Pumpkin Eater, page 31
part #2 of Dan Sharp Mystery Series
“In any case, the market is pretty good right now. My agent said she won’t have trouble selling a ‘beautiful, newly renovated home in fabulous, trendy Corktown.’ I’ll make sure you get some of the proceeds, of course.”
Trevor shook his head. “I won’t take a cent from you.”
“But I want you to have it.”
“I can’t take it.”
“You could always give it away to the animal rescue shelter.”
Trevor smiled. “You can do that, if you like. I won’t take your money.”
Dan watched him, wondering what he’d miss most: the gentle smile, the eyes that crinkled softly around the edges, or the deep, confident voice that hid so many fears and insecurities.
“So that’s it then? Is there nothing I can say to make you change your mind?”
“I wish there was. I’m just too fragile to fit into your life. You won’t be content till you’ve solved everyone’s problems and put everything in its place. I would just worry us all to death and end up making you hate me. I’ll still worry about you, for that matter. I’m sorry.”
Dan shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. It had to happen, sooner or later. Better to happen before any more damage is done.”
“Yes.”
Rule Number Ten: The hero can never go home again.
Silence took hold for a moment.
This is it, Dan thought. The ending. Finality. Everything stops here, like the last notes of a composer of genius squeezing out a few more drops of greatness on his deathbed, but one who has revealed himself mortal after all. He walked over to the table, cautious, not trusting things around him to remain intact, including the table and chairs. He sat and reality asserted itself, the laws of physics resuming their normal functioning, barely noticed by anyone. He looked over at Trevor, who somehow had never looked more beautiful, so glowingly right, despite the early hour and their mutual fatigue.
Dan recalled the first time they slept together, in Trevor’s villa on his island sanctuary. He remembered the shape of those early tentative feelings: hesitant and wistful. It had felt as though something was beginning to fill in what had till then only been an outline. Miraculously, of course, because he hadn’t known it was only an outline, like a cartoon figure breathed into life, or a kiss that awakens the sleeping lover, rising to meet the future with optimism; not knowing it had already eluded them, that it already lay in ruins behind them like the shape of what could never be.
A shadow fell across the table, dividing it into dark and light, as though everything was once again retreating to a mere outline. The elusive mystery of life, Dan thought. We walk away from the edge, no longer daring to look at what might have been. He sensed that he would carry this moment with him wherever he went, into every love affair, never finding what he was looking for: a life that does not grow old, a love that does not grow cold.
No one is dying here, he told himself. Life will continue.
Perhaps that was the problem. He would stay here, in Toronto, and Trevor would return to his island. They would live apart, each knowing the other existed elsewhere, at the same time, but out of reach. Only just. He saw himself walking down a tree-lined street one day years from now, his feet scuffing the leaves and imagining for a moment that he was not alone, that Trevor was there beside him. Maybe he would recall a bit of conversation, speak a few words until he remembered and stopped himself before carrying on with a shrug.
“More coffee?” Dan asked.
Trevor looked over at him. “Sure. I’m going to need it.”
Dan picked up his cup and started to pour. Something stopped him. He looked out the window at his new backyard. Daylight was beginning to show at the edge of the sky. Here was one more day to get through, he thought. It sounded like a simple enough task, but then there would be all the others to follow after that.
It was time to start thinking about what he was going to do with them.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Mark Round and Lyn Nottingham for patiently explaining to me the elusive whys and wherefores of police protocol and then some. I also extend my gratitude to the kind folks at Dundurn who make me smile and give me reason to write, as well as to David Tronetti for being a good and careful listener. Cheers to David Bowie for the late-night vibes that kept me going.
Excerpt
Excerpt from The Jade Butterfly, Jeffrey Round’s next Dan Sharp Mystery
Prologue: Beijing, June 4, 1989
Lost
It was just past midnight when they passed the Forbidden City and entered through Tiananmen Gate, where the crowds were gathered. The air blew hot and dry on the boy’s skin. He’d been to the Red Dragon Restaurant with his sister and some friends to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. It was amazing what a handful of yuan could buy these days for a gang of hungry students. The curried eel and scorpion kebabs had been especially fresh and tasty. And the ale, flowing like wine. The four had indulged mightily. Then he’d surprised them by footing the bill: it was his gift to them.
