Mercy (26 page)

“Except where Dennis was concerned, Dorothy was independent and shrewd. She was professionally successful despite Dennis’s hanging around her neck like an albatross, which he continued to do even after the divorce. So she started this networking system to enable other bisexuals and lesbians to associate with each other while maintaining a straight life, if that was what they wanted. Many are professionals whose careers would suffer if their sexual orientation were known. Others are married—happily married, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. They don’t want to give up their families, but they still long for the kind of affection they can only get from loving another woman. A lot of society women.” She nodded. “And you were right, the secret to the networking system is its compartmentalism. We don’t use our real names when meeting someone for the first time, and some of us may never use our real names. If we keep names and numbers, both are coded. Each woman is responsible for her own coding system.”

“Do you know Dorothy’s?”

“No, that’s the point,” Saulnier said dryly. “We never go to lesbian hangouts, and overt role-playing—being butch—is out. There’s a fairly wide span of ages, a few are grandmothers, though very well-preserved grandmothers. These women are in income brackets that enable them to take care of themselves.

And most of us are feminine.” She allowed herself a wry smile. “Within our particular network, at least, a woman who wants a woman wants a woman.”

Saulnier stopped and shrugged as if to suggest that was it.

“How large is the group?”

“I don’t really know. I guess I could name several dozen off the top of my head, and I’m sure there are a number I don’t know anything about.”

“How does the network operate?”

Saulnier nodded as if she knew that would be the next question, but her face was set.

“You realize the problem here,” she said. “Some of these women are…prominent, or their husbands are prominent. And their husbands have no idea that something like this exists or that their wives have such needs.” She moved a small, tapered middle finger over a dark arched eyebrow and looked away, thinking, chewing on the inside of her jaw. “This is volatile. I honestly don’t know what to do.”

“You need to consider the possibility that someone’s learned of your network,” Palma said. “And doesn’t like what they’ve found. Maybe a husband or son or friend or lover of one of these women. It’s something you’ve got to consider. Someone is on to it.”

Saulnier straightened her back and brushed a small hand over her naked rib cage. She darted her eyes at Kittrie again. The girl had folded her arms and was biting a thumbnail, staring at Saulnier as she smoked.

Palma looked at Kittrie. “Vickie, you told me that you’d met Gil Reynolds several times at Dorothy’s. I know he’d had an affair with her that lasted almost a year. What did you think of him?”

“He was okay,” she said. “A nice guy.”

“How did he deal with learning that Dorothy was bisexual?”

“He kind of overreacted,” she said. Palma imagined that was a considerable understatement.

“In what way?”

“Well, I just know what Dorothy said, and she said he ran his hand through the wall in her bedroom, the sheetrock, you know. And he broke up some of her things.”

“What things?”

“All her perfume and cosmetics. Just the stuff in her bedroom. I think they were in there when she told him.”

“Was he easily angered?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did Dorothy ever tell you about the time he knocked out Dennis Ackley?”

Vickie nodded.

“What happened?”

“Oh, I think Dennis slapped Dorothy when Gil was there, and Gil jumped all over him.”

“Hit him once and knocked him out?”

Vickie shrugged, “Well, that’s not exactly what Dorothy said. She said there was a real brawl, and she had to pull Gil off Dennis, that Gil almost ripped Dennis’s ear off, and he had to have surgery on it. She said Gil almost killed him.”

“I was led to believe that Reynolds was something of a gentleman,” Palma said. “Is that how you viewed him?”

“Well, yeah, he was, but he kind of had this other side of him, too. The guy scared me a little, but I don’t really know why. It could’ve just been me.”

Palma could believe that.

“What makes you think Dorothy and the other woman knew their killer?” Saulnier asked, looking back at Palma. “Maybe they were random victims. You’re not even sure the other woman’s bisexual.”

“You’re right,” Palma said. “We’re not sure. But Sandra Moser willingly went to her hotel, checked in under a false name, and met someone she knew. There’s every indication that Dorothy knew her killer too. She willingly let him into the house. There was no illegal entry. There was no struggle, no sign of resistance.”

“But you told me the last time we talked that she was strangled,” Saulnier said. “Surely there was some kind of struggle.”

