The Bright Silver Star

CHAPTER 13

“um, okay, tell me again why we’re sitting here like this?”

“Because I have a feeling, that’s why,” Mitch explained to her for the umpteenth time.

“You have a feeling,” Des repeated from next to him in the darkness. She was still in uniform, her collar opened, sleeves turned back.

“I do. I have a definite, undeniable feeling.”

“Oh, it’s undeniable, all right.”

They were sitting in his pickup a hundred yards up Turkey Neck Road from Dodge and Martine Crockett’s driveway, their bellies full of barbecue. Carriage lanterns framed the driveway entrance, bathing it in a dim, golden glow. Across the darkened meadow, lights were on inside the house. It was just past eleven. Warm, sticky air had moved in from the south as the afternoon had given way to evening, bringing low clouds and fog with it. Now it was humid and still and the cicadas were whirring. In the distance, Mitch could hear the foghorn on the Old Saybrook Lighthouse.

“What’s more, you need my help,” he added. “You’ve got two murders that don’t seem to connect with each other except for the simple fact that they must. And you’re totally flummoxed by it- you, Soave, Yolie, all of you.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there,” she growled at him.

“Would you like to know why you’re so flummoxed?”

“One way or the other, I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“Because all three of you think inside the box. I’m not being critical, mind you. I’m just saying that you’re encumbered by the rules and procedures of your job, and I’m not. This allows me to function as a freer thinker. You might even think of me, well, as a visionary.”

Des reached over in the dark and squeezed his hand. “Baby, I’m not going to have to hit you, am I?”

“What you’ll be doing, before this night is over, is thanking me.”

“Mitch?…”

“Yes, Des?”

“What damned feeling?!”

“That we’ve let our heads get turned by all of this sex. We’ve got so many Dorseteers hopping in and out of bed with each other that we don’t know who loves who, who loathes who, who might want who dead.. . Are you with me so far?”

“You’re talking, I’m listening.”

“Okay, good. We’ve got Abby, Chrissie, and Martine all without alibis for the night Tito died. Two of them had been romantically involved with him. The third was his mother-in-law. Now, we don’t know why Donna Durslag had to die. Therefore we have no idea which one of those three had any interest in killing her. But here’s something that we do know-that Dodge Crockett is a sick, bad, morally depraved guy.”

“I won’t disagree with you there.”

“Let’s say that this qualifies him to be our prime murder suspect, okay?”

“That’s a bit of a leap, but go ahead and run with it.”

“We know that he’s home alone tonight. He told me so this morning. So all we have to do now is wait and he’ll show his hand.”

“What hand?”

“Something is going to happen tonight,” Mitch declared with total certainty. “I’m telling you, I can feel it.”

“Whoa, time out, cowboy-this is your feeling?”

“Well, yeah. Put yourself in his shoes, Des. It’s not as if a perverted sociopath like Dodge is going to spend his night watching Send Me No Flowers on American Movie Classics. Not that it’s a bad movie, mind you. Rock Hudson and Doris Day were an underrated comedy team, and Paul Lynde absolutely goes to town as a funeral home director who loves his work just a bit too-”

“Okay, I am going to have to hit you.”

“Someone is going to visit Dodge tonight. Or he’s going to go see someone.”

“And?…”

“And that’s our chance to find out what he’s really up to and who he’s up to it with. If he leaves, we follow him. If someone comes by, we tiptoe our way to the house and put our noses to the glass. It’s smart, it’s simple, and it’ll work. What do you say, Master Sergeant, am I right or am I right?”

Des sat there in the darkened silence for a long moment before she said, “You do know that this particular move is straight out of the Hardy Boys, don’t you?”

“Maybe it is,” he admitted. “But it was a darned effective maneuver when they’d exhausted their other options. Besides, Frank and Joe cracked a number of Fenton’s toughest cases.”

“You do know that was fiction, don’t you-for little boys?”

A possum moseyed its way out of the brush and up the Crocketts’ driveway, its long, slinky tail trailing along behind it. Truly one of God’s ugliest creatures, Mitch observed. Right up there with the lowly woodchuck. Just one of the many new things he had learned since he moved to Dorset. “You think this is a stupid idea, is that it?”

“Actually, I’m sitting here thinking you make a shocking amount of sense.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“For starters, I think you have you a personal vendetta thing going on. You admired Dodge and he’s turned out to be a total sleaze and now you want him to fry. Your judgment is clouded, Mitch. That’s not to say I disagree with you. The man is bad news, and he should pay for what he’s done to Esme and Becca and who knows who else. But that doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer. Just a sleaze.”

Mitch considered this for a moment. “Okay, what else?”

“I also think there’s an exceptionally good chance that we’re going to sit here until four in the morning and have nothing to show for it except stiff necks.”

It was awfully quiet. They hadn’t seen so much as single passing motorist since they’d been parked there.

“Maybe, but at least we’re together.” He leaned over and kissed her smooth cheek. “You don’t mind that part, do you?”

“No, baby, I don’t mind,” she said, her own knowing lips finding the sweet spot under his ear, the one that turned him into a quivering mass of man Jell-O.

