Murder on Camac

by Joseph R. G. Demarco

  When I came out, the approval of the Church was the furthest thing from my mind. Even if I wanted the Church to change, I never wanted back in.

  But Dignity and Hollister did want the Church to accept them. I left the closet behind more than twenty years after Dignity got started and those guys were still doing their imitation of a battering ram using their own heads. When I learned about this group of gay men and lesbians pounding their collective skull against the doors of Mother Church, I was turned off. I mean, if an institution hates you and doesn't want you around, how pathetic is it to keep begging to be let into the party? As far as I was concerned, Dignity and Hollister kept fighting a losing battle.

  As I watched the elegant Hollister, former priest, current activist, and bereaved lover, a wave of mixed feelings hit me. I smiled and shook his hand.

  "Nice to meet you, sir. You're something of a legend, aren't you?" Flattery never hurts, but I meant it. Whatever I thought of him and his efforts, he was a legend. He'd been brave to come out when he did, forsaking everything he'd ever wanted. Now, he was broken, alone, and in need of help. My help. "Please accept my deepest sympathy. I know those words don't change anything for you, but..."

  "Thank you, Mr. Fontana. I don't feel legendary and words do change things. They got Helmut killed." His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat but it took him a while to regain his composure.

  "Are you... all right?" I kept my own emotions in check.

  "I've never felt uncomfortable in this neighborhood. It's been our home for years," he said. "We've lived here so long. But now..."

  "It's understandable after what you've experienced." I shook my head. Hell, I didn't know if I could get over something like that happening right where I lived.

  "You're right, of course. But now everything feels sinister, threatening. Every face I see looks as though it harbors some evil plan."

  "A normal reaction. It's all too fresh."

  "Yes, yes. I suppose it's so. Still, coming here it felt like I was under everyone's scrutiny. It was as if someone were following me." He held up a hand to stop anything I might be going to say. "I know. I know. It's all in my mind. Logically I understand that. After what happened..." He bowed his head and kept silent for a moment.

  "Do you think maybe you want to wait a few days before we talk about this?"

  "If you think I'm in shock, you're right, Mr. Fontana. If you think shock has clouded my cognitive powers, you're wrong. I've been through a lot of things in my life. This might be the worst but it's times like these when I've found I need to do something," he paused. "Besides, there are things you should know. Before any more time passes, before anything else happens. In fact, I know Helmut would insist we speak tonight."

  "I received a call from him this morning. He wanted to talk."

  "I was there when he called you. There's little that we don't share." Hollister paused. He seemed to drift away on some thoughts. If I had to guess, I'd say those thoughts were about what his life had been like with Helmut. And what it might be like from here on out. "Of course, sometimes Helmut thought he was protecting me by not telling me every detail. But it was I who should have been more protective. I shouldn't have gotten him started down this path."

  "How long were you two together?"

  "Quite a while," he said, a wistful smile crossed his lips. "Helmut was considerably younger than I. A source of jokes for some, I'm sure. But his affection was genuine. After all, an ex-priest has little to offer someone in the way of money, prestige, or most anything else."

  "How old was he? I don't think they mentioned that in the reports."

  "You're really asking how old I am. I won't be coy, though an aging gay man has little currency in the community unless he has real currency in the bank. Wouldn't you say?"

  "I'm sure Helmut didn't feel that way about you."

  "You're right, Mr. Fontana, but he was a different kind of man in many ways. I'm eighty. Helmut was a baby, just forty-five. But here I sit and there he is in the morgue." He heaved a deep shuddering sigh and looked up at me. The expression on his aristocratic, gray-complexioned face made it appear that he could take no more. But he sat up straighter.

  "Life never seems fair," I mumbled. How many times had I reminded myself of that? When Galen left, when my closest friend on the force was killed. The list just grew. Life never worked out to being fair, it was just life. I sometimes felt like a lab rat running a maze, wondering what the hell I was doing.