He had plenty to celebrate. His real gift had come a few days earlier when he’d been accepted into the Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade. It was his ticket out of an impoverished past and into the world. A ticket to a new life. It also offered him exemption from military college, the prospects of which had loomed overhead for the past several years. Now he was free from that burden. This, of course, was only if he performed well in his studies. But if he did then he could leave this country one day. He could get beyond its ancient walls and dusty customs. Maybe he would even get beyond himself. He was still a boy in many ways. A boy who barely knew who he was or what he might become.
He glanced over at the others. Chunlan sat on a low stone wall, chewing gum, her knobby knees exposed beneath the hem of a skirt. His sister, Ling, had stopped to light a cigarette. Thin, ethereal, her pensive face lit up in the glow from the match. She took a drag then offered the cigarette to Wenwu, who pulled it suggestively through her fingers.
The boy felt a flash of jealousy. When it came time to leave China, he would find a way to bring his sister with him. Only Ling knew truly who he was. Only she understood him fully. Even more than he really understood himself, he sometimes thought.
They continued past the turnoff to the square. The Monument to the People’s Heroes was lit by an eerie glow. A crowd stood around as though waiting expectantly for something to begin. It was hard to see over all the heads. They’d been gathering here for weeks, but it was a shock to see the numbers, well into the thousands in the square alone. That was far more than the official reports said.
The boy had lied to his parents about where they were going. His father would be furious if he knew that he and Ling were anywhere near the protests. Some of the student leaders had begun to talk about disbanding the movement, though the hardliners were advocating more drastic action, even hunger strikes. They should all just relax and go for a good meal at the Red Dragon, the boy thought. That would calm them down. Why all this fuss over a dead politician? He signalled to the others to bypass the crowds, but Wenwu and Chunlan were already heading toward the centre. Ling followed.
They seemed to burst into the square almost by accident. An unnatural calm hung in the air. Right ahead of them a tank rolled in, its treads steadily eating up the pavement. It stopped in front of the Mao Mausoleum. Before the night was over there would be many more, bringing death with them. The images would crackle around the world, striking a chord with the international media. Estimates of the number of dead would be argued over for decades, ranging from official reports of hundreds to eye witness accounts of ten thousand or more, not to mention the unaccounted for casualties, the faceless ones who languished in prisons or were tortured and executed afterward.
The protests had grown since the recent death of Hu Yaobang, former General Secretary. Seen by party conservatives as “soft” and “Western,” he’d been forced to resign two years earlier. A favourite with students, his demise sparked the first signs of resistance, not just in Beijing but countrywide. The boy watched the posters eulogizing him go up all over the city. The calls for democracy and freedom struck a chord in him, as with so many others. It was because of Hu’s influence that he was being allowed to attend a school for international trade. Such things had not existed in China before. Who knows? Maybe the West was not such a bad place after all. Perhaps Mao’s China was finally coming undone.
The administration reacted quickly, framing the protests as a direct attack on China’s leaders and its political system. The People’s Daily dismissed the disturbances as the work of a small group of opportunists plotting to overthrow the government. The next day, one hundred-thousand students marched into Tiananmen.
The movement grew. In Beijing, a million ordinary citizens joined the rally. How could this be? the boy wondered. He didn’t know much about politics, but he’d been taught to believe the government was always right. Two days later, martial law was declared and the city went into lockdown. In spite of this, the protests continued night after night until the army was forced to withdraw.
As the students pushed their demands, several high-ranking government officials joined them in expressing pro-democracy beliefs, first privately then publicly. A high-ranking general was removed from command for refusing to clear the square of protesters. Word spread as the army prepared to advance, sending thousands of civilians into the streets to block the troops.
