Alison Kaine: Tell Me What You Like Part 5

"Robert left it. Copies of the homicide report, I guess. He knows I'm playing Nancy Drew."

"Alison." Stacy's voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "Who is this?" Her hand was shaking as she extended a photocopy.

Alison turned it over. "It says it's Tamara Garrity, the first victim." What in the world was the matter? Her name had been in the papers now; it couldn't be a surprise. Perhaps Stacy was upset because the woman in the xeroxed photograph was so plainly dead. Or was that only obvious to someone like herself, who had been in the morgue more than once?

Stacy made a little choking noise. She wrapped her arms around herself and began rocking, murmuring something over and over.

"What?" Alison had to lean forward to hear.

"It wasn't the name she gave me." Only after she repeated it twice and then waved the photo did Alison understand.

"You mean you knew her, too? But why didn't you ever "

"It wasn't the name she gave me," said Stacy again. "It says her name is Tamara, here, but the only name she ever gave me was Laura." She s.h.i.+vered and wrapped her arms back around herself. Alison s.h.i.+vered in imitation, somehow unable to ask the only question that was in her mind. When Stacy said she knew these women, did she mean they were clients?

Alison was still puzzling over this the next day when she left the Blue Ryder. She had thought that Jenny, the owner, would recognize the photo of Melanie right away. She had expected Jenny to say that Melanie had come in every Thursday regular as clockwork. But Jenny didn't remember ever seeing her in the bar. In fact, she had reminded Alison, she had seen the body and thought it was strange that Melanie had been left by a bar of which she was not a patron.

Alison had scored in one way though. On impulse she had described the encounter with Malcolm to Jenny, and the answer had been a prompt, "Yes." The Crusaders had been to the bar a number of times, and on at least one occasion a woman had been grabbed." Jenny didn't know if the goal had been s.n.a.t.c.hing or roughing-up-either way, other d.y.k.es had intervened.

So, she had to think of a new line to follow. What about Tamara Garrity? Did she have a lover or neighbor or roommate who could give her some answers?

Six.

Tamara's address was not far from Alison's own, but there all similarity ended. Alison had pictured a divided Victorian, like the one she and Mich.e.l.le lived in, and had imagined it in the middle of the gay ghetto. But Tamara had lived in what was, for Denver, practically a high rise. Alison's hopes of an intimate neighbor went down. Still, she was here and might as well try.

No one answered the door of number 445 though Alison knocked much longer than was polite. She stood for a minute, chewing her lower lip and trying to decide on her next move. The elevator clanged open and she glanced over her shoulder. A small, round woman dressed in a mail carrier's uniform exited the car. The woman gave her a quick once over, followed by an 'I-know-you-know' look. Maybe this was going to be her break. Alison knocked on Tamara's door again.

Bingo. The woman approached her, a look of concern on her face. "Um, excuse me, um, I don't know if you know...um, are you a friend of Tamara's?" She was having trouble blurting out the news. Alison didn't blame her-for all she knew, she could be an unsuspecting out-of-town lover who might go into hysterics.

"I know Tamara is dead. I was hoping that she lived with someone. I'm investigating the murder." Alison hadn't known that she was going to say this until it came out, but she was pleased. It was much neater than the 'I'm a police officer, but I'm on vacation and this isn't official' line, and it shouldn't get her in trouble at work because, after all, anyone could ask questions. Now all she had to do was hope that the woman was a fan of d.y.k.e-detective novels and would recognize one great chance to help a sleuth and be forthcoming. She pulled in her stomach and tried to look cool without actually changing position, wis.h.i.+ng she had put on a black turtleneck and shades, instead of her paint-stained Holly Near T-s.h.i.+rt. d.y.k.e detectives were always quite attractive on the page, and had at least one affair per story with a witness, victim, or suspect. Oh, well, at least her notebook looked official.

"I probably knew Tamara better than anyone else in the building. Do you want to come in and talk to me? My name is Becky, by the way."

"How well did you know her?" Alison asked as the woman led her into a pleasant, cluttered apartment.

Becky shook her head and dropped into an armchair. "Not well. I mean, I think it's awful that she was killed-I was really freaked out. But, in kind of a generic way-you know, more freaked out that another d.y.k.e was killed than that a friend was killed. I didn't cry. We had a chit-chat d.y.k.e-talk in the hall kind of thing. We never went out or asked each other in. It's scary-two d.y.k.es killed at two different bars now-makes you wonder."

