“That’s exactly the question I struggled with all afternoon. The answer occurred to me this evening. It might have clicked earlier, but it was buried in a boyhood memory.”
Denny shook his head. “Again the riddles.”
Under his breath, Thad clued me, “He’s right, Mark.”
“Okay”—I laughed softly—“let me back up. Last Wednesday at dress rehearsal, Kwynn made a crack about Jason’s ‘cheap perfume.’ I had noticed it earlier that night. Sweet and fruity, it
did
smell like cheap perfume. Sorry, Denny—my first thought was that perhaps you’d overdone it with the aftershave that evening.”
“Well,
really
!”
“But thanks to Kwynn’s comment, I realized that Jason was wearing it. Then, Friday night, when I went with Sheriff Pierce to the Thrush home, where Jason was found dead on his bed, I noticed the same distinctive fragrance there in his room. A few days later, though, I learned that Jason’s preferred cologne was something with an entirely different smell, crisp and woody.”
Tommy looked up at me quizzically. “Meaning…?”
“Meaning that the fragrance, the ‘cheap perfume,’ was not his own.” I paused. “Did he get it from you, Tommy?”
Thad and Denny turned to look at him, astounded. In turn, little Tommy Morales looked back at me wide-eyed, his mouth agape.
I told him, “Kwynn noticed it again tonight—on you. She asked, ‘When did
you
start wearing that cheap perfume?’ ”
“Mr. Manning,” Tommy stammered, “I…I don’t even
shave
yet… I mean, not today…”
“But you
are
wearing it. I can still smell it—we all can.”
“Hey!” said a voice through uncertain laughter, interrupting us. Frank Gelden had finished his tasks in the balcony control booth and now trotted down the aisle from the back of the theater. “What’s going on down here? Something sounds fairly intense.” He wore loose-fitting shorts and a tight gray T-shirt that was seductively darkened by the pattern of his sweat. Though I’d spent an evening with him only two nights earlier, I was once again surprised by the depth of my gut-level attraction to him.
I said, “Yes, Frank, this is ‘fairly intense.’ We’re close to solving a murder.”
He stopped as he entered our circle of light. “Jason’s?”
From where Denny stood in the aisle, he answered for me, “Mahk has some cockamamy theory that Jason was poisoned with ‘cheap perfume.’ ”
“Actually,” I told Frank, “it’s the coroner’s theory again, not mine.” I ran him through the particulars I had discussed with Dr. Formhals that afternoon, concluding, “Perfume or aftershave is largely alcohol, which would make a convenient vehicle for the toxic tincture.”
Weighing all this as I spoke, Frank nodded, then told me, “I must admit, it makes sense. The culprit would really have to know what he—or she—was doing, but once the toxins were in the aftershave, the victim would end up dousing
himself
with the poison. Pretty slick.”
Tommy, near tears, blurted, “He thinks I did it, Mr. Gelden.”
Frank looked at Tommy in stunned silence, then turned to me. Dismayed, he said, “You can’t be serious, Mark. Tommy’s a wonderful kid. Sure, I suppose he ‘gained something’ from Jason’s death, and sure, he did resent—”
“
Smell
him,” I told Frank. “Isn’t it obvious? He fairly reeks of the same sweet, fruity scent that Jason Thrush was wearing at last Wednesday’s dress rehearsal. Friday night, I smelled the same scent on Jason’s poisoned, lifeless body.”
“Mr. Gelden,” Tommy pleaded, now crying openly, “
help
me. I promised I wouldn’t tell, but—” He cut himself off, breaking down in a full-blown bawl, burying his head in his hands. As he heaved with sobs, Thad, though confused, stretched an arm around Tommy’s shoulders, offering comfort.
Frank froze speechless, as if horrified by the intensity of Tommy’s breakdown.
“Frank,” I said quietly, “what did Tommy promise not to tell?”
Frank turned to look at me as if he couldn’t fathom my words.
I repeated, “What did Tommy promise not to tell? Did you treat him to an erotic massage this afternoon—out at your house, with your wife out of town—the same routine you used to enjoy with Jason Thrush?”
Frank closed his eyes, unable to answer. His shoulders slumped; he looked as if he might topple. There in the center aisle, he slowly lowered himself, sitting on the carpeting that covered the bottom step. Denny and Thad watched silently, astounded. Tommy’s tears stopped; he looked humiliated, betrayed, and outraged, all at once. Doug Pierce had risen from his seat in the darkness and now walked down the aisle, stopping next to Denny, behind Frank. As everyone was still absorbing the full impact of the question I had posed to Frank, no one even raised an eyebrow at the sheriff’s unexpected appearance.
