by Dorien Grey
“Yeah, I guess I can.” Obviously, they knew I knew something about Hysong, but I had no idea what or how they’d found out. “What time?” I asked.
“Ten thirty? I’ve got a couple things to check out first.”
“So, you’ll be there, too?”
“Hey, we haven’t seen each other in ages. How could I pass it up?”
“Ah, Marty, you finally got your B.A. in bullshit, I see.”
He laughed. “I’m going for my masters,” he said. “So, see you in an hour?”
“Right.” And we hung up.
Lt. Richman was Mark Richman, Craig’s dad. I’d known and worked with him since the early beginnings of the detente between the police department and the gay community following years of police harassment, mutual tension and distrust. Though now the tension levels had nearly dropped off the scale, the police were able to work more easily in and with the community, I still served as a very informal liaison between the two when the police needed more access or information than they felt they could get on their own.
I’d known Marty Gresham since he was a rookie, and for some reason he’d always credited me with helping to fast-track him to his current status as a detective.
Rather than take my car, and as I normally did, park it in the lot beneath Warman Park then walk the two blocks to the City Annex, which housed the police department, I decided to take the bus. It dropped me off in front of the City Annex at 9:50, and after being okayed by the security desk, I took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and Mark Richman’s office.
On the way up, I reflected briefly on the little protocol games we humans seem to enjoy so much. On those rare occasions when we met outside of police headquarters, and if he was not in uniform, I called Lt. Richman “Mark” and was comfortable doing so. But I would never dream of doing it when he was acting in his formal capacity. Marty, on the other hand, was always “Marty,” unless, again, it was in a direct-police-related situation where others were present.
As Joshua was recently fond of saying, “That’s silly,” but that’s also people.
*
Knocking on Lt. Richman’s door, I entered on his “Come” to find him with Marty Gresham and Marty’s partner, Dan Carpenter. I shook hands all around and was gestured to a seat. Marty and Dan took chairs on either side of me and Lt. Richman sat behind his desk.
“Detectives Carpenter and Gresham are working on an interesting homicide,” he began then paused, looking at me.
“Cal Hysong,” I supplied.
“You knew him?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Do you have any idea how many gay men there are in this city?” I asked. “I know a lot of them, but not all.”
“So, you didn’t know him?”
“Not personally,” I said. “I knew of him.”
“And what did you know?”
Well, we could keep playing Twenty Questions all day, but I figured we might as well cut to the chase.
“I knew he was suspected of deliberately spreading AIDS.”
Marty and Detective Carpenter exchanged quick glances, but the lieutenant didn’t bat an eye. Whether they had known about the AIDS thing before I mentioned it I couldn’t tell.
“A fairly good motive for murder, I’d say,” Richman observed.
“So would I,” I agreed.
“So, here’s our problem,” Marty said. “None of his coworkers knew much about him—or, apparently, even that he was gay. They described him as a tough-guy loner who nobody dared to mess with. Basically the same story from his neighbors, though a couple said they knew he was gay. We started checking the bars. Apparently, those rumors of someone spreading AIDS have been going around for a couple months, but in the last week or so, they started to zero in on Hysong. We learned he mainly hung out at the Male Call, but the owner denied knowing anything except that he’d eighty-sixed Hysong because of the rumors.”
He paused, apparently waiting for me to say something, but I still wasn’t sure where this was going and remained silent.
Finally, Carpenter picked up where Marty had left off. “The autopsy on Hysong showed he had AIDS himself, and if he was deliberately infecting others we’re looking at a pretty big suspect pool here. We can use your help in narrowing it down. The most logical place to start is the Male Call, since we heard that was Hysong’s main stomping ground. What do you know about it, and specifically, about any of its clientele?”
Okay, kids, it’s tightrope-walking time, I thought. I was positive Brewer would never have mentioned hiring me, but I didn’t want to risk Marty or Richman finding out later and think I was hiding something from them.
“The Male Call’s normally a little out of my league,” I said. “But Carl Brewer, the owner, hired me to try to find out who was behind the rumors that someone from the Male Call was responsible, since the rumors were destroying his business. Everything I found out pointed to Cal Hysong, and I probably made a mistake when I told Brewer before I had really exhausted all possible leads. Brewer said he didn’t need me to look further, and I suspect it was him who started pointing the finger directly at Hysong and led, I have no doubt, to Hysong’s murder.”
“Well, Brewer’s got an alibi for the time of the murder—he was taking inventory at the bar with one of his bartenders until about three.”
“So, do you know any of the Male Call’s regulars?” Marty asked. “It might be a good idea for us to start asking around, and if we had some specific names to start with it would help.”
Shit! How the hell was I supposed to get around that one? The only ones I really knew were Jared and Jake, and if the police found out Jake had sex with Hysong and was now positive for the virus, I might just as well paint a bullseye on their backs.
“I know several guys who go in there from time to time, but I wouldn’t call them regulars. Brewer’d be the one to ask about that.”
Please, please don’t push it! my mind pleaded.
