by Leroy Clark
“You feeling the heat, boss?” Slate grinned knowingly.
“You know it. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the university called me late last night with a list of various threats. Oh, he talked sweet and polite but he made it clear we’d better solve this fast. The President lost his donor, and he’s not a happy camper and now there’s an unhappy board. I feel like I’m sitting on a volcano. The rumblings are growing louder, and I know an explosion’s coming. You guys find the son of a bitch that did this—and fast.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! We’re working on it.” Jerry concluded.
As they left, Norm yelled after them. “If they kick my ass, I’m gonna kick yours harder.”
CHAPTER 6
THE PARENTS – HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION
The victim’s parents lived on a farm east of Wichita on the outskirts near the township of Rose Hill. “I dread this,” Slate told Jerry.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Jerry replied. “Parents are so wacked out by the shock...”
Slate had seen how strangely grief affected people. Some were like zombies, expressionless, all the life drained out. Others were in a rage or hysterical or drinking. Some refused to believe it. Others wanted revenge. “Can’t tell what they’ll do,” he added.
Facing parents in cases like this was never easy. Slate believed the American culture encouraged people to ignore pain and death, promoting instead the myth that everyone can stay young and beautiful if they live right. The young people moved out and away. Instead of generations living together in the same house, the generations lived separate lives. The old and sick were shut up away from the young in retirement homes and hospitals. No wonder people were so screwed up. Slate wondered how the parents of Steven Davis would react.
The sky was gray and the wind was strong, blowing the dust kicked up by the car as Jerry and Slate drove up the long gravel driveway to the Davis’ farm. An old man in a washed out blue denim shirt and faded overalls was standing on the porch. They got out of the car and started towards him, but before they could get a word out, he barked out, “Whad you want?”
Jerry and Slate displayed their badges. “Are you Mr. Davis?” Jerry asked.
“I got nothing to say to you.” He cleared his throat and spat into the yard.
“We’re investigating your son’s death.” Acknowledged Slate. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
“Ain’t no one in my family died.” Davis said coldly, his gray eyes as cold as steel. He spat again.
“Isn’t Steven Davis your son? This is the address we we’re given.”
Slate looked around at the well-kept house and yard. It was an old two-story house, painted white, with a porch that ran across the whole front of the house. To the right was a big old barn, painted red. Large walnut trees shaded the house. Several pear trees with white blossoms and flower pots with red geraniums brought color to the vista. A white fence separated the fields on both sides from the front lawn and driveway.
“What is it, Henry?” A voice yelled from inside. “Someone here?” A woman opened the door and looked out. She was a plump, middle-aged woman with graying hair, wearing a print housedress that Slate figured she’d made herself. It reminded him of the dresses his mother wore that she had made herself.
“We’re here about your son, ma’am,” Jerry interjected. “I’m Detective Blake and this is Detective Slater.”
“I told you he ain’t my son.” The old man growled.
“Henry, I told you that’s enough. I won’t hear it. Now these officers are here to help.”
Tears rolled down the old man’s face, but he stuck his jaw out and folded his arms. His breathing was ragged, and he seemed to be gulping air. The Bible says in Isaiah, “Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity, and will lay low the haughtiness of the arrogant...And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms... shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“Come in. Don’t mind him. He just can’t deal with it. He don’t mean nothing bad.”
Jerry and Slate followed the woman into the living room. It was clean and comfortable. Homemade flowered slipcovers covered the sofa and the two armchairs.
Brown pillows with a gathered ruffle made of the same flowered material as the slipcovers were placed across the back of the sofa. Others were piled in the armchairs. There was a tiled fireplace framed in cherry wood, a rocking chair, a TV. Knickknacks and photos covered every available spot on the mantel and the end tables. Mrs. Davis sat on the sofa and motioned for them to sit in the two chairs.
“We’re sorry about your loss.” Jerry gave her a sympathetic smile.
“Thank you.” The woman sighed deeply and seemed to gather her strength for the questions. “How can I be of help?”
Slate took charge. “Just tell us about him. What was he like? What do you know of his friends?”
“When he told us two years ago that he was—well, you know—gay, Henry was very upset. He’s a good man. He’s always cared about the family. We support the church. It’s always been at the center of our family. Henry’s a deacon in the church. We taught our children the best we could to do what was right, to serve God and obey his commandments. Henry—he couldn’t understand. He blamed himself, I think. He was afraid of what people would say—about him.
He hit Steven across the face and told him to get out. He told Steven he was no longer his son. He said terrible things. Steven moved out. I’ve hardly seen him since. He came back a few times when Henry wasn’t home. I sent him some money when I could. I didn’t tell Henry.” There was a catch in her voice. She seemed on the brink of tears but forced them back. “Can I get you anything to drink? Ice tea?
“No, we’re fine.” Jerry assured her for both of them.
Mrs. Davis stood up. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t sit. Sitting is too painful. Sitting leads to thinking and remembering. I keep thinking, ‘What if I had done this or that?”
“That’s very natural, Mrs. Davis,” Slate acknowledged, trying to comfort her. “I’m sure you did everything you could.”
