Keeping Secrets

by Penny Mickelbury

  Mimi and Tyler walked out into the crisp air and she slammed into him when she turned right, en route to Le Petit Paris.

  “Walk much, Patterson?” growled Tyler. She was forming her retort when he raised his arm to hail a taxi.

  “We’re not going to the Frenchery?”

  “Obviously,” he drawled as a Red and Black taxi cut off a Yellow cab and screeched to halt, the driver of the Yellow cab cursing mightily in Spanish. Tyler gave the driver the address of a quaint, quiet Italian restaurant on DuPont Circle known to specialize in the cooking of Southern Italy. It was also known to have a substantial gay clientele.

  Her thoughts were a jumble when Tyler broke the silence. “You see the story this morning about the banker found in the Washington High parking lot?”

  She vaguely recalled the item, buried deep inside the Region section: white male, forties, bank president, shot to death in his car in a parking lot more than twenty miles from his Fairfax County home. No motive, no suspects, no big deal, she thought. After all, the Nation’s Capital was the murder capital of America. But before she could say any of this, Tyler asked if she’d read about three other murders of successful business people, all in their forties, all well-connected politically and socially. Mimi didn’t remember, didn’t know why she should, and said as much to Tyler. He grunted and agreed that on the surface, there seemed to be nothing outstanding about any of the crimes. Then he stopped talking and Mimi knew he would say nothing more in the taxi. She knew his questions were relevant, but she didn’t see how four apparently unconnected murders...unless they were connected...

  “Patterson, are you gay?” Mimi choked on a big gulp of San Pellegrino and glared at Tyler. “I have an important reason for asking,” he said carefully.

  “You damn well better,” she coughed, still choking a bit.

  “I need you to answer first, Mimi.” He had never, ever called her Mimi. She studied him, thinking about the position she’d taken regarding her sexuality years ago: I’ll never respond to innuendo or rumor, but if anyone is ever honest enough to ask me a direct question, I’ll give ‘em a direct answer.

  “Yes, Tyler, I am. Now, explain this invasion of my privacy.”

  “The four murders I mentioned. One each month, on the same day of the month, the last four months. They were all gay. All of them were married, had children, important jobs—powerful jobs— and all of them were gay. And very deeply closeted.”

  Tyler played with his food, waiting for her response. She tried to remember something, anything about the murders, but they’d occurred while she was engrossed in her investigation—except for the latest one on Monday night. She tried to make her mind imagine all the implications of what she’d just heard, and her mind rebelled at the horror of it. There’s a monster out there.

  “So, I guess you know what your next assignment is.”

  “I’ll start this afternoon.”

  “No, I want you spend the rest of this week catching up. Clear your desk, answer your mail, return your phone calls, get plugged back in, find your balance, and start this first thing on Monday.”

  She started to protest, then remembered something. “Do the police know these people were gay?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?” Tyler frowned at her.

  “Then how do you know?”

  “Monday night’s victim was a friend. The first one, four months ago, was the friend of a friend. On a hunch, I asked a pal at the FBI to look at the other two...”

  He trailed off and Mimi looked at him closely, intensely. He raised his eyes to meet hers. “Yes, I’m gay, too. Feel better?” Tyler smiled slightly.

  “I feel like shit, thank you,” Mimi growled at him. “Now I get to worry that next month this time the victim may be one of my friends.” She looked down at the plate of penne primavera for which she now had no appetite and was able to take solace only in the fact that somebody else would have to pay for the wasted meal.

  *****

  Mimi tried to concentrate on clearing up old business as Tyler had instructer, but the new assignment tugged at her until she eventually gave in and grabbed the phone.

