“No!”
I asked, “Then what’s the problem with the police?”
Silence.
Scott did the hand-on-arm, thrumming-voice thing again. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he soothed. “Don’t you think it’s better to trust us than the police?”
Durst asked, “Are you going to find out who killed Ethan and Cormac?”
I said, “I’ve known Ethan and his parents since I was a kid. His mom and dad asked me to find out why he was killed.”
“They were both great guys,” Durst said.
“How’d you meet them?” I asked.
Durst sighed. “On the Internet. If you saw the tapes, you know Ethan was into porn, but a unique niche. He didn’t specialize in hiring models and videotaping them fucking, at least not when I first started working for him. He’d go to college athletic events, get to the gym early, and set up hidden cameras. After a while he moved into getting individual athletes beating off or pissing. Later on he started making more traditional ones.”
“What kind of videos did you do?”
“He did tape me naked in a locker room. He caught me making a move on a guy. Afterward he approached me and offered me a job. He said he needed an assistant. Mostly I did camera work. I helped the guys in the videos be more comfortable.”
“You were a fluffer?” Scott asked.
A fluffer is a person on a pornography set who supposedly does a lot of hands-on work keeping performers aroused. I’ve read where numerous people in the porn industry deny that such people exist. For some reason I don’t believe that. If fluffers are such a persistent myth, perhaps it is because it is such a believable myth.
I asked, “How’d he get into the locker rooms?”
“It’s real easy. He was a fairly well known coach, but there’s always a zillion people hanging around. It’s not like professional sports teams. Small-time college programs are easy to infiltrate. So are big wrestling or swim meets that have lots of different athletes and coaches from lots of different teams. Sometimes I’d pose as an athlete to get in. It’s easy to fake it. After a while Ethan had other guys do that, too.
“Sometimes he’d pay members of teams to videotape teammates. Other times he’d simply go to a college baseball or football game, or wrestling meet or whatever. He’d videotape the athletes in action and edit it down to extended crotch shots, or athletes hugging each other, or grabbing themselves. Those singlets the wrestlers wear can be very revealing. Once in a while he’d go to small towns and tape the games in men’s baseball leagues. He’d say he was a scout. Nobody questioned him much. He’d compile images that were similar and put descriptions of a tape’s contents out on the Internet or take out small ads in the back of a few gay magazines.”
“How long has he been doing this?”
“I never asked. I got the impression he was taking pictures in college, but he didn’t start selling them until after he graduated. I also think he bought older tapes from guys who had their own private collections of the same kind of thing. I think he’d been making or selling his own for at least ten years.”
“His wives didn’t suspect?” Scott asked.
Durst shrugged. “I never met his wives. He didn’t talk much about being married, at least not to me.”
“What happened recently?” I asked. “Why did he come to our wedding? His parents told me he wanted to talk to me. He told me the same thing himself. What was so important?”
“I know we’d been getting threats lately. I don’t know from who. We never tried to blackmail anyone. What was to blackmail? The ones who weren’t willing participants didn’t know they were participating. The willing ones got paid. We used to keep all the stuff in a big warehouse way in the south suburbs. A few weeks ago we moved the operation to the warehouse he owned. The day after we left, the place in the suburbs burned.”
I asked, “Was he planning to get out of the business?”
“Ethan never said anything like that to me. Cormac never mentioned it. Jesus, they’re both dead. This is terrible. What do I do?”
I said, “You obviously need protection. You’ll need to talk to the cops. If you don’t know a lawyer, I’d hire one. We can give you our lawyer’s name.”
“Yeah, I better do all that. All this porn shit is coming home to roost. That’s why I didn’t want to talk to the police. We always had to be careful of them. We had to take all kind of precautions, make sure we were complying with all the laws.”
I asked, “Who else knew about the business?”
“Well, everybody who ordered stuff, but it was mostly us three who ran the operation. Sometimes we’d hire temps to do the shipping if we were really busy. Usually I answered phones or filled orders. Cormac would create the sites, and I would maintain them, keep them up-to-date. Cormac and Ethan would plan new venues for taking pictures. Cormac was a whiz at editing. He was teaching me the software program for doing it. The software was real expensive.”
“Any fights with the temps?”
“Naw. They were mostly elderly illegals. No green cards. They were never a problem.”
“Who would have the model release and ID records?” I asked.
“They never told me where they were kept. I suppose in the warehouse.”
We’d never get a chance to go back and look for them now.
I asked, “Was there anyone named Michael connected with this whole thing?”
“Who?”
I said, “Ethan’s last words were, ‘I love you, Mike.’”
“You were with him when he died?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” Durst shuddered, then clutched his arms around his torso as if to keep himself from shivering although the house was warm. “I’ve never been there when somebody actually died.” He shook his head.
“Anybody named Michael?” I reiterated.
