“As soon as I get home.”
15
An hour and a half passed before Todd came out to talk to me. I spent the time making phone calls. Thoughts filled with the image of the severed head caused bits of nausea to appear in my throat at unpleasantly frequent intervals. I tried to get in touch with Lee’s lover several times. Scott and I had attended social events with them occasionally. I got no answer. I called Scott. He was still in his hotel room in Los Angeles.
He was very concerned. “Do you want me to fly back today?” he asked.
“I think I’m okay. I know I will be eventually. It’s when the thoughts come unbidden that it’s worst. It doesn’t help that I’ve got nothing to distract me here in the police station. I don’t want to leave and then have Todd come out. I’m not sure they’d deliver my messages if I asked them to.”
“Call Todd’s cell phone.”
“I bothered him once. It’s not an emergency. I’d rather wait.”
“Maybe you should call someone to come sit with you. I wish I was there.”
“I do, too. You’re scheduled to pitch tomorrow. There’s nothing you could do here.”
“I could be with you.”
“And that would be enough, but the phone is okay for now. Hearing your voice helps. I found the head and that’s awful, but it’s not a member of your family or mine. He was little more than an acquaintance.”
I asked about the trip so far, places he’d gone to eat. “You really want to hear about this?” he asked.
“I’d rather have a minute-by-minute account of the slightest thing you’ve done. Anything rather than think about that thing.”
We talked for quite a while. When we finished, I tried again to get in touch with Lee’s lover. Dustin Larkin and Lee had met in college. They’d dated and finally moved in together two years ago. This time he answered.
Dustin was shocked and promised to get to the police station as soon as he could.
Todd emerged about ten minutes after I talked to Dustin. He said, “Your young friend is in deep shit.”
“I know,” I said. “They found his fingerprints on the murder weapon. The cops said so when they told me they had my prints and only mine on the file drawer that had the head.”
“Hell, I’d arrest you for that.”
“It took them a few minutes to add that they had someone else’s, too. Turned out it was probably one of the kid’s, Abdel Hakur’s, on the damn file drawer.”
“Whose presence you didn’t tell the police about.”
“Which they now know.”
“My expert legal advice is don’t find any more bodies until this gets sorted out.”
“I’m willing to agree to that.”
“Good.”
Todd explained that he’d spent most of the past couple hours trying to get Lee to shut up. “He doesn’t listen. He thinks the truth is going to make him free.”
“You told him to tell the truth.”
“There’s a difference between essential facts and an entire life story told in the most lurid and unflattering light. If I hadn’t been there, he might have talked about every fight he ever had with Charley Fitch. Probably confessed to every unsolved murder in this jurisdiction since 1837. Why can’t they ever just shut up?”
“Lee is a good man. I’ve known him a long time. He’s been through a lot, but he is not violent. He overcame the same things a lot of gay guys did as a kid. I trust him.”
“Good for you. The police don’t. The murder weapon was in his office. It was an ax from a fire truck. He claimed it was a gift. You know anything about an ax?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen it. It was a gift.”
“An ax? What a moronic gift.”
“It wasn’t moronic until today. One of the first teenagers Lee helped at the clinic went on to become a fireman. At one of the first fires the kid responded to, he used an ax to break into a burning building. He saved the lives of three children under the age of seven. The fireman felt Lee had saved his life. He gave Lee the ax as a remembrance. Since the ax was Lee’s, it would make sense that his fingerprints are on it.” Lee had saved the fireman’s life, and the guy had wanted to give Lee something symbolic of life being saved. Lee kept it on the wall a behind his desk along with a citation from the mayor and a letter from the fireman.
Todd said, “Well, it’s also got a boatload of blood on it now. There’s little doubt it’s going to be the dead man’s.”
“Any fingerprints in the blood?” I asked.
“Not a one.”
I said, “The killer put it back in Lee’s office?”
“For Lee’s sake, I presume so.”
I asked, “It had to be a weapon of convenience, a spur-of-the-moment crime. Does a killer leave home and conveniently pick up an ax? Does he say to himself, ‘I think I’ll do some dismembering today’? Or ‘I’ve got a lot of hacking up of dead bodies to do today, better remember the ax’? Does he carry his lunch in his other hand?”
“Do ax murderers eat lunch?”
“We could ask Lizzie Borden.”
“She’s dead.”
“If Lee was the killer, why would he put it back in his own office? It’s not that difficult to take a murder weapon and drop it into a distant trash can or flip it off a bridge into the Chicago River. Hell, even one of those overpasses along the lake between the lagoons and the open water would do. Plenty of opportunity all over to get rid of the thing. Only someone who wanted to implicate Lee would put it back in his office.”
Todd said, “Maybe Lee thought it would be suspicious if it was missing.”
“It would be more suspicious hanging on his wall covered in blood. Lee isn’t stupid. He’d have had the brains to wipe off blood and fingerprints.”
“He wasn’t displaying great levels of intelligence when I was talking to him.”
“He’s just been accused of murder. How many of your clients are accused of murder?”
“Very few. Unconnected to you, even fewer. The cops may say they’re keeping an open mind and covering all angles. I don’t believe that. They think Lee is their killer, and I’m sure they’ll try to interpret every new fact in that light.”
