by Alan Russell
14
“MAKE YOURSELF AT home,” Lola said.
Caleb reluctantly stepped inside. He wasn’t there for a night’s shelter so much as for what came with it: a promised disguise. Lola was willing to change his hair color.
Her Hillcrest bungalow wasn’t what Caleb expected. He had thought it would be as glitzy and showy as her dress, but instead he found it refined and homey. The decorations were eclectic, with needlework, paintings, Art Deco, and American Indian artifacts all somehow combining for a pleasant ambience. The Native American items, in particular, were displayed very respectfully, almost in the manner of a shrine. There was a wooden arrow with a pouch tied to it, mounted feathers of raptors, what looked to be a bear claw necklace, and a painting of a white buffalo.
“Are you an Indian?” Caleb asked.
“I’m Heinz Fifty-Seven. But part Indian.”
“What tribe?”
“Lakota, better known as Sioux.”
Caleb kept walking around the living room and looking at things. He was reluctant to sit down. Lola watched him pace. She was tempted to tell him that he was the one wanted for murder, and that she was the one who should be feeling ill at ease, but decided to hold her tongue. He was nervous enough already but was trying to cover up by touring the room as if he were in a museum.
Caleb paused to study one of the paintings. It showed an Indian pausing in flight just long enough to taunt his pursuers. There were arrows in the ground around him that had fallen just short of their intended target.
“I have a friend who’s an artist,” Lola said. “He painted that for me. The French called that Indian Berdache, a Salteaux who was the best runner in his tribe. I call the painting The Decoy. That’s what Berdache did. He set himself up as a decoy to a Lakota war party. He shot arrows at them and taunted them to chase him so that his people could escape.”
Caleb took a closer look at the painting and frowned. Lola smiled at his reaction.
“Yes, Berdache was a drag queen.”
“For real?”
“For real. Among many Native American cultures there was a tradition that anthropologists refer to as berdache. It’s a French word that means ‘slave boy,’ which is not at all an accurate picture of what berdaches were to their tribes. I, and many others, prefer the term Two-Spirited People, or Two-Spirits, souls that embody both Mother Earth and Father Sky.”
Caleb shook his head, still finding it hard to accept. “These Indians wore women’s clothing?”
“In most cases. But I think you miss the point.”
“What point is that?”
“What the berdaches wore didn’t matter so much as what they were. The Lakota believe all objects have a spirit. They refer to their own berdaches as winkte. They believe that the spirit of both man and woman combine as one in a winkte. Winkte aren’t deviant; they’re special. Winkte can see with the vision of both genders, not just one. Their position gave them the freedom to move freely between men and women.”
“Was that their role? Emissary?”
“In some tribes they acted as go-betweens for the sexes. In others they performed sacred duties. And in still others they took on many of the feminine roles.”
Caleb moved away from the painting, but Lola wasn’t ready to change the subject.
“There is a Cree word for berdache: ayekkew. The translation is ‘neither man nor woman,’ or ‘man and woman.’ I always thought that appropriate. Neither and both. That speaks to me.”
“I’m glad you found some historical justification for what you are.”
Lola ignored his condescending tone. “We’re very alike, you know.”
“In what way?” he asked.
“Like you, I was always the outcast, always different. I thought of myself as a freak. There were no role models for me. As a teenager, my father thought he could beat my anima out of me, and my classmates took up where he left off. I was kicked out of my own house and had to live on the streets until my aunt, my mother’s sister, took me in.”
Caleb didn’t say anything, but she had his attention; he was even looking at her.
“But the beatings still didn’t stop. I just administered them myself. And what was worse, I knew how to hurt myself more than anyone else could. I was a mess. I’m still not sure how I survived, but I remember the moment my life started to turn around. My aunt gave me this book on Native Americans and pointed out the section on the berdache tradition.”
Lola’s eyes teared up. “It was an epiphany.” Her words came out hushed, choked. “It was like God tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s all right.’”
His entire life, Caleb thought, he had been waiting for that tap. He felt a twinge of jealousy.
“The more I studied, the more I learned there were berdache-like traditions in other cultures: the Mahu of Polynesia, the Hijra of India, the Xanith of Oman, the Chukchi in Siberia. And I came to realize that I have a place in this world. So do you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The heyoka were thought of as backward people. You might wonder why a culture would have a prized place for people who did everything differently. A heyoka might go naked in winter and dress warmly in the summer. A heyoka might walk everywhere backward, and dry himself before bathing, and laugh at the tragic, and cry at the hilarious. By acting in such a way, the heyoka brought a sense of the absurd to the tribe. The heyoka made the Lakota think and see things differently. In our lives, we have also been the bringers of reality change.”
Caleb stifled the urge to say bullshit. “You make it sound as if we’re on some kind of a holy mission,” he said. “You wear women’s clothing, and I’m the son of a serial murderer. There’s nothing holy about either one of those things.”
“Are you sure? Your presence reminds anyone who knows your history that life is short and fragile and something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.”
