Triangulation, page 3
part #2 of Borealis Investigations Series
With a sign and another of those stupid grins—ugly, Shaw wanted to say, only the grin wasn’t really ugly, it was kind of perfect on the skinny, bookish guy—Beau slid a stack of paperwork to one side and said, “Thanks, Chuck.”
When Pari and Chuck had left, closing the door behind them, Beau said, “How much did she tell you about Shep?”
“A lot,” North said.
“Oh.” Beau flushed, pulling at the Smiths t-shirt he was wearing as though it didn’t quite fit anymore. “He’s been gone for three days. Four, I guess, now. I think Chuck was the last one to see him.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about his activities on Thursday?”
“Not really. It was a normal day. He was here like always. He seemed the same. Not any worse than usual, I mean.”
North raised an eyebrow.
“He’s getting a divorce.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Money, I think. That’s the big reason. They’ve been trying to adopt, Mike wants Shep to get a real job—that’s what Shep said, anyway, I don’t know if Mike would ever say it that way.”
“But they’re definitely divorcing?” Shaw asked.
“Oh, definitely. Shep told me it was over. He stays here some nights. Some nights he crashes with staff from Iris.”
“With you?” Shaw said.
Beau actually blushed. “Yeah, some nights.” Then he glanced at North. “Just as friends, though.”
“Of course,” Shaw said.
“What does that—”
“You knew Shep before Iris, right?” Shaw asked. “Chuck told us he reached out to you and hired you specifically for this job.”
“That’s right.”
“How did you know him?”
“St. Louis isn’t that big of a place. If you’re gay and you’re in non-profit work, the pool gets even smaller.”
“Beau,” North said in his patented smoldering rumble.
The thin man yanked at his t-shirt again. “Chuck told you, I guess. About Arkansas.”
“Why don’t you tell us?” Shaw said.
“Yeah. I grew up there. This tiny town, nowhere. And when I was seventeen, I told my parents I was gay. I thought they were going to . . .” He shrugged. “I guess I thought they were going to handle it better. We went to church on Christmas and Easter; sometimes if my mom made a big stink, we went a few other days. They had me packed up and sent to Zoar the next day.” His hand had tightened around the reading glasses, and he straightened his fingers and set the lenses on the desk. “That’s not an exaggeration, by the way. The next day.”
“Zoar?” North said.
“That’s the name of the place that Shep was running. Zoar Retreat: Christian Healing for Our Boys and Girls. Something like that. By the way, they never had a single girl. Just boys. Kind of makes sense, I guess, knowing Shep.”
Shaw could sense North’s sudden wariness, and Shaw felt it too, the shift in the conversation’s foundation. When Shaw spoke, he chose his words carefully. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh. Oh, man. Nothing bad. Shep would never—honestly, he would never do something like that. Touch a kid? Never. He just—he’s really good with boys. You’ll see when you meet him. He’s got this charisma, and everybody loves him, but he’s got like a special touch with boys. I don’t know.” Another of those stupid grins, and even worse this time, North was grinning back. “I tried talking to Clarity about football one time, and Clarity stared at me like I was the stupidest, whitest person he’d ever met. I probably am, I guess. I actually ran away from that conversation. I made up something about having to get more drinks from the fridge, and I ran. When I finally went back to the living room—it was Clarity’s first night here, and I was determined to make sure he had a good time, even if I made a total ass of myself—he was talking to Shep. Laughing. Tracing out plays on a whiteboard.”
“I bet that helps him with this place,” North said, still smiling.
“It does.” Another of those self-conscious smiles, but this one brighter, sparkling in his eyes. “And I know what you’re really asking, even if you’re too nice to say it. Yes. It also made him really effective at the conversion center. I guess neither of you ever had to go to a place like that?”
North shook his head.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s awful. Really. Not just the things on purpose, like what they call ‘sessions’ where they try to talk you out of being gay, or forcing you to exercise and play sports.” Color bloomed in his cheeks. “It was a Christian conversion center, so they made us pray and fast and all that. But they also made us watch straight porn. And jerk off to it. Talk about embarrassing. They’d check, too. If we’d, you know, finished. And they’d ask about it. What were you thinking,” he drew air quotes, “when you reached completion?” He tried to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” Shaw said. “Nobody should have to go through that.”