“Did I remember to thank you for stopping at East Coast Grill?” he murmured, finding her mouth with his.

“Three times… This makes four.”

“I’m overwhelmed. I’ve never had a woman bring me pork before.”

“If I’d known you were this easy I’d have done it a lot sooner,” she said, groaning softly. “But you’d better pass me some of that coffee. I’ve been up since before dawn.”

Mitch poured her some from the thermos he’d brought, thinking about what she’d said. Because she wasn’t wrong. Not one bit.

He did want it to be Dodge.

They’d had words that morning at Will’s house. Mitch hadn’t needed to stay there with Will for long. As soon as Des took off the poor guy headed straight for the phone to call his father figure. Dodge’s arrival was Mitch’s official cue to leave. Mitch was in no mood to hang around with that man.

Still, their paths crossed out on the front porch as Dodge came bounding up the steps, looking all tanned, virile, and fit, a manila folder tucked under one arm. “Mitch, I’m so glad you’re here,” he said, face etched with concern. “This is just such an awful business. Why would anyone want to hurt Donna?”

“I really don’t know, Dodge.”

“How is our boy holding up?”

“Our boy is pretty shook.”

“We missed you out there this morning,” he said, eyeing Mitch carefully. “The tide was out. It was beautiful.”

“I couldn’t make it,” Mitch said, rather stiffly.

“Sure, sure.” Dodge seemed stung by Mitch’s chilly response. “Oh, hey, I’ve got something for you,” he said, holding the manilafolder out to him. “This is the application for that teen mentoring program over at the Youth Services Bureau. They’d love to have you if you can spare an hour a week.”

Mitch reached for it gingerly. He did not actually wish to touch anything that Dodge had touched. In fact, he felt a form of visceral revulsion just standing on the same porch with him.

After an awkward silence Dodge said, “I’m sorry you had to walk in on my… private moment with Becca yesterday.”

Mitch said nothing. He knew that the older man was waiting for him to put his mind at ease. But Mitch didn’t particularly feel like doing that.

“I can tell that you’re still upset,” Dodge persisted.

“Dodge, I really don’t want to talk about this right now. Why don’t you go inside? Will needs you.”

“It’s wasn’t what it looked like, Mitch. Becca and I have a real history together. We go way back.”

“Kind of like you and Esme?” Mitch snapped, immediately regretting it. He should have kept his mouth shut.

Dodge didn’t lose his composure. He simply looked Mitch straight in the eye and said, “I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, or from who, but I love my daughter, and I would never, ever hurt her. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.”

“You never touched her?”

“I’d like to have an opportunity to discuss this further with you, Mitch. Martine will be with Esme tonight. I’ll be home all evening. We can have a drink on the terrace and talk it through, okay? Maybe by then you will have cooled off.”

“Dodge, one thing keeps puzzling me-why’d you tell me that Martine was having an affair?”

“Because she was,” he said. “And because you and I are friends. Or at least I thought we were.”

“Okay, right, I get it now,” Mitch said, nodding his head. “I’m the one who has the problem.”

“Mitch, we all do things that we don’t understand and we can’tcontrol,” Dodge offered as explanation. “Things that we feel bad about. That’s what makes us human beings. Our only real failure is when we don’t make the effort to understand one another. Will you at least try? Will you do that much for me?”

“Sure, I’ll do that much, Dodge,” he replied grimly, seized by the horrifying certainty that his friend had just confessed to killing Tito Molina and Donna Durslag.

And then Mitch had said good-bye to him and headed home to prowl Big Sister’s tidal pools alone with his hands in his pockets. He pruned his tomato plants, mowed his lawn, picked wild blackberries and beach plums. He was fine as long as he kept moving. Until at long last Des returned to him from Boston, one-quart tub of shredded pork in hand.

And now they sat there together in his truck, Des sipping coffee and stabbing holes in his theory. “What about the fact that Dodge has an alibi for when Tito was murdered?”

“His alibi is Becca,” Mitch pointed out. “I don’t mean to sound cold, because I like Becca, but if Dodge can convince her to get down on all fours with a bag over her head, he can convince her to fib for him.”

“I’ll give you that one,” she responded. “But answer me this-why would Dodge want to kill Tito?”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was the other way around. Let’s say Tito found out about Dodge and Esme. Maybe Esme told Tito, okay? And let’s say Tito called Dodge out on it. Think about what Tito told me at my house that night. He said he’d gotten himself into something bad, something he couldn’t get out of. This certainly fits the bill, doesn’t it? ‘The hangman says it’s time to let her fly,’ Maybe Tito was telling me that Dodge was about to pay for his sins.”

“Except that Dodge got the best of him up there,” she mused aloud. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, why not? There’s no actual proof that it was a woman who pushed Tito off of that cliff, is there?”

“Not one bit,” Des said. “Only answer me this, boyfriend. Why did Dodge turn right around and kill Donna? What’s the connection?”

“Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it was just some rough sex that got out of hand. It happens.”

“No sale. You can’t tell me that he accidentally happened to kill his second person in three days.”

