No matter how hot a guy is, how brilliant he is, how sweet he is, or anything else, no one is going to slum it with somebody that they know is the janitor. So I ruled that out.
Busboys are only good for one thing, bussing tables. Would cutthroat owners who all stole from each other hire a superfluous busboy when they could make the server do that and save one minimum wage employee? You bet.
That meant that Reggie had to be a server. Maybe he was even waiting on David Sanborn and Faith Nguyen.
Maybe he was waiting on them and just eyeing Faith in the course of his duties and waiting…just waiting. And when David walked out back to smoke…
Or maybe none of that happened and she did go looking for David as he smoked. That patio was hard to find. It wasn’t marked. I never would’ve found it if the door hadn’t been open a crack.
It was possible that she had watched David walk toward the back. Then she decided to walk toward the back. She walked back there only to conclude that he had probably just gone that way to go to the bathroom, and that he must’ve gone out front without her noticing.
Either one of those scenarios seemed plausible to me after having been in the building. At least assuming that there was no major remodel of the club.
That meant that Reggie was essential. He was the only lead that I had. I had to find him. Hopefully he could confirm one of those two scenarios. Then hopefully he could lead me to something else. Otherwise I was sunk, and this brief experiment in journalism would prove a dismal failure.
So I started looking on social media.
I started with a well-known career networking site. There were several Reginald or Reggie Whites using the site.
The first one that I clicked on was in Philadelphia, PA. I almost clicked off of it, but then I realized something.
Reggie could’ve moved to China by now. This all happened months ago.
What was I going to do if that was the case? It hadn’t occurred to me that I might need to set a travel budget.
(Something that probably would’ve been obvious to a real journalist.)
I perused the Philadelphia Reggie White. I prayed that it wasn’t him. And it wasn’t.
But the next Reginald White was my man.
He lived in St. Louis Park (a Minneapolis suburb). He had Club Canoodle on his resume. He was a server.
I thought that it was all coming together until I looked at his other social media. It didn’t take a particularly powerful gaydar to realize that Reginald White was gay and proud.
In fact, there was a picture of him on a float, presumably in the Pride parade, with four other men in speedos. There was writing on their speedos and when they turned and bent over it spelled out “BEARS”.
Reggie was adorably pudgy and somewhat hairy but also the least hirsute of the “BEARS”. He was a short, bubbly, black man with a clean, short afro and wide black eyes.
I found him. Now I had to think of what to say to him.
I decided that approximate honesty was the best approach. Here’s what I wrote:
“I am a journalist investigating the mysterious death of Faith Nguyen. I have some questions that I would like to ask you as part of my investigation. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to ask you these questions face to face.”
Reggie responded almost right away. He wrote:
“You can meet me any weekday between noon and three at the Purple Onion, a coffee shop in Dinkytown. I will set aside my blossoming screenplay for a while and answer whatever questions you may have. We can make other arrangements if that time doesn’t work.”
I told him to expect me the next day. After all, I only had two dumb morning meetings on my schedule that would certainly be wrapped up by noon.
The meetings, though boring and painful in their own way, were at least done by half past eleven. So I logged off of my computer. I threw my notebook and pen into my laptop bag. I walked out to University Avenue to catch a 3 bus to campus.
Then I changed my mind and decided to just walk. It wasn’t far, and it wasn’t too cold. It was just cold enough to see your breath. It was just cold enough that the soiled butter cream frosting of snow and ice would remain, probably for months.
I hate winter. The worst part is running on the treadmill. At least my condominium complex has a great exercise room, fitness classes, and yoga. The treadmill is probably the best treadmill on the market. You can run all over the world. There’s a video screen that will follow your pace as you run through the streets of New York without ever once having to stop for a light. Or you can run up in the Andes. The treadmill will adjust for elevation.
It still sucks. Not the yoga though. You don’t know what you’re missing if you’re a runner and you’re not doing yoga. I go to the Yoga for Runners class every week. I’d be so tight that I would’ve collapsed in on myself like a neutron star by now if I didn’t have that class.
So it was nice to be outside, even in thirty degree weather.
The walk to the U of M from my place is not long and fairly dull. The walk took me past a cinema, dozens of apartment buildings, and a deli that used to be called Santana’s where we would all eat at when we were very drunk at two or three in the morning back in my college days.
The Purple Onion sits on the corner of Thirteenth Avenue and University Avenue S.E. It’s a store front at the base of a large apartment building.
Inside a counter with an espresso machine, two diligent workers, an assortment of Grand Ole Creamery ice cream, and seating were scattered around an L shaped shop. The floor was like gussied up concrete. Occasionally, old, plush chairs sat in little islands around small coffee tables. But most of the seating consisted of tables and chairs.
I ordered myself a cold press coffee. The girl behind the counter looked at me like I was unwell for ordering cold coffee in the winter.
That tempted me to order some ice cream too.
