by Leroy Clark
“I’m George. We met at Duncan Auditorium a few days ago.”
The uniformed police officer. Slate had not recognized him outside of the work environment and in civilian clothes. He was now wearing tight Levi’s and a tank top that showed off his muscular body.
Slate gave him a bright smile. “I didn’t recognize you out of uniform. Good to see you too.” Slate felt awkward as hell. He didn’t know what else to say. He wished he’d dressed in something more hip.
“I didn’t expect to find you in this kind of place.”
“Well, I guess that’s mutual.” Slate acknowledged.
“Did you enjoy the show?”
“Yeah, I thought it was great. Good dancers.”
“Best show I’ve ever seen.”
“What did you think of the basketball player? Pretty incredible, huh?”
“In more ways than one.”
“True, but he could really handle that ball.”
“I think my eyes were glued to his dick. Un—fucking—believable. Too big to do anything with.”
“I’d agree with that.”
It was not long before they were sharing bits and pieces of their lives and a few war stories about their jobs. While George was far more open and comfortable with his sexuality, Slate found they shared a number of interests outside of the bedroom and the police work. Later, looking at his watch, Slate was shocked to find that it was almost one in the morning. He told George he had to get home and get some sleep, and the two of them walked out to the parking lot together. When they got to his car, Slate turned to say goodnight, and found himself in George’s arms. They kissed. Slate kept thinking of the Kevin Costner line in Bull Durham. “Long, slow, wet, deep kisses. Something like that.” They kissed like that three times over a period of five minutes. Slate was surprised to find that he had an erection. He could also feel that George was hard too as they pressed their bodies together. Finally, George broke away, and said, “Come home with me. It’s not far.”
Slate shook his head, “Not tonight.”
“Come on, just a quickie. It’ll put you right to sleep.” George insisted.
Slate nodded. “I’ll follow you.” He couldn’t believe he’d agreed. It just came out of his mouth. Now he was trembling. George jumped in his car and drove away slowly until Slate caught up behind him. Once they got to George’s one bedroom apartment on the second floor of a complex on Rock Road, Slate felt himself once more locked in a passionate embrace. He and George kissed, taking off their clothes as they moved slowly toward the bedroom, both so overcome by the heat of their desire that nothing else mattered but each other.
Slate awoke shortly after dawn, finding himself wrapped around George’s naked back. Slate softly disentangled himself from George and the sheet and made his way to the bathroom.
After relieving himself, he rinsed his mouth with some mouthwash and went back to the bedroom. George smiled sleepily as he flopped on his back and watched Slate.
“I really have to go.” Slate said as he pulled on his clothes.
“Would you like some breakfast?” George asked, sitting up.
“No, no, I’ve got to get home and change and go to work.”
“Can I call you?”
Slate smiled. “Sure.” He wrote out his number. George did the same and walked him to the door. Slate gave him a soft kiss goodbye.
As he slipped into the front seat of his car, Slate’s mind was racing. What in hell was he doing? He decided he didn’t know, but it certainly felt good. He liked this guy. He was happy. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he felt happy. He felt connected. He felt balanced. It scared him.
CHAPTER 14
PROTESTS AND VIOLENCE AT THE FUNERAL
The funeral for Steven Davis was scheduled for Saturday afternoon at four in the Rose Hill Baptist Church. Slate planned to go but wasn’t looking forward to it. It was part of the job. He and Jerry wanted to watch the crowd for anything suspicious because of the potential for the murderer to be there as well.
Slate’s day had begun badly. After spending the night with George, he had slipped into the house and gone back to bed for a short nap. A neighbor’s yapping dog woke him before he was ready to get up. As he ate his breakfast, the cat threw up. After cleaning up that mess, he found the morning paper leading with the headline “Activists say murder was a hate crime.” The article gave another brief description of the murder and quoted a couple of gay men who said Wichita had little tolerance for homosexuals. They were convinced Davis’ death should be defined as a hate crime.
The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights organization, was quoted as saying it had begun its own investigation of the case. “It has all the earmarks of a hate crime,” said their spokesman. “There was incredible brutality in the beating. That level of viciousness is what we often see in hate crimes.”
Slate also found himself quoted. “But Detective Richard Slater, who is leading the police investigation, said he has no evidence pointing to that conclusion. ‘None of the statements that I’ve received; no one that I’ve talked to has ever indicated to me that the cause was sexual orientation,’ said Slater. ‘Until I receive that evidence, I can’t very well say it was a hate crime. And we’re not interested in making out of it what it’s not.’” He was surprised they had accurately captured his statement.
This was followed by another source that seemed designed to make Slater look as bad as possible. The paper had contacted the new executive director of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington who said, “To rule out bias motivation based on his sexual orientation seems premature at best, and irresponsible at worst.”
The article concluded with a note about the funeral arrangements and ended with more bad news: “The notoriously antigay Westboro Baptist Church group, who picketed outside of Matthew Shepard’s funeral in 1998, has promised to picket today’s funeral as well.”
“It’s going to be a zoo,” Slate said to himself, thinking of potential violence and crowd control. It pissed him off that the young man’s death would be turned into an excuse for protests and he felt sorry the grieving family and friends would have to deal with bigots.
