The Truth Can Get You Killed

by Mark Richard Zubro

  The security guard opened the door.

  Judge Wadsworth stood in the entrance. He said, “I’ll leave you. The security guard will be outside the door, in case you need anything.”

  And to watch so they didn’t steal the silver, Turner thought.

  Fenwick’s first comment, after the door shut behind them, was, “Knowing my public servants are so perfect and dedicated sure cheers me up. I’m comforted that they got along so well.”

  “Can’t have been that much sweetness and light. There had to be disagreements. We’ll have to check all these people as well as Meade’s recent cases. We better see if we can get some researchers started reading those things.”

  The room had more maroon leather, blond wood, and bookcases crammed with books. The only difference between this room and Judge Wadsworth’s was it had a south and west corner view. From this office you could see the top half of the Sears Tower.

  Fenwick took down a few of the books at leisure. “All the judges offices I’ve ever been in or seen on television have these rows of books. I wonder if they ever really open them.”

  Turner shrugged.

  One door led off to a darkened courtroom. Behind another was a pristine clean bathroom, complete with shower and fresh towels.

  “This so he could clean up after a hard day of judging?” Fenwick asked.

  “I guess.”

  Turner opened the medicine cabinet. They gazed inside.

  Fenwick said, “Just once I’d like to open one of these and have it make a difference in a case.” Nothing in the bathroom was remotely suspicious.

  They sifted carefully through the documents strewn on top of the judge’s desk.

  After several minutes of skimming through one document Fenwick began to sing, “Clues, glorious clues.”

  “Find something?”

  “No. Just aimlessly humming.”

  “You were singing. You were using words. Singing—words. Humming—no words. I’m beginning to worry about you, Buck. You’ve been singing Broadway show tunes a lot lately.”

  “And learning the basics of color and fabric. I think it’s just a phase.”

  “You see an appointment book?”

  Fenwick shook his head.

  Turner glanced at the family picture on the desk. In it the judge still had all his hair. The family was in a woods or a very large backyard having a picnic. They all sat around a table with a red-checked tablecloth. Besides the judge and his wife, there was a girl about eight or nine and a boy about four or five.

  They started through the drawers. After twenty minutes of paper clips, pens, papers, and a paperback novel of Barbara D’Amato’s Hard Christmas, they had nothing helpful in the murder investigation.

  Fenwick slammed the bottom drawer shut and said, “I got plenty of nothing.”

  “Stop that,” Turner said, “or I’ll tell Carruthers.”

  They left.

  Judge Rosemary Malmsted, assistant chief judge, was next on their list. She lived in the western suburb of Oak Brook and had not been willing to drive into the city. Using their map, they quickly arrived at her substantial trilevel home on Apple Street.

  They heard a football game on in a distant living room as she led them into a sitting room. In one corner sat a chest of drawers decoupaged with scenes of Paris. A leather sofa and matching love seats with chrome accents were placed around a glass-top coffee table. This last rested on top of a Chinese Deco carpet.

  Judge Malmsted wore baggy, black jeans, a flannel sweater, and black leather boots.

  Turner said, “We talked to Judge Wadsworth about Judge Meade and we’ll be talking to all your colleagues.”

  “Our esteemed leader told you everything was wonderful, didn’t he? That everyone worked together like a family?”

  “Not precisely. He did say you all got along.”

  She gave a low, mirthless laugh. “He’s wrong.”

  “What can you tell us?” Fenwick asked.

  “I can tell you my perceptions. I don’t think there was enough wrong to drive someone to murder, but my information might give you places to go, people to talk to, and angles to think about—which is the point of an investigation, isn’t it?”

  Turner and Fenwick nodded.

  “I’ve been on the bench here for two years. I was appointed by a Democrat. Meade was one of Nixon’s last appointees. Made it to the bench as a young man. I believe his family made fairly substantial contributions to Republican coffers, as did mine to Democrats, before I was elevated to the bench. Judges don’t like to talk about such things, but it is the truth.”

  A cheer erupted from the distant television. She poked her head out the door. “Turn that down, Arnie,” she called, then returned to her seat.

  “You will discover, from those of us on the bench in Chicago who are honest, that I hated him.”

  Turner and Fenwick simply kept giving her their best, “the witness is talking and I’m going to listen” faces.

  “You don’t act surprised.”

  “Should we be?” Turner asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t think any of the others had as much animosity between them as he and I. At least they never expressed it as much as the two of us did. I am considered the most liberal of the judges. Meade was the most conservative. In our meetings, we were always on the opposite side. It would have been different if he was arguing from logical and sensible theories, philosophies, or beliefs. He was just a hater. A blind bigot.”

  “The hatred was mutual?”

  “Oh, yes. Everybody saw it at least once.”

  “Judge Wadsworth?”

  “Of course he did. The old hypocrite. He’s big on decorum, secrets, and the ‘old boy’ network. I wish he’d retire or die. Either one works for me.”

  “That work for you in terms of Judge Meade?”

  She smiled. “I was speaking rhetorically, not making a statement of intent or describing an action taken.”

