by Jack Wallen
“What does this board mean to you when it’s empty, Davenport?” He was covering up his usual cynicism with a layer of patronizing accusation. I knew exactly what he was saying. You aren’t worth shit. You are never going to be worth shit because you are a lousy detective. It was all too obvious that he didn’t like me. Everyone knew it. I suspected it was because I was a woman and a better detective than any man on the force. The latter fact threatened his masculinity as well as his rule over the precinct.
“Actually, sir…” I tried to respond, but he wouldn’t have it.
“I don’t want to hear your actuallys, Davenport. What I’d like to hear is why you are always so intent on making me look like an ass. Even though I called the first scene a suicide, you marched on, all obsessed. Do I need to tell you what is wrong with this picture?” His face was starting to redden. “What is wrong with this picture, Davenport, is that I was right, and you have yet to acknowledge that fact. And, before you get some dumb-ass notion inspired by your ridiculous female intuition, this case and the suicide are not related. Is that clear?” I knew that wasn’t the truth. I also knew that unless I wanted to have my badge and gun taken from me, I had to keep my mouth shut. He slowly looked up at the board. “I want this new case closed, and I want it closed before the public gets word of it. You see, I keep this town clean from smut and filth. I don’t like the citizens knowing this sort of shit goes on under my watch. I don’t like it one bit. In fact, I don’t even like knowing these kinda freaks even exist. Fags, queers, queens, masochists…they have no fucking business being alive as far as I’m concerned.”
He got up close and personal with me. “Since you insist on obsessing over these fucking misfits, I’m putting you in charge of this new case. You have one week to close it. If you don’t close it by then, I’ll close the book on your ass, and it’ll never open again.”
The chief was overstepping his boundaries, and there wasn’t squat I could do about it, at least not at the moment. I just had to let him blow off steam.
“Now, get the fuck out of my face. I’m not stepping foot in this room for one more week, and when I do step in here, there damn well better be a board full of the usual shit and ‘closed’ written all over the top of the mess. Do you understand me?”
I was still in the process of biting my own tongue off to keep myself from biting off his face. I couldn’t move. I was frozen.
“I asked you a question, Davenport!” His voice raised a thousand decibels.
“Perfectly, sir,” I snapped.
Without another word, the chief left the room. I was stranded, trying to remember why I had even come up here in the first place. I stared up at the board and finally remembered the Flower Duet. I walked up to the board, opened a marker and wrote Lakmé - Flower Duet underneath the heading of ‘Suspect.’ After capping the marker, I tacked up the email and the lyrics below the song title. Beside the word ‘Suspect,’ I wrote Gabriella Lakmé???
Stepping back, I took a look at the pitiful amount of clues on the board and repeated the name over and over. “Gabriella Lakmé.” I looked beyond the massive holes on the board. “Lakmé,” I said under my breath. There was something about that. Flower - to bloom. A transformation must take place. And the Flower Duet. And the phrase ‘Let us descend together’….did that mean something? Did the killer feel like he was finding salvation from another atrocity, and that he would rise to another life along with the victim?
Was it about heaven and hell? Good and bad? Or was I looking too deeply? Should I just allow myself the notion that evil doesn’t need purpose to continue?
I looked at the letter the killer had sent to the group. My eyes were crossing, and my mind was drifting. For some strange reason, my mind fluttered down onto thoughts of S’Fonda. He never really told me how and why he got the letter. And why the gloved hands? Was it just his feminine style, or was he trying to cover something up? There was something not right about him. Could S’Fonda be mixed up in this somehow? With the news that the Belles were set against Walter Jameson, it was conceivable that S’Fonda was guilty of quite literally snuffing out the competition. There was some fine thread of logic there, but it simply didn’t hold. Why would S’Fonda commit murder hoping the victim’s friend would then commit suicide out of grief? As strange as this case seemed, I couldn’t believe someone was capable or dumb enough to try to pull off such a fraud. I knew the transgendered crowd could be catty, but killers? That, I couldn’t buy.
I made a mental note to press this issue further. Now my mind really was overflowing. I needed to get away. I needed a distraction.
SEVENTEEN
The mirror lied. The mirror distorted and altered, changing beauty to horror. The mirror was the enemy, a dark, secret enemy that threatened, day in and day out, to seek out the blackest truth hidden deep within the soul. The mirror was always there, threatening to tear apart the boundaries between truth and fiction.
People always tried to hide from the mirror. But what could lipstick hide? The same with eyeliner, blush, and wigs? When handled with skill, those tools could cover nearly any imperfection, even the imperfection of masculinity. The careful strokes of experienced fingers could paint and blend until the facade became the truth. The colors warmed and smoothed the skin.
When handled with skill.
Unfortunately, that special skill eluded him throughout his life. So instead of gentle, feminine lines and soft glowing features, he was greeted in the hateful mirror by a reflection distorted. Caught somewhere between man and woman, filtered through a freakish twist, his face was always a harbinger of hatred. No matter how much he tried, every attempt would bring him to the same conclusions—depression, confusion, and rage.