"Did she go out to the bars a lot?"

"Well, she talked about it a lot. Whenever we were in the elevator together she always mentioned The Rubyfruit. You ever been there?"

Alison shook her head. "Not for a long time."

"Lot of leather d.y.k.es there. Lot of ultra-femme leather types. She liked pretty femme women-I saw her bring a couple home and they were all the leather skirt and high heels type."

Like Stacy, Alison thought with a flash of jealousy. "Do you know where she worked?" she asked, not so much because she wanted to know-it was probably in the report-but just to keep Becky flowing.

"In some bank downtown. It was a real kick to see her come home in her bank drag, you know, suit and pumps, and then to see her go out later in her butch stuff. Total transformation."

"Did she have any special friends? People who came over regularly?"

Becky shook her head. "She hadn't lived here that long. She was just transferred a couple of months ago. I think that was partly why she didn't seem to really know many people. But she was also a really private person- almost paranoid. You know, you'd ask her something casual like, 'Where are you from?' and she'd turn it."

That explained the fake name to Stacy. "Did you see her the night she was killed?"

"Nah. I'd gone out with a friend to catch the early show of I Heard the Mermaids Singing."

Alison was momentarily distracted. "I've been meaning to see that. What did you think?"

Becky made an awful face. "Boring. It was the kind of film that was so arty that it should have had subt.i.tles even though it was in English. Slow plot. But my friend loved it and said I had the attention span of a five-year-old."

Alison laughed, and now that she found Becky relaxed, she switched tactics, asking abruptly, "Did you ever see her with her clothes off?"

Becky laughed. "You don't understand. She liked leather women, and she liked femmes. Body-builder types. She did not go for fat mail d.y.k.es with frizzy hair. It was not that kind of relations.h.i.+p."

"No, I didn't mean that. But there's a pool and a sauna in the building, right? I wondered if you had ever seen her changing clothes, anything like that."

Becky took a moment to answer. "Yeah," she said slowly, "I did run into her once in the locker room. I had forgotten that."

"Did you notice any scars? On her back? A sunburst?" asked Alison, mentally referring to the police report.

"Yeah...when she was bending over...before she knew I was there. But I didn't say anything-like I say, she was pretty private. To tell the truth, she really hurt my feelings that day. As soon as I said 'h.e.l.lo' she jumped a foot and scuttled off into one of the cubicles, like I was going to drool on her or jump her bones or something. I mean, I may not be as hot-looking as she was, but I'm not desperate. Then I decided later that she might have been paranoid about the scars. It was obviously deliberate scarification-it couldn't have been from an accident or an operation. Maybe she'd been ha.s.sled about it before."

Becky walked her to the door. "Say," she said suddenly, "did you ever see those scars yourself?"

"No, I didn't know her. I've never seen anything but the morgue photo."

"Oh, yeah, I guess that's right." Becky looked a little queasy. "Anyway, there was one thing about them. They made a starburst, like you said. But the last ray," she made a downstroking motion, "it wasn't like the others. They were all very neat, like they'd been made with a ruler. But the last one was more jagged, more like a hack than anything else."

The elevator arrived, and Alison stepped in. Just before the doors clanged shut Becky called, "The last scar I was telling you about? It was much pinker than the rest. That one was new."

"Um, hi." Stacy stared through the cracked door blankly. Oh, dear, thought Alison, this was a bad move. Not everyone liked being dropped in on without warning. She should have called first. She was losing her social skills. Well, she'd just have to go into Approach Number Two, the 'Do-you-have-a-few-minutes-so-I-can-ask-some-questions' mode.

She cleared her throat, but before she could launch herself Stacy's face cleared and she smiled.

"Oh, hi." She pulled the door open wide. "Come on in-I guess it is quitting time, isn't it? I'm sorry-I get so engrossed in my stuff that I lose contact." She zipped back into the workroom for a moment to turn down the stereo. The room looked as if a fabric bomb had exploded inside it, but Alison was less interested in that than the philosophical question posed by Stacy's music-could a Dead Head ever find happiness with a Patsy Cline fan?

"Did you bring me a present?" Stacy asked like a three-year-old, looking at Alison's canvas King Sooper's bag.

Alison ceased her musing, which had gone beyond the music question and onto that age old question of why d.y.k.es thought about everyone in terms of Long Term Relations.h.i.+ps instead of dating.

"What I actually was thinking of doing was making dinner, if you're not busy?"

