A matter of pride

Chapter 2

David woke with a jolt as the banging on his door intensified. He'd only managed a couple of hour's sleep and the thin motel mattress hadn't helped matters at all. He needed to find somewhere else to stay. He didn't care if he had to pay for it out of his own money, if the department were too cheap, if he stayed in this dump of a motel any longer he'd never solve the damned case. Still bleary eyed, he heaved himself out of bed and stumbled to the door, muttering curses at whoever was on the other side as he went, knowing already who it would be."Rise and shine, city boy!" Detective Finlay said cheerfully, flashing a toothy smile. "We got work to do."David shook his head, trying to clear the fog of sleep from his brain. He needed coffee and a hot shower and someone to hold him back from smacking the cheerful grin off Finlay's face. He turned his back on her instead and headed back to his rumpled bed, sitting down heavily and rubbing at his eyes with his hands until the grit began to clear.Finlay was rabbiting on about how the particular motel the department had chosen to put him up in was the cheapest, and worst, in town, and David could well believe it, but he wasn't really listening to what she was saying. His thoughts had turned, almost immediately, to Dillon Kelly, and whether or not he'd made it through the night okay. He hadn't met anyone quite like him before - such a striking mixture of vulnerability and gentleness on the one hand and an independent, to hell with the world, ready to fight, attitude on the other. It made David smile just thinking about him, the way his chin had jutted out defiantly, the way he'd been so obviously in pain but had run off after the intruder anyway, the way he'd all but collapsed in to David's arms at the realisation that someone had destroyed his privacy and taken what David guessed were some pretty personal items. And that was the most worrying part. Because Dillon's laptop had been left untouched on the bed. The thief, whoever he was, had chosen to take a photograph and some jewelry, and to tear down the guy's pride flag. David hadn't missed that detail, which just added to his suspicion that Dillon was a possible target and that the intruder was actually the serial killer he'd come to town to find.His stomach growled but Finlay was still talking and David realised he hadn't heard a word of it."Back up a bit," he said with as much authority as he could muster on so little sleep. "Say that again.""I said we've got work to do. One of your suspects is in town; I just heard it on the radio. We've got surveillance in twenty minutes. Nice PJ's by the way, you look a right heart throb in those."Finlay rocked back on her heels and grinned. She looked to David like a farmer who'd wandered in to the police station by mistake and decided to just stay put, but she was the only detective who had willingly volunteered to join David on the case. So far she'd proved to be an expert on the town and one of David's only allies, if she'd been anything less he would have been a lot less polite about being woken so abruptly and afforded so little dignity. There was a general feeling at the Port Evans station that a possible serial killer targeting gay men wasn't something the local force wanted to get involved in. As far as they knew, David had been called in to assist Finlay and they saw no reason to offer their assistance. The duty sergeant had even suggested it was all a wild goose chase, whilst insinuating that the men really deserved what they got for being gay in the first place. David knew the resistance would be ongoing and that he should be grateful that Finlay, one of the only detectives in the district, had been so keen to take on the case, but that didn't make him any less tired, or Finlay's constant movement any easier to deal with. She was practically bouncing from foot to foot as she watched him slowly wake up and remember how to function."What time is it?""Nearly eight," Finlay responded with another grin, but before David could get really angry she held out a brown paper bag like a peace offering. "I brought breakfast: ham and cheese toasties. Whadda'ya reckon? You coming with?"The greasy smell of the toasties immediately made David's mouth water and he grabbed the bag from Finlay's hand with a grunt of thanks."Where's the coffee?"Finlay rolled her eyes. "It's coming, Sharma. Trust me, we're going somewhere with decent coffee, unless you want me to make you motel room instant?"She made a face and David glared at her in return. She'd been teasing him about his apparent snobbery when it came to coffee since he'd arrived but he wasn't about to rise to it."Which suspect?" he asked when he'd finished the first toasted sandwich and started on the second."Craig Gillman," she replied, switching gears to report back to him the information she'd been given. "He's just arrived in town and has a breakfast meeting at eight thirty a.m. at Mainstreet Cafe apparently. I just got wind of it now. Didn't want to miss the opportunity."Over the last week David