P'town Murders: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery (7 page)

With that he turned and marched along the dunes toward town, getting stuck in the marsh once before looking back to see that Zach was no longer watching.

8

The morning progressed into a languid afternoon. Brad forgot about the unpleasant encounter with Zach. In town, boys in shorts and T-shirts walked hand-in-hand along the streets. As he passed one attractive couple, Brad unconsciously squared his shoulders and thrust out his chest. The shorter one turned to whistle at him. Brad looked back in time to see the boy being dragged off by his boyfriend.

He stopped for lunch on Commercial Street. In a waterfront cafe, he found himself eye-to-eye with a mesmerizing gaze. A charismatic man with a shaved head gazed at him from a poster. Brad recalled his father's earliest bit of advice:
Always stop to enjoy a beautiful view.

The face was arresting: from the distinguished brow and memorable cheekbones, to the full lips and hypnotic eyes that burned holes in the casual onlooker. He could have been the love child of Jackie Chan and Vin Diesel.

According to the poster, the man was a visiting Tibetan dignitary closely associated with the Dalai Lama. Brad smiled and thought of Ross's rather sudden conversion. Obviously, there was something to Buddhism after all!

After lunch, the first stop on Brad's itinerary was Purgatory, the downstairs bar at the famed Gifford House. With any luck he might uncover something useful about Perry, the former employee who Cinder claimed had left the Not-So-OK Corral after an argument with Ross. Sometimes a bit of smoldering rivalry was all it took to spark a jealous rage that could end in murder. It happened all the time between husbands and wives. It might occur just as easily between two hot men flirting with the same boss.

The Gifford House bristled with sex appeal as Brad approached. A circuit party crowd lingered on the outside deck, hanging over the railing to watch new arrivals coming up the hill. Brad marveled at the homing instinct that brought so many delightful, provocative men to places like this. Like him, they'd all ventured a long way to reach this end-of-the-line seaside resort.

To a gay man, Provincetown wasn't so much a geographical destination as a psychosexual one. Each had already made a difficult inner journey to arrive at this place. To get here, they had tested and spread their wings in nondescript little clubs and taverns all across the continent, listening for that inner voice to answer the rainbow's call. It was the same voice that spoke to all gay men, one patient syllable at a time, until they were ready to hear it. It began with a secret thrill every time the handsome class president in high school passed you in the halls, or when you felt that inexplicable urge to attend the homecoming game—despite how much you hated football—so you might cheer extra hard for the devastating fullback as he scored a touchdown.

Look!
it commanded.
Feel!
In time it progressed to full sentences:
It's all right to touch. Do you like this? It's called pleasure!
Only years later did it give rise to the understanding you'd felt all along but simply hadn't realized at the time: the class president had secretly yearned for the hunky fullback until that fateful camping trip and the first drunken
bonk!
that would resound forever in their imaginations, the unassailable love waiting beneath the palms at the end of the mind.

At some point every man encounters the specter of these youthful lovers, though never fully measuring up to their ghostly perfection. We live in a world of shadows, Brad thought, recalling desires of his own that he'd long ignored. And then one day, to no one's surprise but yours, you found yourself walking entirely uncloseted and without a second glance over your shoulder into a bar in Provincetown, of all places! The caterpillar's transformation to a butterfly was complete.

Brad made his way through the Porchside Bar toward the indoor stairway that led to the entrance to Purgatory. In a far corner, Patsy

Cline crooned an off-hours set. She would serve as his Beatrice, Brad decided, as he descended to the darkened basement.

Downstairs, a handful of men stood watching a washed-out porn video. Desire lingered in the shadows, afraid to speak its name but unable to leave. Brad's gaze traveled across the room to one of the sexiest men he'd ever seen. With his dark shaggy hair and puppy-dog eyes, wearing only a pair of coveralls that set off his V-shaped chest and sculpted shoulders, he could have been a poster boy for the world's most elite gym.

Brad winced at the sight. He hadn't been to the gym in a week. He was half convinced his muscles would begin to lose their tone in another day or two at most.