Waving the words away, Beau said, “I got off my point. My point is that even though it’s terrible, especially when you step back and you see it from the outside, when you’re in it—there’s this turning point where it all starts to seem normal. And then you enjoy the good parts. The other guys, they’re your brothers. Shep, I don’t know, he’s like this combo of the older brother you idolize and a young, cool uncle.” Beau’s voice softened, and his smile, this time, was directed wholly inwardly. “I remember this barbeque after a game of softball. Shep was at the grill. Donny was trying to walk the chain-link backstop—it was just a fence, but we called it the backstop—like a tightrope walker. I bit into the burger, and I was happy. Like, I loved those guys. All of them. Even Shep.”
Shaw chewed the inside of his cheek, trying not to say what he wanted to say.
“But you said it was different seeing it from the outside?” North asked.
Beau started, as though he had forgotten they were there. He wiped his face—his eyes were dry, as far as Shaw could tell, but his color was still high—and gave another laugh. “Oh, God, yes. I mean, six weeks out, I was back at a rest stop, cruising again. The only difference was now I felt awful about myself. I went through a long time like that. A long time. I was messed up pretty bad, I guess. My parents kicked me out—that was for being gay, but some of it was because my dad found a bag of shrooms when he went looking for porn in my room. I kind of drifted. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of during that time.” He met their gazes evenly. “I’m a different man, now. I found a place like Iris, only it was in Kansas City, and I got some help. Financially and psychologically,” he added with another self-deprecating smile. “And I got a job. And I started to meet nice guys, although you wouldn’t know it because I’m currently single. And I’ve got a good life now. I’m happy. I’m healthy, thank God, in spite of all the stupid risks I took. I’m helping kids. That’s what matters.”
Shaw had chewed his cheek raw, and now he spoke. “Somebody attacked me. This was eight years ago. Cut me pretty bad. He killed other people. He killed someone I cared about. And I’m still walking around with that. I still think about that guy, every day. I know what I’ll do to him when I catch him.”
North had kept himself facing Beau, but Shaw could sense North’s attention, as though the blond man had become totally attuned to Shaw, every sense focused on him. Then North opened his mouth, about to speak.
Beau spoke first. “I didn’t know that.”
“The papers didn’t make the connection when they covered the blackmail case earlier this year. Thank God.”
Nodding slowly, Beau said, “I get that. It’s like this anchor around your neck. I felt like I couldn’t stand up straight. I felt like I couldn’t hold up my head. I couldn’t let it go. I’d be, Jesus, I don’t know, dozing in a stairwell because the last guy I met in the park was married and couldn’t give me a place to stay, and I’d be so hopped up on different things that I couldn’t sleep, and—” He gave a shaky smile. A real smile. “I’d think about Shep. How he’d broken me. How he’d ruined me.”
“So how can you be here? How can you see him every day, work with him, talk with him, laugh with him?”
“A lot of therapy. A lot of time. A lot of help. Forgiving him—it was like I was trying to move a mountain. I’d go to session after session with my therapist, talk through all the hatred, all the pain. I’d scream and cry. I’d convince myself that today, I was going to move that mountain. I was going to be free of all that pain and rage.”
“And?” Shaw said.
“And one day, I don’t know, it just clicked. It wasn’t about moving a mountain. It wasn’t about pushing something away. It was about letting go. That sounds cliché; it is cliché. But it made sense. And it was such a relief, not having to carry all that weight anymore. I just let go. I moved here. I started seeing Shep around town, and it was ok as long as I didn’t have to interact with him.”
“Then,” North said, “when he called, you were ready to take the job?”