At two-thirty he met Jerry at the station, and they drove out to Rose Hill together. Jerry was in a foul mood but glad to get away from home. His in-laws were coming for Sunday dinner and his wife Karen wanted the house cleaned and had been bitching at Jerry to help. As it turned out, he did most of the work while she talked on the phone. Now both were mad at each other. Slate was glad to be out of a negative relationship.
Being alone was better than being in an unhappy marriage, he said to himself as they pulled up at their destination.
The church, a red brick structure with white shutters, a white steeple, and white double doors at the entrance, was perched on a green knoll and surrounded by well-tended flowers and tall shade trees. When they arrived at the church there were already about a thousand people gathered in front and spilling over on to the lawn. Six members of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church were waving signs, “God hates fags” and “A good fag is a dead fag.” A group of gay activists were protesting the Phelps’ group. Police officers were trying to keep the two groups separated. The media were out in full force. Slate also recognized the photographer from the crime lab shooting video of the crowd.
Donna Pine, a pushy woman with a short dyke haircut, was introduced as from the Human Rights Campaign. She spoke loudly into the microphone she ‘d been in town for four days and was pretty sure it was a hate crime.
“Four fucking days and she’s a know-it-all!” Jerry scoffed.
Slate and Jerry ignored the rest of her speech and tried to make their way through the crowd, a blond woman Slate recognized from TV news shoved a mic in front of Slate’s face and asked him what he thought of Pine’s comment. Her cameraman moved in and focused on Slate. He hated talking to the media but felt he had no choice.
“There’s still not enough evidence to classify the
murder as a hate crime.”
“Some of the gay activists think you’re dragging your feet on this.”
“We’re not dragging our feet,” Slate replied calmly but strongly. “We have a list of suspects and we’re investigating each one. We have to have the time to do a lot of interviews and work on the motive to find out what really happened. There’s no time limit to do that. If there is evidence of a hate crime, we’ll find it.” He gave Jerry a nod and shoved his way past the faces around him and went up the steps into the red brick church. When the reporter tried to capture Jerry, his partner smoothly sidestepped her and followed him into the church.
Slate had never been in a Baptist Church before. He had seldom been in any church. This one had white walls with oak wainscoting and a dark red carpet with worn patches near the front entrance. The pews were also of polished oak. Tall and narrow windows graced the sides. There was one stained glass window on the wall behind the altar. Slate, who loved stained glass as his lamp collection showed, was impressed with simplicity of the design and the beauty of the vibrant colors. He wished he could add the window to his collection.
At the altar stood the open casket. To the left of it stood an oak communion table with “This do in remembrance of me” carved in the front. An arrangement of red roses and lilies-of-the-valley stood on the table. Behind the pulpit was the choir loft and a baptismal pool enclosed by a velvet curtain. The wall around the baptistry was covered by a mural of a biblical scene of Jordan River. Obviously painted by one of the locals, the mural looked more like the Kansas prairie with the Arkansas River running through it and celestial clouds above.
A middle-aged woman in a Navy blue dress sat at the organ, playing softly. The minister entered with the family through a side door and moved to the front row.
Mr. and Mrs. Davis sat in the front pew on the right in front of the pulpit. Mary Davis was weeping softly, now and then wiping her nose with a handkerchief. The minister knelt in front of her and held her hand, speaking to her quietly. Henry Davis sat stiffly, staring straight ahead. Three men, two women and several children sat in the front pews along with them. The three men all resembled Mr. Davis with similar noses and strong jaws. Slate figured they must be the other sons. He wondered what reactions there would be from the parents, particularly Henry Davis. He hoped the man wouldn’t go ballistic.
As Slate looked around, he saw that the other rows included many students and faculty that he recognized. Dr. Hariot was present with the other theatre faculty. Andrea and Andy sat next to Joe Moss and Aaron Biggs. Tim Wheeler and Derek Colson were there. The sides and rear of the church were filled with people standing. Slate and Jerry stood among them in the rear. Their main objective was to watch the crowd to see if anyone acted strange, behaving in a way that seemed inappropriate to the situation.
The minister took his place behind the lectern and asked the congregation to sing the hymn “Rock of Ages.” Hymnals were passed around with generally three of four sharing one book. Slate passed two on to other people and could see that the hymnals were worn, containing several generations of doodling.
Slate and Jerry sort of hummed along, neither one knowing all the words. The minister read several passages of scripture, Psalm 23 and John 14:1-6, and delivered his message of kind words about the deceased and comfort for the mourners. Tara Ferguson, the redhead who knew Lightfoot, sang a solo of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” She had a beautiful voice, but more than that, she sang with her heart. Slate felt his eyes fill with tears as she finished. Throughout the service there were various outbursts of crying and sobbing. The young people seemed particularly overwhelmed that someone their age was lying there in front of them—dead. No one, however, stood out in any weird way.
At the end of the service, members of the congregation filed by the casket for their last good-byes. Slate and Jerry watched as the mourners left the church. He overheard an usher telling them to gather in the little cemetery at the rear of the churchyard for the interment.
