“Anything else you want to tell me?”I asked.
He touched his neck again.Probably thinking about that swastika neck tattoo.“Like what?”
“Anything.Something strange you noticed about the party.Someone you talked to.You’d be surprised how often little details like that trip people up.”
“I don’t know.No.I mean, I don’t really remember.”
“Okay.And you told all this to the detectives?”
Tip nodded.
“Where was Jordan?”
It caught him off guard; I could tell by the panicked, blurted “Huh?”
“Your friend.Or is he your boyfriend?”
“He’s not—we broke up a couple weeks ago.”
“He’s here, though,” I said.“That’s something.Where was he during the party?”
Tip didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to.The door opened, and Jordan came into the room carrying a cup full of ice.
“We split up at the party,” Jordan said.As he handed the ice to Tip, he settled into his chair again.Then he put his hand on Tip’s arm and looked me in the eye.“We have an open relationship.”
One thing they teach you as a detective is not to sayuh huh.
Sometimes, though, it doesn’t stick.So, I said, “Uh huh.”
Jordan’s eyebrows drew together.“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just want to make sure I get this straight.While you—” This was for Tip.“—were casually taking a stroll, in the dark, outside, at a party you thought would have some wild sex stuff and, disappointingly, didn’t, you—” Jordan now.“—were doing your own thing.Because you split up.At the dungeon sex party.Because you’re in an open relationship.But you also broke up a couple of weeks ago.And that’s why you didn’t see this guy come out of the woods and bash your boyfriend in the face with a bottle.”
Dropping his head, Jordan mumbled, “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”
Tip looked at me for a moment longer.Then he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.His face contorted in slow motion.And then he started to cry—not sobbing, just tears leaking down the side of his face.The protective covering for his injured eye caught the tears; I could see a pink wetness wicking along the material.
“His emotions are all messed up because of the stuff they gave him,” Jordan said, and he chafed Tip’s arm.“Are you done?He needs to rest.”
“If you think of anything,” I said as I stood, “give me a call.”
Tip still wasn’t looking at me, so I gave two of my cards to Jordan and started for the door.
But Tip’s voice floated after me, and it had a fractured quality.“Does it get better?”
I hesitated.And then I said, “Not really.”
5
The detectives—if you were willing to call them that—were waiting in the hall.
Say what you would about the Dore County Sheriff’s Department, they sure knew how to pick them.Gary Holliman was tall, heavyset, and had thick, graying hair pulled into a ponytail.The cowboy hat he usually wore was tucked under one arm.He was dressed in a white suit, and on one finger he had a silver ring with a cross on it.He went by Brother Gary, and I was ninety-nine percent sure he jerked off to oldMatlockepisodes.
Alvin Reinbold wasn’t much better.Red Alvin, or Red, as he was usually called, had probably, at some point, been a redhead.(If my boy John-Henry had been around, I would have made a joke about the carpet matching the drapes.) He was skinny, his face and hands covered in sunspots, and today he wore the Walmart special: a Miller High Life tee and jeans that looked like they’d been ironed.He chewed a toothpick on one side of his mouth.I didn’t think he jerked off toMatlock.He probably didn’t jerk off at all.Why jerk off when you could nut just from how badass you were?
“Detective Dulac,” Brother Gary boomed in his church voice.“If we could have a minute of your time.”
I glanced past the two boners to where Tip’s parents were still locked in a furious—and self-absorbed—argument.They didn’t seem to notice that I’d left Tip’s room.They certainly didn’t seem to have any intention of going in there themselves.