“Look, I saw with my own two eyes what this guy is capable of doing to women. Frankly, it’s a miracle that more of them haven’t died while they were getting freaky with him.”

“This wasn’t getting freaky, Mitch. Donna was brutally, violently murdered. I am talking about walls spattered with blood.”

“Was there a lot of blood?”

“There was enough. Why, what’s the significance of-?” Des broke off suddenly, drawing in her breath.

Mitch sat right up, hearing the same sound she had-a car starting. It came from across the Crocketts’ meadow. Headlights flicked on now in front of their house and, slowly, the lights turned and made their way down the long gravel drive toward them. Mitch recognized the flatulent burble of the car’s diesel engine. It was Dodge’s old Mercedes wagon.

It was midnight and Dodge was heading out.

“I don’t believe this,” Des muttered at him.

“And I don’t believe you doubted me,” Mitch exclaimed triumphantly. “If I were a less secure person I would actually be hurt.”

“Hush!”

The Mercedes was nearing the carriage lamps at the entrance to the drive. From where they sat, it was impossible to tell if Dodge was alone in the car. For that matter, it was impossible to be sure that it was Dodge who was behind the wheel. As the Mercedes paused at the road, Mitch reached for his key in the ignition.

Des stopped him with a warning hand. “Not yet. Let him get rolling first.”

Dodge pulled out and headed toward Old Shore Road, leaving plumes of diesel exhaust in his wake. Mitch waited until he’d gone around a bend before he started up the pickup and put it in gear.

“No headlights,” Des cautioned him. “Just zone in on his taillights.”

Mitch took off after the Mercedes in the blackness. Fortunately, there were occasional streetlamps to mark his way. Otherwise he would have driven into a ditch for sure.

Old Shore Road was deserted at that time of night. The Mercedes was about a half mile ahead of them, chugging in the direction of town, its headlights casting a soft, film noir glow in the foggy mist that reminded Mitch of the opening sequence of The Killers, when William Conrad and Charles McGraw are pulling into that sleepy small town in search of the Swede. All that was missing was the ominous Miklos Rozsa score.

Mitch chugged along after it at a steady forty-five.

“Don’t get too close,” Des said anxiously from next to him, her knees jiggling with excitement. “Give him room.”

He grinned at her. “Want to take the wheel, Master Sergeant?”

“Heck no. You’re doing great.”

“You miss this, don’t you?”

“Miss what?”

“The hunt. You are loving this. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Doughboy, it is pitch-black in this cab.”

“So maybe I’m imagining it.”

“So maybe you ought to keep your imagination on the road. Careful, he’s slowing down… Watch it!”

Mitch hit the brakes, coming to a dead stop. Up ahead, Dodge was pulling into the Citgo minimart, even though it was closed up for the night. The illuminated sign was dark, the big floodlights out. There was only the night-light that the Acars left on inside when they went home. Nonetheless, Dodge drove around in back, where the rest rooms and trash bins were, and shut off his lights.

“Man, what the hell is he doing?” Des wondered as they idled there.

“Meeting somebody?”

Des jumped out, shutting her door silently behind her. “Catch up with me real slow,” she said to him through the open window. “Hit your lights when I signal you, got it?”

“Got it.”

She was off and running now, streaking her way toward the minimart, her knees high, her arms pumping. Mitch eased along behind her, seeing her backlit by the night-light inside. Now he could see her cutting across the parking lot toward Dodge’s car, raising an arm high over her head. Now he could see her lowering it…

And now Mitch flicked on his headlights.

And there stood Dodge Crockett intently spray-painting 9/11 WTC on the side of the minimart in two-foot-high red letters.

“Hold it right there, Mr. Crockett!” Des bellowed at him angrily.

First, Dodge froze. Then he hurled the aerosol paint can at her. Then he tried to run, which was futile-Des was faster than he was. He scarcely got twenty feet before she overtook him and threw him roughly to the pavement, jamming her knee into the small of his back. She slapped a handcuff on him and dragged him over to the rear service door, which had a heavy steel handle on it, and cuffed him to that. Then she called for a cruiser on her cell phone. She also got the Acars’ home number and put in a call to them.

Mitch climbed out of the truck and walked slowly over toward Dodge, his eyes hungrily searching Dodge’s face in the headlights for some insight into what was going on in this man’s mind-this man who he had looked up to and confided in and thought of as a friend.

Dodge did not hang his head in shame or defeat. He remained unbowed and unapologetic, the same way he had when Mitch and Will had walked in on he and Becca.

“A cruiser will be here in five,” Des announced, pocketing her phone.

“How about the Acars?” Mitch asked.

“No answer. I left a message on their machine.”

Mitch frowned. It was after midnight-kind of late for them to be out. Then again, maybe they didn’t pick up after they went to bed. A lot of people didn’t.

“This finally makes some sense,” Des said, staring coldly at Dodge “I get it now.”

“You get what?” wondered Mitch.

Dodge wasn’t saying a word.