Frank shook his head, clearing his thoughts. “Mark,” he began tentatively, “that’s nuts. I would never—”
“You did too,” yelled Tommy, rising from his seat and stepping in front of Frank. “You said I was ‘special’ and ‘so mature.’ But
Jason
? He got the same routine? Answer
me
!”
“Of
course
not,” said Frank, himself near tears.
“Frank,” I cautioned, “don’t deny something that’s so easily proven. By tomorrow, we should have the computer records of calls to and from Jason’s cell phone; your number will be all over that list. And everything else fits.”
Mustering a cynical laugh, he asked, “
What
fits?”
I collected my thoughts, then began proposing a script for murder: “Jason’s sister, Mica, told Doug and me that Jason was gay and had been having an extended affair with someone from the theater group, someone ‘older’ who she assumed to be Denny. What’s more, she knew that the relationship had recently soured because she’d heard Jason fighting with the guy on the phone. It had never occurred to me that Jason might be gay, but recalling last Wednesday night, Neil found it strange that Jason had accused Thad of being our ‘boy toy,’ an unlikely term for a het seventeen-year-old to pull out of thin air—unless, perhaps, he himself was someone’s boy toy.
“Meanwhile, Frank, I got to know you and Cynthia through Neil. This past Monday night, we visited your home, and I saw your well-equipped spa, noting its many amenities and supplies, learning that your knowledge of massage techniques rivals that of any pro. I also learned, just this morning from our housekeeper, Barb Bilsten, that you were presumed gay during your high school years. I won’t embarrass you, Frank, by detailing our reasoning, but Neil and I concluded that you might indeed be gay and that your relationship with Cynthia might be a marriage of convenience.”
Frank looked me in the eye. “How
dare
you?”
“You’re right to be offended, and I apologize. Any understanding you may or may not have with your wife is no one else’s business—unless it sheds light on a murder plot.”
“
What
murder plot? All you’ve said is that Jason may have been gay and that you suspect me of being gay too. It sounds as if you’ve been doing some wishful thinking, Mark. It does
not
sound as if you can tie me to Jason’s death.”
Pierce cleared his throat. “Mark, that
is
a bit of a stretch.”
“Patience,” I told them. “There’s more. The critical link here is the ‘cheap perfume,’ the fragrance we noticed on Jason and now on Tommy, which we’ve presumed to be aftershave. All along, the scent seemed familiar, triggering some long-ago memory, but I couldn’t place it till this evening, when I realized that the smell wasn’t aftershave, but something else, something with a very specific use.”
Tommy sniffed himself, looking confused.
“Recently, I myself happened to enjoy a relaxing massage”—my listeners needed no details regarding the circumstances or the purpose of Neil’s delightful payback—“but at its conclusion, I found it difficult to remove all the oil. Neither toweling nor showering did a satisfactory job, and I recall thinking that oil and water don’t mix. What my masseur had failed to provide was the typical finishing rubdown with an astringent that would cut the oil and cool the skin. Plain old rubbing alcohol would do the trick, as would witch hazel, which is mostly alcohol—and is often scented with a sweet, fruity fragrance that I now remember from my youth. It was routinely used in neighborhood barbershops, back in the dark ages before salons and stylists. At the end of a haircut, witch hazel was splashed on the back of the neck to soothe it after being shaved. It’s still used by some masseurs at the conclusion of a treatment. And in fact, I noticed scented witch hazel among the many products stocked in the Geldens’ home spa.”
Still sitting in the aisle, Frank leaned back against the first row of seats. He had listened, grinning. “Boyhood memories of barbershops—big deal. Witch hazel in my home spa—big deal. Mark, this adds up to nothing.”
“Hardly,” I told everyone. “As I said before, everything fits. And here’s how. Here’s a detailed chain of events that can explain how Jason died:
“Frank was gay, but he married Cynthia some eight years ago. It was a classic marriage of convenience, made all the
more
convenient for Frank by Cynthia’s work schedule in Green Bay. In recent weeks, she’s been out of town every Tuesday through Friday. Frank got involved with the Players Guild this summer, and Jason Thrush entered his life.
