Mercy

by David L Lindsey

  “When Vickie came to Houston and found her way into the group, her freewheeling sexuality created something of a sensation. I mean, we were a relatively sedate bunch. Predominantly feminine, predominantly bisexual, avoided the role-playing scenes at the clubs, nobody really kinky among us. Up to then our affairs were deliciously illicit, which was excitement enough for most of us. Nobody was looking for danger, as far as I knew. But Vickie changed all that. She brought a style to the group that many of us hadn’t seen before. Suddenly there were secrets everywhere, and a feeling of something perverse and malign crept into some of the relationships.

  “Sandra was always a little frisky, and Kittrie recognized her willingness to take a dare. She got her into S&M. Vickie trained her to top, and Sandra liked it. Then Vickie mixed her up with guys like Reynolds and Bristol, and I heard some pretty hair-raising things went on. Sandra’s death just seems to me to be an extension of all that. I don’t know the details, naturally, but it sounds to me like somebody lost control.”

  “Twice?”

  Claire shrugged. “I don’t know; that’s out of my league.” She was quiet a moment and Palma could hear the wet night dripping off the side of the kiosk.

  “Who do you think was capable of doing that?” Palma ventured.

  Claire stared out to the darkness across the mall, beyond the pale gloam of the mercury vapor lamps. She shook her head, her eyes not focusing on anything in particular.

  “Who could have killed the two of them? I don’t know. I don’t know anyone who could have killed them in the way I imagine they must’ve died. But none of us know people like that, do we? We only know people to the extent they want us to know them.” She shrugged. “They interview the neighbors. ‘He was the nicest guy. Quiet, kept to himself. Never caused any trouble. I can’t believe this is the same man.’ Well, hell. It isn’t the same man they know.”

  She was right, of course. And it was precisely that sort of invisibility that made a man who did the sort of things that were done to Dorothy Samenov so mythologically horrifying.

  “Look,” Claire said, her eyes coming back to Palma. “I have two boys in high school. My husband is an ophthalmic surgeon with a private practice. I…I’m a gynecologist…for Christ’s sake. Can’t you see what those photographs would do to my career, not to mention my family?” Her voice had a slight quaver. “Look.” She leaned forward, her hands open, palms up, resting on her knees, side by side. “I know what you said…not being able to do anything about them. But I’ve cooperated here…even when you gave me no incentive regarding the pictures. If…If there’s anything you can do about them, will you help me out? I’m not going to make excuses for them…I know how stupid it was…I made a mistake. But…they were meant to be private. It wasn’t like…I don’t want my life to go down the drain because of those four photographs.”

  Roughly half her face was palely lighted through the net of stringy shadows; the other half was lost in a vague dusk. But Palma could see enough to discern the anxiety that she had managed to hide up to now. She sympathized with Claire. It surprised her, but she did.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Palma said. “I can’t promise you other detectives won’t see them, but I can make sure they don’t get out of the division. When this is all over…I’ll get them back to you.”

  Claire eased her head back into the denser shadows and was very still, saying nothing. Then, “If I can help you…any more…” she said. “I know how this must look, my seeming to be more concerned about those pictures than for Sandra and Dorothy.” Her voice was strained. “But…they’re gone, aren’t they? And I’m not. My husband isn’t. My family isn’t.”

  Palma nodded and stood. “You know how to get in touch with me,” she said. “If there’s anything else, if you just want to talk…I live alone.”

  Claire nodded, but she didn’t get up, didn’t let Palma see her face again. Palma stepped out into the mist, which was heavy now, wetting her face as she walked briskly across the courtyard. She looked back once, after she’d gotten into the shadow of the library and before she started around the corner to the car. She saw a waft of smoke lift out of the kiosk and drift up through the dancing mist.

