Seven Suspects

by Renee James

  I’m humiliated. Gentleman that he is, Phil doesn’t make me spell it all out.

  “Was he unpleasant about it?” Phil asks.

  I nod yes, struggling to find my voice. “He was . . . dismissive when I told him how it made me feel. Like I didn’t matter. He got what he wanted. He didn’t have to play along anymore.”

  I realize I just told Phil that it was a sexual encounter, not that he didn’t know, but I didn’t want to say it. I take a deep breath and go on.

  “Later, I talked to some people in his apartment building, trying to find out what he was like to other people. He found out and came over to my place and screamed at me.”

  “Did he make physical threats?”

  I have to think for a moment. I was intimidated by his rage, but I couldn’t think of a moment where he threatened to hurt me.

  “Not directly,” I say. “He didn’t say he was going to beat me to a pulp or kill me or anything like that, but his anger was scary.”

  “Do you think he’s the guy?”

  I look at Phil and shake my head from side to side, like I don’t know. “My gut feeling is, he’s just a jerk. But I’m still trying to figure out if that’s correct, or if I’m just too stupid to see evil in a guy who’s also a jerk.”

  Phil has me recite his name and address and says he’ll check the man’s record.

  “What about the other guy?” He pauses to check a page in his notebook. “Michael Albrechti, high school guidance counselor.”

  “What about him?”

  “How did you meet? What was he like?”

  I lower my head to hide my tears. I can’t hold them back now. This is not a confession I have the personal fortitude to share with Phil.

  “Did he hurt you?” Phil asks, alarmed. “Just tell me.” I have the feeling, if I told him that Lover Boy had been inappropriate or forceful, Phil would give him a private reckoning. It makes my confession all the worse.

  “No.” My voice is tiny. “He picked me up in a club. I invited him over, but changed my mind on the way. I was unpleasant with him, and he was unpleasant back. But he wasn’t physical. He’s not the guy.” I take several deep breaths and stop the tears, never looking at Phil, not wanting to see his disgust. “He had just been dumped by his ex-wife who was having an affair.”

  “I’ll check his record anyway,” says Phil. He waits a few seconds for me to say something. I don’t. I couldn’t squeeze out an intelligent word if someone held a gun to my head and demanded it. I’m trying to summon the courage of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, the heroine who so often comes to mind when I must deal with public judgement and hypocrisy. Hester rose above a town of righteous shit-for-brains by answering to a higher morality. Me, too—we just use different names for it. The great Hawthorne work has a permanent place on my nightstand and has been read many times. I may start it again tonight when memories of this conversation keep me from falling asleep.

  “Thank you for your honesty,” says Phil.

  I can’t help but look at him when he says it. He looks wooden faced and confused, as if I’d just slapped him hard.

  “I—” I want to say something, but I can’t think of words that make any sense.

  Phil raises his eyebrows, gesturing for me to continue.

  “I lost myself when we broke up,” I say. An apology, I guess. But not enough. “I was never unfaithful to you.”

  “I understand,” he says. But he doesn’t. I’m not sure I do, either.

  Cecelia is waiting for me when I finish my last client. As I rush out the door, the receptionist hands me a note. It’s a telephone message to call Alex Borden, Betsy’s ex “friend” who took her on the trip to Paris. I groan. Alex is wasting his time with me. I’m not sympathetic and, even if I were, Betsy doesn’t tolerate anyone meddling in her affairs.

  “This is going to be fun,” Cecelia says as I get in the car. It’s her false-gaiety voice, which irritates me on several levels—it’s feminine, it’s phony, and she only uses it to get my goat.

  “I’ve lived my entire life for this moment.” I give her a sour smile. Mine is as much of an act as hers.

  We’re off to a transgender panel discussion at a lecture hall in the Loop. It’s one of Cecelia’s outreach initiatives to introduce the rest of society to transgender people. This discussion is sponsored by a large bank with deep ties to the entire Chicago community, including LGBT people. The audience will number around two hundred people, most of them straight, many of them bluebloods in Chicago business and politics. The leaders of the trans community will also be there, especially the young activists. I dread being part of it.