"Great! Real cooking! But I do have a gig at nine, so that time frame would have to be okay with you."

A gig. Oh. Alison opened her mouth with a hundred questions, and then snapped it shut again, not sure if she wanted to hear any of the answers. She contented herself with nodding.

Stacy was not the kind of woman who could be pressed into even the simplest prep-cooking. Alison didn't even try to hand her the potato peeler she'd brought from her own house. That was fine-what she really wanted while she was cooking was to be entertained, and Stacy was perfect at this job. While Alison scrubbed and grated, she talked about soccer and quilts and the fact that Lynda J. Barry was having a play produced. She did not talk about the murders.

It was not until the food was on the table that Alison had the chance to ask her own question. "Were both those women who were killed your clients? Is that why you knew them?" Dead silence. Touchy subject, obviously, and made worse by the fact that Alison had never before tried to get information from someone who was not only reluctant to give it, but also a potential girlfriend. She let the question lie between them and pretended great interest in her cheese sauce.

It took Stacy several minutes to answer. Or, rather, to explain why she couldn't answer. "I can't tell you that, Alison. I promise women total confidentiality, and I wouldn't have a clientele if I wasn't known for keeping it. Telling you would be like breaking a trust."

Alison was not ready to give up this easily.

"The women are dead, Stace," she said bluntly. "They don't care about their reputations anymore."

"Right, and as soon as you're dead you want your private stuff in the newspapers, is that it? Doesn't matter to you anymore, so who cares about your family or your girlfriend? Sorry, but that one just doesn't cut it."

This one was hard to argue with, as Alison actually sympathized. Yet, it was important that she find as many links as possible between the two women, for if they could discover why the murderer was choosing these specific women they would be that much closer to reeling him-or her-in. She tried a different approach.

"Stacy," she said, "I'm the police. This isn't like spilling something to your friends over coffee. We're the good guys and there have been two murders, remember?" For a moment Alison thought that she had persuaded her, but only for a moment.

"That doesn't matter. It's like being a journalist or a priest-it's not suddenly okay to spill a confidence just because the cops get called in. Particularly," she hesitated a moment, "when you're not even official."

"All the more reason to tell me before someone 'official' shows up at your door! You know why I'm even taking an interest in this case-culturally I have an advantage over the men a.s.signed. They don't know anything about d.y.k.es or the way they live. I do. I can also be a buffer, as protective of all of us as possible. I believe I can be the one to find out what's going on a lot better than the on-duty detectives who are going to come around eventually."

Stacy looked off into s.p.a.ce and played with her earring. Alison knew that further pressuring was not going to make her talk. Nothing made a witness hostile more quickly than feeling that her ethics were not respected. And to be truthful, it wasn't as if Alison really needed this bit of information any more. Of course they had both been clients. Why else had Tamara given a false name? Where else would Stacy have met Melanie, who had been weaned away from the lesbian community and socialized only with straight people?

But she wanted to hear Stacy say the words. She wanted Stacy to confide in her, because she knew from experience that once Stacy made that first confidence the next would come easier. And somehow she was sure that she would eventually need more information from this source.

So how could she get her to tell freely? She had snooped just a little that night she had come home with her, glancing at the books and magazines and the clothes hanging in the open closet. What had these things told her about the woman?

She got up to sc.r.a.pe her plate and glanced around the kitchen. It was in worse shape than it had been the day before. She wondered if Stacy just waited until there was mountain of dishes and then did a marathon was.h.i.+ng, or if she just continued to do one fork, one plate, one mug at a time. On the kitchen table, next to Stacy's elbow, was the plate off of which she had obviously eaten her last meal, and beside it was a paperback mystery, face down.

Mysteries. Maybe that was it. Could she be lured into giving information by the promise of a real live mystery?

Alison started to run some water into the sink. "I talked to Krista Jenkins today," she said casually.

"Who's that?" Stacy asked in a voice which might have been convincing had Alison not seen her stiffen. She knew the name, all right. She and Melanie must have chatted a little before getting down to business.

"And I talked to a woman named Becky over at the Regency Arms." Stacy said nothing, but Alison could tell that she recognized either the name of the woman or the building. She said nothing more for a moment. This was where she would find out if Stacy was going to play.

Stacy licked her lips. "So, what did they have to say?"

"Actually, they both had a lot-" Alison started eagerly, then stopped abruptly. She laughed at herself. "I forgot you weren't Rob there for minute. I'm going to have to call him."