This was what the boy had walked into with his sister and friends on leaving the restaurant. It was close to one o’clock as they made their way across the square, the crowds pulsing around them. Above, people leaned from balconies all up and down the streets, as though watching a command performance. It was almost impossible to move.
The boy had wanted to be home in bed by midnight; it would not happen that night or for nearly another two weeks. The sight of armoured vehicles in the square filled him with a sense of trepidation as well as admiration. They were like powerful animals lying in wait. Suddenly, they all began to move as one. The crowd scattered at their approach.
Afterward, he would remember how quickly it happened. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail at one of the tanks. It rippled into blue and yellow flames as a soldier sprayed the air with machine-gun fire. Bodies crumpled and fell from the balconies.
The boy looked around in a panic. Wenwu and Chunlan had disappeared in the panicking crowd. He saw Ling just up ahead. She was running from the tanks, glancing over her shoulder at him with a look of horror. The tanks were rolling now. The gunfire continued in short bursts. As the boy turned to follow his sister, he felt a sting sear his thigh. It was as though his leg had given out. The crush of bodies held him upright for a moment longer then he sprawled on the ground, hitting his face as the pavement rushed forward.
A forest of legs surged past him. Someone stumbled over his prone body. Instinctively, he pushed the others away. Suddenly the crowds parted and he was lying there on his own. He searched for the tear in his leg, bringing his hands before his face. Blood covered his fingers. Being crushed to death was no longer his chief worry. In a flash, he thought he might bleed to death with no one to give him proper medical treatment. From the corner of his sightline, he saw someone heading toward him. An old man reached down and helped him to his feet before moving off.
The boy stood shakily by the wall and looked around for his sister.
Ling was gone.
From the Same Series
Lake on the Mountain
A Dan Sharp Mystery
Jeffery Round
978-1-459700017
$11.99
Dan Sharp, a gay father and missing persons investigator, accepts an invitation to a wedding on a yacht in Ontario’s Prince Edward County. It seems just the thing to bring Dan closer to his noncommittal partner, Bill, a respected medical professional with a penchant for sleazy after-hours clubs, cheap drugs, and rough sex. But the event doesn’t go exactly as planned.
When a member of the wedding party is swept overboard, a case of mistaken identity leads to confusion as the wrong person is reported missing. The hunt for a possible killer leads Dan deeper into the troubled waters and private lives of a family of rich WASPs and their secret world of privilege.
No sooner is that case resolved when a second one ends up on Dan’s desk. Dan is hired by an anonymous source to investigate the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of the groom’s father. The only clues are a missing bicycle and six horses mysteriously poisoned.
Of Related Interest
The Tanglewood Murders
David Weedmark
978-1-926607092
$16.95
Anger is simmering under the bucolic facade of Tanglewood vineyard…. All Ben Taylor wants is to get away from the police force where he worked undercover for years. The RCMP has cleared his name in an Ottawa shooting, but that hasn’t cleared his conscience. He arrives anonymously at Tanglewood Farms in Southwestern Ontario, where he worked in his youthful summers. Back then, it was a simple family-run vineyard, but it is a far different place today. The farm has become the hub of a powerful family empire. When a body is discovered in a shack on the farm, Ben is drawn into the investigation. Meanwhile, the woman who was once the love of his life now lives as a recluse behind the darkened windows of the farmhouse. As she begins to reveal to Ben her own dark secrets, they become suspects in the eyes of the police, the migrant workers, and even each other.
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Copyright © Jeffrey Round, 2014
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All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Editor: Allister Thompson/Cheryl Hawley
Design: Jesse Hooper
Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Round, Jeffrey, author
Pumpkin eater : a Dan Sharp mystery / Jeffrey Round.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-0817-4 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4597-0824-2 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-4597-0825-9 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8635.O8625P84 2014 C813’.54 C2013-903919-8
C2013-903920-1
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Jeffrey Round, Pumpkin Eater