  "Life had been quite decent up until today," he said. "All things considered, I'd been luckier than most. I guess you could say life was more than fair to me. I had the luxury of making choices. I chose to come out. I chose to leave the priesthood. I chose to live by what I believed. Being able to make your own choices and live your beliefs, that makes life appear pretty fair." He looked at me with those watery blue eyes and I saw tears glistening at the edges. "Then I met Helmut. That was fifteen years ago, he was thirty and I..., well, you can't deny that life was being fair to me then. More than fair. What's more he even loved me. The poor boy. He loved me and I couldn't understand any of it."

  "Fifteen years is a long time. He must have loved you very much."

  "The irony is that maybe... I don't know... maybe I got him killed. Indirectly. But ultimately it was my fault." He looked at the floor.

  "The police say it was a random mugging. You can't blame yourself. You could never have known." I watched him try to compose himself. He was like a rag doll with all the stuffing pulled out. Slowly he sat up straight and peered at me.

  His eyes were different, more focused, more intense.

  "It wasn't a mugging. It was an assassination. His work shed light into dark corners. He had to be stopped. That's what one of the callers said. He had to be stopped."

  "There were actual threats?" I hadn't quite believed Brandt when he'd called. "Didn't you call the police?"

  "What would they have done? Exactly nothing. We'd called them before but they treated us as if we were insane or paranoid. Those threats made me regret I ever got him started on that project. The calls weren't the only thing. Church leaders condemned his work. Tom Quinn, another writer, claimed he'd been working on the same idea for years. Even Opus Dei weighed in on Helmut's book. And I started it all."

  "Sounds like a real tangle," I said. I knew the guy was grief stricken, but Opus Dei? He'd read one too many thrillers. I resolved not to judge the guy until I'd heard him out. "How did all this begin? What made it so dangerous?"

  "All right, Mr. Fontana," he said and cleared his throat as if getting ready to begin a long story. "Everything I tell you will be placing you in danger as well." He looked at me as if there were spies everywhere.

  "Call me Marco. If we'll be working together, we can skip the formalities."

  "Does this mean you'll look into the matter for me?"

  "I said 'if.' Let me hear more and see where it leads. I won't take your money if I don't think there's anything to be discovered." I was mostly convinced I'd discover this guy was a conspiracy nut.

  "I appreciate your honesty. Hear me out, then, and see what you think."

  "My time is yours, Mr. Hollister. At least for the next hour or so." I'd have to get over to Bubbles at some point. I never knew when something crazy would happen making it necessary for me to get on stage and finish the show. Not that I wouldn't draw a crowd. I had fans who wanted to see me dance. But I wasn't ready to become known as 'the Naked P.I.' just yet.

  "You'll have what you need by then," Hollister said and resettled himself in the chair. "When Helmut and I met, he was already a rather successful, widely known journalist. For a man of thirty that was something. He was a young gay man with a unique perspective, willing to talk about things no one else would touch. That opened a lot of doors. He was featured in a number of prominent publications, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, you know the list. Then he wrote his critique of the gay obsession with youth and muscle and became a talk show regular. Throwaway Men was a be
stseller that kept him in the public eye."

  "It was on the lists for quite a while, if memory serves." I remembered Brandt more clearly now. When his book came out I was nineteen or twenty and not long out of the closet. I'd bought the book at Giovanni's Room because I thought the author was cute when I saw his picture on the dustjacket. Never did get around to reading it. But I did see Brandt when he had a reading at Giovanni's Room. He was cuter than his picture. His looks coupled with his astonishing achievements had me tangled in attraction and awe. That had been more than ten years ago. I was young and starstruck back then so almost everything gay impressed me for a while.

  Brandt came rushing back into memory and I felt a twinge of sadness for that intelligent pretty boy. Literary superstar. Heartthrob. Victim. His murder felt more personal now.

  "Yes, it was on the lists for a while. But the celebrity never went to his head. That's just the way Helmut is." Hollister stopped himself, probably remembering that "was" would be a word he'd have to get used to from now on when it came to Helmut. "He wanted to do good things with his money and fame. That's when I stupidly made the suggestion that ultimately got him killed."

