by Mark McNease
Bo rolled over in her empty bed and stared out the window, seeing it would be a sunny day. The clouds had moved on and left in their place a startling blue sky. She let the fantasy of love with Linda Sikorsky go, evaporate like morning dew. She was both amused and troubled by her willingness to think the unthinkable. Nothing had happened between them except in her imagination. It was just as well, since her imagination had always been a dark and lonely place. Only the men she exacted revenge upon belonged there.
They’d had coffee and pie at the Eagle Diner in New Hope. Bo admitted to herself she wanted more—expected more, in the way we sometimes allow ourselves to think we are entitled to something simply because we wish it—but Sikorsky had not promised anything at all, spoken or unspoken, and she had not led Bo to believe their trip away from the Lodge was anything other than a friendly ride to a nearby diner for a private chat. That was something almost charming about people unsure of their own sexuality: they often didn’t realize there might be something suggestive in simply asking someone out for coffee. By the time they’d finished, however, Bo wasn’t so sure the detective was just curious, or that she hadn’t meant to send signals.
It had started simply enough: Bo had been unable to sleep. After two hours of lying in bed in a dark room, staring at the ceiling, she decided to head to the piano bar and have something to drink. Non-alcoholic, since she seldom drank and had committed to abstinence while she carried out her mission. But anything would help, and she’d hoped that being in the bar would distract her mind enough that after a while she could return to her room and sleep.
She had never been a bar-goer. Bars unsettled her. They upended her sense of the world as essentially a lonely place. Bo had loved only once, and that, she’d come to know, was a mistake. As for companionship, it was dangerous. Even someone as tightly controlled as she was could let something slip; it was much better never to court error. But there she was, sitting on a stool at the Lodge’s bar, watching as some guests chatted and mingled in costumes, others in their street clothes. She recognized the lesbian couple Eileen and Maggie. Eileen didn’t notice her, and Maggie was busy once again reading something on her cell phone. The man Danny had so disliked—Lionel? Linus?—continued to hold court, this time around a small table with the two disciples who’d been at each arm since he arrived. The young boy-toy was nowhere in sight.
She was halfway through her Ginger Ale when she felt someone come up behind her. She didn’t believe in a sixth-sense, but that we feel shifts in the air, or we manage to connect very distant dots and determine their destination point before they get there. Mysterious, yes, but not inexplicable. She just knew someone was behind her, and she swiveled around on her barstool. Much to her surprise she found Detective Linda Sikorsky not more than two feet away, as startled to have Bo turn around just then as Bo was to see her there. She was wearing jeans and a blouse, Bo noticed, looking much less like a cop and much more like the kind of women she imagined sought one another out in the bars she did not go to.
“Hello, Ms. Sweetzer,” the detective said. She didn’t extend her hand, and already Bo could tell she was nervous, unsure if a handshake was called for or if withholding it would be rude.
“I prefer ‘Miss,’ actually,” Bo said. “I’ve never been a missus and the whole ‘Ms’ thing is too much of an artifice for me. Call me old-school.”
Linda smiled, and Bo couldn’t tell if she was amused or pleased; possibly both.
“Well, then, Miss Sweetzer, how are you enjoying your evening? Have you been here before?”
Bo was suddenly suspicious. She’d told the detective in their morning interview that she had never been to Pride Lodge. She wondered if the approach was just part of the job, or if Linda Sikorsky was trying to trip her up for some reason.
“Oh, wait, you told me that,” Linda said, shaking her head at her own forgetfulness. “Even cops forget things.”
And she’s a mind-reader, too, Bo thought. I like this woman.
“I tried to go to sleep,” Bo said. “I’m not really a party person, or a bar person, but I am an insomniac on occasion. I figured a drink might settle my mind down.”
Linda looked at the half-empty glass on the counter in front of Bo. “May I get you another?” she asked.
“It’s only soda. Not the sort of thing that makes you want more.”