If there was a gloomy angle to take on a case, Todd would take it. His view of cops was negative but his opinion of his clients was usually even lower. His suspicion of both sides came from his deep distrust of the human race in general. He often said that he thought “one strike” for felons was plenty. Despite his gloomy outlook and his jaded view of his clients, he was an excellent lawyer. Lee would get the very best representation.
I said, “We couldn’t dare hope they’ll find any other fingerprints on the ax?”
“They’ll check it,” Todd said. “They have Lee’s. It’s his ax. It’s covered in blood.”
“He kept it sharpened?” I asked.
“Sharp enough.”
I said, “Another thing the killer had to do: remember to wear gloves in case he decided to hack someone to death. I wonder where on the ax they found the prints.”
“Where isn’t going to help Lee.”
“But if the killer wiped the haft only where he touched it then…”
“A print is a print,” Todd said.
“Are you going to be able to get him out on bail?”
“I don’t know. This is going to take quite a bit longer. You don’t need to stay.”
“I helped Lee in high school. I’m not going to abandon him now. His lover is going to be here any minute. I want to talk to him. I’ll stay with him if he wants me to.”
Todd shrugged. “I’ve warned you about the road to hell.”
“You can’t leave someone alone who’s been told his lover’s been arrested on a possible murder charge.”
“I suppose. You’d be the one to know more about that than I. Don’t let the boyfriend talk to the police. Did all these people really hate the dead guy?”
“You never heard of Charley Fitch, or as most of the people who worked for h
im called him, Snarly Bitch?”
“I don’t read the gay papers. I don’t follow gay community gossip. I have enough to do to keep up with information directly related to my life.”
“They hated the man with a passion. I didn’t like him. Not many people did. When they find out who did it, a lot of the people who worked for him might want to give the killer a medal. If the jury has one person on it who was abused by a boss, they’ll never convict.”
Todd said, “That assumes someone in the office did the killing.” He left and returned to his client.
Dustin, Lee’s lover, arrived about fifteen minutes later. I intercepted him before he asked at the admitting desk about Lee.
“What is going on?” Dustin asked.
I told him. Dustin was in his late twenties, as was Lee. He was much taller and heftier than Lee. He tended to affect leather outfits at parties. Perhaps in the privacy of their home, they indulged in S-and-M games. If they did, I doubted if it would be a good idea to blab this information to the police. S-and-M games at home would easily give the police the idea that Lee was prone to violence. I’d never seen any master/slave activity between them. Then again, I’d never asked. I wasn’t interested in their private sexual practices. Nor did I think that private S-and-M activity between adults gave any indication about the practitioners’ proclivity for inflicting their predilection outside the home.
When I finished he whispered, “Somebody really cut his head off?”
“Yep.”
He put his hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, thanks. I’m more worried about Lee right now.” And I wanted to talk to the son of a bitch about his return visit to the clinic. That thought nagged at me, second only to finding the head in the dismay category, but leading in the frustration and irritation sweepstakes. I told him everything I knew so far.
When I finished, Dustin said, “I know he didn’t do it. Lee is the most gentle man on the planet. He’s always caring. He’s always the quietest one in a group. We almost never fight. He always wants to work things out. He gives in a lot of the time just to keep the peace. He hates fighting, but he does want to talk and talk. He sticks to his guns about that. He says we have to communicate to make the relationship better. I know he’s right, but sometimes I wish he’d just shut up.”
“He exploded last night at his boss.”
“That is so not him.”
“How was he when he got home?” I’d seen tears of rage and frustration ten years ago, but Lee had never struck out at his antagonists.
Dustin said, “I was exhausted. I’d had three hours of overtime at work. I was asleep when he got home.” He was a welder and worked long hours. There were a few in the gay community who looked down on his profession as a trade, and a sweaty one at that. There was another faction who thought it was terribly butch. I figured it was his job. It wasn’t any of my business whether he was happy or not in it or whether it met some snobbish queen’s expectations of what a gay person should do or if he was the epitome of a wet dream for the leather-lust faction.
Dustin said, “Funny thing. He was proud of that ax. I guess when you’re a social worker, you don’t always get feedback that things you’re doing make a difference in a person’s life, a positive difference. The guy was one of his first clients.”
“But he hated Fitch.”
“So did I. Didn’t everybody? I want to be first in line to congratulate the killer. I remember clearly a confrontation with Snarly Bitch once a few weeks after Lee started at the clinic.”
“What happened?”