Palma shook her head. “That brings us to the next thing we need to discuss. Both Moser and Dorothy were strangled…with a belt, probably the same belt. Their wrists and ankles had been tied, but apparently there was no struggle in either case. They had allowed themselves to be tied. Both were sexually mutilated in the same way. Sadomasochist paraphernalia was found hidden at both residences. Do many of the women in this group go in for that?”

Saulnier shook her head firmly. “I suspect that what you found was used for autoerotic purposes.”

Palma was prepared for that. She picked up the manila envelope again and took out the four-color photographs of Samenov tied to the bed, her leather-hooded tormentor aping for the camera. Palma spread the pictures out on the table and looked at the two women. Saulnier was dumbfounded; Kittrie blanched, then dropped her eyes and quickly puffed on her cigarette.

“Vickie, I understand you know something about this,” Palma said.

Saulnier was quick to check her expression of shock at this second revelation, but her eyes betrayed a restrained disbelief as she casually turned to Kittrie, who was keeping her head ducked as she shook it, denying the accusation. When Saulnier saw the girl was hiding something—Kittrie was embarrassingly transparent—she quickly moved to shield her.

“Look,” Saulnier suddenly said to Palma. “What is it you want?”

“I want to know who the men were who were involved with Dorothy in this kind of rough sex.” Palma addressed her remarks to Kittrie, ignoring Saulnier’s protective intervention. “I want to know who’s wearing the leather hood.”

“No!” Kittrie yelled, her childish face as flinty as she could make it. “No. Men? No!”

“I was told men were involved, Vickie.” Palma raised her voice, stretching the truth, wanting to stretch it more, but checking herself before she overplayed.

Kittrie did not start crying. The extra day had steadied her nerves, and perhaps her resolve. “I don’t care what you were told,” she raised her voice also. “It was just…the two of us…something…something she asked me to do. I went along.”

“What do you mean? Did you take the pictures?”

“No, but I mean that kind of thing. Dorothy was into that.”

“I can see that.” Palma didn’t bother to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “I want to know who the men were.”

“And I’m telling you there weren’t any men.”

“Then who the hell is this?” Palma stabbed a finger at the hooded figure.

“I do-not-know.” Kittrie darted her eyes at the still off-balance Saulnier.

Palma stared at Kittrie. Dammit, she believed her. The girl’s confusion, her own exasperation, was translating to Palma as a feeling of futility in the face of impossible demands. Palma believed her, but something told her she was approaching quicksand. No one spoke, and Helena Saulnier, stunned, curled up on her tapestry armchair and wrapped her sarong around both legs, sobered, with something to think about that she hadn’t had to think about before. Reluctantly she took her eyes off Vickie Kittrie and turned to Palma.

“Look,” she said. “This scares the hell out of me, but I can’t bring myself to give you names. Let me talk to a few of these women…I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think any of them are going to talk, to risk it. But let me do what I can.” She looked at the two photographs on the table. “Let me talk to her,” indicating the unidentified woman posing with the mannequin.

“Take Sandra Moser’s picture, too,” Palma said. “We’ve got to know more about who she was seeing. You could be of great help to us.”

There was another silence. After the scene they just went through, Palma was dreading what she had to do next.

“There’s one other thing,” she said. “The crime lab has identified two other persons’ hair in Dorothy’s room and on her body.” Both women frowned at her, incredulous. Kittrie suddenly looked as if she was going to cry. “Some of that hair may have come from the killer. There may be other hairs that turn up elsewhere in her bedroom as we continue to investigate,” Palma said, not hitting directly on the mark of truth. She looked at Kittrie. “Since you were Dorothy’s lover and had been in that room many times, we need to know which of those hairs might be yours. We need hair samples from you for comparison.”

“Jesus,” Saulnier said. She seemed on the point of protesting, and Palma was afraid she was going to object on Kittrie’s behalf when the girl spoke up.

“That’s fine,” she said. “What do I do?”

Saulnier shook her head as if she couldn’t believe Kittrie’s foolishness.

“I have to have five head hairs from five different parts of your head,” Palma said. “The front, the back, both sides, and the top. I have to have ten from the top area of your pubic hair, and ten from the hair around your vagina. The hair has to be plucked, not cut, and I have to witness that they came from you. I’ve got a package of small self-sealing plastic bags here, and I’ll ID the source on each bag. We can go into the bathroom if you want.”

