A Conspiracy of Fear Read online

  Malcolm held a large handgun with a silencer on the end and pointed it at Scott and Darryl. He motioned them into a far corner. He snarled at them, “Keep your mouths shut.” He moved to the opposite end of the room at the foot of the bed.

  Malcolm pointed the gun at me where I still sat next to Peter. He said, “I thought you’d be here. Peter told me you came to visit the sick every day.”

  “You’re here to kill me?”

  “I came to kill Peter, something my family should have done a long time ago. I don’t much care if any of the rest of you live or die.”

  “Why kill him now?”

  “Your visit to Nebraska convinced me I had to come back and finish the job. What if the old son of a bitch had a change of heart and decided to tell all?”

  “How’d you get after me in Nebraska and us in St. Louis?”

  “Those guys chasing you on the way to Ogallala were under my orders to frighten you. If they happened to kill you, that would have been a bonus. They were there to instill fear. That’s why I called that bomb threat in to your fancy private plane. Fear. I wanted you frightened and twisting in the wind, not knowing where the next danger and destruction might come from.”

  He waved the gun. “I know nothing about what happened to you in St. Louis. My guess is that was just lucky. Lots of people still have the sense to hate gay people.”

  “Before this week, I couldn’t bring myself to kill Peter because he was family. But your visit to Nebraska convinced me I couldn’t leave the old fuck alive, relative or not. I don’t know what he might say.”

  He waved a hand at Scott and Darryl. “I might as well add the three of you to the list.”

  I reached into my pocket as if that would produce a weapon. I came up with my phone and the miniature can of WD-40.

  As soon as Malcolm began to turn the gun toward Peter Fulham, I leapt back and then threw both items at Malcolm’s head. The phone may have distracted him, but the thump of the tiny vial on the bridge of his nose caused an instant’s hesitation.

  Scott, saint or fool, leapt towards him. A fusillade of bullets rained on Peter Fulham. The old man’s body jerked and fountained blood in countless spots, but before Malcolm could swing the gun toward any of the rest of us, Scott had reached him, and Malcolm went down. The gun flew out of his hands.

  I grabbed the gun.

  Malcolm twisted and screamed, tried to bite, kick, and head butt Scott. Then my calm, sweet, always serene, never angry husband, his hands around Malcolm’s neck, pulled the captive torso and head towards him, and then flung the man backward. Malcolm’s head banged once against the wall. He slumped to the floor and didn’t move.

  I rushed to Scott. I could see Malcolm was unconscious but still breathing.

  Scott stood up straight and dusted off his hands. Darryl hurried to Peter, but there was nothing to be done. I held Scott tightly. He returned the embrace.

  Hospital personnel and security guards arrived in droves.

  FORTY-TWO

  Tuesday – 12:08 A.M.

  We talked to the police for hours. More calls to Todd, followed by calls to my mom and dad, and then Scott’s mom and dad. Hospital people checked us over.

  It was hours later when Scott and I walked down to the lake then ambled north toward Oak Street beach.

  As the moon rose, I remembered the folk song, “Roseville Fair,” which opens, “The moon came up so quiet in the sky.” That’s what it was doing.

  Scott shook his head. “What did we do to Fulham to make him hate us so much?”

  “We loved each other. We refused to hide, to live in fear.”

  “But why would he care about us?”

  “We’ve seen jealousy. Most people are content or maybe mildly annoyed at other people’s happiness, especially if they don’t flaunt it, but you’ve seen it. Ugliness from people jealous of your ability on the mound. Jealous of me because I get to play with the front of the pants of the hottest man in baseball.”

  He gave me a brief smile and said, “You might be a little over-stating that.”

  “How hot you are or the jealous stuff?”

  Another brief smile. “I think maybe both.”

  “Obsessing about us was a way to keep himself from thinking about how desperate and pathetic he thought his life was.” We stopped on the sand and watched the six-inch waves ease to shore and the moon glow glittering across the water. “He led a twisted life. The horrors of his family and the guilt of what happened to his lover destroyed all that was sane inside him.”

