Darkness Descending

by Penny Mickelbury

  He nodded and struggled to his feet, with Linda’s help. Eric and Cassie had the other collar on his feet as well. Both men, Gianna realized, were bloodied and battered, as were several of the by-standers, and Dee Phillips was ready to chew nails.

  “Get them out of here,” she snarled, and pointed toward the back door. “I’ll unlock the gate so you can get out.”

  Eric and Linda led the handcuffed men out and Dee slammed the heavy steel door shut so hard Gianna swore the brick wall surrounding it vibrated. The woman was rattled. Gianna turned toward the bar and watched the show to give her time to recover herself, using the moment to tell Cassie to mingle with the crowd, making sure there would be no aftershocks.

  “I owe you an apology, Lieutenant, and my gratitude,” Dee finally said, her voice vibrating a little.

  “I’ll accept the apology but no gratitude is necessary. This is what we get paid to do. Just think of it as your tax dollars at work, and I’m certain you pay enough taxes to keep a couple of us employed full time.”

  Dee relaxed and almost smiled. “More than a couple of you,” she said, and headed for her office. Gianna followed. Two chairs sat side by side in front of the security monitors and Gianna guessed that Dee and Eric had spotted the two imposters before they had time to cause any real trouble. “Your Detective Ashby is a real eagle eye,” Dee said, confirming Gianna’s speculation. “He watched those monitors the whole time, never moving a muscle. Then he calls me over, still not taking his eyes from the screen. ‘Watch these two,’ he says, pointing to the screen. ‘Tell me what you think.’ So I watch for about a minute. ‘Those are men,’ I say. ‘That’s what I think,’ he says, and calls Officer Lopez. I watched them, Lieutenant. They moved into that crowd without causing hardly a ripple, grabbed those two, and were hustling them to the back door before anybody noticed. If I had gone out there sooner, I could have prevented the melee that occurred, but I was in here fuming. I just want you to know that your people didn’t cause that free-for-all. They are true professionals, both of them.”

  And Gianna knew that if anything mattered to Dee Phillips, it was true professionalism. “I’m glad to hear it, Miss Phillips. And the only people to blame for what happened in here are those guys. They came in here looking for trouble.”

  “Well, they found it,” she said. “Now what? Will you arrest them?”

  Gianna hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t think so, not unless they have outstanding wants and warrants. We’ll make sure we know who they are and where to find them, and we’ll make sure they understand that if there’s any more trouble here, we’ll blame them.”

  Dee Phillips paced up and down her office. She wore what Gianna knew was an expensive designer pant suit, though she couldn’t have named the designer, and expensive designer shoes that Gianna did recognize because she hadn’t been able to afford them. Dee’s jewelry—watch, rings, ear studs—were solid gold and obviously costly though not flashy. Her haircut was as flawless as it had been last night and Gianna wondered if anybody, even a rich anybody, got a haircut and a manicure every day, because both looked that fresh. She glanced at her watch, then at the monitors. “I need to go out on the floor,” she said, and while it wasn’t quite asking permission, the tone was more conciliatory than before.

  “Of course,” Gianna said, moving toward the door.

  “Do you think we’re going to have any more trouble tonight?”

  Gianna had been wondering the same thing, and wondering what to do about it. What she didn’t want to do right now was alert the district commander of her presence here tonight. She had plans for dealing with him. But she also didn’t want to leave her people here—they were up all night last night and granted they were younger than she was, they still needed a night of uninterrupted sleep. They were scheduled to meet at the office at ten the next morning. She’d push the meeting time back to noon. “I don’t think so, Miss Phillips, but I don’t have a crystal ball. I’ll give you my home number, and if you need to, you can call me.” She wrote her home and cell phone numbers on the back of a card and gave it to the still tense night club owner.

  “I don’t imagine these numbers are scribbled on the bathroom wall,” Dee said, locking the card in her desk drawer. Then she headed for the door. She offered Gianna her hand, opened the door, waited for Gianna to exit, then closed and locked the door. It, like every door in the place, was reinforced steel surrounded by brick.

  “You’ve got some of the best security I’ve ever seen, inside and out,” Gianna commented.

