Deadly Silence Read online

  DeaDly

  Silence

  Victor J. BaniS

  mlrpress

  Mlr PreSS authorS

  Featuring a roll call of some of the best writers of gay erotica and mysteries today!

  M. Jules Aedin

  Drewey Wayne Gunn

  Maura Anderson

  David Juhren

  Victor J. Banis

  Samantha Kane

  Jeanne Barrack

  Kiernan Kelly

  Laura Baumbach

  J.L. Langley

  Alex Beecroft

  Josh Lanyon

  Sarah Black

  Clare London

  Ally Blue

  William Maltese

  J.P. Bowie

  Gary Martine

  Michael Breyette

  Z.A. Maxfield

  P..A. Brown

  Patric Michael

  Brenda Bryce

  Jet Mykles

  Jade Buchanan

  Willa Okati

  James Buchanan

  L. Picaro

  Charlie Cochrane

  Neil Plakcy

  Kirby Crow

  Jordan Castillo Price

  Dick D.

  Luisa Prieto

  Ethan Day

  Rick R. Reed

  Jason Edding

  A.M. Riley

  Angela Fiddler

  George Seaton

  Dakota Flint

  Jardonn Smith

  S.J. Frost

  Caro Soles

  Kimberly Gardner

  JoAnne Soper-Cook

  Roland Graeme

  Richard Stevenson

  Storm Grant

  Clare Thompson

  Amber Green

  Lex Valentine

  LB Gregg

  Stevie Woods

  Check out titles, both available and forthcoming, at www.mlrpress.com

  DeaDly

  Silence

  Victor J. BaniS

  mlrpress

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2010 by Victor J. Banis

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Published by

  MLR Press, LLC

  3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.

  Albion, NY 14411

  Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet: www.mlrpress.com

  Cover Art by Deana C. Jamroz

  Editing by Kris Jacen

  Printed in the United States of America.

  ISBN# 978-1-60820-106-8

  Issued 2010

  Special thanks to Nowell Briscoe, Murphy Cutler and Ingrid Van Dort for their helpful input. And to my editor, Kris Jacen, for valor beyond the call of duty. And of course I am, as always, grateful to my cover artist, Deana Jamroz, to the entire MLR family, and especially to publisher Laura Baumbach, whose faith has never wavered.

  And I am grateful to a Divine providence that has somehow seen fit to bless my life, surely far beyond anything I might have merited.

  Prologue

  He knew, and knew why as well. For a fluttering moment, he thought of pushing the little button to summon the nurse, or even crying out. Something, anything to resist.

  But why? What would be the point of resisting? It would happen, if not in this moment, then another, and not so far distant in time, either. You could not forever deny justice, and he was not so great a fool he did not know this was it.

  He looked into the eyes regarding him and saw in them the cold loathing of knowledge, a knowledge he’d always dreaded seeing. From whence had it come? Or had it always been there, and he had just failed to see it.

  “Are you awake?” The whisper was so faint he might almost have imagined it, had he not felt its breath touch his cheek. Close.

  So very close. And so far, too. “Really awake?”

  Awake enough, the whisper meant, to know what is happening.

  He closed his eyes, managed a sighed, “Yes.” To both questions.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  It was no more than he expected. And no less.

  chaPter one

  Stanley Korski was happy to hear the telephone ring. Business had been slow, and that left him too much time to ponder things.

  Just at this moment, there were things buzzing about in his mind that he really did not want to think about. That little voice inside the head—how did one get that to shut up, when it just insisted on nattering on and on? About stuff that you truly did not want to contemplate.

  “Danzel and Korski, Private Investigators.”

  “Which one have I gotten?” a woman’s voice asked, a little coldly, Stanley thought, but really, though they hadn’t been in the business a terribly long time, he’d already learned that people were rarely chatty and warm when they were calling private investigators. Usually, they were in some kind of a jam. For sure, the season notwithstanding, this woman whose voice he did not recognize wasn’t calling to wish him Merry Christmas.

  “This is Stanley Korski.”

  “My name is Pendleton. Patience Pendleton. A mutual acquaintance, Molly Mullins, suggested I call you.”

  Stanley didn’t remember a Molly Mullins, but that counted for next to nothing. People also apparently needed excuses to call on detectives. Sometimes they made their excuses up.

  “You need a detective?” Stanley nodded in his partner’s direction and switched the phone to speaker, so Tom Danzel could listen to the conversation as well.

  “Yes.” The voice hesitated. “It’s my father. Abe Pendleton.

  Albert. Someone has tried to murder him.”

  “Really?” Stanley Korski took a few seconds to absorb that statement and fling a questioning glance in Tom’s direction.

  Despite the movies and detective books, private investigators didn’t usually get this kind of call. “Uh, have you talked to the 4 Victor J. Banis

  police about this attempted murder, Miss…Pendleton, did you say?”

  That was greeted with a snort of derision. “I talked to them.

  For all the good it did.”

