by Kris Ripper
“You trying to say I can’t hold my own?”
“Can you?”
“Um. Probably.” I waited a beat. “So . . . what’s a hike-in campground?”
She hit my arm. “Very cute. Hell, I don’t know. That would be a stopgap. I want a big adventure, Ed. I want to be gone for two weeks at least. I want to come back changed, like my whole perspective is different.”
“I hear that. I feel like that all the time. I mean, I like my life, but sometimes I feel really disconnected from it too. If that makes sense.”
“Totally. Like life is going on, and I’m in it, but in another sense I’m barely there.” She tucked her braids back and kissed me. “We need to plan a trip, Ed.”
“I don’t think I can get that much time off work.”
“Neither can I, but I’m gonna start planning for it anyway. Where do you want to go? London? Cairo? Amsterdam?”
“Mexico City,” I said without thinking.
“Mexico City.”
“I mean, you’re thinking way more, uh, outlandish, sorry. Mexico probably doesn’t seem like much of an adventure to you. I don’t even know why I said it.” Except that I’d only been there once, and it was where my mom’s entire family was from. It was where Abuela was born and raised.
“Ed, taking a walk down the street is an adventure if you look at it the right way. Hold on.” She unfolded from her chair and went to kneel beside the bookcase. “Ha. I thought I still had this. I meant to go when I was in high school, but no one would come with me and I chickened out at the last minute. You know, all those stories about vulnerable white girls getting abducted and killed. Though I guess maybe we don’t have to leave the country for that, do we?”
The title said only Mexico. The cover photo, though, was a sprawling city with the ocean in the background and clear blue skies.
“I’ll pick up the Rough Guide for Mexico City,” she said. “But we can start with this.”
“Oh— But— I mean, I really can’t get that kind of time off, so maybe—”
“Planning is part of the adventure, and it’s fun even if we never do the rest.”
“Okay.” My phone buzzed. Cameron, finally.
Just locking up. You want to come over for a minute?
Damn. Alisha was settled in for the night. And I’d planned to be settled in with her, but the rush of chasing down Steven Costello was tempting.
“Ha. Who texted you? You look hungry, babe.”
“I’m not. Well maybe. It’s Cameron. I asked him if I could put these pictures in front of him, see if he remembers the Costello kid. Fredi said she thought they talked one night.”
Alisha gestured me closer and tugged me in for a kiss. “Go, if you want to. I’d rather you talked to Cam about murder and serial killers than to me anyway.”
She’d adopted the nickname immediately. I was always so careful about things like that, as if there was an accepted protocol, but Alisha just went for it.
“Are you sure? I mean, part of me definitely wants to stay here with you.”
“And part of you wants to investigate more. Why don’t you head over there and come back here after? No pressure or anything, but I definitely wouldn’t mind waking up with you in the morning.”
“That sounds perfect.” It did. More perfect still, I didn’t feel like she was telling me what I wanted to hear. She was surrounded by books, with a stack of sticky notes, different colored pens, and her computer. Nothing about that picture really required my presence.
I kissed her and lingered for a second. “I’ll see you later.”
“You better.”
“Lock up after me.”
“Oh, you know I will.”
I waited until she’d shot the dead bolt and texted Cameron to let him know I was on the way.
“Oh no. That poor boy.” He studied the picture on my phone, a single line creasing his forehead. “Fredi’s right. He sat next to me and I heard Zane teasing him about his birthday, so naturally I bought the sad young man a drink. He thought I was hitting on him.” Cam shook his head. “I assured him it was merely tradition to buy twenty-one-year-olds a beer to celebrate. It never occurred to me that this was him, that he was the boy found down at the waterfront.”
“I think he must have been in the closet. If he was even gay, though I assume if you go to Club Fred’s on your birthday, you must be queer.” I let my voice cant up at the end, making it the slightest of questions.
“Oh, we didn’t discuss it, but I’d guess he was. He was jumpy, like someone who lives in the closet and doesn’t dare come out.” He handed me back my phone and picked up the newspaper. “He reminded me of myself. In looks, more than demeanor. He was cute, for a kid, but he probably wanted to be seen as a man. He sat there at the bar studying the reflections as if looking for himself in the masses. I can’t believe he’s dead. Mentally I’d . . . imagined I’d see him again, later, when he was more comfortable in his skin. Such a loss to all of us that he’ll never get there.”
That was certainly a positive identification. But I still asked, “Did he introduce himself?”
“I introduced myself, and he said his name was Steven. I remember because I asked him if he preferred Steven or Steve, and he blushed. He probably still thought I was hitting on him.”
Most definitely a positive identification.
“I have to talk to the detective who investigated the case.” I sat back on Cameron’s sofa. I’d never been to the upstairs apartment in the building next door to the theater, but it was very Cam, almost like the theater’s apartment alter ego, with plush indigo drapes and this incredibly soft red velvet sofa. “It’s okay if I give him your name, right? You might have been one of the last people to talk to him before he left. Did you notice him talking to anyone else?”