  “Imagine how it would be if we didn’t,” Dee said, and the two women separated, moving off in different directions, Gianna acutely and intensely aware of the noise. It had been absolutely silent inside Dee’s office. Silent and cool to the point of being almost chilly. It was anything but chilly out here, though air circulated—Gianna could feel it. She looked for its source and found the huge fans. As she slithered through the swaying, gyrating bodies, she wondered why Dee didn’t install central air conditioning.

  Outside, she called Eric, told him to drive the beat-up and bloodied home boys out of the neighborhood and drop them off, relayed Dee Phillips’s’ praise, and told him to send everybody home, with the new start time for the following day. Then she called Mimi. She didn’t wonder where she was, she knew: At the church with her zealots, looking for the story that the eternal reporter within her knew was there somewhere. Mimi confirmed her location and promised to meet Gianna at the front of the club in fifteen minutes.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Gianna turned to find herself eye to eye with a young woman she recognized from the night before, part of the crowd standing behind the crime scene tape. The one who had said ‘It wasn’t no love crime, that’s for sure.’ “Yes?”

  The young woman approached Gianna and extended her hand. “I’m Terry Carson, Marlene Jefferson’s friend.” Gianna shook the hand, searching her memory for a clue to who Marlene Jefferson was. “She said you were on the up and up, and I guess she was right. You all really treated us like were citizens tonight.”

  This was Baby Doll’s girlfriend. “You are citizens, Terry. Just don’t forget to vote, and keep paying your taxes.”

  “Like I got a choice about the taxes. Fuckin’ government takes what it wants before I even get mine, and I’m the one doing the work.”

  Gianna commiserated properly and waited to see if Terry wanted anything else. “Tell Ba...Marlene I said hello.”

  “I’ll do that,” Terry said.

  As she walked away, Gianna couldn’t stop herself from thinking how much like a young man the young woman looked. She called up the memory of herself at that age, remembered the butch and femme looks, thought about the butches who were more than a little masculine in appearance. This was not a new phenomenon, she told herself. But it felt new. It felt different. Was it?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sunday morning was as leisurely as Mimi and Gianna could make it under the circumstances. They were at Mimi’s house. They’d come back here after the excitement at The Snatch to unwind in the hot tub that was the centerpiece of the former tool shed in her back yard. Mimi also had food because, after a three-week absence, she’d had to shop, and the fridge was overflowing with culinary goodies. Breakfast was herb and cheese omelets and raisin toast and fresh squeezed juice and some Trader Joe’s coffee Mimi brought back from California. She had just about convinced Gianna that it was better than what she called “that overpriced and overrated pseudo-gourmet crap” sold by the chain coffee bars.

  So, after her second cup of coffee, and despite the events of the previous night, Gianna felt relatively rested. She’d gotten more sleep than Friday night’s three hours, and she was starting the day with real food, which was a rare treat for her. For Mimi, it was a necessity. Both the sleep and the food. Mimi didn’t function well unrested and unfed; in fact, she was, Gianna told her more than once, surly and snarly when deprived of those basic necessities. Mimi had not gotten sufficient slee
p and she planned to make up for it sometime this afternoon, but the food revived her. So did Gianna’s busy hands beneath her bathrobe before she pushed her away with the admonition not to start anything she couldn’t finish. And Gianna couldn’t finish, at least not to Mimi’s satisfaction, because she had to rush off for her noon meeting with her team.

  After Gianna left, Mimi cleaned the kitchen, showered and dressed, and headed for her own office, but at a more leisurely pace. She didn’t mind going into the paper on Sunday, especially since she wasn’t on the clock. She’d turned in the third part of her California series the day before. Today, she would clean her desk, organize her files, and prepare for the coming week, and do it all without some editor’s warm breath on the back of her neck. She contemplated riding the subway because even on Sunday, parking downtown was a pain, what with all the restricted parking zones and parking meter rates in effect even on weekends. She didn’t really need the car today. Then she thought maybe, after she finished at work, she’d drive over to Georgetown or perhaps to DuPont Circle and get a haircut.