His body was no better at hiding his tragic flaw, the masculinity he struggled to suppress. With the help of cinchers, girdles, gaffs, and corsets, he was able to tuck and force his figure into pseudo-submission, but the embarrassment of knowing what lay beneath would inevitably become unbearable, and the floodgates of rage would be released.
He stood in the middle of his rented room and looked into a full-length mirror. What he saw was not what he felt. Where he felt a feminine princess, he saw a masculine ogre. His head and tears fell. Sorrow turned to anger, which gave way to a powerful hatred.
The mirror lied. The mirror must suffer. He ran at the rectangular glass with a full-blown head of rage. The glass cracked and shattered. Shards of mirror pierced his arms, face, neck, and legs. Adrenaline kept the pain at bay for the moment. Now he had even more scars to mask. The bile he felt threatening to cross the border of his lips was borne of self-loathing.
He would never be what he wanted, but he would never stop trying. No matter how many times he purged the feelings and the tangible evidence of what he longed to be, they would always find their way back into his life. No matter how many months passed as he tried to live his life with some bit of normalcy, the overpowering desire to transform would return. Along with this desire came the empowering need to help those in his same state to transform forever into the object of their desire. He was their messiah.
He stood in front of the shattered mirror and held out his arms in a crucifixion pose. “I am your Christ. I am your salvation.”
He began to cry, like the little boy lost in the arms of his dying mother, who had been beaten to the point of expiration by his own father. He fell to the floor and curled up into a fetal ball.
“Nooooooo!”
When he looked up, he was looking into the eyes of his gentle mother. Tears were streaking down her face as well as she sung the strange melody and words he couldn’t quite understand at the young age of seven.
“Doucement glissons de son flot charmant,
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l’onde frémissante
D’une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord
Où la source dort et
L’oiseau, l’oiseau chante.”
The young boy knew the song
was from one of the operas his mother would often play when Dad was away. He knew the song brought her peace, which is why she sang it to him when she feared for their lives. Her voice wasn’t as serious as the woman’s on the recording, but it was more comforting to him.
As she stroked his head, she repeated the song again. When Dad came crashing through the door, she rocked him in her lap and sang softer, gathering her will.
Dad stepped into the house, slammed the door behind him, and stared at them as they sat on the floor. The look on Dad’s face was exactly as it had been in the boy’s nightmares. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips were curled in a permanent, hateful scowl, and one eyebrow was lifted higher than the other.
“Well, lookee here. Daddy’s little girl’s on the floor. Daddy’s little lesbian bitches.” He started laughing his evil laugh. “Kiss each other!” He yelled. His voice was already hoarse as if he had been yelling all day.
Mom stopped rocking him and held him tightly.
“Go on! I wanna see my two little bitches make out.” When there was no reaction, Dad reached behind the couch where he kept his bat. Mom was ready for him, though; she had hidden the pain-stick so he wouldn’t find it. “Well, well, you got some balls, woman. I wanna see you use them balls.” He rushed her and, grabbing her by the arm, hauled her to her feet.
“Back to the bedroom. You’re gonna strap it on and use it on our little girl, I think.” He laughed a sick, drunk laugh.
He had no idea what was going on or what his father wanted his mother to do. As they were shoved into the back of the house, he could hear his mother softly singing the duet.
When the door closed behind them, the door to hell seemed to open in front of them.
Mom stopped singing as Dad forced her to get on top of him. The Flower Duet brought him no comfort then.
He came to on the floor of his rent-a-room. A grown man reduced to a weeping boy. But in his weakness, he found strength channeled through anger. As he rose, he felt himself once again filled with purpose. He knew the transformations brought him closer to leaving the painful memories behind. He knew that someday he would be free of the hell that his father had rained down on him and his mother.
Until then, he would bring his gift to those anxiously awaiting it, those poor women trapped in the bodies of men. He would emasculate the willing and wanting.
EIGHTEEN
I was trying to clear my mind of some of the dust when I heard the handle of the War Room door click. I turned to see Craig Wayne. His smile was as crisp as his pressed and starched shirt. He was a suit-and-tie cop. No blues and blacks for this one. I guessed with membership came privileges, but there was no way I could ever belong to that fraternal order of men.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He lowered his head. Was it possible that there was a bit of a shy boy behind the mask of the champion? His charm was growing more powerful by the day.
“Just a lot of nothing. Everything I know about this case is up on the board.” I turned to look at the empty space again. “It may as well be nothing because that’s what it’s telling me.”
I hated to admit it to myself or anyone, but right now, I was going nowhere with my first homicide case. All I had was a song and a target group. I felt more like a corporately-canned boy-band, pieced together by suits for the sole purpose of selling records. Soulless, empty.
There was an obvious air of discomfort floating about the two of us. I wasn’t sure if it was caused by my hidden attraction to the well-groomed, professional Wayne or my embarrassment that this case was going nowhere.
“I heard the chief eating you alive.” He said with his eyes diverted to the ground. Where was he going with this? Did he want to humiliate me?
“The man has an appetite for that kind of thing.”
It looked as if Wayne was opting for his standard diet of compassion. I liked what I was hearing.
“He’s dined on my hide on too many occasions. I have the scars if you’d like to see.” He joked.