  “Where were you last night?” Fenwick asked.

  “Here. We had a family gathering that lasted until two in the morning. My mother and father are in town, vacationing for the holidays. We were up around seven this morning.”

  “Tell me about his conservative decisions,” Turner said.

  “Think of all the issues of the day. Abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, drug testing, redistricting. If he had his way, every woman would be pregnant, tested for drugs, not allowed to vote, and married to a man who was the only one in the house out earning an income.”

  “He antagonized a lot of groups?” Fenwick asked.

  “Well, he wasn’t as prominent a conservative as, say, a Phyllis Schlafly or a Pat Buchanan, but in his own way he had more impact than they ever did. Our decisions often have an immediate, direct effect on those involved.”

  “Any ones in particular come to mind?”

  “Of course, the latest was the upholding of the antigay law in Du Page County.”

  “Before that?”

  “I’d have to check dates and decisions. He’s been around a long time. He’s got a paper trail you’ll have to follow, although he didn’t write a lot of the decisions.”

  “Who did?”

  “He was a hater, but he wasn’t too bright. Whoever was on the bench and could be articulate about his position would write the decision.”

  “Did he prevail often?”

  “We’ve been getting a little more liberal. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. I’d say in the past few years he’d lost more than won, mostly because he was so stupid. People were getting fed up with him just being negative and inarticulate.”

  “Other than disagree with you, could he actually cause you problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “Try and lose you your job?”

  “Meade would threaten and bluster, but that kind of thing doesn’t really happen. There is a judicial review that the chief judge runs, but it is very secret and very unknown. We do have a good-behavior clause but, in essenc
e, we serve for life. All the judges could get together and recommend someone be fired, but I’ve never heard of it happening. More likely, people would talk to a judge and try and get him or her to step down.”

  “He threatened to get your job?”

  “Judge Meade could make intemperate comments. I’d learned not to take them seriously.”

  In the car Turner said, “Thank you Richard Nixon.”

  Their car radio crackled with their name on it. “I got a message for Turner. Says here to meet a guy named Hume. He’s at someplace called the Gay Tribune, and he says it’s important.”

  “He must have our witness,” Turner said.

  “We need to look into these judges,” Fenwick said. “A hotbed of dissent right in front of us.”

  “My this-is-our-killer-radar hasn’t gone off yet.”

  “When did you get yours installed?”

  “Carruthers had one and I was jealous.”

  7

  They drove back to the city, looping through the mistake in the suburbs where traffic from three major highways converged into just three lanes of the Eisenhower Expressway. Even with the light holiday traffic, there was a delay. In the city, they took the Ashland Avenue exit off the Eisenhower north to Belmont and then east to Broadway. The offices of the paper were on the east side of Broadway where Buckingham dead-ended. The three-story building was built in the last year by the owner of the paper, who discovered the Gay Tribune had turned into small gold mine. The owner rented out a third of the top floor to a gay law firm. During the Pride Parade last June, they draped what they claimed was the largest rainbow flag in Chicago from the roof.

  They parked in the bus stop at Melrose and Broadway. The walk to the paper chilled them thoroughly.

  A secretary directed them up two flights of stairs to Ian’s office. Computers were strewn amid the modern polished chrome-accent pieces, all softened by the deep gold carpeting, recessed track lighting, and pleasantly overstuffed chairs grouped around solid oak coffee tables. Even on the holiday, several people were hunched over computers. Thursday was deadline day.

  Ian met them at the top of the stairs and led them to an office that was the opposite of the pristine neatness outside. Before he opened the door, he said, “This is not the guy who talked to me first. I found someone more reliable.”

  “How?” Turner asked.

  “Sources,” Ian answered.

  Turner frowned. He hoped they didn’t get into a fight about who was getting information from whom and what needed to be revealed.

  They entered Ian’s office. Tattered posters of long-closed art exhibitions covered two of the walls. Huge maps of the city covered another wall. One map had congressional districts drawn on it, another had the state legislative districts outlined, and there was a third with all the wards in the city indicated. Corkboard covered the wall around the door. Messages crammed all the space around all three sides of the opening. On the edges of the chaos were several beefcake calendars, not all of them from the New Year. All but one were turned to months with pictures of extremely attractive men. The newest one had Mr. January in western gear. Turner liked the one from June of 1987. That picture showed a slender, bare-chested man in tight black, leather pants, straddling a sleek, black motorcycle.

  When they entered the room, a lanky young man stood up. Ian introduced him as Billy Geary.

  Ian sat in the nicked-and-scarred wooden swivel chair. With his right index finger he shoved his slouch fedora far back on his head. Billy perched on the edge of the desk. He wore black warm-up pants, a white hooded sweatshirt that said Oxford, and black running shoes. The bulky clothes did not hide the fact that he had broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Fenwick leaned against a file cabinet on the far side of the room. Turner rested against a blank space on the corkboard wall. The four of them filled the small room and made the atmosphere seem close.

  “You guys are cops?” Geary asked.

  They showed their identification.

