“I can scramble some eggs,” Carl said, pouring himself a coffee and leaning against the kitchen counter.

  Like with a trick, after a first nighter, Stanley thought, but did not say. It was generally what Stanley himself did for the ones who stayed overnight. A good way to send them off after you’d gotten them off.

  Only, of course, he and Carl had not tricked, and Stanley’s

  “off” had been a do-it-yourself project.

  “This is okay. Tom’ll want breakfast when he gets here. We can go out then.”

  A bit more awake after a couple of sips of coffee, it occurred to Stanley to wonder where those eggs had come from, anyway.

  They hadn’t been in the refrigerator the day before. Which was to say, unless Mother Hen was making deliveries, Carl must have slipped out during the night, or very early this morning, for supplies.

  He gave Carl a once over. He looked different, too. He’d taken some trouble with his appearance. His hair was washed and neatly combed, and he was wearing clean jeans, snugger than yesterday’s pair, and a body shirt that showed off perky little nipples on his slender chest. He looked far better than he had the day before.

  Dolling up for me, Stanley wondered.

  “What time do you think he’ll be by?” Carl asked, rather too innocently, and added, “Tom.”

  A light bulb went off in Stanley’s head. Oh, boy, he’d barely gotten Tom into the man sack again and already he had competition? And the minute the thought had popped into his head, he knew it was right: Carl was on the make for Tom.

  Probably not consciously and maybe not sexually, although Stanley didn’t doubt for a moment Carl would bend over in a heartbeat if he thought that would get the big guy’s attention.

  And maybe it would, Stanley thought with a sense of dismay.

  Especially now that heterosexual Tom had discovered the joys DEADLY WRONG 137

  of butt fucking a member of his own gender. For some guys, once the joy was discovered, one butt was as good as another, and never too many. And, Stanley saw when Carl went to open the refrigerator and bent down to peer inside, Carl’s wasn’t without a certain muffin-ish charm.

  “I can fix something,” Carl said, head inside the refrigerator, like Aladdin contemplating his treasure trove.

  “He’ll prefer to eat out,” Stanley said. “I know Tom.” And added, just in case he hadn’t made things clear, “Quite well.”

  § § § § §

  He did not give Tom time to consider the possibilities, though. Best not leave things to chance. He heard the big Ram drive up and by the time Tom had clambered down from the cab, Stanley was already on the deck to greet him.

  “I’m starving,” he said without preamble, “let’s go.”

  “Good morning to you, too,” Tom said, surprised. Carl had come out behind Stanley, hesitated in the doorway, looked about to say something. Probably, Stanley thought, about to offer to whip those eggs to a froth. Or something.

  “Come on,” Stanley said, “We’ll walk. It’ll work up an appetite.” He started off briskly in the direction of The Wagon Wheel. Tom shrugged and fell into step beside him. One thing Stanley was confident of: Tom always had an appetite. Carl had no choice but to trail after them, looking somewhat disappointed. Stanley felt a pang of guilt. The poor guy needed an older man to take him in tow. It was probably the very best thing that could happen to him.

  Some other older man, however. Better for everybody, surely. Later, he’d sit down and see if he could make up a list of prospects. Which, considering his acquaintances in Bear Mountain, would be a very short list. Maybe he knew some skiers back in San Francisco who might like a mountain weekend. He thought of his friends in the bar circuit. Hmm.

  The most he could see any of them sliding down was a barstool.

  They’d gotten within a half block of the restaurant when Libby’s beat up van went by in the opposite direction. She honked and hung a U-turn and pulled to the curb beside them.

  138 Victor Banis

  “Breakfast,” Stanley said. “Join us?”

  “Sounds good. I was coming to suggest the very same thing.”

  “I could have scrambled some eggs,” Carl said.

  “I had my heart set on pancakes,” Stanley said. “If I’d known you did pancakes…”

  “I don’t. Just scrambled eggs.”

  “Ah. I guess we did the right thing then.”

  As if to settle the matter, Tom said, “Pancakes sound good.”

