An Adrien English Mystery: The Dark Tide (10 page)

44

Josh Lanyon

I cleared my throat. “Well, for starters, I want you to see if you can find a guy named Henry Harrison.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Because yesterday he showed up asking questions about the hotel and talking about the murder of Jay Stevens. I find it too much of a coincidence. Seriously. The very day after an attempted break-in?”

Jake considered it. Nodded. “I agree. Do you have any kind of a lead on him?”

“No. Harrison might not even be his real name. He claimed to be visiting from Milwaukee, but he didn't sound like he was from Milwaukee. In fact, nothing about him jibed. Well, I take that back. He did seem to know something about architecture.”

Jake asked a few pertinent questions about Harrison, and I answered to the best of my ability. Mel's showing up when he had the day before had completely distracted me. I didn't want to admit that to Jake.

“Here's the intriguing part,” I said. “Harrison looked to me to be in his late sixties or so.

Which means he could have been a contemporary of Jay Stevens.”

I liked the way Jake's eyes lit with interest. “That
is
intriguing.” He thought it over. “Okay.

Locate a.k.a. Henry Harrison. What else?”

“Secondly, and finding Harrison might answer this, I want to know what it is someone thinks is hidden in this building. It can't be Jay Stevens's body, because that's been found, and the discovery was all over the news last night, so I don't see how anyone could have missed it.”

“Your intruder may not watch the news.” He pointed out, “You don't.”

“True, but if he's interested enough to break in to the building twice, he's got to be keeping an eye on the bookstore, and this place was a zoo yesterday.” I added, “The ape in charge was our good friend Detective Alonzo.”

Jake said impassively, “So I heard.”

“What else did you hear?”

“What do you mean?”

“You still have contacts, right? Is there confirmation that the skeleton is Jay Stevens?”

“It's going to take a while to verify that one way or the other. It's a good bet that it's Stevens. The skeleton is male and probably belonged to someone in his early- to midtwenties.

His is the only mysterious death associated with the hotel that I'm aware of.”

“I've been checking on Stevens.” I told Jake about the Moonglows and
Kaleidoscope.

“If the sister is still alive, she might be a lead.”

“I couldn't find any trace of her, though Sergeant Frame mentioned the name of the investigating officer. Somebody Argyle.”

Jake shook his head. “Doesn't ring a bell.”

Argyle was probably long gone. Frame had about ten years on Jake, so she would remember people who had moved on or retired by the time Jake joined the force.

“Frame also mentioned that Jay Stevens and the Moonglows used to play at a club near the beach called the Tides. She didn't say whether it was up the coast or down.” I smothered a yawn.

Eight thirty and I was ready for bed. For sleep. As party animals went, I appeared to be going into hibernation.

An Adrien English Mystery: The Dark Tide

45

“Okay. Those are both good leads.” Jake rose, picked up our empty dishes, and vanished into the kitchen. I heard the taps running, and I stared out the window at the first pale stars in the pink and yellow sky. One thing about smog: it made for beautiful sunsets.

Jake returned to the living room. “I'm taking off. I'll let you know how it goes.”

I turned around to study him. I hadn't expected this. On the one hand, I was relieved he was giving up without a fight. On the other…

I rose too. “We rekeyed. I have to lock the door after you.”

“Right.”

He paused at the table and picked up the DVD lying there. “
The Maltese Falcon
?” He said with a faint smile, “I'd have expected
Captain Blood
.”

“I'm kind of off pirates just now.”

“Ah.” His smile faded. “Yeah.”

Into the sudden silence between us, I said, “I heard Paul Kane is suing you too?”

“Hmm?” It seemed to take him a second to follow what I was saying. “Yeah.”

Not a big deal for him, it seemed. I opened my mouth to say…I have no idea what. Jake cut me off with a brisk “it doesn't matter. Kane's going away for a long time, and the lawsuits are strictly nuisance bullshit.” The expression in his eyes was one of curiosity. “You're not worried about that?”