Slate’s attention was suddenly attracted by Joe Moss. He bent over the casket and kissed Steven on the lips.
Immediately, Steven’s brother Frank was on Moss. He grabbed the slightly built actor and dragged him down the aisle, his voice menacing, “You piece of shit. You have no right to be here. Now get the hell out.” Slate and Jerry reacted immediately and began moving. They could see that he literally threw Joe down the steps. The door shut, but they could still hear Frank. “And if I ever see your face again, I’ll kick your friggin’ head in….”
Slate and Jerry pushed their way through other mourners in the church, emerging just in time to see Frank kick Joe in the thigh.
“I loved him too,” the actor rasped, burying his face on his arms as he lay on the walk way sobbing.
A speaker system outside had allowed the crowd to listen to the service, but now that it was over, the noise grew increasingly louder and the police had difficulty keeping the crowd contained.
Frank started to kick Moss again, but a middle-aged woman from the crowd wearing a dark blue dress grabbed his arm. “Just let him be, Frank. He ain’t worth the trouble.”
At the same time three or four others in the crowd urged Frank on. “Kick his ass,” yelled a farmer. Others cried out things like, “Knock his lights out.” “He deserves it.” “Yeah, do it! Do it!” The protesters shook their signs and chanted. Slate ran to Joe while Jerry grabbed Frank and spun him away.
Frank wheeled around, ready to fight whoever had grabbed him.
Others called out for the fight to stop. Some yelled at the protesters. Like Indians circling the wagons, the crowd moved in tighter and tighter, trying to see what was happening.
Policemen tried to get to the scene to stop the fight, but the woman in the blue dress pulled Frank away first.
“Fucking fag. They oughta kill ‘em all,” Frank mumbled as he stormed back up the steps. Pulling the door open, he ran into Aaron Biggs and Tim Wheeler as they were coming out. He shoved them out of his way and disappeared, while they made their way to Joe.
One of the press cameramen started shooting photos of the scene. Jerry went up to him, and put his hand up to block any more photos. “Move it,” he said in an authoritative tone. When the man started to object, Jerry added, “Now.” He meant it. The photographer decided to quit while he was ahead and moved away.
Slate and Jerry lifted Joe Moss to his feet and helped guide the trio off to their car.
“What the hell did he do in there?” Jerry asked.
Aaron rolled his eyes. “He leaned over and kissed Steven on the mouth. That didn’t go over very well.”
“Steven’s father wanted to kill him,” Tim added.
Jerry shook his head. “I missed it. I guess I was too focused on the crowd.”
Slate was pissed. What happened after we came outside? What about the other brothers?”
“Not too friendly.” Aaron noted in a way that indicated it was an understatement.
“What did they do?” Slate asked.
“They were all yelling for us to get out of there. That we were scum. One of ‘em tried to calm Steven’s father down. This other one started towards us so we got the hell outta there.”
Slate and Jerry exchanged glances. “Maybe we’d better visit the three brothers,” Slate offered.
“Just what I was thinking,” Jerry acknowledged.
They made it to the car without further incident although several onlookers kept a careful eye on the group. The car, an old gray Chevy Celebrity, belonged to Aaron. Tim rode up front with him. Joe crawled into the back seat. After they left, Slate and Jerry found their way to their own car. The people milling about and the traffic made it impossible for them to move for a while, but gradually the crowd thinned and they made their escape.
Both were silent for much of the trip back. Slate played the images over in his mind of the people and events. He was very curious to see the video captured by the crime lab.
CHAPTER 15
/> SEARCHING FOR ROBIN LIGHTFOOT
The weekend was a welcome relief even though it was a day late in coming for Slate. On Saturday afternoon after returning home, he did laundry and bought groceries. Jeanne had a hot date with her boyfriend and was eating out, so Slate opened a can of tuna and fixed himself two sandwiches, washing them down with a glass of milk. After watching the national news and two television drama series, his quiet evening alone was interrupted the by the telephone. It was George.
“Had a great time last night.”
“Me too.”
“You going out tonight?”
The idea was very tempting, but Slate didn’t dare. He felt like a kid again—shy, confused, a mixture of conflicting emotions. “No, I’m hitting the sack early.” He said.
“Well, I just wanted to say hi.” Slate could tell by his inflection that he was disappointed.
“I’m glad you called.”
“Good. I wasn’t sure.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” He took a deep breath and plunged in. “How would you like to go to the play they’re doing this week?”
“At the university?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. Sure, I’d love to. What night?”
“Thursday is opening night. How’s that?”
“Okay. Shall I meet you there?”
“Yeah, in the lobby. They have an early curtain so meet me about seven.”
“I’ll see you then.”
“Good.”
“Okay. Well, goodnight.”
“Thanks for calling.”
When he hung up, his heart was pounding. He sat on the sofa and surfed the television channels for a while until he settled on watching the home and garden channel.
As soon as he sat down on the sofa, Cain hoped up beside him and stretched out, laying his head against Slate’s leg. He liked to be petted and have his head rubbed under his ears and he expected attention every time Slate sat on the sofa. Slate petted him for half an hour as he flipped from channel to channel. Finally he hopped down and curled up on the Persian rug and went to sleep.