Laughing, Beau shook his head. “Oh, no way. It put me in a bad spiral. A bad spiral. But then I came over here. I had to. It was like an obsession by that point. I had to see what he was doing. I saw Iris. I watched him with the kids. I met Mike—that’s his husband—and talk about being blown away. I mean, here was Shep, who told me homosexuality was a sin, it was this defect because I hadn’t played enough baseball when I was in elementary school, and now he was married. To a guy. Blew my mind. I met Chuck, and she seemed cool. And I was going to turn it down anyway, go home, forget about Shep. I was convinced I could do it now. Only I remembered that barbeque. I remembered how much I had loved Shep, how much I had loved those other guys. Not sexual, you know, just loved them. And I realized he was doing that again, for these kids. He was giving them that. And he was doing it the right way this time. I wanted to be part of that.”
“Just like that?”
“Not really. I mean, some days I’m still mad. Some days, I get caught up in those bad spirals. But there’s the emotional me, and there’s the rational me, and most of the time, I keep myself from messing up things at work.”
“Is it worth the pain?” Shaw asked. “Is it worth putting yourself through this every day?”
“Maybe. I think so.” Beau picked up a Bic, rolled it between his hands, studying the desktop. “Have you ever done something that you wished you could take back?”
Shaw didn’t answer.
North, however, looked at Shaw. Just one look, but it raised the hairs on Shaw’s arms, pimpled his skin, and Shaw thought about that one night, that horrible night when he and North had fought about Matty Fennmore. Then North looked at Beau and said, “Yes.”
“Then you can understand. Shep knows what he did was wrong. Now he’s trying to make up for it.”
They talked a bit longer, confirming details from Chuck’s account, probing for more information, but they learned nothing new. When they’d finished the interview, Beau walked them downstairs. Chuck was washing dishes, Pari was avidly tapping on her phone, and the two girls had vanished from the kitchen, although their voices came from the front of the building.
“Have you—” Beau asked. Then he stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. “Donny’s not a bad guy, ok? It was a lot harder for him than it was for some of the others. And it was just an argument.”
Shaw turned a sharp look on Beau. “Who’s Donny?”
At the sink, Chuck dropped something into the soapy water, and her swearing was muffled by the splash.
“But I thought . . . I guess I just assumed . . . Chuck, you didn’t tell them?”
Chuck didn’t look back at them; she was elbows-deep in the dishwater, and her shoulders were hunched. “I figured you would.”
A look of confusion crossed Beau’s face, but he nodded. “Donny is—do you know who Donny is?”
North shrugged. “I know Donny Osmond. Shaw had about a million posters of him.”
“I had one,” Shaw said. “And it was because he did the songs for Mulan, that’s all.”
“You had one on the wall in your dorm room, and you had two—no, don’t even try to argue about it, you had two—rolled up and put away inside your closet. Who’s Donny?”
Beau blinked and stammered, “Uh. Um. He’s another Zoar kid. An Arkansas boy.”
“And why did you bring him up?” Shaw said. “What did you mean, an argument?”
“He—he was here just a week ago. A little more than that, I guess. He got in a huge fight with Shep. He said he was going to kill him.” Beau glanced at Chuck, who at that moment swore and pulled her hand out of the gray dishwater, blood running from a cut on her thumb. “Chuck was here too,” Beau said. “She heard the whole thing.”
Chapter 5
LET’S HEAR THAT FROM the beginning,” North said; he was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Chuck hadn’t told them about the argument. “Chuck, put a bandage on your finger and sit down.”
Pari wrapped a dish towel around Chuck’s thumb. “She’s bleeding out. I need to get her to the emergency room.”
“She might need stitches—” Shaw began.
“Don’t say it,” North said.
“—but there’s absolutely no way she’s going to bleed out.”
“I’m sorry,” Pari said. She was winding the towel tighter and tighter around Chuck’s thumb. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were a doctor.”
“I’m not a doctor. You don’t have to be a doctor to know that—”
“That’s right: you’re not a doctor. In fact,” she yanked the towel tighter, “if I recall correctly,” another yank, and Chuck yelped, “you didn’t even graduate college.”
