Innuendo (2 page)

“Oh, my God, Todd, you're not going to believe this!” she'd exclaimed.

While Marcia had appeared in a couple of commercials, she'd never made it literally beyond the role of a Skippy mom, and so she'd gone back to school and gotten a degree in accounting. However, John Vox, one of her instructors from Northwestern, had eventually left the university and been “discovered,” becoming not one of the big stars, but establishing himself as a quality actor known for his wide range. Now in his mid-fifties, his blond hair gone gray, his cherubic face interestingly lined with time, he was in recent years becoming America's favorite bad guy, playing every part from conniving con man to corrupt congressman. And just a few months ago when he was in Chicago playing some loan shark in a film based on an Elmore Leonard book, Marcia and he had had lunch at the Ambassador Hotel's Pump Room. They talked about it all, Marcia's life in the corporate world, her divorce, and eventually John's films, including one that he'd done a couple of years ago playing an evil traitor opposite none other than America's favorite, Tim Chase.

“You know, John, I'm sorry, but I gotta ask you this,” said Marcia, leaning across the table. “I mean, I know he's married to Gwen Owens, and, my God, she's
sooo
beautiful and such a talented actress. And I know they have a little boy. But I've heard this rumor—and of course there was that big lawsuit when he sued some magazine or something—so you gotta tell me, is Tim Chase gay or isn't he?”

The way Marcia told the story, John Vox covered his mouth with his fine white napkin, leaned back his head, and roared with laughter.

“Well,” demanded Marcia, unable to bear it, “is he or isn't he?”

“Let me tell you,” Vox finally said, his face all red, “Tim is a great guy. And a real pro, too. I mean, he's one of the finest actors around because he wants to do it right, get it right. He's very smart—always picks good scripts. And his wife, Gwen Owens, was a wonder—she brought their son and spent a week on the set. And make no bones about it, they are devoted parents.”

“So, get to the dirt, already, alright!”

“Well…”

“Well?!”

“Tim had a lover, a very nice guy, very handsome, who lived with him right in his trailer.”

“You're kidding!”

“No. And everyone knew it, from the gaffer on up.”

“But what about… what about Gwen Owens? Did she know?”

“Actually, things did get a little messy. I can't quite remember the sequence of events, whether she flew over and then Tim and this guy, Rob, had a huge fight, or…or they had the fight first and then Gwen came. I don't know. But Rob was there, all over Tim, for about two-thirds of the time we were shooting in Europe.”

All of that was whisked out of mind when Todd turned a corner and saw an orchard of cherry lights throbbing in the late-September night. Parked this way and that, cop cars and an ambulance filled the narrow street, a d?j? vu image of autumnal pandemonium that conjured up the darkest time of his own life.

Quickly scanning the area, Todd noted a boxy electronic news-gathering vehicle off to the side, which unfortunately wasn't theirs but WTCN’s. Great. That meant not only that the competition had beat him to the scene, but that his former coworker Cindy Wilson was probably lurking somewhere. Looking farther ahead, he saw a photographer with a WTCN camera hurry across the street, and beyond him a crowd of gawkers. Cindy, he guessed, was already worming her way to the body, going for some grisly shot.

Driving at a crawl, Todd pulled in front of a thick old elm, parked, and got out. The night air was chilly and damp from a slight, early evening rain, and Todd caught the gentle but distinct smell of smoke. Yes, he thought, as he made his way across a mat of sodden elm leaves, the lucky ones were home in front of the first fire of the season.

Wearing black jeans and a maroon shirt, black leather boots and a black leather coat, Todd crossed the street and zeroed in on the vortex of tonight's attention, a dark brick apartment building. Three stories tall, the structure was rectangular and squat, the kind that had been built in this neighborhood, the Wedge, in the teens and twenties. Studying the flurry surrounding the building, Todd noted the cops slipping on latex gloves as they rushed through the front door, and saw the dozens of people held at bay by a band of yellow police tape. Spying a knoll in the park across the street, he thought that, yes, that might be a good place to do the shoot. It wouldn't be the tightest angle, but they'd get the apartment building, the flurry of flashing lights, the cops darting around, and, of course, the tantalized crowd. A great background indeed.

“Todd!”

He looked over, saw Bradley pushing through the crowd, his camera, a large Betacam, held awkwardly under his arm. A tall thin man with skin as dark as the night, he had a small face, short hair, and now wore khaki pants and a blue nylon jacket.

“What's up? What happened?” asked the photographer.

“I don't know anything more—I just got here too.”

“Any sign of the ENG?”

“Not yet. It'll probably be another five minutes or so. I think they sent Jeff,” said Todd, referring to the technician who'd been assigned. “Listen, I gotta try and find Rawlins, see what he can tell me.”

“Sure.”

“Why don't you get some footage—let's say fifteen seconds of cops, ten of real estate. And ten of the crowd out here.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The band of yellow police tape had been set up at the sidewalk's edge, and fifteen or twenty people stood crowded around, trying to see what was going on. Todd peered through them all, but Rawlins was not among the cops out front. Undoubtedly he was inside along with the B of I guys, who were surely already going at it, documenting anything and everything.

Coming up next to a guy with a shaved head and a pierced nose, Todd asked, “What happened?”

“This guy got himself fuckin’ killed.”

“Really? Who?”

“Our new caretaker, that's who.”

“You live here?”

“Yeah. And this guy—he just started a month ago, moved into the basement apartment behind the laundry room. Young guy too. A kid.”

“That's awful.”

“No shit.”

“What was it, drugs?”

He stared at Todd with angry eyes. “How the fuck would I know?”

Todd shrugged. “What was his name?”

