Hard Fall

by Pascal Scott

  Like Stone’s flat, the upper floor of the Victorian had two bedrooms. The second bedroom seemed to serve as Rick’s studio. Stone passed it each day on her way to the kitchen, noting vaguely that there were more photographs inside. On Wednesday, out of boredom more than curiosity, Stone let herself into the room.

  There were more portraits on the wall of the studio, most of them of women. They were tastefully done, but the women were naked. Nipples pointed at the viewer from fit bodies posed seductively. There were no full-on frontal shots and nothing pornographic, but the curve of the images led the eye down to the crevice between the women’s legs just as intentionally as any Playboy centerfold.

  There were more black and whites on Rick’s desk. Stone went to those and picked them up randomly, looking at them one by one until she reached one that made her gasp.

  It was Emily.

  Chapter Eight

  “I want to hear more about this discovery. You found photographs of Emily that your neighbor had taken, is that correct?” Maggie asked.

  Maggie had already inquired about the Christmas break and if Stone was taking care of herself. Was she drinking? And how was spending Christmas Eve with the family?

  Boring. Yeah, yeah, and boring were Stone’s answers.

  “Right,” Stone said now.

  “Describe these photographs for me, please.”

  “They were black and white. I don’t know what the school is as far as art, but they made me think of Robert Mapplethorpe. You know him? His photographs, I mean,” Stone said.

  “Of course,” Maggie responded. “I worked in the art world before I became a therapist. Mapplethorpe was very controversial. He died of AIDS earlier this year. Mapplethorpe ran into some trouble with the National Endowment for the Arts for his work on taboo subjects.”

  “Yeah,” Stone agreed. “His photographs were considered obscene.”

  “Is that what you feel? Is that what you felt when you saw the photographs in Rick’s studio, that they were obscene?”

  “No. They weren’t obscene. They were just nudes. And the pictures of Emily weren’t nude, but they bothered me. They were like something a stalker would take.”

  Maggie knitted her brows. “Say a little more about that, please,” she encouraged.

  Stone rolled her neck to loosen it up. “There was a picture of Emily leaving our house. She was stepping onto the sidewalk, down from the front steps. The camera was looking down on her, so you could tell that it was shot from upstairs, from an upstairs window.”

  “I see,” Maggie said. “Go on.”

  “There was another one of Emily going into work at the Kitty Club.”

  Maggie rocked once in her chair before speaking. “Now I’m wondering if Emily was looking into the camera or away from the camera. In other words, was she aware that the photographer was taking a picture of her?”

  “No, no,” Stone said hurriedly. “That was the creepy part. She wasn’t looking at the camera at all. That’s why it looked like she was being stalked. You know? Like Rick was taking pictures of her on the sly. Like it was some secret thing he was doing. Maybe he was obsessed with Emily.”

  “Is that what you think? That Rick was obsessed with Emily and that he was stalking her?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Stone said.

  ****

  Stone knew better than to talk to the police. Detective Murphy had taken one look at Stone and shown his disapproval the first time they met. It was all over his face. It was that once-over thing men did with their eyes when they were introduced to a new woman. They appraised her, assigned her a value, and then, if she wasn’t up to their standards, they dismissed her. If she was butch like Stone, they did more. They dismissed her with disgust.

  Detective Murphy reminded Stone of her father. The old Irish of San Francisco resented gentrification and the changes they’d seen over the years in what they still considered their neighborhoods like the Castro and Noe Valley. Gays and lesbians had moved into what had been white, working-class districts that clung to the traditional family values of earlier generations of immigrants. The old Irish didn’t like the new residents one bit.

  No, Detective Murphy wouldn’t help. And besides, it sounded crazy. My neighbor, the photographer, took pictures of my lover, and then my lover went missing and turned up dead. What would have been Rick’s motive? The pictures weren’t obscene. Hell, considering what Emily did for a living, they were practically virginal. They were just practice shots, for all Stone knew. No, she couldn’t go to Detective Murphy about Rick Ketchum.