“I took a semester off—”
“And since you’re not a doctor,” Pari said, giving the towel another twist and ignoring Chuck’s protestations, “and you’re not even a college graduate, and you’re not worried about the fact that a woman could collapse from massive blood loss because you’re preventing her from receiving medical treatment—which, by the way, would make you liable for whatever happens to her—I’m going to drive her to the hospital. Right now.”
“Why don’t we ask Chuck?” North said. “Chuck, how bad is it? Do you need to go right now?”
Chuck was pale, although North guessed some of that was having Pari apply a makeshift—and unrequested—tourniquet to her thumb. Her glance went to Beau, though, and she said, “I guess . . . I guess I should probably get stitches. You can ask me about it then, right? You can hear about it now from Beau, and then you can ask me if you have follow-up questions.” Her face was almost the same color as her peroxide hair. “I mean, it’s not like I’m going anywhere, right?” She tried for a nervous laugh, and it sounded more like a cough.
North threw Shaw a look. “It would be better if you stayed. You and Pari could wait here; we’ll finish talking to Beau upstairs. And then we’ll—”
“There. You said it.” Pari grabbed her phone and tugged Chuck toward the door. “You want us to sit around while the men talk. Not a chance. We’re going to the hospital, and you can ask her whatever you want there.”
“Hold on,” North said.
“No, she’s right,” Shaw said. “It’s fine. I’ll give you a call when we’re done here, and then we can swing by and talk to Chuck.”
“If she’s feeling up to it,” Pari said, dragging Chuck toward the door.
“I’m sorry,” Chuck said, but her gaze kept swinging between Beau and North. “I’m really sorry.”
“We’ll talk to you later,” North said.
“Pari,” Shaw said, “I don’t want you driving more than twenty miles over the speed limit. It’s just a cut, and there’s no need for you to—”
Pari started screaming as she went out the door, and they could still hear her until she reached her car and started the engine.
Beau’s eyes were wide. “Those were some very creative ideas of what you should do with a vegetable peeler.”
Shaw shrugged. “She’s mad because she didn’t win employee of the month in May.”
All North wanted to do was bury his face in his hands and sigh, but he forced himself to focus. “All right, Beau. What’s going on? And why is Chuck being so weird about it?”
“I don’t know. She was weird about it the last time we talked about it, too.”
“What happened?” Shaw asked. “Who’s Donny?”
“Donny is—well, like I said, I knew him from Arkansas. From Zoar.”
“You already said that. And?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like we’re best friends. I’m a year older than him, and we only overlapped at Zoar for six weeks or something like that. After Shep disappeared, a lot of us started finding each other on Facebook. We’d trade stories, try to help each other. A couple of the guys were really great when I was going through my worst patch. They put me up—in their homes, sometimes, and sometimes they’d get me a motel.”
“And that’s where you got back in touch with Donny?”
“What? No.”
“You haven’t seen him since Zoar?”
“No.” Beau seemed to be struggling with something. “I mean, he and Shep have been in contact. He comes around sometimes; I avoid him.”
“Has he been harassing Shep?”
“I mean . . . kind of. He’ll show up high and scream and threaten Shep. But Shep kind of brings it on himself. He’s always bailing out Donny. Literally, once. I guess the cops picked him up for possession and Shep had to get him out of jail.”
“But you don’t have a personal connection with him?”
“None of the Zoar boys do. I mean, Donny’s not really that kind of guy.”
“What kind of guy is he?”
Beau raised a hand as though about to gesture at Shaw, but he let it fall at the last moment. “He’s really into the outdoors. I mean, really into the outdoors. Like, he owns a camper and lives in it. I think he goes back and forth between here and Arkansas. And he’s not just paying for a camping spot and setting up near the public restroom. He’s gotten arrested a few times—at least, that’s what I’ve heard. For trespassing. I don’t know if that’s what they called it, but that’s what it was: he goes wherever he wants, sets up the camper, and lives there until someone kicks him out.” Beau let another nervous smile flicker at them. “The guys talked about him a lot because, um, he was kind of scary. Back at Zoar. And, actually, to tell the whole truth, he still is. Totally terrifying.”
