This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

Fox Tale's Folly

Edited by Robin Jones

Published by Bon Publishing Company

in association with Produx House, Corp.

Fox Tale's Folly

Kracken

Chapter Two

The wounds on Ajay's body, that Devon had bandaged, had less effect on him than seeing his lover's white clothes, from the previous day, stained with drying blood. Ajay's big hands, wrapped around his warm coffee cup, began shaking, as he sat at their dinning room table and watched Devon, dressed casually in blue jeans and a blue t-shirt, bring his stained clothes from the bathroom. He tossed them into the laundry basket on the couch and Ajay wondered what people would think when he washed them at the laundry downstairs.

“I should take them,” Ajay suggested, uncertainly, though he wondered if he could even bring himself to touch them.

Devon punched the clothes down into the basket, and then gave Ajay a perceptive look, as he picked the basket up and put it on their dining room table. He added more things, dirty dish towels, and bath towels, as he firmly replied, “I don't have a job, this morning. You do. Go to work, lover, and leave this to me.”

“I don't think-” Ajay began, intending a quiet admission that he wasn't ready to pursue any case, just yet, despite being dressed as if he fully intended to go to his office and do just that. Blood on white clothes had killed that desire.

Devon was suddenly in his face, blue eyes furious, his golden braid swinging between them, as he bent and jabbed a finger into Ajay's chest. He drove a button of Ajay's dress shirt into his skin painfully as he said, cutting Ajay off, “Don't you do this! Go out there and do the job that you love. Don't let those assholes take that away from you.”

Devon softened, then, and cupped a hand along Ajay's strong jawline. “I'll lock the door,” he promised, “and watch my back, all right? Not even snoopy Mrs. Christopher will be able to sneak up on me in the laundry room.”

“She's pretty sneaky. Are you certain?” Ajay replied in a ghost of a voice strained with his fear, trying to go along with the joke, though it cost him.

“She is like a gossip ninja,” Devon chuckled, “but I'm just as good. She won't ask me a damned thing about us or our laundry. I promise you. No one else is going to know.”

“I trust you to be careful,” Ajay replied, stronger, but that trust, didn't make leaving, a little later, any easier.

Leaving Devon was hard. The further Ajay's feet took him down the city block from the apartment building, the more his fingers twitched to call the man on his cell phone. The door was locked. Devon was going to be careful. Ajay hadn't seen anyone suspicious near the apartment building. Those facts refused to reassure him, though.

There wasn't any reason to threaten Ajay further, after all, he thought with a sick feeling in his stomach. They had made their point. Ajay was certain that a threat like that one probably had a ninety-nine percent success rate in stopping any further investigations.

Why, then, he wondered, was he still thinking about it, especially when he had no intention of being that one percent? Curiosity was hard to extinguish, that was all, he surmised, as he wove through the foot traffic that crowded the sidewalk. It was simply impossible not to wonder what those men had been doing and why they had felt the need to threaten him that violently to discourage him from any further interest.

He would call the police department and make a report, Ajay decided, as he buttoned his coat against an unusually chilly Spring wind and nodded distractedly to anyone who said good morning to him. Filing a report would settle his mind, he felt, and satisfy his sense that the case should be pursued further. Considering what should go into the report, though, brought up more questions, questions that had him feeling afraid once more. What if the investigation was traced back to him? What if those men discovered that he had decided not to stay silent, not to mind his own business?

Ajay found himself at his office door without any conscious memory of how he had arrived there. His hand was clenched on the cold, hard doorknob and he was staring at the plaque that Devon had personally placed there. Shiny, gold, and with black lettering, it read, Detective Ajay Kavanagh.

Ajay remembered Devon turning from the task, grinning, and saying, “A first rate door plaque for a first rate detective.”

Ajay remembered Dr. Malevona watching and saying, “How stereotypical, a Private P.I. with a beautiful blonde on his arm.”

