Deputy Chief Archie Johnson, head of the Police
Training Academy, the Chief said, adding that
Davis will be returned to CID “as soon as is
practical and possible.”
Davis called the murder of 29-year old
Natasha Hilliard, an American University
History professor, and the rape of a 39-year
Mid-Town resident “horrible, inexcusable
tragedies,” and already has increased patrols
in the areas around the bars. He refused to
comment on what his predecessor may or
may not have done. “My focus is on what I
do,” he said. He also declined to speculate
on whether the two crimes might be related.
Hate Crimes’ Lt. Maglione said, “we have
no reason to think so at this point.”
HATRED TAKES ONE LIFE,
SHATTERS ANOTHER
By M. Montgomery Patterson
Staff Writer.
By all accounts, 29-year old Natasha Hilliard
was on a track so fast she had few fellow travelers,
but all who knew her liked and respected her, and
none of them can comprehend the horror that
befell her last Friday night as she walked from a
local night club to the Metro station three blocks
away. Police are calling Hilliard’s murder a hate
crime. Family, friends and colleagues say there
must be some mistake.
“Tasha is one of the most likeable people I’ve
ever met, and I’ve met a lot of people,” said Dr.
C.L. Jerzey, head of the History Department
where Hilliard was a professor specializing in
the Civil War. “Yes, she was young, but she was
brilliant without the brashness that can come
with that. And before you ask, yes, we knew
she was a lesbian. She’d never tried to conceal
the fact, so I can’t believe that someone would
kill her for that.”
Hilliard, a Philadelphia native, graduated with
honors from the University of Pennsylvania and
did her graduate work at American University,
where she taught, and where she was popular
with both faculty and students. On the Monday
after her murder, students sat numbed and quiet
in her classes, whispering among themselves,
staring at the empty podium at the front of the
room, as if waiting to learn that the bad news
was a bad joke.
“This sucks!” said one student who wouldn’t
give his name. “Hilliard is cool, you know? She
really makes history come alive. I’m thinking
about changing my major because of her.”
Jane Doe (not her real name) changed lives,
too. The 39-year has been the voice of hope and
reason at the Metro GALCO Hot Line on Saturday
nights for years. She had the night off last Saturday,
had a few drinks at a bar in her neighborhood, and
was brutally beaten and raped as she walked the
four blocks to her home.
“She is loving, compassionate, giving, and a tireless
worker,” said Jose Cruz of Jane Doe. “I wish everybody
could know her as I do.”
Everybody can’t because this paper does not
publish the names of rape victims, but perhaps it
is enough to know that a woman who, after working
a 40-hour week, spent every Saturday night in a
windowless room talking to strangers on the telephone,
listening to their pain, finding words of comfort for
them, often the words that kept them wanting to live
for another day.
Cruz oversees the Victim Assistance Program at
Metro GALCO, which runs the Hot Line. “That
she should be a victim—it makes me think there is
no justice in the world,” he said. “Why did this
happen to her?”
Here’s a possible answer: Both crimes—Natasha
Hilliard’s murder and Jane Doe’s rape—occurred
outside bars known to cater to a gay and lesbian
clientele, and both victims are lesbians. Are these
hate crimes? The Hate Crimes Unit is investigating,
so the Police Department thinks so. Lt. Giovanna
Maglione, who heads the Unit, said, “There’s no
reason to think so at this time,” when asked if
the two crimes are connected in any way. Aside,
that is, from the hatred that apparently gave rise
to them.
Gianna poured another cup of coffee, returned to the living room sofa, and re-read the stories. It never ceased to amaze her how much information Mimi could amass—how much accurate information—from her various sources. The only facts she herself had shared was the apparent lack of a connection between the two crimes, and that Inspector Frank O’Connell had failed to inform the Hate Crimes Unit of potential problems related to two gay nightclubs in his district. And, of course, Gianna had taken her to The Snatch the night of the church demonstration against the club and its patrons. But where did she get the other stuff? From the Chief? Gianna knew that Mimi had as close and personal a relationship with him as she herself did, and that Mimi credited him with bringing the two of them together, though that was a real stretch of the imagination for Gianna. Her boss, the Chief of Police, playing matchmaker for one of his lieutenants and one of the city’s premiere investigative newspaper reporters? Still, he was a crafty son of a bitch, no denying that. M. Montgomery Patterson was pretty crafty herself, Gianna thought, wanting to call her but knowing that she’d get nothing but grunts and growls at this hour of the morning. Mimi had worked until well after midnight on the stories for Sunday’s paper, which she promised would be as interesting as today’s.
Gianna drained her coffee cup, got up, and switched on the television, and found the Weather Channel. Hurricane Isadore, now losing steam as it tracked north toward Maryland, had managed to make a pretty good mess of parts of the South and North Carolina coastal areas. It finally reached the D.C. area overnight, dropping a couple of inches of much needed rain and, she and everybody else in the area hoped, cooler weather. It was almost October and as hot as it had been two months earlier. She would welcome cool but she’d settle for wet.
