Outburst

by R. D. Zimmerman

“What do you mean, hon? What's happening? Are you in trouble or something?”

  “Yeah. It's … it's started all over again.”

  “What? Where are you? Here in L.A.? Listen, I'm going to meet someone for dinner, but I'm free later on. Want to have a drink? I know a great place for martinis. Wait, no, you're a margarita girl, aren't you?”

  “Joan, I'm in Minneapolis.”

  “Minneapolis? But—”

  “A cop was killed, and … and the police picked me up.”

  “What!”

  “It happened just a little while ago, and … and …” Kris clutched the phone and suddenly started crying. “Joan, I'm scared. I'm really scared. They're going to get me this time, I know they are.”

  Halfway across the country and above the din of freeway mayhem, Joan bellowed, “Okay, the traffic's not moving an inch. I'm just sitting here now, so tell me everything. And I mean everything. None of your fancy stuff either. Am I clear, hon?”

  “Yes, but … but I really don't know much.”

  It took only a quick couple of minutes for Kris to go through it all. A cop was killed—a young guy—and, no, she didn't have an alibi, at least not yet, though she'd get to work on that. Then late this afternoon she was leaving her house and …and the fucking cops swooped down. She had no idea what they knew or didn't know, but they were mean fuckers and didn't waste a second. She ran—okay, so she'd panicked—and then they handcuffed her and everything and hauled her ass down to City Hall. She'd been interrogated, booked, and now they were tossing her ass in jail.

  “Wait a minute,” demanded Joan. “You mean they arrested you? They formally charged you with this guy's murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, brother. Obviously they've got something then.”

  “But what? I thought we'd taken care of everything,” she said, trying not to cry. “I bet they know all about California. I bet they know, and—”

  “Listen, don't panic.”

  “—and this time they're going to get me!”

  “I can't believe this,” said Joan. “Yeah, they probably do know about California. They probably know every little detail. And they're probably pissed that I got you off. So I'm sure—”

  “Joan, you gotta come out here! You gotta help me!”

  “I'll do what I can, babe, but—”

  “Joan!”

  “Listen, Kris, I'm in Los Angeles. And I'm a California attorney. I'm not licensed to practice anywhere else, hon.”

  Kris turned around to make sure none of the deputies was listening, then in a muffled voice said, “Listen, sister, you better find me someone. If it weren't for you I wouldn't be in any of this shit. This is all your fault, and I can ruin you, you know. All I gotta do is tell someone where I've been getting all my hormones and—”

  “That's enough!” she snapped. “You'd never do that, and you know it.”

  Sheepishly, she replied, “Of course I wouldn't.”

  “Just be cool. Just calm down. I don't know anyone out there, but let me see what I can do.”

  27

  Once he'd spoken to Janice, Todd sat down at his desk and stared at the wall. He thought of himself and his closeted days, he thought of Tim the film star and the false image he projected, and he thought of Christopher/Kris. What did it all imply, that every gay person was a pathological liar?

  Certainly not, thought Todd. Nor were gays innate liars either. He wasn't enough of a fool, however, to not recognize how easily and naturally all gays could lie—just as he had done for almost all his adult life—simply because their safety had depended on it for so very, very long. As a survival technique over the centuries gay people had learned what truth to give to which person. And when. If at all. Which meant getting to the truth of Kenney wasn't going to be an easy process. Nor was it going to be easy regarding Mark Forrest—what were the secrets of his sex life? Todd now saw it more clearly than ever, understood that his hunt for the truth would probably entail peeling away many layers of many lies.

  Reaching for a legal pad on the side of his desk, Todd read down his notes until he came to the name of the cop killed in California. Next turning to his computer, he punched a couple of keys and his screen throbbed to colorful life. Disregarding the first image that surfaced—that of a half-finished game of solitaire he'd been playing a couple of days ago—Todd plunged on. Like all things in this age, his hunt would start here.