“No. I’m sorry. He sat at the bar long enough for me to finish the book I was reading and begin another, but the next time I looked up, he was gone. I assumed he’d slipped away alone.” Cam’s eyes focused on mine. “He wasn’t seeking companionship that I could see. He was too afraid for that. Almost paralyzed with it. I hope they don’t try to make this into one of those stories about over-sexed gay men getting what they deserve.”
I could picture the critique of that on Togg’s site, and the hundreds of comments that would follow.
“Well, if he’s part of this pattern, I doubt it has anything to do with companionship. Honey had a boyfriend, and Stephanie Hawkins was bi, but she had a wife. Plus, Loren was a lesbian, so even if you could argue that Hawkins was stepping out on her wife with a man, you still wouldn’t be able to convince me that all four of them were potentially attracted to the same person.”
Cameron picked up his coffee cup and sipped it, watching me maybe too closely. “How is Alisha?”
“I— She’s great. We just had dinner. Why?”
“Just wondering. You two should come to another movie soon.”
“I’m sure we will.” I leaned forward. “Listen, if you remember anything else about Steven Costello, will you call me?”
“Won’t the police be handling this?”
“Well, yeah, but they haven’t shown a huge amount of motivation to handle any of these cases before, so I’m trying not to let all of them go cold. No one’s even looking for this guy, whoever it is, Cam! This guy is fucking hunting us, and no one even cares. Including us.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s hardly fair. We can’t care if we don’t know what’s going on, and until now didn’t it seem like unrelated beatings?”
“Unrelated murders you mean, and maybe, except how can they be unrelated if they keep showing up beaten to death at the waterfront?”
“Then again, with such different victims, I can see how it was easy to miss the connection. And didn’t you say the first one was found in an alley?”
“Yes, but— What’s your point?”
“My point is that nothing good can come out of you allowing this to consume you.” The intensity of his gaze
made me want to look away. He took another sip of coffee. “I understand being frightened by it, wanting to solve it, but surely the police have people to do that job, and more resources with which to do it, don’t you think?”
“You think I should drop it? Togg keeps reporting it, so I keep reading about it, and I can’t just turn off my brain.”
He shook his head. “I’ve never thought Togg—whoever they are—represented an especially healthy outlook on life. And no, don’t turn off your brain, but wouldn’t your life be more enriched by Alisha’s company right now than it is tracking down people who may have seen a depressed boy on the night he died?”
“Depressed? Wait. Do you think he might have been more than depressed?”
“I don’t think he committed suicide by beating himself to death, no. But it wouldn’t surprise me, either, to hear he’d taken more risks than were necessary. He was a very lost-seeming young man, Ed.”
Which was basically what I’d already figured, and didn’t help much. “Fine. But Honey wasn’t lost. And Stephanie Hawkins was practically a newlywed. And the next person could be any of us, Cam. All we know is that all four victims went to Club Fred’s.”
“I want them caught, whoever they are, the same as you do. But I also want you, as my friend, to not lose yourself in the hunt.”
It was the same word I’d used to describe the killer, and it gave me chills. “I’m not hunting.”
“All right.”
A somewhat awkward silence descended between us. Casting for something to say, I complimented his tie, which he was still wearing, even retired for the night. It had seemed like a black tie with odd white dots on it until I realized the white dots were stars in the shapes of constellations.
“I adore it. Thank you.” Long fingers smoothed the tie down over his shirt. “Do you know Obie Magovney? If not, you should, Ed, you’d like him. He actually makes neckties. I bought this one from his online store, really just to support a local businessperson, but now that I see how high quality it is, I definitely plan to buy more.”
“Wait, I think Alisha mentioned him, but I wasn’t paying attention. You can make ties?”
“Exactly! It seems a little like magic. You can’t tell it was handmade by a guy in La Vista, either.”
“And you picked constellations.” I grinned. “Nerd.”
“He introduced himself to me one night when I was wearing it at Club Fred’s. When he realized I was a Rhein Rheingold, he promised to find me a fabric suited to being worn at the theater.”
“That’s so cool.”
“You should look him up. Or I’ll try to introduce you if we’re all out at the same moment. Very nice man, and I think you’d like his personal aesthetic.” Cameron paused, considering. “Masculine without trying too hard, and not the least bit overcompensating with it, either. He had a pink painter’s cap on the night we met, and it didn’t look like a joke, or like it made him a joke.”
“Okay. And I’m always on the lookout for a new necktie.”
He smiled. “You look good regardless, but who should be without a variety of neckties?”
“Yeah, uh, thanks, Cam. Anyway. I guess I’ll go.”
Cameron and I both stood up, and he shook my hand, pulling me in for a clap on the back. “Be safe out there.”
“You too.”
I guess I’d gotten what I wanted, though I didn’t exactly feel lighter leaving than I had when I arrived. It was probably too late to get Green on the phone tonight, so I’d do it tomorrow.
The drive back to Alisha’s was quick, and when I got there she was still in research mode, so I made more tea and watched Sherlock while she worked.
We didn’t even have sex later, just fell into bed, fell into each other, and slept.
Detective Green asked me if I wouldn’t mind coming down to the station Monday. I dropped an email to Potter explaining that I had information pertaining to an ongoing investigation and I’d probably be in later.
