Day 23

Claude's death had even less of an impact on the students of Vandervere High than Mr. Janacek's had: though some might have felt guilty about their treatment of Claude in the last weeks of his life, he was essentially an outsider, new to Vandervere and not well-liked; his coming and going was just a blip in the school year -- a dramatic and memorable blip, but a blip nonetheless.

The administration responded anyway by bringing the grief counselors back, as well as papering the school with suicide-prevention literature; though the nature of Claude's death had not been released to the public, it was easier to think the unfortunate boy had killed himself -- teenage suicide is terrible, but also fairly common, while murder was too scary to contemplate.

There was no funeral or even a memorial service, the body had been shipped back to San Diego for burial as soon as the coroner released it; the entire Bettancourt family went with it, staying away for three weeks. And when Sandra returned to school just before Thanksgiving, she was consoled and made much of for having bravely endured the death of her cousin.

Danny, however, knew that Claude had not committed suicide, since Officer Kelly told him the coroner's findings as soon as the body was released. Claude had definitely been killed by someone else: though the second cut appeared to have been made with the boy's own hand wrapped around the box-cutter, the first cut was too deep at the initial point of incision, indicating a downward arc of the blade that could not have been self-inflicted. Someone of approximately the same height had stood directly in front of Claude and brought the blade down on his neck, left-handed, then as he lay bleeding to death made the second cut with his unresisting right hand on the blade. And since there were no defensive wounds, the killer had to be someone Claude knew and trusted.

Officer Kelly gave him this information as a warning, but Danny could not see where he could apply the knowledge -- it was too vague and wide-ranging a threat. He couldn't very well walk around with a body-guard, or go into hiding, and there didn't seem any point in changing all of his routines when there was no way of knowing which part of his life contained the danger. Then the threat was forced to take a backseat to the rest of Danny's life in November, when preparations for the play went into high gear, Midterm exams loomed, and college applications started to crowd into the Seniors' consciousness.

Danny had already done his SATs, having taken the first October date available and breezed through the exams with a respectable 2206, losing most of his points in the mathematics section -- which, since he intended to major in English Literature, wasn't an issue. He'd already received communications from Harvard assuring him of a legacy entrance if he chose to apply, since his brothers, his father, his uncle, in fact every male Vandervere for over a hundred years, had attended Harvard before him.

However, Danny was in semi-secret negotiations with Stanford, using the Aunt Ems' address for his applications so his father wouldn't know about it until and unless it was fait accompli. Attending a university other than Harvard would be considered base rebellion, the likes of which had not been seen by the Vandervere family since Aunt Mathilda had insisted on getting a degree instead of marrying back in 1941, and Danny wanted to avoid kicking that particular hornet's nest until it was absolutely necessary.

He was keeping his fingers crossed for Stanford for two reasons: first, he wanted to enter college on his own merits rather than as a legacy candidate; and second, he wanted to be near San Francisco, which he had visited the previous summer to buy his school clothes, and fell in love with its energy, its weather, and its huge gay population.

But that was still in the future, and Danny had enough in the present to keep him occupied: he was rehearsing four days a week with the drama club, constantly running his lines as Tybalt, trying to inject some kind of passion or even believability into the lines he'd memorized very easily but tended to deliver like a computerized answering machine, as well as choreographing and coaching the fencing scenes with Jeremy and Jack; at the same time, he was preparing to compete in the regional fencing championships, and had to remember while he was working which moves were for show in the play and which were for serious competition; and then he had somehow gotten sucked into the Senior Prom Planning Committee, and was meeting with other students and faculty weekly to plan a dance that was six months away, which he didn't care about in the least, but as a Vandervere was expected to be part of.

Danny didn't get to see much of Ash in this period, though he made every effort to keep in touch with the boy by phone and at school. Ash had revealed his sexuality to various people he knew during the weeks after the Great Coming Out, but did not join Danny's new clique, preferring to spend his time alone with his art rather than gab about fashion and politics with The Gays.