  § § § § §

  June was there to greet them and lead them to a big corner table, set off somewhat from the other diners. They made small talk until June had taken their orders—blueberry pancakes for Stanley; the three-three-three for Tom, which was three pancakes, three eggs and three strips of bacon; a bran muffin for Libby; and scrambled eggs for Carl.

  “So,” Libby said when June had left, directing her question to Tom, “any progress?”

  “Not much,” Tom said. “There isn’t a lot to work with. The police did no autopsy, made no effort to bring the rock in or do any kind of comparison to the victim’s head wounds.”

  “Donnie,” Carl said. “His name was Donnie.”

  “Pretty sloppy police work, wouldn’t you say?” Libby asked.

  Tom grunted. “California law says that so long as the Medical Examiner is convinced that death was accidental, no formal autopsy is required. They had no reason to think it was anything but what it appeared. And, these guys don’t deal with a lot of homicides. Plus, autopsies cost money. If a jurisdiction has good reason to avoid one, they generally will.”

  “We could probably demand an autopsy,” Libby said. “It’s not really too late yet, is it?”

  “We couldn’t. His family could.” He looked around the table.

  “Forget that,” Stanley said. “Even if we could get the mother sobered up enough to consider it, she’s convinced that the police got it right.”

  DEADLY WRONG 139

  Tom sighed. “Probably wouldn’t do much good anyway.

  Think about it. Suppose somebody cracked Donnie’s head open with, say, just as a for instance, a cue stick.”

  “It would leave a different wound from a rock, wouldn’t it?”

  Libby asked. “An autopsy ought to confirm that.”

  “It would. Until the killer rolled Donnie over, banged his head down on the rock, to make it look like an accident, and erased any evidence of an earlier blow. Which is what, if Carl here is right, has to be what happened. And at that point, the head wound would most likely match up to the rock. It would be impossible to say he was struck with some other weapon first. See what I’m saying?”

  Libby nodded. “So there’s really no way to prove how Donnie was killed.”

  “That’s where an autopsy could have come in useful. It’s hard to believe a guy could just fall, hit his head, and bash it in completely. My own thinking is, it would take more force than that.”

  “But the Medical Examiner must have taken that into consideration,” Libby said.

  “Carl says they were fighting, he could have thrown the kid down pretty hard. That’s seeing it from the ME’s point of view.

  But, there’s something else to consider—two things, really.

  First, suppose we convinced the police to order an autopsy, and the results showed that the death couldn’t have come from just falling on a rock. Meaning, someone picked the guy’s head up and banged it down a time or two, hard, on that rock.”

  “Which would clear Carl, wouldn’t it?” Stanley said.

  “Or maybe get him charged with murder instead of involuntary manslaughter.”

  “I didn’t do that,” Carl said.

  “They’d have to prove that you did, and without a witness to the actual murder, that would be difficult. But, here’s where the lack of autopsy could work in your favor. If you did go to trial, a good lawyer could probably get some mileage out of that fact.

  Maybe even get the case tossed. So, all in all, we’re better letting that dog sleep.” He looked around the table, at the dispirited expressions of the others. “My humble opinion, anyway.”

  140 Victor Banis

  “You must have known Donnie,” Stanley said to Libby.

  “What did you think of him?”

  Libby thought about that for a moment. “He was okay.

  Kind of pathetic, really. I think there was a sweet kid lost somewhere in that wilderness of the soul, like, oh, I don’t know.

  Is there such a thing as innocent depravity? That’s how I would describe him.”

  They were silent as June brought their orders. When she had gone again, Tom said, “This kid—”

  “Donnie,” Carl said again.

  “Donnie. Carl says he took on guys all the time.” Tom dug into his food with gusto. He really did like pancakes. Stanley made a mental note. You could buy mixes in the supermarket; how difficult could they be? If you couldn’t trust a Greek goddesses or Aunt Jemima…

  “Any guy, anytime, anywhere,” Carl said, unenthusiastically pushing his scrambled eggs about his plate with a fork. “That was his motto. He made, you know, like a j-joke of it.”

  “Okay, but, here’s one thing I wonder. Where? I mean, this is a little town. So, I can see some back seat action, hell, even an alley.”

