High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

I nodded.

“So I suppose I should call you doctor…”

“No. I’m not a physician or a dentist. And you’re not one of my students.”

She smiled. “I imagine you were a fine professor. Where did you graduate?”

“Miami of Ohio.”

“Ah, one of the ‘public Ivies.’ I took Zephyr there. Such a lovely campus. She had the grades for it, but she wanted to be on the West Coast. She doesn’t read books, you know, other than Harry Potter, even though she’s smart as hell. Don’t let her beauty fool you. I was very different. I loved books and history. Did you have a specialty?”

“The Progressive era in America through the New Deal.” All my academic insecurities were bubbling up, so I felt the need to justify myself. “My doctoral adviser had studied under Arthur S. Link, so the apostolic succession was continued.”

It was unclear if my name-dropping mattered. Her smile turned impish. “Was there a laying on of hands?”

“A Ph.D. dissertation defense isn’t so spiritual. Anyway, he died a few years ago.”

“Somebody said that every time a professor dies, an entire library burns. So why aren’t you teaching? Why become a cop?”

I told her it was a long story. The short version was that academia didn’t like me as well as I liked it, and now there was such a surplus of history instructors that I’d be lucky to get a job at a community college in Lawton, Oklahoma. Then I tried to steer us back to the business at hand. I had more important things than chatting with a rich woman.

“It took me a long time after his death to start to go through his things. But I finally did, and I found the wallet.”

“Can you show me?”

Chapter Twenty-nine

We climbed the circular stairway that Zephyr had descended and Diane Whitehouse led me down a hallway and into an expansive bedroom. It held more pottery. More kill holes. French doors led to a balcony and a view of Camelback. The rain had stopped.

“This was Elliott’s bedroom.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“As we got older, we slept in separate rooms. He snored. I wanted my privacy.” Her eyes assayed me. “Don’t judge, Deputy.”

“Just taking in facts.”

She turned quickly and led me into a walk-in closet that looked as big as our guest bedroom, all dark wood and smelling of cedar. Golf shirts and slacks on stainless-steel hangers lined one side. Opposite

these were floor-to-ceiling drawers and cabinets. Our reflections showed in a huge mirror at the back.

“I found it here.” She pulled out a drawer. “Under socks.”

The drawer was empty now. Or it appeared that way. She reached across me and pressed on the bottom, which popped up a panel. She pulled it out revealing a hidden space beneath. A file folder was the only object there now, secured by a black band. I asked what it was.

She shrugged. “Have a look.”

I put on a pair of latex gloves and pulled it out, slipping off the band. The folder held what must have been a hundred photos in color and black-and-white. Most were eight-and-a-half by eleven. Each showed a man posed naked, all of them young, all very fit with well-endowed erections. Their hairstyles ranged from perms of the 1970s to contemporary looks.

It wasn’t mass-market gay porn and none showed a sex act. One or two men covered their faces. Most smiled. Each photo looked as if a lover had taken it as a keepsake. None had dates on them, but the photographic paper on the permed guys was brittle.

“I am not a homophobe,” she said. “But this isn’t what I expected to find in my husband’s closet. I was hoping for girlie magazines or something like that. Even billets-doux from women would have been better.”

“Where did they come from?”

“They were his. That’s what I assume. It was his drawer. Only he came in this closet. He was an amateur photographer.” She shook her head. “Trophies.”

“This is where you found the wallet?”