Inspired by the beauty of the pastel sketch Ash had done of him (which he'd had framed and hung over the fireplace in his room) Danny had convinced Ash to take part in the school's annual Art Show in January; he'd also promised to pose for a portrait to be included in the show as soon as the play was over with and he had some time to himself. He'd gone over to Ash's house twice to help him choose which of his older works he wanted to include, and spent some time charming Ash's mother and his mother's boyfriend (an attractive but dour man with an epic 70s-style handlebar mustache).

With all this going on, there simply wasn't room in Danny's quite capacious mind to worry about the possibility that there might be a lunatic running around Vandervere killing people and dropping them in his path. And so he didn't worry about it.

The play was performed a week before school would let out for Winter Break, three consecutive performances that would allow everyone in school and everyone's relatives to come see it; and the ticket sales were brisk, the promise of a lavish production and advance notices of dress-rehearsals had drummed up a much larger audience than previous years' plays had enjoyed.

Danny was too concerned with Jack's and Jeremy's fencing to worry too much about his own performance; he knew he was bad, but also knew from watching the videotape of dress rehearsal that he wasn't the worst actor on the stage, and he had enough stage presence to make up for his lack of emotional verisimilitude. He also had his lines word-perfect, which even the best actors were still skipping and stumbling over on opening night. He was used to being looked at, and had no more stage fright than he would have felt at a dressage competition or a fencing match.

He felt foolish, though, while performing in the ball scene, where all he did was whine and bitch to Lord and Lady Capulet about Romeo's presence at the ball, and that feeling of foolishness made him intensely uncomfortable -- he'd never felt like he was doing something silly when performing sports, but speaking lines he didn't really understand and didn't believe in felt very silly indeed.

But when he got to the fencing scene, he felt much more comfortable. He was very proud of the choreography he'd created for the scene, first for himself and Jeremy, then for himself and Jack, and very proud of the success of his coaching the two inexperienced swordsmen into a very flashy and technically competent display of arms.

Jeremy's and Danny's romance made the fight between their characters rather interesting: anyone could see they were involved with each-other, even if they didn't know the boys personally; and so while hurling insults and bandying innuendo for their scene, there was an palpable subtext to their dialog that made the scene quite riveting.

When Danny drew his sword for the first time, there was a delightful gasp from the audience: the rapiers had been custom-made for the production, the triangular blades had little ball buttons at the tip and were dull at the edges, but as polished as mirrors on the faces, catching the light beautifully when the swords zinged through the air; they were also equipped with springs at the tang so the blade could retract the entire length of the pommel, making the eventual stabbings look that much more realistic.

"I am for you, sir," Danny declaimed grandly, head high and one eyebrow up, his rapier slithering from its scabbard and slashing against Jeremy's.

"Gentle Mercutio," Jack pleaded, trying to get between them without touching the crossed swords, "Put up thy rapier."

"Come, sir, your passado," Jeremy insisted with a roguish grin, pushing Jack away with his elbow and shimmering his rapier against Danny's. They thrust and parried playfully as Jack went through his lines of trying to dissuade them from their fight, then eventually became more intent in the battle; since Danny had no more lines for the rest of the scene, he settled in to concentrate on the fencing.

He was shocked into momentary immobility, though, when one of his slashes produced a gaping cut in Jeremy's sleeve, drawing a thin line of blood on his arm; Jeremy was so enrapt in his role that he kept going without even apparently noticing the cut, but Danny's mind was running into overdrive: something was terribly wrong, there was no way a buttoned rapier with dulled edges could have cut through a layer of thick wool and a layer of dense-woven cotton to break skin... somehow or other, Danny's sword had been tampered with, and was now razor sharp.

It took every ounce of his fencing skill to get through the rest of the scene without touching Jeremy with the sword again, and when it came time to stab Jeremy under Jack's arm, he had to take very careful aim to get the sword in between the two of them without touching either of them.

But he did manage it, and hurried off stage while Jeremy went into his death scene, enhanced for the audience by the fact that he was actually bleeding, though on the arm and not where he had supposedly been stabbed... he was clutching a large white handkerchief over the pretended wound in his side, which slowly turned red as he squeezed the fake blood capsule hidden inside it.

