Missing by Jonathan Valin Read Free Book Online Page B

the stuffed chair. "The
way that other people felt about him may have had nothing to do with
why Mason killed himself. You yourself said he’d been troubled."
    "Troubled, not suicidal."
    Cindy Dorn shook her head. "What the hell
happened, Harry? I know Mason had problems. Maybe more than the usual
allotment. He worried about AIDS. He worried about being bisexual. He
was deathly afraid of cops. But he was not in despair—or no more so
than any fairly thoughtful, screwed-up human being is. Hopefulness
was his creed."
    "What you said about the cops," I asked.
"What does that mean?"
    She flushed as if the question embarrassed her.
"Mason had some trouble with the police about six years ago,
before I knew him. Sully’s the one to talk to about it. You
remember Sully?"
    "Vividly."
    "He represented Mason when the charges were
brought. It was an ugly, preposterous thing involving a note that
Mason had written to a kid at school. Mason was actually locked up
for several days before the charges were dropped."
    "He hadn’t had any further trouble along those
lines, had he?" I said, trying to make it sound like an innocent
question and not succeeding.
    Cindy stared at me coldly. "For chrissake,
Harry, Mason wasn’t a child molester. The whole thing was a
terrible misunderstanding. You have no idea how careful teachers have
to be around their students these days. Anyone who works with
children has to be careful. You don’t dare lay a hand on one of
them for any reason, for fear some vindictive parent will twist it
into abuse. In case you haven’t noticed, there has been an epidemic
of such charges in this country and in this city. It’s paralleled
the growth of AIDS, a kind of fundamentalist AIDS."
    "I was just fishing for a motive, Cindy. Don’t
take it personally."
    "I just don’t like stereotyping. People have
done it to me, because of . . . well, because I like men. And they
did it to Mason all the time. That’s precisely why he was charged,
because to the cops all gays are potential perverts." She leaned
forward on the couch and stuck her chin in her hands. "I don’t
suppose they found anything useful, the cops?"
    "They haven’t really done a thorough
investigation."
    "Of course not," the girl said bitterly.
    "It’s not just Mason, Cindy. Suicides are
always tough for cops. All the CPD really knows is that Mason died of
an overdose of Seconals and alcohol. He apparently did the drinking
in a bar called Stacie’s, Monday night."
    "Stacie’s‘?" she said. "I don’t
think I’ve ever been there."
    I told her the truth. "It’s a gay bar, Cindy.
Mason was seen there with two other men. A tall, gray-haired
middle-aged man and a younger blond man. The older man drank a lot of
Scotch."
    "Del," she said, falling back against the
rear cushions of the couch.
    "That was my thought, too."
    She sat with her head to the wall, looking
betrayed—the way she’d looked on the night we’d searched
Mason’s condo. I said, "The police didn’t question the two
men Mason was drinking with, so it may not have been Cavanaugh. To be
honest, the whole inquiry was cursory."
    But she was thinking about the depth of Greenleaf ’s
betrayal.
    "Why would he have done that to me?" she
said in a heartsick voice. "When he left Del, he went through an
agony of remorse and self-recrimination. He didn’t just walk out on
him like a stranger."
    "We don’t know what happened, Cindy. The part
about Cavanaugh is specu1ation."
    She put her hands to her face and sat for a moment in
silence. "I thought I could let this go. I thought that was what
Mason would have wanted—what I wanted. But the fact is I was afraid
of finding out the truth. I am still afraid."
    It was my cue, although I sure as hell didn’t feel
like picking it up. "I could look into it for you," I said
uneasily. "At least I could find out if Cavanaugh was the one in
the bar."
    Cindy nodded. "Yes. I guess I need to know who
he was with—and why."
    "The why could be tougher," I said.