Innuendo (27 page)

“How are things out there?” she asked. “How's the weather? Is it cold yet? No, wait, it's too early.”

“Oh, please,” said Todd, choosing his words carefully in order to spike her nostalgia, “the State Fair ended only a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, for fun, the State Fair!” she said in a perfect Minnesota accent, all of which was happening at the back of her nose. “Oh, I want a corn dog! I want some mini-donuts!”

“All I want is a phone number.”

“Jeez.”

“Any chance? I just want to talk to her about a story she did.” Todd added, “I'm doing a story on Tim Chase, the actor.”

“He's out there?”

“Yeah, he's filming a movie here.”

“Wow.”

When she failed to say anything, Todd jumped in, “I really do work for WLAK. I'm their investigative reporter, and I can give you my phone number here if you want to call me back just to verify.”

“No, no, I believe you.” There was a moment of pensive silence, and then Suzanne Levine said, “Listen, I wish I could tell you that Maria's a freelancer now and that she lives in Park Slope, but I can't. I mean, I can't give you her number or tell you where to find her because I don't know. The last I heard was that she moved to New Mexico. Santa Fe, maybe. Or was it Taos?”

So, thought Todd, she really did get canned.
The National Times
had probably dumped her only minutes after the judge's announcement. And by the end of the trial, during which she and her reputation had surely been pummeled and trampled, she was probably so burned out that she had perhaps gone off in search of a new career, like waitressing.

As his Polish father used to say, “You must follow your tongue,” meaning if you ask enough questions you'll get where you need to go.

He said, “That's too bad. I've read the article she did on him—”

“The lawsuit one. Yeah, that whole thing was unfortunate, to say the least.” ”—and I was just hoping to ask her a few questions.”

“Well, if Maria were here, I'm sure she'd love to talk to you. She was pretty bitter about all that when she left here, I'll tell you that much.”

“Actually,” said Todd, “I got a copy of her story off Lexis-Nexis, so there aren't any pictures with it.”

“Of course not.”

“And I don't think I can get any back copies of your paper at the library.”

She laughed. “I really don't think so, either. I think the only places that stock us, particularly in the Midwest, are supermarkets and drugstores. And correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't have archives.”

“But how about you all, do you have back issues? Would it be possible to get a copy of the original Tim Chase story, photos and all?”

“Now, that I can do,” cheerfully said Suzanne Levine. “When do you want it, for morning or afternoon delivery? I'll Fed-Ex it out right away.”

The Hennepin County Medical
Center was a monolithic, eight-story hospital built in the late seventies, a sprawling building that sat on the edge of downtown Minneapolis like a gigantic beetle. Fortunately for Jordy Weaver, thought Rawlins, as he hurried into the beige concrete complex, it had the best trauma center in the Twin Cities area.

Once inside it took Rawlins no less than ten minutes to wind his way through the corridors to the intensive care ward, where he was directed down the hall to the second room on the right. Just as he approached the room, a short African-American man in a white robe stepped out, quietly pulling the door shut behind him.

“Excuse me,” said Rawlins, reaching into his leather coat for his badge. “I'm Sergeant Steve Rawlins with the Homicide Division of the Minneapolis Police Department, and I'm looking for Jordy Weaver.”

The man had a round face and short hair, small eyes, and a serious look on his face, and he held out his hand and said, “I'm Dr. Nevin, his doctor. Jordan's right here.”

Taking several steps, he led Rawlins to a large plate glass window. Lying on the other side was Jordy, his head swathed in gauze, his left arm packed in a cast, and his left leg swaddled in a mass of gauze and splints. His face, of which little was showing, was pocked with bruises, and a clear tube ran out of one nostril. All around him were a host of electronic monitors, their lights pulsing with regularity, which actually were the only indication that the otherwise lifeless body wasn't dead.

“Oh, my God,” muttered Rawlins, staring in and barely able to recognize Jordy. “Is he going to be alright?”

“He's a very lucky man. Lucky that they got him here so quickly and lucky that he's so young. When he came in last night I thought we were going to have to amputate his leg, but I think we'll be able to save it. I operated on him about three hours ago and it looks like, with a great deal of therapy he'll be able to walk. It will be a long recovery, however.”

“Is that all? Is that—”

“Well, he also has a concussion and a broken left arm, but neither of them is life threatening. From what I understand, however, if the car that hit him had been going any faster he would have been killed on the spot. I think everyone had slowed because of the heavy rain, again a lucky break, per se.”

“I'm sure this isn't a good time, but I need to talk to him. It involves a murder case, so obviously it's very important.”

“Well, as you can see, that's impossible. He's only been out of surgery for a few hours.”

“Can I come back later this morning? Or how about after lunch?”

“Oh, no, not nearly that soon. He's on a great deal of medication, you see. Sort of a drug-induced coma, and hopefully he won't wake up until later tonight, perhaps tomorrow.” Dr. Nevin lowered his hands into the pockets of his robe and gazed through the glass at the young man. “Trust me, he's a very lucky fellow, but he's going to be in a lot of pain. The longer he's out the better off he'll be.”

But Rawlins needed to talk to him. And he needed to talk to him now if for no other reason than to find out if this horrible accident was somehow connected to the murder of Andrew Lyman. Yes, Jordy had somehow managed to survive his fall from the bridge onto the freeway, but was that not at all the intent? Could his life in fact still be in danger?

The first time Rawlins and Andrew had lunch, Rawlins had picked him up at the apartment, a kind of queer teen flophouse, where he'd been living with Jordy and all those other kids. Then first thing this morning, hoping to interview Jordy regarding the death of his close friend and to see just what he might or might not know about Andrew's father, Rawlins had gone directly there. Instead of finding Jordy, however, Rawlins had found a handful of kids huddled around a ratty old kitchen table, terrified of what had happened to one of their own. All that they knew was what the police, who had found an envelope with Jordy's address in his coat pocket, had told them around six this morning that Jordy had fallen off the LaSalle Avenue Bridge right into traffic on Interstate 94 and that he was in the hospital in intensive care. A couple of kids were praying that it wasn't a suicide attempt, particularly since another of their DQ pals had killed himself a mere two months ago.

