Black and Blue and Pretty Dead, Too

by Mark Zubro

  An elderly woman in a pink-flowered housecoat answered the door.

  Turner and Fenwick identified themselves. Then Turner said, “We’re looking for Mrs. Belger.”

  “I’m her mother, Belinda Smith. She’s not here. She works the night shift. She gets home around seven. What’s wrong?”

  Turner said, “May we come in? We have news.”

  “My daughter’s all right?”

  “Yes. We’d like to talk.”

  She glanced at their badges again, eyed them warily for several moments, then nodded. They followed her to the kitchen where she pressed a button on the automatic coffee maker. No dishes in the sink, a first grader’s drawings on the refrigerator, plastic place mats on the table, a pink-plastic paper-napkin holder. She plunked mugs in front of them without asking. She plopped her frame onto a chair with a sigh Fenwick would envy. She lit a cigarette, then asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Your son-in-law died this evening.”

  Her shoulders visibly relaxed. “Was the worthless fool in an accident?”

  Turner said, “No, ma’am, he was murdered.”

  Her eyes flicked from one detective to the other. “I can’t say that’s a surprise. Ever since that incident in the bar, I knew something would happen. My husband was a cop. I know how things work. Our house has been spray-painted, trash strewn on the lawn, all for some silly bimbo.”

  Fenwick said, “The woman on the tape looked like she needed help.”

  Mrs. Jones said, “My son-in-law didn’t give a shit about that woman, or anyone else except himself.”

  Turner knew that a bonus in any investigation is finding someone who didn’t like the deceased. Friends and lovers tend to say only positive things about the dead one and seldom led to suspects, clues, or solutions. Enemies were gold.

  Fenwick said, “He was found underground at the Prairie Street Train Station. They were having a leather event at the time. He say anything about going there?”

  “Where?”

  Fenwick repeated the name of the station and the location.

  “What’s a leather event?” Mrs. Smith asked.

  Turner said, “A place where mostly gay men who like leather as part of their sexual expression get together. This one was called the Black and Blue party. He ever talk about anything like that?”

  “Not a word. Never. But he didn’t have to.”

  The detectives waited using one of their most potent weapons in an interrogation, silence.

  She stubbed out her cigarette, got up, took the coffee pot, filled her mug, and, without asking, filled theirs. She didn’t offer cream or sugar. She sipped hers black.

  She said, “I’m not a snoop. I respect my daughter.”

  “You found something,” Fenwick prompted.

  “You bet. He was a pervert. Was he gay?”

  “We don’t know,” Turner said.

  “I found all these whips and things. Disgusting things. I didn’t say a word to my daughter. It wasn’t my business. I know sometimes a man needs to make sure his wife obeys. I understand that. I’m not like these modern women who whine at every little thing, and I never saw him lay a hand on my daughter or their kids.”

  “But you found something that led you to think he might do something violent?”

  “It made me suspicious. He was weird.”

  “Weird, how?” Turner asked.

  “He always watched violent movies. We had to tell him over and over not to let the kids watch.”

  “May we see what you found?” Fenwick asked.

  “I’m not sure.” She lit another cigarette, pulled in a lungful of smoke, slowly let it out. “I guess so.” She stabbed the unfinished cigarette into the ashtray.

  She took them to a clean bedroom with a double bed with a black and blue quilt as a cover. She said, “This is the guest bedroom. No one is supposed to ever go in here. At least, I’m not. I’m not a snoop.”

  Not a snoop, Turner thought. Only if pigs flew. But at the moment you’re our snoop, so I don’t care.

  Mrs. Smith glanced out the window at the driveway, then led them to the closet. She had to remove several boxes from the interior until she got to one on the floor in the back.

  They examined the collection. Several whips, leather vests, dildos in assorted sizes and colors, a box of condoms.

  Turner asked, “May we take these?”

  “It’s not up to me,” Mrs. Smith said.

