Sex and Murder.com: A Paul Turner Mystery (10 page)

“He’s gay. You said you’d go. Mrs. Talucci is looking forward to it. She says she is dying to go to a truly seedy cop hangout. She claims she hasn’t been in one since the late thirties.”

Mrs. Talucci was in her nineties and had lived next door to Paul all his life. He lived in the Taylor Street area of Chicago just southwest of the Loop in the house he had grown up in. His parents had retired to Florida some years ago, but Paul loved the old neighborhood and stayed. The greatest annoyance in Mrs. Talucci’s life was pressure from her daughters and nieces, who thought she should spend her days in a rocking chair waiting to die. This annoyed her beyond reason. She got out as often as she could, and she had recently taken to international traveling with several of her grandnieces, who were often hard put to keep up with her. She’d found two possible locations for her next trip in
Modern Maturity
. One was horseback riding in the Golden Circle in Iceland. The other whitewater rafting on the Upper Yangtze River in Tibet. Both of these activities were rated by the magazine as “easy tries.” Paul hoped that was true.

“I’m going to go, aren’t I?” Paul said.

“Yep. We were waiting for you so we could leave.”

“I’d offer to go out and come back later, but it probably wouldn’t do any good.”

“Not the slightest. You’ve just got time to eat that half of the meatball sandwich left from last night.”

Paul wolfed it down with a Miller Lite, and then the two adults entered the living room. Paul heard his son Brian thump down the stairs. The boy breezed into the room, wearing his black leather jacket, a heavy gray sweatshirt over a white T-shirt, and khaki pants. He said, “Hi, Dad. Did you meet Andy Wycliff?” Brian nodded toward the still recumbent teenager. The kid nodded briefly. “Ben said it was okay for him to come with us.”

Paul said, “I can hear the teaser: ‘Teenagers slain in wild poetry brawl. Police mystified, parents held accountable. Film at ten.’ He called his parents?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Talucci’s on her way over. Are you ready to go?”

Everybody piled into Paul’s van. Jeff’s wheelchair fit into the second seat, and Mrs. Talucci sat next to him. Brian drove. He was still in the recently-acquired-license stage of offering to drive everywhere. Paul sat next to the boy, who was campaigning vigorously to get his own car. So far the you-have-to-pay-your-own-car-insurance gambit had forestalled the purchase. Ben and Andy sat in the back.

Brian fussed with the heat. Before he could blast their ear drums, Paul reached over to the stereo controls and turned them off.

“Dad!” Brian protested.

“Son?” Paul asked.

“We gotta have music,” the teen insisted.

“For the less than fifteen minutes it is going to take us to get to the north side, you can live without causing harm to the eardrums of the adults inhabiting this vehicle.”

“I won’t turn it up loud,” Brian promised.

“Loudness is one thing,” Paul said. “Stunningly annoying by its very nature is another.” For longer trips, he had gotten the boys portable CD players so they could listen to their own music without disturbing the adults.

They parked in a handicapped zone in the alley behind a row of stores and trooped through a door off the alley and into the basement. Paul carried Jeff, and Ben carried the boy’s wheelchair. Most of the lights in the basement were out. Someone had placed numerous candles on the unromantic, plastic-topped tables. The floors and walls on the way to the bathrooms looked as if they hadn’t been washed or mopped in years. Dim lights from the coffee and health food bar added little illumination to the rest of the room. A podium was set up on a small stage. Paul saw Trevor Endamire and went up to him.

“When do you go on?” Paul asked.

“I’m second from the end.”

Paul hid his sigh of resignation as best he could. Endamire didn’t seem to notice. “How many people are reading?” Paul asked.

“Seven or eight,” Endamire said. “I’m really glad you came. This is really supportive. I think we’re going to have a decent crowd.”

Mrs. Talucci greeted Trevor with a huge hug and began asking him about obscure relatives. Including those who Paul came with, and the people he assumed were readers, there might have been twenty-five people in the room. At a card table on the side a woman was pouring Coke from a large plastic container into small cups. A hand-lettered sign asked for a donation of two dollars for each drink. Paul bought some for each member of his group. He sat back down in the murk to wait for the show to begin. The performance was supposed to have started at nine—it was now half past. Paul wished they’d hurry and get it over with. He saw that his son Jeff was already yawning.