  "And that was what, exactly?" I asked.

  "I encouraged him to write a book on the murder of Pope John Paul the First." He sighed.

  "Surely he wouldn't have done this just because you said so? He was a prominent person by then, a celebrity in his own right."

  "No, no. Of course not. Helmut was born in Munich and had been raised a Catholic. Bavaria is the Catholic stronghold in Germany, you know, and that was his home during his formative years. He grew away from Catholicism but Church workings and politics still engaged him. When we met, the fact that I'd been a priest fascinated him. He wanted to know everything. Wanted to help me in my work with Dignity." Hollister looked me in the eye. "I filled him with stories of my priestly life, of my training in Rome, how I hobnobbed with some of the big guns of the Roman Catholic hierarchy." His eyes got that teary look again and I imagined that his past was rushing through his mind. Faces, places, sounds, and sights.

  "It all seems innocent enough," I commented when he remained too long lost in thought.

  "You might think that. But for all his fascination with the Church, Helmut had a burning anger over the Church's treatment of homosexuals. He could never forgive them for what they'd done over the years and for what they continued to do and refused to do."

  "I don't see how this could have..."

  "Gotten him killed? There's more to the story. There's always more, isn't there? When I told Helmut about Albino, that's when I saw the fire grow in him. I realized then, that I'd started something I'd never be able to control. Albino Luciani became Pope John Paul the First, as you no doubt know. Telling Helmut that I'd known the man, and what I knew about him, well, that's what put Helmut on the road that led him to his death."

  Hollister took a deep breath.

  "You actually knew the Pope?"

  "Not when he was the Pope, of course, but before that. Long before that. I knew him and knew what kind of man he was. I told Helmut everything. It came spilling out after all those years. Perhaps because Helmut was so intrigued and such a willing listener. Maybe because it was all I could offer the boy. I had little else but who I had been. Albino's beliefs were compelling and out of the conservative mainstream. When I told Helmut what Albino had said about the Church's treatment of women and homosexuals, that it was abysmal and beneath contempt, Helmut was incredulous. He couldn't believe anyone so highly placed in the Church could hold such views. But it was true. Albino intended to change a lot of things if he ever had the chance."

  "He almost did, didn't he?" I said. I'd never known that much about the man. He was just one of those sympathetic figures. Every time I saw his picture I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, thinking how he must have been stunned by his election to the papacy. Elated by the sudden ability to do things he'd only dreamed about. And then he was gone.

  "Almost. But they wouldn't let him get anywhere." Hollister said 'they' with startling vehemence. "They killed him as surely as I'm sitting here. I knew people back then. People who knew things, people who knew others. In Italy, many things depend on knowing someone who knows someone. It's the way it's been since before Augustus rebuilt Rome. But I did know people who knew the truth of what went on inside those walls. And they knew Albino was murdered."

  "There've been a lot of theories," I said. I didn't want to insult the guy but conspiracy theories were as common as pasta in Italy. "But I don't think there's been any hard evidence. At least that's what I've been led to believe."

  "Along with everyone else. That's what Helmut intended to correct. He wanted to provide hard, incontrovertible evidence. I gave him all my old contacts in Rome, anyone who knew anything. Helmut was relentless in his pursuit of the truth."

  "I've searched out reviews and they said there wasn't anything new in his book. Certainly no solid evidence." I hated having to say that but it was the truth.

  "Vatican Betrayal was his opening salvo, that's how he thought of it. At that time, he hadn't yet obtained the unassailable proof he sought. He was a consummate journalist, though, and knew the value of publicity, of keeping a story in the arena of discussion and speculation. So he produced Vatican Betrayal as a sort of prologue. I think he also wanted to see just what his earlier book would bring out into the open. He continued to dig for new, more serious evidence. Eventually he claimed he'd found previously undiscovered documents. This new work was what got him killed. I'm sure of it. I trust my feelings. I always have."