Boy, would I! I’m sure the only scars he had would be the ones I’d leave for him to remember me by. Purrrrrrr. God, sometimes I could be so trashy. Fortunately, I kept those trashy thoughts to myself.
I decided to join his laughter instead of slutting out on him. It made for friendlier conversation.
“I think he’s got it in for me this time. I’m not sure what it is, but something is really rubbing him the wrong way on this case. Maybe it hit a little too close to home.” I leaned in a little closer, close enough to get my nose filled with his yummy scent. I couldn’t place his cologne, but it was heavenly. “Maybe the chief has a little hidden secret of his own. You think he goes home at night and pulls on a little silk number and some kitten heels?”
We laughed at the possibility. Thinking of the chief cross-dressing was stuck somewhere in the land between hilarity and calamity.
“You have a musical laugh.” Craig hit me with that compliment out of nowhere. I wasn’t sure, but I may have hit the floor. He knew it affected me, just not exactly how. But then, how could he know that he had just lit a blowtorch in my groin?
“I’m sorry. That was probably out of line.” His eyes went back to the floor.
“Oh no, no. You’re perfect. I mean, you’re fine. And I mean that in the polite way, as in f-i-n-e.” I tried to cover all my bases.
“You mean instead of p-h-i-n-e?” He caught my gimmick.
“Well…I mean…sure, you’re also p-h-i-n-e as well. But in that instance, I meant f-i-n-e.” Hello, high school, have you seen my behavior lately?
Again, we shared a nice laugh. Comfort was becoming a mutual friend of ours.
“How would you like to have dinner with me, Jamie?” He asked sheepishly.
I wondered if he saw my jaw hit the floor. Surely he did. And the red flush of my face? And what about the ten-degree rise of my body temperature? Oh God, what an embarrassing moment. I couldn’t form the words. My brain was screaming at my mouth to speak the monosyllabic word yes. How hard could it be?
I was obviously testing my limits of rudimentary human behavior. But by some miracle of nature, the word came out. My mouth opened, and the next thing I knew Craig was telling me he’d call me about a date. He left the room with a smile and the lingering smell of his cologne.
Earth to Jamie. Don’t look now, but you were just asked out on a date. Not that a date was actually set, but the groundwork was laid. And it wasn’t a man who wavered somewhere between straight and gay. A full-fledged, incredibly attractive, straight man just asked you out on a date!
For a moment, I forgot where I was. I forgot about the hell that I had gone through with the chief and the confusion of the case that I was in a race to solve.
Naturally, it forced its way back into my life with a slap on the face and no kiss goodnight.
NINTEEN
I hadn’t had much thinking time before Skip stormed into the War Room.
“Dollface, we got another victim. Call just came in.” Skip was calmer than I expected him to be. Either that, or he was beginning to fear the unknown of the case. I was hoping for calm. Calm I could use. “Well, let’s go, sweetums.”
“I’m coming.” I spoke simply and turned to leave the room. Before I could leave, however, I ripped down the lyrics to the song. I wanted to share them with Skip before any of the goons got hold of them.
We reached the car in record time. Skip did the driving as usual so I could read him what I had. His reaction was as confused as mine had been. “So, this guy has just taken it upon himself to save the entire transgendered community? Only his idea of salvation is a direct route to the pearly gates. It sounds more like this killer thinks he’s saving them from something else, like the rest of the world.”
That caught me off guard. “You think he’s trying to save them from a lifetime of humiliation?” I thought about that for a moment. “No. I don’t believe that’s what’s going on. If that was the case, he wouldn’t be dressing them. It’s more like h
e’s humiliating them, intentionally making us see them for what he thinks they really are.”
“Okay, so he’s outing these victims after he kills them—the ultimate shame.” Skip spoke as if he’d solved this case. “Like he’s saying the victims don’t deserve to live, and the public deserves to know what they are.”
I was skeptical. “I don’t know. Something’s not right. The email to that group might have been a bit self-righteous, but it didn’t sound malicious. We’re missing something here. The bigger picture.”
We sat quietly for a while. My head was flipping through facts, past cases I’d read about, possible scenarios, and possible connections. But nothing was connecting. Sometimes it was like that. Sometimes cases and killers were able to slip right through our fingers as if we were as clueless as the public wanted to think we were. I wasn’t going to let it happen this time.
“Where was this victim found?” I asked. Skip jumped, obviously caught deep in thought.
“Pleasure Ridge Park area, southeast side.” Skip’s voice was unsteady. Something was wrong with him.
“You want to tell me what’s up? You’re not yourself.” No reply. “Skipper. Come on, ‘fess up. What gives?”
There was another awkward silence, but he finally gave in. “I know the victim.”
I was waiting for this very thing to happen to one of us. It was a fear I lived with as an officer. We all just waited for a case to hit home.
“His name is Tye Siam. He was a performer at Club Connect. I’ve known him since we were little kids. He used to stop the bullies from picking on me in elementary school. Then I hit puberty and returned the favor. He was a good man.”
Again, something wasn’t right. There were questions that I had to ask. “Skip, I realize this is pretty bad timing, but…”