“Handsome,” Devon had corrected, but he had still been smiling, proud of Ajay and proud to be, even in a small way, a part of what Ajay was trying to accomplish.

Ajay touched the plaque with uncertain fingertips and then used his sleeve to take off a smudge. It was a challenge of sorts, he thought, as he opened the door and went inside. A challenge to those criminal elements who thought that they could win through intimidation and a challenge to himself. He wanted to continue to be the person on that plaque. He wanted Devon's proud expression never to turn into one of disappointment.

The office had undergone a paint job, turning the stark, white walls to a coffee and cream color with white trim. A new dry erase board and a cork board covered the wall to the right of his office desk and chair. Pins were neatly arranged in a line on the cork board and ready for use. The dark wood of the desk and the framed wall certifications and his few commendations, gleamed in the sunlight managing to get down between buildings and through the one window. Plants were turned towards that light, healthy and green. Like the plaque, Devon's hand was in every detail.

Ajay sat in his comfortable, black office chair, but he felt far from comfortable as he took out his cell and called the police department. When Krowl answered, Ajay was calm, his notes already in his hand and his professional demeanor firmly in place.

“Are we still partners?” Krowl demanded, sarcastically. There was the sound of a busy day at the precinct headquarters in the background and a clearer sound of Krowl shuffling paperwork.

“No, of course not,” Ajay replied, more than prepared for the man's obstructive behavior.

“Then why do you call me instead of hundreds of other officers on the force?”

“A contact is a contact,” Ajay replied simply, “even a hostile one.”

“Hostile? You got that right.”

“Krowl, I need to make a report on an incident that happened last night.”

“To one of your poor clients, no doubt?” Krowl snorted derisively, but Ajay heard the reassuring sound of paper dropping and the tapping of computer keys. They might not like each other, but the man was a professional, and he wasn't going to ignore a crime.

“You look like shit, Kavanagh!” Katie said as she came into the office, dressed in her usual lab coat and stethoscope and exuding her usual in your face attitude. “Did a garbage truck roll over you this morning?”

Ajay frowned and tapped his phone meaningfully. He then told Krowl, “I was on a case, when I saw several people force a man into a building under heavy construction.”

“And you couldn't help sticking your nose into their business, when you should have called the real police?” Krowl snarled, the resounding thud of a fist hitting a table making Ajay twitch as Krowl took him to task. “God Damn it, Kavanagh! If being a dumb ass was a crime, you'd get twenty to life! What happened?”

Katie was frowning as she pulled rubber gloves out of her big lab coat pockets and put them on with loud, disconcerting snaps. She approached Ajay and gave his battered face a clinical once over before putting her hands gingerly on the wounds.

“Stop!” Ajay hissed as she hurt him unintentionally. He covered the phone with his big hand and said to her in exasperation, “I'm fine. I don't need a doctor.”

“I'm here and I'm semi-free, so shut up and let me look,” Katie retorted, her hard as nails demeanor making her seem more like an army medic, than an overworked women's clinic physician.

She smelled like antiseptic mingled with a light perfume. A tattoo along her neck was a faded bulldog almost hidden under her collar. Her short, black hair, smelled like hair gel. She was distracting, especially when she prodded a bump and pulled Ajay, by his coat lapel, to make him bend where she could get a closer look..

“If you're having a party, Kavanagh, I have better things to do,” Krowl snarled, having heard the conversation despite Ajay's best effort.

“Mute button on your cell, next time, big idiot, ” Katie sighed, hearing Krowl's loud voice. She was used to Ajay's lack of technology savvy.

“I followed the suspects into the building, Krowl,” Ajay began in embarrassment, as he tried to stop Katie from what felt like her attempt to make a break in his skull with her fingers. “I over heard them threaten the man. It sounded as if he had made some sort of mistake, maybe revealing something of their operation to someone. They found me, unfortunately, and threatened me as well, if I didn't stay out of their business. One of the men attempted to kill me.”

