Deadly Wrong Read online

  “What would I get out of the phone book,” Wayne was fond of asking. “A bunch of nouveau riche lookie loos?”

  The lack of promotion mattered not a whit to the wealthy matrons of Marin County, of Pacific Heights and Presidio Terrace, and Hillsborough to the south, who knew to a woman the telephone number and the location in the little alley, who suffered any inconvenience and who waited, sometimes as long as two years, to pay an interior designer exorbitant amounts of money to abase and ridicule them while he spent their fortunes with relentless unconcern either for costs or his clients’

  opinions.

  “I am the artist,” he would say to any and all objections.

  “And, if you have to ask how much…”

  “I could buy a new Lear Jet for what the pool house cost me,” one of them had commented recently, but it was said more in the nature of a boast than a complaint. To hire Wayne Cotter was to set the seal on your ascendancy. It said, in the clearest tones, that you had arrived at the very upper, upper echelons of Bay Area society. To hire anyone else earned you a prominent and irreversible spot on the B list. Wayne never forgot. They all knew as well, to a woman, that Cotter Interiors was not an elective course in their higher societal schooling. It was required.

  Before his career move to homicide inspector, which Stanley now thought of as his fall from grace, he had worked with Wayne. Of course, decorating, at however exalted a level, was the kind of work that engendered snickers from gays, who saw 10 Victor Banis

  it as the ultimate stereotype. Still, it paid fabulous money if you were good at it, and Stanley was. Truth to tell, he had enjoyed it, and the prestige that came with it in certain quarters. If it hadn’t been for his father, for his father’s disappointment in him and his obvious disapproval of Stanley’s line of work, he would most likely have stayed with it.

  Luckily, when he’d joined the force, he had parted on amicable terms with his employer. Wayne, a distinguished older man not given to emotional outbursts, was happy in his own understated way to see him.

  “Dear boy, how nice to see you,” were his actual words.

  “Just to let you know,” as Stanley explained it to him, “I may be looking for work again.”

  “Always welcome,” Wayne said. “I’ve got a job coming up soon. Perennial divorcee, hates men, can’t get enough of them.

  No taste and lots of money from one source or another.”

  “The pelts of all those men, one would imagine.”

  “Exactly. The perfect combination for those in our field of endeavor, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Mmm.” Stanley screwed up his face. “I had this idea a while back. I wonder how she’d feel about chairs covered in foreskins?”

  “Sounds lovely.” Wayne smiled. “Should be right down her alley. Yours, too, come to think of it.”

  “Thanks, I’ll let you know for sure if that alley opens up for traffic.”

  Satisfied that in any event his rent was covered, Stanley headed for his apartment on the less expensive fringe of the gay Castro neighborhood, determinedly not thinking about the decision that he thought had been made and now had to be rethought. Across the great Tom Danzel chasm of his life, it was no doubt wisest to concentrate on one perilous footbridge at a time.

  He stopped in the Mission on the way, at his favorite bakery.

  “When in doubt, eat it out,” was a motto of his. He’d planned to get half a dozen pecan shortbreads, which they did particularly well at Julio’s. That had stretched to a fabulous New York style cheesecake, which he knew from past acquaintance DEADLY WRONG 11

  was very nearly as good as the ones from Junior’s in Brooklyn, the ne plus ultra of cheesecakes. He added a pair of blueberry muffins for breakfast and, just in case the muffins didn’t do the job, a giant Danish flaunting its wanton sweetness with cherry and cheery disregard for all health considerations.

  He left with his arms loaded with little bags, his spirits picking up for the first time that day. Fruit, nuts, dairy—all the makings, as he saw it, of a sensible diet. He wasn’t much of a cook, though he had perfected the art of bacon and eggs, which he considered the ideal send off to a man after a night of strenuous engagement. Otherwise, he was of the conviction that junk food, and especially sweet junk food, had been created especially for his benefit. Everything had its proper place in the grand scheme of things, as he saw it, and he understood with a completely clear conscience where a cherry Danish fitted in.