  Turner said, “We’ll ask your daughter.”

  A car pulled into the driveway.

  Mrs. Smith rushed to return all of the items to the box and the box to the closet. She hustled the detectives back to the kitchen. She lit another cigarette. Headlights shut off. A car door slammed. The back door opened and shut.

  Jasmine Belger hurried into the room. Belger’s wife looked like a loser in a Dolly Parton look-alike contest. Her blond wig towered above her tiny head. Her skimpy halter top could barely contain her outsized breasts. If her dress clung any more tightly, she might have erupted from it at any point like toothpaste from a tube. In a brassy and unpleasant voice, she said,“Mother, you shouldn’t be smoking. Who are you guys? I got a call at work. I came right home. Has something happened to the children?”

  Mrs. Smith said, “The kids are fine.”

  “Something’s happened to Trent. The friend who called, she’s the wife of a cop. She said something happened.”

  Turner said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Belger, your husband is dead.”

  “Some criminal killed him. I warned him. I knew this would happen. I knew it.” She reached for a paper napkin and dried her eyes as she slumped into a chair. “What happened?”

  Mrs. Smith held her daughter’s hand.

  Turner said, “He wasn’t on duty tonight.”

  “He said he was,” Mrs. Belger said.

  Mrs. Smith nodded confirmation.

  “He wasn’t,” Turner said. “He was found at the Black and Blue party, a leather event for the gay community.” He gave her the same explanation as he had her mother.

  Mrs. Belger said, “A gay event? He wasn’t gay. Maybe he was working undercover.”

  Turner said, “He wasn’t working undercover. He was in leather pants and a chain harness. He’d been whipped. He had slash marks on his back.”

  “I never saw any scars.”

  “The whipping he took tonight might have left some, but there weren’t any from before.”

  Fenwick asked, “You ever play with leather, whips, dress up for each other?”

  “Never.”

  Turner said, “Mrs. Smith let us look through some of his things. We found a box of leather items including dildos.”

  “Mother, where did you find this? How did you know it was there? You let them look?”

  “I wasn’t snooping in your stuff. It was his.”

  “I told you not to snoop.”

  Fenwick interrupted. “She did, and we’ve seen it. We think there may be a connection to the murder.”

  As they trooped to the bedroom, Mrs. Belger asked, “What leather items? I’ve never seen a dildo in this house.”

  Fenwick retrieved the box from the closet and opened it.

  Mrs. Belger glanced inside and gasped. “What are these doing here?”

  Fenwick said, “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never seen those things before.”

  They returned to the kitchen. Fenwick carried the box tucked under his arm and then placed it under his chair.

  Mrs. Belger said, “He was a good man. A good provider. I loved him. He loved me. I don’t understand any of this. He wasn’t gay. Those must be...” She stopped. Turner imagined she was trying to find a plausible explanation for them being in her house. Couldn’t.

  “That was his closet,” she said. “Other than to hang up his clothes, I never went in there.”

  Turner said, “Mrs. Smith said you’ve had some trouble with vandalism.”

  “Ever since that stupi
d, stupid incident in the bar. He should never have gotten involved. I told him to apologize. I told him to make it right. He said it would blow over. He said that bartender was a conniving bitch. And that partner of his! I didn’t like his partner. I told him I didn’t like his partner. He said he was a good guy. That he could depend on him. Ha!”

  “How was she a conniving bitch?”

  “She’d fling herself at any man. There were always guys fighting over her.”

  “Was that what happened that night?” Turner asked. “Were they fighting over her?”

  “All he told me was that Callaghan was an asshole, and this would all get taken care of. I saw the tape. Callaghan was a brute.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “I met Callaghan at Ninth District social events like the Christmas party. That’s all. I didn’t get near him. He came on to me once.”

  “Were there bad feelings about that?” Fenwick asked.

  “I never told my husband. I’d had a lot to drink that night, too.”