“You have injuries and a medical report?” Krowl asked, sounding finally interested.

“Superficial injuries,” Ajay replied. “They didn't need medical attention.”

Katie took his cell , with a jerk to get it out of Ajay's resisting hand, and said into it, “Dr. Katherine Malevona, here. He has mostly abrasions, muscle strains, deep bruising, and one hell of a knot on his head. Unless he wants to undress, I can't report anything else.”

Ajay took the phone back, irritably, and said to Krowl, “Assault, attempted murder, and threats to harm other individuals. That's more than enough to start an investigation.”

“If you can ID the suspects,” Krowl replied pointedly. “Can you?”

“I saw most of them from a distance,” Ajay admitted, “If they have priors, I may be able to identify them from records.”

“Your story and facts from the top, then,” Krowl sighed, sounding skeptical, but then said warningly, “And once you make this report, Kavanagh, and ID the suspects, you're clean of this case. Got that?”

Ajay found it hard to reply, “I understand.”

“You do?” Krowl had picked up on his reluctance. “If you intend to screw this up and make a monkey out of me, by getting some personal payback with these guys, then I'm deleting the record of this case, right now. You are the victim, Kavanagh. Victims don't investigate their own cases. Judges don't like that. Defense has a party when they smell personal vendetta.”

“I will expect progress,” Ajay found himself saying far more harshly than he had intended.

“That doesn't sound like you, Kavanagh,” Krowl replied in surprise. “Sounds like this is more than about them roughing you up. Why don't you spill? I'm still waiting.”

Getting bored with the one sided conversation, Katie bent close, face very serious as she pulled off her gloves with loud snaps. “Look, stupid, come and see me for a physical after you're done. I'll make time, so you make time, okay?”

Ajay nodded, just to get rid of her, and she left reluctantly. He sank into his chair, then, pushing back into it as if he needed to brace himself, as he told Krowl all that had happened. The emotions that went with the memories hadn't faded. When he was done, he felt sick and horrified all over again. He stared at his notes, that he was clutching tightly, and wondered if he could leave the case to someone else, especially to someone that he knew was less than sympathetic.

“You still don't have a gun, I bet?” Krowl guessed angrily.

“No, I don't,” Ajay replied.

“Then you better fucking remember that you are a lame ass private investigator, not a police officer or a police detective,” Krowl reminded him and Ajay heard sounds that let him imagine the man thumping a thick finger into his desktop to punctuate his words. “You do not go into a dangerous situation, unarmed, and without backup. You take notes, make calls, and cheer up old ladies who've lost their cats. That's what you decided to do, Kavanagh. Try sticking to it and staying out of our investigation. I'll keep you updated.”

The phone went dead and Ajay let it hang between his knees in one hand, chest tight, and feelings too mixed up to understand. Logically, Krowl was absolutely right. Emotionally, Ajay felt helpless and wondered if all of his clients felt the same way. Did they all experience the same need to act, the same frustration and helplessness, while they waited for him to call them? Knowing that Devon's ultimate safety depended on Krowl investigating and solving the case, only increased Ajay's anxiety. There was also the added weight of feeling that he wasn't living up to the Kavanagh name by taking care of matters himself.

Ajay's ribs aching in time to the pounding of his head, pulled him out of his depression and to his feet. Pocketing his cell, he convinced himself that he needed to take Katie up on her offer of medical treatment, if only to have a file, containing an examination of the extent of his injuries. Krowl was right that the more proof that he had corroborating his story, the better.

As he made his slow way to the clinic, Ajay couldn't keep his mind off the case. He went over, again and again, every clue that he could remember. He wondered if there might have been other witnesses on the street, that night, other than himself, and automatically began planning a return trip at the same time as the incident. If someone made a habit out of being in that area, at that time, going to and from work, perhaps, then he might be able to talk to them.

