Keeping Secrets

by Penny Mickelbury

  “I don’t need this crap from you, Schuyler! You’re supposed to be my friend!” Mimi snarled at Freddy and punched him in his huge bicep, but her heart wasn’t in it. He’d rushed uptown to be with her after seeing the television news reports of Gianna’s press conference, and though he was currently miserable because she was miserable— that was the kind of friends they were— he sided with Gianna.

  “That one asshole all but accused Gianna of being a murderer, Mimi. And it’s all because you wrote that story.” Freddy snarled back.

  “Five people are dead, Freddy, and the police...”

  “I know that! One of them was a good friend of mine. But I don’t think....” He stopped talking abruptly at the look on Mimi’s face, a look of complete incomprehension. “What’s wrong?”

  “You said one of them was a friend?” She could barely speak.

  “Yeah,” Freddy said. “Joe Murray. Hell of a nice guy. But I didn’t know until I read your story that his death was any more than a street mugging. That’s what everybody was told had happened.”

  “How did you know him? I never heard you mention him.”

  “He was involved for years with Alfie Cane, and you know Alfie’s one of my best fri...”

  “Joe Murray, Freddy,” Mimi cut him off. “Tell me everything you know about Joe Murray.” Mimi sat on the sofa next to Freddy, insides churning, as she listened to him describe Joe Murray’s love affair with Alfonso “Alfie” Cane, another Washington Redskin, who, though he’d never held a press conference to announce it, was openly gay, and who wanted Joe Murray to be with him, to live with him as his lover.

  “Joe wanted to but he just couldn’t. You see, he loved his wife as much as he loved Alfie, and he was crazy about his kids. And his business was going great guns...”

  Mimi interrupted. “Did he ever seek help, counseling?”

  “Sure. I even drove him a couple of times to some kind of group session in a really tacky, run down building in southwest, down by the wharf...”

  Mimi interrupted again, intense, taut. “In Southwest? Not at Metro GALCO?”

  Freddy shook his head and described a low-slung clapboard structure that backed up to one of the huge government parking lots and appeared totally out of place among the monstrous brick government office buildings. The hand-lettered sign in front identified it as the headquarters of some kind of Inter-Faith Ministry, and C.Y.K.A.S., the group that Joe Murray belonged to.

  “Can You Keep A Secret? That’s what it meant,” Freddy said.

  Mimi felt as bewildered as she knew she must look. Not once in her investigations had she heard of C.Y.K.A.S. and she’d checked every above ground and underground gay group in town; but she experienced the tingling sensation she always did when she knew she’d stumbled upon the truth in a story, when she’d found the heart of the beast she was pursuing. She knew without question that whatever C.Y.K.A.S. was, it was at the heart of the murders of five people, all of whom had a secret to keep.

  “Take me there, Freddy.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.” She was already up and running, scurrying around collecting the tools of her trade: the small, automatic 35mm camera she used to take her own photos when necessary; press credentials on a chain around her neck but inside her sweater— unobtrusive but handy if necessary; a micro cassette tape recorder; the ubiquitous tan reporter’s notebook; and, as an afterthought, a small flashlight. She threw on her favorite jacket— ancient leather, bulky and blessed with pockets, into which she stuffed all the things she’d gathered, and opened the front door.

  “Anytime time tonight, Freddy,” she intoned with dry sarcasm. Freddy followed glumly, obviously more willing to confront an army of defensive tackles than whatever awaited them in some gloomy corner of Southwest Washington.

  Gianna drove uptown toward Church Street in an emotional fog. She could not free her mind of Mimi, of Mimi’s eyes, of Mimi’s touch, of her scent. When this is over, Gianna told herself, I can be with her again. Then she heard Mimi say, Please don’t do this, Gianna, and she wondered if she would be ever again be held in those arms, ever again join with her to explore the far reaches of passion. For the second time that night she put down the window and let the wintry night air dry her eyes.