  FOURTH DAY

  27

  Thursday, June 1

  Palma called Linda Mancera at her home number early Thursday morning before Mancera went to work. When Palma told her it was important that she see her immediately, Mancera readily assented. But, like Andrew Moser, this time she did not want Palma to come to her office. Instead she asked Palma to come to her home in the north Tanglewood section of west Houston, not far off Woodway.

  Mancera’s home was a modern two-story condo, one of two buildings inside a spacious walled compound with wrought-iron gates, security card access, and the pretentious name of Cour Jardin. Palma rolled down the car window and picked up a telephone inside a clear plastic cabinet beside the card slot. But the gate was already opening, so she returned the telephone to its cradle and drove between the parting wings of the gateway.

  The compound was small, but the grounds were professionally maintained. Already this morning the brick drive had been washed down and the beds of liriope and cape plumbago and sprengeri fern that grew around the courtyard were still wet from a predawn watering of the sprinkler system. The two condos sat at oblique angles to each other facing the drive, and Palma parked in front of the one on the left as she had been instructed. She got out of the car and immediately smelled the heavy odor of woods and damp humus, and followed the crescent-shaped sidewalk bordered by waist-high hedges to the front door. Above her, the glass walls of the second floor sloped forward slightly under a deep eave, its view overlooking the courtyard and wooded drive beyond the gates.

  Palma had to ring the doorbell twice before it was answered by a stunning black woman a little taller than Palma, her hair pulled back smoothly from her face and hanging in a single long braid over the front of one of her bare shoulders. She wore a long-sleeved ivory cotton-knit blouse and matching skirt that hung almost to her sandaled feet. Her lips were painted a glistening scarlet, and ivory loops with gold bands dangled from each ear.

  “Hello, I’m Bessa,” she said with a faint smile. “Please come in. Linda is making coffee and had her hands in water.” She had an accent, perhaps Jamaican, and had pronounced her name Bay-sa.

  They walked through a white living room with white furnishings to a dining room that looked out onto yet another courtyard and adjoined the kitchen where Linda Mancera was coming around the counter drying her hands on a towel.

  “Good morning,” she said. “We’ll have coffee in just a minute. Can I get you some orange juice or something in the meantime?”

  Palma thanked her, but declined. Mancera was dressed more casually than Bessa in a fitted pearl silk robe. She wore no makeup, and her hair was combed, but not fixed for work. She was completely at ease, as she had been in her office, but was obviously curious as to why Palma had needed to see her so urgently.

  They visited a moment, standing around the kitchen while Mancera cut grapefruit and made toast for Bessa, who had disappeared and returned with a purse and a soft leather briefcase.

  “Bessa works for another advertising agency,” Mancera said, smiling. “Between us we’re authorities on the professional gossip in this business.” She put the grapefruit and toast on the table while Bessa stood at the sink and took a handful of vitamins with a glass of water and then sat down and started eating while Mancera poured coffee for herself and Palma. They visited a few minutes more until Bessa had hurriedly eaten her grapefruit and one of the two pieces of toast. Then she grabbed her purse, told Palma goodbye, kissed Mancera, and left through a side courtyard to the garage.

  They settled in the living room, and Palma gave Mancera a quick overview of where the investigation had taken her. Mancera’s equanimity was slightly shaken, and she nodded as Palma told her that she had learned of the lesbian connection. She seemed to have already guessed that. But as Palma continue
d, and began talking about the S&M aspects of the women’s relationships, Mancera grew uncomfortable, several times shifting her long legs, finally folding them both beside her in the huge, low-backed armchair she had chosen, her back to a palmetto-filled courtyard.

  “Last night,” Palma said, “I learned of Gil Reynolds’s association with Kittrie, and that he also had had sadistic relationships with women as well. You told me last time you’d never heard of Gil Reynolds, but in light of everything I’ve learned since then, I have to believe you lied to me. About that for sure, and maybe about other things as well. But I understand that,” Palma added. “Right now I’m only interested in what you do, in fact, know about Reynolds.”

