Keeping Secrets
Page 4
“Because of the way the hands were folded?” Gianna asked. “Yep. And I’ll tell you something else. You people better hunker down for the long haul. This is a real sicko, but a really smart sicko and he won’t make many mistakes.”
Gianna grimaced. “He’s already made one,” she said steely voiced.
“What’s that?” Landing demanded.
“He’s let us know he hates homosexuals.”
The old man’s grunt sounded exactly like that of an angry bear. “This bastard hates life and the living,” he rumbled.
After the forensics man left, Gianna took up his pacing. She couldn’t stop wondering what kind of mind could perpetrate so horrible, so painful, so tortuous a death, and then, after watching the victims expire, fold their hands over the bloody mess. He hates homosexuals, she thought. He hates life and the living. Landing’s growly voice reverberated inside her brain. A real sicko. She spent the weekend poring over psychiatric profiles of serial killers, hoping to find a hint of an answer.
Mimi spent the weekend a hundred fifty miles from Washington, in Western Maryland, in a cabin on Deep Creek Lake owned by her best friend, Freddy Schuyler, a former Washington Redskin offensive tackle and current owner the hottest nightclub in D.C. They’d been friends since college, when, after a few dates, they realized each other’s truth. They liked each other as friends and didn’t want to pursue the mating charade. They became inseparable, allowing people to think what they wished while they blissfully double-dated with their respective lovers. That they’d both ended up in Washington had been purely miraculous.
They now sat on the floor before the stone fireplace that spanned an entire wall of the cabin, drinking champagne and eating popcorn. Mimi filled Freddy in on the story—she always told him everything about every investigation so that in case something went wrong, somebody would know what she was working on. She also respected his views and his values.
“Why those four people?” she demanded. “It’s not like they were leading ACT UP demonstrations. They were deep in the closet.”
“You know better than to look for logic in these situations. Look at that deputy mayor you just busted. Why in the hell would he think he could run that kind of scam and get away with it? Why does anybody care who anybody else loves?”
They watched the flames flicker and leap and dance. Then he said, “Anyway, I’m more worried right now about people who’re supposed to be on my side than about unseen enemies. Talk about crazies!” Freddy slapped his thigh in irritation. “These outing people are about drive me insane!”
“The what people?”
“Outing. Where the hell have you been, Mimi? There is other news than the stories you write, you know. Outing, as in out of the closet.”
“You mean that group trying to make the gay movie stars ‘fess up? That’s Hollywood, Freddy.”
“Tell that to the two creeps who keep bugging me about coming out. Young athletes need me as a role model, they say. They’ve threatened to yank open my closet door if I don’t voluntarily.”
“But that’s...they can’t do that! That could destroy your business!” Mimi was appalled.
“You’re telling me?” A glum Freddy got up to open another bottle of champagne and when he returned to the hearth, his equilibrium was restored.
“Drink a toast to me, darling Mimi. While you were rounding up the bad guys, I was falling in love. His name’s Cedric, he’s British, he teaches poetry at Rutgers, and I want you to meet him. Can you imagine a Black guy named Cee-drick? And a poet? Good thing he didn’t grow up in my South Central Los Angeles neighborhood.”
Mimi laughed at Freddy’s excitement and hugged him close, privately cursing the myopic narrow-mindedness that had prevented so many men from seeing the warm, gentle spirit who lived inside Freddy Schuyler’s football-player body. She held him as he told her how, after a three month courtship, they’d gone together for an AIDS test, promising to stay together no matter what the results.
“I have no words to describe the feeling when we both got our negative results. It was like being born again, Mimi.”
“I’m so happy for you,” she said, brushing away tears. “And I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Next Saturday night. I’ll cook. Vegetarian lasagna, just for you.”
Surprised, she said, “You’re taking two weekends in a row off from the nightclub?”
He shrugged, the gloom settling back over him. “I’m supposed to be outed next weekend. I thought maybe if I wasn’t there....”
“Dammit, Anna, stop being so bullheaded!”
“Trying to catch a murderer, trying to save you and me and the department major embarrassment, trying to keep our collective butts out of a sling— that’s being bullheaded? Oh, well, excuuuuusse me.” Her sarcasm was as half-hearted as her boss’ ire. They faced each other across his massive oak desk stacked high with piles of papers and reports and crime stats. Captain Eddie Davis was head of Criminal Intelligence, to which the Hate Crimes Unit and Gianna reported, and she knew he had no earthly idea that she was thinking, as she looked at him, not about the four unsolved murders plaguing them, but how very much he resembled Sidney Poitier. She suspected it was the foremost thought in the mind of every woman he encountered, and he’d heard it so often that he no longer paid attention when people said it to him.
“I understand your rationale, Anna, believe me I do. But it causes ripples for you to be getting your hands dirty out in the field on this case. You need to be a presence inside the Shop. The big boys need to see you in here looking like you’re in charge, not bleary-eyed and exhausted from being out until four in the morning like one of your officers.”
Davis even spoke in calm, measured tones, just like Poitier, she thought, studying him.
“Am I boring you, Lieutenant?” Davis’ eyebrows edged up.
