Justice at Risk by John Morgan Wilson

anything significant turned up.”
    “A detective got in touch with me. From the sheriff’s department. Asked me some questions.”
    “I imagine I’ll be hearing from him, too, since I was with you when we found Callahan’s motel room trashed.” The rims of his eyes were red. “How are you doing?”
    His shoulders rose briefly, before sagging again.
    “I’m OK.”
    “Sit down. Let’s talk.”
    We sat on the couch with a yard of upholstery between us. Maggie came over to get her head scratched, and Graff obliged. He ruffled the fur between her ears, then up under her chin the way she liked it, as she lifted her head and closed her eyes. Maggie had belonged to a young man named Danny Romero, someone close to Graff’s age, until Fred had inherited her the previous year as Danny was dying; he’d left me his pickup truck, which still sat unused in the garage, and a beautiful table he’d made by hand that I kept upstairs in the apartment, overlooking the yard.
    Maggie seemed to take to Graff, and settled down on the floor by his feet, her big golden head on her paws. He rubbed her with the rubber toe of his shoe as he talked.
    “This detective asked me a lot of questions about Tommy. What he was like, who his friends were. What kind of relationship we had.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “That I’d met Tommy when Cecile hired him a few months ago. That he had a drinking problem he was trying to control, and this was like a second chance for him, late in his life. I told him Tommy seemed to be a loner, not much social life.”
    Graff’s eyes shifted awkwardly. “I mentioned that Tommy was, you know, gay. I figured they’d find out sooner or later, anyway.”
    “It’s not like he was burying bodies in the backyard, Peter. He just liked guys.”
    “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
    “When did you first find out Callahan was queer?”
    “Couple months ago. After we became friends.”
    “Did it surprise you?”
    “A little, I guess. Maybe I should have seen it coming, I don’t know.”
    He stretched his arm across the back of the couch. His hand was strong and well veined, and his forearm heavily burnished with blond hairs that glowed in the lamplight like strands of fine silk.
    “How close did you and Callahan get?”
    His eyes were on the move again.
    “Pretty good friends, like I told you before.”
    “That covers a lot of ground.”
    “His friendship was important to me. Losing him hurts.”
    “I can see that.”
    He didn’t say anything, just stared down at Maggie, who rolled on her side while Peter rubbed her chest.
    “At what point in your friendship did he try to seduce you, Peter?”
    His blue eyes flashed.
    “What makes you think he did that?”
    “It would take an awfully strong-willed gay man not to try to get your clothes off.”
    “Are you saying that all gay men—”
    “I’m saying that you’re a young man of extraordinary beauty, whether you realize it or not. If you happened to be female, instead of male, most straight men would be looking at you pretty much the same way. It’s a problem men tend to have, objectifying those we find desirable.”
    His eyes steadied, landing on mine, staying there.
    “Is that how you look at me?”
    “My guess is you already know the answer to that one.”
    When his eyes moved again, it was nervously, like blue neon flickering.
    “You still haven’t told me if Callahan tried to get you into bed.”
    “One night, in the editing bay, he said he wanted to kiss me. He asked me if it was OK.”
    “And what did you say?”
    “I asked him why. He said he really liked me. I told him I’d never done anything with a guy, no sex or anything, you know, except when I was a lot younger, fooling around, like most guys do.”
    “And after that?”
    “I said if he really wanted to, I didn’t mind. That I was open to new things, as long as he didn’t expect something more. He said that was all he wanted, just to kiss me, that he’d been thinking