  Geary nodded. “I wasn’t sure about this. I’m still not definite, but once I heard that Judge Meade was dead, I figured I’d better tell somebody. Then Ian called.”

  “I’ve been tracking down everybody I know who had any connection with the courts. I met Billy at …” Ian hesitated.

  Geary said, “I’m not doing anything illegal, and I’m not ashamed of what I do. I’m a dancer at Au Naturel, and I go to law school at Loyola.”

  “How does that work?” Fenwick asked.

  Geary looked confused. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “They don’t seem like compatible professions,” Fenwick said.

  “Why not? I don’t dance on the tables at the school. I don’t bring my books to study at the bar.”

  “Just curious,” Fenwick said. “But why do you do it?”

  “I need a job to get myself through school. My parents threw me out of the house when I told them I was gay. The money is good. I make more than anybody I know on their side job. It’s better than toting barges and lifting bales and I like the attention. It also helps that I’m an exhibitionist.”

  “What’s your connection with Judge Meade?” Turner asked.

  “I had a project last spring in one of my classes. It was on federal appellate decisions. They’ve got that terrific library in the new Kennedy Federal Building so I was down there a lot. I stopped in a few of the courtrooms and I wound up listening to the arguments in the Du Page County case. You know the one about the gay rights?”

  “We know,” Fenwick said.

  Geary looked surprised.

  Turner said, “So you knew Judge Meade by sight?”

  “Yes. The important thing is, I saw him last night.”

  “Where?”

  “In Au Naturel.”

  “You’re sure?” Turner asked.

  “It was only a quick glimpse. Some guy had just dropped a ten dollar bill in my Gstring. That’s ten times what we’re used to so I’d given him a little more than a hug and a peck for his efforts. He offered me …” Geary looked at Ian.

  Ian said, “You can tell them about the offer. Don’t go beyond that.”

  “You his lawyer?” Fenwick asked.

  “Go ahead, Billy,” Ian said.

  Geary nodded. “I was startled at the amount of money he offered me to go home with him later that night.”

  Ian said, “The dancers are often offered gifts and favors.”

  “And money,” Turner said. “Let’s get on with it. We’re not here to bust you for prostitution.”

  Geary said, “This was about eleven. I wasn’t sure where I was going after work, and he offered me more than the going rate. I told the guy I’d have to let him know. He was nice about it. I gave him an extra nuzzle or two and he, well, never mind about that.”

  Grabbing the crotch of, pulling the G-string out and catching a peek at, and rubbing the front of the dancers were not uncommon practices. Turner always figured the owners must pay a high amount of graft to keep from being hassled by vice.

  “I got done with that guy. I was standing up, and right behind him was Judge Meade.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He wasn’t looking at me. He was trying to get past the dance floor area. It was really crowded so it took him a while. I doubt if he would recognize me. He couldn’t possibly know me. There was always a crowd in his courtroom, besides I was wearing a lot less last night than when I was in his courtroom.”

  “Did he give you money?”

  “No. I don’t know where he went, how long he stayed, or what he did. I only saw him that once. He disappeared, and I kept dancing. I didn’t see him the rest of the night.”

  “When did you find out he died?”

  “After Ian called. I didn’t get up until after one today. I ate breakfast and watched some football games. I turned on the local news during halftime.”

  “Billy was my nineteenth call. I was deep into my list of sources. Luck.”

  Turner asked Billy, “Y
ou sure it was him?”

  “I’d testify to it in court.”

  “Did you mention it to anybody else last night?”

  “When I got back to our dressing room, I made a general announcement. I couldn’t believe that a notorious homophobe was in Au Naturel. I assumed it meant that he was a closet case. Typical, one of our own persecuting us the most. Thank you J. Edgar Hoover.”

  “What did the other dancers say?”

  “Not much. Most of them aren’t very political. We’re all pretty young. The guys are out for a good time and to make money. I had to explain to a couple of them who he was and that he was antigay.”

  “Tell me about the dancers,” Fenwick said. “I need some sense of who they are or who they hope to become.”

  “They’re just guys. Some are straight. Majority are gay.”

  “I mean, what do they do when they aren’t dancing? They all aren’t in law school or visiting courtrooms?”

  “I don’t know a lot of them. A few are in school like me. Most of us do a little hustling on the side. Lots of them live in cheap apartments. They spend all their money on partying, alcohol, and drugs, especially drugs. A lot of them sleep until three in the afternoon. After you get up, if you’ve got half a brain, you go to a gym and work out or at least jog or run—do something to keep in shape. Then you dance and party and go nuts. It can be lots of fun.”

  “How do they get out of the business?”

  “Some become full-time hustlers. Most just drift into other things. A few try to be those dancers for hire at parties. It’s a life that doesn’t have a lot of benefits or a pension program. A rare few find, and are able to settle down with, a sugar daddy. Doesn’t happen often. I’ve heard of it but I don’t know anyone that has actually happened to.”

  “At Au Naturel do the guys run into problems with customers being too forward or too friendly?”

  “A few clients get a little rambunctious. Mostly not.”

  “The pay is worth it?”