Why kill this kid, and why set you up for it? You got any enemies, Carl?”

  Carl shook his head, looking bewildered. “Not really.

  Nobody I can think of. I mean, there’s lots of people don’t like me, I guess. Hell, that’s just about everybody. But I don’t know who’d have that kind of major hard on for me. I don’t owe anybody any money, or you know, that kind of shit.”

  “Haven’t been porking somebody’s wife?”

  “N-no. I haven’t been p-porking anybody. Not in a long time.” Tom gave him a kind of puzzled look, and said nothing.

  “Maybe,” Stanley said, “it really wasn’t about Carl. Maybe they just wanted to kill Donnie, and Carl was a convenient scapegoat.”

  “Okay, then, who hated this Donnie that badly?”

  Carl thought for a moment. “Same answer. Nobody liked him, except me, I guess, but, wanting him dead? Jesus, half the guys in town have lost their fall back fuck. They didn’t like him but they had no complaints about his butthole. Or his mouth.

  Depending on who it was. Or their mood, probably. Donnie wasn’t picky.”

  126 Victor Banis

  “Maybe somebody who didn’t want people to know he was the fall back?” Tom said. “Somebody poking him on the sly?”

  Carl shrugged. It was, Stanley thought, almost an imitation of Tom’s frequent shrugs. Had he always had that habit, or had he picked it up in the brief time he’d spent with Tom?

  “Could be. There were lots of married men got a piece of the action from time to time. One or two of them, the way he told it, were pretty prominent around town. Donnie hinted at some of them, but he never told me about anybody by name.

  He wasn’t a blabber mouth. Course, I knew about some of them because it was pretty obvious. Rack, for instance. Donnie talked about it, but, hell, that was no secret. Rack told everybody about it himself, used to make a regular joke about Donnie having the best pussy in town.”

  “Best pussy, huh?” Tom had to think about that for a moment, screwing up his face. “Maybe one of the closet cases, then. Somebody didn’t want anybody to know. Maybe Donnie threatened to name a name. Or, he asked for money to keep his mouth shut.”

  “I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like Donnie.”

  “It’s happened before. Somebody gets tired of being used, mistreated, decides to stand up for himself. You want to play, you got to pay.”

  “Donnie? I can’t see him blackmailing anybody either.”

  “Or, then, maybe he didn’t threaten blackmail, maybe just, somebody got nervous, thought he might tell. Decided to eliminate the possibility. Say, someone saw what came down with the two of you that night, something clicked. The perfect opportunity to eliminate the danger before it became an actual threat. Whoever it was didn’t have to have any real grudge against you, he just didn’t much give a shit what happened to you. Look at it from the killer’s point of view. You’re a, well…”

  “A loser,” Carl supplied without embarrassment, matter-offactly.

  “Well, I guess somebody might put it like that. But, the thing is, if it was an accident, the way they staged it, they knew they weren’t really putting you into a whole lot of hot water. It DEADLY WRONG 127

  would just be a manslaughter rap. You’d get a token sentence at worst, maybe nothing. No major harm done.”

  “Except to Donnie,” Stanley said.

  “Yeah,” Carl agreed. “Except to Donnie.”

  § § § § §

  After they had eaten, Tom wanted to see the local police chief. They strolled to the station. The same officer was on duty at the counter. He seemed less amused by Tom’s presence than he had been by Stanley’s. He was gone only a minute before he came back for them. They left Carl waiting on one of the wooden chairs, and went in together to see Chief Burger.

  “Seems like an awful lot of interest on the part of San Francisco PD,” the Chief said when the introductions were over. “In a minor case a long ways away from San Francisco.”

  “This isn’t official SFPD business,” Tom said. “It’s more a personal thing. Family business.”

  The Chief looked from Tom to Stanley and back. “You two are related?”

  “Brothers.”

  “Different last names?”

  “Mom remarried.” Tom’s face was utterly expressionless.

  Stanley looked down at the floor. It was best he not say anything. Tom was right. He was a lousy liar.

  The Chief handed Tom back his ID. “Well, I can’t stop you from looking around, Detective.”