“Why Miss Barker got weird on me,” she explained. “The old girl clammed right up when I asked her if she’d seen anybody drive by her house after that rock got thrown. Same with Mr. Acar, who was way too anxious to button it all up. Because it wasn’t any stupid kids who were messing with him. It was you, Mr. Crockett, and you’re someone who still matters in this town. Miss Barker knew it was you-she recognized your car. And Mr. Acar knew because you’d warned him, hadn’t you? You’d told him what might happen if he didn’t back off.”

Mitch turned to Dodge and said, “Why have you done this? What did the Acars ever do to you?”

“They’ve cut our morning take-out trade in half, that’s what,” Dodge spoke up, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “They’re absolutely killing us with those Turkish pastries of hers. The locals haven’t come anywhere near The Works since she started selling them. I begged Nuri to give us a break. I said to him, look, you’ve got a thriving gasoline business. Kindly leave the food trade to us. He refused. I even offered to buy the damned pastries from him myself and sell them at The Works. Again he refused. He just wouldn’t listen to reason. Those Acars are unbelievably stubborn people.”

“So, what, you’re trying to scare them into leaving town?” Mitch asked.

“I’m trying to protect my investment. This is business I’m talking about, Mitch. People play for keeps. Believe me, some fellow who was truly ruthless would have burned this damned place to the ground a month ago and never lost a night’s sleep over it. We will have to shut down half of our bakery operation if they don’t back off. As far as the banks are concerned that’s a red flag. I won’t be able to raise any more capital. I won’t be able to meet my overhead. The Works will go into receivership, and I’ll be cleaned out. I’ll lose everything.”

“In other words, the Acars are smart businesspeople and you’re not.”

“Don’t judge what you don’t understand,” he shot back gruffly.

“Actually, I understand you perfectly, Dodge,” Mitch said.“You’re the single most arrogant egomaniac I’ve ever met. You think the rules that apply to other people don’t apply to you. That you can do whatever you want to whomever you want, up to and including your own daughter. Well, you’re wrong, and it’s amazing to me that you’ve lasted all of these years without finding that out. I guess you’re just a sheltered small-town boy. But let me just ask you this-why did you have to push Tito off of that cliff? And how did Donna qualify as competition? It seems to me she was one of your biggest assets.”

“Now, you wait one minute.” Dodge’s eyes widened. For the first time he seemed genuinely rattled. “I’ve stepped over the line a tad, I’ll grant you that.”

“You’re granting us jack,” Des snapped. “We caught you in the act.”

“I threw a rock through a window,” Dodge acknowledged readily. “I sprayed some graffiti on a wall. But that’s all. You can’t pin those murders on me. I had nothing to do with them. I am not a killer, I swear.”

“All I know,” Mitch said, “is that Donna told me not to look too closely at her business or her marriage. And now she’s dead and you’re out here trying to put a hardworking immigrant couple out of business.”

“Where were you last night, Mr. Crockett?” Des asked him.

“I was home all evening.”

“Alone?”

“Very alone. I don’t seem to be too popular these days.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she said, raising her chin at him. “Were you romantically involved with Donna?”

“Of course not,” Dodge replied. “Donna Durslag didn’t sleep around. She wasn’t the type. Believe me, I know about these things.”

Mitch started to say something back but before he could get the words out something went ker-chunk inside his head and he just stood there with his mouth open, dumbstruck. Because it hit him now-the thing that had been staring right at him all along. The thing he’d completely ignored.

And now Mitch stood there in the Citgo parking lot with his head spinning. It was spinning when the cruiser that Des had summoned pulled up and an immense young trooper climbed out. It was spinning as Des went over the charges with the trooper. It was spinning as she uncuffed Dodge from the door handle and put him in the backseat. It was still spinning when he and Des stood there watching the cruiser take Dodge away to the Troop F barracks in Westbrook.

“Are you okay, boyfriend?” Des asked, examining him with concern. “You look a little blown away.”

“Des, I’ve figured it out…”

“Figured what out?”

“Who killed Tito and Donna.”

“Well, are you going to tell me about it?”

“Of course, only there’s absolutely no way to prove it. No conventional way, that is. Des, I’m afraid that this is going to call for some more, well, visionary thinking.”

She stood there with her hands on her hips, scowling at him. “Mitch, you have got to be kidding me.”

“What do you mean by that?” he protested innocently.

“I mean, I know that look on your face. You look just like a fat little boy who is about to stick his fat little hand in the cookie jar.”

“Okay, first of all I resent the repeated use of the F-word-”

“You want to set some kind of a trap. And you want me to watch your back, don’t you? Tell me I’m wrong. Go ahead, tell me.”

“Well, it worked once before, didn’t it?”

“You ended up in the hospital before.”

“I didn’t mind. The wound healed fast, and I got all of the ice cream I could eat. Not to mention tapioca.”

“Mitch, it cost me my damned job on Major Crimes.”

“And look how much happier you are. Look at how much fun we have together, day in and day out.” He strode resolutely back to his truck now and got in, waiting for her join him.

Des followed him reluctantly and climbed in, her eyes shining at him. “Mitch, I’m being serious now, okay? Please, please don’t do this-whatever this is.”

“I have to,” he insisted, pulling out onto Old Shore Road and heading for home.

“Why, damn it?”