9

Watching and waiting. Sitting in the dark on the street outside their homes and spying on them through the windows. Sitting next to them in a restaurant or a bar. Being near and getting a feel for your victim. The very best times are killing them—but watching up close, unseen and unknown, that ranks right up there.

Because he had his back to the stairs, Paul was not aware of Dwayne Smythe’s entrance until the man stood in front of him.

“I need help,” Smythe said, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“I’m here for the poetry reading with my family.”

“This will just take a minute.”

Turner would have preferred to say no, but his innate politeness won out.

“Could we talk outside?” Smythe asked.

Paul would rather talk to Smythe with an auditorium full of witnesses present. However, this guy was a fellow cop. He’d faced down gun barrels as had Paul. Smythe had backed him and Fenwick up in tough situations. Paul grabbed his fur-lined, black leather jacket and trudged back up the steps. Outside, the air was crisp and clear. Turner pulled his gloves out of his pockets.

In the street light, brighter than the basement dimness, Turner could see Smythe’s handsome face was blotchy with red and creased with worry lines. His hands trembled.

“I need some help,” Smythe began.

“Where’s your partner?”

“I think she and I are on our own. We’re both in deep shit.”

“I don’t want to be involved in your case,” Turner said. “I know nothing about what happened.”

“I know. I don’t need you for that part. I need somebody from the squad to testify for me.”

“About what?” Turner said.

“I need a character witness. You’re the first guy I thought of. You’ve got a reputation for honesty. People respect you. If you talked on my behalf, it might help.”

“I don’t have any clout. I don’t have any influence. Aren’t these evidentiary hearings? I have no place there.”

“If I need somebody to talk for me, it’s got to be you,” Smythe insisted. “People listen to what you have to say. I’ve got to have somebody. You’re known in the department for honesty and integrity. Aren’t you willing to be supportive?”

“I’m supportive,” Turner said.

“You’ve got to be willing to stand up for me. How will it look if you won’t defend one of your own?”

“Is that a threat?” Turner asked. “You want me to help you out and if I don’t, you’re going to spread it around that I wouldn’t back you up? You’re not stupid, Dwayne, at least I never thought you were, but you’ve gone too far.” He turned to go back to the basement.

“Wait,” Smythe said. “Please, don’t go in. I’m sorry.” Turner paused. He realized the man was shivering almost uncontrollably. Smythe was well bundled up in his heavy coat. It wasn’t the cold that had brought Smythe to this pitiable state.

Turner said, “You think that was a good way to get me to go out on a limb for you?”

“I’m scared. I’ve always wanted to be a detective. I didn’t break any department regulations. In the Haggerty case they were accused of breaking over thirty of them. I’m not.”

Smythe was referring to a case in which three officers were fired by the police board, and another suspended. “I’ve got a chance. Maybe I won’t get fired. I’ve always wanted to be a detective. I never meant to hurt the kid.”

“You screwed up. You don’t even know how to ask for help. You never think before you act. You always push too hard. You’ve made too many mistakes. You should have thought about how to be a good cop before you screwed up the first time.”

“I did, you know. I thought about the job constantly. I know I sneered at you and Fenwick a lot, but I watched what you guys did. I tried to do things right, the way you did them. It’s probably too late now, but I’ve got to try everything I can think of to save my job. I know you’re reluctant to risk your reputation for me. I shouldn’t have made any kind of threat. I’m sorry.” He drew a deep breath and rubbed his hands together, then sniffed and wiped the back of his glove against his nose. “Look, Paul, I’m desperate. It’s not much of a limb to go out on. You just have to say you’ve worked with me and that I’m a good cop.”

“But Dwayne, I don’t think you’re a good cop. How can I get up and testify?”

“You really don’t think I do a good job?”

“Did you falsify those incident reports?”

“No. I swear to god. I would never do that.”