had managed to put together a list of possible suspects: three men who had ties to both Adelaide and the area around Port Evans and also had a history of homophobia or violence. It wasn't a lot to go on but it was all they had and Finlay was right, if Gillman was in town they needed to keep a close eye on him, and that meant getting a move on if they were going to make it to the cafe by eight thirty. He wolfed down the last of the cheese toasties before dressing hurriedly. He had wanted to shave properly and look presentable in order to make a good impression on the locals, but settled for splash of water and quick scrub of his face with his hands. Tracking down this killer was more important than his appearance.He ignored the grin on Finlay's face as she watched him dress and search for his shoes and a handful of minutes later they were in the car and on their way. He tuned out most of Finlay's one-sided conversation in favour of looking out the window and taking in the quaint, dusty streets of Port Evans, wondering idly what it must be like to live in a small town where most people knew one another and generally rubbed along together well enough. He wondered how much a killer would stick out or blend in, in such an environment. But mostly he wondered what could have happened to a young man like Dillon Kelly to make him move to the outskirts of a town like this one when it obviously wasn't his natural habitat. It all centered around his leg, David reckoned, and any idiot could see how much pain it was causing him, how fresh the trauma was.David was curious and he'd never been much good at reigning in his curiosity, or his nosiness, as his mum called it. She hadn't been well pleased when he'd told her he was moving south for a few months. As far as she was concerned he was too old, at thirty-three, to be chasing bad guys, and should have settled down with a nice man and a nice desk job by now. But David had never been much good at dating, and the two men his sisters had attempted to set him up with in the last year had been nice enough, but not his type. His sisters had grilled him for hours for any clue as to what his type actually was, but David hadn't been able to give them much. He didn't really know himself, except maybe, a stubborn jaw, lean body, strong arms, and eyes like the ocean at night when he cried, dark and troubled and beautiful.David shook his head to banish the thought. Dillon was a possible target, and victim of a break-and-enter. He was definitely not a potential love interest."What d'you mean, no?" Finlay asked suddenly, and David realised the woman must have misunderstood his gesture as being in response to what she was talking about. "Well I call it luck, anyway. We wouldn't've known Gillman was in town if he hadn't bumped in to one of the regular officers by chance and let slip he was heading to a meeting. Anyway, we're here now. And they do the best coffee in town; you're bound to like it. They've got the fanciest machine for it, way better than the one at the servo. It's right up your street I reckon, city boy."David let the comment slide but didn't bother with a reply. It was a piece of luck that Gillman had so casually announced his plans to one of the local cops and David wondered whether it was a sign that the man was getting cocky, or that he wasn't actually the one they were looking for. He had no chance of figuring anything out without at least two cups of coffee inside him, he decided, and pushed open the cafe door and grinned at the smell of properly roasted beans. He clocked Gillman immediately, sitting in the corner facing the door, but didn't approach. He needed to act casual, and he needed coffee. By the time he'd placed his drink order and found a table that gave them a good view of the whole place another man had joined Gillman, sitting with his back to them, and David had settled in for a good, long mull of the facts.*Dillon stared at the plate of beans, eggs and sausages in front of him and wondered how rude it would be if he just didn't eat any of it. It was a weekday morning, so the restaurant wasn't very busy yet, though Dillon knew it would be full and noisy by lunchtime. It was one of the reasons he'd agreed to breakfast over any other meal, to avoid too much attention from the locals, but they still didn't have the place to themselves.Two old men sat at the counter, sipping coffee, still dressed in fisherman's waders, fresh from the wharfs. A mum with two small children occupied one of the few booths, staring in to space as her kids squabbled over her smart phone, and in the corner was a man with a newspaper, sitting opposite a strong, blonde, freckled woman, the kind that seemed to keep small towns like Port Evans running.Craig laughed about something he'd just said, something about one of the accounts he handled. Dillon tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. He didn't understand the guy's job. He lived in down the city but traveled all over the region for work, apparently, selling shipping machinery or accessories, or something. His job