  “Why did he come to you at all?” Scott asked.

  “You know how Molton talked about manifestoes and bragging and those who commit the offense wanting to make a splash, to be known. I think this was his kind of manifesto. His sticking it to us, making sure we knew he was the one who made us suffer.”

  “But he didn’t kill Kemmler.”

  “That knowledge came too late. He tried to kill you, destroyed so many lives for a horrible misunderstanding.”

  “A sort of revenge?”

  “Seeing us happy was too much.”

  He put his arm around me.

  FORTY-THREE

  Wednesday - 7:02 P.M.

  Two days later we approached the gallery. Crowds swirled into the streets. The President had gone to the gallery after the memorial service earlier in the day. We’d accompanied him throughout the memorial events. He’d been most kind and solicitous and then returned to Washington.

  Now we were on our way to the official reopening. The lines of people who wanted to attend extended for blocks. It was pouring rain again, and severe thunderstorm watches had been posted for the next twenty-four hours, but the crowd of people was immense. The gay community of Chicago had risen for its own.

  We eased forward and, using an umbrella ourselves, were unrecognized as we walked a few blocks. At the far end of the line a protester unfurled a hate-the-gays sign.

  People in the line saw him. Word spread. The crowd surged toward him. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties. He was wet and carried a homemade sign, the words running in the rain. He saw the mob swell toward him. A few ran up to him. They scuffled. The protester stumbled and fell. He was bleeding.

  Scott furled our umbrella, held up his hand, and shouted, “Halt.” He was recognized, his name called out. The crowd slowed. People on the edges stopped. A few of them applauded.

  Scott strode to the front of the crowd some of whom were now taunting the bleeding man who was clutching his shredded banner.

  Scott faced the crowd, feet spread, arms akimbo, in front of the prone and bleeding man. I stood next to him.

  The crowded murmured and muttered and surged toward us. Scott faced the attackers and held out a hand palm up. “No,” he shouted. His voice boomed and echoed in the canyon of the buildings. I put my arm around him.

  TV cameras whirled. One reporter rushed to stand with us facing the crowd. The rest of the media continued their ghoulish insistence on taking pictures instead of helping.

  Still with one hand up, Scott spoke more quietly. “No,” he said. “We are not like this.” He turned and offered a hand to the man. The protester snarled and spat at the hand.

  The crowd erupted in shouts of anger.

  Scott’s hand did not waver. The man on the ground looked around at the enraged spectators who had forsworn their attack for the moment.

  A look of confusion swept over the man’s face. He tried to rise on his own, but his left leg buckled under him. Television footage later would reveal he’d injured himself in stepping back onto and off of the curb to get away from the crowd.

  Scott’s hand remained extended. The man on the ground tried to use his hands and arms and one good leg, and managed to crawl a few feet, before he cried out in pain.

  Hand still extended, Scott took another step toward him.

  The man on the ground leaned forward and took it. In a moment that launched ten million Tweets, Shares, and Likes, Scott helped him to his feet, put his ar
m around him, and led him to safety. I held the man’s other arm.

  The crowd began to applaud and then cheer as Scott on one side and I on the other helped him to a nearby ambulance.

  We deposited the man and turned to walk back. Scott and I strode down the center of Orleans Street, closed to vehicular traffic, and again the crowd surged forward toward him, but he stopped. He was so tall and so strong. He gazed at them, seeming to meet their eyes one by one. As the rain poured down, they parted. Their cheering and applause echoed and reechoed between the buildings and the El tracks. He and I, hand in hand, walked damp but unhindered to the gallery doors.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Epilogue - people

  Molton had filled us in. Malcolm had several disguises set. The fall of the water tower had been almost an afterthought, although suggested by Peter. They’d found clear footage of him on monitors at the airport over the past six months of visits to town, during which he and Peter had plotted and planned.