  “This is Montgomery Patterson. I’d like to make an appointment to see Lt. Maglione.” Mimi sighed heavily into the dead space that meant she was on hold, as much a Washington institution as the Lincoln or the Jefferson monuments. She disliked calling the police department. Some of D.C.’s finest still resented her for exposing a cell of rogue cops guilty of everything from police brutality to drug dealing. They had called themselves The Avengers and saw it as their mission to rid the city of drug dealers, murderers, and other negative elements; and in their zeal, they became exactly as warped and twisted as what they professed hate. Most police department personnel, including the Chief, were relieved to be rid of the bad apples; but some cops still adhered to a code that protected a fellow officer no matter what, and it rankled her whenever she encountered hostility from the Public Affairs officer and she almost regretted making the call. In a few moments, though, he was back on the line with the information that she could meet the new Hate Crimes boss in her office at eleven o’clock Monday morning.

  For the remainder of that week, Mimi left work every day at seven and went directly to the gym where she had a sweat-popping work-out followed by leisurely steam. But no matter how much she willed it, The Woman did not reappear. Saturday she cleaned her house, ridding it of all traces of the previous investigation. She downloaded all the old files from her computer and opened a new one with a new password for the murder cases. And on the wall above her desk she hung the pictures of the four murder victims that Tyler had somehow gotten from his FBI pal: a white man, a Black man, an Hispanic man, and a white woman, their success and their sexuality their only links to each other. Could it really be true, she wondered, studying the faces, that these people were dead because of who they loved? And somehow she knew the answer was yes.

  Mimi awoke early Sunday, read the paper from cover to cover, then rode her bicycle through Rock Creek Park to the Kennedy Center where she parked and locked it and began run her toward and across the Potomac River via the Memorial Bridge. It was a brilliant day, the towering oak and elm and maple trees resplendent in their fall reds and golds. It was still early enough that there were no crowds and Mimi ran easily, at a moderate pace, marveling as always at the magnificence of the trees and the shimmering reflection of the sun on the placid surface of the water. Then she saw two women walking toward her, their jerseys wet with sweat. They’d finished their run, must’ve been out early....Great Christ Almighty! Beverly, with her lovely long dreadlocks gathered in a bright scarf, and The Woman from the gym!

  Mimi slowed as she approached them, then stopped, reached out for Bev and brushed her lips with a gentle kiss. “Hi, Bev. You’re out early. Don’t tell me you’ve changed.”

  “Not a chance and not my idea. Gianna likes running this early.” Bev looked quizzically at Mimi and asked, “You two know each other?”

  “Ah, not exactly...” Mimi began, as Bev made the introduction utilizing the correct Italian pronunciation of the name: Giovanna Maglione, Gianna to her friends. She is Italian, thought Mimi, looking into the hazel eyes, exchanging a firm handshake. And she is beautiful.

  “Good to meet you, Mimi,” Gianna said, a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

  “Too bad you’re just getting started. I’d ask you to join us for brunch,” Bev said.

  “Maybe we can all take a rain check on brunch,” Mimi said, leaning toward Bev to kiss her again. “You look good, Bev,” she said. And directly to the hazel eyes she said, “Ciao, Bella.”

  Mimi jogged off, aware that two pairs of eyes followed her.

  “Beverly! That’s the Mimi you left? That’s the one?”

  “That’s the one,” Bev said with a small smile.

  “She’s gorgeous!” said Gianna, still watching Mimi run.

  “She is that. And brilliant and witty and charming and...”

 
“...And you’re still in love with her,” Gianna prodded.

  “No, I’m not. I’ve got some places that haven’t healed from her yet, but I’m not still in love with her.”

  Gianna was surprised by her relief at those words. She and Beverly were new friends, not yet close, but they liked each other and Gianna, who wanted and needed a good friend, thought they could be close with time. But not with an ex-lover like Mimi standing between them. Why, she wondered, had Bev left? Other women? Gianna remembered opening the steam room door and almost colliding with Mimi. Their bodies were so close...Gianna still felt the heat. Other women would certainly be attracted.

  “Why did you leave her, Bev?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Mimi, Lieutenant. Okay?”