“He was a good boy. He was so talented. Different from our other three boys. He was a good student, in all the plays in high school. He did real well at the university too. And he was beginning to get jobs with some of the professional theatres. After graduation he was going to New York to some big school—”
“Was he close to his brothers? You said there were three?”
“No, they’re all older. Two are married. Only Frank lives here. He works the farm with Henry. No, they just weren’t into school. Couldn’t wait to get out of high school. Hated it. Didn’t want to go to college. Steven, he was my—” Mrs. Davis stopped, her voice breaking.
Slate jumped in to help her. “What are the other brothers’ names?”
“Richard and Daniel.” She gave him a proud mother’s smile.
“And they’re older?”
“Yes, Daniel is the oldest. He’s thirty. Richard is twenty-seven. Frank is—let’s see—he’ll be twenty-five next September.”
“What about Steven’s friends? Did he say anything about anyone?”
“We didn’t talk much after he left. I did know Andrea, the girl he lived with. I talked to her on the phone some. She seemed real nice. I suppose he mentioned other people but I never knew them. He never brought anyone home.”
There was a noise from outside. Mrs. Davis apologized. “Henry is having a real hard time. He was so proud of Steven.”
Slate tried to reassure her. “When you experience a crime, it can make you respond in ways you don’t under-stand. You might react in ways that go against everything you believe. Some people feel a sense of helplessness or fear or anger. Some people have a hard time relating the experience to what they’ve always assumed of life. Some-times there a conflict that develops between your idea of the world before the crime and your idea of the world after.”
&
nbsp; “I’d say all that’s true of Henry. He just can’t seem to cope. He blames Steven.”
“It would probably help if you could get him to seek professional help.” Jerry suggested.
“You mean a doctor?”
“Yes, a psychologist or a psychiatrist, someone in counseling.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t go see one of them.”
“What about your pastor? He might be of help.” Slate offered.
At that moment the old man came in from the porch, slamming the door. “Such a thing is disgusting. Damn his soul to hell. I did not raise a son to be like that. It was his teachers in high school. Filthy scum—all of ‘em.” Slate got to his feet warily.
“Henry! You know that’s not true.”
Slate noticed the man’s fingernails were chewed down to the quick, and he was filled with such rage he was shaking. “It is true,” the old man shouted. “They made him that way. All those filthy plays. No longer is America blessed of God. She has sinned away her day of grace. The invisible line has been crossed, from which there is no repenting and no returning.”
“Mr. Davis, it’s pretty much accepted today that being gay is not something a person chooses. They’re born that way.” Jerry stood up and tried to calm the old man, putting his hand gently on the man’s shoulder. The old man flung Jerry’s arm away.
“No one’s born that way. He was a good boy till he got mixed up in all that theatre stuff in high school. A good boy. Not that filth—”
“Henry, please, these officers are here to help. They’re trying to find the man who did this.”
“Don’t blame us. People always blame the parents.”
Mrs. Davis spoke softly to Slate, almost apologetically. “We just have to figure out how to live through this.” She turned to Henry who was still convulsed with silent sobs, his back to them, and said sweetly, “You don’t stop loving someone just because they died. Love never goes away. We just have to concentrate not on what we’ve lost but on the sons we still have.”
The old man wheeled around, his face contorted by the intensity of his conflicting emotions. “Sodom and Gomorrah! God hated their evil ways and he smote them. Turned his back on them. They were a perverse generation and corrupted themselves just like today. God said ‘a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the corrupted; I will heap mischiefs upon them. I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.’”
“Henry, they’re just trying to find….”
“Mary, shut up. Shut your face. Don’t you say anything.” The old man spoke so sharply, so intensely that she reacted as if slapped. Turning to the two men, his voice vehement, he growled, “Git. Git outta my house. You wanna know about Steven? You go down to hell and talk to ‘im. That’s where he is—in hell, burning in eternal fire and damnation.”
“Could you tell us your whereabouts Monday night and early Tuesday morning, Mr. Davis?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“It’s a question I want an answer to,” Slate stated firmly.
The old man looked at him with fierce anger. “I was here. Right here.”
“Can you verify that?” Slate looked at the man’s wife. She nodded, but something in her eyes made Slate believe there was more she wasn’t saying.
“Now get out,” the old man snorted.
Slate turned to Mrs. Davis. “Thank you for your help, ma’am.”
The old man yanked open the door, sending it crashing against the wall. “Git out. You’ll go to hell too, all you liberals. God is hard. God hates all this sickness. God doesn’t accept this—this—”
Slate and Jerry made their exit. The old man practically slammed the door on their heels. They heard him continue to yell as they got into the car. Slate had an image from the past of his own father, yelling and banging things in the house because his mother had backed into another car.
“There’s a man out of control,” Slate stated emphatically. “Totally out of control.”
“He’s scary. And what is it with all that religious shit? All that vengeance.” Jerry sat in silence for a few moments, lost in thought. “I can’t see a father doing that to his son though,” he said as he started the car. “I mean, there’s no way that man could have killed his son.”
“I agree.” Slate asserted. “He’s probably capable of killing someone—under the right circumstances, but I don’t believe he would have hung Steven up like that or used a pipe to—“ He let his voice trail off.