While she listened to the international weather report, she fixed a bowl of yogurt and granola, and a turkey and cheese sandwich for later, after the gym. She’d been diligent about keeping her promise to eat with some regularity. Perhaps not as often as a nutritionist would recommend, but some food during the course of a day was better than none, and this day probably wouldn’t allow time for a regular meal.
She listened to the local forecast—rain all day, occasionally heavy—followed by cooler temperatures by mid-week, then changed to a local news channel. As she expected, Mimi’s stories were Topic A. She switched from channel to channel while she ate her breakfast, switched back to the weather channel while she loaded the dishwasher, then watched the storm clouds and rain move across the sky from the vantage point of her seventh floor condo. She loved apartment living when she was here, and she loved the simple pleasure of walking barefoot in the grass when she was at Mimi’s house. Their talk of living together had taken them no further than visits to various condominiums and townhouses and houses with gardens and patios and discussions about whether they both preferred to live on the ground or above it. They’d not seen anything that either of them liked well enough to force a decision, and unless their work schedules changed dramatically, Gianna didn’t know when they’d find the time to make one. She took a last look at the newspaper, at the headlines of the two stories,
and knew this would be a long, tough day. For them both.
Minister Charles William Bailey checked the four buckets in the sanctuary of the Ark of the Covenant Tabernacle Church of the Holy Spirit, one in each corner of the room. The roof leaks,” he said to Mimi in an explanatory tone that bordered on the condescending, eroding whatever positive feeling she’d convinced herself to try to have for him. Then he looked over his shoulder at her expectantly, as if he expected a response. The rain was coming down in torrents outside, and only slightly less forcefully in the four corners of the little church. The tin buckets were filling rapidly and required constant emptying. Is this how the minister would spend his Saturday, Mimi wondered. Since he seemed to need a response from her, that’s what she asked him and he explained that one of his deacons was en route to the church with four thirty-gallon plastic garbage bins. Mimi refrained from asking how he planned to move a thirty-gallon barrel of water without sloshing it all over the floor. Instead, she wished him luck.
“No such thing as luck, sister,” he said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s all in God’s hands, the good and the bad. Whatever happens is the will of God.”
Mimi looked at steady stream of water flowing from the corner eave as if from a faucet and, against her better judgment, opened her mouth. “You think God wants your church destroyed by rainwater?”
The minister’s round face wrinkled, then relaxed. “God isn’t responsible for this, an incompetent contractor is.” Then his eyes widened, as if the light switch had been flipped to the on position. “Maybe you could put in a good word for us with the Problem Solver.”
Mimi’s look was as blank as Bailey’s was expectant. “The what?”
“You know, that lady on television who solves people’s problems for them, especially those dealing with crooked contractors and mechanics. It’s a special segment in the news program called The Problem Solver.”
“I’m a newspaper reporter. We don’t have a problem solving segment.”
“But you people are all connected, you’re in the same business.”
Mimi stopped him before he could say anything else stupid, and before she could tell him how stupid he was. “You told my editor you wanted to tell me why you think Frank O’Connell should have his job back as district commander?”
The minister looked at his watch, then unrolled the sleeves of his black robe so that they covered his arms. Finished being the maintenance man, back to being the man in charge. “Brother Joseph should be here any minute with those big cans. I hope you don’t mind if we talk in here?” He cast a worried glance back at the tin buckets, then gathered the folds of his robe around him and sat down on the front row pew. He gave Mimi a beatific smile. “Closer to God in here anyway.”
Mimi sat down next to him and took out her tape recorder, notebook and pen. “Why shouldn’t Inspector O’Connell be punished for all the rules he violated?”
“It’s only God’s rules that matter, sister, and brother O’Connell is a God- fearing man who abides by the rules of the Almighty.”
“So he doesn’t have to obey the chief of police or the laws of the city?”
“Not if their laws go against God’s laws.”
“What about the oath he swore, to uphold the laws of the city?”
Baily shook his head. “Only the laws of God matter.”
“And if one woman is murdered and another woman is raped while O’Connell is ignoring the laws of the government he works for, that’s OK with you?”
“If people, whether they be men or women, violate the laws of God and the laws of nature, punishment follows. We pray for those souls and hope that others like them see the error of their ways, but we stand up for Christian soldiers like Inspector O’Connell. The Christian army he serves is more powerful than the secular one. If God had wanted those women saved, they would have been saved.”
Mimi was saved from a response by the sodden and noisy arrival of two men and four huge, green plastic garbage bins. Bailey jumped up from the pew, clasping his hands together, and hurried toward the two men with cries of welcome and delight. She kept her seat and watched the exchange of tin bucket for plastic tub, and thought what she’d thought when she saw them for the first time the previous Saturday as they marched on The Snatch: These men were gay. Or perhaps merely effeminate? She tried balancing their appearance, which her best friend Freddy Schuyler would call “queen to the extreme,” against their behavior, which was homophobic in the extreme, and came up stymied every time. Was this an example of the Clarence Thomas Syndrome—a manifestation of rampant self-hatred? She shook off the thought. She didn’t have to understand them to do her job; her job wasn’t to explain them, it was to report their words and their actions and the effect of their words and actions on the community. Same thing for Frank O’Connell. Same thing for the chief. Same thing, for that matter, for the head of the Hate Crimes Unit.
