Chapter 40

“That’s a pretty name,” said my mother. “Pearl Necklace.”

I grinned, despite the circumstances, which were awful at best. And, no, I didn’t explain the sexually-innuendoed alias. “Yeah, pretty, Ma.” My grin faltered. “And what do you know about him?”

She took a sip of her Coke. “I researched Arthur Slade. Like I said, not a lot came up, simple bio stuff at best. But in an old article about some charity fundraiser, there was a mention of Arthur and his partner.”

“Tom Nolan.”

She nodded. “Tom Nolan. And I didn’t think much of it, except, for some reason, the name rang some bells, like I’d heard it before.”

“So you went to Dad?”

She nodded. “Sometimes two heads are better than one.”

Unless you’re getting head from two heads, and both heads are attached to two sweet men; then it’s just a headache, which, as mentioned, I already had. “And what’s Dad’s connection to a so-so drag queen with questionable taste?”