Page 39 of Fade Out
“Your cell mate at County. He says you confessed to him.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Oh, I wish I were.”
“The guy talked so much I could barely get a word in. I couldn’t have confessed to him even if I wanted to.”
“Apparently, you told him details that only the killer would know.”
“Didn’t happen.”
“Well, I didn’t think so. Someone’s out to get you, dear. Any idea who?”
Chapter Ten
Believe it or not,things got worse from there. The ASA was planning to go back to the judge and ask—given this “compelling” new evidence—that my bond be revoked. That meant I had until sometime Monday to figure this whole mess out.
The last thing I asked Owen before I hung up was, “Who’s the ASA you’re dealing with?”
“Tony Stork.”
I knew Tony. Intimately. I also knew he was married, which meant he was susceptible to blackmail. And Rita Lindquist was Miss Blackmail 1985.
“FYI, Tony sucked me off in an interview room, probably three years ago. During the Campbell Wayne prosecution.”
“I doubt you’d be believed,” Owen said. “It looks desperate.”
“I am desperate.”
“Sometime you’ll have to tell me all about it, though. Blow by blow.”
I didn’t appreciate the fact that he could make jokes. I wasn’t feeling all that funny. I said goodbye and tried to figure out what to do next. I had to find out who the tall guy and the dishwater blonde were. They could be connected to the list of dormant accounts. They could be connected to 618 North Wells. They could also be people Rita picked up in a bar. Or through the personals. Or a hundred other ways con artists meet their marks.
Making another trip to the kitchen, I found a half-full bottle of white wine in the side-by-side refrigerator and poured some into a coffee mug. I was too lazy to bother with a wine glass.
Think like Rita, that’s what I had to do. I’d taken away her playmate in December. She would have been on the lookout for a new one shortly after that. She’d want someone she could trust. Someone she felt safe with. Possibly someone she already knew. I wondered if Bill Appleton had any ideas. Or his ex-wife.
Brian kept a pad next to his phone. I grabbed it and wrote down those two names. Who else? I could try to find someone at Carney, Greenbaum and Turner who knew her. Like my attorney, they’d probably be working at least a few hours on Saturday.
Gloria Silver. Hopefully, she’d call me with some information. If she didn’t call by Sunday morning, I’d give her a nudge. I could go back to Andrew Happ’s neighborhood in the morning. On a Saturday, there would be more neighbors to talk to. There might be more to find out there. Maybe.
I sipped my wine wondering where Brian and Franklin were. Visiting hours were over so they should… Then I remembered it was Friday night. They might have gone out to dinner, maybe a movie. The kind of things normal people did. I also remembered that Friday was the night Joseph went to a group for ex-priests and nuns called Open Church. That’s where he met Alejandro. It made sense they’d be there tonight.
I didn’t know where the group met, but it couldn’t be that hard to find out. I could go there and—and what? Yell, scream, shake him, beg him. I could tell him I’d been arrested for murder, make him feel guilty he wasn’t with me, helping me, supporting me.
What good would any of that do?It wouldn’t bring us back together. It wouldn’t change any of the reasons he’d left me. A line had been drawn, a line that was being drawn everywhere for gay men. Joseph was on one side with Alejandro and I was on the other. As much as I wanted to be on his side of the line, as much as I wanted to be with him, I couldn’t be. This was something I couldn’t fix and I felt helpless.
Brian and Franklin came in about nine with Chinese takeout and a big brown grocery bag. Nobody asked how my day had gone—it was that easy to figure out it hadn’t gone well. Franklin took the Chinese into the kitchen. As he dug through the grocery bag, Brian said, “They moved Ross to the ICU and put him on a ventilator.”
“Shit.”
From the bag he produced a bottle of Absolut, one of tonic, and a small bag of limes. He got three tall glasses out of the built-in sideboard. Franklin came back in with a tray of ice. Brian made three drinks without asking if I wanted one. It was all too obvious that I did.
A ventilator. We were close to the end. It wouldn’t be making him better, it would simply be extending his life. Shit.
“We’ve been lucky,” Franklin said.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I burst out.