“I’m sorry,” Mimi said, as she realized that Bailey had spoken to her.
“I asked whether you had any more questions for me,” he said, looking as if he was trying to decide whether to resume his seat.
“You said you planned to do something to support Inspector O’Connell. What did you mean by that?”
Bailey rubbed his hands together and his eyes sparkled. “A demonstration! I’ll announce it from the pulpit tomorrow. So will God’s messengers in churches all over the city, including Inspector O’Connell’s pastor. God’s soldiers will line up together to bring the words of truth and salvation to—”
“You know Frank O’Connell’s pastor?” Mimi picked up her notebook and tape recorder and stood up to face him. “You’ve talked to him, and to other ministers, about organizing a demonstration?”
“Indeed I have,” Bailey boomed, his big voice taking on the resonance of the pulpit. He must rattle the rickety walls of this tiny space on Sunday mornings. “Reverend Doctor Elwood Burgess, a true man of God. He’ll lead our prayer march.”
“This thing just changed shape for me,” Carolyn said when Mimi told her what Bailey said about Burgess and local ministerial involvement in the O’Connell matter. “But you knew what it was all along, didn’t you? You knew it last Saturday,” she said, sounding certain she was right.
Mimi shrugged. “I didn’t know, no, but I’ve heard enough stuff about O’Connell over the years that I was concerned when I found out he was involved.”
“What kind of stuff about O’Connell? Has any of it ever been reported?”
“No,” Mimi said, shaking her head. “None of it ever was reportable, it was just talk, the kind of stuff you hear when people are complaining about this or that boss, and cops whine and complain more than reporters, if you can imagine that. You consider the source, then ignore most of it. But sometimes—”
“Sometimes what, Mimi? Is there something off about O’Connell?”
“I think maybe it’s worth asking about, and maybe connecting some dots,” she said, already making some connections in her memory.
“I have to take this to the bosses. You know that.”
Mimi nodded. She knew. “If they want to give it to somebody else, I don’t care.” And she didn’t, not really, for this was about to turn into yet another story about a high government official doing wrong and Mimi had had her fill of those.
“Well, I care,” Carolyn said. “You developed it, it’s yours.”
“You had a bad feeling about this from the jump, too,” Mimi said. “At least about the Joyce Brown rape angle. That’s why you passed it on to me, because you knew something smelled funny. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Yeah,” Carolyn said hesitantly, “but my bad feeling was more about the Hate Crimes outfit. I was thinking maybe they’d dropped the ball. I didn’t know anything about O’Connell.”
Mimi hoped she didn’t sound as defensive as she felt when she told the editor that so far as she knew, Hate Crimes had yet to drop the ball. Then she remembered Gianna’s worry about being a racist because the same o
utreach hadn’t been done in the Mid-Town District as had occurred in the wealthier, trendier, hipper areas, and thought OK, maybe a ball had been dropped in the Hate Crimes court...
Gianna hated everything about the post mortem process, including the name. The very words sounded dead and decaying, conjured up nauseating odors and descriptions of body parts and organs. Her presence at the forensic dissection of Natasha Hilliard was necessitated by her urgent need to find something, anything, that would give a clue not only to the identity of the murderer, but to the reason for it, because Gianna simply didn’t believe that it was a crime of opportunity: Natasha Hilliard was not dead because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dozens of women passed up and down Lander Street on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, entering and leaving The Snatch. Why that woman at that time on that night? Because she was there? And yet, if she had been deliberately targeted, how could the killer know what time Natasha would be on the street alone unless he or she had followed her into and out of the nightclub? Darlene was adamant that Tosh had arrived alone and had left alone, and Gianna trusted that. Her team had had no success locating a witness to anything relating to the murder itself, which left her relying on forensics for a solution. It was not a position she liked.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Wanda Oland said, backing into the frigid cut room ahead of the morgue attendant who was trailing behind her, trying to tie her gown in the back. “Where’s Ashby? You usually send him.”
“Don’t want to be here,” Gianna said, reaching for goggles and a mask, “but you’re my last best hope for something resembling a lead.”
“Your boss is a real son of a bitch,” Wanda said, sliding the tray containing Natasha Hilliard’s body out of the refrigerated cabinet. “He’s been calling over here since Wednesday ordering us to get this PM done or else. My boss asked him, ‘or else what?’ I left the room. Even I didn’t want to hear the tail end of that.”
Gianna didn’t blame her. Wanda’s boss, Chief Forensic Pathologist Dr. Asa Shehee, was a legendary son of a bitch himself. “How is the old bear?”
“Old bastard, you mean, and he’s the same old bastard he always was,” she replied, helping her assistant roll the body onto the dissection table. She checked the tool and equipment tray, swung the microphone around and switched it on, said the day, date, time and name of the autopsy subject, and began to work. Gianna closed her eyes, anticipating the first cut, only to hear a description of the cut marks on the torso. “You sure you don’t want to see this?” Wanda asked.
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