Death by Dissertation (7 page)

Bruce Tindall, Bella’s “tame commando”—that was Charlie’s epithet, by the way—had been hired by Bella’s father to protect the light (or scourge, depending on your point of view) of his life. The Honorable Frank had run a successful election campaign on his promise to curtail drug trafficking in Houston, and despite the spectacular lack of success of his program, he insisted that his nearest and dearest needed twenty-four-hour protection from the drug lords he supposedly had offended. “Killer Bruce”—yet another of Charlie’s epithets—was the man on the job.

Bruce seemed to be a nice guy, considering that he had to put up with Bella all the time. He was about my height and had similar coloring, but there the resemblance ended. A thirty-five-year-old ex-Marine, he was solid muscle and looked like the star of a martial arts movie. Maggie had more than once told me how gorgeous he was, and I had to concede that I wouldn’t mind trading bodies—but not jobs—with him. I also, as the saying goes, wouldn’t kick him out of bed, though he wasn’t my type.

“What do you want, Bella?” I sighed loudly into the receiver. Maybe she’d take a hint. I should have known better. Nothing ever seemed to faze the woman.

“Details, of course, you idiot,” she replied. I could hear the affection in her tone. “I wanted to make sure you were all right, Andy,” she continued, her voice all honeyed concern.

“Well, I’m fine,” I said. Then I sighed again; I might as well give in, or she’d come over and sit on me till I told her what she wanted to know. If, somehow, Lieutenant Herrera found out, then I’d let him deal with Bella.

I rapidly sketched the pertinent information, and at the end she seemed satisfied. She expressed concern again when I told her about being pushed by the mysterious stranger in the grad lounge. Finally, after promising to call her the minute—ten years from now, maybe—I knew more, I hung up and switched on the answering machine. For once it might prove useful; they did tend to work better when you actually turned them on.

I went to the front window and peeked out. Herrera’s car, still in the street, meant I wouldn’t find out anything more for a while. I refused to think about what another talk with him might entail. Instead, I went to the kitchen and began cleaning up a couple days’ worth of dirty dishes. I couldn’t concentrate on reading now, despite my earlier plans.

My thoughts were jumbled as I cleaned. Now that the horror of my morning discovery had retreated somewhat, I was becoming intrigued by the puzzle of it. Who could have hated Charlie enough to kill him? Maybe treating the whole thing as a game would keep those memories of the dead body at bay. I could only sit on the sidelines and speculate, though. I didn’t think Lieutenant Herrera would welcome any attempts on my part to play Jessica Fletcher.

Nearly an hour later, after I had dropped into my chair for a brief respite from cleaning, the doorbell rang. Again I peeked out the window; Herrera’s car was gone. I opened the door to admit Rob.

He looked awful. He was pale, and his eyes were suspiciously red. He walked into my living room and collapsed onto the couch.

“Come in,” I said sarcastically and pushed the door shut. This was the first time Rob had ever come next door. In the past, I had taken such great pains to let him know how unwelcome he’d be, I was surprised to see him, even now. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Looks like it was pretty bad with the police,” I said alter a moment, using my great gift for stating the obvious.

He gave me a funny look. “You don’t know the half of it.”

He rubbed a hand across his face, then suddenly started laughing. Alarmed, I made a move toward him, thinking he might be going into hysterics, but he just waved at me to stay where I was.

Rob inhaled deeply before he spoke again. “Looks like I’m gonna be number one on the Suspect Hit Parade.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “What possible motive could you have for murdering Charlie?”

The words sounded harsh, even to me, but Rob barely winced. He stared at me, and I found it impossible to tear my eyes away from him.

“Apparently someone told the police that Charlie was my lover.”

I laughed scornfully. “And they believed it? You—Mr. Straight Arrow—and Charlie? You gotta be kidding!”

Rob sat there, frozen.

“Now, if someone told me you had beat him up because he was gay, that I might believe. But his lover, no way.” I watched his face. “Is that it, then? Did you bash his head in because he tried to seduce you?”

Rob flushed. “Okay, I deserved that, I guess. I owe you that much.” His face twisted in pain. “Andy, please sit down, and let me talk to you. This is important, and you’ve got to let me explain.”