  “Inspector.”

  “Right. Inspector. Keep in mind, though, like you said, this isn’t official SFPD business, or jurisdiction. And if you should happen to come across anything that looks at all relevant, I’ll expect you to bring it straight to me.”

  “Absolutely,” Tom said, and Stanley nodded enthusiastically.

  “You carrying?”

  Stanley shook his head no. Tom tugged his jacket open to show the Sig Sauer in its shoulder holster.

  “Nice gun,” the Chief said. He held out a hand. “You mind?”

  128 Victor Banis

  Tom removed the Sig carefully from the holster, handed it butt end across the desk. The Chief looked it over carefully, nodding.

  “We still use Smith and Wesson,” the Chief said, handing the Sig back. “Magnum loads. Wouldn’t mind one of those, though.” He frowned and added, “You’re just a private citizen here. I’ll expect you to remember that.”

  “It’s remembered,” Tom said, slipping the Sig back into its holster. “Uh, if I could ask a favor?”

  “I’ll consider it.” Warily.

  “The crime scene?”

  “Not much to see.”

  “Still,” Tom persisted. The two of them engaged in a staring match.

  Tom won. The Chief got up, stepped out of the room, was back in a minute with a uniform in tow.

  “Sergeant Wooster,” The Chief introduced him. “He was one of the investigating officers. He can show you where the body was found.”

  After a brief hesitation, he added, “And answer any questions.”

  § § § § §

  The Chief was right, there was really nothing to see.

  Whatever imprint the body might have left in the sand had long since been erased with wind and rain and passing feet.

  Officer Wooster pointed at a large rock, maybe a foot and a half wide, jutting up some four or five inches above the surface of the sand, probably two or three times that much buried beneath the surface. Rain and lake waves had washed it clean of any residual blood stains.

  “That’s where he fell, hit his head on that sucker. Wouldn’t have taken much of a fall to crack your skull.” He took a tin of Skoal from his back pocket, deposited a sizable chaw of tobacco into his left cheek.

  DEADLY WRONG 129

  Carl looked around. There was a metal bench just a few feet away. He went and sat on it, got up, kind of danced around for a moment, as if he were struggling with someone.

  “He fell about here,” he said, pointing to a spot a couple of feet away from the rock.

  Wooster looked about to argue, but Tom cut him off. “Was there an autopsy?”

  That got him a blank look. “Not so far as I know.”

  “Law says there’s got to be an autopsy in any questionable death.”

  “Nothing questionable about this one. What would be the point?”

  “To determine the murder weapon?”

  “The weapon? That there is the weapon.” The officer pointed again at the rock.

  “Okay, let’s say it was. Did anyone take that in for analysis?

  Match it up to the wound. Check blood patterns, stuff like that?”

  “That rock?” Disbelief made the policeman grimace. “Hell, that rock must weigh a hundred pounds. More than that. Two hundred, most likely. We’d need a backhoe to take that anywhere. What for, anyway? We know how the kid died.”

  “Do we?”

  “Sure we do.” Wooster pointed at Carl. “So does he, too. I was the one questioned him that night. He was clear enough then about what happened. Tell him, Carl. Tell him the way you told it to me.”

  Carl avoided his angry eyes. “I’m n-not sure anymore,” he said.

  “Well, I sure as hell am,” Wooster said. He spat a powerful stream of tobacco juice, just missing Carl’s foot with it, and turned his back on them to march away.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It had begun to rain, only a light shower. For Tom and Stanley, rainless in San Francisco since the previous winter, it was pleasant to walk in the drizzle. Carl acted like he was in danger of washing away, skipping from overhang to overhang, shelter to shelter, almost surely getting as wet for his trouble as they were without it.

  They stopped by Libby’s shop, and Stanley introduced Tom to Libby. “Gosh,” she said, “we’ve got two of San Francisco’s elite on the case, this must be a first for Bear Mountain.”

  “Not exactly on the case,” Tom said, “I’m just helping Stanley look around.”