  “You’re going to be fine,” says Cecelia. I’ve often shared with her how uncomfortable I am at these kinds of events. “The businesspeople are going to love you.”

  “It’s not the straight audience I worry about,” I say.

  “The kids will love you, too.” Cecelia and I refer to our twenty-something transgender sisters as “kids,” mainly because we’re old enough to be their parents.

  “They will see an old, ugly transwoman on that stage and every one of them will know she should have had that seat,” I say. It’s true. The desire to speak publicly infects our transgender community like a virus. I’m one of the few who wants no part of it, but Cecelia drags me into these things every once in a while. I’m one of the “mature” transwoman she uses to balance panels like this one. Many of the younger women don’t like our community being represented by women like me—women who transitioned late in life and retain unmistakable male features and proportions.

  “That’s not true, and you know it,” Cecelia snaps.

  “It is true and we both know it,” I reply. “I just pray to God I don’t say something that gets the righteous sisterhood up in arms.” Our community is hyper-sensitive about respect and acceptance, so much so that the line between bigotry and unpleasant truths gets blurred. In one notorious instance, a transsexual woman who got a lot of publicity for transitioning on a high-profile job was hounded by hate messages from the trans community when she ventured to say that some transwomen were using their gender issues as an excuse to fail in life. Her statement was offered as constructive criticism and was, in fact, completely accurate.

  That’s just one of the opinions I hold that could get me embroiled in a trans community controversy I want no part of.

  We discuss how to answer sensitive questions accurately, but in a politically correct way.

  I almost escape the panel discussion unscathed. The first fifty-five minutes zip by without incident, my role being mainly to confirm other panelists’ answers or talk about my life as a transgender entrepreneur. Then a question from the audience asks if transgender people are more accepting and open to minorities because of our own struggles. I lay low and let the other three panelists wax rhapsodic about what an altruistic and loving community we are. Unfortunately, the moderator steps in and puts the question directly to me.

  I should lie. I should emulate generations of politicians and answer a question that hasn’t been posed but to which I have a safe answer. But I’m still vying to live up to my vow to quit lying about who I am.

  “I think we reflect American society in general,” I answer. “Our spectrum includes brave, tested people who are models of acceptance and idealism, and it includes narrow-minded bigots, and it includes everything in between.”

  The straight people in the audience listen impassively—the logic of my statement is obvious enough—but the transwomen buzz back and forth among themselves. I’ve stepped in something; I’m just not sure how deep.

  At the conclusion of the program, a clutch of angry young transwomen intercepts me as I descend the stairs from the stage. They speak in outraged phrases, completing each other’s thoughts. I catch snatches of the words . . . How could you? What bigotry? I’ve never met anyone . . . you’re the only bigot. This isn’t the first time I’ve harvested such vitriol from my own community. In fact, it’s happened so many tim
es you’d think I’d learn how to lie or at least keep my mouth shut. We are a minority brought together by body issues and driven apart by age.

  Mercifully, Cecelia intercedes. “Later, girls,” she says in that quasi-merry voice of hers. “Time to make nice with the movers and shakers.” She slides her arm through mine and whisks me off to shake hands with a posse of bankers, attorneys, and human resources executives.

  This goes much better. The important questions rotate around how the general public reacts to seeing trans people in the workplace, something I have personal experience with. In white-collar Chicago, it’s becoming a nonissue. Even people who are uncomfortable about dealing with trans people mostly accept it as part of reality, especially if the trans person is professional and efficient.

  When the last group of executives leaves, I see Alex Borden standing a few feet away, waiting for me to shake free.

  “I enjoyed your comments,” he says as he steps forward. He initiates a handshake, me responding with fingertips and a forced smile. “I was hoping we could talk? Maybe over lunch?”