involved driving across the state and talking to shipping companies and wharf managers. A breakfast date was a little strange, but he was only in town for a few hours, so they'd decided to get together.Getting out of the house had been a good idea, Dillon thought. If nothing else, the date was taking his mind off the robbery, but it had been far from eventful otherwise. Craig was confident and suave, which Dillon supposed came in handy for his job, there just wasn't a spark between them."I was thinking, Dillon," Craig grinned, leaning on the table and pointing his fork in Dillon's direction. "I'm going to be traveling through town again on Sunday. I won't get in until the late afternoon. How about I take you out for dinner? We'll go Chinese, 'The Jade Emperor' down the street does a mean honey chicken." He leaned a little closer, looking up at Dillon with his pale blue eyes. "Take things up a notch?"Dillon chewed his lip as he attempted to stall for time. He had sort of promised Lizzy he would make an effort with Craig but his chest felt tight at the mere thought of a formal evening date, of being alone with someone at night, not to mention the thought of 'taking things up a notch'. It made his feel rather ill."This Sunday?" he asked lamely and watched as Craig sat back in his chair like it was now all settled."I have a client I'm meeting with on Monday so Sunday seems ideal, right?"Behind him, the waitress asked the man with the newspaper what he wanted to eat and Dillon heard the rustle of the paper as it was set down. Dillon felt his heart flutter in a far more pleasing way when he heard the man order a large stack of pancakes and another coffee. He knew that voice, knew the warmth of it. Carefully, aiming for casual, he turned in his chair to see for sure.Officer Sharma looked shocked when Dillon turned to face him but recovered after a moment and gave him a smile."Hello, Mr. Kelly. I heard this was a good spot for breakfast," he mumbled, his voice a charming purr that made Dillon give a smile of his own."The best in town," Dillon replied, feeling a genuine smile tug at his own lips for the first time that day."I didn't recognise you before," Sharma told him, honest warmth edging in to his voice as his smile deepened and white teeth flashed for a moment in the scruff of his short beard. "You know, with your hair..." he gestured vaguely."What? Not plastered to my head and dripping down my shoulders?" Dillon offered, beginning to warm to the gentle banter, but the woman sitting beside Sharma gave him an odd look and lifted her chin toward Sharma in some unspoken signal.The smile fell from Sharma's face and Dillon turned back around, his throat tightening, especially when he saw the strange look on Craig's face as he sat chewing on a piece of toast like it had paid him an insult."Enjoying the sausages?" the man asked, "You're not a vego are you?""No. They're fine," Dillon mumbled, wondering if the comment was some sort of jab, it certainly felt like one, but Dillon was aware that he was probably a little paranoid.Craig was a decent guy, he told himself, and had every right to be a bit annoyed that his date was half flirting with another guy. He tried to smile but it faded quickly and he filled his mouth with egg and beans to avoid talking any more. The knowing glance that had passed between Sharma and the woman he was with bothered him. He couldn't pin point it, but something about it felt strange, conspiratorial. Was she Sharma's girlfriend perhaps, or another police officer? Dillon wanted to know, to get to the bottom of it, but knew there was no polite way to ask.Craig chatted on about his work, his house in Adelaide, apartment in Melbourne, beach house further down the coast. Dillon nodded along with the words and eventually Craig asked him what it was like to be a vet, and Dillon mumbled something about only being an assistant. He angled himself in his chair so that he could see Officer Sharma in his peripheral vision. Was it just a coincidence that they were both having breakfast in the same place, or was Sharma trying to keep an eye on him? He took a sip of his coffee. Any sense of trust he'd had for the officer was starting to ebb away, replaced by a tight ache of panic in his chest. He set his coffee mug firmly on the table. Why had he thought David Sharma would be different? A cop was a cop, and none of them really cared, not about people like Dillon."Sorry, what did you say?"Craig didn't look pleased at having to repeat himself, but he covered it with a grin that Dillon thought looked kind of smarmy and leaned in to Dillon's space again as he spoke."I said you seem a bit skittish. I'm guessing you haven't done the whole dating thing in a while. Last time you mentioned you were new here, but you didn't say how long you'd been in town. I'm just curious about what brought you here of all places. Do you have family here? Friends?"Dillon tried to ignore the alarm bells going off in his head. Being suspicious of cops was fair enough but Craig was just trying to get to know him as a person and Dillon