Darkness Descending: A Mimi Patterson/Gianna Maglione Mystery (The Mimi Patterson/Gianna Maglione Mysteries)

by Penny Mickelbury

  Mimi reached across the table with both hands and took both of Baby Doll’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “What happened last night?”

  “This girl got killed.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  Baby’s eyes filled but she blinked away the tears, shook her head, and snatched her hands back from Mimi. “She was just some girl. She was at this club last night, where my girlfriend was, and she got killed. Terry—that’s my girlfriend—she said they was gonna start killin’ Ags, just like they killed the other girls.” She inhaled deeply and her face and eyes hardened, transforming her into the Baby Doll of old. “Is that right, Miss Patterson? Can that happen? Can somebody do that?”

  It was too much all at once. And Baby had called her Miss Patterson. “You’re afraid somebody’s going to kill your girlfriend?”

  Baby nodded, picked up her fork and resumed eating, but her eyes darted up and down, from her plate to Mimi’s face, watching as the reporter picked her way through the labyrinth of pain, information, and challenge just laid out for her. It was so easy to forget that she was, clinically speaking, “a severely damaged personality.” That was according to Beverly Connors, Mimi’s best friend and ex-lover who also happened to be a psychologist who, along with Adrienne Lightfoot and Sylvia Richardson, Beverly’s current lover, had helped several prostitutes kick the streets and their drug habits. “You don’t wash away the effects of having lived that kind of life simply by taking a shower,” Bev had said. “They are severely damaged personalities, most of them.”

  “Why does your girlfriend think she’s in danger?” Mimi asked in what she hoped was a calm, non-challenging tone.

  “I already told you why!” Baby snapped. “She’s AG.”

  Mimi raised her hands, palms up, a supplicating, apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means, AG.”

  “And you supposed to be smart,” Baby snarled, reaching into her purse again. This time she withdrew a wallet, from which she then withdrew a photograph, which she passed across the table to Mimi. “That’s Terry.”

  Mimi looked at the photograph and saw a smiling, cocky, good-looking young man. Puzzled, she looked up at Baby, saw the warning flashing in her eyes, and looked back down at the photo. Then she got it. That was no boy, it was a girl. Baby didn’t have the vocabulary to define what AG meant, but the photo spoke volumes. “So a girl who was AG got killed last night and it’s being investigated as a hate crime,” Mimi said, more to herself than to Baby Doll. Looking at the photo, she could understand why. “I haven’t heard anything like that, Baby, but of course I’ll ask around and I’ll let you know.” That was the best she could do.

  “You think somebody would kill somebody just ‘cause of how they look? How they dress? What kinda clothes they wear?”

  Mimi looked down at the photo again, then remembered how Baby Doll used to look in a platinum blond, waist-length wig, thigh-high, six-inch red patent leather boots, and skin-tight spandex. Attire that identified her and all who looked like her as prostitutes— and got them killed? Yeah, somebody would kill somebody just ‘cause of how they dress. “The girl who got killed last night, did Terry know her?”

  Baby shrugged. “Just to see. They weren’t tight or nothin’ like that.”

  Mimi slid Terry’s photograph back across the table to Baby Doll, who stashed it back in her wallet. “Right now, I don’t think you and Terry have anything to worry about, but that’s no guarantee of anything. There are a lot of sick people in this world, Baby, but you already know that. So if you all are worried, be careful, and tell your friends to be careful.”

  “But you’ll ask your girlfriend, right?”

  Not if I can help it, Mimi thought. Not and start an argument about her interfering in police business. “I’ll ask her,” she said to Baby Doll.

  “When?”

  “When I see her,” Mimi snapped.

  “You don’t see her every day?”

  “No, I don’t see her every day. I haven’t seen her for the last three weeks.” And my get reacquainted conversation won’t be about last night’s murder, Mimi thought, becoming suddenly inspired to return to work and finish writing her story.