  Alex is impossibly handsome, his face chiseled from centuries of evolution in the British Isles, high cheekbones, bright blue eyes, masculine nose. His body is lean, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, long legs. He stands several inches over six feet tall and carries himself with athletic grace. He also exudes the self-congratulatory arrogance that I have seen in other people who grew up with disarming good looks and wealth and power. I don’t trust him. I was worried Betsy would marry him and get into a miserable relationship that takes years to get over.

  “I really have to get back to the salon,” I tell him.

  “Please,” he says.

  “I have a client at one,” I tell him. It’s true.

  “I’m the client,” Alex says. “I’ll pay for the service, but can we talk over lunch or coffee or a drink instead of the haircut?”

  “You don’t need a haircut. What were you thinking?” The words usher forth from my mouth spontaneously, my mind focused on how perfect his hair is, how it’s always perfect, how he probably gets it cut every week or has it painted on or something.

  “I was buying your time. So I could ask for help.” He shrugs as he says it, like a kid telling a parent his bike just got stolen.

  That tiny moment of humanity drugs my inner watchdog. I lock eyes with him. He seems sincere. I sigh and nod, okay.

  Alex makes a great show of treating me like a lady, holding my chair, taking my coffee order and fetching it, addressing me with the kind of respect my salon bestows on customers. The pomp makes me all the more uncomfortable.

  “Alex, I don’t give Betsy advice about her social life, and she doesn’t solicit it,” I tell him as soon as he sits down. We’re sharing a Starbucks with the usual cast of white-collar professionals pecking away at computers in between appointments.

  Alex nods his understanding and fixes his eyes on mine again. This is how he expresses sincerity, and he’s very effective with it. “I know,” he says. “I know I made a terrible mistake in Paris and I want to apologize for it, but she won’t see me or even take my calls.”

  “You think an apology will do the trick?” I ask. “Are you thinking she’s angry, like if you’d flirted with another woman or refused to do the dishes?”

  My words seem to slap him into an immobile state, his body unmoving, his face fixed in a look of bewilderment. His answer comes in the form of a hopeless gesture with his hands.

  “She’s not mad, Alex,” I say. “She’s protecting her daughter. She’s protecting Roberta from having to share her mom with a man who doesn’t love her or like her. That’s just a step or two up the social scale from a child molester if you’re a mom.”

  He stares at his coffee cup for a minute, then establishes eye contact again. “It’s not like that with me, Bobbi. I was selfish and disappointed. I’ve never had kids. I have a lot to learn. But if she’ll give me another chance, I’ll make it work.”

  I think maybe he’s sincere, but parenting is always a lot easier to visualize when the kids aren’t around. I wouldn’t put any money on Alex becoming a doting stepdad. But then, one of the reasons I don’t bet on things is that I’m so often wrong.

  “You seem sincere enough,” I say, “but I don’t really know you at all and even if I did, I wouldn’t presume to advise Betsy on who she sees.”

  “Could you just ask her to talk to me?” If he’s faking sincerity, he should be an actor. “She’s the one. I can’t let her get away without trying.”

  My mind bounces back and forth from his sincerity to Betsy’s privacy to how much I wish Phil felt like that about me. Alex raises his eyebrows in question, a polite way to ask for an answer.

  “Okay, Alex.” I sigh. “I’ll tell her you want to speak with her so badly you approached me. I’ll tell her you seem to be sincere. That’s it. The rest is up to her.”

  He nods again and begins thanking me. As he enters into the second chorus of what a great human being I am, my phone rings. It’s Phil. I apologize to Alex and take the call.

  “A couple of beat cops busted a guy for rape last night,” says Phil. No hello. No small talk. “He’s talking, trying to earn a plea deal. He’s been at it for a long time and his victims include transwomen. He might be the other guy.” Phil is referring to Andive’s accomplice.

  “Great!” The prospect of getting closure on the horror I’ve endured makes my spirits soar. The only way it could be any better is if he’s also my stalker.