“Because somebody has been killing people who I care about. You guys can’t put a stop to it. I can. And there’s absolutely no need for you to worry about me. I can handle myself. I’m perfectly capable of. ..” Mitch frowned, glancing over at her. “What was that noise you just made? I distinctly heard a sound come out of you.”

“That was sheer human anguish!” she cried out. “I am involved with a crazy person. You are insane!”

“Am not. I’m just a concerned Dorseteer who’s had enough.”

“Kindly tell me this, Mr. Had Enough-what am I supposed to do about Rico and Yolie? What do I tell them?”

“Not a thing. If they have so much as a hint of prior knowledge then it’s entrapment. That’s one of the truly valuable things I’ve learned from hanging with you, Des.”

“Mitch, it’s entrapment if I’m involved!”

“But you’re not. You’re simply backing my play in case it all turns sour. They can’t fault you for being in the right place at the right time. Perfectly legitimate.”

She glowered out the windshield in seething silence. “You’re going to do this no matter what I say, aren’t you?”

“If you don’t want in, just say so. I promise I won’t hold it against you.”

“You know what I should do? I should cuff you to that steering wheel right now.”

“But you won’t,” he said, grinning at her.

“Why the hell not?”

“Two reasons. One, because I’m your sweet baboo-”

“You were my sweet baboo. Our love is like so hanging in the balance right now.”

“Two, because deep down inside, where your scrupulously high moral standards live, you know I’m right.”

She said nothing in response to that. Just rode along next to him, smoldering, as he steered his truck back to Big Sister.

“I can’t do it,” she finally said, her voice low and pained. “Not again. I won’t be there to help you this time. You’re on your own. I’m out.”

“That’s fine. I understand.”

“I mean it!”

“So do I.”

“Mitch, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I am hating you right now.”

“I’m awfully fond of you, too, Master Sergeant.”

The road up to the Devil’s Hopyard was narrow and twisting, and the low, dense fog ahead of him in the headlights made the shoulders seem to crowd right in around his truck.

Mitch drove slowly, alone in the cab except for his microcassette recorder and the pint bottle of peppermint schnapps on the seat next to him. His mouth was dry, his palms moist, even though he kept wiping them on his shorts.

When he arrived at the end of the road he pulled onto the shoulder by the gate, just as Tito had when he’d phoned him to say goodbye. The yellow crime scene tape had been removed, but two overflowing barrels of evidence still remained-the trash that the press corps and celebrity gawkers had left behind. Their empty film canisters, food wrappers, coffee cups and soda cans were spilled out all over the pavement.

Stinking garbage. This was Tito Molina’s final tribute from his public.

Mitch shut off his engine, grabbed his things and got out, hearing the roar of the falls, feeling the fear surge through his body. He started down the rocky footpath in the fog, making his way by flashlight past the picnic tables toward a wooden guardrail that smelled of creosote. Here he spotted the warning sign that all of the newspaper accounts had referred to, the one that read: Let the Water Do the Falling. Stay Behind This Point.

He climbed over it and started his way carefully out onto the slick, gleaming shelf of ledge, the roar growing louder as the water cascaded right by him, crashing onto the rocks down below. It was cooler up here over the falls. But he was still perspiring, his heart pounding as he inched his way slowly out onto the promontory.

Mitch sat now, hugging his knees with his arms, and flicked off his light, alone there in the wet, roaring darkness. And terrified. He would be feeling way more sure of himself if Des were backstop-ping him, no question. Not that he blamed her for saying no. She had to think of her future. He knew this. But he also knew that she was his safety net. Walking this particular tightrope without her made the trip a whole lot more daunting. He took a sip of the peppermint schnapps, realizing at long last that what it tasted exactly like was Nyquil-although he doubted that a slug of peppermint schnapps would put him to sleep in ten to twelve minutes with drool dribbling down his chin.

In fact, he doubted he’d be asleep for a long, long while.

The waterfall masked all distant noise. Mitch didn’t hear the other car arrive. Didn’t hear its door slam shut. Didn’t hear the footsteps approaching in the darkness-not until they were right there beside him, sure and quick on the slippery granite ledge.

And Mitch heard a raised voice say: “You came alone?”

Mitch reached down and flicked on the microcassette recorder at his feet. It was a powerful little unit. When he’d tested it in his bathroom with the shower and faucet running full blast it could pick up his voice quite clearly from four feet away. “Of course I did,” he responded, hearing the quaver of fear in his own raised voice. “I said I’d be alone, didn’t I?”

“You said it was urgent, and that I should meet you up here. Why here?”

“Because this is your special place. You feel safe up here. I think I can see why. It’s comforting being surrounded by so much darkness and water. You’re totally free to be yourself-the self that you hide so well from everyone in the daylight.” He took a gulp from the bottle. “Want some peppermint schnapps?”

“I’ve never liked the stuff. Since when do you?”

“Oh, I don’t.”

“Then why’d you bring it?”

“As a tribute.”

“Does anyone else know we’re here, Mitch?”

“Not a soul.”

“Why are we?”

“Because we’re friends. I want to help you.”

“You said on the phone that you know. What do you know?”