  Mancera took her time. She sat her coffee cup on an Oriental table beside her chair, leaned her left forearm on the arm of the chair, and with her other hand massaged her foot covered by the silk robe.

  “I seriously doubt if you understand,” she said finally. “But, anyway, you’ve gotten into it, haven’t you?” She shook her head. “This group of women…is not easy to understand. If Reynolds hadn’t told you, I wonder if any of us would have ever given in.” She looked at Palma. “I’m glad it wasn’t one of us.”

  She picked up her cup and sipped the coffee. “Whoever you talked to last night must’ve given you a good picture of Reynolds,” she said. “It was wrong of me not to have come right out with his name from the beginning. But I knew he would lead you into the group.”

  Suddenly Palma’s frustration spilled over. “Goddammit. I find that an incredible attitude,” she blurted. “When I talked to you the first time, you knew—even if I didn’t—that both victims were bisexual and that that possibly had something to do with their being victims in the first place. Didn’t it scare any of you? I don’t understand what the hell you thought you were going to accomplish by keeping your mouths shut. This guy’s going to keep coming. It should have scared the hell out of you.”

  “It did.” Mancera said evenly. “But we’re used to being frightened. Not like that, no, but afraid. If you really think about it…sometimes there’s not a great deal of difference between losing your life and having it ruined. Those of us in the group live every day in fear of the latter possibility. We’re not too eager to jump up and throw off the covers and expose ourselves to the outside just to see who’s threatening us from the inside. Up to a point, we’re willing to take our chances.”

  “Up to a point? Really?” Palma said. “What point would that be, if homicide isn’t it?”

  Mancera looked at Palma, her eyes narrowing, wanting to be understood. “Can you imagine walking around with a psychological hump on your back the size of another person? That’s what it’s like, you know, being bisexual or lesbian. You’re not really allowed to be an honest person, not if you want a shot at the mainstream way of life. You have to hide half of what you’re all about if you want your talents and abilities to be taken at face value. Otherwise, you have to carry that hump around on your back and you soon realize that, for all practical purposes, the hump is all that people see.”

  Mancera’s anger was quiet but intense. With the wisdom of a survivor, she had learned to control it, to disguise it like she had disguised her sexuality. She smiled softly, icily, and placed a long-fingered hand on her graceful throat.

  “What society doesn’t realize is that we’re in the mainstream anyway. We’ve learned the value of invisibility. We’re doctors and lawyers and teachers and executives and real estate agents…and detectives. But we’re carrying a psychological hump on our shoulders, and the only time we can get rid of it is when we’re together. That’s what this group was all about. It was the only place we could relax because we were all alike. And the only reason the group was successful was because we were secret; we were protected.”

  Mancera picked up her coffee cup, but the coffee was cold and she set it down again. She looked at Palma. “How could we keep quiet? There was a chance you’d catch the killer; there was no chance society was going to restore our status once we’d lost our anonymity.”

  “Unfortunately,” Palma said, “there’s no chance we’ll catch the killer either, if you don’t cooperate with us.”

  Mancera got up from her chair. “I need some fresh coffee. How about you?”

  Palma wanted to slam her back down in her chair, but checked her temper and followed Mancera into the kitchen.

  Mancera walked around the corner of the bar and poured her cold coffee down the sink. “You’ve got to promise me my background won’t be given to the papers if all this comes out. I don’t want my name in the papers, with or without that kind of appellation.” She picked up the coffeepot and filled Palma’s cup, and then her own.

  “I can’t promise that,” Palma said. “The case files are open to the homicide division, all the detectives working the case, certain ones in the administration. Right now there are four detectives. But if anyone else gets killed, a lot more people are going to want to dip into it.”

  “You think it’s Gil Reynolds?”

  “I have no idea,” Palma said. “I mean, all I have on him is a story that he likes to beat up women. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make him special.”

  Mancera looked out to the palmettos past Palma’s shoulder. Palma could see the irises in her eyes shrinking; she could see contact lenses.