“Do you know a last name?”
“No.”
“I suppose there were all kinds of Michaels over the years. We used lots of fake names. For the hidden videos there weren’t any names. He thought you were Michael?”
“I don’t know what he was thinking. I’m just trying to figure out who Michael was and if he was connected to the murder. Maybe Ethan was hallucinating. I don’t know.”
Durst said, “Like in the movie
Citizen Kane
when the guy says ‘Rosebud’ as he dies.”
“I guess,” I said.
Durst asked, “What am I going to do now? This morning? Even if I call a lawyer, he won’t be able to stop me from being in danger. He’ll only be able to help me with the police.”
Miller said, “After the police talk to you, I can take you with me. If necessary, you can come to Chicago. I have someone who can protect you and hide you. Did Cormac go missing because of the threats?”
“Neither one of them ever said anything to me. I just went to work, and Cormac wasn’t there. I left messages for Cormac. He never called back. Sometimes they were both gone for days, but they always called in. I was the one who told Ethan that Cormac was missing. Something was sure wrong. Maybe they were scared. They were really rotten not to tell me what was going on.”
I agreed. “You did know Cormac’s dad was Cecil Macintire?”
“Oh, yeah. He talked about him once in a while. I figured they’d hate each other, you know with Cormac doing porn and his dad being a big right-winger, but from what Cormac said his dad never knew what he did. Who would tell their parents they had a career in porn? Cormac never said a whole lot about anything.”
Scott said, “So another child of a right-wing ranter is gay?”
“I always assumed Cormac was, but he never talked about it. I don’t know if Ethan and him were lovers now or ever. They didn’t act like it or talk like they were.”
Miller asked, “Did you ever have sex with Ethan or Cormac?”
“No. Gosh, no. They were older.” So much for the visions of youth.
I asked Miller, “Did you talk to people at Ethan’s regular job?”
“Not about this.”
Durst said, “I think Ethan kept his job because it was an entry into the world of locker rooms at the college level. He didn’t need it for the money. I think Cormac did legitimate Internet work but kept his porn career separate. I think Ethan’s job was sort of a cover to fool his wives, but I also think he really enjoyed coaching young athletes. He was very good at it.”
“Did he ever take pictures of his own athletes or in the locker room at his college?”
“He talked about that. If he ever got caught at his college or on the road, he didn’t think it would make any difference. They’d fire his ass.”
I asked, “How did they meet and start working together?”
“Ethan was videotaping the Olympic swimming tryouts eight years ago. Cormac was trying out. Cormac never got beyond the first round. Somehow they hooked up there. I never got the whole story.”
Scott said, “Cormac must have been pretty good to even get that far.”
“Yep. I never learned the specifics of their relationship. I was mostly just a clerk.”
Miller agreed to take Durst to the police and then keep him safe. We decided to go to Lafayette University together the next morning.
Back at our hotel, we found our room had been broken into. Scott and I had each packed only an overnight bag: clean underwear, socks, and a shirt, along with deodorant, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. There was nothing valuable.
“Was this random or deliberate?” Scott asked.
“If it was deliberate, how would they know we were staying here?” I asked.
“Someone called every hotel in St. Louis until they found Tom Mason registered.”
“That takes a lot of energy. I suppose they’d start with the best and work down.” We usually registered under my less-famous-than-his name, although we sometimes registered under his agent’s name. There is certainly more than one Scott Carpenter or Tom Mason in this world, but if someone had a notion of where we were, and we used our real names, and they were nuts enough, they could track us down.
We didn’t find anything missing. We called the front desk. The hotel manager was effusively apologetic. He offered us the best room they had available for free. We took it. I wasn’t about to stay the night in a room someone knew how to get into. Even with the dead bolt and a chain, I didn’t want to take chances.
First thing Monday morning, we called Scott’s parents. Our hotel room had two phones. Scott suggested we both listen. Hiram was out. His mother gave the phone to Cynthia. She sounded awful. “Donny’s missing,” she said.
“What happened?” Scott asked.
She sounded as if she was crying. “He walked out of the interview room and never came back. We didn’t call a lawyer like you said. We should have.”
Scott asked, “What had the police been asking just before he left?”
“The police had just asked him about why he had left instead of calling for help. I’m embarrassed about that. He knows better than that. He was brought up to know what’s right. Donny just seems to get more hostile and sullen every day. He wouldn’t listen to me, or Hiram, or the detectives. We’re not sure what to do. Hiram’s afraid that because Donny left, the police might think he had something to do with the murder.”
Scott said, “Call our lawyer. He’ll be able to give you good advice.” He gave her the number.