There was a moment of silence that quickly grew awkward, and Bo realized that Linda wasn’t very skilled in these situations. Chasing down criminals she could do very well, but striking up and maintaining a conversation with another woman in a gay bar? Not so used to that.
“How about some coffee?” Linda said.
Bo burst out laughing.
“What? What did I say?”
“You just asked an insomniac if she’d like a cup of coffee.”
“And I forgot you’d never been here,” Linda said, embarrassed. “Strike two. But maybe I meant decaf. Yes! I meant decaf! And a piece of pie . . . unless sugar keeps you up, too.”
Bo thought about it a moment.
“Not here,” Linda said. “The kitchen’s closed down anyway. But there’s a restaurant not far from here, the Eagle Diner. Twenty-four hour place. It’d give you a chance to see a little more of the area.”
“In the dark.”
“Well, yeah. But that’s not a bad way to see it. We could come across some deer in the headlights.”
Bo wondered who was the deer, and who was the headlights. Sikorsky was clearly a very intelligent woman, and she might yet have questions in mind to ask Bo that Bo would not answer truthfully. But she couldn’t sleep, and she found the detective attractive, and she was very skilled at only revealing what she wanted people to see. So why not?
“Let’s go,” Bo said, sliding off the stool. “I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather end the night than at the Eagle Diner. Unless that’s not where it ends.”
She saw the sudden flush in Linda’s face: Bo had her number, and the detective knew it. “Relax,” she said. “I was just having some fun. Now let’s go get that pie! They have ice cream there?”
“It’s a diner,” Linda said. “Of course they do.”
The two women headed out of the bar. Cowboy Dave watched them go and smiled: another romance blossoming at Pride Lodge. He’d seen more than a few.
The Eagle Diner was on Highway 202, a stone’s throw from the Giant grocery store and just up the road from the Raven, a gay hotel, restaurant and gathering place that had been there for decades, with the occasional interruption. They knew each other, of course, the Raven and Pride Lodge, and had remained friendly as long they’d both been in business. Pride Lodge was more out of the way, and people who stayed there tended not to be the same customers who would stay at the Raven. There had never been any real rivalry between the two: there were enough gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender patrons to keep them both operating this long. Throw in the Q’s, I’s, and any letters not yet added to the acronym, and business should stay brisk for years to come.
Bo’s suspicions that Linda Sikorsky was somehow on to her vanished quickly enough once they were seated in a booth. The diner had quite a few customers even this close to midnight, and the two women did not stand out in any way. They’d each ordered apple pie and coffee (Bo had started to suggest one pie, two forks, but thought better of it) and were several bites in when Sikorsky made her motives known.
“I’ve lived in this area all my life,” she said, glancing around nervously to make sure no one was eavesdropping. She was known well enough in New Hope that she had to always be aware someone might recognize her. “I’m thirty-six years old. Everybody knows me.”
“And everybody thinks you’re a lesbian,” Bo said.
Linda stared at her, taken aback. While she wasn’t going to state it that way—unsure exactly how she would state it—that’s what she was thinking and trying to articulate.
“But you’re not,” Bo continued. “Or you’re not sure, and what better way to crystallize it
for yourself than ask a real one out for coffee and advice.”
“You’re either a cop,” said Linda, laughing nervously, “or a psychic.” She paused a moment. “I don’t suppose you’re wondering, why you?”
“I know why me. Because I’m cute! Shorter than you, about the right age, Minnesota nice, and, from your own notes, I’m sure, single.”
“I’ve never dated a woman,” Linda said. “I’ve thought about it. My father’s dead and my mother lives alone in Philly. It’s not like I have to worry what they’ll think of me. Who the hell cares if I’m a lesbian? Which I’m not saying I am, since it’s hard to say when you’ve never done anything but imagine it.”
“Well,” said Bo gently, “you’re free to imagine it all you want to with me. I won’t ask you to act on it.” She winked. “Not tonight.”
