A Kind of Justice (10 page)

“So you think Mr. Strand was having encounters with transgender women in his apartment?”

The man makes a face and nods his head.

Wilkins takes the man back through his memories, digging for details as he goes. Gathering information that would probably be useless, but you never know. Plus it gives you an idea of how good the man's memory is, what kind of witness he might make.

Strand hadn't had the place very long. Less than a year, the man thought. You hardly ever saw him or heard him. He came and went
late at night and early in the morning. The elderly neighbor thought he had sexual assignations there. No one ever saw or heard him in the place, not even a television set or sound system. His name wasn't on the mailbox, just the apartment number. He didn't get mail, except for junk mail. It was his honey shack. A pretty expensive one, too.

Wilkins scans his notes, thinking. “Anyone else in the neighborhood I should talk to?” he asks. The case file was sparse on input from the neighbors.

“You could try Crazy Ike,” says the man, a smile playing his face. “He's the Neighborhood Watch guy. Has a place a few doors down. He's always reporting spies and terrorists. Crazy as a loon.”

“Did he see anything around that time?”

“He reported a spy or something to the police around then, but he sees things all the time.” The man laughs. “But give him a try.”

At the end of the interview the building custodian is waiting to show him through Strand's apartment. It's occupied now, but the tenant okayed a maintenance walk-through. Wilkins carries the case file with him and reads about each room as he stands in it, putting the layout of everything in a three-dimensional picture in his mind. Where Strand was found hanging. The bathroom where strands of synthetic wig hairs had been found by the toilet, Wilkins thinking the perp might have barfed in the john after doing the deed. The back door where they entered, Wilkins doubting they came in hot and ready for sex, more like the perp had already disabled Strand. The garage where Strand's car had been found, the only fingerprints belonging to Strand, but the ones on the steering wheel smudged and smeared. The tech couldn't be sure why, but one possibility was the last driver wore gloves.

Wilkins kept finding things that supported his theory of the case. The perpetrator took down Strand using a tranquilizer delivered by syringe. Wilkins figured it happened somewhere else, so the perp
knew about his love nest and how the garage worked. The investigator who took over when he got banned from the case considered the possibility that a transwoman did it, maybe a she-male Strand dumped for a new model. But he dropped the idea because it seemed too improbable. The motive had to run deeper than that. Fags and trannies go through partners every day without killing each other. Plus if it was a crime of passion there would be a different kind of crime scene, maybe genital mutilation, maybe a knife in the heart, some kind of signature of outrage. The investigator figured the murder had something to do with Strand's business dealings, a former client, maybe.

Wilkins never bought the jilted lover idea either, but he knew the murder had something to do with Strand's kinky sex life. Strand had been hung by his hands from the ceiling, then his throat was slit in a single movement. Not necessarily a professional hit, but it had some of the coldness. It was an execution. By someone strong and very determined. Wilkins figured the killer disabled Strand, drove to Strand's place in Strand's car, carried him into the apartment, strung him up, slit his throat, and walked away. Wore gloves the whole time, was methodical in making sure the crime scene was clean, no prints, nothing left behind. Used a knife from Strand's own kitchen and left it there, no prints, no leads.

The people who took over the investigation after Wilkins were never able to find a motive for the Strand slaying, but Wilkins knew in his bones it was the rape Logan reported a few months before Strand got it. The goons who did her had to have been working for Strand. The case was never resolved, so Logan took matters into her own hands. He can't prove it yet, but he would. Every discovery is advancing his theory of the crime. He is learning where to look for hard evidence. He just has to keep plugging away.

S
UNDAY
, A
UGUST
24

B
ETSY AND
R
OBBIE
and I are strolling through Brookfield Zoo. It's Sunday, late morning, and the place is starting to fill up.

My niece is having a glorious time. She is fascinated by the animals, especially the giraffes and the polar bears. And she regales in the freedom to run and scream and get picked up any time she wants by her mother or me.

