“Caroline would have to agree. I don’t want to go without her. I really do care for her. And, yes, we are a couple.”
“But she was seeing my brother-in-law. You saw them together at the OK Corral.”
Southern smiled grimly. “She was merely keeping upheterosexualappearances.”
“That must’ve been hard to keep secret in a town this small.”
“We worked at it. We were very careful.”
“Not so careful if you met up in the bedroom above the bar,” Decker pointed out.
“We did that very infrequently. Besides, all the people at the bar were drunk and the staff was too busy to notice. And we were friends. Everyone knew that. They just didn’t realize what close ‘friends’ we were. And we’d leave out the back only very late at night. Most of the time we would go out to my parents’ old farmhouse to be together. I thought about selling the place. Walt wanted me to. My father fought in Vietnam. He brought back a lot of curiosities from there that might be quite valuable. Plus a lot of weapons. He was quite the gun guy. But it made for a private place for Caroline and me. So I’m glad I kept it.”
“Is that your car in the parking lot?” asked Decker. “ ‘Heaven’?”
“Yes.” She smiled.
“What?” asked Decker.
“Remember I talked about barter? Well, the tires on the Mustang came from Hal Parker in payment for us burying his wife.”
“I guess people do what they have to do.”
“Will this have to come out, I mean, Caroline and me?”
“Lots of gay people live their lives openly and freely now,” said Jamison.
“Yes, but not here, I think.”
“Look,” said Decker, “we can’t guarantee anything. We’re trying to solve a series of crimes. We have to go where the evidence takes us.”
“I guess I can understand that. Will you be talking to Caroline, too?”
“Probably.”
“Can you tell her that I didn’t tell you about us? That you figured it out?”
“If it’s important to you,” said Jamison.
“It is. Very important.”
“I can see that,” said Decker quietly.
DECKER MADE A BRIEF STOPat the police station to look at an old report. Then he and Jamison drove to the offices of Dawson Enterprises, located in a building in downtown London.
“Why are we here?” Jamison asked.
“To learn stuff we don’t know,” replied Decker cryptically.
They were taken to the office of the firm’s CFO. His name was Abner Crutchfield, a small, dapper man in his late fifties with resolute features and a deep voice. He was dressed in an open-collared shirt, slacks, and polished tasseled loafers.
“Terrible business with Mr. Dawson and Mr. McClellan,” he began. “I guess you’re working on their cases.”
“We are,” said Decker. “We’re looking for motives, and we’d like to know about the business deal that they concluded right before their deaths.”
“All right. I’ll certainly tell you what I can,” said Crutchfield cautiously.
Decker glanced at Jamison before saying, “I was surprised that Dawson would sell out. He was in the midst of a buying spree, or so I’ve been told. Even sold his daughter’s restaurant out from under her.”