One Dead Drag Queen

by Zubro, Mark Richard

  I was alive only because I was too annoyed to stay and argue with a woman who was now dead. Because a little boy had dropped a ball. There was no decision I could have made, no action I could have taken, to change what had happened.

  20

  Morning’s discomforting light arrived far sooner than I wished. While Scott was in the shower, the phone rang. The service had a message from Angus Thieme. I called him at his hotel. His militia expert could meet us in an hour at the Breakfast Club on Hubbard Street.

  I told Scott. He pulled back the shower curtain and said, “You should call McCutcheon so he can go with us.”

  With some reluctance I did so. McCutcheon said he’d have the car outside in half an hour. I wondered if he was ever late or ever held up in traffic or ever anything less than perfect. I wished I trusted him more.

  I showered and shaved quickly. The weather was cooler so I wore a sweater Scott had bought for me in Ireland two winters ago. He wore a University of Arizona sweatshirt.

  The Breakfast Club is an amazingly pleasant place to have breakfast. If you go, try the scones. They are unimaginably good and a delightful bonus after the superior main fare.

  A bald, portly figure matching Thieme’s description stood outside on the corner. There was no line waiting on a Wednesday. We were seated immediately. Owen Harvey looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. The bottom portion of his left earlobe was oddly jagged as if it might have been cut off by an unsharpened knife or bitten through and ripped away. I had to stop myself from staring at this oddity.

  After we ordered, Harvey said, “Angus says you boys are in a bit of a fix. He asked me to help you out.”

  “Who do you work for?” Scott asked.

  “Officially I’m a freelancer, but mostly I work for United States government agencies. If you want identification, you’re out of luck.”

  Again, I was hesitant about trusting a stranger, but what could we do? Have confidence in a stranger or get no information. I didn’t see any other way out. I said, “We’re suspicious about a guy named Ken McCutcheon, who was using the name of Forandi in Bosnia. Also, if you could tell us anything else about the bombing investigation, we’d appreciate it. I was in the explosion. We’ve also been personally threatened.” Scott and I gave him details about our problem.

  When we finished, Harvey said, “People employ me mostly for background information. Antiabortion protesters are one of my specialties. McCutcheon’s name has come up on the periphery of a number of my other investigations. I’ve never been able to ascertain if he’s a problem or a solution. Maybe a little of both. I’m sorry I don’t know more. I know nothing about his activities in Bosnia.”

  Scott asked, “Can you tell us anything about that banquet with all those protesters in attendance?”

  “I have no indication that any of them set the bomb. A lot of the fanatics started out as perfectly nice people who just got themselves in deeper. Much of the impetus has come from members of the Catholic Church, which I hasten to add, as an institution, always condemns violence against the clinics and the workers.”

  “Do you think they’re sincere?”

  “I have absolutely no proof or even a slight suspicion that the Catholic Church is leading a vast conspiracy to destroy abortion clinics or murder people. The cardinals and bishops don’t go in for guns and bombs. They have enough clout by picking up the phone and talking to politicians. Violence could put that power at risk. Nor do I have any reason to believe that any of the mainstream or radical-right Protestant churches have anything to do with organizing violence.”

  Scott asked, “What about the atmosphere they create that gives aid and comfort to those who do the violence?”

  “All of that is politics,” Harvey replied, “not forensics. Not hard data. People can be felled by any kind of crazy idea. If I get involved in the debate between freedom of speech and death threats, I get nowhere. I stick to real facts.”

  “What can you tell us?” I asked.

  “I found out some information on the protesters outside the clinic. I have passed this on to the police, of course, and to Angus, who I have worked with before. We have been of benefit to each other.”

  Our food arrived. We ate for a few minutes in silence. Then Harvey said, “Most of the people who protest outside the Human Services Clinic are simply good people drawn to a cause they believe in very deeply. A hard-core group of about seven were the ones who really kept it alive. Of those seven, two are known to be prone to violence. They are suspected in three clinic incidents in Florida and one in Seattle.”

  “Why weren’t they targets of investigations before?” Scott asked.

  “They were. The key word here is suspected. No one has been able to prove anything. Some of the pro-life people kill and run. However, these folks have managed to stay above ground and beyond the reach of the law. After an incident of violence they’re the bunch that claim no responsibility. The kind who yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater and claim to be innocent after so many die.”

  “They can really get away with that?” Scott asked.

  “Mostly they do.”

  I asked, “Do protesters really move around that much?”

  “Oh, yes. They’re a lot like people who used to go to Grateful Dead concerts. They travel from one hot-button spot to another. They hear about a big protest being planned, and they all hurry out to wherever it is. The two I mentioned have been in and out of town a lot recently. That kind of travel on their part is not inherently suspicious, but I believe the authorities are trying to be sure of exactly where they were when.”

  Scott said, “You mean finding out if they rented a truck like the one used in the explosion.”

  “So far no one has a lead on that. No one around the country has reported one missing.”

  “How hard can it be to buy your own?” Scott asked. “Or pick up a used semi at a used-semi sale? There must be such things.”