  “Did your husband have enemies on the force?”

  “No. It was always just him and Callaghan. He never mentioned much of anybody else.”

  Fenwick asked, “Was your husband having an affair with that bartender?”

  “No, that’s impossible.” She placed her hands on the side of her head and began balling her hair in her fists and pulling her hair. Gently, Mrs. Smith took her daughter’s hands in hers. Mrs. Belger said, “What am I going to tell the kids? What am I going to do?” She glanced at the box. “I don’t believe any of this.”

  She was too distraught to answer any more questions. So far she’d denied all knowledge of her husband’s whereabouts or any particularly odd sexual wants or desires.

  Mrs. Smith said, “Maybe you should leave.”

  Fenwick simply picked up the box and took it with them. He didn’t ask permission, didn’t hide what he was doing. They’d send the box to the lab.

  After the rituals in the car to induce a breeze, Fenwick said, “How can she not know that her husband was into getting whipped?”

  “There weren’t any scars.”

  “How can a wife not know? Madge has radar for noticing the slightest thing. And she’s got me trained to notice things about her.”

  Turner knew for certain that Fenwick never missed a birthday or anniversary. He suspected it wasn’t because Madge nagged, but that Fenwick deeply loved her and would go to great extremes to keep her happy. And Fenwick would rather have his tongue ripped out than admit that to another man.

  Turner said, “If Ben didn’t notice, then I’d be worried. How can you live with someone and miss such a thing?”

  Fenwick asked, “In our years doing this how many odd and inexplicable things have we seen?”

  “More than I ever imagined.”

  Fenwick said, “The longer I’m a cop the only thing I learn is people are more weird than anyone would care to imagine.”

  “You noticed her looks?” Turner asked.

  “You noticed and you’re gay. What’s not to notice? Although I try not to use noticing and Madge in the same sentence.”

  Turner said, “What about that crap about the pass made at the Christmas party?”

  Fenwick said, “We’re never getting the truth about that. Who was drunker? Who was coming on to whom? Bullshit.”

  “But Madge would know if you did such a thing.”

  “Madge would know if a gnat landed on my ass in the middle of the night. For these guys I think maybe an elephant stampede could crash by at high noon, and they might or might not notice. We’ll have to talk to his first wife. See if she’s got a little better insight. I’m sure she’s got a unique perspective on all this.”

  Turner said, “There is something odd about that incident in the bar. I think it’s the heart of what’s going on, but I don’t feel like I’ve got a handle on it.”

  Fenwick said, “Think the bartender’s awake?”

  It was a little after two. “Awake or not, we need to see her this morning. It’s a murder investigation and we need to be ahead of what’s going on. I think we’re behind. Way behind. Violence and cops? It’s the way we live. We’re up to our armpits in it every day.”

  “Without it we’d be out of a job.”

  Turner said, “Depressingly true. You think a cop did it?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Turner said, “As a wise old friend of mine put it, fuck-a-doodle-do.”

  Fenwick said, “We should try the first wife as well.”

  Turner glanced at the still-dark eastern horizon. The dawn was hours away. “She’s the next logical person.” He glanced at the materials Barb Dams had sent. It listed the first wife’s current address. He mentioned it to his partner.

  “Barb is brilliant,” Fenwick said. “She’d know the logical progression as well as we would. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t in there.”

  They drove over the Chicago city limits to Cicero.

  THIRTEEN

  Belger’s first wife lived on a street filled with a row of Chicago bungalows, narrow houses with gables parallel to the street, constructed of dark maroon brick with only a few feet between them. She lived just south of Pershing Road. They only had to knock once before she answered. They introduced themselves.

  She said, “Wife number two called to tell me the news. I hope he suffered.” She wore gray sweatpants and a blue T-shirt. She led them to her kitchen. Clean, neat with a New York Firemen calendar on the wall. She caught Turner glancing at it. She said, “My current husband is a fireman. He’s on duty.”

