Day 16

The sound of several notebooks hitting the floor with a noisy crash interrupted the conversation, and Danny and Officer Kelly looked up to see Ash standing in the doorway, a look of abject horror on his face.

"I'm sorry," he stammered after a long frozen moment, stooping to retrieve the notebooks, "I tripped on the sill."

"Ash!" Danny cried out happily, "I'm so glad to see you! You remember Officer Kelly?"

"Yes," Ash nodded, stacking the notebooks onto the last empty table.

"Ash very kindly offered to pick up my homework," Danny explained to the officer, "Would you like some lemonade, Ash? Or something else to drink, or eat? We have staff today, I can ring for anything you like."

"I'm fine," Ash said, still apparently rattled.

"I wonder, Officer Kelly," Danny's face lit up with a new idea, "if Ash might have been the target, the person meant to find the body, rather than me. What do you think?"

"I understood from Mr. Phillips that his trip out to the hotel trails was unplanned, not part of his routine, and he didn't tell anyone he was going there. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," Ash whispered.

"Can you think of any reason why anyone would put a dead body in your path?"

"No," the boy's one visible eye was as wide as a saucer.

"So," Officer Kelly closed his notepad and put it away, "While I will certainly keep my mind open to the possibility, Mr. Vandervere, I have to assume you were the target, if there was a target intended, since your being on that route at that time of day is part of your weekly routine and at least one person knew you'd be there; and though that person is, generally speaking, above suspicion, there are probably more people you aren't aware of."

"What do you mean, 'generally speaking'? How could you possibly suspect Tia?" Danny frowned at the man in outrage.

"I don't, I don't," Officer Kelly put his hands out in a calming gesture, "except insofar as I have to suspect everyone at this point. For example, I'm not going to ask you this officially, Mr. Vandervere, since I value my job, but: what were you doing between eleven and four on Friday night?"

"Sleeping," Danny answered.

"Can you prove that?" the officer asked.

"Well, I can't call an eye-witness," Danny said, then thought for a moment, "But the burglar alarm would record if anybody had left the house between those hours, it's armed automatically at ten and goes off at six, one has to enter the code to go in or out when it's on. You can check the log in the main console, it's in the mud-room."

"I'll do that," Officer Kelly smiled, "Though like I said, not officially. I doubt your father would take kindly to it."

"Don't worry too much about my father, Officer," Danny smiled back, "His bark is worse than his bite, and though he has been known to ask the police to look the other way when Vanderveres misbehave, he'd never obstruct justice in something this serious."

"I hope you're right," the man shook his head, "Just having you as a witness, he's been breathing down our necks. And you, Mr. Phillips? I don't suppose you have eye-witnesses for Friday night?"

"No," Ash said after clearing his throat, "Home, asleep, alone."

"Well," the officer put on his hat and stepped toward the door, "My request still stands: if either of you think of anything, anything at all that might have a bearing on the case, please call me right away."

"God, sometimes I hate being a Vandervere," Danny spat angrily after the policeman had left, "Can you imagine? What if I had killed poor Mr. Janacek? Or if anyone in my family had? We might go Scot-free, with the police afraid to even investigate us!"

"I'm sure it's not as bad as that," Ash told him, "If he really suspected you, he'd pursue it."

"You're right, of course," Danny reached out and grabbed Ash's knee, "He does seem like an honorable man. But being a Vandervere isn't good for one's morals, I can tell you that."

"You seem to be doing OK," Ash smiled at him, pulling his sketch-pad out of his bag.

"I do things sometimes," Danny admitted sadly, "which, if looked at in a certain light, aren't very nice,"

"So don't look at them in that light," the boy reasoned, "Do you mind if I do another sketch? I thought I'd try you with pastels."

"I never object to being immortalized," Danny grinned at him.

"I don't know about 'immortalized,'" Ash looked at him shyly over the edge of the pad, his hair tucked behind his ear again, "That depends on if I ever get famous."

"I'm sure you will be."

"How? You've never seen my work."

"I can tell. Oh, look, tea!"

Rosa and Maria both came out onto the porch, the former bearing a pitcher of iced tea with two glasses, the latter with a tray of fresh-baked oatmeal cookies and bunches of green grapes. They set these up on the low cocktail table in front of Danny's bed and backed away into the house, giggling like geishas the entire time.