  Mancera swallowed. “Denise Reynolds divorced her husband because he was a batterer,” she said. “She put up with it for years until he did his thing in front of their sons. The boys were in junior high, and one night Reynolds hammered her so badly he put her in the hospital.”

  “That would have been in the files,” Palma said. “It wasn’t.”

  “She claimed she was mugged, and she stuck with the story. Everyone knew it wasn’t true, but she clung to that line like a life raft. But when she got out of the hospital, she divorced him for irreconcilable differences.” Mancera looked at her cup, and rotated it. She appeared to be particularly affected.

  “But before Denise divorced him, for maybe a year before, she had belonged to our group. More than a few of us are battered wives.”

  Mancera stopped and regarded Palma a moment as if trying to decide how to express herself.

  “I assume you’re neither bisexual nor lesbian,” Mancera said. “I don’t know how well informed you are, but I can assure you that there’s no such thing as ‘the gay woman’ any more than there’s ‘the heterosexual woman.’ The term encompasses as many moral philosophies and lifestyles and political views as does the word ‘heterosexual.’ We’re not a single-minded entity.”

  She hesitated slightly. “I’ve known since my first sexual stirrings that I preferred women as sexual partners. I had a normal, happy childhood, no mental or physical abuse. I love both my parents and my siblings, and the love is reciprocated. I’m comfortable with the way I am, despite the fact that professionally I’m forced to live in a world of pretense, appearing to be flattered by the attention I get from the men I work with while being careful not to betray the real pleasure I derive from being around the women.

  “But my preference for women as sexual partners is a private thing,” Mancera insisted. “As all sexual interactions should be. It doesn’t dictate my politics or my religion or my morals. It doesn’t run my life. It’s only a part of it, like my race or my job or my age or my height. Actually, if I weren’t compelled to play an absurd game of charades to assure nonprejudicial treatment, the issue of my sexual preference would drop way down on the scale of importance in my life. It shouldn’t be a big deal. There are other values of moral concern that are more important.”

  Palma did not interrupt the pause created when Mancera stopped to take a sip of coffee. She didn’t know where Mancera was going with her explanation, but at least she was talking, and that was often half the battle of a good interview.

  “I mentioned abuse a while ago,” Mancera continued, leaning her forearm on the counter next to the coffeepot. “More than a few women are lesbians because of h
aving been abused as children or wives. A lot of women will vehemently deny that, but their denial has more to do with feminist politics than reality. They don’t want to attribute their sexual orientation to a reaction against what men have done to them. That would put men in the driver’s seat again: lesbians being what they are because of men. They insist that their sexual orientation is a matter of free choice. And they don’t like the term ‘lesbian.’ They prefer ‘gay.’ They feel that ‘lesbian’ carries too many derogatory connotations from old Victorian prejudices.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve known middle-aged women who had their first lesbian experience after they’d divorced battering husbands and were totally repulsed by anything male. Still others choose a lesbian lifestyle strictly as a political choice, their answer to ‘patriarchal heterosexism.’ There’s no one reason, no one answer.

  “But for Denise Reynolds, turning to women for love was as much a matter of an acquired repulsion for men as anything else. A matter of sanity. She had to find kindness somewhere, genuine love, and she happened to find it with other women. There was no threat there, and there was hope for happiness. Then Gil found out about it and had the boys taken away from her on moral grounds. They’re living with relatives now.”

  “Where’s Denise?”

  “She disappeared.”

  Palma frowned. “What do you mean? She just wanted to start a new life?”

  “We don’t know. At the time, she was living alone, so she’d been gone a week or so before anyone really checked into it.”

  “It was reported to the police?”

  Mancera nodded. “Missing persons. But nothing ever turned up. They found a suitcase missing from her place and a lot of her clothes and money. Her car was missing. It just never came to anything. I think the police believe she snapped after the boys were taken away from her. There simply was no evidence of foul play.”