  She didn’t need to check addresses on Church Street to know which house belonged to the Inner City Christian Ministry: It was the only one on the block not to have undergone the late 1970’s phenomenon known as gentrification, a process that had transformed dozens of inner city poor and working-class neighborhoods from D.C. to Boston into middle and upper-middle class havens of chic prosperity. No new, black, wrought iron fencing enclosed the scraggly yard, there was no sand blasted brick, no new double-paned, energy efficient windows here. Even the hand-painted sign that welcomed all regardless of race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation had seen better days. Gianna eased the Chevy into the tiny parking lot adjacent to the house— the parking lot where Alexander Brathwaite was killed. Two cars were there, both old and battered, a thumb of the nose to the Saabs and Volvos and Jeep Cherokees lining the street. Automatically, she wrote down the license plate numbers of both, and as she looked up she caught a glimpse of the front door closing...and maybe, just maybe, she saw a person. Somebody who’d been around when Alexander Brathwaite was killed? Gianna looked at the dashboard clock. Eric would soon be back at the office and reading the note she left for him, along with the Nexis article. She felt slightly and only momentarily guilty for not waiting for him and knew he’d understand.

  After the second ring of the bell, Gianna heard movement inside the house and a light went on in the foyer, followed by one on the outside wall of the house. She heard the safety chain on the door released, and the door opened slightly, but not enough for Gianna to see clearly who had opened it.

  “Who is it?” asked a whispery voice.

  “Lieutenant Anna Maglione, Metropolitan Police,” Gianna answered, holding her photo-identification card toward the space in the door, and the door opened fully, permitting Gianna to see a shortish, slightly stooped, reddish-brown haired woman who, Gianna knew from the Nexis article, was now fifty-two years old. Despite the traumas of her life, she didn’t look old and haggard, as Gianna expected, but she did seem tired beyond the world’s ability to give her rest. She looked steadily, unblinkingly at Gianna with pale grey eyes and then, without a word, and without looking any further at the ID card Gianna continued to display, she raised her hands and Gianna was looking directly into the barrel of a .45 Colt automatic, the weapon she knew for certain had been used to kill Joe Murray, Tony delValle, Phil Tancil, Liz Grayson and Carolyn Green. She looked from the gun to Jessica Hendrix, whose expression was unchanged, whose body was motionless. Jessica did not speak but she did motion for Gianna to enter. Gianna heard the door close, heard the locks set. She opened her mouth to speak to Jessica but Jessica spoke first.

  “Put your purse on the floor,” Jessica commanded in her whispery voice, and Gianna obeyed, allowing the purse to slide off her shoulder and down her arm to the floor.

  “Now take off your jacket,” Jessica ordered and Gianna saw the woman’s eyes narrow slightly as she hesitated, so she undid the buttons of her jacket with one hand and slid it off. She didn’t need Jessica to tell her what to do with the holster and gun she wore strapped around her back and shoulders. She undid the straps and gently lowered the apparatus to the floor.

  “Now turn around and walk straight through to the back of the house. Don’t stop until you reach the back door.”

  Gianna followed orders, knowing that the best way to keep Jessica calm was to remain calm herself. She walked slowly down the dusty, ill-lit hallway, glancing left and right into rooms sparsely furnished in a style that had been outdated twenty years ago, and she wondered about the people who lived here, wondered whether Jessica had harmed them, thought she probably had. Still, Gianna felt no fear or panic until it was clear that the kitchen was not their final destination: Jessica propelled h
er out the back door, through the long, narrow yard so typical of Washington row houses, out to the alley, and to a car parked on a street a block away. Gianna was shivering, and not because her sweater was insufficient for the December night air. Whoever said Jessica Hendrix was insane is a damn fool! Jessica gave Gianna the keys and the order to open the passenger door, get in, and slide across to the driver’s side.

  “Jessica—” Gianna began.

  “Shut up. Get on the 495 Beltway toward Maryland.” Gianna realized with a second rush of fear that they must be headed for the home Jessica once shared with Alex. Why else would she go to Maryland? This woman, Gianna thought, is still firmly placed in 1971. The rush hour traffic had thinned dramatically— there were fewer and fewer vehicles on the six lanes of expressway that had been a parking lot an hour ago. All the suburbanites were snug in their homes, warm and safe. Gianna now felt full fear. She could imagine Eric’s face when he found her car on Church Street, and then discovered her purse, jacket and gun on the hall floor.