Turner had never falsified a report, had never felt a need to. He’d get his arrests honestly or not at all. He knew Fenwick felt the same way. He said, “This would be a poor time to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. I swear. Please, you’ve got to help me. You’re the only one I can turn to. That fool Carruthers keeps volunteering to testify. I might as well put a noose around my neck as have him speak. They wouldn’t stop laughing as they booted my ass out. It’s got to be someone who’s respected. People said you’d be willing to help.”

“Who?”

“Everybody says you’re a stand-up guy.”

“No one has any business speaking for me.” Paul wondered about his reputation and his own conscience if he testified on Smythe’s behalf. The cops who knew Smythe would know him for an overly ambitious fool. They’d know Paul was saying as little as possible while trying to keep his integrity intact. Paul was not willing to squander the goodwill of his reputation by speaking dishonestly about Dwayne Smythe. If he lied, people would know Paul had swallowed his real opinion to maintain his solidarity with one of their own. Some of his coworkers would see this as righteous solidarity while others would be delighted to hear that he had compromised himself. Some would see it as him coming down a peg from some unspecified moral high ground. Turner didn’t view himself as a paragon of virtue but at the same time he most certainly intended to be able to live with his conscience. If called upon, he intended to tell the truth. Smythe was putting him in a delicate, but probably not career-threatening, position. Nevertheless, he resented even being asked to do something that forced him to confront a moral dilemma not of his own making.

Smythe apologized again. “I’m sorry. I screwed up a few minutes ago. I shouldn’t have asked you the way I did.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

“Will you?” Smythe pleaded and placed his hand on Turner’s arm.

Paul allowed the contact for a moment, then gently pulled away and said, “I’ll think about it,” and strode carefully back down the stairs.

Turner was furious with Smythe. Despite the apology, the position the young detective had put him in was a nasty one. The blue wall of silence was very real: if you saw something, you kept silent; if forced to speak, you supported your own. Smythe had known exactly what he was doing. Taking back the implied threat was useless. It hung there as soon as Turner was asked, and would be there until Smythe’s case was decided. And if Turner made the wrong decision, it could affect the rest of his career in the department. Being a gay cop was one thing. Being thought of as a traitor was another.

As Turner resumed his seat, Mrs. Talucci asked, “Who was that? I thought it might be that Dwayne Smythe that’s being investigated.” Mrs. Talucci was addicted to television news shows, listening to interviews on NPR, reading three newspapers a day, and indulging in tawdry neighborhood gossip. She would recognize Dwayne from photos in the media. She knew details of current events, whether of revolutions in remotest Moldavia or the birth of a baby in the neighborhood. She knew the names of more foreign leaders than George W. Bush, which wasn’t all that difficult a trick.

Paul knew he could avoid her question, and Mrs. Talucci would not pursue it, but he said, “Dwayne wants me to speak on his behalf, to be a character witness.”

Mrs. Talucci nodded. “A tough position to put you in. Have you decided what to do?”

“As little as possible,” he replied.

Turner saw his reporter friend, Ian Hume, stride down the stairs. As always, Ian wore his slouch fedora. Ian was a reporter for the local gay newspaper, the
Gay Tribune.
He and Paul had attended the police academy together. For a short while after Paul’s wife had died, they had been lovers.

Ian had claimed he wanted to go to the reading out of a perverse desire to watch cops attempt to be literary. Paul wasn’t sure about his motives, but was glad for the additional company.

Ian pulled up a chair behind him and leaned close. “My sources say you are investigating the Lenzati murder.”

“And who would those sources be?” Turner asked. It was a ritual with the two of them, the claiming of an unnamed source and the asking for the name.

“I have information for you,” Ian said.

“That’s a switch,” Paul said.

“You are annoyed tonight.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“I do. I found out this afternoon that there’s a young guy in the gay cop group who’s supposed to be really hot. Apparently, he’s not a very good poet, but he is reading tonight.”

“I figured there was some stud at the bottom of your motivation.”

“Isn’t there always? And what better motivation could there be to attend a poetry reading? You’re probably the only gay cop who isn’t a poet.”

“For which I am grateful.”

“You don’t like poetry?” Ian asked.

“It’s nice, in its place. I just wish its place wasn’t where I was. I feel the same way about opera.”

“I know. We’re worried about you. Not liking opera may cause us to confiscate your gay ID card.”