The news of Cormac’s death filled the morning news shows. Cecil was reported to be too emotionally upset to meet the press. Unusual in a press glutton, but a very understandable reaction, in my opinion. We flipped through several newscasts. Our names came up. They dwelled on the possible illegal activity and the pornography connection. The news of Ethan’s Internet business was not going to make his death any easier for the Gahains. At a newspaper stand, the headlines on all the papers were about the murder.
The night before, we’d agreed to meet Miller for breakfast. In the lobby we discovered Miller had left Josh in his hotel room.
“Is that safe?” Scott asked. We explained about the break-in in our room.
Miller shrugged. “If the police are giving out our names, there’s nothing we can do. No one else would know my name was connected with this.”
“Sure people would,” Scott said. “You’ve been investigating one of them for several days. People would remember your name.”
“But not connected with the murder investigation,” Miller said. “I think the chances are pretty remote. Who did you guys tell you were coming to St. Louis? Only my secretary knows, and I trust him implicitly.”
“It wasn’t a secret,” I said, “but we didn’t publish it. Ethan’s and my parents, my sister and brother-in-law knew. Scott’s brother, sister-in-law, and his nephew. Not a lot.”
“It’s enough,” Miller said.
“Someone’s onto us,” Scott averred.
“Or it was random chance,” I said.
We decided to speak with a few of the people in St. Louis whom Miller had talked to already. They might have some hint about what had led to the murders. Maybe someone would know who Michael was.
I said, “If there were two intruders last night in Durst’s home, don’t we have to consider the fact that we very possibly have two killers?”
Miller said, “It’s possible. If they weren’t simply there to rob the guy.”
Scott added, “And if Durst is reporting accurately. None of us saw anybody run out of his house. We only heard doors slamming.”
We returned to Miller’s hotel and took the elevator to his room.
On the way up I said, “With all these dotcom businesses failing, why couldn’t Ethan go broke like all the rest of them?”
Scott said, “I’m not sure an initial public offering for porn would sell a lot.”
“I bet it would sell a bundle,” I said. “I think people would be lining up.”
Josh Durst was gone. Looking out the window at the Arch, I said, “Another revolting development. This is turning into an epidemic. If we keep this up, all we have to do is wait until everybody’s gone missing and arrest the last person who’s still here.”
Scott said, “As long as it isn’t one of us.”
“Do we know anything helpful from the tapes you did see?” Miller asked.
I said, “They’ll be able to interview the athletes from the colleges because of the names on the uniforms. Will they get much? Those guys didn’t know they were being videotaped.”
We called Durst’s home. No answer.
Miller said, “I told him to stay put. Maybe he just ran down to get coffee.”
“Why’d you leave him alone?” I asked.
“We aren’t the enemy,” Miller said. “He isn’t our prisoner. He must have run for a good reason.”
Miller said he would try to talk to Cormac Macintire’s wife. We figured his going by himself made more sense than all three of us showing up at once. As the grieving widow, she would undoubtedly be upset. It wouldn’t be right to add to the mob who were probably traipsing to her door. Miller also agreed to keep hunting for Josh Durst. Meanwhile we would drive to Ladue to interview Ethan’s fourth wife.
Ladue is one of the wealthiest suburbs of St. Louis. A maid answered the door. We explained the reason for our visit. She left and returned in a few moments and ushered us down a wainscoted hallway to a room filled with nearly as much sports equipment as we had at the penthouse. A woman in a bright red spandex bodysuit finished hefting a fifty-pound weight and sat up and stretched extravagantly. She had a svelte figure with muscles and mammary glands protruding significantly. I’m not inclined to notice a woman in a sexual way, but it was hard to miss this woman’s endowments and attractiveness. The maid left. We introduced ourselves. The woman shook our hands.
“You’re the fabled Tom Mason.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You must have had some kind of mystical hold on my ex-husband. He talked about you. Not often, but enough that I knew he had some kind of feeling for you, trusted you. The last time I saw him he kept saying he had to go see you. He wouldn’t tell me what about. Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have bad news. Ethan is dead. He was murdered in Chicago on Saturday.”
She looked from one to the other of us, touched her hair, drew a deep breath, and finally said, “Wow.”
We wound up sitting at a kitchen table. She put on an automatic coffeemaker, set out cups, spoons, sugar, cream, and sat down. “Wow,” she said again. “I hadn’t heard. I don’t listen to the news.”
I gave her a brief outline of recent events.
“Wow. Did they catch who did it?”
“Not yet.”
“They’ll be here to question me, won’t they?” She shrugged. “I’m not going to have much to tell them.”
“The divorce was amicable?” I asked.
She smiled. “Very. I do have money of my own. I got a few hundred thousand and this house from him. Plus my kids’ college educations are paid for.”
“Did you have children with him?”
“No. My son and daughter are from a previous marriage. He was very good to them. They got along well. He cared what they did.”
“Will they miss him?”
“They didn’t know him all that long, but I’m sure they will.”