“Fred Flintstone,” he said, turning away.

It was a start, anyway, but if Todd was going to do a live story in a few minutes, he was going to have to dig up a hell of a lot more information. Glancing to the side, he saw a small woman with big blond hair, who was laughing and smiling and batting her eyes at a young cop who looked like he'd eat right out of her hand. It was Cindy Wilson. Some things never changed.

Someone in plainclothes emerged from the building and ducked to the side. If there'd ever been such a thing as a press badge, Todd wished he had it now. Equipped with nothing more than a business card, however, he knew there was no way he'd get past the police barrier, and so he shouted out.

“Rawlins!”

Without lifting his head, Rawlins circled a birch tree and headed to the distant end of the police tape. Todd scooted out of the crowd and around, staring the entire time at the other man. Seeing Rawlins raise one hand to his eyes, a tremor of worry rippled through Todd.

Hurrying up to him, Todd said, “What's going on?”

They stood with the yellow tape slowly rising and falling between them, and at first Rawlins shrugged and said nothing. Todd, however, could see that the other man's eyes were red, which was odd because Rawlins was more than used to this kind of thing. Sure, Todd had held this shorter, stockier guy as he sobbed over the death of a friend from AIDS or when Rawlins, himself, had discovered that he was HIV-positive, but he'd never seen him teary, not over murder. This was business, his business, and when it came to that, Rawlins was as butch as the next investigator.

“What's up? What's wrong?”

Rawlins bit his lip and looked away, obviously eager that the other cops didn't see him. More cute than he was handsome, he had dark hair and a short dark mustache, not to mention those dark brown eyes, all of which were usually lightened by a smile, broad and quick. Long ago he'd decided what he lacked in height he'd make up in beef, and so he was broad-shouldered and stocky, a borderline muscle queen to be sure. Tonight he wore blue jeans and a brown cotton jacket.

Finally he muttered, “Oh, fuck.”

Todd reached across the tape, touched him gently on the elbow. Jesus, what had happened in there? How horrible was it, and just how had the purported young white male met his end?

He asked, “You been in?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Rawlins wiped his eyes, said, “He… he was just a kid.”

“Who?”

“Wait a minute,” said Rawlins, catching himself and remembering who was who and just why they were both there. “We haven't notified the family yet, so this isn't for public consumption, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I'm serious—you can't go on the air with this.”

“Of course I won't.”

“Well, then… oh, shit. I can't believe this. I mean, he—”

“Who?”

“Andrew—he was just seventeen.”

At first the name rattled without an echo, but then Todd began to remember that wonderfully charming grin, the toothy one.

“My God, you don't mean that kid down at the DQ, do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, shit.”

The Domain of Queers, or the DQ, was the official youth center for, as Todd called it, the corporation of queers: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and the sexually questioning. One of the few such centers in the country, it was located in an old ballroom above a drugstore on Franklin Avenue, and it operated both as a haven for runaways as well as a center for fostering pride. Todd and Rawlins had spoken there twice, talking about the closet, which Todd knew far too well, and about finding and developing a healthy relationship, which the two of them were inching toward. Getting still more involved, Rawlins had joined the mentoring program.

“When I was a kid,” Rawlins had ranted not long ago, “we didn't have any heroes. There was no one to look up to, no one to show that you could be gay and happy. And, you know what, it did zip for my sense of self-worth. I don't want to be invisible too.”

Yes, Andrew was Rawlins's first mentee. Todd remembered the cute kid and that engaging smile, a young man whose folks had kicked him off the family farm when they found out he was gay. Over the course of the last two months Rawlins had taken the younger man out to lunch a few times and had even given him a tour of the police department.

“Oh, my God, I can't believe it,” Rawlins now said, his eyes beading with tears as he looked back at the entrance of the building. “He was a smart kid too. Really capable.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I… I was trying to help him see that being out and being gay didn't mean limiting what you could do. He was even talking about going to law school.”

“You were good to him, Rawlins. You were already making a difference in his life.”

“Evidently not enough.”

“Don't start thinking like that,” Todd softly said. “There was nothing you could have done.”

“He was really proud of himself, proud of getting his own apartment and everything.”

“Someone out here said he was the caretaker.”

“Yeah, he took care of a couple of buildings around here.” He took a deep breath. “Oh, my God. Why?”

Why would anyone want to murder a nice, energetic kid who had a productive, robust life ahead of him?

Todd said, “I don't know”

But he was wise enough to know that this would be a well of obsession from which they would both drink for weeks if not months. He just hoped it wasn't a bottomless one, for the search for the truth was a compulsion to them both, to Todd the investigative reporter as well as to Rawlins the homicide investigator. Just as a number of gay people had become psychologists in an attempt to understand what made them different, just as a number had become artists to explore their individuality, so had Todd and Rawlins chosen fields where truth was paramount. That was what they had in common most of all. No, actually it was what they had in common more and more, because initially for Todd his career had been all about image first, substance second.

Todd hated to ask. Fearing the answer, fearing that it wasn't a simple robbery or argument gone bad, he took a deep breath.

“What happened?”

“I haven't heard too much yet, but he's lying in bed with his throat slit. Chances are he picked up some guy and… and…”

Oh, shit, thought Todd, he didn't want to have to go on the air with this. “And they had sex?”

“Yep.”

He knew what that meant. And he knew how, in the greater scheme of things, the reportage of this crime was doomed to go. It wouldn't be seen as an argument between friends gone horribly wrong. Nor would it be looked upon as someone killed by a lover. No, by and large this would be treated as it had been treated historically, an incident between two deviants, who by their very nature were so twisted that of course they couldn't help but kill.