I got my cold press and went looking for Reggie. I found him in the back corner. He was typing away. I hated to break up what looked like a moment of inspiration. So I stood back until his pudgy fingers stopped pounding on the keys of his laptop. He took a sip of what looked like some type of latte. He put the latte back down and stared at it as if it would somehow guide him to where he had to go next in his screenplay.
I seized my opportunity.
“Reggie,” I extended my hand.
“Ah, Miss Anjali, pleased to make your acquaintance,” Reggie charmed.
“You can just call me Angie,” I smiled.
Reggie was dressed well in a neat pink, dress shirt with silver cuff links. He was impeccably groomed and seemed to have recently had a manicure. His soft, dolorous, feminine voice made me wonder if he could sing.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” Reggie took my hand in both hands as we shook.
“I’m glad you were willing to answer my questions,” I decided.
“My therapist thinks that I would do better if the man who drugged Faith was found and brought to justice,” Reggie stated.
I didn’t know whether to be put at ease or be unnerved that Reggie was so willing to reveal that he was in therapy to me. I couldn’t decide. So I decided to just launch right into my questions.
But then I had to think up a question. Journalism…the bane of pretending to be a journalist.
I eventually asked, “Why does your therapist think that you would do better if Faith’s mystery was solved?”
“You don’t mess around,” Reggie laughed. “You jump right into the deep end. Well, here’s the problem. I blame myself for Faith’s death. I know that it’s irrational. I know that it’s absurd, but I still blame myself.”
“Why?” I wondered.
“Okay, this is what happened. I was a server at Club Canoodle. Faith was there with this dude David…”
“You know David by name?” I squinted.
“Absolutely. There all the time. Terrible tipper.”
“Were you their server?” I asked.
“I was.
And David and Faith weren’t running a tab. They were paying for drinks…I guess I shouldn’t say they. David was paying for his drinks as he went. Faith didn’t order a drink from me.
But anyway, David ordered a drink from me as he passed me when he was going out to smoke. The drink cost four dollars and seventy-five cents. David had left a five dollar bill on the table for me.
So I said to Faith, I know it was wrong, but I just couldn’t help myself. I said to Faith something like it looks like I made a quarter off of this drink.
Then, to my total astonishment, she opened up her purse. She pulled out another five dollar bill and she just gave it to me.
I tried to turn it down, but she insisted. She had worked as a server.
So since she gave me a tip, I gave her a tip. I told her something to the effect of how that guy David was in the bar every weekend night and always with a different woman.
Faith thanked me. Then she got up and walked toward the exit. And she walked out that door to her death,” Reggie was shaking a little. “If I had said nothing to her, yeah, she might have had a one night stand with a douchebag, but she would still be alive!”
“There’s no guarantee of that. How do we know that David wasn’t the one who slipped her the date rape drug?” I followed up.
“Girl,” Reggie shook his head. “It was still early in the evening, by bar standards, when this all happened. Faith stumbled off of that bridge around three in the morning. Do you really think that she was staggering around downtown for like six hours until she fell to her death? Plus, David stayed at Club Canoodle until close and left with a different woman. I didn’t warn her though. She seemed like his type. She seemed like a snake in the grass. Or at least the grass.”
I paused to think.
“Faith would still be alive if it wasn’t for me,” Reggie wheezed.
“So have you ever seen the video of Faith leaving Club Canoodle?” I asked.
“No,” Reggie shook his head. “The cops seized all that when they interviewed all of us a couple of days later.”
“Have you ever seen an image from the security camera by the entrance?” I wondered.
“Yes,” Reggie nodded.
“How much does it show?” I asked.
“Not much,” Reggie admitted. “It shows people leaving. It’s pointed toward Sixth Street. It doesn’t show people if they walk in the other direction.”
“Are you sure that Faith left right after you warned her about David?” I asked.
“Pretty sure. She was heading toward the door, but I didn’t actually see her leave. I was busy. I had other tables. I didn’t have the slightest notion that she was going to shake up my world like a snow globe,” Reggie sighed.
“Do you think it’s possible that she changed her mind and went and confronted David while he was smoking?” I followed up.
“It’s possible,” Reggie decided. “I think it’s far-fetched, but it’s possible. If that did happen, then the cops saw it on the video of the smoking patio. Unless…wait…if he was coming in and met her by the bathrooms…that area wasn’t on camera. Maybe they did have a confrontation. Maybe David did do something when he left at closing time.
I don’t know. The whole thing just seems too far-fetched. But could it have happened? Possibly. And that makes me shiver.
That would make me even more responsible.”
I didn’t say anything. He was right in a way.
“So I have a question for you,” Reggie declared.
“Shoot,” I replied.
“How close are you to figuring out who the murderer is?” Reggie wondered.
“Not close,” I said.
“Do you have a main suspect?” Reggie asked.
“No,” I confessed. “I’m months behind the cops. I obviously don’t have their resources. I have very little information that isn’t already in the public domain to work with. I don’t have a theory of the case…”
“I get it,” Reggie said. “But the cops have been on this for months. They have all the information in the world. They probably have video footage from all over the city. Faith couldn’t have walked far in the condition that she was in when she fell off of that bridge. She had to be close by. She was in the Land of 10,000 Cameras, and nothing.