wasn't making it easy for him."No, nothing like that," he shrugged. "I just, um, fancied a change, I guess.""Bad break up?"The question seemed sincere and for a moment Dillon was tempted to give him the whole truth but then he heard the rustle of the newspaper behind him."Yeah," he whispered. "Something like that. Look, Craig, I gotta go. Is that cool?"He stood awkwardly, shying away when Craig tried to help him. He didn't want to attract unwanted attention and he didn't want to lead the guy on when he still wasn't sure he even wanted to be dating. And because he could feel David Sharma's eyes on him as he limped out and didn't like it one bit. He turned as he reached the door, expecting to see the guy once again engrossed in his paper. Instead their eyes locked and Dillon felt shaken to his core by what he saw. David Sharma, Officer Sharma, looked frightened, and Dillon couldn't fathom why.When they were outside the cafe Craig gave him another charming smile and Dillon did his best to respond in kind."I'll call you when I get in on Sunday. I'll even pick you up so you don't have to catch this town's crappy bus. You live out in one of the cabins by the national park, right? Great. Seven o'clock on Sunday then"Dillon nodded and shook the guy's hand, unable to focus. His mind kept sliding back to his last glimpse of Sharma, and the fear he'd seen in the man's dark eyes. He wished he knew what it meant.*David watched Dillon walk slowly past the cafe window, a deep frown etched in to his delicately sculpted features. He'd nearly choked on his coffee when he'd realised it was Dillon Kelly sitting with their prime suspect, and he'd only grown more anxious as the breakfast carried on. He scanned the police reports he'd hidden behind his newspaper, but there was nothing new there, and his brain wasn't working well enough to give him any clues. An unsettled feeling in his gut wasn't enough to go on, and he wasn't the sort to just blindly follow his instincts anyway. The facts were the thing. Facts would lead them to the killer, he just had to keep his eyes and ears open, and his mind free from distractions."Talk about boring," Finlay piped up eventually, her own gaze following Gillman's rental car as it disappeared from sight. "You know, I've seen him round but I've never really spoken to the guy. He doesn't seem, you know? That type."David didn't look up from the reports, but took in a deep breath to quell the emotions rising in his gut. "And what type is that, Finlay?""You know, queer. Gay. He just doesn't seem the type." Finlay shrugged, still looking out of the window.David sighed and watched as it made Finlay jump. Well at least he had the detective's attention, he supposed. He'd been through this so many times but it still grated."He's not, Finlay. At least, it's unlikely. What he's doing, if he's our killer," he clarified, trying to keep his voice low and even, whilst anger began to boil in his chest. "If he's our killer, he's putting on an act to try and lure his victims. The man we're looking for will hide his hatred well. He'll seem charming. He'll pick out and focus on men who are most likely younger, who are weaker, and who are isolated. To everyone else he'll seem like a really decent, straight as an arrow, bloke. Because bastards like that groom their supporters just as much as they groom their prey. We're not looking for a gay predator here, Finlay. We're looking for someone who's preying on gay men. Now," he said more sharply, looking up at the young detective, "we need to ask ourselves, does Craig Gillman seem like he could be that type?"He'd been harsher than he probably needed to be. Finlay was young; she hadn't had to deal with this sort of thing before. But there was no time for beating about the bush, no time for misunderstandings, or even latent, country town, homophobia. Finlay needed to know the facts."Yeah," Finlay answered, her tone far more subdued than before. "Yeah, I reckon he could be, when you put it like that. And that guy he was with, Kelly, he fits the victim profile. He's got to be the only gay guy in the town, I reckon.""Well," David sat back and drained the last of his coffee. "I wouldn't say that. Not now I'm here."He tried to hide his grin as he watched Finlay's face go through the process of realisation. There was surprise, embarrassment, and alarm as she tried to think back to anything offensive she might have said, and then eventually, acceptance as she slotted the information in with everything else she knew about Detective David Sharma. Only when she seemed to have come to terms with the news that her superior was a gay man did David smile and begin gathering his papers and files from where he'd spread them across the table."That's why you're on this case then, I guess?" she asked, eyebrows rising questioningly. "Because you've got a personal interest?""No," Dave told her, his voice quiet and calm, but deadly serious. "I'm on this case because it needs solving before anyone else dies. And because I'm one of the best around. Now come on, country girl. We've got work to do."