  “Behind the restrooms, sometimes,” Carl said. “Late at night.”

  Tom frowned through a mouthful of bacon. “Okay, wherever. But, if he was doing that many guys, that often, they couldn’t all be behind the john, or parked along the local lovers’

  lane, or they’d need to take a number and get in line. He must have been taking some of them someplace.”

  “Not home,” Stanley said, briefly filling them in on his visit the day before to Amanda McIntosh. He took the purloined photos from his pocket and handed them to Carl, who barely glanced at them and passed them on. Libby wiped her fingers delicately on a blue and white napkin, wincing at the first one.

  “That’s Rack,” Carl said. “The long skinny d-dick.” He looked up and met Tom’s eyes, and blushed. “Not that I’ve s-seen it, I mean. It’s just, Donnie talked about it, said it was like a pencil. He thought it was funny. Didn’t stop him t-taking the guy on whenever, though.”

  DEADLY WRONG 141

  Libby paused at the picture of Carl. “Are there any of you,”

  she asked him, “like the others?” She tapped a fingernail on one of the nudes.

  “No. I never, we d-didn’t,” he stammered and then, somewhat angrily, said, “but, what if there were? What difference would that make? Hell, what if we were doing it regularly? So what?”

  “Carl, darling, you must know it wouldn’t make any difference to me.”

  “What business would it be of anyone’s? Mom wouldn’t—”

  “No, she wouldn’t. But Hannah, that’s a different story.

  And, really, now that I think of it, I’m not so sure about Mother, either.”

  “They tolerate you,” he said, not looking at her, his voice sullen.

  “It’s different with a boy, I think. Especially with you. No, don’t get all huffy with me, think about it. You know how Mother is about you. The sun rises and sets in your backside so far as she’s concerned. If she thought you were gay…”

  “I didn’t say I was.”

  “I know you didn’t, you were just defending Donnie, and I admire you for it. But, I don’t think your mother would, and I’m quite sure Hannah wouldn’t. And, yes, she tolerates me, barely. But, she’s a woman. Women feel differently about a gay woman and a gay man. They don’t like to think that any man could really prefer a member of his own sex to one of theirs. It disturbs them on some fundamental level, I believe. As for a woman, well,” she shrugged. “It’s just that much less competition, isn’t it?”

  Listening in silence to this exchange, Stanley thought, not for the first time in his life, how surprising it was that, in a family with one gay member, it was so often that gay one who had the most sense. He didn’t know why that should be so.

  Maybe growing up gay, with all the heartache and the soul-searching that it entailed, forced you to see things more clearly.

  It was one of those things that either destroyed you, he supposed, or made you stronger. Obviously, it had made Libby stronger. Hannah was strong too, but in a different, an 142 Victor Banis

  unbending way. The kind of strength that was really, in its own way, a weakness. Libby was life-strong, as he saw it. And Carl, well, he was like something that hadn’t quite jelled yet, and it was hard to say with any certainty what shape he’d take when he did.

  Libby passed the photos on to Tom. He looked at them and grimaced. Clearly, pictures of naked men were not his thing.

  “Even if you’re right about who this is,” he said, indicating the picture of the pencil-thin dick, “that’s going to be a tough ID to make in court.”

  “I’ll bet it was Rack who killed him,” Carl said with a vehemence unusual for him.

  “What makes you think?” Tom asked, but Carl only gave one of his imitation-Tom shrugs.

  “He’s a real bastard.”

  “He the one at the biker bar?” Tom asked. Stanley nodded.

  “Yeah, he’s an asshole, for sure,” Tom agreed. “That doesn’t make him a killer, though. If asshole was a crime, there wouldn’t be enough prisons. What?” Stanley had barely suppressed a giggle.

  “Oh, I was just thinking how that would play out in court.”

  To change the subject, he tapped a finger on the picture of Miller in his Queen Anne chair. “This one is Donnie’s therapist, Mister Miller. M. H. Miller, it says on his door.”

  “Michael,” Libby said. “Michael Howard Miller. You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. He admitted it.”