The weeks since Don's car accident have been difficult for her. She's too young to comprehend death. She only knows that her daddy isn't coming home anymore. She tells me this every time I visit, which is frequent.

Betsy is grieving for Don and for her fatherless child, and she is terrified of what the future holds for them. The worst part of her grief is the occasional thought that she didn't love Don enough. She has poured her heart out to me several times and it always includes the confession that she didn't love him enough, that she took him for granted, that she didn't find him especially arousing as time went on.

These are not things I offer advice or counsel about, though my suspicion is that we all get to a point in a long relationship where we take our partner for granted to some degree, and I know for sure that sex changes a lot with familiarity. But when Betsy unloads, I just listen. The only assertive intervention I make is to insist that she was
a wonderful wife to Don, and if he were here right now, he'd say so. I say this with the conviction of someone who can see two people who can't always see each other.

Betsy sees a therapist, but I'm not impressed with what she tells me about the woman. Her approach is very clinical, maybe even disinterested. I'd feel a lot better if she would see Marilee, but Betsy feels Marilee is too close to me. “It would be like asking my mother-in-law for help,” she said.

We are making plans for next weekend. They will be coming into the city to stay with me overnight on Saturday. They'll go see the sights while I'm working, then we'll go to dinner and catch a set or two at Jazzfest. As much of it as Robbie can tolerate, anyway.

Betsy is actually excited about the idea. She loved living in the city and she misses it. We've been doing everything at her suburban castle and it's getting boring. Time to get back to civilization.

When I get home tonight I will start readying my extra bedrooms. Before I became the holder of a business debt bigger than Fort Knox, I managed to buy a roomy two-flat in Lakeview, not far from Boystown. I live in the first-floor unit and rent the other apartment to a tenant. The neighborhood is nice and the brownstone is to die for—solid brick, roomy, high ceilings, big rooms. It was rehabbed a year before I bought it, so it's beautiful. I have the ground-floor apartment, three bedrooms, a bath and a half, a space-efficient kitchen that is separated from a large living area by a breakfast bar. I use one of the extra bedrooms to do hair for friends. It has a twin bed that I have set up like a couch, plus a stylist chair, special lighting, large mirrors, and a portable beautician station bristling with my beauty tools and supplies.

The other extra bedroom is a guest room and office. It has a desk and my computer station, and a double bed and bedroom furniture.

As Betsy talks to Robbie about the tigers across the moat from us, I am thinking that I'll put Betsy in my bedroom, Robbie in the guest
room, and I'll take the salon room. If Robbie has trouble sleeping in a new place, she can snuggle with her mom.

I share these thoughts with Betsy as we walk to the car an hour later. Robbie is sound asleep in the stroller. Betsy smiles and puts her hand on mine. I let go of the stroller with that hand, and we walk a few steps holding hands, exchanging appreciative small squeezes. I realize how much this time with Betsy and Robbie means to me. The wild dashes to the suburbs and back to work should be exhausting, but instead I feel a sort of exhilaration. Like I'm someone who is important to someone. It's different than having friends you love and a lot different than being successful in business. It's better. And it's addictive. I try not to think how wonderful it would be if Betsy and Robbie stayed. I try not to fantasize how perfect it would be for Betsy and I to raise Robbie to adulthood together, sisters bonded in love and a common goal.

It can't happen, but I can't help dreaming about it.

*    *    *

T
UESDAY
, A
UGUST
26

Wilkins watches from a café table as his photographer friend joins the melee in front of L'Elégance across the street. The big tranny queer is doing a hairstyling demonstration on the sidewalk in front of the salon. Her tight black dress bulges with cleavage on top and leaves most of her legs exposed. Her hair sways and bounces as she works and falls like a curtain around her face when she bends.

She still disgusts him, but she draws a crowd. Her and the two women working with her. They're all in sexy outfits, selling the sizzle.