  She drove up to a darkened, dowdy ranch-style house on a quiet, tree-lined street and thought that when the young minister and his family moved in all those years ago it would have been considered quite a nice house. The brick walkway that led to the front door was cracked and worn with grass growing between the bricks, and the house and yard were surrounded on both sides by dense, over-grown, yew bushes, which gave the place a sinister look and feel. But then what could one expect of a woman who’d spent nineteen years in hell? That she’d come home and trim the hedges? What feelings live within a woman who’d lost her children— adults now who’d been prevented from seeing their mother during her confinement and who hadn’t wanted to see her after her release? Gianna wondered if Jessica had sat inside this house and plotted the brutal murders of five people.

  There were no lights on either in the yard or on the exterior of the house, but Gianna could see a faint glow from the rear of the house, suggesting that Jessica Hendrix had expected to return here tonight. Gianna wasted a moment wishing she’d waited until the morning to discover what had become of the Inner City Ministry. Then she felt the full force of the realization that the woman intended to kill her and what hurt most was not that knowledge but the fact that if Jessica killed her the same way as the others, Mimi would know....

  For at least the twentieth time, Mimi rang Gianna’s number, got the answering machine, and left a message. She’d been calling Gianna every thirty minutes since 1:00 a.m., after her visit to the C.Y.K.A.S. building. Gianna hadn’t gone home last night. And she wasn’t at the Cop Shop. Mimi rang the number again, primarily just to hear Gianna’s voice. Then she called the Hate Crimes Unit yet again and heard yet again that Lt. Maglione was “not available.” Mimi slammed down the phone with a snarl and turned to the notes she’d taken from her visit to C.Y.K.A.S.

  The building was a run down, dump of a place, dusty and airless. An old building directory listed some kind of religious ministry as the occupant, but there was no trace of such an organization. Only C.Y.K.A.S. existed, in a dingy office with a tartan plaid sofa, two tan Naugahyde chairs, and five metal folding chairs grouped around a battered card table. And a relatively new computer with a rudimentary program that Mimi accessed in two minutes and a file that held of the names of at least two dozen people, including those of Joe Murray and Phil Tancil and Tony delValle and Liz Grayson and Carolyn Green...a file that also held Gianna’s name, along with that of Dorothea Simpson, her former lover. Without a trace of a qualm, Mimi had made herself a back-up copy of the file and then changed the file’s name and locked it inside a password so that even the owner couldn’t access it. Then she photographed the office and its contents, and placed tape on several of the desk drawers so she’d know if anyone entered the office between the time she’d left at midnight, and when she was able to tell Gianna....

  Where the hell was Gianna?

  Mimi was supposed to be writing a follow-up story to the murders but she couldn’t concentrate. She’d lost whatever excitement she’d felt about the discovery of C.Y.K.A.S. and its connection to all the victims. That excitement had been replaced by fear. Those other names in the computer—she’d have already called them under ordinary circumstances and coerced them into telling her who and what exactly C.Y.K.A.S. was. But at the moment, all she cared about was why she couldn’t find Gianna, and that hollow thing called fear that was eating her insides, and made it impossible for her to write, to care about writing. For Gianna’s name had been in that computer and she’d deleted it but now she was afraid—for Gianna and for herself.

  Mimi jumped and snatched up the phone before the first ring was completed. Please be Gianna, she prayed silently. “Patterson.

  “I want to talk to the Montgomery Patterson who’s been writing about the homosexual murders,” said a whispery voice.

  “Now’s your chance. Talk to me,” Mimi said, just this side of rude. Where the hell was Gianna?

  “I thought you were a man.”

  “I’m not. What can I do for you?” Her snarly tone didn’t seem at all off-putting to the caller.