  “Even so,” she said, not at all discouraged. She looked Tom up and down avidly and gave Stanley a sly smile and a wink.

  Stanley maintained an expression of utter innocence. Tom blushed and pretended he hadn’t seen the wink. Surprisingly, Carl blushed too.

  “And, Stanley, look what I’ve found.” Libby took a battered felt hat from a shelf behind the cash register and plopped it onto Stanley’s head. It sat atop his crown, patently too small for his head. “It was a prop, from the school play,” she told the others. “‘The Inspector Calls.’ Stanley was already playing a detective.”

  “Umm. Yes, playing,” Stanley said, before Tom could.

  Tom was regarding him solemnly, however. “You look like Stan Laurel,” he said, and surprised Stanley no end by adding, in a surprisingly good imitation of Oliver Hardy, “‘This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley.’”

  Will this man never cease surprising me? Stanley wondered, laughing with the others.

  They were on their way out the door when Libby said, to her brother, “Oh, Carl, Mom’s ring is missing. The amethyst.”

  “And?” His look and his voice were wary.

  “I just wondered if you knew anything about it.”

  132 Victor Banis

  “You’re accusing me of stealing Mom’s ring? What would I do with that dumb thing?”

  “I don’t know. And I wasn’t accusing you, just asking. She says it’s missing.”

  “Probably she put it someplace stupid, and forgot.

  Remember that time she put the cast iron skillet in the freezer?

  Tell Hannah to look in the freezer.”

  “You’re probably right,” Libby said. “She is getting kooky.”

  “I didn’t take it,” Carl said again.

  “Okay, okay, I believe you,” she said, but his eyes and his mouth continued to look sulky.

  § § § § §

  From Libby’s shop, they stopped at the one motel on the main drag, The Mountain Inn. “I’m going to get a room here,”

  Tom said when they reached it.

  “Hey, you don’t have to worry about me,” Carl said. “About your privacy, I mean. You know, whatever you guys want to do, it won’t bother me any. There’s plenty of room at Libby’s place.

  I’ve got my own bedroom, too. Or, if that’s too close, I mean, you guys being…” He caught a frosty look from Tom and bit back whatever he had been about to say. “Listen, I can take my sleeping bag and use the back deck, I’ve slept out there before, plenty of times, won’t bother me. It’s nice out there, tell the truth.”

  “No need,” Tom said. “I’m not the pajama party type. I like my own space.”

  Which, sadly, Stanley knew to be true. In all their previous experiences, Tom had only slept over once, and on that occasion he’d been drugged, so it was more like he’d passed out. Still, it was a disappointment. After the afternoon’s blazing festivities, he had been hoping there might still be some embers burning.

  He and Carl waited outside the lobby, neither of them speaking, while Tom went in and registered for a room, collected a key, came back out. They walked without conversation back to the cabin, Carl still dodging raindrops.

  DEADLY WRONG 133

  Tom didn’t even come inside with them. He stopped out front, opened the door of his pickup and paused with one foot on the running board to give Stanley a long look. Stanley hoped for a moment maybe Tom was going to kiss him.

  “I’ll be by in the morning,” Tom said, and drove off in the Dodge Ram.

  No kisses. No scorching interludes. No hand jobs. Wait till I talk to that Moon Woman, Stanley thought. He hated when things were done half-assed. If you couldn’t rely on a Greek goddess, who could you trust?

  “Nice guy,” Carl said, looking longingly after the pick up.

  Stanley had the impression Carl had kind of been hoping too that Tom would spend the night. What was that all about, anyway? Hoping maybe to be invited to join in the party when Tom and Stanley got things going?

  Possibly, Stanley thought, Carl was a bit gayer than he admitted, even to himself. Probably, as a matter of fact. If he’d been in a more gay-active place, like San Francisco, he most likely would have come out a long time ago, but Bear Mountain probably didn’t offer a lot of inducement to a closeted, maybe semi-gay young man.

  Stanley found himself wondering briefly about how Tom would feel about a threesome. That hadn’t occurred to him before. But, for some guys, a group party did make things less threatening. The old circle jerk mentality familiar to many adolescent boys. Safety in numbers. Sometimes two birds in the hand were better than whatever in the bushes.