I’ve lost hope in the police investigation. You know that woman that was married to that comedian who wrote a book on that serial killer then I think they found him. You could be like her.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I haven’t taken a single note and I’m failing at every attempt at being a jour…”
“Girl, you need to believe in yourself, o-kay!” Reggie insisted.
“Okay,” I said like it had been tortured out of me.
“Now get out there and do the whole shoe leather thing, o-kay!” Reggie demanded.
“Okay,” I was almost inspired.
We parted ways. He returned to his screenplay with my card resting on the table next to him in case he thought of anything else.
I walked out of the coffee shop. I took a deep, visible breath.
I was motivated for a hot minute.
Until I realized that I was at a dead end.
11
I briefly reconsidered David as a suspect in the murder/assisted suicide.
But for that to be true, he would’ve had to have found Faith again somehow after he left the bar. He would’ve had to either ditch the woman that he was with or convince her to go along with slipping Faith the date rape drug. He would’ve also had to figure out a way to get a huge amount of alcohol in Faith’s system. And he would’ve had to do all of this in approximately an hour or less. Which was far-fetched but maybe theoretically possible.
I had talked to David. I didn’t have any illusions that he might be capable of something awful. But at the same time he also seemed genuinely anguished about Faith’s death. He even felt responsible for her death. He believed that Faith would be alive today if only he was a non-smoker.
Of course, I suppose that Freud would say that might be some type of ego defense mechanism. Maybe what David really felt guilty about was her death, a death that he was actually responsible for. Maybe he was the man who had slipped her the date rape drug and copious amounts of alcohol. I didn’t know how fast the date rape drug took effect. I was pretty sure that getting a blood alcohol level as high as Faith’s would’ve taken more than an hour. But she could have been drinking from almost the moment that she left Club Canoodle.
It seemed that there was a remote chance that David could be guilty.
I thought about trying to interview him again. But I doubted that he would be honest with me if he was guilty. And even if I noticed microexpressions on his face while he lied, microexpressions wouldn’t magically reveal the real truth.
It seemed pointless to interview him.
Plus, the cops were fifty steps ahead of me. David was a logical suspect. He hadn’t been arrested yet. So the police had probably cleared him because he had an airtight alibi. Realistically, he had probably kept up his weekend tradition of Club Canoodle hookups, and the woman he was with had vouched for him, maybe others had seen them too. Maybe she or he had roommates who had seen them or something.
And of course there was the little matter of Faith’s last text which I believe was supposed to be “Reginald Cab or Capp”. Reginald Cab or Capp had to be the name of a person, probably the guilty person. What else could it be?
Even if I accepted the premise that David might use Reginald Cab or Capp as some type of alias, Faith knew David’s name. She would’ve known David. The text would’ve been a fat fingered version of David Sanborn and not Reginald Cab or Capp.
I changed my mind. David was almost certainly innocent of everything besides womanizing.
In fact, the more that I thought about David, the more I thought of the smell of Minneapolis Millennium: 2856, formerly Club Canoodle, and a line from a Neko Case song:
“Sometimes where there’s smoke there’s just a smok
e machine, honey.”
So I was at a dead end.
But life went on. I attended nuisance strategy meetings. As usual, I think I was there basically to tell management that they were right to do what they were going to do regardless of my feedback anyway. Fortunately it was only a couple of hours a day.
I ran on the treadmill. I ran in the Himalayas one day. I ran in Paris the next. It was still a treadmill, but it was modestly less boring.
I went to trivia night with my new crew. It was Thad’s turn to pick the shot that we always take for good luck before the contest.
I protested that I should be able to pick the shot because I’m the new girl.
Thad told me that I had to earn my stripes.
Thad announced that he was going to pick shots of one hundred proof peppermint schnapps for all of us.
“It’ll put hair on your chest,” Thad nodded solemnly.
“I’ve already got so much body hair that the first time my wife saw me shirtless, she started to load a silver bullet into her rifle,” Dave the David Cross lookalike declared.
“You would just wax the hair off your chest anyway,” Jace pointed out to Thad. “I’ve seen you shirtless. You’re as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
“I think that we should let the new girl pick the shot,” Dave suggested.
“Yeah,” Jace agreed.
“She’ll get to pick two weeks from now, after Jace,” Thad insisted. “How is it that I’m tougher than all of you?”
The trivia went surprisingly well. Thad had made a commitment to learning about sports. He had bought a big sports trivia book, but he had only got as far as baseball.
Fortunately the sports category was Cooperstown. I didn’t even realize that it was a sports category when they announced the category as Cooperstown. I was thinking that it was a category focusing on some living history village that’s trying to preserve the almost lost art of making wooden barrels.
But no, Cooperstown is the pro baseball hall of fame.
With Thad’s newfound knowledge, we got four out of five in the sports category instead of one out of five like we did a week ago. Thad was great.
Bridge over Icy Water Page 11