“Yeah,” Marty said, “we asked him for a customer list, and he said he’d make up one for us.”
Great, I thought. Jared and Jake will undoubtedly be on it…but I’d worry about that later.
“We just thought you might have some other ideas as to where we should be looking,” Marty continued. “We hoped maybe you might have known Hysong personally. And you don’t know of anyone who might have a grudge against him?”
Time for a major sidestep. “For deliberately infecting other guys with AIDS?” I asked. “Like I said, there are tens of thousands of gay men in this city. Take your pick.”
I really hated being so damned evasive, but I just didn’t see how else I could avoid not only dragging Jake and Jared into a murder investigation but having them be high on the suspect list. I did give the detectives the names of the guys I’d talked to in the course of my truncated investigation and what little I’d learned from them—most of it implicating Hysong.
I also did not mention Brewer had said that if he found out Cal was spreading AIDS he’d kill him himself. I didn’t think it a wise career move for a private investigator to go around siccing the police on former employers without a lot better reason than something said in the heat of the moment. If I’d seriously thought he meant it, it would be different, but for now I’d let the police do their job.
Lt. Richman, who hadn’t said anything but had, I noted, been watching me carefully, said, “Look, Dick. I understand your position here. But a guy getting shot off a downtown construction site is the kind of high-profile case the D.A. loves. He’s jumped on this thing, and he wants a conviction. If this Hysong did what you and the rest of the gay community seem to think he did, he deserved to be punished. But you know as well as I do that nobody deserves to be murdered.”
Unless it’s the criminal justice system doing it, my mind added. Of course, he was right, but I’d rather he think I was protecting the entire gay community rather than knowing I was trying to protect my friends.
“All I can tell you, Lieutenant, is that from wha
t I was able to find out, Hysong infected at least fifteen men from the Male Call; and I know of a couple others away from it. How many more there are, I don’t know or want to think about. But every single one of these men has friends and partners who are totally justified in wishing Hysong dead, and any one of them is as likely a suspect as any other. I really wish I could narrow down the potential suspects, but I can’t. I can promise you I’ll let you know anything I hear that might be helpful.”
And I knew full well even as I said it that no matter what I did, Jake and Jared were bound to be caught up in the investigation. Damn!
Nobody said anything for a moment, and I felt it about time to make my exit. But before I got up to leave, I couldn’t resist asking, “Have you found the murder weapon, by any chance?”
Richman shook his head. “No. All we know is that it was most likely a hunting rifle—a Winchester, probably a Model 94.”
I was glad I wasn’t standing when I asked the question—the answer might have made my knees buckle.
*
Assuming that Jared was commuting between Jake’s and Carrington and probably wouldn’t get back into town until dinnertime, I held off calling Jake’s place. I’d rather talk to both of them at once. They may well have heard of Hysong’s death but probably didn’t know it was murder, or that a murder investigation was now underway and that there was no way they could avoid getting caught up in it. I knew stress was the last thing either of them needed, but since there was no way to avoid it, I could at least give them a heads up.
I called at around seven. Jonathan was at his first night of class for the semester, and Joshua and I had just finished the dishes. Jake answered and when he verified Jared was there, I asked him to put Jared on the bedroom phone so I could talk to them both at once.
There was a pause, then Jared’s voice, “Hi, Dick. What’s up?”
I told them. They had heard of Cal’s death, and neither seemed particularly surprised to learn he’d been murdered.
“It was only a matter of time,” Jared said.
“I’ve got to ask you something,” I said. “Did you ever have that meeting with the guys from the Male Call?”
There was a pause, then, “Well, yeah. Not a meeting, really. A couple of the guys came over last Thursday, and we just talked about it. I know you wanted to be there, but…”
“No, that’s not what I’m concerned about. What does bother me is that if the police find out about it, they might jump on it with both feet.”
“All we did was talk,” Jake said. “Nobody said anything about killing him…well, not seriously, anyway.”
“What did you talk about, if I can ask? And believe me, if I’m curious about it, you can be damned sure the police will be, too.”
“It was just general bitching, mostly,” Jared said. “We talked about going around to every bar and bath owner in town to tell them what was going on and to ask them to eighty-six him if he showed up. We also talked about maybe forming teams of two to follow him around everywhere he went. If he went into a bar, we’d go in, too. If he hit on anyone, we’d warn the guy what they were in for. We just wanted to make life as miserable for him as we could.”
“And no one mentioned killing him?”
“Not seriously, no.”
“But you did talk about it?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s hardly surprising given what that bastard was doing.”
“So, no specifics as to how it might be done?”
“No.”
I sighed. “Look, guys, I’m not trying to drag out the rubber hose here, but I know damned well I’m not asking anything the cops won’t ask. I’m between a rock and a hard place here. They called me in to ask if I had any thoughts about who might have done it. I’ve developed a good relationship with the police over the years, and I don’t want to jeopardize it. They wanted specific names of guys who might have had a grudge against Hysong, and the only actual names I could think of other than Carl Brewer were yours—and I wasn’t about to tell them that.”