I’d worried (after all those cop shows) that he’d think I was involved, or that he’d want me to prove I wasn’t. I’d almost worried that I’d end up in an interrogation room wondering who I’d call if I needed a lawyer.
Instead, Green got me a cup of coffee that was slightly more shitty than coffee at the paper and sat me next to his desk to talk.
I laid out the newspaper clip of Costello and found the photo on my phone, then explained to him the theme nights at Club Fred’s. He nodded along, so it clearly wasn’t a revelation that there was a potential connection. I’d passed cops leaving Fred’s, so apparently they’d gotten the message.
Had Togg contacted the police? I hadn’t questioned their presence, but now I wondered. Of course, it could have been anyone who saw his article, and that included whoever at the Times-Record seemed to be reading his blog.
Green, a skinny Filipino guy with glasses and scabbed knuckles, took in everything I said, barely asking a question until I was done. Then he took down Zane’s contact information, and Cameron’s, and Fredi’s. I figured it was probably time for me to leave, except he started talking, peppering his sentences with questions about what I’d already said. It took me a few minutes to catch on that he was verifying my story.
I didn’t mind. At least it seemed like he was taking me seriously. Though I was still concerned I’d wind up in a tiny room with a one-way mirror.
“But you never met Steven Costello? Even though his picture’s on your phone?”
“Yeah.” I paged back and forth so he could see that I’d been taking pictures of everything. “New phone, so I was just messing around. I was trying to get Cameron, but the focus changed without me knowing it.”
“And this Cameron Rheingold is your boyfriend?”
“No. He’s a friend. Does that matter?”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Masiello, it’s not entirely clear to me what matters in this case. If you’re telling me that Costello was gay, that’s surprising, since his parents didn’t say a word about it. Then again, if he was gay, and if he hadn’t told anyone, that would go a long way toward explaining why his mom and dad couldn’t come up with a single name of a person he’d kept in touch with since leaving La Vista, and how little they knew about his college life. All of that could be a normal slightly estranged relationship, but I wondered if there was more to it, so you’re not exactly telling me something outrageous right now. Tell me more about this Club Fred’s. It’s one of those dumps on Steerage?”
I bristled at calling Fred’s a dump, but he was probably right, objectively speaking.
“Fredi modeled it after Club Med, you know? With a, like, sort of nautical-resort theme. It could use updating, probably.”
Green didn’t exactly snort, but I got the feeling it was a near thing. “And it’s popular? We don’t get too many calls out there, and I never worked that beat.”
“Yeah, pretty popular. With a certain group of people, I guess.” Fags and dykes and queers and trannies. You should come hang out. We don’t bite.
“Does your phone date-stamp pictures when they’re taken?”
“Yeah. Though I have it set not to geo-encode them. Sorry.”
He waved a hand. “We can match up pictures with the location easily enough. But I’ll need you to send them to me.”
“Sure.” I pulled my phone back out, accidentally catching a few dollar bills and a matchbook I’d picked up with the vague idea of lighting them in Honey’s honor.
“What’s that?”
“Uh. Sorry, I have a lot of shit in my pockets.”
“No. That.” His finger landed on the matchbook.
“Oh. It’s, uh, a matchbook.”
“From where?” He started rustling around on his desk, picking up and discarding files. “I’ve seen that design before.”
Black with a subtle dark-red lifebuoy. No words, though.
“It’s, uh, from Fred’s. Club Fred’s.”
“Jesus. It was fucking right in front of me,” Green growled, thu
mbing through a folder. “Shit. I can’t believe I missed this.” He pulled a photograph out and put it flat on the desk.
A Club Fred’s matchbook in an evidence bag.
“Where—where is that from?”
“Found it in Costello’s pockets. He wasn’t a smoker, and none of the matches had been struck. We figured he’d just picked it up somewhere, like you do when something’s free, even when you don’t need it.”
I stared at the picture, then at my own matches. Identical. But anyone who went to Fred’s would have known that design without having to check.
Green grunted in frustration. “This puts the kid at your club at some point in the days after he came home from college. With your photo and additional witnesses, we can prove he was there on the night he died. Hell. I gotta get in touch with Baker.” He picked up the phone but paused before dialing. “Will you send that photo to the email address on the card I gave you?”
“Sure.”
“Great. Thanks for coming down here, Mr. Masiello. I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, of course. And I hope you catch this guy. I’d appreciate that.”
“We’re damn well going to.” He punched in a few numbers on his phone, muttering, “Pick up, you bastard.”
I took that as my cue to leave.
Trying to focus on work was nearly impossible. I left a fake follow-up message for Steven Costello’s parents, pretending I was calling on behalf of the paper and feeling a little crappy about it, but too curious to resist. They probably wouldn’t agree to meet me, but between Joe’s impression of them and Detective Green’s, I really wanted to see for myself.
Then I skipped lunch and left early so I could go visit Abuela and not risk seeing either of my parents.
“Mija, dichosos los ojos que te ven.” She kissed both of my cheeks and looked at me closely. “Something is wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong, Abuelita. I’m good.”