Mitch reached for his flashlight and flicked it on, its beam illuminating the lean, taut face of Will Durslag. “I know that you loved Tito and you killed him. I know you loved Donna and killed her. But I don’t know why, Will. I need to know why.”

Will’s eyes turned to narrow, frightened slits. He looked like a wild, desperate animal crouched there in the torchlight.

Mitch flicked it off, plunging them back into the darkness. They’d been doing better there. “We talk about lots of things when we walk on the beach together. Can’t we talk about this?”

“Sure, Mitch,” Will finally said, his voice heavy with sadness. “Let’s do that. It’ll be good to talk about it. Maybe I won’t feel so scared.”

“I can’t imagine why you’re scared. You’ve got away with it all. There are no witnesses. And the only physical evidence is in your Franklin stove.”

“My Franklin stove…?”

“Sure, that’s why you made that fire in your parlor this morning. Not because of the chill, but because Donna’s blood got all over your clothes. Plus there were the towels you mopped up with. I’m thinking you must not have been wearing rubber-soled shoes when you killed her-rubber stinks out loud when it burns. You must have had on your leather flip-flops. I suppose you could have buried the stuff, but a fire made a lot of sense.” Mitch glanced over at him in the darkness. “What are you scared of, Will?”

“Myself. I’m not in control of me anymore. My God, I even killed my own wife. That’s generally considered to be pretty despicable behavior.”

“Generally.”

“Tell me, Mitch-how did you know?”

“You told me yourself.”

“I did?” Will shot back in surprise. “When?”

“On the beach the other morning, when I asked you about your croissant recipe. You mentioned you’d gotten it from your partner in, I think you said, Nag’s Head.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“When I asked you if you meant business partner you said no. But you didn’t clarify what you did mean. Just kind of left it hanging there.”

“So?…”

“So I work with words for a living, Will. Guys our age usually use the word ‘girlfriend’ when we’re discussing a significant romantic partner. Unless, that is, we’re going out of our way to be non-gender specific. Unless, that is-”

“Unless we’re gay,” Will said.

“I didn’t think much about it. Not until this morning, when you used the word again in connection with Donna. That’s when it dawned on me that you’re bisexual. And that you were the one getting it on with Tito-who, like you, had relations with both men and women.”

“No,” Will said emphatically. “You’re wrong on both counts.”

“Okay, tell me how.”

“For starters, we weren’t ‘getting it on.’ That suggests something quick and sweaty in the backseat of a parked car. It wasn’t like that, Mitch,” he insisted, his voice growing painfully earnest. “It was real love. I was ready to devote my life to him. Give up Donna. Give up everything. We were in love, Tito and me. And Tito wasn’t bisexual. He was one hundred percent bitch-his word, not mine. Oh, sure, he got married to Esme. And he could perform sexually with women, up to a point. He was one hell of an actor, after all. But his heart was never in it. Tito was gay from the time he was a barrio boy, Mitch. He kept telling me: You have no idea what it’s like to be a bitch in the barrio. The scorn you face, the contempt. He hated being gay. That’s why he became an actor-so he could become someoneelse, anyone else. That’s why he got high all of the time. And that’s why he was always trying out so many different women. He kept hoping that one of them would ‘cure’ him, as if what he had was a disease. God, he was so nineteenth century.”

Mitch sat hunched there on the damp granite, recalling that both Abby and Chrissie had pointed out how disappointing the lovemaking with Tito had been. Chrissie even told Des that the screen idol hadn’t been able to perform at all the final time they’d slept together.

“Tito was a tortured soul, Mitch. He couldn’t be himself. They wouldn’t let him be himself.”

“Who wouldn’t, Will?”

“The powers that be, that’s who. You of all people should know why.”

Mitch nodded his head. “You’re right, Will, I do. It’s the final frontier. And no one, but no one, has ever been able to cross it.”

There was a very short list of bankable Hollywood leading men- the $20-Million-Dollar Men they were known as, by current wage standards. Actors whose name above the title guaranteed a picture instant financing. There were seldom more than a half dozen such actors at any one time. Right now there were the two Toms, Cruise and Hanks, Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro. And, until a few days ago, Tito Molina. These leading men all had very different qualities. But they all had one very important trait in common.

They were not gay. They were never gay.

There was no such thing as an openly gay Hollywood leading man. The mass audience simply would not accept him. If anything, gay actors had been driven even deeper into the closet than they had been in the Rock Hudson days, when everyone in the business knew but the public didn’t. There was too much tabloid money out there now. Too much ugly fascination in the stars’ private lives. Not to mention AIDS awareness. The merest whisper about a lingering respiratory infection or unexplained weight loss could completely shortcircuit an actor’s rise to stardom. Mitch had seen it happen.

“Will, how was it possible for him to keep his sexual identity a secret?”

“By marrying a great beauty,” Will replied. “By sleeping around with a million women. By never being happy one single day of his life.”

“You’re the first man he slept with since he got famous?”

“No, of course not. He had others. But he hadn’t been with a man since he married Esme. Mitch, he was deathly afraid of falling into the clutches of an opportunist. So he was always very careful to choose the right type.”

“Which was..?”