  The phone was ringing when he let himself into his apartment. He juggled the bags to the floor, left his keys dangling from the front door lock, and caught the phone just before it switched to the answering machine.

  “Stanley?” The voice on the phone was familiar, and distant, too—one of those voices that you knew you ought to recognize, and couldn’t quite. “It’s Libby,” she said, not waiting for his reply. “Libby Hunter. I don’t know if you’ll even remember me.”

  Libby? “Yes, good God, of course I remember you. But it’s been… well, how many years?”

  She laughed, and the voice now was altogether familiar to him, memories flooding back. Libby Hunter…

  § § § § §

  Summer. In the woods behind Libby’s house. Oak trees and maple and walnut and beech, and a half dozen others he couldn’t name, their shade so deep it was twilight in midday, the ground thick with fallen leaves and rotting vegetation.

  He was not quite fifteen, struggling with the whole issue of coming out, with his newly acknowledged, and that only begrudgingly to himself, attraction to other boys. Just beginning to realize that when you are fourteen, not quite fifteen, being 12 Victor Banis

  different, being freakishly different from the rest of your age group, was a monstrous burden to bear.

  “We shall be brother and sister, why don’t we?” Libby was saying, seating herself decorously on the ground, spreading her denim skirt about her. “Or cousins, if you prefer.”

  He sat beside her, cross legged. She gave him a shrewd look.

  “Or even kissing cousins. But I suspect that my kisses are probably not the kind you’d like.”

  He turned beet red. “What do you mean by that?” he asked, half suspecting that he knew exactly what she meant.

  She mocked him with a Gioconda smile. “Be honest, now.

  Wouldn’t you rather prefer Robbie Melanson? For kisses, I mean?”

  His face got redder still, practically glowing in the dim light.

  “What are you trying to say?” he stammered, unconvincingly.

  “Are you suggesting I’m gay?”

  A little tinkle of a laugh. “My pet, I’m not suggesting anything. You can be whatever you are, so far as I am concerned. And, if not gay,” she shrugged, and her smile got altogether wicked, “well, if it’s just lack of experience that’s the problem, I could seduce you. You are rather attractive, you know. In your own owlish way.” She leaned closer to him. He could smell her perfume—something expensive, he thought.

  Even then, even at fourteen, he knew good perfume from bad.

  Which in itself was a clue, wasn’t it? How many fourteen year old boys did? “Would you like me to seduce you, Stan?”

  “Stanley,” He corrected her automatically, his head swimming. At least every male in school and probably the town’s entire male population fantasized about getting it on with Libby Hunter, and here she was… hmm. Was what, exactly? Was she actually offering herself to him? He could hardly believe it.

  And wasn’t at all sure how he felt about it. Male vanity prodded him to encourage her, even while a part of him was noting that her body, though undeniably voluptuous, lacked the particular shape that had lately begun to haunt his fantasies.

  Still, at fourteen going on fifteen, things are not yet altogether jelled. Lots of conditioning still at work in there.

  DEADLY WRONG 13

  “Well, sure, of course I would,” he said, summoning up what he thought was an air of braggadocio. The way the guys smirked when they lied to one a
nother about their experiences.

  “Why not?”

  “Really?” She leaned toward him. He put his arms around her in a clumsy embrace and she leaned hard against him, and they managed to fall backward onto the pine needles.

  It was a long kiss. A valiant one. And, it was soon evident, to no avail.

  “Well, now we know why not,” Libby said, calling it quits and sitting up again, but she looked coyly at him from under her lashes “Or, is it just that I am too plain and dowdy for your tastes?”

  “No, don’t be silly,” he said, totally mortified. “You’re the prettiest girl in school, everyone knows that. It’s just… oh, hell, what you said before, it’s the truth. I do like boys. I think, anyway. I’ve never actually done, you know, anything. And, yes, I have a crush on Robbie Melanson, just like every girl in school.”

