“Now what about the Turner case?” Adrian asked.
“Well, boys, I’d like to be able to tell you that we had something to go on, but we really don’t,” Tucker said. I noticed that we got more out of him than snarled responses if Adrian or I asked a question, rather than the captain. “No fingerprints other than Nate’s were in the car, we sent a sample of the paint transfer left on the bumper from where the other car struck his to the state lab in Columbus for analysis, but nothing has come back yet. The CPD didn’t have any leads for us. I hate to say it, but unless something breaks loose for us, Nate Turner might end up as a cold case.”
As the brother of someone whose killer was never brought to justice, that didn’t sit well with me. We thanked him for the information and he promised to email a copy of Billy’s drug test results to us so we could compare. None of us wanted to think an officer of the law was involved in a drug ring, but we couldn’t rule anyone or anything out.
“Sir, can I ask you a personal question?” Adrian asked once we returned to my car.
I glanced up in the rearview mirror and saw the captain sneer, but he groused, “Yes.”
“What the hell did you ever do to make the sheriff dislike you so damn much?” Adrian asked.
It took the captain a few seconds to acknowledge the question, but then he said, “I went to the University of Michigan.”
I recalled seeing Sheriff Tucker’s large Ohio State University diploma hanging on the wall and smiled. “Ahhh, that explains it,” I said.
IADMITIWASa bit freaked when Gabe told me that my nemesis had sent a photo of Gabe and me to the paper with a threatening message. I mean, I didn’t want shitty pictures of me being sent to the paper. I had an image to uphold in my town. Then Gabe told me what a good picture it was of us and I went from being alarmed to wanting a copy for us. Gabe promised I could have it once it was no longer evidence. I planned to frame the photo and set it at my station for everyone to see. I could tell he was frustrated with me and my lack of concern for my safety, so it was quite refreshing to hear that Adrian was thinking along the same lines as I was.
I took the threat seriously, at first. Hell, whoever it was trashed my pretty Princess and it pissed me off. Other than that, it had been photos and a few vague threats. If someone really wanted to hurt me, like Oscar Davidson did when he realized I’d given a description of him to the police, they wouldn’t send one warning after the other. Oscar gave me no warnings; he broke into my home and would’ve killed me had Gabe not shot him. I applied the same logic to the new disturbance in my once orderly life and found comfort.
I still shivered hard every time I thought about Oscar Davidson, which became less frequently as time passed by. He wasn’t coming back from the grave to kill me and whoever was sending these so-called threats didn’t really want to kill me either. I don’t know why I was so certain, I just was. Also, as sure was my belief that Billy Sampson was behind it all. The timing was just to convenient for me.
It wasn’t arrogance on my part that Billy was jealous of Gabe and me or that he wanted me all to himself that was guiding my beliefs, it was just my vast experience with bullies–namely him. First, it was my theory that Billy would fall into his old habits–not that I believe he’d outgrown them–once he returned to Carter County. Second, seeing me happy would piss him off. I lived my life happily in the open while he pretended to be something he wasn’t. That had to really pinch his pecker. Throw in the fact that he was using drugs and you had an unappetizing recipe for harassment.
I could tell that Gabe was starting to come around and think like Adrian and me. It didn’t make him feel better because he felt the drug usage made Billy even more unstable. He was holding out hope that the drugs in Billy’s system matched the ones found at the school so that he could be brought in and questioned. According to Gabe, it could be weeks before he got the results back because nothing happened quickly for small town law enforcement agencies when they had to rely on overburdened and underfunded state labs. He reminded me that real police work didn’t look anything like the CSI shows I had loved so much.
The only thing I could do was be more aware of my surroundings. The weather had been too cold and the sidewalks too slick to run outside and I’d been forced to run on a treadmill at the gym. March was right around the corner and, even though it was a tossup month–meaning all four seasons could occur in one day–it was a big step in the right direction to getting back out in the fresh air to run. I would, however, miss hearing the grunts that escaped Gabe when he lifted weights.
Just knowing he was hot and sweaty in the same room as me made it hard to keep my focus on my pace and breathing when I used one of those preset options on the treadmill. Fuck, it had me running on an incline so steep that I looked like that cliffhanger game on The Price is Right. The last thing I needed was the annoying-ass music they played during that game in my head, but it’s what I got. Instead of going over the edge of the cliff like the mountain climber in the game does when a contestant can’t guess the price of the items correctly, I was in jeopardy of face planting on the treadmill in a crowded gym. I made a mental note to bring earbuds to the gym with me the next time so I could tune out Detective Sex Sounds, focus on my running, and avoid getting an inconvenient hard-on.