"So tell me, instead."

She turned and faced Stacy, her face earnest. "Well, I would like to. But, you know, I can't act on this by myself. The best I can do is collect information and give it to the detective, and hopefully explain the particularly lesbian nuances. But lots of times we withhold as much information about details from the public as possible. Knowledge of details that haven't been in the media are one way to sort out who knows something and who's nuts."

"Well, I'm not planning on phoning in a confession," said Stacy impatiently, "and I won't tell anyone else. My lips are sealed."

Alison looked at her considering. "I sure missed Robert today," she said again. "He is such a good sounding board." She paused a moment. "I guess I better not, though." Come on, Stacy, you show me yours and I'll show you mine.

"Well-" Stacy stood abruptly and looked at a Nature Company poster as if she had never noticed it before. "I suppose you're right. The important thing is catching the killer. I would never say anything about a live client, but maybe you are our best bet. But I'm not talking to the real police-get that straight!"

"Okay," said Alison solemnly, thinking that she had been watching too many police shows, "just between you and me."

"They were both clients," said Stacy shortly. "Now tell me what these other women said."

Now the point had changed. It was no longer Alison's goal to force information out of Stacy, or even to get her to confide. Now what Alison wanted to know was what it was that Stacy wanted so badly to find out.

"Becky was Tamara's neighbor. She lived next door. She's a mail carrier. I caught her on her break." She dropped each sentence separately, with a little pause between. Stacy would soon be chafing with impatience and might prompt her.

"She didn't know Tamara very well. She saw some of the women she brought home. She liked femme women, and Becky thought that she met them at the Rubyfruit. Her latest scar wasn't like the others-it had been done badly. Incidentally, what do you know about scarification?"

"I didn't do that hack job on her, if that's what you're asking. I don't do blood sports."

"Hmm. She worked at a bank." Alison was surprised that, listed, the information gleaned from Becky was so short. She had the feeling, however, that it was not Tamara in whom Stacy was interested.

"Krista Jenkins says that Melanie was not a lesbian." She expected some surprise or indignation, but Stacy said rather smugly, "I knew that."

"Oh, I didn't realize that you talked."

"f.u.c.k you."

"Well, I suppose that Krista also denied that Melanie was into kink? I didn't ask."

"Yeah, I think that was quite a little secret between them."

"My friend Mich.e.l.le was a friend of Melanie's." She startled herself by inserting this dated tidbit and was gratified to notice Stacy's face change for a moment. For just a few seconds she looked startled, or possibly anxious. Alison had been right. There was something about Melanie that was worrying Stacy. "Melanie supposedly was-"

"I've got to change clothes," Stacy interrupted. "I don't want to have to rush." She raised her arms over her head and stretched slowly, sensuously. Alison's eyes were riveted on her as she crossed over to the playroom.

"Keep talking," she said, as she pulled back the bolt on the door. "I can still hear you."

Alison's mouth went completely dry and for the life of her she could not remember one other thing that the woman had told her in the restaurant. Like a string of firecrackers the fantasies exploded inside, each overlapping the one before. Stacy, in her chic leather jacket, parting Alison's s.h.i.+rt and pulling on her nipples...her own mouth upon Stacy's, one hand wrapped in her hair...herself pressed against the wall while Stacy held her wrists above her head...

"Where did Krista think Melanie was that night?" Stacy prompted. She stood in the doorway now, wearing a royal-purple silk tuxedo s.h.i.+rt that came down and covered her thighs. And nothing else. "What did Krista say?" she asked again, slipping in onyx cufflinks. Her voice was innocent, but there was a gleam in her eye that told Alison she had known all along she was being played.

Alison tried to regain some composure by turning away, as if the stove were suddenly very interesting.

"Krista said Melanie went to a therapist," she said to the right front burner. "But I don't think that's true." Rattled, she had blurted out more than she meant to. But it didn't really matter. Doubtless the therapist line had probably covered some sessions with Stacy. But on the day of Melanie's death, Stacy had been first at soccer and then at the bar. Melanie must have been using it as an all-purpose excuse. Alison cut her eyes sideways and watched without comment as Stacy slipped on a pair of tight leather pants and then tossed her curls back. G.o.d, she wanted to hold this woman!

"Well," Stacy said, "Look, come over and work here tomorrow morning, if you want, please?-I've got company coming now. Hate to hustle you, but...."

And that was how Alison found herself outside, having told everything that she knew and having gotten nothing in return.