  “Not quite every girl.” She patted her hair. “Personally, given a choice, I’d opt for Betsy Norden. She is an airhead, but my goodness, that body. But I guess most likely you haven’t noticed her chest—too busy admiring Robbie’s I’m sure.”

  He stared at her openmouthed, so astonished that he forgot about his humiliation—or so he considered it up till then. Betsy Norden, the cheerleader?

  “But she’s… are you saying that you’re…” but he couldn’t summon the nerve to put it into words.

  “How on earth do you think I recognized a kindred spirit?”

  “But, if you’re, you know, if you like girls, why did you… I mean, what just happened? Why did you want to… with me?”

  She stood up, brushing some errant leaves off her skirt.

  “Oh, I didn’t really think anything was going to come of it,” she said. “But I thought it might help clear things up in your mind.

  Cousin,” she added with a wink.

  And it suddenly struck him as so outrageous, he laughed out loud. After a moment, she laughed with him, and took his arm, pulling him to his feet. “Come on, Cuz, I think you owe me a 14 Victor Banis

  Coke after that, don’t you? And we can compare fantasies. Do you really have a crush on Robbie? He is good looking, but, such an ass. Plus I have it on good authority, he’s very small.”

  “How on earth…?”

  “Girls do talk,” she said. “Same as boys. Now, Harvey Wallace, I hear he packs a large suitcase. Like an elephant’s trunk, is how I heard it.”

  “Harvey? But, he’s very…”

  “Yes, very. But, still…”

  He had been grateful for the friendship, or, for its new dimension. Unfortunately, it was short lived. He only saw her a couple of times after that, before her family moved away to Southern California. They’d exchanged a couple of letters, and things had just died away on their own, the way they did. When you’re young, just sorting out your own life can be a full time occupation. It was hard keeping track of someone else’s.

  Libby was the first person, though, who’d gotten him to really face his homosexuality. He couldn’t forget that.

  § § § § §

  “How could I forget you?” he said into the phone. He carried the phone with him back to the shopping bags and rummaged out the cherry Danish. Breakfast was too far away to wait. “How are you? What have you been doing? You’re still in Los Angeles?”

  “Bear Mountain.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember. It’s, uh, in the mountains, right?”

  Which was surely a good guess.

  “San Bernardino Mountains, east of Los Angeles. It’s a busy ski resort in the winter, with not much happening in the summer. A few locals fishing the lake, some tourists escaping the smog. Quiet. Pretty though.”

  “Sounds cool.” There was a long silence, that funny, filled silence you get sometimes on a phone line, like the sound somebody makes when they’re holding their breath. It had been more than ten years since Stanley had heard from Libby—

  longer since they’d actually talked. “So…” he said, and then, again, “How are you?”

  DEADLY WRONG 15

  “I’m fine. Well, no, not really, there’s something… I thought… aren’t you in police work?”

  “How on earth would you know that?”

  Her laugh was familiar and, for the first time in the conversation, free of stress. “Oh, I keep tabs on you, Cuz,” she added, in a voice that he remembered from their teen age explorations.

  “From Bear Mountain?”

  Another laugh. “Okay, okay, I’ve got a friend in San Francisco. You’re not the only one who can play detective, you know. And, she sent me some newspaper clippings, all about this big murder case that you solved, and, well, that’s why I’m calling you. You remember my brother, don’t you?” A brief hesitation, the stress back in her voice, making it sound old.

  “Carl?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure. Sort of.” He had to think. Carl was younger then Libby. Five years younger, or seven, something like that.

  The last time Stanley had seen him, Carl had been maybe eight years old. Not like they’d been buddies, or anything. He was just the little brother, sometimes hanging around, mostly on his own.

  “He’s in… Carl’s had some trouble. He got arrested. For killing someone.”

  “Carl?” Stanley couldn’t help sounding surprised. He tried to remember Carl Hunter, to summon up some picture in his mind. Not a bad looking boy, but not someone you noticed much. Skinny, undernourished looking. Quiet. Almost mousy.

  Not the kind you’d imagine killing someone.

  “You mean murder?”