  And while Mimi was doing that Gianna was standing in the living room of Natasha Hilliard’s townhouse, working to reconcile what she saw and what she’d learned with what she’d thought she knew of last night’s victim. Of course she knew better than to let stereotypes provide judgment but she should have been alerted by the watch, class ring, and Mercedes. Still, the house came as a surprise. No, more of a shock, in its elegance, Asian being the predominant aesthetic influence. The living room was sunken, the lighting recessed, the carpets Persian and thick, the artwork eclectic and much of it original. The kitchen was high tech and fully equipped, and the equipment wasn’t for show; this was the kitchen—utensils and food stuffs—of someone who enjoyed cooking and eating. The den-cum-library also was well equipped and comfortable, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along two walls and a plasma television mounted on another. It was the office, however, which stopped Gianna in her tracks. The diplomas on the wall showed that Natasha Hilliard earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, which would explain the class ring now in an evidence bag, and a PhD in History from George Washington University, and the papers in and on her desk revealed her to be a tenure-track professor of that subject, specializing in the American Civil War, at American University.

  “How old was this woman?” asked Linda in an almost whisper of awe.

  “Twenty-nine,” Cassie answered, “which means there’s still hope for me.”

  “The rest of us, however, are too far over the hill for hope,” said Bobby.

  “What’ve you got against a twenty-year pension from the D.C. police department?” Kenny asked. “You might even be able to buy a set of those pots and pans in the kitchen. Or maybe a couple of those wine glasses.”

  “College professors earn this kind of money?” Tim asked, his voice holding the awe they all felt, and since nobody knew the answer, they all looked toward the Boss for it.

  Gianna, too busy internally reminding herself of the dangers of bias and prejudice, took a moment to answer. “Some do, especially the gifted ones who teach at prestigious universities, and this town is full of those.” She sifted through a handful of papers, then put them back on the desk. “And our vic certainly seems to have been gifted. Bobby, are you and Tim finished in the kitchen?”

  “Almost, Boss,” they answered in unison.

  “Then get finished. Linda, you get finished in here. Cass, you get finished in the bedroom. We’ll take the computer, answering machine, the bank and financial files, any address books.” She surveyed the room again. “And look for receipts, and get an appraiser in here. I want to know how much this stuff is worth. And look for a will or evidence of a safety deposit box.”

  Tim shifted and they all felt it. “You thinking this was a crime for gain, Boss, and not a hate crime?”

  “Somebody certainly stands to gain financially from her death. What do we know about the parents?” she asked. “Any siblings?”

  Cassie whipped out her notebook. “Two sisters, one younger, one older, both parents living, mother an ordained minister, father a scientist for a chemical company, both parents and the oldest sister PhDs, the youngest sister working on hers. They all live in the Philadelphia area.”

  “Sounds like they all live in the university library,” Bobby muttered.

  “Find out all you can about them, including where they spend their spare time. Start with the university library. And Lili Spenser. Have we caught up with her yet? She hasn’t responded to any of our phone calls?”

  Bobby shook his head. “She’d left the hospital when I got there, and she didn’t go home. The ICU nurse said there were a bunch of brothers and sisters, so maybe she went home with one of them.”

  “We need to find her, and fast. Check the mother’s address, and if that means going ba
ck to the club tonight, Cassie—?”

  Cassie nodded. “No problem, Boss.”

  Gianna was about to say something else when the phone rang. They all jumped, the sound making them feel what they always tried not to feel in such situations: That overwhelming sense of voyeurism, of violating the private and personal space of another human being, all the more uncomfortable because their very presence signaled that the rightful owner would never again claim his or her own space.

  “Hi. Sorry I can’t talk to you right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Call 555-1234 to send a fax, otherwise, wait for the beep. Thanks for calling and have a good day.” The beep sounded. “Tasha, darling,” they heard, and felt more uncomfortably guilty than ever. “Where are you? Not out running with Fang in this disgusting heat, I hope. That’s dangerous, you know, for you and the canine. Anyway, call me when you get in. There’s been a slight change of plan for tonight, and really, I do mean slight, so don’t stress, OK? Love you, Bye.”

  They stood there looking at each other, all immobile except Linda who was writing down the name and number from the caller ID strip on the answering machine. And they all were thinking the same thing: that the woman on the phone who had just called Natasha Hilliard ‘darling,’ who had just called Natasha Hilliard ‘Tasha’ and not ‘Tosh,’ was not Lili Spenser.