  Stone didn’t know where to turn. In theory, she could hire a private investigator. But how would she pay for that? With rent as high as it was for her Victorian, Stone was barely getting by on her salary. Finding a new roommate to split the cost would help, but Stone couldn’t stand the thought yet of sharing the space and having someone invade the privacy of her grief. It was too much to think about. She would put it off until next year.

  Stone celebrated New Year’s Eve at Mabel’s pressed against the bar by a fire-code-breaking crowd of rowdy lesbians. Celebrated wasn’t really the right word. Got drunk, that was more like it. She woke up the next morning with a hangover, her brain clearing slowly from a fog of regret as she tried to remember whom she’d kissed and what she’d done the night before. Blacking out, now that was bad. That was a sign.

  New Year’s resolution. I will quit drinking, this time for good.

  Her head pounded. Her mouth felt like cotton.

  Right after a hair of the dog.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hit ya again?” Susan asked.

  Susan was the steady bartender at Mabel’s, the one who had lasted through all the drama, all the police raids and dyke brawls and window smashing by young thugs trying to prove their manhood on Saturday nights. The first Bloody Mary had taken the edge off, but there was still a dull ache behind Stone’s eyes.

  “Yeah, why not?” Stone mumbled.

  There were only a handful of drinkers in the bar at this hour—11:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

  “What is it they say about New Year’s?” Susan set the fresh drink on a napkin in front of Stone.

  “I don’t know,” Stone said. “What?”

  “What you’re doing on New Year’s Day is what you’ll be doing for the rest of the year. Isn’t that it?” Susan lifted one foot onto the rail behind the bar.

  Susan had that easygoing manner of good bartenders everywhere, the one that comes from accepting their role as confessor to everyone’s story, the one drinkers tell after they’ve had a couple.

  “Never heard that one,” Stone replied.

  “Black-eyed peas,” said a woman seated two stools down.

  Stone turned her head. She hadn’t seen the woman around, but then maybe she had and just never noticed her.

  “Where I come from, we ate greens and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. S’posed to bring good luck.”

  The woman reached over to extend a hand. She had friendly eyes that were much too cheery for a morning-after. Stone returned the handshake.

  “I’m Dory,” the woman said.

  “Stone.”

  They nodded. Dory had a handsome face and a compact body, muscled beneath a white T-shirt and Levi’s. Her leather jacket lay on the stool on her other side.

  “You mind?” Dory indicated, with a nod, the bar stool between them.

  “Nah,” Stone said.

  Dory scooted over, her Harley boots just barely reaching the foot rail. Maybe five-three if you stretched her, Stone thought.

  “Another PBR,” Dory called to Susan.

  Susan set a cold one in front of Dory and picked up a couple of bills from the pile Dory had left on the counter.

  “I don’t usually drink in the morning,” Dory said. “But ya know, I tied one on last night.”

  “Me too,” Stone admitted.

  Dory took a swig from the long-neck brown bottle. “Hangovers are hell,” she declared.
>
  Stone nodded.

  “You don’t say much, do you, Stone?”

  “No,” Stone mumbled.

  “I like that in a woman. Sometimes you need to be quiet. Sometimes all the talkin’ gets in the way.”

  “Uh-huh,” Stone said, picking the celery stalk out of her drink and crunching on it.

  “Me, though, I’m a talker,” Dory continued. “I can talk to anybody. And I’m an empath. You ever hear of that? Empath? I didn’t know what it meant. My last girlfriend explained it to me. It means I feel things. I empathize. Not everybody does. She was studying at Psychic Pathways on Guerrero Street. You know it? It’s a school where you learn how to be psychic.”

  “No,” Stone said.

  “Yeah, well, San Francisco, you know. I’m from Brevard, North Carolina. We don’t have psychics in Brevard.”

  “You probably do,” Stone said.