He wandered over to the bar and took a seat. The bartender acknowledged him with a friendly nod as he polished a glass.

"What's your pleasure, friend?"

A night in your arms, Brad thought. "A gin and tonic, please."

"One G and T, coming up."

Brad watched the languorous muscles stretch and flex as the bartender prepared his drink. All those hours in the gym just to be able to look like that when you poured booze, he mused. But it was worth it!

The bartender set a glass filled to the brim in front of him.

That's a nice tall drink, Brad thought. Just like you.

"Run you a tab?"

Brad's eyes traced a vein along the man's forearm, across his shoulder and neck, right up to that winsome face. He could stay there all night watching him move from one side of the bar to the other for as long as he could think of things to order. Perfection was so hard to resist.

"I'd better pay up now," he said, handing over a bill. "I'm not the sticking-around type."

The bartender gave a soft laugh. "I've been married to you, then. Several times, in fact."

Brad watched him turn and glide over to the register where he leaned forward to deposit the bill, his sculpted butt protruding invitingly. That ass, Brad thought, is a work of art.

The bartender felt Brad's eyes on him. He turned with a smile. There was something about him that reminded Brad of Ross, an amiable playfulness that said,
Come closer—but not too close!
He sensed something wounded beneath the friendly surface. He'd seen that look before. He was pretty sure he could guess what it was.

Nimble fingers laid his change out on the bar. Brad pushed it back. "It's yours," he said.

"Thanks!" The barkeep flashed a devastating smile. "Name's Perry, by the way."

Bingo!
This was the man Cinder had mentioned.

"Frank," Brad said.

"You in town for a few days, Frank?"

"A week or so."

Brad picked up the glass and sipped. It lay just on the wry side of jet fuel.

"Whew!" he said. "Can I get a little tonic to go with that gin, Perry?"

Perry picked up the drink and returned it only slightly watered down. "Funny, you don't look like the easy-over type," he said.

Sex appeal in spades, Brad thought. "Depends who's doing the flipping," he said with a wink. "But I don't want to kill the night before it's begun. Truth is, I don't get many holidays and I like to remember them when I'm done."

"Where are you from, Frank?"

"Little town up north. Nothing to brag about. Haven't been back for a while."

Perry shrugged. "I hear you. We're all escaping something, and it's usually the past."

"Here's to escape!" Brad said, raising his glass.

"What do you do, Frank?"

"Inventor," Brad answered, knowing how it loosened people's tongues when he gave himself an interesting profession.

"Cool!"

Their conversation was interrupted by the approach of another customer, a baby-faced cowboy in training. The young man had that small-town gay-boy-becoming-a-man look of being slightly unsure how things worked. He could be staying at Romeo's Guesthouse right now, Brad thought, enjoying his first time ever in the gayest place on earth.

The boy stared at Brad and the bartender in turn. Perry popped the top off a beer and pushed it along the bar, taking his cash without any interest. The boy's open face said he knew what he wanted but was unsure how to get it. He drank and wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand.

I'll bet he's a Hoosier, Brad thought, remembering a fond encounter with an Indiana native and his lasso one winter's night.

The boy's gaze got stuck on Perry as he turned to go back to the far end of the room. Every few feet he looked over his shoulder to see if the handsome bartender would return his attention.

"Beautiful kid," Brad offered when he'd gone.

Perry smirked. "You can have him. I've had my fill of beautiful young men."

"I guess it's pretty much the same thing day in and day out around here," Brad said. "One beautiful guy after another."

"You got that right," Perry replied.

"I've met a few of them myself," Brad said. "In fact, the last time I was in town I had my heart broken by one of the best. Some guy who said he lived here, actually."

Perry's face showed interest. "Yeah? Who was that? I might know him. You get to know everybody after awhile. There aren't that many of us townies."

Brad frowned. "You'd think I could remember his name, but after he dumped me I tried hard to forget it."

Perry laughed. "That bad, huh?"