  “Name’s “Selena,” Linda said. “D.C. area code, midtown exchange.”

  “Well, maybe it’s not a crime for us after all,” Tim said.

  “Yeah,” Bobby agreed, taking a closer look at the array of photographs on the desk and bookshelves. “Maybe our vic was a player who wound up getting herself played. Maybe we’re looking at a revenge killing.”

  “Don’t forget what was carved on her,” Cassie said, and her words seemed to shift the mood in the room back to cop-like instead of guilt ridden, leaving Gianna to her own thoughts, which involved remembering what had been carved into Natasha Hilliard’s torso: Die Dyke.

  That spelled hatred, but there also were the incongruities to contend with. Natasha Hilliard, AG, also was Natasha Hilliard, Ph.D. And Darlene the Dangerous also was Darlene Phillips, big sister to Delores Phillips and co-owner of The Snatch, not just the muscle at the front door. Both Phillips sisters were college graduates, Dee with an MBA from Wharton, and in addition to the building that housed their night club, they owned a very successful family-style restaurant in midtown and three apartment buildings. Dee, designer draped and coiffed, and Darlene homeboy-clad and easily able to mix it up with the best—or worst—of them. No, you sure as hell can’t judge a book by its cover, and it’s time we learned a lot more about Doms and Ags, Gianna thought. What she said was, “Somebody go find, feed and water Fang, then call Animal Control. And how do you tell a dog it’s now an orphan?”

  “You’re volunteering to tell me about a case?” Mimi raised herself up on one elbow and looked down into Gianna’s sleepy face. “Will wonders never cease.”

  “There’s a first time for everything and you’d do well to listen before I fall asleep. I’ve been up almost twenty-four hours,” Gianna said, turning her face and yawning loudly into the pillow to prove her point. “And besides, I missed you. Couldn’t you tell?”

  Mimi sat up. “Yes, I could, and now I’m all ears.”

  “Not all, thank God,” Gianna said, also sitting up. “I remember when I could work around the clock twice without yawning my tonsils out.”

  “That would have been a while ago.”

  “Don’t mention it! I’ve had more than enough reminders in the past few hours how ancient and behind the times I am.”

  Mimi gave her skeptical look. “What fool risked your wrath, not to mention potential death, by reminding you...of what exactly? Certainly not how old you are. Nobody knows how old you are. I don’t even know how old you are.”

  “Liar,” Gianna said around another yawn. “And it wasn’t so direct as a mention of how old I am as it was exposure to events and activities and names and places that I knew absolutely nothing about, that I would know something about if I weren’t as old as I am.”

  “You’re making absolutely no sense. Go to sleep and tell me whatever it is you want to tell me in the morning when you’re lucid.”

  “No, no. I want to tell you now. Especially about a screw-up that I don’t think means I’m old, but it may mean I’m a racist. But at least I’m not cruel to animals.”

  Mimi now was fully attentive. “What?”

  “There’s this club over on Lander Street. It’s been open almost two years and the people who work and party there have never heard of the Hate Crimes Unit.”

  Mimi waited. Gianna didn’t say anything else. “So that makes you a racist how, exactly?”

  “Darlene was right: We’ve done outreach in Georgetown and DuPont Circle and on Capitol Hill, at the health clinics and in the health clubs, but nothing in her neighborhood. And if I ask myself why, I find that I don’t like the answer.”

  “What’s this club? Where’s Lander Street? I’ve never heard of it, and I know this town pretty well, and I’m Black. And who’s Darlene?”

  “I thought I knew the town pretty well, too. The street itself isn’t much—one of those left over from the sixty-eight riots, still waiting for urban renewal or whatever was supposed to happen.”

  Mimi looked mean. “That should be a story: All the unkept promises made by city officials since the sixty-eight riots. Or better still, what happened to all those hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked to help communities and neighborhoods that still look like war zones. Think how much crime you wouldn’t have had to deal with over the years if the politicians had made good on just half the lies they told. Politicians, I hasten to add, who were as Black as the victims of the riots.”