  Phil asks where I am. I tell him.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he says. “I want you to see the guy and give the detectives some particulars about your assault and about the stalker you’re dealing with now.”

  I agree and explain to Alex that we need to wrap things up. I repeat what I’ve agreed to do and he repeats what a gift to all humanity I am.

  The first time I walked into a police station with Phil I felt like a walking spectacle. It was his home precinct and every head in the room craned for a look at the transsexual woman he finally admitted he was dating. I was coming out of my painful self-consciousness, but that moment brought back the old feelings. I felt like a hairy masculine giant with breasts as big as watermelons and a face that looked too dumb to grace the pages of Mad magazine.

  This trip is a lot easier. It’s not Phil’s home base, transsexuals aren’t a novelty anymore, and I have long since shrugged off the initial reactions people have to me.

  They start me with a collection of mug shots. It’s kind of a pro forma exercise since I didn’t really see either of the men who attacked me. They wore nylon masks and winter clothes. And I saw those few details for the briefest seconds before they used my coat to cover my head, muffling my screams, blinding me, blocking out all sounds except for their fists and feet pounding into my body, and their laughter as they violated my body.

  The only mug shot I recognize is Andive, and that’s only because there was a photo of him in the police file on the Strand murder. By the time that photo was taken, he was a shell of the burly goon who savaged me—crippled, running to fat, dead eyes. When the assault took place, my mind registered him as Bluto—a thick, ugly white man wearing a blue and orange Chicago Bears stocking cap, and when he got close, I could see Mediterranean skin with a dark five o’clock shadow through the hose covering his face. He came at me from the front, and that was the best look I got at either of them. The one who came from behind I only knew as “Tan Coat”—he wore a tan or light brown winter coat and a Chicago Bears stocking cap. He was slimmer than Andive and blended easily in a crowd. I didn’t see him coming until he wanted me to see him coming so he could enjoy herding me straight into Andive’s waiting arms in a dark alley on a cold, moonless night that I will never forget.

  “They’re running a lineup,” says Phil. “They’ll let me get you in there between viewings by recent victims. Just see if anything rings a bell.”

  “It probably won’t,” I protest. “Wouldn’t
that hurt the prosecution’s case?”

  “They don’t need you to testify,” says Phil. “They’ve got a positive ID, right down to skin and blood samples. And they expect to get several more visual IDs. This is just for you. If you get a vibe about one of them, they’ll ask him questions about your case. For closure, Bobbi.”

  The lineup is like watching a horror movie, except it’s about me, and it’s in slow motion. Time suspends as the men walk into the viewing area. I feel like I’m floating in a synthetic reality where nothing is real, including me. Four of the men have the body type Tan Coat had—something around six feet tall, one hundred ninety pounds, give or take. Their ages range from maybe forty to a hard-bitten sixty. Nothing jumps out at me. I shrug.

  “Take your time,” says Phil.

  They have each man step forward, say a greeting aloud, then step back. When the fourth man in the lineup comes forward, I can feel goose bumps rise on my skin and my heart rate picks up. It’s the way he moves that reminds me of Tan Coat. He’s just more athletic than the other guys, and I still remember how easily he closed the distance on me in the alley. The other thing is, he has the dead eyes of a predator. I shudder. Phil puts a hand on my arm.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Can we ask Number Four to laugh?” I ask.

  He talks to the officer running the lineup, who asks Number Four to step forward and laugh. Tan Coat had a distinctive, high-pitched chuckle that lives in my mind like fingernails scraping on a blackboard, though in my memory, it’s like the blackboard bleeds.

  Number Four’s eyes seem to pierce the one-way glass as he steps forward. They sear into mine, and I can feel panic rise deep inside. He would kill me as easily as he’d slap a mosquito. I feel creepy all over as I listen for his laugh. It’s dry and low. Not even close. I turn to Phil and shrug apologetically. “I don’t know,” I murmur. “I can’t say it’s him, but he looks like a creep and he looks a little like the creep who assaulted me.”