“My presence reminds people that there are sick and twisted individuals in this world. My presence reminds people to lock their windows and doors. I never wanted to be someone else’s reality check. And I don’t want to walk backward.”
“Then why do you?”
“At least I don’t do it in a dress.”
A long moment passed, then Caleb said, “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t take offense.”
“I know you’re trying to help. I’m sort of numb from everything that’s happened. I still can’t think clearly. I just feel like screaming, ‘This is so goddamn unfair.’”
“I know the words to that scream if you need a chorus.”
“If it was only me, that would be one thing, but it’s not. My family’s going to have to go through hell.”
“You have children?”
A nod; a brief smile for a good memory. “A boy and a girl. Janet’s ten, and James is eight.”
“Do you have pictures?”
“Not on me.”
The only pictures he was carrying were of a dead woman. Remembering that made him feel all the more helpless. Caleb started touring the room again, his way of avoiding personal questions. He paused in front of another painting. Center stage was a woman singing. She wore a translucent gossamer gown with a long train. Behind her was an elaborate stage with nymphs lolling by a stream and fauns playing harps.
“Another man dressed as a woman?” Caleb asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Lola said. “He’s a castrato.”
Caleb didn’t ask the question, but Lola answered anyway. “Becoming a transsexual has never been a goal or desire of mine.”
“Why the painting?”
“It’s pretty. And it’s a reminder of the long history of gender-bender entertainment that even the Western world has accepted.”
Caleb moved on to the last painting. It was centered over the fireplace, the focal point of the room. He examined the work closely. Two warring tribes were fighting. Caleb could see nothing in the hand-to-hand combat that suggested a man in woman�
�s clothing. Pictured were braves, many of them fighting to the death. One brave in particular was leading the charge. Several enemies had fallen around him.
“His name is Osh-Tisch,” said Lola, “which in Crow means ‘Finds Them and Kills Them.’ The scene is drawn from the Battle of the Rosebud in 1876.”
“Is there some significance that I’m missing?”
“Osh-Tisch was a Crow Two-Spirit. On the day of the battle he took off his feminine garments and put on men’s clothing. His bravery during the fight became renowned.”
“Why do you think he changed clothes?” Caleb asked.
“Anthropologists would probably tell you that the berdache fulfilled a sacred role and that by changing his clothes he was able to step out of that role.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Yes. But I also think he didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good outfit. Finding just the right women’s clothing is such a chore.”
15
“LAST NIGHT YOU said you talked with the suspect at a doughnut shop, is that correct, Ms. Line?” Detective Holt was being the hard-nosed cop. He had directed her to the Parkers’ dining room table and had chosen to sit at its head, as if assuming the role of the patriarch. Detective Alvarez was interviewing Anna Parker in the living room. The murmurs of their conversation could just be heard.
“That’s right,” Elizabeth said.
“And what doughnut shop was that?”
“You know which doughnut shop. Why the question?”
“Do you remember anything unusual about last night?”
Elizabeth tried to hide her impatience. That would only prolong his questions. “Not really. I talked with Mr. Parker for about an hour. He appeared to be in a state of shock.”
“Can you clarify that?”
“He acted dazed. What seemed to bother him most was that the world was about to learn he was the son of Gray Parker.”
“Did he say or do anything out of the ordinary?”
“Where is all of this going?”
“Please answer the question.”
A short sigh. “He said that the man who identified himself as Mr. Sanders on the phone asked him, manipulated him even, to come over immediately and cut down an acacia tree. I’d be curious about when that call, or even if that call, was made from the Sanderses’ house, because—”
The detective didn’t let his interview get sidetracked. “Did Mr. Parker converse with anyone else at the doughnut shop? Pay particular attention to anyone there?”
“No.”
“Did he buy anything? Doughnuts? Coffee?”
“No.”
“What about you?”
“I had two doughnuts. One was an old-fashioned glazed. The other was a buttermilk bar. I thought both were excellent, but I’d give a slight edge to the buttermilk bar. Now, I’d like to know—”
“Who waited on you?”
Elizabeth took a decorative apple out of the fruit centerpiece on the table. The apple almost felt real. She was frustrated enough to want to bite into it and leave teeth marks. “A girl. A young woman. I don’t know her name.”
“Please describe her.”
There. That was it. Elizabeth wanted to deny the feeling, the insight, but she knew with a certainty that this was what the detective had been leading up to. Even worse, she knew where his curiosity was taking him. Elizabeth looked at Holt’s poker face, his death mask.
“Ms. Line?”
“She matches the body found at the Presidio. She’s the one who was murdered.”
Holt neither confirmed nor denied her surmise. “Could you describe this counter clerk, Ms. Line?”
Elizabeth remembered the girl’s dimple, and her red cheeks, and her cheerful manner. But the detective wouldn’t care about those. For his report he’d want race, height, and weight first, then hair color, eye color, and any distinguishing marks.
“White female,” she said, speaking without inflection, “five foot five inches, a hundred and twenty-five pounds.”