Brad shook his head. "Naw, it's not coming to me. All I remember is that he worked at some swank guesthouse out near the dunes."

Perry's eyes flickered. "Lotta guesthouses in town," he said with a shrug.

"Yeah, but this one was special. It had no address."

Perry's ears twitched, as though he'd heard something at a distance.

"Ever hear of a really elite place out by the dunes?"

Perry frowned. "As I said, there're a lot of different places in town. It could be any one of them."

"Actually, I think I remember the guy's name... Ross Something-or-other."

Perry looked blankly at him.

"Ring any bells?"

"Nah," Perry said, picking up a glass and retrieving his dry cloth.

Liar,
Brad thought.

Perry looked him in the eye. "What did you say you did again?"

"Inventor."

"Yeah, right," he said, returning to the far end of the bar. "No, I never heard of a guy named Ross who worked at any guesthouse here."

"Well, no matter," Brad said with a smile. "I've had my heart broken by better men than him."

After that, the handsome barkeep found one excuse after another to avoid talking. Brad could see he was getting nowhere, so he downed his drink and left.

9

Brad stopped in at the police station. Tom Nava sat with his feet up on the desk, eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. He was dressed like a motorcycle cop, the kind some men fantasized would stop them for speeding out on some deserted road and teach them a lesson they'd never forget. And never want to.

Nava stirred and turned his head at Brad's entrance.

"Good afternoon, Officer Nava," Brad said, watching himself approach in the cop's lenses.

Nava nodded. "Mr. Fairfax. To what do 1 owe the pleasure?"

Brad smiled. Take it slow, he reminded himself. Cops are always looking out for what you don't tell them.

"I haven't been able to sleep after what happened the other night. I'm curious to hear who the boy was or if you've learned anything about him. I thought it might give me some peace of mind."

The cop lifted his feet from the desk and stood with the sleekness of a cat. His chest strained the fabric of his uniform. His shoulders were massive, the waistline narrow, like an oversized Tom of Finland doll. A holster strapped to his belt displayed the handle of a hefty gun. The man was dressed to kill in more ways than one.

"There's not much to tell," Nava said. "Boy's name was James Shephard. He'd been in town all summer doing odd jobs. Bit of a wanderer, from what I gather. We tracked down some people who knew him from another city."

Brad shook his head. "A real shame, a young kid like that."

Nava grunted. "It happens. People think it's just water, but the ocean isn't the same as a swimming pool. The tide can play tricks with you. It's hard to know what he was doing out there on the dunes at night. Just a guess, but I'd say he was cruising. We found his clothes about a half mile up the beach."

"You think he was looking for sex?"

Nava looked him over before answering. "That would be my guess. Lotta moral degenerates around this town," he said.

"Why 'degenerates'?"

The cop snorted. "It's one thing to be gay; it's another to fuck' anywhere at random."

"The dunes after dark is hardly random," Brad said with a shrug. "But I guess you'd need to understand the mind of a gay man."

"I
am
a gay man," Nava said.

Whoa!
thought Brad. "Then you should understand the urge to explore the sexual side of things."

Nava removed his sunglasses and Brad caught his powerful eyes in the light for the first time.

"I may be gay," Nava replied, "but I'm not a moral degenerate."

So you've got a narrow personality range and a penchant for being a power broker, Bradford thought.
Big deal!
Being unimaginative doesn't make you morally superior.

"I guess you don't need to live your life in full color, like some men," Brad said.

The cop stared at him for a moment and then laughed. "Do I look beige?" he asked, and suddenly Brad had to laugh as well.

Brad could see Nava wasn't the type to avoid a fight, but he was probably smart enough to avoid starting one. He could imagine him as a boy trying to make it in white America, full of resentment and envy. As an outcast, you sometimes tried harder than others did. Brad could relate. As a ward of the state, his own life had been shattered into a thousand pieces. Whatever he'd had as a child of a single parent had been lost completely when his father died. Ever since then his journey had been to find those pieces and put himself together again.