“The married type. Men with children and roots in the community. Men who had just as much interest in keeping it quiet as he had. Tito never, ever cruised the bars. Never picked up anyone. Never told anyone. Not his agent, not Chrissie-”

“What about Esme? Did she know?”

“Never. His marriage to her was the greatest acting performance of Tito’s life. Not that he hated her or anything. He genuinely liked Esme as a person. And they belonged together in a weird sort of way. They were both so confused and vulnerable. I mean, God, that poor girl is so screwed up after what Dodge did to her.”

“How could you let Dodge get away with that, Will? How could you cover for him?”

“I had to.”

“Why, because he was like a father to you? That doesn’t justify it.”

“You don’t understand, Mitch. I had no choice.” Will fell silent, shifting around next to him on the ledge. “I hit a pretty bad patch after my dad died. Got into some real trouble. I-I stole a car and accidentally ran somebody down in East Dorset. An old lady. I almost killed her, Mitch. Dodge was a state senator then. He went to bat for me. Kept the newspapers out of it. Got the charges dropped. My record is clean, and I have Dodge to thank for that. I owe him, okay? And I will always be loyal to him. He’s big on loyalty. He’s big on trust. Can you understand that?”

“I guess I can,” Mitch said, recalling the steely way Dodge had stared at Will on the beach when he’d said the word “trust.”

“Esme could never make Tito happy,” Will went on. “She neverknew why. And it was a source of tremendous pain for her. He felt bad about that, because he was hurting her and he knew it. But there was only one person on the face of the earth who could make him truly happy, Mitch, and that person was me. With everybody else, he was just acting.”

“How do you know he wasn’t acting when he was with you, too?”

“Because it was real, damn it!” Will cried out, enraged. “We loved each other!”

“How long were you two together?”

“We met the day he and Esme arrived in town. The Crocketts had us over for dinner and… and we just stared at each other across the dining table all evening long. Couldn’t take our eyes off of each other. God, Tito had the most beautiful eyes. He made the first move, out on the patio after dessert. I’ll never forget those first words he said to me, not for as long as I live. He said, ‘I’d better warn you-I’ll break your heart.’ I said I’d take my chances. And he did break my heart-because he loved being a star more than he loved me. It wasn’t just the money. It was being Tito Molina. He wouldn’t give it up for anything, Mitch. I was willing to sacrifice my marriage, my business, everything I’d ever worked for. I was willing to throw it all away for him. But he wasn’t willing to do that for me.” Will let out a heartbroken sob. “And now he’s dead and, God, I miss him so much.”

“You should have thought of that before you killed him.”

“I didn’t think, don’t you see? I lashed out in a blind rage. I just couldn’t stand to lose him. Tito was my true soul mate, Mitch. Someone like that… it only happens once in a lifetime.”

“It can happen twice, if you’re real lucky.”

“I loved him, Mitch. And he loved me. Just not enough. He wouldn’t leave Esme for me. He wouldn’t risk his career for me. That’s what he came up here to tell me that night. That he had to b-break it off.”

Mitch uncapped the peppermint schnapps and took a swig. “I didn’t know what he was mixed up in, Will, but he did tell me he felt trapped. I urged him to get clear of whatever it was. So whatever hesaid to you that night-it was partly my fault. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Mitch,” Will said to him insistently. “Tito broke it off because he wanted to break it off. And when it came time to do it he was ice cold. Do you want to know what he said to me? He said, ‘This doesn’t have to end badly, it just has to end.’ Like he was talking about a service contract on a kitchen appliance. I wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t imagine not being with him. I begged him. He refused. We argued. And now I’m all alone.”

“Will, how much did Donna know?”

“She knew that I’d been involved with men, if that’s what you mean. Not a big deal, as far as she was concerned. Not until lately, that is.”

“Since you’d met Tito?”

“I started coming home from work later and later. My physical interest in her fell way off. She kept asking me, ‘Who is it?’ And I said ‘You don’t have to worry, it’s nothing.’ And then one night she caught Tito dropping me off at The Works after we’d been up here together. My own fault. It was late. I thought she’d already gone home for the night. I was wrong. She said, ‘What are you doing with him?’ And I said, ‘We’re friends.’ And she said ‘Since when?’ Donna was no dummy, Mitch. She knew what was going on. She was hurt. And she was afraid. She started drinking a lot more than usual. And flirting. Trying to make me jealous. I saw her getting all frisky with you at the beach club.”

“That was the night you killed him. Did she know about that, too?”

“She put two and two together,” Will acknowledged. “She started acting very guarded around me, very uneasy. I didn’t think she’d turn me in. She did love me, after all. But I was afraid that she’d get involved with someone else. You, maybe. And that one night she’d have herself a little too much to drink and blab my little secret. This is Dorset, Mitch. The most dangerous weapon here isn’t a gun, it’s a whisper. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t take that chance.”

“So you killed her.”

“I suggested we try to rekindle our romance at the Yankee Doodle. We’d been joking about the place for ages. She loved the idea. She even bought herself some sleazy black lingerie for our little tryst. We made it all into a game. We arranged to meet there a half hour apart, just like a pair of illicit lovers afraid of being found out. She got there first.”

