Free Dust To Dust by Tami Hoag Page B

month? A year? Ten years?"
    "A while." Impatient. "What difference does it make?"
    "Coming out-was that something he'd saved for his family? Everyone else in his life knew? His friends, his coworkers?"
    "It wasn't like he was a queen or something," Pierce snapped. "It wasn't anybody's business unless Andy wanted it to be.We roomed together in college. He told me then. I didn't care. It didn't matter. More chicks for me, right? Major competition out of the dating pool."
    "Why'd he tell them now?" Kovac asked. "His father, his brother? What brought that on? People don't just up and spill their guts. Something pushes them to it."
    "Is there a point to this? Because if there's not, I'd sooner Just sit here alone and drink myself into unconsciousness."
    "You don't strike me as someone wanting to sit down, Steve," Kovac said. He pushed away from the bar to lean against one of the fat leather chairs. It smelled like a fielder's mitt too.That probably cost extra.
    Pierce held himself stiff before Kovac's scrutiny. People even hed with their body language-or tried to. That was seldom as successful as the verbal variety.
    "Your friend took a big step coming out," Kovac said. "And he landed on his chin, at least with his father. That kind of rejection might push a person. A person like Andy, close to his dad, wanting to please him-"
    "No." "He wrote an apology on the mirror. Why would he do that if he was just playing around,just getting himself offl"
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    "I don't know. He just wouldn't have killed himself, that's an." "Or maybe the note on the mirror wasn't Andy's," Kovac sug-
    gested. "Maybe Andy had a boyfriend over. Maybe they were having a little game, something went wrong .... The boyfriend got scared.... Do you happen to know the names of any of his partners?"
    "No." "None?You being best pals and all? That seems strange."
    411 wasn't ioterested in his sex life. It didn't have anything to do with me" He took a drink of the scotch and stared sullenly at an electrical outlet on the other side of the room.
    "This morning you told me he wasn't seeing anybody. Like maybe you were interested."
    "Which reminds me," Pierce said. "We've had this conversation before, Detective. I don't care to relive the experience."
    Kovac spread his hands." Hey, you seem like a man with something he wants to get off his chest, Steve. I'm just giving you an outlet here, you know what I mean?"
    "I know that I don't have anything of value to tell you."
    Kovac smoothed a hand over his mustache and down his chin. "You're sure?"
    Keys rattled in the front door, giving Pierce the opportunity to escape. Kovac followed him to the front hall. A drop-dead blonde had let herself in and was stepping out of a pair of low boots even as she set take-out bags on the hall table.
    Garlic chicken and Mongolian beef Kovac's stomach growled, and he remembered the lasagna on his coffee table with a fondness it didn't deserve.
    "I told you, I don't feel like eating,joss."
    "You need to eat something, sweetie," the blonde chided gently, slipping out of her coat. Her features were beautifully sculpted, eyes impossibly large. Her shoulder-length hair looked like pale gold silk. "I was hoping the aroma rmight revive your appetite."
    She hung the coat on an oak hall tree, which looked a hundred years old and worth a small fortune. When she turned around, she caught sight of Kovac for the first time and stiffened her back. She looked as unhappy as a queen finding an uninvited peasant in her chambers. Regal in her bearing and her disdain. Even in her stocking feet, she was as tall as Pierce and looked athletic. She dressed with the conservative flair of someone born to money---expensive fabrics,
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    traditional style; tawny wool slacks and a navy blue blazer, an ivory turtleneck sweater that looked incredibly soft.
    Kovac flashed his badge at her. "Kovac. Homicide. I'm here about Andy Fallon. Sorry to disrupt your evening, ma'am."
    "Homicide?" she said