  From Todd we heard GAY Press was flourishing. They’d hired two staffers. McMullen and Libnum had sold their stories to a major publisher. They were putting together what they had on Fulham. They had the inside scoop on one of the planners of the Great Chicago Massacre and had been on cable and talk radio, pushing their no doubt soon to be best-seller.

  Todd also told us that the two security guards who’d accosted us at the Art Museum parking lot in St. Louis had been fired. They’d been ordered there by Kemmler’s grandfather. Before we took off across the park and foiled their plan, they were to warn us about the dangers of investigating, to instill fear in us of the Kemmler family and fortune.

  I’d asked Todd, “He really thought that would work?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Their secrets were that vital?”

  Todd had said, “To them they were. They’d been fighting to keep everything silent for a long time. They wanted the same thing they always had: power, control of events.”

  I’d asked, “What did he think we were going to do, post it on social media? Did he think we cared that much?”

  “No doubt he cared that much, and people post most anything and often everything on social media. He had no way to know you wouldn’t so he decided to try to use the thug approach.”

  “So how’d they get fired?” I’d asked him.

  “Private security guards are not supposed to do the bidding of the rich in that way. The way I heard the story, your buddy Molton made a few calls. I would never cross that man.”

  Pilcher let us know that he met with Zalachis, and got the old guy on tape propositioning him. He told us to watch the papers and the Internet.

  Malcolm had some NRA lawyer holding his hand. Since he was using his option to remain silent, and had declared himself a sovereign citizen of an independent country, and the US government was not valid, no word had come out from him about a gay conspiracy to kill gays. The lawyer had sued all the judges, police, demonstrators, victims of the massacre both dead and alive, and as far as I could figure anyone who ever took a breath during his lifetime on the planet.

  Todd talked to us about it. He said, “Only you, Tom, have firsthand knowledge from one of the coconspirators, Peter Fulham. He’s dead. The only remaining conspirator is remaining silent. McMullen and company are feeding on the desperate need of reporters to have something to fill the time on their shows. They don’t know all you know, but that hasn’t stopped them. Meanwhile I’ve talked to Molton and the police. They’re assembling a huge dossier of Malcolm’s movements. When he flew to Chicago, when he drove. They’re going over every bit of surveillance camera from any business on Interstate 80 between here and Ogallala and on fifty miles on either side of the road if he had the brains to try and disguise his trips.”

  The right wing had gone nuts with speculation, but since Malcolm wore a button when he made his court appearances saying he was a proud member of the NRA, they were a little muted.

  Todd had continued. “Scott and I only know second hand from you that it was a marriage of hatreds, fears, and jealousies out of a dark and disturbed past, that, alas, is unlikely to ever die completely. And does the public have the right to know? I don’t care what the public knows. I only care that you’re safe and that asshole gets convicted.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Epilogue - home

  A week after the gallery reopened, we walked out of the hospital with Edmund and Sean and Sean’s parents. Sean wasn’t actually walking. He was in a wheelchair, but he could smile and talk. He was up to forty percent mobility. The doctors had high hopes for a full recovery.

  The night of Sean’s release, I found Scott working downstairs on a new project. All he had on was a pair of the baggiest of baggy, forest green and midnight blue Tartan plaid, straight-guy boxers. I could see up the left leg all the way to his dick and balls. He saw me noticing and widened his legs to increase the amount I could view and what I was viewing was growing nicely.

  My cock tented a pair of his unlaundered cum-stained game-worn sliding shorts that I was wearing.

  It was gonna be a fun night.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mark Zubro is the author of twenty-nine novels and five short stories. His book A Simple Suburban Murder won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men’s mystery. Alien Home, his second book in a gay science fiction epic series and Pawn of Satan, his next book in his Paul Turner series, and his first young adult mystery, Safe, are just out. He spends his time reading, writing, napping, and eating chocolate.