Ajay stopped, closed his eyes tightly, and reminded himself firmly, “Not your case,” before continuing again. He had a case, already, after all. He was supposed to be gathering evidence so that a woman could receive her much needed child support payments. He needed to get his mind firmly back on track where that was concerned. His client was depending on him. Krowl might hate him, but he was a professional. He had to believe that the man would come to the same conclusion and return to the scene of the incident to look for witnesses.

Logically, Ajay was convinced of that fact. Emotionally, he couldn't help doubts as he pushed open the door of Katie's clinic and went inside.

Nothing broken, had been Katie's conclusion, but bruising, wrenched muscles, and concrete scrapes or rash from being dragged over construction materials, were numerous. He let her x-ray, take photos, and make a proper file. She sent the information to Krowl as soon as it was complete.

“Thank you, Katie,” Ajay told her as he sat on her examination table and slipped on his shirt. He ignored sharp twinges of pain in his shoulders as he began buttoning it. “What do I owe you?”

The examination room was a simple partition with a curtain on metal rings, an old exam table, and a great deal of antiseptic cleanser and white paper to cover surfaces. It was dubious privacy in the small office where he could hear the women in the waiting room, not a few feet away, lined up along the wall in their plastic chairs.

“I'd say free, but things cost and I'm on a shoe string,” Katie replied apologetically. “See Nancy at the desk and she'll give you the bill.”

Katie hung her stethoscope around her neck and then handed Ajay a paper. “Take that with you. It's a prescription for some pain pills and muscle relaxers,” she told him, and then firmly, “and try to remember, from now on, that you're not a one man swat team, okay?”

Ajay moved stiffly as he stood and reached for his coat, hanging from a hook on one wall, ”You don't have to be concerned about me.”

“I'm concerned about my supply resource,” Katie growled as she turned away to study the chart for her next patient. Ajay felt the tension of unexpressed emotions. Katie wasn't willing to drop her rough, hard as nails, persona to show him how anxious she was about his incident. She could be extremely annoying, Ajay thought with a small smile, but she really was a friend.

“Thank you,” he told her, faking sarcasm so that she wouldn't realize that he knew how she was feeling. “I'll try not to get hurt in the future. I wouldn't want to endanger your supply of paper clips and fax paper. “

“I would appreciate that, Kavanagh,” Katie replied and then made a dismissive motion, still without turning. “I have ladies waiting.”

Women waiting to have private areas examined, never failed to make Ajay feel uncomfortable. He kept his eyes averted as he left the exam room and went past the women in their chairs, trying not to hear their speculation as to why a man was getting an exam at a women's clinic. When he paid his bill at the reception desk, he slid the prescription towards the petite blonde behind the counter and said, “I won't be needing this.”

She took it, looking at him curiously, but he didn't wait for any questions.

Returning to his office, Ajay locked the door and then proceeded downstairs and exited the office building. It wasn't until he was halfway down the street, that he realized what he had done. He had locked his office door. It was a practice that he hadn't performed consistently because he really didn't mind giving Katie access to his office supplies. Since there wasn't much to steal, or important files that weren't locked securely, it had never seemed much of an issue. That simple act carried a tremendous amount of meaning now. It showed him just how unbalanced he had become.

Ajay took out his cell and called Devon. He needed to hear the man's voice, needed to know that he was safe. Irrational, he told himself, and an over reaction to an event that he had been trained to deal with by the police force. He hadn't been trained to deal with the life of the man that he loved threatened though. He hadn't trained to deal with suddenly finding that his safe neighborhood was an illusion, that it could be as dangerous as any other place. His foundation had been shaken, Ajay realized, and he was finding cracks in the cement of his life that had always seemed indestructible.

“Jay?” Devon's voice asked after a nerve wracking long series of rings, and then, a sigh, followed by, “I'm all right, love. You don't need to check up on me.”

Ajay felt embarrassed as he leaned against the walls of a brownstone building, feeling the rough, cold surface against his back as he bowed his head and swallowed hard. ”Are you working?”