“But Jordy wouldn't have tried to kill himself, I just know it,” one young man with short, short hair and a pierced nose had said. “We've been doing all these sessions, all this talking about queer teen suicide and… and… he wouldn't have let us down like that, I just know it.”

“Yeah, but he was so upset about Andrew,” another had protested as he leaned against the refrigerator. “First Andrew moved out, and then he was killed. Jordy was really flipped out, I mean really freaked.”

Still another, a young guy with red hair and patches of freckles on both cheeks, said, “But if it wasn't suicide, then what the fuck happened? I mean, hello, you just don't fucking fall off a freeway bridge. Couldn't the same guy who killed Andrew have gone after Jordy?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“We gotta stick together.”

Rawlins in turn had raced down here to HCMC, all the while wondering if Jordy had purposely jumped from the LaSalle bridge or if he'd been thrown or somehow pushed. For Jordy's safety, he had to presume the worst.

“As I told you,” said Rawlins now as he pulled out his business card and handed it to Dr. Nevin, “this might be related to an ongoing murder investigation, so I'm going to give you my number. It's very important that you or anyone on your staff call me as soon as Jordy wakes up and is able to talk.”

“Of course. I'll leave those instructions at the nurse's desk.”

“In the meantime, for the safety of your patient, I'm going to have a police officer posted outside this door. I want no one to go in except you and your staff.”

“I see,” he said, his eyebrows rising in controlled surprise. “What about family? I believe we got his home address off his driver's license and that our office has contacted his parents. If I'm not mistaken, they're on the way here.”

“That's fine. The police officer will need to check some identification. But again, I need to talk to him as soon as he wakes.”

“Certainly.”

Rawlins glanced in at Jordy, wondered what truths were waiting to be told, then said, “I'll be staying until we can get an officer posted.”

An
hour later Rawlins was at his desk on the second floor of City Hall. There was any variety of things to be done on the Lyman case, from checking to see when the final autopsy report would be in, to finding how long the DNA typing would take on the semen samples. Actually, the first thing Rawlins had to do was find his partner, Neal Foster, and tell him about Jordy Weaver. Quite possibly, he also needed to tell Foster that Andrew had been threatened by his father. But how the hell was Rawlins going to do that without bringing up the diary? Perhaps he could get around it somehow. Perhaps he could say that he'd heard something about Andrew's father from one of the kids down at the DQ.

Oh, shit, thought Rawlins. He had to come up with something like that, something to keep secret the revealing passages Andrew had written about Rawlins. He was, Rawlins knew, between the proverbial rock and a hard place, and he had virtually no idea how he was going to get out. Unfortunately, his problems with Todd seemed minor in comparison. Still, he was obviously going to have to speak to Foster sometime today. They were partners, after all. And they were going to have to draw up a plan of attack on this investigation, as well as write up some kind of progress report to submit to their boss, Lieutenant Holbrook. Among the many things that needed to be discussed was the black mask that had been covering Andrew's eyes and whether they should continue to withhold that detail from the public. With all that in mind and not knowing whether Foster was just downstairs or still in bed at home, Rawlins picked up his phone and dialed Foster's pager.

Yes, he thought, as he waited for the call back, this was a fine mess. If it ever got out, how the hell was he going to explain his involvement with Andrew Lyman? Better yet, who would believe him if he said nothing happened? Andrew's stupid diary, his silly confessions, were nearly enough not simply to get Rawlins fired from the force but thrown in jail. A gay cop involved with a runaway minor? It screamed rape. It screamed headlines. And guilty or not, it screamed witch hunt and the end of Rawlins's career.

The phone rang more quickly than Rawlins anticipated, and he snatched the black phone from its cradle.

“Sergeant Steve Rawlins.”

“Hi,… it's, ah, me again.”

No, it definitely wasn't Foster. And, no, it surely wasn't Todd. It was some guy, his voice a tad meek, a bit unsteady, and at first Rawlins's mind went blank. The next instant he was very alert. It was him, the tipster. And the moment after that, Rawlins was telling himself to keep calm, be cool. He'd lose him if he scared him again, and he couldn't afford that.

“Is this my friend?” began Rawlins, as he quickly slid open his top desk drawer and pulled out a small black tape recorder and a long wire with a suction cup dangling from one end.

“Yeah, it's me, the guy who saw that other guy down at Lake Harriet. I… I saw in the paper that you found something, that you took my tip and that you guys went down there and everything.”

“That's right. And we all owe you a big thanks. Obviously we would never have found anything without your help.”

Working as quietly as possible, Rawlins plugged one end of the wire into the tape recorder and then slapped the other end with its small suction cup onto the phone's receiver. Even though this specific conversation wouldn't be admissible in a court of law because the witness didn't know he was being taped, Rawlins pushed the record button. At this point he needed anything and everything for his own hunt, and he sat back, telling himself to just sound cool, relaxed. Obviously this guy's calling back because he's pleased with what happened, how things went, and you've got to make him believe not only that he's a hero, but that you need him. Which was more true than ever.

“So was that it? Was that the hunting knife that was used to kill that kid? I mean, I hope you're able to nail whoever did it.”

“Well, we did find it right where you said it would be, but we've got a ways to go.” As he spoke, Rawlins pulled out a yellow notepad, jotted down the time, then proceeded to take notes. “We found evidence of blood on the blade, and we also were able to get some blood samples from the nooks and crannies of the handle.”