  Carl, who had hardly glanced at the pictures before, snatched that one out of Tom’s hand and glared at it. “His own fucking doctor?”

  “He’s not actually a doctor,” Stanley said, but Carl didn’t seem to hear him.

  “That’s sick. His doctor was getting his knob waxed, like half the sleaze bags in town?”

  “‘Fraid so,” Stanley said. He told them briefly of his visit to Miller’s office, and how he had identified him.

  DEADLY WRONG 143

  Libby’s mouth was hanging open. “But, isn’t that, I don’t know, illegal?”

  “Probably,” Stanley said. “Unethical, certainly. If Donnie’s mother wanted to file a complaint with, whoever, the state bar, there must be an association that licenses these people. But, same problem as before. First, you’d have to get her dried out enough to comprehend, and then she’d have to care enough to want to do something about it, and I have my doubts on both scores.”

  “But Miller confessed to you, you said.”

  “That would never hold up in a court. I was bluffing, and sooner or later he’d realize that. He’d just deny it. His word against mine. We’d never be able to identify his dick, same as with Pencil Dick—Rack, I mean. I can’t see a judge letting us show their wienies to the jury. And the chair? All they’d have to do is bring in two or three chairs of the same style. When you get down to it, we’ve got no real evidence that it was Miller in those pictures.”

  “It was him, all right,” Carl said, convinced. “Something Donnie said—he didn’t actually say he was blowing his doctor, but he kind of hinted. The bastard.”

  “Well, saying it is,” Tom said, “what about this doctor for a suspect? He looks good for it, doesn’t he?”

  “He certainly wouldn’t want it known, what they were doing,” Libby said. “He’s married, has a couple of children.

  And he’s part of the country club set. He’d have a lot to lose.”

  “That’s plenty of motive,” Tom said.

  “He insists he didn’t do it, though,” Stanley said. “I know, I know, they always deny it. But, oddly, I believed him. I think he was deeply mortified, sick about it, about what he’d done.”

  “Not sick enough,” Carl said vehemently. “The prick.”

  “Maybe not, but he sure looked unhappy. It was an ashamed kind of unhappy, though, not angry, if you know what I mean.

  Not the kind of angry that drives you to bash somebody’s head in.”

  “Spur of the moment?” Libby suggested.

  144 Victor Banis

  “Maybe,” Tom said. “For sure, somebody did. Somebody bashed the kid’s head in.” He looked around the table, settled his gaze on Carl.

  “It wasn’t me.” Carl repeated. “I told you how it happened.”

  June came then to refill coffee cups and carry away plates.

  Tom had cleaned his thoroughly; the others had barely touched their food. When she had gone, they sat in silence for a moment, everyone lost in his own thoughts.

  “I just thought of something,” Carl said to Tom. “What you said, earlier…”

  “When?”

  “About where they did it. Donnie had a place,” he said. “A cave, up in the hills. He went there sometimes, to get away from shit.”

  “Would he have taken tricks there?” Tom asked.

  Carl had to think about that. “Maybe. I don’t know. It was more like, you know, his own private space. He might’ve, though. Maybe R-Rack. He had a thing for Rack. I don’t know why. The dude’s not all that good looking, you ask me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Stanley said without thinking, “He’s awfully…” Tom’s face remained expressionless but Stanley saw something flicker in his eyes, there and gone in an instant, like summer lightning. “I mean, he’s not exactly ugly. Not really, really ugly. I mean. I have seen some ugly guys in my day, believe me, Rack isn’t even in the running. Not the really ugly running. Not even with a pencil dick.”

  “We need to look at this cave,” Tom said curtly. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I think so. He showed it to me, once. It’s a pretty good hike.”

  Tom looked a question at Stanley. Stanley nodded. “I’m up for a nice walk in the woods.” Accompanied, he thought, but did not say—thinking of the bears and the rattlers and whatever else lurked out there, none of which worried him in Tom’s company. Like, there was a bear hanging around who was a match for Tom Danzel with his dander up? Not likely. Pity the poor rattler, too. Mountain lion? Tom probably ate pussies for DEADLY WRONG 145