Linda visibly relaxed. She had fantasized for years having this conversation with someone, but she had honestly never thought the right time—or the right woman—would come. If she were simply blunt with herself she would say yes, Linda, you’re attracted to women, and that pretty much makes you a lesbian, but she had not been honest. She had clung to uncertainty as a way of avoiding having to come clean: to her friends, who probably already knew, to her neighbors, and to her colleagues—the people she dreaded telling most. It was a small force, and she knew they would think just as highly of her after she came out as they had the moment before, and that they would probably start trying to line her up with dates.
“You’re here until when?” Linda asked. “Just in case I have a few more questions about the investigation, of course.”
“Of course,” Bo said. “I’m set to check out Sunday, but who knows, I kind of like the place, I might want to stay a few days and see more. If it’s got an Eagle Diner, I can only imagine what else is going on here.”
The two women laughed. Bo felt her heart sink, suddenly, painfully conscious of the lie she’d told and what it meant. She would never see Linda Sikorsky again after tonight. She intended to see her mission through to its deadly conclusion and be gone well before Sunday’s first light flooded the sky. Unless . . .
“Are you coming to the party tomorrow?” Bo asked. “The Halloween party?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Linda replied, and she waved at the waitress for the check. “But now I’m thinking maybe. I don’t have a costume.”
“Come as Cupid,” Bo said, smiling. “It’s a natural fit.”
Bo wondered why she was doing this to herself, asking a woman she clearly desired to come back the next night, the night she planned to claim her final revenge and go. You’re slipping, Bo, she told herself, all the while smiling as Dottie, the waitress, left the check on the table between them. Maybe you don’t have the heart for it, maybe you want a happy ending after all. She felt a sting in her eyes—an unfamiliar fall for a woman who had not cried in thirty years, and she quickly looked away. It wouldn’t matter if the cop came, it wouldn’t matter how she felt about Bo or how she made Bo feel. The die had been cast in that bedroom three decades ago, and there was only one roll left. So let her come, let her think Bo had made a fool of her as she vanished in the night, let her never know the truth and how high its price.
Linda slid out of the booth and started to reach for Bo’s hand. She happened to look over and see and old straight couple she had known for years, used her hand to wave to them instead, and led the way out.
Chapter 21
The Past Catches Up
Kyle hit a dead end in his internet search. He’d been unable to find anything about Sid Stanhope until he ran across a group picture from a bank office in Newark. It was Sid alright, fifteen years younger but identifiable. And years later the items about Pride Lodge. Kyle realized Sid was not the type to spend much time online. He doubted he was on Facebook and he probably thought tweeting was something baby birds did when they were hungry. He was stymied until he started thinking again about the odd, tense exchange between Sid and Bo at the restaurant. Maybe he was looking in the wrong direction, for the wrong person. Maybe she was a better lead to follow. Letting his hunch take him where it may, he started looking into Bo Sweetzer. BoAndBehold, pleasant jewelry designer from St. Paul. Ten minutes into his search he found the same article Sid had found and his breath stopped. Bo Sweetzer was not who she had always been. Once upon a time she’d been a young child named Emily Lapinsky, living far from St. Paul.
Kyle’s pulse accelerated as he jumped from one link to the next, one dot to the next, connecting them at digital speed. He was reading what little he could find from so long ago when up popped a website called DeathWatchLA. At first glance it appeared to just be lurid, tabloid fodder: morgue photos of dead celebrities, macabre stories of people murdered in sudden, gruesome acts of violence. It wasn’t until he read the “about” section and saw that there had been a print predecessor, that in fact the website was based on a cheaply produced throwaway newspaper that hadn’t been much more than a flyer in the 1980s, and that there were scanned PDF copies of the old issues available for $4.99 each (PayPal or credit card accepted), that he knew he might be onto something. He quickly got his Visa and randomly selected a dozen old issues, dating back to 1980. He was halfway through them, having read six without finding anything that struck him, when he came upon the Lapinsky murders. A burglary gone horribly wrong, involving a trio of thieves. The Los Feliz Gang, as the media dubbed them. Three men, a dead husband and wife, and a daughter who had escaped execution by hiding in the closet. There was a photo showing her in a Catholic school girl’s uniform.