  “They’re still trying to trace it,” Harvey said. “The truck in the Oklahoma bombing was traced because they found part of the axle with a serial number on it. Nobody has reported finding any such thing here.”

  I asked, “Does either one of the two people you’re talking about have a background in explosives?”

  “I’m not aware that either one is a bomb expert. You don’t need a background in explosives anymore. All you need is a computer hooked up to the Internet. It helps if you know some other crazies, but that is not essential.”

  I said, “Instant worldwide communication, a boon for the new millennium.”

  “I use it all the time,” Harvey said. “It’s easier to keep up with the crazies that way. You can share information with legitimate sources. You’ve heard the rumor about Braxton Thornburg?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m working on the assumption that he was here. We’ll see how far that gets me. The two people I’ve been talking about are Omega Collins and Edward Eggleston. You may have seen pictures of Eggleston on TV news or in the paper. He’s the emaciated one with the big nose. He tries to get himself arrested, and as soon as the cops touch him, he screams brutality. His father was a precinct worker in the Democratic organization on the southeast side of Chicago. Edward was an altar boy, Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, honor student, by all accounts a teenage saint.”

  I said, “His peers probably hated him.”

  “He was voted most likely to succeed in his senior year of high school. He started to get radicalized in college. He is said to have talked the girl he was dating out of having an abortion.”

  Scott said, “Can you blame him for wanting to save a child that was his?”

  Harvey said, “In fact, it wasn’t his own kid. He and the girl didn’t have sex. He was saving himself for marriage.”

  “How’d she feel about all this?”

  “They were married the day he graduated from college. She had the kid a few weeks before the ceremony. Since then they’ve had three more kids in five years. I’
m told he is a doting father to all four children.”

  Scott asked, “How does he pay the bills if he’s out protesting?”

  “He’s officially the head of the splinter group nominally sponsoring the protests.” Harvey glanced at a piece of paper. “They call themselves Jesus’ Family.”

  “Never heard of them,” Scott said.

  “It’s just the name for their umbrella group so they can have a tax-exempt status, and so people have a name and address to send donations to. The address is a post office box rented by Eggleston.”

  “Could he really be the bomber?” Scott asked. “He sounds more like he should be posing for pedestals.”

  “After incredible amounts of hard work, I managed to get hold of all the Web sites he’s visited on his computer. They included lots of places that sold guns and talked about bombs.”

  “I thought all of that was classified,” Scott said. “Don’t the on-line companies get in trouble for giving out that kind of information?”

  “If you’ve got a computer on-line,” Harvey said, “I can probably find out just about anything I want about what you’ve been doing. Not everything, but more than you’d ever want me to.”

  “You’re not just bragging?” Scott asked.

  “Nope.”

  I asked, “Who is this Omega person?”

  “Omega Collins is a piece of work.” Harvey mopped up the remnants of his whipped cream with the last bits of scone, took a sip of coffee, and then explained, “Before I began investigating her, Omega used to be a great deal of a mystery woman. She’d travel from city to city and didn’t seem to have a permanent address. She had no visible means of support. She liked to keep an aura of intrigue and danger about her.”

  “Is she dangerous?” Scott asked.

  “I think so.”

  I asked, “Is there any evidence she was involved in any bombings?”

  “No,” Harvey admitted. “It’s been mostly a pattern of attacks in cities she’s been in. Attacks that start when she arrives and stop when she goes.”

  Scott said, “That sounds like the pattern with Gloria Dellios.”

  “Who is she?” Harvey asked.

  I explained.

  Harvey said, “I’ve never heard of her, although that doesn’t mean anything. Actually working inside the clinic would be unique. I agree with you that it doesn’t seem likely that a true believer would be able to be that close to that which they most despise, but I’ll look into her as well.”

  I said, “A smart terrorist could become aware of patterns of behavior among clinic workers and time their activities on an innocent person’s schedule.”

  Harvey looked thoughtful. “Very possible. Proving a conspiracy has been done, but it’s tough. The abortion rights groups have won all kind of judgments and injunctions against various protesters, but the victories in court often don’t do a lot of good. The pro-life crowd isn’t generally very wealthy. True believers seldom are. What good does it do to win a million-dollar settlement against someone who hasn’t even got a savings account?”

  “Or have divested themselves of all assets beforehand,” Scott commented.

  “What did you find out about her?” I asked.

  “She comes from a poor family in the hills of Kentucky. No one is sure where or why she decided that abortion was her cause. She dropped out of high school about ten years ago. Her only listed address is the family farm, but she often disappears from there, sometimes for months at a time. They claim not to know where she is. She’s barely five feet tall and weighs less than a hundred pounds, but she’s got enough of a temper to fuel several religious wars. I get rumors of a violent home life, but I can’t get anyone in her hometown to open up about her. A real hills-and-hollers you’re-a-stranger-you’re-the-enemy mentality. She’s tough. If you see a picture on the news of a woman yelling shrill obscenities outside a clinic, it’s probably her. You must have seen the famous picture of her, by herself, facing down a line of marching lesbians in Houston a couple of years ago?”