“Well, thanks for that,” Jared said. “And we appreciate your telling us all this. But you don’t have to protect us. We’ve got an alibi if we need one. We went up to my cabin over the weekend and didn’t get back until late Monday.”
“Well, I sure hope it doesn’t reach the point where you’d need an alibi,” I said. I didn’t want to muddy the waters by asking how they had both gotten off work on Monday. Sometimes, being a P.I. sucks.
“Oh, one last thing,” I said. “Hysong was killed with what they think was a hunting rifle like yours.”
“What do you mean, like mine?” Jake asked.
“They think it was a Winchester Model 94.”
“Well, it sure wasn’t mine.”
“Of course not,” I said. “But the thing is, the police will quite probably be checking to see if anyone from the Male Call has one, so be prepared.”
Chapter 14
Thursday passed without incident. I was, of course, curious about how the police investigation was going, but while under other circumstances I may have been tempted to call Marty Gresham to ask him, I didn’t want to even consider it now. The further I kept away from things, the better.
I was just getting ready to walk out the door for work on Friday when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Dick, it’s Jake. We’ve got a really big problem.”
Shit!
“What’s wrong?” Stupid question.
“The police just left. They showed up with a search warrant for my gun.”
I was a little surprised but tried to offer some reassurance. “I told you they might ask you if you had a hunting rifle. But that they’d have a search warrant is a little extreme, I’d think.”
“That’s not the problem! When I went to get it for them, it was gone!”
“Gone?” I echoed, immediately feeling stupid for doing so. “When’s the last time you saw it?” I also immediately thought of the meeting they’d had with the other guys from the Male Call.
“The last time I saw it was when I put it under the bed right after I bought it. I didn’t have any need to take it out until hunting season.” He paused, then, “I should have looked for it when you told me about it on the phone. I at least could have reported it stolen before the police showed up looking for it.
“And what’s worse, if that’s possible, is that the warrant wasn’t just for a Winchester hunting rifle. It was specifically for a Model 94 Chief Crazy Horse Commemorative. They’re a limited issue.”
“Chief Crazy Horse?” I asked. “Why in the world would you want a Chief Crazy Horse Commemorative rifle?”
“Winchester does commemoratives all the time,” he explained. “When Stan and I were kids, we always played cowboys and Indians, and Stan always insisted on being Chief Crazy Horse and me being General Custer. I know they didn’t have anything to do with each other in fact, but you know how kids’ minds work.
“We had been talking about buying new rifles this year anyway, and when Stan heard about this particular commemorative, he insisted we get it. How could the police have known I even had one?”
Good question. Obviously the police had been doing their job.
“I’d imagine they tested the bullet taken from Hysong’s body and that it came from a Winchester 94,” I said. “You said it was a pretty new model—apparently, they were able to pin the spent bullet down to the exact model that fired it. They undoubtedly checked the gun shops and dealers for a list of people who’d recently bought one.
“They’ll undoubtedly be checking with Stan, too,” I added.
“Oh, that’ll go over big!” Jake said. “After all the battles Stan has had with the bureaucracy dragging their feet on the AIDS problem, he doesn’t look kindly on authority figures. But even so, with my gun missing, I’ve got a pretty good idea who the police will move up to the top of their suspect list.”
I did, too, but didn’t say so.
“Well, there’s no
point wasting your time worrying about that right now,” I said. “Did you tell the police about the guys from the Male Call being over?”
“No. I couldn’t see any point to dragging them into it, since for all I know the gun might very well have been gone before they were even here. These guys talk tough, but I can’t imagine that any of them could actually steal the gun, let alone use it!”
“But they knew you had it,” I pointed out.
“Well, yeah. The weekend I got it, we were at the Male Call, and I know I was talking about it then. It’s sort of like getting a new car. Okay, so I was doing the old ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ thing. Hey, how many people do you know with a Chief Crazy Horse Commemorative Winchester 94?”
“And you never had any indication that someone had broken into your apartment?”
“Not a clue, but…” He paused, then, “Jeezus, how stupid can I be? I sometimes leave the kitchen window open a crack. Somebody could have gotten in that way—but there’s never been any trouble in my building, and I’ve never even heard of a break-in anywhere in the neighborhood.”
“Jared was there when the cops were?”
“Yeah, but he had to leave for Carrington in time to make it to school. They seemed a little reluctant to let him go, and they fingerprinted us both before he left, which I thought was kind of strange.”
I did, too, but again didn’t say anything.
“They didn’t say so,” Jake continued, “but I imagine they think Jared has the gun at his place, and I’ll bet the minute they left here they called the Carrington police to get a search warrant. They won’t find it, of course, but I guess I can understand their thinking. Of all the rotten luck!” He paused for a moment and then said, “I was wondering if maybe you could do us a huge favor and check with your police contacts to see what’s going on. We didn’t mention that we knew you, by the way.”
Well, now that the police were aware—and I was afraid that was a gross understatement—of Jake and Jared, I at least didn’t have to avoid using their names.
“I can do that,” I said. “But tell me what else they said or asked you.’