  The Minneapolis/St. Paul area was in the top fifteen large-market television category, particularly now that it was feeding its programming via satellite to a Canadian cable company. In terms of quality, however, it was considered to be in the top three, vying not against New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, but Atlanta and Denver, and, according to Minnesota chauvinists and maybe just a few unbiased others, actually winning. What that primarily meant to Todd was that not only were the production standards high at WLAK, but that he had access to a vast array of the best equipment and services, such as almost every data base available in the country. Thinking he could later get from Rawlins a printout from the National Crime Information Center—which would include relatively dry, straightforward information, from police wants to fingerprint details like central-pocket loop whorls—Todd decided to start elsewhere. He typed in his user name and password, the computer dialed in, and the vast world of Lexis-Nexis opened onto Todd's desk.

  It didn't take long to get things going and find what he wanted. He had two initial options of how to enter the system—News or People—and he chose the first; if nothing turned up he'd later search the People section for mention of Kenney. His next choice was whether to peruse magazines, major papers, wires, or newsletters, and his automatic choice was to go in on Newspapers. When a mostly blank screen appeared before him, Todd entered a series of keywords, typing: Kenney and Ravell and police and murder. He paused a moment, considered adding a couple of additional keywords, but then decided against it. For now he wanted as broad a search as possible; he'd be more specific later when and if he wanted to narrow his hunt. He hit the enter key, then waited as the computer system flashed the words: Nexis is working on the displayed request. In the next few seconds Todd feared that Lexis-Nexis would flash back that it had no stories, but instead Todd got a total of nine hits.

  Immediately Todd punched the CITE function key at the top of his keyboard, and nine blips appeared in chronological order, listing the journal, the date of the story, the headline, and a synopsis of the text. Quickly scrolling through them all, Todd noted that seven were from the Los Angeles Times and two from the Duluth Tribune. Apparently, thought Todd, settling into this, there was no lack of information on whatever had taken place in California. The question was how it would or wouldn't tie in to the murder of Sergeant Mark Forrest here in Minneapolis, and most importantly whether or not it would indicate if Kenney was a fledgling serial killer. If so, if Kenney was making a morose career of this kind of murder, were there just these two killings, or had he perhaps left a trail of dead police officers across the country? That, Todd realized, was something he'd have to check into—a listing, including dates and locations, of cops killed over the last couple of years.

  Completely unaware of what he would find yet intuitively certain that this hunt was going to take him somewhere, a rush of excitement swelled through Todd. He glanced at his watch, saw that it wasn't even eight-thirty, which meant he had plenty of time before the 10@10 broadcast. He switched from the synopses to the full texts, and the keywords he had entered stared out at him in bold typeface each and every time they appeared in the text of the stories. Starting with the first article, which appeared the morning after the murder of Los Angeles cop Dave Ravell a year and a half ago, Todd read them in order, one after the other.

  In the beginning, Todd understood, the case seemed pretty open and shut—or so it was portrayed by the media. On a pleasant Saturday night in Los Angeles, a series of screams from an efficiency apartment rented to Christopher Louis Kenney broke the stillness. Moments later a si
ngle gunshot exploded. There was a moment of quiet, then one large shriek. The neighbor across the open-air landing, a guy by the name of Tom Babcock, heard the shot, the screams, and rushed over. He banged on the door, hollered to see if everything was all right, then opened the door, which was unlocked. Sobbing on the floor in a skimpy blood-spattered dress was Kenney, whom everyone in the apartment building actually believed to be a beautiful twentysomething girl by the name of Kris. Across from Kenney, slumped on the couch, was the body of a young man, Sergeant David Ravell, his blue police shirt and several pairs of shoes—both his and hers—on the floor. A third of David's head was blown away from a gunshot wound, and blood was pumping from the body onto the couch and floor. On the carpet in front of Dave lay a pistol. This was what the neighbor saw and also exactly what the police found less than four minutes later when a nearby squad car responded to the neighbor's 911 call. As far as the two cops could tell, Kenney had not moved an inch, for none of the blood around her was smeared. Rather she just sat there, eyes and mouth opened in horrified shock. In fact, she wouldn't move, even when called to, and they had to lift her away.