“No.” I really wasn't. He looked unconvinced.

“There's more than enough evidence to convict Kane a couple of times over.”

“I know.”

He waited for me to spit out whatever was on my mind. When I didn't, he turned away again and opened the door. I followed him downstairs.

At the side entrance, he said with a long, straight look, “Night, Adrien.”

“Jake?”

He nodded.

“Maybe this isn't my business. All the time we were seeing each other—”

“Ten months.”

Ten months. Not that long, really. Making it all the more difficult to explain why it sometimes seemed like one of the most important relationships of my life.

“Were you still seeing Kane all that time?”

Had he been expecting the question? Jake answered without hesitation. “At first, yes. I quit seeing him after we spent those days at the ranch.” His gaze met mine steadily, seriously. There seemed to be a message there. I wasn't sure what it was.

I said, and I was astonished to hear the pain in my voice, “I'd thought—I don't know why—that I was sort of your first.” I added quickly, “I mean, I know I wasn't your first, because you said—”

He said, “You were the first in every way that counted. You were the first guy I ever kissed.” He smiled faintly, unreadably. “Come to think of it, you were the first guy I had sex with in a bed.”

46

Josh Lanyon

I had no idea what to say to that. The images that it conjured were enough to shut anyone up, I guessed.

“You're comparing apples and oranges. Paul and I didn't date. We weren't friends. We didn't have a relationship outside of the club we both belonged to. He had a voracious appetite for pain, and I had a powerful desire to inflict it.”

I wished that I hadn't asked. It was more than I wanted to know.

“However, when I went back to the club after my marriage, my relationship with Paul did change. We became friends. Or if not friends, at least I allowed the relationship to extend outside of the confines of the club. I was fond of him.”

“I know.”

“I'm sorry you were hurt. I'm sorry Paul hurt you. I'm sorry I hurt you.” Straightforward, sincere, take it or leave it.

I nodded.

“Good night,” he said.

“Good night.”

I locked the door after him and went upstairs.

* * * * *

By now I was getting the morning routine down to a science: I weighed myself, took my temperature, checked my blood pressure and heart rate, inspected the ugly incision on my chest.

Everything indicated I was recovering right on schedule. And I did feel more cheerful, despite the daunting array of medications I was still on.

I did my tai chi, had breakfast—forcing myself to eat a bowl of oatmeal—opened my e-mail, promptly closed it again, and decided to go for a stroll.

As I walked, I couldn't help noticing how loud and busy and smoggy the city was. It had never bothered me before. Now I felt…vulnerable, and the noise and crowds unsettled me in a way they never had before.

Reluctantly, I thought of the house in Porter Ranch—and the pool in the backyard. It would be nice to swim again. Nice to lie in the sun and enjoy the peace and quiet of the surrounding hills. And it
would
be good for me. Lisa was right about that.

But the house was far too large for one. Too large for two, really—although if it were two people used to needing their own space…?

I walked for about twenty minutes, stopping only to buy a couple of CDs—
The Essential
Glenn Miller
and
The Very Best of Cole Porter
—came home, put Cole Porter on, and fell asleep listening to Carmen McRae's version of “Every Time We Say Goodbye.” I woke reenergized, went downstairs, and opened my e-mail for real—this time dealing with about half of it.

On impulse, I sent off an e-mail to the Thomas family Web site asking Todd to get in touch with me.

That did wonders for my morale, and I spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs working on the third Jason Leland mystery,
A Deed of Dreadful Note.

This was my third novel about a gay Shakespearean actor and amateur sleuth. When I'd left college, I had fond dreams of writing for a living. The plan was even parent approved. Perhaps An Adrien English Mystery: The Dark Tide

47

that was the problem. Or perhaps it was simply that I didn't have much to write about at that stage in my life. I'd liked the idea of writing more than the actual writing. Now I enjoyed writing, but I didn't kid myself that it was ever going to be anything other than an enjoyable diversion. I took pride in selling books. In fostering literacy. I loved talking books and writing to people. I appreciated the absence of deadlines in my life and the fact that I was my own boss. I was successful, but not so successful that it was an obsession. There was still room in my life for other things. Like…writing. And murder.