  “Well, then…”

  “They think I’m playing drama queen. And the nursing home says it was an accident. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? If you’re running a rehab house, you wouldn’t want it known that somebody was trying to kill your patients. Though personally I can’t see how they’d come across any better if it was an accident.

  Sounds careless, you know what I mean?”

  “How can you be so sure it wasn’t an accident?” Tom asked.

  “Is that Mister Danzel? I can’t be sure, not one hundred percent. If I knew…but, that’s why I’m calling you.” She sounded a little impatient that they didn’t automatically grasp that. “That’s what I want you to find out. I want you to look into the incident.

  If it was an accident, which I seriously doubt, that’s one thing.

  But if someone tried to kill him, then that’s very much a horse of a different color.”

  “I understand, only, there must have been something that roused your suspicion,” Tom said.

  “There was. I talked to the nurse right after it happened, and the nurse was convinced he’d given his patient the right dose. It was Father’s insulin, he’d gotten way too much, and it put him in a coma. But the nurse insisted he’d given him just the prescribed amount. He was so clear on that point.”

  “Still, accidents do happen,” Stanley said. “Even a competent nurse can make a mistake. And, he wouldn’t want to admit it, would he?”

  “That’s true. But he was so certain. And that’s not all of it, either. I tried to talk to him again, and he’d disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Tom echoed.

  “Just like that.” A muffled sound over the phone that might DeaDly Silence 5

  have been the snap of fingers. “Gone. I asked the administrator at the home how I could get in touch with him, and what I got was a big fat runaround. At first, they said they couldn’t give out private information like that. Then, when I threatened to get our lawyers involved, they changed their tune, said the nurse in question had left without giving them a forwarding address.

  Doesn’t that make you suspicious? A patient goes into a coma, nearly dies from a massive overdose of his medicine, and a day later, the person who administered it has vanished. And we’re talking about a nurse. What’s he going to live off if he plans to vanish from the face of the earth? Nurses have to register, don’t they?”

  Tom didn’t really know but he thought that was probably true.

  Anyway, he had to admit what she said did make him suspicious too, at least a little. “What hospital was this?”

  “Bella Vista, overlooking the Castro. And it isn’t a hospital, it’s a nursing home.”

  “What’s the difference?” Tom asked.

  “The doctors don’t do surgery,” she said in the tone of voice one would use with a somewhat slow child. “There’s no intensive care. Patients come there when they’re past the critical stages in their recovery. It’s more in the nature of rehab.”

  “And your father was there because…?”

  “It’s almost ridiculous, if it hadn’t grown so serious. He went into Saint Sophie’s for a routine knee replacement, that was three months ago, and he ended up with MRSA.
They’ve been treating him with daily antibiotics, but his insurance wouldn’t continue to pay for that in the hospital, so he was moved to the Bella Vista two weeks ago. He could have come home, but he’s bedridden with that knee, and he needs the daily injections. Belle Vista was a better choice.”

  “You said an insulin overdose?”

  “Yes. He’s diabetic. They’ve had him on an insulin IV. But something went way wrong with the dosage. He went into a coma. If someone hadn’t reacted very quickly…”

  6 Victor J. Banis

  “Who, exactly?” Stanley asked.

  “The same nurse.”

  “Look,” Tom said, “how about if we get together to discuss this? Would it be convenient for you to come to our offices, and…”

  “No. I take care of my sister. She’s…well, you’ll no doubt see for yourself. It’s not convenient for me to go out and leave her alone with just our housemaid, and I don’t have time to get someone in. I want you to come here, to our home. We’re in Pacific Heights. The address is…”

  Stanley took down the address, and they agreed to be there that afternoon at four. When they’d finished the call, he phoned his friend Chris, a nurse, to ask what he knew about Bella Vista Nursing Home.

  “Pricey,” Chris said. “Has a good reputation. I know the administrator, if you want an intro.”

  “I might,” Stanley said. “I’ll meet you later, at The Cove. You can tell me all about the place.”

  “So you think there really is a case in this for us?” Tom asked when Stanley was off the phone.

  “Honey, that address. Big money. Big fees. Santa could be very pleased.”

  He also thought, but did not say, we’ll be very much occupied for a while. Which ought to give that voice in his head something different to natter about.

  § § § § §

  On the way, Tom made a stop at the San Francisco Homicide Bureau, to check in with his one time colleague, Homicide Inspector Bryce.

  “Pendleton,” he said to Bryce, “Albert Pendleton, Pacific Heights, currently in a nursing home above the Castro. Had anything called in?”

  DeaDly Silence 7

  Bryce checked. “I’m not supposed to share this kind of information,” keying information into the computer even while he said it.

  “I promise I’ll keep it to myself.” Bryce was right, of course, and they both knew it. But they both knew too that Bryce was a deeply closeted homosexual with a case of the hots for Tom—a fact that Tom had taken advantage of before with no qualms, and didn’t hesitate to do so again. It was one of the perks of the good looking, and even the scars on the left side of his face, the results of some severe burns he’d suffered in an earlier case, hadn’t seemed to diminish his appeal for Bryce in the least. Tom had learned that somewhat cynical lesson early on in his career: a successful detective used whatever tools he’d been handed.