“And she paid for the room with her credit card,” Mitch said. “She didn’t try to keep it off the household books, or disguise her identity. She didn’t have to, because the man who she was meeting was her own husband. Dodge was right about her, you know. He put his finger right on it-Donna wasn’t the type to sleep around.”

“I couldn’t risk it,” Will repeated vehemently. “When I spoke to Des this morning I reversed our roles. I told her it was Donna who was slipping out on me. All a lie, of course. There was no boyfriend. And no catering gig after the Merchants Association dinner. I made all of that up. I parked our van behind a beauty parlor just down the road from the Yankee Doodle. I didn’t want anyone to spot it in the motel parking lot. That was the one thing I couldn’t chance. I brought along a change of clothes as part of our game, and I left nothing behind. Not even the towels I used to wipe the blood off of my hands. I burned it all when I got home. Towels, clothes, my flip-flops-just like you said. And then I got busy acting like the concerned husband. I called our late man, Rich. I called the state police. And I waited there for someone to knock on my door to tell me Donna was dead. Des, as it turned out. I think I was pretty convincing as the grieving widower. I learned a few pointers about acting from Tito. The main thing he told me is you have to believe the dialogue. I believed it, all right. I believed every damned word of it.”

“How could you do it, Will? How could you murder Donna that way? Tito I can comprehend. It was a momentary spasm of anger. But Donna’s death was something that you plotted out really, really carefully. How could you?”

“I told you, I’m not in control of myself anymore!” he cried out. “I loved Donna, don’t you see? And now I’m all alone and I’m scared and I’m desperate and I-I don’t want to go to prison for therest of my life. That’s why I had to kill her. If she’d told anyone, I’d be finished.”

“You are finished, Will. It’s all over now. Come on, let’s go do the right thing, okay? Let’s go call Des. I’ll be by your side the whole way, I promise.” Mitch fumbled around in the dark for his tape recorder, shut it off and stuck it in the back pocket of his shorts. Then he grabbed the schnapps bottle and climbed to his feet, flicking his flashlight beam on Will. “Tell me something-was it any easier?”

Will remained crouched there on the granite ledge, staring out into the fog-shrouded blackness. He seemed very calm now, very at peace with himself. “Was what easier?”

“Killing Donna. It’s supposed to be easier to murder someone if you’ve already killed once before.”

“No, that’s a Victorian myth, same as thinking you can be ‘cured’ of being gay. Just because you’ve killed once doesn’t mean that you’ve gone over to the dark side, Mitch. I hated what I did, and I’ll be haunted by it for as long as I live.” Will looked up at him now, blinking in the torchlight. “Quite honestly, I don’t think the third time will be any easier either.”

It happened so fast.

Will lunged at him with such sudden ferocity that Mitch’s flashlight went clattering to the rocks and rolled right over the cliff, plunging them back into darkness as they wrestled with each other there on the slick granite ledge, slipping and sliding. Will trying with all of his might to push Mitch over the edge. Mitch trying with all of his own might to stop him.

“Will, don’t do this!” he gasped, struggling to dig his heels in. He did have heft on his side, and a lower center of gravity. But Will had a distinct advantage of his own-he was insane. “You have to turn yourself in.”

“Never,” he gasped back at him.

They fell to the ledge now, rolling around there on the narrow shelf of rock, punching and kicking and clawing for their very lives. And there was only them and the roaring water and the blackness of certain death a hundred feet below.

Will was back up on his feet, kicking blindly at Mitch in the dark, smashing him in his ribs, his shoulder, his neck.

Mitch scrambled away, groping desperately in the dark for a stone, a weapon. His fingers found the schnapps bottle-but Will’s powerful hands found his throat. And Will was choking him and choking him. And Mitch was fighting for breath as he raised the bottle high over his head, gasping, gagging, until with the very last bit of power that was left in his body Mitch smashed Will Durslag hard in the face, shattering the bottle and pitching the taller man over backward, right over the cliff.

Which would have been fine by Mitch except for one thing-Will was still holding on to him by his shirt.

And so as he went over Mitch went over, too, his own legs flailing wildly in space as Will hung there in midair, clutching on to him for dear life. Mitch tried in vain to grab on to the moss, to the wet stone, something, anything. Feeling Will’s weight pulling him down, down the sheer edge of the cliff, moss coming away in his fingers, bare stone refusing to yield him even the merest finger or toehold as he slid and he slid and he-

Until with a sudden rip Mitch’s shirt gave way in Will’s hand and Will was gone, screaming, into the blackness of the night, his roar and the roar of the waterfall merging into one.

Freed of Will’s weight, Mitch clung there to the sheer side of the cliff for a brief, gravity-defying instant. But now he could feel himself falling again, scrabbling, kicking, trying to put on the brakes. Except there was nothing to hold on to and it was all happening too fast and he was going and he was going-until his hand just wrapped itself around a spindly tree branch, halting his fall.

And now he was hanging there by one arm, his body swinging free in the air, and there was only enough time for one final realization.

I am never going to see Desiree Mitry again. I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to…