“Where the hell do you get off!” I shouted. “I don’t have to let you do anything, after what you did to me.” I could feel my fists clenching. I wanted to hit him, to strike out physically, the way he once had.

The doorbell rang.

Chapter Seven

I took a deep breath and backed away from Rob. He watched, frustrated in his need to unburden himself to me. The doorbell rang again. I continued to the door, ready to tell whoever it was to go away.

Maggie had her hand at the buzzer when I pulled the door open. “Hi, Andy. I hope you don’t mind my coming over like this,” she said as she walked inside, not having noticed my glower, “but the minute I finished my class, I thought I’d check on you.” She paused when she saw Rob, obviously upset, sitting on the couch. “My goodness, Rob, are you okay?” She looked back at me, realizing that I, too, was upset. “What’s going on?”

I wanted to throw up. I didn’t want to face dragging out my dirty laundry, even in front of someone as sympathetic and understanding as Maggie. Not here, not now. But I seemed to have no choice.

I collapsed into my chair, watching both of them. “Rob told me, just now,” I said, my voice flat, “that the police may suspect him because he was supposed to be Charlie’s lover. I said it was more likely that he bashed him on the head because Charlie tried to seduce him.” I snorted derisively. “Like anybody would really think Rob’s gay, despite the fact that he visits gay bookstores.”

His head snapped up at that, and he started to speak, but Maggie beat him to the punch. “And why are you so surprised, Andy? You didn’t realize Rob is gay?” She laughed. “Didn’t your gaydar go ping?”

In other circumstances, involving someone else, Maggie’s honest incredulity and my own blindness might have been funny.

I watched Rob’s face and said, “It did once, about ten years ago. On that occasion, I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was wrong. And, moreover, that I was disgusting and perverted and filthy and that I should stay the hell away from him. Plus, I got a few bruises as a souvenir.”

“Geez!” Maggie whispered, and she sank down onto the floor, right where she had been standing, and looked at us.

Rob faced me. “I doubt there’s anything I could ever do,” he said, his eyes compelling me to listen, “to make you understand how profoundly sorry I am for what I did to you. I have no excuse. All I can say is that I reacted out of ignorance and fear. The blame is mine. You dared me to be honest about how I really felt, who I really was, and I couldn’t face it. I freaked out on you.”

For an uncomfortable moment, I saw not my living room of the present, but the old hay barn on my father’s farm. An afternoon ten years earlier, when I was sixteen and Rob, seventeen. Wrestling in the hay after a long day’s work, playing the way we had since we were toddlers. Suddenly, the touch of flesh on flesh held a different meaning, no longer playful, but charged with a new and breathtaking electricity. A long, lingering kiss, shared in surprised understanding. Then, horribly, the naked fear and panic in his eyes. Finally, the hateful, corrosive words and the physical blows.

“So you’ve finally come out of the closet?” I said venomously, snapping into the present. “And now that’s supposed to make everything hunky-dory? You’re queer, at long last, and I’m supposed to be happy about that?” The nausea had passed, and I felt possessed by a cold, clear rage.

Rob flinched from the mockery in my voice, but he blazed right back at me. “Geez, Andy, give me a break! I was seventeen years old, I grew up in rural Mississippi, and I didn’t know anything about being queer, except that it was wrong. How did you expect me to react?”

He took a deep breath and continued. “You scared the hell out of me. I thought I had hidden those feelings from everybody. I freaked out when you kissed me, and because I liked it, I thought I was one of those filthy perverts the preacher used to talk about.”

“Don’t you think I was scared, too?” I demanded. “I gave in to an impulse because, for once in my life, it felt like the right thing to do. And then I felt like the gates of hell had opened up, just for me, when you reacted like that. I didn’t deserve that, and it took me a long time to realize it.”

“I didn’t know you were still so bitter. Though why I’m surprised, I don’t know.” Rob shook his head. “I still see your face—the hurt and the pain—that afternoon, and sometimes I can’t sleep. I’ve wanted so many times to talk to you about it these past two months, but I could never find the words, or the right time. I thought that running into each other all the time here in graduate school would make it easier, but you’ve made your feelings clear. You never have a conversation with me; you either say something rude or start some harangue.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Andy. I wish that you could, but I know, more than you may be willing to admit, what I did to you. To a lesser extent, perhaps, I did it to myself as well.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, looking away from him.