  “Oh, low blow. But I get the message.”

  *****

  She looked at the reporter sitting on the other side of her desk and wished she had pressed Bev further. That way she wouldn’t have felt so total a fool at the sight of investigative reporter M. Montgomery Patterson, aka Mimi.

  They’d stood looking at each other, waiting for the secretary to leave and close the door. Then they laughed. Gianna seized control of her turf.

  “Miss Patterson. Mimi. Please sit down. It really is a pleasure to meet you. You do good work.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, and congratulations on your promotion. Sorry I missed the big party.”

  “So was the Chief. He kept telling me how much I’d like you.” She smiled a half smile that made Mimi feel somebody had turned up the heat in the office.

  “I wish the Chief would work on his Italian. He butchered your name. I had no idea what I was walking into.”

  “Not even when Bev introduced us? No little bell rang?”

  “I confess that the sight of the two of you together yesterday erased every other thought from my head,” Mimi said fervently.

  Gianna laughed again and Mimi struggled to keep her mind on work.

  “So, is this a duty call, to satisfy the Chief?”

  Mimi hesitated, wondering if she should back into the reason for her visit or jump in with both feet. Gianna looked like a jump in kind of woman.

  “I’m investigating the murders of Elizabeth Grayson, Joseph Murray, Phillip Tancil and Antonio del Valle.”

  An absolute stillness settled over Gianna. She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t blink an eye, didn’t take an extra breath. She even managed a small and condescending smile when she said in her controlled voice, “But this is isn’t homicide, Miss Patterson.”

  “I know exactly what this is, Lieutenant. Are you telling me the Hate Crimes Unit isn’t investigating the murders of those four people?”

  “I’m telling you that homicide investigates murder,” Gianna said carefully, and held Mimi’s stare.

  Mimi broke eye contact first and took a slow, deliberate look around the small, neat office, her eyes resting longest on the photograph of a young man in a policeman’s uniform from another city and another era.

  A rap on the door broke the tension. Before Gianna could even think “come in,” the door burst open and the chief of police was propelled in by the force of his own energy. He was not a tall man—he stood an inch under six feet—but he had the tight, compact body of the Golden Gloves boxer he’d been in his youth and he walked on the balls of his feet so that he seemed taller and he always conveyed the impression of moving forward. He was made to wear the midnight-blue and gold of a police chief and he wore it well. Both women stood and Gianna showed genuine surprise when the chief wrapped Mimi in a bear hug kissed her on both cheeks.

  “You need a haircut, Mimi. Otherwise you’re just as beautiful as ever. You two enjoying each other?” He barked at them in the rapid-fire staccato that had made people heed his word his entire career.

  “Absolutely,” Mimi said, “and I’m glad to see you finally did something right, making Lt. Maglione head of Hate Crimes.”

  “Funny. That’s what she said. I knew you two would get along. You’re a lot alike. Well, I’ve gotta go make a speech. I envy you two, you still get to chase the bad guys while I get to eat rubber chicken and try to explain why we can’t catch every drug dealer, murderer and rapist before they commit their crimes. And by the way, Lieutenant, I hear you’re not acting very much like a Lieutenant. That’s not good for my image, you know.” And he left as abruptly as he had arrived.

  Mimi and Gianna shared a look of amazement. “What did he mean by that crack,” Mimi asked, eyebrows raised.

  Gianna waved away the question with one of her own. “How do you know him like that,” she asked, laughing.

  “When I was new to the paper, new in town, all of twenty-two years old and stuck on night police, he took care of me. He was Homicide then, and stumbled upon me literally moments after I’d seen my first murder victim.”

  Gianna watched her remember, watched her eyes recede to the past, watched her face soften and become that of a scared cub reporter. She listened to the voice lose its hard reporter’s edge as it recalled that other, simpler time, when a young woman became an adult virtually overnight. And she was irritated when the phone buzzed, snatching them both back to the here and now. She grabbed it up, listened, spoke a few words Mimi couldn’t hear even though she was just a few feet away, and hung up.