  Somehow, though, now that he thought about it, he didn’t see Carl as the one to make Tom feel more at ease. And Tom didn’t strike him as the circle jerk type.

  “I guess,” Stanley said aloud, heading for the cabin.

  Once inside, a slight awkwardness descended, neither of them seeming quite sure what to do with themselves or one another. Stanley had the impression that Carl was considering putting himself on offer again, but aggressively pursuing some action wasn’t really Carl’s style. He’d be more the type to drop hints, broad ones, and hope somebody picked up on them.

  134 Victor Banis

  Hints like taking off his shirt and draping it over the arm of one chair. “Guess I’ll crash,” he said, yawning and stretching, posing just long enough to let Stanley have a good look at some bare flesh, just in case.

  “Yeah, me too,” Stanley said, taking no more than a brief glance. Which was enough, though, to tell him he’d been right.

  Carl was one of those guys who did look better with the clothes off. Chest lean but nicely sculpted, nice man-titties, belly flat, almost concave. For sure, no flesh to spare.

  Stanley wondered briefly if Carl was going to take his jeans off too, as a further hint. That might be interesting. Maybe even tempting. Stanley could tell from the bulge he showed that Carl was definitely not Pencil Dick. If he was really meaning to promote something, that would be one way of upping the ante.

  Disappointingly, Carl left the jeans on, headed to his own bedroom. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Or, maybe he was just too inexperienced at seduction. Most likely the latter, Stanley concluded.

  “See you in the morning,” Stanley called after him, mostly relieved that things hadn’t gone any further. After the earlier session with Tom, he felt sure Carl could be nothing but a disappointment. Which was no discredit to him. Probably anybody would be.

  When the bedroom door had closed behind Carl, Stanley went to the shirt he had left behind. One eye on the door to the bedroom, he slipped his fingers into the shirt’s pocket, pulled out the photograph Carl had been staring at earlier.

  It was a picture of Donnie McIntosh, well worn, the corners bent down. A sweet looking Donnie, no nudity, no spread cheeks or wagging wienie. Just an innocent looking kid, smiling shyly for a camera.

  He put the snapshot carefully back in Carl’s pocket.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Stanley woke in the morning with a start. At first, eyes still closed, he couldn’t think what had wakened him. Then it came to him: the aroma of fresh brewed coffee, wafting on the air.

  He opened one eye, peeked at the window. The morning sun was just casting an apricot bloom over the distant silhouette of Sugarloaf. Early morning, then, not quite dawn. He thought about going back to sleep, but the scent of coffee was altogether too tempting.

  Carl was already up, seated at the kitchen table. He smiled brightly when Stanley padded into the kitchen and, jumping up, quickly set a steaming cup in front of him. Took a carton of half and half from the refrigerator and set that on the table alongside a bowl full of sugar cubes.

  Stanley added a generous splash of cream and two cubes of sugar to the cup, thought for a moment, and added a third cube, stirring wordlessly. He wondered if Carl was usually up this early, and this well organized. Somehow he rather doubted it. Plus, the morning before, he had been downright surly, hadn’t he, and this morning he was positively aglow.

  Stanley wasn’t real big on conversation early in the morning, though. He had spent a lot of the night reliving yesterday’s wrestling match with Tom. The reality was, he sort of shared Tom’s feeling about sleeping over. He was never entirely comfortable himself sleeping with someone else in the bed.

  Probably, it was what Libby had said, about living alone. After two years, it did eventually ruin you for living with anybody else.

  Which meant he had six months to get things settled with Tom—which seemed unlikely. More likely, he would spend the rest of his lifetime alone on an increasingly vast mattress.

  Grumbling about its emptiness and uncomfortable when someone else filled it.

  136 Victor Banis

  Still, last night he’d found himself wishing Tom were in the bed with him. This had resulted in lots of tossing and turning, and resorting to relieving himself twice in between tosses and turns. He’d awakened feeling drained and cranky.