few public displays of anger among their own kind. Also, we heard there was at least one school administrator who was involved and that Jerome was in the middle of all this. He cared passionately about who won the school board election, and he was furious with the union for endorsing the other candidates. He hated Meg. He was also angry with the way Lydia and Belutha conducted themselves during the school board election. He didn't think they acted with enough class and dignity. He thought there were strategies they should have adopted. Jerome was running for union president to turn everything around. He wanted to ruin the union.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“I picked up bits and pieces here and there and put it together,” Stephanie said. “I'm sure I'm right. He believed in sneakiness, secrets, and lies behind your back. He'd never confront anyone openly.”

Agnes nodded to back her up.

“Is there anybody else you know who could add to what you told me?”

“That's why we didn't want to tell the police. There really isn't one source. You have to know the people involved to come to the correct conclusions.”

Which meant they didn't have a direct source. They could be making it all up, or it could be terribly distorted gossip, or it could be valuable information.

Stephanie concluded, “We know the three of them were very angry at each other. I'm sorry we can't be more specific.”

“Do either of you know anything about Jerome's family?”

Agnes said, “From watching all the crime shows on television, I know you have to always look to the family first. I don't know them personally.”

“Nor I,” Stephanie said.

“I can check it out later.”

“The important thing is that those people disliked each other so much,” Agnes said. “You have to look at each of them very carefully.”

I promised I would. I got up to leave and Agnes rose with me.

At the front door she said, “Did you know I was the second president of the union?”

“No,” I said.

“Yes, I helped found it. Unfortunately, the first president was completely incompetent. There was a contested election and she lost.”

“Anybody I know?”

“It was Beatrix Xury.”

“I didn't know that.”

“It was long before you were hired. We're talking about ancient history here. I'd been in the district only a couple years at the time. It must have been Beatrix's third or fourth year of teaching. She was one of the ones who led the charge for the union, but she was running it into the ground. A few of us rallied around to save it. I love the union. In a contested election, I beat her. The administration gave me a hard time for a few years about my union activity, but I survived and so did the union.”

I thanked her for her information and left.

I certainly hadn't been aware of most of what they had told me. The most disturbing thing was Jerome's plan for the union. I wondered if Kurt had known about Jerome's secret opposition during the school board election. Someone deliberately working against the group was serious stuff. That Beatrix was an early founder of the union and a loser in a tough election was news. No wonder she was bitter about the union and impossible to deal with.

 

By the time I got home it was nearly five-thirty. I decided to take a nap. Serious napping is an art I excel at. I woke at seven. Scott wasn't home. I called the airport and they said the plane was an hour late. I tidied up the house a little. Scott is a neatnik and I'm a slob, but I like to have all the loose stuff picked up off the floor and all the books in the bookcases and the magazines in neat piles.

After that I got a twenty-four-by-eighteen-inch piece of construction paper from my office. I keep a supply of basic school materials at home. I sat at the kitchen table and began making a chart of everyone's movements the night before. I put all the names I had so far down the long end of the rectangular paper and then the times in fifteen-minute intervals along the top.

At eight-thirty, the buzzer rang. Scott had installed a super-high-tech security system including a gate far down the road that could only be opened by someone pushing a button in the house or with the remote control devices both of us carry on our key rings. The buzzer always rings whether it is opened legitimately or not.

I looked through the camera, as he always insisted I do. I saw a black limousine. The back window rolled down, and I saw Scott give a brief wave.

I left my chart. From the front door I watched him give the driver a tip. By the time he got his suitcase out of the trunk, I had reached the car. Ignoring the driver, who was pulling away, we hugged fiercely in the humid night. The light from the door framed our embrace. I felt his legs and torso slump against mine.

“It's so good to be home,” he murmured. I held him until the buzz from the intercom interrupted us. The driver wanted to be let out. I hurried to the control panel in the house. I opened and closed the automatic gate.

Scott put a tape of several early Judy Collins albums on the stereo. He turned off all the lights and lay down on the living room couch. I sat down next to him. He scrunched forward and put his head in my lap. Through the picture window we could see the masses of stars in the early-evening summer sky. Light from a full moon streamed through the windows into the house.

“It's so beautiful,” he said. “So restful.”

I stroked his chest.

“You hungry?”

“They fed us on the plane.” He nuzzled closer. “I don't ever want to move from this spot. I am so exhausted.”

“How was this morning's interview?”

“I'm not sure I remember. I think it was one of the nicer ones. I do know I just don't care anymore. I don't want to think. I don't want to lift a finger.”

Holding, touching, caressing a six-foot-four baseball player is as sensuous as everybody imagines. I'm the one who gets to touch the stud athlete after the cameras are gone and the crowds have gone home. I know that sounds prideful, but loving him deeply was the foundation on which my actions were based. I know half the gay men and plenty of straight women would be hugely envious, but right then I was more concerned with being able to touch and soothe him. I opened his shirt and caressed the blond down on his chest. He shut his eyes. It was just so comforting to have him home. At that moment, I didn't want him to ever leave again.