"Do they always act like that?" Ash wondered, staring after the departing girls.

"What, the giggling? Not all the time, but whenever they're around me and nobody's there to reprimand them. They're both fatally in love with me," Danny rolled his eyes, "Rosa likes you, too."

"How do you know that?" the boy blushed.

"She said so, in between gusts of giggles. They think that since my Spanish accent is so bad -- 'Sesame Street Spanish,' Tia calls it -- I don't understand theirs; but I've been listening to Tia rattling on in her native tongue since I was a baby, I understand Colombian accents better than any other form of Spanish."

"Why do you call your housekeeper 'Tia'?" Ash wondered, only partly paying attention, most of his focus on the drawing in front of him.

"Because my mother would go postal if she heard me call her 'Madrecita,'" Danny laughed, "She really is like a mother to me now that my nanny is gone. But when I had them both, she seemed more like an aunt than a mother, since Mademoiselle Marnie was like a mother."

"How long did you have a nanny?"

"From birth until my thirteenth birthday."

"When is your birthday?"

"August second. When's yours?"

They went on like that for another hour and a half, an amiable back-and-forth of questions and answers, each answer spawning another question, as Ash scribbled industriously with his pad and a box of pastels, wiping the colors from his fingers onto his black t-shirt until it looked like tie-dye.

"May I see?" Danny asked politely when Ash finally put down his pencils, giving up on the drawing in the waning light as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, leaving a sort of twilight that drained all the color out of things.

"It's not that good, just a sketch," Ash hesitated, looking at the drawing critically.

"Well, I don't want to push if you don't want to show me, but I'm madly curious. I want to see how you see me."

"Okay," Ash relented and turned the pad around so Danny could see it.

"Oh, my God, Ash! It's beautiful!" Danny said truthfully; though it was very roughly drawn, and some of the proportions were slightly off, the picture was quite lovely... it was a fairly accurate likeness and showed Danny looking happy and animated in a nest of pillows.

"I can't get the line between your cheekbone and chin quite right. I made your neck too long, and your nose too short," the artist pointed out the errors as if to accuse himself.

"I'm not an artist, myself, Ash," Danny told him sternly, "but I do know art. That's a good likeness and it shows a very lively touch. It really is beautiful."

"You're just being polite," the boy protested, letting the curtain of hair fall over his face.

"Look here, Ash," Danny was slightly irritated by the boy's self-deprecation, but covered it with a light conversational tone, "I am always polite, but I am also always honest. If I thought your drawing was bad, trust me: I'd find a terribly polite way of saying so. But your drawing is very good, and I know what I'm talking about, so don't argue."

"OK, OK," Ash laughed delightedly, thrilled that Danny so adamantly liked the drawing, "You like it, it's yours."

"Really?!" Danny gasped, equally thrilled, "I can have it?"

"Of course," Ash carefully tore the page out of the spiral-bound book, then propped it in the other chair.

"Oh, Ash, thank you!" Danny reached out for the other boy's hand, and then pulled him down onto the cot, hugging him tight, "That is so sweet of you!"

"It's nothing," Ash mumbled into Danny's neck, unsure of where to put his hands.

"We need to work on your self-esteem," Danny put his hands on both sides of Ash's face and held it so he could look into the boy's eyes. Ash just stared back at him as if hypnotized, his eyes wide and his mouth slack, and Danny was overcome by how beautiful he looked like that; he kissed Ash lightly on the mouth, and when the boy didn't resist, he kissed him again, this time with passion.

Ash lay paralyzed against Danny, kissing back but only weakly, his kittenish little moans muffled by Danny's questing tongue, his hands gripping Danny's bare shoulders, his feet still on the floor. Danny felt himself light up inside, felt himself harden, and was thinking about how to get Ash under him without lowering his ankle, until he tasted salt.

"What's wrong?" Danny whispered, pulling Ash's head back to look into his face.

"I don't know," Ash whispered back helplessly, tears streaming in rivers.

"You're not sorry I kissed you, are you?"

"No. No, I'm glad," Ash leaned in and kissed Danny lightly to prove it, "I've never kissed anyone before."

"I cried the first time I kissed a man," Danny told him, smiling and wiping the tear off Ash's cheek with his thumb.