  So far, thought Todd, scrolling from one article to the next, it seemed about as straightforward as could be. One body. One gun. One obvious suspect. It was no wonder that Christopher Louis Kenney, a.k.a. Kris, was booked and charged that very night with the murder of Police Officer Dave Ravell. And, given that this was all about a cop-killing, it was completely understandable why he was held without bail. But the truth, Todd knew from both his personal as well as his professional lives, was rarely a superficial thing, not something that lay like an oil slick on the surface of deep waters. Particularly in something so complicated as death.

  Yet …

  With each sentence Todd read, it looked more and more certain that Kenney had in fact killed Sergeant Ravell. The medical examiner's report, which came back the next day, was equally damning. According to the Los Angeles Times in a subsequent article, the M.E.'s office confirmed beyond a doubt not only that the weapon used to kill Dave Ravell was police issue, but that in fact Kenney's fingerprints were on the handle of the gun. Mention was then made of Kenney's sexuality. Yes, he'd been dressed as a woman when the murder was committed. And, yes, he was gay, the very mention of which made Todd flinch, for it was something about the way it was phrased. Or was it the placement of the sexual revelation in the story? For whatever reason, though, the reporter's wording made it sound as if Kenney was guilty simply because he was homosexual, which in turn reminded Todd of older movies and books where queer people were portrayed as one of two aberrations: either the repulsive villain who couldn't control himself or the pathetic, limp-wristed victim who more or less deserved to be killed.

  So how, wondered Todd, flipping to the next article, did they know Kenney was gay? Had Kenney simply told them? Or had the media jumped to conclusions, assuming that since he was dressed as a woman he was homosexual? Todd would have to follow up on that, for a man in a skirt didn't equal a homo. Absolutely not. The spectrum of cross-dressing was much broader than that, with heterosexual transvestites—straights who cross-dressed as a way to arouse themselves sexually—on one end, and transsexuals—those who'd had sexual reassignment—on the other.

  Todd sat back for a moment and rubbed his eyes. Wait a minute, he thought, what the hell had Sergeant Ravell been doing there in Kenney's apartment in the first place? Most murders, of course, took place in the heat of passion. So if the two of them, Christopher Kenney and Dave Ravell, had been sexually intimate, just what was the nature of their relationship?

  There was no telling yet how far this story would actually go. He'd do the story at ten, then follow-up once or twice tomorrow, but experience had told him the public's attention would soon start to lag. And before that happened, to be sure, WLAK management would sure as hell pull Todd from the story. That meant that at best Todd would have only until Mark Forrest's funeral—which would be attended by family and friends and thousands of cops and would be covered at length by all the media, print and broadcast—to come up with something that would keep this thing alive. Broadcast journalism—in particular, television—was getting more and more shit these days for its lack of depth in reporting, but that, Todd felt, said as much about the American public's attention span as anything else.

  Returning to the screen, Todd read on about the murder in Los Angeles. Sergeant Dave Ravell had been recently divorced—and what, Todd mused, was the story there?—and was survived only by his mother, Roseanne, who was struck so hard by the news that she was immediately put on medication, and by his younger brother, Ron, who was described as “shattered.” Hoping they wouldn't be too hard to reach and that they would agree to talk to him, Todd jotted down their names, then continued. By the afternoon of the following day, Kenney had hired an attorney, Joan Ryan, who came forward, insisting absolutely and completely that Christopher Louis Kenney was innocent.

  “There was a struggle involving the weapon, but Christopher most definitely did not pull the trigger. Clearly this is not a case of murder but suicide,” she was quoted in the Los Angeles Times. “I've met at length with my client, and I intend to prove his innocence in a court of law.”

  Todd next came to an article in the Duluth Tribune reporting that one of northern Minnesota's native sons had been arrested in California for killing a cop. Again there was mention both of young Christopher's sexuality and that he was presumed by all in Los Angeles to be a woman, leaving readers to cast their own stones. The damage to the Kenney family reputation, though, surely had to have been significant, for his parents, Marie and Joseph, were identified, specifically that Joseph had served with the Duluth police for over twenty-five years. It was a fact that jumped out at Todd, definitely suggesting another avenue to explore. On his pad of paper Todd jotted: What is Kenney's relationship with father? Was there any physical abuse? What does father think of gays?