“On the other hand.” Jerry made a face. “Maybe he is crazy enough. All that talk about God. I don’t think he’s rational. Hell, I know he ain’t.”
“He’s hurting,” Slate said. “He’s just in pain.” Slate had grown up without religion. His parents had not attended church. He had never been inside one until he had gone away to the academy.
“He must belong to one of them fundamentalist Baptist churches,” Jerry reasoned. “Some of ‘em are pretty far out. You’ve heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, haven’t you? Reverend Phelps and his whole family. They have what they call a picketing ministry. The group picketed the kid that was killed in Arizona, Mathew Shepard. They picket AIDS funerals. They have signs like “AIDS CURES FAGS” and “GOD HATES FAGS.” Phelps is dead now, but his family keeps it going.
Slate had heard of the group but he didn’t remember any details.
“There are some weird fucking people in this world,” Jerry concluded. Slate agreed.
“We oughta check out his brothers. Maybe they’re as crazy as their father.”
“Doesn’t sound like they had much in common with Steven”
“That’s the point.”
“Okay, but let’s put ‘em on the back burner. We got enough other fish to fry first.”
There was a flash of lightning, followed by an enormous clap of thunder as they moved on to the highway. Quickly the sky opened up. Slate hoped it wasn’t going to stir up a tornado. In Kansas about two hundred monster storms with funnel clouds were reported each year, but today he just couldn’t face dealing with one. He knew all too well the danger and the destructive consequences of such storms. He crossed his fingers. “I hope we don’t run into a tornado.”
Jerry, as he leaned forward trying to see through the fogged up windshield, dismissed the thought. “Nah, not today. There’s not enough difference in the temperature that’s here and the front moving through.”
“I assume this came from the weather channel this morning?”
“No, I heard it before. I just noted the temperature today.”
“So this is your theory? Something you just made up?”
“No, I didn’t make it up. I heard it on the weather channel, just not this morning.”
“So you don’t know if they’re forecasting potential tornadoes.”
“They weren’t this morning.”
“At seven?”
“Right, but they could be now.” Slate slumped down in the seat.
“Not according to my theory.”
“What if the temperature changes?”
Jerry ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Did you know that crime in the United States accounts for more death, injuries and loss of property than all the natural disasters combined?”
Slate wasn’t comforted, but as they drove back to Wichita, the storm moved off to the north. They had lunch at a Wendy’s. Slate liked their Almond Chicken Salad. Next they decided to go back to the university to locate some of the other professors and students on their list.
CHAPTER 7
DID YOU HAVE SEX WITH STEVEN?
They parked in a visitor’s spot near the building and walked into the lobby of the auditorium. The doors to the theatre were open. Slate spotted Aaron with several other students moving furniture off the stage. He watched as they lowered a batten with a dozen or more lighting instruments from above the stage. The activity was directed by a tall, thin man with a moustache and goatee and a fri
nge of gray hair around his rapidly balding head. Slate decided he must be the lighting designer, one of the faculty he had missed previously.
Slate and Jerry walked down the side aisle and came to the front of the stage. Seeing them, Aaron scurried over. “Hi.” He shook hands with them. “I hope this is okay. We were told by the other officers that we could go on working in here.”
Slate reassured him that it was fine. Forensics had all they needed. The tall thin man came over and extended his hand. “Hi, guys, I’m Dave Joslyn. I guess you want to talk to me.”
Jerry and Slate introduced themselves. Mr. Joslyn gave the boys on stage instructions on what to work on and invited the detectives up to his office, which was directly above the lobby. They entered into a large room with a high ceiling and tall windows overlooking the front steps of the theatre. Next to the door stood a large drawing table covered with a pile of sketches and mechanical drawings. The room was dominated by a large conference table surrounded by chairs in a variety of styles, some with broken arms. The table was covered with books, other drawings of scenery, and colored renderings. A desk with a computer and several cabinets were strung along the wall opposite the windows.
Joslyn made room at one end of the table. “Have a seat. This whole thing is incredible. Just incredible.”
“What can you tell us about Steven?” Jerry was schooled in using the murdered man’s name instead of calling him the victim.
“Well, I know you’ve heard already how talented he was. I’ve never seen anything like him in the ten years I’ve been teaching.”
“What about personally?” Slate asked.
“Hell, he was your average college kid. Well, above average, but still he had a lot of growing up to do. He’d get all absorbed in whatever role he was playing, sometimes it carried over offstage.”
“You mean he sort of lived the role?” Slate pulled out his notebook and pen to take notes.
“No, but there was an attitude that carried over. Most of the time Steven was really nice. Polite. Very professional. But when we did a play called The Real Thing last year, he played this highly intellectual writer with a cutting way with words. Steven could do that. He was a bastard during the whole show. Even in class he’d come up with these quips—they were funny as hell—but Jesus, sometimes—I teach scene design—well, one time we were critiquing everyone’s design project and Steven—he was quite an artist as well as an actor—he eviscerated a couple of the other students. Just cut them to the bone. He was right on—their work was shit—but I try to keep the discussions positive.”