The photographer takes a position in front of the chair. He speaks to Logan. Wilkins can't hear him, but he knows the man is asking
permission to shoot some photos. His cover story is that he's a freelance photographer and hopes to sell the photos to one of the Chicago dailies.

The tranny queer smiles and nods her head yes, her hair bouncing and flouncing, making Wilkins sick. The photographer works the scene for twenty minutes, shooting different angles, working in close-up portrait shots of Logan using a zoom lens.

Later today, the photographer will begin Photoshopping the photos to give Logan facial hair and a male haircut and put that head atop a male body. The photographer will try to sell the originals to a newspaper, along with a short item about the plucky beauty salon using sidewalk demos to kick-start business. And Wilkins will have some photos of a male suspect to show anyone in Strand's neighborhood who saw a man walking the streets in the early morning hours after the murder.

*    *    *

W
EDNESDAY
, A
UGUST
27

Lisa and her friends stop talking as Officer Phil and I enter the room. The buzz-kill is as sudden as if a switch had been flipped.

Phil is wearing an expensive, elegantly tailored suit that fits his athletic body like a glove, making him look like a movie star. His short hair is brushed back and glistens with a gel I recommended to him. He is ruggedly handsome and gentle at the same time. The hetero girls in the room are experiencing heart palpitations, like me, and even the lesbian girls must be wondering why a gorgeous hunk like Phil would associate with an ungainly old transwoman like me.

I keep my face neutral but give my brain permission to gloat.

Phil is here to talk to a congregation of young transsexual women
at TransRising about interacting with the police department. He is masterful in the role, speaking without notes, encouraging spontaneous questions and comments.

Many of the young women in attendance have lived on the street and some still do. Their feelings about the police are complex and often negative. Several issue sharp criticisms of the Chicago PD and one is outright confrontational. Phil fields their barbs gently, his voice and face filled with compassion. The confrontational girl issues an obscenity-laced tirade about how the police treated her when they arrested her for stealing money from a john when in fact the first crime was the john stiffing her on payment after she serviced him. Phil doesn't point out that the first crime was actually prostitution. Smart. To a kid whose alternative is going hungry and sleeping in a doorway, prostitution is no more of a crime than breathing air or drinking water.

Instead, Phil talks about what sets off cops in those situations and how a citizen can conduct herself in a way to take the edge off. He tells cop stories about dealing with violent altercations and cops getting shot, stabbed, or beaten when they try to do the right thing. He paints a vivid image in our minds of what it's like to be a cop, walking cold into a confrontation, having no idea who is right or wrong, or who is dangerous, and trying to restore order without making an arrest.

At the end of his forty-minute presentation, most of the girls in the room are in love with him. God knows I am, but that's nothing new.

Lisa leaps from her seat to take control of the meeting. It had to be agony for her to surrender the podium to me to introduce Phil, but she didn't know him. She thanks Phil, asks him to wait a moment, then closes the meeting. She and her friends cluster around him, offering thanks, cooing approval for his presentation, batting eyelashes. I can't help thinking Phil is going to get laid tonight by the beautiful young woman of his choice.

After a polite period of time, Officer Phil thanks the girls, says he would love to do this again, says he is late for a date with a gorgeous redhead. As he says it he walks to me and offers me his arm. I am overwhelmed. He called me gorgeous. And even though he didn't mean it, he left several truly gorgeous young women standing there, watching me lace my arm through his and leave with the man of our dreams.

Phil takes me to a wine bar near the Loop. I thought he was just using me to shake free of my adoring sisters, but it turns out he had hoped I'd be available. Be still my heart!

We order glasses of red. I cross my legs as daintily as I can. We are sitting on stools at high tables and there is just enough room for a six-foot woman to get one leg over the other without dumping twenty dollars of red wine on her host. I try to pull the hem of my dress lower. I was doing sidewalk demos today so the dress is short, top and bottom. I'm showing a lot of leg and enough cleavage to make Phil's eyes roam. I know he's not interested in me, per se. It's that wonderful testosterone effect. Even gay men have to look.