  “They say involuntary manslaughter. It was… I’m not sure what it was. He confessed to it, is the thing.”

  “Well, then…”

  “And then he turned right around afterward and said he didn’t do it. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “What do the police think?”

  “That’s just it. They think he did it. I mean, he did confess, after all. It took all kinds of hoopla even to get him out on bail, 16 Victor Banis

  Mom had to pledge her house, practically everything she owns, and I just about emptied the bank account. It was a lot of bail, and I can’t imagine why. They said he might run. Which is just so silly, if you knew Carl. Carl has trouble finding his way across town sometimes, and it’s a small town. Anyway, the District Attorney says he’s putting him on trial.”

  Stanley tried to assimilate the information, but he could not come up with any reasonable explanation for why, after so many years, Libby would be calling him with this news.

  “It sounds like you need a lawyer. I don’t know anybody down that way, but I have a friend here who works in a law office, I can—”

  “Thanks, but that wasn’t why I was calling you.” Another hesitation. “Stanley, do you think you could come here? To Bear Mountain. There’s something not right. I just don’t believe Carl could hurt anybody.”

  “But… well, sure, but to do what, exactly?”

  “To investigate this whole business. I need someone to give me some answers. Someone I can trust.”

  “But, hey, you’ve got a police department there, right.” She made a snorting sound. “And, you know, even if I were there, I’d have no jurisdiction. I mean, down there, I’d be just a private citizen.”

  “A private citizen who is also part of their own little club.

  Cops are friendly with other cops, aren’t they? They cooperate with one another, right?”

  “Some of them.” Stanley was thinking about the men in the homicide room. Fat lot of cooperation he’d get out of any of them. He tried to imagine the town of Bear Mountain, in the San Bernardino Mountains, east of Los Angeles.

  “Rednecks,” he said, thinking aloud.

  “The locals? Of course. That’s why they’re so quick to want to toss Carl in the garbage dumpster. He’s not one of their type, you know what I mean?”

  “Oh, absolutely, I know exactly. Libby, do you remember what I was like at all?” He finished the Danish, licked his fingers, and decided one blueberry muffin would be plenty in t
he morning, which meant he had an extra one to deal with DEADLY WRONG 17

  between now and then. He went back to the shopping bags.

  “Because, I haven’t gotten any butcher over the years. Your locals are just as likely to toss me into the garbage dumpster.”

  “Maybe so. But you are a cop. A big city cop. I’ll bet they’ll be impressed to hell and back just having you show up.”

  I’ll bet they won’t, Stanley thought.

  “Plus, we’ll pay for everything. You can fly into Burbank, and I’ll pick you up. And you can stay at my place, and use my car. It’ll cost you practically nothing. And Bear Mountain is a pretty little town.”

  Stanley thought about all that. What could it hurt? He remembered Tom’s frequent remarks, that he was a magnet for trouble. But he wouldn’t actually be investigating a real murder in this case, would he? Not like the last one, where someone wanted to kill him, and almost succeeded. From what Libby had said, what had happened was more like an accident. He would just be there to clear up some confusion. What could be the harm in that? Certainly he wasn’t going to be in any danger.

  Besides, he was on leave, and feeling down about Tom, and San Francisco was in the middle of its June Gloom, gray, foggy days when the sun never made more than a token appearance, and which, despite its label, some years lasted from May through September. The relentlessly wan sky could make a depressed individual feel twice as sad. And he already had a good head start.

  Plus, he’d been wanting a vacation, hadn’t he? A vacation with no expense attached to it, or a least, minimal expense.

  Which was exactly what Libby was offering him. It was like the answer to a prayer.

  He thought about a small town in the mountains. Breathing the crisp, clear air, the sky above a blinding blue; hiking through Christmas tree scented woods; swimming in a mountain lake, the crystalline waters sparkling in the sunlight, or perhaps sailing gracefully over its surface in the moonlight. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself lolling on silken pillows while a handsome gondolier serenaded him. The only traffic noise the occasional call of a moose.