Sometime later he muttered, “This is perfect.” He turned so that he was lying on his side, his cheek resting on my abdomen, and his arms now encircling my torso. He hugged me tightly. I returned his pressure. He moved his torso back a little and unbuttoned my shirt. He began caressing my chest. I leaned down and kissed him.

 

An hour later we lay on the floor staring out at the moonlight and stars. He was twining his fingers through the hair on my chest. “That was even more perfect,” he said.

I murmured, “Yes. Did you want to go to bed?”

“I'm not sleepy.”

“Me neither.”

“An ice cream snack?”

“We have chocolate-chip-cookie dough and extra-chocolate syrup. I made sure there was an adequate supply.”

“Saint Tom.”

I pulled on my jeans and he donned his white Jockey shorts for our date with the ice cream. We moved my chart to the other half of the kitchen table. I leaned over close to him to set out the ice cream. I love the way he smells—faint hints of his aftershave, sweat, and sex. A mixture of masculine and mellow. We both ate out of separate half-gallon containers.

“What's this?” he asked, pointing with his spoon at my work.

I explained about Meg.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “I didn't ask about what was happening with you.”

“Helping you through this is more important than school. I like Meg a great deal, but you come first.”

“Getting us both through all this publicity is important. You're half of it.”

“You're the star.”

“Yeah, well, shit happens. How have you done on helping Meg out?” He examined the chart as I talked.

“She gets out on bail tomorrow. I've got to go to court. School starts the next day.” I explained what had happened so far. I finished with Trevor's request for a date.

He said, “If this were a story, we could call it ‘A Groupie for Tom.'”

“He's pretty in a kid kind of way. I prefer a real man. The big problem is I don't like him.”

“Not a solid basis for an affair.”

I leaned over and kissed Scott.

“You need bail money for Meg tomorrow?”

“You want to come with me? Todd said we could work it out down there.”

“Sure.” He pointed at my chart. “You don't have Meg on here.”

“Well, of course not. She didn't do it.”

“Her movements need to be on here anyway, don't they? And how do you know she didn't do it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She's our friend, but look at what's happened with all this gay controversy. We've seen friends and family do nutty stuff. People we've never expected to support us have. Others we thought would be great have turned their backs on us. You don't know the interrelationships between all these people. How do you know she didn't do it?”

“She's a friend. I know her. She wouldn't.”

“Did you hear her say she didn't kill Jerome?”

“No.” I thought back to my talk with Agnes in the police station. “Agnes didn't say specifically. Maybe, like me, she just assumed she didn't do it.”

“I hate to say this. I like Meg too, but what if she did do it?”

“That just sounds so absurd.” My mind rebelled against the concept, but now that the seed was planted, I knew I had to check it out.

“I don't think you can leave anybody out unless you are absolutely certain they have an ironclad alibi.”

“I'll keep everybody on the list.”

“What if it wasn't somebody who was at the meeting?”

“I don't see how we could interview everyone not there. That would be several billion people. I have to start somewhere. I'm going to call Frank Murphy in the morning and see if he can't give me some hints from the police perspective.”

“If I can help, let me know.” He yawned.

We put the leftover ice cream away and walked arm and arm to bed. We crawled in, but it was quite a while before we were finished and ready for sleep. I dozed off with his arms around me and my head on his chest.

When I awoke, it was still dark. Looking out through the picture window in our bedroom to the new forest, I saw the moon had set. I reached for Scott in our king-sized bed, but he wasn't there.

The bathroom door was open, but there was no light on. I didn't hear or see him. I threw on some jeans.

I found him in the living room. He was sitting in a corner of the couch. The stereo was on low. I could hear the music playing softly. He was listening to a compilation tape of the saddest and most mournful, overwrought, melodramatic country-and-western songs of the past thirty years. He had put it together from hundreds of CDs. He listened to it mostly when he was deeply depressed.

He looked up when he heard me come in. I sat on the arm of the couch next to him. He wore only his briefs.

In the light of the stereo I could see a tear on his cheek.

I held his hand. “What's wrong?”

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I love you.” He rose and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows. He stood with his feet widespread. He placed his palms flat against the windows and leaned forward. He looked totally studly, but I was worried. I followed him and stood next to him.

“What is it, Scott?”

“When I was a kid and realized I had feelings for guys and not girls, the strongest wish I had was to be normal. To wish I didn't have those feelings. Over and over again I wished for a magic potion to make me straight. I haven't thought about that for a long time, until tonight. I can handle pressure. You know that.”

I've seen him pitch some spectacular games of baseball in pressure-cooker situations including no-hitters in the World Series.

I put my hand on his shoulder.

He continued, “I hate all this publicity and pressure. This being emotionally on the edge with half the world discussing my sexuality. I just don't want to take it anymore. I don't want to do any more radio or television shows. I want to stay here with you and hide.”