Free Extenuating Circumstances by Jonathan Valin Page A

the mother to hear it at all, not in the shape she was in.
    "There's something you've got to know," I said. "Something about Carnova."
    Len studied my face for a second, and I guess he could tell from my eyes that bad news was coming, because his own face fell. "Go ahead," he said in a sinking voice.
    "The kid claims that he knew Ira, that he and Ira had a long-standing relationship."
    "What kind of relationship?"
    I stared at him sadly, not wanting to say it. "A homosexual one."
    Trumaine gawked at me for a long moment. "You're joking."
    '"I wish I was. Carnova says that he and Lessing had been seeing one another for several years. He says that, on the night of the murder, Ira had picked him up for a sexual rendezvous. They had an argument over money, and the boy killed him."
    "Over money?" Len said with a blank look.
    "Carnova's a homosexual prostitute, Len."
    At first Trumaine didn't react. Then his face got so red that he broke into a sweat, right there in that icecold mortuary hallway.
    "That's the most outrageous fucking lie I've ever heard in my life!" he shouted.
    "Take it easy, Len," I said, glancing nervously through the doorway at Mrs. Lessing.
    But Trumaine didn't hear me. "First the bastard tortures Ira, then he murders him, then after he's dead he slanders him as viciously as you can slander another man!"
    He'd gotten so worked up, I thought he was going to throw a punch at me.
    "Why the hell did you tell me this, Harry?" he said, almost strangling on the words. "What did you expect me to say -that my best friend in the world was a queer?"
    "No," I said.
    "Then why tell me? Or did you figure I just couldn't make it through the rest of this day without hearing one more piece of vicious bullshit?"
    "Len," I said, "I don't believe what Carnova said."
    "But the cops do, right? I guess you can't be a kind, charitable human being -a decent man with a genuine concern for other people- without being labeled a queer."
    "The cops don't believe Carnova, either," I said, even though it wasn't strictly true. "They're going to pressure the kid into retracting the homosexual charge."
    "Pressure him how?"
    "What difference does it make?" I said, although it was going to make a difference to Carnova. "When the boy goes to court the D.A. will use his confession as evidence. And if Carnova or his lawyers try to introduce the homosexual crap, it won't be substantiated by the record."
    "It won't be in the record?" Len said, starting to cool down.
    "No. But that doesn't mean that it won't come out. Carnova's lawyers may feed the story to the press. And it's bound to get aired in court. I thought you should hear it from me first."
    Len wiped the sweat from his eyes with his shirt sleeves. "I guess you're right," he said after a while. "I guess I had to know. I guess the family will have to know too."
    "You still have some time. The papers probably won't get the story for a day or two. And they're bound to be skeptical in reporting it."
    "Meg and Janey'll still have to be told." He sighed heavily. "Christ, it just keeps getting worse."
 
 
    Finch showed up about five minutes after I'd finished telling Len about Carnova's confession. Together; the three of us went into the morgue to go through the formal process of claiming what was left of Ira Lessing.
    It was a ghastly place. The cold steel examination tables, with the microphones drooping down above them like loose wires in an unfinished room. The freezer bank with too many doors. The dead-room stink of embalming fluid and disinfectant, and the faint sweet smell of flesh, like rot in a wall. The coroner pulled the body from the freezer bank. Something lumpy in a green zippered bag on a bright metal tray. Len stared at it for a long time -his face dazed.
    "Are you sure this is Ira?" he said to the coroner.
    The coroner nodded. "We've made a positive identification on the basis of dental records."
    "Ira," Trumaine said again, staring at the body bag.
    As we came back out into the