  I nodded, then asked, “But she’s done nothing provably criminal?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Would it do any good for us to talk to either one of them?”

  “You ever talked to one of these people?” Harvey asked.

  “No.”

  “You would get bored really fast. Listening to them is like hearing a one-note symphony, not a lot of fun and very, very irritating very, very quickly. You guys are too well-known. I doubt if you’d get past introducing yourselves.”

  Scott asked, “Can’t you get them away from their fellow workers and the television cameras? Maybe they’re different once the floodlights are turned off.”

  “I’ve never known them to be.”

  Scott said, “They must pay the bills, talk about child care and grocery shopping, buy toilet paper. There must be a human connection.”

  “You’d think so,” Harvey said. “I’ve had coffee with some of them. I even ate a burger with a guy who went out and assassinated a doctor the next week. He seemed perfectly normal to me. They don’t wear neon letter A’s on their shirt-fronts.”

  I asked, “If we decide to talk to them, can you give us any advice about the approach we should take?”

  Harvey shrugged. “If you get close enough to introduce yourself, speak calmly and don’t excite them.”

  Scott said, “You sound like we need to treat them like they’re wounded animals or criminally insane.”

  “They are certainly not the first and are probably not the latter. I just know I would never back one of them into a corner. They combine the naïveté and viciousness of true believers to as great a degree as the most rabid Islamic fundamentalist or IRA terrorist.”

  I asked, “Who else would you recommend that we talk to?”

  “Depends what you’re trying to do. For example, I think it would be a waste of time talking to any of the people at the banquet. While they could have used a remote-control bomb or a timer, I heard they all have alibis for the time of the explosion. If you’re trying to solve the bombing, I’d say forget it. You don’t have the resources. You’d be surprised how many of these bombers get away. It’s true international terrorists are frequently given safe havens by hostile governments, but more often the chase ends more in frustration. Look how long it took to find the Unabomber. Thornburg’s been running for years. If you’re trying to deal with who is threatening you, I’m not sure what to tell you.”

  “We’ve got to try something. I’m not sure where to turn next.”

  “You’ve got Angus Thieme on your side. He enjoys the good things in life a little too much now to be as effective as he was in the old days. Still, Angus is better than most. Do not underestimate Angus’s goodwill. Having the liberal press on your side is no bad thing. He got me to talk to you.”

  We thanked him and left. Outside, Scott said, “Are you really going to try to talk to one of those people?”

  “We might.”

  McCutcheon leaned against his Hummer about thirty feet from us. He’d been as polite, efficient, and correct as he always was.

  Scott asked, “Why are Kearn, Thieme, and Harvey being so nice to us?”

  “Kearn is interested because he sees us as part of a possible ticket to a national news desk in New York or maybe his own cable-television show. He’s pretty enough that it could happen. Maybe they all have sympathy for us because of who we are.”

  Scott said, “Three straight men who are suddenly at the forefront in helping two gay guys is a tough concept for me to swallow. And don’t say I’m having cognitive dissonance. Save that for your friends at school.”

  “I simply try to describe what I see.”

  “Leave that to the existentialist.”

  “What?”

  “Skip it. The point is, why are these people being nice to us?”

  “I don’t know. Shouldn’t we talk to some of your friends who had McCutcheon as a client and see if we can find out more about him?” />
  “Nobody knew anything then, why would they now?”

  “He must come from somewhere real. He can’t have appeared out of nowhere.”

  “I agree, but believe me, no one knows.”

  “A disgruntled former worker would be good.”

  “I don’t know any. I’ve only met the guys who guard me.”

  “We could go to his offices.”

  “And what, beat down the door, which is probably unlocked, beat the truth out of employees who may know as little as we do?”

  “Let’s ask him,” I suggested.

  “It’s that simple?”

  “I’d be happy to have a better suggestion.” Scott didn’t have one.

  We strolled over to McCutcheon. He gazed at us evenly. I began, “We want to find out if you are a threat to us. We have absolutely no clue as to how to proceed. We thought we’d start with you.”

  McCutcheon smiled. “Isn’t that sort of like the hound asking the fox for tips?”

  “Aren’t you willing to help us clear you from the suspect list? Only if you were one of the ones conspiring against us would you feel the need to keep your mouth shut.”

  “It’s taken you a while to get to that insight.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been unconscious. Sometimes that slows me down. We could use some background. Why don’t you tell anyone about yourself? What’s the point of being so mysterious about who you are and where you came from?”

  “The point is, it’s nobody’s business.”

  “But why? You may not owe us an explanation, but can’t you see it would make a difference to us?”

  “Why don’t we get into the car and then we can talk.”

  I sat in the front with McCutcheon. Scott was in the back.

  “I don’t think telling you is going to help much, because who I am and why I am the way I am is not going to tell you who is a threat to you. I don’t know why you would believe me. At any rate, an outline. I was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I’m thirty, although everyone thinks I’m younger. I’ve never been married. I’ve had sex with men and women, although I pretty much prefer not to have sex at all.”