“It took me a long time to face the truth, but when I did, I realized I hurt someone who meant a great deal to me, someone who had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. I pushed away someone whose affection, concern, and support... Oh, the hell with it!” Rob said wearily. “I might as well say it, I don’t have anything left to lose.” He took a deep breath. “I hurt the person I loved most in the world, the one person who glimpsed the real me and didn’t turn away in disgust. I’ll never stop wondering what a difference that would have made, if I hadn’t been such a fool.” He was crying, the tears flowing silently down his face.

“Damn you!” I said, as I, too, started to cry. I wanted to beat him and scream at him for the ten years of heartache and doubt, the sleepless nights and the daydreams. Hating myself for the daydreams, but unable to expunge him from my memories. A while back, I’d been involved in a relationship that lasted three years, but Rob was always there, like a ghost at the wedding. I had never gotten him completely out of my system, despite what he had done to me.

“I’m sorry, Andy, there’s no point to this.” He stood up. “I’ll get out of here.”

“No, wait!” I said, reacting before I thought about it. I paused. I didn’t know what I wanted. My anger drained away, leaving me dazed. I looked around for Maggie, but she had disappeared. “Don’t go yet. Please,” I said as I got up and stumbled for the kitchen.

Exhausted, Rob sat down on the couch again.

Maggie was in the kitchen, crying quietly. She grabbed me when I came through the door and hugged me until I thought I wouldn’t be able to breathe again. “Oh, Andy,” she said, “I never imagined this. Are you gonna be okay?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I told her, disengaging myself from her arms. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a bulldozer.” I went to the sink, laid my glasses aside, and started splashing my face with cold water. Then, feeling slightly more coherent, I dried my face with some paper towels and peered nearsightedly at her.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Geez! I don’t know.” I rubbed my eyes. “I feel like getting in my car and driving away and not coming back. I don’t think I can face him day after day, in class after class.”

“Yes, you can,” she said, her voice clear and strong, her tears forgotten.

I put on my glasses and stared at her. “What makes you so sure?”

“You didn’t work hard for four years, teaching high school history, scraping and saving every penny to attend graduate school, to give it up because of this.”

That’s what you got for confiding in so-called friends. They used your words, threw them back in your face, when you tried to weasel out of something.

“Thanks a lot,” I told her sourly.

She smiled patiently at me. “Andy, I know you’re hurting. You’re bewildered and don’t know what to think. I’m not sure what I’d do in these circumstances. Frankly, you have every right to be pissed at him, now and forever. But you know what?”

“What?”

“He does care about you.”

“Oh, really? And what makes you the expert?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear her response. Couldn’t I just make her—and him—go away and get out of my life?

Maggie ignored my rude tone. “I’ve noticed him watching you. A lot. I don’t think he’s aware of how much he does it, but it’s one reason I was sure he’s gay. I didn’t realize that you two had known each other so well, but I could tell that he had strong feelings for you. He’s a lot more vulnerable than you think, and he’s risked a lot, telling you what he did.”

“Oh, you think so?” I definitely didn’t want to hear this.

“Yes, I do think so. Andy, don’t you see what he’s done?” She was almost pleading with me. “He’s reversed the situation of ten years ago. He’s exposed himself utterly to you. He has no defenses left right now, and if you turn on him, the way he did on you, he won’t blame you. A lot of people wouldn’t. But you’ll always have to wonder what might have been.”

“And so you think I can go out there, kiss and make up, and we can ride off happily into the sunset forever?”

Maggie smiled at my derision. “Maybe. Maybe not. There’s only one way to find out.”

I shook my head. “I can’t handle that kind of risk right now.” I fought the rising tide of panic in my mind and in my gut. “I can’t go through that again."

“But you won’t be alone this time. I think Rob is prepared to risk just as much as you are, and at least this time, you’ll have the home-court advantage, so to speak.”