  She paused before the fireplace mirror and took a good look at herself. She was surprised Gianna had offered only one “you need a haircut” comment. In truth, she’d needed one before she left town, and she’d planned to get one in California. What she hadn’t expected was the dearth of Black people in her home state. Why hadn’t she been more aware, she wondered, that Blacks had become the third-place minority in California, so scarce in some places as to be non-existent? Why hadn’t she known that she couldn’t just pop into any salon anywhere in Los Angeles or San Francisco or Sacramento or San Diego and find somebody able to do something with her hair? She really had been away from home for too long. There was a reason it was said you couldn’t go home again.

  Mimi parked three blocks from the paper and was locking the car and setting the alarm when a fat raindrop smacked her in the face. “Oh, yes, please!” she implored, peering up at the darkening sky. What a relief rain would be. The globe might be merely warming in other parts of the world but in D.C. it was sizzling. There hadn’t been much rain over the summer and despite the fact that it was a few days past the middle of September, fall hadn’t even peeked around the corner. There probably was something untoward about wishing for a hurricane, but a rainy Sunday afternoon or evening, no matter that it would mean that the storm tracking up the eastern seaboard likely had gotten close enough to do damage somewhere in North or South Carolina, truly would be something to look forward to.

  The newsroom was busy but not hectic. People lounged at their desks reading fat Sunday papers from around the country or talking on the telephone, instead of hunched over keyboards, one eye on the clock, struggling to make deadline. Mimi exchanged pleasantries with several colleagues, and real conversation with a couple of others. She was halfway through the three-week accumulation on her desk when the weekend editor of the local section, Carolyn Warshawski, stepped into her sight line.

  “Hey, Mimi,” Carolyn said. She was one of the few people at the paper who called her Mimi; everybody else called her Patterson, which was her preference. The name served to separate her personal life from her professional life, but Mimi liked Carolyn; liked her enough not to mind that her appearance at Mimi’s desk meant she wanted something.

  “How’s life, Carolyn?” Mimi asked, really wanting to know.

  Carolyn Warshawski was reminiscent of Sissy Spacek in that she was tiny and blond and fragile looking; but at the ripe old age of whatever she was—thirty-two or thirty-three—Carolyn had endured a big enough chunk of bad luck to last most people a lifetime. She’d fallen in love with a musician, against all advice, her first year at the paper. She’d met him on assignment, she the rookie reporter doing a story on a no-name but promising band for the entertainment section. Both their stars rose quickly: Carolyn was as good a reporter as Monty Murphy was a musician, and she quickly moved from low reporter on the totem pole at the entertainment desk to major player on the national desk, seeing the world at its ugliest and winning a drawer full of reporting prizes in the process. Monty also was seeing the world—and doing half the women in it. Then Carolyn got pregnant and asked to be assigned back home. She didn’t want to have the baby in a foreign country, alone, and by that time she was alone more often than not. Then the trouble really started. Something happened to the amniotic fluid and both mother and baby almost died. Then mother and baby survived, but baby was little more than an amoeba. After a valiant year-long struggle, Carolyn’s baby girl threw in the towel and Carolyn began the process of rebuilding her life, sans Monty Murphy.

  “Life’s not half bad, Mimi, thanks for asking. And as good as it is to see you, I’m standing over you because I need a favor.”

  That was another thing Mimi liked about Carolyn: There was no bullshit about her. Most other editors would hem and haw and beat around the bush if they were about to ask a reporter for the kind of favor that involved working on a day off. Not Carolyn. She was as up front as they came, which was why Mimi didn’t balk at the intrusion. “I’m happy to help you out if I can, Carolyn.”

  The movement behind her deep-set, pale-colored eyes spoke her appreciation. What she said was, “I wouldn’t bother you if I had anybody else to put on this.”

  Mimi’s eyes did a quick roam and spied at least four other reporters who were on the clock and who didn’t look like they were engrossed in writing the next Pulitzer Prize winner. “What’s the story?”

  “A woman was raped last night over on Harley Street. It seems she’d just left a night club called The Pink Panther. I’m interested because it’s a gay club, because it may not be the first incident involving patrons, and because the cops don’t seem to have much interest in the thing. I mean, wouldn’t you think the district commander over there would be a little worried about three felony assaults in the vicinity of the same gay nightclub in less than a month?”