  "It all sounds intriguing, Mr. Hollister. But you haven't given me a lot of solid information so far. On the surface it appears there's some connection to Helmut's death. But I'll need more if I'm going to try and get to the truth."

  "I'm sure you've seen people killed for less. I assure you, there's more. The new documents, for one thing. He kept hinting that his new work would have some startling revelations. I don't doubt he was telling the truth."

  "You have those documents? Or anything that gives someone a motive for murder? Something that connects his work to his death?"

  "Helmut has a laptop filled with information. But he keeps that out of sight and hidden, away from the house. He doesn't have much in the way of paper files. Some old clippings, drafts of old works, nothing sensitive or secret. His workplace was sacrosanct. I never entered that room, never used his computer, or looked through his files."

  "So you don't know for certain there was anything real in the way of documents? Anything that added more weight to what he'd been claiming?"

  "That's just it. He said he had something new. Secret documents. He'd just returned from Rome and told me about information that had been kept hidden for thirty years. But he was never specific. I suppose he thought he was protecting me. When it was he who needed protection."

  "I see." Having those documents would help me determine a few things for myself. "Is there any chance I could get a look at his files and computer?"

  Before Hollister could answer, the phone rang. I noticed the caller ID screaming Anton's number. I was tempted to answer but I hated interrupting meetings to take calls.

  "I'll let it go to voicemail. As I was saying, is there a way I can..."

  The phone stopped ringing, then started again. Anton's number appeared.

  "Hold on, Mr. Hollister. I apologize." I picked up the receiver.

  "Marco?! Is that you?" someone other than Anton said.

  "Who is this?"

  "Anton needs you! Somethin' weird is goin' on here."

  Chapter 4

  Whoever had used Anton's phone to call me made my already overactive imagination kick into high gear.

  "I know there's more you wanted to tell me, Mr. Hollister," I said as I ushered him to the elevator. "We'll talk when I come by in the morning to see Helmut's work." My thoughts were really on Anton and whatever was going on at Bubbles.

  "Call around nine, earlier if you like.
" Hollister shook his head. "It's all unreal. This isn't happening. Is it, Mr. Fontana?"

  His question was so child-like I wanted to cry. I knew how he felt. None of it seems real. Not even when you're standing over that hole in the ground and they're shoveling dirt over someone you've cared about. Reality takes a lot longer to get used to.

  "You need rest and you probably haven't eaten anything. Get a meal and get some sleep. Nothing will seem real for a long time."

  "You'll call in the morning?" Hollister pulled his jacket tighter around his thin chest as we walked together.

  "It's a promise." We approached Bubbles and I wondered when he'd peel off. "There's a great cafe in Bubbles -- in case you wanna take my advice and eat something."

  "A friend called earlier about having something to eat. I think I'll take him up on it. I don't want to face an empty house. Helmut was the life of the place. I'm too old to pretend he's away on one of his trips. I'm too old to pretend anything." He pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket. Waving goodbye, he sadly tapped a number into his phone. He looked alone and wretched.

  Hollister's sad figure stirred up an image of Helmut Brandt. A hazy memory from long ago of a beautiful young man, with a rich accented voice and compelling enthusiasm. Brandt had seemed to me like some kind of gay, journalistic demi-god. The feelings I'd experienced back then still echoed and I felt that sense of loss I always get when remembering the past.

  Hollister's presence reminded me of that past. Even if he was a conspiracy nut, he deserved an answer to his questions.

  Kevin, the bouncer at Bubbles, was tall and burly. Bouncers never seem to come in any other package. But Kevin's appearance was deceptive.

  "Marco." He lifted a hand in salute. "When am I gonna MC one of your shows?" Kevin winked, subtly folding down his shirt lapel to reveal a lacy, pink undergarment. Beneath all the brawn, Kevin was a drag queen ready to strut. "Or, have you forgotten me?"