The moment Danny was offstage, he examined his sword in the light: the button was gone and the tip was quite sharp, and all three of the sides had been sharpened as well; pushing the tip against the cinderblock back wall, he discovered that the spring mechanism had also been tampered with, the tang actually welded very carefully to the guard, and would no longer retract. If he had stabbed Jeremy with that sword as he had rehearsed, Jeremy would really be bleeding to death right now.

Thinking fast, Danny locked the deadly weapon in his dressing-room locker, grabbed another rapier out from among the props, checked to make sure it had a button, and dashed back onstage for the rest of the scene; taking every opportunity to examine Jack's sword to ensure that its button was in place, he engaged in the more prolonged match that would culminate in his own character's death and the end of his active participation in the play... the next two times he would be onstage would be as a corpse, and that required no acting at all. He just had to be patient and lay still next to the bleeding Jeremy on the floor while Anna MacAllan screamed for justice as Lady Capulet and Todd Wilmot hemmed and hawed as the Prince, eventually making up his mind to banish Romeo and ending Act III, Scene I.

When they'd been carried offstage, Danny leapt up and ran over to Jeremy, who was accepting congratulations from the extras for a very moving death scene. His arm was still bleeding and he still hadn't noticed it.

"Jesus Christ, Jeremy, you're bleeding!" Danny whispered to him harshly so as not to be heard over Felicia Goode and Rosemary Jackson as Juliet and the Nurse in the next scene.

"Oh, my God," Jeremy whispered, noticing it for the first time and gazing at it in dreamy confusion, "How did that happen?"

"Somebody sharpened my sword, I cut you," Danny grabbed Jeremy's arm to look more closely at the wound, which had bled copiously but was really quite shallow. He pulled Jeremy into the dressing room and grabbed the first-aid kit, wrestling the boy out of his doublet and shirt so he could clean and bind the wound.

"Why would somebody sharpen your sword?" Jeremy asked, wide-eyed with amazement.

"I don't know," Danny lied... he knew why, it was so that Jeremy would be killed; but he didn't know who or how, so he kept that to himself so as not to scare Jeremy.

"My beautiful costume!" Jeremy moaned when he saw the cut sleeves of the doublet and the shirt.

"Your beautiful arm," Danny said, running his hand over Jeremy's incredibly smooth soft skin, momentarily distracted from his fear by all the exposed flesh... he'd never seen Jeremy unclothed before, and his torso was exquisite, almost completely undefined but amazingly graceful in line and with a breathtaking complexion.

"My arm will heal," Jeremy pointed out, still focused on the ruined garments until Danny reached out and ran his thumb over a large pink nipple and made the boy gasp, "Quit that, not here!"

"I'm sorry," Danny repented, though taking more opportunities to feel the boy up as he helped him back into his shirt and doublet.

"I don't understand why this happened," Jeremy said after examining the cut fabric again, noticing how clean the incision was, no loose threads or tearing... it was as if it had been sliced with a razor.

"I don't want to frighten you," Danny said, going back to his locker and getting his cell-phone out, "But I think someone tried to kill you by tampering with my rapier. I'm calling Officer Kelly, we need to have the police in on this immediately.

"Tried to kill... me?!" Jeremy gaped in disbelief, "Why?"

"I don't know, my love," Danny knelt in front of Jeremy and took both his hands, "But I swear to God, nobody will hurt you as long as I'm alive to prevent it."

"Me!" Jeremy said again, not listening, just reeling with the understanding that he'd come dangerously close to death.

"Please don't freak out, sweetheart," Danny wrapped his arms around the shaking boy.

"I'm not freaking out," he shouted, "I'm pissed off! How dare someone try to kill me?!"

Freaked out or angry, Jeremy burst into tears, and Danny was delayed in contacting the police until he could get the boy calmed down; and once that was done, he had barely enough time to call Officer Kelly, explain the situation, and get back on stage for the tomb scene, where he had to lie perfectly still under a chiffon shroud while Jack and Felicia did a very creditable job of Act V, Scene III, leaving not one dry eye in the house.