  Turner and Fenwick sat opposite her.

  Fenwick said, “You’re glad he’s dead.”

  “I’d love to be dancing in the street. If it wasn’t so hot out, I probably would.”

  “The two of you had problems?” Turner asked.

  “That’s putting it too mildly. I was naïve when I married him. I thought the little sexual peccadilloes were something I could handle. After he hauled out the whips and leather, I said adios.”

  “Not your scene?” Fenwick asked.

  “No.”

  Turner said, “I’m trying to ask this delicately…”

  She interrupted, “Was our sex life normal?”

  Turner nodded.

  “I was seldom satisfied. I don’t think he was either. Once, at his urging, I tied his wrists together. I thought it was just silly. I laughed at him.”

  Fenwick said, “We found him with a dildo up his butt and what looked like a cue ball stuck in his mouth.”

  “I can tell you he loved to have his butt played with. That was disgusting. Another time he wanted me to strap on a dildo and do him. That was even more disgusting.”

  Fenwick said, “Wife number two claimed she never saw the dildos or leather items.”

  “Maybe he learned his lesson. Maybe he went outside the marriage. As far as I know, he never cheated on me.”

  Turner said, “You’d think he’d have mentioned those oddities before the marriage.”

  “The idiot didn’t. He thought I’d just go along. He thought I’d cheerfully give in to his whims. He was gross and pathetic. Total yecch. When I wouldn’t give in, he got nasty.”

  “Did he hit you?” Turner asked.

  “He tried to. He came after me one night. I beat the shit out of him.” She shook her head. “He liked it! He wanted me to do more. I moved out the next day. That wasn’t my idea of a life together.”

  “He was found at a gay leather party.”

  “You know,” she said, “after the dildo incident I was suspicious. I mean things never worked out sexually between us, but he never mentioned guys. It’s the kind of thing where you say, could he be, but by that time I didn’t care enough about him. I just didn’t want to think about him. Ever.”

  “Did you meet Callaghan?”

  “I’ll say. That man was a menace. That man and my husband were a lethal combination, and I’m not talking about that
problem in the bar. That was a joke.”

  “How so?” Turner asked.

  “You think that was the first time Callaghan roughed up a woman? I know he went after his wife before she divorced him. I know because she’d be over here crying both before and after I got divorced from my idiot.”

  “You knew the Callaghans?” Fenwick asked.

  “Sure. We’d socialize once in a while as a foursome. Callaghan’s wife and I were on a couple of social committees. Our kids went to the same school for a while.”

  “How did your husband and Callaghan get along?”

  “I must have been really naïve when I was younger. I thought all partners did what they did.”

  “What was that?” Turner asked.

  “Well, they palled around together, and sure they joked, but they ribbed each other unmercifully. The arguments would start about small stuff, sports usually. They’d egg each other on, and it would escalate. By the end of the arguments, if it had been two women, both of them would have been in tears. But they just kept being buddies.”

  “Why didn’t either of them put in for transfers?” Turner asked.

  “Because even after the most violent arguments, they’d be all buddies again the next day. The fights got fueled by late nights, shots of booze, and gallons of beer. They’d sober up, and the whole cycle would start again.”

  “Any actual physical fights?” Turner asked.

  “Not that I know of, but no, there was one totally odd incident. This must have happened about a year before our divorce. Trent came in one night, and he was sobbing. He was sure they were going to fire him.”

  “What happened?” Turner asked.

  “Him and his buddy had beaten up some suspect. You remember Commander Burge and how people are trying to sue him?”

  Turner nodded. It was a notorious case and no cops had been arrested, yet. Suspects in Burge’s old Area claimed to have had confessions beaten out of them. Turner knew cops rarely actually beat confessions out of suspects in this day and age, but some cops still walked a thin line.

  She said, “This went beyond the usual. They tasered the guy. Took turns zapping him. Turned out they nearly killed him.”