There was no question Leland was a much-better amateur sleuth than I. Granted, he was lucky in the amount of clues that conveniently fell into his lap.

The first book in the series,
Murder Will Out
, had even been optioned briefly for film, though that had fallen through. And how.

I worked on the novel, pushing words around, and then I took another brief walk around the block, came back, and made myself a salad for dinner. Food was kind of a problem for me.

The second day of cardiac rehab, I'd met with a nutritionist and received a brochure to go with the lecture on what I should and shouldn't eat. Which was fine. I wanted to eat the right things, but I wasn't particularly hungry, and I'd never been much of a cook.

I showered and dressed for my—I didn't really want to call it a date—with Mel.

Appointment sounded a tad medicinal, though, and rendezvous seemed to require passports. In the end I settled on a clean pair of Levi's—I didn't want to overdress in case it looked like I was taking this outing too seriously—and a blue jacquard short-sleeved shirt. I experimented, turning this way and that to see if the scar below my collarbone showed, and it did at certain angles. If Mel and I achieved those angles, clearly the shirt would be coming off anyway. And I really couldn't picture that.

I filled in the time waiting for Mel to pick me up by surfing the Net, looking to see what I could find on a club called the Tides. Unexpectedly, there was a quite a bit of information. In fact, for a brief time in the 1950s, the Tides had been
the
place to go for a romantic evening.

I studied the black-and-white photos of smiling Hollywood starlets and Korean War vets, of couples dressed in cocktail dresses and dinner jackets dancing in front of giant picture windows that offered panoramic views of the Southern California coast from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes.

I peered at photographs of different bands. Tommy Reynolds, Si Zentner, Annie Laurie, the Johnny Long Orchestra—most of these names were unknown to me, but there were other names that I did recognize. Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee. The Tides owner, Dan Hale, had brought in the best and the brightest.

There were a number of passing references to “house band” Jay Stevens and the Moonglows.

On a site describing now-defunct jazz clubs, I read a description of the Tides.

Set back a few yards from the pier was the cobalt blue door of the Tides. A short, narrow
flight of steps led to a long, wide room with picture windows facing the ocean. The room
featured tiled mosaics of the sea, zigzagging wood inlays, and undulating wrought-iron
handrails. Playful, ocean-themed shapes popped up everywhere in sconces, moldings, and
upholstery. The large, polished dance floor could easily accommodate one hundred couples,
while latticework sculptures of sea life caught in nets of dark wood stretched across the ceiling.

Mel rang to say he was waiting outside. I turned off the laptop and went to meet him.

48

Josh Lanyon

He was standing beside a silver rental car. I remembered that he had owned a classic BMC

Mini when we had been together. I wondered what he drove those days. Knowing Mel, he probably still drove a Mini. “I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

“History would seem to dispute that.”

“No, but I've only just heard about the skeleton in your attic.”

“Third-floor bedroom, but…right. An upgrade the Realtor forgot to mention.”

“I can't believe you haven't put this place on the market yet. It's the first thing I'd have done.”

“Are you kidding? I'm the envy of every mystery-bookstore owner in the country.” I was turning, still smiling at the sound of a car engine down the alley. My smile faded at the sight of Jake's black Honda S2000.

I was surprised I recognized it, given how rarely I'd been invited to ride shotgun in its comfortable bucket seats.

“Who's this?” Mel inquired. Something in my expression must have told him what he needed to know. He said in a different tone, “Oh.”

The Honda rolled up beside us. Jake rolled down the car window. His expression was impassive as his hazel gaze flicked from Mel to me. “Sorry. I should have called first.”