And Jeremy wasn't so undone that he couldn't take his bows and a curtain call, which got a partial standing ovation and a presentation of flowers.

*****

"This is very serious, Danny," Officer Kelly examined the sword under strong light with heavy gloves on his hands; it had already been dusted for fingerprints, but none were found, except for Danny's on the hilt, "This sword would have killed the boy. He's damned lucky you scratched him and noticed it before you drove it in under his ribs."

"This is too close, Officer Kelly," Danny's voice quivered with outrage and fear, "I love Jeremy, I can't have him hurt. You have to find out who's doing this and stop him."

"Or her," Officer Kelly corrected automatically, his mind turning over the various avenues of investigation that the sword opened up.

"I don't think it's a her," Danny said after thinking it over for a moment, "A female wouldn't have been able to get at Mr. Janacek in the cruising park, for one thing."

"Why not? It's pretty dark up there."

"Have it your own way," Danny shrugged impatiently, "It's not really to the point, anyway. What can I do to protect the people I love from whoever is doing this?"

"Not much," Officer Kelly looked at him with concern, "I know this is hard for you, Danny, but we're doing all we can. This killer is extremely clever and very circumspect.

"Do you think it's safe to go ahead with the next two performances?" Danny wondered, sensible of how much it would hurt everyone in the play to have to cancel it after working so hard.

"Yes, actually, I do," the officer, put the sword inside a plastic bag, and then into a paper bag, rolling it closed and stapling it, "So far this killer has used very different methods with each murder; I don't think he or she will try the same thing again."

"Which makes it impossible to predict what will happen next, impossible to guard against it."

"Yes, there is that. But I think Jeremy's safe for the time being. But not for long, I don't think. This time it's someone you are known to love... before it was someone who was your enemy, and before that someone who, though you liked him, might have been viewed as having taken advantage of you -- if this person knew of your relationship with your teacher but not that you instigated it. But with Jeremy, this is someone who may be viewed as standing between you and the killer, somebody who needs to be got out of the way so as to leave open access to you."

"That's horrible," Danny's eyes filled up as he contemplated the danger Jeremy was in.

"Maybe you should distance yourself from Jeremy," Officer Kelly suggested.

"You think I should break up with him to keep him safe?" Danny was aghast.

"It might be best. In the meantime, I'll see if our forensics people can find anything useful on this sword. You never know, sometimes people will leave distinguishing marks in unexpected places, fingerprints, DNA, special tools. We might turn something up."

"I hope so," Danny looked at the bag and shivered again, thinking what could have happened.

"Hey, keep your chin up," Officer Kelly reached over and tousled Danny's hair, "It's going to be OK."

"I hope so," Danny said again, thinking about what he could say to Jeremy, how he was going to make it look like they were breaking up, publically enough that the killer would buy it, without actually giving the boy up. It was a puzzle that was going to take every ounce of ingenuity he could scrape up.

*****

Jeremy preempted Danny, however, by breaking up with him... not quite publically, but fairly dramatically and in front of enough people that word would get around.

"Danny, I care about you," Jeremy said in his closing argument, "But I'm not going to risk my life for you. I'm sorry, but we're through. Please don't call me, OK?"

The blow of Jeremy dumping him took all possible pleasure out of the accolades he was receiving for his performance in what had turned out to be a very good production of Romeo and Juliet. And though he didn't exactly cry himself to sleep every night, he was noticeably mopey.

Jeremy also made a show of telling everyone of his plans for Winter Break, which were to spend the entire three weeks with his grandmother in Vermont, gassing on to anyone who would listen about skiing, ice-skating, and all the wintry joys of Christmas on the East Coast (it hadn't even rained in Vandervere yet, and snow was not expected even in the highest points of the county).

The truth that Danny could see in his eyes was that he was terrified; he was going to do anything and everything he could think of to distance himself from Danny and the danger that followed him. And he wasn't, as far as Danny could tell, play-acting: this was nothing like the pretend breakup that Danny was planning, this was for real. Jeremy was cutting him off and turning away from him in earnest.
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