  “Maybe I can do something for you. Are you interested in writing about the police officer in charge of that investigation and how she’s like the victims? That would make a good—”

  “What are you talking about, Miss?” Mimi said rudely, interrupting the caller whose voice irritated her.

  “She’s one of them, but she’s in the closet, too.”

  Mimi heard a buzzing in her ears and then all the lights went out for a moment— a long moment— until she heard a voice calling to her in the phone which she still held.

  “Hello? Hello? Are you still there? Hello?”

  “Yes. I’m here. Who are you?” Recovering some of her wits, Mimi snatched open her desk drawer and rummaged around for her tape recorder and the illegal device that allowed her to record phone conversations without the knowledge of the other party.

  “Never mind who I am, just answer my question. Are you interested in the story?” The voice was less wispy now.

  Mimi willed her hands to stop shaking and attached one end of the recording device to the phone, plugged the other into the tape recorder, and pressed the Record button, praying that the batteries still had some life as she sparred with her caller. “If you’re jerking me around, lady...”

  “I’m not jerking you around. I promise you that.”

  “How can you be so sure about this cop? What’s his name?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Miss Patterson. You know what cop and you know it’s not a male. Do you want the story?”

  “Yes, I want it. But I need to make sure you’re not running a scam of some kind. And besides, I can’t just write a story that says some cop is gay, taking your word for it. And suppose it’s true? So what? Who cares? Lots of people are.”

  “Too many people are, that’s the problem. People who shouldn’t be. Good, decent people who have been corrupted by Satan and the evil he has spread throughout the world, and it seems that nobody cares, and that’s the problem.”

  Mimi felt ill. “So, let me get this right.” She prayed that her voice wouldn’t tremble the way her body was. “You want me write a story for the newspaper that says a cop who’s investigating the murders of some gay people is also gay? And what else do I say after that? It’s not exactly front page news.” Mimi hoped that her off-hand sarcasm would anger the woman enough to her talking for a while. But the scheme backfired.

  “Maybe by the time you write your story you can say that she’s dead, too, just like the others, because she will be. Will that be front page news?”

  Jessica slammed the phone down, stalked to where Gianna sat bound to a chair, and slammed a fist into her face. Gianna’s head snapped back at the moment of impact— she had sensed the blow coming— so that she rode with the force of the blow, lessening its power. Which didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell. It was the fifth time Jessica had hit her, and each time was associated with anger. And
when she was angry Jessica became the insane person that almost twenty years in St. E’s had failed to cure. Come to think of it, Gianna mused, it was hard to imagine anybody being cured of insanity inside an insane asylum. The whole notion was insane! She laughed to herself but it must not have been only to herself for Jessica turned on her with a look of pure hatred and she took the butt of the gun and hit her in the right bicep. Gianna hadn’t anticipated that one and therefore had not flexed the muscle to absorb the impact and she groaned as the pain shot through her body.

  “I’m glad you hurt,” Jessica hissed. “You deserve to hurt.”

  “Why, Jessica? What have I done to you?”

  “You’re immoral.” Jessica spat the words at her. “You live against the laws of God. You live in sin,” she huffed, turning to the Bible that she read endlessly.

  “But I haven’t killed anybody,” Gianna said evenly and then recoiled in horror as Jessica whirled around, her face twisted beyond recognition, suffused with anger and hatred and pain.

  “Yes you did! You killed my Alex.”

  “Jessica. You killed Alex.” She kept her voice controlled and steeled herself for the blow that did not come.

  “That’s what they say but they’re liars, infidels. Perverts.”

  “But you did kill the others, didn’t you, Jessica? Joe and Tony and Liz and Phil and Carolyn? You killed them, too, Jessica?”

  “Because they were going to leave, to go away, to go live in sin. Like Alex wanted to.” Jessica’s voice took on a sing-song quality and her body relaxed and she drifted about the room as if in floating a daze, an exercise accommodated by the lack of furniture: Gianna was tied to one of the room’s two chairs— an armless high-backed side chair, and Jessica’s Bible occupied the other— a floral print wing chair. The only other furniture was a small table that held the phone.