“I don’t care,” Kittrie said. “We’ll do it here.”

While Saulnier helped Kittrie, and Palma witnessed the process and marked and sealed the plastic bags, Kittrie proceeded to pluck a total of twenty-five long ginger hairs from the various locations on her head. When she had finished that she stood, unbuttoned her shorts and stepped out of them, peeled off her pink panties, and sat back on the sofa. Bending her head she carefully plucked ten wiry hairs from high on her pubic bone, and then, more slowly, more carefully, she did the same from around her vagina. Palma held the small plastic bags for her as Kittrie dropped in the hairs one by one, and then Palma sealed the bags and marked them.

While Kittrie dressed, Palma finished marking the bags, wrapped them in a bundle with a rubber band, and put them in her purse. Then she picked up the photographs still lying on the gold tiles of the coffee table and returned them to the manila folder, leaving the picture of Sandra Moser. Picking up her purse and the envelope, she stood and looked at Kittrie, who was tucking her shirttail into her shorts.

“I appreciate your doing this,” Palma said. “It’ll help us a great deal.”

“I didn’t mind.” Kittrie seemed no longer angry, but subdued. Palma wanted to say something else, but she wasn’t quite sure what. The girl was such a strange mixture of innocence and deception that it was difficult to know exactly how to handle her.

Palma turned to Saulnier. “Do you still have my card and home telephone number?” she asked.

Saulnier nodded, and Palma turned and started toward the entryway. Saulnier followed her around the large potted ficus where the entryway stepped down to the front door. Opening the door herself, she stepped outside, not looking at Saulnier. “Don’t wait too long to use it,” she said without looking back, and walked out of the courtyard past the frondy sago palms and the bright banks of snapdragons.

23

S
he sat in the swing with her mother and listened to the old woman catalog the recent horrors of the neighborhood, Cynthia Ortiz’s middle boy had been arrested for the rape of a girl in Mayfair and they say he was crazy on cocaine, the Linares’ youngest daughter is getting married and they say she is three months pregnant, Doris de Ajofin had left her husband and they say her boyfriend is a man of the
coca
trade in Cali, Rodrigo Ruiz has been arrested for the third time for fondling a little girl in Eastwood Park and they say this time he will go to the pen for it, Mariana Flandrau’s hysterectomy was botched by her doctors and they say she is suing them for two million dollars, Juana de Cos’s baby daughter, Lupita, has died and lies in the Capilla de Tristeza and they say if you bend a little over the casket you can still see the needle tracks on her arms. They say Lupita’s boyfriend has tried to kill himself.

They say a lot of things in the barrio, and while Palma listened to the stories of lives surprised by misfortune and redirected by the vagaries of fate, she thought of Helena Saulnier and Vickie Kittrie, whose own lives turned in a world of coded names and double identities and sexual exotica as old as human nature. She thought of Saulnier’s long, naked thighs, the dusky smoothness of them, and of how she knew that they were tender where they curved inward toward the dark triangle revealed by the gaping sarong, of how she was curious about Saulnier’s motives but unoffended by the brazen sexual content of her actions. Palma herself had virtually no understanding of this kind of woman. When she had worked vice she had learned more than she had wanted to know about the other side of the gay women’s world, the leather bars and dyke shops, a crude world of posturing harshness that seemed bitter and desperate and alien.

But Helena Saulnier represented something altogether different. It was not a surprise to Palma that a woman who wanted a woman wanted a woman. She knew that the stereotypical hard-driving dyke and the feminine women who loved them lived on the thin, brittle borders of the mainstream and were only a part of the total picture of female homosexuality, but the picture Saulnier presented of a more prevalent bisexual and lesbian presence in the lives of upper- and middle-class women was one to which Palma had never given much thought. And it irritated her that she had never even considered this hidden world. The bisexual husband and father who lived a double life—sometimes successfully, most of the time disastrously—had long ago emerged as a staple genus in the typology of modern social science. It was indicative, she thought, that even in this recognition of the facts of human sexuality—whether or not they were widely acceptable by popular mores—women had not yet come into their own. So long denied recognition and legitimacy in the more common roles of society, woman’s place had not even been conceivable in those areas of the sexually recherche where, with ironic predictability, effeminate men had come into their own before women.