Friendly. Very human in the best sense of the word. And young. So very young.
In the same dead voice, Elizabeth continued. “She had curly light brown hair. Her hairnet didn’t hide how frizzy it was. Blue eyes, I think.”
And that dimple. Only one. It had flashed on and off like a welcome sign.
“Anything else?”
Rosy cheeks, the kind that appeared on some women when they exerted themselves, even when they laughed. But in death you wouldn’t see those cheeks. They’d be muted now, white.
“No.”
“Did Mr. Parker interact with this woman at all?”
“What’s her name?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What’s the woman’s name? I don’t want to call her the doughnut girl, or the clerk, or the victim. I’d like to know her name.”
Holt didn’t respond right away. He appeared to be deliberating on the right thing to do. Then, decided, he flipped his pad back several pages, looked, flipped over a few more, and found what he was looking for.
“Brandy Wein,” he said.
“As far as I know, Mr. Parker never talked to, or even looked at, Brandy.”
“What time did you leave the doughnut shop?”
“Ten thirty.”
“And where was Mr. Parker?”
“He was still seated when I left.”
Had the son spared her like his father had? Maybe she just hadn’t given him the opportunity to kill her. Brandy Wein hadn’t known what Elizabeth knew, had no warning. Elizabeth fought off her nausea.
“...many other people in there?”
She caught enough of the detective’s question to be able to answer it. “We were the only people who took a table,” she said, “but there was a steady stream of people coming in for doughnuts.”
Elizabeth took out her own pad and started making notes. She did it to steady herself, for her sanity, but Holt was disturbed by her scratching.
“I’d like your full attention, Ms. Line.”
Without looking up, she said, “You’re not the only one working here, Detective. I need to make my own notes. But I’ll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability. And perhaps you’ll pay me the same courtesy.”
“You mean like your courtesy in conveniently forgetting what kind of a truck Shame drove off in?”
She looked up and for a moment saw Holt’s mask slip, saw his anger and disdain. It was deserved, she thought. She couldn’t explain to him, let alone herself, why she had lied to him earlier in the evening.
“I feel embarrassed at my lapse,” she said.
She didn’t specify whether her lapse was of memory or judgment, but her apology was enough for Holt to nod.
“Did you talk with him after his interrogation?” he asked.
Elizabeth nodded. “But just for a minute.”
“What did he say?”
“He thought I’d betrayed him. He thought I should have warned him about the Lita Jennings murder. But mostly he was worried about his family. That’s why I came here. He asked me to look out for his wife and children.”
“You agreed to do that?”
“I did.”
“That didn’t make you suspicious that he was about to run?”
“That wasn’t my impression. I just assumed he was afraid of being arrested.”
Alvarez entered the room but stayed on the periphery, waiting for Holt to finish. The two men made eye contact, and Alvarez said, “Got something I think you’d like to see.”
Holt stood up and walked over to him. Alvarez handed him some photographs. “I asked Mrs. Parker if she wouldn’t mind getting me some recent pics of her husband and told her to make sure they were all taken within the last year or so. I got ’em in order from most recent to least recent.”
Holt flipped through the photos, then whistled a little. “Pictures are worth a thousand words,” he said.
“What words?” Elizabeth asked.
The two dete
ctives looked at each other. Alvarez shrugged. Holt walked back to the table and tossed the pictures down in front of her. She thumbed through them. There were six photos. In most of the shots Caleb was posed with his children, pictures snapped during holidays and birthdays. That helped to determine the chronology, as did Caleb’s appearance.
Some people don’t change as much in a decade as Caleb had in an apparently very short time.
“The wife said he had a beard, and wore his hair long, from the time she went out with him,” said Alvarez, “but six weeks ago he took everything off.”
His beard had been full and long, Elizabeth observed, as if designed to hide his face. In the older photos Caleb’s hair had been longer and styled differently. If he had answered the door with his old look, she wouldn’t have immediately thought he was the image of his father.
“Clear as a picture,” Alvarez said. “He decided if he was going to kill like his father, he might as well look like his father.”
16
ELIZABETH WAS CHECKING into the hotel very late. Or very early. The night auditor at the Amity Inn, a young man whose name tag read Henry, wasn’t used to six a.m. arrivals. Henry could have played a vampire without any makeup. His skin was preternaturally pale, and the ingrained dark circles were dark enough to be mistaken for shiners.
“I’m really not sure whether I should charge you for last night’s lodging,” Henry said, “or just start with tonight’s.”
“I’m sure you’ll decide on whatever’s fair,” said Elizabeth, “but right now I’d just like to get my family into its suite.”
“I guess I’ll ask the manager when he comes in. It’s possible we’ll only charge you a half-day rate for last night.”
“Fine.” She knew the clerk was just trying to be nice, but her body language said, Give me a key.
“You’re planning on staying a week?” asked Henry.
Give or take seven days, she thought. “That’s right.”
“I’ll just need...”
Elizabeth extended a credit card to him. She knew the routine.