I never ran with earbuds in my ears. Once, I came out to my parents–as if they hadn’t already known–my father took me aside and had a very serious conversation with me. He told me that, although moms and dads all worried endlessly about their children, parents of minorities had added concerns. He explained that some people would hate me just because I existed. That may seem like a horrible thing for a father to tell his son, but his exact words to me were, “I can’t allow my boy to become a heartbreaking statistic. If something happened to you, it would kill your mother and me. Pay attention.” By then, I’d already experienced plenty of hateful things said about me and to me, so I knew what he was talking about, yet, I had never been physically hurt in any way. It took me years to understand that verbal abuse was equally as damaging, if not more, than physical abuse.
I took my dad’s words to heart that day. Some people might’ve had the impression that I was a flighty person without a care in the world, but that was the furthest thing from the truth. I was usually hyper aware of my surroundings and had developed a Danger, Will Robinson radar. It was going crazy one night when I took the trash out after the salon closed. Gabe normally insisted on doing it, but he was on the phone with his mom and I wanted to get it over with so I could go upstairs and enjoy the rest of my night.
I wasn’t scared when I felt Billy’s presence because I knew that Gabe was a loud scream away. Even so, I wanted to deal with Billy on my own once and for all. The motion detector lights that Gabe installed on the corners of the garage came on as I was putting a lid on the trash can. My heart sped up, but my mind remained calm.
“He must not really give a shit about you,” Billy snarled from behind me. “Either that or you’re really fucking stupid. I think it’s a little bit of both. Someone’s threatening to harm you, yet, here you are in the dark all by yourself.”
I slowly turned around and faced Billy. I was shocked at how sick he looked. There were large bags under his eyes, his pupils were blown, and he shook all over like he couldn’t wait for his next fix. “Let me guess, you were just in the neighborhood?” I asked sarcastically. We both knew better.
“You might say that,” he told me. The sneering smile slipped from his face and all I saw was unbridled rage. “I never knew you were such an exhibitionist, Josh. Do you like leaving your bedroom curtain open for people in the neighborhood to watch you and your detective having sex? Is that part of your gay agenda?”
There was so much wrong with what he had said that I wasn’t sure what to address first. I decided to take them in order so that I didn’t miss anything. “I’ve never been an exhibitionist and the only home on this block with a view into my bedroom window has been vacant for months.” I cocked my head to the side and added, “That means your perverted ass has taken advantage of the situation. You’ve been watching me and Gabe through my window just like you’ve been following me around and leaving those stupid photos behind as a warning. The newspaper stunt was over the top, Billy.”
I won’t lie, it made me sick to my stomach to realize that someone so twisted saw something that was so beautiful and pure with love. I needed to move on or risk not finishing what I had to say about his hateful comments, although I figured it was like talking to a brick wall.
“And, wanting to be treated equally and accepted as who I am isn’t an agenda, Billy. I love Gabe and he loves me. We just want to live peacefully and be able to enjoy the same things that straight couples do.”
“You’re disgusting and I hate you,” Billy snarled, taking two steps closer to me.
“Oh, I don’t think you hate me at all. I think you hate yourself. It’s too bad that you hide behind lies and drugs. Besides, if you hated me so much then you wouldn’t be trying to break Gabe and me up with your stupid Nate Turner copycat shit. No one is falling for that stunt; we were just waiting for you to fuck up and tip your hand. Sort of like right now.”
“Shut up,” Billy said between gritted teeth. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, I know plenty. I hate to break this to you, but you’re not that special or unique. You’re no different than any other guy who’s ashamed of who he is and who he loves.” I’d been accused of not knowing when to shut my mouth once I started slinging snark everywhere and that could probably be classified as one of those times.
“I said shut the fuck up.” That time Billy screamed the words. I knew it was loud enough to get Gabe’s attention, but I couldn’t be distracted by that. I saw in his eyes that he was ready to act on his aggression and I was ready for him.
Billy took a step toward me while he reached for me. I brought my knee up and racked his balls hard enough to send them bouncing off his internal organs like a pinball game. “Fuck!” he roared. When he doubled over to grab his nuts, I brought my knee up to his nose. I heard the sickening crunch of cartilage breaking, followed by the gush of his hot blood all over the knee of my pants before I was able to pull back.
