Free The Angel Singers by Dorien Grey

eye contact.
    “He liked to lead people on,” he said, without being specific. There was no need to be—I knew what he was referring to. “He thought it was fun, him hurting people.” His eyes darted to mine, and he hastened to add, “…like I know he did with a couple of the guys. People shouldn’t be allowed to do things like that.”
    And somebody’d made sure he wouldn’t do it to anyone else , I thought.
    I was very curious about Rothenberger’s comment that Barry had spent some time in a juvenile detention facility, and I wanted to know why. Short of asking him directly—and since we’d invited him over ostensibly as a dinner guest, I thought it would be pretty crass of me to bring it up at the moment—I knew I’d have a hard time finding out what had sent him there. Juvenile records were sealed, and not available to private investigators or anyone else.
    Well, I’d find a way.
    *
    The door buzzer announced Eric’s arrival Sunday morning just as Jonathan and Joshua were on their way down the stairs. Since I hadn’t yet closed the door, I left it open waiting for him. I heard he and Jonathan exchange greetings as they passed each other. I even heard Joshua say hi, which I hoped boded well for a thaw in his one-sided Cold War with Eric.
    Taking his jacket as he came in, I put it in our bedroom and, returning to the living room, offered him some coffee, which he accepted. He followed me into the kitchen and sat down at the table as I poured.
    “You want to go back into the living room?” I asked.
    “Nah,” he said. “Kitchen’s fine.”
    I pulled out a chair and joined him.
    “So, what do you want to know?” he asked. I’d told him about having been hired to look into Grant’s murder when I called Friday to invite him to brunch.
    The need for introductory small talk thus eliminated, I plunged right in.
    “Everything you can tell me about how Grant got along with the rest of the chorus. Especially about anyone you think might conceivably have wanted to see him dead.”
    He took a sip of his coffee before replying. “Let’s see,” he said, putting his cup on the table and leaning back in his chair. “Fifty members, plus quite a few members’ partners minus the four or five guys—not always the same ones—in his little circle at any given time…I’d say probably two dozen or more.”
    “And what did you think of him? Any particular problems with him?”
    He shook his head. “Not directly, no. I think he sensed it wouldn’t be in his best interests to fuck with me. But that didn’t stop me from hating his guts for what he was doing to the chorus.”
    “And what was that?” I asked.
    “Well, you know about Tony and Jerry.”
    I nodded.
    “Crap like that,” he said. “And there was a lot of it. I saw the Tony and Jerry one coming a mile away,” he said, “and I tried to warn Tony, but… And the minute Jerry walked out on him, Grant lost all interest in Tony. What a shit!”
    “He sounds like a real prince,” I said.
    My attempt at levity went right over his head.
    “Oh, he was,” he said, shaking his head as he picked up his coffee. “I don’t know what he thought he was accomplishing by doing whatever he could to undermine the chorus’ morale, and it was starting to affect our singing. Maybe he thought the worse everybody else sounded, the better he did. I know Roger was on to him, but I really don’t think there was much he could do about it, given Crandall’s being the eight-hundred-pound gorilla. And Grant didn’t give a damn about the chorus or anybody’s singing but his own.”
    “He almost never showed up for a sectional,” he went on. “Either he was in Las Vegas with Crandall, or he just didn’t bother to show. And the interesting thing was that, whenever he didn’t show up for a weeknight sectional, one of the other guys he’d been chasing didn’t show up, either. Not too hard to figure out what Grant was more interested in practicing.”
    I mused on