  As surely and easily as the case had been built against Christopher Louis Kenney, however, it unraveled just as quickly. A mere four days after the murder and just three days after the medical examiner's report, the medical examiner himself was stopped for driving under the influence. It was a scandal that swept across the front pages of the papers, and it was more than enough ammo for attorney Joan Ryan—“For God's sake,” she was quoted, “what kind of butchering has he been doing? How many autopsies has this man done while drunk?”—to call for a prosecuting attorney and medical examiner from another city to reevaluate the case. Which was exactly what took place. Not even twenty-four hours after Sergeant Dave Ravell was laid to rest with great mourning from thousands of the L.A.P.D., his body was exhumed from the dark and placed again in the scrutiny of light.

  And the findings of the second report couldn't have been more shocking.

  Much to the chagrin of the police and the horror of the Ravell family, the second medical examiner supported Christopher Louis Kenney's claims. Both men were right-handed—indeed, only the prints of Christopher's right hand were found on the gun—yet the bullet wound was not on the left side of Ravell's head, but on the right. Furthermore, the powder burns, the angle of the bullet, and the immense damage to the skull, which was horribly shattered, confirmed that the weapon had been fired point-blank. This raised considerable doubt on Kenney's ability to move around to Ravells right side and fire the gun, then sit down opposite him. And while Kenney was splattered with blood, he'd definitely not been smeared nor had he left any bloody tracks, as would have been the case had he physically traversed the scene. Furthermore, Sergeant Dave Ravell's personal medical files confirmed that he was distraught over his divorce and that he was not only taking Prozac for depression but had been identified as suicidal. And finally, someone looked up and spoke with Ravell's former wife, who admitted that she and her husband had divorced over issues of his sexuality, specifically his homosexuality. In no uncerain terms she told the investigators that she dumped her husband when she found him in bed with a FedEx man.

 
; “What we have here,” pronounced Joan Ryan in an interview to all the press, “is clearly a case of a confused cop who could not come to terms with his being gay. He and my client, who cared deeply for him, were beginning a relationship, but unfortunately Mr. Ravell felt it easier to take his own life than to face the truth. Sadly, this is all about homophobia and self-hate.”

  That afternoon the judge tossed out the case, feeling that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt could not be established, and Christopher Louis Kenney was released.

  The second-to-the-last article was again from the Duluth Tribune, a short piece that reported that the charges against Kenney had been dropped. When asked how he felt about all this, Kenney's father, Officer Joseph Kenney, simply said, “As far as I'm concerned, my son is dead.”

  Moving on, Todd came to the final article in the data base, which was dated the very next day:

  9TH STORY of Level 1

  Printed in FULL format

  Copyright Times Mirror Company

  Los Angeles Times

  Home Edition

  Section: Metro; Part B, Page 24

  Length: 265 words

  Headline: More Difficulties for Policeman's Family

  Body:

  Roseanne Ravell, age 63, mother of Sergeant Dave Ravell, who died last week of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, suffered a debilitating stroke Friday afternoon at her home in Los Angeles. Her only surviving relative, her son, Ron, was at her side when she collapsed in her living room. Thanks in large part to her son's efforts and those of an emergency medical team who were summoned, Mrs. Ravell was quickly stabilized and rushed to a nearby hospital.

  Since the death of her son Sergeant Ravell, in what at first was widely believed to be a homicide, Mrs. Ravell had been on medication and under the supervision of her doctor. Friday afternoon, however, reporters descended upon her house, telling her that the charges against Christopher Louis Kenney, the young man dressed as a woman who had been arrested for Sergeant Ravell's murder, were dismissed and he was being released. When asked if she thought her son was gay and that he had killed himself, Mrs. Ravell burst into tears and retreated into her house. Approximately one hour later Mrs. Ravell suffered her stroke.