  “If the district commander isn’t worried, I’d like to know why,” Mimi said.

  “I thought you might,” Carolyn said, pushing a strand of reddish-blond hair out of her face, only to have it flop right back.

  “Are you looking for something by deadline?”

  Carolyn shrugged. “Only if there’s something there. But call and let me know as soon as you can, OK? I’ll hold space just in the event. And thanks, Mimi.”

  The editor walked back to her own desk, leaving Mimi to sort out her thoughts, and it was no small job. Another gay club she’d never heard of, located on another street she’d never heard of. Carolyn had said the victim was raped. Because she was a lesbian? Was she, in fact, a lesbian? Had she, in fact, been at the Pink Panther or merely in the vicinity? And what were the other “incidents?” The answers certainly could spell hate crimes. She grabbed up the phone and started calling sources—cops, paramedics, crime scene techs, assistant medical examiners, gay community activists, gay bar owners—looking for somebody on a Sunday afternoon with the Redskins playing the Cowboys on television who would give her the deep and skinny about a rape last night in the vicinity of the Pink Panther. She got lucky on the fifth call. Jose Cruz, the supervisor of the crisis hot line at the Metropolitan Washington Gay and Lesbian Community Organization was at work because the Sunday hot line coordinator was raped last night after leaving the Pink Panther night club. He was still so mad he’d be happy to talk to her about it—on the record.

  Mimi got her tiny digital camera, tape recorder and cell phone from her desk, put them in her bag, and headed for the door. She detoured mid-stride and aimed for Carolyn’s desk, noticing the on-duty reporters the editor had by-passed to throw Mimi into the mix on her day off. And no wonder: Two jerks, an idiot and a drunk, all of them white males. The next snide Jayson Blair remark that came her way, she was going to unload. “I have no idea where Harley Street is.

  “I didn’t, either,” Carolyn said, digging around in the pile on her desk, coming up with a computer-generated map with a yellow-highlighted area clearly marked. “Who’d t
hink to put a night club in there?”

  The same people who’d think to put a night club on Lander Street, Mimi thought, gazing at the map. Lander Street appeared to be perhaps two miles from Harley Street and, if she recalled, in the same police command district. Then it occurred to her that she probably didn’t want to park her car on Harley Street, even on Sunday afternoon. Her brand new Audi convertible, purchased mere months ago in the wake of the theft and destruction of her prized, classic 1966 Karman Ghia. She’d go to Metro GALCO first and talk to Jose Cruz, and if she got lucky, he’d arrange for her to talk to the victim. And if she got even luckier, the victim would know the name of somebody she could talk to at the Pink Panther. It was all about luck. Well, maybe not all, otherwise, Carolyn would have sent the idiot, the drunk or one of the jerks.

  “We’re not even forty-eight hours into this case and it’s already got more twists and turns than a two-lane West Virginia road,” Detective Eric Ashby groused. He was standing at the wall chart in the Think Tank, the Hate Crimes Unit’s basement lair in police headquarters, trying to create a time, event and character line. Across the room, his boss, Lieutenant Gianna Maglione, was hanging up an array of crime scene photographs on the board. Kenny Chang and Linda Lopez were busy at the computers. Tim McCreedy and Cassie Ali were poring over a foot-high stack of files, while Bobby Gilliam took notes as they dictated them, maintaining a separate notebook for each principal. So far there were eight of them: The victim, Natasha “Tosh” Hilliard; Delores Phillips; Darlene Phillips; Robert, Christine, Felicia and Jill Hilliard, Tosh’s parents and sisters; Lili Spenser, The Snatch dancer identified as Tosh’s girlfriend; Selena Smith, a Literature professor at George Washington University and also a girlfriend of the victim; Starletta “Tree” Davis, scholarship basketball player at the University of Maryland; Aimee Johnson, Snatch bartender. Maybe there would be more, maybe not, but these people would provide the police with their early information about the victim, and already it was clear that information would be contradictory at best.