Murder in Alphabet City - 5. Chapter 5

Ken came bounding into the house at about 6 PM.

“Where are the boys?” he asked, with great excitement in his voice.

“They have the late shift tonight,” Joe answered. “The earliest they’ll be home is 11 PM. Why don’t you get comfortable, and then we’ll have dinner.”

“What do you suggest we do after dinner?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

At dinner, Joe asked, “What are you so excited about?”

“It’s the weirdest thing,” Ken said. “Tom asked me to look into the possibility that Gustav had been sexually abused before he was murdered. I asked the ME to check the body for evidence of rape. He had not seen any sign of it originally, but this time, under more careful scrutiny, he was able to isolate dried semen in the victim’s anus. He’s going to run a DNA test tomorrow morning.”

“So, he was raped.”

“The ME is certain that the sex was consensual. He pointed out that the murderer had been super careful about leaving no evidence. He would have used a condom if he raped Gustav. There was no tissue damage, and there were traces of lubricant in the anus. In his opinion, the semen does not belong to the murderer.”

“Well, maybe so,” Joe commented, “but it seems very odd to me, that a guy, just off a romantic weekend with a woman, has sex with a man almost as soon as he gets home.”

“Not as uncommon as you think, Joe. There are too many guys out there pretending to be straight. They are even able to function with a woman, but if they’re gay, they will always find a way to be intimate with a man. It’s a sure bet that Gustav was either secretly gay or bi-sexual.”

“Wherever the truth lies,” Joe said, “why did Tom ask you to investigate sexual abuse?”

“He told me that if it turned out that he was correct, he would tell me his source. If he was incorrect, I was not to ask him.”

“Technically,” Joe pointed out, “Tom was wrong. Sexual abuse didn’t do Gustav in. He indulged in a little bit of consensual ass fucking. That kinda gives me an urge or two.”

“The boys won’t be home for hours. Let’s go.”

They were through making love long before their wards came home.

******

Tom and George came home more exhausted than either of the two days before.

On the way home, Tom said, “Slinging hamburgers is just too fucking hard.”

“I agree totally,” George grunted. “What should we do about it?”

“I think we should quit. We certainly don’t need the money.”

They mentioned their concern to their guardians.

“No way,” Ken said. “We want you to learn that whatever is worth striving for in life, it is earned through hard work.”

The two boys groaned.

“Okay,” Ken said, “You were half right, Tom. The ME found semen in Gustav’s anus, but he has determined that the sex was consensual. Now, would you please tell me why you thought he was raped?”

“The sex was consensual. Wow, that’s a shock. Mr. Hamm was so obviously straight.”

“Stop stalling. I want to know why you asked me to look into the possibility of sexual abuse.”

“Okay, I’m going to tell you, but you won’t believe me. George shared a bed with me when it all happened, and he doesn’t believe me.”

“Talk!”

Tom told Ken about his two dreams of having sex with Mr. Hamm, and how real they were.

“I figured he, I mean his ghost, was trying to tell me something. He is. Just because the sex was consensual doesn’t mean that the guy, he had sex with, didn’t kill him.”

“True, but that makes him a very careless murderer, which is simply not the case. The ME doesn’t believe that either. And how does Theresa fit into all of this? Why did he kill her?”

“I don’t know. You’re the detective. You figure it out.”

“Jealousy,” Joe and George said together.

“Yeah, but who is jealous of whom?”

******

At 1 PM the next day, the ME buzzed Ken. “We analysed the semen we found in Hamm for DNA, and we got a match almost immediately,” he said. “The match came from The John Jay College DNA data base. Every prospective law enforcement officer is now required to have his DNA stored for the records.”

Bells began to ring in Ken’s head. “John Jay College,” he said. “The DNA belongs to Calvin Davenport, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all. Who’s Calvin Davenport? The DNA belongs to Franklin Browne. Do you know him?”

“We’ve never met, but I know who he is. He’s Cal Davenport’s husband, and Cal was a good friend to Theresa and Gustav.”

“Wow,” the ME said. “That’s too much intrigue for me.”

Ken called two policemen into his cubicle. He gave them an address in Brooklyn and a name.

“Arrest this guy,” he said. “Read him his rights, and bring him in.”

“What crime are we arresting him for?” one of the cops asked.