  Dory looked at her curiously. “Maybe we do. Or did, I should say. Moved here for the ex last August. Clear across country. We’d been dating long-distance for six months. She came to Brevard once and didn’t like it one bit. And who doesn’t like San Francisco? So I quit my job—and I had a good job with FedEx—and I sold most of my stuff and packed up the rest. Pulled a U-Haul with my Harley in it some two thousand miles for her. Moved into her place in Sausalito. Six days later, she kicked me out. She’d decided she didn’t want to be in a relationship with me after all. Could have decided that before I got here, but no. That would have been too easy. Women.”

  “Uh-huh,” Stone said. “Why’d she do it?”

  “Do what?” Dory asked.

  “Kick you out. What set her off?”

  “The hell if I know. Seems like I didn’t fit in with her crowd here. Zoe’s a snob, to tell ya the truth. I guess I was all right for a long-distance lay but not good enough for her homies.”

  “Too bad,” Stone said. “How’d you two meet in the first place? Sounds like you didn’t have much in common.”

  “Guns,” Dory said. “That’s what we had in common. And sex. But of course we found out about the sex later. Guns came first.”

  “Guns?” Stone asked.

  “Yeah, we’re both members of GWG. Girls with Guns. I met Zoe at the 1987 national conference. It was held in Charlotte that year.”

  “You may want to keep that to yourself,” Stone suggested. “A lot of lesbians in San Francisco have strong opinions about gun control.”

  “They do, huh? You from here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thought so. You sound like a local. A native. Whatever y’all call yourselves. A forty-niner.”

  Stone didn’t respond.

  “How ’bout that earthquake?” Dory said, changing the subject. “Where were you?”

  “At work.”

  “Yeah? Me, I was at the game. We were rollin’, I’m tellin’ ya. Candlestick was rollin’ like a friggin’ bowling ball.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “We have earthquakes in North Carolina, but nothin’ like that.”

  “You do?” Stone asked. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, ’cause of the mountains. We’re on a fault line, just like California.”

  “Did not know that,” Stone said.

  “Oh, but nothin’ like this. Really made me think about if I want to stay.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Stone mumbled.

  “You got a girlfriend?” Dory asked.

  “I did,” Stone said flatly. “She died.”

  Dory’s expression changed entirely. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry. I didn’t pick that up about you. I mean, I sensed there was something wrong, but—gee, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Stone said.

  Dory let a beat pass. “How long has it been?”

  Stone gave a heavy sigh. “I found out last November. She disappeared in October.”

  “Disappeared? Like, disappeared how?”

  Stone sighed again. “Emily didn’t come home from work one night, and then a few weeks later, her body was found on a beach.”

  “Oh, Lordy,” Dory said. “Jesus. That’s awful. What do they think happened to her?”

  “They said it was suicide. They think she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “But you don’t,” Dory inferred. “You think it was suspicious.”

  “Yeah,” Stone said.

  Dory considered. “Have you gone to the police?”

  “Oh, yeah. They don’t care.”

  “How about a PI?”

  “I thought of that. I can’t afford one.”

  “Hmm,” Dory said. “Ya know, Stone, I think I may be able to help you.”

  “Oh, yeah? How?”

  “Well, it so happens that Zoe works for a PI.”

  “I thought she was a psychic.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s more or less a hobby with Zoe. She does office work at Coppola Investigations, you know the firm on Market Street? Here, I’ve got her card.”

  Dory pulled a thick wallet from her back pocket and found a laminated business card. Zoe Martinelli, Office Manager, Coppola Investigations, it read, with a street address and phone number and the company slogan: Let us confirm your suspicions.

  “Give her a call,” Dory suggested.

  “I told you. I can’t afford a PI,” Stone countered.

  “No, no, not for one of the boys. Talk to Zoe. She does a little snoopin’ on the side. For cheap. She’s not licensed, but that’s why she’s cheap. Wrong word. Zoe’s not cheap, I didn’t mean it like that. Zoe’s a lovely lady all the way around. A real class act.”

  Stone finished the last of her drink.

  “Susan,” Dory called. “Get my friend Stone another…” Dory looked at Stone.

  “Bloody Mary,” Stone provided.

  “Another Bloody Mary. And another beer for me.”

  Stone’s headache was starting to ease away.