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARK ZUBRO

  Tom Mason mysteries:

  A Conspiracy of Fear – 2014

  Another Dead Republican - 2012

  Schooled in Murder - 2008

  Everyone’s Dead But Us – 2006

  File Under Dead - 2004

  Here Comes the Corpse - 2002

  One Dead Drag Queen - 2000

  Are You Nuts? - 1998

  Rust on the Razor - 1996

  An Echo of Death - 1994

  The Principal Cause of Death - 1992

  The Only Good Priest - 1991

  Why Isn’t Becky Twitchell Dead -1990

  A Simple Suburban Murder - 1989

  Paul Turner mysteries:

  Pawn of Satan - 2013

  Black and Blue and Pretty Dead Too - 2011

  Hook, Line, and Homicide – 2007

  Nerds Who Kill - 2005

  Dead Egotistical Morons - 2003

  Sex and Murder.Com - 2001

  Drop Dead - 1999

  The Truth Can Get You Killed - 1997

  Another Dead Teenager - 1995

  Political Poison - 1993

  Sorry Now? - 1991

  Young adult mystery:

  Safe – 2014

  Science fiction series – Alien Danger

  Alien Quest – 2013

  Alien Home – 2014

  Written with Barbara D’Amato and Jeanne Dams

  Foolproof – 2009

  All available as paperbacks and e-books.

  Five Short Stories:

  “Duped in Grit” in Windy City Queer - 2011

  “Tea for Two” in Homicide Hosts Present - 1996

  “Mrs. Talucci’s Dinner” in Murder for Mother 1994

  “Never on Santa” in Santa Clues - 1993

  “Next Year Kankakee” in Cat Crimes III - 1992

  TRADEMARKS ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Amazon.com – Amazon.com, inc.

  Bose – Bose Corporation

  Carson’s Ribs – Carson’s Inc.

  Cesare Attolini - Cesare Attolini S.p.a.

  Google - Google

  Huffington Post - TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

  iPod – Apple Inc.

  Laundromat – Westinghouse Electric Corporation

  Merchandise Mart - Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.

  Sporting Life - British Sky Broadcast
ing Ltd

  St. Louis Post Dispatch - stltoday.com

  Chicago Tribune – Chicago Tribune

  Chicago Sun-Times – Sun-Times Media, LLC

  Vittorio St. Angelo - Actex International Corp.

  Washington University - Washington University in St. Louis

  WD-40 - WD-40 Company

  MLR PRESS AUTHORS

  Featuring a roll call of some of the best writers of gay erotica and mysteries today!

  Derek Adams

  Kyle Adams

  Vicktor Alexander

  Z. Allora

  Simone Anderson

  Victor J. Banis

  Laura Baumbach

  Ally Blue

  J.P. Bowie

  Barry Brennessel

  Jade Buchanan

  James Buchanan

  TA Chase

  Charlie Cochrane

  Karenna Colcroft

  Jamie Craig

  Ethan Day

  Diana DeRicci

  Vivien Dean

  Taylor V. Donovan

  S.J. Frost

  Kimberly Gardner

  Kaje Harper

  Stephani Hecht

  Alex Ironrod

  Jambrea Jo Jones

  DC Juris

  AC Katt

  Thomas Kearnes

  Kiernan Kelly

  K-lee Klein

  Geoffrey Knight

  Christopher Koehler

  Matthew Lang

  J.L. Langley

  Vincent Lardo

  Cameron Lawton

  Anna Lee

  Elizabeth Lister

  William Maltese

  Z.A. Maxfield

  Timothy McGivney

  Kendall McKenna

  AKM Miles

  Robert Moore

  Reiko Morgan

  Jet Mykles

  Jackie Nacht

  N.J. Nielsen

  Cherie Noel

  Gregory L. Norris

  Willa Okati

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  Rick R. Reed

  A.M. Riley

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  George Seaton

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  DH Starr