Kyle stared at her.
“Look at this,” he said to Danny. Danny had been resting in bed reading an old New York Post he’d brought with them. Kyle never understood why Danny liked reading that paper, given its politics, but he knew it was a guilty pleasure, like watching a reality TV show that wasn’t real in any way and that made the human race seem doomed.
Danny got out of bed and walked over to the table where Kyle was sitting with the laptop. He peered at the old photograph. “It’s a girl,” he said.
“Well, yeah, but does she remind you of anyone?”
“I can’t say she does, sorry.”
“Look closer.”
Danny leaned down and peered at the photograph.
“Oh my God.”
“Yes,” Kyle said. “Our table mate from St. Paul.” He slid the laptop away and started to pace. “I need to get into that room.”
“Her room?”
“No, Teddy’s. I need something solid to take to Detective Sikorsky.”
“Isn’t this enough?” Danny asked, nodding at the article on the laptop.
“No, it’s not. But I think there’s something to be found . . . and I think Teddy found it. Maybe Happy, too. Or Teddy told him, or something like that. Their deaths are connected, I’m certain of that. And if we trace the line back, and back some more, we can trace it all the way to a house in Los Angeles thirty years ago.”
“You should call Sikorsky now,” Danny said. “This is dangerous territory. You could get hurt.”
“I won’t get hurt. And I will talk to her, soon. Dylan will help me, he’s already panicking over these suspicions he has. He’ll let me in Teddy’s room and I’ll find something there, I’m sure of it. Then I’ll call the police.”
“You have to promise me.”
“I promise,” Kyle said. “Cross my heart . . . “
“Don’t finish that! Nobody hopes to die, it’s an awful expression. You know, Kyle, life is so much simpler when you just take pictures.”
Kyle stopped pacing and shut the laptop. “Let’s go have breakfast,” he said. “I hear murder’s on the menu.”
Chapter 22
Breakfast at Epiphany’s
Most of the dozen or so people having breakfast didn’t know who Happy was and hadn’t heard about his death. Unlike many of the staff, he’d only been around a few months and seemed to have made the biggest impression on the two men he had dated, T
eddy and Cowboy Dave. The other staff, on the other hand, had clearly gotten the news about the body found in a creek, and it made for a strange emotional mix: guests chatting about their plans for the day and wondering if the good weather would hold out, while Ricki manned the desk with a dazed expression on his face and Elzbetta, on table duty, only spoke when spoken to as she took their orders. Dylan, meanwhile, was visibly pale, with a fear in his eyes that couldn’t be hidden by his wooden smile.
Kyle and Danny showed themselves to a table by the window overlooking the road.
“No camera this morning?” Danny asked, used to seeing Kyle with his Nikon slung around his neck. “It looks like a good day for photographs.”
“I may need to move quickly,” Kyle said, his voice low. “I can’t worry about leaving a camera sitting around or having it swinging on my neck.”
Just then Elzbetta came up to them. She was more sullen than usual, and appeared to have been crying.
“You heard about Happy,” she said, posing it as a statement, as if everyone must have heard.
“We saw the news, yes,” Kyle said.
“We were . . . friends.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We were going to go away, to the Rocky Mountains,” she said. “Denver. He had family there.”
Kyle and Danny exchanged glances: apparently there weren’t many people young Happy did not sleep with.
“He didn’t kill himself!” she blurted out.
Danny was startled. “Who said . . . “
“They speculated, the news guy I saw, he said they hadn’t ruled out suicide, which means they’ve ruled it in!”
“Reporters don’t know much,” Kyle said, trying to reassure the distressed waitress. “That’s why they’re reporters.”
“It’s just fucked up. Seriously fucked up, like everything around here. This place is cursed, I can’t stay. What did you want for breakfast?”
They placed their orders and were relieved to have Elzbetta finally walk away without saying anything more.