  “Well, back to the grind for me,” Gianna said briskly. She walked around her desk.

  Mimi thought to herself again, we are exactly the same height. She appraised Gianna in her uniform, the military precision of the garb, so perfect for the Chief, not coming close to complementing Gianna—the dark blue jacket and skirt and the crisp white shirt too stiff and unyielding for the form beneath, the rich, dark hair unsuccessfully tamed by pins and barrettes.

  Gianna extended her hand and Mimi kept it a fraction of a second longer than necessary before turning to exit. She had one foot in the hall when she heard her name.

  Gianna, smiling, said softly, “I like your hair like that,” and then she closed the door and Mimi, too charged to wait for the elevator, raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time, her mind in overdrive as she was jostled about in the teeming lobby of police headquarters.

  Mimi was deciding to take the subway instead of a taxi so she’d have more time to think: Gianna Maglione sure as hell knew those four people were gay. What else did she know? Is there something about the murders the cops were keeping secret, some little piece of information only the killer would know?

  And what was that business about her hair? If it was designed to distract her...well, it had worked. Mimi made a mental note to cancel next Tuesday’s appointment with the guy who cut her hair.

  Gianna crossed to the window and looked down on the block that comprised Judiciary Square, an enclave that held the local courts, the city jail and police headquarters at one end, and the Federal courthouses at the other. Cops and lawyers and the people who kept them in business resembled a colony of ants streaming in and out of the various buildings, really looking as if they were engaged in some industrious pursuit rather than in games of crime. The gleaming white marble-and-chrome of the newer buildings stood in stark contrast to the unpolished brass and crumbling brick of the older ones, as much a testament as anything to the changes wrought in the thing called law. As she watched the scene below, Gianna played an old game with herself: who were the undercover cops and who were the perps? It got harder and harder to tell.

  Mimi appeared on the sidewalk, merged with the crowd, and joined the ant column inching toward the subway, and Gianna wondered what compelled her to make the comment about Mimi’s hair, and as she wondered, Gianna could see her, feel her, smell her, as if she were still standing in the office, much too close for comfort. Then she remembered the first time she saw her, naked in the steam; she remembered the strength and power of her legs as she jogged and the tenderness with which she kissed Beverly. And she remembered that she was due at a meeting with the M.E. and she closed her eyes tightly, hoping to still the sharp, aching desire pu
lsing at her center.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Let me tell you people that you’ve got one big mess on your hands. As much as we’d all like to believe it, these crimes are not about sex, pure and simple.” Dr. Asa Landing was the city’s—and the nation’s—leading forensic psychiatrist.

  “Pure? Simple?” Gianna snorted in disgust. She’d asked him to come because she wanted the newer members of her team to encounter the irascible old legend on neutral turf. He’d obliged because he’d known her for over a decade, and because he believed that young cops had nowhere near enough understanding and respect for the science of forensics.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” Landing growled, lumbering about like the Grizzly that he resembled. Gianna marveled that he’d somehow found room to pace in the cramped space that the Hate Crimes team called the Think Tank—really a small conference room on the floor directly below Gianna’s office equipped with a long, beat-up table, a dozen dented folding chairs, and a pair of wooden four-drawer file cabinets that Gianna swore existed before the Police Department did. A blackboard ran the length of one wall and a screen was mounted on the adjacent wall on to which the Team projected crime scene images. The only relatively modern, relatively new tools housed in the Think Tank were a television and VCR, and a computer that crashed with painful regularity.

  The Hate Crimes team watched Landing intently, the faces of the younger ones eager and fascinated; the faces of the veterans tight with dread.

  “Obliterating the genitalia makes one hell of a statement. And you can count on some kind of religious motivation,” he added, running stubby, tobacco stained fingers through spiky white hair, still pacing and charging the air in the close room.