"Ahem," Mrs. Espinosa coughed theatrically in the door, making Ash leap to his feet and step away from Danny, his eyes wide with terror, "I brought your dinner."

"Don't worry, Ash," Danny sat up and grabbed the boy's hand, pulling him back toward the cot, "Tia knows about me. It's OK."

"Did you draw that?" the housekeeper asked as she turned to set the tray down on an ottoman and saw the drawing propped up in the chair.

"Yes, ma'am," Ash whispered, still obviously scared.

"It's very good," Mrs. Espinosa said, turning on the table lamp beside the chair, tilting her head to one side and then the other, "You've really captured his personality."

"Thank you," the boy was still whispering.

"I'll be back in forty minutes for the dishes," the housekeeper said, smiling at Ash and putting her hand on Danny's head, "I expect to find you both decent."

"Oh, my god," Ash moaned aloud when Mrs. Espinosa had left them, sagging against Danny in relief.

"I'm sorry, Ash," Danny lay his arm around Ash's shoulders and stroked his hair, "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"I feel so exposed," Ash said after a moment's silence.

"Is that bad?" Danny wondered; as an exhibitionist, he always enjoyed feeling exposed.

"No. Just kind of scary," Ash admitted, pushing his hair back and looking Danny in the eye. "You're kind of scary. How did you know I was gay?"

"I didn't," Danny told him.

"Then why did you kiss me?"

"I wanted to. If you didn't want me to, you could have pulled away," Danny reached up and ran his finger along Ash's lower lip, "I'm glad you didn't pull away."

"I'm glad you wanted to kiss me," Ash lay down against Danny, though with his feet still on the floor, and nestled his head against Danny's shoulder.

"Do you want to eat dinner?" Danny asked after a few minutes like this, his mind already charging ahead to think of all the things they could do in the next thirty-five minutes besides eating.

"I think we'd better," Ash sat up and shook his head decisively, getting up from the cot and moving the tea tray off the low table to make room for the dinner tray, "I think your Tia would be mad if we didn't."

"I think you're right," Danny agreed, leaning over to pluck the silver dome from the plate nearest him, "Oh, yum, duck!"

The boys ate their dinners, talking in a desultory stop-and-start manner throughout the meal; Ash seemed shy all of a sudden, afraid to meet Danny's eye, and giving in to long thoughtful silences; but he didn't hide behind his hair again, so Danny didn't try to draw him out further. He didn't know what was going to develop with Ash, and once his cock went down and he could think with his brain, he didn't want to try to force it in any one direction or another, for fear of spoiling the easy camaraderie they'd already created.

When Mrs. Espinosa returned, exactly forty minutes later, Ash decided he should go home, and made a production of putting his things together and giving Danny the sheets of homework that had been the ostensible reason for his visit but which had been quite forgotten. When he left, promising to bring the next day's homework the following afternoon, the housekeeper walked him out and left Danny on the porch to think.

"What are your intentions with that boy?" Mrs. Espinosa asked him when she returned a short time later with a wheelchair, ready to cart him into the bathroom and then put him to bed.

"I don't know, Tia," Danny shrugged, not sure what else to tell her.

"And what about Jeremy?" the housekeeper looked a little disapproving; she'd known about Jeremy from the beginning of their relationship, but she didn't know (or Danny didn't think she knew) about his other activities. He shared his emotional experiences with her, but he was embarrassed to share his carnal experiences.

"I don't know," Danny said again, putting his good foot on the floor and his arm around her shoulders so she could hoist him into the wheelchair, "I don't think it changes anything with Jeremy."

"Well, let me tell you this, mijo," the housekeeper dumped him into the chair and wheeled him across his bedroom while he held his foot straight out in front of him, "If you can't say to Jeremy that you kissed Ash, then it does change things."

"'Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive,'" Danny quoted as Mrs. Espinosa settled a stool next to the filled bathtub and pulled all the soaps and shampoos Danny would need off the higher shelves so he wouldn't have to stand up.

"Just be careful, Danny," Mrs. Espinosa leaned down and looked the boy in the eye, "It's one thing to play with people's bodies, that's what boys do; but don't go playing with people's hearts. That's not how we raised you."

"Yes, Tia," Danny assented meekly, though he wasn't sure he knew which was which.
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