  In the past, when they had both actually worked in the homicide detail, Tom had taken almost no notice of his fellow Inspector. His relationship with Stanley, however, had broadened his perspective. Now he could look at Bryce and see what he wouldn’t have noticed before; that he was an attractive man, even without himself feeling an iota of attraction to him.

  That man-on-man desire was something Tom felt only for Stanley, and that had more to do with the simple fact of his being in love with Stanley than with his being gay—he didn’t actually believe he was, despite the undeniable intensity of their relationship. It was just a matter of him and Stanley, some special chemistry that had developed between the two of them. It had nothing to do with gay in general.

  Still, he could see that a gay man would find Bryce appealing.

  His body was compact, almost stocky, but hard muscled. Clearly he worked out regularly. His face was boyish, slightly freckled, his sandy hair spilled over a wide brow. His mouth was sharply outlined. Clinically, Tom thought it was what was called kissable.

  But he felt no desire to kiss it. None of it aroused any particular desire in him.

  He had wondered more than once if, had he not found himself engaged with Stanley, he and Bryce at some time or other might 8 Victor J. Banis

  have found a way to one another. He knew that Bryce obviously thought so, but Tom had never imagined a scenario in which that seemed even remotely likely.

  He could suppose that, even had Stanley not come into his life, it was possible that a desire, a need, for man on man sexuality might have awakened at some time or other within him, aroused by some other male whose path crossed his. But even supposing that, he would probably never have acted upon it, and certainly not if it had been someone also on the force with him.

  He’d seen relations begin between members of the force, in all gender variants, and he knew that they invariably foundered, to the detriment of both careers. Affairs based on nothing more than lust or boredom, or a craving for some new kind of thrill were doomed from the onset, in his opinion. It was a miracle, one that he preferred not to question too closely, that he and Stanley had somehow managed thus far to work things out between them.

  Even when he had recognized his sexual desire for Stanley, and that had been a major shock to him, he had broken the relationship off, and it had not begun again until Stanley was gone from the force. He was not so great a fool that he didn’t recognize the unfairness of that. It was why, despite the fact that he had loved his job and was good at it, he too had resigned from SFPD, opting instead for sharing a detective agency with the man who was now his life’s partner. But that was a role Bryce could never have filled for him, however handsome he might be, and however much he might want to.

  Bryce lifted jade green eyes from the computer, met Tom’s questioning gaze searchingly. “Nothing in the computer. Why?

  What makes you ask?”

  “His daughter called us, seems to think someone tried to off Daddy.”

  “Did they?”

  “Can’t say yet. We’re checking. I just wondered how serious she was.”

  DeaDly Silence 9

  “Not serious enough to give us a call.” Bryce swung his chair away from the computer and looked at his watch. “Hey, how about a coffee downstairs. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Thanks, but Stanley’s waiting in the car.”

  “Oh.” Bryce’s disappointment was undisguised. He made no secret of his resentment of Stanley. “Well…”

  “Some other time.”

  “Sure. Maybe when you’re alone.”

  “That would be nice. Next time, I promise. I’ll give you a call.”

  Tom had gotten the information he’d come for. He felt it was only fair to offer his would-be suitor a ray of hope in return.

  Bryce smiled hopefully. “Do that,” he said.

  Which, Tom thought with a pang of guilt, was a little too much like a dog grateful for a pat on the head. Unfortunately, in this case, the dog was never going to get the bone he was longing for. Probably he should just flat out tell Bryce that. But he didn’t.

  § § § § §

  “Whatever she thinks,” Tom told Stanley, “she didn’t call in the police.”

  “That’s odd,” Stanley said. They were on their way to the address Patience Pendleton had given them. “She told us she’d called them and they shined her on.”

  “Which tells me she’s not really all that sure. But she has some reason for wanting us to think she is.”

  “Well, really, common sense says it’s far more likely it was an accident, just as the nursing home says. And if the nurse was so quick to discover the problem, that the patient had gone into a coma, it could just be because he realized right away what he’d done, that he had made a mistake.”

  “I’m no medical expert,” Tom said, “But it doesn’t seem like the most logical way to murder someone.”

  10 Victor J. Banis

  “You’re forgetting Hannah Hunter. Up in Bear Mountain.

  That’s how she killed her mother. But she’d set that up in advance.

  And, of course, Ms. Pendleton’s father wasn’t actually killed, was he? I mean, we’re thinking, either accident or murder, but it might not have been either, exactly.”

  Tom frowned, steered around a stopped bus on Van Ness.

  “Meaning, what then?”

  “A warning?”

  chaPter two

  The address they’d been given was on the high rent end of Pacific Avenue, only a couple of blocks over from Divisadero—