“The murders of Theresa Sachs and Gustav Hamm.”

In just a little under two hours, Frank was delivered to the interrogation room. Ken let him stew for half an hour, and then he entered the room. Frank was prettier than his picture, and Ken had to tell himself to stay professional. His cock was fighting his brain (as all cocks do) and it was erecting. Ken sat right down in an attempt to hide it.

He stared Frank down for another few minutes. Frank was squirming. Finally, Ken said, “If you confess to the murders, and cooperate in our inquiry, things will go a lot easier for you.”

“I can’t confess to anything because I didn’t do anything. I swear,” Frank moaned.

“Do you deny knowing Mr. Hamm and Miss Sachs?”

“Of course not. I knew them well. Cal introduced us, and the four of us used to double date often.”

Cal told Ken that he hadn’t seen Theresa since high school graduation. Someone was lying. Maybe both of them.

“Shortly before Hamm was murdered, he had sex,” Ken continued. “Your semen was found in the body. Would you like to explain that?”

“I know that everybody thought that Theresa and Gus were a couple, and they were, but Gus swung both ways. After our first double date, he called me and said that he wanted to get together. It’s hard to turn down as handsome a man as Gus is, was. We started fucking each other regularly. When he and Theresa went away together, I missed him terribly. I was watching his apartment Monday from 4 PM on, and when I saw him enter, I ran after him.”

“Was Theresa with him?”

“No, it was early in the evening. He told me that he dropped her off at home to freshen up. After that she was coming to his place, and then they were going out to dinner. As he put it, ‘to punctuate a glorious weekend.’ I begged him to give me a quickie, and he was more than happy to do it. We fucked each other, and I got out of there before Theresa arrived. I swear, Gus was alive, well, and basking in the afterglow, when I left him.”

“Does Cal know about your little affair?”

“Hell no. He’d kill me.”

“Why would he do that? He told me that you guys had an open marriage.”

“That’s bull shit. Cal is the most jealous man I know.”

“Is there any chance he found out about you and Gustav?”

“Nothing’s impossible, but believe me, Gus and I were very discreet. I’m sure Theresa didn’t know either.”

“I’m sorry, Frank, but it was your DNA we found inside of Gustav, so I have to hold you on suspicion of murder.”

“I’m toast,” Frank sighed. “Cal is the one with the money. I’ll have to call him to bail me out, and he’ll learn the truth. I know he’ll kick me out of the house, and file for divorce. I’m afraid he won’t even want to bail me out. If I get booked, I’ll never get back into John Jay, even if I wanted to.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Ken said. “Worry about proving your innocence. Besides, I have a strong feeling that Cal knows all about your dalliance with Gus.”

“Why would you say that?” Frank asked. “Are you thinking that Cal killed both of them because he was jealous? You gotta be wrong. They were all such good friends.”

“Well, all I can say is that that’s the way the finger is pointing.”

“A finger pointing is not evidence,” Frank said.

Just then Ken’s phone rang. It was one of the precinct’s computer geeks.

“What’s up?” Ken asked.

“It’s about Gustav Hamm’s laptop.”

“I’m listening. Get to the point.”

“Well, most of the stuff was encrypted, and we couldn’t access it. We finally unscrambled everything, and you have to see these letters.”

“I’ve got to take a perp to central booking, and then I’ll be right over. Have plenty of hot, fresh coffee ready for me.”

It took Ken almost an hour to read and study the un-encrypted E-Mails. Every letter was basically the same. The letters were unsigned, and the writer threatened to kill Gustav. The earliest letter started shortly after Gustav graduated from CCNY, and the latest was the day before his weekend trip with Theresa.

The only one Ken need have read was the first one. There it was. MOTIVE!!

“You’re a piece of shit. I know you’re cheating on Theresa. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re cheating with a man named Frank. I’ll get you for this, you bastard. Theresa is too beautiful a woman, inside and out, to be cuckolded like this.”

Even though the letter was unsigned, it read just like the letters which had been sent to Theresa. But Theresa’s letters were typed, and certainly not encrypted. Ken felt that the murderer was sending out more red herrings. In fact, Ken thought about Joe’s theory that the real killer was setting Bart up as a super red herring, and it was beginning to make some sense.