“The physical attraction was mutual, and Frank wasted little time luring his hot young friend out to the country house, to the spa, where he treated Jason to the first of many long, lazy, sensual massages—treatments that surely reached an energetic climax for Frank as well as Jason. Frank routinely finished off each session by cleaning the oil off Jason’s entire body, rubbing him down with liberal amounts of witch hazel. They had one of their sessions last Wednesday afternoon, and that evening at dress rehearsal, the smell of the scented witch hazel was conspicuous on Jason when he began sweating in the hot theater.
“This arrangement was heaven for both Frank and Jason, for a while. But something went wrong; the relationship soured; perhaps Jason made threats of exposing Frank. A professor of molecular biology and a knowledgeable mycologist, Frank found it an easy feat to extract choline and muscarine from fly agaric. Suspending these toxins in witch hazel, he created a tincture that Jason, already weakened by a bad summer cold, would find deadly—within three hours of its application. So on Friday afternoon, Frank treated his boy toy to one last doozy of a hot massage, capped off by the tainted witch hazel. Jason went home to get ready for that night’s opening performance, but he succumbed to the toxins before leaving the house.
“With Jason gone, Frank saw an opportunity to nurture a
new
boy toy, an even younger one. Barely old enough to drive, he hadn’t a clue, when his car broke down and Frank offered to give him rides to and from the theater, that he would become an innocent young victim of middle-age lechery. But sure enough, tonight Tommy sweated through a hot rehearsal, branded as Frank’s prey by the smell of witch hazel.
“Minutes ago, Tommy’s own words condemned you, Frank, as a child molester. When I asked if you had given him an erotic massage, you denied it, but he yelled, ‘You did too.’ Tomorrow, when Jason’s cellphone records reveal, as they surely will, that you had numerous, long conversations with him—at all hours, day and night—will there be any doubt whatever that you lived out your fantasies with Jason, at home, in the spa? With that established, will our hot-dog prosecutor, Harley Kaiser, have any doubt whatever that these circumstances supply every missing piece of the puzzle described in the coroner’s report?”
Listening to all this, Frank had slumped forward, legs folded in front of him, head down. There on the floor, in his shorts and T-shirt, he looked like a little boy who’d sat down for a cry, scolded for stealing cookies. The real accusations, both spoken and implied, were of course infinitely more grave.
Tommy was first to speak, and his voice now carried not anger, but fear. “Am I going to die, Mr. Gelden? Were you trying to kill
me
too?”
Frank looked up, tears falling from his face, turning black as they hit the gray cotton of his shirt. “
No
, Tommy—I’d
never
hurt you.”
Thad rose from his seat and approached me, needing my touch, needing to connect with his family, to which I was the sole remaining blood link. I closed the last step between us and gave him a full embrace, saying into his ear, “It’s okay now. It’s over.”
Though Thad’s crisis had passed, Frank’s had just begun. Pierce touched his fingers to Frank’s shoulder and softly recited the Miranda formula.
Frank nodded, then looked up at the sheriff. “I need to explain what happened.”
Pierce said, “You’re in deep trouble, Frank, but the more you admit now, the better. Cooperate, and the DA may show some leniency.”
Thad and I stepped forward to listen, joining Pierce, Tommy, and Denny. We stood in a circle, with Frank sitting at our feet.
Frank breathed a long, mournful sigh, then wiped his cheeks with both hands. With a vacant look that seemed to stare through my knees, he told us, “Jason Thrush was the most beautiful young man I’ve ever seen—I never thought of him as a ‘boy.’ ”
Pierce reminded him, “The age of consent is eighteen in Wisconsin. Jason was seventeen; he was a boy.”
Frank laughed at this detail as if it didn’t matter. “You couldn’t possibly understand. Neither could Cynthia, which is why she could never know about Jason. Yes, our marriage is unconventional, but it suits both our needs. It’s an arrangement we can both live with; we’re happy. By and large, it works. But when I met Jason earlier this summer, it was as if destiny had conspired to bring us together. Not only was he beautiful, but he said I was beautiful too. He
wanted
to know me; he
wanted
our special friendship; he
wanted
to see me at the house while Cynthia was out of town. And her schedule proved all too convenient. Naturally, I offered to Jason the private gift of my own massage skills. Those sessions were nothing short of magic; they were addictive, for both of us. Our afternoons together were sublime. Our occasional evenings were pure rapture.” He paused with his memories.