  In the momentary quiet, Gianna reflected that this was a city they both loved but saw from completely different perspectives dictated by the completely different though often convergent nature of their jobs—and by the color of their skins. The one glaring similarity, Gianna thought, was that they both saw more than most people of the ugly underside of the Nation’s Capital—the people who lived in the city and the people who preyed on them.

  “Anyway,” Gianna said, “Darlene’s the bouncer—Darlene the Dangerous they call her, and with good reason—and the club is called The Snatch.”

  “Called the what?”

  “You heard right. And it’s got dancing girls on the bar.”

  “Damn,” Mimi said. “I guess you’re not the only old biddy in the group. I never heard of this place. What kind of dancing girls?”

  “Gorgeous ones, from what I could tell,” Gianna said, “and pretty much unclothed. And they do much more than just dance.”

  “I see. And what exactly was it that lured you into the jaws of The Snatch, Lieutenant? Certainly not an interest in gorgeous, unclothed dancing girls.”

  “Murder. The ugly, hateful kind,” Gianna said.

  “Oh, shit! The AG that was killed,” Mimi exclaimed, smacking herself up side the head. “I forgot about that!” And before Gianna could put words to the look she was telegraphing, Mimi told her about Baby’s visit and about Baby’s girlfriend and about their fear that women who looked like Terry and the dead Tosh were or would be targets of a serial killer, like the prostitutes.

  “You’ve heard of these Ags and Doms?” Gianna asked.

  “Maybe,” Mimi said through a yawn of her own. “I seem to remember reading something like that. It’s mostly a Black and Latina thing, I think. I’d have asked Baby more about her girlfriend but you know how prickly she can be.”

  Gianna yawned again. “And Baby Doll has a girlfriend!”

  Baby Doll did indeed have a girlfriend, and though Terry Carson knew the truth of Marlene’s past, Marlene is what she called her lady because Marlene was the only name she knew. And at that moment, Marlene and Terry were having a heated discussion—a term preferred by Marlene because argument portended hostilities—about T
erry’s desire to hang out at The Snatch, with her lady for company.

  “I told you I don’t want to go there, and tonight I especially don’t want you to go.”

  “But I thought you said that newspaper reporter said we didn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “She doesn’t think we do, Terry. Think. That’s not the same as know for sure and she don’t know for sure, but she said what we already know: There’s a lot of crazy mother fuckers out there. So why you got to take chances?”

  It was getting late and Terry was getting frustrated. “Look, Marlene, I just want to have a few beers, listen to some music, hang with my homies for a while. No biggie, all right? And after what happened last night, everybody’s gonna be on the look-out for crazy mother fuckers. Ain’t nobody gonna cap another one of us.”

  They were sitting on the couch in their living room. All of the furniture was new, purchased for cash at the big Ikea sale. No credit card debt for them—one of Adrienne’s Life Lessons. Marlene loved this room, the clean-lined Scandinavian furniture, the colorful rug, the Art Deco prints on the walls. Terry had let her decorate the way she wanted, her only request being a big screen TV and TiVo because she worked alternating shifts and would miss many of her favorite programs otherwise. Marlene hadn’t minded because she had become a movie nut. She hadn’t realized all she’d missed those years of walking the streets all night and sleeping all day. There really was a world that had passed her by and she didn’t intend to miss any more of it. And Terry Carson was a big part of her new world and she wasn’t about to let her get offed by some crazy dyke-hating son of a bitch. Terry, like she almost always did, knew what Marlene was thinking and feeling and grabbed her into a big, tight hug, the kind of hug Marlene had learned not only to accept but to welcome. But only from Terry.

  “I just don’t want nothin’ bad to happen to you, that’s all.”

  “You think I’m gonna let something happen to me, then some dude come along and snatch you up? Uhuh, no way Jose. It’s you and me, Miss Marlene Jefferson. That’s how it is, that’s how it’s gonna stay.” Terry looked down at her, into her eyes, then smiled. One of the things Marlene loved most about Terry was her smile. Her whole face participated, especially her eyes, which seemed to twinkle like those little Christmas lights, and her teeth looked like an advertisement for that bleaching stuff, they were so white and straight and perfect. “Look, I got my phone, and I’ll keep it on, and I promise I’ll leave after the first set. How’s that?”