“It was so stupid. I’d come to pick Lee up. I walked up to the receptionist at the clinic and asked for him. The receptionist, that Kang person, got all huffy and rude. I’d come straight from work. I’d been finishing a major project that afternoon. I guess she wasn’t interested in grime and sweat as the signs of a legitimate occupation. I probably didn’t look rich enough to please her. Snarly Bitch was standing several feet away. First, he told me this was a youth services clinic, and I was obviously too old. I told him I wasn’t there to use the clinic. He said that he hoped I wasn’t there for any kind of personal business with any of the staff. After the secretary being condescending, his attitude pissed me off. What he was saying was nasty enough, but the tone he was using was deliberately insulting. It was as if he wanted to make sure I was aware that he was older and more sophisticated than me, and I was some snot-nosed interloper, and a dirty one at that. He demanded to know if this was something personal. I remember exactly what I said to him: ‘You are not my boss. You do not sign my paycheck. Fuck you, go to hell, drop dead.’ He did neither of those last two things. He told me to get out. Lee walked in at that moment. Snarly got mean toward Lee, told him to keep his personal life out of the office. Lee was conciliatory, like he always is. I wish he’d stand up for himself more. I guess I understood. It was a new job. He really couldn’t do much. Snarly Bitch was such a shit. Many’s the time I met Lee and some of the people from that clinic for a drink after work. They couldn’t stop complaining about the guy. Lee and I even got our hands on a copy of the tape of the fight on News Forum. We’d show it at parties. We began to run it backwards and forwards. Backwards without the sound was even funnier than forward with the sound. Lee and I worked out a routine where we shouted out the lines. Over time we added new ones or altered the old ones slightly. We could keep the thing going for half an hour. Anybody who knew Snarly Bitch even slightly would roar with laughter. It was a lot of fun.”
I guess that depended on your definition of fun.
Dustin continued, “It got to the point where Lee and I had a system of signals if I was going to meet him at work. I’d call just beforehand. If the coast was clear, I’d come into the clinic. If not, I’d meet him on the corner of Addison and Monclair.”
I said, “I didn’t think a lot of the clinic workers socialized very much. Most of them seemed to be at each other’s throats.”
“There were three or four who were kind of close. Lee said he invited you once or twice.”
I remembered him asking. I hadn’t been much interested in socializing with the bunch from work. “I never went.”
“It wasn’t always the same ones who went out drinking. There were a few good people, but there were a whole lot of rats in that ship. Then there were the shifting alliances, the backbiting, the double dealing, the sophomoric intrigues, just all kinds of stupid shit. Didn’t you see it all?”
“As little as possible. I kept to myself, stayed in the back, had as little contact with the rest of them as I could.”
“But they got you to represent them.”
“That might have more to do with a fatal flaw in my personality rather than anything else. I cannot resist trying to help people out. I volunteered at that clinic, for god’s sake. I guess the other big reason they asked me to represent them is that I was the only one they all assumed was neutral. They could have faith that I wouldn’t try to use what they’d told me against them. And I’ve had experience in my school district with negotiations and union business. At the time, Lee hinted that I was a compromise candidate. Then again, they might have all been hoping for big contributions from Scott.”
Dustin said, “All I know is that there’s a lot of people who would make better suspects than Lee. Everybody at the clinic. Everybody. And that Karek guy. And some of those kids. That Jan! I’d be most suspicious of that neurotic drag queen. You know Jan?”
“Everybody at the clinic does. Why be suspicious of him?”
“Lee didn’t tell you?”
“He doesn’t discuss his clients with me.”
“I’m not sure Jan was a client. The kid kind of flitted back and forth between whoever would listen to him at the moment.”
“Put up with him is more like it.”
Dustin nodded. “I know that just this week Snarly Bitch threw Jan out and told him never to come back.”
“That I heard. I have Jan’s version of why he got thrown o
ut. What did you hear?”
“I think Snarly just got sick of how obnoxious the kid was. Lee never gave me the full explanation. I’m not sure he knew it. I wouldn’t cross Jan.”
“Why not?”
“You know he looks all soft and doughy.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he goes to the same gym Lee and I do. The kid bench presses over two hundred fifty pounds. He takes boxing lessons. Jan is really strong. One time I saw him have a confrontation with three straight guys. They’d taken Jan’s feather boa, a pink and mauve one that day. A bunch of us rushed up to help Jan. Stupid place to try a gay bashing. Half the damn gym is gay. But the kid was doing okay by himself. He had knocked one guy out, the second was so woozy he could barely stand, and Jan was starting on the third. Jan has a temper. He was shouting and hitting. I’d never heard such outrage or anger. There wasn’t a hint of effeminate mannerisms in sight as he bellowed at his attackers. The drag queen persona was not in evidence as he battered them one after the other. If it got around that every gay guy fought back with that kind of intensity and that much finesse and ferocity, there’d be a lot fewer gay bashings. The first guy had to be taken to the hospital. I’m sure he’d have tried to sue, but we all saw them teasing Jan, trying to push him around, and harassing him. Lots of times his locker got vandalized, his clothes strewn around. They could never catch who was doing it. The guys actually confronting him was the most blatant. Maybe they thought with the three of them, they could get away with it. Jan took it for maybe all of a few seconds and then he just let go.”
Several other of Lee and Dustin’s friends came in. They joined the vigil. It was nearly ten before Todd came out and said they were in the middle of the booking process, that they’d be taking Lee to court. Todd didn’t know about bail yet. Privately, I told him that Scott and I would pay Lee’s bail. I was pissed at Lee, but I still believed he was innocent. I’d known him too long. He just wasn’t the kind of guy to commit murder. Dustin and several friends said they’d go down to court. I decided to head home.
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