Dial Emmy for Murder by Eileen Davidson Page B

had to go in. I mean, he could’ve been hurt and needed help.” We both knew I was tap dancing. When I saw the mess the apartment was in, I could have called 911.
    “Tell me what you saw.”
    “A messy apartment. When I got to the bathroom, I found him there in the bathtub, just . . . lying there.”
    “And then you called 911?”
    No, I thought.
    “Yes,” I said.
    I didn’t tell him that my innate curiosity and fascination with all things dead got the better of me. I admit it: it’s a character flaw. But it’s my character flaw. And besides . . . I might have found a pulse.
    “Alex, did you touch anything?”
    “Of course not! What do you take me for? Don’t answer that!”
    “Not even a doorknob?”
    I just looked at him. “No.”
    “Okay.”
    “How was he killed?”
    “His neck was broken,” Jakes said. “Somebody wrapped something around his neck and snapped it.”
    “Ewww. What do you think they used?”
    “That we can’t tell,” Jakes said. “Whoever did it took the weapon with them.”
    “So he wasn’t stabbed like Jackson.”
    “Actually,” Jakes said, “they were killed the same way.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    “Turns out the stab wounds didn’t kill Jackson Masters.”
    “What did?”
    “The fall from the catwalk,” he said, “and the chain around his neck.”
    “You mean . . .”
    “He was hanged,” Jakes said. “That chain snapped his neck at the time of the fall. He might have died from the stab wounds eventually, but he didn’t have the chance.”
    “Oh, my God.”
    “I feel pretty certain that the same person killed them both,” he said. “Was Jackson gay?”
    “Not that I know of, but . . .”
    “But what?”
    “I was thinking the same thing.”
    “Maybe that’s what Henri wanted to tell you?”
    “Yes.”
    “We found Jackson Masters’s number in an address book in Henri’s apartment. That, in itself, doesn’t mean anything.”
    “But?”
    “I found this also in the address book.”
    He took out a strip of photos, the kind you get from one of those machines in arcades and malls. There were four shots of Jackson and Henri together, smiling, laughing, and—in the last one—Henri was kissing Jackson on the cheek.
    “Jackson doesn’t look happy in this last photo,” I said, handing it back.
    Jakes had been plowing through a bowl of whole-wheat pasta while we talked. He put the photos back in his pocket and continued to eat.
    “Well, it could be that Jackson was either gay or he went both ways,” Jakes said. “That would increase our suspect pool.”
    “Maybe . . .”
    “Maybe what?”
    “Maybe it was a one-time thing,” I said. “I mean, with Henri.”
    “You mean that Henri was just so adorable, Jackson couldn’t resist?”
    “Not my words,” I said, “but essentially, yes.”
    Jakes sat back and scratched his head, pushing his plate away as if something was ruining his appetite. I’d never seen any evidence of it before, but I suddenly wondered if he was homophobic.
    “I don’t buy it.”
    “Why not?”
    “I think people are straight, gay or bi,” Jakes said. “I don’t hold it against any of them. But I don’t think anybody switches sides just once.”
    “What if it was his first time with a man?” I asked. “And he didn’t like it, so he never repeated the experience.”
    “That’s possible, but I think Jackson was just too sexually experienced to have tried it with a man only now, at this age. I think it was more likely he tried it in his teens and liked it, but not exclusively. The picture I’ve been getting of Jackson Masters is that he pretty much knew what he liked. He seemed to be some kind of . . . pleasure hound.”
    I don’t know why it should have surprised me to realize he’d been talking to others about Jackson, but after only a moment I realized it made perfect sense. After all, he couldn’t depend just on what he’d learned from me.
    “So you’ve talked to the women he’s slept