“No, sir. I was thinking about what you said. I can’t argue. I can only tell you I don’t believe we can work this case like these are regular, run of the mill murders.” She followed his eyes as they traveled to her report and she knew he’d read every word, that he was as familiar with the case as she. She also knew he did a good job of reading between the lines and understood that she’d been greatly hampered by not receiving the case until after the third murder—which is when Homicide realized that what they had was more than just murder—and that Hate Crimes had been playing catch-up ever since.
“I agree, Anna, that your back is against the wall. This is the damnedest thing I believe I’ve ever seen. Still...do me a favor, will you? Just act like you’re being a desk jockey and loving it, Okay?” He grinned when he said it but she knew he meant it.
“Okay,” she said, returning his grin. “If you’ll do one for me.” His eyes narrowed slightly but he nodded. “Back me up on the media blackout.”
“Hell yes!” he exploded. “I’m with you all the way on that one. We don’t need the press wandering around in this case.”
Mimi thumbed through the stacks of files about outing piled on her desk, alternating between anger and dismay. How could one gay person not understand, not respect, the unwillingness or the inability of another to come out? Being queer in America, she thought wryly, was one of the few things worse than being Black. It was possible to be forgiven the color of one’s skin, the assumption being that one had no choice in the matter. But to love one’s same sex—that was something else. No matter how hotly the debate raged in medical and scientific circles, a significant proportion of the population seemed to think that gay people needed only to decide to stop being gay and that was that. Mimi didn’t know of a single person who had delighted in informing his or her family/friends/colleagues/clients/patients/landlord/employer of the fact of his or her gayness. She sighed and tossed the files aside. In terms of the investigation she’d been assigned, outers outraged people but they didn’t kill them.
She paged through the files she’d compiled on the four murder victims. The twenty-first day of July, August, September and Oct
ober—Murray, delValle, Grayson and Tancil, killed in that order. They’d all married in their twenties, either before understanding fully the truth of their sexuality, or believing a conventional marriage the only option. They had all lived in the wealthiest sections of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs that surrounded Washington, but each was murdered far from home, in a darkened parking lot or garage inside the city.
She tossed the files aside in irritation. What she had was virtually nothing and what she needed was hard information. She reached for the phone, hesitated, then resolutely dialed.
“Lieutenant Maglione, please. This is Montgomery Patterson.” Her heart rate increased when the composed voice answered.
“Miss Patterson. How can I help?”
She’s so remote, Mimi thought. Maybe somebody’s with her. “Can you tell me, please Lieutenant, how Mrs. Grayson, Mr. Tancil, Mr. Murray and Mr. delValle all happened to be in those parking lots so late at night?”
There was the slightest pause before Gianna responded. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Miss Patterson, since only you know what you’re talking about.”
Mimi smiled in spite of herself. “You’re good, Lieutenant, extremely good. Will you at least tell me how much longer you think we’ll have to play games with each other about this case?”
“I take it you mean the case I haven’t acknowledged exists?”
“You can acknowledge its existence or I can file a FOI for access to the case information,” Mimi snapped. “Tell me what you’d like me to do, Lieutenant.”
“I’d like for you to have a very pleasant day, Miss Patterson.”
Gianna winced and jerked the phone away from her ear as Mimi slammed it down on the other end. She smiled wanly at Eric seated across the desk, feet up, eating a turkey sandwich and reading the lab report on the Tancil car. Gianna rotated her neck, hoping to ease the knot of tension that had taken up permanent residence.
“A reporter somehow knows about Grayson, Tancil, et al.”
Eric got sandwich caught in his throat and coughed before he could speak. “Knows?! Knows what? Knows they were all gay? How is that possible?! It’s not possible!”
“I don’t know how she knows, but Montgomery Patterson is privy to that information. I can only be thankful that if a reporter must know, it’s her. At least she won’t rush to print without all the facts.”
“Are you sure?”
“The only thing I’m sure about, Eric, is that I don’t know where this came from or where it’s going.”
“But that’s not exactly true, is it?” His brow creased in earnestness. “I mean, we know with some certainty that—" She interrupted him impatiently. “You and Cassie finish going over the psychiatric profiles and keep bugging Homicide about the interview reports they claim they can’t find.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “And have a set of purged files delivered to Montgomery Patterson.”
“You really want to give her files?” he asked incredulously.
“I’m just giving her what she already knows, and I’d rather do that than have her arousing interest by filing a Freedom of Information Act request. Every reporter in town would jump on that bandwagon.”
Eric tossed her a half salute and ambled out. She sat quietly thinking about Mimi Patterson. Sooner or later they’d have to talk about the case. More precisely, Gianna would have to divulge facts in order to find out what the reporter knew and from what source. She’d never had much dealing with the press and she had been warned that her promotion would change all that. At least half the job of heading up a major crimes unit, the Chief told her, was public relations.
But she hadn’t figured on M. Montgomery Patterson...She pushed the image of Mimi out of her mind, Mimi naked, her smooth, burnished umber skin so close to her, the heat between them not all from the steam room. She closed her eyes to Mimi and opened them to the files before her to the horrible, depraved ugliness that would consume her until she found and stopped him-her-those responsible.