“Yes. I'm balanced on another man's back and we're both covered in fruit, artfully. I really can't take calls, right now.”

“Why...?” Ajay felt his head throb as he went from worrying about criminals hurting Devon to trying to imagine exactly what position Devon was in on another man's back. He had imagined Devon safe at home, not having been called out to pose for an artist.

“It's art, Jay, don't ask,” Devon chuckled. “I'm inside, though, warm, and being given proper breaks while the artist paints. He is glaring at me, right now, though, because a cell phone is not part of the painting that he is paying me to pose for. I'll call you at lunch.”

“Sounds good,” Ajay replied, his voice not as steady as he intended. “Sorry. I'm trying to calm down about this and be reasonable.”

“You wouldn't be human if it didn't effect you,” Devon told him in concern. “It scared the hell out of me, too. I'm watching my back and making sure that I don't end up alone anywhere. You do your job and don't worry about me, all right? You know that I can take care of myself?”

“I know that you can,” Ajay agreed, and felt sick at the lie. He hadn't been able to protect himself from those men. He didn't believe that Devon was capable of fairing any better.

They said their goodbyes and it was almost painful to hang up, to break that link and have to worry, once more, whether Devon was really going to be all right. If those men found out, somehow, that they were being investigated what could stop them from really hurting Devon?

Ajay locked down on that, on the panic that almost rose to overwhelm control. He forced himself to pocket his cell phone and mentally told himself, in no uncertain terms, that he wouldn't be calling Devon until their agreed on lunch time. He couldn't treat Devon as weak, too weak to take care of himself, or their relationship would suffer. His lover wouldn't tolerate Ajay's lack of confidence in him as a competent person.

Ajay pushed away from the wall and jammed hands into his coat pockets as he walked down Caraway to Devoe. His thoughts were on the case, head bowed, and eyes not seeing much of anything as he wove through slower foot traffic. He was startled when a thick fingered hand, with the grip of a wrestler, took hold of his bicep firmly. He looked up into the face of Davey, the part owner of Alusius's bakery, and saw Mr. Alusius standing at his elbow. Both of them were looking concerned.

“I called your father,” Mr. Alusius informed Ajay. His bulbous nose, that had earned him the nick name potato, was red in the chill wind and his squat, round body, in its flour covered apron, was determined to join with the body, of the very large Davey, to keep Ajay from taking another step.

“My father?” Ajay echoed in confusion over the sounds of bumper to bumper traffic and the annoyed comments of the people who had to move around them.

Davey looked nervous, a bit more reserved than his partner. His blonde hair, going gray, was tucked under a red bandana, and his apron, smeared with different colored jams, told Ajay that the man had been filling pastries. “We were worried,” he explained as he released Ajay. “You walked by, this morning, without stopping in.”

“Several people told us that you had walked by them without saying anything, even though they called out to you,” Mr. Alusius added anxiously. “That's not at all like you, Jay.”

Davey bent a little to be more on Ajay's level, “I hate to say it, Jay, but you look like you've been in a fight, and lost.”

“Your father was worried, “ Alusius continued, without letting Ajay speak. “he didn't know that you were in any difficulty, though.”

Ajay took out his cell and checked for missed calls. An automatic gesture, since he was on such a hair trigger, that any call that he would have received would have been answered immediately. He wasn't going to miss a call from Devon if his lover needed his help. “He didn't call me,” Ajay replied.

That gesture of his father's, a silent acknowledgment that he was an adult now, and allowed to make his own decisions about dealing with his own troubles, was a development that Ajay wasn't prepared for. His father's sudden trust in him, was at all odds with his sense of personally feeling that his decisions had made him untrustworthy.

“Why don't you come into the shop and we'll talk?” Alusius suggested, reaching out and patting Ajay's arm. “Tell us what's troubling you.”