I asked, “Did you know he was rich when you married him?”
“While we were dating, I knew he was well-off. I got to know the details after we were married.”
I asked, “You knew he was more than a college PE coach?”
“Did I know about the porn? Sure. He made a fabulous income from it. We had an excellent lifestyle. I didn’t mind how he made his money. As someone once said, never let your morals get in the way of having a good time.”
“Why did you break up?”
“Ethan is gay. He may still not want to admit it, but I figured it out. He wasn’t anywhere near as interested in sex with me as a straight guy would be.”
“Maybe he just didn’t have much of a sex drive,” Scott said.
I didn’t believe that. We’d been pretty randy teenagers. Multiple-orgasm sessions with him when we were fifteen and sixteen had been the rule, not the exception. Still, I wasn’t prepared to reveal this to them. My general rule is that only under extreme duress should one reveal one’s sexual exploits with previous lovers to current lovers. Extreme duress in this case being the moment just before the final yank with a rusty pair of pliers would pull your tongue out of your head.
“I need sex,” Brenda Gahain said. “The rare times we made love after we were married, he was a fantastic lover. I needed more than he was willing or able to give. We were both very civilized over the divorce.”
“How did you find out about the porn?”
“He told me. It wasn’t some dastardly secret that he could be blackmailed about.”
“Did they know at the college he taught at?” I asked.
“Well, no. I guess they’d have been upset.”
“Did he have any enemies,” I asked, “or any major fights with anyone while you knew him?”
“He was always fighting with wife number one. She was certifiable, a raving loony.”
“How so?”
“She’d call at all hours. Make demands on his time that made no sense.”
I’d met Dana, the first wife. She’d struck me as reasonably sensible. Maybe we had different definitions of what
raving loony
meant. I asked, “Didn’t he have kids with her?”
“Yes. He took care of them financially. He was a real good guy, but he wasn’t great with adult relationships. He was always great with his kids. He had custody of the ones he had from his second wife. They got along great with my kids. There were issues with her about custody while we were married. His first wife lives in Chicago. He would see the kids whenever he was there. They would visit for a month every summer, but she was nuts. She’d demand he’d come over to fix things, as if he was to drive from here to there to repair a leaky toilet. What was even more laughable was that he had difficulty telling which end of a screwdriver was which.”
“Any enemies, fights, or arguments with people outside the immediate family?”
“Some in-fighting at the college. He never seemed to be able to keep his mouth shut at opportune times.”
“What was the fighting about at the college?”
“Heavens, I’m not really sure. I only half listened to that crap. I’m afraid I was as interested in the details of internal faculty politics as he was in having sex.”
“Do you know why he was back in Chicago?”
“I didn’t know precisely where he was. I do know he was determined to attend your wedding. He said he had to talk to you. I don’t know what about. I told that private investigator the same thing. Like I said, we had very little contact. As part of the divorce, I got a lovely little trust fund, from which I get a lovely little check once a month.”
“What happens to that now that he’s dead?”
“Nothing. It goes on. I made sure of that when we set it up. I wasn’t going to have my old age show up and half my income disappear. I had nothing to gain or lose from him alive or dead.”
“Why did you marry him?” Scott asked.
“I was in love.”
I asked, “I realize you said you didn’t see him much, but do you know if he was in any kind of trouble lately, scared or frightened about anything?”
“Nope. Sorry. You might try wife number three. I think she kept up with him.”
“You were never in any of the videos?” Scott asked.
She smiled. “Thank you for the compliment, but no.”
“Did you know Cormac Macintire?”
“I know he was a business partner. I met him once, but other than that, no.”
“How about a Josh Durst?”
“Nope, sorry.”
I asked, “Did Ethan ever mention someone named Michael?” I told her what he’d said as he was dying.
She thought a moment or two then said, “He certainly never mentioned anyone named Michael in any significant way. He may have had several relationships with men while we were married, but I never knew for sure. I don’t think I wanted to know. I was more comfortably off than I’d ever been in my life. I didn’t care much what he did.” With that, we said our good-byes and we left.
In the car Scott said, “She didn’t come across to me as very loving and caring toward him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I find it hard to believe she would take him having affairs so calmly.”
I tuned the radio to an all-news station. The announcer dwelled at length about all the pornography associated with Cormac’s murder. A sexually explosive connection with one of the biggest right-wing talk show hosts was great grist for the media. I couldn’t wait to see the ranters deal with this one. The most blatant ranters on the air are on the Fox News Network. There are no real news correspondents or reporters on any of the Fox News Network shows. There is no pretense of objectivity. Most of the hosts on all the programs are right-wing hacks, delivering milder or harsher forms of rants depending on the show. If there is a token liberal, he or she is always presented as ugly and inarticulate, while the right-winger is always clean-cut, all-American, and aggressively obtuse.