“You’ve already said that,” I reminded him.
“Well, now it’s for sure.”
“You can’t blame me for being relieved. I have to ride all the way to Cinci and back with my partner. Forgive me if I don’t want to be stuck with a dud,” I told Adrian. “You’d feel the same way.” Being stuck in a car with someone was an intimate experience, not the same as sharing a bed, but you were trapped in a small space with them with very little in the way of entertainment to distract you if they were horrible to be around. My phone chimed in my pocket with an incoming text and Adrian and I both knew who it was from. “You’re an asshole, Adrian.”
I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face as I read Josh’s message.Behave! Don’t make me piss on your leg before you leave the house each morning.Love you!
He wouldn’t have a moment’s doubt if he fully accepted how crazy in love I was with him. He knew I loved him, but I doubt he grasped the depth of it. Hell, I was still coming to terms with it. The text I sent back was short and sincere.No one can replace my Sunshine. Love you more!
Adrian and I exchanged a bro-hug and went our separate ways, but I knew I’d be texting or speaking to him throughout the day. I wondered if we were going to have a debate as to who drove, but it was solved pretty quickly when he saw my Charger in the parking lot.
“You drive your own vehicle?” he asked once we hit the road.
“Yeah, but I get compensated for mileage, oil changes, and tire rotations,” I replied. “I typically don’t rack up a lot of mileage under normal circumstances.”
“Yeah, these are anything but normal,” he commented. “I was sorry to hear that Sampson was harassing you and your boyfriend.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told him, but something in his voice told me that he felt that way.
“I should’ve gone to the sheriff when I heard him making homophobic comments about you after Nate was found dead,” Dorchester said. “I’m sorry if my silence aided him in making things more difficult for you guys.”
Billy didn’t harass us because we were gay, he did it because he wanted to cause trouble between Josh and me so he could step back into Josh’s life. I wasn’t going to say that to him though. Although the truth would most likely filter out into the community, it wasn’t going to be through my lips.
“I appreciate your apology, Dorchester, but it’s not necessary,” I told him.
We spent the rest of the trip talking about the upcoming March Madness tournament, which reminded me of the scornful look on Josh’s face when he realized his television was going to be showing more sports. I could’ve gone home to watch basketball the other night after my punishment, but I wasn’t really too eager to return to my empty house nor did he seem eager for me to leave. It was a conversation that we needed to have, but I was hesitant to bring it up. I wasn’t sure how well my heart would handle hearing that Josh didn’t want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him.
My first impression of Detectives Weston Jade and Carl Harris was that they seemed like upstanding guys that were willing to work with us, but I had been fooled in the past by a Good Ole Boy routine. IA had cleared them, as well as me, of having acted improperly in regards to Nate Turner’s investigation and death so I was giving them the same benefit of the doubt that I hoped they were giving me.
The four of us gathered around a table in a conference room to go over the case. Jade passed out blue file folders containing the interview notes and photos of evidence from all the agencies involved. “Has there been any evidence or rumors that Nate Turner was involved in trafficking or distributing drugs?” I asked.
“Oddly, no,” Harris said. “We’d sent undercover cops into his club plenty of times and there was never any sign of dealing or trafficking out of that establishment.”
“We’ve asked Detectives Seviere and Drake to join us in case you have questions about the undercover investigations they ran. They should be here any minute,” Jade said.
I continued to look through their notes while we waited. “What about the silent partner, Marlon Bandowe?” I asked. “What were your impressions on him?” I noted there wasn’t much written about the man in the notes, which could mean that he just didn’t leave much of an impression or these guys weren’t as thorough as I would’ve preferred.
“Truthfully,” Jade replied, “he was just kind of there. He appeared wholesome and… boring.” He shrugged indifferently.
“Sort of nondescript,” added Harris. “Medium height, medium brown hair, average blue eyes. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him.”
“Except his vehemence about people not knowing he was involved with the club. He kept saying that he had only fronted the startup money and wasn’t involved in the operation of the business,” Jade added.
“Do you think he felt strongly enough about it to kill or hire a killer?” Dorchester asked. “It seemed to me that Nate’s killing was very personal and it didn’t seem like he was the type to build personal relationships. If he wasn’t running drugs or prostitution, then why was he being threatened? Better yet, why avoid the police if he had nothing to hide?”
“All things we ask ourselves daily,” Jade admitted. “There are no solid clues to anyone.”
“What about his family background?” I asked.
“Well, he was the only child of Charles and Marie Turner. They’re both deceased.”
“Adopted child,” Harris added. “The Turners were already in their late forties or early fifties when Nate was adopted. They were fairly well off and Nate enjoyed a privileged country club and private school life.”
“So that explains why his home and personal belongings speak of a larger income than what he earned from the night club,” Dorchester commented.
“Yes, he inherited quite a bit of money from his folks when they passed,” Jade answered.
“Did they die at the same time?” I asked the detectives.