That was enough to bring Ajay out of his spiraling confusion. It was time to stop falling apart and indulging in self recrimination, he thought. He couldn't disappoint his father, and his new trust in him, by leaning like a child on sympathetic adults.

“I had a rough case,” Ajay admitted, “and there were a lot of aspects of that case that required careful consideration and action. I'm all right, though. You don't need to worry. I'm working a much simpler case, now.”

“Two much stress at one time?”Davey wondered sympathetically.

Ajay nodded,”Yes, something like that.”

Davey gave Mr. Alusius a knowing, I told you so, look. Mr. Alusius glared back and then patted Ajay's arm again. “Davey thinks that I worry too much. I know that you are a professional. I wasn't so much worried about your work as I was worried about your relationship with Devon.”

Ajay blinked in shock. “You thought that Devon caused my injuries?”

Davey sighed, “I told him that he was being ridiculous, but he said that it would be like you to take punches instead of hurting the person that you loved.”

Ajay felt a flush of embarrassment. He still wasn't completely comfortable with everyone knowing about his love life, he was still too much of a private man. That Mr. Alusius had imagined that his love life contained that sort of violence made it that much worse.

“Devon would never do something like that,” Ajay replied as his embarrassment turned to anger, an anger that he couldn't keep completely in check. “We have a relationship that is as solid, and as likely to last as long, as the relationship between you and Davey.”

It passed his lips without thought, a firm affirmation and rebuttal, that Ajay felt the need to make to these men who had imagined Devon committing violence against him. He hadn't stopped to consider that his belief that the two baker's were more than partners, was still only a theory with few supporting facts.

Alusius looked stunned, mouth open a little. He looked up at Davey who had a nervous, guarded expression. They exchanged a long look and then both of them smiled and chuckled. Davey gave Alusius arm a quick caress and then the smaller man was nodding as they both turned back to Ajay.

“I'm sorry, Jay, for thinking such a terrible thing,” Alusius apologized. “I should know Devon by now. I consider you my nephew and I can't help wanting to protect you. I shouldn't let my need to protect you, cloud my better judgment, though.”

Ajay glanced around them, but people were passing them by, eager to reach their destination and escape weather that was threatening cold rain. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...” He stopped, not certain how to extricate himself from outing the two baker's in the middle of a city sidewalk.

“Jay,” Davey said gruffly. “People know, but they don't make it a topic of conversation, if you know what I'm saying?”

Ajay nodded, hands digging so hard into his pockets as he hunched in embarrassment, that they threatened to break seems.

Davey laughed and clapped Ajay on the shoulder. “Look at him, Potato! He looks just like I did when I found out that my grandparents were still having sex. Makes you feel damned weird, doesn't it Jay? “

Mr. Alusius looked uncomfortable. “Can we not talk about the S word in the street? Let's get back to the topic at hand, Ajay's safety.”

“Let's not,” Ajay said quickly. “You have work and so do I. I'm sorry that I didn't stop in this morning and that you felt concerned for me. I'm fine. I'll call Da, later, and let him know that everything is all right, as well.”

Alusius sighed and nodded. “All right, Jay. I'm sorry if we're like mother hens, sometimes.”

Davey snorted, “You mean, you.“

Alusius elbowed the man gently and Davey pretended to take a severe blow, even though he was smiling indulgently. “Let's get back to work,” Alusius told him. “We still need to make that cake for the Patterson's party, tonight.”

Davey gave Ajay a friendly wink and allowed Mr. Alusius to pull him towards the door of their shop.

Ajay scrubbed a hand over his face, relieved to have escaped an awkward situation. He winced as he inadvertently rubbed scrapes, cuts, and bruises. As he began walking, those aches were a reminder, but also a caution, not to let emotions rule his behavior and effect his work. When he couldn't control himself, it directly impacted those around him. Easier said than done, he thought sourly, but he was determined to make a better effort in the future.

back to chapter one

on to chapter three