What in these files would lead her to the killer? What, if anything, did she— the officer in charge of the investigation—know that Mimi Patterson the reporter did not know? Not a hell of a lot. That Phil Tancil’s wife had become hysterical when confronted with her husband’s homosexuality, and so angry that Gianna had feared being assaulted by her. She’d refused to discuss it, refused to permit a search of his personal belongings, accused the police of tarnishing the image of a good family man, and called her lawyer when Gianna obtained a search warrant. She could not and would not understand why the police needed to know the tiniest details of a victim’s background in order to find his killer and she refused to join any speculation about the reasons for his presence in the Washington High School parking lot well after midnight on a Monday night.
Joe Murray’s wife had responded in exactly the opposite manner. Eerily calm, she told Gianna she’d known Joe was hiding something, that he was carrying some weight that often made him aloof and distant for long periods of time. Her worst fear, she told Gianna, was that Joe was engaged in some illegal activity, because she hadn’t fully understood that her husband’s consulting firm was as successful as he claimed it was, and she’d wondered where all the money came from. She allowed Gianna and her team full access to Joe’s home and office safes where he kept his private papers but insisted that the Murray children know nothing of their father’s homosexuality. Why would Joe Murray be in the deserted, cavernous parking lot of RFK Stadium at midnight? “He loved the Redskins,” she said with a resigned shrug. And did she believe, Gianna had asked gently, that Joe’s murder could be sexually oriented? “It would appear so,” she’d answered with painful honesty.
Tony delValle’s wife was angry. She’d known of her husband’s homosexuality for years. They’d seen therapists and counselors together and separately and Tony would give up men for a while but only for a while, until the AIDS scare, and she had believed Tony’s promise that he was “out of the life for good.” He’d said he was afraid of AIDS, and he knew that his habit of meeting men in bars and movie houses endangered himself and his family. “And now I find out in the worst way that he lied to me.” She spat out the words.
Gianna probed, “So you think your husband’s murder was tied to his sexual activities?”
The woman’s pain and anger boiled over. “He was driving a forty thousand dollar car. He was wearing five thousand dollars worth of jewelry. He had almost five hundred dollars in his pocket. Do you think I’m stupid, lady? Whoever killed him didn’t do it for money!” Gianna accepted the full force of the woman’s fury because she could do no less.
It was Liz Grayson’s husband who gave Gianna the first bit of information that resembled a lead. Harry Grayson, a tall, thin handsome man in his late forties, longish hair almost totally silver, had known for years of his wife’s attraction to and involvement with women, but he also knew that she was much too conventional to try and face the world without her husband and children. They were her protection, her insulation, and she would do nothing to jeopardize that. She was not promiscuous, he insisted, but rather became engaged in long term affairs—most recently with Susan Jolly, a computer analyst for the Army. They’d stopped seeing each other about a month before Liz was killed, he said, because of threats made by Susan’s ex-lover, a woman named Karen.
“What kind of threats, Mr. Grayson?” She touched his arm as tears filled his eyes, spilled down his cheeks. He removed the silver-edged half glasses but allowed the tears to flow unchecked. The navy corduroy slacks and turtleneck sweater he wore perfectly complemented the image of the research scientist that he was.
“The kind I now know to take seriously. This Karen threatened to kill Liz because she thought Liz took Susan away from her.” Harry Grayson looked helplessly around the homey den filled with soft, rich furniture and photographs of himself and his wife and their children and other family members. “I can’t believe she’s gone, Lieutenant.” And he wiped tears with the back of his hand.
*****
“You’ve only been on the story a week and a half, Patterson. What makes you think you think you should have all the answers already? Starting to believe your own press?” His lively green eyes studied her across the narrow booth in the loud, crowded diner, the bustle on the street outside reflective of the scene inside. “Tyler, I can’t even get the Hate Crimes Unit to admit they’re working this case.”
“There’s your proof.”
“Proof of what!” Mimi snapped. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
“You’re looking for who’s killing gay people.”
“That’s not my job! There’s an extremely competent, not to mention extremely gorgeous, police lieutenant whose job it is to find murderers.”
Tyler said very quietly, “Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care,” she said wearily, “but the more I dig into this case, the more I find that what I want to know is why. I want to know how it happens that a person hates enough to kill people who have done nothing but be who they are.” Tyler picked up the menu, put it down again, drummed his fingers on the table, and played with the silverware. Mimi recognized the signals and waited for him to speak.
“People hate Blacks enough to kill.” He spoke quietly, hesitantly. She nodded and he continued. “Do you understand that?”
“I think with racial hatred people can see what it is they fear, it becomes tangible...” She’d never before articulated these thoughts and she paused to listen to herself. She always knew when her presence as a Black or as a woman was unwelcome— in a store or a restaurant or in an interview situation, but she never, ever worried about anyone’s reaction to her sexual preference because nobody knew....a feeling of horror spread through her. “Tyler, those people knew their murderer. I’m sure of it.”