Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,53

in his armchair and said through gritted teeth, “David, is Aleksei joining us?”

“Aleksei? Joining us? Probably not.”

“Could you tell us why?” Drake continued.

“He’s sitting upstairs with a tie twisted around his neck. A striped rep tie. Can you imagine? I mean, it’s 2012! Like some kinda fuckin’ Ralph Lauren preppie tie thing . . . sorry, Drake. I know how you like Ralphie, having worked for him a long time ago. Hey, maybe it’s one of your ties!”

“How would you know it’s one of my ties?”

“No one else would wear a rep tie around here but you, Drake.”

Drake and the rest of us went upstairs in what was becoming a regular routine.

“Well, don’t get mad at me, Drake! I hear rep ties are making a comeback for spring!” David added before we were out of earshot.

We gathered at Aleksei’s door like a weary band of tourists, staring but not registering what we were seeing. There in a wing chair with its back to us was Aleksei, sitting naked and upright with a tie twisted tightly around his neck, his face a purple–blue. Since we were all tall, we could see over the top of the back of the chair—all except Marcus, who leaned far into the room to get a good look, holding on to the door molding with veiny, muscular hands.

“Careful, Marcus,” I intoned. “We can’t disturb evidence.”

“I won’t step into the room. I’ve hung on a cross bar like this for forty minutes before,” Marcus said proudly. “Shit,” he said, staring at Aleksei.

Darryn, who stood at the back of the pack, whispered, “This is really freaky. Aren’t you scared?”

“With all these people around, no. Plus, they’re not after me. They’re after you guys.”

“Thanks a lot. You’ve made me feel a whole lot better,” Darryn replied. “I am not sleeping in this house.”

Just then, a voice spoke up from behind all of us. “Now, if you skyscrapers would step out of the way, a short person would like to get a look-see,” Aurora said.

The boys parted for Aurora, who stood in the doorway.

“Jesus Christ! Who is doing this?” she asked, shaking her head. “Wait a minute.... Hey, look over there on the dresser. Drugs!”

She was right. From my vantage point, I could see the pile of whitish crystals on the top of Aleksei’s tall dresser.

Aurora continued, “It looks like autoerotic asphyxiation. He snorted some crystal, wanted to jerk off because he was on a high, and he got the tie too tight and fainted before he passed out. I have a lot of male patients who are into it. But I can’t tell you who. Patient–therapist confidentiality.”

I decided to play detective.

“It seems coincidental, people. We have one murder, and now another person just happens to die in the house, but this time it’s self-induced? It’s all too coincidental. No, this is another murder.”

“I don’t know, Amanda,” Drake said. “Look at the floor in front of Aleksei. He’s sprayed his chowder all over the place. He was cumming just as he passed out from the tie. Happens all the time.”

I looked around to be certain there was a camera on me; there was.

“My question is,” I said like a great detective, “where Aleksei got the tie. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would wear a tie, especially a rep tie. As David said downstairs, those are the kinds of ties that you wear, Drake. Would you care to shed a little light on this development?”

David joined our little group of survivors. He brightened up when he looked at Aleksei again. “I saw an episode of Six Feet Under where a guy was doing the same thing, but you’re supposed to suck on a lemon, so if you start to pass out from the lack of oxygen to the brain, you bite down on the lemon and the shock of the tartness wakes you up before you strangle yourself.”

David’s theory sounded plausible . . . if it had come from someone else.

“All we need to do is look around and see if there’s a lemon wedge somewhere in the room. Mystery solved,” David said.

“No one is going anywhere into the room.”

“Or,” David said casually, “Drake was strangling Aleksei erotically and things got out of hand.”

Dead silence. Drake, who normally could frighten the others with a looks-that-could-kill sideways glance, looked more like a trapped animal.

David attempted to enter the room again as I grabbed him by the shoulder and restrained him.

“We’ve got to keep the place clear,” I