  Chapter Ten

  “Here’s what I hear you saying,” Maggie said. “You’re thinking of hiring an unlicensed private investigator who was referred to you by someone you met in a bar when you were hungover. You’re considering employing this woman because you suspect that Emily’s death wasn’t a suicide as the authorities have determined but was something more sinister. Moreover, this woman, this unlicensed private investigator, claims to be a psychic. That’s what I’m hearing you say, Stone. Is that accurate?”

  “Pretty much,” Stone said.

  Maggie rocked once in her chair before speaking again. “Now, I’m wondering about something. Part of how I see myself helping you is by working with you on decision-making. Any reputable therapist would tell you that the first year after a significant loss like the death of a loved one is a particularly vulnerable time in anyone’s life. What I’m saying to you is that I don’t want to see you making bad decisions you’ll later regret.”

  “You think this would be a bad decision?” Stone asked.

  “I think it could be,” Maggie qualified.

  ****

  Zoe’s business card went into the plastic insert in Stone’s wallet right behind the one for Maggie Dunn, LCSW. Maybe Maggie was right. An unlicensed psychic PI was probably a crazy idea. It was January 20 before Stone thought about Zoe again. January 20 would have been Emily’s twenty-fifth birthday. Aquarius, Taurus. If you’re into that sort of thing. Last year had been the big four-oh for Stone, and she had spent it with Emily, celebrating with a picnic dinner in the Marin Headlands at their favorite spot on Raptor Ridge. Emily had packed a basket filled with tasty edibles from a deli in North Beach, and they had sat on a blanket on the cliffs watching the blue sky and wispy clouds turn a vivid red over the Golden Gate Bridge. Before it was too dark to see, they had found their way back on the gravel road to the parking lot and Stone’s truck.

  The celebration had continued at home, where Emily had presented herself to Stone, emerging from the bathroom to a candle-lit bedroom. Stone had to laugh when she saw that Emily was completely naked except for a gigantic red bow p
ropped on top of her blond hair. Emily had collared a glossy red ribbon around her neck, crisscrossed the trimming between her breasts, and then looped it around her waist.

  “Happy birthday, baby,” she said seductively.

  Stone couldn’t stop grinning.

  “Now I want you to do something for me,” Emily whispered.

  “Don’t I always do something for you?” Stone asked with a wink in her voice.

  “Yes, darling, but tonight I want you to take off your clothes.”

  Stone hesitated. She never undressed for sex. The farthest she had ever gone had been down to her Jockeys, once when she had let Emily tug off her jeans while Stone had been passionately distracted.

  “Please, baby,” Emily urged. “For me.”

  Stone considered. For Emily, she would do just about anything, but this was a hard limit. Stone’s breasts were small with nipples that looked like corks in her chest. Her breasts weren’t the problem. She could take off her shirt and feel comfortable with her tits exposed. She’d seen guys with man boobs bigger than hers. In fact, walking around the Castro in her Levi’s and a white T-shirt, Stone was sometimes mistaken for a gay guy. More than once, she’d been cruised with interest until the unsuspecting trick had checked out her box and been surprised and disappointed to see that she lacked the package he was expecting.

  No, it was her vulva. That was what bothered Stone. It didn’t feel right somehow. Other women were proud of their pussies—look at Emily, look at the Kitties. Stone could certainly appreciate the symmetry of a beautiful yoni, it wasn’t that. And it wasn’t that Stone wanted to be a man or envied men their sexual equipment. Stone thought that with their hairy balls and hideously veined cocks, men were ugly—at least below the waist. No, it had something to do with vulnerability.

  A woman’s vagina was an opening to a singularly private place. Stone treasured that place in other women but not in herself. Because despite how casually she had slept around for the last two decades, Stone had always felt humbled and honored to be allowed inside a girl. But no one was allowed inside her. No woman, and certainly no man, had ever gone inside Stone for sex. No one, in fact, was even allowed to look at her in a moment of complete exposure. Not even doctors; Stone had refused to allow even a gynecologist to see her that way.